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Little Journeys to Parnassus 
 
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown, 
 The lowest of your throng. 
 
 —MILTON, Paradise Lost, Bk. iv., L830. 
 
Little 
 JOURNEYS TO PARNASSUS 
 
 By 
 
 Thomas Speed Mosby 
 
 Laudator temporis acti 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 MESSAGE PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 JEFFERSON CITY MISSOURI 
 
 I 92 I 
 
-^^ 
 
 A^"^ 
 
 ,r^1 
 
 Copyright, 1921, T. S. Mosby. 
 
 g)CU622315 
 
 Mil. 'b lb 2 1 
 
 /^'vo I 
 
^1 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No volume with which the author is acquainted has here- 
 tofore attempted to present in abbreviated form a critical 
 survey, however imperfect, of the classical periods of the seven 
 great literatures of the world, and he is persuaded that no such 
 work exists. The need of such a work is apparent to all who 
 have sought to gain, in a brief period of time, even a slight 
 acquaintance with many of the literatures mentioned. This 
 desideratum the present volume, it is hoped, may in some 
 measure supply. It will be noted, moreover, that the grouping 
 of the subjects herein treated will facilitate comparison and 
 contrast, and thus enable the student to arrive at a more ac- 
 curate knowledge of the relative merits of an author than he 
 might have obtained from an entire volume on a single subject. 
 
 In every instance the attempt has been made to portray 
 the character faithfully and intimately, however brief the 
 sketch. Thus we say of Horace that he "has been the loved 
 companion of literary men for twenty centuries. In the phil- 
 osophy of amicability he stands without a peer. His striking 
 features are humanness and modernity. Always he is the 
 speaking friend at elbow, varying quip and jest with solemn 
 admonition," etc. With all deference to the opinions of others, 
 it is respectfully submitted that a volume of critical essays 
 upon the Ars Poetica and the Odes could scarcely afford a 
 more accurate view of Horace. Wherever it has been thought 
 necessary or advisable the better to elucidate the subject, the 
 world's greatest authorities in literary criticism have been 
 quoted. Conspicuous instances are the essays on Byron and 
 Goethe. Indeed, it is believed there is no other work of the 
 kind so rich in quotations of that sort. The reader will par- 
 don, let it be hoped, any disposition to exaggerate the value 
 of this feature of the work. To the author it has appeared to 
 be of the very highest importance. 
 
 This work is not primarily designed for use as a textbook 
 in the schools. But for the purposes of supplemental reading, 
 
 (V) 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and as a work of reference, it should be found invaluable as an 
 aid to students and literary workers. For these reasons it has 
 been officially adopted for the Pupils' Reading Circle in the 
 public schools of the State of Missouri. For these purposes 
 the general index at the end of this volume will add materially 
 to its value. 
 
 In the seventy essays herewith submitted it has been 
 necessary to omit much of interest and value. But if the au- 
 thor has succeeded in his purpose, the reader will delve more 
 deeply into the rich mines of which these fragments are but 
 specimen ores. In a time so largely given to material pursuits 
 it may profit us to remember that some old things are true. 
 Times change, but the eternal verities abide. There are 
 truths which age cannot crumble, beauties which time cannot 
 efface. The good and true remain. Nothing else really 
 matters. Out of the chrysalis of things that are dead new 
 beauties bloom, in perpetual kinship with the glory and the 
 dream we thought no more. The rainbow fades, but its colors 
 reappear in a myriad of living forms, in an area bounded only 
 by the limits of the sun. 
 
 It was Samuel Johnson who said: "That man is little 
 to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the 
 plain of Marathon or whose piety would not grow warmer 
 among the ruins of lona." Nor is he more to be envied whose 
 mind cannot draw new light from the olden, golden truths 
 that loom like distant stars in the horizon of the soul. 
 
 Hence these little journeys to the mount of inspiration. 
 For those whose busy days will not permit a more extensive 
 acquaintance with the great minds of the past the following 
 essays may serve at least to beguile the tedium of a leisure 
 hour; or perhaps as an introduction, faintly, but none the less 
 faithfully, it is hoped, shadowing forth the outhnes of those 
 beauties which were not born to die, and which have in every 
 age enriched the soul of man. 
 
 THOS. SPEED MOSBY. 
 
 Jefferson City, Missouri, July 28, 1921. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Chapter. Part One— GREAT ROMAN AUTHORS. Page 
 
 I. Livy 1 
 
 II. Horace 4 
 
 III. Virgil 7 
 
 IV. Lucan 10 
 
 V. Ovid 12 
 
 VI. Lucretius . . . . , 15 
 
 VII. Plautus 18 
 
 VIII. Marcus Aureiius 20 
 
 IX. Sallust 23 
 
 X. Quintilian 26 
 
 Part Two— GREAT GREEK AUTHORS. 
 
 I. Aeschylus 29 
 
 II. Aristotle 32 
 
 III. Euripides 35 
 
 IV. Homer 38 
 
 V. Plato 42 
 
 VI. Plutarch 46 
 
 VII. Menander 49 
 
 VIII. PindaP 53 
 
 IX. Anacreon 56 
 
 X. Theocritus 60 
 
 Part Three— GREAT ITALIAN AUTHORS. 
 
 I. Dante 63 
 
 II. Petrarch 68 
 
 III. Boccaccio 72 
 
 IV. Tasso 75 
 
 V. Ariosto 80 
 
 VI. Boiardo 83 
 
 VII. Michelangelo 86 
 
 VIII. Machiavelli 90 
 
 IX. Metastasio 94 
 
 X. Alfieri . 97 
 
 Part Four— GREAT SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AUTHORS. 
 
 I. Lope de Vega 101 
 
 II. Cervantes 107 
 
 III. Camoens 112 
 
 IV. Quevedo 115 
 
 (vii) 
 
viii CONTENTS, 
 
 Chapter. Page 
 
 V. The Argensolas 118 
 
 VI. Villegas 120 
 
 VII. Montalvo 122 
 
 VIII. Guillen de Castro 125 
 
 IX. Vicente 128 
 
 X. Calderon 131 
 
 Part Five— GREAT FRENCH AUTHORS. 
 
 I. Montaigne 135 
 
 II. Rabelais 139 
 
 III. Fenelon 143 
 
 IV. Montesquieu 146 
 
 V. Corneille 149 
 
 VI. Racine 152 
 
 VII. Moliere 155 
 
 VIII. La Fontaine 158 
 
 IX. Voltaire 160 
 
 X. Hugo 164 
 
 Part Six— GREAT GERMAN AUTHORS. 
 
 I. Goethe 169 
 
 II. Schiller 175 
 
 III. Lessing 180 
 
 IV. Kant 183 
 
 V. Richter 187 
 
 VI. Klopstock 190 
 
 VII. Wieland 194 
 
 VIII. Herder 197 
 
 IX. Heine 200 
 
 X. Weber 204 
 
 Part Seven— GREAT BRITISH AUTHORS. 
 
 I. Shakespeare 209 
 
 II. Spenser 215 
 
 III. Milton 219 
 
 IV. Addison 224 
 
 V. Pope 228 
 
 VI. Byron 233 
 
 VII. Scott 239 
 
 VIII. Wordsworth 243 
 
 IX. Dickens • • 248 
 
 X. Tennyson 255 
 
 Index 265 
 
PART ONE 
 
 GREAT ROMAN AUTHORS 
 
 I. LIVY. 
 
 II. HORACE. 
 
 III. VIRGIL. 
 
 IV. LUCAN. 
 
 V. OVID. 
 
 VI. LUCRETIUS. 
 
 VII. PLAUTUS. 
 
 VIIL MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 IX. SALLUST. 
 
 X. QUINTILIAN. 
 
Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! 
 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
 Lone mother of dead empires. 
 
 —BYRON, "Cihilde Harold," Canto iv. St. 78. 
 
I. 
 
 LIVY. 
 
 In the monastery of Justina (anciently the temple of Juno) 
 at Rome, in the year 1413, there was discovered a monument bear- 
 -ing the following inscription: "Th^i bones of Titus Livius, of 
 Padua, a man worthy to be approved of all mankind; by whose 
 almost invincible pen the acts and exploits of the Romans were 
 written." 
 
 Never was epitaph more true, and never was funereal inscrip- 
 tion more generally or justly acceptea as truth throughout all 
 subsequent history. 
 
 Born fifty-eight years before the Christian era, Li\T moved 
 amidst the literary glamour and imperial blazonry of that Augus- 
 tan Age of which he was himself an ornament so splendid and a 
 type so pure. The personal friend of one emperor and the pre- 
 ceptor of another, history ^^ith one voice acclaims him among the 
 greatest of the Romans. Tacitus and the younger Pliny bear 
 v.dtness to the exalted esteem in which he was held. 
 
 Livy was the friend of Augustus Caesar, who employed him 
 as tutor of his grandson Claudius, who later became emperor. 
 But there is no record of any attempt upon the part of Livy to 
 leap a financial profit 'from his high connections. All his spare 
 time was employed in writing his great history of Rome, a work 
 to which he had dedicated his life, and from which he never 
 swerved until his vast labors were completed. 
 
 Livy's history of Rome comprised one hundred anci forty-two 
 books. He did not long sunive the completion of his gigantic 
 task, and died at the age of seventy -five years. 
 
 But thirty-five of the one hundred and forty-two books of 
 Livy have come do^^m to us. ''What a school of public and private 
 virtue had been opened to us at the resurrection of learning,'' ex- 
 claims Lord Bolingbroke, "if the later historians of the Roman 
 commonwealth and the first of the succeeding monarchy, had 
 
2 LIVY 
 
 come down to us entire. The few that are come down, though 
 broken and imperfect, compose the best body of history we have ; 
 nay, the only body of ancient history which deserves to be an ob- 
 ject of study. Appian, Dion Cassius, nay, even Plutarch included, 
 make us but poor amends for what is lost of Livy." 
 
 It has been most truly remarked of the clear, elegant and 
 Ijcid style of Livy, that he could be labored without affectation; 
 diffusive without tediousness; and argumentative without pedan« 
 try. And if history is indeed philosophy teaching by examples, 
 we lose none of its moral values in the fervent glow of Livy*s 
 m-atchless periods. In proof of this v^e need but a single specimen 
 of his lofty style. Let us take it from the first book of his his- 
 tory: 
 
 "To the following considerations I wish every one seriously 
 and earnestly to attend ; by what kind of men, and by what sort 
 of conduct, in peace and war, the empire has been both acquired 
 and extended; then, as discipline gradually declined, let him fol- 
 low in his thought the structure of ancient morals, at first, as it 
 were, leaning aside, then sinking farther and farther, then be- 
 ginning to fall precipitate, until he arrives at the present times, 
 when our vices have, attained to such a height of enormity that 
 we can no longer endure either the burden of them or the sharp- 
 ness of the necessary remedies. This is the great advantage to 
 be derived from the study of history; indeed the only one which 
 can make it answer any profitable and salutary purpose ; for, be- 
 ing abundantly furnished with clear and distinct examples of 
 every kind of conduct, we may select for ourselves, and for the 
 state to which we belong, such as are worthy of imitation; and 
 carefully noting such as, being dishonorable in their principles are 
 equally so in their effects, learn to avoid them." 
 
 When we accept history in the sense expressed by this great 
 Roman, we may more fully grasp the truth of Bacon's observation 
 that "histories make men wise ;" and the more we study the com- 
 paratively small portion of Livy that has been transmitted to our 
 times, the more we feel inclined to lament, with Bolingbroke, the 
 loss of the greater portion. Livy never strains a point to make 
 an epigram; but in the course of his works we find him, in the 
 
LIVY 3 
 
 heat of composition, throwing off, like sparks from an anvil, such 
 glowing thoughts as these: 
 
 "Men are seldom blessed with good sense and good fortune 
 nt the same time." 
 
 **What is honorable is also safest.'' 
 
 "No wickedness has any ground of reason." 
 
 "Treachery, though at first very cautious, in the end betrays 
 itself." 
 
 "Prosperity engenders sloth." 
 
 "Experience is the teacher of fools." 
 
 "As soon as woman begins to be ashamed of what she ought 
 not, she will not be ashamed of what she ought." 
 
11. 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 At the little town of Venusia, in the year 63 B. C, was born 
 Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the greatest lyrical poet of Rome. 
 While finishing his education at Athens, Horace made the ac- 
 quaintance of Brutus, then on his march to Macedonia, following 
 the assassination of Julius Caesar. The poet was then only in 
 his twenty-third year, but was made a staff officer in the army 
 of Brutus, whose fortunes he followed to the ill-starred field of 
 Philippi. Returning to Italy only to find his estates confiscated^ 
 he betook himself to the imperial city, and in that world-metropo- 
 lis his literary genius soon gained the acquaintance and friend- 
 ship of the poet Virgil, who in turn presented him to Maecenas, 
 the court politician and patron of letters, who thereafter became 
 the poet's life-long friend. Through Maecenas, Horace met the 
 emperor, Augustus, with whom, for the remainder of his life, he 
 lived upon terms of closest intimacy. 
 
 Upon one occasion the emperor upbraided his poetic friend 
 for having never mentioned him in his odes and epistles. "I am 
 angry with you," he wrote to Horace, "because you do not espe- 
 cially choose me to converse with in the principal part of your 
 writings of this nature. Do you fear lest the appearance of my 
 intimacy should injure you with posterity?'' To this genial and 
 complimentary rebuke Horace made fitting response in the first 
 epistle of his second book. 
 
 Augustus Caesar was quite fond of both Horace and Virgil, 
 and often, it is related, while sitting at his meals, with Virgil at 
 his right hand and Horace at his left, the emperor made a jest 
 of Virgil's shortness of breath and Horace's watery eyes by ob- 
 iserving that he sat between sighs and tears. 
 
 Philip Francis has summarized the views of the critics of all 
 ages, in the statement that Horace **has united in his lyric poetry 
 the enthusiasm of Pindar, the majesty of Alcaeus, the tenderness 
 of Sappho and the charming levities of Anacreon." But he is 
 
 4 
 
HORACE 5 
 
 Tieither so gross as Anacreon nor so sensual as Sappho. Likewise 
 it may be said that he is bold without blustering, and majestic 
 without austerity. His strength is in his unfailing delicacy of 
 poise, his limpid utterance, his translucent phrase, his wholesome 
 sanity, his bewitching simplicity and ease. In the precise and 
 c}iiselled elegance of his diction the excellence of his work is sur- 
 passed by none, and is approximated by no modern lyric bard in 
 our language with the possible exception of Thomas Gray, while 
 the charming urbanity and flowing sweetness of his mild ironic 
 humor find no modern counterpart save in the essays of Joseph 
 Addison. A great author, in relation to his readers, may be 
 viewed as master, mentor or companion. Horace has been the 
 loved companion of educated men for twenty centuries. In the 
 philosophy of amicability he stands without a peer. His striking 
 features are humanness and modernity. Always he is the speak- 
 mg friend at elbow, varying quip and jest with solemn admonition, 
 iind, even when sad, smiling through his tears, helping and hop- 
 ing, but never moping, along the byways of Hfe. 
 
 Do you remember his simple prayer? 
 
 "Son of Latona, grant me a sound mind in a sound body, that 
 I may enjoy what I possess, and not pass a dishonored old age 
 without the innocent pleasures of music!" 
 
 Much of his philosophy, we cannot doubt, he drew from the 
 simple life of his Sabine farm, the gift of his friend Maecenas. 
 Here, in his sylvan retreat, secure from the tumult of the busy 
 capital, he learned to worship the "golden mean." Hear him: 
 
 "The man who loves the golden mean is safe from the misery 
 of a wretched hovel, and, moderate in his desires, cares not for 
 ti luxurious palace, the subject of envy. The tall pine bends 
 of tener to the rude blast ; lofty towers fall with a heavier crash, 
 and the lightnings strike more frequently the tops of the moun- 
 tains. A well-balanced mind hopes for a change when the world 
 frowns, and fears its approach when it smiles. It is the same 
 divine being that brings back and sends away the gloom of winter. 
 Though sorrow may brood over thee just now, a change may ere 
 long await thee. At times Apollo tunes his silent lyre, and is not 
 
6 HORACE 
 
 always bending his bow. Be of good cheer and firm in the hour 
 of adversity, and when a more favorable gale is blowing, thou wilt 
 do wisely to be furling thy swelling sail." Again: 
 
 "The man caught by a storm in the wide Aegean, when the 
 moon is hid by dark clouds, and no star shines to guide him cer- 
 tainly on his way, prays for ease: the Thracian, fierce in battle, 
 prays for ease : the quivered Parthians pray for ease — a blessing 
 not to be bought by gems, purple, nor gold. Ease is not venal; 
 for it is not treasures, nor yet the enjoyment of high power, that 
 can still the uneasy tumults of the soul, and drive away the cares 
 that hover round the fretted ceilings of the great." 
 
 Like other great minds of the time, Horace saw through the 
 tinsel and glitter of Rome in her most glorious day the venality 
 that was to destroy her. ''What are laws ?" he asks ; "vain with- 
 out public virtues to enforce them." 
 
 "Cease to admire the smoke, riches and din of Rome!" he 
 exclaims. 
 
 "The age of our parents," he writes, "worse than that of our 
 grandsires, has brought us forth more impious still, and we shall 
 produce more vicious progeny." 
 
 Horace is peculiarly the poet of friendship. Only a true 
 friend could say this: "He who backbites an absent friend, who 
 does not defend him when he is attacked, who seeks eagerly to 
 raise the senseless laugh and acquire the fame of wit, who can 
 Invent an imaginary romance, who cannot keep a friend's secret ; 
 that man is a scoundrel! Mark him, Roman, and avoid him." 
 Many are his tributes to his friends. To him they were an indis- 
 pensable condition of life. Nor did he long survive those who 
 were dearest to his heart. When Virgil and Maecenas died he 
 followed them within a few weeks, passing away at the age of 
 fifty-seven; having, as he said of his own work, "raised a monu- 
 ment more lasting than brazen statues, and higher than the royal 
 pyramids, a monument which shall not be destroyed by the wast- 
 ing rain, the fury of the north wind, by a countless series of years 
 or the flight of ages." 
 
in. 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 p. Virgilius Maro, born seventy years before the Christian 
 era, was, after Homer, the greatest epic poet of antiquity. He 
 died September 22, B. C. 19, in the fifty-second year of his age. 
 
 Virgil, the farmer poet, was not only a man of finished edu- 
 cation, but was deeply learned in agriculture. Like Horace, his 
 contemporary and friend, his estates were confiscated because of 
 his early opposition to the cause of Augustus Caesar, and, like 
 Horace, he received both pardon and patronage from the emperor. 
 Virgil's first public employment was in connection with the royal 
 ^tables, because of his skill in the cure of diseases among horses. 
 However, his literary genius did not remain long inactive, and he 
 fsoon began the composition of his Eclogues, which created a 
 literary sensation in Rome. It is in this work that the well- 
 known phrase occurs, ''Love conquers all things." 
 
 So great was the poet's popularity following this publication 
 that, when some of his verses were quoted on the stage, and Virgil 
 happened to be present, the entire audience rose, thus according 
 to him an honor which Roman audiences gave to none but Caesar. 
 
 The advice of Maecenas and the astounding success of his pas- 
 toral poems (a field v/hich had not been theretofore attempted by 
 any of the Roman poets) led him to next undertake the "Georgics," 
 an agricultural poem which defies imitation. The first book of 
 the "Georgics" deals with soil management, the second with tree- 
 culture, the third with Hve-stock and the fourth with bee-keeping. 
 This is conceded to be the most finished poem in the Latin lan- 
 guage. In the opinion of Addison it is the most finished poem 
 in existence, every detail being subjected to the most exquisite 
 I>olish, and refined and embelhshed to the last degree. "The com- 
 in onest precepts of farming,'* in the language of one critic, "are 
 delivered with an elegance which could scarcely be attained by 
 a poet who should endeavor to clothe in verse the sublimest max- 
 
S VIRGIL 
 
 ims of philosophy." The famous motto **Labor omnia vincent — 
 Labor conquers all" — is taken from this poem. 
 
 Virgil was in his forty-fifth year when he completed the 
 Georgics. He now began the "Aeneid," his last and greatest 
 work, which was to occupy the remainder of his days; an epic 
 poem portraying the wanderings of Aeneis, bringing Homer's 
 Dliad down to Roman times, and tracing the Roman lineage to the 
 Trojans ; an achievement highly flattering to imperial Rome, and 
 intensely pleasing to the Roman populace. In this great poem 
 Virgil brought the hexameter verse, **the stateliest measure ever 
 molded by the lips of man," to its utmost perfection. The majesty 
 and force of Virgil's swinging line have echoed down the ages, and 
 will reverberate till time shall be no more. The martial tread, 
 the onward sweep, the epic grandeur of the work, are fore- 
 shadowed in the very first sentence: 
 
 "Arms and the man I sing, v/ho, forced by Fate, 
 And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate. 
 Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore." 
 
 But, with all its wondrous power, with all its beauty and its 
 force, the Aeneid was not perfect, and none knew it so well as 
 Virgil. His keenly sensitive taste was only too conscious of the 
 defects of the piece. He was subjecting the work to a most criti- 
 cal revision when death ended his labors. Deeply sensible of its 
 imperfections, his last request was that the Aeneid be destroyed ; 
 but his will v/as thwarted by the emperor Augustus. 
 
 Shortly before his death Virgil met the em.peror at Athens. 
 Augustus Vvas returning from his Syrian conquests. He had 
 vanquished his domestic enemies, and was lord of the known 
 world. At this time he was considering the restoration of the 
 Roman republic. Agrippa favored the idea; but Maecenas was 
 for the empire. The decision, one of the most momentous in 
 human history, was left to the poet. He declared for the empire, 
 and Augustus followed his advice. 
 
 Virgil, though a deep scholar, was unpretentious in his man- 
 ner. He dressed and looked like a farmer. He was modest to 
 the point of timidity. He shunned publicity, and was visibly 
 
VIRGIL 9 
 
 embarrassed by praise. Although the habit of mutual attack and 
 recrimination was common enough among Roman writers of the 
 time, they appear to have been unanimous in their esteem for 
 Virgil, and his rise to fame was attended by very little of the 
 jealousy that is frequently engendered upon such occasions. He 
 was never in love and was never married. His private life was 
 as beautiful and chaste as the lines he wrote. But he does not, 
 *n any of his poems, depict the character of one good woman. 
 
 In one particular the fame of Virgil will forever remain 
 unique among the world's great poets. A superstitious reverence 
 has encircled his name. For hundreds of years he was regarded 
 as a kind of supernatural being, endowed with magic pov/er and 
 "^Aisdom. There was long prevalent a tradition that his mother 
 was a virgin. For centuries there was a custom of "telling one's 
 fortune" by opening the ''Aeneid" and noting the first line to 
 meet the eye. In the middle ages it was attempted to be shown, 
 from the Eclogues, that Virgil predicted the coming of Christ. In 
 ancient times pilgrimages were made to his tomb, and his image 
 was set up in the heathen temples of Rome. In consideration of 
 all which one can only say with Boswell, 
 
 ''Was ever poet so trusted before!" 
 
LUCAN. 
 
 After Homer and Virgil, the next great epic poet of ancient 
 limes is Lucan. This is the opinion of no less distinguished a 
 eritic than Dr. Hugh Blair, the prince of English rhetoricians. 
 The same authority assures us, moreover, that Lucan was the 
 most philosophical and the most public-spirited poet of all an- 
 tiquity. These opinions, it is believed, fairly reflect the judgment 
 ©f modern criticism, notwithstanding the particular faults pointed 
 0?it hy the German savant Dr. Niebuhr, by Dr. Blair, and others. 
 
 Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) , the principal Roman poet 
 t : the so-called ''Silver Age," was born in Spain, 38 A. D., where 
 his father had amassed a fortune as a farmer of the Roman 
 revenues. The elder Lucan was a younger brother of Seneca, the 
 philosopher. The poet in his infancy was brought to Rome, where 
 lie became a school-mate of Persius, and a friend of Emperor Nero. 
 Brought up in an atmosphere of culture, surrounded by the oppor- 
 liE^nities of boundless wealth and the refinements of social position, 
 imt forth by genius and upheld by power, Lucan entered with zest 
 ^iTkd promise upon the brilliant career which the Roman capital 
 offered to men of his type and talent. A favorite of the emperor, 
 he advanced quickly in the public service. He became quaestor 
 and augur. A man of popular manners and a poet of great power, 
 he rose rapidly in the public esteem. His public recitations and 
 declamations met with increasingly great applause. His fame 
 siroused the envy of Nero, and the emperor's vindictive jealousy 
 soon made his condition so intolerable that he joined in a plot 
 against the tyrant's life. He was discovered, and ordered to his 
 destth, at the age of twenty-seven, after vainly seeking to excul- 
 pate himself by the infamy of a cowardly confession, implicating 
 Iiis mother in the plot. 
 
 Strange it was, but true, that Lucan, child of luxury and 
 liabitue of the court of Nero, should become a lover of liberty and 
 s champion of democracy. Yet such he was. 
 
 10 
 
LUCAN 11 
 
 The 'Tharsalia/' a poem in ten books, is the only work of his 
 now extent. That work is an epic of democracy, and will forever 
 remain a part of the well remembered literature of the world. It 
 narrates in epic form the civil wars of Pompey and Caesar, and 
 recounts the overthrow of Roman liberty. It was the hostility 
 to Caesarism displayed in this book which, in all probability, first 
 drew forth the ire of Nero. The poem has been a favorite with 
 tlie lovers of political freedom in all succeeding ages. It was 
 especially popular with the republicans of Europe during the *'Age 
 of Revolutions." Some of the speeches of Cato, particularly, in 
 this poem, for moral subhmity are unsurpassed in the annals ol 
 antiquity. 
 
 Lucan lacks tenderness and is deficient in elegance and purity 
 of style, when compared with Virgil; nor is the epic structure of 
 his work to be compared with that great master; but the stoic 
 t)hilosophy that breathes through the poem, the nobility of senti- 
 ^iient, and the glowing fires of freedom that gleam throughout 
 the piece will hold its fame secure. Som.e of his epigrams are 
 ]nost striking, as when he says, in book V, "Those whom guilt 
 stains it equals ;" or, in book VII, "Neither side is guiltless if its 
 adversary is appointed judge." His saying that "The chieftains 
 contend only for their places of burial" suggests the line of Gray: 
 
 "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 
 Another of his f amyous aphorisms is this : "He v/ho rules will ever 
 be impatient of a partner." His keen insight into the origin of 
 popular upheavals may be shown by a single line: "For it is 
 famine alone that confers freedom on cities; a starving populace 
 knows no fear." And Hkewise, in book I, where he says : "He 
 who refuses what is just, gives up everything to him who is 
 armed." 
 
V. 
 OVID. 
 
 One of the great poets of the time of Augustus was Ovid 
 iPublius Ovidius Naso) who lived contemporaneously with Livy, 
 Horace and Virgil. He was born B. C. 43, and died A. D. 18. 
 
 Ovid was of an ancient equestrian family, and like other 
 young Roman nobles of the time he finished his education at 
 Athens. He was trained for the bar, but the pursuits of litera- 
 t\>re early engrossed his attention, and he is not known to have 
 practiced law. Unlike his great contemporaries in literature, he 
 led a proiiigate life. He was divorced twice and married three 
 times before his thirtieth year. At one time he numbered the 
 Emperor Augustus among his personal friends; but, because of 
 h\B licentious practices he was banished from Rome in the fiftieth 
 J ear of his age, in the same year that Horace died. The seat 
 of his exile was the little town of Tomi near the mouth of the 
 Danube, on the Black sea, where he spent the remaining ten years 
 of his life. He appears to have so conducted himself as to win 
 the sincere love of the people of Tomi. 
 
 A number of beautiful poems were written during the period 
 Tf his exile (among them the Epistolae Ex Ponto and the Tris- 
 tium) v/liich generally bewail his banishment and entreat the 
 mercies of Augustus, but to all such appeals the emperor re- 
 mained obdurate. The precise reason for the poet's exile may 
 ; ever be known. The cause specified was the publication of the 
 *'Ars Amatoria ;" but this was merely a specious pretext, because 
 the poem complained of had been published ten years before and 
 had been in general circulation ever since. Historians have 
 therefore indulged the plausible conjecture that Augustus took 
 personal offense at some of the licentious acts of the poet; 
 although many of the love poems of Ovid were by no means cal- 
 culated to improve the moral status of a none too decorous public. 
 
 The poet seems to have realized his own moral instability, 
 
 12 
 
OVID 13 
 
 He was weak, and he paid the price. How truly he exclaimed, in 
 the greatest of his poems: 
 
 "I see the right, and I approve it, too, 
 Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.** 
 And again, in the same poem: 
 
 "111 habits gather by unseen degrees. 
 As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." 
 From Tomi he wrote : '*An evil life is a kind of death.'* Well did 
 Ovid know it ! And none knew better than he the beginnings of 
 evil. "Resist beginnings," he urges; "it is too late to employ 
 medicine when the evil has grown strong by inveterate habit.** He 
 was of a kindly and considerate nature. Most truly did he say : "I 
 have lampooned no one in satirical verse, nor do my poems hold 
 up any one to ridicule." He was, indeed, an enemy to none but 
 himself. 
 
 Not all of Ovid's work has come dovv'n to \ls. "Medea," a 
 tragedy v/hich appears to have been very popular, is wholly lost. 
 Other works have survived in whole or in part. Among the com- 
 plete works he has left us is his greatest, the "Metamorphoses.** 
 7. his poem, in fifteen books, was one of his later works. It is a 
 literary masterpiece, well \^orthy of the golden age of Roman 
 literature. The poet appears to have been fully conscious of its 
 merit ; and, like Virgil and Horace upon similar occasions, he does 
 not hesitate to say so. At \he close of the fifteenth book he 
 exclaims: "And now I have finished a work which neither the 
 wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor steel, nor all-consuming time can de- 
 stroy. Welcome the day which can destroy only my physical man 
 in ending my uncertain life ! In my better part I shall be raised 
 t;> immortality above the lofty stars, and my name shall never 
 die." 
 
 Ovid was an early favorite in English literature. Christopher 
 Marlowe translated the "Amores." The "Ars Amatoria" was 
 done into English verse by Congreve and Dryden. Both Dryden 
 and Addison translated the "Metamorphoses." The critics are 
 all agreed that much of Ovid was known to Shakespeare. There 
 are allusions to Ovid in "Much Ado About Nothing,** 11:7; "As 
 You Like It," 111:3; "Taming of the Shrew," i:I; lb. iii; I; "Titus 
 
14 OVID 
 
 Andronicus," iv:l; "Love's Labor's Lost," iv:2; "A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream," "The Tempest," iv:7; and "Venus and Adonis." 
 Shakespeare was certainly familiar with Golding's translation of 
 the "Metamorphoses," printed in 1567. Old father Chaucer, too 
 was familiar with the Roman poet, as witness this opening line 
 from a verse in the "Merchant's Tale:" 
 
 "0 noble Ovide, soth sayest thou, God wot," etc., 
 
 Ovid's pleasing style, his felicity of expression and facility 
 oc execution render his compositions most delightful to lovers of 
 light and musical verse, while we find in him the origin of many 
 common phrases, such as piling "Ossa on Pelion," "Agreeing to 
 differ," "a pious fraud," "pursuits become habits," "no excellence 
 without effort," etc. Some of his sayings became axiomatic, as: 
 
 "We covet what is guarded; the very care invokes the thief. 
 Few love what they can have." 
 
 "We are always striving for things forbidden, and coveting 
 those denied us." } 
 
 "It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigor is in our 
 immortal spirit." 
 
 "God gave man an upright countenance to survey the 
 heavens, and look upward to the ?tars." 
 
 Ovid passed away one year before the death of Virgil. 
 
VI. ;ir 
 
 LUCRETIUS. 
 
 Titus Carus Lucretius, probably the greatest didactic poet 
 the world has ever known, was bom B. C. 95, and died in the 
 middle of the first century B. C. The exact date of his birth is 
 conjectural, and little is known of his life, but his great work, 
 **De Rerum Natura," a philosophic poem in six books, will live so 
 long as the human voice finds utterance for the language of phi- 
 losophy, and in its benign consolations the human heart finds 
 peace. 
 
 The purpose of his poem is to vindicate the freedom of 
 thought, and free the human mind from the dominion of super- 
 stition; a truly noble object, and magnificently essayed, even 
 if hardly attained. In this great work, which is done in hexa- 
 meter verse, the serene contemplations of the philosopher are 
 adorned with an elegance of diction and a sweetness and harmony 
 of numbers unsurpassed in the poetry of any language. 
 
 In philosophy, Lucretius was a disciple of Epicurus. His 
 work has been reviewed by many of the first minds of England, 
 Germany and France. Tennyson made him the subject of a 
 poem. ''Lucretius was an earnest seeker after truth," says one, 
 ''but it was the spirit of the typical Roman, for a definite practical 
 end, the emancipation of mankind from the bondage of super- 
 stition The enduring interest of the poem is thus a 
 
 psychological one, and is due to the unconscious self-portrayal 
 of one of the noblest minds in history." There are traditions of 
 the poet's madness, his death by suicide, etc., but these tales are 
 unsupported by historic testimony. 
 
 While no translation can adequately present the statuesque 
 dignity of his superb Latin, the following excerpts will in a 
 measure suffice to illustrate his charm of thought and expres- 
 sion : 
 
 " 'Tis sweet, when the seas are roughened by violent winds, to 
 
 15 
 
16 LUCRETIUS 
 
 view on land the toils of others, not that there is pleasure in 
 seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself 
 secure/Tis pleasant, too, to look, with no share of peril, on the 
 inighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach 
 those calm unruffled temples, raised by the wisdom of philoso- 
 phers, whence thou mayest look down on poor mistaken mortals, 
 wandering up and down in life's devious ways, some resting their 
 fame on genius, or priding themselves on birth, day and night 
 toiling anxiously to rise to high fortune and sovereign power." 
 
 One cannot but recall the same thought carried out by Milton 
 In his "Comus:" 
 
 "How charming is divine philosophy! 
 
 Not harsh and crabb'd, as dull fools suppose; 
 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 
 And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
 
 Where no rude surfeit reigns." 
 
 Let us read further : "Why is it, man, that thou indulgest 
 in excessive grief? Why shed tears that thou must die? For if 
 thy past life has been one of enjoyment, and if all thy pleasures 
 have not passed through thy mind as through a sieve, and van- 
 ished, leaving not a rack behind, why then dost thou not, like a 
 thankful guest, rise cheerfully from life's feast, and with a quiet 
 mind go take thy rest." 
 
 Lucretius never ceases to exhort against the fear of death. 
 "Wilt thou then repine," he asks, "and think it a hardship to die ? 
 thou for whom life is well nigh dead even v/hile thou livest and 
 on joy est the light of day, who wearest away the greater part of 
 thy time in sleep, who snorest waking, and ceasest not to see 
 visions, and bearest about with thee a mind troubled with ground- 
 less terrors, and canst not discover the cause of thy never-ending 
 troubles, when, staggering, thou art oppressed on all sides with a 
 multitude of cares, and reelest rudderless in unsettled thoughts." 
 
 "0 misery of men !" he exclaims. "0 blinded fools ! in what 
 
> 
 
 LUCRETIUS 17 
 
 dark mazes, in what dangers we walk this little journey of our 
 life!" 
 
 "How wretched are the minds of men, and how blind their 
 understanding !" 
 
 One more sentence — and one to be remembered, too — and 
 we take our leave of this wizard of Latinity : "Examine with judg- 
 ment each opinion: if it seems true, embrace it; if false, gird up 
 the loins of thy mind to withstand it." 
 
VII. 
 PLAUTUS. 
 
 T. Maccius Plautus was bom 254 B. C. and died after an 
 active life of seventy years. He was the greatest writer of com- 
 edy the Latin language has given to the world. 
 
 The early life of Plautus was filled with hardships. At the 
 age of thirty we find him earning a living by turning a hand-mill, 
 grinding corn for a baker! But he was soon to furnish to the 
 Romans bread of a different sort. In his leisure moments he 
 composed three plays and they were instantly successful. The 
 remainder of his life was devoted to producing for the stage. He 
 is thought to have been the author of one hundred and thirty 
 plays, only twenty of which have been transmitted to posterity. 
 
 The plays of Plautus are distinguished for their rapid action, 
 their humor and their vivacity. His popularity with the ancient 
 Romans was unbounded and his plays held undisputed possession 
 of the Roman stage for a period of five hundred years — a longer 
 period of popularity than the fates have vouchsafed to any other 
 playright in the entire course of human history. Although some 
 of his plots were adapted from the Greek drama, his portrayal of 
 Roman life, and of human nature, was so true as to elicit instan- 
 taneous and continuous appreciation, and his work has found 
 imitators among the moderns in Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison, 
 Lessing and Moiiere. Both Dryden and Moliere copied his Am- 
 phytrion. That Plautus was known to Shakespeare is evident 
 from the specific mention of the Roman poet, in Hamlet. 
 
 The writings of Plautus abound in more or less delicate but 
 incisive thrusts at human folly, frailty and fraud. Some of his 
 sayings have become axiomatic, and many a well known phrase 
 finds its origin in his plays. In the fourth act of his Trinummus 
 he speaks of young men "sowing their wild oats." In the same 
 play we find (act IV) : "The bell never rings of itself ; unless some 
 one handles or moves it, it is dumb." In the second act of this 
 play we find: "He who falls in love meets a worse fate than he 
 who leaps from a rock." 
 
 18 
 
PLAUTUS 19 
 
 From the Mostellaria we glean: "You little know what a 
 ticklish thing it is to go to law" (Act V) ; 'To blow and swallow 
 at the same moment is not easy to be done" (Act III) ; and 
 "Things which you don't hope, happen more frequently than 
 things which you do hope" (Act I). 
 
 "He whom the gods love dies young," is from his Bacchides, 
 act iv., but is borrowed from the Greek comic poet, Menander. . 
 
 "Ill gotten is ill spent" is from Poenulus (act IV) , and in the 
 same play (act III) we find the aphorism: "He who does not 
 know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide." 
 
 In Pseudolus he excoriates, in this fashion, the gossip and the 
 slanderer : 
 
 Act I: "Your tittle-tattlers, and those who listen to sland- 
 der, by my good will should all be hanged— the former by their 
 tongues, the latter by their ears." 
 
 Act II: "Do you never look at yourself when you abuse an- 
 other?" 
 
 The same thought is pursued in his Truculentus (act I) : 
 "Those who twit others with their faults should look at home." 
 
 In his Persa the author strikes at ingratitude: "That man is 
 worthless who knows how to receive a favor, but not how to re- 
 turn one" (Act V). "You love a nothing when you love an in- 
 grate" (Act II). 
 
 In Trinummus (Act IV) he says: "What you lend is lost; 
 when you ask for it back you may find a friend made an enemy 
 by your kindness. If you begin to press him further, you have 
 the choice of two things — either to lose your loan or to lose your 
 friend." Shakespeare, who may have gotten here the thought, 
 improved the expression in Polonius' advice to Laertes (Hamlet, 
 Act I., Sc. Ill) : 
 
 "Neither a borrower nor a lender be: 
 For loan oft loses both itself and friend. 
 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." 
 
 Plautus wrote his own epitaph, and it is worthy of reproduc- 
 tion as one of the truest thoughts that ever fell from his gifted 
 pen: "Plautus has prepared himself for a life beyond the grave; 
 the comic stage deserted weeps; laughter also, and jest and joke; 
 and iwetic and prosaic will bewail his loss together." 
 
VIIL 
 MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 The pages of history record the name of but one emperor who 
 was a gentleman as well as a king and who was likewise in all 
 things an honest, upright and useful citizen, a profound student, 
 a conscientious and diligent administrator of public affairs, and a 
 man of blameless life. That man was the Roman emperor, Mar- 
 cus Aurelius Antoninus, who was born A. D. 121, and died in 180. 
 
 It was Plato who wrote, in his "Ideal Republic" : "Until philoso- 
 phers are kings, and the princes of this world have the spirit and 
 power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in 
 one, cities will never cease from ill — no, nor the human race, as 
 I believe, and then only will our state have a possibility of life, 
 and see the light of day. * * * The truth is that the state in which 
 the rulers are most reluctant to govern is best and most quietly 
 governed, and the state in which they are most willing is the 
 v/orst." 
 
 All these conditions were met by Marcus Aurelius, and by 
 no other person in the entire history of the world. He loved 
 Vs^isdom for its own sake, and found virture to be its own reward. 
 He was humble in high station; a statesman who detested poli- 
 tics ; a soldier who despised the glamour of militarism and loathed 
 its bloody trophies ; a monarch who scorned the trappings of em- 
 pire, and who preserved to the last the candor of innocence, and 
 the simplicity and gentleness of a child's heart. 
 
 But he was born to troublous times. His life was filled with 
 action. He knew no peace, during his reign of twenty years. 
 The empire was assaulted upon the east, the west and the north, 
 and torn by rebellion within. Famine, pestilence, earthquakes 
 and floods added their terrors. Marcus Aurelius had little time 
 for the studies he loved so well; but he acted the philosophy he 
 professed, he practiced the precepts he gave, and he surmounted 
 every obstacle and weathered every storm. Through all these 
 manifold disasters he moved with the sweetness of an angelic 
 
 20 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS 21 
 
 spirit and the serene majesty of a master mind. When a trusted 
 general revolted and was slain by subordinates, the philosopher- 
 king lamented the fact that the Fates had denied him his fondest 
 wish — to have freely pardoned the man who had so basely be- 
 trayed his confidence; and then he caused all the correspondence 
 of the rebel to be destroyed, in order that others might not be 
 implicated in the treason. He was, in very truth, most blessed 
 of Pagans, and noblest of the Stoics. He was, at once, a king 
 among philosophers and a philosopher among kings. Well may 
 they decry power and riches who possess them not. But, to pos- 
 sess absolute power, yet temper justice with mercy; to possess 
 unlimited wealth, and yet lead an abstemious life, active in every 
 benevolent work — this is a test of character. How many Chris- 
 tian monarchs are worthy to sit beside him ? 
 
 It has been remarked that his persecution of the Christians 
 is the one blot upon his fame, the stigma of his reign. It will, 
 we apprehend, be time enough to rebuke the Pagan emperor for 
 this when Christians cease their persecution of one another. Just 
 here, however, is a lesson for the present generation. Let it be 
 voiced in the words of John Stuart Mill: ''Unless anyone who 
 approves of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters 
 himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus AureHus, 
 more deeply versed in the wisdom of his time — more elevated in 
 his intellect above it — more earnest in his search for truth — let 
 him abstain from that assumption of the joint multitude, which 
 the great Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result." 
 
 Marcus Aurelius wrote but one book — his ''Meditations" — 
 and it may be doubted if even this was ever intended for publica- 
 tion. However, in the brief scope of this small volume we find 
 the full fruition of the Stoical school of philosophy, "the gospel 
 of those who do not believe in the supernatural." The funda- 
 mentals of that system of thought, long since exploded, need not 
 be here discussed. But for all that the little volume of "Medita- 
 tions" has given strength to many. It is one of the most delight- 
 ful of the Roman classics, and in its pages we may readily discern 
 the friend of man. Thus, in book II: 
 
22 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 "And since it has fallen to my share to understand the natu- 
 ral beauty of a good action and the deformity of an ill one ; since 
 i am satisfied the person disobliging is of kin to me, and though 
 we are not just of the same flesh and blood, yet our minds are 
 nearly related, both being extracted from the Deity, I am con- 
 vinced that no man can do me a real injury, because no man can 
 force me to misbehave myself; nor can I find it in my heart to 
 hate or be angry with one of my own nature and family. For 
 we are all made for mutual assistance, as the feet, the hands and 
 the eyelids ; as the rows of the upper and under teeth." 
 
 Many of his maxims should be treasured in the memory of 
 the remotest posterity. There is, for example, no sounder doc- 
 trine than this: 
 
 "He that commits a fault abroad is a trespasser at home; 
 and he that injures his neighbor, hurts himself." 
 
 "Nothing," he says elsewhere, "is more scandalous than false 
 friendship, and therefore, of all things, avoid it. In short, a man 
 of integrity, sincerity and good nature can never be concealed, 
 for his character is wrought into his countenance." 
 
 The guiding principle of his life is summed up at the end of 
 book IX, where, speaking of a good man, he says: 
 
 "And therefore, when he does a good office, and proves serv- 
 iceable to the world, he has fulfilled the end of his being, and at- 
 tains his own reward." 
 
IX. 
 SALLUST. 
 
 Caius Sallustius Crispus, "the Roman Thucydides," was a 
 Sabine, and his birthplace was Amiternum, at the foot of the 
 Appenines, where he first saw the hght B. C. 86. He was one of 
 the greatest oi the Roman poHticians, and was from the begin- 
 ning a warm friend and advocate of JuHus Caesar. 
 
 Sallust was elected a tribune of the people when he was 
 thirty-two years of age. From this time forward his influence 
 was verj' great, but his character was so wretched that two years 
 later he was removed from the Senate on account of gross im- 
 morality. He was out of office for four years, when through the 
 influence of Caesar he was restored to his position. To all the 
 schemes of that great political and mihtary genius Sallust was 
 a party, and he went with Caesar to Africa in the military cam- 
 paign against the party of Pompey. Having participated in that 
 victorious campaign, which resulted in the total ruin of the Pom- 
 peian party and the suicide of Cato, Caesar made him governor of 
 an African province. He returned a very rich man. He then 
 devoted the remainder of his life to literature, and died B. C. 34. 
 
 The only works of Sallust that have come down to us are his 
 two Epistles to Caesar, his history of the Jugurthine war, and 
 his History of the Conspiracy of Catiline. Another book, in the 
 nature of a chronicle of the events of his time, and said to have 
 been in five volumes, has been lost. 
 
 Although the remnants of his writings that have survived 
 are all too brief, yet he is regarded as one of the foremost of 
 ancient historians. One of his translators, the learned Dr. 
 Stewart, says of this extraordinary character : 
 
 *Terhaps there is no hterary character that has given rise 
 to keener sensations of aversion or partiality, than that of Sallust ; 
 no one has met with less protection from his friends, or greater 
 persecution from his enemies. The earliest biographers, who 
 attempted to represent him, lived in too near an age to be free 
 
 23 
 
24 SALLUST 
 
 from personal prepossessions; and of the later authors the far 
 greater number have surrendered their judgment to the dog- 
 matical and the arrogant; they have rather listened to declama- 
 tion than inquired into facts, and have thereby been disabled 
 from deciding with candor. As to Sallust, while alive, he was 
 exposed to the hatred of Cicero, and the envy of Livy, and vilely 
 traduced and undervalued by the latter, when he was no longer 
 able to answer for himself. Even down to the present day his 
 reputation is still mangled by the heated partisans of these popu- 
 lar writers." 
 
 But, whatever may have been Livy's opinions of his charac- 
 ter, there is no doubt that he emulated the style of Sallust, who 
 was the first of the Roman historians to adopt the rhetorical 
 method of the Greeks. Some of the passages in Sallust are of 
 great beauty; as this, upon the mind: 
 
 "Personal beauty, great riches, strength of body, and all 
 other things of this kind, pass away in a short time ; but the noble 
 productions of the mind, like the soul itself, are immortal. In 
 fine, as there is a beginning, so there is an end of the advantages 
 of person and fortune; all things that rise must set, and those 
 that have grown must fade away; but the mind is incorruptible, 
 eternal, the governor of the hum.an race, directs and controls all 
 things, overrules all things, nor is itself under the power of any." 
 
 The following sound political axiom also comes down to us 
 from Sallust: 
 
 *'It is better for a good man to be overcome by his opponents, 
 than to conquer injustice by unlawful means." This, from a 
 partisan of Caesar ! 
 
 But, in the whole range of the classics, there is nothing finer 
 than this, from his First Epistle to Caesar, although, mayhap, it 
 came from one who knew too well its truth: 
 
 "There is yet," said he, "another species of reform still more 
 important, namely, to eradicate from the mind the love of money ; 
 ur, if that cannot be, to diminish as far as possible, its baneful 
 influence. Without such a reform, what degree of prosperity can 
 be enjoyed by a people, either at home or abroad, in private life 
 
SALLUST 25 
 
 or in public transactions ? Where riches are idolized, the manners 
 must be corrupted, the nerves of discipline relaxed, and no propi- 
 tiousness of disposition can resist the allurement. Even the mind 
 itself must forget its powers, and, sooner or later, sink into in- 
 activity. In the pages of history" we may perceive events suf- 
 ficiently demonstrative of this pernicious passion; states and 
 kingdom.s, that when depraved by wealth, have lost the mighty 
 empires acquired during the age of poverty and virtue. Nor, 
 if we attend to its progi-ess, will such extent of its power create 
 astonishment. The good man, when he sees virtue contemned, 
 and vice, if possessed of wealth, approached with deference and 
 honored with distinction, at first indignantly resents the prefer- 
 ence and many a bitter reflection arises in his mind. But by 
 degrees, the splendor of rank dazzles his fancy, and the pleasures 
 of riches gain admission to his heart ; until he sinks, at last, into 
 the common corruption. Where riches are worshipped, honor, 
 good faith, probity, modesty and principle of every sort, are held 
 as light in the balance: For there is but one path which leads to 
 virtue, and that is difficult and rugged; whereas to wealth there 
 are a thousand, ever open, and at the choice of its votaries. I 
 beseech you, therefore, let your first care be to lower riches in the 
 common estimation. Let the high offices of Consul and Praetor 
 be once bestowed on real dignity, and distinguished talents, not 
 en superiority of fortune, and the possession of the latter will no 
 longer have power to exalt, or to depress, in the opinion of the 
 world." 
 
X. 
 QUINTILIAN. 
 
 Quintilian — the school-master, the first to draw a salary from 
 Che Roman state ; for, before his time, teaching was done by pri- 
 vate instructors. The emperor Domitian established for him a 
 professorship and awarded to him a handsome salary from the 
 imperial treasury. Assuredly, none was more worthy of either 
 the honor or the emolument. 
 
 Marcus Fabius Quintilian was born in Spain, in the year 40 
 A. D., and lived to the age of seventy-eight. He began as advo- 
 cate, but soon abandoned the bar for his favorite vocation of 
 teaching, which he followed the greater part of his life, instruct- 
 ing the youth in the arts of speech. Martial called him "the 
 supreme controller of the restless youth." The younger Pliny 
 and two grand nephews of the emperor Domitian were among his 
 pupils. In him ancient literary criticism reached its highest 
 pitch of excellence, and he has been a guide to the rhetoricians 
 and orators of all succeeding ages. His reviews are always very 
 fine, and his judgments usually just. Some of his characteriza- 
 tions are very pretty; as when he speaks of how ''Horace soars 
 now and then, and is full of sweetness and grace, and in his varied 
 forms and phrases is most fortunately bold;" or "the immortal 
 swiftness of Sallust," or "the milky richness of Livy;" always, 
 indeed, showing a sensitive appreciation and accurate judgment 
 of the merits of any author whom he touches. His great work is 
 a complete treatise upon the subject of rhetoric, in twelve books, 
 entitled "De Institutiones Oratoris." 
 
 That he understood the nature of youth and was qualified to 
 teach is evident from some of his maxims that have come down 
 lo us, of which the following are a few : 
 
 "Give me a boy who rouses when he is praised, who profits 
 when he is encouraged, and who cries when he is defeated. Such 
 a boy will be fired by ambition ; he will be stung by reproach, and 
 
 26 
 
QUINTILIAN 27 
 
 animated by preference; never shall I apprehend any bad conse- 
 quences from idleness in such a boy." 
 
 *'By nature we are very tenacious of what we imbibe in the 
 dawn of life, in the same manner as new vessels retain the flavor 
 which they first drink in. There is no recovering wool to its 
 native whiteness after it is dyed." 
 
 "Our minds are like our stomachs ; they are whetted by the 
 ohange of food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite." 
 
 "I have no great opinion of any boy's capacity, whose aim is 
 to raise a laugh, by his talent of mimicry." 
 
 Quintilian is in accord with the most advanced educational 
 authorities of the present day on the subject of corporal punish- 
 ment. That he did not believe that to spare the rod was to spoil 
 the child, is evident from the following paragraph: 
 
 "I am by no means for whipping boys who are learning — in 
 the first place, because the practice is unseemly and slavish ; and 
 in the next place, if the boy's genius is so dull as to be proof 
 against reproach, he will, Hke a worthless slave, become likewise 
 insensible to blows." 
 
 He was a believer, also, in that great educational truth which 
 is expressed in the homely adage: "You can't make a silk purse 
 out of a sow's ear," for he says : 
 
 "One thing, however, I must promise, that without the as- 
 sistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy." 
 
 As a teacher of eloquence he lays down the following funda- 
 mental principle : 
 
 "Now, accordmg to my definition, no men can be a complete 
 orator unless he is a good man. It is the heart and mental energy 
 ihat inspires eloquence." 
 
 The following, upon the same subject, is fine: 
 
 "Brilliant thoughts are, I consider, as it were, the eyes of 
 eloquence; but I would not that the body were all eyes, lest the 
 other members should lose their proper functions." 
 
 And this: 
 
 "But give me the reader who figures in his mind the idea of 
 doquence, all divine as she is; who, with Euripides, gazes upon 
 
28 QUINTILIAN 
 
 her all-subduing charms ; who seeks not his reward from the venal 
 fee for his voice, but from that reflection, that imagination, that 
 perfection of mind which time cannot destroy nor fortune affect." 
 How like the noble sentiment attributed to our own Ruf us Choate, 
 that "He does not truly succeed as an advocate who practices his 
 profession with an eye single to the golden fee." 
 
 In the usage of language he proclaims the cardinal rule that 
 ''The common usage of learned men, however, is the surest director 
 of speaking ; and language, like money, when it receives the public 
 stamp, ought to have currency." Which suggests the oft-quoted 
 L-nes of Pope : 
 
 "In words as in fashions, the same rule will hold, 
 Alike too fantastic if too new or old ; 
 Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." , 
 
 The following are among the characteristic sayings of Quin- 
 tihan : 
 
 "Things forbidden alone are loved immoderately; wnen they 
 may be enjoyed, they do not excite the desire." 
 
 "Though ambition in itself is a vice, it is yet often the parent 
 of virtue." 
 
 "Virtue, although she in some measure receives her begin- 
 ning from nature, yet gets her finishing excellencies from learn- 
 ing." 
 
 "Nature has formed us with honest inclinations, and when we 
 are so inclined, it is so very easy to be virtuous, that, if we seri- 
 ously reflect, nothing is more astonishing than to see so many 
 wicked.'* 
 
 "Cultivate innocence, and think not that your deeds, because 
 they are concealed, will be unpunished ; you have committed them 
 under the canopy of heaven — there is a more powerful witness." 
 
PART TWO 
 
 GREAT GREEK AUTHORS 
 
 I. 
 
 AESCHYLUS. 
 
 11. 
 
 ARISTOTLE. 
 
 III. 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 IV. 
 
 HOMER. 
 
 V. 
 
 PLATO. 
 
 VI. 
 
 PLUTARCH. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MENANDER 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PINDAR. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ANACREON. 
 
 X. 
 
 THEOCRITUS 
 
Land of the Muse! within thy bowers 
 
 Her soul-entrancing echoes rung, 
 While on their course the rapid hour: 
 
 Paused at the melody she sung — 
 Till every grove -and every hill, 
 
 And every stream that flowed along 
 From morn to night repeated still 
 
 The winning harmony of song. 
 
 — From "Greece," by James G. Brooks. 
 
I. 
 
 AESCHYLUS. 
 
 Aeschylus, the ''father of Greek tragedy," was a native of 
 Eleusis, in Attica, where he was born B. C. 525. When thirty- 
 five years of age he took a distinguished part in the battle of 
 Marathon. In a painting portraying this battle, the likeness of 
 Aeschylus appears in the foreground, thus sharing the honors 
 with Miltiades, the general commanding the Greek forces in that 
 memorable conflict. Six years later, at the age of forty-one (in 
 E. C. 484, the year in which Herodotus the historian was born), 
 Aeschylus attained his first dramatic success by winning the prize 
 for tragedy — a feat which he accomplished thirteen times in the 
 following sixteen years. 
 
 The hterary style of Aeschylus, though turgid at times, is 
 distinguished for its grandeur, fire and force. He has little of 
 tenderness, but his theme is lofty, his thought is noble, his man- 
 ner elevated, and his grasp is bold and strong. Finely expressive 
 of his genius, and among the most beautiful creations of their 
 kind, are the songs of the Furies in the ''Eumenides," in "Aga- 
 memnon" the inspiration of Cassandra, and the ghost of Darius 
 in "The Persians." 
 
 Aeschylus was invited to Sicily by King Hiero, a distin- 
 guished patron of the learned, who had induced Pindar and Simon- 
 ides to reside at his court. One of his plays, ''The Aetneans," 
 was composed at the request of King Hiero. At another time he 
 came from Athens to have his play, "The Persians," presented by 
 invitation of the same King. 
 
 In the course of forty years of active work in the drama 
 Aeschylus is believed to have written ninety plays, of which the 
 titles of only seventy-nine are known today. Only seven of his 
 tragedies remain. The rest are lost. The seven tragedies extant 
 are "The SuppHants," "The Persians," "The Seven Against 
 Thebes," "Prometheus Bound," and the trilogy, "Agamemnon," 
 
 29 
 
30 AESCHYLUS 
 
 '^Choephori," and ''Eumenides." Of the latter work Prof. Clifford 
 Herschel Moore, a distinguished critic, remarks: "This trilogy- 
 represents the maturest work of Aeschylus, and we may well 
 doubt whether a greater was ever written." Mark Pattison de- 
 dares it to be "the grandest work of creative genius in the whole 
 i'ange of literature." 
 
 In its highest form, Aeschylus was undoubtedly the creator 
 of the Greek drama. Not only did he introduce action to super- 
 sede the perpetual chorus, and dramatic dialogue in place of long 
 narrations, but he was the first to introduce masks, costumes and 
 scenic effects. He bodies forth the creations of his genius in lan- 
 guage of sublimity and power, and his place is secure among the 
 master spirits of the race. 
 
 From the "Prometheus Bound," are taken the beautiful and 
 familiar lines: 
 
 "Ye waves 
 That o'er the interminable ocean wreathe 
 Your crisped smiles." 
 And here is a pretty fragment (Plumptre's translation) : 
 "So in the Libyan fable it is told 
 That once an eagle stricken with a dart, 
 Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, 
 *With our own feathers, not by other's hands, 
 Are we now smitten'." 
 
 Hear, also, his tribute to justice: "But justice shines in 
 smoky cottages, and honors the pious. Leaving with averted 
 eyes the gorgeous glare of gold obtained by polluted hands, she is 
 wont to draw nigh to holiness, not reverencing wealth when 
 falsely stamped with praise, and assigning to each deed its right- 
 eous doom." 
 
 And this, on tyranny, is as true today as when Aeschylus 
 wrote it twenty-four hundred years ago : 
 
 "For, somehow, there is this disease in tyranny, not to put 
 confidence in friends." 
 
AESCHYLUS ' 31 
 
 The conclusions of modern criticism are summarized by Lord 
 Macaulay, with his customary precision and force, in the follow- 
 ing quotation from his essay on John Milton : 
 
 "Aeschylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. * * * At this 
 period, accordingly, it was natural that the literature of Greece 
 ^'hould be tinctured with the Oriental style. And that style, we 
 think, is clearly discernible in the works of Pindar and Aeschylus^ 
 The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The Book 
 of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a considerable resem- 
 blance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays, his works ar6 
 absurd; considered as choruses, they are above all praise. If, 
 for instance, we examine the address of Clytemnestra to Aga- 
 memnon on his return, or the description of the seven Argive 
 Chiefs, by principles of dramatic writing, we shall instantly con- 
 demn them as monstrous. But if we forget the characters, and 
 think only of the poetry, we shall admit that it has never been 
 surpassed in energy and magnificence.'* 
 
11. 
 
 ARISTOTLE. 
 
 The most versatile intellect that mankind has ever known, 
 thfe master mind of all antiquity and the great mental phenome- 
 non in the history of human thought, that mighty prodigy of 
 learning known to the world as Aristotle, still gleams adown the 
 ages like a distant sun, a beacon-light of learning that casts its 
 burning rays upon the farthest shores of time. Aristotle was 
 born at Stagira,,B. C. 884, eight years after the death of Socrates. 
 He was one year older than his personal friend King Philip of 
 Macedon, and was three years older than Demosthenes. 
 
 The son of a physician and naturalist of repute deriving his 
 descent through a long line of medical ancestors dating back to 
 the immortal Aesculapius, born to wealth and position, and reared 
 in an atmosphere of learning, the influence of heredity and en- 
 vironment were united to create in the brain of Aristotle the most 
 colossal mind that ever found abode within the frame of man. 
 At the age of seventeen he proceeded to Athens, to become a pupil 
 of Plato, with whom he remained for twenty years. 
 
 When Alexander the Great was born, King Philip announced 
 the fact to Aristotle in this letter: ''Know that a son is born to 
 us. We thank the gods for their gift, but especially for bestowing 
 it at the time when Aristotle lives ; assuring ourselves that, edu- 
 cated by you, he will be worthy of us, and worthy of inheriting 
 oar kingdom." In due time the philosopher accepted the trust, 
 and thus became the mentor of one of the greatest characters of 
 history, and the pupil was never wanting in proper respect for 
 his distinguished tutor. Years later, when he had defeated Darius 
 in battle and was in hot pursuit of the fleeing Persians, Alexander 
 paused to write his old teacher: "Alexander, wishing all happi- 
 ly ess to Aristotle. You have not done right in publishing your 
 
 32 
 
ARISTOTLE 33 
 
 a^roatic works. Wherein shall we be distinguished above others, 
 if the learning, in which we were instructed, be communicated to 
 the public ? I would rather surpass other men in knowledge than 
 in power." 
 
 Aristotle at the age of fifty set up his school in Athens near 
 the temple of the Lycian Apollo, whence we derive our word 
 **lyceum," the name appHed to his school. Aristotle and his fol- 
 lowers were called "Peripatetics," from the peripaton, or walk, 
 v/hich adorned the temple. Here he wrote and taught, and lived 
 the life he loved, until jealous-hearted rivals, exasperated at his 
 vast superiority, as mediocrity is so often angered at the sight of 
 excellence, caused false charges of ^'impiety" to be preferred 
 against him. He would have met the fate of Socrates had he not 
 saved himself by a timely flight to Chalcis where, in the sixty- 
 third year of his age, he died of a broken heart. 
 
 According to credible report, Aristotle was the author of four 
 hundred books, but forty-six of which have survived to us. More 
 Ihan ten thousand commentators have sought to elucidate and 
 illustrate his works. His influence has been enormous in every 
 field of thought. He was the first to perfect a method of reason- 
 ing, and formal logic has made little improvement since his day. 
 He raised to the status of independent disciplines the subjects of 
 Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric, Literary Criticism, Politics, Psycholo- 
 gy. He first discovered the law of the Association of Ideas. He 
 collected 158 constitutions of various states, and was the first to 
 essay a scientific treatise on government. He was the first great 
 master of literary criticism. He was, as Dr. Gillies says, "not 
 only the best critic in poetry, but himself a poet of the first emi- 
 nence. Few of his verses indeed have reached modern times ; but 
 the few which remain prove him worthy of the sounding lyre of 
 Pindar." 
 
 "Aristotle," as Hegel says, "penetrated into the whole uni- 
 verse of things, and subjected to the comprehension its scattered 
 wealth ; and the greatest number of the philosophical sciences owe 
 to him their separation and commencement." 
 
84 ' ARISTOTLE 
 
 Education was his whole thought, the key-note of his Hfe, 
 
 the undying passion of his soul, and we may fittingly close this 
 sketch with one of his sage admonitions upon the subject dearest 
 to his heart: 
 
 "It would therefore be best that the state should pay atten- 
 tion to education, and on right principles, and that it should have 
 the power to enforce it ; but if it be neglected as a public measure, 
 then it would seem to be the duty of every individual to contri- 
 bute to the virtue of his children and his friends, or at least to 
 make this his dehberate purpose." 
 
III. 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 Of the three great tragic poets of ancient Greece — Aeschylus, 
 Sophocles and Euripides — the last named was the latest. While 
 Sophocles is considered the most masterly of the three, Aeschylus 
 was the first, and Euripides exceeded either in tenderness and in 
 richness of moral sentiment. However, as Dr. Blair says, **Both 
 Euripides and Sophocles have very high merit as tragic poets. 
 They are elegant and beautiful in their style; just, for the most 
 part, in their thoughts ; they speak with the voice of nature ; and, 
 making allowance for the difference of ancient and modern ideas, 
 in the midst of all their simplicity, they are touching and interest- 
 ing." 
 
 Euripides was born in Salamis while the great battle was in 
 progress there between the Greeks and Persians. He grew up in 
 Athens without any of the advantages of wealth, but was well 
 educated. He was the pupil of Anaxagoras — that philosopher 
 who said ''philosophy has been my worldly ruin and my soul's pros- 
 perity" — and was a warm personal friend of Socrates. He was 
 fifteen years younger than his great contemporary, Sophocles, 
 who frequently praised his work with the utmost magnanimity. 
 Aristophanes, the comic writer, was his bitter enemy, and at- 
 tacked him with satire and ridicule in a manner so cutting and 
 galling to his sensitive nature that this circumstance is offered 
 as one of the reasons for his quitting Athens. Aristotle, how- 
 aver, has placed the seal of his own approval upon the literary 
 excellence of Euripides, and this alone, if other proofs were want- 
 ing, would firmly fix his exalted position among the classics of 
 ancient Greece. Plutarch tells us that after the disastrous defeat 
 of the Athenians before Syracuse, the Sicilians spared those who 
 could repeat any of the poetry of Euripides. "Some there were," 
 says he, **who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of all the 
 
 35 
 
86 EURIPIDES 
 
 Grecians, his was the muse with whom the Sicilians were most in 
 love. It is said that upon this occasion a number of Athenians 
 on their return home went to Euripides, and thanked him in the 
 most grateful manner for their obhgations to his pen." 
 
 Unlike the greater number of the brilliant minds of that day, 
 Euripides kept himself aloof from politics, and spent the greater 
 part of his life in his library, immersed in the pursuits of litera- 
 ture. The king of Macedonia, Archelaus, a patron of letters, in- 
 vited the poet to his court at Pella, and there he spent the re- 
 mainder of his days. Upon his death, the highest honors were 
 paid to his memory, by order of the king. Archelaus erected a 
 monument to him, bearing the inscription : *'Never, Euripides, 
 will thy memory be forgotten !" The Athenians were anxious to 
 remove his remains to Athens, but their request was denied. 
 They then erected to his memory at Athens a cenotaph bearing 
 this inscription: *'A11 Greece is the monument of Euripides; 
 Macedonian earth covers but his bones." Lycurgas, the orator, 
 erected a statue to him in the theatre, Sophocles, still surviving, 
 publicly lamented his death, and ail Athens made tardy amends 
 for the neglect of the great dramatist during his life. 
 
 Tradition accredits Euripides with the authorship of ninety 
 plays, but eighteen of which survive. He has found imitators 
 and admirers in both ancient and modern times, and his work has 
 profoundly influenced the drama in England, Germany and 
 France. None of the ancient dramatists has been more exten- 
 sively honored by modern editions, such as those in Germany by 
 Kirckhoff, Nauck, Prinz and Wecklein, Nestle, and Schwartz; in 
 England, by Terrell, Verrall, Jerram, Way, Mahaffy and Cole- 
 ridge; and in France by Decharme and others. 
 
 Following are some of his best known sayings: 
 
 ''To be modest and pay reverence to the gods; this I think 
 
 to be the most honorable and the wisest thing for mortals." 
 "The worst of all diseases among men is impudence." 
 "Courage profits man naught, if God denies His aid." 
 "That is the noble man, who is full of confident hopes; the 
 
 abject soul despairs." 
 
EURIPIDES 37 
 
 ''Silence and modesty are the best ornaments of a woman, 
 r,nd to remain quietly within the house." 
 
 "The woman who, in her husband's absence, seeks to set her 
 beauty forth, mark her as a wanton ; she would not adorn her per- 
 son to appear abroad unless she was inclined to ill." 
 
 Here is a particularly fine passage on the marks of true no- 
 bility: 
 
 "There is no outward mark to note the noble, for the inward 
 oualities of man are never clearly to be distinguished. I have 
 often seen a man of no worth spring from a noble sire, and worthy 
 children arise from vile parents, m.eanness grovelling in the rich 
 man's mind and generous feehngs in the poor. How, then, shall 
 we discern and judge aright? By wealth? we shall make use of a 
 bad criterion. Shall it be by arms ? But who, by looking to the 
 spear, could thereby discern the dauntless heart? Will ye not 
 learn to judge the man by manners and by deeds? For such men 
 as these discharge their duties with honor to the state and to 
 their house. Mere flesh without a spirit is nothing more than 
 statues in the forum. For the strong arm does not abide the 
 shock of battle better than the weak ; this depends on nature and 
 an intrepid mind." 
 
IV. "^l 
 
 HOMER. 
 
 Seven cities vied for Homer's birth with emulation pious; 
 Salamis, Samos, Calaphon, Rhodes, Argos, Athens, Chios. 
 
 — Greek Anthology. 
 
 The preponderance of legendary history, however, indicates 
 that Smyrna was the birthplace of Homer. There are tales, also, 
 that he was blind; and that he was a roving minstrel, singing 
 ballads and begging, as he wandered from place to place. There 
 are no positive biographical facts. Even his very existence has 
 been doubted by a formidable school of German critics, headed 
 by Professor Frederick Wolf, of Halle. But the "Illiad" exists. 
 So does the Odyssey. They constitute Homer, and are all that 
 we really know of Homer, at this hour. The work is there. It 
 speaks for itself. Whether it is but a skillful compilation of still 
 older ballads, it boots us not to inquire. Homer today is just as 
 we found him at the dawn of Grecian civilization. If we except 
 the Bible and the Veddas, he is the most ancient book in the world. 
 He has supplied for all ages the one grand model of the epic poem, 
 and his work is the common heritage of the human race. 
 
 Translations of Homer exist in all the great modern lan- 
 guages. Among the most admired have been those of Cesarotti 
 and Monti in Italian, that of Montbel in French, that of Voss in 
 German, and those of Pope, Chapman and Bryant in English. 
 But the sonorous fluency and vehement fire of Homer have never 
 been adequately portrayed in any other tongue. As Prof. Blair 
 of Edinburgh declared: "I know indeed no author to whom it is 
 more difficult to do justice in a translation, than Homer. As the 
 plainness of his diction, were it literally rendered, would often 
 appear flat in any modern language; so, in the midst of that 
 plainness, and not a little heightened by it, there are everywhere 
 
 38 
 
HOMER 39 
 
 breaking forth upon us flashes of native fire, of subhmity and 
 beauty, which hardly any language, except his own, could pre- 
 serve. His versification has been universally acknowledged to be 
 uncommonly melodious; and to carry, beyond that of any poet, 
 a resemblance in the sound to the sense and meaning." 
 
 As Lord Bacon said, "The best part of beauty is that which 
 a picture cannot express," just so true is it that the celestial fire 
 of Homer defies the translator's art. Thus, the nod of Jupiter, 
 extolled by all critics as one of the noblest examples of the sub- 
 lime in writing, is literally translated: *'He spoke, and bending 
 his sable brows, gave the awful nod ; while he shook the celestial 
 locks of his immortal head, all Olympus was shaken." Pope 
 translates the passage as follows: 
 
 "He spoke: and awful bends his sable brows, 
 Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
 The stamp of fate, and sanction of a god. 
 High heaven with trembhng the dread signal took, 
 And all Olympus to its center shook." 
 
 Literally translated the majesty of the Homeric concept is pre- 
 served, but its exquisite euphony is marred ; while Pope clogs the 
 image in order to make an Enghsh rhyme. 
 
 These difficulties and these differences, although they may 
 dismay, will not surprise us if we but bear in mind that Homer, 
 w^hen he plumed himself for his matchless eagle flight to the 
 golden peaks of song, garbed his glowing thoughts in the most 
 musical language that ever rippled from the human tongue or 
 dropped its fructifying sweetness from the lips of man. Yet, 
 these translations often do contain the living flame of genuine 
 Homeric fire. Thus, in the twentieth book of the Ilhad, where all 
 the gods take part, vre read again from Pope: 
 
 "But when the powers descending swelled the fight. 
 Then tumult rose, fierce rage, and pale affright: 
 Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls, 
 And now she thunders from the Grecian walls. 
 Mars, hov'ring o'er his Troy, his terror shrouds 
 In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds ; 
 
40 HOMER 
 
 No^ through each Trojan heart he fury pours, 
 With voice divine, from Illion's topmost towers — 
 Above, the sire of gods his thunder rolls, 
 And peals on peals redoubled rend the polls ; 
 Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground, 
 The forests wave, the mountains nod around ; 
 Through all her summits tremble Ida's woods. 
 And from their sources boil her hundred floods: 
 Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain. 
 And the toss'd waves beat the heaving main. 
 Deep in the dismal region of the dead, 
 Th' infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head. 
 Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay 
 His dark domxinions open to the day 
 And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes, 
 Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful e'en to gods. 
 Such wars th' immortals wage; such horrors rend 
 The world's vast concave when the gods contend." 
 But Homer is not all a clash of arms and din of steel. He 
 not only runs the gamut of all the passions known to man, but 
 in sylvan scenes he reflects Nature's rare artistic power, and 
 paints with most entrancing skill the sunset and the dawn, the 
 calni of midnight and the glory of the stars. Thus, in book 7 of 
 thellliad: 
 
 "Now from the smooth, deep ocean-stream the sun 
 Began to climb the heavens, and with new rays 
 Smote the surrounding fields." 
 Or in book 8: 
 
 *'Now deep in Ocean sunk the lamp of light 
 And drew behind the cloudy veil of night." 
 And in book 3 of the Odyssey : 
 
 ''But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn. 
 With rosy lustre purpled o'er the lawn." 
 Again, there is the storm scene, from book 1'5 of the Illiad: 
 ''Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends, 
 And swell'd with tempests on the ship descends. 
 White are the decks with foam ; the winds aloud 
 
HOMER " 4L 
 
 Howl o'er the masts and sing through ev'ry shroud : 
 Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fears r 
 And instant death on every wave appears." 
 Now let us contrast the tempest with this peaceful scene of lovely 
 night and all its sylvan beauty and pastoral calm: "As when in 
 heaven the stars around the ghttering moon beam loveliest amid 
 the breathless air, and in clear outline appear every hill, sharp 
 peak and woody dell; deep upon deep the sky breaks open, and 
 each star shines forth, while joy fills the shepherd's heart." 
 
 'The multitude of things in Homer is wonderful," says Haz- 
 lett — "the splendor, the truth, the power, the variety." As Mat- 
 thew Arnold said, "the Homeric poems are the most important 
 poetical monument existing." To the ancient Greek, another 
 critic says, "Homer was Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, and Domes- 
 day Book in one." All poets since his time have been indebted 
 to Homer. As Pope observes, even "the periphrases and circum- 
 locutions by which Homer expresses the single act of dying have 
 supplied succeeding poets with all their manners of phrasing it." 
 Says Addison (Spectator, No. 417) : "Homer is in his province 
 when he is describing a battle or a multitude, a hero or a god. 
 Virgil is never better pleased than when he is in his elysium, or 
 copying out an entertaining picture. Homer's epithets generally 
 mark out what is great; Virgil's, what is agreeable. Nothing 
 can be more magnificent than the figure Jupiter makes in the first 
 Illiad, nor more charming than that of Venus in the first Aeneid." 
 But Virgil boldly translated whole passages from Homer and 
 placed them in the Aeneid as his own. Homer's work is original 
 in execution, theme and concept. Virgil, Tasso, Milton and the 
 rest have had their models by which to work ; but Homer's model 
 was Nature alone, and without human pattern, guide or compass, 
 he produced the greatest epic work the world has ever known. 
 
 As old Sir John Denham said so long ago, in his "Progress of 
 Learning:" 
 
 "I can no more beheve old Homer blind, 
 
 Than those who say the sun hath never shined; 
 
 The age wherein he lived was dark, but he 
 
 Could not want sight, who taught the world to see.'* , 
 
V. 
 PLATO. 
 
 Aristocles, afterwards known as Plato, "the broad-browed," 
 was born on the island of Aegina, B. C. 427, and died at Athens in 
 347 B. C. Through his mother he was a descendant of Solon, 
 one of the "Seven Wise Men of Greece," and on his father's side 
 he traced his lineage from Codrus, one of the early kings of 
 Athens. He enjoyed such early opportunities as a comfortable 
 fortune could provide, and in his youth was accomplished in all 
 the culture of the times. 
 
 Intellectually, Plato was the child of Socrates and the parent 
 of Aristotle. At the age of twenty, upon coming under the spell 
 of the master mind of Socrates, he is said to have burned all the 
 poems he had written, and from that time forth, for the remain- 
 ing sixty years of his life, his capacious mind was wholly occupied 
 with the profound speculations which have since dazzled the world 
 with their brilliancy and wielded a constantly growing influence 
 upon the minds of men. 
 
 He remained a pupil of Socrates until B. C. 399, when judicial 
 murder put an end to the pure and noble life of that most ma- 
 jestic character of antiquity and destroyed what George Henry 
 Lewes, in his History of Philosophy, called "the grandest figure 
 in the world's Pantheon : the bravest, truest, simplest, wisest of 
 mankind," We may the better understand the feelings of Plato 
 upon being thus deprived of his master, when we read the 
 "Phaedo," detailing the events of Socrates' last day on earth, and 
 developing, in the course of the dialogue, the beautiful doctrine 
 of the immortality of the soul. Xenophon, also a disciple of 
 Socrates and a companion of Plato, has expressed not less truly 
 the feelings of both upon that most pathetic occasion, in the 
 touching and tender tribute so gracefully set forth in the Memo- 
 rabilia (iv. 7.) 
 
 42 
 
PLATO 43 
 
 Shocked by the cruelty and crushed by the ingratitude and 
 bigotry of the tyrants who then ruled Athens in the name of 
 democracy, Plato departed into foreign lands. It is believed that 
 he visited every country in which learning flourished in any de- 
 gree. He delved into the lore of the Egyptians and studied the 
 philosophies of the east. His itinerary is not known with cer- 
 tainty. But it is known that he was absent from Athens a great 
 deal during the ten years following the death of Socrates. In the 
 course of his peregrinations, Plato visited Dionysius the Elder, 
 tyrant of Syracuse. The tyrant caused him to be sold into 
 slavery. Plato, however, was soon ransomed by his friends. 
 
 Returning finally to Athens, in the fortieth year of his age, 
 Plato set up his school in the groves of the Academia and began 
 to expound his dialectics and to teach the immortal doctrines 
 which still encircle his name with a halo of eternal light. To this 
 school flocked the bright minds of the world. Here was fashioned 
 the sinewy intellect of Aristotle and here was moulded the mighty 
 genius of Demosthenes. 
 
 "Hither as to a fountain 
 Other suns repair, and in their urns 
 Draw golden light." 
 
 Learning of Plato's vast renown, Dionysius of Syracuse wrote to 
 express the hope that the philosopher would not think ill of him, 
 and received this august and laconic reply: 'Tlato hath not 
 leisure to think of Dionysius." For a period of forty years, and 
 until death ended his labors, Plato continued to write and teach. 
 It is believed that all his writings have reached us unimpaired. 
 "For richness and beauty of imagination," says one of the 
 foremost English critics, "no philosophic writer, ancient or mod- 
 ern, is comparable to Plato. The only fault of his imagination is, 
 such an excess of fertility as allows it sometimes to obscure his 
 judgment. It frequently carries him into allegory, fiction, enthu- 
 siasm, and the airy regions of mystical theology. The philoso- 
 pher is, at times, lost in the poet. But whether we be edified 
 with the matter or not (and much edification he often affords), 
 
44 PLATO 
 
 we are always entertained with the manner; and left with a 
 strong impression of the sublimity of the author's genius." 
 
 Associated with Plato's doctrine of immortality was his doc- 
 trine of the soul's reminiscence, a subconscious recollection of 
 beauties contemplated in the pre-earthly existence, a thought 
 most beautifully expressed in Wordsworth's ode on "Intimations 
 of Immortality": 
 
 "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting. 
 
 And com.eth from afar: 
 Not in entire forgetfulness. 
 
 And not in utter nakedness. 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we com.e 
 From God who is our home." 
 
 The writings of Plato not only exercised great influence upon such 
 minds as those of Cicero and Plutarch, followers of "the vision 
 splendid" in ancient times, but they profoundly affected the Stoics 
 as well as the early Christian Fathers, and cast their mystic spell 
 far into future ages, where we find their indelible Impress upon 
 much of the world's best literature. One cannot proceed far, in 
 either literature or philosophy, without encountering the massive 
 intellect and the golden eloquence of Plato. Thus do we find it 
 reflected in Addison's "Cato", Act V., Sc. I : 
 
 "It must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well. — 
 
 Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 
 This longing after immortality? 
 
 Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror. 
 
 Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
 
 Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 
 
 'Tis the divinity that stirs wdthin us; 
 
 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 
 And intimates eternity to man." 
 
PLATO 45 
 
 Plato is greatest in his metaphysics. He has been aptly called 
 ''the Shakespeare of ideas." He is not so happy in the political 
 wriMngs of his later years. He totally misconceived the duties 
 of citizenship and the proper functions of the state. Mr. Grote 
 thinks that he borrowed much of his ''RepubHc" from the Spartan 
 constitution of Lycurgas. He would have done far better to have 
 elaborated the work of his own great ancestor, Solon, in the con- 
 stitution of Athens. Of these later works we can only observe, 
 with Prof. Jowett: "The wings of his imagination have begun 
 to droop, but his experience of life remains, and he turns from the 
 contemplation of the eternal to take a last sad look at human 
 affairs." Plato's ''Republic" was the natural progenitor of More's 
 "Utopia," Bacon's "New Atlantis," Harrington's "Oceana," and 
 Campanella's "City of the Sun." 
 
VI. 
 PLUTARCH. 
 
 The exact dates of the birth and death of Plutarch are un- 
 known, but the period of his life may be safely approximated at 
 A. D. 50 to A. D. 120. Although he established no new school of 
 thought, and although his style of composition is not distinguished 
 for any peculiar beauty or elegance, he is nevertheless one of the 
 most celebrated writers of antiquity, and is remarkable for his 
 humane principles and his unsullied moral excellence. 
 
 Plutarch was born at the little town of Chaeronaea, and spent 
 his last days there. It is also known that he was entrusted with 
 a diplomatic mission to Kome, and resided for some time at that 
 great capital, where, in the time of Domitian, he delivered lectures 
 on philosophy. There is a report, doubted by many, but believed 
 by Langhorne and others, that he was tutor to the emperor 
 Trajan. Certainly the humane traits of that excellent prince 
 would suggest naught against the supposition. It is definitely 
 known, hov\^ever, that Plutarch's nephew, Sextus, was a preceptor 
 of the great Marcus Aurelius, who publicly acknowledged, in his 
 "Meditations," his indebtedness to that philosopher, in terms pe- 
 culiarly applicable to Plutarch himself. 
 
 The greater part of the writings of Plutarch are now no 
 longer extant. Of those that remain, civilization is chiefly in- 
 debted to him for his ''Lives of Illustrious Men." 
 
 Among all the biographical works ever written, in either 
 ancient or modern times, Plutarch's Lives will easily rank first. 
 No writer has had a greater influence upon the youthful mind. 
 Alfieri was first inspired with a passion for literature by reading 
 Plutarch's Lives. The great Napoleon received his first inspira- 
 tion from the same source. He has been accorded the highest 
 praise by such critics as Petrarch, Montaigne, St. Evremont and 
 Montesquieu, and was Montaigne's favorite author. Sir John 
 Lubbock places Plutarch's Lives among the one hundred best 
 
 46 
 
PLUTARCH 47 
 
 books which should be in every Ubrary and read by every person 
 pretendinof to any degree of culture. The world's literature in all 
 ages since his day has been embellished by this great work. 
 
 In 1579 Sir Thomas North translated the Lives from a 
 French version into English, and this work beyond all doubt fur- 
 nished Shakespeare with the materials for Coriolanus, Timon of 
 Athens, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. In some in- 
 stances the gjreat English dramatist has appropriated the lan- 
 guage of Plutarch almost verbatim. This is particularly true 
 of his "Julius Caesar," and also of his '"Coriolanus." "The Life 
 of Theseus," and "The Life of Pericles" also served in Shake- 
 speare's Midsummer-Night's Dream and in Pericles. 
 
 It is remarkable How great a portion of our knowledge of the 
 illustrious men of antiquity is drawn from Plutarch. Thus, Lord 
 Bacon says: "One of the Seven was wont to say: That laws were 
 like cob-webs; where the small flies were caught, and the great 
 break through'." But none of the Seven Wise Men of Greece 
 ever said any such thing. In the life of Solon, Plutarch records 
 the fact that v/hile the great Athenian was working on his laws, 
 he was visited by Anarcharsis, the Scythian, and "when Anarch- 
 arsis heard what Solon was doing, he laughed at the folly of 
 thinking that he could restrain the unjust proceedings and avarice 
 of his fellow citizens by written laws, which, he said, resembled 
 in every way spiders' webs, and would, hke them, catch and hold 
 only the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful would easily 
 break through them." Curiously enough, the modern world, fol- 
 lowing Bacon, has quite unjustly attributed this Scythian senti- 
 ment to Solon. 
 
 Many are the noble sentiments that gleam in the "Lives," 
 as well as in the "Morals" of Plutarch. However, space permits 
 us to present but fev/: 
 
 "It is more fitting to err on the side of religion, from a regard 
 to ancient and received opinion, than to err through obstinacy and 
 presumption." 
 
48 PLUTARCH 
 
 And this, on education: 
 
 "Men derive no pfreater advantage from a liberal education 
 than that it tends to soften and polish their nature, by improving 
 their reasoning faculties and training their habits, thus producing 
 an evenness of temper and banishing all extremes." 
 
 And this, on statesmanship: 
 
 "The honest and upright statesman pays no regard to the 
 popular voice except with this view, that the confidence it pro- 
 cures him may facilitate his designs, and crown them with suc- 
 cess." In other words, a great statesman must do the right and 
 just thing, whether his constituency wish him to do so or not. 
 
VII. - 
 
 MENANDER. 
 
 Menander, a native of Athens (born B. C. 342, died B. C. 291), 
 was the most celebrated poet of the ''new comedy." His father 
 was a famous Athenian general. Menander was an intimate 
 friend of the philosopher Epicurus, whose teaching was reflected 
 in the light-hearted, sprightly nature and frolicsome disposition 
 of the poet. He was of handsome person, gay, and fond of lux- 
 ury, but does not appear to have been grossly addicted to the 
 vices of his time. He was the author of more than a hundred 
 plays, and for several centuries after his death his plays were 
 the most popular among the Grecian comedies. 
 
 Menander spent the greater part of his life mingling in the 
 swirl of Athenian gaiety, while residing at his villa near the 
 city. The King of Egj^pt, one of his ardent admirers, extended 
 to him a pressing invitation to reside as his guest at the Egyptian 
 capital, but the Greek poet preferred his own care-free life to the 
 gilded conventionality and soul-bought largess of a royal court. 
 
 Not a single one of his plays has survived to modern times, 
 but we may form some conception of their excellence by the nu- 
 merous imitations afforded us in the plays of Plautus and Terence. 
 Ancient critics extolled the writings of Menander for their poetic 
 artistry, refined wit and sententious humor; and for his grasp 
 of human nature, and the purity of his moral concepts. More 
 than a thousand fragments of his works have come down to us, 
 and they in no wise detract from the esteem in which we are con- 
 strained to hold him because of the laudations of ancient authori- 
 ties. 
 
 We are indebted to German scholarship for the best extant 
 editions of the ''Fragments": one by Meineke (Berhn, 1841) and 
 the other by Kock (Leipzig, 1888). 
 
 Menander's incisive wit is aptly set forth in his dealings with 
 the "eternal feminine," as when he says : 
 
 4P 
 
50 MENANDER 
 
 "Happy am I who have no wife!" Or, this: "Where are 
 women, there are all kinds of mischief." Anvd this: "The wife 
 ought to play the second part, the husband ruling in everything; 
 for there is no family in which the wife has had the upper hand, 
 which has not gone to ruin." 
 
 Elsewhere he says: "To marry a wife, if we regard the 
 truth, is an evil, but it is a necessary evil/' How suggestive, 
 this, of St, Chrysostom's description of woman as "a necessary 
 evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, 
 a deadly fascination and a painted ill!" And of the outburst of 
 honest old Thomas Otway, in "The Orphan", (Act iii., Sc. 1) : 
 
 "What mighty ills have not been done by woman! 
 Who was't betray'd the Capitol? A woman; 
 Who lost Mark Antony the world ? A wom.an ; 
 Who was the cause of a long ten years' war. 
 And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman; 
 Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!" 
 
 In the same spirit did Milton cry out in the anguish of his heart 
 (Paradise Lost, Bk. ix., 1. 888) : 
 
 "Oh, why did God, 
 Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven ' 
 
 With spirits masculine, create at last 
 This novelty on earth, this fair defect 
 Of nature, and not fill the world at once 
 With men as angels without feminine. 
 Or find some other way to generate 
 Mankind ? This mischief had not then befallen." 
 
 Following his anti-feminine bent, Menander also observed that 
 "A daughter is an embarrassing and ticklish possession." Per- 
 haps he gave the cue to Sheridan (The Duenna, Act i., sc. 3) : 
 
MENANDER 51 
 
 "If a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life; 
 No peace shall you know, though you've buried your wife ! 
 At twenty she mocks at the duty you taught her — 
 Oh, what a plague is an obstinate daughter !" 
 
 In another fragment Menander pursues the same thought: "A 
 wise son is a delight to his father, while a daughter is a trouble- 
 some possession." And then he adds: "Of all wild beasts on 
 earth or in sea, the greatest is a woman." 
 
 But Menander did not write solely to provide texts for the 
 mysogonists. Passing from the contemplation of sentiments so 
 little promotive of marital felicity and domestic concord, we find 
 our poet gifted with a wealth of wisdom denied to many minds of 
 more sober hue. Thus, he says : 
 
 "Evil communications corrupt good manners" — a phrase we 
 afterwards find in the New Testament. 
 
 "No just man has ever become suddenly rich." 
 
 "It does not become any living man to say, 'This will not hap- 
 pen to me'." 
 
 "Every wise and honorable man hates a lie." 
 
 "Nothing is more useful to a man than silence." 
 
 "Whosoever lends a greedy ear to a slanderous report is either 
 himself of a radically bad disposition, or a mere child in sense." 
 
 "How pleasant a thing it is for brothers to dwell together in 
 unity" — almost the exact words of the 133rd Psalm: "Behold, 
 how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
 unity !" 
 
 "It is the mind that ought to be rich; for the riches of this 
 world only feed the eyes, and serve merely as a veil to cover the 
 realities of life." 
 
 That Menander knew something about the science of health 
 preservation is evident from the following: 
 
 "The plague dwells where sanitary laws are neglected." 
 
^'2 MENANDER 
 
 Menander won the prize in comedy at the age of twenty-one, 
 and achieved seven similar triumphs during his dramatic career. 
 He was fond of athletic sports, and was drowned while swimming 
 in the harbor of the Pireaeus. Menander loved the country life, 
 and it was a great saying of his that "Men are taught virtue and 
 love of independence by living in the country." 
 
 Finally, he was not oblivious of the lesson of mortality : "If 
 thou wishest to know what thou art, look at the monuments of 
 the dead as thou passest along the road; there thou wilt find the 
 bones and light dust of kings, and tyrants, and v/ise men, and of 
 those who prided themselves on their blood and riches, on their 
 glorious deeds, and on the beauty of their persons; but none of 
 these things could resist the power of time. All men have a 
 common grave. Looking at these things, thou mayest know what 
 thou art." Yea, verily ! As it is written in the Book of Genesis 
 (iii:19) — 'Tor dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 
 
VIII. 
 PINDAR. 
 
 It is related by Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander the Great, 
 that when Thebes fell before his conquering arms only the house 
 of Pindar was spared, and thus did the poet's posterity escape the 
 wholesale destruction visited upon their city; so great was Alex- 
 ander's veneration of the memory of the Theban poet. The 
 Spartan soldiery, noted for implacable cruelty, had already, on a 
 previous occasion, shown by their forbearance the same pious 
 regard for the inspired Theban. 
 
 Thus was impressed upon the ancient mind the fame of 
 Pindar, the father of lyric poetry. He was born at or near Thebes, 
 B. C. 522, and died B. C. 442. He was educated in music and 
 poetry, and showed great talent at an early age. An old Grecian 
 legend recites that in his youth a swarm of bees alighted upon his 
 lips, attracted by the sv/eetness that was soon to richly trickle 
 forth its honeyed harmonies of entrancing verse. Pindar drank 
 deeply of the pure Pierian spring, and soared on golden wing unto 
 the highest pinnacle of song. His praises were sounded by such 
 eminent masters as Cicero and Pausanias. Plato called him the 
 "divine Pindar," and distinguished him by the epithet "most 
 wise." Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Christian Fa- 
 thers, declared him to have been well versed in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. Pindar was contemporary with Aeschylus, and shared, 
 with that great master of Greek tragedy, the warm personal 
 friendship of King Hiero of Syracuse, at whose court he resided 
 for four years. Of the golden treasury of verse created by his 
 magic pen, only the "Triumphal Odes" have reached our times. 
 Of all his paeans, odes and hymns, which smote the ear of an- 
 tiquity with the voice of a god and trembled away into the silence 
 of the ages, the greater part are lost; but the dying echo of his 
 silver-throated trump still lingers in such lines as these, describ- 
 
 53 
 
54 PINDAR 
 
 ing the islands of the blessed, in the Second Olympic Ode : 
 
 **But they whose spirit thrice refined 
 Each arduous conquest could endure, 
 And keep the firm and perfect mind 
 From all contagion pure; 
 : Along the stated path of Jove 
 
 To Saturn's royal courts above 
 
 Have trod their heavenly way 
 \^'Tiere round the islands of the bless'd 
 
 The ocean breezes play; 
 There golden flow'rets ever blow, 
 Some springing from earth's verdant breast, 
 These on the lonely branches glow. 
 While those are nurtured by the waves below. 
 From them the inmates of these seats divine 
 Around their hands and hair the woven garlands twine." 
 
 In his translations Pindar has not been so fortunate as have 
 others among the Greek classics. Among the most elaborate of 
 modern criticisms is the profound and scholarly work of Schmidt, 
 in German, and the brilliant essay of Villemain, in French. 
 Among the most successful English translations are those of 
 Carey, Abraham Moore, Morice, and Baring. Pindar has had 
 many imitators among both the ancients and the moderns. The 
 Pindaric Odes of Thomas Gray are the purest specimens of their 
 kind in English. The many attempts among the Latins to imi- 
 tate Pindar were deprecated by wise old Horace, who said, in his 
 **Carmina:" 
 
 **He who studies to imitate the poet Pindar, Julius, relies 
 on artificial wings, fastened on with wax." 
 
 Horace thus enumerates the numerous themes upon which 
 the prolific muse of Pindar was employed: 
 
PINDAR 55 
 
 "Whether th' immortal gods he sings 
 
 In a no less immortal strain, 
 Or the great acts of god-descended kingS; 
 
 Who in his numbers still survive and reign; 
 Whether in Pisa's race he please 
 To carve in polish'd verse the conqueror's image ; 
 Whether some brave man's untimely fate 
 In words vi^rth dying for he celebrate ; 
 Such mournful and such pleasing words. 
 As joy to his mother's and his mistress' grief affords." 
 
 The quotation is from the ode of Horace beginning "Pin- 
 darum quisquis," etc., and the translation is by Cowley. 
 
 Pindar was probably the premier panegyrist of all history. 
 His fame extended throughout all the Hellenic states, and by 
 every great city and state he was called upon to compose the 
 choruses, hymns and triumphal odes for great festive occasions. 
 And therefore Horace quite truly says that many ancient kings 
 who would otherwise be unknown to fame 
 
 «* * 
 
 * in his numbers still survive and reign." 
 
 In concluding this sketch, let us offer one Pindaric phrase 
 that has stood the test of twenty-five centuries and is still true 
 today : *'In every form of government a straight forward, plain- 
 speaking man is most respected, whether it be a despotism, or 
 tumultous democracy, or where the educated few hold sway." 
 
IX. 
 ANACREON. 
 
 I see Anacreon smile and sing; 
 His silver tresses breathe perfume; 
 His cheeks display a second spring 
 Of roses, taught by wine to bloom. 
 Away, deceitful Care! away, 
 And let me listen to his lay. 
 
 — Akenside, Ode XHI., "On Lyric Poetry." 
 
 Anacreon, the leading amatory poet of Greece, and one of the 
 greatest lyric bards of all time, flourished during the greater part 
 of the sixth century before the Christian era, and was contem- 
 porary with Cyrus the Great, King Polycrates of Samos, and Hip- 
 parchus, of Athens. He was a native of Teos, a city of Ionia, 
 it is said that by the captivating strains of his songs he softened 
 the heart of Polycrates and developed in the tyrant a spirit of 
 Idndness toward his subjects. Hipparchus, the Athenian tyrant, 
 said by Plato to have been the first to edit the poems of Homer 
 and cause them to be sung at public festivals, heard of the fame 
 of the Ionic bard and sent a galley with fifty oars to bring him 
 across the Aegean sea. So greatly was Anacreon esteemed in his 
 native city that his likeness was stamped upon the coins ; and in 
 Athens, after his death, a statue of him was erected at the Acro- 
 pohs. 
 
 Only a few of the odes of Anacreon remain, but they are suf- 
 ficient to portray the enchanting elegance of his flowing verse. 
 Thomas Moore says, in the preface to his translation of the "Odes 
 of Anacreon" : "After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed 
 both by ancients and moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we 
 need not be diflfident at expressing our raptures at their beauty, 
 nor hesitate to pronounce them the most polished remains of 
 
 56 
 
ANACREON 57 
 
 antiquity. They are, indeed, all beauty, all enchantment." So 
 speaks one of the great masters of English verse. We need not, 
 however, seek the grand conflagrations of Homer in the love- 
 sparks of the Teian muse; for, as he himself has sung in the 
 Second Ode (Moore's translation) : 
 
 ''Give me the harp of epic song. 
 Which Homer's finger thrilled along; 
 But tear away the sanguine string, 
 For war is not the theme I sing." 
 
 Quite to the contrary, indeed, we find him ever "dancing to the 
 lute's soft strain," where "purple clusters twine," and "hyacinths 
 sweet odors breathe," amid the "perfumed gales from beds of 
 flowers," tuning his lyre to "love's sweet silver sounds ;" celebrat- 
 mg "blithe Bacchus, the generous god of wine," or "Venus, love's 
 sweet smiling queen, rising from her silver sea," cheering his con- 
 vivial votaries with "golden goblets" of "rosy wine," while trilling 
 forth pulsating symphonies of love. 
 
 One of the choicest bits of lyric art is his Fifty-third Ode, 
 "On the Rose," from which are culled the following familiar lines 
 (Bourne's translation), detailing the origin of the poet's favorite 
 flower : 
 
 "A drop of pure nectareous dew 
 From heaven the bless'd immortals threw ; 
 A while it trembled on the thorn. 
 And then the lovely rose was born. 
 To Bacchus they the flower assign, 
 And roses still his brows intwine." 
 
 The Fifth Ode of Bourne's translation is also inspired by the rose, 
 which he describes as adding "fresh fragrance to the wine ;" and 
 then the poet strikes his quivering harp and warbles forth in most 
 exquisite mood: 
 
58 ANACREON 
 
 "Oh, lovely rose ! to thee I sing, ; 
 
 Thou sweetest, fairest child of spring! i 
 
 Oh, thou art dear to all the gods, | 
 
 The darhng of their bless'd abodes. \ 
 
 Thy breathing buds and blossoms fair ] 
 
 Entwine young Cupid's golden hair, '■ 
 
 When gayly dancing, hand in hand, \ 
 
 He joins the Graces' lovely band." i 
 
 \ 
 
 Anon the old bard laughs at himself and makes merry over j 
 
 his advancing age, as when, in the Eleventh Ode, he sings : ] 
 
 " 'Anacreon', the lasses say, 
 
 'Old fellow, you have had your day'," etc. 
 
 In the Nineteenth Ode he very gravely sets forth his reasons for ^ 
 
 drinking : i 
 
 "The earth drinks up the genial lains i 
 Which deluge all her thirsty plains ; 
 
 The lofty trees that pierce the sky 1 
 
 Drain up the earth and leave her dry ; i 
 
 Th' insatiate sea imbibes, each hour, ! 
 
 The welcome breeze that brings the show'r ; i 
 
 The sun, whose fires so fiercely burn, | 
 
 Absorbs the wave ; and, in her turn, i 
 The modest moon enjoys, each night, 
 
 Large draughts of his celestial light. i 
 
 Then, sapient sirs, pray tell me why, ! 
 If all things drink, why may not I?" - • 
 
 From such ribald merriment he turns to sighs of tender senti- 
 ment and rosy love, like his ode "The Dream," of which Madame I 
 Dacier says that it is one of the finest and most gallant odes of 
 antiquity, and has been greatly admired by all who "rove the 
 flowery paths of love." 
 
ANACREON 59 
 
 How like the mellow-throated nightingale's melodious note, 
 trilling flute-like from some scented Lydian grove, are the sweet, 
 seductive measures of Anacreon, with all his lilting levities, pip- 
 ing plaintively his tender songs of love, breathing fragrance 
 where they blovv% murmuring his soft Aeolian sounds through 
 rosy bowers, or in the fronded shadow of the trees, where yet 
 the loitering Graces love to linger among the v/hispering violets, 
 and wood-nymphs dance upon the sward! Hf- did not essay the 
 empyrean heigjits of song, buoyed by the battle-trump, to revel 
 in the conflicts of the gods. His was a gentler m.use, lulled by the 
 breath of flutes, seeking the sequestered nooks, frolicking among 
 the flowerS; basking with the satyrs and the fauns, luxuriating in 
 the langour of the lapping wave, titillating among the fountains, 
 lolling in blossoms, or sipping nectar from the silver dews. Frown 
 upon him as we may, deprecate his morals as we must, no sweeter 
 song is treasured in the heart than that which beauty purloins 
 from the lips of youth; and, so long as men are men and maids 
 are maids, youth and health will succumb to Anacreon's subtle 
 and subduing charm, or struggle to resist hi^:: soft, bewitching 
 spell. He is a living flower among garlands that are dead. Gone 
 is the muse from Hellas; gone are the dream and song; gone is 
 the haunting sweetness of the lute's voluptuous lay; but while 
 aught of Anacreon remains, their pictured memories will forever 
 ghnt and glow along the golden sands of Time. 
 
X. 
 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Theocritus, the father of Greek pastoral poetry, and the first 
 great artist of his kind, flourished in the first half of the third 
 century B. C. He was born in Syracuse, and King Hiero II. was 
 liis friend. But his great patron was Ptolmey Philadelphus, King 
 of Egypt, the founder of the Alexandrian Library. We have no 
 further biographical data touching his career, aside from the fact 
 that some thirty Idyls bear his name; some of these, no doubt, 
 being spurious. 
 
 To the student of literature, Theocritus, however meager his 
 remains, will be forever treasured as the founder of that delight- 
 ful school of poesy which has enriched all the languages of civili- 
 zation with its placid portrayal of country life. Theocritus was 
 followed by two Greek pastoral poets, Bion and Moschus. But 
 his greatest disciple in ancient times was Virgil. 
 
 In his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Prof. Blair 
 observes that Theocritus is distinguished for the simplicity of his 
 sentiments; for the sweetness and harmony of his numbers, and 
 for the richness of his scenery and description. *'He is the origi- 
 nal, of which Virgil is the imitator. For most of Virgil's highest 
 beauties in his Eclogues are copies from Theocritus; in many 
 places he has done nothing more than translate him." Theocritus 
 followed Nature; whereas, Virgil followed Theocritus. From 
 ^^irgil the bucolic motive spread to Catullus and Horace, and 
 finally through all the languages of western Europe. 
 
 Dante, Petrarch, Giovanni and Boccaccio led the Virgilian 
 revival in Italy in the fourteenth century, being followed in the 
 sixteenth century by Tasso and Guarini, all of whom produced 
 pastorals patterned after the ancient classics. In France the 
 pastoral ideal culminated in the "Astree," a prose romance pub- 
 
 60 
 
THEOCRITUS 61 
 
 lished in the seventeenth century by d'Urife. In Spain we find 
 its rarest triumph in the ''Galatea" of Cervantes, and in Germany 
 the pastoral reached its most perfect form in Goethe's ''Hermann 
 und Dorothea," which harks back to the simplicity and purity of 
 Theocritus. 
 
 In England the pastoral sprang into being under the magic 
 touch of Edmund Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar, and blos- 
 somed into the full fruition of its undying charms in the works 
 of Fletcher, Ben Johnson and Shakespeare, and in the "Comus" 
 and "Lycidas" of John Milton. The critics are not partial to the 
 pastorals of Pope and Am^brose Philips, published early in the 
 eighteenth century. In m^ore recent times, the traces of Theocri- 
 tus are readily discernible in Tennyson's "Dora" and "The Miller's 
 Daughter," Thus has the lay of the Sicilian shepherd made its 
 pipings audible to every ear attuned to the harmonies of nature, 
 through all the great languages of ancient and modern times. 
 In whatever tongue he speaks, his idyls retain their pristine tresh- 
 ness to the present hour. What rustic scene, for example, could 
 be more truly drawn than this: 
 
 "Poplars and elms above their foliage spread, 
 Lent a cool shade, and wav'd the breezy head ; 
 Below, a stream from the nymph's sacred cave, 
 In free meanders led its murm'ring wave- 
 In the warm sunbeams, verdant shades among, 
 Shrill grasshoppers renew'd their plaintive song; 
 At distance far, conceal'd in shades, alone, 
 Sweet Philomela pour'd her tuneful moan ; 
 The lark, the goldfinch, warbled lays of love, 
 And sweetly pensive coo'd the turtle-dove; 
 While honey-bees, forever on the wing, 
 Humm'd round the flowers, or sipt the silver spring ; 
 The rich, ripe season gratified the sense 
 With summer's sweets, and autumn's redolence. 
 Apples and pears lay strew'd in heaps around, 
 And the plum's loaded branches kiss'd the ground." 
 
62 THEOCRITUS 
 
 In his later days Theocritus grew dissatisfied with the court 
 of Hiero, and retired to the country, where the remainder of his 
 hfe was spent in contemplation of those rural scenes which his 
 pen has preserved with a fidelity and simplicity so often imitated, 
 i'o rarely equalled, so universally admired, and forever unsur- 
 passed. He it was who vocalized the shepherd's song and taught 
 the rustic maid to speak the language of the heart; who tinted 
 the wealth of nature with the wonders of human speech ; and he 
 it was who found, two thousand years before great Shakespeare's 
 time, 
 
 «Hc * * tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 As James Russell Lowell so beautifully said, in his oration on the 
 250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard College: "The 
 gardens of Sicily are empty now, but the bees from all climes 
 still fetch honey from the tiny garden plot of Theocritus." 
 
PART THREE. 
 
 GREAT ITALIAN AUTHORS 
 
 I. DANTE. 
 
 II. PETRARCH. 
 
 III. BOCCACCIO. 
 
 IV. TASSO. 
 
 V. ARIOSTO. 
 
 VI. BOIARDO. 
 
 VII. MICHELANGELO. 
 
 VIII. MACHIAVELLI. 
 
 IX. METASTASIO. 
 
 X. ALFIERI. 
 
Italy is still the privileged land of nature and 
 humanity; and the manly pith of its great ages is 
 neither degenerated nor dried up. Involved, by the 
 irresistible fall of the old world, in the decay of the 
 universal empire she had founded, no nation upon 
 earth has withstood so long a period of deposition 
 without debasement and dissolution. Her glory, her 
 religion, her genius, her name, her language, her 
 monuments and her larts, have continued to reign 
 after the fall of her fortune She alone has not 
 had an age of civil darkness after her age of mili- 
 tary dlominion. She has subjected the barbarians 
 who conquered her, to her worship, her laws, and her 
 civilization. While profaning, they submitted to 
 her; though conquerors, they humbly besought her 
 for laws, manners and religion. Nearly the whole 
 continent is nothing but an intellectual, moral and 
 religious colony of this mother country of Europe, 
 Asia and Africa. * * * War, policy, literature, com- 
 merce, arts, navigation, manufactures, diplomacy, 
 all emanated from Italy. Her names resemble those 
 eternal dynasties, on which the supremacy, in every 
 region of the human mind, has been devolved by 
 nature, and of, which such men as Sixtus V., Leo X., 
 Cosmo, Tasso, Dante, Machiavel, Michael Angelo, 
 Raphael, Petrarch, Galileo, Doria, and Christopher 
 Columbus, transmit to each other, even at this day, 
 the scepter that no other nation could snatch from 
 their privileged race. 
 
 — Lamartine. 
 
I. 
 
 DANTE. 
 
 Dante Alighieri, "father of Ttfscan literature," and greatest 
 of the Italian poets, was born in Florence, in the year 1265, and 
 died at Ravenna in the year 1321, aged fifty-six years and four 
 months. Aside from the romantic story of his love for Beatrice, 
 little of his early life is known. After the marriage of Beatrice 
 to another, and her early death, the poet resolver' that if he lived 
 he would write of her "what had never yet been written of any 
 v'oman." His resolution was magnificently carried out in the 
 Divinia Commedia. 
 
 Dante was now past twenty-five years of age. He consoled 
 himself by reading philosophical books, which, ho says, were read 
 by him with great difficulty. Five or six years after the death 
 of Beatrice he married. He reared four children. In about the 
 year 1295 Dante enrolled himself in the Guild of Physicians and 
 Apothecaries. In the year 1300 he entered politics. Here his 
 miseries began. He was an upright and honest citizen, and a 
 zealous and fearless advocate of civil and religious liberty. His 
 first public employment was upon a diplomatic mission. In the 
 same year he was elected to one of the highest offices in the gift 
 r.f the city. But Florence, like the other petty Italian states of 
 the time, was badly disrupted by factional strife. The most 
 thorough search of historical records has demonstrated, beyond 
 peradventure, that Dante's public life, like his private conduct, 
 was at all times honest and clean. Nevertheless, while he was 
 c-way on public business, leaders of a rival faction seized the gov- 
 ernment ; and, without arraignment, investigation or trial, pro- 
 ceeded to convict Dante of extortion, peculation and malversation 
 in office, and levied against him a ruinous fine, besides decreeing 
 hanishment for two years, and perpetual disqualification from 
 office. Dante declined to recognize the validity of this iniquitous 
 
 • 63 
 
64 DANTE 
 
 decree, and a second sentence was pronounced against him, order- 
 ing him to be burned aHve. 
 
 Dante remained an exile for the remainder of his life. Never 
 again did he set foot upon the soil of his native city. But his 
 enemies were never able to capture him and carry out their in- 
 famous designs against his life. We are unable to follow the dis- 
 tressed and persecuted poet in his wanderings, but we know that 
 he travelled over Italy seeking to organize expeditions for the 
 relief and redemption of his beloved Florence from the murderous 
 band of ruffianly marplots who had gained control of the city. 
 He visited various cities of France. Boccaccio thinks that he 
 visited England and studied at Oxford ; but there is scant evidence 
 of this. He finally settled at Ravenna, where he finished his im- 
 mortal poem, the Divinia Commedia, in one hundred cantos, 
 ciivided into three books, the Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Para- 
 diso. The poem is not an epic, and it is not a satire. It defies 
 classification in the ordinary categories of verse. It is the soul 
 of Dante; as such it stands and weaves its mystic spell. The 
 Commedia is published in over three hundred editions, in every 
 modern language, and its commentators form a library. Dante 
 was unknown to the English-reading pubHc until about one hun- 
 dred years ago, when Carey's translation was published, in 1805-6. 
 Even Carey's version (still the most popular English translation) 
 ^anguished in obscurity for several years, and until 1818, when it 
 .\.as warmly praised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in one of his 
 London lectures, and as a consequence, the work sprang into im.- 
 mediate popularity. 
 
 Soon after his death, when the matchless dream of his un- 
 dying genius was the sensation of the hour, and the world of 
 letters was worshipping at the tomb of Dante, his countrymen 
 began to show every honor to his memory. A public lectureship 
 was established to expound his poem, and Boccaccio was the first 
 lecturer. Often in the ages that have since cast their mantle 
 of oblivion over the wicked generation which so shamefully abused 
 their city's noblest son, the people of Florence have, without avail, 
 sought to procure from Ravenna the ashes of the poet — seeking 
 
DANTE 65 
 
 the poet's ashes, when, as Lowell so aptlj^ remarked, if they had 
 caught the poet living they would have converted his body into 
 cinders. Whereat we cannot but observe, with Byron (Child 
 Harold, iv., St. 57) : 
 
 ''Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, 
 Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore.'* 
 Whether we wander in the hopeless terrors of the Inferno, 
 sense the star-lit beauties of the Purgatorio, or contemplate the 
 f?erene splendors of the Paradiso, we must conclude that, in the 
 v-hole range of literature, the vast creation of Dante is without 
 precursor; counterpart or progeny. As his vision of heaven re- 
 flects like a mirror the supernal gleam of the gates ajar, just so 
 surely does his dream of hell show forth the torments of the 
 damned. There is, there was, there can be, no other of its kind. 
 In his dark dominion Dante rules alone. He knows no partner in 
 Lis hermit sway. Like a meteor shot from eternity, or as light- 
 nings cleave the inky blackness of a storm-swept sky, his lurid 
 genius lights in fitful flashes the clouds that cover it, and then 
 goes thundering through the vastitudes of space, in an orbit all 
 its own, rolling like a planet in its solitary course. In the Inferno 
 V7e find no Peri knocking at the gates of dawn, seeking entrance 
 to the realms of light. The black wings of his imagination are 
 flapping at the gates of doom., or swooping like an avenging deity 
 along the dread Plutonian shore, where Tartarean caverns re-echo 
 a myriad groans and sighs, rumbling their deep diapason of hope- 
 less, helpless sorrow in that dismal concavity of endless woe. At 
 the unutterable horror of such scenes the heart sickens and re- 
 volts ; and yet, drawn by the spell of a terror so subtle, so resist- 
 less, so profound and undefined, we must turn and look, and look 
 again. And then, passing from the bhghted regions of the 
 damned, anon he soars aloft on pinions of eternal light to sing 
 his deathless song of Paradise — 
 
 ''As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form. 
 Swells from, the vale and midway leaves the storm. 
 Though round its breast the rolhng clouds are spread 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 
 
66 DANTE 
 
 Says Dr. Richard Garnett in his Italian Literature: *'He 
 moves through hfe a great, lonely figure, estranged from human 
 fellowship at every point, a citizen of eternity, misplaced and ill- 
 starred in time; too great to mingle with his age, or, by conse- 
 quence, to be of much practical service to it; too embittered and 
 austere to manifest in action the ineffable tenderness which may 
 be clearly read in his writings; one whose friends and whose 
 thoughts are in the other world, while he is yet more keenly alive 
 than any other man to the realities of this ; one whose greatness 
 impressed the world from the first and whom it does not yet fully 
 know after the study of six hundred years." They know him 
 best who fully understand the scholastic teachings of his great 
 contemporaries, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Duns 
 Seotus. The nature of his epic style is apparent from the Corn- 
 media, as Dante and Virgil enter the infernal gate: 
 
 "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" 
 These words in somber color I beheld 
 Written upon the summit of a gate. 
 
 He led me in among the secret things ; 
 There sighs, complaints and ululations loud 
 Resounded through the air without a star, 
 Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat. 
 Languages diverse, horrible dialects, 
 Accents of anger, words of agony. 
 And voices high and hoarse, with sound ot hands, 
 Made up a tumult that goes whirling on 
 Forever in that air, forever black. 
 Even as the sand doth when the whirlwind breathes. 
 
 It was the high prerogative of this super-spirit to pass eter- 
 nal judgment on the souls of men. The audacity of the concep- 
 tion in its very daring is sublime. The project, lightly essayed, 
 would have been an impious profanation. It almost savored of 
 attempting the throne of the Infinite. Who could dare to hold 
 
DANTE 67 
 
 >vithin his hand the scales of eternal justice? None — none but 
 the proud and melancholy soul of Dante ! And six hundred years 
 of human thought have all but decreed his judgments *'just and 
 righteous altogether." Let us view but a single one of his judg- 
 ments; and let the reader answer if it be just or no: 
 «* ^ * rpj^jg miserable fate 
 Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived 
 Without praise or blame, with that ill band 
 Of angels mix'd, who nor rebellious proved, 
 Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves 
 Were only. * * * 
 These of death 
 No hope may entertain ; and their blind life 
 So meanly passes, that all other lots 
 They envy. Fame of them the world hath none, 
 Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. 
 Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." 
 
 — ('Inferno," Carey's Translation.) 
 
 We can go no further with him no,w, but must leave him, with 
 his Virgil, here. But the reader is adjured to follow where he 
 leads — up the holy mount of the Purgatorio, and with Beatrice to 
 the Promised Land. For, as Dean Church says, "Dante certainly 
 did not intend to be read only in fine passages — to be properly 
 understood, and properly appreciated, he must be read as a whole, 
 D.nd studied as a whole." 
 
 In fine, we may conclude with Macaulay, in his "Criticisms 
 en the Principal Italian Writers : 
 
 "The style of Dante is, if not his highest, his most peculiar 
 excellence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The 
 noblest models of Greek com^position must yield to it. * * * I have 
 heard the most eloquent statesman of the age remark that, next 
 to Demosthenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most atten- 
 tively studied by every man who desires to attain oratorical ex- 
 cellence." 
 
II. 
 
 PETRARCH. 
 
 Francesco Petrarch, father of the Renaissance, was born in 
 1304 and died in 1374, after a career seldom or never parallelled 
 in the literary annals of any nation. He was born at Arezzo while 
 his father was an exile from Florence. Like so many of the 
 Italian literati, young Petrarch was intended for the law, but his 
 over-mastering passion for classical learning carried his talents 
 to a higher court. 
 
 Petrarch wrote more in Latin than in Italian, and prided 
 himself chiefly upon his "Africa," a Latin poem in hexameters, 
 in which he celebrated the adventures of Scipio Africanus. But 
 7t is his sonnets that have shed imperishable glory upon his name. 
 He did not invent the sonnet, but he furnished a model which has 
 served as a pattern for all succeeding ages. In these Italian 
 works, he established and perfected that pure and elegant Italian 
 style which has suffered less change in the past five hundred years 
 than it had experienced in the single century preceding him. 
 
 ''Dante and Petrarch are, as it were," says Hallam (Litera- 
 ture of Europe), ''the morning stars of our modern literature." 
 After Dante. Petrarch was the real creator of the Italian lan- 
 guage. But his first great service to polite learning was the work 
 of discovering, collating, copying and translating the manuscripts 
 of the ancient classics, a labor to which he continuously applied 
 himself with the most passionate ardour. He restored classical 
 cntiquity to Italy, and through Italy to the world. Heeren, the 
 great German authority, declares that the remainder of the ancient 
 manuscripts would have been hopelessly lost if Petrarch had not 
 appeared when he did. He is, therefore, beyond question, the 
 restorer of polite learning, and the genuine father of the Renais- 
 sance. He caught up anew the fires of ancient civilization, and 
 rekindled them in the hearts of his countrymen. He brushed 
 
 68 
 
PETRARCH 69 
 
 the dust from the crumbling monuments of antiquity, and re- 
 vealed for us the beauties of ancient art ; he touched the moulder- 
 ing manuscripts of a bygone age, and they poured forth their 
 golden flood of eloquence and song into the treasure-house of 
 modern letters; he tore aside the veil of literary darkness that 
 had for centuries beclouded the mind of man, and disclosed to 
 our delighted vision the sun-crowned heights of Olympus. 
 
 Petrarch had visited the seats of learning in Germany and 
 France, and enjoyed a wider acquaintance among men of letters 
 than any other literary man of his time. Chaucer knew him 
 personally, and his influence upon English letters was immediate 
 and extensive. Shakespeare mentions him in '''Rcmeo and Juliet.'* 
 In 1570 we find Ascham, in "The Scholemaster," voicing the 
 unique complaint that the people of England had begun to hold 
 *'in more reverence the triumphes of Petrarche than the Genesis 
 of Moses ; they make more account of Tullies offices than S. Paules 
 epistles; of a tale in Bocace than a storie of the Bible." Quite 
 so, indeed. ''These bee the inchantementes of Circes," he says, 
 "brought out of Italie to niarre mens maners in England." And 
 old Puttenham, in "The Arte of English Poesie " declares: "In 
 the latter end of the same king (Henry the eight) reigne, sprong 
 up a new company of courtly makers — who having travailed into 
 Italie, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile 
 cf Dante, Arioste, and Petrarche, they greatly poHshed our rude 
 and homely maner of vulgar Poesie." One of these "courtly 
 makers" was the Earl of Surrey, whom Taine calls "the English 
 Petrarch" 
 
 But there is no English Petrarch, and there will never be. 
 His sonnets to Laura are as inimitible as are the sublime creations 
 of Dante. In the crucible of his genius, the lam.bent flame of an 
 undying love becomes a supernal passion, with all dross of lust 
 or taint of grossness or sensuality forever purged away. Hallam 
 says : "It has never again been given to man, nor will it probably 
 be given, to dip his pen in those streams of etherial purity which 
 have made the name of Laura immortal." 
 
 Adored throughout Italy, Petrarch was the peculiar divinity 
 
70 PETRARCH 
 
 of the Florentines. In 1540 the Academy of Florence w^s insti- 
 tuted for the sole purpose of perfecting the Tuscan language by 
 the study of the poems of Petrarch. The critics of the period set 
 him up as a model of literary perfection, without flaw or defect, 
 and he was worshipped as a literary idol. Commentaries were 
 written upon almost every word, and whole volumes upon a single 
 sonnet. 
 
 Never was genius so amply and so spontaneously rewarded 
 as in the case of Petrarch. He numbered among his friends and 
 patrons the famous Colonni family, the Visconti, the Carrara 
 family of Padua, the Corregi of Parma, king Robert of Naples and 
 the Doge of Venice. Pope Clement VI. conferred upon him one 
 cr tw^o sinecure benefices, and would have made him a bishop if 
 lie had taken holy orders. The same pontiff offered him the 
 post of apostolical secretary, and the offer was renewed by Pope 
 Innocent VI. In 1340 he was invited to both Rome and Paris to 
 receive the laurel crown. He chose Rome, w^here, on Easter Sun- 
 day, 1341, he was solemnly crowned, amid the greatest possible 
 pomp and splendor. Nothing in the entire history of Italy re- 
 flects a finer glory upon the Italian people than their voluntary 
 adulation of the great author of the purest love-poems the world 
 has ever known. 
 
 Much has been written upon the subject of Laura and of the 
 nature of the poet's attachment for her. Byron asks, in the 8th 
 stanza of the third Canto of his Don Juan: 
 
 ''Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, 
 He would have written sonnets all his life?" 
 
 But the inquiry scarcely concerns us now. The Academy of Fer- 
 rara, after full investigation, solemnly decreed the Platonic purity 
 of Petrarch's devotion. It is highly probable that Laura, while 
 having an actual, physical basis of fact (not being, as some have 
 supposed, a mere figment of poetic imagination),, was in the con- 
 ception of Petrarch more of an ideal personage, in the nature of 
 a feminine abstraction, like Dante's Beatrice, Surry's Geraldine, 
 Sidney's Stella, or Tasso's Leonora, — not women, but woman in 
 general — although each actually existed to inspire a poet's love. 
 
PETRARCH 71 
 
 Boccaccio's Maria, to be sure, must be placed in a category some- 
 what less Platonic. Petrarch was not a skeptic like Boccaccio, 
 but throughout his career firmly professed his Christian faith. 
 It is not our proper function to further judge his morals now. 
 Enough for us the chastened note, the subdued pathos, the somber 
 sweetness, the solemn, penitential beauty of the song he sings : 
 
 Yon nightingale, whose strain so sweetly flows, 
 Mourning her ravished young or much-loved mate, 
 
 A soothing charm o'er all the valleys throws 
 
 And skies, with notes well tuned to her sad state. 
 — (Sonnet XLIIL, 'To Laura in Death.'^ 
 
 Or this, from his "Triumph of Eternity" : 
 
 Those spacious regions where our fancies roam, 
 Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come, 
 In some dread moment, by the fates assigned, 
 Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind ; 
 And Time's revolving wheel shall lose at last 
 The speed that spins the future and the past: 
 And, sovereign of an undisputed throne, 
 Awful eternity shall reign alone." 
 
 And thus he views, with Christian fortitude, the end of all (To 
 Laura in Death, Canzone V., St. 6) : 
 
 For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, 
 And who can rightly die needs no delay. 
 
 
III. 
 
 BOCCACCIO. 
 
 Giovanni Boccaccio, the father of the novel, was born 131S 
 and died 1375. Gay, garrulous, amorous old Boccaccio, the sport 
 of passion and the slave of lust! He can now hardly be read in 
 iinexpurgated form ; he is for the most part unfit for publication 
 at the present time, in circles where moral puritj is desired ; but, 
 for all that, there can be no complete knowledge of Italian litera- 
 ture without at least a partial knowledge of Boccaccio. Without 
 question, he is one of the really great figures of Tuscan litera- 
 ture. Some authorities, indeed, place him as the third great 
 figure of Italian literature, outranked by none but Dante and 
 Petrarch.- The remarkable fluidity of his purhng style, swift, 
 rapid and sparkling, marks him as the creator of classic Italian 
 prose, and his mother tongue owes its earliest model of grace and 
 refinement to his pen. 
 
 His love affairs were as numerous as they were discreditable. 
 But his *Tiammetta," the poetic name which he conferred upon 
 Maria, daughter of King Robert of Naples, inspired him to write 
 his "Filocopo," his "Ameto," and his ^Tiammetta," all which 
 were designed to celebrate her charms. He wrote many stories 
 and poems, and a life of Dante. But his most famous work is the 
 Decameron, a collection of one hundred tales. He imagines 
 these stories as being related by a party of ten refugees from 
 The plague at Florence. He also wrote a history of the plague, 
 and likewise translated many of the Greek and Latin authors into 
 Italian. In the labor of discovering, rescuing and translating 
 ancient manuscripts he was almost as indefatigable as his friend 
 Petrarch, under whose influence he fell at the age of thirty-seven. 
 He seems thereafter to have abandoned his wayward life, and to 
 have devoted his later energies to the purposes of a serious 
 scholarship. Following the leadership of Petrarch he became a 
 leader in the humanistic revival then upon its upward surge. It 
 
 72 
 
BOCCACCIO 73 
 
 Tvas at his suggestion that Lorenzo Pilato made the first trans- 
 lation of Homer into Latin. 
 
 In popularity, the collection of tales in the Decameron has 
 never been surpassed in the history of the world's literature. It 
 lias never, indeed, been equalled in popularity, if we except Chau- 
 <:;er's Canterbury Tales ; and, as is well known, Chaucer was deeply 
 indebted to Boccaccio, as were Shakespeare, Moliere, Fontaine 
 and others- It appears that Boccaccio fully repented of the 
 errors of his youth. Upon the advice of a dying priest, he was 
 about to retire from the world and join a monastic order, when 
 he was dissuaded from this course by his friend Petrarch. 
 
 Boccaccio was highly honored by his admiiing countrymen 
 of Florence, and he represented his people upon many diplomatic 
 missions. The object of one of these missions was to extend to 
 Petrarch an official invitation to take up his residence in Florence. 
 But the highest honor his city ever conferred upon him, and a 
 most fitting dignity, too, was bestowed in 1373, two years before 
 his death, when he was appointed to expound the "Divinia Com- 
 media" of Dante, at a salary of one hundred golden florins per. 
 annum. Had his life been spared for a few years it is not to be 
 doubted that his lectures upon Dante would have developed into 
 an interesting and scholarly work, vastly exceeding in value much 
 that has been written upon this most glorious product of the 
 middle ages. But his fame rests upon the Decameron. 
 
 "Among many views in which this epoch-making book may 
 be regar led," says F. M. Warren, in his History of the Novel 
 Previous to the Sixteenth Century, "is that of an alliance between 
 the elegant and superfine literature of courts and the vigorous 
 but homely literature of the people. Nobles and ladies, accus- 
 tomed to far-fetched and ornate compositions like the Tilocopo', 
 were made able by the 'Decameron' to hear the same stories 
 which amused the common people, told in a style which, too, the 
 imeducated could appreciate and enjoy, but purged of much rough- 
 ness and vulgarity and told in the only clear, forcible prose that 
 had yet been produced. This is Boccaccio's best defense against 
 the charge of licentiousness which has been so misconstruingljr 
 
74 BOCCACCIO 
 
 laid against him. He markedly did not write for the purpose of 
 stimulating the passions, but reproduced the ordinary talk of 
 moments of relaxation, giving it the attraction of a pure and 
 classic style." All which may be true, and to some extent is 
 undoubtedly true. But, none the less, men make the morals of 
 the ages in which they live, and we cannot doubt that, had Boc- 
 caccio so desired, he could, without detracting from their literary 
 beauty, have made his tales as pure as the love-poems of Petrarch, 
 a product of the same age that gave us the Decameron. The same 
 age, also, gave us the matchless moral philosophy of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas. But what is here said is not designed to in anywise 
 question the literary value of Boccaccio nor his position as not 
 only the founder of the novel, but the greatest novelist of Italy 
 up to the lime of Allesandro Mansoni, who died in 1873, and whose 
 '*I Promessa Sposi" is doubtless better known today than any 
 Italian book since the Divine Comedy, and remains to this day 
 as the greatest romance of Italian prose. 
 
IV. 
 TASSO. 
 
 Torquato Tasso, the greatest epic poet of the modern ages, 
 was born at Sorrento, Naples, in 1544, and died at the monastery 
 of St. Onofrio, in Rome, in 1595. His father, a poet of respectable 
 talents — and not without the temporal misfortmies which so often 
 attend such distinction — destined young Torquato for the law. 
 But the youthful poet, while outwardly engrossed with his legal 
 studies, was secretly occupied with the composition of his "Rinal- 
 00," a romantic poem in twelve cantos, which was received with 
 incredible applause throughout Italy. Tasso had not then at- 
 tained his eighteenth year. In one of the closing stanzas of the 
 piece, he thus alludes to his youth, and to the difficulties under 
 which he has worked: 
 
 "Thus have I sung in battlefield and bower, 
 Rinaldo's cares, and prattled through my page, 
 
 While other studies claim'd the irksome hour. 
 In the fourth lustre of my verdant age ; 
 
 Studies from which I hoped to have the power 
 The wrongs of adverse fortune to assuage; 
 
 ITngrateful studies, whence I pine away 
 
 Unknown to others, to myself a prey." 
 
 Sir William Blackstone (author of the famous "Commentaries"), 
 when he gave up literature for the law, wrote the poem, "A 
 Lawyer's Farewell to His Muse." But this historical romance of 
 Tasso's proved to be the muse's farewell to the law. From that 
 time forth, young Tasso's studies, diligently prosecuted at vari- 
 ous schools, were wholly literary and philosophical. The dedica- 
 tion of his "Rinaldo" to the Cardinal d'Este, brought him to the 
 favorable notice of the great house of Este, one of whose mem- 
 
 75 
 
76 , TASSO 
 
 bers, Alphonso II., was sovereign duke of Ferrara. He soon ac- 
 cepted an invitation from the duke to enter his service, and pro- 
 ceeded to the court of Ferrara, the scene of his glory and his grief. 
 
 For some years Tasso was the chief glory of this brilliant 
 Tend luxurious court. Every honor was paid him that was due to 
 the first poet of his day. In a clime so congenial hisr fertile genius 
 produced with ease. Here he brought forth his great pastoral 
 drama, the **Aminta," a pastoral worthy of Virgil or Theocritus, 
 and which, if he had written nothing else, would have forever 
 enshrined his name among the world's great poets. Meanwhile 
 he was rapidly completing the great temple of his dreams, the 
 "Gerusalemme Liberata" — Jerusalem Delivered — the great metri- 
 cal story of the Crusades. This vast work, in twenty cantos, is 
 the master-piece of a master mind. It is pre-emimently the one 
 incontestably great epic poem of the Age of Chivalry; a literary 
 labyrinth of knightly deeds, untainted love and Christian zeal. 
 
 Tasso, of course, cannot be said to equal Homer in poetic fire ; 
 but Voltaire insists that he is superior to Homer in the choice of 
 his subject. The gloomy grandeur of this stanza, from the fourth 
 canto, where Satan summons his infernal band, is seldom sur- 
 passed in the whole range of epic literature: 
 
 'Its hoarse alarm the Stygian trumpet sounded 
 Through the dark dwellings of the damn'd ; the vast 
 Tartarean caverns tremblingly rebounded. 
 Blind air rebellowing to the dreary blast ; 
 Hell quaked with all its millions ; never cast 
 Th' ethereal skies a discord so profound. 
 When the red lightning's vivid flash was past ; 
 Nor ever with such tremors rock'd the ground." 
 The reader will note how well the words portray the very 
 
 f^ounds and motions described in this passage. This is decidedly 
 Homeric, this trait being a capital feature of Homer. The intro- 
 duction of Satan in the fourth canto, from which we have just 
 quoted, is productive of exceedingly striking effects, and has been 
 
TASSO ' 77 
 
 i/nitated by Milton. The stories of knight-errantry, the enchant- 
 ments, charms and con juries which characterize the wild, rich 
 fancy of the chivalric age have been much criticized in Tasso; 
 and yet, in this regard, the chief difference between his romance 
 and that of Homer and Virgil is simply this: Tasso's is the ro- 
 mance of Christianity; theirs is the romance of paganism. As 
 compared with Virgil, Tasso is deficient in tenderness; yet we 
 search Virgil in vain for a sweeter picture of rustic placidity than 
 this, in the seventh canto, when Erminia is awakened in her 
 shepherds' retreat: 
 
 **She slept, till in her dreaming ear the bowers 
 
 Whisper'd, the gay birds warbled of the dawn; 
 
 The river roar'd; the winds to the young flowers 
 
 Made love ; the blithe bee wound its dulcet horn '- 
 
 Roused by the mirth and melodies of morn. 
 
 Her languid eyes she opens, and perceives 
 
 The huts of shepherds on the lonely lawn; 
 
 While seeming voices, 'twixt the waves and leaves, 
 
 Call back her scattered thoughts, again she sighs and grieves." 
 
 An astute and discriminating English critic has very properly 
 observed* 'The Jerusalem is, in rank and dignity, the third regu- 
 lar epic poem in the world; and comes next to the Illiad and 
 Aeneid." As Lamartine so beautifully says: ''Urged by piety no 
 less than by the muse, Tasso dreamed of a crusade of poetic genius, 
 F. spiring to equal by the glory and the sanctity of his songs, the 
 c/usades of the lance he was about to celebrate." Indeed, a pri- 
 n ary characteristic of Tasso's genius was a deep and somber 
 -^Dirituality. The Italian critic, Corniani, places the prose of 
 Tasso almost on a level with the poetry. "We find in it," he says, 
 "dignity, rhythm, elegance, and purity without affectation, and 
 perspicuity without vulgarity. He is never trifling or verbose, 
 Uke his contemporaries of that century, but endeavors to fill every 
 part of his discourses with meaning." 
 
 Of the seven terrible years he spent in a mad-house at Fer- 
 
78 TASSO 
 
 rara, one shudders to think. He was imprisoned there by order 
 of the Duke, whose only pubUshed excuse was that he was de- 
 taining Tasso for the purpose of "curing" him of his insanity. 
 But the real purpose of Tasso's incarceration will, in all proba- 
 bility, forever remain a mystery, as baffling as the motive which 
 exiled Ovid from the court of Augustus. It is hardly possible 
 that any alienist of even that crude age, would have recommended 
 an underground dungeon for this purpose ; yet it was in an under- 
 ground ceil that the Duke of Ferrara buried for seven years the 
 most sublime genius of the age. During this unhappy period 
 portions of the Jerusalem were first published, from manuscripts 
 stolen from the poet. The growing insanity of the unhappy poet, 
 and his romantic love of Leonora, are portrayeri with great poetic 
 beauty and spiritual charm by Goethe, in his drama ''Torquato 
 Tasso," wherein (Act II., Sc. 1) he makes the poet speak in this 
 fashion of his greatest work: 
 
 "Whatever in my song doth reach the heart 
 
 And find an echo there, I owe to one, 
 • And one alone ! No image undefined 
 
 Hover'd before my soul, approaching now 
 
 In radiant glory to retire again. 
 
 I have myself, with mine own eyes, beheld 
 
 The type of every virtue, every grace; 
 
 What I have copied thence will aye endure; 
 ' The heroic love of Tancred to Clorinda, 
 
 Erminia's silent and unnoticed truth, 
 '; Sophronia's greatness and Olinda's woe; 
 
 These are not shadows by illusion bred ; 
 
 I know they are eternal, for they are." 
 Final-y, upon the petition of Pope Sixtus V., and others, 
 Tasso was released, to spend the remainder of his Hfe chiefly at 
 Kome and Naples. Here he was the recipient of every honor that 
 ambition could covet or genius desire. He was entertained as a 
 o-uest at the Vatican. The mansions of the great were opened to 
 
TASSO 79 
 
 him. Wealth and honors were showered upon him. With a soul 
 chastened by sorrow and sweetened by adversity, he continued 
 his hterary work. He was to have been crowned with the laurel 
 crown at the capitol (the first to receive that honor since Pet* 
 rarch), but before the event transpired, death sealed his honors 
 and relieved him of his cares. He died surrounded by the monks 
 OT the monastery, and his last w^ords were: "Into thy hands, 
 Lord !'' He made the precepts of Christian doctrine the practice 
 of his life ; and, as one biographer observes, ''the darkness of his 
 fate had a tendency to turn his views beyond this world, as night, 
 which hides the earth, reveals the sky/' 
 
 In his later years Tasso pubHshed the "Gerusalemme Con- 
 quistata," greatly inferior to his other work, but he imagined it 
 to be superior; just as Milton mistakenly preferred his 'Taradise 
 Regained" to the 'Taradise Lost." 
 
V. 
 ARIOSTO. 
 
 Ludivico Ariosto, one of the greatest names in Italian litera- 
 ture and one of the great poets of the world, was born at Reggio, 
 Sept. 8, 1474, and died at Ferrara June 6, 1533. Like Petrarch, 
 Tasso and Boccaccio, Ariosto was early destined for the law, but 
 abandoned his irksome studies after five years of futile and mis- 
 directed effort. The untimely death of his father cast upon the 
 shoulders of the young poet the burden of caring for a large 
 family. 
 
 Like that of Tasso, the career of Ariosto was begun by enter- 
 ing the service of the House of Este. During the ten years of 
 his service under the Cardinal d'Este, while engaged principally 
 m diplomatic missions and military operations, he completed his 
 master work, the Orlando Furioso, which will stand for all time 
 as the great romance of the Age of Chivalry. The poem consists 
 cf about 5,000 stanzas, in forty-six cantos. Dismissed by the 
 Cardinal, the poet cast his lot with the Cardinal's brother, the 
 Duke of Ferrara, to whose service he devoted the remainder of 
 his life. 
 
 In addition to his principal work, Ariosto also wrote comedies, 
 satires, sonnets and other poems, all which, though exhibiting a 
 high order of genius, have been so eclipsed by his great master- 
 piece that they are but little known. The Orlando Furioso has 
 long been recognized as the greatest work of its kind in any lan- 
 s,uage. Twenty-five years after Ariosto's death Bernardo Tasso, 
 father of the immortal author of the "Jerusalem Delivered," and 
 himself a poet of distinction, wrote of the tremendous popularity 
 of Ariosto's great poem: "There is neither scholar nor artisan, 
 boy nor girl, nor old man, who is contented with reading it only 
 ©nee. Do you not hear people every day singing these stanzas 
 in the streets and in the fields ? I do not believe that in the same 
 
 80 
 
ARIOSTO 81 
 
 length of time as had passed since this poem was given to the 
 world, thj<t there have been printed or pubhshed or seen so many- 
 Homers 07- Virgils as Turiosos'." 
 
 But Ariosto's popularity has been by no means confined to 
 his native land. Next to Homer, he has been the favorite poet 
 of Europe. More than sixty editions of the Orlando Furioso were 
 published in the sixteenth century. When Galileo was asked how 
 he acquired the perspicuity and grace which so distinguished his 
 philosophical writings, he rephed: *'By the continual study of 
 Ariosto." One of the most learned critics of modern times, 
 Henry Hallam, in his ''Literature of Europe" (Vol. I„ Chap. IV., 
 Sect, n.) does not hesitate to say: "The Orlando Furioso, as a 
 jrreat single poem, has been very rarely surpassed in the living 
 records of poetry. He must yield to three, and only three, of 
 his predecessors. He has not the force, simplicity, and truth to 
 nature of Homer, the exquisite style and sustained majesty of 
 Virgil, nor the originality and boldness of Dante. The most ob- 
 vious parallel is Ovid, whose Metamorphoses, however, are far 
 excelled by the Orlando Furioso, not in fertility of invention, or 
 variety of images and sentiments, but in purity of taste, in grace 
 of language, and harmony of versification." 
 
 The seven satires of Ariosto were not published until after 
 his death. They are written in the manner of Horace, whose 
 work they fairly approximate in easy grace and Epicurean cheer- 
 fulness. Tiraboschi, an eminent Italian critic, places the satires 
 of Ariosto at the head of all poetry of that class. His comedies, 
 like so much of the early ItaHan comedy, are apparently based 
 upon Plautus. However, when Ariosto is mentioned by critics, 
 it is always the Orlando Furioso which is discussed. 
 
 For centuries there has been a controversy among Italian 
 critics over the relative merits of Tasso and Ariosto. Each is 
 great in his kind. But the Jerusalem is an epic, judged by every 
 classic rule. The Orlando is not ; it is simply a wonderful metrical 
 romance, although portions of it are truly epical. To quote Mr. 
 Hallam again: 'The finest stanzas in Ariosto are fully equal to 
 any in Tasso, but the latter has by no means so many feeble lines. 
 
82 AEIOSTO 
 
 Yet his language, though never affectedly obscure, is not so pel- 
 lucid, and has a certain refinement which makes us sometimes 
 pause to perceive the meaning. Whoever reads Ariosto slowly, 
 will probably be offended by his negligence ; whoever reads Tasso 
 quickly, v/ill lose something of the elaborate finish of his style." 
 Sir Walter Scott was called ''the Ariosto of the north." But 
 he was not. Spenser is the English poet most naturally to be 
 compared with Ariosto, for "Fierce wars and faithful loves did 
 moralize the song" of both. But Spenser lacks the gaiety, warmth 
 and ardor of the great Italian, although equalling him in rhetori- 
 cal splendor and excelling him in morality. 
 
 In one view of the subject, the most striking feature of 
 Ariosto is the constant shifting of style and scene. In narration 
 and description he has never been surpassed. His variety is end- 
 less, his versatiHty most profuse; comic and satiric; heroic, ma- 
 jestic, tender, licentious — from lively to severe, his sportive 
 imagination bounds and ripples along through his forty thousand 
 lines, excelling in whatsoever he sees fit to attempt, always suit- 
 ing his style to his subject, and always painting his moving pic- 
 tures in smooth and melodious verse. 
 
 As Virgil essayed a continuation of Homer's Illiad, so does 
 Ariosto assum^e to continue Boiardo's Orlando Inamorato. The 
 subject is the many chivalric adventures of Orlando who became 
 insane through love for Angelica. He is, however, finally re- 
 stored to sanity. We quote from the 39th Canto: 
 
 ''When to his former self he was restored, 
 Of wiser and of manlier mind than e'er. 
 
 From love as well was freed the enamored lord ; 
 And she, so gentle deemed, so fair whilere, "^ 
 
 And by renowned Orlando so adored 
 
 Did but to him a worthless thing appear. 
 
 What he through love had lost, to re-acquire 
 
 Was his whole study, was his whole desire." 
 Although the Orlando Furioso was first published in English a 
 few years after the death of Shakespeare, it is believed that the 
 first really satisfactory translation was by Rose, in 1823, and this 
 "trsion is still the most popular among readers of English. 
 
VI. 
 BOIARDO. 
 
 To the casual reader Boiardo is of interest chiefly because of 
 his work having suggested to Ariosto the Orlando Furioso; but 
 to the student of Italian literature he is also valuable upon his 
 own account. 
 
 Matteo Maria Boiardo, Count of Scandiano, was born about 
 1430 and died in 1494. Educated at the University of Ferrara, 
 he entered the service of Duke Borso oi. Ferrara, and continued in 
 the service of his successor, Duke Ercole. Boiardo was one of 
 the most finished scholars of his time, although Hallam holds him 
 to be inferior in scholarship to Ariosto ; at least, he thinks xA.riosto 
 more conversant ^v^ith the Latin poets. He was the author of 
 many dramas, song and other poems. He also made a transla- 
 tion of Herodotus into Italian. 
 
 Boiardo is known to posterity principally because of his 
 greatest work, the "'Orlando Inammorato," which, however, was 
 unfinished at his death. The poem deals with the Charlemagne 
 cycle, and details the adventures and chivalric love of Orlando for 
 Angelica, an Oriental princess. Three editions of the poem were 
 published within the twenty years following Boiardo's death, and 
 within a hundred years it had passed through sixteen editions. 
 Three bocks were added to the poem by Agostini, but the addi- 
 tions in no way equal the context of Boiardo. The poem was 
 early translated into French, and editions now exist in all the 
 great modern languages. 
 
 Francesco Berni, a noted Italian poet who died in 1536, who 
 was the real perfecter of the humorous poetry of Italy, and whose 
 manner has been so happily imitated by Byron in "Beppo" and 
 "Don Juan," transformed Boiardo's great poem into a burlesque 
 which has all but taken the place of the original work. In 1845 
 another version was brought out by Lodovico Domenichi which 
 
 83 
 
84 BOIARDO 
 
 was likewise more popular than the original, though vastly in- 
 ferior. 
 
 Milton was familiar with the romance of Boiardo, and di- 
 rectly refers to it in the following beautiful lines from Book III. 
 of his 'Taradise Regained": 
 
 "Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 
 
 When Agrican with all his northern powers 
 
 Besieged Albracca, as romancers tell. 
 
 The city of Gallaphrone, from whence to win 
 
 The fairest of her sex, Angelica 
 
 His daughter, sought by many prowest knights. 
 
 Both Paynim, and the peers of Charlemagne, 
 
 Such and so numerous was their chivalry." 
 
 Two of the Italian critics, Pellegrini and Castelvetro, have 
 roundly berated Ariosto for building on the foundations of 
 Boiardo- Ariosto, indeed, appears to have harbored no other de- 
 sign, originally, than that of carrying forward the story as Agos- 
 tini had assumed to do before him, but in far better style than 
 Agcstini was capable of employing; having written the first few 
 cantos of the Furioso merely, as he said, to please and amuse his 
 friends. The story of the Inammorato must be first read, if we 
 would fully understand and appreciate the Furioso. But, although 
 more plec;sing and various, the inventions of Ariosto are less 
 original than those of Boiardo. 
 
 Boiardo wrote numerous shorter poems, distinguished for 
 their transparency and grace, but the fame of all these was so 
 completely eclipsed by his greater work that they are now but 
 little known. Typical of these shorter works, and second to none 
 in its beauty, is this charming sonnet, entitled "Beautiful Gift": 
 
BOIARDO 
 
 Beautiful gift, and dearest pledge of love, 
 Woven by that fair hand whose gentle aid 
 Alone can heal that wound itself hath made, 
 
 And to my wandering life a sure guide prove ; 
 dearest gift all others far above 
 
 Curiously wTought in many-colored shade, 
 
 Ah. why with thee has not the spirit stayed, 
 
 That with such tasteful skill to form thee strove ? 
 
 Why have I not that lovely hand with thee? 
 Why have I not with thee each fond desire. 
 
 That did such passing beauty to thee give? 
 Through life thou ever shalt remain with me, 
 
 A thousand tender sighs thou shalt inspire, 
 
 A thousand kisses day and night receive. 
 
VII. 
 MICHELANGELO. 
 
 Michelangelo Buonarroti (called by the old English writers- 
 Michael A^ngelo) was born in 1475 and died, at the age of eighty- 
 nine, in the year 1564, after the most brilliant career in the his- 
 tory of art. His life truly exemplified Lavatar's definition of art 
 as ''nothing but the highest sagacity and exertion of human na- 
 ture," and students of his manifold creations cannot doubt that 
 his triple triumphs in painting, sculpture and architecture would 
 at least have been equalled if not surpassed by the magic product 
 of his pen if he had chosen to devote the sublime activities of his 
 soul to verbal expression alone. Even as it was, his poems ap- 
 pear to have been as highly esteemed in his own life-time as were 
 his other works of art. 
 
 Addison has remarked the great affinity between designing 
 and poetry. Schelling says that "Architecture is frozen music;" 
 and Longfellow notes that 'The picture that approaches sculpture 
 Tiearest is the best picture." Whether in painting, or music, or 
 sculpture, or literature, or histrionic art, the highest creations of 
 genius are but blossomings of the soul, and although their tints 
 may vary and each bloom exhale a fragrance differing from the 
 rest, all are grown from the same bounteous Tree of Life of which 
 they are the fruits and flowers. Great works of art are, indeed, 
 ^'separate as billows, but one as the sea;" and they adorn the 
 firmament with their deathless beauty as so many golden suns, 
 differing "as one star differeth from another in glory." 
 
 In any enlightened consideration of the literary work of 
 Michelangelo we should remember, as Symonds observes, that 
 "The love of beauty, the love of Florence, and the love of Christ, 
 are the three main motives of his poetry." They were, indeed, 
 the motives of his life. The following excerpt from Edgar Allen 
 Foe's "The Poetic Principle," is peculiarly applicable to all the 
 artistic creations of this great Florentine : "An immortal instinct, 
 
 86 
 
MICHELANGELO 87 
 
 deep withm the spirit of man, is a sense of the beautiful. It is at 
 once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. 
 It is no mere appreciation of the beauty before us, but a wild 
 effort to reach the beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic pre- 
 science of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multi- 
 form combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to 
 attain a portion of that loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, 
 appertain to Eternity alone. * * * The struggle to apprehend 
 supernal Loveliness, — this struggle on the part of souls fittingly 
 constituted, has given to the world all that which the world has 
 ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic." 
 
 Intellectually, Michelangelo was a child of Dante, whose 
 career inspired two of his most powerful sonnets. One of these 
 (translated by Symonds) is as follows : 
 
 From heaven his spirit came, and robed in clay 
 The realms of justice and of mercy trod, 
 Then rose a living man to gaze on God, 
 That he migTit make the truth as clear as day. 
 
 For that pure star that brightened with his ray 
 The undeserving nest where I was born, 
 The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn ; 
 None but his maker can due guerdon pay. 
 
 I speak of Dante, whose high work remains 
 Unknown, unhonored by that thankless brood, 
 Who only to just men deny their wage. 
 
 Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, 
 Against his exile coupled with his good 
 I'd gladly change the world's best heritage ! 
 
 Here we catch the same note of sadness that is chiselled with a 
 perfection so exquisite and sublime in the "Pieta" in St. Peter's, 
 the first ^roup in modern sculpture; the same majesty which we 
 note in the figures of the Sistine Chapel, "the greatest piece of 
 work ever done by painter's hand;" and the same heroic dignity 
 
88 MICHELANGELO 
 
 that reposes in the stern countenance of his "Moses" (done for 
 the mausoleum of Pope Julius IL), fittingly termed the "greatest 
 colossal statue in modern art." Truly may it be said, in the words 
 of Wordsworth, that the statuary of Michelangelo was but "the 
 marble index of a mind forever voyaging through strange seas 
 of thought, alone." 
 
 He o-ave the last years of his life chiefly to architecture, 
 planning many buildings, in both Florence and Rome, besides the 
 fortifications of Rome. He had previously been superintendent 
 of the fortifications at Florence. In 1546 or 1547 he was ap- 
 pointed chief architect of St. Peter's, to which task he devoted 
 the last eighteen years of his life. The vast dome of St. Peter's, 
 the noblest work of its kind in existence, is his design. For his 
 work upon St. Peter's he refused to accept any compensation what- 
 ever, deeming the task a Christian privilege and a religious duty. 
 It was this mighty performance which, in part, prompted Emer- 
 son to write : 
 
 "The hand that rounded Peter's dome 
 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity : 
 
 Himself from God he could not free: 
 
 He builded better than he knew; 
 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew." 
 
 Of his three hundred and fifty figures in the Sistine Chapel, 
 Sidney Colvin writes: "His sublimity, often in excess of the 
 occasion, is here no more than equal to it; moreover, it is com- 
 bined with the noblest elements of grace, even of tenderness. 
 Whatever the soul of this great Florentine, the spiritual heir of 
 Dante, with Christianity of the Middle Age ' not shaken in his 
 mind, but expanded and transcendentalized by the knowledge and 
 love of Plato — whatever the soul of such a man, full of suppressed 
 tenderness and righteous indignation, and of anxious questionings 
 of coming: fate, could conceive, that Michelangelo has expressed 
 or shadowed forth in this great and significant scheme of paint- 
 ings." 
 
MICHELANGELO 89 
 
 Although his genius was of astonishing spontaneity, he at- 
 tained his vast perfections by close application to his work. 
 "Trifles make perfection," he said, "but perfection is no trifle." 
 When he was eighty years of age he was discovered by Cardinal 
 Farnese^ gazing raptly upon the ruins of the Coliseum, and saying, 
 "I yet go to school, that I may learn something." The intensity 
 of his labor is indicated in a sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja, wherein 
 he says, half humorously, of his work in the Sistine Chapel: 
 
 Crosswise I bend me like a Syrian dow : 
 
 Whence false and quaint, I know, 
 Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye ; 
 For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. 
 
 Come then, Giovanni, try 
 To succor my dead pictures and my fame ; 
 Since foul I fare, and painting is my shame. 
 
 Nearly all of his sonnets are addressed to friends. Some of 
 the best, however, are upon religious subjects. Michelangelo was 
 never married. A priest once asked him why. "I have only too 
 much of a wife in this art of mine," he replied. "She has always 
 kept me struggling on. My children will be the works I leave 
 behind me. Even though they are worth naught, I shall live 
 awhile in them." And live he shall, till Time shall be no more! 
 His love for Vittoria Colonna, beautiful and touching, as we learn 
 from the sonnets, was purely Platonic in character. A famous 
 painting by Hermann Schneider shows the inspired Florentine, 
 standing beside his statue of Moses, reading his sonnets to the 
 woman he loved. To her he addressed many of his most beauti- 
 ful verses^ and after she died his mournful expressions are said to 
 equal some of the sonnets of Petrarch "To Laura in Death." Like 
 that of Petrarch, the love of Michelangelo is not of earthly kind ; 
 for, as he writes : 
 
 Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win 
 Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline ; 
 'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine 
 
 Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within. 
 
VIII. 
 MACHIAVELLL 
 
 In his lecture on ''Historical Writing" Dr. Blair remarks that 
 *'the country in Europe where the historical genius has shone 
 forth with most luster, beyond doubt, is Italy." Beyond question, 
 likewise, the first historian of Italy in the modern age, is Niccolo 
 Machiavelli (born 1469, died 1527) ; and no writer, with the ex- 
 ception of Montaigne, exerted so great an influence upon the age 
 which followed him. 
 
 Machiavelli undoubtedly ranks at the head of the prose 
 writers of Italy. Taine, the French critic, calls him "the Thucy- 
 dides of his age." His dramas, ''Mandragola" and "Clitia," bear 
 z. striking resemblance to the Athenian comedies, and are ranked 
 above those of Ariosto. His "Belphegor" is a masterpiece of its 
 kind. His "History of Florence" is the first great historical work 
 of modern times, is the greatest historical work produced during 
 the age i»i which he lived, and clearly establishes his title as the 
 father of modern historical writing. This work has taken its 
 place among the historical classics of the world. Throughout 
 all his works, the style of Machiavelli is distinguished for sim- 
 plicity, clearness and strength. 
 
 But, aside from his history, the fame of Machiavelli rests 
 almost solely upon "The Prince," a treatise on practical politics, 
 which he has reduced to a science — and a very unpopular science, 
 too. But, to fully understand his political theories, one should 
 read "The Prince" and the "Discourses on Livy" together. Speak- 
 ing of the first of these works, Hallam says : "Without palliating 
 the worst passages, it may be said that few books have been more 
 misrepresented." The same critic continues : "His crime, in the 
 eyes of the world, was to have cast away the veil i^t hypocrisy, 
 the profession of a religious adherence to maxims which at the 
 same time were violated." In other words, Machiavelli would 
 
 90 
 
MACHIAVELLI 91 
 
 have been more popular had he advocated the throtthng of weaker 
 peoples under the high-sounding phrase of '^'self-determination/' 
 or preached absolutism under the guise of freedom ! But Machia- 
 velli was no hypocrite, and one need not be a monarchist to ac- 
 credit him with the virtue of candor. He reasoned out a plan 
 for the establishment of a powerful Italian state. His dream was 
 of a united Italy. He knew that this ideal could never be at- 
 tctined by the multitude of insignificant states then existing. 
 And history has. since vindicated his judgment in this regard. 
 Italy remained the prey of every foreign foe until it was united 
 under a monarchical form of government. No one will contend 
 that a monarchical form of government is necessarily the best 
 possible government. It may, indeed, be the very worst. Of this 
 fact, historical illustrations are numerous. One can pay too much 
 for political power. But, considering the needs and wants of a 
 particular people at a particular time, a strongly centralized state 
 may be, while not ideal, yet the most practicable for achieving 
 the ends desired. Whether a monarchy be desirable or not must 
 depend upon the ideals and purposes of the people governed. 
 Every people has the right to choose its own form of government. 
 Solon of Athens, greatest of the Seven Wise men of Greece, ad- 
 mitted that his Athenian constitution was not the best possible, 
 but justilied it upon the theory that it was the best which the 
 people wculd receive. A monarchy may be desirable from the 
 viewpoint of expediency, and still be wrong as a matter of prin- 
 ciple. Machiavelli does not advise a tyrannical form of govern- 
 ment: He recommends no such thing. He does state that the 
 love of the people is a better security for a ruler than any fortress. 
 
 Machiavelli does not write, like Dr. Francis Lieber, upon 
 "Political Ethics." In 'The Prince" he is not discussing ethics at 
 all. He is simply discussing the means to an end, and that end 
 was a un:ted Italy. It is matter of surprise that Machiavelh's 
 "Prince" has been so misconstrued by so discriminating a scholar 
 as Andrew Dickson White, who said, in his speech on Grotius, 
 delivered at the peace conference at The Hague, in 1899: 
 
 "The spirit which most thoroughly permeated the whole 
 
92 MACHIAVELLI 
 
 world, whether in war or peace, when Grotius wrote, was the 
 spirit of Machiavelli — unmoral, immoral. It had been dominant 
 for more than a hundred years. To measure the service ren- 
 dered by the theory of Grotius, we have only to compare Machia- 
 velli's Trince,' with Grotius's 'De Jure Belli ac Pacis.^ * * * 
 From his own conception of the attitude of the Divine Mind to- 
 ward all the falsities of his time grew a theory of international 
 morals wluch supplanted the principles of Machiavelli." 
 
 Dr. White simply failed to grasp the intense nationalism of 
 the remarkable Italian, as it was grasped by the great American 
 lawyer and patriot, Ruf us Choate, "the Erskine of America", 
 when in his address on "American Nationality," delivered at Bos- 
 Ion on July 4, 1858, he asked: "What else formed the secret of 
 the brief spell of Rienzi's power, and burned and sparkled in the 
 poetry and rhetoric of his friend Petrarch, and soothed the dark 
 hour of the grander soul of Machiavelli, loathing that Italy, and 
 recalling that other day when *eight hundred thousand men 
 sprang tj arms at the rumor of a Gallic invasion'?" Choate un- 
 derstood Machiavelli ; where as White has only voiced the popular 
 misconception. Thus Butler in his "Hudibras" writes : 
 
 "Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick, 
 
 Though he gave his name to our Old Nick." 
 And note how Shakespeare falls afoul of history : In I. Henry VI., 
 York speaks of Alencon, "that notorious Machiavel;" and in III. 
 Henry VI., Gloucester speaks of "the murderous Macliiavel." To 
 fully grasp the humor of this anachronism we should remember 
 that Henry VI. died exactly ninety-eight years before Machiavelli 
 was born. It requires a pretty bad reputation, indeed, to precede 
 one's birth a hundred years. 
 
 We have said that "The Prince" should be read with Machia- 
 velli's "Discourses on Livy." The observation is reiterated. The 
 "Discourses" are the more valuable of the two dissertations, and 
 the latter serve, in great measure, to tone down the asperities of 
 the former; although Macaulay, apparently, finds no good in 
 either. The "Discourses" comprise three books, of 143 chapters. 
 In this treatise, the greatest of its kind since Aristotle, the au- 
 
MACHIAVELLI 93 
 
 thor founded a school of philosophical politics, and prepared the 
 way for Bodin and Montesquieu in France, Lord Bacon and John 
 Locke in England, and Francis Lieber in America. 
 
 Machiavelli was a statesman, a diplomat, a political philoso- 
 pher and a practical politician. . He was always honest and was 
 always poor. The evil he is said to have voiced is often referred 
 to by those who have never read him — but it is seldom or never 
 quoted. Let us. quote some of the good in Machiavelli. To those 
 who seek political honors only for selfish ends, we commend this 
 axiom, from the ''Discourses" (IIL, 38) : "For titles do not re- 
 flect honor on men, but rather men on their titles" — Perche non 
 1 titoli illustrano gli uomini, ma gli uomini i titoli! That is not 
 immoral ; nor is it ''unmoral" ; nor are these two phrases, from the 
 same source: 
 
 "There should be many judges; for few will always do the 
 will of few." 
 
 "For as laws are necessary that good manners may be pre- 
 served, so there is need of good manners, that laws may be main- 
 tained." And here is another Machiavellian maxim which all 
 politicians will do well to heed : 
 
 "Briims are of three generations, those that understand of 
 "l^hemselves, those that understand when another shows them, 
 and those that understand neither of themselves nor by the show- 
 ing of ot)^ers." 
 
IX. 
 METASTASIO. 
 
 Pietro Metastasio was born at Rome January 13, 1698, and 
 died at Vienna April 12, 1782. He is still one of the most popular 
 poets of Italy. Metastasio (whose family name was Trapassi) , was 
 of obscure parentage, but his genius early atoned for his humble 
 birth. His youthful talents drew the attention of Gravina, the 
 jurisconsult, who thenceforth assumed responsibility for his edu- 
 cation. Gravina was devoted to the Greek drama, and soon com- 
 municated his literary passion to the willing mind of his pupil. 
 Never was the seed of poesy cast upon more fecund soil. 
 
 At tl.e age of twenty-six Metastasio produced one of his most 
 famous di'amas, *'La Dione abbandonata," which brought him to 
 the notice of cultured Europe. Four years later, at the age of 
 thirty, he was appointed to the office of "court poet" at Vienna. 
 His fame throughout Europe was now established. His "La 
 Dione," "II Catone" and "II Siroe" were known in every center 
 of art and literature. While at Vienna he produced "Giuseppe 
 riconosciuto," "II Demofoonte," and "OHmpiade." The melo- 
 dramas "Clemenza di Tito" and "AttiHo Regolo," are among the 
 best of his works. 
 
 Metastasio wrote sixty-three dramas and forty-eight can- 
 tatas, besides numerous elegies, canzonette, sonnets and transla- 
 tions. His works have been translated into many languages, and 
 frequently set to music by celebrated composers, his words lend- 
 ing themselves most readily to operatic uses. The siyle of his 
 dramas i^^ musical in a marked degree, combining with great 
 beauty of sentim.ent the facile charms of lyrical grace and ele- 
 gance. I he closeness and rapidity of his dialogue bear a strong 
 resemblance to the classical Greek tragedy. The constant change 
 of incident, the broken dialogue, the rapid expressions of passion, 
 are sugg-^stive of the style of Guarini's. "Pastor Fido," which, in 
 turn, harlis back to the "Aminta" of Tasso, who drew his pictures 
 
 94 
 
METASTASIO 95 
 
 directly trom the classic models of Ovid, Virgil and Theocritus. 
 Editions of his works have been published at Florence, Turin, 
 Genoa, Mantua, and Paris. 
 
 In 1690 Giovanni Crescimbeni and Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina 
 founded in Rome an academy called the Arcadia. Its purpose 
 was to promote greater naturalness of expression in poetic forms. 
 The Academy failed, but it did bring forth some good verse, 
 (vritten ?n its three manners. In the first manner the sonnet 
 and the madrigal were cultivated; in the second, that of love 
 lyrics; in the third, that of the occasional poem. Mecaslasio was 
 the most distinguished of all who shared in this movement. He 
 began his career as a lyric poet of the second Arcadian manner. 
 However, he is now remembered only for his operatic dramas, 
 "masterpieces of a time when it was still considered necessary 
 that the libretto of an opera should be a work of art.'' 
 
 While Metastasio, as a whole, is little known in English, ex- 
 cerpts from his plays have, because of their good sense and feel- 
 ing, surmounted the barriers of all languages, and are known in 
 every land and clime. For example, many who have had no op- 
 portunity to read the ''Giueseppe riconosciuto," are familiar with 
 this quotation from the play : "The canker which the trunk con- 
 ceals is revealed by the leaves, the fruit or the flower" — a truth 
 so sound as to become an axiom, and so poetically expressed that 
 it cannot be forgotten. And this, from the same grear drama: 
 *Tf our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many 
 would be pitied who now are envied !" Let him say it in the style 
 and idiomi so peculiarly his own : 
 
 Se a ciascun V interno affanno 
 Si leggesse in fronta Scritto, 
 Quanti mai, che invidia fanno, 
 Ci farebbero pieta! 
 
 _ In aaother of his greater works, "La Clemenza di Tito," we 
 find this noble sentiment: "To take away hfe is a power which 
 the vilest of the earth have in common ; to give it belongs to gods 
 and kings alone." Another of his phrases that has crept around 
 
96 METASTASIO 
 
 the world is the following, from "II Trionfo di Clelia": '"Know 
 that the slender shrub which is seen to bend, conquers when it 
 yields to the storm." Still another characteristic phrase, illus- 
 trating the author's pastoral elegance, is the following, from the 
 "Alcide al Bivio": "That water which falls from some Alpine 
 height is dashed, broken, and will murmur loudly, but grows 
 limpid by its fall." In this sentence, as in others, we may better 
 grasp the rapid movement, the short measure and the lilting 
 music of Metastasio's operatic style, by viewing it in his native 
 Italian: 
 
 Queir onda, che ruina 
 Dalla pendice alpina, 
 Balza, si frange, a mormora 
 Ma limpidia si fa. 
 
X. 
 
 ALFIERI. 
 
 According to Dr. Frederic Taber Cooper, Vittorio Alfieri 
 (born 1749, died 1803) was the most important of the Italian 
 dramatic noets. Matthew Arnold said that he was "a noble-mind- 
 ed, deepb -interested man, but a monotonous poet." There is, in- 
 deed, in all his works, an almost total absence of the rich color- 
 ing, the ;?olden glow and Tuscan softness of classic Italian speech* 
 He studied assiduously to prune his style, almost to the point of 
 harshness. His dramas are erected upon the classical models* 
 and in them we sometimes catch a distant echo of the thundering 
 harp of Aeschylus. 
 
 It vras his thought that the theatre should be "a school 
 in which men might learn to be free, brave and generous, inspired 
 by true virtue, full of love for their country, and in all their 
 passions enthusiastic, upright and magnanimous. " Such he 
 sought to make it. With him the love of freedom was a passion. 
 His dream, Hke that of Petrarch and Machiavelh, was of a united 
 Italy. But he hated king-craft in all its forms. His work bore 
 fruit. No writer did more to achieve Italian unity. As Gioberti 
 says, **the revival of civil order throughout the peninsula, the 
 creation of a laic Italy, is due to Vittorio Alfieri, who, like a new 
 Dante, was the true secularizer of the spirit of the Italian peo- 
 ple, and i-rave to it that strong impulse which still lives and bears 
 fruit." 
 
 When we think of Alfieri, observes another Italian critic, we 
 must bring ourselves back to the age in which he lived. "The 
 regeneration of Italian character," says Mariotti, "was yet merely 
 intellectual and individual, and Alfieri, was born from that class 
 which was the last to feel the redeeming influence. Penetrated 
 with the utter impossibihty of distinguishing himself by imme- 
 diate action, he was forced to throw himself on the last resources 
 
 97 
 
98 ALFIERI 
 
 of literature. He had exalted ideas of its duties and influence; 
 he had exalted notions of the dignity of man: — an ardent, 
 though a vague and exaggerated love of liberty, and of the manly 
 virtues which it is wont to foster. He invaded the stage. He 
 wished to effect upon his contemporaries that revolution which 
 his own soul had undergone. He wished to wake them from their 
 long lethargy of servitude ; to see them thinking, willing, striving, 
 resisting." Souls so obsessed with the spirit of liberty are not 
 born to die. 
 
 Alfieri published twenty-one tragedies, six comedies, one 
 '*tramelOi2:edia" (a name invented by himself, and denoting a kind 
 of tragi-comedy) , one epic poem in four cantos, many lyrical 
 poems, numerous sonnets and odes, and sixteen satires, besides 
 poetical translations of Virgil and Terence-, and parts of Aristo- 
 phanes, Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus. He also wrote his 
 autobiography, a work of remarkable excellence. His ''Misogallo,*' 
 a memorial of his fierce hatred of France, was published afte* 
 his death. 
 
 The inspiration of Alfieri is political rather than poetic. His 
 more powerful works are all designed to show that the best gov- 
 ernment is one founded upon the consent of the governed. His 
 hatred of arbitrary power was almost sublime in its intensity. 
 The dedications of some of his dramas are as remarkable as any- 
 thing contained in the plays. 'The First Brutus" was dedicated 
 to George Washington, then in a few months to become the first 
 president of the United States. It reads as follows: 
 
 "The name of the Deliverer of America alone can stand i'" 
 the title page of the tragedy of the Deliverer of Rome. — To 
 you, most excellent and most rare Citizen, I dedicate that; with 
 out first hinting at even a part of the so many praises due to your- 
 self, which I now deem all comprehended in the'sole mention of 
 your name. Nor can this my sHght allusion appear to you con- 
 taminated by adulation; since, not knowing you by person, and 
 living diis joined from you by the immense ocean, we have but 
 too emphatically nothing in common between us but the love o 
 glory. Happy are you, who have been able to build your glory 
 
ALFIERI 99 
 
 on the sublime and eternal basis of love to your country, demon- 
 strated b} actions. I, though not born free, yet having abandoned 
 in time my Lares, and for no other reason than that I migh' 
 be able to write loftily of Liberty — I hope by this means at least 
 to have proved what might have been my love of country, if I 
 had indeed fortunately belonged to one that deserved the name. 
 In this single respect, I do not think myself wholly unworthy 
 to mingle my name with yours." 
 
 The dedication of his ''Agis" was to Charles L of England 
 — or, rather, to the shade of that unfortunate prince — and in it 
 he excor^ntes the British monarch most unmercifully. 
 
 A fair specimen of his stern and simple style is the follow- 
 ing excei-pt from "The First Brutus," where the body of the 
 murdered Lucretia is brought into the Forum: 
 
 "Brutus. — Then listen now to Brutus. The same dagger 
 Which from her dying side he lately drew, 
 Brutus now lifts ; and to all Rome he swears 
 That which first on her very dying form 
 He swore already. — While I wear a sword, 
 While vital air I breathe, in Rome henceforth 
 No Tarquin e'er shall put his foot — I swear it ; 
 Nor the abominable name of king. 
 Nor the authority, shall any man 
 Ever again possess. — May the just gods 
 Annihilate him here, if Brutus is not 
 Lofty and true of heart! — Further I swear, 
 Many as are the inhabitants of Rome, 
 To make them equal, free, and citizens ; 
 Myself a citizen and nothing more. 
 The laws alone shall have authority. 
 And I will be the first to yield them homage." 
 
 Noble sentiments these, and nobly expressed. If lacking in 
 poetic beituty, they at least lack nothing in patriotic fervor. But 
 
100 ALFIERI 
 
 beauty Alfieri does possess, and that, too, in a high degree; but 
 it is the statuesque beauty of cold marble, graceful in repose ; his 
 lofty ideals, devoid of ornament, rigid and unbending as the 
 sculptor's stone. In his essay on Lord Byron, Macaulay draws 
 a parallel between Alfieri and Cowper. *'In their hatred of 
 meretricious ornament," says he, "and of what Cowper calls 
 'creamy ^smoothness,' they erred on the opposite side. Their 
 style was too austere, their versification too harsh. ^ ^ '^^ The 
 Intrinsic value of their poems is considerable. But the example 
 which they set of mutiny against an absurd system was invalu- 
 able. The part which they performed was rather that of Moses 
 than that of Joshua. They opened the house of bondage ; but 
 they did not enter the promised land." 
 
 In Florence Alfieri met the Countess of Albany, wife of 
 Charles Fdward Stewart, the British Pretender, «,nd won fror 
 Charles the heart of his queen. The infatuation was mutual, and 
 after the death of the Pretender, she lived with Alfieri, until his 
 death. His ashes, and those of the woman he loved, now repose 
 in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, between the tombs of 
 Michelancrelo and MachiavelH. 
 
PART FOUR. 
 
 GREAT SPANISH AND 
 PORTUGESE AUTHORS 
 
 I. 
 
 LOPE DE VEGA 
 
 II. 
 
 CERVANTES 
 
 III. 
 
 CAMOENS 
 
 IV. 
 
 QUEVEDO 
 
 V. 
 
 THE ARGENSOLAS 
 
 VI. 
 
 VILLEGAS 
 
 VII. 
 
 MONTALVO 
 
 VIII. 
 
 GUILLEN DE CASTRO 
 
 IX. 
 
 VICENTE 
 
 X. 
 
 CALDERON 
 
In no modern society * * * has there been so ^eat 
 a number of men eminent at once in literature and in the 
 pursuits of active life, as Spain produced during the six- 
 teenth century. Almost every distinguished writer was 
 also distinguished as a soldier or a politician. Boscan 
 bore arms with high reputation. Garcilaso de Vega, the 
 author of the sweetest and most graceful pastoral poem 
 of modern times, after a short but splendid militarjy 
 career, fell sword in hand at the hetad of a storming party. 
 Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in the war of 
 Arauco which he afterwards celebrated in one of the best 
 heroic poems that Spain has produced. Hurtado de Men- 
 doza, whose poems have been compared to those of Horace, 
 and whose charming little novel is evidently the model 
 of Gil Bias, has been handed down to us by history as 
 one of the sternest of those iron proconsuls who were 
 employed by the House of Austria to crush the lingering 
 public spirit of Italy. Lope sailed in the Armade; Ger- 
 cantes was wounded at Lepanto. 
 
 — ^Maciaulay. 
 
I. 
 
 LOPE DE VEGA. 
 
 Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (born 1562, died 1635) was in 
 many respects the most splendid figure of the Golden Age of 
 Spanish literature. In the fecundity of his literary powers he 
 surpasses every dramatic poet in the world's history. He is 
 noted for the prodigal abundance of his overflowing fancy, for 
 his phenomenally rich imagination, and for an almost inconceiv- 
 able exuberance of invention. He exceeded in popularity any 
 writer in the Spanish language, and his fame has been equalled 
 by few of any age or country. 
 
 He was born at Madrid, and was educated there, at the Im- 
 perial College, and at the University of Alcala. Montalvan states 
 that he could read both Latin and Spanish at the age of five. He 
 began writing verses in early childhood. At fifteen he was in 
 the army serving as a soldier against the Portugese. Later he 
 served in the Spanish Armada. Upon the defeat of the Armada 
 he returned to Spain and wrote his "La Dragontea," in epic form, 
 devoted largely to a fierce denunciation of Sir Francis Drake. 
 While with the Armada he \^Tote the greater part of his "Her- 
 mosura de Angelica," an attempted continuation of Ariosto's "Or- 
 lando Furioso," in which he vainly sought to vie with the great 
 Italian. His poem contains eleven thousand lines, divided into 
 twenty cantos. In nowise deterred by this failure, he wrote his 
 "Divine Triumphs." in imitation of Petrarch, and again he failed. 
 His next attempt to outdo Italian genius was in his "Jerusalem 
 Conquered," a poem of 22,000 verses, in twenty books, in which 
 he sought to equal or surpass the monumental work of Tasso, but 
 again he failed. Indeed, none of his more ambitious poetical 
 works are particularly happy. In 1630 he pubUshed "The Laurel 
 of Apollo." a poem upon the order of Cervantes' "The Journey to 
 Parnassus," in which he records the honors of nearly three hun- 
 
 101 
 
■ i 
 
 102 LOPE DE VEGA ^ j 
 
 dred Spardsh poets. This poem contains about seven thousand 
 
 verses, and is distinctly disappointing. j 
 
 Lope de Vega's best poetry is to be found in some of the oc- 1 
 
 casional sonnets, ballads and lyrics which are scattered through- | 
 
 out his works. Thus, in 'The Shepherds of Bethlehem," in five J 
 
 books, we find these rare and dainty lines in a lullaby sung by the ^ 
 
 Madonna to her child, sleeping beneath the palms, and they are : 
 as exquisite, colorful and tender as a painting by Murillo : 
 
 Holy angels and blest, 
 
 Through these palms as ye sweep, ' 
 
 Hold their branches at rest, ! 
 
 For my babe is asleep. . 
 
 And ye Bethlehem palm-trees, - . ; 
 
 As stormy winds rush : 
 
 In tempest and fury, ] 
 
 Your angry noise hush;-— ; 
 
 Move gently, move gently, i 
 
 Restrain your wild sweep; \ 
 
 Hold your branches at rest, — . ^l 
 
 My babe is asleep. . 
 
 Here is genuine lyrical art. Another specimen, in a different ■ 
 
 strain, but with the same soulful touch, is the following from [ 
 
 "Tome Burguillos/' translated by Longfellow: l 
 
 i 
 
 How oft my guardian angel gently cried, '■ 
 ''Soul from, thy casement look, and thou shalt see 
 
 How He persists to knock and wait for thee !'* 
 And, ! how often to that voice of sorrow, 
 
 "To-morrow we vnW open," I replied; 
 And when the morrow came I answered still, 
 "To-morrow." 
 
'* LOPE DE VEGA 103 
 
 But it was in the field of dramatic art that Lope de Vega 
 found his most congenial work, and here his talents shone with 
 undimmec^ splendor during the greater part of his long and active 
 life. The number of his plays cannot now be certainly deter- 
 mined, but it is knovm to exceed 1,500, and is probably nearer 
 2,000, in addition to several hundred autos or one-act religious 
 plays. His plays may be grouped in three classes: (1) Spiritual 
 plays, including autos, and ''Mystery" and "Morahty" plays;; 
 (2) heroic and historical comedies and tragedies of Spanish life 
 and history, and dramas upon classical subjects; and (3) dramas 
 of every-day life, the famous "cloak and sword" pieces — capa y 
 espada. 
 
 Bouterwek, one of the great German authorities on Spanislr. 
 literature, says: "Arithmetical calculations have been employed": 
 in order to arrive at a just estimate of Lope de Vega's facility irr 
 poetic composition. According to his own testimony, he wrote^ 
 on an average, five sheets a day. It has therefore been computed^ 
 that the number of sheets he composed during his life must haver 
 amounted to 133,225; and that, allowing for the deduction of a 
 small portion of prose, Lope de Vega must have written upward 
 of 21,300,000 verses. Nature would have over-stepped her bounds^ 
 and produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this 
 rapidity of invention, attained perfection in any department of 
 literature " 
 
 In his very interesting biography of Lope de Vega, Lord 
 Holland observes: "The most singular circum.stance attending 
 his verse is the frequency and difficulty of the tasks he imposes 
 on himself. At every step we meet with acrostics, echoes and 
 compositions of that perverted and laborious kind, from attempt- 
 ing which another author would be deterred by the trouble of the 
 undertaking, if not by the little real merit attending the achieve- 
 ment. * * * But Lope made a parade of his power over the vocabu- 
 lary; he Vv'as not contented with displaying the various order in 
 which he could dispose the syllables and marshal the rhym^es of 
 his language, but he also prided himself upon the celerity with 
 which he brought them to go through the most whimsical but 
 the most difficult evolutions. He seems to have been partial ta 
 
104 LOPE DE VEGA 
 
 difficulties for the gratification of surmounting them." 
 
 Cervantes calls him **a prodigy of nature." Many times he 
 lyas known to write an entire drama within the space of twenty- 
 four hours. Not less astounding than the prodigious volume of 
 his work is the amazing complexity of his plots. He delights in 
 leading his characters through the most intricate mazes of in- 
 trigue, flanked by counter-plots and under-plots in endless variety. 
 His dran atic style is fresh, forceful and pleasing and his be- 
 wildering ingenuity is a charm that never fails. Ticknor, in his 
 History of Spanish Literature, says that the droll, the variously 
 witty grncioso, the full-blown parody of the heroic characters of 
 the play, the dramatic picaro, is solely the creation of Lope de 
 Vega. He gave it to the Spanish stage, thence it passed to the 
 French, and then to all the other theatres of modern times. He 
 was likewise the first to accord to woman her proper place in the 
 drama. ''Hitherto the woman had been allotted a secondary and 
 Incidental part, ludicrous in the comedies and skits, sentimental 
 in the set piece. Lope, the expert in gallantry, in manners, in 
 observation, placed her in her true setting as an ideal, as the 
 mainspring of dramatic motive and of chivalrous conduct." 
 
 Lope de Vega ignored the classical dramatic unities, and 
 ^ften wrote in utter defiance of all the rules of dramatic art. 
 *'When I am going to write a play," he says, "I lock up all pre- 
 eepts, and cast Terence and Plautus out of my study, lest they 
 should cry out against me, as truth is wont to do, even from such 
 dumb volumes ; for I write according to the art invented by those 
 who sought the applause of the multitude, whom it is but just to 
 liumor in their folly, since it is they who pay for it." He says 
 that he wrote only six plays that did not "gravely offend against 
 the rules." He does not seek to inculcate any general program of 
 morality, but merely depicts manners as he finds them. He does 
 not seek to elevate the popular taste, but merely caters to it. 
 ^*Keep the explanation of the story doubtful till the last scene," 
 he advises ; "for, as soon as the public know how it will end, they 
 turn their faces to the door and their backs to the stage." Lope 
 knew his audience. 
 
LOPE DE VEGA . . 105 
 
 Lope de Vega is especially felicitous in some of his lighter 
 pieces, as in '*E1 Azero de Madrid," from which Moliere afterward 
 borrowed his "Medecin Malgre Lui." Lope's portrayal of the old 
 Spanish duenna, as she accompanies her ward from church, and 
 attempts to prevent her speaking to her waiting lover, is charaO- 
 teristic : 
 
 Theodora: ^ Show more of gentleness and modesty; — 
 Of gentleness in walking quietly, 
 Of modesty in looking only down 
 Upon the earth you tread. 
 Belisa: 'Tis what I do. 
 Theodora: What? When you're looking straight toward 
 
 that man? 
 Belisa: Did you not bid me look upon the earth? 
 
 And what is he but just a bit of it? 
 Theodora : I said the earth whereon you tread, my niece, 
 Belisa: But that whereon I tread is hidden quite 
 With my own petticoat and walking dress. 
 Theodora: Words such as these become no well bred maid* 
 But, by your mother's blessed memory, 
 ril put an end to all your pretty tricks ; — 
 What ? You look back at him again ? 
 Belisa: Who? I? 
 
 Theodora: Yes, you; — and make him secret signs besides* 
 Behsa: Not L 'Tis only that you troubled me 
 
 With teasing questions and perverse replies. 
 So that I stumbled, and looked round to see 
 Who would prevent my fall. 
 
 And so the dialogue proceeds in its airy flippancy and frolicsome 
 humor — always Castilian, and always portraying perfectly to de- 
 lighted audiences the manners of the time. 
 
106 LOPE DE VEGA 
 
 After the death of his first wife, Lope de Vega married again. 
 Upon the death of his second wife he entered the priesthood, and 
 became an offi^cer of the Spanish Inquisition. But he did not 
 cease writing. When the theatre was suppressed by royal order, 
 Lope resumed his early practice of writing morality and religious 
 dramas. He was idolized by the Spanish populace, and w^hen he 
 died the ceremonies attending his obsequies occupied nine days. 
 
 No man of letters was ever better paid for his work than was 
 Lope de Vega. Montalvan says that he received for his plays 
 eighty thousand ducats. Besides other benefactions, the Duke 
 cf Sessa alone gave him, at various times, twenty-four thousand 
 ducats, and a sinecure of three hundred more per annum. But 
 Lope v>^as prodigal toward his friends, was charitable to a fault, 
 snd was almost penniless when he died. 
 
II. 
 
 CEHYANTES. 
 
 Fifteen years before Lope de Vega first saw the light, there 
 was born, at Alcola de Henares, in October, 1547, the greatest 
 literary genius of the Spanish race, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 
 a victim of adversity, the butt of sorrow and the child of woe; 
 but who for all that, as Carlyle said, was the author of "our joy- 
 fullest modern book,'' and, as Moore said of Sheridan, 
 
 **\\Tiose humor, as gay as the fire-fly's light, 
 
 Play'd round every subject , and shone as it play'd; — 
 
 Whose wit in the combat as gentle, as bright. 
 Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade." 
 
 Cervantes was among the manliest, the kindhest and gentlest 
 of men. Whether we see him in fierce battle with the Turks in 
 the great sea-fight of Lepanto, for the greater glory of God and 
 exaltation of Spain; or behold his stricken form, sorely wounded 
 and maimed for life, languishing in one of the crude military hos- 
 pitals of that age; or follow him in his five terrible years of 
 Moorish slavery in Algiers; or view him through the bars of a 
 Spanish jail, undergoing sentence for another's fault ; always and 
 everywhere we find him stout of heart, magnanimous and true, 
 without taint of bitterness in his soul, and bravely smaling 
 through his tears. 
 
 In 1584, at the age of thirty-seven, and im.mediately follow- 
 ing the pubhcation of his "Galatea," — written, it is said, to win 
 favor in the eyes of the woman he loved — he was married to a 
 young lady of good family, but who, like Cervantes, was poor, and 
 who faithfully shared his hardships during the remainder of his 
 life. Soon afterward he turned to authorship for a liveHhood, 
 and devoted his talents to the stage. But •his dramatic work, as 
 
 107 
 
108 CERVANTES 
 
 a whole, was far from satisfactory, and his labors brought small 
 financial return. Even the names of several of his plays are lost. 
 The best play of Cervantes is his *'Numancia," a tragedy founded 
 upon the fate of Numantia, whose four thousand men had re- 
 sisted the onslaught of eighty thousand Roman troops. The 
 town was reduced by famine, and when the Romans entered, not a 
 single Numantian was found alive. This play has elicited praise 
 from A. W. von Schlegel, Shelly and Goethe. Bouterwek affirms 
 that it justifies the opinion that, in different circumstances, Cer- 
 vantes might have been the Aeschylus of Spain. 
 
 Forced by scant financial success to abandon the drama, Cer- 
 vantes now repaired to Seville, to engage in commercial pursuits, 
 but with indifferent success. For a time he collected revenues 
 for the government, but owing to the default of another he was 
 convicted and imprisoned because of a shortage in his accounts. 
 He then engaged to collect the rents for a monastery in La 
 Mancha, but the debtors not only declined payment but threw 
 him into jail. Here, as tradition has it, he began his immortal 
 story of Don Quixote. Next we find him in Valladolid, where, a 
 stranger having been killed near his dwelling, he was placed in 
 prison pending the investigation. But in the midst of all his 
 struggles and privations he was able to continue his great work, 
 and the First Part of his Don Quixote, licensed in 1604 at Valla- 
 dolid, was published at Madrid in 1605. It was his first genuine 
 literary success, and he was now fifty-eight years of age. Re- 
 turning to Madrid, he published his twelve "Moral Tales", which 
 have always been favorites in Spain, but are little Known abroad. 
 In literary grace and style they probably surpass Don Quixote, 
 but are not its equal as works of invention. It 1614 he published 
 his "Jourrey to Parnassus," after the manner of the Italian satire 
 of the same name by Cesare Caporali. But the poem is almost 
 as worthless as the one in the same strain by Lope de Vega. At 
 >ts close he appends a humorous dialogue attacking ilie actors 
 who refused to present his dramas. 
 
 Cervantes now renewed his efforts at the drama. He suc- 
 ceeded, no better than before. In 1615, ten years after the publi- 
 
CERVANTES 109 
 
 cation of the First Part, he pubHshed the Second Part of his Don 
 Quixote, Faihng health now added its burdens to those of pov- 
 erty. Death was drawing near. But he had faced it on many 
 a bloody field. He did not quail before it now. He met it smiling, 
 and unafraid. Realizing that his end was fast approaching, he 
 rushed his romance of 'Tersiles and Sigismunda" to completion, 
 as a last offering to the Count de Lemosi, who had befriended him. 
 "And so." he concludes in the preface to his last work, "farewell 
 to jesting, farewell my merry humors, farewell my- gay friends, 
 for I feel that I am dying, and have no desire but soon to see you 
 happy in the other life." 
 
 On April 2, 1616, he entered the order of the Franciscan 
 friars. On April 18th he received the sacrament of extreme 
 unction. The next day he wrote a dedication of his last work, 
 "marked, to an extraordinary degree," as one critic says, "with 
 his natural humor, and with the solemn thoughts that became his 
 situation." On April 23, 1616, this brave and bhthesome spirit 
 passed away — on the same day that Shakespeare died, if the 
 Enghsh and Spanish calendars were the same. 
 
 In 1835 a bronze statue of Cervantes was placed in the Plaza 
 del Estamento at Madrid. But more lasting than bronze is the 
 monument which he has erected to the splendor of his own genius 
 and the glory of Spanish letters, in his narrative or the adven- 
 tures of the Sorrowful Knight of La Mancha, the most singular 
 book of humor that the world has ever known. The "Don Quix- 
 ote" is wholly unique. "The most experienced and fastidious 
 judges," says Macaulay, "are amazed at the perfection of that 
 art which extracts unextinguishable laughter from the greatest 
 of human calamaties without once violating the reverence due to 
 it; at that discriminating delicacy of touch which makes a char- 
 acter exqvisitely ridiculous without impairing its worth, its grace, 
 or its dignity." 
 
 "Cervantes, Shakespeare and Goethe form the triumvirate of 
 poets who in the three great divisions of poetry have acliieved the 
 greatest success," says Heinrich Heine. Henry Hallam says that 
 Don Quixote "is to Europe in general what Ariosto is to Italy and 
 Shakespeare to England ; the one book to which the slightest allu- 
 
110 CERVANTES 
 
 sions may be made without affectation, but not missed without 
 discredit." "Numerous translations,"- he adds, "and countless edi- 
 tions of them, in every language, bespeak its adaptation to man- 
 kind; no critic has been paradoxical enough to withhold his ad- 
 miration, no reader has ventured to confess a want of relish for 
 that in which the young and old, in every climate, have, age after 
 age, taken delight." 
 
 M. Sismondi, Prof. Bouterwek and Walter Savage Landor 
 are among those critics who take Don Quixote seriously. There 
 are always those who profess to discover in the works of genius 
 some hidden motive, some occult purpose, some subcutaneous 
 meaning. Bui we do not see why Cervantes may not be taken 
 at his word. He says he "had no other desire than to render 
 abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in books 
 of chivalry." Certainly there was ample need of this reform. 
 Spanish love of chivalric romance amounted to an obsession, 
 among all classes. In 1553 these romances were prohibited by 
 law from being sold in the American colonies. In 1555 the Span- 
 ish Cortes demanded that all such publications be suppressed. 
 But the passion had struck its roots deeply. It had become a 
 national vice against which legal acts and edicts hurled them- 
 selves in vain. But the vogue of idle and superstitious tales, 
 which had persisted beneath the frown of government, melted 
 away before the magic smile of Cervantes. No more books of 
 chivalry made their appearance after the publication of Don 
 Quixote in 1605 — "a solitary instance," as Ticknor says, "of the 
 power of genius to destroy, by b single well-timed blow, an entire 
 department, and that, too, a flourishing and favored one, in the 
 literature of a great and proud nation." In accomplishing this, 
 his quaint and wholesome humor has placed the universal spirit 
 of humanity under tribute to his genius. He gave to the modern 
 world, moreover, its first classical specimen of the "single-track 
 mind" operating in all the transcendental tomfoolery of its ex- 
 aggerated egoism, the precursor of that international paranoia 
 grandiosa which, garbed in the guise of a meddlesome, misguided 
 and spurious altruism, has been the scourge and plague of more 
 recent times. 
 
CERVANTES lit 
 
 A most interesting feature of Don Quixote is the great num- 
 ber of its phrases which have since grown into general use aa 
 proverbs : in which respect Cervantes strongly resembles Rablals, 
 although his humor is of a more innocent and wholesome character 
 than that of the French author. A single phrase of this classical 
 Spanish humor will show both its quaintness and its power: 
 ''Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse/' 
 (Don Quixote^ XL, 5.) 
 
 Spain's latest expression of gratitude toward her most gifted 
 son occurred on March 6, 1920, when King Alfonso inaugurated a. 
 "Cervantes Hall'' in the National Library at Madrid, in which a^; 
 collection of copies of all the editions of Don Quixote, num;bering 
 more than 600, will be kept; and twenty tablets, representing subr 
 jects of Cervantes' writings, painted by Monoz Degrain, will deco- 
 rate the hall. The director of the Biblioteca, Don Francis Rod- 
 riguez Marin, furnishes some interesting fiicts concerning the 
 various Cervantes editions, the last census of which was made 
 by Martin del Rio, in 19 '6, when it was ascertained that there 
 were 637. including the abridged editions. These were distributed 
 according to languages, as follows: Castilian, 252; French, 121^ 
 Enghsh, 115: German, 49: Dutch, 22; Italian, 19; Swedish, 10- 
 Russian, 10; Portuguese, 6; Pohsh, 6; Hungarian, 5; Catalan, 3; 
 Greek, 3 ; Danish, 3 ; Bohemian, 1 ; Croatian, 1 ; Hindustani, 1, and 
 Polyglot, 1. Since this census vv^as m.ade other editions have been 
 discovered and acquired, so that the total now reaches 648. One 
 of the recently acquired editions is Norwegian, while another is 
 Hebrevz-German, the gift of Dr. Yahuda. Two other editions are 
 in Japanese, the gift of a cultured Spaniard, Don Juan C. Cebrian, 
 of San Francisco, California. 
 
, in. ~ "y ; 
 
 CAMOENS. 
 
 The -greatest name in the literary annals of Portugal is that 
 of Luiz de Camoens, author of the ''Lusiad," an epic poem which 
 ranks among the really great literary creations of the world, and 
 which has securely won its place in what Goethe calls the ' Velt- 
 literatur/' Camoens wrote in both Portugese and Spanish, but 
 Ms fame is erected upon his masterpiece, "Os Lusiadas" — liter- 
 ally, The Lusitanians — which takes for its theme the voyage of 
 Vasco de Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, and incidentally 
 narrates the chief glories of the people of Portugal, the Lusitanian 
 people. 
 
 In point of priority of publication, Camoens' "Lusiad" is the 
 first great epic of modern times, having preceded the "Jerusalem" 
 of Tasso who flourished at about the same time; although, to be 
 sure, critics are agreed that his work is inferior to the Italian 
 masterpiece. In the opinion of Hallam, Camoens, in point of 
 fame, "ranks among the poets of the South immediately after the 
 first names of Italy ; nor is the distinctive character that belongs 
 to the poetry of the southern languages anywhere more fully per- 
 ceived than in the Lusiad." 
 
 Probably the best known of the English translations of the 
 Lusiad is that of Mickle. But, as Southey has remarked: "In 
 every language there is a magic of words as untranslatable as the 
 Sesame in the Arabian tale ; you may retain the meaning, but, if 
 the word?t be changed, the spell is lost. The magic has its effect 
 only upon those to whom the language is as familiar as their 
 mother-tongue, hardly, indeed, upon any but those to whom it is 
 really such. Cam.oens possesses it in perfection ; it is his peculiar 
 excellence." 
 
 In addition to his epic, Camoens is the author of numerous 
 odes, elegies, sonnets, satires and epistles, besides three comedies 
 
 112 
 
CAMOENS 113 
 
 • — -jving ^eleucus,'* 'Tilidemo" and another modeled upon Plautus» 
 *'0s Amphitryoes," the same great model so often imitated in 
 England, Germany and France. Some of his lyrics are written 
 with much tenderness and beauty, and with a facile sweetness of 
 expression; a kind of langorous softness and melancholy mildness 
 which are well portrayed in this bit of mellifluous ViBrse on a con- 
 cealed but unhappy passion : 
 
 De dentro tengo mi mal, 
 Que de f ora no ay senal. 
 
 Mi nueva y dulce querella 
 Es invisible a la gente: 
 El alma sola la siente, 
 Qu' el cuerpo no es dino della: 
 Como la viva sentella 
 S' encubre en el pedernal, 
 De dentro tengo mi mal. 
 
 Within, within, my sorrow lives, 
 But outwardly no token gives. 
 
 All young and gentle in the soul, 
 All hidden from men's eyes, 
 Deep, deep within it lies. 
 
 And scorns the body's low control. ' 
 
 As in the flint the hidden spark 
 Gives outwardly no sign or mark, 
 .Within, within, my sorrow lives. 
 
 Another c haracteristic specimen is his beautiful Spanish ballad^ 
 beginnin^r, — 
 
 Irme quiero, madre, 
 A aquella galera, 
 Con el marino 
 A ser marinera. 
 I long to go, dear mother mine, 
 
 Aboard yon galley fair, 
 With that young sailor that I love, 
 His sailor life to share. 
 
114 CAMOENS 
 
 **Most of his sonnets," says the German scholar Bouterwek, 
 in his History of Portugese Literature, **have love for their theme, 
 and they are of very unequal merit ; some are full of Petrarchic 
 tenderness and grace, and moulded v^ith classic correctness; 
 others are impetuous and romantic, or disfigured by false learn- 
 ing, or full of tedious pictures of the conflicts of passion with rea- 
 son. Upon the whole, however, no Portugese poet has so cor- 
 rectly seized the character of the sonnet as Camoens." Notwith- 
 standing faults that are obvious, the *'Lusiad" contains beauties 
 which distinguish it clearly as the work of a master. There is a 
 certain clarity of narration and transparency of style which the 
 reader cannot fail to note. There are likewise bold and lofty 
 flights of imagination, such as that which calls forth the genius 
 of the river Ganges, appearing to King Em.anuel of Portugal, in a 
 dream, inviting that Prince to discover its secret origins ; and, in 
 the fifth canto, the noble concept of the ''Spirit of the Cape,'' the 
 £-uardian genius of those uncharted seas, rising in tempests from 
 the deep, to warn the daring mariners, as they rounded Good 
 Hope, that they should proceed no farther. This is said to be 
 one of the most celebrated and striking figuies to be found in 
 modern literature. 
 
 Camoens lived from 1524 to 1579. His life was divided 
 *twixt love and war. In his early manhood he was welcomed at 
 the court of Lisbon. Here he conceived an attachment for one of 
 the Queen's ladies of honor. He was banished from the court 
 and separated from the lady he loved. From that time forth, he 
 spent the greater part of his life in foreign wars, a voluntary 
 exile from the land he cherished and which his great works have 
 so signally honored. Returning after years of wandering, he 
 presented his noble epic to King Sebastian, and was given a paltry 
 pension of about twenty dollars! He lived for a few years, with 
 his old m.other, and then passed away unnoticed, in a pubHc hos- 
 pital. 
 
IV. 
 QUEVEDO. 
 
 Born at Madrid in 1580, a contemporary of Lope de Vega and 
 CervantecJ. Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas was the first 
 great sat^'rist of modern times. He was a man of profound erudi- 
 tion, beino' deeply versed in both civil and canon law, mathematics 
 and medicine, a graduate in theology, and a master of Hebrew, 
 Arabic,*Greek, Latin and Italian. He was a cripple, and also suf- 
 fered from defective eyesight. 
 
 In early life he fought a duel in defense of a woman, and slew 
 his opponent, who happened to be a person of rank. He then fled 
 to Sicily, and entered the service of the viceroy, the Duke of 
 Ossuna, for whom he conducted many important diplomatic nego- 
 tiations. Later he became minister of finance at Naples, and fur- 
 ther dist^'nguished himself in diplomacy, conducting successful 
 negotiations with Savoy, Venice and Rome. Quevedo discharged 
 all his public offices with marked credit to himself and his coun- 
 try. But. with the fall of his patron, the great Duke of Ossuna, 
 he was exiled. 
 
 When again recalled to favor at the court of Spain, Quevedo 
 refused office, declining, respectively, the posts of Secretary of 
 State and Ambassador to Genoa, having determined to give him- 
 self up wholly to letters. Suspected of having written some 
 anonymous verses against the king, he was suddenly seized and 
 spirited away to prison, where he languished for several years, 
 although he was known to be innocent of the trifling charge 
 against him. His persecution w^as due to the implacable enmity 
 of the cruel Duke of Olivares, to whom he wrote a pathetic letter 
 in which he said : "No clemency can add many years to my life ; 
 no rigor can take many away." His health, indeed, was broken 
 beyond all hope of cure. But he did not secure his liberty until 
 Olivares was driven from power. 
 
 115 
 
116 QUEVEDO 
 
 Quevedo wrote everything, from methaphysics to Gypsey 
 ballads. He suffered much, and he suffered innocently; and he 
 died a ruined, broken, embittered and disappointed man. On his 
 death-bed he requested that nearly all his works be suppressed. 
 His works are published in eleven volumes, three of poetry, and 
 eight of prose. He translated Epictetus, parts of Plutarch, Seneca, 
 and Anacreon, and wrote much in the manner of Juvenal and 
 Persius. 
 
 In addition to his acquired culture, Quevedo was a man of 
 extraordinary natural endowments. Some of his religious and 
 love poems are tull of beauty and tenderness. But his principal 
 works are in prose, and his satirical prose works are his best. 
 His "Paul the Sharper" has been translated into English, French, 
 German and Italian. His "Visions" have won for him a world- 
 wide fame. An English version, by L'Estrange, won great popu- 
 larity in the seventeenth century. 
 
 Quevedo hurled the shafts of his cutting ridicule against the 
 current literary affectation known as "Cultismo,'' then at the 
 height of its folly. With terrible bitterness he inveighed against 
 the vices of the times. But he lacked Cervantes' fine sense of 
 the ridiciilous. He was endowed with marvelous wit, but there 
 was too much bitterness in his soul to develop a kindly sense of 
 humor. His truculent sarcasm, galling satire and biting irony 
 could inf^iriate but it could not destroy. The following is from 
 his "Vision" of the Day of Judgment: 
 
 "But when it was fairly understood of all that this was the 
 Day of Judgment, it was worth seeing how the voluptuous tried 
 to avoid having their eyes found for them, that they need not 
 bring into court witnesses against themselves, — how the mali- 
 cious tried to avoid their own tongues, and how robbers and as- 
 sassins seemed willing to wear out their feet running away from 
 their hands. And turning partly round, I saw one miser asking 
 another whether; because the dead were to rise that day, certain 
 money-bags of his must also rise. I should have laughed heartily 
 at this, if I had not, on the other side, pitied the eagerness with 
 which a great rout of notaries rushed by, fiying from their own 
 ears, in order to avoid hearing what awaited them, though none 
 
QUEVEDO 117 
 
 succeeded in escaping, except those who in this world had lost 
 their ears as thieves, which, owing to the neglect of justice, was 
 by no means the majority. But what I most wondered at was to 
 see the bodies of two or three shop-keepers, that had put on their 
 souls wrong-side out, and crowded all five of their senses under 
 the nails cf their right hands." 
 
V. 
 THE ARGENSOLAS. 
 
 Seldom has the literature of any nation presented the work 
 of two brothers attaining such eminence as the Argensola 
 brothers, Bartolomeo Leonardo (born 1566, died 1633) and Lu- 
 percio Leonardo (born 1565, died 1613), both of whom reached 
 high rani in Spanish letters. 
 
 Bartolomeo was almoner to the Empress Maria, widow of 
 Maxiniilian IL, and when his brother Lupercio died he took his 
 place, as Historiographer of Aragon. Pope Paul II. appointed 
 him canon of the Cathedral in Saragossa. The following sonnet, 
 on "Prov'dence" (translation by Herbert) is in his characteristic 
 manner : 
 
 ''Parent of good ! Since all thy laws are just, 
 Say, why permits thy judging Providence 
 Oppression's hand to bow meek Innocence, 
 And gives prevailing strength to Fraud and Lust ; 
 Who steels with stubborn force the arm unjust, 
 That proudly wars against Omnipotence? 
 Who bids thy faithful sons, that reverence 
 Thine holy will, be humbled in the dust?" — 
 Amid the din of Joy fair Virtue sighs, 
 While the fierce conqueror binds his impious head 
 With laurel, and the car of triumph rolls. — 
 Thus I, when radiant 'fore my wondering eyes 
 A heavenly spirit stood, and smiling said: 
 ''Blind moralist ! is Earth the sphere of souls ?" 
 
 Lupercio wrote three tragedies which won high praise from 
 Cervantes, and was also the author of many canzones, satires and 
 sonnets, v/hich have been published with the poems of his brother. 
 "Both brothers," says Ticknor, "are to be placed high in the list 
 of Spanish lyric poets; next, perhaps, after the great masters. 
 The elder shows, on the whole, more original power; but he left 
 only half as many poems as his brother did." Speaking of the 
 
 118 
 
r 
 
 » 
 
 THE ARGENSOLAS 119 
 
 purity of their style Lope de Vega says: "It seems as though 
 they had come from Aragon to reform Castihan verse." The 
 genius of the brothers was much ahke ; scarcely distinguishable in 
 their work, as the English critic, Hallam, thinks ; but the German 
 Bouterwek assigns a higher place to Bartolomeo, and in this view- 
 he is supported by Dieze, another great German authority, who 
 thinks that the eulogy of Nicolas Antonio on these brothers, 
 although in rather extravagant terms, is fully merited by them.. 
 Lupercio's "Mary Magdalen," which follows (translation by 
 Bryant) is one of the finest specimens of Spanish lyrical verse: 
 Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted! 
 The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn. 
 In wonder and in scorn 
 Thou weepest days of innocence departed. 
 
 Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move 
 The Lord to pity and to love. 
 
 The greatest of thy follies is forgiven 
 
 Even for the least of all the tears that shine 
 On that pale cheek of thine. 
 Thou didst kneel down to Him who came from heaven, 
 Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise 
 Holy, and pure, and wise. 
 
 It is not much that to the fragrant blossom 
 The ragged briar should change ; the bitter fir 
 Distil Arabia's myrrh; 
 Nor that, upon the wintry desert's bosom, 
 
 The harvest should rise plenteous, and the swain 
 Bear home abundant grain. 
 
 But come and see the bleak and barren mountains 
 Thick to their top with roses ; come and see 
 Leaves on the dry, dead tree: 
 The perished plant, set out by living fountains, 
 Grows fruitful, and its beauteous branches rise 
 Forevar toward the skies. ^ 
 
^ ^' ■ VI. 
 
 VILLEGAS. 
 
 A follower of the Argensolas, and whose youth had moved 
 with admiration in their footsteps, as he often boasted, was Este- 
 van Manuel de Villegas, called by Dieze "the Spanish Anacreon, 
 the poet of the Graces." He is, as this German authority says, 
 "one of the best lyric poets of Spain, excellent in the various 
 styles he has performed, but, above all, in his odes and songs. 
 His original poems are full of genius. His translations of Horace 
 and Anacreon might often pass for original. Few surpass him 
 in harmony of verse." (Geschichte der Spanischen Dichtkunst, 
 p. 210.) 
 
 Villegas wrote much of his verse before he had reached the 
 age of fourteen, and published the greater part of it before he 
 was twenty-one. Owing to his youthful conceit and indiscretion 
 he made the mistake of attacking Cervantes, Quevedo and Lope 
 de Vega in his very first edition. This unfortunate bit of imper- 
 tinence plagued him throughout his life and has had a tendency 
 to mar his reputation ever since. 
 
 Villegas was born in 1596. He was married in 1626, and 
 thereafter practically abandoned the field of letters for the less, 
 congenial profession of the law, which he was obliged to follow 
 for a livelihood. In his mature years it appears that he attempted 
 little or riothing worth while in the field of poetry, although he 
 prepared a few essays on ancient authors and translated Boethius' 
 "Consolations of Philosophy" into what is generally regarded as 
 a classical specimen of Castilian prose. He died in 1669, after a 
 life of poverty, and without having achieved the literary honors 
 which he coveted, or attained the material resources he so sorely 
 needed. He must have known, instinctively, the quality and value 
 cf his woi'k, and had he been content to herald it forth with some- 
 what less of bravado, his own generation might have recognized 
 
 120. 
 
\aLLEGAS 121 
 
 his ^vorth, and he might not have died an unhappy and a disap- 
 pointed man. An author cannot speak for his work; his work 
 must spesk for him. 
 
 We have nothing in EngHsh which can be at all compared 
 with his miitations of Anacreon. His imitations of Horace and 
 Catullus and Petrarch are not less amazing. Routerwek, a recog- 
 nized authority, declares : "The graceful luxuriance of the poetry 
 of Villegas has no parallel in modern literature; and, generally 
 speaking, no modern writer has so well succeeded in blending the 
 spirit of ancient poetry with the modern.'' 
 
 In h^'s "History of Spanish Literature," Mr. Ticknor thus 
 speaks of Villegas' imitations of Anacreon: "They give such a 
 faithful impression of the native sweetness of Anacreon as is not 
 easily foi.nd elsewhere in modern literature." The reader will 
 share with Mr. Ticknor his conclusion: "We close the volume of 
 Villegas, therefore, with sincere regret that he, who, in his boy- 
 hood, could write poetry so beautiful, — poetry so imbued with the 
 spirit of antiquity-, and yet so full of the tenderness of modern 
 feeling ; so classically exact, and yet so fresh and natural, — should 
 have survived its publication above forty years without finding 
 an interval when the cares and disappointments of the world per- 
 mitted him to returu to the occupations that made his youth 
 happy, and that have preserved his name for a posterity of which, 
 when he nrst Hsped in numbers, he could hardly have had a seri- 
 ous thourht." 
 
VII. 
 MONTALVO. 
 
 To Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, governor of the city of 
 Medina del Campo, we owe the earhest extant version of the 
 ''Amadis de Gaula," which during a period of two hundred years 
 was the n ost popular prose romance of Christendom. He trans- 
 lated the tale from the Portugese between 1492 and 1504, and 
 added to it a composition of his own, the fanciful story of "Esplan- 
 dian,'' a son of Amadis. Montalvo flourished in the latter part 
 of the fifteenth century. Beyond these facts, little or nothing 
 is known of him. 
 
 Although French and English scholars have claimed for their 
 respective literatures the honor of originating the Amadis, those 
 honors belong to Spain and Portugal. Ayala, the Spanish Chan- 
 cellor who was the first Spanish translator of Livy, a cautious, 
 truthful, learned and sagacious man, mentions the Amadis. Ayala 
 died in 1407. Zurara, keeper of the Archives of Portugal in 1454, 
 says that ''the book of Am_adis" was ''made entirely at the pleas- 
 ure of one man, called Vasco De Lobeira, in the time of King Don 
 Ferdinand; all the things in the said book being invented by its 
 author,'' Lobeira died in 1403. His manuscript is now no longer 
 extant, and we know his work only through Montalvo, his Spanish' 
 translato^r The Portugese manuscript was known to exist in the 
 archives of the Dukes of Arveiro, at Lisbon, as late as the year 
 1750. But from that time we know nothing further in regard to 
 it, and it vvas possibly lost in the Lisbon earthquake, which de- 
 stroyed tiie palace of the family of Arveiro in 1755. 
 
 The Amadis was translated into Italian as early as 1546. In 
 1560 Bernardo Tasso, father of the great author of the "Jerusa- 
 lem Dehvcred," pubhshed his poem "Amadigi," which was made 
 up almost entirely of materials taken from the Spanish romance. 
 The brilliivnt author of the Jerusalem himself likewise praised the 
 
 122 
 
MONTALVO 123 
 
 great Spctnish and Portugese story in the following language: 
 'In the opinion of many, and particularly in my own opinion, it 
 is the most beautiful, and perhaps the most profitable, story of 
 its kind that can be read, because, in its sentiment and tone, it 
 leaves all others behind it, and, in the variety of its incidents, 
 yields to none written before or since." Six editions of the 
 Amadis were published in Italy in less than thirty years. In 
 France the first translation was pubhshed in 1540, followed by 
 other editions without number. The first English translation was 
 in 1619. 
 
 Montalvo intim.ates that his Spanish rendition of the romance 
 is much better than its Portugese original. At any rate, it is a 
 compact work of the imagination, not military like the story of 
 Charlemagne, nor religious like the story of Arthur and the Holy 
 Grail, but m.erely delineating the trials, the adventures and the 
 virtues of a perfect knight, the currents of whose life and love 
 are crossod by inrum.erable giants, magicians and wicked knights, 
 but over all whom he finally triumphs and wins the hand and 
 heart of his beloved Oriana. 
 
 The Amadis is written in simple style, and often exhibits 
 passages of great tenderness .and beauty, such as those which de- 
 velop the iove of Oriana and the ''Child of the Sea." What Cer- 
 vantes thought of the Amadis is recorded in Part I. of Don 
 Quixote. When the barber, the housekeeper and the curate began 
 to expurgate the library of Don Quixote, the first book taken from 
 the shelf was the Amadis de Gaula. 
 
 " 'There is something mysterious about this matter,' said the 
 Curate; *for, as I have heard, this was the first book of knight 
 errantry that was printed in Spain, and all the others have had 
 their origin and source here, so that, as the arch-heretic of so 
 mischievous a sect, I think he should, without a hearing, be con- 
 demned to the fire.' 'No, sir,' said the barber, 'for I, too, have 
 heard that it is the best of all the books of its kind that have been 
 written, and therefore, for its singularity, it ought to be forgiven.' 
 'That is t»:e truth,' answered the curate, 'and so let us spare it for 
 
124 MONTALVO 
 
 the present'." A decision which, upon the whole, as one critic 
 observes, has been confirmed by posterity, ''and precisely for the 
 reason that Cervantes assigned." 
 
 Montalvo's continuation of the Amadis in the story of Esplan- 
 dian is devoid of interest. Other additions were made by later 
 authors, for the most part worthless, until the Amadis stories 
 reached the immense proportion of twenty-six books. And then 
 Duverdier capped the climax by bringing the broken threads of 
 these stories together in seven volumes, entitled ''Roman des 
 Romanes," — Romance of Romances. So ends the history of the 
 Portugese type of Amadis of Gaul, an eminent authority on Span- 
 ish literature remarks, as it was originally presented to the world 
 in the Spanish romances of chivalry ; "a fiction which, considering 
 the passionate admiration it so long excited, and the influence it 
 has, with little merit of its own, exercised on the poetry and ro- 
 mances of modern Europe ever since, is a phenomenon that has 
 no parall;?! in literary history." 
 
VIII. 
 
 GUILLEN DE CASTRO. 
 
 Born of a noble family in Valencia in 1569, in his native city 
 Guillen de Castro early became distinguished as a man of letters. 
 His life, however, was not wholly devoted to literature. At one 
 time he held a place in the government of the viceroy of Naples. 
 At another time we find him serving as a captain of Cavalry. 
 Cervantes speaks of him as one of the popular dramatic authors 
 of his day. He died in poverty in 1631. 
 
 Guillen de Castro was a personal friend of Lope de Vega, 
 whose mpnner of dramatic composition he followed. Aside from 
 twenty-seven or twenty-eight of his dramas, very few of his 
 works h.'.ve been published. He dramatized a part of "Don 
 Quixote," and this drama was translated into French as early as 
 1638, w^hen it was brought on the French stage by Guerin de 
 Bouscal. His "Santa Barbara" was imitated by Calderon in the 
 "Wonderworking Magician." 
 
 But Castro's chief service to the literature of Europe lay in 
 his adaptation and dramatization of the old anonymous metrical 
 romance of "The Cid " This drama is entitled "Las Mocedades 
 del Cid"- -The Youth, or Youthful Adventures, of the Cid. His 
 great French contemporary, Corneille, mado Castro's work the 
 basis of h^s own brilliant tragedy of The Cid, a drama which for 
 two hundred years fixed the character of the stage throughout 
 Europe. Thus the father of French tragedy owes much to the 
 genius of his Spanish predecessor. 
 
 The following passage from Castro's work, depicting the 
 anxiety of the Cid's father who is waiting in the twilight for his 
 heroic S3ii, after the duel, is regarded as superior to Corneille's 
 presentalr'on of the same scene: 
 
 125 
 
126 GUILLEN DE CASTRO 
 
 "The timid ewe bleats not so mournfully, 
 • It > shepherd lost, nor cries the angry lion 
 With such a fierceness for its stolen young, 
 As 1 for Roderic. — My son! my son! 
 Each shade I pass, amid the closing night. 
 Seems still to wear thy form and mock my arms! 
 0, why, why comes he not? I gave the sign, — 
 I marked the spot, — and yet he is not here ! 
 Has he nedected? Can he disobey? 
 It may not be ! A thousand terrors seize me. 
 Perhaps some injury or accident 
 Has made him turn aside his hastening step ; — 
 P 'rhaps he may be slain, or hurt or seized. 
 The very thought freezes my breaking heart. 
 holy Heaven, how many ways for fear 
 Can grief iind out ! — But Hark ! What do I hear ? 
 Is it his foot-step ? Can it be ? 0, no ! 
 Tis but the echo of my grief I hear. 
 But hark again ! Methinks there comes a gallop 
 On the flinty stones. He springs from off his steed !" 
 
 *'The Poem of the Cid/' covering nearly four thousand lines, 
 upon which Castro bases his famous drama, is one of the classics 
 of the mediaeval ages, as well as among the earliest and most 
 characteristic specimens of Spanish poetry. The Cid was the 
 great Spanish hero of the age of Chivalry, and was born in north- 
 western Spain, about the year 1040 — a quarter of a century be- 
 fore the Battle of Hastings, — and he died at Valencia in 1099, 
 while the knights of Christendom who followed Godfry of Bouillon 
 on the First Crusade were planting the Christian standards upon 
 the walls of Jerusalem. The Cid himself had devoted the greater 
 part of his life to battling with the Saracens on the Moorish fron- 
 tiers of Spain v/here for centuries Spanish bravery held back the 
 Mohamm.t:dan advance. His name v/as originally Rodrigo Diaz, 
 and the title of Cid came to him in the field, from the fact that 
 five Moo ish chieftains vanquished by him in a single battle 
 acknowledged him, as their Seid, or conqueror. 
 
GUILLEN DE CASTRO 127 
 
 ''The Poem of the Cid" is a spirited portrayal of Spanish 
 ChivsilYy. and a living picture of the stirring times described. 
 It breathes the spirit of battle, and rings throughout with the 
 clang of ]ance and shield. The reader m.ay gain an idea of its 
 chivalric dash and spirit from these lines, translated by J. Hook- 
 man Frere, describing the scene at Alcocer, where, besieged by 
 the Moors, the Cid saved himself by a bold sally, in which he over- 
 whelmed the Moorish Hne : 
 
 "Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go, 
 Their lances in the rest, levelled fair and low. 
 Their banners and their crests, waving in a row. 
 Their heads all stooping down toward the saddle-bow ; 
 The Cid was in the midst, his shout was heard afar, 
 T am Ruy Diaz, the champion of Bivar ; 
 Strike amongst them. Gentlemen, for sweet mercy's sake !' 
 There where Bermuez fought amidst the foe they brake, 
 Threo hundred bannered knights, it was a gallant show. 
 Three hundred Moors they killed, a man with every blow ; 
 When they wheeled and turned, as many more were slain ; 
 You might see them raise their lances, and level them again." 
 
 The reader will agree with Ticknor, in his History of Spanish 
 Literature" when he says concerning this poem: 'Tt is, indeed, a 
 work which, as we read it, stirs us with the spirit of the times 
 it describ'f.s ; and as we lay it down and recollect the intellectual 
 condition of Europe when it was written, and for a long time be- 
 fore, it seems certam, that, during the thousand years which 
 elapsed from the time of the decay of Greek and Roman culture, 
 down to the appearance of the 'Divinia Comrnedia,' no poetry was 
 produced so original 4n its tone or so full of natural feeling, pic- 
 turesqueness and energy." 
 
 Castro was more faithful to the incidents of the poem than 
 was Correilie, and the great Frenchman would have been less de- 
 serving of the censure of Richeheu and the French Academy had 
 he adhered more closely to his Spanish original ; although, it must 
 be confessed that in some respects he has improved upon the 
 Spanish work. 
 
IX. 
 VICENTE. 
 
 In his ^'Literature of Europe" Mr. Hallam cites an article 
 from the Biographie Universelle in proof of the statement that 
 the first drama produced in modern Europe was by Gil Vicente, 
 a Portugese. It was a spiritual drama, and was performed at 
 Lisbon oti the festival of Corpus Christi, in 1504. But Ticknor 
 declares that Vicente's first drama was presented in 1502. 
 
 The date of Vicente's birth is not known, but he died in 1557. 
 He produced tragedies, comedies and farces, besides works of 
 religious devotion. Ticknor thinks that, taken together, they are 
 better than anything else in Portugese literature. Many of his 
 plays, however, are written in Spanish, a language which he 
 handled v,ith equal facility. Ten of his plays are in Castilian, 
 fixfteen partly so, and seventeen in Portugese. Vicente therefore, 
 must be classed among the great authors of both Spain and Por- 
 tugal. 
 
 Joan de Barros, the Portugese historian, writing in 1785, 
 praises Vicente for the purity of his thought and style. The real 
 power of Vicente lies in his poetry, or in the poetic parts of his 
 dramas. The following verse, illustrating his lyrical style, is 
 from Bowring's translation : 
 
 The rose looks out in the valley. 
 
 And thither will I go. 
 To the rosy gale, where the nightingale 
 Sings his song of woe. 
 
 It is worthy of note that in Gil Vicente's poetry it is the male 
 nightingale which sings, and not the female. Many of the poets 
 (Petrarch, Milton and Shakespeare among them) have fallen into 
 the rather curious error of causing the female nightingale to sing. 
 Vicente appears to have observed nature more closely than some 
 other singers of first-rate powers. Through his lyrical talents 
 
 128 
 
VICENTE 129 
 
 some of Vicente's dramas are made to serve a political purpose. 
 Thus, when recruits are wanted for an expedition against the 
 Moors of Africa, he closes one of his pieces with this poetical 
 exhortation by way of envoi: 
 
 To the field! To the field! 
 
 Cavahers of emprise ! 
 
 Angels pure from the skies 
 Come to help us and shield. 
 To the field! To the field! 
 With armor all bright, 
 
 They speed down the road. 
 
 On man call, on God 
 To succor the right. 
 
 Gil Vicente vrrote many pastoral dramas and autos. One of 
 these, written about 1503, was first presented in the monastery 
 of Enxobregas, one Christmas morning, before the royal family. 
 It is entitled 'The Auto of the Sibyl Cassandra," and is of interest, 
 not only as one of the very earliest dramatic pieces of modern 
 times, but because of the pastoral elegance of some of the lyrics. 
 Cassandra, the shepherd-maid, dechnes to marry. In the course 
 of the play she sings this song: 
 
 They say '' Tis time, go marry ! go !" 
 But rU no husband ! not I ! no ! 
 For I would live all carelessly, 
 Amidst these hills, a maiden free, 
 And never ask, nor anxious be, 
 
 Of wedded weal or woe. 
 Yet still they say, ''Go marry ! go !'' 
 But I'll no husband I not I ! no ! 
 
 So, Mother, think not I shall wed, 
 And through a tiresome life be led. 
 Or use, in folly's ways instead. 
 
 What grace the heavens bestow. 
 Yet still they say, "Go marry ! go !" 
 But ril no husband ! not I ! no ! 
 
130 VICENTE ; 
 
 The man has not been born, I ween, 
 Who as my husband shall be seen; 
 And since what frequent tricks have been 
 
 Undoubtedly I know. 
 In vain they say, "Go marry ! go !" 
 For ril no husband ! not I ! no ! 
 
 Gil ^ icente was the father of the Portugese drama, if not of 
 the drama of modern Europe. He was an actor as well as a 
 playright, and his children often acted with him. His works 
 were first collected and published by his son, four years after the 
 death of Vicente. A monumental edition was brought out at 
 Hamburg, in 1832. 
 
CALDERON. 
 
 The latest luminary of the golden age of Spanish literature 
 was Pedro Calderon de la Barca, the great rival and successor of 
 Lope de Vega. He was born January 17, 1600, and died on the 
 Feast of Pentecost, 1681, while all Spain was ringing with his 
 rehgious plays, and while engaged in literary work; ''dying," 
 according to his friend De Solis, "as they say the swan dies, sing- 
 ing." So great was his fame that at Naples, Lisbon and Rome 
 his death was pubHcly noted as a national calamity. 
 
 Like Corneille, his French contemporary, Calderon was edu- 
 cated by the Jesuits. He served in the Spanish wars of the 
 period and was a favorite at the court of Madrid. He composed 
 his first literary work when barely fourteen years of age, and was 
 still writing when death called him, at the age of eighty-one. He 
 was thirty -five years old when Lope de Vega died, and from that 
 time forth he was undisputed master of the Spanish stage. 
 
 Calderon is said to have been a man of singularly handsome 
 countenance, courtly manners, of dignified and chaste deportment, 
 and possessed of a voice of rare sweetness, gentleness and beauty. 
 No man was more deeply or more deservedly beloved by his 
 contemporaries. He was of a most considerate and benevolent 
 nature, and his brilliant successes did not mar his meek, modest, 
 pious and sunny spirit. He was firmly opposed to publishing his 
 works, and thus the task of collecting them has been rendered 
 very difficult. But he wrote not less than 127 plays and 97 autos. 
 No man ever equalled him in the auto, or religious drama, and 
 from this source alone he amassed a fortune, the whole of which 
 was devoted to charitable works. 
 
 The plots of Calderon, like those of Lope de Vega, are char- 
 acterized by great ingenuity. He has been a fertile field for the 
 dramatists of other countries, notably Corneille in France, and 
 
 131 
 
132 CALDERON 
 
 Gozzi in Italy. Two of his comedies were translated by the Earl 
 of Bristol. Dryden took his **Mock Astrologer" from Comeille, 
 who, in turn, borrowed it from Calderon. His "El Principe Con- 
 stante," translated by A. W. Schlegel, was brought out in Ger- 
 many under the auspices of Goethe, and was acted with great 
 success at Weimar, Berlin and Vienna. J. Schultze ranks it with 
 the "Divinia Commedia." 
 
 A. W. Schlegel, the man who gave Shakespeare to Germany, 
 performed a similar service for Calderon, whose work, in some 
 respects, he regarded as superior to that of Shakespeare. It is 
 admitted that Schlegel's German translation of Shakespeare is 
 the best in any foreign language, and the same is doubtless true 
 of his translation of Calderon. 
 
 When Calderon reached middle life he joined a religious 
 order, and became a priest of the Congregation of St. Peter, of 
 which he rose to be the superior, and held that sacred office dur- 
 ing the last fifteen years of his life. "He knew how," as Augus- 
 tin de Lara said of him, "to unite by humihty and prudence, the 
 duties of an obedient child and a loving father." 
 
 In both his lyrics and his dramatic workr, Calderon is noted 
 for his moving tenderness, the glowing enchantment and dazzling 
 brilliance of his imagery, the preternatural splendor of his scenic 
 effects, the superabundance of his vocabulary, the rich variety 
 of his measures, the charming and delicious melody of his rhyme, 
 his marvelous fluency of versification, and the serene Castilian 
 majesty of his style. But few of his lyrical works have survived. 
 A specim.en of his simple and tender lyrical style is the poem, in 
 ballad measure, of which the burden is '0 dulce Jesus mio, no 
 entres, Senor, con vuestro siervo en juicio!" Two stanzas follow: 
 
 How much resembles here our birth 
 
 The final hour of all! 
 Weeping at first we see the earth. 
 And weeping hear death's call. 
 0, spare me, Jesus, spare me. Savior dear, 
 Nor meet thy servant as a judge severe! 
 
CALDERON 133 
 
 When first we entered this dark world, 
 
 We hailed it with a moan ; 
 And when we leave its confines dark, 
 Our farewell is a groan. 
 0, spare me, Jesus, spare me, Savior dear, 
 Nor meet thy servant as a judge severe! 
 
PART FIVE 
 
 GREAT FRENCH AUTHORS 
 
 I 
 
 I. MONTAIGNE. 
 
 IL RABLAIS. 
 
 III. FENELON. 
 
 IV. MONTESQUIEU, 
 
 V. CORNEILLE. 
 
 VI. RACINE. 
 
 VII. MOLIERE. 
 
 VIII. LA FONTAINE, 
 
 IX. VOLTAIRE. 
 
 X. HUGO 
 
Of all European literature the French is by general 
 consent that which possesses the most uniformly fertile, * 
 
 brilliant and unbroken history. j 
 
 — Saintsbury. . I 
 
 
MONTAIGNE. 
 
 The father of the modern essay was Michel Eyquem de Mon- 
 taigne, whose volume is the earhest of the French classics, and 
 the publication of whose essays marked an epoch in the hterature 
 of the world. 
 
 Montaigne was born on the last day of February, 1533. He 
 learned Latin before he learned French, his father having placed 
 him in infancy under a German tutor who addressed him only in 
 Latin. He was educated in the law, but soon abandoned that pro- 
 fession. He w^as a "councilor" in the Parliament of Bordeaux, 
 and was twice chosen mayor of that city. He conducted negotia- 
 tions between King Henry IV. of Navarre and the Duke of Guise, 
 with both of whom he was upon friendliest terms. He was highly 
 esteemed by Catherine de Medicis, by the Kings of France who 
 reigned in his lifetime, and generally by the public men of his 
 day, regardless of faction, politics or religion — a statement which 
 probably cannot Le made of any other equally prominent person 
 of that unsettled and bloody era. In this respect his career re- 
 minds us of that of Petrarch, the great Italian. His fairness, his 
 patience and his equanimity won the hearts of all, and his char- 
 acter was a better defense for him than an army of soldiers. 
 During all the civil wars of that stormy period the chateau of 
 Montaigne was le^t unguarded and unbarred. He had, as he said, 
 "no other guard cr sentinel than the stars." 
 
 At the age of thirty-eight he decided to eschew public life 
 altogether and give his time wholly to literature; a resolution 
 which he was not able to carry out in its entirety, but in which 
 he at least approximately succeeded. Whether in his library with 
 his Plutarch and Seneca, or patching up truces for the Duke of 
 Guise and King rienry IV., or serving the court of France, or 
 arbitrating, in the mayoralty of Bordeaux, the differences of his 
 
 135 
 
136 MONTAIGNE 
 
 neighbors, he led a life of serene and tranquil contemplation, dis- 
 playing at all times his candid and sincere temper, and mingling 
 a sort of amiable skepticism with an honest faith in God and a 
 genuine love of man. 
 
 Montaigne hcs been more generally read than any other 
 prose-writer of the sixteenth century, and is still one of the 
 favorite authors of mankind. It is very doubtful if there is a 
 single person of broad and liberal culture in all the world today, 
 who has not at some period of his life fallen under the sorcer*s 
 spell of old Montaigne. He and Machiavelli were the writers 
 who most profoundly influenced the thought of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury; and, as Hallam observes, these two, and Rablais, are the 
 only writers of that age, aside from poets and historians, who are 
 much read at the present time. 
 
 The perennial charm of Montaigne is as hard to define as it 
 is difficult to resist. Whether the appeal may be thought to lie in 
 his sprightly humor, in his rambling and discursive manner, in 
 his desultory, cheerful, conversational style, his bewitching afflu- 
 ence of speech, his fascinating simplicity, his placid equability, 
 or in the opalescer t brightness of those pages which he has graced 
 with such an aer'al delicacy and lightness of touch, he entertains, 
 he soothes and satisfies the leisure hour. When the King of 
 France told Montaigne that he liked his essays, the latter replied : 
 •'Then, sire, you will like me ; I am my essays.'* And he tells us 
 fhe same thing in his preface: 'Thus, reader, myself am the 
 matter of my book; there's no reason thou shouldst employ thy 
 leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject." But, for all that, 
 as Emerson has said: "This book of Montaigne the world has 
 endorsed by translating it into all tongues, and printing seventy- 
 five editions of it m Europe ; and that, too, a circulation somewhat 
 • hosen, namely, among courtiers, soldiers, princes, men of the 
 world, and men of wit and generosity." Sainte-Beuve calls him 
 "the French Horace" — an eminently apt characterization, too; 
 for the reader of Montaigne cannot have escaped his Horatian 
 attitude throughout. He is, indeed, a true and living exempli- 
 fication of Horace's "golden mean." Balzac said of him that he 
 
MONTAIGNE 137 
 
 carried human reason as far and as high as it could go, both in 
 politics and in morals. But that, we should say, is taking the 
 French essayist rather too seriously. It reminds one of the state- 
 ment of Charles Francis Adams in his Phi Beta Kappa address 
 at Cambridge, in 1883, wherein he said that he preferred the 
 "philosophy" of Montaigne to the ''platitudes" of Cicero, how- 
 ever, it is hardly to be supposed that Cicero will suffer in any com- 
 parison with Montaigne, notwithstanding the opinion of the 
 American scholar just quoted. When we have said of Montaigne 
 that he possessed tact, good sense, a kindly spirit, the saving 
 o'race of humor, and an unfaiHng literary charm, we have said 
 as much as can be said for most great prose writers of the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Montaigne, like Horace, has been peculiarly the companion of 
 the literati of the generations that have succeeded him. Epi- 
 curian in his tendencies he undoubtedly was; but he was not the 
 proponent of any particlar sect or school of thought. To say that 
 he argued for any specific set or system of ideas in politics, re- 
 Mgion or philosophy, is to misapprehend his meaning. But he 
 ppeaks truth; whether by accident or design, directly or by in- 
 nuendo, apparently does not concern him. His air is that of one 
 who speaks for entertainment — and prim.arily for his own diver- 
 tisement. He has no cause to argue, no point to prove. He is 
 not seeking proselytes or making followers. What does it mat- 
 ter? And this beguiling attitude of nonchalance, this sweet in- 
 souciance, is one secret of his charm. He talks and clatters along 
 at an amazing rate, but the spirit of controversy is not in him. 
 He is not polemical, nor emotional. He does not care to convince, 
 seek to persuade, nor mean to offend. If he has jarred the nerves 
 of Pascal and Malebranche, it was, we are persuaded, wholly un- 
 intentional — and he would say so now, if he could; but he might 
 add, as he does in his essay, "Of Repentence": "I speak truth, 
 not so much as I would, but as much as I dare ; and I dare a little 
 the more as I gr.w older." 
 
 Hallam has observed that Montaigne's great influence has 
 been felt not directly upon the multitude so much as through 
 
138 MONTAIGNE 
 
 the great minds he has reached and helped to mould. We know 
 ihat his influence .ipon Shakespeare was very great. Victor Hugo 
 thinks that he saved the English bard from the concetti of the 
 Italian school, and thus made Hamlet possible. However that 
 may be, v/e are at liberty to surmise that Montaigne was in Shake- 
 speare's library, and we know that in **The Tempest," in the 
 speech of Gonzalo, wherein the ideal commonwealth is described, 
 the word3 are taken almost verbatim from Montaigne's Essays, 
 Bk. L, Chap. 30. 
 
 "His book," says Sainte-Beuve, "is a treasure-house of moral 
 observations and of experience ; at whatever page it is opened, and 
 in whatever condition of mind, some wise thought expressed in a 
 striking and enduring fashion is certain to be found. It will at 
 once detach itself and engrave itself on the mind, a beautiful 
 meaning in full and forcible words, in one vigorous line, familiar 
 or great. The whole of his book, said Etienne Pasquier, is a real 
 seminary of beautiful and remarkable sentences, and they come 
 in so much the better that they run and hasten on without thrust- 
 ing themselves into notice. There is something for every age, 
 for every hour of life." 
 
II. 
 
 RABLAIS. 
 
 Francois Rablais was born about 1490 and died about 1553. 
 The exact dates a^. e unknown. He was the son of a tavern keeper 
 and apothecary of Chinon, in Touraine. He was first a Francis- 
 an Monk, then a Benedictine, then a secular priest, and then a 
 physician, by virtue of various permits from the Vatican. On 
 January 18, 153G, Pope Paul HI issued a bull granting him au- 
 thority to gratuitously practice medicine, excluding surgery, be- 
 cause of his *'zeal for religion, knowledge of literature, and probity 
 of life and morals." The Holy Father must have strained a point 
 when he signed that statement, or else — he did not know Rablais* 
 The reference to his Kterary knowledge, however, is amply justi- 
 ied, for Rablais was one of the most learned men of his century. 
 His was perhaps the keenest intelligence of that generation of 
 men. But as to his zeal for rehgion, and his probity of life and 
 morals — well, perhaps the Vatican may not have enjoyed special 
 sources ol information which have been disclosed by the vigilance 
 of modern scholarship. To the best of our knowledge, we are 
 inclined to apply to him the observation which Lady Wortley 
 Montague apphed to Henry Fielding: "His happy constitution 
 made him forget everything when he was before a venison pastry, 
 or over a flask of champagne." 
 
 In PLntagruel's history, Rablais, with his rolHcking humor 
 and redundant fertihty of language, has given us the most bril- 
 liant piece of fict'on which French literature of that age affords, 
 and, with all its moral coarseness, one of the greatest in the 
 .iassics of all time. That such pungent wit and exuberant Jollity, 
 such joyous jest, such amiable raillery and exquisite humor^ 
 should be encompassed with such a nauseating mass of conglome- 
 rate verbal filth, is matter of most poignant regret. 
 
 "In Gargantaa and Pantagruel," says Dr. Benjamin Willis 
 
 139 
 
140 ^ RABLAIS 
 
 Wells, ''frank fooling is mingled with keen social satire, political 
 
 insight, and pedagogic wisdom In the first book, Gargan- 
 
 tua, will be found, together with the farcial adventure of that 
 giant, the notable deeds of Friar John, the founding of the Abbey 
 of Thelema, and the quintessence of Rablaisian social and peda- 
 gogical philosophy. The second had for its original descriptive 
 title Pantagruel, King of the Drunkards, Portrayed According to 
 Life, with His Amazing Deeds and Feats of Prowess.' . . . Rab- 
 lais's influence on the development of fiction was small, but Pan- 
 tagruel, Panurge i>j\d Friar John are imperishable creations." We 
 learn from one of Rablais's biographies that in France the time 
 of paying a reckoning in a drink-shop is still called, among the 
 Pantagruellists, or good fellows, a ''quart d'heure de Rabelais" — 
 or Rablais's quarter of an hour. 
 
 Rablais is the French Aristophanes; but he also resembles 
 Lucian. In his satire he has been likened to both Swift and Cer- 
 vantes ; but he is a greater scholar than either, although lacking 
 the terrible vehemence of Swift and the majestic equability of 
 Cervantes. It may interest some of our money -mad financiers 
 to know that Panurge had sixty-three ways of making money, "of 
 which the honestest was by sly theft." 
 
 "Panurge is so admirably conceived," says Hallam, "that we 
 may fairly reckon him original ; but the germ of the character is 
 in the gracioso. or clown, of the extemporaneous stage; the 
 roguish, selfish, cowardly, cunning attendant, who became 
 Panurge in the plastic hands of Rablais, and Sancho in those of 
 Cervantes. The French critics have not, in general done justice 
 to Rablais, whose manner was not that of the age of Louis XIV. 
 The 'Tale of a T<ib' appears to me by far the closest imitation of 
 U, and to be conceived altogether in a kindred spirit ; but, in gen- 
 eral, those who have had reading enough to rival the copiousness 
 of Rablais have wanted his invention and humor, or the riotous- 
 ness of his animal spirits." 
 
 Pope in his "Dunciad" (Book I.) also notes the Rablaisian 
 similarity of Swift, in the following lines: 
 
RABLAIS 141 
 
 "0 thou! whatever title please thine ear, 
 Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff or Gulliver! 
 Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, 
 Or la'7gh and shake in Rablais' easy chair." 
 
 However, a distinguished French author, M. Taine, in his History 
 of English Literature, says that Swift ''must not be compared 
 with Rablais; that good giant, that drunken doctor, rolls himself 
 joyously about on his dunghill, thinking no evil; the dunghill is 
 warm, convenient, a fine place to philosophize and sleep off one's 
 wine. When the casks are emptied down his throat, and the 
 viands are gorged, we sympathize with so much bodily com- 
 fort; * * * in the laughter of this Homeric mouth we see, as 
 through a mist, the relics of bacchanal religions, the fecundity, 
 the monstrous joy of nature; these are the splendors of its first 
 births." 
 
 But Rablais v. as something more than a humorist, gourmand 
 and scorner of conventionalities. "In the young Gargantua's 
 course of education," writes the French master-critic, Sainte- 
 Beuve, ''we have the first plan of what Montaigne, Charron, in 
 places and parts the Port Royal school, the Christian 
 school * * * set forth with greater seriousness but not with more 
 good sense. We iiave in advance at one glance, and with brilliant 
 genius, what Rousseau will expound later in 'Emile'." 
 
 In early life Voltaire put Rablais down as merely "a drunken 
 philosopher, who only wrote when he was drunk." But twenty- 
 five years later he wrote to Madame du Deffand : "After Clarissa 
 Harlowe, I read over again some chapters of Rablais. * * * I know 
 them, indeed, almost by heart, but I read them with the greatest 
 pleasure, because they are the most vivid descriptions in the 
 world. It is not that I regard Rablais as equal to Horace. Rab- 
 lais, when he is in good humor, is the best of good buffoons ; two 
 of the craft are not wanted in a nation, but there must be one. 
 I repent that I formerly spoke ill of him." 
 
 "Yes," as Sainte-Beuve adds, "Rablais is a buffoon, but a 
 unique buffoon, a Homeric buffoon ! Voltaire's latest opinion will 
 
142 RABLAIS 
 
 remain that of aP, men of sense and taste, of those who do not 
 possess a decided inclination and predilection for Rablais. But 
 for the rest, for the true amateur, for the real pantagruelist de- 
 votees, Rablais is something very different. At the bottom of 
 Master Francois's cask, even in the dregs, there is a flavor not 
 to be explained." 
 
 Like Cervantes, Rablais teems with homely, common-sense 
 aphorisms which have become household words throughout the 
 world, such as, for example, his well-known couplet: 
 
 **The Devil was sick, — the Devil a monk would be; 
 The Devil got well, — the Devil a monk was he.'' 
 
 According to Motteux, the last words of Rablais w^ere these: 
 "I am going to seek a great perhaps." 
 
III. 
 
 FENELON. 
 
 Of that mighty quintette of brilliant ecclesiastics surround- 
 ing the throne of Louis XIV. — Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Flechier, 
 Massillon and Fenelon — the first named is still the most eloquent 
 pulpit orator the v^orld has ever known ; but the name of Fenelon 
 shines in French literature with a luster all its own, and rays forth 
 upon the Age of the Grand Monarch its most splendid beams. 
 
 Fenelon was born in 1651, and died in 1715 after a life of 
 active scholarship, pious humility and good works. His life was 
 one of gentleness and moderation. In 1688 Louis XIV. appointed 
 him tutor to his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy. He had been 
 teaching at Paris while following the vocation of the priesthood, 
 had written a book on education, and the new post was admirably 
 adapted to his talents and suited to his inclinations. Bossuet said 
 that the bestowal of this position upon Fenelon was ''a proper 
 reward for merit that took pains to conceal itself." Many of 
 Fenelon's literary works — perhaps the majority of them — were 
 composed as text-books for the young prince. At any rate he 
 discharged his duties with such fidelity and zeal that in 1694 he 
 was made Abbot of Saint Valery, and the next year he was made 
 Archbishop of Cambray. So wide was the fame of the charity 
 and piety of the great Archbishop that when the country was 
 ravaged by the English under Marlborough, the English general 
 gave orders that none of the estates of the Archbishop were to be 
 invaded; and a guard was given him for his protection. Never- 
 the less, his residence was burned — by accident or mistake, it is 
 supposed — and many of Fenelon's unpublished manuscripts were 
 destroyed, together with his priceless library. His only comment 
 upon his calamity was: "I would much rather that this were 
 destroyed than the cottage of some poor peasant !" But we know 
 
 143 
 
144 FENELON 
 
 how great the loss to him when we recall his words, written on 
 another occasion : "If the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe 
 were laid at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of 
 reading, I would spurn them all." 
 
 Further light is thrown upon the character of the saintly 
 bishop by his part in the famous controversy over "Quietism" — 
 a controversy which would now be forgotten by the literary world 
 but for the fact that the two old friends, then the greatest lumi- 
 naries of the GaHi('an Church — Bossuet and Fenelon — found them- 
 selves on opposite sides. In his "Maxims of the Saints," Fenelon 
 appears to have fallen into some of the heresies of Madame Guyon, 
 a religious woman of whose piety and good faith Fenelon had no 
 doubt, although her "Quietism" smacks somewhat of the Hindu 
 doctrine of "Nirfana." Bossuet, it appears, prosecuted the gentle 
 Fenelon v/ith great bitterness. Finally twenty-three propositions 
 from the "Maxims" were condemned by the Pope, who said, how- 
 ever, that Fenelon had "erred through excess of Divine love, but 
 you have erred through lack of love for your neighbor." 
 
 Fenelon appears to have been the first to write a treatise on 
 female education, which he did, in 1681, at the request of the 
 Duchess of Beauvnlliers — "De Y education des filles" — of which 
 there are a number of good English translations. In this book, 
 which displays m.ost characteristically the natural sweetness and 
 charm of his humane disposition, Fenelon anticipates by a hun- 
 dred years the foundations of modern pedagogy which are laid in 
 Rousseau's "Emile," and is wholly free from any of the objec- 
 tionable features of Rousseau. Fenelon's theory of education is 
 indulgent, and his method a labor of love. As Hallam observes, 
 "a desire to render children happy for the time, as well as after- 
 ward, runs through his book, and he may, perhaps, be considered 
 the foun ler of thdt school which has endeavored to dissipate the 
 terrors and dry the tears of childhood." Let us quote but a sen- 
 tence : "I have seen," he says, "many children who have learned 
 to read in play ; v^e have only to read entertaining stories to them 
 out of a book, and insensibly teach them the letters; they will 
 soon desire to go for themselves to the source of their amuse- 
 
FENELON 14S 
 
 merit." Frobel and Pestalozzi have added very little to the com^ 
 prehensive view of child-life and growth expressed in this little 
 treatise ; while Locke's treatise, published at about the same time, 
 is hardly to be compared with it. 
 
 One of the books written by Fenelon for his noble pupil was 
 his "Dialogues of the Dead," patterned after Fontenelle, who, of 
 course, to .k the idea from Lucian, the source v/hence the Spaniard. 
 Quevedo, obtained the idea of his "Visions." But LaHarpe very 
 much prefers the work of Fenelon to that of Fontenelle. "The 
 noble zeal of Fenelon not to spare the vices of kings, in writing 
 for the heir of one so imperious and so open to the censure of 
 reflecting minds, shines throughout these dialogues." 
 
 It was the same "noble zeal" displayed in the "Telemachus" 
 that caused Fenelon's permanent banishment from the court of 
 Louis XIV. This work, stolen by a servant and published without 
 the author's consent, v/as declared to contain very plain references 
 to the vices of the court of the Grand Monarch. But, neverthe- 
 less, it is Fenelon's greatest creation. Critics are not agreed as 
 to whether the "Telemachus" is an epic or a romance. Blair 
 declares it to be an epic. Hallam calls it a romance. But the 
 reader will bear in mind, with Lord Kames, in his "Elements of 
 Criticism," that the distinction is often shadowy indeed. Vol- 
 taire in his essay on "Epic Poetry" excludes the "Telemachus" 
 from that class. It is a work of great moral and esthetic excel- 
 lence, breathing the genuine classical spirit, noble in diction, rich 
 in poetic imagery, charming in its grace and dignity, written in 
 a remarkably harmonious and poetical prose, permeated by a 
 beautiful enthusiasm, and covered as with a mantle of divine 
 grace by the author's inimitible sweetness of style and spirit. No 
 book in the Fren'ih language has been more widely read, and none 
 more fully deserves the popularity it still maintains. For, truly 
 may it be said of Fenelon, as he said of another : "II embelht tout 
 ce qu'il touche" — He adorns all that he touches. 
 
IV. 
 MONTESQUIEU. 
 
 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, President of the 
 Parliament of Bordeaux, was born in 1689, and died in 1755. He 
 was one of the most accomplished scholars of his day, and ranks 
 among the greatest of political philosophers. 
 
 In 1721 he published his Persian Letters, in which, affecting 
 the guise of a Persian, he ridiculed the civilization of his times. 
 In 1734, after making a tour of Europe, he published his Con- 
 siderations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the 
 Romans. Fourteen years later appeared his master work, the 
 Spirit of Laws, upon which he had been engaged for twenty years, 
 and which will be forever numbered among the classics. 
 
 His favorite authors were Tacitus and Plutarch, and Tacitus 
 is perhaps the only great writer who has equalled him in the con- 
 ciseness of his style. Voltaire said of him that "when the human 
 race had lost their charters, Montesquieu rediscovered and re- 
 stored them." The King of Sardinia declared that Montesquieu 
 had taught him the art of government. But it was in America 
 that the brilliant French publicist was to score his most splendid 
 triumph. American liberty owes more to the mind of Montesquieu 
 than it does to the arm of Lafayette. 
 
 It is said that Washington, as soon as he determined to attend 
 the federal congress at Philadelphia, **made himself familiar with 
 the writings of Montesquieu." The address penned by John 
 Dickinson and issued by authority of congress to the people of 
 Quebec, in the hope of gaining their aid in the projected revolu- 
 tion, was made up principally of apt quotations from the ''Spirit 
 of Laws." A well-known writer has declared that the American 
 colonial leaders "knew Montesquieu as familiarly as they knew 
 the traditions of Englishmen." Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, 
 
 146 
 
MONTESQUIEU 147 
 
 Washington and Gouvemeur Morris were among those who knew 
 Montesquieu better than they knew Blackstone. 
 
 When the adoption of the Federal Constitution was under 
 consideration, the author most cited and quoted in those discus- 
 sions was Montesquieu. Singularly enough he was, like the Bible, 
 sometimes cited as authority by both sides, and the discussion 
 was in some instances narrowed simply to a correct interpreta- 
 tion of the French author. When his real opinions were deter- 
 mined, the matter was beyond controversy. His recommenda* 
 tions were accepted with implicit faith. No one had the temerity 
 to doubt his v/isdom. None questioned the truth of his conclu- 
 sions or the justice of his observations. To these giant states- 
 men his voice was oracular and his word was law. 
 
 The longest quotation in the Federalist is in one of Hamilton's 
 papers, and it is from. Montesquieu. When Madison was seeking 
 to demonstrate the wisdom of separating the executive, legislative 
 and judicial powers, he said ("The Federalist,'' No. xlvii) : 
 'The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject, is 
 the celebrated M(mtesquieu. If he be not the author of this in- 
 valuable precept m the science of politics, he has the merit at 
 least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the 
 attention of manKind." In this view Madison is supported by 
 Dr. Francis Lieber, the poHtical guide of Justice Story and Chan- 
 cellor Kent, and the personal friend and adviser of Lincoln. 
 Lieber declared, in a note to page 150 of his ''Civil Liberty and 
 Self-Government," that "Montesquieu is the first political philoso- 
 pher who distinctively conceived the necessity of a division of 
 power." Montesquieu was likewise one of the chief authorities, 
 if not the principal one, cited in support of the idea of a federal 
 union. Jeremy Bentham notes also that he was one of the first 
 to see the harm fulness of too many laws and an intricate code; 
 a lesson which Montesquieu first learned, no doubt, from his 
 Tacitus (Annals, Bk. III., p. 160) : "Corruption abounding in the 
 commonwealth, the commonwealth abounded in laws." 
 
 Montesquieu fully merited the tribute of Lord Chesterfield, 
 who said of him : "His virtues did honor to human nature ; his 
 
148 MONTESQUIEU 
 
 writings, justice. A friend to mankind, he asserted their un- 
 doubted and unalienable rights and liberties. His works will 
 illustrate his name, and survive him as long as right reason, moral 
 obligation and the true spirit of laws shall be understood, re- 
 spected and maintained." Indeed, for any lover of liberty today, 
 no book will better repay a reading than Montesquieu's Spirit of 
 Laws. His philosophy is a perpetual fountain of freedom, while 
 his epigrammatic, style, coruscating and luminous, will forever in- 
 terest, instruct and delight the cultured mind. Many are the ills 
 we might be spared if modern statesmen would but turn again to 
 him! Thus, he warns: "The deterioration of a government be- 
 gins almost always by the decay of its principles." And again: 
 "Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty." 
 Volumes could tell us no more of human history than he has here 
 said in a eingle line. 
 
V. 
 CORNEILLE. 
 
 Pierre Cornoille was the son of a lawyer of Rouen. He was 
 born June 6, 160(j. was educated by the Jesuits, and was trained 
 for the law. He practiced that profession for a few years, but 
 soon abandoned it for the calling to which nature had apparently 
 intended he should devote the best years of his life. 
 
 To Corneille is accredited the happy discovery of the sou- 
 brette; and, as Edward Dowden observes, "It was something to 
 replace the old nurse of classic tragedy with the soubrette." The 
 soubrette is therefore as distinctly French in its creation as the 
 o-racioso is pure-y Spanish. Corneille's first play, ''Melite," ap- 
 peared in 1629. His next was *'CHtandre," and was not so good 
 as the first. "La Veuve" is better, and according to Fontenelle 
 and La Harpe is the first model of the French higher comedy. 
 "The Medea," his next piece, borrowed from Seneca, imparted a 
 new tone of digm'ty to French tragedy. These works placed him 
 in the front rank of French theatrical writers; but his greater 
 triumphs were to follow. 
 
 Seven years after his first production "The Cid" appeared, in 
 1636, and set all France ablaze. The plot was borrowed from 
 Guillen de Castro. It marked an epoch in French drama. The 
 piece was denounced by Richeheu and the French Academy, it has 
 been condemned by such critics as Scudery and Voltaire, and it 
 was warmly defended by La Harpe and others. But it drew tre- 
 mendously, and still pleases French audiences. The next tragedy 
 is "Les Horaces," which is open to the same objections as "The 
 Cid," as lacking in the dramatic unities, but in literary style it is 
 reckoned superior to "The Cid." He next produced the tragedy 
 of "Cinna." In the opinion of many this is Corneille's greatest 
 work. But it, too, is not without its dramatic defects. 
 "Polyeucte," a story of Christian martyrdom, grips the heart, and 
 
 149 
 
150 CORNEILLE ^ 
 
 its character of Pauh'ne is one of the noblest of the French thea- 
 tre. But Boileau and others objected to it because of its intro- 
 duction of the mysteries of the Christian faith upon the stage. 
 "Rodogune" was a favorite with Corneille himself, but does not 
 hold the averagr* reader. However, the first act of this play has 
 been highly praised by La Harpe. "Pompey" was more defective 
 than any of its predecessors. "Heraclius" is inferior to Cor- 
 neille's best literary style, and **Nicomede" is below "Heraclius." 
 No dramatist, indeed, is more uneven in his work than is Cor- 
 neille. His 'Tertharite" was such a failure that he retired from 
 the drama for some years, during which period he rendered into 
 verse the ''Imitation of Christ" of Thomas a Kempis. Moliere, 
 with whom he collaborated in the production of one play, drew 
 him from his ret'rem.ent, but the dramatic work of his later years 
 was uniformly unsuccessful. 
 
 The old age of Corneille was spent in poverty — to use his own 
 words — "satiated with glory and hungry for money." Some 
 grateful verses addressed to Louis XIV. were among his last 
 efforts. The king had sent him a gift of money, at the request 
 of Boileau. But two days later, on October 1, 1684, the venerable 
 father of French tragedy passed away. His great rival, Racine, 
 delivered his eulogy before the French Academy, and Moliere re- 
 ferred to him as his master. And so he died, poor in what the 
 world calls wealth, but rich in the glory of an honored name 
 merited so well by a pure and noble life. 
 
 Such profound critics as Fontenelle and St. Evremont praise 
 even his minor tragedies. Lucan was his favorite author and 
 his Roman prototype. He borrowed extensively from the Span- 
 ish dramatists, as well as from the Roman classics. But his 
 unfailing and unfading beauty is in his elevated style. He is 
 epic rather than tragic, and more splendid than touching. Cor- 
 neille is distinguished for noble, masculine thought, for the 
 warmth of his nervous eloquence, for his vivid narration, bold 
 declamation, impressive energy, sonorous rythm, for the peculiar 
 iichness of his geniut;, the fecundity of his imagination and the 
 grandeur of his lofty sentiments. The French critic Faguet says 
 
CORNEILLE 151 
 
 that his language is "the most beautiful that ever fell from a 
 French pen ; the most masculine, energetic, at once sober and full, 
 that was ever spoken in France." In the language of Professor 
 Blair of Edinburgh, he "united the copiousness of Dryden with 
 the fire of Lucan, and he resembles them also in their faults, in 
 their extravagarce and impetuosity." Yet his declamations, ob- 
 serves Di. Benjamin Wells, "the tirades of Camilla, Augustus, 
 CorneHa, and many another, are supreme in their kind, and will 
 thrill audiences everywhere as long as the antinomies of love and 
 patriotism, honor and duty, perplex men's souls." 
 
 Corrieille is one of the most quotable of the French authors, 
 and the dignity of his sententious utterance is apparent from 
 these excerpts : 
 
 "We triumph without glory when we conquer without 
 danger." — Le Cid. 
 
 "He who allows himself to be insulted, deserves to be so ; and 
 insolence, if unpunished, increases." — Heraclius. 
 
 But the best known phrase of all, and one which has rolled 
 like a thunderbolt around the world, is this, from his Heraclius: 
 "Tyrant, step from thy throne, and give place to thy master" — 
 Tyrans, descends du trone, et fais place a ton maitre! — a senti- 
 ment which one would think more hkely to find expression in the 
 Age of Revolutions than in the Age of Louis XIV. 
 
VI. 
 
 RACINE. 
 
 While lackin^r the copiousness and the heroic grandeur of 
 Corneille's imagination, Jean Kacine is undoubtedly the greatest 
 of the French tragic poets, greatly excelling his gifted predeces- 
 sor in tenderness, and in the uncommon beauty of his versifica- 
 tion. Racine is noted for sympathetic power, for his delicate 
 perception of ideal beauty, his exquisite Virgilian grace and ma- 
 jesty, his depth of thought, and his consummate beauty of dic- 
 tion. He is the French Euripides. 
 
 Jean Racine was educated by the Port-Royalist teachers at 
 TEcole des Granges, and at the College d'Harcourt, where he read 
 and annotated all the Greek and Roman classics, and committed 
 to memory the grand choruses of Sophocles and Euripides. At 
 twenty-three he was a finished and an accomplished scholar. He 
 was presented to the King, and soon formed close friendships with 
 Boileau, Moliere and Furetiere. 
 
 His first tragedy, Le Thebaide, was presented by Moliere's 
 players in 1664. when the author was twenty-five years of age. 
 He was then pensioned by the King. In the next year his Alex- 
 andre came out, and attracted wide attention. He showed this 
 play to Corneille, who praised its versification, but advised him 
 to avoid the dra:na as a field unsuited to his talents. 
 
 But the glory of Racine dates from 1667, when he presented 
 his Andromaque, which he derived from Euripides. He was at 
 once com.parad and contrasted with Corneille, and the discussion 
 of their relative merits has continued ever since. It is said that 
 the splendid acting of Mademoiselle de Champmele in the part 
 of Hermione made the play a success. Racine prostrated himself 
 at her feet, in a transport of gratitude ; a feeling which, it is said, 
 was soon turned to love, although they were never married. He 
 
 152 
 
RACINE 153 
 
 afterwards wedded a woman whose material possessions exceeded 
 her mental culture. 
 
 In the year 1669 appeared his Britannicus. Of this play 
 Hallam says : *vFew tragedies on the French, or, indeed, on any 
 stage, save those of Shakespeare, display so great a variety of 
 contrasted character. * * * If he has not reached, as he never did, 
 the peculiar impetuosity of Corneille, nor given to his Romans 
 the grandeur of his predecessor's conception, he is full of Hues 
 wherein, as every word is effective, there can hardly be any de- 
 ficiency of vigor. It is the vigor, indeed, of Virgil, not of Lucan." 
 Berenice, his next tragedy, has been likened to Shakespeare's 
 Timon oi Athens. Corneille attempted, with less success, the 
 same subject at about the same time. His next tragedy, Bajazet, 
 falls below the others in beauty of style. Next came Mithridate, 
 one of the stron.ycst of his plays. This was followed, in 1674, by 
 Iphigenie, which, like the Andromaque, is derived from Euripides. 
 In Phedre, produced in 1677, he again attempted to surpass Euri- 
 pides. In this play he borrows more from the Greek than in any 
 other. 
 
 At this time, owing, perhaps, to his Puritanical relationships, 
 and for other reasons, Racine appears to have abandoned the 
 stage. He was recalled from his retirement by Madame de Main- 
 tenon, who induced him, in 1689, to write Esther, a Biblical drama, 
 to be performed by the girl students of St. Cyr. Although pos- 
 sessing no superior dramatic excellence, the piece is touching and 
 beautiful. Louis XIV. applauded its performance, while the great 
 Conde was affected to tears. 
 
 Next, in 1691 , came another sacred drama, the Athalie, far 
 greater than Iphigenie or Britannicus, and unquestionably stand- 
 ing at the head of all his tragedies, although its author preferred 
 the Phedre. Athalie was praised by Boileau, and by others among 
 Racine's great contemporaries, but was not generally appreciated 
 for some years. Voltaire has repeatedly declared AthaHe to be 
 the "Chef d'OEuvre" of the French stage. 
 
 Racine's tragedies are all written in Alexandrine verse. In 
 literary style, Hallam places Racine next to Virgil among the 
 
154 RACINE 
 
 poets. A great French critic, La Harpe, in his "Eloge de Racine," 
 +hus eloquently summarizes the merits of this mighty genius: 
 "His expression v^ always so happy and so natural, that it seems 
 as if no other could be found ; and every word is placed in such a 
 manner that we cannot fancy any other place to have suited it as 
 well. The structure of his style is such that nothing could be 
 displaced, nothing added, nothing retrenched; it is one unalter- 
 able whole. Even his incorrectnesses are often but sacrifices re- 
 quired by good taste, nor would anything be more difficult than 
 to write over again a line of Racine. No one has enriched the 
 language with a greater number of turns of phrase; no one is 
 bold with more felicity and discretion, or figurative with more 
 grace and propriety; no one has handled with more command an 
 idiom often rebellious, or with more skill an instrument always 
 difficult ; no one has better understood that delicacy of style which 
 must not be mistaken for feebleness, and is, in fact, but that air 
 of ease which conceals from the reader the labor of the work and 
 the artifices of the composition; or better managed the variety 
 of cadences, the resources of rythm, the association and deduction 
 of ideas. In short, if we consider that his perfection in these 
 respects may be opposed to that of Virgil, and that he spoke a 
 language less flexible, less noetical and less harmonious, we shall 
 readily believe that Racine is, of all mankind, the one to whom 
 nature has given the greatest talent for versification." 
 
 In his old age, Racine lost the favor of the court, a fact at- 
 tributed by some to his mem.oir on the miseries of the people. He 
 died in 1699, at the age of sixty. 
 
^ VII. 
 
 MOLIERE. 
 
 Jean Baptiste Poquelin (who assumed the name of Moliere) 
 was born in Paris, January 15, 1622, the son of a tradesman, and 
 died in the citv of his birth, at the age of fifty-one. He was 
 educated by the Jesuits at the College de Clermont. In 1643 
 he abandoned the minor office which he then held, and chose the 
 stage as a career. As a result of two unfortunate theatrical 
 ventures, he was imprisoned for debt. 
 
 In 1646 he organized a company of players, and for the next 
 ten or twelve y-'^ars he traveled over France as an actor and 
 stage manager, learning to adapt and arrange plays, and, above 
 all, learning human nature. Returning to Paris in 1658, he 
 played before tie King, and gained a court popularity which he 
 never lost. 
 
 In 1659, at the age of thirty-seven, he presented his first 
 satire on cultured society, and inaugurated a new era in French 
 comedy. In L'Avare he depicted the vice of avarice, and created 
 the character of Harpagon. His L'Ecole des Femmes is a most 
 diverting comedy. He revenged himself upon the petty critics 
 of this play by publishing that keen satire, La Critique d I'Ecole 
 des Femmes, in which he pilloried the pedantic coterie of the 
 Hotel Rambouilii t. It has been called ''the first great serious 
 comedy of the French theatre." 
 
 Moliere's Misanthrope is another famous comedy, in the 
 opinion of critics second only to his Tartuff e. Les Femmes Saven- 
 tes is a highly amusing comedy, lambasting the poetasters and 
 literary pretend ^-^rs ainong the literary ladies and female fops of 
 ^aris — a numerous tribe, now widely dispersed, and by no means 
 extinct. Les Precieuses Ridicules is another play of the same 
 character. 
 
 But TartufTe is his masterpiece, and the greatest effort of 
 his genius. It stands alone among the world's great comedies, 
 with none worthy to be named beside it. Tartuffe is the comedy 
 
 155 
 
156 MOLIERE 
 
 of religious hypocrisv, in which he unmasks and excoriates those 
 whose love of God is manifested only in hatred for their fellow- 
 men ; whose hands are clasped in prayer only when they are not 
 clasping a neighbor's purse; and who piously roll their jaundiced 
 eyes to Heaven, w^hile giving their festering hearts to Hell. '*No 
 one of Moliere's con:edies," says Brander Matthews, "is more 
 characteristic than Tartuffe, more liberal in its treatment of our 
 common humanity, braver in its assault upon hypocrisy, or more 
 masterly in technique." In this play, Moliere has ascended to 
 the full height of his towering genius to crush with the pervasive 
 power of his resistless humor and blighting irony that lowest 
 type of social excrescence, the sour-faced, psalm-singing, whining, 
 lying fraud who steals "the livery of the court of Heaven to serve 
 the Devil in." He exposed its smug and smirking treachery. He 
 smote its villainously dissem.bling sanctity. Moliere did not need 
 to cry out with Byron : 
 
 "Oh for a forty-parson power to chant 
 Thy praise, Hypocrisy ! Oh for a hymn 
 
 Loud vs, the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt. 
 Not practice!" 
 
 Moliere had the power, and he wielded it, in his matchless serio- 
 comis style, like a cat-o'-nine-tails in the hands of an offended 
 deity. He dragged the slimy wretches from the sanctuaries they 
 had polluted, from the temples they had disgraced, from the pews 
 they had befouled, from the altars they had profaned, dishonored 
 and betrayed, and he flayed them without mercy. He gave the 
 rogues the bastinado, without sparing corn or bunion. He singed 
 the wool from ^he sheeps' clothing which they wore, and bared 
 the ravening wolves. He lanced the most malignant ulcer on the 
 face of human society, and he cauterized the wound. Naturally, 
 the French Pecksniffs were offended. These whited sepulchres 
 belched forth their carrion criticisms in life, and pursued him 
 vindictively in deatli. But Tartuffe yet points the detecting 
 finger of scorn, while Moliere still lives, and mocks, and smiles! 
 Another fraud laid bare by his unsparing pen w^as the medical 
 quack. The quack doctor and the quack preacher usually go 
 
MOLIERE 157 
 
 hand in hand. It is impossible to detect the one without perceiv- 
 ing the other, MoHere saw them both with an undimmed eye, 
 and he lashed them with a fearless hand. His four medical come- 
 dies are masterpieces of their kind. He was acting a part in the 
 last one, Le Malade imaginaire, when suddenly stricken on the 
 stage. He was removed to his home, and a half hour later he 
 was dead. His brave spirit had gone where the quack doctors 
 have sent very many, but whither, there is reason to believe, no 
 quack preacher has ever followed. 
 
 Moliere will forever be read and enjoyed for his vivacious 
 brilhancy, his humorous dialogue, his bright, scintillating and 
 inimitible gayety, his elegant, polite and polished satire, his in- 
 cisive ridicule, his wholesomeness, and his skillful delineation of 
 character. His innocent mirth and pleasantry charm with a be- 
 witching subtlet.s that dies not with the flight of time. Moliere 
 would be known as the French Plautus, but for the fact that he 
 surpasses by an immeasurable distance his Roman model. He 
 hardly equals the gentlemanly elegance of Terence, but he sur- 
 passes him in every other respect. He wrote better comedies 
 than Shakespeare, and no Enghsh comic writer touches him in 
 <^pirited and easy versification. 
 
 In the words of the distinguished Dr. Blair, "The dramatic 
 author in whom the French glory most, and whom they justly 
 place at the head of all their comedians, is the famous MoHere. 
 There is, indeed, no author in all the fruitful and distinguished 
 age of Louis XIV., who has attained a higher reputation than 
 Moliere, or w^ho has more nearly reached the summit of perfec- 
 tion in his own ai t, according to the judgment of all the French 
 critics. Voltaire boldly pronounces him to be the most eminent 
 comic poet of any age or country ; nor, perhaps, is this the decision 
 of mere partiality; for, taking him upon the whole, I know none 
 who deserves to be prefered to him.'* To which we may add 
 the observation of Prof.' Wells, that *'no dramatist, save perhaps 
 Shakespeare and Aristophanes, ever joined so much wit to so 
 much seriousne>;s as did Moliere." His name will forever stand 
 enshrined with those of Goethe, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega and 
 Sophocles, monarchs of the stage, and shining servitors of truth. 
 
• VIII. 
 
 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 Jean de La Fontaine, *'the French i^sop/' was the greatest 
 of modern fabulists. Florian and others have followed him in 
 vain. Born in 1C21, he was one year older than his friend Moliere, 
 but he survived the great master of French comedy twenty-two 
 years. Although he was intimate with Racine, Boileau, and other 
 ^^reat literary lights of the time, it is said that Moliere was one 
 of the few who grasped the true literary significance and value 
 of La Fontaine's work. Although he led a reckless life, his last 
 years were given over to religious penance, and when he died the 
 saintly, sweet-souled Fenelon lamented his death in eulogistic 
 strain. 
 
 La Fontaine was born at the historic site of Chateau-Thierry.. 
 There his father was superintendent of forests. The junior La 
 Fontaine afterwards had an opportunity to fill his father's office, 
 but the forestry service did not appeal to him. Indeed, nothing 
 in the nature of labor or responsibility found favor in his eyes. 
 He refused to bind himself to any kind of occupation, and finally 
 fell to writing poetry. He dedicated his "Adonis" to the minister, 
 Foquet, and was at once received into the minister's household. 
 Upon the fall of the minister he was successively patronized by a 
 number of rich and noble ladies who were delighted with the 
 salacious tales he wrote after the manner of Boccaccio — the 
 "Contes et nouvelles en vers." As he grew older he gradually 
 abandoned his ''Contes", and devoted his talents to the 'Tables." 
 
 No French writer of the seventeenth century has retained a 
 more widespread anc! continuous popularity. The Fables have 
 been translated into every language, and are now reckoned a part 
 of the world's best literature. These writings display a certain 
 pleasing intermixture of archness and vivacity with much solid 
 and serious wisdom. He manifests a perfection of elegant beauty 
 which almost rivals Phaedrus ; although he is sometimes redund- 
 
 158 
 
LA FONTAINE 159 
 
 ant, and often Licks the perspicuity and ease of his Roman model, 
 whom he greatly excels, however, in the richness of his humor, 
 and in his versatile amiability. His beauties are thus summa- 
 rized by a modern critic, who says of his Fables : 'The graceful 
 Mveliness of their narration, the unrestrained naturalism of their 
 description, the homely wisdom of their unobtruded moral, the 
 boldness of their covert political teaching (especially in later 
 years), the shrewd analysis and observation of human motive, 
 has been a perpetual dehght to generations." Upon the whole, 
 his Fables may be said to in some measure make amends for the 
 shocking impropriety of his "Contes," which were often too 
 highly seasoned for even the Grand Monarch himself, who made 
 La Fontaine promise to be good before consenting to his election 
 to the Academy. He was a roistering, mad-cap rake, but a good 
 fellow withal, and could say things that stick in the memory. 
 Here is one : *Tvery newspaper editor owes tribute to the devil." 
 And he might have added — but why pursue a subject so painful? 
 At any rate, as he says elsewhere, ^'Nothing can satisfy the fas- 
 tidious. '* And again he says: "Beware so long as you live, of 
 judging people by appearances" — 
 
 Garde-toi, tant que tu vivras, 
 
 De juger des gens sur la mine! 
 Another phrase which has become a proverb: "Better a living 
 beggar than a b.iried emperor." Indeed, as Lessing tells us, in 
 his "Nathan der Weise": "The real beggar is the true and only 
 king" — 
 
 Der wahre Bettler ist 
 
 Doch einzig und allein der wahre Koenig. 
 Which suggests to us, as La Fontaine says in another fable, "In 
 everything we ought to consider the end." And in another he 
 says : "Alas ! we see that the small have always suffered for the 
 follies of the great." This, too, is very wise: "Gentleness suc- 
 ceeds better than violence " So, also : "We read on the forehead 
 of those who are su} rounded by a foohsh luxury, that Fortune 
 sells what she is thought to give." But we cannot grasp La Fon- 
 taine merely in excerpts. One must read the Fables. 
 
IX. 
 
 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 Francois Arouet (who took the name of Voltaire) , the son of 
 a Paris notary, was born in 1694, and at the age of ten was sent 
 to a Jesuit college, where he remained for seven years and at- 
 tained a vast proficiency in the classics. His father destined him 
 for the bar, and after leaving the Jesuit school, at the age of 
 seventeen, he devoted three years to the study of law,' but finally 
 gave his whole thought to the classics. He began writing clever 
 satires and graceful verses. Shortly after the death of Louis 
 XIV., Voltaire was accused of writing satires against the Duke 
 of Orleans. He was exiled from Paris, and upon his return was 
 committed to the Bastile for a period of eleven months. While 
 in prison he planned his Henriade, the leading epic poem of the 
 French language, committing the lines to memory as he composed 
 them, inasmuch as he was not permitted the use of writing ma- 
 terials. 
 
 For eight years after his release he remained m Paris, writ- 
 ing for the stage. His first tragedy, the (Edipus, in the manner 
 of Sophocles, was a brilliant success. Because of a quarrel with 
 a person of rank he was again committed to the Bastile, where 
 he remained for six months, and was released only on condition 
 that he leave France. He repaired to England, wliere he re- 
 mained for two years and eight months, winning the favor of the 
 King and Queen, and enjoying the companionship of the great 
 literary personages of the time. While in England he published 
 the Henriade, which celebrates the triumph of Henry IV. over 
 the arms of the League. He now began his history of Charles 
 XII. of Sweden, collecting the materials from the Swedish am- 
 bassador at the English court. 
 
 Upon his return to Paris, Voltaire applied himself to financial 
 
 160 
 
VOLTAIRE 161 
 
 speculation, and gained an independent fortune. But he did not 
 cease to write, especially for the stage. He composed, in all, 
 twenty-six tragedies, all of which met with a high degree of popu- 
 lar favor. His Zaire was popular on the Swedish stage for many 
 years. Again brought into trouble because of his writings, he 
 left Paris in 1734. Considerations of personal safety induced him 
 to fix his residence at Cirey, near the French frontier. His in- 
 come from his investments was now about $15,000 per year, a 
 large sum for that day. He continued to reside at this place for 
 fifteen years, leading a life of cultured ease, writing for the stage, 
 and letting fly, in every direction, the shafts of his ridicule, flood- 
 ing Europe with pamphlets, and making of himself, generally, an 
 international character. Europe shook with his laughter; courts 
 and kingdoms trembled at his frown. 
 
 In July, 1750, he accepted the invitation of Frederick the 
 Great to fix his residence at the court of Berlin, thus giving of- 
 fense to the King of France. While at Berlin he completed his 
 history of Louis XIV., his greatest historical work, which set up 
 a new standard of historical composition in France. It was this 
 work that caused Madame du Duffand to say of Voltaire, that 
 *'he has invented history." At the end of a little more than two 
 years he quarreled with Frederick, and barely made his escape 
 from Germany in safety. Louis XV. dechned to permit his re- 
 turn to Paris. He now located in Switzerland, and his retreat 
 near Geneva became a mecca for Hterary pilgrims from all lands. 
 Among those who visited him here was Oliver Goldsmith. Here 
 he lived for more than twenty years. 
 
 Following the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, Voltaire wrote a 
 poem entitled "The Disaster of Lisbon." In this poem, and in 
 his novel, "Candide," he denies that all the events which take 
 place in the universe form part of a divine plan. These works, 
 together with his part in the ''Encyclopaedia," and numerous 
 pamphlets and satirical writings, brought upon him the charge 
 of irreligion. 
 
 At the age of eighty-four he visited Paris for the last time. 
 He was received with the utmost enthusiasm. He was lionized 
 
162 VOLTAIRE 
 
 by the multitude, and fawned upon by the great. A special meet- 
 ing of the French Academy was held, to deliver eulogies in his 
 honor. At the Theatre Francaise he witnessed the first presen- 
 tation of his tragedy "Irene," and his bust was publicly crowned 
 on the stage, in his presence. He was carried to his coach in 
 triumph on the shoulders of the crowd, and he returned to his 
 apartments never to come forth again. He died May 30, 1778. 
 Before his death he wrote these words : "I die adoring God, lov- 
 ing my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting supersti- 
 tion." 
 
 While on this visit to Paris, Benjamin Franklin, the represen- 
 tative of the infant American republic, took his young grandson 
 to Voltaire and besought his blessing upon the child. Voltaire 
 placed his hands upon the boy's head and pronounced, in English, 
 the words : "God and Liberty." 
 
 Voltaire always denied the charge of atheism. He wrote to 
 d'Alembert: "I want you to crush the Infamous. -^ * * You will 
 understand that I mean superstition only. Religion I love and 
 respect." But what did he mean by religion? In what sort of 
 God did he believe? What was his moral code? Voltaire's pri- 
 vate life was one of unrestrained license. He believed and prac- 
 ticed, from his earliest manhood, the doctrine of "free love," con- 
 tinuously and persistently. While pleading for liberty and law, 
 he was loyal to no government under the sun. What appeared 
 to be a beacon-light of liberty in his hand, became an incendiary's 
 torch in the hands of his followers. But he was one of the colos- 
 sal figures of his day, and no writer, in any age of the world's 
 history, ever did more to unsettle the minds of men. As Lord 
 Macaulay said, in his essay on Frederick the Great: "Voltaire 
 could not build ; he could only pull down ; he was the very Vitru- 
 vius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to 
 be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock of our 
 positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever left behind him 
 so vast and terrible a wreck of truths and falsehoods, of things 
 noble and things base, of things useful and things pernicious." 
 
 Voltaire was an adept at flashy epigram. Thus, his saying: 
 
VOLTAIRE 163 
 
 "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him." As 
 if the finite could invent the Infinite! Such remarks illustrate 
 the shallowness of his philosophy. Nor do they prove his belief 
 in God. They prove the contrary. Such a phrase is on a par 
 with Robert G. Ingersoll's blasphemous witticism: "An honest 
 God is the noblest work of man." 
 
 Voltaire's essay on epic poetry is good. Some of his trage- 
 dies are superb. It is worthy of remark that his tragedies, for 
 the most part, ^display an exalted morality and a truly religious 
 sentiment. His History of the Age of Louis XIV. is one of the 
 greatest historical works ever produced in France. But his Hen- 
 riade, the publication of which caused him to be hailed at the time 
 as a second Virgil, has not survived the mature and sober judg- 
 ment of posterity. Indeed, Voltaire is chiefly of interest now, 
 only as a mighty precursor of revolution; a revolution w^hich 
 enthroned in Paris a naked woman as the Goddess of Reason, and 
 engulfed Europe for twenty years in blood. But that sanguinary 
 catastrophe would have found other heralds, if Voltaire had never 
 lived. It had to be. Where there are bastiles, and lese majestie, 
 and lettres de cachet, where government is both tyrannical and 
 corrupt, and society is rotten to the core, there must be reforma- 
 tion or there will be revolution. And France could not reform. 
 It was too late. The disease had gone too far. The hour of dis- 
 solution approached ; the hour of death for organized society had 
 arrived ; and only after death could a new life arise. 
 
X. 
 
 HUGO. 
 
 'Vic^.or Hugo was born m 1802, the year in which Napoleon 
 Bonaparte was elected First Consul for life, and his career was 
 prolonged to within fifteen years of the close of the nineteenth 
 century. Reckoned in terms of American chronology, he was 
 bom one year before Thomas Jefferson accomplished the Louisi- 
 ana Purchase, and he died in the first year of Grover Cleveland's 
 first term as President of the United States. In his infancy the 
 dying thunders of the first Revolution echoed in his ears, and he 
 lived to see France recover from the crushing disaster of the 
 Franco-Prussian War. His youth witnessed the splendors of the 
 first Napoleon, and his old age saw the scepter fall from the nerve- 
 less hand of Napoleon HI. 
 
 Hugo was thirteen years of age when the dream of the great 
 Napoleon was extinguished at Waterloo. He was a young man, 
 distinguishing himself in literary work, when the long reign of 
 George HI. of England came to an end, and was known among 
 the most distinguished French authors when Queen Victoria as- 
 sumed the throne of England in 1837. He flourished during 
 nearly the whole period of her long and illustrious reign, was per- 
 sonally acquainted with nearly all the great English men of letters 
 of the Victorian era, and survived nearly all the great names of 
 that glorious literary period. He published his *'Les Miserables" 
 in 1862, just as the opening scenes were being enacted in the 
 bloody drama of the great American Civil War, and although he 
 had then lived longer than Shakespeare lived, he still had nearly 
 a half century of active Hfe before him. 
 
 Modern history exhibits no other character who witnessed 
 so mighty a succession of events, who bore an active and an hon- 
 orable part in the stirring scenes through which he passed, and 
 
 164 
 
HUGO 165 
 
 who was capable of intelligently observing, as he observed, the 
 whole of the vast panorama of the Age of Revolutions. Little 
 wonder that his 80th birthday, in 1882, was celebrated through- 
 out the civilized world ! Rightly, indeed, did he inspire the sonnet 
 of Alfred Tennyson, who thus saluted him: 
 
 "Victor in poesy ! Victor in romance ! 
 
 Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears, 
 
 French of the French, and lord of human tears ! 
 Child-lover, bard, whose fame-lit laurels glance. 
 Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance 
 
 Beyond our strait their claim to be thy peers ! 
 
 Weird Titan, by thy wintry weight of years 
 
 As yet unbroken ! Stormy voice of France," etc. 
 
 Victor Hugo was the son of one of Napoleon's generals. His 
 childhood was spent in Spain, and his early education was super- 
 intended by his mother, a cultured woman, from whom, no doubt, 
 he drew his early predilections for literature. His "Odes et 
 Poesies" appeared in 1822, when he was but twenty years of age. 
 Louis XVHL at once granted him a pension, and the young poet 
 promptly contracted a happy marriage, the beginning of a domes- 
 tic life which was to sustain him in all his trials, and which proved 
 a model of propriety, purity and peace. Throughout his long 
 life his literary work never ceased. He is the author of many 
 dramas, novels and poems. To English readers he is best known 
 for his novels, doubtless because of the difficulty of adequately 
 rendering French verse into English; but among his own coun- 
 trymen his claims to immortality, though amply sustained by his 
 romances, will rest chiefly upon his verse. He was one of the 
 greatest lyrical bards of all time. 
 
 Living in the France of the nineteenth century, and possess- 
 ing his ardent temperament, it was not to be expected that so 
 great a genius could be dissociated from the political life of the 
 period. In 1848 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies. 
 Following Napoleon's coup d'etat of 1851 he went into exile, and 
 in the next year appeared his "Napoleon the Little," a fierce attack 
 
166 
 
 HUGO 
 
 on the king, followed by the **Les Chatiments," in the same 
 satirical vein, which has since become a classic. In his exile on 
 the islands of Jersey and Guernsey he redoubled his literary 
 efforts, and in 1862 his vast romance of "Les Miserables" was 
 published simultaneously in ten languages, an event unexampled 
 in the history of literature. In 1871, with the collapse of the 
 Third Empire, he was back in France, and a member of the 
 National Assembly at Bordeaux. In 1876 he was elected Senator 
 for life. He was now poet laureate of the Third Republic. Ad- 
 vancing age brought no diminution of his literary powers, and he 
 was at the height of his glory when he died, on May 22, 1885. 
 Lanson wrote: ''When Victor Hugo took his leave of the world, 
 it seemed as if he had carried French poetry with him.*' His 
 body was allowed to lie in state beneath the Arc de Triomphe. 
 His funeral surpassed in magnificence any royal pageant, and he 
 was interred in the pantheon, the relics of the patron saint of 
 Paris, Sainte Genevieve, being removed to provide a place for 
 his remains. 
 
 C. C. Starkweather says: ''We might demonstrate that he 
 was the greatest lyrical poet of France. His great novels were 
 prose epics." Another adds: "He is perhaps the greatest mas- 
 ter of language that we know ; a great writer, rather than a great 
 author, and therefore the more sure of an enduring democratic 
 fame. He has formed the rhetorical and poetic taste of three 
 generations of French youth. All schools of French verse that 
 have arisen in the last half -century have united to call him their 
 father." 
 
 Victor Hugo was not a great statesman. He was not a great 
 philosopher. He had not the intellect of a Diderot nor the scholar- 
 ship of a Renan. He was not even a very successful politician. 
 But he has touched the heart of the world by his intensity of 
 pathos and his warmth of universal sympathy. He is a writer 
 of great rhetorical richness and rhythmical beauty, and of limit- 
 less imagination. He is unsurpassed in vivid descriptive power. 
 In sheer tempestuous force of expression we do not know his mas- 
 
HUGO 167 
 
 ter. His literary style is in the highest degree oratorical, and 
 we therefore naturally find hinv to be an orator second to no 
 Frenchman of his generation. His oration upon the centenary of 
 Voltaire, in 1878, is a masterpiece of eloquence. His oration on 
 the death of Honore de Balzac is almost as great. A fine speci- 
 men of his forensic power is found in his oration against capital 
 punishment. In 1851 his son, the publisher of a newspaper, was 
 prosecuted for lack of respect for the laws, because of his report 
 of a legal execution which occurred in circumstances peculiarly 
 brutal. Victor Hugo defended his son before a jury. His speech 
 stands to this day as probably the most powerful arraignment of 
 the death penalty that ever fell from the lips of man. 
 
 He referred to the cruel and vengeful laws of capital punish- 
 ment as **those laws that dip the finger in human blood to write 
 the commandment, Thou shalt not kill; those impious laws that 
 make one lose faith in humanity when they strike the guilty, 
 and that cause one to doubt God when they smite the innocent." 
 But the thrilling climax of this wonderful effort was. reached 
 when he said: "Yes, I declare it, this old and unwise law of re- 
 taliation, this law which requires blood for blood, I have combatted 
 it all my life — all my life, gentlemen of the jury, and as long as 
 I have breath I will combat it; with all my efforts as a writer I 
 will combat it, and with all my acts and votes as a legislator; I 
 declare it (here he pointed to a crucifix hanging on the wall of the 
 court room) before that Victim of the death penalty who is there, 
 who sees us and who hears us I I swear it before that cross, 
 where, two thousand years ago, as an everlasting testimony for 
 generations to come, human law nailed the Law Divine I" 
 
 Hugo was also an adept in the use of the crayon. The mas- 
 terwork of his artistry in this regard is his ''Execution of John 
 Brown." The volatile French author had been deeply affected by 
 the anti-slavery movement in the United States. When John 
 Brown was sent to the gallows, Hugo summoned his crayon in 
 aid of his pen, and produced the gruesome sketch of a tattered 
 figure danghng from a gibbet in the moonhght. He inscribed it 
 
168 
 
 HUGO 
 
 "Pro Christo sicut Christus" — and under it he wrote the single 
 word, "Ecce." The drawing created a profound sensation in 
 America, and in the early part of the Civil War it was used 
 throughout the Northern States in aid of recruiting. He hated 
 slavery as he hated capital punishment. Later he wrote: "The 
 scaffold is the friend of slavery. The shadow of a gallows is 
 projected over the fratricidal v/ar of the United States;" and he 
 referred to "this monstrous penalty of death, the glory of which 
 it is to have raised upon the earth two crucifixes, that of Jesus 
 Christ in the old world and that of John Brown in the new." 
 
PART SIX 
 
 GREAT GERMAN AUTHORS 
 
 1^ 
 
 I. GOETHE. 
 
 IL SCHILLER. 
 
 HL LESSING. 
 
 IV. KANT. 
 
 V. RICHTER. 
 
 VI. KLOPSTOCK. 
 
 VII. WIELAND. 
 
 VIII. HERDER. 
 
 IX. HEINE. 
 
 X. WEBER. 
 
From 1780 to 1830 Germany has produced all the 
 ideas of our historic age; and for half a century still, per- 
 haps for a whole century, our great work will be to think 
 them out again. * * * The philosophic German genius, 
 which, having engendered a new metaphysics, theology, 
 poetry, literature, linguistic science, an exegesis, erudi- 
 tion, descends now into the sciences and continues its 
 evolution. No more original spirit, more universal, more 
 fertile in consequences of every scope and species, more 
 capable of transforming and reforming everything, has 
 appeared for three hundred years. It is of the same 
 order as that of the Renaissance and of the Classical Age. 
 It, -like them, connects itself with the great works of 
 contemporary intelligence, appears in all civilized lands, 
 is propagated with the same inward qualities, but under 
 different forms. It, like them, is one of the epochs of 
 the world's history. 
 
 — (Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, "History of English 
 Literature;" Bk. V., Chap. IV.; translated from 
 the French, by Henri Van Laun. 
 
I. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 The German Apollo, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great- 
 est literary genius of the Germanic race, is, after Aristotle, the 
 world's most perfect specimen of the universal mind. He is of 
 the select company of the super-great. "Of great men among so 
 many milKons^ of noted men," said that great' Englishman, 
 Thomas Carlyle, "it is computed that in our time there have been 
 but two ; one in the practical, another in the speculative province : 
 Napoleon Bounaparte and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Goethe 
 intrinsically of much more unquestionable merit." 
 
 Goethe united in rare degree the pristine fires of Homer, the 
 melancholy grandeur of Dante, and the subtle witchery of Shake- 
 speare. But he possessed a perennial freshness of fancy and a 
 certain sweetness of melody, combined with a statuesque dignity 
 all his own. In sheer force and scope of intellect he surpasses any 
 man who ever dipped a pen in the etherial fountains of immortal 
 verse. The learned French critic, Taine, calls him "the master of 
 all modern minds," and "the father and promoter of all lofty 
 modern ideas." Another of the most brilHant minds of France, 
 Madame de Stael, has observed: "Goethe may be taken as the 
 representative of all German literature. He unites everything 
 which distinguishes Germany, and nothing is so remarkable as a 
 kind of imaginative power, in which Italians, English, or French, 
 have no part." 
 
 This prince of poesy was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
 Aug. 28, 1749, the son of lawyer who was a man of wealth and 
 position. His mother was a woman of rare talent, and her in- 
 fluence upon the development of Goethe's genius may be readily 
 traced. From her, in large measure, he imbibed the gift of story- 
 teUing, and his precocious fondness for the classics. At the ten- 
 der age of eight he had already acquired some knowledge of Greek, 
 
 169 
 
170 GOETHE 
 
 Latin, French and Italian, and he later perfected himself in 
 Hebrew. In vain did Goethe's father seek to bind the towering 
 intellect of this young mental giant with the meshes of the law. 
 He studied law, indeed, but it was the law of life, the law of light. 
 He soon passed beyond the barren confines of civil jurisprudence 
 to the laws of time and space and planetary motion, to the laws of 
 growth and decay, of beauty and of truth; of the airy filaments 
 of thought, elementary spirits — ''film of flame who flit and wave 
 in eddying motion! birth and the grave, an infinite ocean, a web 
 ever growing, a life ever glowing, ply at Time's whizzing loom, 
 and weave the vesture of God" (Faust, Sc. 1) ; of the law, indeed, 
 as Richard Hooker saw it — "Of Law there can be no less acknowl- 
 edged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the har- 
 mony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage, 
 — ^the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not 
 exempted from her power." 
 
 After a few years at Leipsic, Goethe was sent to complete 
 his education at Strasburg. Here he met Herder, who exerted 
 a powerful influence upon his literary character. Among the inci- 
 dents of his student life at Strasburg, Goethe tells us that Herder 
 upon one occasion produced a German translation of Goldsmith's 
 "Vicar of Wakefield," which Herder insisted upon reading aloud 
 to a select group of students before permitting them to peruse it. 
 The touching English tale, classic in its simplicity, made a deep 
 impression upon the sensitive soul of Goethe. From his earliest 
 youth he had been producing lyrics and love-songs of great sweet- 
 ness and beauty, but attempted no great serious work until he 
 left the university. 
 
 Shortly after his return from Strasburg, in 1772, he pub- 
 lished his "Goetz von Berlichingen." Its success was widespread 
 and immediate. He was at once acknowledged as the foremost 
 poet of Germany. "Goetz" was translated by Walter Scott, and 
 soon gained a European fame. Soon after this triumph Goethe 
 met the young prince Karl August of Weimar; a meeting which 
 ripened into a friendshiip of fifty-five years, and which was to 
 be severed only by death. 
 
GOETHE 171 
 
 In 1774 Goethe's "Sorrows of Werther" appeared. It took 
 Europe by storm. When Napoleon Bounaparte visitea Goethe at 
 Weimar in 1806, after the battle of Jena, he told the poet that he 
 had read his "Sorrows of Werther" seven tim.es. Napoleon was 
 so impressed upon this occasion that, addressing Goethe, he ex- 
 claimed : "Vous etes un homme" — You are a man ! He afterward 
 invited the German poet to Paris and decorated him with the 
 Leg-ion of Honor. 
 
 Karl August became Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar in 1775, 
 and at once invited Goethe to become a member of his court. 
 The poet accepted the post of Privy Councillor, and became, suc- 
 cessively. Minister of Finance and Prime Minister. Weimar at 
 once became the literary center of Germany, if not of Europe, 
 and here the genius of Goethe shone with undimmed splendor for 
 fifty-seven years — until his death, in 1832. In 1825 the fiftieth 
 anniversary of his residence at Weimar was celebrated, all Europe 
 joining in the jubilee. A medal was struck in England, bearing 
 an inscription from one of his recent poems, "Ohne Hast, ohne 
 East" — without haste, without rest — and was sent to him with 
 a letter signed by Southey, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Scott, Lockhart, 
 and others. 
 
 When he had been at W^eimar tor more than a decade, Goethe 
 procured from Karl August an extended leave of absence. He 
 now undertook his famous Italian journey and remained in Italy 
 for two years. Many of his finest creations are the fruits of his 
 Italian tour. Upon his return he published, in rapid succession, 
 his dramas "Egmont," "Iphigenia" and "Tasso," together with 
 many poems of an unusual character. 
 
 In 1794 he formed the friendship of Schiller, a friendship 
 which lasted until the death of Schiller in 1805. "Literature has 
 no more perfect relation to show between two great men than 
 this between Goethe and Schiller," says Hjalmar H. Boyesen, in 
 his "Life of Goethe." "No jealousy, no passing disagreement, 
 clouded the beautiful serenity of their intercourse. They met, 
 as it were, only upon the altitudes of the soul, where no small and 
 petty passions have the power to reach. Their correspondence. 
 
172 GOETHE 
 
 which has been published, is a noble monument to the worth of 
 both. The earnestness with which they discuss the principles of 
 their art, the profound conscientiousness and high-bred courtesy 
 with which they criticize each other's works, and their generous 
 rivalry in the loftiest excellence, have no parallel in the entire 
 history of literature." 
 
 In 1796 Goethe pubHshed his "Wilhelm Meister," which added 
 greatly to his fame. This work was translated into English by 
 Thomas Carlyle. In the following year appeared "Hermann und 
 Dorothea," one of the sweetest of pastoral tales. But, as is well 
 known, Goethe's greatest work is *'Faust." The ''History of Dr. 
 Johann Fausten" made its first appearance in literature at the 
 book-fair held in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Goethe's home city, in 
 the year 1587. In the next year the theme was seized upon in 
 England by Marlowe, who made it the basis of his drama, "The 
 Tragedy of Dr. Faustus." In Germany the same subject was 
 twice attempted by Lessing. Friederich Muller dramatized it, and 
 Klinger made it the subject of a romance. 
 
 Goethe, in 1773, just one hundred and eighty-six years from 
 the date of the story's first appearance in the city of his birth, 
 began work upon his "Faust," which was to be the subject of his 
 thought for almost sixty years, and thereafter to become the 
 monument of his undying fame. He published the first part in 
 1808, and the second part, completed when he had but a few 
 months of life before him, was not published until after his death. 
 When he sealed the manuscript of the second part, he remarked 
 that it was of little consequence what he did thereafter, or if he 
 did anything at all ; that his life's work was done. His last words 
 were these: "Let the light enter." And so he winged his flight 
 to the regions of eternal light. "In him," we may say with Bayard 
 Taylor, "there is no unfilled promise, no fragmentary destiny ; he 
 stands as complete and symmetrical as the Parthenon;" and the 
 world with one accord agrees with George Henry Lewes that 
 Goethe truly earns the title "Great." 
 
 Goethe by no means confined his work to literature and art. 
 His intellect was truly Protean. He was one of the most profound 
 
GOETHE 17a^ 
 
 scientific students of his day. He wrote much upon scientific sub- 
 jects. He made discoveries in anatomy, botany and geology. He 
 made valuable studies in optics. His intellect was omniverous. 
 Nothing was too lofty for its reach, or too deep for its mighty 
 grasp. ''He saw nature in her grand unity," as Prof. Boyesen 
 says, "and his penetrating vision saw the great causal chain which 
 unites her most varied phenomena." Goethe himself has said: 
 "As a poet L am a polytheist ; as a naturalist, a pantheist ; as a 
 moral man, a deist; and in order to express my mind I need all 
 these forms." Writing of the period of Goethe, in his "History 
 of English Literature," M. Taine, the French critic and philoso- 
 pher, says : "The human mind, quitting its individual sentiments 
 to adopt sentiments really felt, and finally all possible sentiments^ 
 found its pattern in the great Goethe, who by his Tasso, Iphigenia,, 
 Divan, his second part of Faust, became a citizen of all nations 
 and a contemporary of all ages, seemed to live at pleasure at every 
 point of time and place, and gave an idea of universal mind.'* 
 
 His critical faculty was most astonishing, and his literary 
 judgments will forever stand as the law from which there is no 
 appeal. We m.ay glimpse his method in the following utterance: 
 "The prime quality of the real critic," he writes, "is sympathy. 
 There is no other approach to a man or a race. Men rarely under- 
 stand that which they hate, but they rarely fail to understand 
 that which they love." All which is as true as the Golden Rule. 
 
 Goethe has been blamed for his want of "patriotism." When 
 the French hordes were ravaging the lands beyond the Rhine, 
 when the world was shaken with revolutions on every hand, when 
 the very ground thrilled beneath the tread of the German legions 
 marching to the defense of Fatherland, when all Germany was 
 ringing with the warsongs of Koerner, Goethe's lyre was silent — 
 or rather let us say that his lyre, like that of Anacreon, had no 
 "bloody string." 
 
 Let Goethe answer. He does answer, in these words to Soret : 
 "I am no war-like nature, and have no war-like sense ; war-songs 
 would have been a mask which would have fitted my face badly. 
 I have never affected anything in poetry. I have never uttered. 
 
174 GOETHE 
 
 anything which I have not experienced and which has not urged 
 me to production. I have composed love-songs when I loved ! How 
 could I write songs of hate, without hating? And, between our- 
 selves, I did not hate the French; although I thanked God when 
 we were rid of them. How could I, to whom culture and bar- 
 barism alone are of importance, hate a nation which is among 
 the most cultivated of the earth, and to which I owe so much of 
 my own culture ? Altogether, national hatred is a peculiar thing, 
 and you will always find it strongest at the lowest stage of cul- 
 ture." Here is the soul of German culture speaking to the world 
 to-day, as it spoke a hundred years ago! For culture speaks all 
 languages and flies all flags. Here Goethe rises to the true height 
 of his majestic character, lifting the hand only in blessing — not 
 to strike! So do we view him now, in the mellow light of a 
 hundred years. Casting its rays across the abyss of a century, 
 the shining soul of Goethe, gleaming from his far Olympian 
 height, with golden voice still pleads for "beauties that shall never 
 die, for forms that saber-thrusts shall never mar, for songs that 
 ring above the battle-cry, for culture that is born of peace. 
 
 i ^ 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 From the perusal of Goethe the mind naturally turns to 
 Schiller, the second name 'in the glorious galaxy of Weimar, and 
 Germany's ''poet of liberty." Johann Christoph Friederich von 
 Schiller was born at Marbach in 1759 (the year in which the poet 
 Robert Burns was born), and was ten years younger than Goethe* 
 
 'These names," says a recent writer, speaking of Goethe and 
 Schiller, "are household words. Prolific as each of these im- 
 mortals was, more has been written about them than they ever 
 wrote about anything. Wiseacres have 'peeped and botanized', 
 pedants have oracularly analyzed, critics have viewed and re- 
 viewed. It is as if one should try to put the Andes or the Hima- 
 layas under a microscope, as if one should try to catch the roar of 
 Niagara in a phonograph. Goethe and Schiller: they stand side 
 by side, great beacon-lights of German poesy. And not German 
 poesy alone. They are Titans of world-genius, crowned kings of 
 universal literature, known to every school-boy and poet and 
 philosopher of two continents. Safe in the heart of humanity, 
 the ages will be their heirs. They are on the heights with Homer 
 and Sophocles, Milton and Shakespeare, 'like gods together/ 
 treasured by mankind.'' 
 
 Schiller's father, an honest and industrious man, but in 
 humble circumstances, had been a surgeon in the Bavarian army, 
 in the service of the Duke of Wurtemburg, and was earning his 
 Hving as superintendent of the Duke's gardens when the poet 
 was born. Young Schiller was intended for the pulpit, but was 
 obliged to forego that ambition when conscripted for the ducal 
 mihtary academy at Stuttgart, where he was subjected to an 
 irksome and hateful military discipline, so senseless, brutalizing 
 and repulsive as to kindle the fires of rebellion in his poetic souL 
 He sought surcease in the writings of Rousseau, and devoured 
 
 175 
 
176 SCHILLER 
 
 with avidity Wieland's translation of Shakespeare and Goethe's 
 ^'Sorrows of Werther." Completely at war with his surround- 
 ings, and sovereignly detesting the noxious militaristic atmos- 
 phere of the time and place, he yearned to strike a blow for free- 
 dom, and thus it was that literary ambitions gripped his heart. 
 
 After some years of mental anguish in the military straight- 
 jacket, assuaged only by the literary labors which he pursued in 
 secret, Schiller was graduated from the academy, and went forth 
 ^t a salary of $8 per month, as an army surgeon, in the service of 
 the Duke whom he so cordially hated. But the hour of retribution 
 was near. On January 13, 1782, Schiller's first play, *'The Rob- 
 bers," was performed at Mannheim. It was a declaration of war 
 against civilization as it then existed, and was the first bugle-note 
 in Schiller's lifelong battle-cry of freedom, the echoes of which 
 have reverberated in German ears for more than a hundred years. 
 Schiller journeyed secretly to Mannheim to witness the perfor- 
 mance of his play. He was undetected. He repeated the offense, 
 and the Duke placed him under arrest for a period of two weeks 
 and promulgated an order designed to prevent Schiller from writ- 
 ing anything in future excepting medical treatises. The Duke 
 could as easily have stopped a whirl-wind with a sword-thrust. 
 Schiller asked to be released from the ducal service. The Duke 
 refused, and Schiller fled to Mannheim, September 17, 1782. 
 
 Still pursued by the Duke, he found refuge on the private 
 estate of Frau von Wolzogen. In this retreat he remained until 
 July, 1783, v/orking diligently the while, completing his "Love 
 -and Intrigue," and formulating his great drama, ''Don Carlos." 
 He then returned to Mannheim to accept the post of ''poet of the 
 theatre," under contract to write three dramas a year. After an 
 unsatisfactory and rather precarious existence for nearly two 
 years, he left Mannheim, in 1785, going first to Darmstadt, where 
 he first met Goethe's patron, Karl August, ''the German Mae- 
 cenus," who gave him an honorary title as Ducal Court Counsellor. 
 Thence he betook himself to Leipsic, where he spent some time 
 with Korner and Huber. He removed with Korner to Dresden. 
 There he completed his "Don Carlos" and wrote some of his best 
 
SCHILLER 177 
 
 poems. The publication of "Don Carlos" greatly augmented Schil- 
 ler's reputation, especially in France, where it was thought to 
 accord with the spirit of the French Revolution, and in conse- 
 quence the honor of French citizenship was formally bestowed 
 on Schiller in 1792. 
 
 In July, 1787, Schiller repaired to Weimar, then famous as 
 the German literary capital. Goethe was still absent on his Italian 
 journey, and they did not meet until 1788. They did not become 
 friends until some years after their first meeting, Schiller having 
 criticised Goethe's "Egmont," and Goethe having passed some 
 strictures on "The Robbers." 
 
 Following the completion of "Don Carlos" Schiller first es- 
 sayed historical writing, in his "Revolt of the Netherlands." The 
 work is characteristic of his mode of thought. Freedom breathes 
 in every line. Owing to the influence of Goethe, Schiller was now 
 appointed as a professor of history in the University of Jena. 
 His lectures were immediately popular. While at Jena he wrote 
 his great historical work, "History of the Thirty Years War." 
 He had now set a new style for historical writing in Germany, 
 and had in some measure accomplished for German literature 
 what Voltaire did for French literature in his "Age of Louis XIV.*' 
 But the chief value of Schiller's vast historical* labors came from 
 the knowledge they imparted to him in regard to the great char- 
 acters and events of that stormy period. Had he not composed 
 this history it is doubtful if he could have written "Wallenstein." 
 At any rate there is little likehhood that he would have done so. 
 
 Notwithstanding his fame, Schiller's debts were pressing, 
 and he began to suffer from overwork. He indulged a fatal habit 
 of working all night, and sleeping only in the forenoon. At this 
 juncture friends came to his rescue with financial aid. He relin- 
 quished his professorship, but redoubled his efforts on "Wallen- 
 stein," in which he was aided by the constructive criticisms of 
 Goethe. It was at this time, also, that he edited with Goethe the 
 journal, "Die Horen." They pubHshed together their "Xenien" 
 in 1797, and in this work they completely silenced the heavy artil- 
 lery of all their critics. Within the two or three years following, 
 
178 SCHILLER 
 
 Schiller produced "The Song of the Bell," 'The Crane of Ibycus/^ 
 and several other famous poems of rare beauty. 
 
 In 1799 Schiller completed the great trilogy of "Wallenstein/' 
 the best acting play and the greatest purely tragic work ever 
 written in the German language. Goethe said: "The work is so 
 great that there exists no equal to it." It was certainly the 
 greatest drama written in the eighteenth century, and among 
 modern dramatic authors it has made Schiller's position secure in 
 the rank of Goethe and Shakespeare. 
 
 In 1800 his "Mary Stuart" appeared. So great was his repu- 
 tation abroad, f ollov/ing the publication of this play, that a London 
 theatre sought to contract with him for the first production of all 
 his future dramas. The "Maid of Orleans" was produced in 1801, 
 followed by the "Bride of Messina," a Greek tragedy in the man- 
 ner of Aeschylus and Sophocles. In 1802 he received a patent of 
 nobility from the Emperor Francis II., which he accepted "for 
 the sake of wife and children." He was now one of the great 
 world-characters. Madame de Stael paid him_ a visit in 1803. He 
 complained of her attentions as "suffocating," and when she had 
 gone he wrote to Goethe that he felt as if he had just recovered 
 from a severe illness. 
 
 Schiller was invited to Berlin in 1804, and was received with 
 all but royal magnificence. His tragedies were enacted at the 
 theatres, and he was lionized by both the people and the court. 
 This triumphal visit to Berlin was much like Voltaire's final return 
 to Paris. But Schiller could not be prevailed upon to remain at 
 the Prussian court. He preferred the intellectual capital at Wei- 
 mar to any political capital whatsoever, and wisely valued the 
 society of Goethe above that of courts and kings. 
 
 His last work was the drama of "Wilham Tell." The theme 
 had been suggested to him by Goethe. It was a parting blow at 
 autocracy. His health continued to fail because of his excessive 
 labors, and he died a martyr to his art, on May 9, 1805, at the 
 age of forty-five, at the height of his fame and in the prime of 
 his intellectual powers. 
 
 It was in "Wilham Tell" that Schiller wrote (IV., 1.) : "The 
 
SCHILLER 179 
 
 storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and bil- 
 lows." From earliest childhood Schiller was attracted by the 
 grander and more terrible phenomena of nature. He loved to 
 see the forked lightenings leap and play, and hear the crashing 
 thunders roll, while the roaring wind was music to his soul. This 
 characteristic remained with him through life, and the stormy 
 elements attended him, as a kindred soul, in death. He was buried 
 shortly after jnidnight. The night was dark and threatening. 
 Storm-clouds filled the sky. When the bier was placed beside the 
 open grave, for a moment all was calm. The moon shone brightly 
 on the coffin. The body was lowered to its last resting-place. 
 Again the sky was overcast, the tempest burst, the winds howled, 
 and the storm-king sang a mighty requiiim above the poet's tomb. 
 So passed the spirit of the immortal Schiller, the soul of German 
 tragedy. His last conscious act was to kiss his faithful wife, to 
 whom he had been supremely devoted, and his last words were 
 "Happier — ever happier!" So died he who said: 
 
 Der Mensch ist frei geschaffen, ist frei 
 Und wurd' er in Ketten geboren — 
 
 "Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains." 
 
III. 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, **the father of German criticism," 
 and, in point of time, the first among German classical writers, 
 was born at Kamenz, in Saxony, the son of a pastor of that city, 
 by whom he, too, was intended for the ministry. At the age of 
 seventeen he began attending the university at Leipsic, and was 
 a precocious student. He soon tired of theological studies, and 
 took up the study of medicine, telling his father that he **could 
 be a preacher any day." For the present, however, he desired a 
 wider range of study. From Leipsic he went to the university 
 at Wittenberg. At both universities he displayed marked apti- 
 tude for literature. 
 
 Lessing published a little volume of poems in 1748, after the 
 manner of Anacreon. The next year he proceeded to Berlin. 
 There he met Voltaire, who soon became his enemy. In 1755 he 
 published his tragedy "Miss Sara Simpson,'' a drama based upon 
 the family life, and tending to exalt the middle and lower classes. 
 It was at once successful. But it was not until four years later 
 that he really began his literary career. 
 
 In 1759, the year in which Schiller was bom, Lessing com- 
 menced publishing his ''Literary Letters," a task which occupied 
 a great part of his time for the next seven years. The "Literary 
 Letters" mark the beginning of the classical period of German 
 literature. He left Berlin for a time, to become secretary to the 
 Governor of Silesia. While at Breslau he published the drama 
 "Mina von Barnhelm," one of the purest gems of German litera- 
 ture, and still regarded as a masterpiece. In 1766, after his re- 
 turn to Berlin, he began publishing his great treatise on aesthetic 
 criticism, the "Laocoon," only one-third of which was ever com- 
 pleted. While engaged on this work poverty compelled him to 
 sell his library. He then went to Hamburg, where he was em- 
 
 180 
 
LESSING 181^ 
 
 ployed to aid in the establishment of a national theatre. He now- 
 began publishing his ''Dramatic Notes," which were in some 
 measure a continuation of the "Laocoon.'* These essays are mar- 
 vels of literary taste and mental astuteness, and have won en- 
 comiums from the masters of literary and dramatic criticism in 
 all nations. 
 
 In 1770 Lessing was made hbrarian at Wolfenbuttel, a posi- 
 tion which he held until his death, eleven years later. Here he 
 WTote the play, "Emile Galotti," the presentation of which was- 
 forbidden by the censor because of its political tendencies. At 
 this time, also, he wrote "Nathan the Wise," which has been : 
 characterized as ''a dramatic poem of toleration," and which is . 
 still regarded as one of the most beautiful specimens of German 
 composition. It is said that the piece was inspired by his friend-, 
 ship for Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher and scholar^ 
 and grand father of the great musician. Moses Mendelssohn and 
 Lessing were born in the same year. 
 
 Lessing visited Vienna in 1775, and was given such an ova- 
 tion as was never before received by a German author. He then 
 visited Italy, and found that his fame had preceded him there 
 also. In 1781 he died, at the age of fifty-two. The last three 
 years of his life were devoted to controversial writings which pro- 
 foundly affected the literary and political thought of the day.. 
 He was a fearless advocate of the freedom of opinion, and de- 
 clared it "better that error should be taught than freedom ofT 
 thought stifled." Lessing was almost alone in his advocacy oT 
 free speech at the time, and he did for his generation what Miltom 
 had done for England. 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the value of Lessing's work 
 in literary criticism. Unquestionably, he is Germany's foremost 
 literary critic. Macaulay said that sixty years before his time 
 Lessing was "beyond dispute, the first critic of Europe." His 
 critical essays prepared the way for Goethe and Schiller, while 
 his philosophical writings, beyond all doubt, were of substantial 
 aid in preparing the path for Kant and Fichte. Speaking of the 
 "Laocoon," Goethe said: "That long misunderstood phrase, ut 
 
182 LESSING 
 
 pictura poesis, was set aside. The distinction between the speak- 
 ing and the plastic arts was clear. All the results of this glorious 
 thought were revealed to us as by a lightning flash." 
 
 With all his polemical wit and daring, with all his remorse- 
 less logic and his cutting satire, Lessing is always broad, noble, 
 tolerant, humane. There was nothing mean, low or narrow in 
 his nature. No one can read his "Nathan the Wise" without 
 being supremely impressed with a sense of the author's goodness, 
 and the genuineness of his brave yet gentle heart. That play, 
 indeed, is the sum of all his moral and philosophic teaching. When 
 he makes his character say, in Act I., "For God rewards good 
 deeds done here below — rewards them here", — he means just 
 that, although he does not necessarily mean that the reward shall 
 be paid in gold coin, or that it shall be paid immediately upon per- 
 formance of the deed. When he says, in Act II., "Know this, that 
 every country can produce good men," he means that, too, for he 
 had said almost the same thing ten years before, when he wrote, 
 in his essay on "Aristotle and Tragedy": "I am convinced that 
 no nation in the world has been specially endowed with any men- 
 tal gift superior to that of other nations." Such thoughts show 
 the magnanimous world-spirit of the man. 
 
 Lessing's essays are models of a perfect expository style — 
 clear, simple, logical, vigorous, concise and bold. His sentences 
 are a net-work of close reasoning, compactly woven, and beautiful 
 as a tapestry. His vehemence is not in his rhetoric, but in his 
 thought; and in this respect his controversial writings often re- 
 mind one of passages in Demosthenes. He is Greek in his man- 
 ner, his thought and his ideals, and evidently no one ever read 
 to better purpose the great Greek authors. 
 
IV. 
 KANT. 
 
 That vast intelligence known to the world as Immanuel Kant, 
 *'one of the greatest and most influential metaphysicians of all 
 tim.e," was born at Koenigsberg, Prussia, in 1724, and died there 
 in 1804. He was never marriedo He never travelled. His eighty 
 years wxre devoted to the peaceful pursuits of learning, and he 
 never stirred from the precincts of the University of Koenigs- 
 berg, where he studied, wrote and taught. The adulation of the 
 multitude and the flattery of the great were alike matters of in- 
 difference to him, and unlike other men of letters, he refused to 
 visit other parts of the world. But he brought the world to his 
 door. Madame de Stael said that, outside of Greek history, the 
 w^orld afforded no other example of such exclusive and supreme 
 devotion to philosophical pursuits. 
 
 "He lived to a great age," says George Henry Lewes, in his 
 Biographical History of Philosophy, "and never once quitted the 
 snows of murky Koenigsberg. There he pursued a calm and 
 happy existence, meditating, professing and writing. He had 
 mastered all the sciences; he had studied languages, and culti- 
 vated literature. He lived and died a type of the German profes- 
 sor: he rose, smoked, drank his coffee, wrote, lectured, took his 
 daily walks always at the same hour. The cathedral clock, it was 
 said, was not more punctual in its movements than Immanuel 
 Kant." Herder, who attended some of his lectures, said that they 
 w^ere distinguished for wit and humor as well as moral purity and 
 profound thought. 
 
 At various times Kant lectured on logic, metaphysics, physics, 
 politics, mathematics, anthropology, theology, pedagogy, and min- 
 eralogy. He w^as first offered the chair of poetry in the univer- 
 sity, but declined it because he did not regard himself as particu- 
 larly qualified for the work. In 1770 he was appointed to the 
 
 183 
 
184 KANT 
 
 chair of logic and metaphysics, which he retained during the re- 
 maining thirty-four years of his Hfe. He wrote works on astro- 
 nomy, physical geography, neural pathology, psychology, aes- 
 thetics, ethnography, anthropology, history, criticism, meteor- 
 ology, politics, logic, pedagogy and metaphysics. While his great- 
 est achievements were in philosophy, his service to the physical 
 sciences was hardly less valuable. It was Kant who first an- 
 nounced the theory that the solar system was developed from a 
 primitive gaseous material with rotary motion, thus anticipating 
 l)y thirty-five years the nebular hypothesis of Laplace. 
 
 But Kant, like Plato, was greatest in his metaphysics. In 
 this field he was supreme in his generation. The chief of his 
 philosophical works is his '^Critique of Pure Reason," the most 
 monumental work in metaphysics since Locke promulgated his 
 Essay on the Human LTnder standing. ''Our suggestion,'' he says, 
 *'is similiar to that of Copernicus in astronomy, who finding it 
 impossible to explain the movements of heavenly bodies on the 
 supposition that they turned round the spectator, tried whether 
 he might not succeed better by supposing the spectator to revolve 
 and the stars to remain at rest." This suggests Einstein's recent 
 theory of relativity. Kant wrote this great work in a few 
 months, but he had previously meditated upon it for a period of 
 twelve years and did not begin the work of composition until his 
 ideas were thoroughly fixed. 
 
 It is evident that Kant was profoundly influenced by Hume, 
 and that he sought by his massive structure to erect a bulwark 
 against the skepticism of the English philosopher. Kant was not 
 a skeptic; at least, he was not intentionally and avowedly so. 
 But, for all that, the effect of his philosophy was to augment 
 rather than to destroy skepticism. .While he affirms the certitude 
 of knowledge, he affirms, also, that knowledge is only relative. 
 It is not strange, therefore, that philosophers claim to find in his 
 system a scientific basis for skepticism. But Kant nobly vindi- 
 cated the idea of duty. He founded upon the veracity of con- 
 sciousness a system of morals, the belief in a future state and in 
 the existence of God. 
 
KANT 185 
 
 He was, as Robert Adamson said, in his essay on Kant, "The 
 greatest philosopher of the eighteenth century." There will be 
 no dissent from the statement of Thomas Carlyle that "His criti- 
 cal philosophy has been regarded as distinctly the greatest intel- 
 lectual achievement of the century/' Schlegel said: "In respect 
 of its probable influence on the moral culture of Europe, it stands 
 on a line with the Reformation," But his morals, it is believed, 
 are better than his philosophy, and it is to be regretted if he has 
 given skepticism a weapon with which to thwart so much that is 
 beautiful, good and true. 
 
 Personally, Kant was a man of great kindliness and austere 
 morality. He was also a lover and advocate of political freedom. 
 He expressed sympathy for the American Colonists in their fight 
 for independence, and he also sympathized with the first Revolu- 
 tionists of France. He was generous, honorable and true. "Be- 
 nevolence," said he, "is a duty. He who frequently practices it, 
 and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes to 
 love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, 
 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' it is not meant that 
 thou shalt love him first, and do good to him in consequence of 
 that love, but, thou shalt do good to thy neighbor, and this thy 
 beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is 
 the fullness and consummation of the inclination to do good." 
 
 In the same spirit, he adds: "Whether mankind be found 
 worthy of love or not, a practical principle of good will is a duty 
 mutually owed by all men to one another." 
 
 "Act always," he advises, "so that the immediate motive of 
 thy will may become a universal rule for all intelligent beings." 
 
 Again he says: "There can be no more fundamental and 
 more certain mode of pleasing the invisible power which governs 
 the world, at least in order to be happy in another world, than 
 virtuous conduct." 
 
 These are truths that matter; thoughts that count; grains 
 of pure gold, without which all philosophy is but dross. They are 
 the bed-rock of the life spiritual, the corner-stone in the adaman- 
 tine temple of the soul. They need no Critique of Reason to in- 
 
186 KANT 
 
 fuse into them the breath of life, for they are of the very essence 
 of the life that never dies. The cold embellishments of syllogistic 
 logic can neither help nor hinder here, where the grandest ratio- 
 cinations of the human intellect have reached their highest point. 
 
 In De Quincey's ''Last Days of Immanuel Kant," we find the 
 great philosopher facing the end, with the serenity of an un- 
 troubled mind. "I do not fear death,'^ said he, ''for I know how 
 to die. I assure you that if I knew this night was to be my last, 
 I would raise my hands and say, 'God be praised !' The case would 
 be far different if I had ever caused the misery of any of His 
 creatures." 
 
 "Kant is the great renovator of philosophy," says Albert 
 Schwegler, in his "History of Philosophy ;" "he reduced once more 
 to unity and totality the one-sided efforts of those who had pre- 
 ceded him. He stands in some special relation, either antagonistic 
 or harmonious, to all others — to Locke no less than to Hume, to 
 the Scottish philosophers no less than to the earlier English and 
 French moralists, to the philosophy of Liebnitz and Wolff, as well 
 as to the materialism of the French and the utilitarianism of the 
 German clearing up period." 
 
V. 
 RICHTER. 
 
 Jean Paul Eichter was a sentimental prose writer, humorist 
 and novelist, whose w^orks are edited in thirty-four volumes. He 
 does not belong to the German classical school, and vv'as rather 
 frowned upon by Goethe and Schiller, although Goethe praised 
 his pedagogical work, "Levana," for **the boldest virtues, without 
 the least excess." 
 
 Richter was born at the village of Wunseidel, in the Fran- 
 conian mountains, in 1763. His early life w^as a bitter struggle 
 with poverty in its hardest forms. In 1781 he went to Leipsic to 
 study theology. But within three years he was obliged to flee 
 to avoid the importunities of his creditors. Meanwhile he had 
 published the satire, "Greenland Lawsuits," which was little ap- 
 preciated on account of its extravagant eccentricity of style. In 
 1789 he wrote "The Devil's Papers," but could not find a pub- 
 lisher. His novels, "The Invisible Lodge" and "Hesperus" were 
 published, respectively, in 1793 and 1794. In 1796 he visited 
 Weimar, and was hospitably received by Herder, the constant 
 friend of every aspiring genius, whom he warmly eulogized in his 
 "Aesthetics," published in 1804. Although he was not warmly 
 beamed upon by its greater luminaries, Richter's visit to Weimar 
 was rather successful, and from that time forth his fortunes took 
 a turn for the better. After a few more years of wandering, he 
 settled permanently at Bayreuth, and remained there the remain- 
 ing twenty-one years of his Hfe, dying in 1825. 
 
 Carlyle first introduced Richter to English readers, by men- 
 tion in his essays, and by his translation of "Quintus Fixlein," in 
 1827. DeQuincey pubhshed a "Life of Richter" in 1845, and se- 
 lections from his writings were published by Lady Chatterton in 
 1859. Richter is, indeed, best read in excerpts, rather than in any 
 of his completed works. Carlyle said of him : "There is probably 
 
 187 
 
188 RICHTER 
 
 not in any modern language so intricate a writer; abounding, 
 without measure, in obscure allusions, in the most twisted phrase- 
 ology; perplexed into endless entanglements and dislocations, 
 parenthesis within parenthesis; not forgetting elisions, sudden 
 whirls, quips, conceits, and all manner of inexplicable crochets; 
 the whole moving on in the gayest manner." But' he had a deep 
 and tender sympathy, a rich imagination and a certain delicacy 
 of touch, which, with his other human qualities, have made his 
 place secure within the circle of his admirers, by whom he is 
 called *'Der Einzige''— 'The Unique/' 
 
 Richter, we repeat, is best read in fine passages. Few of his 
 works hold the interest, but many of them contain paragraphs of 
 the rarest beauty, embellished to the highest degree of ornate- 
 ness, sublimely poetic, and deeply philosophic, or abounding in 
 the practical wisdom of everyday life. Thus: "A man takes 
 contradiction and advice much more easily than people think, 
 only he will not bear it when violently given, even though it be 
 well founded. Hearts are flowers ; they remain open to the softly 
 falling dew, but shut up in the violent down-pour of rain." Was 
 there ever a more beautiful and effective simile than that pre- 
 sented in the last sentence ? And here is another : "A Christian 
 man can look down like an eternal sun upon the autumn of his 
 existence; the more sand has passed through the hour-glass of 
 life, the more clearly can he see through the empty glass. Earth, 
 too, is to him a beloved spot, a beautiful meadow, the scene of his 
 childhood's sports, and he hangs on this mother of our first life 
 with the love with which a bride, full of childhood's recollections, 
 clings to a beloved mother's breast, the evening before the day 
 on which she resigns herself to the bridegroom's heart." 
 
 Now let us read what he says of authorship: "Never write 
 on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and 
 never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on 
 it." Horace said nothing better than that, in the "Ars Poetica." 
 And nothing, we believe, in either the Christian or the Pagan 
 moralists, is better put than this: 
 
 "Nothing is more moving to man than the spectacle of recon- 
 ciliation; our weaknesses are thus indemnified, and are not too 
 
RICHTER 189 
 
 costly, being the price we pay for the hour of forgiveness; and 
 the archangel, who has never felt anger, has reason to envy the 
 man who subdues it. When thou forgivest, the man who has 
 pierced thy heart stands to thee in the relation of the sea-worm 
 that perforates the shell of the mussell, which straightway closes 
 the wound with a pearl." 
 
 Behold, now his pretty picture of Hope : ''Hope is the ruddy 
 morning of joy, recollection is its golden tinge; but the latter is 
 wont to sink amid the dews and dusky shades of twilight ; and the 
 bright blue day which the former promises, breaks, indeed, but in 
 another world, and with another sun." 
 
 The following stern call to the duty of the hour, reads like 
 one of the oracular utterances of Carlyle: "Be every minute, 
 man, a full life to thee ! Despise anxiety and wishing, the future 
 and the past ! If the second-pointer can be no road-pointer, with 
 an Eden for thy goal, the month-pointer will be still less so, — for 
 thou livest not from month to month, but from second to second ! 
 Enjoy thy existence more than thy manner of existence, and let 
 the dearest object of thy consciousness be this consciousness 
 itself! Make not the present a means of thy future; for this 
 future is nothing but a coming present; and the present which 
 thou despisest was once a future which thou desiredst." 
 
 Richter, with all his shimmering metaphor and pictured fan- 
 tasies, abounds in deep and sober thoughts, thoughts that rise 
 and set like distant suns, moving in the orbit of eternity. Such a 
 thought as this would be not unworthy of Plato: "A man can 
 even here be with God, so long as he bears God within him. We 
 should be able to see without sadness our most holy wishes fade 
 like flowers, because the sun above us still forever beams, eter- 
 nally makes new, and cares for all ; and a man must not so much 
 prepare for eternity, as plant eternity in himself : eternity, serene, 
 pure, full of depth, full of Hght, and of all else.'' 
 
VI. 
 KLOPSTOCK. 
 
 Friederich Gottlieb Klopstock (born 1724, died 1803) has 
 been called ''the German Milton." He studied theology at Jena 
 and Leipsic. After leaving the university he followed, for some 
 years, the occupation of private tutor. 
 
 The first three cantos of his "Messiah," a Christian epic, were 
 published in 1748, at Langensalza. The poem was completed in 
 1752, at Copenhagen, where its author was a guest of the King 
 of Denmark. The publication of the first three cantos had at- 
 tracted the attention of Bodmer, the Swiss critic, then an eminent 
 authority on German letters, who had noted the Miltonic charac- 
 ter of Klopstock's work. 
 
 Klopstock's dramatic productions are of an inferior order; 
 overwrought, overdrawn, and theatrically impossible. His fame 
 rests almost solely upon his "Messiah," a poem which, although 
 hardly equal as a whole to the "Paradise Lost," abounds in fervid 
 religious sentiment and discloses a rich vocabulary, with much 
 beautiful poetic imagery. His representation of the characters 
 of the Disciples, from this poem, has been much admired for its 
 delicate lacery of language and its sweetly pious thought. We 
 quote from Roscoe's translation : 
 
 "Now the last sleep. 
 Last of his earthly slumbers, gently sealed 
 The Saviour's eyes. In heavenly peace it came, 
 Descending from the sanctuary of God 
 In the still softness of the evening air, 
 The Savior slept, and Sella meanwhile 
 To the assembly with these words approached. 
 Say who are they, whose eyes, bedimmed with grief, 
 
 190 
 
KLOPSTOCK ~ 191 
 
 Silent ascend the mountain? Sorrow's hand 
 Their face has touched, yet harmed not, — ever such 
 The grief of nobler souls ; haply some friend 
 Wrapt in the silent arms of death they mourn, 
 Their like in virtue. Then the Seraph thus : 
 Those are the holy tv/elve, SeHa, 
 Chosen ^by the Mediator." 
 
 Sella, then, as the Disciples come into view, inquires concern- 
 ing each of the ''holy twelve," and is answered in turn by the 
 guardian angels of the various Disciples. The picture thus pre- 
 sented, as the saints move in solemn review, Hke a heavenly con- 
 stellation, is sublimely impressive, and is as beautiful and striking 
 as the divine groups of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Noth- 
 ing in Milton can be said to surpass it. The review closes with 
 St. John, of whom it is said — 
 
 «* * * ^Q fairer spirit 
 On mortal man by the Creator's breath 
 Was e'er bestowed, than the unspotted soul 
 Of this disciple." 
 
 And then the scene is finished with a group of angels hovering 
 aloft— 
 
 . <<* * * ^j^(j ^j|.]^ silent tenderness 
 The seraphs o'er the loved disciple stood. 
 So stand three brothers o'er a sister fair, 
 In fondness gazing: on soft bedded flowers 
 She sleeps in angel beauty, ignorant 
 Of her blest father's hour of death; while they, 
 Won by her silent loveliness, delay 
 To break her golden slumbers." 
 
 Klopstock's ''Messiah" was one of the books which exerted 
 a most powerful influence upon the youthful imagination of 
 
192 KLOPSTOCK 
 
 Goethe. In this connection a delightful anecdote is related by 
 Prof. Boyesen in his biography of Goethe. Goethe's father was 
 a staid, stern and practical German lawyer, who could not endure 
 the fervid rhapsodies of Klopstock, and he would not permit a 
 copy of the "Messiah" to remain in his home. But his wife, who 
 was of a deeply sentimental nature, secretly procured a copy. 
 Young Goethe and his little sister Cornelia, sharing their mother's 
 ardent temperament, devoured the book most ravenously. They 
 memorized practically the whole of it, and were accustomed to 
 amuse themselves by impersonating Satan and his fiends. "Stand- 
 ing on chairs in the nursery," says Prof. Boyesen, "they would 
 hurl the most delightfully polysyllabic maledictions at each other. 
 One Saturday evening, while their father was receiving a profes- 
 sional visit from his barber, the two children (who were always 
 hushed and subdued in his presence) were seated behind the 
 stove, whispering sonorous curses in each other's ears. Cornelia, 
 however, carried away by the impetus of her inspiration, forgot 
 her father's presence, and spoke with increasing violence : 
 "Help me ! help ! I implore thee, and if thou demandst it 
 Worship thee, outcast ! Thou monster and black malefactor ! 
 Help me ! I suffer the torments of death, the eternal avenger !" etc. 
 The poor barber, frightened out of his wits by such extraordinary 
 language, poured the soap-lather over the counsellor's bosom. 
 The culprits were summoned for trial, and Klopstock was placed 
 on the index expurgatorius." 
 
 But such a book is not to be wholly cast away. If it possessed 
 no other merit, it would deserve to be embalmed in the affections 
 of posterity for having helped to fire the imagination and fashion 
 the giant soul of Goethe. It was Klopstock who first showed forth 
 the marvelous richness and fluency of the German language. He 
 was, in a manner, the John-the-Baptist of the Golden Age of Ger- 
 man Hterature. His "Messiah" was published before Schiller was 
 born, and when Goethe was an infant of two years, and he was 
 spared to be a witness of their triumphs, and of those literary 
 glories which at first he saw "as through a glass, darkly," but 
 with which he was afterward brought face to face. 
 
 This more practical and material age has all but placed the 
 
KLOPSTOCK 193 
 
 ''Messiah" where Goethe's father placed it — on the index of 
 things forbidden, or at least neglected. Nor is Klopstock's the 
 only Messiah so cast out. But, in the endless process of the suns, 
 younger Goethes will arise to track the aspirations of the heart 
 or point the summits of the soul, and the Vision will not be lost 
 to man. 
 
VII. 
 WIELAND. 
 
 One of the most illustrious authors of the German classical 
 period was Christopher Martin Wieland, whose works are edited 
 by Gruber in fifty-three volumes. Wieland was born at Oberholz- 
 heim, Wurtemberg, in 1733. Like Lessing, he was the son of a 
 preacher. Born with an innate aptitude for versification, some 
 of his earliest productions attracted the attention of Bodmer, the 
 Swiss critic, by whom he was invited to Zurich. There he re- 
 mained for eight years, earning his living as a private tutor. 
 
 In 1769 Wieland v/as appointed professor of literature and 
 philosophy at the University of Erfurt. Three years later he was 
 summoned to Weimar, to become the tutor to the two sons of 
 Princess Amalie of Saxe-Weimar, Prince Karl August and his 
 brother. Endowed by nature with a talent for versification, he 
 had, from the days of his youth, devoted all his spare moments 
 to literature. In 1764, at the age of thirty-one, he had published 
 his satire on idealism, "Don Silvio von Rosalva,'' a prose work, 
 followed by his "Comic Tales," in 1766. In 1767 his "Agatha" 
 appeared, presenting some studies in Fielding and other English 
 prose writers. His poetic tale, "Musarion," appeared in 1768. 
 Then came his "Nadine," also in verse, in 1769. In 1772, the year 
 in which he proceeded to Weimar, he published his "Der goldene 
 Spiegel," wherein he attempts to depict the ideal social state. 
 
 Wieland was thirty-nine years of age when he reached Wei- 
 mar, in whose constellation of immortals he was to become an 
 unfading star. He soon abandoned all other pursuits, and gave 
 the remainder of his life wholly to the tasks of literature. He 
 now established "The Germany Mercury," -a monthly journal of 
 literature, which he continued to edit for thirty-seven years. 
 This publication proved more profitable, from the financial view- 
 point, than the journals edited by Goethe, Schiller, and other 
 
 194 
 
WIELAND 195 
 
 great Germans of the period. The whole of his journahstic work 
 is pervaded by a sort of mild Epicurean philosophy, somewhat 
 Addisonian in style, and tending to diffuse a gentle and kindly 
 glow of cultural elegance over the life and letters of the time. 
 
 The political genius of Wieland, like that of other intellectual 
 giants of Weimar, was cosmopolitan in character. In furtherance 
 of these views he published his satirical novel, ''Die Abdereiten," 
 in 1774. His romantic epic, ''Oberon," published iii 1780, is now 
 regarded as the best of his productions. Before going to Weimar, 
 Wieland had translated twenty-two of Shakespeare's plays. In 
 the latter part of his hfe he did much toward the revival of the 
 Greek and Roman classics. He translated the Satires and Epistles 
 of Horace, the Letters of Cicero, and some of the works of Euri- 
 pides, Xenophon and Aristophanes. His literary style was urbane, 
 elegant, polished, and distinguished rather more for fluency than 
 force. He was not, like Lessing, a precisian. He was more 
 rhetorical than Lessing, but less ornate than Richter. He wrote 
 to please, rather than to convince, and in pleasing he was able to 
 persuade. "If Lessing gave precision to modern German prose," 
 says one, ''Wieland gave it elegance and fluency. His work, at 
 once graceful and fanciful, is pervaded by a quaint humor and 
 delicate irony that give it a lasting charm." Although his trans- 
 lation is inferior to the later one of Schlegel, it was Wieland who 
 first introduced Shakespeare to the German mind. A characteris- 
 tic specimen of Wieland's prose style is the following from his 
 essay on "Philosophy as the Art of Life:" 
 
 "By far the greater part of the children of men never dreamed 
 that there was such an art. People lived without knowing how 
 they did it, very much as Mons. Jourdain, in MoHere's 'Citizen 
 Gentleman,' had talked prose all his hfe, or as we all draw breath, 
 digest, perform, various motions, grow and thrive, without one 
 in a thousand knowing or desiring to know by what mechanical 
 laws or by what combination of causes all these things are done. 
 And in this thick fog of ignorance innumerable nations in Asia, 
 Africa, America, and the islands of the South Sea, white and 
 ohve, yellow-black and pitch-black, bearded and unbearded, cir- 
 cumcised and uncircumcised, tattoed and untattoed, with and 
 
196 
 
 WIELAND 
 
 without rings through the nose, from the giants in Patagonia to 
 the dwarf on Hudson's Bay, etc., etc., Hve to this hour. And not 
 only so, but even of the greatest portion of the inhabitants of our 
 enhghtened Europe, it may be maintained with truth, that they 
 know as Httle about the said art of Hfe and that they care as 
 little about it as the careless people of Otaheite or the half -frozen 
 inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, who are scarcely more than sea- 
 calves." 
 
 Here we have a style of writing which will be at once recog- 
 nized by students of English literature as the style made famous 
 by Mr. Addison; little or nothing of the sublime, devoid of all 
 passionate vehemence, and not distinctly sparkling; but in the 
 highest degree entertaining, and productive of the gentler and 
 more placid emotions, like those produced by the contemplation 
 of beautiful objects. We find examples of the same style in Fene- 
 lon's "Telemachus," and it abounds amid the beauties and graces 
 of Virgil, Cicero and Horace. 
 
 Such is Wieland. With his discursive pleasantries, his ironic 
 dignity, his Epicurean, suave and soothing self-sufficiency, his 
 flashes of scholarship which remind us occasionally of Montaigne, 
 his mild and amiable preachments, he led his generation a long 
 stride on the way to a brighter view of life, and passed away in 
 1813, after a career devoted to the advancement of learning, the 
 upbuilding of Hterary art and the glory of German letters. 
 
VIII. 
 HERDER. 
 
 "Herder paid us a visit, and together with his great learn- 
 ing, he brought with him many other aids, and the later publica- 
 tions besides. Among these he announced to us the 'Vicar of 
 Wakefield,' an excellent work, with the German translation of 
 which he wished to make us acquainted by reading it aloud to 
 us himself." So says Goethe, writing of his student life at Stras- 
 burg. It is a fitting introduction to the life and character of 
 Johann Gottfried von Herder, the lover of good literature, the 
 most pronounced bibliophile of the German classical age, and the 
 personal friend of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Richter and Kant. 
 
 Herder was born at Mohrungen, in East Prussia, in 1744. He 
 rose to greatness over obstacles which few men have been able to 
 surmount. He was the son of a poor schoolmaster, and his early 
 life was a hand-to-hand struggle with poverty ; a contest in which 
 he was handicapped by frail nerves and a weak physique. He 
 studied at Koenigsburg • under Kant, and would have taken the 
 course in medicine, but his health would not permit. He was 
 enabled to remain at the university only by accepting the charity 
 of those who perceived his merit and generously aided him in his 
 struggles. He finished in theology, and then began to earn a 
 meager Hving by teaching. In 1764 he was called to the Cathedral 
 School at Riga. Health and sight failed him, and he went to 
 recuperate in France, returning to Germany in 1769. He visited 
 Strasburg for optical treatment, and here he met Goethe, then a 
 student, and five years his junior. The two soon became friends, 
 and it was through Goethe's influence that Herder was invited, 
 in 1775, to assume the post of Court Preacher to the Duke of 
 Weimar; and thenceforth, for the remainder of his life, he was 
 a conspicuous member of that distinguished group of poets and 
 philosophers who inhabited the German Athens. Two years be- 
 
 197 
 
198 HERDER 
 
 fore his death he received a patent of nobility from the Elector 
 of Bavaria. He died in 1803, at the age of fifty-nine, generally 
 beloved and admired, and his literary comrades at Weimar erected 
 to his memory a monument bearing the inscription, "Light, Love, 
 Life/' 
 
 These three words epitomize the ideals for which he lived and 
 died. His works have been published in sixty volumes, of which 
 the best known are his "Poetry of the Races," "The Spirit of He- 
 brew Poetry," "Ideas on the Philosophy of the Human Race," and 
 a translation of "The Cid." In his "Poetry of the Races" he has 
 taken the popular songs and ballads of nearly all the nations of 
 Europe and rendered them into classical German with peculiar 
 grace, fidelity and charm.. 
 
 Herder is not at his best in his original poetic compositions. 
 But in translating and interpreting the thoughts of others he had 
 few equals and no superiors. In all his work in criticism, philoso- 
 phy, philology and theology, he taught the unity of humankind 
 and stressed the brotherhood of man. No man possessed a greater 
 influence upon the minds of those with whom he came in contact, 
 and his great literary associates were, in a manner, his pupils. 
 His literary style, as well as his breadth of view, may be seen 
 in the following, from his essay entitled "Tithon and Aurora:" 
 
 "The timid nature of man, always compassed about with 
 hope and fear, often prophesies distant evils as near, and calls 
 that death which is only a wholesome slumber, a necessary, 
 health-bringing relaxation. And so it generally deceives itself 
 in its predictions concerning lands and kingdoms. Powers lie dor- 
 mant which we do not perceive. Faculties and circumstances are 
 developing themselves, on which we could not calculate. But 
 even when our judgment is true, it usually leans too much on one 
 side. 'If this is to live,' we say, 'that must die.' We do not con- 
 sider whether it may be possible that both may hve and act 
 favorably on each other. The good Bishop Berkley, who was no 
 poet, was inspired by his beneficent zeal for America to write the 
 following : 
 
HERDER 199 
 
 Westward the star of empire takes its way; 
 
 The four first acts already past, 
 The fifth shall close the drama with the day, 
 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last/ 
 
 So prophesied the good-natured bishop, and if his spirit could now 
 glance at yonder up-striving America, he would perhaps discover, 
 with the same glance, that, in the arms of the old Tithon, Europe, 
 also, a new Aurora was slumbering. Not four, scarcely three 
 acts in the great drama of this still youthful quarter of the globe, 
 are past; and who shall say how many times yet the old Tithon 
 of the human race may and will renew his youth upon our earth !" 
 
 A heartening and a comforting thought is this, written more 
 than a century ago, for the needs of Europe in the day of her 
 trial! Herder saw in death but the perpetual renewing of Hfe; 
 and he saw in life a growth which, though changing its forms, 
 never ceases ; a drama which changes scenes, but never ends. 
 
 Dr. Matthew Arnold, the greatest English critic since Macau- 
 lay, in his beautiful essay on ''Sweetness and Light," had this to 
 say of Herder and Lessing: "Generations will pass, and literary 
 monuments will accumulate and works far more perfect than the 
 works of Lessing and Herder will be produced in Germany; and 
 yet the names of these two men will fill a German with a rever- 
 ence and enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted mas- 
 ters will hardly awaken. And why? Because they humanized 
 knowledge; because they broadened the basis of life and intelli- 
 gence; because they worked powerfully to diffuse sweetness and 
 light, to make reason and the will of God prevail." 
 
IX. 
 HEINE. 
 
 After Goethe, Heinrich Heine was, in the opinion of many 
 competent judges, the most gifted lyrical artist of Germany. 
 Born at Dusseldorf, in 1799, of Hebrew parents, young Heine 
 was destined for commercial pursuits, but early in life he revolted 
 and gave his heart to literature. He was graduated in the law, 
 but made no effort to follow his profession. 
 
 Heine's first poems were published in 1822. Two years later 
 he published another volume of verse, entitled ''Book of Songs," 
 which was rendered into English by Sir Walter Scott. In 1844 
 appeared "Neue Gedichte," containing some of his finest lyrics. 
 Four books of his ''Reisebilder," or 'Travel-Pictures,'' appeared 
 from 1826 to 1831, and gave to Heine, at once, his greatest fame 
 and infamy. These sketches were pronounced "the most brilliant, 
 the wittiest, the most entertaining, the most immoral, the coarsest, 
 the most dangerous, the most revolutionary, the most atheistic 
 books that any German author had ever printed.'' The work was 
 forbidden in Germany and other monarchial countries because 
 of its revolutionary doctrines. 
 
 In 1831 Heine took up his abode in Paris, where he died in 
 1856. A spinal malady confined him to his bed during the last 
 eight years of his life, but during this period of suffering in what 
 he termed his "mattress-grave" his mind remained undimmed 
 and his literary activities were unabated. 
 
 Heine's songs are among the sweetest ever written in any 
 tongue, and in the world's literature he will forever rank among 
 the masters of the lyric art. One of the most widely known of his 
 songs is "The Lorelei," which is unsurpassed among the folk- 
 songs of any people. These verses will illustrate its bewitching ^ 
 sweetness : 
 
 200 
 
HEINE 201 
 
 I know not whence it rises 
 
 This thought so full of woe; 
 But a tale of times departed 
 
 Haunts me, and will not go. 
 
 The air is cool, and it darkens, 
 
 And calmly flows the Rhine; 
 The mountain-peaks are sparkling 
 
 In the sunny evening-shine. 
 And yonder sits a maiden, 
 
 The fairest of the fair; 
 With gold is her garment gleaming 
 
 As she combs her golden hair. 
 
 Although Heine was pre-eminently a poet, his prose style 
 was remarkable for its incisive and flashing lucidity. A fine speci- 
 men is this, from the ''Reisebilder,'' where he is comparing him- 
 self with Don Quixote: 
 
 "Perhaps, after all, you are right, and I am only a Don 
 Quixote, and the reading of all sorts of wonderful books has 
 turned my head, as it was with the Knight of La Mancha, and 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau was my Amadis of Gaul, Mirabeau my 
 Roland or Agramante; and I have studied too much the heroic 
 deeds of the French Paladins and the round-table of the National 
 Convention. Indeed, my madness and the fixed ideas that I 
 created out of books are of a quite opposite kind to the madness 
 and the fixed ideas of him of LaMancha. He wished to establish 
 again the expiring days of chivalry; I, on the contrary, wish to 
 annihilate all that is yet remaining from that time, and so we 
 work with altogether different views. My colleague saw wind- 
 mills as giants ; I, on the contrary, can see in our present giants 
 only vaunting wind-mills. He took leather wine-skins for mighty 
 enchanters, but I can see in the enchanters of to-day only leather 
 wine-skins. He held beggarly pot-houses for castles, donkey- 
 drivers for cavaliers, stable-wenches for court-ladies; I, on the 
 
202 HEINE 
 
 contrary, hold our castles for beggarly pot-houses, our cavaliers 
 for mere donkey-drivers, our court-ladies for ordinary stable- 
 wenches. As he took a puppet-show for a state ceremony, so I 
 hold our state ceremonies as sorry puppet-shows, yet as bravely 
 as the brave Knight of La Mancha I strike out at the clumsy 
 machinery. Alas! such heroic deeds often turn out as badly for 
 me as for him, and I must suffer much for the honor of my lady." 
 
 Such a writer is, indeed, fated to have a deal of trouble with 
 established authority. Heine was not only democratic in his in- 
 stincts; he was vindictively and pugnaciously so. He was not 
 content at striking at his opponent — he must sneer at him; and 
 blows are more readily forgiven than sneers. But he loved liberty, 
 even though he sometimes confused the ideas of liberty and 
 license. It was Heinrich Heine who said : *'If all Europe were to 
 become a prison, America would still present a loop-hole of escape ; 
 and God be praised! the loop-hole is larger than the dungeon 
 itself." Matthew Arnold declared Heine to be **the most impor- 
 tant German successor and continuator of Goethe in Goethe's 
 most important line of activity," — that of **a soldier in the war 
 of liberation of humanity." 
 
 Heine thus speaks of his early pilgrimage to the shrine of 
 Goethe: "When I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, 
 I involuntarily glanced at his side to see whether the eagle was 
 not there with the lightning in his beak. I was nearly speaking 
 Greek to him; but as I observed that he understood German, I 
 stated to him in German that the plums on the road between 
 Jena and Weimar were very good. I had for so many long winter 
 nights thought over what lofty and profound things I would say 
 to Goethe, if I ever saw him — and when I saw him at last, I said 
 to him that the Saxon plums were very good I And Goethe smiled." 
 
 But Heine, with all his wit and merriment, was by no means 
 devoid of spiritual thought. He was a man who loved and hated 
 and suffered much, and he learned, with Browning, that "Knowl- 
 edge by suffering entereth." From his mattress-grave he cried 
 out: "Wherever a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, 
 there, also, is Golgotha !" He was a man of dual personality. He 
 had his Bohemian side ; but there was another side, which appears 
 
t 
 
 t 
 
 HEINE 203 
 
 in many of his songs, and in such anecdotes as this : 
 
 "While I was standing before the cathedral at Amiens/' he 
 says, ''with a friend who with mingled fear and pity was regard- 
 ing that monument — built with the strength of Titans and deco- 
 rated with the patience of dwarfs — he turned to me at last and 
 inquired, 'How does it happen that we do not erect such edifices 
 in our day T And my answer was, 'My dear Alphonse, the men of 
 that day had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions; 
 and something more than opinions is required to build a cathe- 
 dral." 
 
 Heine was correctly appraised by Gautier in these words: 
 "Never was a nature composed of more diverse elements than that 
 of Heine. He was at once credulous, tender, and cruel, sentimen- 
 tal and mocking, refined and cynical, enthusiastic, yet cool-headed ; 
 everything except dull." 
 
: X. 
 
 WEBER. 
 
 The literary movement begun in England by Keats and 
 Wordsworth early in the nineteenth century and transmitted by 
 them to Tennyson, had its altar fires carried to Germany by 
 Friederich Wilhelm Weber. As Walter Scott was made a poet by 
 reading and translating German ballads, so did Weber gain his 
 first poetical inspiration from English verse. 
 
 Weber was born Dec. 26, 1813, at Alhausen, Westphalia. 
 Like La Fontaine, the French fabulist, he was the son of a forest- 
 keeper. He first studied philology at Breslau, where he was a 
 classmate of Gustav Freitag, the poet and dramatist. He then 
 studied medicine, and thereafter travelled extensively in Ger- 
 many, Italy and France. He practiced medicine in Driburg in 
 1856, and was attending physician at a sanitarium in Lippspringe. 
 He was elected to the Reichstag, and resided for the remainder 
 of his life at Nieheim, in Westphalia, where he died April 5, 1894. 
 
 Weber's genius flowered late in life. He was fifty-six years 
 of age, and had then lived four years longer than Shakespeare, 
 thirty years longer than Keats, twenty-six years longer than 
 Shelly, nineteen years longer than Burns, and eleven years longer 
 than Schiller had lived, before his soul burst forth in that divine 
 efflorescence which thrilled, adorned and glorified the German 
 Fatherland with its resplendent gift of song. In 1869 Weber 
 gave to the world his translation of Tennyson's **Enoch Arden." 
 Three years later he pubHshed his "Swedish Songs." In 1874 
 he returned to his first love, and published a translation of Tenny- 
 son's *'Maude." 
 
 Not until 1876 did he, at the age of sixty-three, put forth his 
 "Dreizehnlinden," the most popular poem ever produced in the 
 German language; a poem which in its popularity with the Ger- 
 
 204 
 
I 
 
 WEBER 205 
 
 man masses has outrivalled even ScheffeFs 'Trompeter von Saeck- 
 ingen." In 1906 the one hundredth edition of **DreizehnHnden" 
 was published by Rickelt, and the occasion was celebrated 
 throughout Germany. Other editions have since been published. 
 
 Weber pubHshed three volumes of lyrics, *Tlowers of Mary/' 
 "Our Father," and "Autumn Leaves." 
 
 In 1892, at the age of seventy-nine, he issued his "Goliath," 
 an epic of the northern races; a poem which some critics have 
 regarded as superior to the "Dreizehnlinden." His principal 
 biographers are Schwering (1900) and Keiter (1903). Loewen- 
 burg, in his "Dichterabende," published in 1904, places him among 
 the first German poets of modern times. 
 
 Aside from holding his seat in the Prussian legislature, 
 Weber appears to have taken little or no interest in politics, and 
 when not engaged in the active practice of his profession he led 
 the calm, unostentatious life of a poet of nature, as quiet, peaceful 
 and uneventful as that of Wordsworth at Grasmere and Rydal 
 Mount. His simple, graceful and melodious numbers suggest the 
 fascinating felicity of Keats, while his descriptions of nature 
 transcend the beauties of Wordsworth. In canto five of the 
 "Dreizehnlinden," for example, we catch the glow of evening, we 
 hear the droning bee that has lost its way, we see the swallow 
 circling home, while the Weser softly flows, and all nature sighs 
 to rest in the full glory of a night in June. The poem is an epic 
 song of the victorious fight of Christianity with Saxon paganism 
 a thousand years ago. The life of the forest primeval is there; 
 the dark, dank wilderness, the bog and fen, the tinkling springs, 
 trickling among the mosses that yield to the tread of Saxon war- 
 riors marching to the thunders of their Thor, while the. smoke 
 of their altar fires is wreathed among the ancient boughs. Hard 
 by is the monastery of the Thirteen Linden, whence the poem 
 takes its name. In the fourth canto he depicts the monks, each 
 one so life-like, so real, that his presence is both seen and felt. 
 And, as in the great Christian epic of Tasso, there is the golden 
 thread of romance interwoven throughout the tale — the love of 
 Elmar, the heroic Lord of Goshawk Manor, for Hildegarde. In 
 
206 WEBER 
 
 this, as in all of Weber's works, there is the powerful and ever- 
 present Christian motif, rising like the tide and bearing down all 
 before it. In him we find none of the mild pantheism of Words- 
 worth; none of the sheer hedonism of Goethe. Throughout all 
 his work there resounds the ringing note of the Christian faith, 
 dominant and clear, virile and pure, surpassing in its tenderness, 
 overwhelming in its power. In this sweet and prayerful spirit 
 does he close his greatest poem : 
 
 "Helf uns Gott den weg zur Heimat 
 Aus dem Erdenland zu finden ; 
 Betet fur den armen Schreiber 
 Schliest den Sang von Dreizehnlinden." 
 
 That so remarkable a poem has thus far escaped translation into 
 English, and is almost wholly unknown to English readers, is to 
 be attributed only to an oversight on the part of those who are 
 capable of performing a w^ork of such value to modern culture. 
 At the author's request, Rev. John Rothensteiner of St. Louis, 
 Missouri, a gifted author of religious songs, has rendered into 
 English the following verses from Weber's ''Herbst-Blaetter" — 
 Autumn Leaves — which afford an excellent example of Weber's 
 soulful piety and the placid sweetness of his lyric style: 
 
 Was Life a Dream? 
 
 Past eighty winters, here my journey ends ; 
 Rest, pilgrim-staff, and let us vigil keep 
 For Charon's boat across the mystic deep 
 Whilst dreamlike o'er the past my spirit bends, 
 • Recalling life's long pain and brief delight 
 Like yonder sunset-clouds all golden bright. 
 
WEBER 207 
 
 Was life a dream ? — A dewy springtide morn, 
 Mysterious gloom of wild-wood beech and oak, 
 The forest-ranger's lodge, the quick, sharp stroke 
 Of woodman's ax, the post-boy's far off horn. 
 The finches' happy song, the stockdove's call, 
 And church bells chiming with the water-fall. 
 
 Then bench and table in a whitewashed hall, 
 A crowd of boys with faces roay-bright. 
 Poring o'er book and script ; one man of might, 
 Yet kind and mild, the guide and friend ot tvii. 
 Homer and Plato in the niches low. 
 And laughing Horace and great Cicero. 
 
 A student corps with face-disfigurements. 
 On each proud breast the vari-colored band; 
 With wit and wisdom and with blade in hand 
 Still rich in want and folly and good sense ; 
 Keeping in song and wine the golden mean. 
 With thoughts as high as eagles and as keen. 
 
 A quaint old city in my native land. 
 And endless battling then with drouth and death. 
 To heal each pain, and ease the fevered breath. 
 By grace of God, with skill and gentle hand. 
 Long sleepless nights, and weary days and faint; 
 Now grateful thanks, now much ungracious plaint. 
 
 And many a bracing ride through winter snows. 
 And walks along the spring-tide's pageantry ; 
 But constant care and sorrow walked with me. 
 And oft a prayer, a cry for help arose. 
 But half my prayer was lost, and yet was made 
 Complete by those that cared for me and prayed. 
 
208 
 
 WEBER 
 
 And many a night beneath the starry throng 
 Returning from my day's work and the heat, 
 Came rhyme on rhyme, as measured by the beat 
 With which my palfrey's motion led my song. 
 All gone, forgotten, what was born of night. 
 Lost as it came in Time's eventful flight. 
 
 But now meseems, I'm dreaming evermore; 
 How long, h<^^^ long! — A kingdom God made known 
 Beyond the sea of time, with great white throne; 
 Aiar it seems to raise its glittering shore ; 
 The darksome boatman stands and beckons me — 
 God grant my soul the blest eternity. 
 
PART SEVEN 
 
 GREAT BRITISH AUTHORS 
 
 I. SHAKESPEARE 
 
 II. SPENSER 
 
 III. MILTON 
 
 IV. ADDISON 
 
 V. POPE 
 
 VI. BYRON 
 
 VII. SCOTT 
 
 VIII. WORDSWORTH 
 
 IX. DICKENS 
 
 X. TENNYSON 
 
The English Linkage has a veritable power of ex- 
 pression such £s, perhaps, never stood at the command 
 of any other language of men. Its highly spiritual genius 
 and v^onderfully happy development and condition have 
 been the result of a surprisingly intimate union of the 
 two noblest languages in Modern Europe, fhe Teutonic 
 and the Romaic. It is well known in What relation these 
 two stand to one another in llhe English tongue; the for- 
 mer supplying, in fsr larger proportion, the material 
 ground work; the latter, the spiritual conceptions. In 
 truth a language, which by no mere accident has produced 
 and upborne the greatest and most predominant poet of 
 modern times, as distinguished from the ancient classical 
 poetrji (I can, of course, only mean Shakespeare), may, 
 with fill rig';.t, be called a world-language, and, like the 
 English people, appears destined hereafter to prevail, 
 with a sway more extensive even than its present, over 
 all line portions of the globe. For in iwealth, good sense, 
 and closeness of structure, no other of the languages at 
 this day spoken deserves to be compared with it, — not 
 even our German, which is torn, even as we are torn, 
 2nd must first rid itself of many defects before it can 
 enter boldly into the lists as a competitor with the 
 English. 
 
 — ^Jacob Grimm. 
 
SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, 
 and died there in 1616, at the age of fifty-two. The biographical 
 data we possess concerning hin^ are too meager, unsatisfactory 
 and unimportant to cast a ray of light upon his character. We are 
 compelled to judge him by his work. But such judgments are not 
 always true. Shakespeare, like Lope de Vega, wrote to please the 
 multitude rather than to instruct it. He was wholly of the stage. 
 It was for him both home and workshop. All we certainly know 
 of him lends force to the conviction that the theatre was the law 
 of his love and life. His intellect was nurtured in this dramatic 
 diathesis. One should be chary of seeking too much self -revelation 
 in the plays of such an author. Books have been written about 
 "Shakespeare as a Lawyer," etc.; etc., from information vouch- 
 safed in his plays. It seems that all such works are violative of 
 the cardinal principles of Hterary criticism. Shakespeare was not 
 writing lawbooks, nor works upon theology, medicine or logic. In 
 passing judgment upon a literary work we must consider the 
 author's intent. We have no right to consider a tragedy as a work 
 on criminal jurisprudence. Shakespeare was primarily a play- 
 wright. 
 
 Because of the slender knowledge extant concerning his per- 
 sonalit}', the authorship and even the existence of Shakespeare 
 have been questioned in recent years. Some have thought it im- 
 possible that an unlearned actor, such as Shakespeare certainly 
 was, could have written the plays and poems ascribed to him. But 
 a minute study of the Shakespearean works will quickly dispel 
 the illusion that these works bear intrinsic evidence of scholar- 
 ship. Others have thought that so great a man must have made 
 a greater stir than did Shakespeare ; that he should have been at 
 least as well known as Sir Francis Bacon. The soundness of that 
 
 209 
 
210 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 view is by no means apparent. Great men are not seldom ignored 
 by those immediately surrounding them. Shakespeare's occupa- 
 tion was not respected in his day. Moreover, in actual scholar- 
 ship, he was greatly inferior to Ben Johnson, Marlowe, and other 
 dramatists of the time. He was a skilled adapter and compiler 
 of the work of other men, which he often passed as his own, a 
 faculty not likely to win the highest encomiums from his own 
 associates. 
 
 As a writer of comedy Shakespeare will hardly be accepted 
 as the superior of Moliere, whose mode of life much resembled 
 that of the English bard; in fertility of invention he was vastly 
 inferior to Lope de Vega, whom he resembles in temporal success ; 
 and in sheer depth and force of intellect, in breadth of scholarship 
 and ripeness of culture, he is not to be compared with Goethe. 
 As a writer of tragic poetry only, he lacked the pristine fire of 
 the Greek masters and the classical correctness of the French. 
 Where, then, is his superiority? His excellence is due almost 
 wholly to his intuitive knowledge of the human emotions. Here 
 his wisdom is truly prodigious, and he rises to almost super- 
 natural stature. He was the most sensitive and the keenest of 
 all observers. He was omniscient in his perceptivity, ubiquitous 
 in his perspicacity, overmastering in the abysmal reach of his 
 passion-voicing power. What he saw he felt, and what he felt 
 his consummate artistry translated to the minds of men. He 
 could truly say with his own Othello: "This is the only witch- 
 craft I have used." He viewed, with an infinite sagacity, 
 and with a single all-sweeping glance, the perimeter of 
 human conduct. Seldom indeed has it been given to the 
 eye of mortal man to see the inmost secrets of hearts as 
 Shakespeare saw them; to read them as they were read by his 
 all-seeing and unerring eye ; or to voice the tumults of the soul as 
 he has uttered them, linked with the eternal harmonies and rapt 
 in the rythm of a deathless truth. Here, then, is the secret of 
 his mastery, his mystery and his power. In the face of self- 
 evident genius of the most exalted type, critics fain would search 
 for scholarship. They would see Shakespeare's diploma! Not 
 only would Bacon's scholarship have been without value in pro- 
 
I 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 211 
 
 ducing the Shakespearean creations; it would have made them 
 impossible. As Hudson says, in his introduction to King Lear 
 (taking the thought from Dryden), "Had he been more addicted 
 to looking at Nature through 'th^ spectacles of books', or through 
 other mxen's eyes, he would probably have seen less of her inward 
 meaning, and been less happy and less idiomatic in his trans- 
 lation of it." However pleasing to pedantic vanity may be the 
 theory that the great dramatic poet was versed in the lore of 
 books, the plays themselves afford conclusive evidence to the 
 contrary. Had Shakespeare been learned in the historical and 
 classical literature familiar to the cultured minds of his genera- 
 tion, he could not have displayed so much ignorance regarding 
 the lives and times described in many of his plays. 
 
 Enough has been presented by modern scholarship to show 
 that, in at least the most accessible of the fields of learning at 
 that time (history and biography), Shakespeare cannot be re- 
 proached with scholarship. Who does not envy Scott's old 
 cavalier knight in Woodstock, with his *'Will Shakespeare says" 
 forever on his tongue? We know that old Sir Henry had no 
 commentaries in his edition; that the bard he knew was the old 
 magician himself, Shakespeare unannotated and unadorned, mag- 
 nificent in his mystery, adorable in his beauty, inexplicable and 
 unexplained. But, so patiently and passionately have his de- 
 votees pursued him. in their anxiety to trace those mystic veins 
 of virgin gold to the mother-lode, that they have but too well 
 succeeded. 
 
 Historical research has now fairly established the fact that 
 not a single one of the plays, nor a single one of the great poems 
 attributed to him, is in plot, thought and verbiage wholly original 
 with him. No finished work that bears his glorious name is 
 original in its entirety. In some instances he has paraphrased, 
 and in other places he has deliberately taken the words of other 
 writers, placed them in the mouths of his own characters, and 
 thus used them as his own. Rut his characters, once he has 
 touched them, become peculiarly and distinctly his own. The 
 whole history of art discloses no creation bearing more clearly 
 the mark and stamp of exclusive individuality. The play may 
 
212 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 be a time-worn theme or another's plot, but the characters are 
 Shakespeare's very own. In his essay on Quotations and Origi- 
 nality, Emerson observes: ''When Shakespeare is charged with 
 debts to authors, Landor replies, 'yet he was more original than 
 his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them 
 into life'." So he did. Shylock and Hamlet were well-known 
 characters in the older drama before Shakespeare heard of them. 
 But not until he touched them with the wand of his mystic power 
 did they become instinct with life. 
 
 Among all the women of the stage, where shall we find such 
 another group of feminine intellects as Portia, Isabella, Beatrice 
 and Rosalind? Or such beautiful creatures of passion as Juliet, 
 Helena, Perdita, Viola, Ophelia and Miranda? Where such char- 
 acters of the affections as Hermione, Desdemona, Imogen and 
 Cordelia? One may almost hear the rustle of their garments as 
 they pass. 
 
 Sir John Falstaff, of protuberant abdomen, swaggering, un- 
 gracious gait and braggart speech, drinking and swearing and 
 lying, hearty and jolly withal, grunting with comfort and reek- 
 ing with ale, still treads the boards alone and greets us with his 
 loud guffaw. And there are Slender and Justice Shallow, and the 
 inimitable Dogberry, as Ulrici called him "the clown par excel- 
 lence," who insisted upon being written down an ass — in official- 
 dom the climax of absurdity, but none the less true to type as 
 the ebullience of legalism and the efflorescence of village politics. 
 Who can forget Jaques, "the melancholy Jacques," who could 
 "suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs?" Or 
 Touchstone, of whom Hudson said "he is the most entertaining 
 of Shakespeare's privileged characters"? There, too, is the asi- 
 nine Bottom, still rehearsing "most obscenely and courageously." 
 The fairies "fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes," and he 
 calls for "a bottle of hay." So do the airy spirits mingle with the 
 clownishness of this world. Fairies! Queen Mab, "no bigger than 
 an agate-stone on the forefinger of an alderman"; Puck, and 
 Ariel, Titania and her dewy train ! Were there ever such fairies 
 as we find in Shakespeare ? Of all the dramatists, he alone seems 
 to possess the gift of the occult, the mastery of the supernatural. 
 
SHAKESPEARE 213 
 
 Of the historic and tragic characters we need say nothing now. 
 The reader who has not wept with Othello, shuddered at Macbeth 
 or been moved by the tragic spirit of Hamlet, is impervious to 
 human feeling and devoid of human passion. Indeed, we may say 
 with Macaulay: "The characters of which he has given us an 
 impression as vivid as that which we receive from the characters 
 of our own associates, are to be reckoned by the score." In this 
 respect he leaves all other dramatists far behind. ''Compare him 
 with Homer, the tragedians of Greece, the poets of Italy, Plautus, 
 Cervantes, Moliere, Addison, Le Sage, Fielding, Richardson, 
 Scott, the romancers of the elder or later schools," says Henry 
 Hallam — "one man has far more than surpassed them all. Others 
 may have been as sublime, others may have been more pathetic, 
 others may have equalled him, in grace and purity of language, 
 and have shunned some of his faults ; but the philosophy of Shake- 
 speare, his intimate searching out of the human heart, whether 
 in the gnomic form of sentence, or in the dramatic exhibition of 
 character, is a gift peculiarly his own." 
 
 Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria, calls him "Our myriad- 
 minded Shakespeare." Thomas Carlyle, in his essay on "Char- 
 acteristics of Shakespeare," says: "If I say that Shakespeare is 
 the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him." But 
 he was not the greatest of intellects. He was not the greatest of 
 poets. But, as a painter of human character, his work has not 
 been equalled in any nation or in any age. Shakespeare, as none 
 before or since have done, could read the message of the soul and 
 speak the language of the heart. 
 
 "Great he may be justly called," Professor Blair observed in 
 his lecture on English tragedy, "as the extent and force of his 
 natural genius, both for tragedy and comedy, are altogether un- 
 rivaled. But, at the same time, it is a genius shooting wild ; de- 
 ficient in just taste, and altogether unassisted by knowledge or 
 art. Long has he been idolized by the British nation; much has 
 been said, and much has been written concerning him; criticism 
 has been drawn to the very dregs, in commentaries upon his 
 words and witticisms; and yet it remains, to this day, in doubt, 
 whether his beauties or his faults be greatest. * * * * All these 
 
214 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 faults, however, Shakespeare redeems, by two of the greatest 
 excellencies which any tragic poet can possess; his lively and 
 diversified paintings of character; his strong and natural expres- 
 sions of passion. These are his two chief virtues; on these his 
 merit rests." 
 
 So vast, indeed, is the diversity of his portraiture of human 
 passion that the human soul knows no attitude in which the great 
 painter has not limned it forth in all its lights and shades, in all 
 its beauty and its truth, and placed it in the endless gallery of 
 his art, for the wonder and admiration of the ages. ''Amid so 
 many portraitures," as Taine has remarked, we must, perforce, 
 ''choose two or three to indicate the depth and nature of them 
 all;" for "the critic is lost in Shakespeare as in an immense town; 
 he will describe a couple of monuments, and entreat the reader to 
 imagine the city." 
 
II. 
 
 SPENSER. 
 
 Born in 1552, Edmund Spenser was nine years older than 
 Bacon, and twelve years older than Shakespeare. He was a native 
 of London, and took his master's degree at Cambridge in 1576. 
 Three years later he published his "Shepherd's Calendar," which 
 Dryden proclaimed to be without an equal in any language, fur- 
 ther declaring that it placed Spenser in the class of Virgil and 
 Theocritus. This pastoral, in twelve books, was the first really 
 forceful and sustained effort in English poetry since the days of 
 Chaucer, and was immediately recognized as the work of a master, 
 although it betrays the diff useness, prolixity, pedantic phraseology 
 and tendency to grotesque exaggeration which too often mar 
 Spenser's style, and it by no means justifies the extravagant 
 encomium of Dryden. However, it won warm praise from Sir 
 Philip Sidney and a meager patronage from the powerful and 
 popular Earl of Leicester, one of the favorites of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 At about this time the poet was appointed secretary to Lord 
 Grey, but recently created Lord Deputy of Ireland. With his new 
 chieftain he at once entered upon the turbulent duties of the 
 British service in that unhappy island — a work which was to 
 occupy the remainder of his life. Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh 
 were both with Lord Grey at the tragedy of Smerwick, where six 
 hundred of the Irish, after having peacefully and voluntarily sur- 
 rendered their arms, were cruelly massacred by order of the 
 English general. Raleigh, it is said, was captain of one of the 
 bands of executioners. It is not beheved that the poet took any 
 part in this or other armed engagements, but it is certain that 
 he was at all times an eloquent defender of Lord Grey's merciless 
 and remorseless regime. 
 
 With but occasional visits to England, Spenser remained in 
 Ireland from the time of Desmond's rebelHon in 1580 until the 
 
 215 
 
216 SPENSER 
 
 outbreak of Tyrone's rebellion in 1599. Many of the events of 
 those terrible years, when the English attempted to exterminate 
 the entire population of Munster, are calmly reported by Spenser 
 in his document entitled "View of the present State of Ireland." 
 Spenser went to Ireland for no romantic purpose; but, as Dean 
 Church in his biography observes: *'He came to make his for- 
 tune as well as he could, and he accepted the conditions of place 
 and scene, and entered at once into the game of adventure and 
 gain which was the natural one for all English comers, and of 
 which the prizes were lucrative offices and forfeited manors and 
 abbeys. And in the native population and native interests, he 
 saw nothing but what called forth not merely antipathy but deep 
 moral condemnation. It was not merely that the Irish were ig- 
 norant, thriftless, filthy, debased and loathsome in their pitiable 
 misery and despair; it was that in his view, justice, truth, honesty, 
 had utterly perished among them, and therefore were not due to 
 them. Of any other side of the picture he, like other good English- 
 men, was entirely unconscious; he saw only on all sides of him 
 the empire of barbarism and misrule which valiant and godly 
 Englishmen were fighting to vanquish and destroy — fighting 
 against apparent but not real odds. And all this was aggravated 
 by the stiff adherence of the Irish to their old religion." 
 
 Such was the harsh and gloomy setting in which Spenser 
 took up the work of writing that splendid allegory 'The Faery 
 Queen," a poem distinguished for its elevated religious tone, its 
 dreamy enchantment, its softness of coloring, delicacy of fancy 
 and the melodious beauty and harmony of its numbers. It is one 
 of the longest poems in the English language. It is more than 
 twice as long as MUton's great epic, or Tennyson's Idylls of the 
 King. But few of the greater English poems display such a 
 lavish profusion and richness of imagery, a musical cadence so 
 exquisite, stately, and unfailing, or a versatility so fascinating 
 and exhaustless. Little wonder that Spenser has been a favorite 
 with so many of our greater poets. He was admired by Shake- 
 speare. Hallam thinks him superior to Ariosto. Cowley says 
 that he was made a poet by reading Spenser. Dryden says: 
 "Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original." 
 
SPENSER 217 
 
 Pope found the Faerie Queen an unfailing joy in both youth and 
 age. Matthew Arnold said: **His verse is more fluid, slips more 
 easily and quickly along, than the verse of almost any other 
 English poet." Campbell calls him, because of the luxurious har- 
 mony of his colorings, the ''Rubens of English poetry." No poet, 
 indeed, has made a more profound impression upon the poets who 
 have followed him. A pronounced defect of the piece, however, is 
 the cringing, sycophantic and odious truckling to arbitrary power 
 by means of an utterly shameless and nauseating flattery of the 
 vain, capricious and ill-tempered Queen of England. As Gloriana, 
 Elizabeth is made empress of all true nobility ; as Belphoebe she is 
 represented as the princess of all sweetness and beauty ; as Brito- 
 mart the armed votaress of all purity, and as Mercilla, the lady 
 of all compassion and grace! 
 
 The reader may catch the langorous charm of his verse from 
 the following excerpt, describing the dwelling of Morpheus: 
 
 And more to lull him in his slumber soft, 
 
 A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down. 
 
 An ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, 
 
 Mix't with a murmuring wind much like the sowne 
 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoon. 
 
 No other noise, nor people's troublous cries. 
 
 As still are wont t' annoy the walled town. 
 
 Might there be heard ; but careless Quiet Hes 
 
 Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemies. 
 
 In 1595, in celebration of his marriage, Spenser produced his 
 Epithalamion, one of the greatest of EngHsh lyrics, and probably 
 the finest composition of its kind in any language. But, in less 
 than four years, the Irish stormed his castle of Kilcolman, and 
 the poet and his young wife barely escaped with their lives, leaving 
 their babe to perish in the flames. Spenser reached England in 
 a state of despair, and died soon thereafter, having published but 
 
218 SPENSER . , 
 
 half of the *Taery Queen." The remaining six books, if they 
 were ever completed, perished with the poet's child in Kilcolman 
 castle. Thus died the first of the great Elizabethan poets. Critics 
 like Macaulay may complain of his tedium — a defect common to 
 most allegorical tales — but none will deny that Spenser was the 
 first to show forth the spacious beauties of English speech. He 
 is buried in Westminster Abbey, near the tomb of Chaucer. 
 
 His limpid, liquid note is thus intoned by Keats: 
 "A silver trumpet Spenser blows. 
 
 And, as its martial notes to silence flee, 
 From a virgin chorus flows 
 
 A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity. 
 'Tis still! Wild warbKngs from th' Eolian lyre 
 Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire." 
 
 L 
 
III. ' 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 His soul was like a star and dwelt apart. 
 
 — Wordsworth. 
 
 John Milton, the most learned man that ever dipped pen in 
 the ethereal fountains of English verse, was born Dec. 9, 1608, 
 eight years before the death of Shakespeare. He was a native 
 of London, received his early education at St. Paul's school, near 
 his home, and at sixteen entered Christ's College at Cambridge, 
 where, during a seven years' course, he took both his bachelor's 
 and master's degrees. Meanwhile, his father, a scrivener, had 
 acquired a competence and retired to a country seat at Horton, 
 whither his gifted son followed. 
 
 At Horton, Milton pursued an elaborate course oi self -culture, 
 whereby he designed to perfect himself in the literature of Greece 
 and Rome, as well as in the modern languages. He acquired a 
 complete mastery not only of Greek and Latin, but of Hebrew, 
 Syriac, Italian, French, Dutch and other European languages. 
 During his six years at Horton he composed L'Allegro, II Pen- 
 seroso, Comus and Lycidas, and emerged from his retirement as 
 one of the first lyric poets of the age. Indeed, his L'Allegro and 
 II Penseroso have never been surpassed in English verse. 
 
 He now departed for Italy, where he was to spend fifteen 
 months. At Paris he met the great Dutch writer, Hugo Grotius. 
 He interviewed Galileo at Florence. At Naples he visited the 
 Marquis of Villa, then in his old age, who had in his youth be- 
 friended Tasso. At every point he visited the great libraries, met 
 the literati, and studied assiduously to perfect himself in litera- 
 ture. To distinguish himself as the author of a great poem had 
 been the dream of his Hfe, and it was an ideal which, throughout 
 his busy and varied career, he never for one moment relinquished. 
 
 219 
 
220 MILTON 
 
 In 1639 he returned to England, and opened a school for boys in 
 London. 
 
 At the age of thirty-five he contracted a marriage which 
 proved unhappy. Four years after the death of his first wife he 
 married again. His second wife died in fifteen months. In 1663 
 he contracted a third marriage. He was, in modern times, the 
 first great advocate of divorce, and his utterances upon woman- 
 kind in general do not mark him as one who would, in any circum- 
 stances, find the domestic relation particularly happy. 
 
 In 1649 he was made Latin secretary to Cromwell. Overwork 
 in this office was the immediate cause of his blindness. At the 
 age of forty-three his eye-sight was wholly gone. However, he 
 continued in his office until 1658. With the Restoration in 1660 
 Milton, blind and poor, became a fugitive, but he was afterwards 
 included in the general amnesty. Now, at the age of fifty-two, he 
 seriously set to work upon the poem which had been the ambition 
 of his life, and which he had meditated upon various occasions for 
 a quarter of a century. During the preceding twenty years he 
 had published some twenty-five tracts, and had achieved fame 
 as a master of polemical warfare, although much of his prose is 
 mere epideictic display. But in all these wordy digladiations is 
 the battle-trump of an orotund style, resonant, strong and clear, 
 bearing down all obstacles in the roll and sweep of its majestic 
 power. "It is to be regretted," says Macaulay, "that the prose 
 writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As com- 
 positions they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to 
 become acquainted with the full power of the English language. 
 They abound with passages compared with which the finest decla- 
 mations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect 
 Field of Cloth of Gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroi- 
 dery It is to borrow his own majestic language, *a seven- 
 fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies'." Mark Pat- 
 tison, too, in his biography of Milton, is similarly impressed with 
 the magnificence of Milton's prose. Says he: "They are monu- 
 ments of our language so remarkable that Milton's prose works 
 must always be resorted to by students as long as English remains 
 
MILTON 221 
 
 a medium of ideas." As James Russell Lowell said, "It was an 
 organ that Milton m.astered, mighty in compass, capable equally 
 of the tempest's ardors or the slim delicacy of the flute ; and some- 
 times it bursts forth in great crp.shes through his prose, as if he 
 touched it for solace in the intervals of his toil." 
 
 We know more of the details of Milton's life than of any 
 author of his time. His biography in six octavo volumes by David 
 Masson is one of the most exhaustive works of its kind in the 
 English language. It may, however, be epitomized as a life of 
 hard work, political controversy, and superhuman diligence in the 
 pursuit of learning. Liberty was the consuming and obsessing: 
 passion of his life, and to its hallowed service he gave his best 
 years in controversy with royalty upon the one hand and Puri- 
 tanism on the other. Like Lessing in Germany, he struggled 
 unceasingly for the freedom of the press, and his "Areopagitica" 
 will forever remain among the conspicuous monuments erected 
 to the freedom of speech. Of freedom he said: 
 
 **None can love freedom heartily but good men ; the rest love 
 not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope or more 
 indulgence than under tyrants. Hence it is tyrants are not oft 
 offended by, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all 
 naturally servile ; but in whom virtue and true worth is most emi- 
 nent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters ; against 
 them lies all their hatred and corruption." 
 
 But not until his public career was ended, his period of storm 
 and stress was over and his life's work was nearly done, did Mil- 
 ton find leisure for his greatest work. Then it was, when ambi- 
 tion's hopes were withered and most earthly ties were severed; 
 then, when in blindness and poverty his sun was sinking among 
 the clouds, did the farewell beam.s of his mighty genius burst upon 
 the world in a flood of eternal light. When the raucous voice of 
 controversy became inaudible to his ear the celestial voices en- 
 tered and the noise of the rabble gave way to the harmonies of the 
 infinite. When the carnal beauties of the world faded away be- 
 fore his sightless eyes, ''the celestial light shone inward," and he 
 visualized the gleaming armaments of Heaven in their glorious 
 
222 MILTON 
 
 pageantry of golden light. Then did his mighty harp vibrate to 
 the unseen touch, and the Spirit vouchsafed answer to his prayer; 
 
 " what in me is dark 
 
 Illumine, w^hat is low raise and support ; 
 That to the height of this great argument 
 I may assert Eternal Providence, 
 And justify the ways of God to men." 
 
 The Paradise Lost was finished in 1665, and was published 
 two years later. For grandeur and sublimity it is unequalled in 
 the English language, and its elevated style is matched in modern 
 times by none but Dante. The thunder-roll of his noble periods 
 finds no echo in the English tongue. **The Paradise Lost is looked 
 upon, by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at least 
 the noblest work of genius, in our language," says Joseph Addison. 
 Samuel Johnson says : ''Before the greatness displayed in Milton's 
 poem, all other greatness shrinks away." Hume declared him to 
 be "the most wonderfully sublime of any poet in any language — 
 Homer, Lucretius and Tasso not excepted." Certainly the his- 
 tory of literature affords no other example of a work so stupen- 
 dous in its magnificence, brought to completion under conditions 
 less conducive to perfection in literary work. 
 
 ''His blindness seems to have been complete before 1654," 
 writes Hallam in his Literature of Europe; "and I scarcely think 
 that he had begun his poem before the anxiety and trouble into 
 which the public strife of the commonwealth and the Restoration 
 had thrown him gave leisure for immortal occupations. Then 
 the remembrance of early reading came over his dark and lonely 
 path like the moon emerging from the clouds. Then it was that 
 the muse was truly his; not only as she poured her creative in- 
 spiration into his mind, but as the daughter of Memory, coming 
 with fragments of ancient melodies, the voice of Euripides, and 
 Homer, and Tasso ; sounds that he had loved in youth, and treas- 
 ured up for the solace of his age. They who, though not enduring 
 
f MILTON ~ 223 
 
 the calamity of Milton, have known what it is, when afar from 
 books, in solitude or in travelling, or in the intervals of worldly- 
 care, to feed on poetical recollections, to murmur over the beauti- 
 ful lines whose cadence had long delighted their ear, to recall 
 the sentiments and images which retain by association the charm 
 that early years once gave them — they will feel the inestimable 
 value of committing to the memory, in the prime of its power, 
 what it will easily receive and indelibly retain." 
 
 But Miltqn's memory, marvelous as it was, did not alone suf- 
 fice. He was obliged to call upon his daughters, and when they, 
 perchance, rebelled, upon his friends, to read to him the countless 
 works whose beauty and whose truth he was to transfuse, in the 
 alembic of his genius, into the priceless gems of his poesy. Some 
 writers have intimated that Milton owed his Paradise Lost to 
 Grotius, to Vondel, or to Andreini. The drama of the fall of man 
 was presented by Hugh Grotius in "Adamus Exsul." The same 
 theme was exploited by another great Dutchman, Joost Van den 
 Vondel, in his "Lucifer" and his *'Adam Ballingschap." Andreini 
 attempted an Italian play, or sacra rappresentazione, in manner 
 and form resembling the Spanish auto. But none of these produc- 
 tions could have been of great service to Milton, although he was 
 familiar with them all. He is nearer to Vondel only because both 
 took Sophocles and Euripides for their models. 
 
 In 1671 'Taradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes" were 
 published. "Nothing," says Goethe, "has ever been done so en- 
 tirely in the sense of the Greeks, as Samson Agonistes." In 1674 
 Milton died, as one has said, "old and blind and fallen on evil 
 days," yet "with his Titanic proportions and independent loneli- 
 ness, the most impressive figure in English literature." Let us 
 quote, in conclusion, from the beautiful tribute of Gray: 
 
 "He passed the flaming bounds of place 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." 
 
IV. 
 ADDISON. 
 
 Joseph Addison, born May 1, 1672, the son of an EngHsh 
 clergyman, entered Oxford at the age of fifteen, and soon became 
 noted for his proficiency in Latin verse. On leaving Oxford in 
 1699 he was, through the instrumentality of Lord Halifax, granted 
 a pension of about $1,500.00 per annum, and soon set forth upon 
 a continental tour in order to perfect himself in the modern lan- 
 guages, and augment his qualifications for the diplomatic service. 
 
 At Paris he met Boileau and Malebianche. H^ travelled over 
 France, Italy, Switzerland and parts of Germany and returned to 
 England after an absence of nearly four years, only to find his 
 pension discontinued and his friends bereft of power. For his 
 living he was forced to rely upon his pen. At this lov/ sla'Te of his 
 fortunes there happily intervened the battle of Blenheim. "It 
 was a famous victory," as old Kasper said, but at the time there 
 was apparently a woeful lack of British poets to properly record 
 its fame. It was Addison's opportunity. At this juncture he was 
 approached by an emissary of the government with the request 
 that he indite a few lines, in praise of the great Duke of Marl- 
 l)orough and his "famous victory." Addison responded with "The 
 Campaign," a poem which was at once immensely popular, but 
 which has been preserved from oblivion by its one beautiful and 
 powerful simile, wherein he likens Marlborough, in the heat of 
 battle, to the angel of the tempest, which 
 
 "Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 
 
 Addison was now safely and irrevocably launched upon a po- 
 litical career. His political faction not only lauded him as the 
 greatest of living poets, but showered him with official prefer- 
 ments as well. In his short but brilliant life — for he died at 
 forty-seven — he held the office of Under-Secretary of State, Sec- 
 
 224 
 
ADDISON 225 
 
 retary of State, was twice Secretary of Ireland, and for many 
 years sat as a member of Parliament. His popularity did not 
 wax and w^ane with the fortune?, of his political party, but con- 
 tinued to the end of his life. And the reason is not far to seek. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a more equable temperament than 
 that of Joseph Addison. Whether we find him immersed in prob- 
 lems of international politics, winning or losing political cam- 
 paigns, writing tragedies or Lati.: verses, whiling away an eve- 
 ning with friends over a social bottle at Button's, or busying him- 
 self with plans for the ''Spectator," he was ever the serene and 
 gentle spirit that still gleams in the pages of his essays. Neither 
 the envenomed jealousy of Pope nor the petulance of Steele, 
 neither the taunts of political partisans nor the envious shafts of 
 literary rivals could provoke his wrath or mar the classic dignity 
 of his unruffled poise. It is difficult, indeed, to dissociate the per- 
 sonaHty of Addison from his essays. He could truly have said, 
 with Montaigne, *1 am my essays." 
 
 It is as an essayist only that we must consider him. Without 
 the charming pages of the Spectator, the Freeholder, the Guardian 
 and the Tatler, posterity would hardly concern itself about his 
 other works, notwithstanding Boileau's praise of some of his 
 verses, and notwithstanding Voltaire's opinion that Addison's 
 "Cato" ranks above the tragedies of Shakespeare. 
 
 Addison made morality fashionable. That was his great 
 achievement. In the words of Taine, 'Tor the first time, Addison 
 reconciled virtue with elegance, taught duty in an accomplished 
 style, and made pleasure subservient to reason." The style of the 
 essays, for the purposes intended, is inimitible. It is wanting in 
 that fire and spirit which the French call "verve." It does not 
 possess the rugged strength which distinguishes Lessing among 
 the Germans. It is not so polemical as that of either Milton or 
 Macaulay. Yet in his chosen field and upon his own ground, ther*^ 
 are few prose writers, in any language, who may be regarded as 
 superior to Joseph Addison. 
 
 Addison intrigues the reader by his ingratiating courtesy, 
 his polite deference, his broad humanity, his uniform civility. He 
 can, upon occasion, be archly pohtic. His piquant grace, his tact- 
 
226 ADDISON 
 
 ful, gliding elegance, his moderation and calmness, are resources 
 which never fail ; while, over all his harmonious phrasing, his bal- 
 anced sentences, and the purling suavity of his rounded periods, 
 there are suffused the rosy lights of a modest gayety, a sweet 
 reasonableness, an urbane sanity, which weave a captivating 
 spell. In this fashion did Addison lead his generation to higher 
 literary levels than it had known before, while divorcing literature 
 from vice. Every reader is familiar with Samuel Johnson's fam- 
 ous pronouncement, in his Lives of the Poets : ^'Whoever wishes 
 to attain a>n English style, familiar,, but not course, and elegant, 
 but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes 
 of Addison." Macaulay declared that ''His best essays approach 
 near to absolute perfection, nor is their excellence more wonderful 
 
 than their variety As a moral satirist he stands unrivalled. 
 
 If ever the best Tatlers and Spectators were equalled in their own 
 kind, we should be inclined to guess that it must have been by th<^ 
 lost comedies of Menander. If we wish to find anything mor<e 
 vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shake- 
 speare or to Cervantes." 
 
 Two of Addison's shorter poems are of unusual quality. Both 
 are profoundly religious in sentiment. The first is an ode of grati- 
 tude for his safe return from his continental tour. We shall qu"te 
 but a single stanza : 
 
 "How are thy servants blest, Lord! 
 
 How sure is their defense! 
 Eternal wisdom is their guide. 
 
 Their help Omnipotence." 
 
 The poet Robert Burns said, in a letter to Dr. Moore, that this was 
 the first poem he ever knew, and he describes its powerful effect 
 upon his childish fancy. The other famous ode of Addison's is 
 the well-known hymn, beginning 
 
 'The spacious firmament on high." 
 
 His Christian optimism is disclosed in the following excerpt 
 from No. 381 of the Spectator: "An inward cheerfulness is an im- 
 
ADDISON 227 
 
 plicit praise and thanksgiving to Providence under all its dispen- 
 sations. It is a kind of acquiescence in the state wherein we are 
 placed, and a secret approbation of the Divine Will in his conduct 
 towards man." After studying these beautiful essays, and the 
 still more beautiful character of their author, one is impelled to 
 exclaim, with Thackeray: "Comm.end me to this dear preacher 
 without orders, this parson in the tie-wig. When this man looks 
 from the world whose weakness he describes so benevolently up 
 to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a 
 human face lighted up with a more serene rapture, a human in- 
 tellect thrilling with purer love and adoration than Joseph Addi- 
 son." 
 
V. 
 POPE. 
 
 From the age of Milton to that of Byron the greatest name 
 in English poesy is that of Alexander Pope. Thackeray calls him 
 "one of the greatest literary artists England has seen." 
 
 Born in 1688, his life of forty-six years was a struggle with 
 almost every adverse condition which could possibly beset the 
 human frame. He was a life-long invalid. In physical stature he 
 was almost a dwarf, being but four feet in height. He was so 
 frail as to be unable to dress himself without assistance. In ad- 
 dition to these physical handicaps he was born and reared a Ro- 
 man Catholic, and was thus, by the harsh laws of the time, de- 
 barred from public office and from many lucrative professions. 
 But one career was open to him, and that was literature. For 
 it he sedulously prepared himself. He was almost entirely self- 
 educated, never having attended school after his twelfth year. 
 
 Pope's compositions are all models of meticulous care. No 
 author, before or since his day, has worked harder to subject every 
 sentence to the highest degree of polish. He overlooks nothing. 
 He leaves nothing undone to impart the keenest brilliance and the 
 most perfect balance to each line and stanza of his work. He is, 
 therefore, as Johnson says, "read with perpetual delight." 
 
 Says Taine, the French critic, discussing the youthful tri- 
 umphs of Pope: "At sixteen, his pastorals bore witness to a 
 correctness which no one had possessed, not even Dryden. To 
 read these choice words, these exquisite arrangements of syllables, 
 this science of division and rejection, this style so fluent and pure, 
 these graceful images rendered still more graceful by the diction, 
 and all this artificial and many-tinted garden of flowers which he 
 called pastoral, people thought of the first eclogues of Virgil. * * * 
 When later they appeared in one volume, the public was dazzled. 
 The same year the poet of twenty-one finished his Essay on 
 
 228 
 
POPE 229 
 
 Criticism, a sort of Ars Poetica. It is the kind of a poem a man 
 might write at the end of his career, when he has handled all 
 modes of writing, and has grown gray in criticism; and in this 
 subject, whose treatment demands a whole literary life, he was 
 in an instant as ripe as Boileau." In this poem, says Dr. Johnson, 
 Pope has given us "the finest simile in our language:" 
 
 "Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise." 
 
 From the same poem the follownig well-known lines are taken: 
 
 "Good nature and good sense must ever ;;oin: 
 To err is human ; to forgive, divine." 
 
 Pope's Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard, the most notable of 
 his poems of passion and tenderness, was received with a burst 
 of enthusiasm. In it "the beauty of his imagery and descriptions, 
 the exquisite melody of his versification, rising and falling like 
 the tones of an Eolian harp, have never been surpassed." Johnson 
 declared it among "the happiest productions of the human mind." 
 It was rapturously praised by De Quincey and others. Lord Byron 
 preferred it to the famous ode r.f Sappho. A few lines will indi- 
 cate the trilhng, harmonic sweetness of the poem. At the close 
 of the portrait of the innocent nun, she is made to say : 
 
 "How happy is the blameless vestal's lot ! 
 
 The world forgetting, by the world forgot: 
 
 Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! 
 
 Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned ; 
 
 Labor and rest, that equal periods keep; * 
 
 Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep ; 
 
 Desires composed, affections ever even; 
 
 Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heav'n. 
 
 Grace shines around her, with serenest beams, 
 
 And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams. 
 
 For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms, 
 
 k 
 
230 POPE 
 
 And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes; 
 
 For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring, 
 
 For her white virgins hymeneals sing; 
 
 To sounds of heavenly harps she dies away, 
 
 « 
 And melts in visions of eternal day." 
 
 Of Pope's Rape of the Lock, considered thfe greatest master- 
 piece of the sprightly style, Leslie Stephen said: "No more bril- 
 liant, sparkhng, vivacious trifle is to be found in our literature." 
 It is probably the greatest mock-heroic poem in any language. 
 "It is," says Johnson, "the most airy, the most ingenious, and the 
 most delightful of all Pope's compositions." 
 
 At the age of twenty-five Pope began his translation of 
 Homer. He was already rated as the greatest hving poet. The 
 six volumes of the Illiad were published during the years 1715- 
 1720. This publication rendered his fame secure, and placed him 
 an immeasurable distance above and beyond all poets then living 
 in England. Pope's Homer lacks fidelity to the original text, but, 
 for all that, Johnson called it "the noblest version of poetry the 
 world has ever seen." Gray predicted that no other translation 
 would ever equal it. Byron said that as a boy he read it with 
 rapture, and that no one would ever put it aside except for the 
 original. From this work Pope reaped a profit of about $40,000. 
 He had now gained both means and leisure to conduct his war on 
 the Dunces. Pope was of a nervous, suspicious and irritable na- 
 ture, given to introspection, his morbid mind naturally dwelling 
 upon fancied injuries, and he decided, once for all, to even up all 
 scores- with hfs literary rivals. In this design he was encouraged 
 by his ardent though indiscreet friend Dean Swift, himself the 
 greatest satirist of the time, and to whom the Dunciad was dedi- 
 cated. The poem abounds in sharp and cutting thrusts and dis- 
 plays a wealth of genius worthy of a far better purpose. But 
 the keenest and most finished bit of satire Pope e\er wrote was 
 the malevolent but powerful characterization of Addison, which 
 appeared in the prologue to the Satires, and in which he said that 
 Addison could 
 
POPE 231 
 
 "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." 
 
 Pope's Essay on Man is possibly the work with which the 
 majority of his readers are most familiar, li is bniiiaid in «^"yle 
 and finish, and rich in epigram. There is nothing exactly like it 
 elsewhere. It abounds in popukr passages, and among the most 
 familiar are these lines : 
 
 "Vice is a monster of such horrid mien, 
 As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
 Yet seen too oft, fan:iliar with her face. 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 And these: 
 
 "Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
 Man never is, but always to be blest." 
 
 And this familiar couplet : 
 
 "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 
 The proper study of mankind is man." 
 
 This work, with its doctrine that "whatever is, is right," to- 
 gether with its numerous philosophical speculations, drew replies 
 from Voltaire in France, from Lessing in Germany, and from 
 Crousaz, a Swiss philosopher. 
 
 In his introductions and prefaces. Pope often displays great 
 power as a writer of lucid prose, as well as a vast critical insight. 
 Thus, in the preface to his translation of Homer, he says : "Homer 
 was the greater genius; Virgil, the better artist; in the one, we 
 mxost admire the m.an : in the other, the work. Homer hurries us 
 with a commanding impetuosity ; Virgil leads us with an attractive 
 m.ajesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil be- 
 stows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours 
 out his riches with a sudden overflow; Virgil, like a river in its 
 banks, with a constant stream. And when we look upon their 
 machines. Homer seems like his own Jupiter, in his terrors, shak- 
 
232 POPE 
 
 ing Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; 
 Virgil, like the same power, in his benevolence, counselling with 
 the gods, laying plans for empires, and ordering his whole crea- 
 tion." It is doubtful if any critic, ancient or modern, has so splen- 
 didly and succinctly compared the two great epic masters of 
 antiquity. 
 
 Pope's imitations of Horace are among the most delightful 
 of his creations, and are quite as charming as the original. Among 
 his shorter poems his Universal Prayer is one of the most beauti- 
 ful. Nothing can be finer than this : 
 
 "Teach me to feel another's wo, 
 
 To hide the fault I see : 
 That mercy I to others show, 
 
 That mercy show to me." 
 
 He wrote too little in this simple strain. This poem and an 
 ode. The Dying Christian to His Soul (written at the request of 
 Steele) , show Pope at the height of his lyric power. They breathe 
 forth a solemn purity, a noble tenderness and a softened, subdued 
 and modest dignity so deeply consonant to the sweet serenity of 
 prayer. 
 
 In his fifty-sixth year, after a life of strife and pain. Pope 
 passed away so peacefully that the watchers at his bedside could 
 not distinguish the moment of his death; so peacefully, indeed, 
 that it seemed as if the powers of nature, hushed in the presence 
 of expiring genius, had obeyed the behest of his own beautiful ode: 
 
 "Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, 
 And let me languish into life !" 
 
VI. 
 BYRON. 
 
 Lord George Gordon Byron, the foremost English poet since 
 Alexander Pope, is pre-eminently the great revolutionary poet of 
 modern times. 
 
 Born in 1788, just as the wave of revolution was threatening 
 to submerge all nations in its mighty sweep, he reached maturity 
 at the close of the so-called Napoleonic wars, when his precocious 
 love of liberty and his inborn sense of justice were rudely shocked 
 to behold a w^orld shackled in the meshes of the Holy Alliance and 
 writhing hopelessly in the gyves of tyranny, stupidity and cant. 
 
 The publication (at the age of nineteen) of his "Hours of 
 Idleness" having evoked an exasperating criticism in the Edin- 
 burg Review, Byron replied with his stinging "English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers," in the year 1809, and in the same year de- 
 parted for a tour of the Mediterranean countries. He returned 
 in two years, and at once pubhshed the first two cantos of "The 
 Pilgrimage of Childe Harold." His reputation was thus imme- 
 diately established, at the early age of twenty-two. In his own 
 words, "I woke to find myself famous." In the next four years 
 he pubhshed "The Corsair," "The Siege of Corinth," and a num- 
 ber of other metrical tales which greatly increased his fame. And 
 then, in 1815, he married. His troubles now began. Within a 
 year his wife left him, nobody knew exactly why. Gossip busied 
 itself with mendacious tales. Churhsh mediocrity, Puritan 
 prudery, snobbishness and cant, with their maudhn blubberings, 
 perceived their chance. Slander unleashed its envemoned dart. 
 They drove forth the proud spirit they could not bend, and they 
 made his name a byword and an hissing among the people. In 
 1816 he left England to return no more. 
 
 He now had but eight more years to Hve. But they were 
 busy years — years crowded with great works, such as "The Pri- 
 
 233 
 
234 BYRON 
 
 soner of Chillon," ^'Manfred,'^ ^'Mazappa," ^'Don Juan," the last 
 two cantos of ''Childe Harold" ard indeed, the greater part of his 
 life's work. Yet we are solemnly told that the period of his volun- 
 tary exile was a period of almost total depravity, a riot of unre- 
 strained dissipation. The marvel is that so vast a volume of 
 wonderful creations could have proceeded from a single pen in so 
 short a time. But his enemies have preferred to slight his crea- 
 tions and magnif^^ his recreations. 
 
 Lord Macaulay, who is usually wise even when he cannot be 
 just, is neither wise nor just in his estimate of Byron. "And a 
 few years more will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical 
 potency which once belonged to the name of Byron," he wrote, in 
 1830. But Matthew Arnold wrote, in 1881, of Byron and Words- 
 worth : ''When the j^ear 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to 
 recount her poetic glories in the century which has then just 
 ended, the first nam.es with her will be these." English critics in 
 g-eneral, have not comprehended Byron as have the greatest intel- 
 lects of other lands. The Frenchman, Taine, observes that ''all 
 styles appear dull beside his," and that "he is so great that from 
 liim alone we shall learn more truths of his country than from all 
 the rest combined." Taine says that Byron's "Manfred" is "tvvln- 
 fordther to the greatest poem of the age, Goethe's Faust." Goethe 
 said of Byron: "The English can show no poet who is to be com- 
 pared v/ith him I cannot enough admire his genius," 
 
 €oethe advised Eckermann to learn English only to read Byron, 
 mud added: "A character of such eminence has never existed 
 before, and will probably never comie again. Tasso's epic has 
 maintained its fame, but Byron is the burning bush v/hich reduces 
 tlie cedar of Lebanon to ashes." Taine concludes: "If Goethe 
 was the poet of the universe Byron was the poet of the individual ; 
 mid if, in one, German genius found its interpreter, the English 
 g-enius found its interpreter in the other." 
 
 From the verdict of Goethe and Taine there is no dissent on 
 the continent of Europe. "What," asks Castelar, "does Spain not 
 ©we to Byron ? From his mouth came our hopes and fears. He 
 has baptized us with his blood. There is no one with whose being 
 some song of his is not woven." Dr. Karl EIze, an authority on 
 
BYKON 235 
 
 the English classics, who held the chair of English literature in 
 the University of Halle, names Byron as one of the four greatest 
 poets of England, and also marks him as the intellectual parent 
 of Lamartine and Musset in France, of EsDronceda in Spain, of 
 Puschkin in Russia, of Heine in Germany, and of Berchet in Italy. 
 
 The great Italian Giuseppe Mazzini, in one of the most beau- 
 tiful essays he has given to the v/orld, discusses and compares 
 Byron and Goethe. 
 
 ''Never did 'the eternal spirit of the chainless mind' make a 
 brighter apparition amxongst us," he says of Byron. "He seems at 
 times a transformation of that immortal Prom.etheus, of whom he 
 has written so nobly ; whose cry of agony, yet of futurity, sounded 
 above the cradle of the European world; and whose grand and 
 mysterious form, transfigured by time, reappears from age to age, 
 between the entombment of on.^ epoch and the accession of an- 
 other, to wail forth the lament of genius, tortured by the presenti- 
 ment of things it will not see realized in its time When 
 
 he heard the cry of nationahty and liberty burst forth in the 
 land he had loved and sung in early youth, he broke his harp and 
 set forth. While the Christian Powers were protocolizing or 
 worse — while the Christian nations were doHng forth the alm.s 
 of a few piles of ball in aid of the Cross struggling with the Cres- 
 cent, he, the poet, and pretended skeptic, hastened to throw his 
 fortune, his genius, and his life at the feet of the first people that 
 had arisen in 'the name of the nationahty and liberty he loved. ... 
 
 "The day will come when democracy will remember all that 
 it owes to Bj-ron. England, too, will, I hope, one day remember 
 
 the mission — so entire English, yet hitherto overlooked by her 
 
 which Byron fulfilled on the Continent; the European role given 
 by him to English literature, and the appreciation and sympathy 
 for England which he awakened amongst us. 
 
 "Before he came, all that was known of English literature 
 was the French translation of Shakespeare, and the anathema 
 hurled by Voltaire against the 'intoxicated barbarian.' It is since 
 Byron that we Continentahsts have learned to study Shakespeare 
 
 and other Enghsh writers England will one day feel how 
 
 ill it is— not for Byron but for herself— that the foreigner who 
 
236 BYRON 
 
 stands upon her shores should search in vain in that temple which 
 should be her national Pantheon, for the poet beloved and admired 
 by all the nations of Europe, and for whose death Greece and Italy 
 wept as it had been the noblest of their own sons." 
 
 Mazzini's rebuke is but too well deserved. When Byron, at 
 Missolonghi, in 1824, had given his life for Greece, the Greek 
 chieftains desired that he should sleep in the Temple of Theseus, 
 at Athens. English friends, however, preferred that he should 
 rest with the poets in Westminster Abbey. But when the body 
 arrived in England the Dean of Westminster closed the doors of 
 the English Pantheon against the ashes of the noblest English- 
 man of the nineteenth century, and the funeral precession moved 
 sadly northward to Newstead Abbey, the ancestral seat of the 
 poet's family. 
 
 "When I was a boy I read Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. From 
 that hour I have hated oppression in all its forms." The speaker 
 was a United States Senator, William Joel Stone. The incident 
 is recalled as showing the world-wide influence of the great Eng- 
 lish poet who revered Washington, admired Franklin, eulogized 
 Daniel Boone, referred to Patrick Henry as "the forest-born 
 Domesthenes," and who said: ''Give me a republic. The king- 
 times are fast vanishing; there will be blood shed like water and 
 tears like mist, but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall 
 not live to see it, but I foresee it." In the "Chillon" poem, in 
 "Prometheus," and, indeed, wherever innocence and virtue tremble 
 in the clutch of tyrannic power, Byron shows unfeigned sympathy 
 for those who suffer and are cast down. Always and everywhere 
 in the strife between freedom and autocracy, Byron is the friend 
 of man. 
 
 Taine regards "Don Juan" as Byron's masterpiece. But that, 
 we suspect, is only a characteristically French judgment. There 
 are brilliant passages in all his poems. And there is very little of 
 his work that fails to sustain the reader's interest. This is espe- 
 cially true of Childe Harold. Everywhere are sunbursts of genius 
 which light his pages with a glow that dims not with the lapse 
 of time. Byron abounds in the sublime and beautiful. He may 
 not be always correct. Nor is the diapason of the tempest always 
 
BYRON 237 
 
 correct, when measured by the musical scale; but it drives its 
 message home. And so does Byron speak in words that cause 
 the blood to mount, whether he voice the passions of the heart 
 or paint the splendors of the storm. There is in him, as Swin- 
 burne said, **the splendid and imperishable excellence which covers 
 all his offenses and outweighs all his defects; the excellence c\i 
 sincerity and strength." 
 
 Byron struck the note of grandeur and sublimity as it was 
 struck by no other English poet excepting Milton. His apostrophe 
 to the ocean, at the end of Childe Harold, is an example of this 
 quality which is unsurpassed in any language. His description of 
 Waterloo, in the third canto of this poem, stands alone. Beside 
 it all other descriptions are colorless and mute. According to 
 Longinus, the primary source of the sublime in writing is boldness 
 and grandeur of thought. In this respect, Byron will not suffer 
 in comparison with Homer or the Hebrew Scriptures. Consider, 
 for example, his "Destruction of Sennacherib," closing with these 
 lines : 
 
 "And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
 Has melted like snow in the glance of the Lord." 
 
 Or his "Darkness" : 
 
 "I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 
 
 The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 
 
 Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
 
 Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 
 
 Swung bhnd and blackening in the moonless air," etc. 
 
 Similar examples could be adduced without number. So powerful 
 has been the appeal of the awful and the supernatural in Byron 
 that he has been often called the poet of gloom, of melancholy, of 
 hopeless woe. But such critics overlook both "Beppo" and ''Don 
 Juan." 
 
 And there is another side of Byron, neither awe-inspirino* 
 and terrible, nor frivolous and amusing, but of surpassing lyrical 
 beauty, sweetness and grace, such as "Fair Thee Well," "She 
 
238 BYRON 
 
 Walks in Beauty," "Know Ye the Land," "The Isles of Greece," 
 "Maid of Athens," and other poems of like character. Sir Walter 
 Scott has truly said : "As various in composition as Shakespeare 
 himself, Lord Byron has embraced every type of human life, and 
 sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest to its 
 most powerful and heart-astounding tones." 
 
 Byron was versed in Latin and Greek, and translated from 
 both languages. He was master of Italian and French, but knew 
 little of Spanish and no German. Of Goethe, who knew and un- 
 derstood him so well, he himself says that he knew nothing ex- 
 cepting a part of Faust which was read to him and orally trans- 
 lated by a friend. He adored Alexander Pope almost to the point 
 of fanaticism, detested Wordsworth, and was a devoted admirer 
 of Dante, Tasso and the other Italian immortals — preferring Tasso 
 to Milton. 
 
 As we are unable to trace Byron to any yparticular model, so 
 also, are we unable to point to his successor. Like Dante, he rules 
 alone. Like the lightning from the cloud he came, and to the 
 stormy elements he has returned. He has burned his way into 
 the hearts of men, and his fame will last while literature endures. 
 
VII. 
 
 SCOTT. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, the founder of the historical novel, and 
 composer of some of the most stirring and beautiful martial 
 poetry ever written in the British isles, was born in Edinburgh, 
 August 15, 1771, the son of a Scotch lawyer. Young Scott was 
 called to the bar in 1792, and carried on a desultory practice for 
 fourteen years, but was at no time wedded to his profession. 
 
 Scott was thoroughly conversant with Spanish, French, Ital- 
 ian and German. He first became seriously interested in litera- 
 ture through his study of German. His first publication was a 
 translation, in 1796, of two of Burger's ballads. In 1799 he pub- 
 lished his translation of Goethe's ''Goetz von Berhchingen." From 
 his early youth Scott had been a student of the ballad. In 1802, 
 at the age of thirty-one, he gave to the world his "Border Min- 
 strelsy," which gained for him immediate popularity. With the 
 pubHcation of **The Lay of the Last Minstrel," in 1805, he became 
 the most popular poet of the day. "Marmion" followed in 1808, 
 and ''The Lady of the Lake," in 1810. His later poetical works 
 were not so well received. In 1814 the first of his novels, "Waver- 
 ly," appeared, followed by that incomparable succession of ro- 
 mances during the next eighteen years, which made their author 
 the most popular prose writer in all the world. He continued to 
 write until his paralytic hand could no longer grasp the pen, and 
 death came in 1832, about six months after the death of Goethe. 
 
 Scott is not among the greatest of poets, and yet in his 
 greater poems there are lines which will never die. While love 
 of country endures in the hearts of men, the patriot will not for- 
 get these lines from the first stanza. Canto vi., of 'The Lay nf 
 the Last Minstrel" : 
 
 "Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
 239 
 
240 SCOTT 
 
 Who never to himself has said, 
 
 This is my own, my native land ! 
 Whose heart has ne'er within him burn'd 
 As home his footsteps he has turned 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well ! 
 For him no minstrel raptures swell; 
 High though his titles, proud his name. 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — 
 Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
 The wretch, concentered all in self. 
 Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
 And doubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 
 Unwep't, unhonor'd and unsung." 
 
 Many critics have thought "Marmion'' to be superior to all 
 the other metrical creations of Scott. Certainly no poem of his 
 abounds in more fine passages, or has a greater tendency to fire 
 the blood. What can be finer than his description of the castle, 
 in the first canto ? 
 
 "Day set on Norham's castled steep. 
 And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, 
 
 And Cheviot's mountains lone: 
 The battled towers, the donjon keep. 
 The loophole grates, where captives weep, 
 The flanking walls that round it sweep, 
 
 In yellow luster shone. 
 The warriors on the turrets high, 
 Moving athwart the evening sky, 
 
 Seem'd forms of giant height. 
 Their armor, as it caught the rays. 
 Flashed back again the western blaze, 
 
 In lines of dazzhng light." 
 
SCOTT 241 
 
 These lines, with two succeeding stanzas, are seldom equalled 
 in descriptive poetry. Indeed, the entire poem abounds in beau- 
 ties which so strike the ear or touch the heart of mankind as to 
 assure the immortality of the work. Such, for example, is this, 
 from the sixth canto: 
 
 "0 Woman ! in our hours of ease 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
 And variable as the shade 
 By the light quivering aspen made; 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou." 
 
 Such lines may not present the highest form o± poetry ; but, 
 nevertheless, they cannot be forgotten. It may be doubted if 
 there was ever penned a more stirring picture of a battle scene 
 than this, from the same canto, stanza 32 : 
 
 "The war that for a space did fail. 
 Now trebly thundering swell'd the gale. 
 
 And — Stanley! was the cry; 
 A light on Marmion's visage spread. 
 
 And fired his glazing eye: 
 With dying hand, above his head. 
 He shook the fragm.ent of his blade, 
 
 And shouted ''Victory! — 
 Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ! 
 Were the last words of Marmion." 
 
 Mackintosh says that "The Lady of the Lake has nothing so 
 good as the death of Marmion." But where shall we find a sweeter 
 bugle note than the song in the first canto of The Lady of the 
 Lake : 
 
 "Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, 
 
 Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; 
 Dream of battlefields no more," etc. 
 
 i 
 
242 SCOTT 
 
 The Highland boat song, in the second canto, is another mas- 
 terpiece. The famous battle scene in the sixth canto of The Lady 
 of the Lake may be said to at least rival anything in Marmion — 
 or elsewhere in poetry of its kind. Particularly striking is the 
 18th stanza. The reader can almost hear the clash of sword and 
 lance, as the cry rings out — 
 
 ''Where, where was Roderick then! 
 One blast upon his bugle horn 
 
 Were worth a thousand men !" 
 
 Scott was inspired to write fiction, he tells us, by reading 
 the novels of Cervantes. The success of "Waverly" was so com- 
 plete that Scott devoted the greater part of the remainder of his 
 life to writing historical novels. Seldom has the world witnessed 
 such an unbroken train of literary successes— Kenilworth, Old 
 Mortality, Ivanhoe, Redgauntlet, Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, 
 Rob Roy — we need not enumerate the well remembered names. 
 A hundred years have passed, and their hold upon the public 
 cannot yet be said to be broken. 
 
 Scott gained almost a million dollars by his writings, and lost 
 it all. The failure of his publishers involved him to the extent 
 of half a million dollars. The last six years of his life were spent 
 in a brave struggle to pay the debt. Struggling against advanc- 
 ing age and the insidious approach of disease, he battled on, and 
 could he have lived another ten years he would have paid it all. 
 He had earned nearly $200,000.00 for his creditors, when he 
 breathed his last, at his beloved Abbottsford, on September 15, 
 1832. 
 
 Scott was the kindliest and most genial of men. As one of 
 his old Scotch companions said of him, "whether drunk or sober, 
 he was aye the gentleman." He lived an innocent and wholesome 
 life, and he leaves no pointed word to soil his memory. When 
 death approached he called for Lockhart, his son-in-law. "Lock- 
 hart," said he, "I may have but a minute to speak to you. My 
 dear, be a good man — be virtuous — be religious — be a good man. 
 Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie 
 here." 
 
VIII. 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 William Wordsworth was born in 1770. He was graduated 
 from Cambridge at the age of twenty-one. After two visits to 
 France, and an attempt to take part with the Girondists in the 
 French Revolution, Wordsworth returned to England to spend 
 (with the exception of an occasional excursion) the remainder 
 of his uneventful life in the country, chiefly at Grasmere and 
 Rydal Mount, in the lake region, Early in life he became intimate 
 with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two poets visited Germany 
 in 1799, where Coleridge perfected himself in German and began 
 his translation of Schiller's ''WfJlenstein.'' 
 
 Wordsworth's first volume vv^as "Lyrical Ballads," published 
 jointly by himself and Coleridge, in 1798. This volume marks 
 the beginning of the Romantic movement in EngHsh poetry, and 
 is epochal in its literary significance. The volume contains Cole- 
 ridge's "Ancient Mariner," but the greater portion of the remain- 
 der was the work of Wordsworth. The book was repubhshed in 
 1800 and in 1802. His "Ode to Duty" was brought out in 1805, 
 and the "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" in 1806. "The 
 Excursion" and "Laodamia" were published in 1814. Other poems 
 followed at intervals during the next twenty years. He wrote 
 practically nothing during the last fifteen years of his life. When 
 Southey died, in 1843, Wordsworth was appointed Poet Lau- 
 reate, an honor which he at first refused and was with difficulty 
 induced to accept. Seven years later he died, at the age of eighty. 
 
 For at least a quarter of a century, and during the period in 
 which he was producing his best work, Wordsworth was obliged 
 to endure the combined assault of all the great critics in England 
 and Scotland, besides the scorn of the majority of the poets of 
 his day. But his faith in himself , in his work, and in his mission, 
 at no time faltered. He cared nothing for praise or blame, and 
 
 243 
 
244 WORDSWORTH 
 
 seldom read any of the criticisms of his works. 
 
 Wordsworth was no great lover of books. But his love of 
 nature amounted to an infatuation. His love of rocks and lakes 
 and flowers and trees was almost as vehement and personal as 
 that which is recorded of St. Francis of Assisi, in Section XH. of 
 "The Mirror of Perfection." Nearly the whole of his long life 
 was devoted to the serene contemplation of nature's grandeur 
 and beauty, and to companionship with the elements. Far from 
 the busy haunts of men, drinking in the splendors of the sunset 
 or the glories of the dawn, weaving his dreams among the flitting 
 clouds, claimiing comradship with the mountains and the stars, 
 with ear attuned alike to the carol of the lark or the whisper of 
 the leaf, Wordsworth knew and loved the natural world as no 
 other English poet ever did. And it is this love and this knowl- 
 edge which gleam, in all his works, with an intensity which draws 
 his devotees as if obsessed by a spell, and makes of his following 
 a cult. "The very image of Wordsworth," writes De Quincey, for 
 example, "as I prefigured it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed 
 my faculties as before Elijah or St. Paul." 
 
 As Mathew Arnold says (Essays in Criticism), "Words- 
 worth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary power with 
 which Wordsworth feels the joy oflfered to us in nature, the joy 
 offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and 
 because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after 
 case, he shows us this joy and renders it so as to make us share 
 it." But when Dr. Arnold, in the same essay, places Wordsworth 
 before all English poets excepting Milton and Shakespeare, before 
 all the French since Moliere, before all the Germans excepting 
 Goethe, and before all the Itahans since the sixteenth century, 
 he goes farther than many judicious critics will care to accom- 
 pany him. 
 
 Saintsbury declares that the greater odes of Wordsworth are 
 unsurpassed by any poet, not even excepting Milton. It is in his 
 odes and sonnets, indeed, that Wordsworth strikes the majestic 
 note which places him far above the majority of the poets of 
 his time. Of these splendid productions the following sonnet is 
 an example: 
 
WORDSWORTH 245 
 
 "The world is too much with us : late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : 
 Little we see in nature that is ours; 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
 The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours. 
 And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; 
 For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; 
 It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
 Or hear old Triton blov/ his wreathed horn." 
 
 An excerpt from his great ode on "Intimations of ImmortaHty" 
 is quoted in the essay on Plato, on page 44 of this volume. An- 
 other of his most beautiful poems is the one entitled "Lines com- 
 posed a few miles above Tintern Abbey." It is in these lines that 
 he gives us so much that we may now characterize as truly 
 "Wordsworthian." A specimen phrase is this: 
 
 "That best portion of a good man's life, — 
 His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
 . Of kindness and of love." 
 
 In this poem we also find these characteristic lines : 
 [ "A sense sublime 
 
 I Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
 fe-' Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 
 ^' And the round ocean and the living air 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, — 
 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
 
 And rolls through all things." 
 
246 WORDSWORTH 
 
 In another of his poems he says : 
 
 *Tlain living and high thinking are no more. 
 The homely beauty of the good old cause 
 Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, 
 And pure religion breathing household laws." 
 
 In the same spirit he writes this, in a letter to a friend: "It is 
 an awful truth, that there neither is nor can be any genuine en- 
 joyment of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons 
 who live, or wish to live, in the broad light of the world — among 
 those who either are, or are striving to make themselves, people 
 of consideration in society. This is a truth, and an awful one; 
 because to be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the 
 word, is to be without love of human nature and reverence for 
 God." 
 
 Such thoughts, expressed with such a deep sincerity and 
 spiritual earnestness in his poetry, at first shocked his generation, 
 and then subjected it to his will. In Wordsworth there is peace, 
 because he engenders a train of thought which ends in the holy 
 calm of a soothed and rested mind. John Stuart Mill, in his 
 Autobiography, says : 'What made Wordsworth's poems a medi- 
 cine for my state of mind, was that they expressed not mere out- 
 ward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought colored by 
 feeling, under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the 
 very culture of the feelings which I was in quest of. In them I 
 seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of sympathetic and 
 imaginative pleasure, which could be shared by all human beings, 
 which had no connection with struggle or imperfection, but would 
 be made richer by every improvement in the physical or social 
 condition of mankind. From them I seemed to learn what would 
 be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the greater evils 
 of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself at once better 
 and happier as I came under their influence." 
 
 Wordsworth had, in his own beautiful words, listened to the 
 "still, sad music of humanity," and grasped the rythm of its 
 secret chords. Upon the whole, there is no better summary of 
 
WORDSWORTH 247 
 
 his work than the sentence uttered by Keble, author of the 
 "Christian Year," who claimed for him ''that he had shed a celes- 
 tial light upon the affections, the occupations, the piety of the 
 poor.'' 
 
IX. 
 
 DICKENS. 
 
 Charles Dickens is the Shakespeare of the novel. He lives 
 in his characters. We may speak of the books of other authors. 
 But with Dickens the case is far different. We are not interested 
 so much in the novels as we are in the striking personages who 
 inhabit them. Mr. Pecksniff exists for us, apparently, quite in- 
 dependently of the novel "Martin Chuzzlewit." We do not, in 
 the ordinary sense, re-read "The Pickwick Papers." We simply 
 renew our acquaintance with Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick. Not 
 to know these amiable creatures is to miss half the joy of life. 
 Not to know them connotes a degree of ignorance approximating 
 the stupidity of persons unacquainted with the commonest facts 
 of history. Critics have decried the work of Dickens because of 
 what they term its tendency to caricature, its approach to the 
 grotesque, its proneness to exaggeration. If this indictment is 
 to be taken as true, and if, in consequence, we may truly say 
 that the people of Dickens are not drawn from life, then, indeed, 
 so much the greater genius is Dickens, whose "Imagination bodies 
 forth the forms of things unknown," and whose wondrous gift 
 
 "Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 Are there, then, no Pickwicks in the world ? If not — all the worse 
 for the world! Does little Nell exist only in Heaven, a kind of 
 glorified Beatrice in Paradise? Perhaps. Out of the fullness of 
 his own experience let the reader judge. But if the Dickens 
 characters are not of this world, if we are never to meet them 
 in the highways and byways of life, then it behooves us to seek 
 without delay those enchanted realms of the imagination wherein 
 they dwell. Let the Scotch poet, Alexander Smith, be our guide : 
 
 "If Mr. Dickens's characters were gathered together," says 
 
 248 
 
DICKENS 249 
 
 he, "they would constitute a town populous enough to send a 
 representative to Parliament. Let us enter. The style of archi^ 
 tecture is unparalleled. There is an individuality about the build- 
 ings. In some obscure way they remind one of human faces. 
 There are houses sly-looking, houses wicked-looking, houses 
 pompous-looking. Heaven bless us ! what a rakish pump ! What 
 a self-important town-hall. What a hard-hearted prison! The 
 dead walls are covered with advertisements of Mr. Sleary's circus. 
 Newman Noggs comes shambling along. Mr. and Misses Peck- 
 sniff come sailing down the sunny side of the street. Miss Mercy's 
 parasol is gay; papa's neckcloth is white and terribly starched. 
 Dick Swiveller leans against a wall, his hands in his pockets, a 
 primrose held between his teeth, contemplating the opera of 
 Punch and Judy, which is being conducted under the management 
 of Messrs. Codling and Short. You turn a corner, and you meet 
 the cofRn of little Paul Dombey being borne along. In the after- 
 noon you hear the rich tones of the organ from Miss LaCreevy's 
 first floor, for Tom Pinch has gone there to live now ; and as you 
 know all the people as you know your own brothers and sisters, 
 and consequently require no letters of introduction, you go up 
 and talk with the dear old fellow about all his friends and your 
 friends, and towards evening he takes your arm, and you walk 
 out to see poor Nelly's grave." 
 
 We no longer require the guidance of the Scotch poet. Re- 
 turning in the gloaming we pass through Dingley Dell. Wardle's 
 hearty laughter rings among the rafters of the old farm house 
 and lingers along the lonely vale, where sundry figures creep from 
 among the shadows. Note the gruff old sailor, with the bright- 
 faced boy at his side. Anon we hear a voice : 
 
 "Wal'r, my boy, in tfie Proverbs of Solomon you will find the 
 following words: 'May we never want a friend in need nor a 
 bottle to give him.' When found, make a note of." And there 
 comes another, with his eye still fixed on the coast of Greenland 
 —Captain Cuttle's oracular friend, the Admiral! There is a 
 flutter along the hedge. Awast! It is the widow Mac Stinger. 
 Let her pass, with all the little Mac Stingers, an endless proces- 
 
250 DICKENS 
 
 sion of marital bliss. And the woman with her ? No, that is not 
 Peggotty. We recognize the shawl. 
 
 "And widge I was saying to Mrs. Harris" — 
 
 Here she was interrupted by the tones of a flute. It was Mr. 
 Mell. and he blew it "until I almost thought he would gradually 
 blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away 
 at the keys." 
 
 And Sairy Gamp concluded that she had no preference as to 
 her ale, excepting that she liked it "reg'lar," and "draw'd mild." 
 
 See them as they come trooping along the lanes and bypaths 
 of memory, a motly throng, making another pilgrimage to another 
 Canterbury, with one greater than Chaucer for a guide — 
 
 "Chambermaid in love with Boots, 
 Toodles, Traddles, Tapley, Toots, 
 Betsey Trotwood, Mr. Dick, 
 Susan Nipper, Mistress Chick, 
 Snevellicci, Lilyvick, 
 Mantalini's predilections 
 To transfer his warm affections. 
 By poor Barnaby and Grip, 
 Flora, Dora, Di and Gip, 
 Perrybingle, Pinch and Pip — " 
 
 But hark ! The sound of a coach ! Do you not hear the horn of 
 the guard? 
 
 "Yoho, among the gathering shades; making of no account 
 the deep reflections of the trees, but scampering on through Hght 
 
 and darkness all the same Yoho, beside the village green, 
 
 where cricket-players linger yet, and every little indentation made 
 in the grass by bat or wicket, ball or player's foot, sheds out its 
 perfume on the night. ..... 
 
 "Yoho, behind there, stop that bugle for a moment! Come 
 creeping over to the front, along the coach-roof, guard, and, make 
 one at this basket! .... Ah! It's long since this bottle of old 
 -wine was brought into contact with the mellow breath of night, 
 
^ DICKENS 251 
 
 you may depend, and rare good stuff it is to wet a bugler's whistle 
 with. Only try it. Don't be afraid of turning up your finger. 
 Bill, another pull ! Now take your breath, and try the bugle, BilL 
 There's music! There's a tone! 'Over the hills and far away/ 
 indeed, Yoho! The skittish mare is all alive tonight. Yohol 
 Yoho! 
 
 "See the bright moon; high up before we know it; making 
 the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water .... 
 
 ''Clouds, too ! And a mist upon the hollow ! Not a dull fog 
 that hides it, but a light, airy gauze-like mist, which in our eyes 
 of modest admiration gives a new charm to the beauties it is 
 spread before. . . . Yoho! Why, now we travel like the moon 
 herself. Hiding this minute in a grove of trees, next minute in 
 a patch of vapor, emerging now upon our broad, clear course^ 
 withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a coun- 
 terpart of hers. Yoho ! A match against the Moon !" 
 
 And so we come, not to London with Tom Pinch; but the 
 coach draws up to Dingley Dell, to discharge its cargo of immor- 
 tals. See them alight, aided by old Tony Weller and Sam ! The 
 great Sergeant Buzfuz is there, attended by Mr. Perker of Grey's 
 Inn, and the learned Snubbin. Dr. Blimber, Dodson & Fogg, Mr. 
 Solomon Pell (friend of the Lord Chancellor), Carker with his 
 cat-like teeth, Wickfield and Uriah Heep, Jonas Chuzzlewit and 
 Sykes, Bob Sawyer, Alfred Jingle and Squeers, and all the rest, 
 come tumbling out like the contents of another Noah's Ark, and 
 over all beams the serene countenance of the noble Pickwick him- 
 self. They enter at old Wardle's cheery call, to find that Mr, 
 Micawber has the punch all ready, and when they proceed to the 
 hospitable table there sits Tiny Tim, and we hear again his bene- 
 diction, — "God bless us, every one !" 
 
 "Joe!" old Wardle calls; "damn that boy, he's gone to sleep 
 again !" 
 
 Peaceful be his slumbers, and may he waken with us all, in 
 the land of the Master's dreams ! 
 
 As Thackeray said, in his lecture on Charity and Humor, 
 "One might go on, though the task would be endless and need- 
 less, chronicling the names of kind folks with whom this kind 
 
252 DICKENS 
 
 genius has made us familiar. Who does not love the Marchioness 
 and Mr. Richard Swiveller ? Who does not sympathize, not only 
 with Oliver Twist, but his admirable young friend the Artful 
 Dodger? Who has not the inestimable advantage of possessing 
 a Mrs. Nickleby in his own family? Who does not bless Sairey 
 Gamp and wonder at Mrs. Harris? Who does not venerate the 
 chief of that illustrious family who, being stricken by misfortune, 
 wisely and greatly turned his attention to 'coals,' the accom- 
 plished, the Epicurean, the dirty, the delightful Micawber ? 
 
 *'l may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and a thou- 
 sand times, I delight and wonder at his genius ; I recognize in it — 
 I speak with awe and reverence — a commission from that Divine 
 Beneficence whose blessed task we know it will one day be to wipe 
 every tear from every eye. Thankfully I take my share of the 
 feast of love and kindness which this gentle and generous, and 
 charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the world. 
 I take and enjoy my share, and say a benediction for the meal." 
 
 The descriptive powers of Dickens are phenomenal. As a 
 delineator of child life he has never had an equal, and the Dickens 
 child-characters have won the heart of the world. His work in 
 this regard is one of the peculiar glories of English literature. 
 In this respect some great literatures are barren. Thus, as Taine 
 remarks, *We have no children in French literature." And, in- 
 deed, we can recall very few in either the Italian or the Spanish. 
 In his portraiture of morbidity, of the insane and the feeble- 
 minded, Taine thinks that he is equalled by no writer save Ernst 
 Hoffman. But Balzac is the Continental writer with whom 
 Dickens is most frequently if not most aptly compared. Tolstoy, 
 the great Russian, declared that both Dickens and Balzac pro- 
 duced some inartistic work, but he believed Dickens to be the 
 greater author. 
 
 But the most astounding powers of Dickens are called into 
 play when he touches at will the chords of joy and sorrow, plung- 
 ing from the height of gaiety to the depths of woe, and with 
 equal facility leaping back again, often showering smiles athwart 
 the tears like sunbeams through a mist, and blending pathos and 
 humor in those fascinating mystic soul-tints which no other 
 
DICKENS 253 
 
 artistes hand has ever drawn. 
 
 E. P. Whipple, an American critic, observes: "It is difficult 
 to say whether Dickens is more successful in humor or pathos. 
 It is certain that his genius can as readily draw tears as provoke 
 laughter. Sorrow, want, poverty, pain, death, the affections 
 which cling to earth and those which rise above it he represents 
 always with power, and often with marvelous skill. His style, in 
 the serious moods of his mind, has a harmony of flow which often 
 glides unconsciously into metrical arrangement, and is full of 
 those woMs 
 
 'Which fall as soft i: s snow on the sea, 
 And melt in the heart as instantly.' 
 
 One source of his pathos is the intense and purified conception he 
 has of moral beauty — of that beauty which comes from a thought- 
 ful brooding over the most solemn and affecting realities of life. 
 The character of little Nell is an illustration. The simplicity of 
 this creation, framed as it is, from the finest elements of human 
 nature, and the unambitious mode of its development through the 
 motley scenes of the Old Curios: ty Shop are calculated to make 
 us overlook its rare merit as a work of high poetic genius. Amidst 
 the wolfish malignity of Quilp, the suggared meanness of Brass, 
 the roaring conviviality of Swiveller, amidst scenes of selfishness 
 and shame, of passion and crime, this delicate creation moves 
 along, unsullied, purified, pursuing the good in the simple earnest- 
 ness of a pure heart, ghding to the tomb as to a sweet sleep, and 
 leaving in every place that her presence beautifies the marks of 
 celestial footprints. Sorrows such as hers, over which so fine a 
 sentiment sheds its consecrations, have been well said to be ill- 
 bartered for the garishness of joy; 'for they win us softly from 
 life, and fit us to die smiling'." 
 
 But, quite apart from the benefits of his refreshing humor 
 and the uplifting power of his sweet and ennobling spirituaKty, 
 Dickens accomplished much for the civic, industrial and social 
 betterment of his generation and for posterity as well. He it 
 was who first attacked imprisonment for debt. He was the first 
 great prison reformer. In the matter of legal administration he 
 
254 DICKENS 
 
 did more than any other man to accompHsh the substitution of 
 reasonable codes for the interminable processes of chancery. He 
 smote the "circumlocution office" and made official "red tape" 
 forever unpopular. He launched his bolts against the miserable 
 makeshift of a military commissariat, and from that day forth 
 the lot of a British soldier has been easier and his burdens lighter. 
 He hurled the shafts of his bitter, blighting irony and the ter- 
 rible force of his heart-stirring pathos against the English fac- 
 tory system, against industrial serfdom in the mines and else- 
 where, and the lives of laboring men are better and upon higher 
 standards because of his work. He struck at the debasing 
 tyranny of the petty tyrants of the school room, and the lives 
 of little children have been made happier and brighter as a result. 
 But, above all else, there resounds throughout his life's work the 
 pure note of democracy and the death-knell of snobbishness in all 
 its forms, and always and everywhere the appeal for justice rings 
 clear and true. 
 
 Charles Dickens was born in 1812, and died in 1870. The 
 hard and miserable life of his early youth is paraphrased to some 
 extent, in his "David Copperfield," as we are informed by Foster 
 in his life of Dickens. His youth and early manhood saw little 
 of the brighter side of life. But, for all that, no writer in all the 
 literature of the world has a better right to be called The Apostle 
 of Good Cheer. ^^. 
 
X. 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 The volume of Tennyson's poems containing *'Oenone," "The 
 Lotos Eaters," ''A Dream of Fair Women," and 'The Lady of 
 Shalott," published in 1832, was brought to America by Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson, who loaned it to many of his friends of Harvard 
 College. James Russell Lowell was one of those who thus re- 
 ceived his first knowledge of Tennyson from the hand of Emer- 
 son. The British poet had pubhshed his first poems in 1830. 
 
 In 1842 appeared the volume containing, "Morte d' Arthur," 
 "Ulysses," and "Locksley Hall." This volume secured his fame. 
 In 1847 he pubhshed "The Princess," and in 1850 "In Memoriam." 
 Between 1850 and 1875, at intervals of about five years, he pub- 
 lished his "Maud," "Idylls of the King," (the first four), "Enoch 
 Arden," and "The Holy Grail," followed by other "Idylls." These 
 were his major works. But he continued writing until the end 
 of his long life. His "Crossing the Bar" was written when he w^as 
 eighty-one years of age. It is one of the best known of his poems, 
 and it is so beautiful, so sweet, and so characteristic of the poet 
 in his best mood, that it is here given in full : 
 
 Sunset and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me ! 
 And may there be no mioaning of the bar. 
 
 When I put out to sea ; 
 
 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 
 Too full of sound and foam, 
 When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
 
 Turns again home. 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 And after that the dark ! 
 
 255 
 
256 TENNYSON 
 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 When I embark ; 
 
 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place, 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crossed the bar. 
 
 When Longfellow, the American poet, in 1859, read the first 
 four "Idylls," he wrote to a friend: " 'The Idylls' are a great suc- 
 cess. Rich tapestries, wrought as only Tennyson could have done 
 them, and worthy to hang beside 'The Faerie Queen.' I believe 
 there is no discordant voice on this side the water." Longfellow 
 judged correctly. Tennyson's i-esemblance to Spenser has been 
 remarked by others also. Taine, the Frenchman, noticed it. But 
 he wrote in styles as varied as his subjects. As Taine remarks 
 (Enghsh Lit., Vol. 4, p. 661) : "He wrote in every accent, and 
 delighted in entering into the feelings of all ages. He wrote of 
 St. Agnes, St. Simon Stylites, Ulysses, Oenone, Sir Galahad, Lady 
 Clare, Fatima, the Sleeping Beauty. He imitated alternately 
 Homer and Chaucer, Theocritus and Spenser, the old English 
 poets and the old Arabian poets. .... He was like those mu- 
 sicians v/ho use their bow in the service of all masters." 
 
 The exquisitely modulated harmony of his numbers and the 
 smooth and equable movement of his verse are outstanding fea- 
 tures of his metrical compositions. These capital traits are 
 strikingly illustrated in the following verses from "The Princess" : 
 
 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. 
 
 hark, hear! how thin and clear, 
 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
 
TENNYSON 257 
 
 sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple gems replying, 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river; 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
 And grow forever and forever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying dying. 
 
 Such artistry cannot be too highly praised. Another song from 
 "The Princess" has become the best known lullaby in the English 
 tongue : 
 
 Sweet and low, sweet and low. 
 
 Wind of the western sea, 
 Low, low, breathe and blow. 
 
 Wind of the western sea ! 
 Over the rolling waters go, 
 Come from the dying moon, and blow. 
 
 Blow him again to me; 
 While my little one while my pretty one sleeps. 
 
 We beheve that it is in just such rare and dainty bits that 
 Tennyson excels all the poets of his time. They are like miniature 
 paintings by a master hand. The more they are studied the more 
 they disclose, behind their vermeil veil of modesty, their great 
 creator's power. They are like shrinking flowers whose beauty 
 is first made known by the fragrance they exhale. The following 
 is an unsurpassed example of Tennyson in his pecuHar and all but 
 exclusive field : 
 
 Break, break, break 
 
 On thy cold gray stones, Sea ! 
 
258 TENNYSON 
 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 well for the fisherman's boy, 
 
 That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
 
 well for the sailor lad, 
 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay I 
 
 And the stately ships go on 
 
 To their haven under the hill ; 
 But for the touch of a vanished hand 
 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! 
 
 Break, break, break 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me. 
 
 In Tennyson there is none of the wild, tempestuous force of Byron. 
 He approximates the technical correctness of Pope, and the ten- 
 der elegance of Wordsworth and Keats, whose intellectual heir 
 he undoubtedly was. But, as remarked above, his style is not 
 always the same. Sometimes he breaks forth in a far richer 
 strain and his verses, flashing w^ith color, gleam like a jewelled 
 brocade zoned with silken gold, or a morning sky shot o'er with 
 silver stars, empurpled by the streaks of dawn. Contemporary 
 critics were a unit in his praise. Mr. McCarthy, in his "History 
 of Our Own Times" declares: "Mr. Tennyson is beyond doubt 
 the most complete of the poets of Queen Victoria's time. No one 
 else has the same combination of melody, beauty and description, 
 culture and intellectual power. He has sv/eetness and strength 
 in exquisite combination." In Stedman's Victorian Poets, it is 
 said that he is "Certainly to be regarded in time to come as, all 
 in all, the fullest representative of the refined, speculative and 
 
 complex Victorian age In technical excellence, as an artist 
 
 in verse, Tennyson is the greatest of modern poets." He has 
 usually been known as a poet of the intellect, rather than for his 
 
TENNYSON 259 
 
 mastery of the passions. Whipple, the American critic, in his 
 Essays and Reviews, says : "His poetry is marked by intellectual 
 intensity as distinguished from intensity of feeling." Bayard 
 Taylor was undoubtedly correct in his judgment that "Tennyson's 
 place in the literature of the English language, whatever may be 
 his relation to the acknowledged masters of song, is sure to be 
 high and permanent." 
 
 The life of Tennyson was as uneventful as that of Words- 
 worth. He was born in 1809 and died in 1892. He was the third 
 child in a family of twelve. His father was a clergyman in Lin- 
 colnshire, and a man of unusual intelligence. The poet was en- 
 tered as a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he at- 
 tained, even in his youth, some eminence as a poet. But he left 
 the university in 1831 without having taken a degree, and thence- 
 forth devoted the remainder of his life to poetry. For over sixty 
 years he toiled away at his art, and lived the life of a literary 
 recluse. His first productions were rather inhospitably received 
 by the critics. Literary history affords no more conspicuous ex- 
 ample of excellence attained through great labor, and of persist- 
 ent effort, rightly directed, culminating in the highest triumphs 
 of genius. 
 
 As late as 1850 he was still in a state of relative obscurity. 
 In that year died Wordsworth, the poet laureate. The honor was 
 at once offered to Samuel Rogers, author of "The Pleasures of 
 Memory," then in his eighty-ninth year. The venerable poet de- 
 cHned the honor, because of his age, but ventured to suggest 
 Alfred Tennyson for the post. Lord Palmerston, the British 
 premier, replied : "We know nothing of this gentleman." Twenty 
 years after the publication of his first volume, eighteen years 
 after the pubhcation of his "Morte d'Arthur," "Ulysses," and 
 "Locksley Hall," and three year? after publishing "The Princess," 
 and in the very year of his publication of "In Memoriam," the 
 British government had never heard of Alfred Tennyson, the 
 greatest of the "Victorians !" But he was nevertheless appointed, 
 upon the suggestion of Rogers. Thirty-four years later, in 1884, 
 he accepted a peerage and thus became the first member of the 
 English House of Lords selected alone because of his literary 
 
260 TENNYSON 
 
 distinction. He had previously declined the honor twice; for 
 Tennyson believed, and in the depths of his democratic heart he 
 knew, the truth of these lines, which he had written in 1832 : 
 
 "However it be, it seems to me, 
 
 Tis only noble to be good. 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood." 
 
 Tennyson produced some of his best work in the treatment 
 of topics of current interest. Among these poems may be men- 
 tioned his *'Ode on the Duke of Wellington," and his "Charge 
 of the Light Brigade." During the recent international crisis 
 these prophetic lines from "Locksley Hall," published in 1842, 
 were recalled throughout the world : 
 
 For I dipped into the future as far as human eye could see, 
 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be ; 
 
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; 
 
 Heard the Heavens filled with shouting, and there rained a 
 ghastly dew 
 
 From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 
 
 Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing 
 warm. 
 
 With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder- 
 storm ; 
 
 Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were 
 furled 
 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 
 
 There the common-sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law. 
 
 And so Alfred Tennyson moved through Hfe, reticent, retir- 
 ing, savoring more of the cloister than of the court, hermit-like, 
 
TENNYSON 261 
 
 uttering his soul-cries and his prophecies; like the voices of 
 Dodona, always heard, but by the public never seen. As W. 
 Howitt wrote, so long ago : "You may hear the voice, but where 
 is the man? He is wandering in some dreamland beneath the 
 shade of old and charmed forests, by far-off shores, where 
 
 *A11 night 
 The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
 Their moon-led waters white ;' 
 
 by the old mill-dam thinking of the merry miller and his pretty 
 daughter ; or is wandering over the open wolds, where 
 
 'Norland whirlwinds blow/ 
 
 From all places — from the silent corridor of an ancient con- 
 vent ; from some shrine where a devoted knight recites his vows ; 
 from the drear monotony of the moated grange, or the ferny 
 forest, beneath the talking oak, — comes the voice of Tennyson, 
 rich, dreamy, passionate, yet not impatient ; musical with the airs 
 of chivalrous ages, yet mingling in his songs the theme and 
 spirit of those that are yet to come.'^ 
 
INDEX. 
 
TO MY BOOKS. 
 
 As one who, destined from his friends to part, 
 Regrets his loss, but hopes again er 'while 
 To share their converse and enjoy their smile, 
 
 And tempers, as he may, affliction's dart. 
 
 Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art, 
 
 Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile 
 My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, 
 
 I now resign you, nor with fainting heart. 
 
 For pass a few short years, or days, or hours, 
 
 And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, 
 And all your sacred fellowship restore; 
 
 When freed from earth, unlimited its powers. 
 
 Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 
 
 And kindred spirits meet to part no more. 
 
 — Roscoe. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 (References are to pages.) 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, on Mon- 
 taigne and Cicero, 137. 
 
 Adamson, Robert, on Kant, 185. 
 
 "Adamiis Exsul," The, by Grotius, 
 223. 
 
 ADDISON, Joseph, on Homer, 41; 
 on Virgil, 7; Wieland compared 
 with, 195, 196; translation of 
 Ovid, 13; on Milton, 222; sketch 
 of, 224-227; characterization of, 
 225; tribute by Macaulay, 226; 
 by Johnson, 226; by Thackeray, 
 227; compared with Montaigne, 
 225. 
 
 AESCHYLUS, sketch of, 29-31; 
 at battle of Marathon, 29; hon- 
 ored by King Hiero, 29; critical 
 opinions by Mark Pattison and 
 C. H. Moore, 30; conclusion of 
 Macaulay, 31; imitated by Schil- 
 ler, 178. ' 
 
 Alighieri (See Dante). 
 
 ALFIERI, sketch of, 97-100; ap- 
 praised by Matthew Arnold, 
 Gioberti and Mariotti, 97; his 
 dedication to George Washing- 
 ton, 98; compared with Cowper, 
 100; Macaulay on, 100; inspired 
 by Plutarch, 46; his hatred of 
 France, 98. 
 
 Amadis de Gaula, The, 122, 123. 
 
 Andreini, his relation to Milton, 
 223. 
 
 Antonio, Nicolas, his eulogy of the 
 Argensolas, 119. 
 
 ANACREON, sketch of, 56-59; 
 Thomas Moore's estimate of, 
 56; Lessing's imitations of, 180; 
 favorite of Hipparchus and Po- 
 lycrates, 56; imitations by Vil- 
 legas, 120; characterization of, 
 59. 
 
 ARGENSOLAS, The, sketch of, 
 118-119; praised by Cervantes, 
 118; by Lope de Vega, 119; esti- 
 mate by Ticknor, 118; by Dieze, 
 119; eulogized by Nicolas An- 
 tonio, 119. 
 
 ARIOSTO, sketch of, 80-82; his 
 Orlando Furioso, 80, 81; Ber- 
 nardo Tasso on, 80; Galileo on, 
 81; Hallam on, 81; compared 
 with Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tas- 
 so and Ovid, 81; his satires, 81; 
 views of Tiraboschi, 81; com- 
 pared with Spenser, 216; with 
 Scott, 82; his debt to Boiardo, 
 82; berated by Pellegrini and 
 Castelvetro, 84; Rose's trans- 
 lation, 82. 
 
 Aristophanes, Moliere compared 
 with, 157; attacked Euripides, 
 35; Rabelais compared with, 
 140. 
 
 ARISTOTLE, sketch of, 32-34; 
 friend of Philip of Macedon, and 
 tutor of Alexander, 32, 33; his 
 Peripatetic school, 33; opinion 
 of Hegel, 33; vast scholarship, 
 33; his view of education, 34; 
 praised Euripides, 35. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, on Alfieri, 97; 
 on Homer, 41; on Herder and 
 Lessing, 199; on Heine, 202; on 
 Spenser, 217; on Byron, 234; 
 on Wordsworth, 244. 
 
 Art, definitions of, 86. 
 
 Aurelius (See Marcus Aurelius). 
 
 B. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, on history, 2; 
 
 his erroneous quotation of 
 
 Plutarch, 47. 
 Balzac, Honore de, on Montaigne, 
 
 136-7; compared with Dickens, 
 
 (iii) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 252; Victor Hugo's oration on, 
 167. 
 
 Bastile, The, Voltaire's imprison- 
 ment in, 160. 
 
 Barros, Joan de, his praise of 
 Vicente, 128. 
 
 Berni, Franceso, imitated by- 
 Byron, in Beppo, 83. 
 
 Blair, Dr. Hugh, tribute to Cor- 
 neille, 151; on Moliere, 157; opin- 
 ion of Lucan, 10; on Shakes- 
 peare, 213. 
 
 BOCCACCIO, sketch of, 72-74; 
 influence on French and English 
 letters, 73; Decameron, 73; lec- 
 tures on Dante, 73; F. M. War- 
 ren on, 73; contrasted with 
 Petrarch, 74; La Fontaine com- 
 pared with, 158. 
 
 Bodmer, his discovery of Klop- 
 stock, 190; Wieland's debt to, 
 194. 
 
 BOIARDO, sketch of, 83-85; his 
 Orlando Inammorata, 83; Hal- 
 lam's view, 83; compared with 
 Ariosto, 83; burlesqued by Berni, 
 83; version by Domenichi, 83; 
 Milton's familiarity with, 84; 
 shorter poems, 84, 85. 
 
 Boileau, onCorneille, 150; friend of 
 Racine, 152; compared with 
 Pope, 229. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, opinion of Livy, 
 1. 
 
 Bossuet, his controversy with Fen- 
 elon, 144. 
 
 Bounaparte, Napoleon, his admira- 
 tion of Goethe, 171. 
 
 Bouterwek, on Lope de Vega, 103; 
 on Cervantes, 108; on Camoens, 
 117; on Villegas, 121; on the 
 Argensolas, 119. 
 
 Boyesen, Prof., estimate of Goethe, 
 173; on the friendship of Goethe 
 and Schiller, 171. 
 
 British authors, 209-261. 
 
 Brutus, Horace a follower of, 4. 
 
 Buonarroti, Michelangelo (See 
 Michelangelo). 
 
 Burke, Edmund, his prose com- 
 pared with Milton's, 220. 
 
 BYRON, Lord, his imitation of 
 Berni, 83; his reference to 
 Petrarch, 70; to Dante, 65; his 
 praise of Pope, 229, 238; Macau- 
 lay's criticism, 234; Matthew Ar- 
 nold, Goethe and Taine on, 234; 
 Castelar on, 234; Dr. Elze's esti- 
 mate of, 234, 235; Mazzini on, 
 235; his world-wide influence, 
 236; compared with Milton, 
 Homer and the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, 237; Sir Walter Scott's 
 tribute, 238; fondness for Dante 
 and Tasso, 234; sketch of, 233- 
 238. 
 
 C. 
 
 Caesar, Augustus, friend of Livy, 1 ; 
 his exile of Ovid, 12; friendship 
 for Horace and Virgil, 4, 8. 
 
 CALDERON, sketch of, 131-133; 
 Corneille's debt to, 131; trans- 
 lated by Schlegel, 132 ; compared 
 with Lope de Vega, 131; imi- 
 tated by Dryden, 132. 
 
 CAMOENS, sketch of, 112-114; 
 his Lusiad, 112; opinion of Hal- 
 lam, 112; Southey on, 112; his 
 miscellaneous works, 112, 113; 
 Bouterwek on, 114; his imita- 
 tions of Plautus, 113. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, on Spenser, 
 217. 
 
 Capital punishment, Hugo on, 167. 
 
 Corporali, Cesare, his satire imi- 
 tated by Cervantes, 108. 
 
 Carey, translation of Dante, 64. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, estimate of 
 Goethe, 169; translationof 
 Goethe, 172; on Kant, 185; 
 translation of Richter, 187; opin- 
 ion of Richter, 187, 188; on 
 Shakespeare, 213. 
 
 Castelar, on Lord Byron, 234. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 CASTRO, Gullen de, sketch of, 
 125-127; imitated by Calderon, 
 125; his dramatization of The 
 Cid, 125; adapted by Corneille, 
 125; story of The Cid, 126; 
 critique by Ticknor, 127. 
 
 CERVANTES, sketch of, 107- 
 111; his Galatea, 107; his Nu- 
 mancia, 108; praised by Schlegel, 
 Shelly, Bouterwek and Goethe, 
 108; his Journey to Parnassus, 
 108; Don Quixote, 108, 109; 
 Heine and Hallam on, 109; 
 Sismondi, Bouterwek and Lan- 
 dor on, 110; Ticknor quoted, 
 110; compared with Rabelais, 
 111, 142; various Cervantes edi- 
 tions, 111; his opinion of the 
 Amadis de Gaula, 123; Scott's 
 indebtedness to, 242. 
 
 Champmele, Mme. de, Racine's 
 love for, 152. 
 
 Chaucer, his familiarity with Ovid, 
 14; personally acquainted with 
 Petrarch, 69. 
 
 Chesterfield, tribute to Montes- 
 quieu, 147, 148. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, his reference to 
 Machiavelli, 137. 
 
 Church, Dean, on Dante, 67; on 
 Spenser, 216. 
 
 Cicero, compared with Montaigne, 
 137. 
 
 Cid, The, 125, 127. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., praises Carey's 
 Dante, 64; on Shakespeare, 213; 
 relations with Wordsworth, 243. 
 
 CORNEILLE, sketch of, 149-151; 
 his debt to Castro, 125; to 
 Calderon, 132; Dowden's opinion 
 of, 149; La Harpe, Fontenelle, 
 Scudery and Voltaire on, 149; 
 Boileau on, 150; Moliere's col- 
 laboration with, 150; eulogized 
 by Racine, 150; praised by St. 
 Evremont, 150; his debt to 
 Lucan, 150; Dr. Blair's tribute. 
 
 151; his advice to Racine, 152; 
 
 opposed by Richelieu, 149. 
 Cowley, his debt to Spenser, 216. 
 Cowper, compared with Alfieri, 
 
 100. 
 Criticism, Goethe on, 173; German, 
 
 Lessing the father of, 180; 
 
 Kames' Elements of, cited; 
 
 Quintilian, father of ancient, 26. 
 
 D. 
 
 DANTE, sketch of, 63-67; political 
 career, 63; the Divine Comedy, 
 64; Carey's translation, 64; 
 Byron's reference to, 65; char- 
 acterization of, 65; Dr. Garnett 
 quoted, 66; opinions of Macaulay 
 and Dean Church, 67; Boccac- 
 cio's lectures on, 75; Milton 
 compared with, 222; Byron's 
 fondness for, 234. 
 
 DeQuincey, on Kant, 186; his 
 praise of Pope, 229; on Words- 
 worth, 244; Life of Richter, 187. 
 
 DeStael, Madame, her view of 
 Goethe, 169; visited Schiller, 
 178; her opinion of Kant, 183. 
 
 DICKENS, Charles, sketch of, 
 248-254; his portraiture of char- 
 acters, 248; Thackeray on, 251; 
 compared with Balzac and Ernst 
 Hoffman, 252; Tolstoy's view, 
 252; tribute of E. P. Whipple, 
 253; his ci\dc reforms, 253, 254. 
 
 Dieze, on the Argensolas, 119; on 
 Villegas, 120. 
 
 Domenichi, Lodovico, his version 
 of Boiardo, 83. 
 
 Dowden, Edward, his praise of 
 Corneille, 149. 
 
 Drama, the modern, first produced 
 by Vicente, 128. 
 
 Dryden, translation of Ovid, 13; 
 copied Plautus, 18; reference to 
 Milton, 216; to Shakespeare, 211. 
 
 Duffand, Madame du, her tribute 
 to Voltaire, 161. 
 
VI 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 E. 
 
 Education, Plutarch's views on, 
 48. 
 
 Einstein, his theory of relativity 
 suggested by Kant, 184. 
 
 Elze, Karl, his estimate of Byron, 
 234, 235. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on Mon- 
 taigne, 136; on Shakespeare, 212; 
 introduced Tennyson to Amer- 
 ica, 255. 
 
 English authors, 209-261. 
 
 Epicurus, friend of Menander, 49. 
 
 Essay, the modern, fathered by 
 Montaigne, 135. 
 
 EURIPIDES, sketch of, 35-37; 
 compared with Sophocles, 35; 
 pupil of Anaxagoras, 35; at- 
 tacked by Aristophanes and ap- 
 proved by Aristotle, 35; anec- 
 dote by Plutarch, 35, 36; in- 
 fluence on modern drama, 36; 
 Racine's debt to, 152, 153; imi- 
 tated by Milton, 223. 
 
 F. 
 
 Faguet, tribute to Corneille, 151. 
 
 Farmer poet, Virgil the, 7. 
 
 Faust, Goethe's, the history of, 
 172. 
 
 FENELON, sketch of, 143-145; 
 his controversy with Bossuet, 
 144; on education, 144; Hallam's 
 opinion, 144; compared with 
 Froebel, Pestalozzi and Locke, 
 145; his Telemachus, 145; Vol- 
 taire on, 145; eulogized by La 
 Fontaine, 158; Wieland com- 
 pared with, 196; his love of 
 books, 144; his imitation of Fon- 
 tenelle, 145; La Harpe's view of, 
 145; his debt to Lucian, 145. 
 
 Fielding, Henry, Lady Montague's 
 observation on, 139; compared 
 with Shakespeare, 213. 
 
 Fontenelle, his tribute to Corneille, 
 149; imitated by Fenelon, 145. 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, view of Horace, 
 
 4. 
 Free speech, Lessing's advocacy of, 
 
 181; Milton's struggle for, 221. 
 French authors, 135-168. 
 Frere, J. Hookman, translation of 
 
 The Cid, 127. 
 Friendship, Horace on, 6. 
 
 Galileo, on Ariosto, 81; visited by 
 Milton, 219. 
 
 Garnett, Dr. Richard, on Dante, 
 66. 
 
 Gautier, his appraisal of Heine, 
 203. 
 
 German authors, 169-208. 
 
 Gioberti, on Alfieri, 97. 
 
 GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von, 
 his praise of Cervantes, 108; 
 sketch of, 169-174; tribute by 
 Carlyle, 169; compared with 
 Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, 
 169; opinions of Taine and Ma- 
 dame de Stael, 169; his meeting 
 with Herder, 170; translated by 
 Scott, 170; tribute by Napoleon, 
 171; his golden jubilee, 171; 
 friendship with Schiller, 171; 
 translated by Carlyle, 172; his 
 Faust, 172; tributes by Bayard 
 Taylor and George Henry Lewes, 
 172; by Prof. Boyesen, 173; by 
 Taine, 173; on criticism, 173; 
 his view of war, 173; his praise of 
 Richter, 187; influenced by Klop- 
 stock, 192; friendship for Herder, 
 199; visited by Heine, 202; his 
 praise of Milton, 223; on Byron, 
 234; on Lessing, 181; compared 
 with Weber, 206. 
 
 Golden mean, Horace on, 5. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, his influence on 
 Goethe, 170; visited Voltaire, 
 161. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, tribute to Milton, 
 223; compared with Horace, 5; 
 opinion of Pope's Homer, 230. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Vll 
 
 Greek authors, 29-62. 
 
 Grotius, Hugo, compared with 
 
 Machiavelli, 91, 92; his relation 
 
 to Milton, 223. 
 Guarini, 60, 94. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, on Ariosto, 81; 
 on Machiavelli, 90; on Petrarch, 
 69; on Don Quixote, 109; on 
 Camoens, 112; pn Montaigne, 
 136; on Rabelais, 140; on Ra- 
 cine, 153; on Boiardo, 83; on 
 Fenelon, 144; on Shakespeare, 
 213; on Spenser, 216; on Milton, 
 222. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, his quota- 
 tion of Montesquieu, 147. 
 
 Hegel, his view of Aristotle, 33. 
 
 HEINE, sketch of, 200-203; trans- 
 lated by Scott, 200; his compari- 
 son with Don Quixote, 201; his 
 opinion of America, 202; Mat- 
 thew Arnold on, 202; his visit 
 with Goethe, 202; Gau tier's ap- 
 praisal of, 203; intellectually 
 the child of Byron, 235. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, Byron's praise of, 
 236. 
 
 HERDER, J. G., sketch of, 197- 
 199; as a bibliophile, 197; friend- 
 ship with Goethe, 197; his trans- 
 lations, 198; Matthew Arnold 
 on, 199; influence on his con- 
 temporaries, 198. 
 
 Hiero, King, patron of Theo- 
 critus, 62; of Pindar, 53; of 
 Aeschylus, 29. 
 
 HOMER, sketch of, 38-41; German 
 critics of, 38; modern transla- 
 tions, 38; characterization of, by 
 Prof. Blair, 38, 39; Pope's trans- 
 lation, 39, 230; opinions of 
 Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold and 
 Joseph Addison, 41; compared 
 with Virgil, Tasso and Milton, 
 41; Pope's comparison of with 
 Virgil, 230. 
 
 HORACE, sketch of, 4-6; be- 
 friended by Virgil, 4; by Augus- 
 tus, 4; opinion of Philip Fran- 
 cis, 4; his love for Virgil and 
 Maecenas, 6; Montaigne com- 
 pared with, 136; Wieland com- 
 pared with, 196; compared with 
 Alcaeus, Sappho and Anacreon, 
 4; his "golden mean," 5; Pope 
 compared with, 229. 
 
 Howitt, W., on Tennyson, 261. 
 
 Holland, Lord, on Lope de Vega, 
 103. 
 
 HUGO, Victor, 164-168; tribute by 
 Tennyson, 165; by Lanson, 166; 
 contrasted with Diderot and 
 Renan, 166; on capital punish- 
 ment, 167; orations on Balzac 
 and Voltaire, 167; his political 
 triumph, 166; C. C. Stark- 
 weather on, 166; his crayon of 
 John Brown, 167. 
 
 Hume, David, his influence on 
 Kant; view of Milton, 222. 
 
 I. 
 
 "Imitation of Christ," rendered 
 into verse by Corneille, 150. 
 
 Irish, the, English tyranny over, 
 215, 216. 
 
 Italian authors, 63-100. 
 
 J. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, on Milton, 222; 
 
 on Addison, 226; on Pope, 229. 
 Jowett, Prof., on Plato, 45. 
 Juvenal, imitated by Quevedo, 
 
 116. 
 
 K. 
 
 KANT, sketch of, 183-186; 
 Madame de Stael's opinion of, 
 183; George Henry Lewes on, 
 183; compared with Plato, 184; 
 his "Critique," 184; suggestion 
 of Einstein's theory of relativity, 
 184; influenced by Hume, 184; 
 
viu 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Robert Adamson on, 185; Car- 
 lyle on, 185; Schlegel on, 185; 
 DeQuincey quoted, 186; char- 
 acterization by Albert Schweg- 
 ler, 186; anticipated nebular 
 hypothesis of LaPlace, 184. 
 
 Karnes, Lord, his "Elements of 
 Criticism" cited, 145. 
 
 Keats, John, Tennyson compared 
 with, 258; tribute to Spenser, 
 218. 
 
 Keble, his characterization of 
 Wordsworth, 247. 
 
 KLOPSTOCK, sketch of, 190-193; 
 his Miltonic character noted by 
 Bodmer, 190; Roscoe's transla- 
 tion of his "Messiah," 190; in- 
 fluence on Goethe, 192; his place 
 in German literature, 192, 193. 
 
 LA FONTAINE, sketch of, 158- 
 159; eulogized by Fenelon, 158; 
 compared with Boccaccio, 158; 
 rivals Phaedrus, 158. 
 
 LaHarpe, eulogy of Racine, 154; 
 on Corneille, 149; preferred Fen- 
 elon to Fontenelle, 145. 
 
 Lamartine, opinion of Tasso, 77. 
 
 Landor, W. S., on Cervantes, 110; 
 on Shakespeare, 212. 
 
 Laplace, his nebular hypothesis an- 
 ticipated by Kant, 184. 
 
 Lavatar, definition of art, 86. 
 
 Law, Hooker's definition of, 170. 
 
 L'Estrange, translation of Quevedo, 
 116. 
 
 LESSING, sketch of, 180-182; his 
 imitations of Anacreon, 180; his 
 work on criticism, 180, 181; 
 Macaulay on, 181; Goethe's 
 view, 181; his fidelity to the 
 Greek standards, 182; Matthew 
 Arnold on, 199; prepared way 
 for Fichte and Kant, 181; ad- 
 vocacy of free speech, 181; Mil- 
 ton compared with, 221; con- 
 
 troversy with Pope, 230; con- 
 trasted with Addison, 225. 
 
 Lewes, George Henry, tribute to 
 Goethe, 172; on Kant, 183; trib- 
 ute to Socrates, 42. 
 
 Lieber, Francis, his view of 
 Montesquieu, 147; contrasted 
 with Machiavelli, 91. 
 
 LIVY, sketch of, 1-3; friend of 
 Augustus, 1; his History of 
 Rome, 1; Bolingbroke's opinion 
 of, 1, 2; his epitaph, 1; his view 
 of history, 2. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry W., his praise 
 of Tennyson, 256. 
 
 LOPE DE VEGA, sketch of, 101- 
 106; his Italian imitations, 101; 
 his precocious scholarship, 101; 
 his lyrics, 102; his plays, 103; 
 Bouterwek and Lord Holland 
 on, 103; Cervantes on, 104; 
 Ticknor on, 104; discards Ter- 
 ence and Plautus, 104; imitated 
 by Moliere, 105; compared with 
 Shakespeare, 209. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, on Theo- 
 critus, 62. 
 
 LUC AN, sketch of, 10-11; his 
 Pharsalia, 11; was Corneille' s 
 model, 150; Nero's hatred of, 10. 
 
 Lucian, followed by Quevedo, Fon- 
 tenelle and Fenelon, 145. 
 
 LUCRETIUS, sketch of, 15-17; 
 his De Rerum Natura, 15; com- 
 pared with Milton, 16; poem on, 
 by Tennyson, 15. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macaulay, on Dante, 67; on 
 Machiavelli, 92; on Aeschylus, 
 31; on Alfieri and Cowper, 100; 
 on Don Quixote, 109; on Vol- 
 taire, 162; on Lessing, 181; on 
 Shakespeare, 213; on Spenser, 
 218; on Milton, 220; on Addison, 
 226; on Byron, 234. 
 
 MACHIAVELLI, sketch of, 90- 
 93; Taine on, 90; The Prince, 90, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 91; Hallam on, 90; contrasted 
 with Francis Lieber, 91; mis- 
 construed by Andrew Dickson 
 White, 91; contrasted with Gro- 
 tius, 91, 92; appraised by Rufus 
 Choate, 92; Shakespeare's mis- 
 conception of, 92; Macaulay on, 
 92; founded school of philosophi- 
 cal polities, 93. 
 
 Madison, James, his opinion of 
 Montesquieu, 147. 
 
 Maecenas, friendship for Horace, 
 4; friend of Virgil, 7; "the Ger- 
 man Maecenas," 176. 
 
 Maintenon, Madame de, her in- 
 fluence with Racine, 153. 
 
 Mansoni, Allesandro, his I 
 Promessa Sposi, 74. 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS, sketch of, 
 2-22; opinion of John Stuart 
 Mill, 21; his Meditations, 21, 22. 
 
 Martial, his opinion of Quintilian, 
 26. 
 
 Marlowe, Christopher, his trans- 
 lation of 0\-id, 13. 
 
 Matthews, Brander, on Moliere, 
 156. 
 
 Mazzini, tribute to Lord Byron, 
 235. 
 
 McCarthy, Justin, on Tennyson, 
 258. 
 
 MENANDER, sketch of, 49-52; 
 friend of Epicurus, 49; imitated 
 by Plautus and Terence, 49; 
 German translations of, 49; Ad- 
 dison compared with, 226. 
 
 METASTASIO, sketch of, 94-96. 
 
 MICHELANGELO, sketch of, 86- 
 89; Symonds' characterization 
 of, 86; sonnet on Dante, 87; Sid- 
 ney Colvin quoted, 88; sonnet to 
 Pistoja, 89; love for Vittoria 
 Colonna, 89; painting by 
 Schneider, 89; compared with 
 Petrarch, 89. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on Marcus Aure- 
 lius, 21; his appreciation of 
 Wordsworth, 246. 
 
 I MILTON, John, compared with 
 I Klopstock, 190; reference to 
 
 Boiardo, 84; indebtedness to 
 Spenser, 216; sketch of, 219, 223; 
 I his great learning, 219; his 
 
 polemics, 220; Macaulay and 
 Mark Pattison on, 220; com- 
 pared with Lessing, 221; Hallam 
 on, 222; compared with Dante, 
 222; Addison, Johnson and 
 Hume on, 222; relation to Gro- 
 tius, Vondel and Andreini, 223; 
 imitated Sophocles and Euripi- 
 des, 223; Goethe's tribute, 223; 
 Byron compared with, 237. 
 
 MOLIERE, sketch of, 155-157; 
 borrows from Lope de Vega, 105; 
 Brander Matthews on, 156; com- 
 pared with Plautus, Terence and 
 Aristophanes, 157; Blair on, 157; 
 his appreciation of La Fontaine, 
 158; copied Plautus, 18; com- 
 pared with Shakespeare, 210. 
 
 Montalvan, on Lope de Vega, 101, 
 106. 
 
 MONTALVO, sketch of, 122-124; 
 his Amadis of Gaul, 122; praised 
 by Tasso, 123; Italian versions 
 of, 122, 123. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU, sketch of, 146- 
 148; Voltaire's eulogy of, 146; his 
 popularity in America, 146, 147; 
 his debt to Tacitus, 147; Madi- 
 son's opinion of, 147; Francis 
 Lieber on, 147; Chesterfield's 
 tribute to, 147, 148. 
 
 MONTAIGNE, sketch of, 135- 
 138; Hallam, Emerson and 
 Sainte-Beuve on, 136; character- 
 ization of, 137; Shakespeare's 
 debt to, 138; Pasquier on, 138; 
 compared with Wieland, 196. 
 
 N. 
 
 Napoleon, tribute to Goethe, 171. 
 Numancia, The, of Cervantes, 108. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 O. 
 
 OVID, sketch of, 12-14; banished 
 by Augustus, 12; his Ars Ama- 
 toria, and Epistolae Ex Ponto, 
 12; his moral instability, 12, 13; 
 his Medea and Metamorphoses, 
 13 ; translation by Dry den, Mar- 
 lowe and Addison, 13; Shakes- 
 peare's familiarity with, 13; 
 Chaucer's knowledge of, 14. 
 
 P. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, his appointment 
 of Tennyson as laureate, 259. 
 
 Pastoral poetry, origin and growth 
 of, 60, 61. 
 
 Pasquier, Etienne, on Montaigne, 
 138. 
 
 Pattison, Mark, on Milton, 220; 
 on Aeschylus, 3''0. 
 
 PETRARCH, sketch of, 68-71; 
 Latin poems of, 68; father of the 
 Renaissance, 68; his travels, 69; 
 early English views of, 69; Hal- 
 lam's estimate, 69; Laura, 69; 
 receives laurel crown, 69; com- 
 pared with Montaigne, 135; imi- 
 tated by Villegas, 121. 
 
 PLUTARCH, sketch of, 46-48; 
 his Lives, 46, 47; praised by 
 Alfieri, Napoleon, Petrarch, 
 Montaigne, St. Evremont and 
 Montesquieii, 46; North's trans- 
 lation, 47; Shakespeare's debt to, 
 47; Bacon's erroneous quotation, 
 47; his views on education and 
 statesmanship; his anecdote of 
 Euripides, 35; of Pindar, 53. 
 
 PINDAR, sketch of, 53-55; anec- 
 dote by Plutarch, 53; praised by 
 Cicero and Pausanias, 53; opin- 
 ion of Plato, 53; his odes, 54, 
 55; modern translations, 55; 
 compared with Horace, 4. 
 
 PLATO, sketch of, 42-45; pupil of 
 Socrates and teacher of Aris- 
 totle, 42; companion of Xeno- 
 
 phon, 42; his metaphysics, 43, 
 44; influence upon ancient cul- 
 ture, 44; his Republic, 45; Kant 
 compared with, 184; his travels, 
 43; his experience with Diony- 
 sius, 43; his debt to Lycurgus, 
 45; Prof. Jowett on, 45. 
 
 PLAUTUS, sketch of, 18-19; in- 
 fluence on English, German and 
 French literature, 18; imitated 
 Menander, 49. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allen, "The Poetic 
 Principle," 86. 
 
 Political philosophy (see Mon- 
 tesquieu and Machiavelli.) 
 
 POPE, Alexander, on Spenser, 217; 
 sketch of, 228-232; Thackeray's 
 estimate of, 228; Taine on, 228, 
 229; Johnson's praise of, 229; 
 Byron's admiration of, 229, 238; 
 compared witn Boileau and with 
 Sappho, 229; Leshe Stephen's 
 criticism, 230; translation of 
 Homer, 230; friendship with 
 Swift, and satire on Addison, 
 230, 231; controversies with Vol- 
 taire, Lessing and Crousaz, 230; 
 his comparison of Virgil and 
 Homer, 231. 
 
 Q. 
 
 QUINTILIAN, sketch of, 26-28; 
 Martial's opinion of, 26; his De 
 Institutiones Oratoris, 26; be- 
 friended by Domitian, 26. 
 
 QUEVEDO, sketch of, 115-117; 
 his Paul the Sharper, and Vis- 
 ions, 116; translated by L'Es- 
 trange, 116; imitations of Ju- 
 venal and Persius, 116. 
 
 R. 
 
 RABELAIS, sketch of, 139-142; 
 estimate of, 139; Wells on, 139, 
 140; compared with Fielding, 
 139; resemblance to Lucan and 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aristophanes, 140; Taine and 
 Voltaire on, 141; Sainte-Beuve 
 on, 141, 142; compared with 
 Cervantes, 142; with Swift, 140; 
 his last words, 142. 
 
 RACINE, eulogized by Corneille, 
 150; sketch of, 152-154; his 
 friendship with Boileau, Moliere 
 and Furetiere, 152; Hallam on, 
 153; influenced by Madame de 
 Maintenon, 153; his debt to 
 Euripides, 153; compared with 
 Virgil, 154. 
 
 Religious hypocrisy, Moliere on, 
 lob. 
 
 Republic, Roman, its restoration 
 favored by Agrippa, 8; Plato, 
 Republic, 45. 
 
 Revolution, French, Voltaire's re- 
 lation to, 163. 
 
 Richelieu, his opposition to Cor- 
 neille, 149. 
 
 RICHTER, Jean Paul, sketch of, 
 187-189; his "Levana" praised 
 by Goethe, 187; translated by 
 Carlyle, 187; Carlyle's estimate 
 of, 187, 188; compared with 
 Carlyle, 189; DeQuincey's Life 
 of, 187; Lady Chatterton's ex- 
 cerpts 187; on authorship, 188; 
 his sobriquet of "Der Einzige," 
 188. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, his recommenda- 
 tion of Tennyson for poet lau- 
 reate, 259. 
 
 Roman authors, 1-28. 
 
 Roscoe, translation of Klopstock's 
 "Messiah," 190. 
 
 Rothensteiner, Rev. John, his 
 translation from Weber, 206. 
 
 Rousseau, influence on Schiller, 
 175; anticipated by Fenelon, 144. 
 
 S. 
 Sainte-Beuve, on Montaigne, 136, 
 
 138; on Rabelais, 141, 142. 
 Saintsbur3% on Wordsworth, 244. 
 Sappho, Pope compared with, 229. 
 
 SALLUST, sketch of, 23-25; Epis- 
 tles to Caesar, Jugurthine War, 
 Conspiracy of Cataline, 23; Dr. 
 Stewart's critique, 23. 
 
 SCHILLER, friendship with 
 Goethe, 171; sketch of, 175-179; 
 influenced by Rousseau, 175; his 
 historical work, 177; literary as- 
 sociation with Goethe, 177; 
 Goethe's tribute to "Wallen- 
 stein," 178; visited by Madame 
 de Stael, 178; his triumph at 
 Berlin, 178; his imitation of 
 Aeschylus and Sophocles, 178; 
 admitted to French citizenship, 
 177. 
 
 Schlegel, on Kant, 185; translation 
 of Shakespeare, 195; of Calderon, 
 132. 
 
 Schwegler, Albert, estimate of 
 Kant, 186. 
 
 SCOTT, Sir Walter, sketch of, 239- 
 242; his Goethe translation, 170; 
 translation of Heine, 200; tribute 
 to Bj-ron, 238; his translations 
 from the German, 239; his obli- 
 gation to Cervantes, 242; found- 
 er of the historical novel, 239; 
 success of his novels, 242; his 
 advice to Lockhart, 242. 
 
 Seneca, Corneille's debt to, 149. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, William, trans- 
 lation by Wieland, 195; by 
 Schlegel, 195; his debt to Ovid, 
 13; his debt to Plutarch, 47; 
 his plagiarism of Montaigne, 
 138; his injustice to Machiavelli, 
 92; sketch of, 209-214; com- 
 pared T\dth Lope de Vega, 209; 
 his want of scholarship, 209, 
 210; compared with Moliere and 
 Goethe, 210; secret of his power, 
 210; Hudson's view, 211; Emer- 
 son and Landor on, 212; his 
 characters, 212, 213; Macaulay 
 quoted, 213; Hallam on, 213; 
 views of Coleridge, Carlyle and 
 Blair, 213; Taine on, 214. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Slavery, Hugo on, 168. 
 
 Socrates, tributes to, 42. 
 
 Sophocles, imitated by Voltaire, 
 160; by Schiller, 178; by Milton, 
 223. 
 
 Soubrette, the, created by Cor- 
 neille, 149. 
 
 Spanish authors, 101-133. 
 
 SPENSER, Edmund, sketch of, 
 215-218; his service in Ireland, 
 215, 216; Dean Church's biog- 
 raphy quoted, 216; literary style 
 of, 216; compared with Ariosto, 
 216; Hallam's opinion, 216; Cow- 
 ley's debt to, 216; Milton's ac- 
 knowledgment, 216; Alexander 
 Pope on, 217; Matthew Ar- 
 nold and Campbell quoted, 217; 
 Maeaulay's criticism, 218; re- 
 sembled by Tennyson, 256. 
 
 Stedman, E. C, on Tennyson, 258. 
 
 Stephen, Leslie, on Alexander 
 Pope, 230. 
 
 St. Evremont, his praise of Cor- 
 neille, 150; opinion of Plutarch, 
 46. 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi, Wordsworth 
 compared with, 244. 
 
 Surre3^ Earl of, "the English 
 Petrarch," 69. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, friend of Pope, 
 230; compared with Rabelais, 
 140. 
 
 Taine, H. A., estimate of Goethe, 
 169, 173; on Machiavelli, 90; 
 comparison of Rabelais and 
 Swift, 141; on Shakespeare, 214; 
 on Pope, 228, 229; on Byron, 
 234, 236; on Tennyson, 256. 
 
 TASSO, Torquato, sketch of, 75- 
 79; his Rinaldo, 75; Aminta, 76; 
 Gerusalemme Liberata, 76; com- 
 pared with Homer, 76; Voltaire's 
 opinion, 76; compared with Vir- 
 gil, 77; estimates by Lamartine 
 and Corniani, 77; his insanity, 
 
 78; Goethe's drama, 78; his 
 Gerusalemme Conquistata, 79, 
 compared with Ariosto, 81; aided 
 by Pope Sixtus V., 78; Byron's 
 admiration of, 234. 
 
 Tajdor, Bayard, tribute to Goethe, 
 172. 
 
 TENNYSON, Alfred, Weber's 
 translation of, 204; poem on 
 Lucretius, 15; introduced to 
 America by Emerson, 255; Long- 
 fellow's appreciation, 256; re- 
 semblance to Spenser, 256; Taine 
 on, 256; compared with Byron, 
 Pope, Wordsworth and Keats, 
 258; McCarthy on, 258; Sted- 
 man quoted, 258; Whipple on, 
 259; Lord Palmerston's ignor- 
 ance of, 259; W. Howitt on, 261; 
 his debt to Theocritus, 61. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., on Addison, 
 227; estimate of Pope, 228; on 
 Dickens, 251. 
 
 THEOCRITUS, sketch of, 60-62; 
 Prof. Blair's estimate, 60; father 
 of pastoral poetry, 60, 61; Low- 
 ell's reference to, 62. 
 
 Tieknor, Hist, of Spanish Lit., 104; 
 on the Argensolas, 118; on Vil- 
 legas, 121; his estimate of The 
 Cid, 127; his opinion of Vicente, 
 128. 
 
 Tiraboschi, on Ariosto, 81. 
 
 Tolstoy, his comparison of Dick- 
 ens and Balzac, 252. 
 
 U. 
 
 Urfe, Houore de, his "Astree," 61, 
 
 62. 
 Ulriei, on "Dogberry," 212. 
 
 Vega (See Lope de Vega). 
 VICENTE, sketch of, 128-121; 
 
 father of modern drama, 128; 
 
 views of Tieknor and de Barros, 
 
 128. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 I 
 
 VILLEGAS, sketch of, 120-121; 
 the Spanish Anacreon, 120; opin- 
 ion of Bouterwek, 121; his imita- 
 tions of Anacreon, Horace, 
 Catullus and Petrarch, 121. 
 
 VIRGIL, sketch of, 7-9; aided by 
 Maecenas, 7; Georgics, Addison's 
 opinion of, 7; his Aeneid, 8; fame 
 of, 9; his friendship for Horace, 
 4; a disciple of Theocritus, 60; 
 Pope's comparison of Tvith Ho- 
 mer, 231. 
 
 VOLTAIRE, eulogy of Montes- 
 quieu, 146; on Corneille, 149; 
 on Racine, 153; imitated Sopho- 
 cles, 160; residence in England, 
 160; in Germany, 161; visited 
 by Goldsmith, 161; his French 
 triumph, 162; Macaulay on, 
 162; estimate of his literary 
 work, 163; his incarceration in 
 the Bastile, 160; his financial 
 successes, 161; Benjamin Frank- 
 lin and, 162; compared with R. 
 G. IngersoU, 163; relation to the 
 French revolution, 163; contro- 
 versy with Alexander Pope, 230; 
 his anathema against Shakes- 
 peare, 235. 
 
 Vondel, Joost Van den, his relation 
 to Milton, 223. 
 
 W. 
 
 War, Goethe's view of, 173. 
 
 Washington, George, Byron's rev- 
 erence of, 236; Alfieri's tribute 
 to, 98. 
 
 WEBER, F. W., his translation of 
 ' Tennyson, 204; sketch of, 204- 
 
 208; his "Dreizehnlinden," 205; 
 compared with Wordsworth and 
 Goethe, 206; Rothensteiner's 
 transalation, 206-7. 
 
 Whipple, E. P., his critique on 
 Dickens, 253; on Tennyson, 259. 
 
 White, A. D., his comparison of 
 Grotius and Machiavelli, 91, 92. 
 
 WIELAND, sketch of, 194-196; 
 his debt to Bodmer, 194; com- 
 pared with Addison, 195, 196; 
 translation of Shakespeare, 195; 
 compared with Fenelon, Virgil, 
 Cicero and Horace, 196; his 
 translations of Greek and Roman 
 classics, 195; resembles Mon- 
 taigne, 196. 
 
 Xenophon, pupil of Socrates, and 
 companion of Plato, 42. 
 
I 
 
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