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Seven British Classics. 58 cents. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. Appletons' Elementary Reading Charts. FORTY-SIX NUMBERS. Prepared by REBECCA D. RICKOFF. Designed to make learning to read a pleasant pastime. Designed to cultivate the observing powers of children. Designed to teach the tirst steps of reading in the ri(/ht way. Designed to train the mind of the child by pliilosophical methods. Designed to furnish the primary classes with a variety of interesting occupations in scliool-hours. Every step in advance is in a logical order of progression and development. Pictures, objects, and things are employed, rather than ab- stract rules and naked type. The beautiful and significant illustrations are an especially noticeable and attractive feature of these charts. Every chart in the series has in view a definite object, which is thoroughly and systematically developed. They arc in accord with the educational spirit of the day, and with the methods followedH;y the best instructor,-.. They are the only charts planned with special reference to the cultivation of fmicfiiage and the power of expression. They follow the natural method of teaching, apiiealing to those faculties of the child that are most easily awakened, and inciting correct mental processes at the outset. These charts introduce a new and improved mode of sus- pension while in use, a feature of much practieal value. These Charts should be in every Primary-school Room in the Country. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street \ LITERATURE PRIMER, edUed by John Richard Green, M. A. ENGLISH, EdtUii by John Richard Green, M.A. ENGLISH LITERATURE BY THE REV. STOPFORD BROOKE, M.A. NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED. WITH AN APPENDIX ON AMERICAN LITER A TC/RE, By J. HARRIS PATTON, M.A., AUTHOR OF THE "CONCISE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE," "NATU- RAL RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES," ETC. NEW YORKv ^^v-orw D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, I, 3, AND S BOND STREET. 1882. o^ COPYRIGHT BY D, APPLETON & COMPANY, 1879. COPYRIGHT BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY, i282. CONTENTS. CHAPTER 1. PAGE WRITERS BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 67O 1066 5 CHAPTER II. FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER's DEATH, 1066 — 1400 22 CHAPTER III. FROM CHAUCER, I4OO, TO ELIZABETH, 1 5 59 . 50 CHAPTER IV. FROM 1559 TO 1603 71 CHAPTER V. FROM ELIZABETH'S DEATH TO THE RESTORATION, 1603 — 1660 108 CHAPTER VI. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF POPE AND SWIFT, 1660 1 745 I 25 CHAPTER VII. PROSE LITERATURE FROM DEATH OF POPE AND SWIFT TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO DEATH OF SCOTT, 1745— 1S32 I45 CHAPTER VIII. POETRY, FROM I73O — I S3 2 I $8 CHAPTER IX. AMERICAN LITERATURE, FROM 1647— 1883 ... 1 86 PRIMER V OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHAPTER I. WRITERS BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 670 — 1066. 1 . Continental Poems. — The Traveller s Song. — Dear's Complaint. The Fight at Finnesburg. — Beo7vulf, before 600. 2. Poems in England. — (I'x.diVsxovL's, Paraphrase, 670- — Judith. — Cynevvulf s Poems, and others in Exeter and Vercelli books. — Odes in A. S. Chronicle. — Sono of Dricnanburh, 937- —Fight at Maldon, 991. 3 Prose. — Bieda's translation of St. John, 735- — l^in.i,' /lUfred's work during his two limes of peace, 880 — 893 and 897— 901— ^FJfdc's prose works, 990— 995-- Wulfstan's work, \\)^l—\^2,Z-— The English Chronicle, ends 1154- I. The History of English Literature is the story of what great English men and women thought and felt, and then wrote down in good prose and beautiful poetry in the English language. The story is a long one. It begins in England about the year 670, it begins still earlier on the Continent, in the old Angle- Land, and it is still going on in the year 1879. Into this little book then is to be put the story of more than 1,200 years of the thoughts, feelings, and imagination of a great people. Every English man and woman has good reason to be proud of the work ('one by their forefathers in prose and poetry. Every 6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. one who can write a good book or a good song may say to himself, '* I belong to a noble company, which has been teaching and delighting the world for more than i,ooo years." And that is a fact in which those who write and those who read English literature ought to feel a noble pride. 2. The English and the Welsh. — This litera- ture is written in English, the tongue of our fathers. They lived, while this island of ours was still called Britain, in Sleswick, Jutland, and Holstein ; but, either because they were pressed from the inland, or for pure love of adventure, they took to the sea, and, landing at various parts of Britain at various times, drove back, after 150 years of hard fighting, the Britons, whom they called Welsh, to the land now called Wales, and to Cornwall. It is well for those who study English literature to remember that in these two places the Britons remained as a distinct race with a distinct literature of their own, because the stories and the poetry of the Britons crept after- wards into English literature and had a great influence upon it. The whole tale of King Arthur, of which English poetry and even English prose is so full, was a British tale. The imaginative work of the conquered afterwards took captive their fierce conquerors. 3. The English Tongue. — Of the language in which our literature is written we can say little here ; it is fully discussed in the Primer of English Grammar. Of course it has changed its look very much since it began to be written. The earliest form of our English tongue is very different from modern English in form, pronunciation, and appearance, and one must learn it almost as if it were a foreign tongue ; but still the language written in the year 700 is the same as that in which the prose of the Bible is written, just as much as the tree planted a hundred years ago is the same tree to-day. It is this sameness of lan- guage, as well as the sameness of national spirit, 1.] EARLY IV R ITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 7 which makes our literature one literature for 1,200 years. 4. Old English Poetry was also different in form from what it is now. It was not written in rime, nor were its syllables counted. Its essential elements were accent and alliteration,^ Every long verse is divided into two half verses by a pause, and has four accented syllables, while the number of unaccented syllables is indifferent. These half verses are linked together by alliteration. Two accented syllables in the first half, and one in the second, begin with vowels (generally different vowels) or with the same con- sonant. Here is one example from a war song : — " fFigu wnntrum geong | ^ordum mxlde. Warrior of winters young | With words spake." There is often only one alliterative letter in the first half verse. Sometimes there are more accents than four, but for the most part they do not exceed five in an ordinary long line. Sometimes in subjects requiring a more solemn or a more passionate treat- ment a metre is used in which unaccented syllables are regularly introduced, and the number of accented syllables also increased, and there are instances in which terminal rimes are employed. The metres are therefore varied, though not arbitrarily. But how- ever they are varied, they are built on the simple original type of four accents and three alliterative syllables. The emphasis of the words depends on the thought. Archaic forms and words are used, and metaphorical phrases and compound words, such as war-adder for arrow, or the whale' s-path for the sea, or gold-friend of ?ne?i for king. A great deal of parallelism, such as we find in early poetry, prevails. 'Fhe same statement or thought is repeated twice in different words. "Then 1 See, for the whole of this, Mr. Sweet's Afr^lo-Saxon Reader ^ p. xcviii. Clarendon I'ress Series. 8 ENGLISH LITERATURE, [chap. saw they the sea head lands, the whidy walls." The poetry is nevertheless very concise and direct. Much more attention is paid to the goodness of the matter than to the form. Things are said in the shortest way ; there are scarcely any similes, and the metaphorical expressions are rare. We see in this the English character. After the Norman conquest there gradually crept in a French system of rimes and of metres and accent, which we find full-grown in Chaucer's works. But unrimed and alliterative verse lasted in poetry to the reign of John, was revived in the days of Edward III. and Richard II., and alUteration was blended with rime up to the sixteenth century. The latest form of it occurs in Scotland. 5. The First English Poems. — Our fore- fathers, while as yet they were heathen and lived on the Continent, made poems, and of this Continental poetry we possess a few remains. The earliest per- haps is the Song of the Traveller^ written, it seems likely, in the fifth century by a man who had lived in the fourth. It is not much more than a catalogue of names and of the places whither the minstrel went with the Goths ; but where he expands, he shows so pleasant a pride in his profession, that he wins our sympatliy. Deor's Complaint is another of these poems. The writer is a bard at the court of the Heodenings, from whom his foe takes by craft his goods. He writes this complaint to comfort his heart. *' Weland (the great smith of the Eddas) and the kings of the Goths suffered and bore their weird, and so may I. The All-wise Lord of the World work- eth many changes." This is the general argument, and it is the first touch of the sad fatalism which belongs to English poetry. The Fight at Finnesburg is the third fragment. It tells of the attack on Fin's palace in Friesland, and the whole story of which it is a part is alluded to in Beowulf. Of all the Old I.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 9 English battle descriptions, it is the most full of the fire and fierceness of war, and it completes, with two fragments of the epic of Waldhere, and with Beowulf ^ the list of the English poetry written on the Con- tinent. 6. Beowulf is our Old English epic, and it recounts the great deeds and death of Beowulf. It may have been written before the English conquest of Britain, in the fifth century. The scenery is laid among the Goths of Sweden and the Danes, and there is no mention of our England. It was probably wrought into an epic out of short poems about the hero, and as we have it, was edited, with Christian elements introduced into it, by a Northumbrian poet, probably in the eighth century. The story is of Hrothgar, one of the kingly race of Jutland, who builds his hall, Heorot, near the sea, on the edge of the moorland. A monster called Grehdel, half-human, half-fiend, dwells in the moor close to the sea, and hating the festive noise, carries off thirty of the thanes of Hrothgar and devours them. After twelve years of this misery, Beowulf, thane of Hygelac, sails from Sweden to bring help to Hrothgar, and at night, when Grendel breaks into the hall, wrestles with him, and tears away his arm, and the fiend flies away to die. His mother avenges his death the next night, and Beowulf descends into her sea- cave and slays her also, and then returns to Hygelac. The second part of the poem opens with Beowulf as king in his own land, ruling well, until a fire-drake, who guards a treasure, is robbed and comes from his den to harry and burn the country. The old king goes forth then to fight his last fight, slays the dragon, but dies of its fiery breath, and the poem closes with the tale of his burial, burned on a lofty pyre on the top of Hronesnaes. Its social interest lies in what it tells us of the man- mers and customs of our forefathers before they came lo ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. to England. Their mode of life in peace and war is described ; their ships, their towns, the scenery in which they lived, their feasts, amusements — we have the account of a whole day from morning to night — their women and the reverence given them, the way in which they faced death, in which they sang, in which they gave gifts and rewards. And the whole is told with Homeric directness and simplicity. A deep fatalism broods over it, but a manly spirit fills the fatalism. "Sorrow not," says Beowulf to Hrothgar, '* it is better for every man to avenge his friend than to mourn greatly. Each of us must abide his end. Let him who can, work high deeds ere he die. So, when he lies lifeless, it will be best for the warrior." Out of the fatalism naturally grows the stern and simple pathos of the poem. It is most poetical in the quick force with which the story is realised and pic- tured, and in its grave truth to humanity. The descrip- tions of the sea and of wild nature are instinct with the same spirit which fills our modern poetry, and there still lingers among us that nature worship of our fathers which in Beowulf made dreadful and lonely places seem dwelt in — as if the places had a spirit — by monstrous beings. In the creation of Grendel and his mother, the savage stalkers of the moor, that half-natural, half-supernatural world began, which, when men grew gentler and the country more culti- vated, became so beautiful as fairyland. Here is the description of the dwelling-place of Grendel: — " Dark is the land Where they dwell : windy nesses, and holds of the wolf: The wild path of the fen where the stream of the wood Through the fog of the sea-cliffs falls downward in flood. 'Meath the earth is the flood, and not further from here Than one metes out a mile, is the -iiarsh of the moor, And the trees o'er it waving outreach and hang over ; And root fast is the wood that the water o'erhelms. There the wonder is great that one shuddering sees Every ni;ht in the flooci is a fire." I J EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUE:,T. ii The whole poem, Pagan as it is, is English to its very root. It is sacred to us, our Genesis, the book of our origins. 7. Christianity and English Poetry. — When we came to Drilaiii we were great warriors and great sea pirates — ** sea wolves," as a l\oman poet calls us ; and all our poetry down to the present day is full of war, and still more of the sea. No nation has ever written so much sea-poetry. But we were more than mere warriors. We were a home-loving people when we got settled either in Sleswick- or in England, and all our literature from the first writings to the last is full of domestic love, the dearness of home, and the ties of kinsfolk. We were a religious people, even as heathen, still more so when we became Christian, and cur poetry is as much of religion as of war. With Christianity a new spirit entered into English poetry. The w^ar spirit did not decay, but into the songs steals a softer element. The fatalism is modified by the faith that the fate is the will of a good God. The pathos is not less, but it is relieved by an onlook of joy. The triumph over enemies is not less exulting, but even more, for it is the triumph of God over His foes that is sung by Caedmon and Cynewulf. Nor is the imaginative delight in legends and in the super- natural less. But it is now found in the legends of the saints, in the miracles and visions that ]i?eda tells of the Christian heroes, in fantastic allegories of spiritual things, like the poems of the Phccnix and the Whale. The love of nature lasted, but it dwells now rather on gentle than on savage scenery. The human sorrow for the hardness of life is more tender, and when the poems speak of the love of home, it is with an added grace. One little bit still lives for us out of the older world. " Dear is the welcome guest to the Frisian wife when the vessel strands ; the ship is come and her husband to his house, her own provider. And she welcomes him in, washes his weedy garment, and 9 12 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. clothes him anew. It is pleasant on shore to him whom his love awaits." If that was the soft note of home in a pagan land, it was softer still when Christi- anity had mellowed manners. Yet, with all this, the faith of Woden still influences the Christian song. Christ, is not only the Saviour, but the Hero who goes forth against the dragon. His overthrow of the fiends is described in much the same terms as that of Beowulf's wresthng with Grendeh "Bitterly grim, gripped them in his wrath." The death of Christ, at which the universe trembles and weeps, is like the death of Balder. The old poetry penetrated the new, but the spirit of the new transformed that of the old. 8. Csedmon. — The poem of Beowulf has the grave Teutonic power, but it is not native to our soil. It is not the first true English poem. That is the work of C^DMON, and it was made in Northumbria. The story of it, as told by Bi^da, proves that the making of songs was common at the time. Caedmon was a servant to the monastery of Hild, an abbess of royal blood, at Whitby in Yorkshire. He was some- what aged when the gift of song came to him, and he knew nothing of the art of verse, so that at the feasts when for the sake of mirth all sang in turn he left the table. One night, having done so and gone to the stables, for he had care of the cattle, he fell asleep, and One came to him in vision and said, '' Caedmon, sing me some song." And he answered, "I cannot sing; for this cause I left the feast and came hither." Then said the other, " However, you shall sing." "What shall I sing?" he replied. "Sing the begin- ning of created things," answered the other. Where- upon he began to sing verses to the praise of God, and, awaking, remembered what he had sung, and added more in verse worthy of God. In the morning he came to the steward, and told him of the gift he ,had received, and, being brought to Hild, was ordered I.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE COXQUEST. 13 to tell his dream before learned men, that they might give judgment whence liis verses came. And when they had heard, they all said that heavenly grace had been conferred on him by our I.ord. 9. Caedmon's Poem, written about 670, is for us the beginning of English poetry in England, and the story of its origm ought to be loved by us. Nor should we fail to reverence the place where it began. Above the small and land-locked harbour of Whitby, rises and juts out towards the sea the dark cliff where Hild's monastery stood, looking out over the German Ocean. It is a wild, wind-swept upland, and the sea beats furiously beneath, and standing there we feel that it is a fitting birthplace for the poetry of the sea-ruling nation. Nor is the verse of the first poet without the stormy note of the scenery among which it was written, nor without the love of the stars or the dread of the waste land that Caedmon saw from Whitby Head. Caedmon paraphrased the history of the Old and New Testament. He sang the creation of the world, the history of Israel, the book of Daniel, the whole story of the life of Christ, future judgment, purga- tory, hell, and heaven. All who heard it thought it divinely given. " Others after him," says Boeda, *' tried to make religious poems, but none could vie with him, for he did not learn the art of poetry from men, nor of men, but from God." The interest of the poem is not found in the telling of the Scripture story, but in those parts of it which are the invention of Ci^dmon, in the drawing of the characters, in the passages instinct with the genius of our race, and \\\ those which reveal the individuality of the [joet. The fall of the angels and the Hell, and the proud and angry cry of Satan against God from his bed of chains, are fud of fierce war-rage, while the contrasts drawn between tiie pjace of heaven and the swart horror of hell have the same kind of pathos as 14 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Milton's work on the same subject. The pleasure of the northern imagination in swiftness and in joy is as well marked as its pleasure in wild freedom, in dark pride, and in revenge. The burst of fierce and joyous vengeance when the fiend succeeds in his temptation is magnificent. There is true dramatic power in the dialogue between Eve and Satan, and between Eve and Adam, and there is in the whole scene of the temptation a subtle quaHty of thought which we do not expect. It is characteristic of Old-England that the motives of the woman for eating the fruit are all good, and the passionate and tender conscientiousness of the scene of the repentance is equally characteristic of the gentler and religious side of the Teutonic character. " Dark and true and tender is the North." This is the really great part of the poem. The rest^ with the exception of the Flood, the Battle of Abraham with Chedorlaomer, and the passage of the Red Sea, is so dull that I believe the work of the original poet was filled up by other hands. ^ However that may be, in this poem, our native English poetry begins with a religious poem, and it gave birth to many children. lo. English Poetry after Csedmon was partly secular, but chiefly religious. The secular poetry was sung about the country, but the increase of monasteries where men of letters lived, naturally made the written poetry religious. AVhat remains is chiefly contained in two collections, the " Exeter Book " and the " Vercelli Book," both named from the places where the manu- scripts now are preserved. During the short period when literature flourished in the South at the end of the seventh century, Eng- lish poetry is there connected with the name of Ealdhelm. a young man when Caedmon died, and ^ Sievers has lately tried to show ("conclusively," says Mr. Sweet) that a great portion of the Paraphrase is a translation from an old Saxon original, perhaj s hy the author of the Heliand. I.] EARLY UK ITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 15 afterwards Abbot of Malmesbury, he united the song- maker to the rehgious poet. He was a skilled musi- cian, and it is said that he had not his ecjual in the making or singing of English verse. His songs were popular in King /Elfred's time, and a pretty story tells, that when the traders came into the town on the Sunday, he, in the character of a gleeman, stood on the bridge and sang them songs, with which he inter- mingled Scripture texts and teaching. But the English poetry which died in the South grew rapidly in Northumbria after Ccedmon's death. We do not know the date nor the writer of Judith^ but it belongs to the best time. It was found in the same MS. as Beowulf, and of the twelve books in which it was originally written, we only possess the three last, which tell of the banquet of Holofernes, his death, and the attack of the Jews on the Assyrian camp. The language is carefully wrought, the verse varied and musical, the action dramatic, and swiftly brought to its conclusion. It is really a poem of war, and full of the fire of war. 1 1. Cynewulf, the greatest of these northern poets, has left us both secular and religious poems. His name is given in a itw of the pieces in the Exeter and Vercelli books. But it is very probable that he was the writer of several of the anonymous poems. He seems to have been a minstrel at the court of one of the Northumbrian kings, and to have been exiled by one of the wars of the eighth century. He was then, he says, a frivolous and sinful man, and during this period he wrote the lyric pieces attributed to him. Of these the Wanderer, and the Wife's Complaint, and the Ruin (if we may allot this lovely fragment to him), are full of regret and yearning, in exile and solitude, for the lost beauty and happiness of his world, while the Seafarer breathes the same fasci- nation for the sea which filled the veins of our fore- fathers while they sang and sailed, and which is i6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chaf. strangely re-echoed, even to the very note of Cyne- wulf's song, in Tennyson's Sailor Boy. The RiddleSy of which this poet wrote a great number, show how closely and with what love he observed natural beauty. But a change came over him in his old age, and he devoted himself wholly to religious poetry. The Drea?n of the Cross, m which he teils the vision which wrought this change, is a piece of great beauty. It is prefixed to the Elene, or the Finding of the Cross ^ which with the Crist and the Passion of St. Juliana^ are Cynewulfs hymns on the threefold coming of Christ. The evidence of style is relied on to attri- bute also to Cynewulf the Life of St. Giidlac, (two- poems, on the Life and Death, put into one, the Life probably not by Cynewulf), the descriptive poem of the Phosnijc, and the lyrics mentioned above. He may also have written the Andreas, which relates the adventures of St. Andrew among the cannibal Marmedonians. Didactic and G?iomic Poe?ns, metrical translations of the Psalms, and metrical hymns and prayers, fill up the rest of the Exeter and Vercelli books. One fine fragment in which Death speaks to man, and describes the low and hateful and doorless house of which he keeps the key, does not belong to these books, and with the few English verses Baeda made when he was dying, tells us how stern was the thought of our fathers about the grave. But stern as these fragments are, the Old-English religious poetry always passes on to dwell on a brighter world. Thus we are told, in the Ode in the Saxon Chronicle, that King Eadgar " left this weak life, and chose for himself another light, sweet and fair." 12. The War Poetry of England at this time in Northumbria was probably as plentiful as the religious, but it was not likely to be written down by the men of letters in the monasteries. It is only when literature travelled southwards in Alfred's time, that 1.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 17 we find any written war songs, and of these there are only two, the Song of Bninafiburh^ 938, and the Song of the Fight at Ma/don, 998. They are noble poems, the fitting sources, both in their short and rapid lines, and in their simplicity and force, of such war songs as the Battle of the Bait c and the Charge of the Light Brigade. The first, composed expressly for the Chronicle, and inserted in it instead of the usual prose entry, describes the fight of King ."luhelstan Avith Anlaf the Dane. From morn till night they fought till they were "weary of red battle in the hard hand play," till five young kings and seven earls of Anlafs host lay in that fighting place " quieted by swords," and the Northmen fled, and only " the screamers of war were left behind, the black raven and the eagle to feast on the white flesh, and the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey beast the wolf in the wood." The second is the story of the death of Brihtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes. It contains 690 lines. In the speeches of heralds and warriors before the fight, in the speeches and single combats of the chiefs, in the loud laugh and mock which follow a good death- stroke, in the rapid rush of the verse when the battle is joined, the poem, though broken, as Homer's verse is not, is Homeric. In the rude chivalry which dis- dains to take vantage ground of the Danes, in the way in which the friends and churls of Brihtnoth die one by one, avenging their lord, keeping faithful the tie of kinship and clanship, in the cry not to yield a foot's breadth of earth, in the loving sadness with which home is spoken of, the poem is English to the core. And in the midst of it all, like a song from another land, but a song heard often in English fights from then till now, is the last prayer of the great earl, when dying he commends his soul with thankfulness to God. Two short odes, among several small poems iS ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. inserted in the Chronicle, one on the deliverance of five cities fi-om tlie Danes by King Eadmund, 942 ; and another on the coronation of King Eadgar, are the last records of a war poetry which naturally de- cayed when the English were trodden down by the Normans. When Taillefer rode into battle at Hastings, singing songs of Roland and Charlemagne, he sang more than the triumph of the Norman over the Eng- lish ; he sang the victory for a time of French Romance over Old- English poetry. 13. Old English Prose. — It is pleasant to think that I may not unfairly make English prose begin with B^DA. He was born about a.d. 673, and was, Hke Ctedmon, a Northumbrian. After 683, he spent his hfe at Jarrow, "in the same monastery," he says, "and while attentive to the rule of mine order, and the service of the Church, my constant pleasure lay in learning, or teaching, or writing." He enjoyed that pleasure for many years, for his quiet life was long, and his toil was unceasing from boyhood till he died. Forty-five works prove his industry ; and their fame over the whole of learned Europe during his time proves their value. His learning was as various as it was great. All that the world then knew of science, music, rhetoric, medicine, arithmetic, astronomy, and physics were brought together by him ; and his life was as gentle, and himself as loved, as his w^ork was great. His books Avere written in Latin, and with these we have nothing to do, but his was the first effort to make English prose a literary language; for his last work was a Tra7islation of the Gospel of St. John., as almost his last words were in English verse. In the story of his death told by his disciple Cuthbert is the first record of English prose writing. When the last day came, the dying man called his scholars to him that he might dictate more of his translation. "There is still a chapter wanting," said the scribe, "and it is hard for thee to questioa thyself longer." " It is easily I.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 19 done," said Tceda, " take thy pen and write quickly." Through tlie day they wrote, and when evening fell, *' There is yet one sentence unwritten, dear master," said the youth. " Write it quickly," said the master. " It is finished now." " Thou sayest truth," was the reply, "all is finished now." He sang the "Glory to God " and died. It is to that scene that English prose looks back as its sacred source, as it is in the great- ness and variety of Bceda's Latin work that English literature strikes its key-note. 14. i^lfred's Work.— When Pccda died, North- umbria was the home of prose literature. Though as yet written mostly in Latin, it was a wide-spread literature. Wilfrid of York and Benedict Biscop had founded libraries, and established far and wide a number of monastic schools. Six hundred scholars gathered round Baeda ere he died, and Alcuin, a pupil of Egbert, Archbishop of York, carried in 782 to the court of Charles the Great the learning and piety of England. But the northern literature began to decay towards the end of the eighth century, and after 866 it was, we may say, blot'ed out by the Danes. The long battle with these invaders was lost in Northum- hria, but it was gained for a time by /Elfred the Great in Wessex ; and with Alfred's literary work, learn- ing changed its seat from the north to the south. Alfred's writings and translations, being in English and not in Latin, make him, since Ba^da's work is lost, the true father of English prose. As Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of English prose. At Winchester the King took the English tongue and made it the tongue in which history, philosophy, law and religion spoke to the Eng- lish people. No work was ever done more eagerly or more practically. He brought scholars from different parts of the world. He set up schools in his monas- teries ** where every free-born youth, who has the means, shall attend to his book till he can read 20 ENGLISH LITERATURE. llfred took up the Chronicle, edited it from various sources, added largely to it from Baeda, and raised it to the dignity of a national history. The narrative of ^^^Ifred's wars with the Danes, written, it is likely, by himself at the end of his reign, enables us to estimate the great weight yEifred himself had in literature. " Compared with this passage," says Mr. P^arle, '^ every other piece of i)rose, not in these Chronicles merely, but throughout the whole range ot extant Saxon literature, must assume a secondary rank.' After ^^Ifred's reign, and that of his son Eadward, 22 ENGLISH LITERA TUKE. [chap. 901-925, the Chronicle becomes scanty, but songs and odes are inserted in it. In the reign of ^thelred and during the Danish kings its fulness returns, and grow- ing by additions from various quarters, it continues to be our great contemporary authority in English history till 1 154, when it abruptly closes with the death of Stephen. '' It is the first history of any Teutonic people in their own language ; it is the earliest and the most venerable monument of English prose." In it Old English poetry sang its last song, in its death Old English prose dies. It is not till the reign of John that English poetry m any form but that of short poems appears again in the Brut of Layamon. It is not till the reign of Edward III. that original English prose again begins. CHAPTER II. FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER's DEATH, 1066-1400. Layamon's Brut, 1205- — Ormin's Ormuliim, 1215- — Sir ]ohn Mandeville's Travels, 1356- — William Langland's Vision concerning Piers the Plowman, 3 texts, 1362, 77, 93. John Wyclif's Translation of the Bible, 1380.— John Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1393 — 4:- Geoffrey Chaucer, born 1340, died 1400. — Dethe of Blaiinche the Duchesse, 1369- — Troy Ins and Creseide. — Par lament of Fonles. — Compleynt of Mars. — Anelida and Arcite. — Hoiis of Fame, 1374 — 1384- — Legetide of Good Women. 1385-— ''^''^•'■^ Treatise on Astrolabe, 1391- — Canterbury Tales, 1373 to 1400- 17. General Outline. — The invasion of Britain by the English made the island, its speech, and its literature, English. The invasion of England by the Danes left our speech and literature still English. The Danes were of our stock and tongue, and we absorbed them. The invasion of England by the II.] FROM THE COXQUEST TO CHAUCER. 25 Normans seemed likely to crush the English people, to root out their literature, and even to threaten their speech. P^ut that which happened to the Danes hap- ))ened to the Normans also, and for the same reason, n They were originally of like blood to the English, and of like speech ; and though during their settle- ment in Normandy they had become French in manner and language, and their literature French, yet the old blood prevailed in the end. The Nor- man felt his kindred with the English tongue and spirit, became an Englishman, and left the French tongue to speak and write in English. We absorbed the Normans, and we took into our literature and speech some French elements they had brought with them. It was a process slower in literature than it was in the political history, but it began from the political struggle. Up to the time of Henry II. the Norman troubled himself but little about the English tongue. But when French foreigners came pouring into the land in the train of Henry and his sons, the Norman allied himself with the Englishman against these foreigners, and the English tongue began to rise into importance. Its literature grew slowly, but as quickly as most of the literatures of Europe, and it never ceased to grow. We are carried on to the year 11 54 by the prose of the English Chronicle. There are old English homilies which we may date from 1 1 20. The so-called Moral Ode, an English riming poem, was compiled about the year 1160, and is found in a volume of homilies of the same date. In the reign of Henry H., the old Southern- English Gospels of King ^thelred's time were modern- ised after 200 years or less of use. The Sayings of Alfred, written in English for the English, were com- posed about the year 1200. About the same date the old English Charters of Bury St. Edmunds were trans- lated into the dialect of the shire, and now, early in the thirteenth century, at the central time of the strife 3 24 ENGLISH LITER A TUKE, [chap. between English and foreign elements, after the death of Richard I., the Brut of Layamon and the Ormuliwi come forth within ten years of each other to prove the continuity, the survival, and the victory of the English tongue. When the patriotic struggle closed in the reign of Edward L, English literature had again risen,' through the song, the sermon, and the poem, into importance, and was wTitten by a people made up of Norman and Englishman welded into one by the fight against the foreigner. But though the foreigner was driven out, his literature in- fluenced, and continued to influence, the new Eng- lish poetry. The poetry, we say, for in this revival our literature was chiefly poetical. Prose, with but ■few exceptions, was written in Eatin. i8. Religious and Story-telling Poetry are the two main streams into which this poetical litera- ture divides itself. The religious poetry is entirely English in spirit, and a poetry of the people, from the Ormidum of Ormin, 12 15, to the Vision of Piers the PlowmaJt, in which poem the distinctly English poetry reached its truest expression in 1362. The story-telling poetry is English at its beginning, but becomes more and more influenced by tlie romantic poetry of France, and in the end grows in Chaucer's hands into a poetry of the court and of high society, a literary in contrast with a popular poetry. But even in this the spirit of the poetry is English, though the manner is French. Chaucer becomes less French and even less Italian in manner, till at last we And him entirely English in feeling — though he borrows some of his subjects from foreign stories — in the Canterbury Taies^ the best example of English story -telling we possess. The struggle then of England against the foreigner to become and remain England finds its parallel in the struggle of English poetry against the influ- ence of foreign poetry to become and remain Eng- lish. Both struggles were long and wearisome, but II. FkvM THK CO. \ QUEST TO CHAUCER. 25 in both England was triiimpliant. She became a nation, and she won a national literature. It is the course of this struggle we have now to trace along the two lines already laid down — the poetry of re- I't^ion and the poetry of story-telling ; but to do so we must begin in both instances witli the Norman Conquest. 19. The Religious Poetry. — The religious re- vival of the eleventh century was strongly felt in Normandy, and both the knights and Churchmen who came to England with William the Conqueror and during his son's reign, were founders of abbeys, from which, as centres of learning and charity, the country was civilised. In Henry I.'s reign the religion of England was further quickened by mis- sionary monks sent by Bernard of Clairvaux. London was stirred to rebuild St. Paul's, and abbeys rose in all the well-watered valleys of the North. The English citizens of London and the English peasants in the country received a new religious life from the foreign noble and the foreign monk, and both were drawn together through a common worship. When this took place a desire arose for religious handbooks in the English tongue. Ormin's Onnulum is a type of these. We may dale it, though not precisely, at 1215, the date of the Great Charter. It is entirely English, not five French words are to be found in it. It is a metrical version of the service of each day with the addition of a sermon in verse. The book was called Ormulum, "for this, that Orm it wrought." It marks the rise of Ejiglish religious literature, and its religion is simple and rustic. Orm's ideal monk is to be " a very pure man, and altogether without property, except that he shall be found in simple meat and clothes." He will have "a hard and stiff and rough and heavy life to lead. All his heart and desire ought to be aye toward heaven, and his Master well to serve." This was English religion 26 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. in the country at this date. It was continued in English writing by the Ancren Riwle — the Rule of the Anchoresses — written about 1220, in the Dorset- shire dialect. The Genesis and Exodus, a biblical poem of about 1250, was made by the pious writer to make Christian men as glad as birds at the dawning for the story of salvation. A Northumbrian Psalter of 1250 is only one example out of many devotional pieces, homilies, metrical creeds, hymns to the Virgin, which, with the metrical Lives of the Saints (a large volume, the lives translated from Latin or French prose into English verse), carry the religious poetry up to 1300. 20. Literature and the Friars. — There was little religion in the towns, but this was soon changed. In 1 22 1 the Mendicant Friars came to England, and they chose the towns for their work. The first Friars who learnt English that they might preach to the people were foreigners, and spoke French. Many English Friars studied in Paris, and came back to England, able to talk to Norman noble and English peasant. Their influence, exercised both on Norman and English, was thus a mediatory and uniting one, and Normans as well as English now began to write religious works in English. In 1303 Robert Manning of Brunne translated a French poem, the Manual of Sins (written thirty years earlier by William of Waddington), under the title of Ba?id/yng Synne. William of Shoreham translated the whole of the Psalter into English prose about 1327, and wrote religious poems. The Cicrsor Miindi, written about 1320, and thought " the best book of all " by men of that time, was a metrical version of the Old and New Testament, inter- spersed, as was the Handlyng Synne, with legends of saints. Some scattered Sermons, and in 1340 the Ayenbiie 0/ I^iwyt {Remorse of Conscience), translated from the French, mark how English prose was rising through religion. About the same year Richard RoUe II.] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CIJAUCER. 27 of Hampole wrote in Latin and in Nortliumbrian I'^nglish for the *' unlearned," a poem called the Fricke of Conscience, and some prose treatises. Tiiis poem is the last religious poem of any importance before the Vision of Piers the riowman. At its date, 1340, the religious intiuence of the Friars was swiftly decaying. They had been attacked twenty years before it, in a poem of 1320, and twenty years after it, in 1360, their mfluence was wholly gone. Jn Piers Plowman (1362) the protest Langland makes for purity of life is also a ])rotest against the foul life and the hypocrisy of the Friars. In that poem, as we shall see, the whole of the popular English religion of the time of Chaucer is re- l)resented. In it also the natural, unliterary, country English is best represented. It brings us up in the death of its author to the year 1400, the same year in whicli Chaucer died. 21. History and the Story-telling Poetiy. — The Normans brought an historical taste with them to England, and created a valuable historical litera- ture. It was written in Latin, and we have nothing to do with it till story-telling grew out of it in the time of the Great Charter. But it was in itself of such importance that a few things must be said about it. (i) The men who wrote it were called Chron- iclers. At first they were mere annalists — that is, they jotted down the events of year after year without any attempt to bind them together into a connected whole. But afterwards, from the time of Henry I., another class of men arose, who wrote, not in scat- tered monasteries, but in the Court. Living at the centre of political life, their histories were written in a philosophic spirit, and wove into a whole the growth of law and national life and the story of aftairs abroad. Thev are our great authorities for the history of these times. They begin with lVi/Iia?n of Alalmesbury, whose book ends in 1142, and die out after Matthew Paris, ^235 — 73. llibtorica! I'terature, written iu 2S ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. prose in England, is only represented after the death of Henry III. by a few dry Latin annalists till it rose again in modern English prose in 15 13, when Sir Thomas More's Life of Edward V. and Usiirpatio7i of Richard III. is said to have been written. (2) A distinct English Feeling soon sprang up among these Norman historians. English patriotism was far from having died among the English them- selves. The Sayings of ^-Elfred were written in English by the English. These and some ballads, as well as the early Englisli war-songs, interested the Norman historians and were collected by them. Wil- liam of Malmesbury, who was born of EngUsh and Norman parents, has sympathies with both peoples, and his history marks how both were becoming one nation. The same welding together of the conquered and the conquerors is seen in the others till we come to Matthew Paris, whose view of history is entirely that of an Englishman. When he wrote, Norman noble and English yeoman, Norman abbot and Eng- lish priest, were, and are in his pages, one in blood and one in interests. 22. English Story-telling grew out of this his- lorical literature. There was a Welsh priest at the court of Henry L, called Geoffrey of Monmouth, who, inspired by the Genius of romance, composed twelve short books, which he playfully called History. He had been given, he said, an ancient Welsh book 10 translate which told in verse the history of Britain trom the days when Brut, the great-grandson of ^Eneas, landed on its shores, through the whole his- tory of King Arthur and his Round Table down to Cadwallo, a Welsh king who died in 689. The Latin "translation " he made of this apocryphal book he com- pleted in 1 147. The real historians were angry at the fiction, and declared that throughout the whole of it ** he had lied saucily and shamelessly." It was indeed only a clever putting together and invention 11.] FROM THE CONQUEST 70 CHAUCER. 29 of a number of Welsh legends, but it was the beginning of stoty-telling in our land. Every one who reatl it was delighted with it ; it made, as we should say, a sensation, and as much on the Continent as in Eng- land. In it the Welsh, as 1 have said, invaded English literature, and their tales have never since ceased to live in it. They charm us as much in Tennyson's Idylls of the King as they charmed us in the days of Henry I. But the stories Geoffrey of Monmouth told were in Latin prose. They were put first into French verse by Geoffrey Gaimar for the wife of his patron, Ralph FitzGilbert, a northern baron. They got afterwards to France and, added to from Breton legends, were made into a poem and decked out with the ornaments of French romance. In that form they came back to England as the work of Wace, a Norman trouveur, the writer also of the Romati de Ron, who called his poem the Brut, and completed it in 1 155, shortly after tlie accession of Henry II. 23. Layamon's " Brut." — In this French form the story drifted through England, and at last falling into the hands of an English priest in Worcestershire, he resolved to tell it in English verse to his country- men, and doing so became the writer of our first English poem after the Conquest. We may roughly say that its date is 1205, ten years or so before the Onnulum was written, ten years before the Great Charter. It is [)lain that its composition, though it told a Welsh story, was looked on as a patriotic work by the writer. " There was a^ priest in the land," he writes of himself, " whose name was Layamon ; he was son of Leovenath : May the Lord be gracious unto him ! He dwelt at Earnley, a noble church on the bank of Severn, near Radstone, where he read books. It came in mind to him and in his chiefest thought that he would tell the noble deeds of England, what the men were named, and whence they came, who first had English land." And it was truly of great 30 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. importance. The poem opened to the imagination of the English people an immense, though a fabled, past for the history of the island they dwelt in, and made a common bond of iniercst between Norman and Englishman. Though chielly rendered from the French, there are not fifty French words in its 30,000 lines. The old English alliterative metre is kept uj) with a few rare rimes. As we read the short quick lines in which the battles are described, as we listen to the simple metaphors, and feel the strong, rude character of the poem, we are put in mind of Csedmon ; and what Csedmon was to early English poetry, Layamon is to English poetry after the Conquest. He IS the first of the nevv smgers. 24. Story-telling grows French in form. — After an interval the desire for story-telling increased in England. The Rorna7ice of Sir Tristra7n was, it is supposed, versified in 1270, and many other tales of Arthur's Knights, and some stories which had an English origin, such as the lays oi Havelok the Dane and of King Horn (both about 1280), were translated from the French, while Edward I. was makmg Norman and English into one people. The Romance of King Alexander, originally a Greek work, was, at the same date, adapted from the French into English, and about 1300 Robert of Gloucester wrote his Riming Chronicle, a history of England from Brutus to the reign of Edward I.^ As the dates grow nearer to 1300, seven years before the death of Edward I., the amount of French words increases, and the French romantic manner of telling stories is more and more marked. ^ I may mention in thi^ place that between 1327 and 135S, Robert of Brunne whose Handlyng Sinne is spoken of at p. 26, made another English Chronicle, translating the first part from Wace's Brut, p. 29, and the second part from Peter Langtoft's French Metrical Chronicle. It is a fresh instance of the eager- ness with which French work was now got into English, for Langtoft, a Canon of Bridlington, had only wri'.ten his Chronicle a few years before. 11] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 31 In the Lay of Havclok the s])irit and descriptions of the poem still resemhb old English work; in the Romance of Alexander, on the other hand, the natural landscape, the conventional introductions to the parts, the gorgeous descriptions of pomps, and armour, and cities, the magic wonders, the manners, and feasts, and battles of chivalry, the love passages, are all steeped in the colours of French romantic poetry. Now this romance was adapted by a Frenchman about the year 1200. It took therefore nearly a century before the French romantic manner of poetry could be natural- ised in English ; and it was naturalised, curious to say, at the very time when England as a nation had lost its French elements and become entirely English. 25. Cycles of Komance — At this time, then, the French romance of a hundred years earlier was popu- larised in England. There were four great romantic stories. The first was that of KIji^:; Arthur and the Round Table, and Geoffrey of Monmouth introduced it into England, p. 28. Walter Map, a councillor and friend of Henry II., and afterv/ards Archdeacon of York, took up Geoffrey's work, and threw into form, in Latin, all the Arthur legends. He invented and added to them the story of the Quest of the Graal (the Holy Dish that contained the sacramental blood of Christ and the Paschal Lamb), and made it their centre. By this invention he bound all the Arthur legends up with the highest doctrine of the Church. Afterwards he added the Morte d^ Arthur. The im- pulse thus given wis continued at home and abroad in the invention of new Arthurian stories, and by 1300 they were all popular in England and sung and made into English verse. The second romantic story was thnt of Charlemagne and his tivelve peers. Forged about 11 10 in the name of Archbishop Turpin, it excited interest in the Crusades by inventing a visit of Charlemagne's to the Holy Sepulchre and various stories and battles of his 3* 32 EXGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. peers with the Saracens in Spain. Of the number of romances which grew out of this subject, we EngUsh have only six poems or fragments of poems, one of Rolafid, one of Otuivell^ one of Charletnagne and Roland^ a Siege of Milan, Sir Ji'erumbras in three or four different versions, and the humorous Rouf Coill- yean. Their dates extend over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The third romantic story arose after the Crusades, and is that of the Life of Alexande?\ already alluded to as coming from the East. Its romantic wonders, fictions, and magic, partly derived from the Arabian books about Eskander (Alexander), were doubled by the imagination and coloured with all the romance of chivalry ; and the story became so common in Eng- land that "every wight that hath discrecioune," says Chaucer, had heard of Alexander's fortune. The fourth romantic story was that of the Siege of Troy. Two Latin pieces, bearing the names oi Dares F/irygius and of JDictys Crete nsis, composed in the decline of Latin literature, were taken up by Guido di Colonna of Messina about 1260, and with fabulous and romantic inventions of his own, and with additions woven into them from the Theban and Argonautic stories (so that Jason and Hercules and Theseus were incorporated into romance), were made into a great Latin story in fifteen books. It does not seem to have much entered into English literature till Chaucer's time, but Chaucer and Lydgate both used it. These were the four great Romantic cycles, which we popularised from the French. But the desire for romances was not satisfied with these. About the reign of Edward L a romance of Richard Coeiir de Lion, and about 1360 the Roma?ice of Willia77i a7id the We?'7uolf were both translated from the French. Chaucer mentions Sir Bevis of South- ampton, Sir Guy of Warwirk, the Squire of Low Dcgi'ee, Ypotis a theological story, Sidrac, and others. II.] I' ROM rilE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 33 'I 'here were also Syr Degorc (L'Egare), King Robert of Sidly, the King of Tars, Jponiydon, Octavian the Em- perour, &c., all taken from the French, and made English in the times of the Edwards. The country was therefore swarming with French tales, and its poetic imagination with the fancies and the fables of French chivalry. Finally, the influence of this French school in England is seen in the stories of Gower, and in the earlier poems of Chaucer. It lasted on, after Chaucer's death, in such poems as the Court of Lo7'e, written about 1470, and wrongly attributed to Chaucer. It came to its height in the translation of the Rojtiaunt of the Rose, the crowning effort also of French romance, but of a new type of romance, that of the Allegory of Love. After the earlier poems of Chaucer the story-telling of England sought its sub- jects in another country than France. It turned to Italy. 26. English Lyrics. — In the midst of all this story-telling, like ])rophecies of what should after- wards be so lovely in our poetry, rose, no one can tell how, some lyric poems, country idylls, love songs, and, later on, some war songs. The English ballad, sung from town to town by wandering gleemen, had never altogether died. A number of rude ballads collected round the legendary Robin Hood, and the kind of poetic literature which sung of the outlaw and the forest, and afterwards so fully of the wild border life, gradually took form. About 12S0 a beau- tiful little idyll called the Oiol and the Nightingale was written, probably in Dorsetshire, in which the rival birds submit tb.eir quarrel for precedence to the possible writer of the poem, Nicholas of Guildford. About 1300 we meet with a ^tw lyric poems, full of charm. They sing of spring-time with its blossoms, of the woods ringing with the thrush and nightingale, of the flowers and the seemly sun, of country work, of the woes and joys of love, and many other delightful 34 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. things. They are tinged with the colour of French romance, but they have an EngHsh background. We read nothing hke them, except in Scotland, till we come to the Elizabethan time. About the same date we find the satirical poem of the Lajid of Cockaygne, {coquina, a kitchen), where the monks live in an abbey built of pasties, and the rivers run with wine, and the geese fly through the air ready roasted, and a fair nunnery is close by, upon a river of sweet milk. The old ^;z«9W/attlt Richesse, Proverbes of Chancer,"^ the last two stanzas of which are a separate poem attributed by Shirley to " Halsam, squiere," the Ponndel, the Virelai, and Chaucer's Prophecy, are with the Romau7it of the Rose (which I cannot sur- render), held by Mr. Bradshaw not to be Chaucer's. They will be found in the editions of Chaucer, and ^ Morris's Chaucer, vi. 303. III.] FROM CHA UCER TO ELIZA BE TIL 5 r some of them, especially The FIo7ver and ilir /ible was the only rule of faith. Both abjured it because it said that doctrines 54 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. were to be proved from the Bible by reason. Pecock is the first of all the Church theologians who wrote in English, and the book is a fine example of our early prose. Sir John Fortescue's book on thj Dlffereiice be- t'iveen Absolute and Lijuited Monarchy, in Edward IV.'s rei^n, is less fine an example of the prose of English politics than Sir Thomas Malory's Le iVJ orte d' Arthur IS of the prose of chivalry. This book, arranged and modelled into an epic from French and contem- porary English materials, is the work of a man of genius, and was ended in the ninth year of Edward IV., fifteen years before Caxton had finished printing it. Its prose, in its staid simplicity, may well have charmed Caxton, who printed it with all the care of one who "loved the noble acts of chivalry." Caxton's own work added to tiie prose of England. Born of Kentish parents, he went to the Low Countries in T440, and learned his trade. The first book said to have been printed in this country was The Game and Playe of the Chesse, 1474. The first book that bears the inscription, " Imprynted by me, William Caxton, at Westmynstre,"is The Dlctes and Sayings of Fhilosophe?-s. But the first English book Caxton made, and finished at Cologne in 1471, was his translation of the Reaiyell of the Historyes of Troy, and in this book, and in his translation of Reyriard the Fox from the Dutch, in his translation of the Golden Legend, and his re-editing of Trevisa's Chronicle, in which he "changed the rude and old English," he kept, by the fixing power of the press, the Midland English which Chaucer had esta- blished as the tongue of Hterature, from further degra- dation. Forty years later Tyndale's New Testament fixed it for ever as the standard English, and the Elizabethan writers kept it in its purity. 45. Influences which laid the Foundations of the Elizabethan Literature. — The first of these grew out of Caxton's work. John Shirley, a gentleman III.] FuOM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 55 of good family, and Chaucer's contemporary, who died, a very old man, in 1449, deserves mention as a trans- criber and preserver of the works of Chaucer and Lyd- gate,but Caxton fulfilled the task Shirley had begun. He printed Chaucer and Lydgate and Cower with zea- lous care. He printed the Chronicle of the Brut, and Higden's Polychronicon ; he secured for us the Morie d' Arthur. He had a tiadesman's interest in publish- ing the romances, for they were the reading of the day ; but he could scarcely have done better for the interests of the coming literature. These books nourished the imagination of England, and supplied poet after poet with fine subjects for work, or fine frames for their subjects. He had not a tradesman's, but a loving literary interest in printing the old English poets ; and in sending them out from his press Caxton kept up the continuity of English poetry. The poets after him at once be^an on the models of Chaucer and Cower and Lydgate ; and the books themselves being more widely read, not only made poets but a public that loved poetry. The imi)rinting of old English poetry was one of the sources in this century of the Elizabethan literature. The second source was the growth of an interest in classic literature. All through the last two-thirds of this century, though so little creative work was done, the interest in that literature grew. The Wars of the Roses did not stop the reading of books. The Pasto?i Letters, 1422 — 1505, the correspondence of a country family from Henry VI. to Henry VH., are pleasantly, even correctly written, and contain passages which refer to translations of the classics and to manuscripts sent to and fro for reading. A great number of French trans- lations of the Latin classics were widely read in England. Henry VL, Edward IV., and some of the great nobles were lovers of books. Men like Duke Humphrey of Gloucester made libraries and brought over Italian scholars to England to translate Greek 56 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. works. There were fine scholars in England, like John, Lord Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who had won fame in the schools of Italy, and whose translations of Cicero's £>e Amicit'ui and of Caesar's De Bello GaLico prove, with his Latin letters, how worthy he was of the praise of Padua and the gratitude of Oxford. He added many MSS. to the library of Duke Humphrey. Many men, like Robert Fiemmyng, Dean of Lincoln ; John Gunthorpe, Dean of Wells ; William Grey, Bishop of Ely; John Phreas, Provost of Balliol, William Sellynge, Fellow of All Souls, studied at Ferrara under Baptista Guarini, and collected MSS. in Italy of the classics, with which they enriched the libraries of England. There was therefore in England a swiftly- growing interest in the ancient writers. 46. The Influence of the Italian Revival. — Such an interest was made and deepened by the revival of letters which arose after 1453 in Italy, and we have seen that before the last two decades of the fifteenth century many Englishmen had gone to Italy to read and study the old Greek authors on whom the scholars driven from Constantinople by the Turks were lecturing in the schools of Florence. The New Learning in- creased in England, and passed on into the sixteenth century, until it decayed for a time in the violence of the religious struggle. But we had now begun to do our own work as translators of the classics, and the young English scholars whom the Italian revival had awakened filled year after year the land with English versions of the ancient writers of Rome and Greece. It is in this growing influence of the great classic models of litera- ture that we find the gathering together of another of the sources of that great Elizabethan literature which seems to arise so suddenly, but which had, in reality, been long preparing. 47. Prose under Henry VIII. — The reigns of Richard III. and of Henry VII. brought forth no prose of any worth, but the country awakened from its dul- III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 57 ness with the accession of Henry VIII., 1509. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, with Wilham Lilly, the gram- marian, set on foot a school where the classics were taught in a new and practical way, and between the year 1 500 and the Reformation twenty grammar-schools were established. Erasmus, who had all the enthu- siasm which sets others on fire, had come to England in 1497, and found Grocyn and Linacre at Oxford, teaching the Greek they had learnt from Chalcondylas at Elorence. He learnt Greek from them, and found eager admiration of his own scholarship in Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, Colet, and Archbishop Warham. From these men a liberal and moderate theology spread, which soon, however, perished in the heats of the Reformation. But the new learning they had started urew rapidly, assisted by the munificence of Wolscy ; and Cambridge, under Cheke and Smith, excelled even Oxford in Greek learning. The study of the great classics set free the minds of men, stirred and gave life to letters, and woke up English prose from its sleep. Its earliest effort was its best. It was in 15 13 (not printed till 1557) that Thomas More wrote our first history in English, of Edward V.'s life and Richard III.'s usurpation. The simplicity of his genius showed itself in the style, and his wit in the picturesque method and the dramatic dialogue that graced the book. The stately historical step was laid aside by More in the tracts of nervous English with which he replied to Tyndale, but both his styles are remarkable for their purity. Of all the *' strong words" he uses, three out of four are Teutonic. More's most famous work, the Utopia, 15^6, was written in Latin, but was translated afterwards, in 155 i, by Ralph Robinson. It tells us more of the curiosity the New Learning:; had awakened in Englishmen concerning all the problems of life, society, government, and religion, than any other book of the time. It is the representative book of that short but well-defined period which we 58 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. may call English Renaissatice before the Refonjiaiion. Much of the progress of prose was due to the patron- age of the young king. It was the king who asked Lord Berners to translate Froissart, a book which in 1523 made a landmark in our tongue. It was the king who supported Sir Thomas Elyot in his effort to improve education, and encouraged him to write books (1531-46) in the vulgar tongue that he might please his countrymen. It was the king who made Leland, our first English writer on antiquarian sub- jects, the " King's Antiquary," 1533. It was the king to whom Roger Ascham dedicated his first work, and who sent him abroad to pursue his studies. This book, the Toxophilus, or the School of Shooting, 1545, was written for the pleasure of the yeomen and gentle- men of England in their own tongue. Ascham apolo- gises for this, and the apology marks the state of English prose. "Everything has been done excel- lently well in Greek and Latin, but in the English tongue so meanly that no man can do worse." But Ascham's quaint English has its charm, and he did not know that the very rudeness of language of which he complained was in reaUty laying the foundations of an English more Teutonic and less Latin than the English of Chaucer. 48. Prose and the Reformation. — The bigotry and the avarice and the violent controversy of the Reformation killed for a time the New Learning, but it did a vast work for English literature in its translation of the Bible. William Tyndale's Translation of the New Testament, 1525, fixed our standard English once for all, and brought it finally into every English home. Tyndale held fast to pure English. In his two volumes of political tracts " there are only twelve Teutonic words which are now obsolete, a strong proof of the influence his translation of the Bible has had in preserving the old speech of England." Of the 6,000 words of the Authorised Version, still in a great III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 59 part his translation, only 250 are not now in common use. " Three out of four of his nouns, adverbs, and verbs are Teutonic." And he spoke sharply enough to those who said our tongue was so rude that the Bible could not be translated into it. " It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than the Latin ; a thou- sand parts better may it be translated into the English than into the Latin." Tyndale was helped in his English Bible by William Roy, a runaway friar ; and his friend Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary's reign, added the translation of the Apocrypha^ and made up what was wanting in Tyndale's translation from Chronicljs to Malachi out of Coverdale's translation. It was this Bible which, revised by Coverdale and edited and re-edited as Cromwell s Bible, 1539, and again as Cra/uners Bible, 1540, was set up in every parish church in England, it got north into Scotland and made the Lowland English more like the London English. It passed over to the Protestant settlements in Ireland. After its revisal in 161 1 it went with the Puritan Fathers to New England and fixed the standard of English in America. Eighty millions of people now speak the English of Tyndale's Bible, and there is no book which has had so great an influence on the style of English literature and the standard of English Prose. In PMward VI. 's reign also Cranmer edited the English Prayer Book, 1549-52. Its English is a good deal mixed with Latin words, and its style is sometimes weak or heavy, but on the whole it is a fine example of stately prose. It also steadied our speech. Latimer, on the contrary, whose Sermon on the Ploughers and others were delivered in 1549 and in 1552, wrote in a plain, shrewd style, which by its humour and rude directness made him the first preacher of his day. On the whole the Reformation fixed and confirmed our English tongue, but at the same time it brought 6 6o ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. ia through theology a large number of Latin words. The pairing of English and Latin words {acknowledge and confess, &c.) in the Prayer Book is a good example of both these results. 49. Poetry in the Sixteenth Century under the Influence of Chaucer. — We shall speak in this section only of the poets in England whose work was due to the publication of Chaucer, Gower, and I^ydgate by Caxton, and go back also to the Scotch poetry which owed itself to the impulse of Chaucer. After a short revival that influence died, and a new one entered from Italy into English verse in the poems of Surrey and VVyatt. The transition period between the one influence and the other is of great interest, and is connected with the names ot Hawes and Skelton. Stephen Hawes, in the reign of Henry VH., re- presented the transition by an imitation of the old work. Amid many poems, more imitative of Lyd- gate than of Chaucer, his long allegorical poem, en- titled the Pastime of Pleasure, is the best. In fact, it is the first, since the middle of the fifteenth century, m. which Imagination agam began to plume her wings and soar. Within the realm of art, it corresponded to that effort to resuscitate the dead body of the Old Chivalry which Henry VIII, and Francis I. attempted. It goes back for its inspiration to the Roi7iance of the Rose, and is an allegory of the right education of a knisiht, showing how Grand Amour won at last La Bel Pucell. But, like all false resurrections, it died quickly. On the other hand, John Skelton represents the transition by at first following the old poetry, and then, pressed upon by the storm of human life in the pre- sent, by taking an original line. His imitative poetry belongs mostly to Henry VII.'s time, but when the religious and political disturbances began in Henry VIII.'s time, Skelton became excited by the cry of the III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 6i l)eople for Churcii reformation. His poem, Why come ye not to Court i was a fierce satire on the great Cardinal. That of Colin Clout was the cry of the country CoHn, and of the Clout or mechanic of the town against the corruption of the Church ; and it represents the whole popular feeling of the time just before the movement of the Reformation took a new turn from the opposition of the Pope to Henry's divorce. Both are written in short "rude rayling rimes, pleasing only the popular ear," and Skelton chose them for that purpose. Both have a rough, impetuous power ; their language is coarse, full even of slang, but Skelton could use any language he pleased. He was an admirable scholar. Erasmus calls him the " glory and light of English letters," and Caxton says that he improved our language. His poem, the Boivge of Court (rewards of court), is full of powerful satire against the corruption of the times, and of vivid impersonations of the virtues and vices. But ho was not only the satirist. The pretty and new love lyrics that we owe to him foreshadow the P21i/a- bethan imagination and life ; and the Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe, which tells the s;rief of a nun called Jane Scrope for the death of her sparrow, in one of the gayest and most inventive poems in the language. Skelton stands quite alone between the decay of the direct influence of Chaucer, whose last true imitator he was, and the rise of a new Italian influence in England in the poems of Surrey and Wyatt. In his own special work he was entirely original, and standing thus be- tween two periods of poetry, he is a kind of landmark in English literature. The Ship of Fooles, 1508, by Barclay, is of this time, but it has no value. It is a recast of a work published at Basel. It was pojiular because it attacked the follies and questions of the time. Its sole interest to us is in its pictures of familiar manners and popular customs. But Barclay did other work, and he was the first who brought the 62 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. eclogue into England. With him the transition time is over, and the curtain is ready to rise on the Eliza- bethan age of poetry. While we wait, we will make an interlude out of the work of the poets of Scotland. SCOTTISH POETRY. 50. Scottish Poetry is poetry written in the English tongue by men living in Scotland. These men, though calling themselves Scotchmen, are of good English blood. But the blood, as I think, was mixed with an infusion of Celtic blood. Old Northumbria extended from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, leaving however on its western border a Une of unconquered land, which took in Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmorland in our England, and, over the border, most of the western country between the Clyde and Solway Firth. This unconquered country was the Welsh kingdom of Strathclyde, and was dwelt in by the Celtic race. The present English part of it was soon conquered and the Celts driven out. But in the part to the north of the Solway Firth the Celts were not driven out. They remained, lived with the Englishmen who were settled over the old Northumbria, intermarried with them and became under Scot kings one mixed people. Literature in the Lowlands then would have Celtic elements in it; literature in England was purely Teutonic. The one sprang from a mixed, the other from an unmixed race. I draw attention to this, because it seems to me to account for certain peculi- arities which, especially Celtic, are infused through the whole of Scottish poetry. 51. Celtic Elements of Scottish Poetry. — The first of these is the love of wild nature for its oicn sake. There is a passionate, close, and poetical observation and description of natural scenery in Scotland from the earliest times of its poetry, such III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 63 as we do not possess in Knglish poetry till thj time of Wordsworth. The second is the love of colour. All early Scottish poetry ditifers from English in the extra- ordinary way in which colour is insisted on. and at times in the lavish exaggeration of it. Tiie third is the wifiier and coarser /tumour in the Scottish poetry, which is distinctly Celtic in contrast with that humour which has its root in sadness and which belongs to the Teutonic races. Few things are really more different than the humour of Chaucer and the humour of Dunbar, than the humour of Cowper and the humour of Burns. These are the special Celtic elements in the Lowland poetry. 52. Its National Elements came into it from the circumstances under which Scotland rose into a separate kingdom. The first of these is the strong, almost fierce assertion of national life. The Kng- lish were as national as the Scots, and felt the emotion of patriotism as strongly. But they had no need to assert it ; they were not oppressed. But for nearly forty years the Scotch resisted for their very life the efforts of England to conquer them. And the war of freedom left its traces on their poetry from Barbour to Burns and Walter Scott in the almost obtrusive way in which Scotland, and Scottish liberty, and Scottish heroes are thrust forward in their verse. Their passionate nationality appears in another form in their descriptive poetry. The natural description of Chaucer, Shakspere, or even Milton, is not dis- tinctively English. But in Scotland it is always the scenery of their own land that the poets describe. Even when they are imitating Chaucer they do not imitate his conventional landscape. They put in a Scotch landscaj)e ; and in tiie work of such men as Gawin Douglas the love of Scotland and the love of nature mingle their influences together to make him sit down, as it were, to paint, with his eye on every- thing he paints, a scries of Scotch landscapes. 6* 64 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 53. Its Individual Element. — There is one more special element in early Scotch poetry which arose, I think, out of its pohtical circumstances. All through the struggle for freedom, carried on as it was at first by small bands under separate leaders till they all came together under a leader like Bruce, a much greater amount of individuality, and a greater habit of it, was created among the Scotch than among the English. Men fought for their own land and lived in their own way. Every little border chieftain, almost every border farmer was or felt himself to be his own master. The poets would be likely to share in this individual quaUty, and in spite of the overpowering influence of Chaucer, to strike out new veins of poetic thought and new methods of poetic expression. And this is what happened. Long before forms of poetry like the short pastoral or the fable had appeared in England, the Scottish poets had started them. They were less docile imitators than the English, but their work in the new forms they started was not so good as the after English work in the same forms. 54. The first of the Scottish poets, omitting Thomas of Erceldoune, is John Barbour, Archbishop of Aberdeen. His long poem of The Bruce^ 13 7 5-7? represents the whole of the eager struggle for Scottish freedom against the English which closed at Bannockburn ; and the national spirit, which I have mentioned, springs in it, full grown, into life. But it is temperate, it does not pass into the fury ag^ainst England, which is so plain in writers like Blind Harry, who, about 1461, composed a long poem in the heroic couplet of Chaucer on the deeds of William Wallace. Barbour was often in England for the sake of study, and his patriotism though strong is tolerant of England. In Henry V.'s reign, Andrew OF Wyntoun wrote his Oryginale Cronykil of Scot- land, one of the riming chronicles of the time. It is HI.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 65 only in the next poet that we find the influence of Chaucer, and it is hereafter continuous till the Elizabethan time. Jamp:s the First of Scotland was prisoner in England for nineteen years, till 1422. There he read Chaucer, and foil in love with Lady jane Beaufort, niece of Henry IV. The poem which he wrote — Ihe Kings Qiihair (the quire or book) — is done in imitation of Chaucer, and in Chaucer's seven- lined stanza, which from James's use of it is called Rime Royal. In six cantos, sweeter, tenderer, and purer than any verse till we come to Spenser, he describes the beginning of his love and its happy end. "I must write," he says, "so much because I have come so from Hell to Heaven." Nor did the flower of his love and hers ever fade. She defended him in the last ghastly scene of murder when his kingly life ended. Though imitative of Chaucer, his work has an original element in it. The natural description is more varied, the colour is more vivid, and there is a modern self-reflective (juality, a touch of spiritual feel- ing which does not belong to Chaucer at all. The poems of The Kirk on the Green and Peebles to the Flay have been attributed to him. If they be his, he originated a new vein of poetry, which Burns afterwards carried out — the comic and satirical ballad poem. But they are more likely to be by James V. Robert Henrvson, who died before 1508, a school- master in J )unfermline, was also an imitator of Chaucer, and his lestament of Cresseid continues Chaucer's Troiliis. But he set on foot two new forms of poetry. He made poems out of ih^ fables. They ditTer entirely from the short, neat form in which Gay and La Fon- taine treated the fable. They are long stories, full of pleasant dialogue, political allusions, and with elabo- rate morals attached to them. They have a peculiar Scottish tang, and are full of descriptions of Scotch scenery. H.; also began the short pastoral in his 66 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Robin and Alakyne. It is a natural, prettily-turned dialogue ; and a flashing Celtic wit, such as charms us in Duncan Grey, runs through it. The individuality which struck out two origiaal lines of poetic work in these poems appears again in his sketch of the graces of womanhood in the Garmeiit of Good Ladies; a poem of the same type as those thoughtful lyrics which describe what is best in certain phases of professions, or of life, such as Sir H. Wotton's Character of a Happv Life, or Wordsworth's ILappy Warrior. But among many poets whom we need not mention, the greatest is William Dunbar. He carries the influence of Chaucer on to the end of the fifteenth cen- tury and into the sixteenth. Few have possessed a more masculine genius, and his work was as varied in its range as it was original. He followed the form and plan of Chaucer in his two poems of The Thistle and the Rose, 1533, and the Golden Terge, 1508, the first on the marriage of James IV. to Margaret Tudor, the second an allegory of Love, Beauty, Reason, and the poet. In both, though they begin with Chaucer's conventional May morning, the natural description becomes Scottish, and in both the national enthusiasm of the poet is strongly mar.:ed. But he soon ceased to imitate. The vigorous fun of the satires and the satirical ballads that he wrote is only matched by their coarseness, a coarseness and a fun that descended to Burns. Perhaps Dunbar's genius is still higher in a wild poem in which he personifies the seven deadly sins, and describes their dance, with a mixture of horror and humour which makes the little thing unique. A man almost as remarkable as Dunbar is Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, who died in 1522, at the Court of Henry VIII., and was buiied in the Savoy. He is the author of tlu first metrical English translation from the original of any Latin book. He translated Ovid's Art of Love, and afterwards, with III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 67 truth and spirit, the .F.neids of Vergil, 15 13. To each book of the /-Eneid \:i wrote a prologue of his own. And it is chiefly by these that he takes rank among the Scottish poets. Three of them are descriptions of the country in May, in Autumn, and in Winter. The scenery is altogether Scotch, and- the {t.\f Chaucerisms that appear seem absurdly out of place ill a picture of nature which is as close as if it had been done by Keats in his early time. The colour is superb, the landscape is described with an excessive detail, but it is not composed by any art into a whole. There is nothing like it in England till Thomson's Seasons, and Thomson was a .Scotchman. Only the Celtic love of nature can account for the vast distance between work li'^e this and contemporary work in England such as Skelton'.s. Of Douglas's other origi- nal work, one poem, the Palace of Honour, 1501, continues the influence of Chaucer. Thjre were a number of other Scottish poets who are all remembered by Dunbar in his Lament for the Makars, and praised by Sir David Lyndsay, whom it is best to mention in this place, because he still connects Scottish poetry with Chaucer. He was born about 1490, and is the last of the old Scottish school, and the most popular. He is the most popular because he is not only the Poet, but also the Reformer. His poem the Dreme, 1528, links him back to Chaucer. It is in the manner of the old poet But its scenery is Scottish, and instead of the May morn- ing of Chaucer, it opens on a winter's day of wind and sleet. The place is a cave over the sea, whence Lyndsay sees the weltering of the ocean. Chaucer goes to sleep over Ovid or Cicero, Lyndsay falls into a dream as he thinks of the ''false world's insta- bility," wavering like the sea waves. The diff'erence marks not only the diff'erence of the two countries, but the difl'erent natures of the men. Chaucer diei not care much for the popular storms, and loved the 68 ENGLISH L HERA TURE [chap. Court more than the Commonweal. Lyndsay in the Dreme and in two other poems — the Co77iplamt to the King, and the Testament of the Kijig's Fapyngo — is absorbed in the evils and sorrows of the people, in the desire to reform the abuses of the Church, of the Court, of larty, of the nobility. In 1539 his Satij-e of the Three Estates, a Morality interspersed with interludes, was represented before James V. at Lin- lithgow. It was first acted in 1535, and was a daring attack on the ignorance, profligacy, and exactions of the priesthood, on the vices and flattery of the favourites — " a mocking of abuses used in the country by diverse sorts of estates." A still bolder poem, and one thought so even by himself, is the Monarchie, 1553, his last work. Reformer as he was, he was more a social and political than a religious one. He bears the same relation to Knox as Langland did to Wiclif. When he was sixty-five years old he saw the fruits of his work. Ecclesiastical councils met to reform the Church. But the reform soon went beyond his temperate wishes. In 1557, the Reformation in Scotland was fairly launched, when in December the Congregation signed the Bond of Association. Lyndsay had died three years before ; he is as much the reformer, as he is the poet, of a transition time. "Still his verse hath charms," but it was neither sweet nor imaginative. He had genuine satire, great moral breadth, much preaching power in verse, coarse, broad humour in plenty, and more dramatic power and invention than the rest of his fellows. 55. Italian Influence : Wyatt and Surrey. — While poetry under Skelton and Lyndsay became an instrument of reform, it revived as an art at the close of Henry VIII. 's reign in Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. They were both Italian travellers, and in bringing back to England the inspira- tion they had gained from Petrarca thev re-made English poetry. They are our first really modern III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 69 I)oets ; the first who have anything of the modem manner. Though Itahan in sentiment, their language IS more Enghsh than Chaucer's, that is, they use fewer romance words. They handed down this purity of English to the lUizabethan poets, to backville, Spenser, and Shakspere. They introduced a - new kind of jjoetry, the amourist poetry. The " amourists," as they are called, were poets who composed a heries of poems on the subject of love — sonnets mingled with lyrical pieces after the manner of I'etrarca, and. in acccrd with the love philosophy he built on Plato. The Hundred Passions of Watson, the sonnets of Sidney, Shakspere, Spenser, and Drum- mond, are all poems of this kind, and the same impulse in a similar form appears in the sonnets of Rossetti and of Mrs. Browning. The subjects of Wyatt and Surrey were chiefly lyrical, and the fact that they imitated the same model has made some likeness between them. Like their personal characters, however, the poetry of Wyatt is the more thoughtful and the more strongly felt, but Surrey's has a sweeter move- ment and a livelier fancy. Both did this great thing for English verse — they chose an exquisite model, and • in imitating it "corrected the ruggedness of English poetry." Such verse as Skelton's became impossible. A new standard was made below^ which the after poets could not fall. They also added new stanza mea- sures to English verse, and enlarged in this way the " lyrical range." Surrey was the first, in his trans- lation of the Second and Eourth Books of VergiFs ALfieid, to use the ten syllabled, unrimed verse, which we now call blank verse. In his hands it is not worthy of praise; it had neither the true form nor harmony into which it grew afterwards. Sackville, Eord Buckhurst, introduced it into drama ; Marlowe, in his Tambur/aine, made it the proper verse of the drama, and Shakspere, Beaumont, and Massinger used it splendidly. In jjlays it has a 70 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. special manner of its own ; in poetry proper it was, we may say, not only created but perfected by Milton. The new impulse thus given to poetry was all but arrested by the bigotry that prevailed during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, and all the work of the New Learning seemed to be useless. But Thomas Wilson's book in English on Rhetoric and Logic in 1553, and the publication of Thomas Tusser's Fointts of Husbandrie and of Tottel's Miscellany of U?icertain Authors, 1557, in the last years of Mary's reign, proved that something was stirring beneath the gloom. The latter book contained the poems of Surrey and Wyatt, and others by Grimoald, by Lord Vaux, and Lord Berners. The date should be remembered, for it is the first printed book of modern English poetry. It proves that men cared now more for the new than the old poets, that the time of imitation of Chaucer was over, and that of original creation begun. It ushers in the Elizabethan literature. iv.J LITER^ITURE OF ELIZABETirS REIGN, 71 CHAPTER IV. THE LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN, 1559 1603. Sackville's Mirror of Mni;ish\i/fs, 1559. — lyly's Euphues. — bpenser's Suep/uanies Calender, 1579. — Sidney's Arcadia, 1580 — Hooker's Eccle^iasiical Polity, 1594. — Bacon's Essays, 1597, Spenser born, 1552 ; /''aerie Queen, 1590- 1595; clieei, 1598. — \V. Warner's, S. Daniel's, M. Dray- ton's historical poems, 1595-1598. — Sir J. Davies's and Lord Brooke'i^ p/iilosop/i/cal poems, 1599-1620. 7'Ae Drama. — First Miracle Play, 1110. — In;erliules of J. Heywood, 1530. — I'ij-st English Comedy. 154L)?— First English Tragedy, 1562.— First English theatre, 1576- — Marlowe's I'amburlaine, 1587. — Sliakspcre born, 1564; Love's Labours LoU, 1588 ; Merchant of Venice, 1596 ; Hamlet, 1602; Cymbeliue, 1610; Henry VIII., 1613; died, 1616. — Ben Jonson begins work, 1596; dies, 1637. — Beaumont and Fletcher in James I.'s reign. Webster's first Flay, 1612. — Massinger begins 1620 ; tlies, 1639.— John Ford's first Play, 1629.— James Shirley, last Elizabethan Dramatist, lives to 1666 ; Pheatre closed, 1642 ; opens again, 1656. 56. Elizabethan Literature, as a literature, may be said to begin with Surrey and Wyatt. But as their poems were publislied shortly before I'^lizabeth came to the throne, we date the beginning of the early period of Elizabethan literature from the year of her accession, 1559. That period lasted till 1579, and was followed by the great literary out- burst of the days of Spenser and Shakspere. The apparent suddenness of this outburst has been an object of wonder. Men have searched for its causes, chiefly in the causes which led to the revival of learning, and no doubt these bore on l>ngland as they did on the whole of Europe. But we shall best seek its nearest causes in the work done 72 ENGLISH LIT ERA TURE. [chap, during the early years of Elizabeth, and in doing so we shall find that the outburst was not so sudden after all. It was preceded by a very various, plentiful, but inferior literature, in which new forms of poetry and prose-writmg were tried, and new veins of thought opened, which were afterwards wrought out fully and splendidly. All the germs of the coming age are to be found in thesetwenty years. The outburst of a plant into flovrer seems sudden, but the whole growth of the plant has caused it, and the flowering of Elizabethan literature was the slow result of the growth of the previous literature and the influences that bore upon it. 57. First Elizabethan Period, 1559-1579. — (i.) The literary prose of the beginning of this time is represented by the Schokmaster of Ascham, published 1570. This book, which is on education, is the work of the scholar of the new learning of the reign of Henry VIII. who has lived on into another period. It is not, properly speaking, Elizabethan ; it is like a stranger m a new land and among new manners. (2.) Poetry is first represented by Sackville, Eord Buckhurst. The Mirror of Magistrates^ i559^ for which he wrote the Induction and one tale, is a poem on the model of Boccaccio's Falls of Princes, already imitated by Lydgate. Seven poets, along with Sackville, contributed tales to it, but his poem is the only one of any value. The Induction paints the poet's descent into Avernus, and his meeting with Henry Stafl"ord, Duke of Buckingham, whose fate he teils with a grave and inventive imagination. Being written in the manner and stanza of the elder poets, this poem has been called the transition between Lydgate and Spenser. But it does not truly belong to the old time ; it is as modern as Spenser, and its allegorical representations are in the same manner as those of Spenser. George Gascoigne, whose satire, i}[\oeiry which were of great use to the poets. Lyrical poetry, and that which we may call "occasional jjoeiry," were now fairly started. The popular Ballads took a wide range. The registers of the Stationers' Company prove that there was scarcely any event of the day, nor almost any controversy in literature, politics, religion, which was not the subject of verse, and of verse into which imagination strove to enter. The ballad may be said to have done the work of the modern wetkly review. It stimulated and informed the intellectual life of England. (3.) Frequc7it tra7islations were now made from the classical writers. We know the names of more than twelve men who did this work, and there must have been many more. Already in Henry VIII.'s and Edward VI. 's time, ancient authors had been made English; and before 1579, Vergil, Ovid, Cicero, Demosthenes, and many Greek and Latin plays, were translated. Among the rest, Phaer's Vergil, 1562, Arthur (folding's Ovid's Mctam. 1565, and George Turbervillc's Hist. Epis. of Ovid, 1567, are, and especi- ally the first, remarkable. In this way the best models were brought before the PLnglish people, and it is in the influence of the spirit of Greek and Roman literature on literary form and execution that we are to find one of the most active causes of the greatness of the later Elizabethan literature. Nor were the old English poets neglected. Though Chaucer, and Lydgate, Langland and the rest, were no longer imitated in this time of fresh creation, they 74 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. were studied, and they added their impulse of life to original poets like Spenser. (4.) Theological Beform stirred men to another kind of literary work. A great number of polemical ballads, and pamphlets, and plays issued every year from obscure presses and filled the land. Poets like George Gascoigne, and still more Barnaby Googe, re- present in their work the hatred the young men had of the old religious system. It was a spirit which did not do much for literature, but it quickened the habit of composition, and made it easier. The Bible also became common property, and its language glided into all theological writing and gave it a literary tone ; while the publication of John Foxe's Acts and Motiiimefits or Book of Martyrs, 1563, gave to the people all over England a book which, by its simple style, the ease of its story-telling, and its popular charm made the very peasants who heard it read feel what is meant by literature. (5.) The history of the country and its manners was not neglected. A whole class of antiquarians wrote steadily, if with some dulness, on this subject. Grafton, Stow, Holinshed and others, at least sup- plied materials for the study and use of the historical dramatists. (6.) The love of stories grew quickly. The old English tales and ballads were eagerly read and collected. Italian tales by various authors were translated and sown so broadcast over London by William Painter in his collection, The Palace of Pleasure, 1566, by George Turbervile, in his Tragical Tales in verse, and by others, that it is said they were to be bought at every bookstall. The Romances of Spain and Italy poured in, and Amadis de Gaul, and the companion romances the Arcadia of Sanna- zaro, and the Ethiopian History, were sources of books like Sidney's Arcadia and, with the classics, sup- plied materials for the pageants. A great number of IV.] LITERATUkE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 75 subjects for prose and poetry were thus made ready for literary men, and prose fiction became possible in English literature. (7.) The masques, pai:^eants, interludes, and plays that were written at this time are scarcely to be counted. At every groat eeremonial, whenever the queen made a progress or visited one of the great lords or a university, at the houses of the nobility, and at the court on all important days, some obscure versifier, or a young scholar at the Inns of Court, at Oxford or at Cambridge, produced a masque or a pageant, or wrote or translated a play. The habit of play-writing became common ; a kind of school, one might almost say a manufacture of plays, arose, which partly accounts for the rapid production, the excellence, and the multitude of plays that we find after 1576. Re- presented all over England, these masques, pageants, and dramas were seen by the people, who were thus accustomed to take an interest, though of an unedu- cated kind, in the larger drama that was to follow. The literary men on the other hand ransacked, in order to find subjects and scenes for their pageants, ancient and mediaeval, magical, and modern litera- ture, and many of them in doing so became fine scholars. The imagination of England was quickened and educated in this way, and as Biblical stories were also largely used, the images of oriental life were added to the materials of imagination. (8.) Another influence bore on literature. It was that given by the stories of the voyagers, who, in the new commercial activity of the country, penetrated inio strange lands, and saw the strange monsters and savages which the poets now added to the fairies, dwarfs, and giants of the Romances. Before 1579, books had been published on the north-west passage. Frobishcr had made his voyages and Drake had started, to return in 1580 to amaze all P^.ngland with the story of his sail round the world and of the riches 76 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. of the Spanish Main. We may trace everywhere in Elizabethan literature the impression made by the wonders told by the sailors and captains who ex- plored and fought from the North Pole to the Southern Seas. (9.) Lastly, we have proof that there was a large number of persons writing who did not publish their works. It was considered at this time, that to write for the public injured a man, and unless he were driven by poverty he kept his manuscript by him. But things w^ere changed when a great genius like Spenser took the world by storm ; when Lyly's Euphues en- chanted the whole of court society ; when a great gentleman like Sir Philip Sidney became a writer. Literature was made the fashion, and the disgrace being taken from it, the production became enormous. Manuscripts written and laid by were at once sent forth ; and when the rush began it grew by its own force. Those who had previously been kept from writing by its unpopularity now took it up eagerly, and those who had written before wrote twice as much now. The great improvement also in literary quality is easily accounted for by this — that men strove to equal such work as Sidney's or Spenser's, and that a wider and more exacting criticism arose. Nor must one omit to say, that owing to this employment of life on so vast a number of subjects, and to the voyages, and to the new literatures searched into, and to the heat of theological strife, a multitude of new words streamed into the language, and enriched the vocabulary of imagination. Shakspere uses 15,000 words. 58. The Later Literature of Elizabeth's Reign, 1579-1602, begins with the publication of Lyly's Euphues and Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar, both in 1579, and with the writing of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia and his Defence of Poetrie, 1580-81. It will be best to leave the poem oif Spenser aside till IV.] LITERATURE OF LLlZABETirs REIGN. 77 we come to write of the poets. The Euphues and the Arcadia carried on the story tclHng hterature ; the Defence of Poetrie created a new form of Hterature, that of criticism. The Euphues was the work of John Lvi.y, poet and dramatist. It is in two -parts, Euphues the Anatomie of IVd, and Euphues ami his England. In six years it ran through five editions, so great was its popularity. Its prose style is too poetic, but is admirable for its smoothness and charm, and its very fiiults were of use in softening the rudeness of previous prose. The story is long, and is more a loose framjwork into which Lyly could fit his thoughts on love, friendship, education, and reHgion, than a true story. The second part brings Euphues, the young A henian, to England through Dover and Canterbury to London, and is filled up with two stories ; and supplemented by Euphues' Glass for Europe. It made its mark because it fell in with all the fantastic and changeable life of the time. Its far-fetched conceits, its extravagance of gallantry, its endless metaphors from the classics and natural history, its curious and gorgeous descriptions of dress, and its pale imitation of chivalry, were all reflected in the life and talk and dress of the court of Elizabeth. It becimti the fashion to talk " Euphuism," and, like the Utopia of More, Lyly's book has created an English word. The Arcadia was the work of Sir Philip Sidney, and though written in 1580, did not appear till after his death. It is more poetic in style than the Euphues, and Sidney himself, as he wrote it under the crees of Wilton, would have called it a pastoral poem. It is less the image of the time than of the man. We all know that bright and noble figure, the friend of Spenser, the lover of Stella, the last of the old knights, the poet, the critic, and the Christian, who, wounded to the death, gave up the cup of water to a dying yS ENGL ISH LIl 'ERA I URE. [c ii a p. soldier. We find his whole spirit in the story of the Arcadia, in the first two books and part of the third, which alone were written by him. It is a romance mixed up with pastoral stories, after the fashion of the Spanish romances. The characters are real, but the story is confused by endless digressions. The sentiment is too fine and delicate for the world. The descriptions are picturesque and the sentences made as perfect as possible. A quaint or poedc thought or an epigram appear in every line. There is no real art in it, or in its prose. But it is so full of poetical thought that it became a mine into which poets dug for subjects. 59. Criticism began with Sidney's Art of Poetrie, Its style shows us that he felt how faulty the prose of the Arcadia was. The book made a new step in the creation of a dignified English prose. It is still too flowery, but in it the fantastic prose of his own Arcadia and of the Euphiies dies. As criticism, it is chiefly concerned with poetry. It defends, against Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse, in which poetry and plays were attacked from the Puritan point of view, the nobler uses of poetry. Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser are praised, and the other poets made little of in its pages. It was followed by Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie written " to stirre up some other of meet abilitie to bestow travell on the matter." Already the other was travailing, and the Arte of English Poesie, supposed to be written by George Puttenham, was published in 1589. It is the most elaborate book on the whole subject in Elizabeth's reign, and it marks the strong interest now taken in poetry in the highest society that the author says he writes it "to help the courtiers and the gentlewomen of the court to write good poetry, that the art may become vulgar for all Englishmen's use." 60. Later Prose Literature. — (i.) Theological Literature remained for some years after 1580 only IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETirS REIGN. 79 a literature of pamphlets. Puritanism in its attack on the stage, and in the Martin Marprelate con- troversy upon episcopal government in the Church, flooded Kngland with small books. Lord Bacon even joined in the latter controversy, anil Nash the dramatist made himsek" famous in the war by the vigour and fierceness of his wnt. Over this troubled sea rcse at last the stately work of Richard Hooker. It was in 1594 that the first four books cf The Laws of Eaiesiastical Polity^ a defence of the Church against the Puritans, were given to the world. Before his death he finished the other four. The book has remained ever since a standard work. It is as much moral and political as theological. Its style is grave, clear, and often musical. He adorned it with the figures of poetry, but he used them with temperance, and the grand and rolling rhetoric with which he often concludes an argument is kept for its right place. On the whole, it is the first monument of splendid literary prose that we possess. (2.) We may place alongside of it, as the other great prose work of Elizabeth's later time, the de- velopment of The Essay in Lord Bacon's Essays, 1597. Their highest literary merit is their combina tion of charm and even of poetic prose with concise- ness of expression and fulness of thought. The rest of Bacon's work belongs to the following reign. (3.) The Literature of Travel was carried on by the publication in 1589 of Hakluyt's Navigation, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Natio?i. The influence of a compilation of this kind, containing the great deeds of the English on the seas, has been felt ever since in the literature of fiction and poetry. (4.) /// the Tales, which poured out like a flood from the dramatists, from such men as Peele, and Lodge, and Greene, we find the origin of English fiction, and the subjects of many of our plays ; while the fantastic desire to revive the practices of chivalry 6* 8o ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap, which was expressed in the Arcadia, found food in the continuous translation of romances, chiefly of the Charlemagne cycle, but now more from Spain than from France ; and in the reading of the Italian poets, Boiardo, Tasso, and Ariosto, who supplied a crowd of our books with the machinery of magic, and with conventional descriptions of nature and of women's beauty. 6r. Edmund Spenser. — The later Elizabethan poetry begins with the Shepheardes Calendar of Spenser. Spenser was born in London in 1552, and educated at the Merchant Taylors' Grammar School which he left for Cambridge in April, 1569. There seems to be evidence that in this year the Sonnets of Petrarca and the Visions of Bellay, after- wards published in 1591, were written by him for a miscellany of verse and prose issued by Vander Noodt, a refugee Flemish physician. At sixteen or seven- teen then he began literary work. At college, Gabriel Harvey, a scholar and critic, and the Hobbi7ioll of Spenser's works, and Edward Kirke, the E. K. of the Shepheardes Calendar, were his friends. In 1576 he took his degree of M.A., and before he returned to London spent some time in the wilds of Lanca- shire, where he fell in love with the "Rosalind" of his poetry, a ''fair widowe's daughter of the glen." His love was not returned, a rival inter- fered, but he clung fast until his marriage to this early passion. His disappointment drove him to the South, and there, 1579, he was made known through Leicester to Leicester's nephew, Philip Sidney. With him, and perhaps at Penshurst, \\\^ Shepheardes Calendar was finished for the press, and the Faerie Queen con- ceived. The publication of the former work made Spenser the first poet of the day, and so fresh and musical, and so abundant in new life were its twelve eclogues, that men felt that at last England had given birth to a poet as original as Chaucer. Each month IV.] LITER Air RE OE ELIZA BETIPS REIGN. 8i of the year bad its own eclogue; some were concerned with his shattered love, two of them were fables, three of them satires on the lazy clergy ; one was devoted to fair I'^iza's praise. 'J'he others belong to rustic shepherd life. The English of Chaucer is imitated, but the work is full at a new spirit, and as Spenser had begun with translating Petrarca, so here, in two of the eclogues, he miitates Clement Marot. The " Puritanism " of the poem is the same as tliat of the Faerie Queen. Save in abliorrence of Rome, Spencer does not share in the politics of Puritanism. Nor does he separate himself from the world. He is as much at home in society and with the arts as any literary courtier of the day. He was Puritan in his attack on the sloth and pomp of the clergy ; but his moral ideal, built up, as it was, out of Christianity and Platonism, rose far above the narrower ideal of Puritanism. In the next year, 1580, he went to Ireland with Lord Grey of Wilton as secretary, and after- wards saw and learnt that condition of things which he described in his Vie^v of the Frese?ii State of Ire- land. He was made Clerk of Degrees in the Court of Chancery in 1581, and Clerk of the Council of Munster in 15S6, audit was then that the manor and castle of Kilcolman were granted to him. Here, at the foot of the Galtees, and bordered to the north by the wild country, the scenery of which fills the Faerie Queen, and in whose woods and savage places such adventures constantly took place in the service of Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queen, the first three books of that great poem were written. 62. The Faerie Queen. — The plan of the poem, so impossible to discover from the poem itself, is described in Spenser's prefatory letter to Raleigh. The twelve books were to tell the warfare of twelve Knights, in whom the twelve virtues of Aristotle were represented; and their warfare was against the vices 82 ENGLISH LITERATURE, [chap. and errors, impersonated, which opposed those virtues. In Arthur, the Prince — for the machinery of the poem is from the old Celtic story — the Magnificence of the whole of virtue is represented, and he was at last to unite himself in marriage to the Faerie Queen, that divine glory of God to which all human act and thought aspired. Six books of this plan were finished ; the legends of Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity, of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. The two post- humous cantos on Mutability seem to have been part of the seventh legend, on Constancy. Alongside of the spiritual allegory is the historical one, in which Elizabeth is Gloriana, and Mary of Scotland is Duessa, and Leicester, and at times Sidney, is Prince Arthur, and Arthegall is Lord Grey, and Raleigh is Timias, and Philip IL the Soldan, or Grantorto. In the midst, other allegories slip in, referring to events of the day, and Elizabeth becomes Belphoebe and Britomart, and Mary is Radegund, and Sidney is Calidore, and Alen^on is Braggadochio. The dreadful "justice" done in Ireland, by the ^' iron man," and the wars in Belgium, and Norfolk's conspiracy, and the Armada, and the trial of Mary are also shadowed forth. The allegory is clear in the first two books. After- wards it is troubled with digressions, sub-allegories, genealogies, with anything that Spenser's fancy led him to introduce. Stories are dropt and never taken up again, and the whole tale is so tangled that it loses the interest of narrative. But it retains the interest of exquisite allegory. It is the poem of the noble powers of the human soul struggling towards union with God, and warring against all the forms of evil ; and these powers become real personages, whose lives and battles Spenser tells in verse so musical and so gliding, so delicately wrought, so rich in imaginative ornament, and so inspired with the finer Hfe of beauty, that he has been called the poets' Poet. Descriptions like those of the House cf Pride and the Mask of IV.] Ln^ERATURE OF EL/ZABET/rS RE/CX. 83 Cupid, and of the Months, are so vivid in form and colour, that tliey have always made subjects for artists; while the allegorical personages are, to the very last detail, wrought out by an imagination which describes not only the general character, but the si)ecial characteristics of the Virtues or the Vices, of the Months of the year, or of the Rivers of Kngland. In its ideal whole, the jjoem represents the new love of chivalry, of classical learning ; the delight in mystic theories of love and religion, in allegorical schemes, in splendid spectacles and pageants, in wild adventure ; the love of England, the hatred of Spain, the strange worship of the Queen, even Spenser's own new love. It takes up and uses the popular legends of fairies, dwarfs, and giants, all the machinery of the Italian ei)ics, and mingles them up with the wild scenery of Ireland and the savages and wonders of the New World. Almost the whole spirit of the Renaissance under Elizabeth, except its coarser and baser elements, is in its pages, Of anything impure, or ugly, or violent, there is no trace. And Spenser adds to all his ow^n sacred love of love, his own pre- eminent sense of the loveliness of loveliness, walking through the whole of this woven world of faerie — •&' ** Willi the moon's beauty and ihe moon's >oft pace." The first three books were finished in Ireland, and Raleigh listened to them in 1589 at Kilcolman Castle, among the alder shades of the river MuUa that fed the lake below the castle. Delighted with the poem, he brought Spenser to England, and the Queen, the court, and the whole of England soon shared in Raleigh's delight. It was the first great ideal poem that England had produced, and it is the source of all our modern poetry. It has never ceased to make j)oets, and it will live, as lie said in his dedication to the Queen, "with the etcrnitie of her fame." 8 84 ENGLISH LITER A TURE, [chap. 63. Spenser's Minor Poems. — The next year, 1591, Spenser being still in England, collected his smaller poems and published them. Among them Mother Hubbard's Tale is a remarkable satire, some- what in the manner of Chaucer, on society, on the evils of a beggar soldiery, of the Church, of the court, and of misgovernment. The Ruitis of Time^ and still more the Tears of the Muses, support the statement that literature was looked on coldly previous to 1580. Sidney had died in 1586, and three of these poems bemoan his death. The others are of slight importance, and the whole collection was entitled Complaints. Re- turning to Ireland, he gave an account of his visit and of the court of Elizabeth in Colin Cloiit's co7ne Home again, 1591, and at last, after more than a year's pur- suit, won his second love for his wife, and found with her perfect happiness. A long series of Sofz?iets records the progress of his wooing, and the Epitha- laniiiim, his marriage hymn, is the most glorious love- song in the English tongue. At the close of 1595 he brought to England in a second visit the last three books of the Faerie Queen. The next year he spent in London, and published these books along with the Frotlialamion on the marriage of Lord Worcester's daughters, the DapJmdida , and the Hymns on Love and Beau'y and o?i Heavenly Love and Beauty. The two first hymns were written in his youth ; the two others, now written, enshrine that love philosophy of Petrarca which makes earthly love find its end in the love of God. The close of his life was sorrowful. In 1598, Tyrone's rebellion drove him out of Ireland. Kilcolman was sacked and burnt, one of his children perished in the flames, and Spenser and his family fled for their lives to England. Broken- hearted, poor, but not forgotten, the poet died in a London tavern. All his fellows went with his body to the grave, where, close by Chaucer, he lies in West- minster Abbey. London, " his most kindly nurse," IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 85 takes care also of his dust, and I'^ngland keeps him in her love. 64. Later Elizabethan Poetry : Transla- tions. — There are three translators that take literary rank among the crowd that carried on the work of the earlier time. Two mark the influence of Italy, one the more ]:)0werful influence of the Greek spirit. Sir John Harington in 1591 translated Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Fairfax in 1600 trans- lated Tasso's Jerusalem, and his book is " one of the glories of Elizabeth's reign.'' But the nob'cst translation is that of Homer's whole work by Georgk Chapman, the dramatist, the first part of which ap- peared in 1598. The vivid life and energy of the time, its creative power and its force, are expressed in this poem, which is " more an Elizabethan tale written about Achilles and Ulysses " than a translation. The rushing gallop of the long fourteen-syllable stanza in which it is written has the fire and swiftness of Homer, but it has not his directness or dignity. Its ** incon- querable quaintness " and diffuseness are as unlike the pure form and light and measure of Greek work as pos- sible. But it is a disrinct poem of such power that it will excite and delight all lovers of poetry, as it excited and delighted Keats. John Florio's Translation of the Essays of Mo?itaigjie, 1603, is also, though in prose, to be mentioned here, because Shakspere used the book, and because we must trace Montaigne's in- fluence on English literature even before his retrans- lation by Charles Cotton. The Four Phases of Poetry after 15S0.— Spenser reflected in his poems the romantic spirit of the English Renaissance. The other poetry of Elizabeth's reign reflected the whole of English Life. The best way to arrange it — omitting as yet the Drama— is in an order parallel to the growth of the national life, and the proof that it is the best way is, that 0:1 the whole such an order is a true 85 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. chronological order. First .then, if we compare England after 1580, as writers have often done, to an ardent youth, we shall find in the poetry of the first years that followed that date all the elements of youth. It is a poetry of love, and romance, and imagination. Secondly^ and later on, when Englishmen grew older in feeling, their enthusiasm, which had flitted here and there in action and literature over all kinds of subjects, settled down into a steady enthusiasm for England itself. The country entered on its early man- hood, and parallel With this there is the great out- burst of historical plays, and a set of poets whom I will call the Patriotic Poets. Thirdly^ and later still, the fire and strength of the people, becoming inward, resulted in a graver and more thoughtful national life, and parallel with this are the tragedies of Shakspere and the poets who have been called philosophical. These three classes of Poets overlapped one another, and grew up gradually, but on the whole their succes- sion is the image of a real succession of national thought and emotion. K fourth and separate phase does not represent, as these do, a new national life, a new religion, and new politics, but the despairing struggle of the old faith against the new. There were numbers of men, such as Wordsworth has finely sketched in old Norton in the Doe of RyhtoJie^ who vainly and sorrowfully strove against all the new national elements. Robert South- well, of Norfolk, a Jesuit priest, was the poet of Roman Catholic England. Imprisoned for three years, racked ten times, and finally executed, he wrote, while confessor to Lady Arundel, a number of poems published at various intervals and finally collected under the title, St. Peter's Complaint, Mary Magdaleris Tears, with other works of the Author, R.S. The McBoiiicE, and a short prose work Marie Magdaleris Funerall Tears, became also very popular. It marks not only the large Roman Catholic element in the country, IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGI^. 87 but also the strange contrasts of the time that eleven editions of books with these tides were published be- tween 1595 and 1609, at a time when the Vams and Adonis of Shakspere led the way for a multitude of poems that sung of love and deligln and England s glory. 65. The Love Poetry.— I have called it by this name because all its best work (to be found in the first book of Mr. Palgrave's " Golden Treasury ") is almost limited to that subject — the subject of youth. It is chiefly composed in the form of songs and sonnets, and much of it was published in miscellanies in and after 1600, The most famous of these, in which men like Nicholas Breton, Henry Constable, Richard Barnefield and others wrote, are England's Helicon, and Davison's Rhapsody and the Passionate Pilgrim. The best of the songs are *' old and plain,' and dallying with the innocence of love," childlike in their natural sweetness and freshness, but full also of a southern ardour of passion when they treat of love. The greater part however have the intemperance as well as the phantasy of a youthful poetry. Shak- spere's excel the others in their firm reality, their ex- quisite ease, and when in the plays, gain a new beauty from their fitness to their dramatic place. Others possess a quaint pastoralism like shepherd life in por- celain, such as Marlowe's well-known song, " Come live with me, and be my love ; " others a splendour of love and beauty as in Lodge's Song of Rosaline, and Spenser's on his marriage. The sonnets were written chiefly in series, and I have already said that such writers are called amourists. Such were Shakspere's and the A?noretti of Spenser, and those to Diana by Constable. They were sometimes mixed with Can- zones and Ballatas after the Italian manner, and the best of them were a series by Sir Philip Sidney. A number of other sonnets and of longer love poems were written by the dramatists before Shakspere, by 88 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Peele and Greene and Marlowe and Lodge, far the finest being the Hero and Leander^ which Marlowe left as a fragment to be completed by Chapman. Mingled up with these were small religious poems, the reflection of the Puritan and the more religious Church element in English society. They were collected under such titles as the handful of Honeysuckles^ the Poor Widow s Mite, Psalms and Sonnets, and there are some good things among them written by William Hunnis. In one Scotch poet, William Drummond of Haw- thornden, the friend of Ben Jonson, the love poet and the religious poet were united. I menUon him here, though his work properly belongs to the reign of James I., because his poetry really goes back in spirit and feeling to this time. He cannot be counted among the true Scottish poets. Drummond is Elizabethan and English, and he is worthy to be named among the lyrical poets below Spenser and Shakspere. His love sonnets have some of the grace of Sidney's, and less qua,intness ; his songs have often the grave simplicity of Wyat, and his religious poems, especially one solemn sonnet on John the Baptist, have a distant resemblance to the grandeur of Milton. 66. The Patriotic Poets. — Among all this poetry of Romance, Chivalry, Religion, and Love, rose a poetry which devoted itself to the glory of England. It was chiefly historical, and as it may be said to have had its germ in the Mirror of Magistrates, so it had its perfect flower in the historical drama of Shak- spere. Men had now begun to have a great pride in England. She had stepped into the foremost rank, had outwitted France, subdued internal foes, beaten and humbled Spain on every sea. Hence the history of the land became precious, and the very rivers and hills and plains honourable, and to be sung and praised in verse. This poetic impulse is best represented in the works of three men — William Warner, Samuel IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S RE/GN. 89 Daniel, and Michael Drayton. Born within a itw years of each other, about 1560, they all lived beyond the century, and the national poetry they set on foot lasted when the romantic poetry died. William Warner's great book was Alhiotis England, 1586, a history of-l^.ngland in verse from the Deluge to Queen Elizabeth. It is clever, humorous, crowded with stories, and runs to 10,000 lines. Its popularity was great, ami the English in which it was written deserved it. Such stories as Argeniile and Ciiran, and the Patient Countess, prove him to have had a true and pathetic vein of poetry. His English is not how- ever better than that of '' well-languaged Daniel," who, among tragedies and pastoral comedies, some noble sonnets and poems of pure fancy, wrote in verse a jiro saic History of the Civil Wars, 1595. Spenser saw in him a new ** shepherd " of poetry who did far surpass the others, and Coleridge says that the style of his Hymen's Triumph may be declared ** imperishable English." Of the three the greatest poet was Drayton. Two historical poems are his work — the Civil Wars of Edward If. and the Barons, and Englafid's Heroical Epistles, 1598. Not content with these, he set him- self to glorify the whole of his land in the Polyolbion, thirty books, and nearly 100,000 lines. It is a de- scription in Alexandrines of the "tracts, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of Britain, with intermixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities, wonders, pleasures, and commo- dities of the same, digested into a poem." It was not a success, though it deserved success. Its great length was against it, but the real reason was that this kind of poetry had had its day. It appeared in 16 13, in James I.'s reign. 67. Philosophical Poets. — Before that time a change had come. As the patriotic poets came after the romantic, so the romantic were followed by the philosophical poets. The land was settled ; 90 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. enterprise ceased to be the first thing ; men sat down to think, and in poetry questions of reb'gious and political philosophy were treated with " sententious reasoning, grave, subtle, and condensed." Shakspere, in his passage from comedy to tragedy, in 1601, illus- trates this change. The two poets who represent it are Sir Jno. Davies and Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. In Davies himself we find an instance of it. His earlier poem of the Oi'chestra^ 1596, in which the whole world is explained as a dance, is as exultant as Spenser. His later poem, 1599, is compact and vigorous reasoning, for the most part without fancy. Its very title, Nosce te ipsiim — Y^novj Thyself— and its divisions, i. "On humane learning," 2. "The im- mortality of the soul " — mark the alteration. Two little poems, one of Bacon's, on the Life of Man, as a bubble, and one of Sir Henry Wotton's, on the Character of a Happy Life, are instances of the same change. It is still more marked in Lord Brooke's long, obscure poems 0?i LLiunan Learning, on Wars, on Mona7xhy, a fid on Religion. They are political and historical treatises, not poems, and all in them, says Lamb, "is made frozen and rigid by intellect." Apart from poetry, "they are worth notice as an indication of that thinking spirit on political science which was to produce the riper speculations of Hobbes, Har- rington, and Locke." We turn now to the Drama, whicn includes all these different forms of poetry. THE DRAMA. 6^. Early Dramatic Representation in Eng- land. — The drama, asin-Greece, so in England, began in religion. In early times none but the clergy could read the stories of their religion, and it was not the custom to deliver sermons to the people. It was neces- sary to instruct uneducated men in the history of the IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 91 Bible, the Christian faith, the lives of the S.iints and Martyrs. Hence the Church set on foot miracle j)lavs and mysteries. We find these first in England about mo, when Geoffrey, afterwarils Abbot of St. Alban's, prepared his miracle play of St. Catherine for acting. Such pla)s becaiiiC more frequent Irom the time of Henry II., and they were so common in Chaucer's days that they were the resort of idle gossips in Lent. The wife of Lath went to " plays of miracles, and marriages." They were acted not only by the clergy, but by the laity. About the year 126S the town guilds began to take them into their own hands, and acted complete sets of plays, setting forth the whole of Scripture history from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. Kach guild took one play in the set. 'J'hcy lasted sometimes three days, sometimes eight, and were represented on a great movablj stage on wheels in the open spaces of the towns. Ot these sets we have three remaining, theTowneley, Coventry, and Chester plays: 1300 — 1600. The first set has 32, the second 42, and the third 25 plays. 69. The Miracle Play was a representation of some portion of Scripture history, or of the life of some Saint of the Church. The Mystery was a representation of any portion of the New Testament history concerned with a mysterious subject, such as the Incarnation, the Atonement or the Resurrection. It has been attempted to distinguish these more par- ticularly, but they are mingled together in f^ngland into one. From the towns they went to the court and the houses of nobles. The Kings kept players of them, and we know that exhibiting Scripture plays at great festivals was part of the domestic regulations of the great houses, and that it was the Chaplain's business to write them. Their " Dumb Show " and their " Chorus " leave their trace in the regular drama. We cannot say that the modern drama arose after them, for it came in before they died out in England. 92 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. They were still acted in Chester in 1577, and in Coventry in 1580. 70. The Morality was the next step to these, and in it we come to a representation which is closely connected with the drama. It was a play in which the characters were the Vices and Virtues, with the addition afterwards of allegorical personages, such as Riches, Good Deeds, Confession, Death, and any human condition or quality needed for the play. These characters were brought together in a rough story, at the end of which Virtue triumphed, or some moral principle was established. The later dramatic/t? >^ s'^ill read in the cottages of England. On the Roman Catholic side, William Habington mingled his devotion to his religion with the praises of his wife under \\\tw2imtoi Castara, 1634; and Richard Crashaw, whose rich inventive- ness was not made less rich by the religious mysticism which finally led him to become a Roman Catholic, j)ublished his St(ps to the Temple in 1646. On the Puritan side, we may now place George Wither, whose Hallelujah, 1641, a series of religious poems, was sent forth just before the Civil War began, when lie left tne king's side to support the Parliament. Even Herrick, in 1648, expressed the pious part of his nature in his Noble Numbers. Finally, religious poetry, after the return of Charles II., passed on tlirough the Davideis of Abraham Cowley, and the Divine Love of Edmund Waller, to find its highest expression in the Paradise Lost. We have thus traced through all its forms the decline of poetry. From this decay we pass into a new created world when we come to speak of Milton. Between the dying poetry of the past and the uprising of a new kind of poetry in Dryden, stands alone the majestic work of a great genius who touches the Elizabethan time with one hand and our own time with the other. 96. John Milton was the last of the Elizabethans, and, except Shakspere, far the greatest of them all. Born in 1608, in Bread-street (close by the Mermaid ii8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Tavern), he may have seen Shakspere, for he re- mained till he was sixteen in London. His literary life may be said to begin with his entrance into Cam- bridge, in 1625, the year of the accession of Charles I. Nicknamed the "Lady of Christ's^' from his beauty and delicate taste and morality, he soon attained a great fame, and during the seven years of his life at the university his poetic genius opened itself in the English poems of which I give the dates. On the Death of a Fair Infant, 1626. At a Vacation Exercise, 1628. Oji the Mo7-ning of Christ's Nativity, 1629. On the Circumcision, On Time, At a Solemn Musick, The Passion, Epitaph on Shakspe?'e, 1630. On the University Carrier, Epitaph on Maixhioness of Wor- cester, 1631 ; Sonnet i., On Attaining the Age of Twenty- three ; Sonnet a., To the Nightingale. The first sonnet, explained by a letter that accompanied it, shows that Milton had given up his intention of becoming a clergyman. He left the university in 1632, and went to live at Horton, near Windsor, where he spent five years, steadily reading the Greek and Latin writer-^, and amusing himself with mathematics and music. Poetry was not neglected. The Allegro and Pense- roso were written in 1633, and probably the Arcades; Co?nus was acted in 1634, and Lycidas composed in 1637. They prove that though Milton was Puritan in heart his Puritanism was of that earlier type which neither disdained the arts nor letters. But they re- present a growing revolt from the Court and the Church. The Penseroso prefers the contemplative life to the mirthful, and Comus, though a masque, rose into a poem to die glory of temperance, and under its allegory attacked the Court. Three years later, Lycidas interrupts its exquisite stream of poetry with a fierce and resolute onset on the greedy shepherds of the Church. Milton had taken his Presbyterian bent. In 1638 he went to Italy, the second home of so V.J ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION. 119 many of the English poets, and visited Florence, where he saw Galileo, and Rome. \\. Naples he heard the sad news of civil war, which determined him to return ; *' inasmuch as 1 tliought it base to be travelling at my ease for amusement, while my fellow- countrymen at home were fighting for libeity." But .I^.earing that the war had not yet arisen, he remained in Italy till the end of 1639, and at the meeting of the I-ong Parliament we find him in a house in Aldersgate, where he lived till 1645. He had pro- jected while abroad a great epic poem on the subject of Arthur (again the Welsh subject returns), but in London his mind changed, and among a number of subjects, lendcd at last to Paradise Lost, which he meant to throw into the form of a Greek 'J'ragedy with lyrics and choruses. 97. Milton's Prose — The Commonwealth. — Suddenly his wliole life changed, and for twenty years — 1640-1660 — he was carried out of art into politics, out of poetry into prose. Most of the Son- tiefs, however, belong to this time. Stately, rugged, or graceful, as he pleased to make thein, some like Hebrew psalms, others having the classic ease of Horace, some even tender as Milton could gravely be, they are true, unlike those of Shakspere and Spenser, to the correct form of this difficult kind of poetry. l»ut they were all he could now do of his true work. Before the Civil War began in 1642, he had written five vigorous pamphlets against Episcopacy. Six more pamphlets a])peared in the next two years. One of these was the Areopa'^itica ; 07; Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Frintin^^, 1644, a bold and eloquent attack on the censorship of the press by the Presby- terians. Another was a tract on Education. The four pamphlets in which he advocated conditional divorce made him still more the horror of the Presbyterians. In 1646 he published his poems, and in that year the sonnet On the Forcers of Conscience U I20 EXCLISH LITERATURE. [chap. shows that he had wholly ceased to be Presbyterian. His political pamphlets begin when his Tejiure of Kings and Magistrates defended in 1649 the execu- tion of the king. The Eikonodastes answered the Eikon Basilike (a portraiture of the sufferings of the king by Dr. Gauden), and his famous Latin Defence for the People of Engla7id, 1651, replied to Salmasius' Defence of Charles /, and inflicted so pitiless a lashing on the great Leyden scholar, that his fame went over the whole of Europe. In the next year he wholly lost his sight. But he continued his work (being Latin secretary since 1649) when Cromwell was made Protector, and wrote another Defence for the Eng- lish People, 1654, and a further Defence of himself against scurrilous charges. This closed the controversy in 1655. I" the last year of the Protector's life he began the Paradise Lost, but the death of Cromwell threw him back into politics, and three more pamphlets on the questions of a Free Church and a Free Com- monwealth were useless to prevent the Restoration. It was a wonder he was not put to death in 1660, and he was in hiding and in custody for a time. At last he settled in a house near Bunhill Fields. It was here that Paradise Lost was finished, before the end of 1665, and then published in 1667. 98. Paradise Lost.— We may regret that Milton was shut away from his art during twenty years of con- troversy. But it may be that the poems he wrote, when the great cause he fought for had closed in seeming defeat but real victory, gained from its solemn issues and from the morah grandeur with which he wrought for its ends their majestic movement, their grand style, and their grave beauty. During the struggle he had never forgotten his art. " I may one day hope/' he said, speaking of his youthful studies, " to have ye again, in a still time, when there shall be no chiding. Not in these Noises," and the saying strikes the note of calm sublimity which is kept in Paradise Lost. It v.] ELIZA lUi in 10 HIE 1'. Cowley's small volume, written shortly before his death in 1667, and Dryden, in the masterly criticisms on his art which he prefixed to some of his dramas, gave richness to the Essay, These two writers began — with Hobbes — the second period of English prose, in which the style is easy, unaffected, moulded to the subject, and the proper words are put in their proper places. It is as different from the style that came before it as the easy manners of a gentleman are from those of a learned man unaccustomed to society. In William 1 1 1. 's time Sir VV. Temple's pleasant Essays bring us in style and tone nearer to the great class of essayists of whom Addison was chief. Lady Rachel Russell's Letters begin the Letter-ivnting Literature of England. Pepys (1660-69) and Evelyn, whose Diary grows full after 1640, begin that class of gossiping Mejnoirs which have been of so much use in giving colour to history. History itself at this time is little better than memoirs, and such a name may be fairly given to Clarendon's History of the Civil PVars (begun in 1641) and to Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time, and to his History of the Reformation (begun in 1679, completed in 17 15). Finally Classical Criticism, in the discussion on the genuineness of the Letters of Phalaris, was created by Richard Bentley in 1697-99. Literature was therefore plentiful. It was also correct, but it was not inventive. III. The Literature of Queen Anne and the first Georges. — With the closing years of William III. and the accession of Queen Anne (1702) VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE. 135 a literature arose wliich was partly new and partly a continuance of that of the Restoration. The conflict between those who took the oath to the new dynasty and the Nonjurors who refused, the hot blood that it produced, the war between Dissent and Church, and between the two parties which now took the names of Whig and Tory, produced a mass of political pamph- lets, of which Daniel Defoe's and Swift's were the best ; of songs and ballads, like Lillibullcro^ which were sung in every street ; of squibs, reviews, and satirical poems and letters. Every one joined in it, and it rose to importance in the work of the greater men who mingled literary studies with their politi- cal excitement. In politics all the abstract discus- sions we have mentioned ceased to be abstract, and became personal and practical, and the spirit of inquiry applied itself more closely to the questions of every- day life. The whole of this stirring literary life was concentrated in London, where the agitation of society was hottest ; and it is round this vivid city life that the Literature of Queen Anne and the two following reigns is best grouped. 112. It was, with a few exceptions, a Party Literature. 'i1ie Whig and Tory leaders enlisted on their sides the best poets and prose-writers, who fiercely satirised and unduly praised them under names thinly disguised. Our "Augustan Age" was an age of unbridled slander. Personalities were sent to and fro like shots in batde. Those who could do this work well were well rewarded, but the rank and file of writers were left to starve. Literature was thus honoured not for itself, but for the sake of i)ariy. The result was that the abler men lowered it by making it a political tool, and the smaller men, the fry of Grub Street, degraded it by using it in the same way, only in a baser manner. Their flattery was as abject as their abuse was shameless, and both were stupid. They received and deserved the merciless 136 E>JGL1SH LITERATURE. [chap. lashing which Pope was soon to give them in the DiiJiciad. Being a party literature, it naturally came to study and to look sharply into human character and into human life as seen in the great city. It debated subjects of literary and scientific inquiry and of philosophy with great ability, but without depth. It discussed all the varieties of social life, and painted town society more vividly than has been done before or since ; and it was so wholly taken up with this, that country life and its interests, except in the writings of Addison, were scarcely touched by it at all. Criticism being so active, the form in which thought was ex- pressed was now especially dwelt on, and the result was that the style of English prose became for the first time absolutely simple and clear, and Enghsh verse reached a neatness of expression and a close- ness of thought which was as exquisite as it was artificial. At the same time, and for the same reasons. Nature, Passion, and Imagination decayed in poetry. 113. Alexander Pope absorbed and reflected all these elements. Born in 1688, he wrote tolerable verse at twelve years old ; the Pastorals appeared in 1709, and two years afterwards he took full rank as the critical poet in the Essay on Criticism (17 u). The next year saw the first cast of his Rape of the Lock, the most brilliant occasional poem in our language. This closed what we may call his first period. In 1 7 13, when he published Windsor Forest, he became known to Swift and to Henry St. John, Lord Boling- broke. When these, with Gay, Parnell, Prior, Ar- buthnot, and others, formed the Scriblerus Club, Pope joined them, and soon rose into great fame by his Translation of the Iliad (1715-1720), and by the Translation of the Odyssey (1723-25), in which he was assisted by Fenton and Broome. Being now at ease, f jr he received more than 8,000/. for this work, he published from his retreat at Twickenham, and in VI.] KES'rOKA770N TO DEATH OF POPE. 137 bitter scorn of the poetasters and of all the petty- scribblers who annoyed him, the Duticiad, 1728. Its original hero was Lewis Theobald, but when the fourth book was published, under Warburton's influ- ence, in 1742, Colley Cibber was enthroned as the King of Dunces instead of Theobald. The fiercest and finest of Pope's satires, it closes his second period ^hich breathes the savageness of Swift. The thiid |)hase of Pope's literary life was closely linked to his friend Bolingbroke. It was in conversation with him that he originated the Essay on Man (1732-4) and the Imitations of Horace. The Moral Essays^ or Epistles to men and women, were written to praise those whom he loved, and to satirise the bad poets and the social follies of the day, and all who disliked him or his party. In the last few years of his life, Bishop War- burton, the writer of the Le^^ation of Moses and editor of Shakspere, helped him to fit the Moral Essays into the plan of which the Essay on Man formed part. Warburton was Pope's last great friend ; but almost his only old friend. By 1740 nearly all the members of his literary circle were dead, and a new race of poets and writers had grown up. In 1744 he died. 'I'he masterly form into which he threw the philosophical principles he condensed into didactic poetry make them more impressive than they have a right to be. The Essay on Man, though its philosophy is poor and not his own, is crowded with lines that have passed into daily use. The Essay on Criticism is ec^ually full of critical precepts put with exquisite skill. The Satires and Epistles are didactic, but their excellence is in the terse and finished types of character, in the almost creative drawing of which Pope remains unri- valled, eveT\ by Dryden. His translation of Homer is made with great literary art, but for that very reason it does not make us feel the simplicity and chrectness of Homer. It has neither the manner of Homer, nor the spirit of the Greek life, just as Pope's descriptions 138 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap, of nature have neither the manner nor the spirit of nature. The heroic couplet^ in which he wrote nearly all his work, he used with a correctness that has never been surpassed, but its smooth perfection, at length, wearies the ear. It wants the breaks that passion and imagination naturally make. Finally, he was a true artist, hating those who degraded his art, and at a time when men followed it for money, and place, and the applause of the club and of the town, he loved it faithfully to the end, for its own sake. 114. The Minor Poets who surrounded Pope in the first two-thirds of his life did not approach his genius. Richard Blackmore endeavoured to restore the epic in his Prince Arthur, 1695, and Samuel Garth's mock heroic poem of the Dispensary appeared along with John Pomfret's poems in 1699. In 170 1, Defoe's lYueborn Englishman defended William 111. against those who said he was a foreigner, and Prior's finest ode the Car?nen Seculare, took up the same cause. John Philips is known by his Miltonic burlesque of the Splendid Shilling, and his Cyder was a Georgic of the apple. Matthew Green's Spleen and Ambrose Philip's Pastorals were contemporary with Pope's first poetry ; and Gay's Shepherd's Week, six pastorals, 17 14, were as lightly wrought as his Fables. The political satires of Swift were coarse, but always hit home. Ad- dison celebrated the Battle of Blenheim in the Cam- paign, and his sweet grace is found in some devotional pieces ; while Prior's charming ease is best shown in the light narrative poetry which we may say began with him in the reign of William III. In Pope's later life an entirely new impulse came upon poetry, and changed it root and branch. It arose in Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, 1725, and in Thomson's Seasons, 1730, and it rang the knell of the manner and the spuit of the critical school. 115. The Prose Literature of Pope's time col- lects itself round four great names. Swift, Defoe, VI.] KESrORATION TO DEATH OF POPE. 139 Addison, and Bishop Berkeley, and ihey all exhibit those elements of the age of which 1 have spoken. Jonathan Swift was the keenest of political parti- zans. The Battle of the Books, or the literary fight about the Letters of Phalaris, and the Ta/e of a Tub, a satire on the Presbyterians and the Pai)ists, made his reputation in 1704 and established him as a satirist. Swift left the Whig for the Tory party, and his political tracts brought him court favour and literary fame. On the fall of the Tory party at the accession of George I., he retired to the Deanery of St. Patrick in Ireland an embittered man, and the Drapier' s Letters (1724) written against Wood's halfpence, gained him popularity in a country that he hated. In 1726, his mventive genius, his savage satire, and his cruel indig- nation with life, were all shown in Gulliver's Travels. The voyage to Lilliput and Brobdingnag satirised the politics and manners of England and Europe; that to Laputa mocked the pliilosophers ; and the last, to the country of the Houyhnhnms, lacerated and defiled the whole body of humanity. No English is more robust than Swift's, no wit more gross, no life in private and public more sad and proud, no death more pitiable. He died in 1745 hopelessly insane. Daniel Defoe was almost as vigorous a political writer as Swift. His vein as a pamphleteer seems to have been inexhaustible, and the style of his tracts was as roughly persuasive as it was popular. Above all he was the journalist. His Reineiv, published twice a week for a year, was wholly written by him- self; but he ''founded, conducted, and wrote for a host of other newspapers," and filled them with every subject of the day. His tales grew out of matters trea;ed of in his journals, and his best art lay in the way he built up these stories out of mere suggestions. ** The little art he is truly master of, said one of his contemporaries, is of forging a story and imposing it on the world for truth." His circumstantial inven- I40 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. tion, combined with a style which exactly fits it by its simplicity, is the root of the charm of the great story by which he chiefly lives • in literature. Robinson Crusoe, 17 19, equalled Gulliver's Travels in truthful representation, and excelled them in invention. The story lives and charms from day to day. With his other tales it makes him our first true writer of fiction. But none of his stories are real novels ; that is, they have no plot to the working out of which the cha- racters and the events contribute. They form the transition however from the slight tale and the romance of the Elizabethan time to the finished novel of Richardson and Fielding. 116. Metaphysical Literature, which drifted chiefly into theology, was enriched by the work of Bishop Berkeley. His Miiiute Philosopher and other woiks questioned the real existence of matter, and founded on the denial of it an answer to the English Deists, round whom in the first half of the eighteenth century centred the struggle between the claims of natural and revealed religion. Shaftes- bury, Bolingbroke, and Wollaston, Tindal, Toland, and Collins, on the Deists' si(1e, were opposed by Clarke, by Bentley, whose name is best known as the founder of the true school of classical criticism, by Bishop Butler, and by Bishop Warburton. Bishop Butler's acute and solid reasoning treated in his Sermons the subject of Morals, inquiring what was the particular nature of man, and hence determining the course of life correspondent to this nature. His Analogy oj Religion, Natural a?id Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, 1736, endeavours to make peace between authority and reason, and has become a standard book. I may mention here a social satire, The Fable of the Bees, by Mandeville, half poem, half prose dialogue, and finished in 1729. It tried to prove that the vices of society are the foundation of civilisation, and is the first of a new set of books V r . ] J^ES TOR A TION TO DEA Til OF PO PE. 141 which marked the rise in England of the bold speculations on the nature and ground of society to which the French Revolution gave afterwards so great an impulse. 117. The Periodical Essay is connected with the names of Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele. This gay, light, and graceful kind of litera- ture, differing from such Essays as Bacon's as good conversation about a subject differs from a clear analysis of all its pomts, was begun in France by Montaigne in 1580. Charles Cotton, a wit of Charles II. 's time, retranslated Montaigne's Essays^ and they soon found imitators in Cowley and Sir W. Temple. But the periodical Essay was created by Steele and Addison. It was at first published three times a week, then daily, and it was anonymous, and both these characters njcessarily changed its form from that of an Essay of Montaigne. Steele began it in the Tatler, 1709, and it treated of everything that was going on in the world. He points as a social humourist the whole age of Queen Anne — the political and literary disputes, the fine gentlemen and ladies, the characters of men, the humours of society, the new book, the new play ; we live in the very streets and drawing-rooms of old London. Addison soon joined him, first in the Tatler, afterwards in the Spectator^ 1 7 1 1. His work is more critical, literary, and didactic than his companion's. The characters he introduces, such as Sir Roger de Coverley, are finished studies after nature, and their talk is easy and dramatic. No humour is more fine and tender; and, like Chaucer's, it is never bitter. The style adds to the charm : in its varied cadence and subtle easj it has not been sur- passed within its own peculiar sphere in England ; and it seems to grow out of the subjects treated of. Addi- son's work was a great one, lightly done. The Specta- tor, the Guardian^ and tlie Freeholder^ in his hands, gave a better tone to manners, and hence to morals, 142 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. and a gentler one to political and literary criticism. The essays published every Friday were chiefly on literary subjects, the Saturday essays chiefly on religious subjects. The former popularised literature, so that culture spread among the middle classes. and crept down to the country ; the latter popularised religion. " I have brought," he says, " philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." THE DRAMA FROM THE RESTORATION TO 1780. 118. The Drama after the Restoration took the tone of the court both in politics and religion, but its partizanship decayed under William III., and died in the reign of Queen Anne. The court of Charles II., which the plays now written represented much more than they did the national life, gave the drama the "genteel " ease and the immorality of its society, and encouraged it to find new impulses from the tragedy and comedy of Spain and of France. The French romances of the school of Calprenede and Scudery furnished plots to the play-writers. The great French dramatists, Corneille, Racine, and Moliere were translated and borrowed from again and again. The " three unities " of Corneille, and rime instead of blank verse as the vehicle of tragedy, were adopted, but "the spirit of neither the serious nor the comic drama of France could then be transplanted into England." Two acting companies were formed on Charles II. 's return, under Thomas KilHgrew and D'Avenant ; actresses came on the stage for the first time, the ballet was introduced, and scenery began to be largely used, r^ryden, whose masterly force was sure to strike the key-note that others followed, began his comedies in 1663, but soon afterwards, following Robert Boyle, Earl of Orrery, who was the father of the heroic drama, turned to tragedy in the Indian Queen, 1664. His VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE. 143 next play, the Indian Emperour, established for a time the heroic couplet as the tlramatic verse. His defence of rime in tlie Essay on Dramatic Poesy asserted the originality of the English scliool, and denied that it followed the French. The masterpiece of the Conquest of Granada was followed by the biirles(iue of the J^e- iicarsai, written by the Duke of Buckingham, in which the bombastic extravagance of the heroic plays was ridiculed. Dryden now changed his dramatic manner, and, following Shakspere, "disencumbered himself from rime" in his fine tragedy oi All for Love, and showed his power of low comedy in the Spanish Eriar. After the Revolution, his tragedy of Don Sebastian ranks high, but not higher than his brilliantly-written comedy of Amphitryon, 1690. Dryden is the representative dramatist of the Restoration. Among the tragedians who followed his method and possessed their own, those most worthy of notice are Nat Lee (1650-90), whose Rival Queens, 1667, deserves its praise ; Thomas Otway, whose two pathetic tragedies, the Orphan and Venice Preserved, still keep the stage ; and Thomas Southerne whose Eatal Marriage, 1694, was revived by Garrick. It was in comedy, however, that the dramatists excelled. Etherege, Sedley, Mrs. Behn, Lacy, and Shad well carry on to the Revolution that light Comedy of Manners which William Wycherley's (1640-17 15) gross vigour and natural plots lifted into an odious excellence in such plays as the Country Wife and the Flain Dealer, Three great comedians followed Wycherley — William Congreve (1672-1728), whose well-bred ease is almost as remarkable as his bril- liant wit; Sir John Vanbrugh (i666(?)-i726), and George Farquhar (1678-1707), both of whom have quick invention, but the gaiety and ease of Van- brugh is superior to that of Farquhar. The in- decency of all these writers is infamous, but it is partly forgotten in their swift and sustained vivacity. 10* 13 144 ENGLISH L ITER A TURE. [chap. This immorality produced Jeremy Collier's famous attack on the stage, 1698; and the growth of a higher tone in society, uniting with this attack, began to purify the drama, though Mrs. Centlivre's comedies, during the reign of Queen Anne, show no trace of purity. Steele, at this time, whose Lying Lover makes him the father of sentimental comedy^ wrote all his plays with a moral purpose. Nicholas Rowe, whose melancholy tragedies "are occupied with themes of heroic love," is dull, but never gross ; while Addison's ponderous tragedy of Cato, 17 13, praised by Voltaire as the first tragcdie raison- nable, in its total rejection of the drama of nature for the classical style, ''definitely marks an epoch in the history of English tragedy, an epoch of decay, on which no recovery has followed." Comedy, however, had still a future. The Beggars' Opera of Gay, 1728, revived an old form of drama in a new way. CoUey Cibber carried on into George II. 's time the light and the sentimental comedy ; Fielding made the stage the vehicle of criticism on the follies, literature, and politics of his time ; and Foote and Garrick did the same kind of work in their farces. The influence of the Restoration drama continues, past this period, in the manner of Goldsmith and Sheridan who wrote between 1768 and 1778; but the exquisite humour of Goldsmith's Goodnatured Man and She Stoops to Conquer, and the wit, almost as brilliant and more epigranimatic than Congreve's, of Sheridan's Rivals and the School for Scandal, are not deformed by the indecency of the Restoration. Both were Irishmen, but Goldsmith has more of the Celtic grace and Sheridan of the Celtic wit. The sentimental comedy was carried on into the next age by Macklin, Murphy, Cumberland, the Colmans, and many others, but we may say that with Sheridan the history of the elder English Drama closes. That which belongs to our century is a different thing. vil.l FROSE LITERArUKE FROM 110,^10 \i'i>% 145 CHAPTER VII. r.iUSK IJTKRATURE KROM THE DEATH OP^ POPE AND OF SWIFT TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO DEATH OF SCOTT. 1745-1832. Richardson's Famehi, 1740- — Fielding's Joseph Andrews^ 1742- — Smollett's Rod:>ick Random and Richardson's Clirissa J/arLnuc, 1748.— Fielding's T^c^w Jones, YJ^^.— Johnson's Diction.iry, 1755. — Sterne's Trislrani Shandy, 1759- — Hume's History of England, completed 1761 — Goldsmith's Vicar- of Wakefield, 1766. — Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, 1776- —Gibbon's Decline and Fa' I of the Roman Empire, completed 1788 — Boswell's Life of Johnson, 179[. — Burke's Writinos, from 1756-1797- —Miss Austen's Novels, 1811-1817.— Scott's yV(/z/^/^, 18141831. 119. Prose Literature. — The rapid increase of manufactures, science, and prosperity which began with the middle of the eighteenth century is paral- leled by the growth of Literature. The general causes of this growth were — ist, That a good prose style had been per- fected, and the method of writing being made easy, production increased. Men were born, as it were, into a good school of the art of composition. 2ndly, The long peace after the accession of the House of Hanover had left England at rest, and given it wealth. The reclaiming ot waste tracts, the increased wealth and trade, made better communica- tion necessary ; and the country was soon covered with a network of highways. The leisure gave time to men to think and write : the quicker interchange between the capital and the country spread over England the literature of the capital, and stirred men 146 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. everywhere to express his thoughts. The coaching services and the post carried the new book and the literary criticism to the villages, and awoke the men of genius there, who might otherwise have been silent. 3rdly, The Press sent far and wide the news of the day, and grew in importance till it contained the opinions and writings of men like Johnson. Such seed produced literary work in the country. Newspapers now began to play a larger part in literature. They rose under the Commonwealth, but became important when the censorship which reduced them to a mere broadsheet of news was removed after the Revolution of 1688. The political sleep of the age of the two first Georges hindered their progress ; but in the reign of George III., after a struggle with which the name of John Wilkes and the author of the Letters of Jimius are connected, and which lasted from 1764 to 177 1, the press claimed and obtained the right to criticise the conduct and measures of Ministers and Parliament and the King ; and the further right to publish and comment on the debates in the two Houses. 4thly, Communication with the Continent had increased during the peaceable times of Walpole, and the wars that followed made it still easier. With its increase two new and great outbursts of literature told upon England. France sent the works of Montes- quieu, of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, and the rest of the liberal thinkers who were called the Encyclopaedists, to influence and quicken English literature on all the great subjects that belong to the social and political life of man. Afterwards, the fresh German movement, led by Lessing and others, and carried on by Goethe and Schiller, added its impulse to the poetical school that arose in England along with the French Revolution. These were the general causes of the rapid growth of literature from the time of the death of Swift and Pope. 1 20. Prose Literature between 1745 and the VII.] PROSE LITER A TURE FROM 1745 TO 17S9. 147 French Revolution may be said to be bound up with the Hterary Hves of one man and his friends. Samuel Johnson, born in 1709, and whose first prose work, xhe Lije of ^iwage, appeared in 1744, was the last representative of the hterary king, who, hke Drydcn and Pope, held a court in London. Poor and unknown, he worked his way to fame, and his first poem, the London^ 1738, satirized the town where he loved to live. He carried on the periodical essays in the Rambler and Jdler, 1750-52, but in them grace and lightness, the essence of this kind of essay, were lost. Several other series followed and ceased in 1787, but the only one worth read- ing, for its fanciful stories and agreeable satire of the manners of the time, is Goldsmith's Citizen of the Woriii. Driven by poverty, Johnson under- took a greater work ; the Dictionary of tJie Ejiglish Language, 1755 — and his celebrated letter to Lord Chesterfield concerning its publication, gave the death-blow to patronage, and makes Johnson the first of the modern literary men who, independent of patrons, live by their pen and find in the public their only paymaster. He represents thus a new class. In i75g he set on foot the Didactic Novel in Rassdas, and in 1781 his Lives of the L^oets lifted Biograpliy into a hijiher [>lace in literature. But he did even more for literature as a converser, as the chief talker of a literary club, than by writing, and we know exactly what a power he was by the vivid Biography^ the best in our language, which James Boswell, with fussy de- votedness, made of his master in 1791. Side by side Vkiih Johnson stands Oliver Goldsmith, whose graceful and pure English is a pleasant contrast to the loaded Latinism of Johnson's style. The Vicar of Wakefield, the History of Animated Nature are at one in charm, and the latter is full of that love of natural scenery, the sentiment of which is absent from Johnson's y^'/z/v/n' to the Western Isles. Both these men were masters of 148 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Miscellaneous Literature, and in that class, I mention here, as belonging to the latter half of the eighteenth century, Edmund Burke's Vindication of Natural Society, a parody of Bolingbroke ; and his Iiiquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Siiblijne and JBeautiful, a book which in 1757 introduced him to Johnson. Nor ought we to forget Sir Joshua Reynolds, another of Johnson's friends, who first made English Art literary in his Discourses on Painting ; nor Plorace Walpole, whose Anecdotes of Painting, 1761, still please ; and whose familiar Lettej's, malicious, light as froth, but amusing, retail with liveliness all the gossip of the time. 121. The Novel. — "There is more knowledge of the heart," said Johnson, " in one letter of Richard- son's than in all Tom /ones" and the saying introduces Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, the makers of the Modern Novel. Wholly distinct from merely narrative stories like Defoe's, the true novel is a story wrought round the passion of love to a tragic or joyous conclusion. Its form, far more flexible than that of the drama, admits of almost infinite develop- ment. The whole of human life, at any time, at any place in the world, is its subject, and its vast sphere accounts for its vast production. Pa?nela, 1740, ap- peared while Pope was yet alive, and was the first of Richardson's novels. Like Clarissa Ha7'Io'ioe, 1748, it was written in the form of letters. The third of these books was Sir Charles Grandison. They are novels of Sentiment, and their purposeful morality and religion mark the change which had taken place in the morals and faith of literature since the preceding age. Clarissa Harlowe is a masterpiece. Richardson himself is mastered day by day by the passionate creation of his characters ; and their variety and the variety of their passions are drawn with a slow, diffusive, elaborate intensity which penetrates into the subtlest windings of the human heart. But all VII.] PROSE LITERATURE FROM i-j^^ TO ii'ii). 149 the characters are groui)ed round and enlighten Clarissa, the pure and ideal star of womanliood. The pathos of the book, its sincerity, its minute reality have always, but slowly, impassioned its readers, and it stirred as absorbing an interest in France as it did in England. " '1 ake care," said Diderot, " not to open these enchanting books, if you have any duties to fulfil." Henry Fielding followed Pamela with Joseph Andrews^ 1742, and Clarissa with Tom Jones, 1749. At the same time, in 1748, appeared Tobias Smollett's first novel, Roderick Random. Both wrote many other stories, but in the natural growth and development of the story, and in the infitting of the characters and events towards the conclusion, Tom Jones is the English model of the novel. The constructive power of Fielding is absent from Smollett, but in mere inventive tale-telling and in cynical characterisation, he is not easily equalled. Fielding draws English life both in town and country with a coarse and realistic pencil : Smollett is led beyond the truth of nature into caricature. Ten years had thus sufficed to create a wholly new literature. Laurence Sterne published the first part of Tris- tram Sha?idy in the same year as Rasselas, 1759. Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey are scarcely novels. They have no plot, they can scarcely be said to have any story. The story of Tristram Shandy wanders like a man in a labyrinth, and the humour is as labyrinthine as the story. Its humourous note is very remote and subtle ; and the sentiment is sometimes true, but mostly affected. But a certain unity is given to the book by the admirable consist- ency of the characters. A little later, in 1766, Gold- smith's Vicar of Wakefield was the first, and perhaps the most charming, of all those novels which we may call idyllic, which describe in a pure and gentle style the simple loves and lives of country people. Lastly, I50 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. but still in the same circle of Johnson's friends, Miss Burney's Evelina, 1778, and her Cecilia^ in which we detect Johnson's Roman hand, were the first novels of society. 122. History shared in the progress made after 1745 in prose writing, and was raised into the rank of liter- ature by three of Johnson's contemporaries. All of them were influenced by the French school, by Montesquieu and Voltaire. David Hume's History of Ejigiand, finished in 1761, is, in the writer's endeavour to make it a philosophic whole, in its clearness of narrative and purity of style, our first literary history. But he is neither exact, nor does he care to be exact. He does not love his subject, and he wants sympathy with mankind and with his country. His manner is the man- ner of Voltaire, passionless, keen, and elegant. Dr. Robertson, Hume's friend, and also a Scotchman, was a careful and serious, but also a cold writer. His Histories of Scotland, of Charles V., and of America show how historical interest again began to reach be- yond England. Their style is literary, but they fail in philosophical insight and in imagination. Edward Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall of the Roma?i Emfire, completed in 1788, gave a new impulse and a new model to historical literature, had no more sympathy with humanity than Hume, and his irony lowers through- out the human value of his history. But he had creative power, originality, and the imagination of his subject. It was at Rome in 1764, while musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, that the idea of writing his book started to his mind, and his conception of the work was that of an artist. Rome, eastern and western, was painted in the centre of the world, dying slowly like a lion. Around it and towards it he drew all the nations and hordes and faiths that wrought its ruin ; told their stories from the beginning, and the results on themselves and on the world of their vic- tories over Rome. This imaginative conception. VII.] PROSE LITER A TURE FROM 1 745 TO 1 7S9. 1 5 1 together with the collecting and use of every detail of the arts and costumes and manners of the times he described, the reading and use of all the contemporary literature, the careful geographical detail, the marshal- ling of all this information with his facts, the power with which he moved over this vast arena, and the use of a full, but too grandiose a style, to give importance to the subject, makes him the one historian of the eighteenth century, whom modern research recognises as its master. Only in two chapters, the famous ones on Christianity, out of seventy-one, and during twenty- three years of work, does Gibbon yield to the prejudice which IS the common fault of historians. 123. Philosophical and Political Literature. — Hume, following Locke, inquired into the nature of the human understanding, and based philosophy upon psychology. He constructed a science of man ; and tinally limited all our knowledge of reality to the world of phenomena revealed to us by experience. In morals he made utility the only measure of virtue. The first of his books, the Treatise of Human A^ature^ 1739, was written in France, and was followed by the Fhilosophical Essays in 1748, and by the Ifiquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals in 175 1. The Dialogues on Natural Religion were not published till after his death. These were his chief ])hilosophical works. But in 1741-42, he published two volumes of Essays A/oral and Political, from which we might infer a political philosophy; and in 1752 the Political Discourses appeared, and they have been fairly said to be the cradle of political economy. But that subject was afterwards taken up by Adam Smith, a friend of Hume's, whose book on the Moral Sentiments, 1759, classes him also with the philosophers of Scotland. His IVealth of Nations, 1776, by its theory that labour is the source of wealth, and that to give the labourer absolute freedom to pursue his own interest in his own way is the best means of increasing the wealth of the 152 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. country ; by its proof that all laws made to restrain, or to shape, or to promote commerce, were stumbling- blocks in the way of the wealth of a state, he created the Science of Political Economy, and started the theory and practice of Free Trade. All the questions of labour and capital were now placed on a scientific basis, and since that time the literature of the whole of the subject has engaged great thinkers. As the immense increase of the industry, wealth, and com- merce of the country from 1720 to 1770 had thus stirred inquiry into the laws which regulate wealth, so now the Methodist movement, beginning in 1738, awoke an interest m the poor, and gave the first impulse to popular education. Social Reform became a hterary subject, and fills a large space until 1832, when political reform brought forward new subjects, and the old subjects under new forms. This new philanthropy was stirred into further growth by the theories of the French Revolution, and these theories, taking violent effect in France, roused into opposition the genius of Edmund Burke. Unlike Hume, whose politics were elaborated in the study, Burke wrote his political tracts and speeches face to face with events and upon them. Philosophical reasoning and poetic passion were wedded together in them on the side of Conservatism, and every art of elo- quence was used with the mastery that imagination gives. In 1766 he defended Lord Rockingham's administration ; he was then wrongly suspected of the authorship of the Letteis of Junius, political invectives (1769-72), whose trenchant style has preserved them to this day. Burke's Thoughts o?i the Cause of the present Disconteuts, ^773? perhaps the best of his works in point of style, maintained an aristocratic govern- ment ; and the next year appeared his famous Speech on American Taxation, while that on American Con- ciliation, 1775, was answered by his friend Johnson in Taxation no Tyrafiny. The most powerful of his VII.] riWSE LITERA TURE FROM 17S9 TO 1S32. 153 works were the Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790, and the Littets on a Regicide Peace (1796-97). The first of these, answered by Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, and by James Mackintosh's Vindicice Galiica:, spread over all Kngland a terror of the principles of the Revolution ; the second doubled the eagerness of England to carry on the war with France. All his work is more literature than oratory. Many of his speeches enthralled their hearers, but many more put them to sleep. The very men, however, who slept under him in the House read over and over again the same speech when jjubiished with renewed delight. Goldsmith's praise of him— that he "wound himself into his subject like a serpent "• — gives the reason why he sometimes failed as an orator, why he always succeeded as a writer. 124. Prcse from 1789-1832. Miscellaneous. — The death of Johnson marks a true j)eriotl in our later prose literature. London had ceased then to be the only literary centre. Books were produced in all parts of the country, and Edinburgh had its own famous school of literature. The doc- trines of the French Revolution were eaojerly sup- ported and eagerly opposed, and stirred like leaven through a great part of the literary work of England. Later on, through Coleridge, Scott, Carlyle, and others, the influence of Goethe and Schiller, of the new literature of Germany, began to tell upon us, in theology, in philosophy, and even in the novel. The great English Journals, the Morning Chronicle, the Times, the Morning Post, the Morning Herald, were all set on foot between 1775 and 1793, between the war with America and the war with France ; and when men like Coleridge and Canning began to write in them the literature of journalism was started. A Literature especially directed towards Education arose in the Cyc/o/^cedias, which began in 1778, am' rapidly developed into vast Dictionaries of kn' 154 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. ledge. Along with them were the many series issued from Edinburgh and London of Popular Miscellanies. A crowd of literary men found employ- ment in writing about books rather than in writing them, and the Literature of Criticism became a power. The Edinburgh Review was established in 1802, and the Qiiat'terly,\ts political opponent, in 1808, and these were soon followed by Frasers and Black- wood's Magazine. Jeffrey, Professor Wilson, Sydney Smith, and a host of others wrote in these on contem- porary events and books. Literest in contemporary stimulated interest in past literature, and Cole- ridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Campbell, Hazlitt, Southey, and Savage Landor carried on that study of the Elizabethan and earlier poets to which Warton had given so much impulse in the eighteenth century. Literary quarrels concerning the schools of poetry produced books like Coleridge's Biographia Liieraria ; and Wordsworth's Essays on his own art are in admir- able prose. De Quincey, one of the Edinburgh school, is, owing to the peculiar and involved melody of his style, one of our first, as he is one of our most various miscellaneous writers : and with him for masculine English, for various learning and forcible fancy, and, not least, for his vigorous lyrical work and poems, we may rank Walter Savage Landor, who deepened an interest in English and classic literature. Charles Lamb's fineness of perception was shown in his criti- cisms on the old dramatists, but his most original work was the Essays of Elia^ in which he renewed the lost grace of the essay, and with a humour not less gentle, but more subtle than Addison's. 125. Theological Literature had received a new impulse in 1738-91 from the evangelising work of John Wesley and Whitfield ; and their spiritual followers, John Scott, Newton, and Cecil, made by their waitings the Evangelical school. William Paley, in his Evidences, defended Christianity from the common- VII.] PKOSE LITER A TURK FROM i-j?,() TO 1832. 155 sense point of view; while the sermons of Robert Hall and of Dr. Chalmers are, in different ways, fine examples of devotional and philosophical clocjuence. 126. The elotjuent intelligence of Edinburgh con- tinued the Literature of Philosophy in the work of Dugald Stewart, Reids successor, and in that of Dr. Browne, who for the most part opposed Hume's fundamental idea that Psychology is a part of the Science of Life. Coleridge brought his own and the German philosophies into the treatment of theological questions in the Aids to Rcjlcctioji^ and into various subjects of life in the Friend. The utilitarian view of morals was put forth by Jeremy Lentham with great power, but his chief work was in the province of Law. He founded the Philosophy of Jurisprudence, he in- vented a scientific legal vocabulary, and we owe to him almost every reform that has improved our Law. He wrote also on political economy, but that subject was more fully developed by Malthus, Ricardo, and James Mill. 127. Biography and travel are linked at many points to history, and the literature of the former was enriched by Hay ley's Coivper, Southey's Life of Nelson, McCrie's Life of L\nox, Moore's Life of Byron, and Lockhart's Life of Scott. As to travel, it has rarely produced books which may be called literature, but the works of biographers and travellers have brought together the materials of literature. Bruce left for Africa in 1762, and in the next seventy years Africa, Egypt, Italy, Greece, the Holy Land, and the Arctic Regions were made the common property of literary men. 128. The Historical School produced Mitford's History of Greece, 18 10, and Lingard's History of Eng- iand, 18 19; but it was Henry Hallam who for the first time wrote history in this country without a grain of prejudice. His Emvpe diirini^ t/ie Middle Ages, 18 18, is distinguished by its exhaustive and judicial summing- U 156 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. up of facts, and his Constitutional History of England set on foot a new kind of history in the best way. Since his time, impelled by Macaulay, Dean Milman, and others, history has become more and more worthy of the name of fine literature, and the critical schools of our own day, while making truth the first thing, and the philosophy of history the second, do not disdain but exact the graces of literature. But of all the forms of prose literature, the novel was the most largely used and developed. 129. The Novel. — The stir of thought made by the French Revolution had many side influences on novel-writing. The political stories of Thomas Holcroft and William Godwin opened a new realm to the novelist. The Canterbury Tales of Sophia and Harriet Lee, and the wild and picturesque tales of Mrs. Radcliffe introduced the Romantic Novel. Mrs. Inchbald's Simple Stofy, 1791, started the novel of Passion, while Mrs. Opie made domestic life the sphere of her graceful and pathetic stories, 1806. Miss Edgeworth in her Irish stories gave the first impulse to the novel of national character, and in her other tales to the novel with a moral purpose, 1801-11. Miss Austen, "with an exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from truth of description and sentiment," produced the best novels we have of everyday society, iSii-jy. With the peace of 1815 arose new forms of fiction ; and travel, now popular,' gave birth to the tale of foreign society and manners ; of these, Thomas Hope's Anastasius (181 9) was the first. The Classical Novel arose in Lockhart's Valerius^ and Miss Terrier's humorous tales of Scottish life were pleasant to Walter Scott. It was Walter Scott, however, who raised the whole of the literature of the novel into one of the great influences that bear on human life. Men are Still alive who remember the wonder and delight with VII.] PROSE LITER A TURE FROM 1 7S9 7'c; 1 832. 1 57 which Waverley (1814) was welcomed. The swiftness of work combined with vast diligence which belongs to very great genius belonged to him. Guy Man?icr- i?ig was written in six weeks, and the Bi ide oj Lam- vicrmoory as great in fateful pathos as Romeo and Juliet, but more solemn, was done in a fortnight. There is then a certain aba?idon in his work which removes it from the dignity of the ancient writers, but we are repaid for this loss by t!ie intensity, and the animated movement, and the inspired delight with which he invented and wrote his stories. It is not composition ; it is Scott actually present in each of his personages, and speaking their thoughts. His National tales — and his own country was his best inspiration — are written with such love for the characters and the scenes, that wc feel his joy and love underneath each of the stories as a com- pleting charm, as a spirit that enchants the whole. And in these tales his own deep kindliness, his sym- pathy with human nature, united, after years of enmity, the Highlands to the Lowlands. In the vivid por- traiture and dramatic reality of such tales as Old Mortality and Quentifi Durward he created the Historical novel. " All is great," said Goethe, speak- ing of one of these historical tales, " in the Waverley Novels; material, effect, characters, execution." In truth, so natural is Scott's invention, that it seems creation. Everything speaks in the tale and to the tale, and the landscape is woven through the events and in harmony with them. His comprehensive power, which drew with the same certainty so many characters in so many various classes, was the direct result of his profound sympathy with the simpler feelings of the human heart, and of his pleasure in writing so as to make human life more beautiful and more good in the' eyes of men. He was always ro- mantic, and his romance did not fail him when he came to be old. Like Shakspere he kept that to 158 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. the very close. The later years of his life were dark, but the almost unrivalled nobleness of his battle against ill fortune prove that he was as great hearted as he was great. " God bless thee, Walter, my man," said his uncle, " thou hast risen to be great, but thou wast always good." His last tale of power was the Fair Maid of rerth (1S28), and his last effort, in 1831, was made the year before he died. That year, 1832, which saw the deaths of Goethe and Scott, is the close of an epoch in literature. CHAPTER vnr. POETRV, FROM 1 7 30 TO 1 83 2. Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, 1725- — Thomson's Seasons, 1730- —Gray and Collins, Poe7>i^, 1746T757- — Goldsmith's Traveller, 1764 — Chatterton's Poems, 1770- — Blake's Potms, 1777-1794.— Crabbe's Village, 1783.— Cowper's Tdik, 1785. — Lurns's first Poe7ns, 1786. — Campbell's Pleasure^ of Hope, 1799- — Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads^ 1798 > hi^ Prelude, 1806 ; Excursion, 1814-— Coleridge's Christahel, 1805- — Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, iXJar- mion. Lady of the Lake, 1805-8-10.— Byron's Poems, lo07- 1823.— Shelley's Poems, 1813-1821.— Keats' Po,ms, 1817- 1820. H^nivjioxis firU Foems, 1830- 130. The Elements and Forms of the New Poetry. — The poetry we are now to study may be divided into two periods. The first dates from about the middle of Pope's Hfe, and closes with the pub- lication of Cowper's Task^ 17S5 ; the second begins with the Task and closes in 1832. The first is not wrongly called a time of transition. The influence of the poetry of the past lasted ; new elements were added to poetry, and new forms of it took shape. VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 159 There was a change also in the style and in the subject of poetry. Under these heads I shall bring together the various i)octical works ot" this period. (i.) The iiijlucfice if the didactic and satirical poetry of the critical school lingered among tlie new elements which I shall notice. It is found in Johnson's two satires on the manners of his time, the London, 1738, and the Vanity of Human Jl'is/ies, 1749; in Robert Blair's dull poem of The Grai'e, 1743; in Edward Young's Night Thoughts, 1743, a poem on tiie immor- tality of the soul, and in his satires on The Universal Passion of Fame ; in the tame work of Richard Savage, Johnson's poor friend ; and in the short-lived but vigorous satires of Charles Churchill, who died in 1764, twenty years after Savage. The Pleasures of the Jmagination, 1744' by Mark Akenside, belongs also in spirit to the time of Queen Anne, and was suggested by Addison's essays in the Spectator on imagination. ( 2. ) The study of the Greek and Latin classics reviised, and with it a more artistic poetry. Not only correct form, which Pope attained, but beautiful form also was sought after. Men like Thomas Gray and William Collins strove to pour into their work that simplicity of beauty which the Greek poets and Italians like Petrarca had reached as the last result of genius restrained by art. Their best poems, pub- lished between 1746 and 1757, are exquisite examples of English work wrought in the spirit of the imagina- tive scholar and the moralist. I'he affectation of the age touches them now and again, but their manner, their way of blending together natural feeling and natural scenery, their studious care in the choice of words are worthy of special study. (3.) 7'he study of the Elizabethan and the earlier poets like Chaucer^ and of the whole course of poetry in England, ivas taken up with great interest. Shakspere and Chaucer had engaged both Dryden and Pope ; but the whole subject was now enlarged. Gray like 11* i6o ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Pope projected a history of English poetry, and his Ode on the Progress of Poesy illustrates this new interest. Thomas Warton wrote his History of English Poetry, 1774-78, and in doing so suggested fresh mate- rial to the poets. They began to take delight in the childlikeness and naturalness of Chaucer as distin- guished from the artificial and critical verse of the school of Pope. Shakspere was studied in a more accurate way. Pope's, Theobald's, Sir Thomas Han- mer's, and Warburton's editions of Shakspere were succeeded by Johnson's in 1765 ; and Garrick the actor began the restoration of the genuine text of Shakspere's plays for the stage. Spenser formed the spirit and work of some poets, and T. Warton wrote an essay on jthe Faerie Queen. William Shenstone's Schoolmistress, 1742, was one of these Spenserian poems, and so was the Castle of Jiidolence, 1748, by James Thomson, author of the Seasons. James Beattie, in the Minstrel, i']'ji, also followed the stanza and manner of Spenser. (4.) A new element — interest in the romantic past — was added by the publication of Dr. Percy's Reliques if A7icient English Poet7y, 1765. The narrative ballad and the narrative romance, afterwards taken up and perfected by Sir Walter Scott, now struck their roots afresh in English poetry. Men began to seek among the ruder times of history for wild, natural stories of human life ; and the pleasure in these increased and accompanied the growing love of lonely, even of savage scenery. The Ossian, 1762, of James Mac- pherson, which asserted itself as a translation of Gaelic epic poems, is an example of this new element. Still more remarkable in this way were the poems of Thomas Chatterton, the "marvellous boy," who died by his own hand, in 1770, at the age of seven- teen. He pretended to have discovered, in a muni- ment room at Bristol, the Death of Sir Charles Bawdin^ and other poems, by an imaginary monk VIII.] rOETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 161 named Thomas Rowley. Written with quaint spelling, and with a great deal of lyrical invention, they raised around them a great controversy. As an instance of the same tendency, even before the Reliques^ we men- tion Gray's translations from the Norse and British poetry, and his poem of the Bani, in which the bards of Wales are celebrated. 131. Change of Style. — We have seen how the natural style ot the Elizabethan poets had ended by producing an unnatural style. In reaction from this the critical poets set aside natural feeling, and wrote according to frigid rules of art. Their style lost life and fire ; and losing these, lost art, which has its roots in emotion, and gained artifice, which has its roots in intellectual analysis. Unwarmed by any natural feeling, it became as unnatural a style, though in a different way, as that of the later Elizabethan poets. We may sum up then the whole history of the style of poetry from Elizabeth to George I. — the style of Milton being e.vcepted — in these words : Nature without Art, and Art without Nature, had reached similar but not idefitical results in style. But in the process two things had been learned. First, that artistic rules were necessary — and secondly, that natural feeling was necessary, in order that poetry should have a style fitted to express nobly the emo- tions and thoughts of man. The way was therefore now made ready for a style in which the Art should itself be Nature, and it found its first absolute expres- sion in a few of Gowper's lyrics. His style, in such poems as the Lines to his Mothers Picture, and the Loss of the Royal George, arises out of the simplest pathos, and yet is almost as pure in expression as Greek poetry. The work was then done ; but the element of fervent passion did not enter into poetry until 1789. T32. Change of Subject. — Nature. — The Poets have always worked on two great subjects — i62 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Man and Nature. Up to the age of Pope the subject of Man was alone treated, and we have seen how many phases it went through. There remained the subject of Nature and of man's relation to it ; that is, of the visible landscape, sea, and sky, and all that men feel in contact with them. Natural scenery had been hitherto only used as a background to the picture of human life. It now began to occupy a much larger space in poetry, and after a time grew to occupy a distinct place of its own apart from Man. It is the growth of this new subject which will engage us now. 133. The Poetry of Natural Description. — We have already found traces in the poets, but chiefly among the Puritans, of a pleasure in rural things and the emotions they awakened. But Nature is only, as in the work of Marvell and Milton, incidentally intro- duced. The first poem devoted to natural description appeared, while Pope was yet alive, in the very midst of the town poetry. It was the Seasons 1726-30 ; and it is curious, remembering what I have said about the peculiar turn of the Scotcli for natural description, that it was the work of James Thomson, a Scotch- man. It described the scenery and country life of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. He wrote with his eye upon their scenery, and even when he wrote of it in his room, it was with " a recollected love." The descriptions were too much like cata- logues, the very fault of the previous Scotch poets, a"d his style was always heavy and often cold, but he was the first poet who led the English people into that new world of nature which has enchanted us in the work of modern poetry, but which was entirely impos- sible for Pope to understand. The impulse he gave was soon followed. Men left the town to visit the country and record their feelings. William Somer- ville's Chase, 1735? ^^^ John Dyer's Grongar Hill, 1726, a description of a journey in South Wales, and VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1S32. 163 his Fleece, 1757, are full of country sights and scenes : and even Akenside mingled his spurious philosophy with pictures of solitary natural scenery. Foreign travel now enlarged the love of nature. Gray's L-tters, some of the best in the English lan- guage, describe natural scenery with a minuteness quite new in English Literature. In his poetry he used the description of nature as 'its most graceful ornament," but never made it the subject. In the Elegy In a Country Churchyard, and in the Ode on a Distant P/ospcct of Eton College, natural scenery is interwoven with reflections on human life, and used to point its moral. Colhns observes the same method in his Ode on the Passions and the Ode to Evening. 'I'here is as yet but little love of nature for its own sake. A further step was made by Oliver Gold- smith in his Traveller, 1764, a sketch of national manners and governments, and in his Deserted Vil- lage, 1770. lie describes natural scenery with less emotion than Collins, and does not moralise it like Gray. The scenes he paints are pure pictures, and he has no personal interest in them. The next step was made by men like the two Wartons and by John Logan, 1782. Their poems do not speak of nature and human life, but of nature and themselves. They see the reflection of their own joys and sorrows in the woods and streams, and for the first time the pleasure of being alone with nature apart from men became a distinct element in modern poetry. In the latter poets it becomes one of their main subjects. These were the steps towards that love of nature for its own sake which we shall find in the poets who followed Cowper. One poem of the time almost anticipates it. It is the Minstrel, 1771, of Jamks Beattie. This poem represents a young poet educated almost alto- gether by lonely communion with and love of nature, and both in the spirit and treatment of the first part of the story resembles very closely Wordsworth's descrip- i64 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. tion of his own education by nature in the beginning of the Prelude^ and the history of tli£ pedler in the first book of the Excursion. 134. Further Change of Subject. — Man. — During this time the interest in Mankind, that is, in Man independent of nation, class, and caste, which we have seen in prose, began to influence poetry. One form of it appeared in the interest the poets began to take in men of other nations than Eng-land ; another form of it — and this was increased by the Methodist revival — was the interest in the li\es of the poor. Thomson speaks with sympathy of the Siberian exile and the Mecca pilgrim, and the Traveller of Gold- smith enters into foreign interests. His Deserted Village, Shenstone's Schoolmistiess, Gray's j5"/(?^jj; cele- brate the annals of the poor. Michael Bruce in his Lochleven praises the " secret primrose path of rural life," and Dr. John Langhorne in his Country Justice pleads the cause of the poor and paints their sorrows. Connected with this new element is the simple ballad of simple love, such as Shenstone's Jennny Daivson, Mickle's Mariner's Wife, Goldsmith's Edivin and Angelina, poems which started a new type of human poetry, afterwards worked out niore completely in the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth. In a class apart I call attention to the Song of David, a long poem written by Christopher Smart, a friend of Johnson's. It will be found in Chambers' "Cyclopaedia of Eng- lish Literature." Composed for the most part in a madhouse, the song has a touch here and there of the overforcefulness and the lapsing thoughts of a half insane brain. But its power of metre and imagina- tive presentation of thoughts and things, and its mingling of sweet and grand religious poetry ought to make it better known. It is unique in style and in character. 135, Scottish Poetry illustrates and anticipates the poetry of the poor and the ballad. We have not VI 1 1. J POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 165 mentioned it since Sir David I^yndsay, for with the exception of stray songs its voice was silent for a century and a half. It revived in Allan Ramsay, a friend of Pope and Gay. His light pieces of rustic humour were followed by the Tea Table Miscellany and the Ever-Green, collections of existing Scottish songs mixed up with some of his own. Ramsay's pastoral drama of the Gentle Shepherd, 1725, is a pure, tender, and genuine picture of Scottish lite and love among the poor and in the country. Robert Ferguson deserves to be named because he kindled the muse of Burns, and his occasional pieces, 1773, are chiefly concerned with the rude and humorous life of Edinburgh. The Ballad, always continuous in Scotland, took a more modern but very pathetic form in such productions as Auld Robin Gray and the Fhnvers of the Forest, a mourning for those who fell at Flodden Field. The peculiarities I have dwelt on already continue in this revival. There is the same nationality, the same rough wit, the same love of nature, but the love of colour has lessened. With Robert Burns poetry written in the Scotch dialect may be said to say its last word of genius, though it lingered on in James Hogg's pretty poem of Kilmejiy in The Queen's Wake, 1813, and continues a song- making existence to the present day. 136. The Second Period of the New Poetry. — The new elements and the changes on which I have dwelt are expressed by three poets — Cowper, Crabbe, and Burns. But before these we must mention the poems of William Blake, the artist, and for three reasons, (i.) They represent the new elements. The Poetical Sketches, written in 1777, illustrate the new study of the Elizabethan poets. Blake imitated Spenser, and in his short fragment of Edimrd I/I. we hear again the note of Marlowe's violent imagination. A short poem To the Muses is a cry for the restoration to English poetry of the old poetic passion it had lost. 1 66 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. In some ballad poems we trace the influence repre- sented by Ossian and given by the publication of Percy's Rdiqiies. (2.) We find also in his work cer- tain eLMiients which belonged to the second period of which I shall soon speak. The love of animals is one. A great love of children and the poetry of home is another. He also anticipated in 1789 and 1794, when his Songs of Innocence and Experience were written, the simple natural poetry of ordinary life which Wordsworth perfected in the Lyrical Ballads, 1798. Further still, we find in these poems traces of tne democratic element, of the hatred of priestcraft, and of the war with social wrongs which came much later into English poetry. We even find traces of the mysticism and the search afier the problem of life that fill so much of our poetry after 1832. (3.) But that which is most special in Blake is his extraordinary reproduction of the spirit, tone, and ring of the Eliza- bethan songs, of the inimitable innocence and fear- lessness which belongs to the childhood of a new literature. The little poems too in the Songs of I?ino- cence, on infancy and first motherhood, and on subjects like the Lamb, are without rival in our language for simplicity and songful joy. The Sonf^s of Experie?ice give the reverse side of the Sojigs of Innocence^ and they see the evil of the world as a child with a man's heart would see it — with exaggerated and ghastly horror. Blake stands alone in our poetry, and his work coming where it did, between 1777 and 1794, makes it the more remarkable. 137. William Cowper's first poems were the Olney Hymns, 1779, written along with John Newton, and in these the religious poetry of Charles Wesley was continued. The profound personal religion, gloomy even to insanity as it often became, which fills the whole of Cowper's poetry, introduced a theo- logical element into English poetry which continually increased till tvithin the last ten years, when it has viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1S32. 167 gradually ceased. His didactic and satirical poems in 1782 link him backwards to the last age. His translation of Homer, 1791, and of shorter pieces from the Latin and Greek, connects him with the classical influence, his interest in Milton with the revived study of the English Poets. The playful and gentle vein of humour which he showed in John Gilpin and other poems, opened a new kind of verse to poets. With tiiis kind of humour is connected a simple pathos of which Cowper is our greatest master. The Lines to Mary U7nvin and to his Mothers Picture prove, with the work of Blake, that pure natural feel- ing wholly free from artifice had returned to English song. A new element was also introduced by him and Blake — the love of aniuials and the poetry of their relation to man, a vein plentifully worked by after poets. His greatest work was the Task, 17S5. It is mainly a description of himself and his life in the country, his home, his friends, his thoughts as he walked, the quiet landscape of Olney, the life of the poor people about him, mixed up with disquisitions on political and social subjects, and at the end, a prophecy of the victory of the Kingdom of God. The change in it in relaiio7i to the subject of Nature is very great. Cowper is the first of the poets who loves Nature entirely for her own sake. He paints only what he sees, but he paints it with the afiection of a child for a flower and with the minute observation of a man. The change ift relation to the subject of Man is equally great. The idea of Mankind as a wJwlc which we have seen growing up is fully formed in Cowper's mind. The range of his interests is as wide as the world, and all men form one brotherhood. All the social questions of Education, Prisons, Hospitals, city and country life, the state of the poor and their sor- rows, the question of universal freedom and of slavery, of human wrong and oppression, of just and free government, of international intercourse and union, 15 i68 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. and above all the entirely new question of the future destiny of the race as a whole, are introduced by Cowper into English poetry. It is a wonderful change ; a change so wonderful that it is like a new world. And though splendour and passion were added by the poets who succeeded him to the new poetry, yet they worked on the thoughts he had begun to express, and he is their forerunner. 138. George Crabbe took up the side of the poetry of Man which had to do with the lives of the poor in the Village, 1783, and in the Parish Register, 1807. In the short tales related in these books we are brought face to face with the sternest pictures of humble life, its sacrifices, temptations, righteousness, love, and crimes. The prison, the workhouse, the hospital, and the miserable cottage are all sketched with a truthfulness perhaps too unrelenting, and the effect of this poetry in widening human sympathies was very great. The Borough and Tales i?i Verse followed, and finally the Tales of the Hall in 1819. His work wanted the humour of Cowper, and though often pathetic and always forcible, was too forcible for pure pathos. His work on Nature is as minute and accurate, but as limited in range of excellence, as his work on Man. Robert Bloomfield, himself a poor shoemaker, added to this poetry of the poor. The Farmer's Boy, 1798, and the Rural Tales, are poems as cheerful as Crabbe's were stem, and his descriptions of rural life are not less faithful. The kind of poetry thus started long continued in our verse. Wordsworth took it up and added to it new features, and Thomas Hood in short pieces like the So7ig of the Shirt g2i\Q it a direct bearing on social evils. 139. One element, the passionate treatment of love, had been on the whole absent from our poetry since the Restoration. It was restored by Robert Burns. In his love songs we hear again, only more simply, more directly, the same natural music which in the age VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 169 of Elizabeth enchanted the world. It was as a love- poet that he began to write, and the first edition of his j)oems appeared in 1786. But he was not only the poet of love, but also of the new excitement about Man. Himself poor, he sang the poor. Neither poverty nor low birth made a man the worse — the man was "a man for a' that." He did the same work in Scotland in 1786 which Crabbe began in England in 1783 and Cowper in 1785, and it is worth remark- ing how the dates run together. As in Cowper, so also in Burns, the further widening of human sympathies is shown in the new tenderness for animals. The birds, sheep, cattle, and wild creatures of the wo'od and field fill as large a space in the poetry of Burns as in that of Wordsworth and Coleridge. He carried on also the Celtic elements of Scotch poetry, but he mingled them with others specially English. The rattling fun of the Joliy Beggars and of Tain dShafittr is united to a lifelike painting of human character which is peculiarly English. A large gentle- ness of feeling often made his wit into that true humour which is more English than Celtic, and the passionate pathos of such poems as Mary in Heaven is connected with this vein of English humour. The special nationality of Scotch poetry is as strong in Burns as in any of his predecessors, but it is also mingled with a larger view of man than the merely national one. Nor did he fail to carry on the Scotch love of nature, though he shows the English influence in using natural description not for the love of nature alone, but as a background for human love. It was the strength of his passions and the weakness of his moral will which made his poetry and spoilt his life. 140. The French Revolution and the Poets. — Certain ideas relating to Mankind considered as a whole had been growing up in Europe for more than a century, and we have seen their influence on the work I70 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. of Covvper, Crabbe, and Burns. These ideas spoke of natural rights that belonged to every man, and which united all men to one another. All men were by right equal, and free, and brothers. There was therefore only one class, the class of Man ; only one nation, the nation of Man, of which all were equal citizens. All the old divisions therefore which wealth and rank and class and caste and national boundaries had made, were put aside as wrong and useless. Such ideas had been for a long time expressed by France in her liter- ature. They were now waiting to be expressed in action, and in the overthrow of the Bastille in 1789, and in the proclamation of the new Constitution in the following year, France threw them abruptly into popular and political form. Immediately they became living powers in the world, and it is round the excite- ment they kindled in England that the work of the poets from 1790 to 1830 can best be grouped. Words- worth, Coleridge, and Southey accepted them with joy, but receded from them when they ended in the violence of the Reign of Terror, and in the imperial- ism of Napoleon. Scott turned from them with pain to write of the romantic past. Byron did not express them themselves, but he expressed the Avhole of the revolutionary spirit in its action against old social opinions. Shelley took them up after the reaction against them had begun to die away and re-expressed them. Two men, Rogers and Keats, were wholly untouched by them. One special thing they did for poetry. They brought back, by the powerful feelings they kindled in men, passion into its style, into all its work about Man, and through that, into its work about Nature. 141. Robert Southey began his poetical life with the revolutionary poem of Wat lyler. 1794; and between 1802 and 1814 wrote Thalaba, Madoc, The Curse of Kehama, and Roderick the Last of the Goths. Thalaba and Kehama are stories of Arabian and of VIII.] FOETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 171 Indian mylliology. Full of Southey's miscellaneous learning, they are real poems, and have the interest of good narrative and the charm of musical metre, but the fmer spirit of poetry is not in them. Roderick is the most human and therefore the most poetical. His Vision of Judgment, written on the death of George III., and ridiculed by Byron in another Piston, proves him to have become a Tory of Tories. Samukl T. Cole- ridge could not turn round so completely, but the Nvild enthusiasm of his early poems was lessened when in 1796 he wrote the Ode to the departing Year and the Ode to France. When France, however, ceasing to be the champion of freedom, attacked Switzerland, Coleridge as well as Wordsworth ceased to believe in her, and fell back on the old English ideas of patriotism and of tranquil freedom. Still the disappointment was bitter, and the Ode to DeJectio?i is instinct not only with his own wasted life, but with the sorrow of one who has had golden ideals and found them turn in his hands to clay. His best work is but little, but of Its kind it is perfect and unique. For exquisite me- trical movement and for imaginative phantasy, there is nothing in our language to be compared with Christabel, 1805, and Kiibla Khan and the Ancient Alariner, published as one of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The little poem called Lotc is not so good, but it touches with great grace that with which all sympathise. All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in pure gold. 142. Of all the poets misnamed Lake Poets, William Wordsworth was the greatest. Born in 1770, educated on the banks of Esthwaite, he loved the scenery of the Lakes as a boy, lived among it in liis manhood, and died in 1850 at Rydal Mount, close to Rydal Lake. He took his degree in 1791 at Cambridge. The year before he had made a short tour on the Continent and stepped on the F'rench 1 72 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. shore at the very time when the whole land was " mad with joy." The end of 1791 saw him agam in France and living at Orleans. He threw himself eagerly into the Revolution, joined the " patriot side," and came to Paris just after the September massacre of 1792. Narrowly escaping the fate of his friends the Brisso- tins, he got home to England before the execution of Louis XVI. in 1793, and published his Descriptive Sketches. His sympathy with the French continued, and he took their side against his own country. He was poor, but his friend Raisley Calvert left him 900/. and enabled him to live the simple life he had now chosen, the life of a retired poet. At first we find him at Racedown, where in 1797 he made friendship with Coleridge, and then at Alfoxden, in Somerset, where he and Coleridge planned and published in 1798 the Lyrical Ballads. After a winter in Germany with Coleridge, where the Prelude was begun, he took a small cottage at Grasmere, and there in 1805-6 finished the Prelude, not published till 1850. Another set of the Lyrical Ballads appeared in 1802, and in 18 14 his philosophical poem the Excursion. From that time till his death he produced from his home at Rydal Mount a long succession of poems. 143. Wordsworth and Nature — T\\q Prelude is the history of Wordsworth's poetical growth from a child till 1806. It reveals him as the poet of Nature and of Man. His view of Nature was entirely different from that which up to his time the poets had held. Wordsworth said that Nature was alive. It had, he thought, one living soul which, entering into flower, stream, or mountain, gave them each their own life. Between this Spirit in Nature and the Mind of Man there was a pre-arranged harmony which enabled Nature to communicate its own thoughts to Man, and Man to reflect upon them, until an absolute union between them was established. This idea made him the first who loved Nature with a personal love, for VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 173 she, being living, and personal, and not only bis re- flection, was made capable of being loved as a man loves a woman. He could brood on her character, her ways, her words, her liie, as he did on those of his wife or sister. Hence arose his minute and loving observation of her and- his passionate description of all her life. This was his natural philosophy, and bound up as it was with the idea of God as the Thought which pervaded and made the world, it rose into a Philosopliy of God and Nature and Man. But he had a kind of moral philosophy distinct from this, which was no deeper than a lofty and grave morality created in union with a formal Christianity. It has no point of union with his philosophy of Nature and God and Man, and is incapable of imaginative treat- ment. Naturally then, when it enters his poetry, it is dragged in, and is always prosaic. He is not the poet then ; he is the formalist, 144. vVordsworth and Man. — The pojt of Nature in this special way, Wordsworth is even more the Poet of Man. It is by his close and loving penetration into the realities and simplicities of human life that he himself makes his claim on our reverence as a pojt. We have seen the vivid interest that Wordsworth took in the new ideas about man as they were shown in the French Revolu- tion. But even before that he relates in the Frchide how he had been led through his love of Nature to honour Man. The shepherds of the Lake hills, the dalesmen, had been seen by him as part of the wild scenery in which he lived, and he mixed up their life with the grandeur of Nature and came to honour them as part of her being. The love of Nature led him to the love of Man. It was exactly the reverse order to that of the previous poets. At Cambridge, and afterwards in the crowd of London and in his first tour on the Continent, he received new impressions of the vast world of Man, but Nature still remained 174 ENGLISH LITERATURE, [chap. the first. It was only during his life in France and in the excitement of the new theories and their activity that he was swept away from Nature and found him- self thinking of Man as distinct from her and first in importance. But the hopes he had formed from the Revolution broke down. AH his dreams about a new life of man were made vile when France gave up Hberty for Napoleon ; and he was left without love of Nature or care for Man. It was then that his sister Dorothy, herself worthy of mention in a history of literature, led him back to his early love of Nature and restored his mind. Living quietly at Grasmere, he sought in the simple lives of the dalesmen round him for the foundations of a truer view of mankind than the theories of the Revolution afforded. And in thinking and writing of the common duties and faith, kindnesses and truth of lowly men, he found in Man once more " an object of delight, Of pure imagination and of love." With that he recovered also his interest in the larger movements of mankind. His love of liberty and hatred of oppression revived. He saw in Napoleon the enemy of man. A whole series of sonnets followed the events on the Continent. One recorded his horror at the attack on the Swiss, another mourned the fate of Venice, another the fate of Toussaint the negro chief; others celebrated the struggle of Hofer and the Tyrolese, others the struggle of Spain. Two thanks- giving odes rejoiced in the overthrow of the oppressor at Waterloo. He became conservative in his old age, but his interest in social and national movements did not decay. He wrote on Education, the Poor Laws, and other subjects. When almost seventy he took the side of the Carbonari, and sympathised with the Italian struggle. He was truly a poet of Mankind. But his chief work was done in his own country and among his own folk; and lie is the viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 175 foremost singer of those who threw around the lives of homely men and women the glory and sweetness of song. He made his verse "deal boldly with sub- stantial things \ " his theme was " no other than the very heart of man ; " and his work has become what he desired it to be, a power like one of Nature's. He lies asleep now among the people he loved, in the green churchyard of Grasmere, by the side of the stream of Rothay, in a place as quiet as his life. Few spots on earth are more sacred than his grave. 145. Sir Walter Scott was Wordsworth's dear friend, and his career as a poet began when Words- worth first came to (irasmere, with the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805. Marmion followed in 1808, and the Lady of the Lake in 18 10. These were his best poems ; the others, with the exception of some lyrics which touch the sadness and brightness of life with equal power, do not count in our estimate of him. He perfected the narrative poem. In Marmion and the Lady of the Lake his wonderful inventiveness in narration is at its height, and it is matched by the vividness of his natural description. No poet, and in this he carries on the old Scotch quality, is a finer colourist. Nearly all his natural description is of the wild scenery of the Highlands and the Lowland moor- land. He touched it with a pencil so light, graceful, and true, that the very names are made for ever romantic ; while his faithful love for the places he describes fills his poetry with the finer spirit of his own tender humanity. 146. Scotland produced another poet in Thomas Campbell. His earliest poem, the Pleasures of Hope, 1799, belonged in its formal rhythm and rhetoric, and in its artificial feeling for Nature, to the time of Thomson and Gray rather than to the newer time. His later poems, such as Gertrude of Wyoming::; and O' Connor's Child, are more natural, but they are not nature. He will chiefly live by his lyrics. LLohen- 12* 176 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. li/iaen, the Battle of the Baltic, the Mariners of Eng- land, are splendid specimens of the war poetry of England ; and the Song to the Evening Star and Lord Ullin's Daughter are full of tender feeling, and mark the influence of the more natural style that Words- worth had brought to perfection. J47. Rogers and Moore.— The Pleasures of Memory, 1792, and the Italy, 18 12, of Samuel Rogers, are the work of a slow and cultivated mind, and contain some laboured but fine descriptions. The curious thing is that, living apart in a courtly region of culture, there is not a trace in all his work that Europe and England and Society had passed during his life through a convulsion of change. To that convulsion the best work of Thomas Moore, an Irishman, may be referred. Ireland during Moore's youth endeavoured to exist under the dreadful and wicked weight of its Penal Code. The excitement of the French Revolution kindled the anger of Ireland into the rebellion of 1798, and Moore's genius into writing songs to the Irish airs collected in 1796. The best of these have for their hidden subject the struggle of Ireland against England. Many of them have great lyrical beauty ; they always have soft melody. At times they reach true pathos, but oftenest it is their lightly-lifted gaiety which is delightful, and they all have this excellence, that they are truly things to be sung. He sang them himself in society, and it is not too much to say that they helped by the interest they stirred to further Catholic Emancipation. Moore's Oriental tales in Lalla Rookh are chiefly flash and glitter, but they are pleasant reading. His vers de societe are as light as they are pointed, and his satirical songs and poetical letters, written to assist the Liberal party, are the cleverest of their kind that we possess. 148. The post-Revolution Poets. — We turn to very different types of men when we come to VI II. J rOETRV, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 177 Lord Byron, Shelley and Keats, whom we may call post-Revolution poets. Of the three, Lord Byron had most of the quality we may call force. Born in 1788, his Hours of Idleness^ a collection of short poems, in 1807, was mercilessly lashed in tlie Edinburgh Rcinew. The attack only served to awaken his genius, and he replied with as- tonishing vigour in the satire of English Bards and Scotch Reincwers in 1809. Eastern travel gave birth to the first two cantos of Childe Harold, 18 12, to the Giaour ?iW^ the Bride of Abydos in 1813, to the Cor- sair and Lara in 18 14. The Siege of Corinth, Parisina, the Prisoner of Chillon, Manfred, and Childe Harold were finished before 1819. In 1818 he began a new style in Beppo, which he developed fully in the successive issues oi Don Juan, 1819-1823. During this time he published a numbc:r of dramas, partly historical, as his Marino Ealiero, partly imagi- native, as the Cain. His life had been wild and use- less, but he died in trying to redeem it for the sake of the freedom of Greece. At Missolonghi he was seized with fever, and j)assed away in April, 1824. 149. The position of Byron as a poet is a curious one. He is j)artly of the past and partly of the present. Something of the school of Pope clings to him ; yet no one so completely broke away from old measures and old manners to make his poetry individual, not miitative. At first he has no interest whatever in the human questions which were so strongly felt by Wordsworth and Shelley. His early work is chiefly narrative poetry, written that he might talk of himself and not of mankind. Nor has he any philosojihy except that which centres round the pro- blem of his own being. Cain, the most thoughtful of his productions, is in reality nothing more than the representation of the way in which the doctrines of original sin and final reprobation affected his own soul. We feel naturally great interest m this strong person- 178 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. ality, put before us with such obstinate power, but It wearies at last. P'inally it wearied himself. As he grew in power, he escaped from his morbid self, and ran into the opposite extreme m Don Jiian. It is chiefly in it that he shows the influence of the revo- lutionary spirit. It is written in bold revolt against all the conventionality of social morality and religion and politics. It claimed for himself and for others abso- lute freedom of individual act and thought in oppo- sition to that force of society which tends to make all men after one pattern. This was the best result of his work, though the way in which it w^as done can scarcely be approved. He escaped still more from his diseased self when, fully seized on by the new spirit of setting men free fiom oppression, he sacrificed his hfe for the deliverance of Greece. As the poet of Nature he belongs also to the old and the new school. Byron's sympathy with Nature is a sympathy with himself reflected in her moods. But he also escapes from this position of the eighteenth- century poets, and looks on Nature as she is, apart from himself; and this escape is made, as in the case of his poetry of Man, in his later poems. Lastly, it is his colossal power and the ease that comes from it, in which he resembles Dryden, that marks him specially. But it is always more power of the intellect than of the imagination. 150. In Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the contrary, the imagination is supreme and the intellect its ser- vant. He produced while yet a boy some worthless tales, but soon showed in Queen Mab, 18 13, the in- fluence of the revolutionary era, combined in him with a violent attack on the existing forms of religion. The poem is a poor one, but its poverty prophesies greatness. Its chief idea was the new one that had come into literature — the idea of the destined perfec- tion of mankind in a future golden age. One half of Shelley's poetry, and of his heart, was devoted to help vm.] tOETR\\ FROM 1730 TO 1832. 179 the world towards this idea, and to denounce and overthrow all that stood in its way. The other half was personal, an outpouring of himself in his seeking after the perfect ideal he could not find, and, sadder still, could not even conceive. Queen Mab is an example of the first, Alastor of the second. The hopes for man with which Queen Mad was written grew cold, he himself felt ill and looked for death ; ihe world seamed chilled to all the ideas he loved, and he turned from writing about mankind to de- scribe in Alastor the life and wandering and death of a lonely poet. But the Alastor who took the poet away from the race was, in Shelley's own thought, a spirit of evil, a spirit of solitude, and his next poem, the Rei'olt of J slam ^ 181 7, unites him again to the interests of mankindi He wrote it with the hope that men were beginning to recover from the ai)athy and despair into which the failure of the revo- lutionary ideas had thrown them, and to show them what they should strive and hope for, and destroy. But it is still only a martyr's hope that the poet possesses. The two chief characters, Laon and Cythna, die in their struggle against tyranny, but live again and know that their sacrifice will bring forth the fruit of freedom. The poem itself has finer passages in it than Alastor^ but as a whole it is inferior to it. It is quite formless. The same year Shelley went to Italy, and renewed health and the climate gave him renewed power. Mosalind and Helen appeared, and in 18 18 Julian and Maddalo was written. In the second of these — a familiar conversation on the story of a madman in San Lazzaro at Venice — his poetry becomes more masculine, and he has for the first time won mastery over his art. The new life and joy he had now gained brought back his enthusiasm for mankind, and he broke out into the splendid lyric drama of Prometheus Unbound. Asia, at the beginning of the drama separ- ated from Prometheus, is tlie all-pervading Love which 16 iSc ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. in loving makes the universe of nature. When Pro- metheus is united to Asia, the spirit of Love in Man is wedded to the spirit of Love in Nature, and Good is all in all. The marriage of these two, and the distinct existence of each for that purpose, is the same idea as Wordsworth's differently expressed ; and Shelley and he are the only two poets who have touched It philosophically, Wordsworth with most contem- plation, Shelley with most imagination. Pro77ietheus Unbound \^ the finest example we have of the working out in poetry of the idea of a regenerated universe, and the fourth act is the choral song of its emancipation. Then, Shelley, having expressed this idea with exultant imagination, turned to try his matured power upon other subjects. Two of these were neither personal nor for the sake of man. The first was the drama of the Cenci, the gravest and noblest tragedy since Webster wrote which we possess. It is as restrained in expression as the previous poem is exuberant : yet there is no poem of Shelley's in which passion and thought and imagery are so wrought together. The second was the Adonais, a lament for the death of John Keats. It is a poem written by one who seems a spirit about a spirit, and belongs in expression, thought, and feeling to that world above the senses in which Shelley habitually lived. Of all this class of poems, to which many of his lyrics belong, Epipsychidion is the most impalpable, but, to those •who care for Shelley's ethereal world, the finest poem he ever wrote. Of the same class is the Witch of Atlas, the poem in which he has personified divine Imagination in her work in poetry, and all "her atten- dants, and all her doings among men. Asa lyric poet, Shelley, on his own ground, is easily great. Some of the lyrics are purely personal ; some, as in the very finest, the Ode to the West Wind, mingle together personal feeling and prophetic hope for Man. viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 181 Some are lyrics of Nature ; some are dedicated to the rebuke of tyranny and the cause of Hberty ; others belong to the passion of love, and others are written on visions of those " shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses." They form together the most sensitive, the most imaginative, and the most musical, but the least tangible lyrical poetry we possess. As the poet of Nature, he had the same idea as Wordsworth, that Nature was alive : .but while Words- worth made the active principle which filled and made Nature to be Though. t, Shelley made it Love. As each distinct thing in Nature had to Wordsworth a thinking spirit in it, so each thing had to Shelley a loving spirit in it : even the invisible spheres of vapour sucked by the sun from the forest pool had each their indwelling spirit. We feel then that Shelley, as well as Wordsworth, and for a similar reason, could give a special love to, and therefore describe vividly, each natural thing he saw. He wants the closeness of grasp of nature which Wordsworth and Keats had, but he had the power in a far greater degree than they of describing the cloud-scenery of the sky, and vast realms of landscape. He is in this, as well as in his eye for subtle colour, the Turner of poetry. Towards the end of his life his verse became overloaded with mystical metapliysics. What he might have been we cannot tell, lor at the age of thirty he left us, drowned in the sea he loved, washed up and burned on the sandy spits near Pisa. His ashes lie beneath the walls of Rome, and Cor cordiinn^ " Heart of hearts," written on his tomb, well says what all who love poetry feel when they think of him. 151. John Keats lies near him, cut off like him ere his genius ripened ; not so great, but possessing perhaps greater possibilities of greatness ; not so ideal, but for that very reason more naturally at home with nature than Shelley. In one thing he was entirely different from Shelley — he had no care whatever for the 1 82 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. great human questions which stirred Shelley ; the pre- sent was entirely without interest to him. He marks the close of that poetic movement which the ideas of the Revolution in France had started in England, as Shelley marks the attempt to revive it. Keats, see- ing nothing to move him in an age which had now sunk into apathy on these points, went back to Greek and mediaeval life to find his subjects, and established, in doing so, that which has been called the literary poetry of England. His first subject after some minor poems in 1817 was Endymion, 18 18, his last, Hyperion, 1820. These, along with Zamia, were poems of Greek life. Endymion has all the faults and all the promise of a great poet's early work, and no one knew its faults better than Keats, whose preface is a model of just self-judgment. Hyperion, a fragment of a tale of the overthrow of the Titans, is itself like a Titanic torso, and in it the faults of Endy- mion are repaired and its promise fulfilled. Both are filled with that which was deepest in the mind of Keats, the love of loveliness for its own sake, the sense of its rightful and pre-eminent power ; and in the singleness of worship which he gave to Beauty, Keats is especially the artist, and the true father of the latest modern school of poetry. Not content with carrying us into Greek life, he took us back into mediaeval romance, and in this also he started a new type of poetry. There are two poems which mark this revival — Isabella, and the Eve of St. Agnss. L\abella is a version of Boccaccio's tale of the Pot of Basil ; St. Agnes Eve is, as far as I know, invented. Mediaeval in subject, they are modern in manner; but they are, above all, of the poet himself. Their magic is all his own. Their originality has caused much imitation of them, but they are too original for imita- tion. In smaller poems, such as the Ode to a Grecian Urn, the poem to Autumn, and some sonnets, he is perhaps at his very best. In these and in all, his viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 183 painting of Nature is as close, as direct as Words- worth's ; less full of the imagination that links human thought to Nature, but more full of the imagination which broods upon enjoyment of beauty. His career was short ; he had scarcely begun to write when death took him away from tlie loveliness he loved so keenly. Consumption drove him to Rome, and there he died, save for one friend, now also dead, alone. He lies not far from Shelley, on *'the slope of green access," near llie pyramid of Caius Cestius. 152. Modern English Poetry. — Keats marks the exhaustion of the impulse which began with Burns and Covvper. There was no longer now in England any large wave of public thought or feeling such as could awaken poetry. We have then, arising after his death, a number of pretty little poems, having no inward fire, no idea, no marked character. 'Ihey might be written by any versifier at any time, and express pleasant indifferent thought in pleasant verse. Such were Mrs. Hemans's poems, and those of L. E. L., and such were Tennyson's earliest poems, m 1830. But with the Reform agitation, and the new religious agitation at Oxford, which was of the same date, a new excitement or a new form of the old, came on England, and with it a new tribe of poets arose, among whom we live. The elements of their poetry were also new, though we can trace their beginnings in the previous poetry. It took up the theological, scepti- cal, social, and political questions which disturbed England. It gave itself to metaphysics and to analysis of human character. It studied and brought to great excellence the idyll. It carried the love of natural scenery into almost every county in England, and described the whole land. Two of these men stand forth from the rest, and their main work lies behind us. The first cf these, Robert Browning, whose wife will justly share his fame, stands quite alone. He has set himself more i84 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap than any other English poet to answer the question — What is the end of life, and what its explanation — and he has answered this in a number of poems, nar- rative, lyric, dramatic, and ranging from the times of Athens through the Renaissance up to the present day. The principles laid down in reply are always the same, but their exposition is continually varied. He has drawn with a subtle, strange, and minute pencil the characters of men and women, of an age, of a town, of phases of passion, even of sudden moments of passion ; and in doing so his imagina- tion has wrought hand in hand with Thought which, inventing as it winds through its subject, has perhaps too much scientific pleasure in itself. Art, music, classical learning, the semipaganism of the Renais- sance, the remoter phases of early Christianity, have each, in specialised phases of them, been set vividly into poetry by his work. He has excelled, when he chose, in light narrative, in lyrics of love and of war. Natural scenery, and especially that of Italy, he paints with fire, but he does his best work when the landscape is, like his characters, a special or a strange one. He is an intellectual poet, but neither imagina- tion nor the passion of his subject fail him. The second of these poets is Alfred Tennyson, and he has for more than forty years remained at the head of modern poetry. All the great subjects of his time he has toucned poetically, and enlightened. His feeling for nature is accurate, loving, and of a wide" range. His human sympathy fills as wide a field. The large interests of mankind, and of his own time, the lives of simple people, and the subtler phases of thought and feeling which arise in our overwrought society are wisely and tenderly written of in his poems. His drawing of distinct human cnaracters is the best we have in pure poetry since Cha*ucer wrote. He makes true songs ; and he has excelled all English writers in the pure Idyll. The Idylls of the King are a kind of VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 185 epic, and he has lately tried tiie drania. In lyrical measures, as in tlie tbrm of iiis blank verse, he is as inventive as original. Ii is by the breadth of his range that he most conclusively takes the tirst place among the modern poets. Within the last ten years, the impulse given in '32 has died away and the same thing which we find in the case of Keats has again taken place. A new class of literary poets has arisen, who have no care for a present they think dull, for religious questions to which they see no end. They too have gone back to Greek and mediaeval and old Norse life for their subjects. They find much of their inspiration in Italy and in Chaucer ; but they continue the love poetry and the poetry of natural description. It is some pity that so much of their work is apart from English subjects, but we need not be ungrate- ful enough to complain, for Tennyson has always kept us close to the scenery, the traditions, ihe daily life and the history of hngland ; and his last jjoem, the drama of Harold, 1877, is written almost exactly twelve hundred years smce the date of our first poem, Caedmon's Paraphrase. To think of one and then of the other, and of the great and continuous stream of literature that has flowed between them, is more than enough to make us all proud of the name of Englishmen. K 136 AMERICAN LITERA TURE. [chap. AMERICAN LITERATURE. CHAPTER IX. 1647-1883. Section i. Success of a Literature — the Colonists — Public Schools. 2. Colonial Period. 3 and 4. Jonathan Edwards — his Influence. 5. Benjamin Franklin. 6. A Change. 7. The Federalist. 8. Newspapers and Journalists. 9. Ear- ly Novelists. 10. Irving and his Friends, il. Theological Opinions. 12. Historians. 13. Poetry. 14. Subjects and Readers. 15. Periodicals. 16. Newspapers. 17. Miscel- laneous Writers. 18. Political Discussions. 19. Essayists. 20. Later Novelists. 21. Poets of the Present. 22. Novels and Poetry. 23. Female Writers. 24. Fiction for a Pur- pose. 25. Theological and Biblical Writers. 26. Church Histories. 27. Jurisprudence. 28. Other Authors. 29. The Outlook. I. The Success of a Literature depends quite as much upon the number and intelligence of its readers as upon its authors. Though in theory writ- ten to please, it should in addition be joined with the useful ; and, whether in prose or poetry, ought to exert an influence that would make one the better for reading it. The Colonists — the germs of the American na- tion — brought with them, to a certain extent, the culture, the education, the refinement of the England of that day. This influence led them, even in ad- vance of the mother-land, to introduce public schools. In New England these were begun as soon as need- ed, and, within less than thirty years from the first IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 187 landing at Plymouth, they were established on a firm basis (1647) — the first instance in Christendom when the civil government put in practice the train- ing of an intelligent people by educating all its youth; the result has been a nation of readers. 2. The Literature of the First Century of the colonial period was but a rcllection of that of England ; this arose naturally from the intimate re- lations maintained between the colonists and the mother-country, and in no respect were the former more dependent upon the latter than in this. Though some books and numerous pamphlets were written during this period, yet scarcely a treatise, nor even a pamphlet, survives except as a curiosity ; they were elicited by local causes, and were of temporary in- terest, and, properly speaking, had no material influ- ence in moulding the characteristics of our present literature. 3. We now come to Jonathan Edwards (1703 — I757)> tl"*^ metaphysician and theologian ; the first American writer to attain a European reputation. With him properly begins American literature, as the influence of his writings passed over the colonial period into the present time. Edwards wrote a number of books, two of which are to-day deemed standard works ; the one on The Religious Affec- tions^ the other on the Freedom of the Will, and Moral Ageficy. The latter, especially, has been sub- jected to the severest criticism by the ablest theo- logians and philosophers from time to time, yet in its main positions it still remains apparently as im- pregnable as ever. At thirteen Edwards entered Yale College Thoughtful beyond his years, a meta- physician by nature, he studied and appreciated Locke on the Understanding. In after-years he dis- played in his writings a wonderful power in unravel- ling the mysteries of the human mind. 4. The Influence of Edwards was clearly iS8 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. seen in the theological literature of the succeeding half-century, and in the writings of certain theolo- gians of New England : Drs. Samuel Hopkins, a pupil of Edwards, and Nathaniel Emmons, and Timothy Dwight, grandson of Edwards, and Presi- dent of Yale College. The latter's Theology Expiai7ied and Defe?ided was published near the end of the cen- tury. It was a series of popular sermons, and had an almost unbounded influence upon the religious public, who in that day read, it would seem, more theology in proportion than they do now. Dr. Dwight differed from Edwards on some points, yet in the main holding the same views. This work passed through many editions both in this country and in England. The writings of these men had much to do in shaping the theological opinions of that period. This branch of American literature has been always one of importance. 5. Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), born in Boston, the son of a taLow-chandler, but of limited means, so that at ten years of age the son was taken from school to aid his father in supporting the fam- ily, which consisted of seventeen children. Fond of books, the thoughtful boy even then showed that practical wisdom which lias rendered him famous. He chose the printer's business, thinking it would give him greater facilities for reading. At fifteen he began writing for the New E?igla?td Coura?it, a paper published by an elder brother, who treated him harshly; and young Franklin, at the age of seven- teen, selling what books he had, set out alone to seek his fortune. He came to Philadelphia, where he obtained employment as a journeyman printer, mean- time plying his pen incessantly, and always accepta- bly to his readers. In seven years he became the proprietor of a newspaper. In this he wielded a power in society, in politics, and in literature.. He became a benefactor to the city of his adop- IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 189 tion by his efforts in founding a Public Library, Phil- osophical Society, and an Academy — the germ of the present University of Pennsylvania. He wrote many essays and pamphlets on various subjects, in- cluding scientiiic and moral, meanwhile publishing for twenty-five years Poor RichanVs Almanac. In this he inculcated his notions of economy, which had a very beneficial effect upon the people. PI is wri- tings had a marked influence upon the literature of the times; and, even when actively engaged in the public service, he always found time to do good by means of his pen. He was noted for his keenness of perception and common-sense ; his imagination was quick, but not extravagant ; his mental constitution so evenly balanced that he rarely, if ever, made a mistake as a diplomatist or as a statesman. 6. A Change. — Quite a change came over the literature of the period between the close of the French War in 1763 and the beginning of the Revo- lution in 1775. Questions pertaining to civil liberty and the rights of the colonists crowded out all oth- ers, and the discussions on these absorbing themes engaged the writers, the preachers, and the orators of the times, and gave tone to the literature. Promi- nent among orators in these discussions were James Otis, John and Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts ; in New York were Alexander Hamilton and John Jay; in Virginia, Patrick Henry, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and others. The numerous speeches and state papers, and other political wri- tings, of these statesmen and their compatriots, are among the treasures of our political history. The collected writings of George Washington alone amount to twelve large volumes; these consist of addresses, messages, and letters, all written in a con- cise and clear style. 7. The Federalist. — The period from the close of the Revolution to the adoption of the Constitu- igo AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. tion and inauguration of Washington was noted for the many discussions on the form of government to be adopted for the whole country, and for the pro- duction of the celebrated Essays., now a standard work known as the Federalist., written by Jay, Madi- son, and Hamilton. These Essays had evidently a great effect upon the minds of the people ; a striking instance of elaborate thoughts and views reaching the common mind by first influencing the more cul- tured classes, and through them the people. 8. Newspapers and Journalists. — From the inauguration of Washington onward was a great in- crease in newspapers and journalists, of whom many were foreigners, and the first in this country to enter upon journalism as a profession. Their influence in literature was great, and continued till after the War of 1812 ; soon after which period the American wri- ters seemed to become disenthralled, and cut them- selves loose from so close imitation of English models, and bounded forward to attain success in a field of their own. The time came when political questions were less absorbing, and the people turned their at- tention more to reading on other and general sub- jects, and writers sprang up to answer the demand. 9. Early Novelists. — The harbinger in the field of romance was Charles Brockden Brown (177 i — 1810), a native of Philadelphia. His first work — Wieland — was published in 1798; this was followed by three others. As a writer he was graphic in style, not wanting in imagination ; but, perhaps owing to his continued ill-health, his stories leave a sombre rather than a cheery impression. He is said to have been the first American author to follow literature as a profession, devoting much of his time in writing for a periodical — The Literary Magazine — that he had established. Then comes James Fenimore Cooper (1789- 185 1 ), a prolific writer of novels, thirty-four in num- IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 191 ber, besides several other works, one of which is an elaborate history of the United States Navy. His novels, except the first. Precaution, founded on Eng- lish life, met with unexampled success. The Spy, his second, was received with marked favour both in this country and in England, where it was at once re- published ; each succeeding book added to his repu- tation. The scenes described were for the most part American, and the stories came home to the people. These books gave evidence of an original genius, while their moral tone was unexceptionable. 10. Irving and his Friends. — Washington Irving (1783 — 1859), a native of New York City, stands preeminent among American authors. Blest with an easy, flowing style, and having acute percep- tions, he was able to express his thoughts with re- markable clearness, and withal pervading the whole with a quiet humour, or, when appropriate, with a delicate and touching pathos. No author has had so genial an influence on American literature. His writings were numerous — the Skeich-Book, perhaps, the most popular — they mostly consisting of sketches and short stories, a humorous history of his native city, and biographies, ending with a Life of Wash- ington — a work of love, and the crowning one of his life. Contemporary with Irving was James K. Pauld- ing, who for a time was associated with him in conducting a periodical — Salmagimdi — which was modelled somewhat after the British Essayists. Also Joseph Rodman Drake (who died young), the au- thor of The Culprit Fay — " the richest creation of pure fancy in our literature " — and the famous lyric, The A?nerican Flag. With these was associated Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790 — 1867). They formed a coterie of their own, of which Halleck may be designated the lyric poet. 11. Theological Opinions. — American litera- 192 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. ture has always been more or less imbued with theo- logical opinions, and sometimes debates have been elicited by differences in the interpretation of the Bible, and in the speculations of theologians. One of the most noted of these controversies, and which lasted for years, was the conflict between the Trini- tarians and the Unitarians, the former usually termed the orthodox. The centre was in and around Bos- ton ; but it finally took in New England, and after- ward extended to New York and New Jersey. In this controversy the people took more than usual interest, as they are accustomed in religious ques- tions, especially those involving vital principles. The first in influence among Unitarians was Wil- liam Ellery Channing (1780 — 1842), one of the most remarkable literary men of the period ; de- manding, by his great merits as a charming and vigorous writer, the respect of his opponents, and by his generous and noble nature the admiration and devoted attachment of those who knew him in social life. With Channing were associated Andrews Nor- ton, Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard, and Henry Ware, " Hollis Professor " of Divinity in the same. In the orthodox behalf were found Dr. Sam- uel Worcester, of Salem, and Professors Leonard Woods and Moses Stuart, of Andover. The Uni- tarians established the Christian Examiner as their organ, and the Trinitarians the Panoplist. The two periodicals were read by thousands and thousands. It shows the general intelligence of the people at large, that these learned disquisitions were so much read and studied. Into this earnest, but upon the whole courteous, controversy others were also drawn ; and Lyman Beecher, in the prime of his strength, took part ; while the outside theological world — those comprising the Calvinistic wing — were also drawn in, and Professors Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge, of the Presbyterian Seminary at Princeton, IX ] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 193 took part. Meanwhile the ranks of the Unitarians were recruited by Drs. Orville Dewey, William H. FuRNESs, and Andrew P. Peabody. 12. Historians. — In the dei)artment of History our literature is rich, and in this respect the last half-century has been prolific. The histories of William H. Prescott (1796 — 1859) and John LoTHROP Motley (1814 — 1877) pertain to foreign countries, as do in part those of Francis Parkman. These are all recognized as standard works. The first wrote the History of Ferdinand and Isabella^ Conquest of Mexico, Conquest of Peru, Life of Philip II., and other works ; the second wrote The Rise of the Dutch Republic, the History of the United Nether- lands, and the Life of John of Barneveld ; and the last wrote France and En^^land in America, and Pon- tiacs War. George Bancroft (1800), Richard Hildreth (1807 — 1865), and George Tucker, of Virginia, have written elaborate histories of the United States. The first, in twelve volumes, including the Forma- tion of the Constitution, brings the history to 1787 ; the second brings it down to 182 1, in six volumes; the third goes over nearly the same ground as the second. The histories of the United States, for the use of schools, are very numerous, among which those of LossiNG and Quackenbos hold a promi- nent place. Patton's Concise History of the A7?ieri- can People is designed to fill the place between the school histories and the more extensive ones just mentioned. John Gorham Palfrey has written a very full and complete history of New P2ngland. Jared Sparks has written brief biographies of many prominent Americans, and also edited the writings of George Washington, in twelve volumes, and those of Benjamin Franklin in ten, and likewise the Diplo- matic Correspo7idcnce of the American Revolution. 13. Poetry. — American poetry may be compared 194 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. with that written in the mother-land within the last half-century, rather than with that of any former time. During this later period the more frequent communication between English and American au- thors and readers led to a literary sympathy, which allured the poetry of the two countries into similar forms of thought and choice of subjects that required similar treatment. William Cullen Bryant (1794 — 1878) in his poetry is an interpreter of Nature, and equally happy in religious sentiment and love of freedom. All that he has written has been with great skill and unweary- ing care. His short poems upon subjects drawn from Nature come home to the hearts of his readers. His life was a busy one. Precocious as a boy — for at the age of ten he began to write verses for a neigh- boring country paper — he never relaxed in his in- dustry as a writer and editor, both literary and polit- ical, and no doubt he was the happier for it. Even when he had passed beyond the age allotted to man, he translated, with a poet's grace and appreciation, both the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807) began his literary career early, and, not trusting alone to the inspiration of genius, has ever been a diligent student. He has deservedly acquired great popu- larity both in America and England, where his wri- tings are usually republished. He wrote prose with as much success as poetry, though by the latter he is better known and appreciated. In his writings are found purity of sentiment, nobleness of thought, and a deep sympathy with humanity. His minor pieces have gone into almost every intelligent household in the land, and have had influence for good. Many of his poems are on American subjects; this aids in making them national, and in promoting a taste for a home literature. Such poems are an incentive to patriotism. Who does not know the Fsalm of Life, IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 195 The Reaper and the Flowers ? or who has not read Evangeline^ or been fascinated with the peculiar rhythm of Hiawatha ? On the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation (1875) from Bowdoin College he read a strikingly beautiful ])oem, ATorituri Salutamus, full of manly, generous feeling and noble thoughts. He has written several prose works, and made a transla- tion of the Divine Comedy of Dante, deemed far supe- rior to any former one. John Greenleaf Whittier (1S07) has been characterized as the poet of freedom and humanity, and richly he deserves the compliment. During the antislavery discussions, his poetry, by its defiant and spirited tone, exerted great influence ; and during the Civil War his soul-stirring strains sounded through the land, animating the friends of the nation. His later poems are Tent on the Beach, Snow Bou/id, The Vision of Echard, and others. In this connection belong Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809) and James Russell Lowell (1819), both professors in Harvard, and both filling an hon- ourable place in literature ; both humourists, but far more; each writing successfully both prose and poetry ; subtile critics, genial but kindly severe ; both interested in the Atla?ttic Monthly, the latter for a time its editor, and also of the North American Revieiv. Holmes has written a great number of poems, none long, and several books in prose, as The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, The Guardian Angel, and others. Lowell has written a Fable for Critics, The Biglow Papers, Among niy Books, and many others. He has been American Minister to Spain, and also to England. 14. Subjects and Readers. — Hosts of writers, male and female, are now assiduously cultivating our field of literature, the greater number of whom draw their inspiration from scenes partaking of domestic life rather than from antiquity or classic ground, or from foreign lands. The majority of those who read 196 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. the poetry and light literature of the day are not found so much among the highly educated, but among those, in this respect, the middle classes. Their minds have not been trained to the higher exertion of thought induced by laborious study; but they are by no means deficient in general intelligence, and are thereby able to appreciate the beautiful in Nature or in its description. This great class find in genuine poetical thought, whether in the garb of poetry or in the form of prose, an echo to their own feelings and sympathies in descriptions and senti- ments drawn from domestic scenes, and find emo- tions delineated which they recognise as belonging to themselves. There are millions such, whose only mental luxury is appreciative reading. They are by no means confined to fiction, but are also led to read works of a more substantial character. 15, Periodicals. — Our writers of fiction have increased greatly within the last quarter of a cen- tury. This class of literature has received an im- pulse from the establishment of periodicals — monthly or otherwise — of an advanced literary character; it also has had influence in moulding the public taste, and well it may ; in them are found some of the best authors, American and English, side by side, engaged in instructing their readers. This is one of the best features of these literary times, that the minds of the reading public are thus brought in contact with the best thoughts of the age, properly expressed in clas- sic English, thus training the minds of the people for a still clearer appreciation of literature, and a higher plane of general culture. Among this class of writers woman sustains her part with tact, great zeal, and success. A graceful versifier, she writes the greater part of the poetry of the papers and peri- odicals. 16. Newspapers. — In connection with this should be mentioned the literature of the newspaper, IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 197 aside from its merely furnishing the news of the day. In them are often found discussions of important questions relating to the improvement of society or its material progress. These articles are written by able men, and frequently in a style graceful and racy, and often vigorous and trenchant. Thus the paper becomes a power for good in diffusing knowl- edge, especially in the notices of books, which treat of so many subjects — history, travels, scientific dis- coveries, and the moral and industrial movements of the times. The majority of readers are unable to purchase all these books thus noticed, nor have they time to read them ; but by this means intelligent men and women can obtain a fair knowledge of books, and of the topics of which they treat. 17. Miscellaneous Writers. — There are a host of writers who treat of miscellaneous subjects, and, if space permitted, would deserve mention. Their labors are not without reward and success in their respective fields in promoting a high moral tone of culture and refinement in social life. 18. Political Discussions. — The debates in Congress have had influence in moulding that por- tion of American literature which belongs to politics, as understood in the best sense; for the laws of the Government, and its policy at different times, have always interested the thinking portion of the people. This arises from the nature of the case, when they, as voters, have to do with the government of the nation. It was a brilliant period in this field when Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Robert Y. Hayne, and others, discussed questions of nation- al importance. These discussions have been re- ported, and are valuable as specimens of eloquence — the contrast between these great leaders is very characteristic. The Contrast. — Webster's speeches, addresses, ar- igS AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. guments, and state papers, read to-day as if imbued with the spirit that inspired them at the moment of delivery — and they are almost as fresh to the read- er as they were to the hearer — they glow with the eloquence of thought. Henry Clay's are smooth and elegant, but need the grace, the animation of the orator, who, at the time, by his magnetism, allured his hearers into sympathy with himself, and com- pelled acquiescence in his arguments. Calhoun, more theoretical than practical, held his hearers by the fascination of easy, flowing sentences, that were designed to support fine-spun theories. His was the eloquence of metaphysics — though persuasive at the time, to his reader cold and plausible. The Antislavery Agitatio?t poured forth a stream of thrilling eloquence that astonished the country. The pungent addresses and writings of those who opposed the system sounded through the land, and from their very earnestness compelled an audience. Our literature is rich in the eloquence of states- men and orators on almost every subject capable of being elucidated by the living speaker. The works and writings of such men and scholars as Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, William H. Seward, and many others, are a treasure of great value to the nation. 19. Essayists. — We have a series of writings, which take the form of essays, on all subjects con- nected with man, and in the elucidation of Nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803) — the author of sev- eral important works — may be considered the head of this school of writers. They have had great influ- ence in directing the American mind to the study of man in his relations to life and social aims. The finished style, for the most part, of these writers has had a beneficial effect in improving the literary taste of the reading public. Emerson has written Representative Men, Ejiglish lYaits, Letters and IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 199 Social Aims, and other works. In addition to his wri- tings he has often delivered popular lectures. In this respect he has had many imitators, who have lectured on innumerable subjects to audiences in nearly all portions of the Union. These have been very influ- ential in encouraging the formation of literary associ- ations in numerous villages and towns of the country. George William Curtis is the author of a sa- tire on social life — The Potiphar Papers — and Trumps^ a novel. As editor his essays on current topics are very popular and instructive, while his criticisms are just and judicious. He is noted for his graceful style. Edwin Percy Whipple, in the main, may be termed an essayist. He has written much in review of books. Henry D. Thoreau, a recluse, who lived on a small lake near Concord, Massachusetts, wrote several works. Walden is reckoned his best. 20. Later Novelists. — Nathaniel Haw- thorne (1804 — 1864) holds the first place in the ranks of American writers of fiction. He is most fascinating, possessing delicacy of taste and finish of style, combined with an insight into the human mind most remarkable. He wrote many stories illus- trating character, the subjects being taken from New England life at different periods, and also others based on foreign topics — among these. The House of the Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter, Tivice-told Tales, and others. His last work, The Marble Faun, is deemed by some his best. William Gilmore Simms (1806 — 1870), of South Carolina, wrote several novels, as well as poems; but by no means limited to these, as he was an indefat- igable worker, writing for magazines, and biogra- phies, and histories. His chief novels are Yemassee and the Partisan. He also wrote a History of South Carolina. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her Uncle Tom's Cabin, occupied comparatively a new field — the anti- 200 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. slavery. It was written for a purpose, and is by far the most popular American novel ever published, judging from its immense sale. Her subsequent works have been superior as to their literary mer- its — among these are The Minister s Wooing^ Oldtow?i Folks, Woman in Sacred History, We and our Neigh- bours, The Foganuc People, and others. 21. Poets of the Present. — Among the po- ets of the present is Richard Henry Stoddard. Though engaged in business duties, he has diligent- ly devoted his leisure hours to poetry and general literature, having edited several collections of poetry. His pieces are generally short, The Hynin to the Beautiful being among the first he published. Edmund Clarence Stedman has written much lyric poetry. He wrote a social satire — The Diamond Wedding — Alice of Monmouth, and many other pieces. His review of the contemporary poets of England, in his Victorian Poets, has placed him in the first rank of appreciative and just critics. The Civil War was the occasion of much song- writing, some of which will remain as specimens of spirited composition, such as Sheridan s Ride, by T. Buchanan Read, and the Battle Hymn of the Re- public, by Julia Ward Howe. Of those who have been successful in writing both prose and poetry in a popular manner, per- haps Bayard Taylor is the most striking example. His first book — commenced in his twentieth year — Views Afoot, is a graphic description of his travels " on foot " during two years in the countries of Eu- rope. To this were added some eight or nine other books, some of travel and others of story. He com- posed his poems with astonishing rapidity. He died while the American Minister at the court of Berlin. Joaquin Miller and Francis Bret Harte have sung of the wild scenes of California in its ear- lier days. The descriptions of the manners and IX.] FROM i6^7 TO 1883. 201 customs of the miners of those times have thrown around their writings the charm of novelty. The former's first efforts were the Songs of the Sierras^ and the Heathen Chinee of the latter had perhaps more readers than any other poem of the time. Both have written short stories successfully, and Harte one or two novels, as Gabriel Conroy, and a drama, Two A fen of Sandy Bar, and Condensed Novels. John CioDFREY Saxe, as a poet, is peculiar and successful in travesties and witty combinations of thoughts and fancies, which flow spontaneously, but are so aj^t and to the point that they are appreciated without an effort by the reader. For this reason he is one of the most pleasing of our poets who have been characterized as humorous. 22. Novels and Poetry. — John Hay, a native of Indiana, wrote Jim Bludso, describing an original character in an original manner; and many other poems deemed equally striking. He has been com- plimented by having many imitators. He also wrote Castilia?i Days, a series of Spanish sketches. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, whose stories and poems have won for him a reputation as a poet and novel writer. From his first ballad. Baby Bell, and novel, Pf'udence Palfrey, to his last story, The Still- wafer Tragedy, is found the same care in the style, and the same twinkling humour. JosiAH Gilbert Holland has written many novels, the scenes of which are drawn from Ameri- can domestic life, as The Story of Sevenoaks, Arthur Bonnieastle, and Nicholas Minturn. As the editor of an influential magazine he exerted a power, for in his comments on current topics he was as free as he was fearless. Edward Eggleston, a native of Indiana, has taken a high rank as a writer. He has the advan- tage of throwing an interest around a class of sub- jects and state of society, a quarter of a century ago 202 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. on the frontier, that was unexplored. His Hoosier Schoolmaster and Circuit Rider attracted attention — nor has the interest in his subsequent stories flagged — while Roxy^ his last, fully sustains his reputation. These novels, from the vivid presentation of their characters and the novelty of the scenes described, have been popular in England, and, it is said, with German readers. William Dean Howells, a native of Ohio, has derived many of his scenes from American life as found among the well-to-do and intelligent classes. He is remarkable for the finish of his style and its easy flow, and the delicate manner in which he delin- eates scenes that every one in the same state of so- ciety recognises as true to nature. Their Wedding Journey^ A Chance Acquaintance^ Venetian Life, and many other books, are among his writings. As an editor he is equally successful, while the moral tone of his writings is elevating. Two authors — Julian Hawthorne and Henry James, Jr. — bid fair as writers to sustain the reputa- tions of their fathers. Both are careful and consci- entious in their works, and compose them with liter- ary skill. Hawthorne has written Garth and other stories, also Saxon Studies j and James, Watch and Ward, The American, The Europeans, Daisy Miller, Portrait of a Lady, and others. The latter is a fre- quent contributor to American periodicals. Edward Everett Hale is the author of numer- ous stories, marked by the excellence of their plots and style. A Man without a Country exerted a good influence in favour of the Union in the time of the Civil War. He also wrote Philip Nolans Friends, and Ten Ti?nes One is Ten. Thomas Wentworth Higginson has treated of home scenes in his Out-door Papers, and other sketches ; Atlantic Essays, and a Young Folks' History of the Uiiited States. IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 203 William Mumford Baker, of Texas, educated as a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, has oc- cupied a new field in his descriptions of the state of society in that section of the Union. His lifelike characters and their novelty have made his books very attractive, and, as true illustrations, they have been received with great favour. The New Timothy^ Mose Evaiis^ The Virginians i?i Texas^ and others, are among the productions of his pen. Charles Dudley Warner is a remarkably plea- sing writer. Like the red thread in the British naval cordage, an unconscious humour runs through all his writings; this makes them very attractive. His My Sufjuner in a Garden was received with great favour. This was followed by others, such as sketches of travels on this continent and in the East. He enters fully into the boys' life in his Being a Boy. 2T,. Female Writers. — Space suggests only a mention of the progress in poetry by a host of female writers, as at present the great majority of poems written are by women. These are found in the newspapers and periodicals, and we hail them as harbingers of a bright future. Women also furnish, almost without number, short and graceful stories, the moral influence of which is excellent. This is their field ; that of history has been occupied, if not quite exhausted ; the scientific appropriately belongs to those who have qualified themselves by the labori- ous study of years. Woman may revel occasionally in theoretical speculations, but to her sympathetic nature and quick perceptions properly belong the delineations of character as found in domestic and social life ; and here she has an opportunity of doing good, and by her influence raising the standard of correct thought and literary excellence. Mrs. Adeline I). T. Whitney is happy in delin- eating girlhood, as in her Leslie Goldthwaiie. This has been followed by other stories in the same strain, 18 204 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. and all of a high moral tone, such as Real Folks^ Faith Gartner s Girlhood^ and Sights and Insights. Louisa May Alcott is remarkably popular as an author of juvenile books. She is at home in this class of writing, while there is lurking in her mind a power that may one day assert itself still more. Her Little Women was by no means confined in its great popularity to juveniles. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps stands forth alone, displaying a power very unusual. She has published a number of books, all stamped with an originality of thought and forms of expression ; am.ong these The Gates Ajar attracted at one time much attention ; but by far her most powerful story is Avis, descri- bing the struggles of a noble woman. Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford is the author of several novels of high character on account of the style in which they are written, such as Sir Rohan s Ghost and New England Legends. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote the story That Lass o' Low7'ie's. Though having written previously a number of short and pleasant stories, this book attracted unusual attention as an earnest of what the author could do. Her recent stories are The Haworths and Through One Administration. 24. Fiction for a Purpose. — There is another branch of literature worthy of notice, not only for its excellence in its sphere, but for its good moral influ- ence — that of books in the form of fiction to incul- cate proper religious sentiment ; among these writers Edward Payson Roe is prominent, whose various novels have attained a decided popularity. He has written Barriers Burned Away., The Knight of the Nine- teenth Century^ Without a IJ'o??ie, and many others. Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss, with pure Christian love, cultivated this field for a number of years, and led many " stepping heavenward." She was the au- thor of numerous books for children and youth, and IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 205 Others of a more advanced grade. Stepping Heaven- ward has been her most useful book, having great popularity both in this country and in England. Having been translated into German and French, it is read much upon the Continent. The sisters Susan and Anna Warner have also laboured successfully. Commencing with The Wide^ Wide Worlds they have continued to write many others. Nor should we neglect to notice the literature that has grown up within the last third of a century, among all denominations of Christians, known as Sunday-school^ and the continuation of the same in moral stories for youth more advanced. 25. Theological and Biblical Writers. — In theology and Biblical learning American scholars have taken a high position. Professor Charles Hodge, of the Presbyterian Seminary at Princeton, published the Systematic Theology — the labour of half a century — a work matured and sent forth without an equal. Professor Edward Robinson, of the Union The- ological Seminary, New York City, published the Biblical Researches^ the result of two personal visits to the Holy Land, and an examination, more thor- ough than ever before, of its antiquities, and of the places mentioned in the Bible. This became at once a standard work. It turned the attention of the religious world still more to the subjects of Bibli- cal interpretation. In this department Professor Addison Alexan- der, of Princeton, stands among the first. Rev. Albert Barnes also wrote expositions on many books of the Scriptures, especially designed to aid those instructing others. Dr. Phillip Schaff has accomplished much for the cause in editing Lange's Co?n?nentary on the whole Bible. Professor W. G. T. Shedd wrote a History of Christian Doctrine. 2o6 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. In other departments collateral with Biblical learning Professor Tayler Lewis, of Union College, wrote Science a7id the Bible ; President James McCosh has written The Laws of Discursive Thought and Christianity and Positivism; President Mark Hop- kins, of Williams, Evidences of Christianity and The Law of Lave; President Francis Wayland, of Brown University, wrote Moral Science ; Dr. William R. Alger wrote the History of the Doctrine of the Future Life ; J. W. Dawson, LL. D., wrote on Nature and the Bible ; Dr. Andrew P. Peabody, on Christiajiity and Science ; Professor Thomas C. Upham, of Bow- doin, published the Elements of Mental Philosophy ; and President Noah Porter, of Yale, an elaborate work on The Hujnan Lntellect. 26. Church Histories. — Dr. Abel Stevens has written a full Llistory of the Methodist Church ; Pro- fessor Charles Hodge and Dr. E. H. Gillett a History of the Presbyterian Churchy the latter also wrote a standard work on the IJfe and Tijnes of John Huss ; Dr. Henry M. Dexter has written the His- tory of Congregationalism; Rev. Dr. Perry, Bishop of Iowa, a History of the Episcopalians ; and Dr. Rob- ert Baird, Religion in America. 27. Jurisprudence. — Chancellor James Kent wrote Commentaries on American Law ; Justice Joseph Story, on the Constitution of the United States ; Pro- fessor Henry Wheaton, on Lnternational Law ; ex- President Theodore D. Woolsey has also written 0:1 Lnternational Law. These works are all standard on the subjects of which they treat. 28. Other Authors. — Edgar Allan Poe holds a peculiar place in our literature. A man of melancholy temperament, and leading a sad and wayward life, yet his poetry was so original in its construction, and so melodious in its rhythm, as to induce many in that respect to imitate him. He is best knov/n by his poem The Raven. Richard IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 207 H. Dana wrote both poetry and prose ; of the for- mer, The Buccaneer is deemed his best. Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote a number of poems on scrip- tural subjects; these are deemed by many the best he has written. Paul H. Hayne, of Georgia, and Henry Timrod, of South Carolina, are noted — the former as a sonneteer, the latter for his war-songs. George Ticknor wrote a standard work on Span- ish literature, and biographies. George S. Hil- LARD is noted for the refined taste, purity of style, and high-toned moral sentiment in his writings, which consist mainly of orations, discourses, or essays. We have the philological works of William U. Whitney, George P. Marsh, S. S. Halderman; on political economy, the writings of Dr. Wayland, Henry C. Carey, Professor Perry, of Williams, and Professor Bowen, of Harvard ; on scientific subjects, Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Insti- tution, John W. Draper, Louis Agassiz, Mat- thew F. Maury, and Arnold Guyot ; on geol- ogy, Edward Hitchcock, James Dwight Dana, J. S. Newberry, and Joseph Le Conte; on bot- any, John Torrey and Asa Gray — but we must stop somewhere. Out of more than four hundred ajid fifty recorded names of authors who have aided in creating an American literature, very many wor- thy ones must be omitted in a short compendium. 29. The Outlook. — There is no more cheering feature for the American literature of the future than the indications of a free and untrammelled spirit in taking subjects from our own life and the scenery of our own land. Still more important will be the influence upon the people themselves, in turning their attention to their own country, and in their learning to appreciate it the more. We have not many traditions to weave into stories, but we have Nature in her freshness and beauty, and a pure domestic life moulded by freedom of thought. 2o8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. QUESTIONS. CHAPTER I. Sections i, 2. 1. About what period does English literature begin ? 2. Why may the English be proud of their literature ? 3. Whence did the English come to Britain ? Give an account of the struggles between them and the natives. 4. What became of the literature of the native Britons ? 5. To which belongs the tale of King Arthur ? 6. Explain in what respect the earliest English tongue differed from the modern. Give the illustration. Sections 4—7. 1. In what manner was Old English poetry written ? 2. What is said of the length of lines ? Explain alliteration and accent. 3. Give examples of archaic forms. 4. Explain the parallelisms. When and how did a French system creep in ? 5. Give a summary of the changes made. 6. What are the characteristics of the Continental poetry ? 7. What is said of the Song of the Traveller^ Deor''s Complaint^ and Fight at Finnesburg ? 8. Describe the Old English epic, Beoivulf. Give its story. 9. Explain wherein lies its social interest"; its poetic force. 10. How does its spirit appear in modern poetry ? 11. Quote the description of the dwelling-place of Grendel. Sections 7 — 10, 1. In what manner did Christianity modify English poetry ? 2. How does the love of domestic life and of nature manifest itself ? 3. What does Csedmon tell of Christian heroes ? 4. Describe how the spirit of Woden was softened by that of Christ. 5. Casdmon's poem proves what ? Who was Caedmon ? 6. Tell the story of his life ; of his vision and his song. 7. About what time was the poem written ? What were his sur- roundings ? 8. Explain the poem ; show why it was a paraphrase, and of what ? II.] QUESTIONS, 209 9. Point out the portions of the poem that contain the elements of poetry. 10. What parts exhibit dramatic pt)wer ? How does he compare with Milton ? 11. Name the characteristics of English poetry from this time onward. 12. Tell the story of Aldhelm and his songs ; his songs to the traders. ij. Give a summary of the poem Judith ; what are its characteris- tics. Sections 11, 12. 1. What was the character of the poems of Cynewulf ? 2. Name and describe his lyric pieces ; also his religious poems. 3. Describe the translations in the Exeter and Vercelli books. 4. Does their spirit in faith go beyond the grave ? 5. Were war songs written in the monasteries ? 6. Name the two war songs of that period, and their counter- parts in modern times ; name the authors of the latter. 7. Describe the fight of /Ethelstan and Anlaf. 8. Give the story of the death of Brihtnoth. 9. Why is the poem so English ? 10. Explain why English war poetry for a time decayed ; what victory was won ? Sections 13 — 16. 1. At what date and with whom does all English prose begin ? 2. Name the subjects on which Baeda wrote, and his translation. 3. Tell the incidents of his death. 4. What invasion interfered with this literature in Northumbria ; and why ? 5. Describe the influence of .Alfred the Great on English litera- ture. 6. How did he promote learning ? 7. Mention the works he gave to the nation. 8. Who after . Sections 19, 20. 1. Through whom was England's civilization increased ? 2. Explain the influence of foreign nobles and monks upon the religious life of the people. 3. What desire grew out of this influence ? 4. Describe Ormin's Ortnulum. What does it mark ? 5. What is said of his ideal monk ? 6. Designate the pieces that bring religious poetry to the year 13C0. 7. Explain how the Normans and English were drawn more closely together. 8. Show what class of books or poems were written. 9. Name the translations made, and who by ? 10. Cursor Mundi : what its character, and its contents ? 11. What prose work was translated ; what poem was written for the unlearned .> 12. Describe the vision of Piers the Plowman. For what does he plead ? Sections 21, 22. 1. What literary taste was brought into England by the Normans ? 2. How were its writers styled ? 3. Show in what respect these writings were changed in char- acter. 4. On what subjects did they write ? 5. Who was the first writer, who the last, and what the time in- tervening ? 6. When did historical literature again rise, and through whom >. 7. What change of feeling took place among the Normans, and how were they interested in English literature ? 8. Describe the influence of this welding of the two people to- gether. 9. Give the substance of the stories told by the Welsh priest. 10. How were they received ? Tell what grew out of them. 11. Compare them with Idylls of the King. 12. Tell the story of these legends coming back to England. II.] QUESTIONS. Sections 23 — 25. 1. Describe Layamon's Brut. What does he say of himself ? 2. In what measure is it written ? How does it show change of languafje ? 3. Name the stories translated from the French into the Eng^lish. 4. In what did story-telling become French in form ? 5. How long before the romantic poetry became naturalized ? Under what circumstances ? 6. What is meant by the Cycles of Romance ? 7. Tell how King Arthur and the Round Table obtained their place in English literature. 8. Give an account of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. 9. Explain the romantic fictions about Eskander. 10. Show how the fourth romantic story came to be introduced into English literature. 11. What other romances grew out of the taste thus formed ? 12. In what two writers does the influence of this French school show itself .> 13. In what translation did it come to its height } Sections 26—29. 1. Describe English lyrics, idylls, and ballad?. Tell the story of Robin Hood. 2. Give an outline of the idyll the OjjI and Nightingale. 3. With what were these tinged } 4. Give the substance of the satirical poem mentioned. 5. What is said of political ballads and war songs } 6. Explain the struggles of the literary English language. 7. When was Englisn made the language of the courts of law ? 8. Show how the Friars brought so many French words into the langoiage. 9. What is said of the older inflections, prefixes, and endings } 10. Give an account of the East Midland dialect, and its influence. 11. What effect had the universities on the language ? 12. What is said of Wiclif's translation ? 13. Name the two authors who "fixed the language" in a clear form. 14. Why was it called the " King's English " ? 15. Give the contrast between Wiclif and Langland. 16. Explain the religious revival ; the influence of the Friars. 17. Name another influence. Give the discussion on equal rights. 18. Enumerate the causes that brought misery upon the people. Sections 30 — 33. 1. Who wrote Piers the Ploivman ? How does he describe him- self ? 2. Give an account of his vision ; its characters and their sigfnifi- cance. 3. Explain how he seeks a righteous life ; and his allegories. 4. Describe the influence that his books exerted. 212 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. 5. What translation did much to "fix " our language ? 6. When accused, in what language did he defend himself ? 7. What is said of his active life ? 8. To what year does this work come ? 9. Describe John Gower's influence as a story-teller. 10. In what three languages were his books written ? What does that indicate ? 11. Give a summary of what he taught in his English book. 12. Relate the incident with Richard II. Sections 34 — 39. 1. Give a sketch of Chaucer's life. 2. Under what influence were his first two books written } 3. Explain the Italian influence on his poetry. 4. What was the condition of Italian poetry at the time ? 5. Whose tales did he read and translate } 6. Notice the character of the changes he made in his trans- lations. 7. Give a summary of the stories he wrote. 8. Describe Chaucer's characters. 9. State his definition of a gentleman. Note his love of Nature. 10. Give an outline of the Canterbury Tales. 11. What were pilgrimages in those days ? 12. Of what do the Tales treat .? 13. To what are his story and verse compared ? 14. What elements did he weave into his English ? 15. State the comparison drawn between Chaucer and Gower. 16. Where in literature does Sir John Mandeville belong ? CHAPTER III., p. SO. Sections 40 — 43. 1. To what point of time do Chaucer and Langland bring us ? 2. What is said of Chaucer's influence .'' 3. Give a summary of the poems and other writings of John Lyd- gate. 4. Notice the minor poets of the period. 5. What is said in respect to ballads and small poems ? 6. Name the ballads sung by minstrels, and still known and found in books. Sections 44 — 46. 1. Describe the controversy carried on by Pecock, Bishop of Chi- chester. 2. Name the first theologian who wrote in English. 3. What are the titles and character of the books written by Sir John Fortescue and Sir Thomas Malory ? 4. Who was Caxton ? Give the title of the first book he printed. 5. What effect was produced on the English language by his translations ? 6. Give a summary of the influence of Caxton's publications. 7. State the effect of the interest taken in classical literature. Ill] QUESTIONS. 213 8. Describe the Paston Letters. 9. What interest in books and hbraries did some of the nobles take? 10. Name the classics translated. 11. Explain the effect on the English of the revival of letters in Italy. 12. By what means did the Nerv Learning increase in England ? Sections 47, 48. 1. Show the influence of Henry VIII. on prose literature. 2. Trace the influence of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. 3. What is said of English Renaissance ? 4. Give an account of Roger Ascham's endeavors. 5. What is said of Tyndale and his translation of the Bible ? 6. Give a summary of the editions. Show the effect on the lan- guage. 7. How did his translation reach America ? 8. What was accomphshed by Cranmer and Latimer ? Sections 49 — 5 1 . 1. Sketch the transition period from the old poets. 2. Describe the Pastime 0/ Pleasure by Stephen Hawes. 3. What is said of the writings of John Skelton >. His satire on Wolsey ">. 4. What does he write against in Colin Clout ? 5. Give an account of his other writings, and their influence. 6. Explain his position in the transition. 7. Define the Scottish poetry of the period. 8. Give the outlines of Old Northumbria, and its history. 9. Account for the peculiarities of Scottish poetry. 10. Name and define its three characteristics. Sections 52 — 54. 1. Compare the patriotism of the English and that of the Scotch. Show the influence. 2. Account for the individuality of Scottish poetry. 3. Describe The Bruce. Give the story of James I. of Scotland and his writings. 4. What is said of Robert Henryson's poems ? Whom did he imitate > 5. What influence did William Dunbar exert ? Show how. 6. Name the translations of Gawin Douglas ; describe his writ- ings. 7. Explain how Sir David Lyndsay was a poet and reformer. 8. Describe his Satire of the Three Estates. Show his influence. Section 55. 1. By whom was the Italian influence revived ? in whose reign ? 2. What was the effect upon the English poets ? 3. Give an outline of the poems of the " Amourist s^ 214 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 4. What is said of this style of verse ? 5. What retarded the new impulse ? 6. Name the period of English literature about to be ushered in. CHAPTER IV., p. 71. Sections 56—59. 1. Enumerate the influences that led to the Elizabethan litera- ture. 2. Give a summary of \}a.& first Elizabethan period, i. Prose. 2. Poetry. 3. Translations. 4. Theological reform. 5. Histories. 6. English tales. 7. Pageants and plays, how conducted. 8. Stories of voyagers. 9. Other writers. 3. Give an account of the literature of the second period. 4. Describe John Lyiy's Euphues ; its contents and style; its influence. 5. What is said of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia^ and of the man himself ? 6. The Arte of Poesie ; why written ? 7. Name the other books on the subject. State their influence. Sections 60 — 63. 1. Why was the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity written ? What are its merits ? 2. Describe Lord Bacon's Essays. 3. Tell of Hakluyt's voyages, etc. 4. Trace the origin of English fiction. 5. Give a sketch of Edmund Spenser, his youth and manhood. 6. Notice the characteristics of the Shepheardes Calender. 7. Give an outline of the contents of the Faerie Qtieen. What is the number of its parts ? 8. Explain its influence on English poetry. 9. Name and describe Spenser's minor poems. What is said of his later life ? Sections 64 — 67. 1. Name the four prominent translators and their respective works. 2. Tell of the influence of Italy, of Greece, and of France. 3. Give in order a sketch of Elizabethan poetry, and show how it reflected the whole of English life. 4. What is the character of Southwell's poems ? 5. Give a summary of the love poetry of the time. 6. What is stated of William Drummond .? 7. Explain how patriotic poets arose in England, and their influ- ence. 8. Name the three chief poets of this class. 9. Describe Albion's England., and the subjects treated. 10. Give an outline of Polyolbion. 11. What changed the tone of this poetry ? 12. Mention the causes that mark the change. IV.] QUESTIONS. 215 Sections 68 — 74. 1. Explain why the drama in England began in religion. 2. Give the subjects of these plays in their order. 3. Describe a " Miracle Play." What were " Mystery" represen- tations ? 4. Explain what was intended to be taught in " the Morality." 5. How is the transition traced from religious plays to the regular drama } 6. Tell of John Heywood. Describe his Interludes; what grew out of them .> 7. Name the sources from which these dramas were derived. 8. Give a description of the first theatre and its accompaniments, 9. In what metres were the plays written ? 10. What was the number of the plays produced, and of the songs in them ? 11. Give a summary of what was done by Lyly, Peele, Greene, and Marlowe. 12. What were the characteristics of these dramas ? I J. Describe the strange contreists existing at tiie time. Sections 75—80. 1. Give a sketch of Shakespeare; his domestic life; how he be- came a [playwright. 2. What is the theory in respect to his first play ? when written ? 3. Trace his progress from " touching up" old plays till the time he composed them himself. 4. Mention his first three plays ; give their peculiar features. 5. State what is said of his historical plays. 6. Name the plays written during his second period. 7. What change came into his writings ? 8. With whom was he popular, and in what respect ? 9. Under what circumstances did he write Hamlet, and other plays of his third period. 10. Give a reason why in these he depicts the "darker sins of men." 11. Give a sketch of his last plays; with what spirit were they written ? 12. Give a summary of his work. Explain the Epilogue to Tlie Tempest. 13. How is it visible how he was influenced ? Sections 81—85. 1. In what respect did the drama decay ? 2. What is the character of the plays of Ben Jonson ? 3. What phase of human nature did they delineate ? 4. Enumerate the plays he wrote. 5. In what manner were the Masques written ? 6. WTien did they attain their highest popularity ? 7. Give the traits of Beaumont and Fletcher as writers. 8. Describe Massinger as a writer. To what extremes did he go ? 10 2i6 ENGLISH LITER A TURE, [chap. 9. Mention what is said of John Webster's manner of expression, 10. Who was the last of the Elizabethan dramatists ? 11. Give an account of the strolling players. 12. With what " opera" began the new drama ? CHAPTER v., p. 108. Sections 86—89. 1. Describe the change in prose literature after Elizabeth's death. 2. In what consisted the new type of poetry ? 3. The Advancement of Learning ; what impulse did it give ? 4. What good work had science done ? 5. Mention the historical literature of the time, 6. What is said of Sir Walter Raleigh ? and other historians ? 7. Name what subjects miscellaneous literature touched upon. 8. Give an account of the religious literature. 9. What is said of the founding of libraries ? 10. Of theology — as represented by Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter ; Chillingworth and John Milton } 11. Describe the style of writing during this time. Sections 90—95, 1, Name the element that pervaded the poetry at the time. 2, When did this spirit become less ? Give the illustration, 3. Explain in what manner the fantastic style grew up, 4. Describe the lyric poetry during the Civil War. 5. Of what did the songs and epigrams treat ? When did they change ? 6. Give a sketch of the satirical poetry of this period. 7, Explain how pastoral poetry arose. 8, Contrast rural with town poetry, 9, What is said of the imitation of Spenser by certain writers ? 10. Describe the religious poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. ir. Name the other poets; some Roman Catholic and some Puritan. 12. What is said of the position of John Dryden ? Sections 96 — loi. 1. John Milton, Describe his youth; his university life; his Studies at Horton. 2. When did he visit Italy ? Why did he return to England ? 3. Why did he write scarcely any poetry for twenty years ? 4. Give an account of his controversial pamphlets and their influ- ence. 5. What are the leading characteristics of Paradise Lost f 6. Explain the beauty of the poem ; its ideal purity ; the degrada- tion of Satan ; and the sad image in the closing lines. 7. Paradise Regained. What are its characteristics ? 8. What the teaching in Samson Agonistes ? 9. Point out the traits of mind that Milton exemplifies. VI.] QUESTIONS. 217 10. Give a summar>' of Milton's poetic force and taste. 11. Pilgrim's Progress. What is its spirit, and of what does it treat ? 12. Account for this book still living in literature. 13. Why is it the language of the English people ? CHAPTER VI., p. 123. Sections 102—104. 1. Explain the change that occurred in the style of poetry. 2. Why do certain poets write in a natural style .=• 3. When national life grows chill, what effect is produced ? 4. Account for Milton's influence on style. 5. Describe the other influences mentioned. 6. The Elizabethan poets wrote on what subject ? How was it treated ? 7. How did Dryden and Pope treat man ? 8. Give an account of the transition poets. What new interest was rising ? 9. Contrast the two famous satires of this period. Describe each. Sections 105 — 107. 1. Explain how Dryden becama the introducer of a new school of poetry. 2. In what way is his change of opinions accounted for ? 3. Give an epitome of his satire of Absalom and Ahitophel ; of the Hini and Panther ; and of his Religio Laid. 4. What is said of his fables and translations ? 5. The influence of Bishop Ken, how used ? 6. Name the society founded ; give a summary of the sciences it was designed to promote. 7. Mention the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. 8. To what kind of knowledge was the intellectual inquiry of the Nation directed ? Explain the two sides taken. 9. Give a summary of the theological literature of the period. 10. Mention the names of the preachers and writers in the contro- versy in relation to Atheism and Deism. Sections 108 — no. 1. Give an outline of the discussion on the science of government and social questions. 2. From what point did Hobbes discuss these questions ? 3. State the positions maintained in his Leviathan. 4. Give an outline of the arguments on both sides. 5. What science was for the first time partially treated ? 6. John Locke. State his three positions in his Civil Government. 7. How did he carry the same spirit into another realm of thought ? 8. What is said of his Essay on the Human Understanding ? 9. Sketch the miscellaneous literature of the time. 10. Name the authors ; describe the essays, letter-writing, etc. 2i8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. Sections iii — 114. 1. Give an account of the literature known as that of Queen Anne and the first Georges. 2. What opinions gave rise to it, and where was it concentrated ? 3. Who were the Whigs and who the Tories ? 4. Describe this party literature, and its effect upon pure liter- ature. 5. Name the subjects discussed ; what was the influence on the style of English prose ? 6. Alexander Pope. Give a sketch of his life and a summary of his writings ; their desigri and effect. 7. Describe the Moral Essays^ the Essay on Matt^ the Satires .^ and the Epistles. 8. What is said of his translations, and his love of literature ? 9. Of the minor poets what is said ? Give a summary of their songs and ballads. 10. What impulse rang the knell of criticism ? Sections 115 — 118. 1. Give the four great names in prose literature at this time. 2. What is said of each one and his writings 1 3. Describe Bishop Butler's great work. 4. Metaphysical literature. The Minute Philosopher ; what did it teach ? 5. The Fable of the Bees ; tried to prove what ? 6. Periodical essays ; their design ? Of what did the Tatler treat ? 7. What is said of the Spectator ? The Guardian ? 8. Their influence on the people ? Who were the principal writers "i 9. In the drama, what new form was introduced ? 10. From whom did the dramatic writers sometimes borrow ? 11. What is said of the influence of Dryden on the drama ? 12. In what form did the dramatists succeed ? 13. How was the drama partially purified ? 14. Of what was the stage made a vehicle ? 15. How long did the influence of the Restoration on the drama last? 16. With whom does the elder English drama close ? CHAPTER VIT., p. 145. Sections 119 — 121. 1. With the rapid increase of what is paralleled the gro^vth of literature ? 2. Give the four causes of this literary progress. 3. What is said of the effect of a good style ? And also of the long peace ? 4. Show the influence of the Press on the literature of the period. 5. What right did the Press claim and obtain ? [Note : The freedom of the Press wcis established in New York VII.] QUESTIONS. 219 thirty-seven years before this. See Patton's " Concise History of the American People," p. 221.] 6. Explain the influence on English literature of French authors and German writers. 7. Tell the story of Samuel Johnson. 8. Give an account of his writings, and show their influence. 9. What is said of Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, and Sir Joshua Reynolds ? 10. Who originated the modern novel ? Define the novel. 11. What field does it occupy for its subjects ? 12. Give the characteristics of each of these authors. Sections 122, 123. 1. Mention the first three prominent English historians. 2. Give the titles of their histories, and the characteristic of each as to style. 3. Name in order the merits and defects of each. 4. Explain David Hume's theory of philosophy. 5. Define what he means by his measure of virtue, and the influ- ence of the theory. 6. Name his works in their order ; what may be inferred from the last two ? 7. Give the theory of the IVealt/i 0/ Nations. What questions were involved ? 8. Enumerate the effects of industry from 1720 to 1770. 9. Give an account of the Social Reform ; its influence on litera- ture and on popular education. 10. What are the characteristics of Edmund Burke's speeches and writings ? 11. Show their literaiy merits and defects; account for their in- fluence. Sections 124 — 129. 1. What city had become a literaiy centre ? 2. State the effects of the doctrines of the French Revolution. 3. Explain the influence of the great journals. 4. Give a summary of the means used to educate the people. 5. Name the Reviews and Magazines ; tell how they grew up. 6. What made them a power > 7. What literature received an impulse from the Wesleys and George Whitfield ? 8. Name the writers on the evidences of Christianity. 9. Mention the names of the Scotch mental philosophers. 10. What was the influence of Aids to Reflection ? 11. What was put forth by Jeremy Bentham ? 12. Give what is said on books of travel. 13. Explain the position of historical literature. 14. Sum up what is said of the novel of this period. 15. Give a sketch of each of Walter Scott's novels. ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. CHAPTER VIII., p. 158. Sections 130 — 133. 1. Give an outline of the two periods of poetry to be studied. 2. State the influence of didactic and satirical poetry. 3. Show the effect of the Greek and Latin classics in forming a more artistic poetry. 4. What was the result of a careful study of the older English authors ? 5. State the new element introduced ; give examples of the nar- rative, ballad, and romance. 6. Cite Ossian and Chatterton. 7. What reaction took place, and how ? 8. Give the criticism on the style of poetry from Elizabeth to George I. 9. On what two subjects have poets always worked ? 10. Explain how man in connection with Nature furnishes sub- jects to the poets. 11. Account for the change to natural description. 12. Describe Thomson's Seasons ; what was its influence ? 13. How did descriptions of natural scenery come to be interwoven with reflections on human life ? 14. What influence had foreign travel on the love of Nature ? 15- Instance Goldsmith and Collins. 16. What is said of the Minstrel f What does the story resemble ? Sections 134 — 138. 1. State how a change of subject began ; the individual man. 2. Mention the various ways in which the poor were introduced into poetry. 3. Give the titles of poems bearing on man as a subject. 4. Scottish poetry ; describe the Gentle Shepherd. 5. State what is said of the ballad in Scotland. 6. Name the three poets of the second period of the new poetry. 7. State the features of William Blake's poetry. 8. Describe Cowper's poems. What element did he introduce ? 9. What are the links that connect him with different periods of poetrj'^ ? 10. How did he regard the brotherhood of man ? 11. This led to poems on what questions ? 12. Give a summary of the wonderful change. 13. How are we brought face to face with the pictures of life in the poems of Crabbe ? 14. Compare him with Cowper. 15. Describe the Farmer's Boy a.nd the Rural Tales ; what was the influence of this style of poetry ? 16. Who afterward took it up and added new features ? Sections 139, 140. 1. Name the element restored to poetry by Robert Bums. 2. Why did he sing of the poor ? Notice the dates of the three poets. VIII.] QUESTIONS. 221 3. Account for liuman sympathy leading these three poets to have tenderness for animals. 4. State what is specially marked in Burns. 5. What spoiled his life ? 6. What is said of the ideas brought into view by the F'rench Revolution in respect to man ? 7. Explain the influence of these ideas of man's equality, and the reaction upon Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Wcilter Scott. Sections 141 — 144. 1. What is said of Southey ? What of Coleridge > 2. Mention the influence on the latter of the defection of France. 3. Name the principal poems of Southey. 4. State the opinion in respect to the beauty of Coleridge's poetry. 5. Describe VVordsworth's youth and training. 6. In what way were the lyrical ballads published ? 7. What is said of the Prelude and the lixcursion / 8. How in accordance with his views was Nature in harmony with man ? 9. Account for his minute observation of Nature. 10. Show how he came to honor man as a part of the beine of Nature. ^ 11. State his disappointment ; his hatred of oppression. 12. Give the subjects of a series of his sonnets. 13. Account for his being truly a poet of mankind. 14. State what criticism must confess. Wherein is he like Milton ? Sections 145—147. 1. Mention the three famous narrative poems of Waller Scott. 2. What is said of his lyrics ? Describe how he represents land- scap>e in his word-painting. 3. Analyze Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, What are his promi- nent poems ? 4. Describe the Pleasures of Memory. 5. Why is there no trace of the civil commotions of Europe found in the poetry of Rogers ? 6. What are the characteristics of the poetry of Thomas Moore ? 7. Name the underlying subject of his songs. Sections 148 — 150. 1. Who were the post-revolution poets ? 2. What is said of Childe Harold and other poems of Byron ? 3. Give an analysis of his dramas, and of his hfe. 4. For what purpose did he seem to write narrative poetry ? De- scribe Cain. 5. Why did he write in opposition to social morality ? 6. Describe him as a poet of Nature. 7. Analyze his great power. 8. What is the prominent idea in Shelley's Queen Mat ? 9. Explain the poem Alastor. 10. What are the sentiments expressed in the Revolt of Islam ? 222 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. viii. 11. Explain -why his poetry became more masculine. 12. What is represented in Prometheus Unbound ? State its ideas. 13. Describe the Cenci and Adonais. 14. How does Shelley's view of Nature compare with that of Wordsworth ? 15. What was the character of his later poetry ? Sections 151, 152. 1. Draw a parallel between Shelley and Keats. 2. For what reason did Keats go to Greek and mediaeval life for subjects ? 3. Describe his style. What does he mark in modern English poetry > 4. Of what impulse does Keats mark the exhaustion ? 5. Tell why indifferent thought was expressed in pleasant verse. 6. State the effect of the reform agitation, and the religious move- ment at Oxford. 7. What is said of Mr. and Mrs. Browning ? 8. Give the characteristics of the former's sympathies. 9. What is said of Tennyson's Idylls ? 10. Describe the new class of literary poets. 11. Compare in time Tennyson's Harold {\%'j']) with Caedmon's Paraphrase (about 670), IX.] QUESTIONS. S23 QUESTIONS. CHAPTER IX. Sections i, 2. 1. Upon what depends the success of literature ? 2. What its theory, and should be its influence ? 3. Name the advantages the colonists brought with them. To what did these lead ? 4. When were public schools established ? What instance does it mark ? 5. Describe the practice, and state the result. 6. How was the literature of the Colonial period influenced ? 7. Explain why that literature had little effect on the present. Sections 3 — 5. 1. Give an account of Jonathan Edwards. Name the books h2 wrote. 2. What is said of the last one mentioned ? 3. On what literature has his influence been marked ? 4. Name the works of Timothy Dwight. How written. What their influence. 5. Give the story of Benjamin Franklin. 6. State his effcjrts in behalf of education, economy, and literature. 7. Explain how he showed his practical wisdom. Sections 6 — 8. 1. State how a change took place in the literature of that period. 2. Name those who took part in these discussions. 3. What is the character of their writings, and those of George Washington ? 4. Give an account of the Federalist. How did it accomplish its work ? 5. Explain why newspapers and journalists increased in numbers. 6. How long did the influence of the latter continue ? 7. State what the American writers of this period did for them- selves, 8. Why did the people begin to read more on general subjects ? Sections 9, 10. 1. Who was the harbinger in the field of American romance ? 2. Describe him as an author. What the character of his wri- tings ' 224 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 3. He was the first American author to do what ? 4. Who followed in this field ? With what success ? 5. What elaborate work did he also write ? 6. Why were Cooper's novels so popular ? 7. Who stands preeminent in American literature ? 8. In what consists the charm of Irving's writings ? 9. Give a summary of his works. 10. Who, as writers, were Irving's contemporaries ? 11. After what was the Salmagundi modelled ? 12. Name the chief work of Drake and its characteristic. Sections 11, 12. 1. Explain the cause of different theological opinions. 2. Describe the noted controversy. Where was its centre "i 3. Give a sketch of Channing. 4. What organs were established ? What is said of their readers } 5. Name the other parties drawn into this controversy. 6. In what two respects is our historical literature noted ? 7. Name the authors who treat of foreign countries. Give a summary of their works. 8. Name the authors of United States histories. What period do they cover ? p. What is said of the school histories and one other ? 10. Give a summarj- of Jared Sparks's writings. Section 13. 1. In what respect can we compare the poetry of America with that of England ? 2. Describe the characteristics of the poetry of Br>'ant. 3. What translations has he made ? 4. State the literary career of Longfellow. 5. What desirable qualities are found in his writings > 6. Explain the popularity of his works. 7. How has Whittier been characterised ? What the influence of his poetry ? 8. Give a sketch of the two writers — Holmes and Lowell. 9. Name their writings. Sections 14 — 17. 1. What is said of the hosts of writers ? 2. Where are the readers found ? How do they apply the thoughts of others ? 3. Describe the luxury and the result. 4. State how an impulse has been given to literature. 5. Explain the features of these literary times. 6. What is said of woman as a writer ? 7. Give a sketch of the Uterature of the newspaper. 8. Name the advantages derived from the notices of books. 9. State what is said of miscellaneous writers. IX.] QUESTIONS. 225 Sections 18, 19. 1. Describe the influence of political discussions on literature. 2. Name the men of a brilliant period. 3. Give a summary of the contrast. 4. What is said of the a{;itation ? 5. Explain in what respect our literature is rich. 6. Describe the influence of the essayists. 7. What has been the effect of popular lectures ? 8. Name the authors in this class. Their writings. Section 20. 1. Give a sketch of Hawthorne's style, and name his writings. 2. What is said of Simms's works and of himself } 3. Why was Uncle Tom's Cabin so popular ? 4. Name Mrs. Stowe's other books. 5. State what is said of Stoddard's literary labours. 6. Name Stedman's writings. Why does he stand high as a critic? 7. Of what kind of writing was the civil war an occasion > 8. Describe Bayard Taylor as an author. 9. Explain the novelty of the writings of Joaquin Miller and Bret Harte. 10. Give a description of J. G. Saxe's poetry. Section 22. 1. What is said of Jirn Bludso ? How has the author been com- plimented ? 2. State what is said of the stories and poems of T. B. Aldrich. 3. Describe the author of Sevenoaks as a writer and editor. 4. What advantage has the author of the Circuit Rider in his subjects ? 5. Explain the secret of the popularity of his writings, 6. From what class of subjects does Howells derive his scenes ? 7. Describe his style and manner. Name his writings. 8. Give an account of the t'lvo authors. Name their writings. 9. What is said of the writings of E, E. Hale and T, W. Higgin- SOD ? 10. Give a sketch of W. M. Baker's writings and their subjects. 11. Explain the charm of Charles Dudley Warner's writings. Sections 23, 24. 1. What is said of female writers ? What may be termed their field? 2. Name Mrs. Whitney's writings and Miss Alcott's. 3. State the character of Miss Stuart's style and writings. 4. What is said of Mrs. Spofford and Mrs. Burnett as to their novels ? 5. Describe the writings of E. P. Roe and Mrs. Prentiss as to their purpose. 6. What literature has grown up recently ? 226 AMERICAN LITERA TURE. [chap. ix. Sections 25, 26. 1. What is said of Biblical learning and systematic theology ? 2. Name the work of Professor Robinson. State its influence. 3. Name those who have engaged in Biblical interpretation. 4. Give the authors and titles of works written as collateral with Biblical learning. 5. Name the authors and their works on Church history. Sections 27 — 29. 1. Give the titles of the works on jurisprudence and international law. Name the authors. 2. Upon what other subjects have many American authors written ? 3. Give a summary of the outlook. THE END, ^ BOTANICAL WORKS. Greene's Primary Botany. Illustrated. 4to. Cloth, $1.10. Greene's Class-Book of Botany. Cloth, $1.10. Henslow's Botanical Charts, Adapted for Use in the United States. By Eliza A. YouMANs. Six in set, handsomely colored. Per set, $15,'75. Key to do. 25 cents. J. D. Hooker's Botany. Forming a volume in the "Science Primers." 18mo. Flexible cloth, 45 cents. Eliza A. Youmans's First Book of Botany. Designed to cultivate the Observing Power of Children. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. 16Y pages. 85 cents. Eliza A. Youmans's Second Book of Bot- any. Uzao. Cloth, $1.30. Lindley and Moore's Treasury of Bot- any: A Popular Dictionary of the Vegetable Kingdom. With numerous Illustrations. 2 vols., 16mo. Cloth, $6.00. Half calf, $8.00. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street WORfo OF ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY. Life and her Children. By Arabella B. Buckley. With Illustrations. One vol., i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. The work, witli the author's usual felicity in captivating the youthful mind, discusses the structure and habits of the invertebrate animals. Fairy-Land of Science. By Arabella B. Buckley, author of "A Short His- tory of Natural Science," etc. With numerous Illus- trations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. "A child's reading-book admirably adapted to the purpose intended. The young reader is referre.l to Nature itself rather than to books, and is taught to observe and investigate, and not to rest satisfied with a collection of dull definitions learned by rote and worthless to the possessor. The present work will be found a valuable and interesting addition to the some- what overcrowded child's library." — Boston Gazette. " It deserves to take a permanent place in the literature of youth." — London Times. " So interesting that, having once opened the book, we do not know how to leave off reading." — Saturday Revie^v. III. A Short History of Natural Science and the Progress of Discovery, From the Time of the Greeks to the Present Day. For Schools and Young Persons. By Arabella B. Buckley. With Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. "The volume is attractive as a b'lok of anecdotes of men of science and their discoverirs. Its remarkable features are the sotmd judgment with which tlie true landmarks of scientific history are ^elected, the conciseness of the information conveyed, and the interest which the whole subject is nevertheless invested. Its style is strictly adapted to its avowed purpose of furnishing a text-book for the use of schools and young persons." — London Daily Neivs. " A most admirable little volume. It is a classified r/st/m/of the chief discoveries in pliysical science. To the young student it is a book to open up new worlds with every chapter." — Graphic. "The book will be a valuable aid in the study of the elements of nat- ural science." — Journal 0/ Education. D. APPLETON & CO., Pt;BUSHERs, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street, N. Y. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS r-"; ^ r-TfOKT, T< H. 4^^^^^^H €Mi::^i. r: . . .; r.:.S3^^^^^^^l PH=i^V>i<- ' - '''t« '^^^^^H Pifcr'..!-; /• , 'l5i?fflE?^^^ G?^l^U.r..- F-TV;:::; hK- . ■ . ; , ■: X"- ■V* Hspence^) V' ; • ■ ''-'TOT!'^, h.' . ^^ A. • . s^^^ ::. ^ K^ ' •:,;..> i-js, ^S^^fl ^Bs -. ^ :- v.; :-.,r, .•:- ,= ioraA.Br^..^, ^HI-'' i.''^' -ijMBa ^K '-.&=^ffiiH -:':■'■■■■': ■'Wli^9§ K- .. v-. ' ^:.: ::v..^.iv. x; /-v..., ^;^^: :i ^ ^.^-'i^ --:■•■ :ON» or, NtcltoL D. APPLETON & CO.