:% ,0^ ^-..^^ • f * .x^^ - ^ ^c. L ^ \ O^ , ^ » -^' ^ . .< 9l i -/i- * "• ^ ' . x"^"^ <^. ^ .'\ '^c^. ^\ c « ^ ^> '^'; N~^ . u . . - .\ •^ .^" ->^ * qO ^ ^ {?. 3^ *^ '^ vO^ S~ ^ ' v^ H -r. ^^. ^' '^> \V A -^^ vV cO^^^« '^C V^' X^^ ^c.. r^ y ^^^^^--,.^. *^;»'-,^' .^^ •%^. ^^ -^' •' V, r. '^ A^ ► <^^ '^r- ^"^ ci^ Pa V^ .i>^ '% ,^ ^ -\-,^ .A^' •^' ■%■ o>' r. O ^ "•r-' V" . ^'>:^^ ']!% 0' '"•^V ^0 o^ ^, -Jt /f* -1^.-. ''-iv- ^• "^^z. ■ ^ 9 O ^00^ ■ « \ "^ , '^o 0^ q5 ^^ - \^°^. '>"'//, '"> .V \ X "^A v^ - - ^ -^ \> aV '^o - '^.'^ "^^ > .0 %. ,<^' «\ .'^^• "^/> ENGLISH LITERATURE STOPFORD AHBROOKE, M.A. I WITH STUDENTS' READINGS AND QUESTIONS BY HARRIET L. MASON DREXEL INSTITUTE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO.. Ltd. 1898 All rights reserved 31 ;^.^« ^ Copyright, 1896, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Copyright, 1898, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. y<4 A' TWOuOricoRtCclVED. Nortoooti i3re32 %^l^ C O F^V- Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith • Mr 1698. Norwood Mass. U.S.A. ■?,c^.v^a"^ ^ CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE English Literature before the Norman Conquest, 670-1066 I CHAPTER II From the Conquest to'. Chaucer's Death, 1066- 1400 . 32 CHAPTER III From Chaucer's Death to Elizabeth, 1400-1558 . . 72 CHAPTER IV The Reign of Elizabeth, i 558-1 603 .... 98 CHAPTER V From Elizabeth's Death to the Restoration, 1603- i66q 150 CHAPTER VI From the Restoration to the Death of Pope and Swift, i 660-1 745 ■ . .170 V VI CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAGE Prose Literature from the Death of Pope and Swift TO THE French Revolution, and from the French Revolution to the Death of Scott, 1745- 1832 . 196 CHAPTER VIII Poetry from i 730-1 832 213 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I WRITERS BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 67O-IO66 I. The History of English Literature is the story of what great Enghsh 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 had its un- written beginnings still earlier on the Continent, in the old Angle- Land; it was still going on in the year which closes this book, 1832 ; nor has our literature lost any of its creative force in the years which have followed 1832. Into this little book then is to be briefly put the story of nearly 1200 years of the thoughts, feelings, and imagina- tion of a great people. Every Enghsh man and woman has good reason to be proud of the work done by their forefathers in prose and poetry. Every 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 2 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. and delighting the world for more than looo 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 literature is written in English, the tongue of our fathers. They lived, while this island of ours was still called Britain, in North and South Denmark, in Hanover and Friesland — Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. Their common tongue and name were English; but, either because they were pressed from the inland, perhaps by Attila, 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, to Strath- clyde, and to Cornwall. It is well for those who study English literature to remember that in these 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 afterwards into English literature and had a great influence upon it. Moreover, in the later days of the Conquest, a great number of the Welsh were amalgamated with the English. The whole tale of King Arthur, of which English poetry and even English prose is so full, was a British tale. Some then of the imaginative work of th€ conquered afterwards took cap- tive their fierce conquerors. 3. The English Tongue. — The earliest form of our English tongue is very different from modern English in form, pronunciation, and appearance ; but still tlie Ian- I EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST 3 guage 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 language, as well as the sameness of national spirit, which makes our literature one literature for 1200 years. 4. Of English Literature written in this tongue we have no extant prose until the time of King Alfred. Men hke Bseda and Ealdhelm wrote their prose in Latin. But we have, in a few manuscripts, a great deal of poetry written in English, chiefly before the days of Alfred. There is (i) the MS. under the name of CcBdjuon's Paraphrase, a collection of religious poems by various writers, now in the Bodleian. There is (2) the MS. oi Beowulf and of the last three books of Judith. There is (3) the Exeter Book, a miscellaneous collection of poems, left by Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, to his cathedral church in the year 107 1. There is (4) the Vercelli Book, discovered at Vercelli in the year 1822, in which, along with homihes, there is a collection of six poems. A few leaflets complete the list of the MSS. containing poems earlier than Alfred. All together they constitute a vernacular poetry which consists of more than twenty thousand lines. • 5. The metre of the poems is essentially the same, un- Hke any modern metre, without rhyme, and without any fixed number of syllables. Its essential elements were accent and alliteration. Every verse is divided into two half-verses by a pause, and has four accented syllables, 4 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. while the number of unaccented syllables is indifferent. These half-verses are linked together by alliteration. The two accented syllables of the first half, and one of the accented syllables in the second half, begin with the same consonant, or with vowels which were generally different one from another. This is the formal rule. But to give a greater freedom there is often only one alliterative letter in the first half-verse. Here is an example of the usual form : — And a'ea\v-(3'rias : on dsege weor^e'5 Winde geondsawen. And the ^ew-r/ownfall : at the as, one of the Cante7'bury Tales. His chief work of this time bears witness to the influence of Italy. It was Troilus and Criseyde, 1380-3, a translation, with many changes and additions, of the Filostrato of Boccaccio. The additions (and he nearly doubled the poem) are stamped with his own peculiar tenderness, vividness, and simplicity. His changes from the original are all tow- ards the side of purity, good taste, and piety. We meet the further influence of Boccaccio in the birth of some of the Canterbuiy Tales, and of Petrarca in the Tales themselves. To this time is now referred the LyJ of Seifit Cecyle, afterwards made the Second Nun's tale ; and the passionate religious fervour and repentance of this poem has seemed to point to a period of penitence in his life for his early sensuousness. It did not last long, and he now wrote the Story of Grisilde, the Clerk's tale ; the Story of Constance, the Man of Law's tale ; the Monk's tale; the Compley^it of Mars; the Com- pleynt to his Lady ; Anelida and Arcyte ; Troilus and Criseyde; the Lines to Adam Scrivener; To Rose- mounde ; The Parlement of Foiiles ; Boece, a prose ver- sion of the De Consolatione ; the Llous of Fatne, and the Legende of Good Women. In these two last poems we may trace, not only an Italian, but a classical period in the work of Chaucer. This is the record of the work of the years between 1373 and 1384 ; and almost all these poems are either influenced by Dante or adapted II FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER 6^ from Petrarca and Boccaccio. In the passion with which Chaucer describes the ruined love of Troikis or Anehda, some have traced the lingering sorrow of his early love affair. But if this be true, it was now passing away, for in the creation of Pandarus in the Troilus, and in the delightful fun of that enchanting poem the Parlement of Fouies, a new Chaucer appears, the humorous poet of some of the Canterbury 2 ales. The noble art of the Pariejnent, as well as that of the T^vi/us, lifts Chaucer already on to that eminence apart where sit the great poets of the world. Nothing like this had appeared before in England. Nothing like it appeared again till Spenser. In the active business life he led during the period his poetry was likely to win a closer grasp on human life, for he was not only employed on service abroad, but also at home. In 1374 he was Comptroller of the Wool Customs, in 1382 of the Petty Customs, and in 1386 Knight of the Shire for Kent. 42. Chaucer's English Period. — It is in the next period, from 1384 to 1390, that he left behind (except in the borrowing of his subjects) Italian influence as he had left French, and became entirely himself, entirely English. The comparative poverty in which he now lived, and the loss of his offices in 1386, for in John of Gaunt's absence court favour was withdrawn from him, and the death of his wife in 1387, may have given him more time for study and the retired life of a poet. His appointment as Clerk of the Works in 1389 brought him again into contact with men. He superintended the 64 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. repairs and building at the Palace of Westminster, the Tower, and St. George's Chapel, Windsor, till July, 139 1, when he was superseded, and lived on pensions allotted to him by Richard II. and by Henry IV., after he had sent Henry in 1399 his Coiiipleiiit to his Purse, Before 1390, however, he had added to his great work its most Enghsh tales ; those of the Miller, the Reeve, the Cook, the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Friar, the Nun's Priest, the Pardoner, and perhaps the Sompnour. The Prologue was probably written in 1388. In these, in their humour, in their vividness of portraiture, in their ease of narration, and in the variety of their characters, Chaucer shines supreme. A few smaller poems belong to this time, such as the Former Age ; Fortune ; Truth ; Gentilesse ; and the Lak of Steadfastnesse. During the last ten years of his life, which may be called the period of his decay, he wrote some small poems, and along with the Compleynt of Venus, and a prose treatise on the i\strolabe, three more Canterbury tales, the Canon's-yeoman's, Manciple's, and Parson's. The last was written the year of his death, 1400. Having done this work he died in a house under the shadow of the Abbey of Westminster. Within the walls of the Abbey Church, the first of the poets who lies there, that " sacred and happy spirit " sleeps. 43. Chaucer's Character. — Born of the tradesman class, Chaucer was in every sense of the word one of our finest gentlemen : tender, graceful in thought, glad of heart, humorous, and satirical without unkindness ; sensitive to II FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER 65 every change of feeling in himself and others, and there- fore full of sympathy ; brave in misfortune, even to mirth, and doing well and with careful honesty all he undertook. His first and great delight was in human nature, and he makes us love the noble characters in his poems, and feel with kindliness towards the baser and ruder sort. He never sneers, for he had a wide charity, and we can always smile in his pages at the follies and forgive the sins of men. He had a quiet and true religion, much like that we conceive Shakespeare to have had ; nor was he without a high philosophic strain. Both were kept in order by his imagination and his humour. He had a true and chivalrous regard for women of his own class, and his wife and he ought to have been very happy if they had fulfilled the ideal he had of marriage. He lived in aristocratic society, and yet he thought him the great- est gentleman who was the most courteous and the most virtuous. He lived frankly among men, and as we have seen, saw many different types of men, and in his own time filled many parts as a man of the world and of busi- ness. Yet, with all this active and observant life, he was commonly very quiet and kept much to himself. " Flee from the press and dwell with steadfastness " is the first line of his last ballad, and it embodies, with the rest of that personal poem, the serious part of his fife. The Host in the Tales japes at him for his lonely, abstracted air. "Thou lookest as thou wouldest find a hare. And ever on the ground I see thee stare." Being a good scholar, he read morning and night alone, and he says 66 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. that after his (office) work he would go home and sit at another book as dumb as a stone, till his look was dazed. While at study and when he was making of songs and ditties, " nothing else that God had made " had any in- terest for him. There was but one thing that roused him then, and that too he liked to enjoy alone. It was the beauty of the morning and the fields, the woods, and streams, and flowers, and the singing of the little birds. This made his heart full of revel and solace, and when spring came after winter, he rose with the lark and cried "Farewell, my book and my devotion." He was a keen observer of the nature he cared for, especially of colour. He loved the streams and the birds and soft grassy places and green trees, and all sweet, ordered gardens, and flowers. He could spend the whole day, he says, in gazing alone on the daisy, and though what he says is symbolic, yet we may trace through the phrase that lonely delight in natural scenery which is so special a mark of our later poets. He lived thus a double life, in and out of the world, but never a gloomy one. For he was fond of mirth and good-living, and when he grew towards age, was portly of waist, no poppet to embrace. But he kept to the end his elfish countenance, the shy, delicate, half-mischievous face which looked on men from its gray hair and forked beard, and was set off by his dark-coloured dress and hood. A knife and ink-horn hung on his dress ; we see a rosary in his hand ; and when he was alone he walked swiftly. 44. The Canterbury Tales. — Of his work it is not 11 FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER 6/ easy to speak briefly, because of its great variety. Enough has been said of it, with the exception of his most com- plete creation, the Canterbury Tales, It will be seen from the dates given above that they were not written at one time. They are not, and cannot be looked on as a whole. Many were written mdependently, and then fitted into the framework of the Prologue. Many, which he intended to write in order to complete his scheme, were never written. But we may say that the full idea of his work took shape about 1385, after he had finished The Legende of Good Wome?t, and that the whole existing body of the Tales was completed, with the exception of the last three already mentioned, before the close of 1390. At intervals, from time to time, he added a tale ; in fact, the whole was done much in the same way as Tennyson has written his Idylls of the King. The manner in which he knitted them together was very simple, and likely to please the English people. The holiday ex- cursions of the time were the pilgrimages, and the most famous and the pleasantest pilgrimage to go, especially for Londoners, was the three or four days' journey to see the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. Persons of all ranks in life met and travelled together, starting from a London inn. Chaucer had probably made the pilgrimage to Canterbury in the spring of 1385 or 1387, and was led by this experience to the framework in which he set his pictures of life. He grouped around the jovial host of the Tabard Inn men and women of every class of society in England, set them on horseback to ride to Canterbuiy 68 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. and home again, intending to make each of them tell tales. No one could hit off a character better, and in his Prologue, and in the prologues to the several Tales, a great part of the new, vigorous English society which had grown up since Edward I. is painted with astonishing vividness. " I see all the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales,'^ says Dryden, " their humours, their features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark." The Tales themselves take in the whole range of the poetry and the Hfe of the Middle Ages ; the legend of the saint, the romance of the knight, the wonderful fables of the traveller, the coarse tale of common life, the love story, the allegory, the animal-fable, and the satirical lay. And they are pure tales. He is not in any sense a dramatic writer ; he is our greatest story-teller in verse. All the best tales are told easily, sincerely, with great grace, and yet with so much homeliness, that a child would understand them. Sometimes his humour is broad, sometimes sly, some- times gay, but it is also exquisite and affectionate. His pathos does not go into the far depths of sorrow and pain, but it is always natural. He can bring tears into our eyes, and he can make us smile or be sad as he pleases. His eye for colour was superb and distinctive. He had a very fine ear for the music of verse, and the tale and the verse go together like voice and music. Indeed, so softly flowing and bright are they, that to read them is like listening in a meadow full of sunshine to a clear stream rippling over its bed of pebbles. The English in II FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER 69 which they are written is ahnost the EngUsh of our time; and it is hterary English. Chaucer made our tongue into a true means of poetry. He did more, he welded together the French and English elements in our language and made them into one English tool for the use of literature, and all our prose writers and poets derive their tongue from the language of the Canterbury laies. They give him honour for this, but still more for that he was so fine an artist. Poetry is an art, and the artist in poetry is one who writes for pure and noble pleasure the thing he writes, and who desires to give to others the same or a similar pleasure by his poems which he had in writing them. The things he most cares about are that the form in which he puts his thoughts or feelings may be perfectly fitting to the sub- jects : and that subject, matter, and form should be as beautiful as possible — but for these he cares very greatly ; and in this Chaucer stands apart from the other poets of his time. Gower wrote with a set object, and nothing can be less beautiful than the form in which he puts his tales. The author of Piers Plowman wrote with the object of reform in social and ecclesiastical affairs, and his form is uncouth and harsh. Chaucer wrote be- cause he was full of emotion and joy in his own thoughts, and thought that others would weep and be glad with him, and the only time he ever morahses is in the tales of the Canon's Yeoman and the Manciple, written in his de- cay. He has, then, the best right to the poet's name. He is, within his own range, the clearest of English artists. 70 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Finally, his position in the history of English poetry and towards his own time resembles that of Dante, whom he loved so well, in the history and poetry of Italy. Dante embodied all the past elements of the Middle Ages in his work, and he began the literature, the thoughts, and the power of a new age. He was the Evening Star of the Mediaeval day and the Morning Star of the Renaissance. Chaucer also represented med- iaeval ism though in a much more incomplete way than Dante, but he had, so far as poetry in England is con- cerned, more of the Renaissance spirit than Dante. He is more humanistic than even Spenser. England needed to live more than a century to get up to the level of Chaucer. Lastly, both Dante and he made their own country's tongue the tongue of noble literature. 45. The Travels of Sir John Maundevile belong to this place which treats of story-telling. Whatever other English prose arose in the fourteenth century was theo- logical or scientific. John of Trevisa had, among other English translations, turned into English prose, 1387, the Polychronico7i of Ranulf Higden. Various other prose treatises, beginning with those of Richard Rolle, had appeared. Chaucer himself translated two of his tales, that of the Parson, and that of Mehboeus, from the French into an involved prose ; and wrote in the same rude vehicle, his Boece, and his book on the Astrolabe. We have already noticed the prose of Wyc- lif. But Maundevile' s Travels is a story-book. Maun- devile himself, the quaint and pleasant knight, is as II FROM i'HE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER /I much an invention as Robinson Crusoe, and the travels as much an imposture as Geoffrey's History of the Kings of Britai?!. But they had a similar charm, and when made up originally by Jean de Bourgogne, a physician who died at Liege in 1372, were received with dehght and belief by the world, and nowhere with greater pleasure than in England, where they were translated into English prose by an anonymous writer of the late fourteenth or more probably fifteenth century. The prose is garrulous and facile, gliding with a pleasure in itself from legend to travellers' tales, from dreams to facts, from St. Albans to Jerusalem, from Cairo to Cathay. The book became a model of prose, and may even be called an early classic. 'J2 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. CHAPTER III FROM Chaucer's death 1400, to Elizabeth, 1558 46. The Fifteenth Century Poetry. — The last poems of Chaucer and Langland bring our story up to 1400. The hundred years that followed are the most barren in our literature. The influence of Chaucer lasted, and of the poems attributed to him, but now rejected by scholars, some certainly belong to the first half of this century. There are fifty poems, making up 17,000 lines, which have been wrongly attributed to Chaucer, and though some of them were contemporary with him, a number are by imitators of his in the fifteenth century. Some of these have a great charm. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale is a pleasant thing. The Complaint of the Black Knight is by Lydgate. The Court of Love and Chaucei^s Drea?n are good but late imitations of the master. The Flower and the Leaf is by a woman whose name we should like to know, for the poem is lovely. ^^ Moder of God and Vi?gin undefouled'''' is by Hoccleve, and was long attributed to Chaucer. The triple Roundel, Merciles Beaute, is given by Professor Skeat to Chaucer, and at least is worthy of the poet ; Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 73 and the Amorous Compleint and a Ballade of Coj?i- pleynfj may possibly be also his. There was then a considerable school of imitators, who followed the style, who had some of the imaginative spirit, but who failed in the music and the art of Chaucer. 47. Thomas Hoccleve and John Ly'gate. — Two of these imitators stand out from the rest by the extent of their work. Hoccleve, a London man, was a monot- onous versifier of the reigns of the three Henries, but he loved Chaucer well. In the MS. of his longest poem, the Governail of Princes, written before 14 13, he caused to be drawn, with fond idolatry, the portrait of his " master dear and father reverent," who had enlumined all the land with his books. He had a style of his own. Sometimes, in his playful imitations of Chaucer's Balades, and in his devotional poetry, such as his Moder of God, he reached excellence ; but his didactic and controversial aims finally overwhelmed his poetry. 48. John Lydgate was a more worthy follower of Chaucer. A monk of Bury, and thirty years of age when Chaucer died, he yet wrote nothing of much importance till the reign of Henry V. He was a gay and pleasant person, though a long-winded poet, and he seems to have lived even in his old age, when he recalls himself as a boy *' weeping for naught, anon after glad," the fresh and natural hfe of one who en- joyed everything ; but, like many gay persons, he had a vein of melancholy, and some of his best work, at 74 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. least in the poet Gray's opinion, belongs to the realms of pathetic and moral poetry. But there was scarcely any literary work he could not do. He rhymed history, ballads, and legends, till the monastery was delighted. He made pageants for Henry VI., masques and May- games for aldermen, mummeries for the Lord Mayor, and satirical ballads on the follies of the day. It is impossible here to mention the tenth part of his mul- tifarious works, many of which are as yet unpublished. They are a strange mixture of the poet striving to be religious, and of the monk carried away by his passions and his gaiety. He may have been educated at Oxford, and perhaps travelled in France and Italy ; he knew the literature of his time, and he even dabbled in the sciences. He was as much a lover of nature as Chau- cer, but cannot make us feel the beauty of nature in the same way. It is his story-telling which links him closest to his master. His three chief poems are, first. The Troye Book, which is adapted from Guido's His- toria Troja7ia ; secondly, the Storie of Thebes, which is introduced as an additional Canterbury Tale, and is worked up from French romances on this subject. The third is the Falles of Princes, 1424-5, at which he worked till he was sixty years of age. It is a free translation of a French version of Boccaccio's De Cas- ibus Viroru77t et Femina7'U7?i Illust7'iu77i. It tells the tragic fates of great men and women from the time of Adam to the capture of King John of France at Poitiers. The plan is picturesque ; the sorrowful dead Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 75 appear before Iloccaccio, pensive in his library, and each tells of his downfall. This is Lydgate's most im- portant, but by no means his best, poem ; and it had its influence on the future, for in the Mirror for Mag- istrates, at least eight Elizabethan poets united at differ- ent times to supplement his Falles of Princes. A few minor poets do no more now than keep poetry alive. Another version of the Troy Story in Henry VI. 's time ; Hugh de Campeden's Sidrac, Thomas Chestre's Lay of Sir Laiinfal, and the translation of the Earl of Toulouse, prove that romances were still taken from the French. William Lichfield's Complaint bettaeen God and Man, and William Nassington's Mirrour of Life, carry on the religious, and the ToiD-nainent of Tottenham the satirical, poetry. John Capgrave's translation of the Life of St. Catherine is less known than his Chronicle of ^;/^/c?;z^ dedicated to Edward IV. He, with John Hard- ing, a soldier of Agincourt, whose rhyming Chronicle belongs to Edward IV. 's reign, continue the historical poetry. A number of obscure versifiers, Thomas Norton, and George Ripley who wrote on alchemy, and Dame Juliana Berners' book on Hunting, bring us to the reign of Henry VII., when Skelton first began to write. Mean- while poetry, which had decayed in England, was flourishing in Scotland. 49. Ballads, lays, fragments of romances, had been sung in England from the earliest times, and popular tales and jokes took form in short lyric pieces, to be ac- companied with music and dancing. In fact, the ballad 76 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. went over the whole land among the people. The trader, the apprentices, and poor of the cities, the peasantry, had their own songs. They tended to collect themselves round some legendary name like Robin Hood, or some historical character made legendary, like Randolf, Earl of Chester. In the fourteenth century, Sloth, in Piers P/o7timan, does not know his paternoster, but he does know the rhymes of these heroes. Robin Hood was then well known in 1370. A crowd of minstrels sang them through city and village. The very friar sang them, " and made his English swete upon his tonge." The Tale of Gainelyn is a piece of minstrel poetry, of the forest type, and drew to it, as we know, the attention of Chaucer. Chaucer and Langland mention the French ballads which were sung in London, and these were freely translated. The popular song, " When Adam dalf and Eve span," was a type of a class of socialistic ballads. The Battle of Otterbcnirne and The Hunting of the Cheviot were no doubt composed in the fourteenth century, but were not published till now. Two collections of Robin Hood bal- lads and The Nut Broiv7i Maid, printed about the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, show that a fresh interest had then awakened in this outlaw literature to which we owe so much. It was not, however, till much later that any large collection of ballads was made ; and few, in the form we possess them, can be dated farther back than the reign of EHzabeth. 50. Prose Literature. — Four men continued English prose into the fifteenth century. The rehgious war be- Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 7/ tvveen the Lollards and the Church raged during the reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI., and in the time of the latter Reginald Pecock took it out of Latin into homely English. He fought the Lollards with their own weapons, with public sermons in English, and with tracts in Eng- lish ; and after 1449, when Bishop of Chichester, published his works, The Repressor of overmuch Blaming of the Clergy and The Book of Faith. They pleased neither party. The Lollards disliked them because they defended the customs and doctrines of the Church. Churchmen burnt them because they agreed with the " Bible-men," that the Bible was the only rule of faith. Both abjured them because they said that doctrines were to be proved from the Bible by reason. Pecock is the first of all the Church theologians who wrote in English, and his books are good examples of our early prose. Sir John Fortescue's book on the Difference between Absolute and Limited Monarchy, in Edward IV. 's reign, is less fine an example of the prose of English politics than Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur is of the prose of chivalry. This book, arranged and modelled into a labyrinthine story from French and contemporary 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 joyous 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 the prose of England. Born of Kentish parents, he went to yS ENGLISH LITERATURE CUAV. the Low Countries in 1440, and learned his trade. The first book said to have been printed in this country was The Game aiid Playe of the Chesse, 1474. The first book that bears the inscription, " Imprynted by me, Wilham Caxton, at Westmynstre," is The Dictes a?id Sayings of Philosophers. But the first Enghsh book Caxton made, and finished at Cologne in 147 1, was his translation of the Reciiyell of the Historyes of Troy, and in this book, and in his translation oi Reynard the Fox irom 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 es- tablished as the tongue of literature, from fiirther degrada- tion. Forty years later Tyndale's New Testament fixed it more firmly, and the Elizabethan writers kept it in its purity. 51. The Foundations of the Elizabethan Literature. — The first of these may be found in Caxton's work. John Shirley, a gentleman of good family, and Chaucer's con- temporary, who died, a very old man, in 1449, deserves mention as a transcriber and preserver of the works of Chaucer and Lydgate, but Caxton fulfilled the task Shir- ley had begun. He printed Chaucer and Lydgate and Gower with zealous care. He printed the Chronicle of the Brut ; he secured for us the Morte Darthiir. He had a tradesman's interest in publishing the romances, for they were the reading of the day ; but he could scarcely have done better for the interests of the coming Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 79 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 began on the models of Chaucer and Gower and Lydgate ; and the books tliem- selves being more widely read, not only made poets but a public that loved poetry. The imprinting of old Eng- lish 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 among men of the upper classes. The Wars of the Roses did not stop the reading of books. The Paston Letters, 1422-1509, the corre- spondence of a country family from Henry VI. to Henry Vn., 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 translations of the Latin classics were read in England. Henry V. and VL, Edward IV., and some of the great nobles were lovers of books. Men hke Duke Humphrey of Gloucester made Kbraries and brought over Italian scholars to England to translate Greek works. There were even scholars in England, like John, Lord Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who had won fame in the 80 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. schools of Italy, and whose translations of Cicero's De Amicitid and of C?esar's De Bella Gallico 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. The two great universi- ties were also now reformed ; new colleges were founded, new libraries were established, Greek, Latin, and Italian MSS. were collected in them. The New Learning had begun to move in these great centres. A number of uni- versity men went to study in Italy, to Padua, Bologna, and Ferrara. Among these were Robert Flemmyng, Dean of Lincoln ; John Gunthorpe, Dean of Wells ; William Grey, Bishop of Ely ; John Phreas, Provost of Balliol ; William Sellynge, Fellow of All Souls, all of whom collected MSS. in Italy of the classics, with which they enriched the libraries of England. It is in this grow- ing influence of the great classic models of literature that we find the gathering together of another of the sources of that Elizabethan literature which seems to flower so suddenly, but which had been long preparing. 52. The Italian Revival of Learning. — The impulse, as we see, came from Italy, and was due to that great humanistic movement which we call the Renaissance, and which had properly begun in Italy with Dante and his circle, with Petrarca and Boccaccio, with Giotto and Nicolo Pisano. It carried with it, as it went on reviving the thought, literature and law of Greece and Rome, the overthrow of FeudaHsm and the romantic poetry of the Middle Ages. It made classic literature and art the basis Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 8 1 of a new literature and a new art, which was not at first imitative, save of excellence of form. It began a new worship of beauty, a new worship of knowledge, and a new statesmanship. It initiated those new views of man and of human life, of its aims, rights, and duties, of its pleasures and pains, of religion, of knowledge, and of the whole course of the history of the world, which produced, as they fell on various types of humanity, the Refor- mation, a semi-pagan freedom of thought and Hfe, the theories and ideas which took such furious form in the French Revolution, the boundless effort which attempted all things, and the boundless curiosity which penetrated into every realm of thought and feeling, and considered nothing too sacred or too remote for investigation by knowledge or for representation in art. At every one of those points it has affected literature up to the present day. No sooner had Petrarca and Boccaccio started it than Italy began to send eager searchers over Europe and chiefly to Constantinople. For more than seventy years before that city was taken by the Turk, shoals of MSS. had been carried from it into Italy together with a host of objects of ancient art. Before 1440 the best Latin classics and many of the Greek, were known, and were soon studied, lectured on, imitated, and translated. By 1460 Italy, in all matters of thought, life, art, literature, and knowledge, was like a hive of bees in a warm sum- mer. We have seen with what slowness this vast impulse was felt in England in the fifteenth century. But it had begun, and in Elizabeth's time, pouring into England, it G Si ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. went forth conquering and to conquer. As France dominated the Hterature of England after the Conquest, till Chaucer, touched by Italy, made it English, so Italy dominated it till Shakespeare and his fellows, touched also by Italy, made it again English. 53. There was now a Transition Period both in Prose and Poetry The reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII. brought forth no prose of any worth, but the country awakened into its first Renaissance with the accession of Henry VHL, 1509. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, with William Lilly, the grammarian, set on foot a school where the classics were taught in a new and prac- tical way, and between the year 1500 and the Reforma- tion twenty grammar-schools were established. Erasmus, who had all the enthusiasm 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 Chal- condylas at Florence. He learnt Greek from them, and found eager admiration of his own scholarship in Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, Colet, and Archbishop War- ham. 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 grew rapidly, assisted by the munificence of Wolsey; and Cambridge, under Cheke and Smith, excelled even Ox- ford in Greek learning. The study of the great classics set free the minds of men, stirred and gave life to letters, woke up English prose from its sleep, and kindled the young English inteUigence in the universities. Its earliest Ill FROM CHAUCER TO KLIZAHETII 83 prose was its best. It was in 15 13 (not printed till 1557) that Thomas Moric wrote the 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. This stately historical manner was laid aside by More in the tracts of nervous iMiglish 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 16, was written in Latin, but was translated afterwards, in 1551, 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 may call Efii^/ish Renaissance before the Reformation. We see in all this movement another of the sources of the Eliza- bethan outburst. Much of the progress of prose was due t(j the patronage of the young king. It was the king who asked Lord Berners to translate Froissart, a translation 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 anticiuarian subjects, the "King's Antiquary," 1533. It was the king to whom 84 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Roger Ascham dedicated his first work, and who sent him abroad to pursue his studies. This book, the Toxophiliis, or the School of Shooting, 1545, was writ- ten for the pleasure of the yeomen and gentlemen of England in their own tongue. Ascham apologises for this, and the apology marks the state of English prose. *' Everything has been done excellently well in Greek and Latin, but in the English tongue so meanly that no man can do worse." But " I have written this English matter, in the English tongue for English men." Ascham's quaint English has its charm, and he did not know that the very rudeness of language of which he complained was in reality laying the foundations of an English more Teutonic and less Latin than the English of Chaucer. 54. Prose and the Reformation. — The bigotry, the avarice, and the violent controversy of the Reformation killed for a time the New Learning, but the Reformation did a vast work for English literature, and prepared the language for the Elizabethan writers, by its version 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 Enghsh home. Tyndale held fast to pure English. In his two volumes of polit- ical 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 6000 words of the Antho7'- ised Version, still in a great part his translation, only 250 are not now in common use. " Three out of four of his in FROM CHAUCER TO EF^IZABliTII 85 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 Enghsh Bible by WiUiam 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 Tyn- dale's translation from Chronicles to Malachi out of Coverdale's translation. It was this Bible which, re- vised by Coverdale and edited and re-edited as Crom- wcir s Bible, 1539, and again as Crannier's Bible, 1540, was set up in every parish church in England. It got north into Scotland and made the Lowland English more like the London English. It passed over to the Prot- estant settlements in Ireland. After its revisal in 1611 it went with the Puritan Fathers to New England and fixed the standard of English in America. Many mill- ions of people now speak the English of Tyndale's Bible, and there is no book which has had, through the Au- thorised Version, so great an influence on the style of luighsh literature and the standard of English prose. In Edward VI. 's reign also Cranmer edited the Euglisli 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 S6 ENGLISH LITJlKATURE CHAr. 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 j)! lin, shrewd style, which by its humour and rude directness made him the first preacher of his day. On the whole the Refor- mation fixed and confirmed our English tongue, but at the same time it brought in through theology a large number of Latin words. The pairing of English and Latin words {acknowledge and cojifess, etc.) in the Prayer Book is a good example of both these results. 55. Poetry in the Sixteenth Century under the In- fluence of Chaucer. — One source, we have said, of the Elizabethan literature, before Elizabeth, was the recovery, through Caxton's press, of Chaucer and his men. It is probable that the influence of Italian literature on English poets was now kept from becoming overwhelming by the strong English element in Chaucer. At least this was one of the reasons for the clear poetic individuality of England ; and we can easily trace its balancing effect in Spenser. It was of importance, then, that before Surrey and Wyatt again brought Italian elements into English verse, there should be a revival of Chaucer, both in England and Scotland. This transition period, short as it was, is of interest. Stephen Havves, in the reign of Henry VII., represented the transition by an imitation of the old work. Amid many poems, some more imitative of Lydgate than of Chaucer, his long alle- gorical poem, entitled the Pastime of Pleasure, is the best. In f-ict, it is the first, since the middle of the ril FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 8/ fifteenth century, in which Imagination again began to plume her wings and soar. Within tlie reahn 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 Ro- inaiice of the Rose, and is an allegory of the right educa- tion of a knight, showing how Grand Amour won at last La Bel Pucell. But, like all soulless 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 present, by taking an original path. His imitative poetry belongs mostly to Henry VII. 's time, but when the rehgious and political disturbances began in Henry VIII.'s time, Skelton became excited by the cry of the people for Church reformation. His poem, Why come ye not to Court? was a fierce satire on the great Cardinal. That of Coli7i Clout was the cry of the country Colin, and of the Clout or mechanic of the town against the corruption of the Church ; and it represents the whole popular feel- ing of the time just before the movement of the Reforma- tion 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. He had a rough, impetuous power, 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 S8 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. that he improved our language. His poem, the Bowgc oj 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 he was not only the satirist. The pretty and new love lyrics that we owe to him fore- shadow the Elizabethan imagination and life ; and the Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe^ which tells, in imitation of Catullus, the grief of a nun called Jane Scrope for the death of her sparrow, is a gay and inventive poem. Skelton stands — a landmark in English literature — be- tween the mere imitation of Chaucer 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. The Ship of Fooles, 1508, by Barclay, is of this time, but it has no value. It is a paraphrase of a famous German work by Sebastian Brandt, published at Basel. It was popular because it attacked the folhes and ques- tions of the time. Its sole interest to us is in its pictures of famihar manners and popular customs. But Barclay did other work, and he established the eclogue in Eng- land. With him the transition time is over, and the curtain is ready to rise on the Elizabethan age of poetry. While we wait, we will make an interlude out of the work of the poets of Scotland. SCOTTISH POETRY 56. Scottish Poetry is poetry written in the Enghsh tongue by men living in Scotland. These men, though calling themselves Scotsmen, are of good English blood. Ill FROM CPIAUCER TO ELIZARETII 89 But the blood, as I think, was mixed with a larger infu- sion of Celtic blood than elsewhere. Old Northumbria extended from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, leaving however on its western border a strip of unconquered land, which took in Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland 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 conquered and the Celts absorbed. But in the part to the north of the Solway Firth the Celts were not con- quered and not absorbed. They remained, lived with the Englishmen who were settled over the old Nor- thumbria, intermarried with them, and became under Scot kings a people with the Celtic elements more dominant in them than in the rest of our nation. English litera- ture in the Lowlands of Scotland would then retain more of these Celtic elements than elsewhere ; and there are certain peculiarities infused through the whole of English poetry in Scotland which are especially Celtic. 57. Celtic Elements of Scottish Poetry. — The first of these is the love, of wild nature for its oivn sake. There is a passionate, close, and poetical observation and description of natural scenery in Scotland from the earliest times of its poetry, such as we do not possess in English poetry till the time of Thomson. The second is the love of colour. All early Scottish poetry differs from English in the extraordinary way in which colour is in- 90 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. sisted on, and at times in the lavish exaggeration of it. The third is the wittier and coarser humour in the Scot- tish poetry, which is distinctly Celtic in contrast with that humour which has its root in sadness and which be- longs 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. 58. But there are also national elements in it which, exaggerated and isolated as they were, are also Celtic. The wild individuality of the Gaelic clans was not un- represented in the Lowland kingdom, and became there as assertive a nationality as Ireland has ever proclaimed. The English were as national as the Scots, but they were not oppressed. But for nearly forty years the Scots re- sisted for their very life the efforts of England to conquer them. And the war of freedom left its traces on their poetry from Barboui 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 descrip- tion of Chaucer, Shakespeare, or even Milton, is not distinctively 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 Scottish land- scape ; and in the work of such men as Gawin Douglas HI FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABICTII gi 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 everything he paints, a series of Scottish landscapes. 59. The first of the Scottish poets, omitting Thomas of Erceldoune, is John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aber- deen. His long poem of T/ie Bruce, 1375-7, represents the whole of the eager struggle for Scottish freedom against the English which closed at Bannockburia ; 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 against England, which is so plain in writers Hke Blind Harry, who, about 1461, composed a long poem in the heroic couplet of Chaucer on the deeds of William Wallace. In Henry V.'s reign, Andrew of Wyntoun wTOte \\\'s> Oryginale Cronykil of Scollafid, one of the rhyming chronicles of the time. It is only in the next poet that we find the full influence of Chaucer, and it is thereafter continuous till the Elizabethan time. James the First of Scotland was prisoner in England for nineteen years, till 1422. There he read Chaucer, and fell in love with Lady Jane Beaufort, niece of Henry IV. The poem which he wrote — The Kifig's Quair (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 92 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP much because I have come so from Hell to Heaven." 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 quality, a touch of mystic feeling which does not belong to Chaucer. Robert Henryson, who died about 1500, a school- master in Dunfermline, was also an imitator of Chaucer, and his Testament of Cresseid continues Chaucer's Troilus. But he did not do only imitative work. He treated the fables of y^^sop in a new fashion. In his hands they are long stories, full of pleasant dialogue, political allusions, and with elaborate morals attached to them. They have a peculiar Scottish tang, and are full of descriptions of Scottish scenery. He also reanimated the short pastoral in his Robin and Makytie. It is a natural, prettily-turned dialogue ; and a flashing Celtic wit, such as charms us in Duncan Gray, runs through it. The individuality which reformed two modes of poetic work in these poems appears again in his sketch of the graces of womanhood in the Garment 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 hfe, such as Sir H. Wotton's Character of a Happy Life, or Wordsworth's Happy Warrior. But among many poets whom we need not mention, the greatest is William Dunbar. He carries the in- fluence of Chaucer on to the end of the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth. His genius, though masculine, Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 93 loved beauty, and his work was as varied in its range as it was original. He followed the form and plan of Chau- cer in his two poems of The Thistle aiid the Rose, 1503, 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 marked. But he soon ceased to imitate. The vigorous fun of the satires and of 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 httle thing unique. A man as remarkable as Dunbar is Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, who died in 1522, at the Court of Henry VIII., and was buried in the Savoy. He trans- lated into verse Ovid's Art of Love, now lost, and after- wards, with truth and spirit, the y^neids of Virgil, 15 13. To each book of the ^neid he wrote a prologue of his own. Three of them are descriptions of the country in May, in Autumn, and in Winter. The scenery is alto- gether Scottish, and the few Chaucerisms that appear seem absurdly out of place in a picture of nature which is painted with excessive care and directly from the trutli. The colour is superb, but the landscape is not composed by any art into a whole. There is nothing like it in 94 F.NGLISII LITERATUKE cilAP. England till Thomson's Seasons, and Thomson was a Scotsman. Only the Celtic love of nature can account for the vast distance between work like this and contem- porary work in luigland such as Skelton's. Of Douglas's other original work, one poem, the Palace of Honour, 1 501, continues the influence of Chaucer. There were a number of other Scottish poets who are all remembered by Dunbar in his Lament for the Afakars, and praised by Sir D.vvin Lyndsay, whom it is best to mention in this place, because he still connects Scottish poetry with Chaucer. He was born about 1490, and was 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 morning of Chaucer, it opens on a winter's day of wind anil sleet. The place is a cave over the sea, whence Tyndsay 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 instability," wavering like the sea waves. The difi"erence marks not only the diOerence of the two countries, but the different natures of the men. Chaucer did not care much for the popular storms, and loved the Court more than the Commonweal. Lyndsay in the Dremc and in two other poems — the Complaint to the JC/m^, and the Testament of the A'inifs Papyngo — is absorbed in the evils and sorrows of the people, in the desire to reform the abuses of the Church, Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 95 of the Court, of party, of the nobihty. In 1539 his Satire of the Three Estates^ a Morality interspersed with interludes, was represented before James V. at Linlith- gow. It was a daring attack on the ignorance, profli- gacy, 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 Mon- archie, 1553, his last work. 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. 60. The Elizabethan Dawn : Wyatt and Surrey. — While poetry under Skelton and Lyndsay became an instrument of reform, it revived as an art at the close of Henry VIH.'s reign in Sir Thomas Wyait and Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. They were both Italian travellers, and in bringing back to England the inspi- ration they had gained from Italian and classic models they re-made English poetry. They are our first really modern poets ; the first who have anything of the modern manner. Though Italian in sentiment, their language is more English than Chaucer's, that is, they use fewer romance words. They handed down this purity of English to the Elizabethan poets, to Sackville, Spenser, 96 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. and Shakespeare. They introduced a new kind of poetry, the amourist poetry — a poetry extremely personal, and personal as English poetry had scarcely ever been before. The amourists, as they are called, were poets who com- posed a series of poems on the subject of the joys and sorrows of their loves — sonnets mingled with lyrical pieces after the manner of Petrarca, and sometimes in accord with the love philosophy he built on Plato. They began with Wyatt and Surrey. They did not die out till the end of James I.'s reign. 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 movement 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." A new" standard was made below which the future poets should not fall. They also added new stanza measures to English verse, and enlarged in this way the " lyrical range." Surrey was the first, in his translation of the Second and Fourth Books of VirgiPs ^neid, to use the ten-syllabled, un- rhymed verse, which we now call blank verse. In his hands it is not worthy of praise. Sackville, Lord Buck- hurst, introduced it into drama ; Marlowe made it the proper verse of the drama. In plays it has a special manner of its own ; in poetry proper it was, we may say, not only created but perfected by Milton. Ill FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH 97 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 EngUsh on Rhetoric and Logic in 1553, and the publication of Thomas Tusser's Pointes of Husbandrie and of Tottel's Miscellany of Uncertain Authors, 1557, in the last year of Mary's reign, proved that something was stirring beneath the gloom. The Miscellany contained 40 poems by Surrey, 96 by Wyatt, 40 by Grimoald, and 134 by uncertain authors. The date should be remem- bered, for it is the first printed book of modern Enghsh poetry. It proves that men cared now more for the new than the old poets, that the time of mere imitation of Chaucer was over, and that of original creation begun. It ushers in the Elizabethan literature. 98 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. CHAPTER IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 6i. Elizabethan Literature, as a literature, may be said to begin with Surrey and Wyatt. But as their poems were published shortly before Ehzabeth came to the throne, we date the beginning of the early period oi Elizabethan Hterature from the year of her accession, 1558. That period lasted till 1579, ^-nd was followed by the great Hterary outburst of the days of Spenser and Shakespeare. The apparent suddenness of this outburst has been an object of wonder. I have already noticed its earliest sources in the last hundred years. And now we shall best seek its nearest causes in the work done during the early years of Elizabeth. The flood-tide which began in 1579 was preceded by a very various, plentiful, but inferior literature, in which new forms of poetry and prose-writing were tried, and new veins of thought opened. These twenty years from the Mirror for Magistrates, 1 55 9) to the Shephea?'d's Cakfidar, 1579, sowed seeds which when the time came broke into flower. We wonder at the flower, but it grew naturally through seed and stem, leaves and blossom. They made the flower, since the IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 99 circumstances were favourable. And never in England, save in our own century, were they so favourable. 62. First Elizabethan Period, 1 558-1 570. — (i.) The hterary prose of the beginning of this time is represented by the Scholemaster of Ascham, published in 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 speak- ing, Ehzabethan ; it is like a stranger in a new land and among new manners. (2.) Poetry is first represented by Sackville, Lord Buckhurst. The Mirror for Magistrates, for which he wrote, 1563, the Induction and one tale, is a series of tragic poems on the model of Boccaccio's Falls of Princes^ already imitated by Lydgate. Seven poets at least, with Sackville, contributed tales to it, but his poem is poetry of so fine a quality that it stands absolutely alone during these twenty years. The Induction paints the poet's descent into Avernus, and his meeting with Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whose fate he tells with a grave and inventive imagination, and with the first true music which we hear since Chaucer. 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, the Steele Glas, 1576, is our first long satirical poem, deserves mention among a lOO ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. crowd of poets who came after Sackville. They wrote legends, pieces on the wars and discoveries of the Enghshmen of their day, epitaphs, epigrams, songs, son- nets, elegies, fables, and sets of love poems ; and the best things they did were collected in such miscellaneous collections as tXiQ Paradise of Dainty Devices, m 1576. This book, with Tottel's, set on foot both now and in the later years of Elizabeth a crowd of other miscellanies of poetry which represent the vast number of experiments made in Elizabeth's time, in the subjects, the metres, and the various kinds of lyrical poetry. At present, all we can say is that lyrical poetry, and that which we may call '' occasional poetry," were now in full motion. The popular Ballads also 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 lit- erature, 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 weekly review. It stimulated and informed the popular intellectual life of England. (3.) Frequent trans laf ions 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 now before 1579, Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Demosthenes, Plu- tarch, and many Greek and Latin plays, were translated. Among the rest, Phaer's Virgil, 1562, Arthur Golding's IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE lOI Ovid's Metamorphoses, 1567, and George Turbervile's Histo)-ical Epistles of Oz>id, 1567, are, and especially the first, remarkable. The English people in this way were brought into contact, more than before, with the classical spirit, and again it had its awakening power. We cannot say that either the fineness or compactness of classic work appeared in these heterogeneous translations, though one curious result of them was the craze which followed, and which Gabriel Harvey strove, fortunately in vain, to impose on Spenser, for reproducing classical metres in English poetry. Nor were the old English poets neglected. Though Chaucer and Lydgate, Lang- land, and the rest, were no longer imitated in this time when fresh creation had begun, they were studied, and they added their impulse of life to original poets like Spenser. (4.) Theological Reforin stirred men to another kind of literary work. A great number of polemical ballads, pamphlets, and plays issued every year from obscure presses and filled the land. Poets like George Gas- coigne and still more Barnaby Googe, represent 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 publica- tion of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments or Book of Martyrs, 1563, gave to the people all over England a I02 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP, book which, by its simple style, the ease of its story- telhng, 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 supplied materials for the study and use of historical dramatists. (6.) 1^\).Q love of sto7'ies gx^w quickly. The old Eng- lish 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 Afftadis de Gaiil, and the companion romances the Arcadia of Sannazaro and the Ethiopian History, were sources of books Hke Sidney's Arcadia, and, with the classics, supplied materials for the pageants. A great number of subjects for prose and poetry were thus made ready for literary men, and prose fiction became possible in English literature. (7.) All over Europe, and especially in Italy, now closely linked to England, the Renaissance had pro- duced a wild spirit of exhausting all the possibilities of human life. Every form, every game of hfe, was tried, every fancy of goodness or wickedness followed for the fancy's sake. Men said to themselves " Attempt, IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE IO3 Attempt." The act accompanied the thought. Eng- land at last shared in this passion, but in EngHsh life it was directed. There was a great Hberty given to men to live and do as they pleased, provided the queen was worshipped and there was no conspiracy against the State. That much direction did not apply to purely literary production. Its attemptings were unlimited. Anything, everything was tried, especially in the drama. (8.) The masques, pageants, interludes, and plays that were written at this time are scarcely to be counted. At every great ceremonial, whenever the queen made a progress or visited one of the great lords or a uni- versity, 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. Represented all over England, these masques, pageants, and dramas were seen by the people, who were thus accustomed to take an interest, though of an uneducated kind, in the larger drama that was to follow. The Hterary men on the other hand ransacked, in order to find subjects and scenes for their pageants, ancient and mediaeval, magi- cal, and modern literature, and many of them in doing I04 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. SO became not fine but multifarious scholars. The imagination of England was quickened and educated in this way, and as Biblical stories were well known and largely used, the images of oriental life were kept among the materials of dramatic imagination. (9.) Another influence bore on Hterature. It was that given by the stories of the voyagers, who, in the new commercial activity of the country, penetrated into remote 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. Frobisher had made his voyages, and Drake had started, to return in 1580, to amaze all England with the story of his sail round the world and of the riches of the Spanish Main. We may trace everywhere in Elizabethan literature the iixipression made by the wonders told by the sailors and captains who explored and fought from the North Pole to the Southern Seas. (10.) Then there was the freest possible play of lit- erary criticism. Every wine-shop in London, every room at the university, was filled with the talk of young men on any work which was published and on the manu- scripts which were read. Out of this host emerged the men of genius. Moreover, far apart from these, there were in England now, among all the noise and stir, quiet scholars, such as Contarini and Pole had been in Italy, followers of Erasmus and Colet, precursors of Bacon, who kept the lamp of scholarship burning, and who, IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE lO^; when literature became beautiful, nurtured and praised it. Nor were the young nobles, who like Surrey had been in Italy and had known what was good, less useful now. There were many men who, when Shakespeare and Spenser came, were able to say — "This is good," and who drew the new genius into light. (ii.) Lastly, we have proof that there was a large number of persons writing who did not pubHsh 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 were changed when a great genius like Spenser took the world by storm ; when Lyly's Euphues enchanted court society; when a fine gentleman like Sir Philip Sidney was known to be a writer. Literature was made the fashion, and the disgrace being taken from it, the pro- duction 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 previ- ously 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 also 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 employ- ment 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 I06 ENGLISH LITERATURE CIIAP. streamed into the language, and enriched the vocabulary of imagination. Shakespeare uses 15,000 words. 63. The Later Literature of Elizabeth's Reign, 1579- 1602, begins with the publication of Lyly's Euphues^ 1579, and Spenser's Shepheards Calendar^ also in 1579, and with the writing of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia and his Apology for Poetrie, 15 80-1. It will be best to leave the poem of Spenser aside till we come to write of the poets. The Euphiies was the work of John Lyly, poet and dramatist. It is in two parts, Euphues the Anatomic of Wit, and Euphues and his England. In six years it ran through five editions, so great was its popularity. Its prose style is odd to an excess, " precious " and sweet- ened, but it has care and charm, and its very faults were of use in softening the solemnity and rudeness of previ- ous prose. The story is long, and is more a loose frame- work into which Lyly could fit his thoughts on love, friendship, education, and religion, than a true story. 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 especially from 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 became 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 IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE TO/ though written about 1580, did not appear till after his death. It is more poetic and more careless in style than the Euphues, but it endeavours to get rid of the mere quaintness for quaintness' sake, and of the far-fetched fancies, of Euphuism. It is less the image of the time than of the man. We 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 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 pastoral ro- mance, after the fashion of the Spanish romances, col- oured by his love of his sister. Lady Pembroke, and by the scenery of Wilton under the woods of which he wrote it. The characters are real, but the story is confused by endless digressions. The sentiment is too fine and delicate for the world of action. The descriptions are picturesque ; a quaint or poetic thought or an epigram appear in every line. There is no real art in it, nor is it true prose. But it is so full of poetical thought that it became a mine into which poets dug for subjects. 64. Poetic Criticism began before the publication of the Faerie Queejie, and its rise shows the interest now awakened in poetry. The Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586, written by William Webbe "to stirre up some other of meet abilitie to bestow travell on the matter," was followed three years after by the Art of English Poesie, attributed to George Puttenham, an elaborate book, I08 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. "■ written," he says, " to help the courtiers and the gen- tlewomen of the court to write good poetry, that the art may become vulgar for all Englishmen's use," and the phrase marks the interest now taken in poetry by the highest society in England. Sidney himself joined in this critical movement. His Apology for Poetrie, the style of which is much more hke prose than that of his Arcadia^ defended 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. But he, with his contemporary, Gabriel Harvey, was so en- thralled by the classical traditions that he also defended the "unities" and attacked all mixture of tragedy and comedy, that is, he supported all that Shakespeare was destined to violate. The Defence of Rhyme ^ written much later by Samuel Daniel, and which finally destroyed the attempt to bring classical metres into our poetry; and also Campion's effort, in 'his Obse^-vations, in favour of rhymeless verse, must be mentioned here. Their matter belongs to this time. 65. Later Prose Literature. — (i.) Theological Litera- ture remained for some years after 1580 only a Hterature of pamphlets. Puritanism, in its attack on the stage, and in the Martin Marprelate controversy upon episcopal government in the Church, flooded England with small books. Lord Bacon even joined in the latter contro- versy, and Nash the dramatist made himself famous in the war by the vigour and fierceness of his wit. Period- ical writing was, as it were, started on its course.- Over IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE IO9 this troubled and multitudinous sea rose at last the stately work of Richard Hooker. It was in 1594 that the first four books of The Laws of Ecclesiastical 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 hterary prose that we possess. (2.) We may place beside it, as other great prose of Elizabeth's later time, the development of The Essay in Lord Bacon's Essays, 1597, and Ben Jonson's Dis- covei'ies, published after his death. The highest literary merit of Bacon's Essays is their combination of charm and of poetic prose with conciseness of expression and fulness of thought. But the oratorical and ideal manner in which, with his variety, he sometimes wrote, is best seen in his New Atlatitis, that imaginary land in the unreachable seas. (3.) The Literature of Travel was carried on by the publication in 1589 of Haki.uyt's Navigation, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation. The influence of a compilation of this kind, containing the great deeds of the English on the sea'?, has been felt ever since in the literature of fiction and poetry. no ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. (4.) In the Talcs, which poured out Uke a flood from the " university wits," from such men as Peele, and Lodge, and Greene, we find the origin of Enghsh fiction, and the subjects of many of our plays ; while the fan- tastic desire to revive the practices of chivalry 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. 66. Edmund Spenser. — The later Elizabethan poetry begins with the Shcpheards 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 evi- dence that in this year the Son?icfs of Petrarca and the Visions of Bellay afterwards published in 1591, were written by him for a miscellany of verse and prose issued by Van der Noodt, a refugee Flemish physician. At sixteen or seventeen, then, he began literary work. At college Gabriel Harvey, a scholar And critic, and the Hobbinoll of Spenser's works, and Edward Kirke, the E. K. of the Shephca?'ds 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 Lancashire, where he fell in love with the " Rosalind " of his poetry, a " fair widowe's daughter of the glen." His love was IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE III not returned, a rival interfered, 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, the Shep- heafds Calendar was finished for the press, and the Faerie Qiieene conceived. The publication of the for- mer work, 1579, 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 Eng- land had given birth to a poet as original, and with as much metrical art as Chaucer. Each month of the year had 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 Eliza's praise : one, the Oak and the Briar, prophesies his mastery over allegory. The others belong to rustic shepherd hfe. The English of Chaucer is imitated, but the work is full of a new spirit, and as Spenser had begun with translating Petrarca, so here, in two of the eclogues, he imitates Clement Marot. The '' Puritanism " of the poem is the same as that of the Faerie Queene which he now began to compose. Save in abhorrence of Rome, Spenser does not share in the pohtics 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. ri2 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. In the next year, 1580, he went to Ireland with Lord Grey of Wilton as secretary, and afterwards saw and learnt that condition of things which he described in his Vieia of the Presetit State of Ii'eland, He was made Clerk of Degrees in the Court of Chancery in 15 81, and Clerk of the Council of Munster in 1586, and it 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 is frequently painted in the Faerie Queene, and in whose woods and savage places such adventures constantly took place in the service of Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queene, the first three books of that great poem were finished. 67. The Faerie Queene. — The plan of the poem is described in Spenser's prefatory letter to Raleigh. The twelve books were to tell the warfare of twelve Knights, in whom twelve virtues were represented. They are sent forth from the court of Gloriana, Queen of Fairy- land, and their warfare is against the vices and errors, im- personated, which opposed those virtues. In Arthur, the Prince, the Magnificence of the whole of virtue is repre- sented, and he was at last to unite himself in marriage to the Faerie Queene, 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 posthumous cantos on Mutability seem to have been part of a seventh legend, on Constancy, and their splendid IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE II 3 work makes us the more regret that the story of the poem being finished is not true. Alongside of the spirit- ual allegory is the historical one, in which Elizabeth is Gloriana, and Mary of Scotland Duessa ; and Leicester, and at times Sidney, Prince Arthur, and Lord Grey is Arthegall, and Raleigh Timias, and Philip IL the Soldan, or Grantorto. In the midst, other allegories slip in, re- ferring to events of the day, and Elizabeth becomes Belphoebe and Britomart, and Mary is Radegund, and Sidney is Calidore, and Alengon is Braggadochio. At least, -these are considered probable attributions. 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, gene- alogies, 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 alle- gory. 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 hves 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 life of beauty, that he has been called the poets' Poet. But he is the poet of all men who love poetry. 114 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Descriptions like those of the House of Pride and the Mask of Ciipi(], and of tlie Months, are so vivid in form and colour, that they liave ahvays made subjects for artists ; while the allegorical personages are, to the very last detail, wrought out by an imagination which de- scribes not only the general character, but the special characteristics of the Virtues or the Vices, of the Months of the year, or of the Rivers of England. In its ideal whole, the poem 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 tlie tpieen, even Spenser's own new love. It takes up and uses the popular legends of fairies, dwarfs, and giants, all the recovered romance and machinery of the Italian epics, and mingles them up with the wild scenery of Ireland, with the savages and wonders of the New World. Almost the whole spirit of the Renaissance under Eliza- beth, except its coarser and baser elements, is in its pages. Of anything impure, or ugly, or violent, there is no trace. And SjDenser adds to all his own sacred love of love, his own pre-eminent sense of the loveliness of loveliness, walking through the whole of this woven world of faerie — " With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace." The first three books were finished in Ireland, and Raleigh listened to them in 1589 at Kilcolman Castle, IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE II5 among the alder shades of the river Mulla that fed the lake below the castle. DeHghted with the poem, he brought Spenser to England, and the queen, the court, and the whole of England soon shared m Raleigh's delight. It was the first great ideal poem that England had produced ; it places him side by side with Milton, but on a throne built of wholly different material. It has never ceased to make poets, and it will live, as he said in his dedication to the queen, " with the eternitie of her fame." 68. Spenser's Minor Poems. — The next year, 1591, Spenser, being still in England, collected his smaller poems, most of which seem to be early work, and published them. Among them Afo/Aer Hubbenfs Tale is a remarkable satire, somewhat in the manner of Chaucer, on society, on the evils of a beggar soldiery, of the Church, of tlie court, and of misgovernment. The Ruins of TtJfte, and still more the Tea7's of the Muses, support the statement that literature was looked on coldly previous to 1580. vSidney had died in 1586, and three of these poems bemoan his death. The others are of slight importance, and the whole collection was entitled Co7n- plaints. His Daphnaida seems to have also appeared in 1 59 1. Returning to Ireland, he gave an account of his visit and of the court of Elizabeth in Colin Cloufs come Home again, and at last, after more than a year's pursuit, won, in 1594, his second love for his wife, and found with her perfect happiness. A long series of lovely " Sonnets " — - the Ani07-etti, records the progress of his wooing ; and Il6 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. the Epithalamion, his exultant marriage hymn, is the most glorious love- song in the English tongue. These three were published in 1595. At the close of 1595 he brought to England in a second visit the last three books of the Fae^'ie Queefie. The next year he spent in London, and published these books, as well as the Prothalaitiion on the marriage of Lord Worcester's daughters, the Hy?nns on Love and Beauty and on Heavenly Love and Beauty, The two first hymns were rapturously written in his youth ; the two others, now written, and with even greater rapture, enshrine that love philosophy of Petrarca which makes earthly love a ladder to 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 Westminster Abbey. London, " his most kindly nurse," takes care also of his dust, and England keeps him in her love. 69. Later Elizabethan Poetry : Translations. — 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 powerful influ- ence of the Greek spirit. Sir John Harington in 1591 translated Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Fairfax in 1600 translated TdLSSo's Jerusalem, and his book is " one of the IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 11/ glories of Elizabeth's reign." But the noblest translation is that of Homer's whole work by George CHAPisiAN, the dramatist, the first part of which appeared 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 four- teen-syllable stanza in which it is written has the fire and swiftness of Homer, but it has not his directness or dig- nity. Its 'Unconquerable quaintness" and diffuseness are wholly unlike the pure form and light and measure ot Greek work. But it is a distinct poem of such power that it will excite and deHght all lovers of poetry, as it excited and delighted Keats. John Florio's Translation of the Essays of Montaigne, 1603, and North's Plutaixh, are also, though in prose, to be mentioned here, because Shakespeare used the books, and because we must mark Montaigne's influence on Enghsh literature even before his retranslation by Charles Cotton. 70. The Four Phases of Poetry after 1579. — 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 on the whole such an his- torical order is a true chronological order. Fi7'st, then, if we compare England after 1580, as writers have often done, to an ardent youth, we shall find in the poetry of IlS ENGLISH LITEKATURE CHAP. the first years that followed that date all the elements of youth. It is a poetry of love, and romance, and imag- ination, — of Romeo and Juliet. Sctond/y, 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 manhood, and parallel with this there is tlie great outbreak 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 Shakespeare 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 Rylsione^ who vainly and sorrowfully strove against all the new national elements. Rop.ert Southwell, 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 TV THE ELIZABETHAN LTTERATURF. II9 finally collected under the title, S/. Petc7's Complaint^ Mary Magdalen'' s Tears, with other works of the Author, R.S. The McBonicE, and a short prose work Marie Mag- dalen's Fune?'all Tears, became also very popular. It marks not only the large Roman CathoHc element in the country, but also the strange contrasts of the time that eleven editions of books with these titles were published between 1595 and 1609, at a time when, the Venus and Adonis of Shakespeare led the way for a multitude of poems — following on Marlowe's Ile^-o and Leander and Lodge's Glaucus and Scylla — which sang devotedly of love and amorous joy. 71. The Love Poetry. — I have called it by this name because all its best work is almost limited to that subject — the subject of youth. The Love sonnets, written in a series, are a feature of the time. The best are Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Daniel's Delia, Constable's Diana, Drayton's Idea, Spenser's Ainoretti, and Shakespeare's Sonnets. More than twelve collections of these love sonnets, each dedicated to one lady, and often a hun- dred in number, were published between 1593 and 1596, and these had been preceded by many others. The Miscellanies, to which I have already alluded, and the best of which were The Passionate Pilgrim, England's Helicon, and Davison's Rhapsody, were scarcely less numerous than the Song-books published with music, full of delightful lyrics. The wonder is that the lyrical level in such a multitude of short poems is so high throughout. Some songs reach a first-rate ex I20 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. cellence, but even the least good have the surprising spirit of poetry in them. The best of them 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. Shakespeare's excel the others in their gay rejoicing, their firm reality, their exquisite 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 porcelain, 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. To specialise the various kinds would be too long, for there never was in our land a richer outburst of lyrical ravishment and fancy. England was like a grove in spring, full of birds in revel and solace. Love poems of a longer kind were also made, such as Marlowe's Hero and Leander, the Venus and Adonis and, if we may date them here, the Elegies of John Donne. I mention only a few of these poems, the mark of which is a luscious sensuousness. There were also religious poems, the reflection of the Puritan and Church elements in English society. They were collected under such titles as the Handful of Honeysuckles, the Poo7' Widoiv's Mite, Psalms and Sonnets, and there are some good things among them written by William Hunnis. 72. The Patriotic Poets. — Among all this poetry of Romance, Religion, and .Love, rose a poetry which IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 121 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 for Magistrates^ so it had its perfect flower in the historical dramas of Shakespeare. 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, 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 Daniel, and Michael Drayton. Born within a few years of each other, about 1560, they all lived l^eyond the century, and the national poetry they set on foot lasted when the romantic poetry lost its wealth and splendour. William Warner's great book was Albiofi's Engla7id^ 1586, a history of England in fourteen-syllable verse from the Deluge to Queen Ehzabeth. It is clever, humorous, now grave, now gay, crowded with stories, and runs to 10,000 lines. Its popularity was great, and the English in which it was written deserved it. Such stories in it as Argentile and Curan, and the Patient Countess, prove Warner to have had a true, pathetic vein of poetry. His English is not however so good as that of " well-languaged Daniel," who, among tragedies and pastoral comedies, the noble series of sonnets to Delia and poems of pure fancy, wrote The Complaint of Rosamond,'' fir more poetical than his 122 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAr. Steadier, even prosaic Civil Wars of York and Lan- caster. Spenser saw in him a new " shepherd of poetry who did far surpass the rest," and Coleridge says that the style of his Hymen's Triiwiph may be declared *' imperishable English." Of the three the easiest poet was Drayton. The Barons' Wars, England's Heroical Epistles, 1597, The Miseries of Queen Margaret, and Fo^^r Legends, together with the brilliant Ballad of Agiticourt prove his patriotic fervour. Not content with these, he set himself to glorify the whole of his land in the Polyolbio7i, thirty books, and nearly 100,000 lines. It is a description in Alexandrines of the *' tracts, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of Britain, with intermixture of the most remark- able stories, antiquities, wonders, pleasures, and com- modities 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. He, as well as Daniel, did other work. Indeed Drayton is a striking instance of the way in which these divisions, which I have made for the sake of a general order, overlapped one another. He is as much the love poet as the patriotic poet in his eclogues of 1593 and in his later Idea; he is also a religious, a satirical, a lyrical, and a fairy poet. He plays on every kind of harp. 73. Philosophical Poets. — Before the date of the Polyolbion a change had come. As the patriotic poets \ ^ IV THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 1 23 on the whole came after the romantic, so the patriotic, on the whole, were followed by the philosophical poets. The land was settled ; enterprise ceased to be the first thing ; men sat down to think, and. in poetry questions of religious and political philosophy were treated with " sententious reasoning, grave, subtle, and condensed." Shakespeare, in his passage from comedy to tragedy, in 1 60 1, illustrates this change. The two poets who best 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 0?'chestra, 1596, in which the whole world is explained as a dance, is as exultant as Spenser. His later poem, 1599, is compact and vig- orous reasoning, for the most part without fancy. Its very title, Nosce te ipstwi — Know Thyself — and its divisions, i. "On humane learning," 2. "The immor- tality 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 O71 Human Learning, on Wars, on Monarchy, and on Relig- ion. They are political and historical treatises, not poems, and all in them, said 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, Harrington, and Locke." Brooke too, in a happier mood, was a lyrist ; and his T24 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAF. collection, C(Elica, has some of the graces of love and its imagination. 74. Satirical Poetry, which lives best when imaginative creation begins to decay, arose also towards the end of E^lizabeth's reign. It had been touched in the begin- ning before Spenser by Gascoigne's Steele Glas, but had no further growth save in prose until 1593, when John Donne is supposed to have written some of his Satires. Thomas Lodge, Joseph Hall, John Marston, wrote satir- ical poems in the last part of the sixteenth century. These satires are all written in a rugged, broken style, supposed to be the proper style for satire. Donne's are the best, and are so because he was a true poet. Though his work was mostly done in the reign of James I., and though his poetical reputation, and his influence (which was very great) did not reach their height till after the publication in 1633 of all his poems, he really belongs, by dint of his youthful sensuousness, of his imaginative flame, and of his sad and powerful thought, to the Eliza- bethans. So also does William Drummond, of Haw- thornden, whose work was done in the reign of James I., and whose name is linked by poetry and friendship to Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Both are the result of the Elizabethan influence extending to Scotland. Drummond's sonnets and madrigals have some of the grace of Sidney, and he rose at intervals into grave and noble verse, as in his sonnet on John the Baptist. We turn now to the drama, which in this age grew into magnificence. IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA 125 THE DRAMA 75. Early Dramatic Representation in England. — The English Drama grew up through the Mystery and the Miracle play, the Morality and the Interlude, the rude farce of the strolling players and the pageant. The Mystery was the representation (at first in or near the Church, and by the clergy ; and then in the towns, and by the laity) of the events of the Old and New Testaments which bore on the Fall and the Redemption of Man. The Mb-acle play, though distinct elsewhere from the Mystery, was the common name of both in England, and was the representation of some legendary story of a saint or martyr. These stories gave more freedom of speech, a more worldly note, and a greater range of characters to the mystery plays. They also supplied a larger opportunity for the comic element. The Miracle plays of England fell before long into two classes, represented at the feasts of Christmas Day and Easter Day; and about 1262 the town-guilds took them into their hands. At Christmas the Birth of Christ was rep- resented, and the events which made it necessary, back to the Fall of Man. At Easter the Passion was repre- sented in every detail up to the Ascension, and the play often began with the raising of Lazarus. Sometimes even the Baptism was brought in, and finally, the Last Judg- ment was added to the double series, which thus em- braced the whole history of man from the creation to the close. About the beginning of the fourteenth century 126 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. these two series were brought together into one, and acted on Corpus Christi Day on a great moveable stage in the open spaces of the towns. The whole series con- sisted of a number of short plays written frequently by different authors, and each guild took the play which suited it best. In a short time, there was scarcely a town of any importance in England from Newcastle, to Exeter which had not its Corpus Christi play, and the representations lasted from one day to eight days. Of these sets of plays we possess the Towneley plays, 32 in all, those of York, 48 in all, those of Chester, 24 in all, and a casual collection, called of Coventry, of later and unconnected plays. Of course, these sets only represent a small portion of the Miracle plays of England. It is not improbable that every little town had its own maker of them. Any play that pleased was carried from the town to the castle, from the castle, it may be, to the court. The castle chaplain sometimes composed them : the king kept players of them and scenery for them. On the whole this irregular drama lasted, if we take in its Anglo-Norman beginnings in French and Latin, for nearly 500 years, from mo, when we first hear at St. Albans of the Miracle play of St. Catherine, to the reign of Henry III., when The Harrowifjg of Hell, our first extant religious drama in English, was acted, and then to 1580, when we last hear of the representation of a Miracle play at Coventry. 76. Separate plays preceded and existed alongside of these large series. Not only on the days of Christ- IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA 12/ mas, Easter, and Corpus Christi were plays acted, but plays were made for separate feasts, saints' days, and the turns of the year, and these had the character of the counties where they were made. The villages took them up, and soon began to ask for secular as well as religious representations at their fairs and merry-mak- ings. The strolling players answered the demand, and secular subjects began to be treated with romantic or comic aims, and with some closeness to natural hfe. We have a play about Robin Hood of the sixteenth century, acted on May Day; the Play of St. George; the Play of the Wake on St. John's Eve. Some of the farcical parts of the Miracle plays, isolated from the rest, were acted, and we have a dramatic fragment taken from the very secular romance of Dame Siriz, which dates from the time of Edward I. We may be sure it was not the only one. 77. The Morality begins as we come .to the reign of Edward III. We hear of the Play of the Pater- noster, and of one of its series, the Play of Lazincsr, But the oldest extant are of the time of Henry VI. The Castle of Constancy ; Humanity ; Spirit, Will, and Understanding — these titles partly explain what the Morality was. It was a play in which the characters were the Vices and Virtues, with the addition after- wards 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 128 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Virtue triumphed, or some moral principle was estab- lished. The later dramatic fool grew up in the Moral- ities out of a personage called " The Vice," and the humorous element was introduced by the retaining of ''The Devil" from the Miracle play and by making The Vice torment him. We draw nearer then in the Morality to the regular drama. Its story had to be invented, a proper plot had to be conceived, a clear end fixed upon, to produce which the allegorical char- acters acted on one another. We are on the very verge of the natural drama ; and so close was the relation that the acting of MoraUties did not die out till about the end of Ehzabeth's reign. A certain tran- sition to the regular drama may be observed in them when historical characters, celebrated for a virtue or vice, were introduced instead of the virtue or the vice, as when Aristides took the place of Justice. Moreover, as the heat of the struggle of the Reforma- tion increased, the Morality was used to support a side. Real men and women w^ere shown under the thin cloaks of its allegorical characters. The stage was becoming a living power when this began. 78. The Interludes must next be noticed. There h;ul been interludes in the Miracle plays, short, humorous pieces, interpolated for the amusement of the people. These were continued in the Moralities, and were made closer still to popular Hfe. It occurred to John Hey- wooD to identify himself with this form of drama, and to raise the Interludes into a place in literature. In his IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I29 hands, from 1520 to 1540, the Interlude became a kind of farce, and he wrote several for the amusement of the court of Henry VIII. He drew the characters from real life ; in many cases he gave them the names of men and women, but he retained " the Vice " as a personage. 79. The Regular Drama: its First Stage. — These were the beginnings of the English Drama. To trace the many and various windings of the way from the Interludes of Heywood to the regular drama of, Elizabeth were too long and too involved a work for this book. We need only say that the first pure English comedy was Ralph Roister Doister, written by Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, known to have been acted before 155 1, but not pubhshed till 1566. It is our earliest picture of London manners ; it is divided into regular acts and scenes, and is made in rhyme. The first English tragedy is Gorbodiic, or Ferrex and Forrex, written by Sackville an 1 Norton, and represented in 1561. The story was taken from British legend ; the method followed that of Seneca. A few tragedies on the same classical model fol- lowed, but before long this classical type of plays died out. For twenty years or so, from 1560 to 1580, the drama was learning its way by experiments. Moralities were still made, comedies, tragi-comedies, farces, tragedies ; and sometimes tragedy, farce, comedy, and morality were rolled into one play. The verse of the drama was as unsettled as its form. The plays were written in dog- gerel, in the fourteen-syllable line, in prose, and in a ten- syllable verse, and these were sometimes mixed in the K 130 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. same play. They were acted chiefly at the Universities, the Inns of Court, the Court, and after 1576 by players in the theatres. Out of this confusion arose 1580-8 (i) two sets of dramatic writers, the "University Wits" and the theatrical playwrights; (2) a distinct dramatic verse, the blank verse destined to be used by Marlowe, Peele, and Greene ; and (3) the licensed theatre. 80. The Theatre. — A patent was given in 1574 to the Earl of Leicester's servants to act plays in any town in England, and they built in 1576 the Blackfriars Thea- tre. In the same year two others were set up in the fields about Shoreditch — "The Theatre" and "The Curtain." The Globe Theatre, built for Shakespeare and his fellows in 1599, may stand as a type of the rest. In the form of a hexagon outside, it was circular within, and open to the weather, except above the stage. The play began at three o'clock ; the nobles and ladies sat in boxes or in stools on the stage, the people stood in the pit or yard. The stage itself, strewn with rushes, was a naked room, with a blanket for a curtain. Wooden imitations of animals, towers, woods, houses, were all the scenery used, and a board, stating the place of action, was hung out from the top when the scene changed. Boys acted the female parts. It was only after the Restoration that movable scenery and actresses were introduced. No " pencil's aid " supplied the landscape of Shakespeare's plays. The forest of Arden, the castle of Macbeth, were " seen only by tlie intellectual eye." 81. The Second Stage of the Drama ranges from IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I3I 1580 to 1596. It includes the plays of Lyly, Peele, Greene, Lodge, Marlowe, Kyd, Nash, and the earliest works of Shakespeare. During this time we know that more than 100 different plays were performed by four out of the eleven companies ; so swift and plentiful was their production. They were written in prose, and in rhyme, and in blank verse mixed with prose and rhyme. Prose and rhyme prevailed before 1587, when Marlowe in his play gf Tamburlaine made blank verse so new and splendid a thing that it overcame all other dra- matic vehicles. John Lyly, however, wrote so much of his eight plays in prose, that he established, we may say, the use of prose in the drama — an innovation which Gascoigne introduced, and which Shakespeare carried to perfection. Some beautiful little songs scattered through Lyly's plays are the forerunners of the songs with which Shakespeare and his fellows illumined their dramas, and the witty " quips and cranks," repartees and similes of Lyly's fantastic prose dialogue were the school of Shakespeare's first prose dialogue. Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, the three important names of the period, belong to the University men. So do Lodge and Nash, and perhaps Kyd. They are the first in whose hands the play of human passion and action is expressed with any true dramatic effect. George Peele' s Ari-aignment of Paris, 1584, and his David and Bethsabe are full of passages of new and delightful poetry, and when the poetry is good, his blank verse and his heroic couplet arc smootli and tender. Robert 132 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Greene, of whose prose in pamphlet and tale much might be said, spent ten years in writing, and died in 1592. There is Httle poetry in his plays, but he could write a charming song. Kyd's best play is the Spanish Tragedy. None of these men had the power of work- ing out a play by the development of their " characters " to a natural conclusion. They anticipate the poetry, but not the art, of Shakespeare. Christopher Marlowe as dramatist surpassed, as poet rose far above, them, and as metrist is almost as great as Shakespeare. The difference between the unequal action and thought of his Doctor Faustus, and the quiet and orderly progres- sion to its end of the play of Edward II., is all the more remarkable when we know that he died at thirty. As he may be said to have made the verse of the drama, so he created the English tragic drama. His best plays are wrought with a new skill to their end, his characters are outlined with strength and developed with fire. Each play illustrates one ruling passion, in its growth, its power, and its extremes. Tamburlaine paints the desire of universal empire ; the Jew of Malta, the mar- ried passions of greed and hatred; Doctor Faustus^ the struggle and failure of man to possess all knowledge and all pleasure without toil and without law ; Edward II, the misery of weakness and the agony of a king's ruin. His knowledge of human nature was neither extensive nor penetrative, but the splendour of his imagination, and the noble surging of his verse, make us forget his want of depth and of variety. Every one has dwelt on his IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I33 intemperance in phrases and of images, but the spirit of poetry moves in them ; we even enjoy the natural faults of fiery youth in a fiery time. He had no humour, and his farcical fun is like the boisterous play of a clumsy animal. In nothing is the difference between Shake- speare and him and his fellows more infinite than in this point of humour. And indeed he had little pathos. His sorrows are too loud. Nevertheless, by force of poetry, not of dramatic art, Marlowe made a noble porch to the temple which Shakespeare built. That tem- ple, however, in spite of all the preceding work, seems to spring out of nothing, so astonishing it is in art, in beauty, in conception. He himself was his only worthy predecessor, and the third stage of the drama includes his work, that of Ben Jonson's, and of a few others. It is the work, moreover, not of University men who did not know the stage, but of men who were not only men of genius, but also playwrights who understood what a play should be, and how it was to be staged. 82. William Shakespeare in twenty-eight years made the drama represent almost the whole of human life. He was baptised April 26, 1564, and was the son of a com- fortable burgess of Stratford-on-Avon. While he was still young his father fell into poverty, and an interrupted education left him an inferior scholar. " He had small Latin and less Greek ; " but he had avast store of EngHsh.^ 1 He uses 15,000 words, and he wrote pure English. Out of every five verbs, adverbs, and nouns {e.g. in the last act of Ot/iello), four are Teutonic ; and he is more Teutonic in comedy than in tragedy. 134 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. However, by dint of genius and by living in a society in which every kind of information was attainable, he became an accomplished man. The story told of his deer-stealing in Charlecote woods is without proof, but it is hkely that his youth was wild and passionate. At nineteen he married Anne Hathaway, more than seven years older than himself, and was probably unhappy with her. For this reason, or from poverty, or from the driv- ing of the genius that led him to the stage, he left Strat- ford about 1586-7, and came to London at the age of twenty-two years, and falling in with Marlowe, Greene; and the rest, became an actor and playwright, and may have lived their unrestrained and riotous life for some years. It is convenient to divide his work into periods, and to state the order in which it is now supposed his plays were written. But we must not imagine that the periods and the order are really settled. We know some- thing, but not all we ought to know, of this matter. 8;^. His First Period. — It is probable that before leaving Stratford he had sketched a part at least of his Venus and Adoftis. It is full of the country sights and sounds, of the ways of birds and animals, such as he saw when wandering in Charlecote woods. Its rich and over- laden poetry and its warm colouring made him, when it was published, 1593, at once the favourite of men Hke Lord Southampton, and lifted him into fame. But before that date he had done work for the stage by touching up old plays, and writing new ones. We seem to trace his " prentice hand " in some dramas of the time, but the rv THE ENGLISH DRAMA 1 35 first he is usually thought to have fully retouched is Ti- tus Andf'onicus, and some time after the Fhst Part of Henry VI. Love's Labours Lost, supposed to be written 1589 or 1590, the first of his original plays, in which he quizzed and excelled the Euphuists in wit, was followed by the involved and rapid farce of the Comedy of Ei'rors. Out of these frohcs of intellect and action he passed into pure poetry in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream, and mingled into fantastic beauty the classic legend, the mediaeval fairyland, and the clownish life of the English mechanic. Itahan story laid its charm upon him about the same time, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona pre- ceded the southern glow of passion in Romeo and Juliet, in which he first reached tragic power. Tliey are said to complete, with Love's Labour's Won, afterwards recast as AIVs Well that Ends Well, the love plays of his early period. We should read along with them, as belonging to the same period, the Rape of Lucrece, a poem finally printed in 1594, one year later than the Venus and Ado- nis, which was probably finished, if not wholly written, at this passionate time. The same poetic succession we have traced in the poets, is now found in Shakespeare. The patriotic feeling of England, also represented in Marlowe and Peele, had seized on him, and he began his great series of historical plays with Richard 11. and Richard III. To introduce Richard III. or to complete the subject, he recast the Second and Third Pa?-ts of Henry VI., and ended what we have called his first period by King John about 1596 136 ENGLISH LITERATURE CI I. -VI'. 84. His Second Period, 1596-1601, — In the Merchant of Venice Shakespeare reached entire mastery over his art. A mingled woof of tragic and comic threads is brought to its highest point of colour when Portia and Shylock meet in court. Pure comedy followed in his retouch of the old Taming of the Shrew, and all the wit of the world mixed with noble history met in the first and second Hen ?'y IV., 1597-8; while Falstaffwas continued in the Alerry Wives of Windsor. The historical plays were then closed with Henry V., 1599; a splendid dra- matic song to the glory of England. The Globe Theatre of which he was one of the proprietors, was built in 1599- In the comedies he wrote for it, Shakespeare turned to write of love again, not to touch its deeper passion as before, but to play with it in all its lighter phases. The flashing dialogue of Much Ado About Nothing was fol- lowed by the far-off forest world oi As You Like It, 1599, where " the time fleets carelessly," and Rosalind's char- acter is the play. Amid all its gracious lightness steals in a new element, and the melancholy of Jaques is the first touch we have of the older Shakespeare who had " gained his experience, and whose experience had made him sad." As yet it was but a touch ; Tivclfth Njght shows no trace of it, though the play that followed, AlVs Well that Efids Well, 1601? again strikes a sadder note. We find this sadness fully grown in the later Sonnets, which are said to have been finished about 1602. We know that some of the Sonnets existed in 1598, but they were all printed together for the first time in 1609. They IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I37 form together the most deep, ardent, subtle, and varied representation of love in our language, and their emotion is mingled with so great a wealth of simple and complex thought that they seem to be written out of the experi- ence, not of one but of many men. Shakespeare's life changed now, and his mind changed with it. He had grown wealthy during this period, famous, and loved by society. He was the friend of the Earls of Southampton and Essex, and of William Herbert, Lord Pembroke. The queen patronised him ; all the best literary society was his own. He had rescued his father from poverty, bought the best house in Stratford and much land, and was a man of wealth and comfort. Suddenly all his life seems to have grown dark. His best friends fell into ruin, Essex perished on the scaffold, Southampton went to the Tower, Pembroke was banished from the court ; he may himself, some have thought, have- been sHghtly involved in the rising of Essex. Added to this, we may conjecture, from the imaginative pageantry of the sonnets, that he had unwisely loved, and been betrayed in his love by a dear friend. Public and pri- vate ill then weighed heavily upon him ; he seems to even have had disgust for his profession as an actor ; and in darkness of spirit, though still clinging to the business of the theatre, he passed from comedy to write of the sterner side of the world, to tell the tragedy of mankind. 85. His Third Period, 1 601-1608, begins with the last days of Queen Elizabeth. It opens with Julius 138 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Ccesa7\ and we may have, scattered through the telhng of the great Roman's fate, the expression of Shake- speare's sorrow for the ruin of Essex. Hamlet followed, 1601-3? for the poet felt, like the Prince of Denmark, that " the time was out of joint." Hainlet^ the dreamer, may well represent Shakespeare as he stood aside from the crash that overwhelmed his friends, and thought on the changing world. The tragi-comedy of Measure for Measure, 1603 ? may have now been written, and is tragic in thought throughout. Othello, 1604, Macbeth, Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Afitoiiy and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, 1608? Timon (only in part his own), were all written in these five years. The darker sins of men ; the unpitying fate which slowly gathers round and falls on mistakes and crimes, on ambition, luxury, and pride ; the aveng- ing wrath of conscience ; the cruelty and punishment of weakness ; the treachery, lust, jealousy, ingratitude, mad- ness of men ; the follies of the great and the fickleness of the mob, are all, with a thousand other varying moods and passions, painted, and felt as his own while he painted them, during this stern time. 86. His Fourth Period, 1608-1613. — As Shakespeare wrote of these things he passed out of them, and his last days are full of the gentle and loving calm of one who has known sin and sorrow and fate, but has risen above them into peaceful victory. Like his greab contemporary Bacon, he left the world and his own evil time behind him, and with the same quiet dignity sought the inno- cence and stillness of country life. The country breathes IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA 1 39 through all the dramas of this time. The flowers Perdita gathers in Winter's Tale^ the frolic of the sheep-shear- ing, he may have seen in the Stratford meadows ; the song of Fidele in Cymbeline is written by one who already feared no more the frown of the great, nor slander, nor censure rash, and was looking forward to the time when men should say of him — Quiet consummation have ; And renowned be thy grave ! Shakespeare probably left London in 1609, and lived in the house he had bought at Stratford-on-Avon. He was reconciled, it is said, to his wife, and the plays now writ- ten dwell on domestic peace and forgiveness. The story of Marina, which he left unfinished, and which it is supposed two later writers expanded into the play of Pericles, is the first of his closing series of dramas. Cymbeline, 1609? The Ternpest, 16 10? Winter's Tale, bring his history up to 161 1, and in the next year he may have closed his poetic life by writing, with Fletcher, Henry VIII., 1 6 1 2 ? The Two Noble Kinsmen of Fletcher, part of which is attributed to Shakespeare, and in which the poet sought the inspiration of Chaucer, would belong to this period. For some three years he kept silence, and then, on the 23d of April, 1 616, it is supposed on his fifty-second birthday, he died. 87. His Work. — We can only guess with regard to Shakespeare's life and character. It has been tried to find out what he was from his sonnets, and from his playSp 140 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. but every attempt seems to be a failure. We cannot lay our hand on anything and say for certain that it was spoken by Shakespeare out of his own personality. He created men and women whose dramatic action on each other, and towards a chosen end, was intended to please the public, not to reveal himself. Frequently failing in fineness of workmanship, having, but far less than the other dramatists, the faults of the art of his time, he was yet in all other points — in creative power, in impassioned conception and execution, in truth to universal human nature, in intellectual power, in intensity of feeling, in the great matter and manner of his poetry, in the weld- ing together of thought, passion, and action, in range, in plenteousness, in the continuance of his romantic feehng — the greatest poet our modern world has known. Like the rest of the greater poets, he reflected the noble things of his time, but refused to reflect the base. Fully in- fluenced, as we see in Hamlet he was, by the graver and more philosophic cast of thought of the latter time of Elizabeth ; passing on into the reign of James I., when pedantry took the place of gaiety, and sensual the place of imaginative love in the drama, and artificial art the place of that art which itself is nature ; he preserves to the last the natural passion, the simple tenderness, the sweetness, grace, and fire of the youthful Elizabethan poetry. The Winter's Tale is as lovely a love-story as Romeo and Juliet, the Tempest is more instinct with im- agination and as great in fancy as the Midsummer Nighfs Drea?n, and yet there are fully twenty years between IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I4I them. The only change is in the increase of power and in a closer, graver, and more ideal grasp of human nature. In the unchangeableness of this joyful and creative art- power Shakespeare is almost alone. It is true that in these last plays his art is more self-conscious, less natu- ral, and the greater glory is therefore lost, but the power is not less nor the beauty. 88. The Decline of the Drama begins while Shake- speare is alive. At first we can scarcely call it decline, it was so superb in its own qualities. For it began with " rare Ben Jonson." With him are connected by associated work, by quarrels, and by date, Dekker, Marston, and Chapman. They belong with Shakespeare to the days of Elizabeth and the days of James I. Ben Jonson's first play, in its very title. Every Man in his Humoii7', 1596, enables us to say in what the first step of this dechne consisted. The drama in Shakespeare's hands had been the painting of the whole of human nature, the painting of characters as they were built up by their natural bent, and by the play of circumstance upon them. The drama, in Ben Jonson's hands, was the painting of particular phases of human nature, espe- cially of his own age ; and his characters are men and women as they may become when they are completely mastered by a special bias of the mind or Humour. "The Manners, now called Humours, feed the stage," says Jonson himself. Every Man in his Humour was followed by Every Man out of his Humour, and by Cyiithia's Revels, written to satirise the courtiers The 142 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. fierce satire of these plays brought the town down upon him, and he rephed to their " noise " in the Poetaster, in which Dekker and Marston were satirised. Dekker answered with the Satiro-Mastix, a bitter parody on the Poetaster, in which he did not spare Jonson's bodily defects. Silent then for two years, he reappeared with the tragedy of Sejanus, and then quickly produced three splendid comedies in James I.'s reign, Volpone the Fox, the Silent Woman, and the Alchemist, 1 605-9-10. The first is the finest thing he ever did, as great in power as it is in the interest and skill of its plot ; the second is chiefly valuable as a picture of English life in high society ; the third is full of Jonson's obscure learning, but its character of Sir Epicure Mammon is done with Jonson's keenest power. In 161 1 his Catiline appeared, and then Ba?'tholo7new Fair. Eight years after he was made Poet Laureate. Soon he became poor and palsy-stricken, but his genius did not decay. His tender and imaginative pastoral drama, the Sad Shepherd, proves that, like Shakespeare, Jonson grew gentler as he grew near to death, and death took him in 1637. He was a great man. The power and copi- ousness of the young Elizabethan age belonged to him ; and he stands far below, for he had no passion, but still worthily by, Shakespeare, " a robust, surly, and ob- serving dramatist." Thos. Dekker, whose lovely lyrics are well known, and whose copious prose occupies five volumes, " had poetry enough," Lamb said, " for any- thing." His light comedies of manners are excellent IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I43 pictures of the time. But his romantic poetry is better felt in such dramas as Patient Grissil, Old Fortunatus, and The Witch of Ed77ionto7i^ in which, though others worked them along with Dekker, the women are all his own by tenderness, grace, subtlety, and pathos. John Marston, whose chief plays were written between 1602 and 1605, needs little notice here. He is best known by certain noble and beautiful passages, and his finest plays were Antonio and Mellida and the Malcontent. Of the. three Geo. Chapman was the most various genius, and the most powerful. He illuminated the age of Elizabeth by the first part of his translation of Homer ; he lived on into the reign of Charles I. His poems (of which the best are his continuation of Marlowe's Hero and Lcander, and 7he Tears of Peace) are ex- treme examples of the gnarled, sensuous, formless, and obscure poetry of which Dryden cured our literature. His plays are of a finer quality, especially the five tragedies taken from French history. They are weighty with thought, but the thought devours their action, and they are difficult and sensational. Inequality pervades them. His mingling of intellectual violence with intel- lectual imagination, of obscurity with a noble exultation and clearness of poetry, is a strange compound of the earlier and later Elizabethans. He, like Marlowe, but with less of beauty, " hurled instructive fire about the world." With these three I may mention Cyril Tourneur and John Day, the one as ferocious in the Atheist's l^rag- edy :\.s the other was graceful in V\^ Parliament of Bees, 144 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Both were poets, and both were more truly Ehzabethan than Beaumont, Fletcher, or Webster. 89. Masques. — Rugged as Jonson was, he could turn to light and graceful work, and it is with his name that we connect the Masques. He wrote them delightfully. Masques were dramatic representations made for a fes- tive occasion, with a reference to the persons present and the occasion. Their personages were allegorical. They admitted of dialogue, music, singing, and dancing, combined by the use of some ingenious fable into a whole. They were made and performed for the court and the houses of the nobles, and the scenery was as gorgeous and varied as the scenery of the playhouse proper was poor and unchanging. Arriving for the first time at any repute in Henry VIH.'s time, they reached splendour under James and Charles I. Great men took part in them. When Ben Jonson wrote them, Inigo Jones made the scenery and Lawes the music ; and Lord Bacon, Whitelock, and Selden sat in committee for the last great masque presented to Charles. Milton himself made them worthier by writing Co?nuSj and their scenic decoration was soon introduced into the regular theatres. 90. Beaumont and Fletcher worked together, and be- long not only in date, but in spirit, to the reign of James. In two plays, Heiuy VIII. and The Two Noble Kinsmen, Fletcher has been Hnked to Shakespeare. With Beau- mont as fellow-worker and counsellor, he wrote about a third of the more than fifty plays which go under IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I45 their names. Beaumont died, aged thirty, in 1616, Fletcher, aged fifty, in 1625. The creative power of the Ehzabethan time has no more striking example than in their vast production. The inventiveness of the plays is astonishing, and their plots are almost always easily connected and well supported. Far the greater part of the work was done by Fletcher, but it has been tried to trace Beaumont's hand chiefly in such fine tragedies as The MaicVs Tragedy and Philaster. In comedy Fletcher is gay, and quick, and interesting. In tragedy and comedy alike, his level of goodness is equal, but then we have none of those magnificent out- bursts of imaginative passion to which, up to this time, we have been accustomed. The Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher is a lovely pastoral, and the lyrics which diversify his plays have even some of the charm of Shakespeare. He and his fellows represent a distinct change, and not for the better, in the drama — a kind of fourth stage. Its poetry is on the whole less masculine. Its blank verse is rendered smoother and sweeter by the incessant addition of an eleventh syllable, but it is also enfeebled. This weak ending, by the additional free- dom and elasticity it gave to the verse, was suited to the rapid dialogue of comedy, but the dignity of trag- edy was lowered by it. The change is also seen in other matters. In the previous plays moral justice is done. The good are divided from the bad. Fletcher seems quite indifferent to this. In the previous plays, L 146 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. men and women, save in Shakespeare, are coarse and foul enough at times, but they are so by nature or under furious passion. In Fletcher, there is a natural indecency, an every-day foulness of thought, which be- longs to the good and the bad alike. The women are, when good, beyond nature, and, when bad, below it. The situations invented tend to be studiously out of the way, beyond the natural aspects of humanity. The aim of art has changed for the worse. It strives for the strange and the sensational. Even John Webster lost some of the power his genius gave him by the ghastly situations he chose to dwell upon. Yet he all but re- deemed the worst of them by the intensity of his imag- ination, and by the soul-piercing power with which, in a few words, he sounds the depths of the human heart when it is wrought b^'' "^morse, by sorrow, by fear, or by wrath to its greatest point of passion. Moreover, in his worst characters there is some redeeming touch, and this poetic pity saves his sensationalism from weari- ness, and brings him nearer to Shakespeare than others of his time. His two greatest plays, things which will be glorious forever in poetry, are The Duchess of Aldlfi, acted in 161 6, and the White Devil, Vittoria Corrombo7ia, printed in 16 12. One other play of the time is held to approach them in poetic quality. The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton, but it does so only in parts. 91. Decay of the Drama. — In the next dramatists, in the followers, if I may thus class them, of Massinger IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA 14/ and Ford, the change for the worse in the drama is more marked than in the work of those of whom we have been speaking. The poetic and creative quaUties are both less, the sensationaUsm is greater, the foulness of language increases, the situations are more out of nature, the verse is clumsier and more careless, the composition and connexion of the plots are tumbled and confused. But these statements are only moder- ately true of Massinger and Ford. They stand at the head of the rapid decay of the drama, but they still retain a predominant part of that which made the Elizabethans great. Massinger's first dated play was the Virgin Marfyr, 1620. He lived poor, and died '' a stranger," in 1639. In these twenty years he wrote thirty-seven plays, of which the New Way to Pay Old Debts is the best known by its character of vSir Giles Overreach. His versification and language are flexible and strong, *' and seem to rise out of the passions he describes." He speaks the tongue of real life. He is greater than he seems to be. Like Fletcher, there is a steady equality in his work. Coarse, even foul as he is in speech, he is the most moral of the secondary dramatists. Nowhere is his work so forcible as when he represents the brave man struggling through trial to victory, the pure woman suffering for the sake of truth and love ; or when he describes the terrors that con- science brings on injustice and cruelty. John Ford, his contemporary, published his first play, the Lover's Melancholy^ in 1629, and five years after, Perkin War- 148 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP beck, one of the best historical dramas after Shake- speare. Between these dates appeared others, of which the best are the Broken Heart and '7}> Pity She's a Whore. He carried to an extreme the tendency of the drama to unnatural and horrible subjects, but he did so with great power. He has no comic humour, but few men have described better the worn and tortured hu- man heart. A crowd of dramatists carried on the pro- duction of plays till the Commonwealth. Some names alone we can mention here — Thomas Heywood, Henry Glapthorne, Richard Broome, William Rowley, Thomas Randolph, Nabbes, and Davenport. Of these " all of whom," says Lamb, " spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral feelings and notions in com- mon," James Shirley is the best and last. He lived till 1666. In him the fire and passion of the old time pass away, but some of the delicate poetry remains, and in him the Elizabethan drama dies. Sir John Suckling and Davenant, who wrote plays before the Common- wealth, can scarcely be called even decadent Eliza- bethans. In 1642 the theatres were closed during the calamitous times of the Civil War. Strolling players managed to exist with difficulty, and against the law, till 1656, when Sir William Davenant had his opera of the Siege of Rhodes acted in London. It was the beginning of a new drama, in every point but impurity different from the old, and four years after, at the Res- toration, it broke loose from the prison of Puritanism to indulge in a shameless license. IV THE ENGLISH DRAMA I49 In this rapid sketch of the drama in England wc have been carrie 1 on beyond the death of Ehzabeth to the date of the Restoration. It was necessary, be- cause it keeps the whole story together. We now re- turn to the time that followed the accession of James I. 150 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAl' CHAPTER V FROM Elizabeth's death to the restoration, 1603-1660 92. The Literature of this Period may fairly be called Elizabethan, but not so altogether. The prose retained the manner of the EKzabethan time and the faults of its style, but gradually grew into greater ex- cellence, spread itself over larger fields of thought, and took up a greater variety of subjects. The poetry, on the whole, declined. It exaggerated the vices of the Elizabethan art, and lessened its virtues. But this is not the whole account of the matter. We must add that a new prose, of greater force of thought and of a simpler style than the Elizabethan, arose in the writings of a theologian like Chillingvvorth, an historian like Clarendon, and a philosopher like Hobbes : and that a new type of poetry, distinct from the poetry of fan- tastic wit into which Elizabethan poetry had descended, was written by some of the lyrical writers. It was Eliza- bethan in its lyric note,. but it was not obscure. It had grace, simplicity, and smoothness. In its greater art and clearness it tells us that the critical school is at hand. V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION I5I 93. Prose Literature. James I. — The greatest prose triumph of this time was the Authorised Version of the Bible. There is no need to dwell on it, nor on all it has done for the literature of England. It hves in almost every book of worth and imagination, and its style, es- pecially when the subject soars, is inspired by the spirits of fitness and beauty and melody. Philosophy passed from Elizabeth into the reign of James I. with Francis Bacon. The splendour of the form and of the English prose Qf the Advancement of Learning, two books of which were published in 1605, raises it into the realm of pure literature. It was expanded into nine Latin books in 1623, and with the Novum Organon, finished in 1620, and the Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis, 1622, formed the Instauratio Magna. The impulse these books gave to research, and to the true method of research, awoke scientific inquiry in England ; and before the Royal Society was constituted in the reign of Charles II., our science, though far behind that of the Continent, had done some good work. WiUiam Harvey lectured on the circulation of the blood in 1615, and during the Civil War and the Commonwealth men like Robert Boyle, the chemist, John Wallis, the mathe- matician, and others, met in William Petty's rooms at Brazenose, and prepared the way for Newton. 94. History, except in the publication of the earlier Chronicles of Archbishop Parker, does not appear in the later part of Elizabeth's reign, but under James I. Camden, Spelman, Selden, and Speed continued the anti- 152 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. quarian researches of Stow and Grafton. Bacon wrote a dignified Histoj-y of Henry VII., and Daniel the poet, in his History of England to the Time of Edward III, 1613-18, was one of the first to throw history into such a literary form as to make it popular. Knolles's History of the Turks, 1603, and Sir Walter Raleigh's vast sketch of the History of the World, show how for the first time history spread itself beyond English interests. Raleigh's book, written in the peaceful evening of a stormy life, and in the quiet of his prison, is not only literary from the impulsive passages which adorn it, but from its still spirit of melancholy thought. In 16 14, John Selden's Titles of Honour added to the accurate work he had done in Latin on the English Records, and his History of Tithes was written with the same careful regard for truth in 1618. 9 5 . Miscellaneous Literature. — The pleasure of Travel, still lingering among us from Elizabeth's reign, found a quaint voice- in Thomas Coryat's Crudities, which, in 161 1, describes his journey through France and Italy; and in George Sandys' book, 1615, which tells his journey in the East ; while Henry Wotton's Letters from Italy are pleasant reading. The care with which Samuel Purchas embodied (1613) in Purchas his Pilgrimage (" his own in matter, though borrowed ") and in Hak- luyfs Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625), the great deeds, sea voyages, and land travels of adventurers, brings us back to the time when England went out to win the world. The painting of short " Characters " V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION 1 53 was begun by Sir Thomas Overbury's book in 1614, and carried on in the following reign by John Earle and Joseph Hall, who became bishops. This kind of litera- ture marks the interest in individual life which now began to arise, and which soon took form in Biography. 96. In the Caroline Period and the Commonwealth, Prose grew into a nearer approach to the finished in- strument it became after the Restoration. History was illuminated, and its style dignified, by the work of Claren- don — the History of the Rebellion (begun in 1641) and his own Life. Thomas May wrote the Histoiy of the Parliament of 1640, a book with a purpose. Thomas Fuller's Church History of Britain, 1656, may in style and temper be put alongside of his Worthies of England in 1662. In Theology and Philosophy the masters of prose at this time were Jeremy Taylor and Thomas Hobbes. It is a comfort amidst the noisy war of party to breathe the calm spiritual air of The Great Exe7nplar and the Holy Living and Dying which Taylor published at the close of the reign of 'Charles I. They had been preceded in 1647 by the Libei'ty of Prophesying, in which, agreeing with his contemporaries, John Hales and William Chil- lingworth, he pleaded the cause of religious toleration, and of rightness of life as more important than correct theology. Taylor was the most eloquent of men, and the most facile of orators. Laden with thought, his books are read for their sweet and deep devotion (a quality which also belonged to his fellow-writer, Lancelot 154 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Andrewes), even more than for their impassioned and convoluted outbreaks of beautiful words. On the Puritan side, the fine sermons of Richard Sibbes converted Rich- ard Baxter, whose manifold literary work only ended in the reign of James II. One little thing of his, written at the close of the Civil War, became a household book in England. There used to be few cottages which did not possess a copy of the Saints' Eve7'lasiing Rest. The best work of Hobbes belonged to Charles I. and the Commonwealth, but will better be noticed hereafter. The other great prose writer is one of a number of men whose productions may be classed under the title of Miscellaneous Literature. He is Sir Thomas Browne, who, born in 1605, died in 1682. In 1642 his Religio Medici was printed, and the book ran over Europe. The Enquiij into Vulgar Errors followed in 1646, and the Hydriotaphia, or Urn- Burial^ in 1658. These books, with other happy things of his, have by their quaintness, their fancy, and their special charm always pleased the world, and often kindled weary prose into fresh produc- tion. We may class with them Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book of inventive wit and scattered learn- ing, and Thomas Fuller's Holy and Profane State and Worthies of England, in which gaiety and piety, good sense and whimsical fancy meet. This kind of writing was greatly increased by the setting up of libraries, where men dipped into every kind of literature. It was in James I.'s reign that Sir Thomas Bodley estab- lished the Bodleian at Oxford, and Sir Robert Cotton V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION 1 55 a library now in the British Museum. A number of writers took part in the Puritan and Church contro- versies, among whom for graphic force Wilham Prynne stands out clearly. But the great controversialist was Milton. His prose is still, under the Commonwealth, Elizabethan in style. It has the fire and violence, the eloquence and diffuseness of the earlier literature, but in spite of the praise its style has received, it can in reality be scarcely called a style. It has all the faults a prose style can have except obscurity and the commonplace. Its magnificent storms of eloquence ought to be in poetry, and it never charms, though it amazes, except when Milton becomes purposely simple in personal narrative. It has no humour, but it has almost unex- ampled individuality and ferocity. Among this tem- pestuous pamphleteering one pamphlet is almost singular in its masterly and uplifted thought, and the style only rarely loses its dignity. This is the Areopagitica. In pleasant contrast to these controversies arises the gentle literature of Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler, 1653, a book which resembles in its quaint and garrulous style the rustic scenery and prattling rivers that it celebrates, and marks the quiet interest in country life which had now arisen in England. Prose, then, in the time of James and Charles I., and of the Commonwealth, had largely developed its powers. 97. The Poetry of the Reign of James I. — It is said that during this reign and the following one, poetry declined. On the whole that is true, but it is true with 156 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. many modifications. We must remember that Shake- speare and many of the Elizabethan poets, hke Drayton and Daniel, did their finest work in the reign of James I. Yet there was decline. The various elements which we have noticed in the poetry of Ehzabeth's reign, without the exception even of the shght Catholic element, though opposed to each other, were filled with one spirit — ^ the love of England and the queen. Nor were they ever sharply divided ; they are found interwoven, and modi- fying one another in the same poet, as for instance Puri- tanism and Chivalry in Spenser, Catholicism and Love in Constable : and all are mixed together in Shakespeare and the dramatists. This unity of spirit in poetry became less and less after the queen's death. The ele- ments remained, but they were separated. The cause of this was that the strife in politics between the Divine Right of Kings and Liberty, and in religion between the Church and the Puritans, grew so defined and intense that England ceased to be at one, and the poets repre- sented the parties, not the whole, of England. Then, too, that general passion and life which inflamed every- thing Elizabethan lessened, and as it lessened, the faults of the Elizabethan work became more prominent ; they were even supposed to be excellences. Hence the fan- tastic, far-fetched, involved style, which was derived from the Eicphues and the Afradia, grew into favour and was developed in verse, till it ended by greatly injuring good sense and clearness in English poetry. In the reaction from this the critical and classical school began. Again, V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION 1 57 when passion lessens, original work lessens, and imitation begins. The reign of James is marked by a class of poets who imitated Spenser. Giles Fletcher in his Chrisfs Victoiy and Triumph , 16 10, owned Spenser as his master. So did his brother Phineas Fletcher, whose Purple Island, an allegory of the human body, 1633, has both grace and sweetness. We may not say that Will- iam Browne imitated, but only that he was influenced by Spenser. His Britannia's Pastorals in two parts, 1 6 13-16, followed by the seven eclogues of the .5'/^(f//^ lOo. John Milton was the last of the Elizabethans, and, 4 except Shakespeare, far the greatest of them all. Born in 1608, in Bread Street (close by the Mermaid Tavern), he may have seen Shakespeare, for he remained till he was sixteen in London. His literary life may be said to begin with his entrance into Cambridge, in 1625, the year of the accession of Charles I. Nicknamed the *' Lady of Christ's " from his beauty, delicate taste, and moral life, he soon attained a reputation by his Latin poems and discourses, and by his English poems which revealed as clear and original a genius as that of Chaucer and Spenser. Of Milton even more than of the two others, it may be said that he was " whole in himself, and owed to none." The M 1 62 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Ode to the Nativity, 1629, the third poem he composed, while it went back to the EHzabethan age in beauty, in instinctive fire, went forward into a new world of art, the world where the architecture of the lyric is finished with majesty and music. The next year heard the noble sounding strains of At a So/ejnn Music ; and the sonnet, On Attaining the Age of Twenty-three, reveals in dignified beauty that intense personality which lives, like a force, through every line he wrote. 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 writers, and amusing himself with mathematics and music. Poetry was not neglected. The Allegro and Penseroso were written in 1633 and probably the Arcades ; Comus 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 disdained neither the arts nor letters. But they represent a grow- ing revolt from the Court and the Church. The Pen- seroso prefers the contemplative life to the mirthful, and Comtis, though a masque, rose into a celestial poem to the glory of temperance, and under its allegory attacked the Court. Three years later, Lycidas interrupts its ex- quisite 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 many of the English poets, visited Florence where he saw Galileo, and then passed on to Rome. At Naples he V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION 1 63 heard the sad news of civil war, which determined him to return ; " inasmuch as I thought it base to be travel- hng at my ease for amusement, while my fellow-country- men at home were fighting for liberty." At the meeting of the Long Parhament we find him in a house in Alders- gate, where he lived till 1645. ^^ ^^^^ projected while abroad a great epic poem on the subject of Arthur, but in London his mind changed, and among a number of subjects, tended at last to Paradise Lost, which he meant to throw into the form of a Greek Tragedy with lyrics and choruses. 1 01. Milton's Prose. The Commonwealth. — Suddenly his whole life changed, and for twenty years — 1640-60 — he was carried out of art into pohtics, out of poetry into prose. Most of the Sonnets, however, belong to this time. Stately, rugged, or graceful, as he pleased to make them, some with the solemn grandeur of Hebrew psalms, others having the classic ease of Horace, some of his own grave tenderness, they are true, unlike those of Shakespeare and Spenser, to the correct form of this difficult kind of poetry. But 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 appeared in the next two years. One of these was the Areopagitica ; or, Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Priftti?ig, 1644, a bold and eloquent attack on the censorship of the press by the Presbyterians. Another, remarkable, like the Areopagitica, for its finer prose, was a tract On Educa- 164 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP- tion. The four pamphlets in which he advocated con- ditional 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 shows that he had wholly ceased to be Presbyterian. His political pamphlets begin when his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates defended in 1649 ^^ execution of the king. The Eikonoclastes answered the Eikon Basilike (a portrait- ure of the sufferings of the king) ; and his fomous Latin Defence for the People of England, 1651, replied to Sal- masius's Defence of Charles /., and inflicted so pitiless a lashing on the great Leyden scholar that Milton's 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 English People J 1654, and a further Defence of Himself against scurrilous charges. This closed the controversy in 1655. In 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 Commonwealth were useless to prevent the Restoration. It was a won- der he was not put to death in 1660, and he was in hid- ing and also in custody for a time. At last he settled in a house near Bunhill Fields. It was here that Paradise Lost WA.^ finished, before the end of 1665, and then pub- lished in 1667. 102. Paradise Lost. — We may regret that Milton was V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION 1 65 shut away from liis art during twenty years of contro- versy. 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 moral grandeur with which he wrought for its ends their majestic movement, their grand style, and their grave beauty. During the struggle he had never for- gotten his art. '^I may one day hope," he said, speak- ing 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 sublim- ity which is kept in Paradise Lost, As we read the great epic, we feel that the lightness of heart of the Allegro, that even the quiet classic philosophy of the Coinus, are gone. The beauty of the poem is like that of a stately temple, which, vast in conception, is involved in detail. The style is the greatest in the whole range of English poetry. Milton's intellectual force sup- ports and condenses his imaginative force, and his art is almost too conscious of itself. Sublimity is its essential difference. The subject is one phase of the great and universal subject of high poetic thought and passion, that struggle of Light with Darkness, of Evil with Good, which, arising in a hundred myths, keeps its undying attraction to the present day. But its great difficulty in his case was that he was obliged to interest us, for a great part of the poem, in two persons, who, being inno- cent, were without any such play of human passion and trouble as we find in QEdipus, ^fCneas, Hamlet, or Alceste. 1 66 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. In the noble art with which this is done Milton is su- preme. The interest of the story collects at first round the character of Satan, but he grows meaner as the poem develops, and his second degradation after he has de- stroyed innocence is one of the finest and most consistent motives in the poem. This at once disposes of the view that Milton meant Satan to be the hero of the epic. His hero is Man. The deep tenderness of Milton, his love of beauty, the passionate fitness of his words to his work, his religious depth, fill the scenes in which he paints Paradise, our parents and their fall, and at last all thought and emotion centre round Adam and Eve, until the closing lines leave us with their lonely image on our minds. In every part of the poem, in every character in it, as indeed in all his poems, Milton's intense individu- ality appears. It is a pleasure to find it. The egotism, of such a man, said Coleridge, is a revelation of spirit. 103. Milton's Later Poems. — Paradise Lost \w2iS fol- lowed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, pub- lished together in 1 67 1. Paradise Regained o'^QW'?, with the journey of Christ into the wilderness after his bap- tism, and its four books describe the temptation of Christ by Satan, and the answers and victory of the Redeemer. The speeches in it overwhelm the action, and their learned argument is only relieved by a few descriptions ; but these, as in that of Athens, are done with Milton's highest power. Its solemn beauty of quietude, and a more severe style than that of Pai'adise Lost, make us feel in it that Milton has grown older. V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION 167 In Samson Agofiisfes the style is still severer, even to the verge of a harshness which the sublimity alone tends to modify. It is a choral drama, after the Greek model. Samson in his blindness is described, is called on to make sport for the Philistines, and overthrows them in the end. Samson represents the fallen Puritan cause, and Samson's victorious death Milton's hopes for the final triumph of that cause. The poem has all the grandeur of the last words of a great man in whom there was now " calm of mind, all passion spent." It is also the last word of the music of the EHzabethan drama long after its notes seemed hushed, and its deep sound is strange in the midst of the shallow noise of the Restoration. Soon afterwards, November, 1674, bhnd and old and fallen on evil days, Milton died ; but neither blindness, old age, nor evil days could lessen the inward light, nor impair the imaginative power with which he sang, it seemed with the angels, the "undisturbed song of pure concent," until he joined himself, at last, with those "just spirits who wear victorious palms." 104. His Work. — To the greatness of the artist Milton joined the majesty of a clear and lofty character. His poetic style was as stately as his character, and proceeded from it. Living at a time when criticism began to purify the verse of England, and being himself well acquainted with the great classical models, his work is seldom weak- ened by the false conceits and the intemperance of the Elizabethan writers, and yet is as imaginative as theirs, and as various. He has not their naturalness, nor all 1 68 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. their intensity, but he has a larger grace, a lovelier col- our, a closer eye for nature, a more finished art, and a sublime dignity they did not possess. All the kinds of poetry which he touched he touched with the ease of great strength, and with so much energy, that they be- came new in his hands. He put a fresh life into the masque, the sonnet, the elegy, the descriptive lyric, the song, the choral drama ; and he created the epic in England. The lighter love poem he never wrote, and we are grateful that he kept his coarse satirical power apart from his poetry. In some points he was untrue to his descent from the Elizabethans, for he had no dra- matic faculty, and he had no humour. He summed up in himself the learned and artistic influences of the Eng- lish Renaissance, and handed them on to us. His taste was as severe, his verse as polished, his method and lan- guage as strict as those of the school of Dryden and Pope that grew up when he was old. A literary past and present thus met in him, nor did he fail, like all the greatest men, to make a cast into the future. He estab- lished the poetry of pure natural description. Lastly, he did not represent in any way the England that followed the Stuarts, but he did represent Puritan England, and the whole spirit of Puritanism from its cradle to its grave. 105. The Pilgrim's Progress. — We might say that Puritanism said its last great words with Milton, were it not that its spirit continued in English life, were it not also that four years after his death, in 1678, John Bun- YAN, who had previously written religious poems, and in V ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION i6q 1665 the Holy City, published the Pilgrim'' s Progress. It is the journey of Christian the Pilgrim from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. The second part was published in 1684. In 1682 he had written the allegory of the Holy War, and in 1680 The Life and Death of Mr. Badi?tan, a curious little story. I class the Pilgrim'' s Progress here, because in its imaginative fervour and imagery, and in its quahty of naturalness, it belongs to the spirit of the Elizabethan times. Written by a man of the people, it is a people's book; and its simple form grew out of passionate feeling, and not out of self-conscious art. The passionate feeling was relig- ious, and in painting the pilgrim's progress towards Heaven, and his battle with the world and temptation and sorrow, the book touched those deep and universal interests which belong to poor and rich. Its language, the language of the Bible, and its allegorical form, initi- ated a plentiful prose literature of a similar kind. But none have equalled it. Its form is almost epic : its dra- matic dialogue, its clear types of character, its vivid descriptions, as of Vanity Fair, and of places, such as the Valley of the Shadow of Death and the Delectable Mountains, which represent states of the human soul, have given an equal but a different pleasure to children and men, to the villager and the scholar. 170 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. CHAPTER VI FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF POPE AND SWIFT, 1 6 60- 1 745 106. Poetry. Change of Style. — We have seen the natural style as distinguished from the artificial in the Elizabethan poets. Style became not only natural but artistic when it was made by a great genius like Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Spenser, for a first-rate poet creates rules of art : his work is filled with laws which other men see, collect, and obey. Art, which is the just and lovely arrangement of nature to fulfil a nobly chosen aim, is then born. But when the art of poetry is making, the second-rate poets, inspired only by their feelings, will write in a natural style unrestrained by rules, that is, they will put their feelings into verse without caring much for the form in which they do it. As long as they live in the midst of a youthful national life, and feel an ardent sympathy with it, their style will be fresh and im- passioned, and give pleasure because of the strong feel- ing that inspires it. But it will also be extravagant and unrestrained in its use of images and words because of its want of art. This is the general history of the style VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE I /I of the second-class poets of the middle period of Eliza- beth's reign, and even Shakespeare affords examples of this want of art. (2) Afterwards the national life grew chill, and the feelings of the poets also chill. Then the want of art in the style made itself felt. The far-fetched images, the hazarded meanings, the over-fanciful way of putting thoughts, the sensational expression of feeling, in which the Elizabethan poets indulged, not only ap- peared in all their ugHness when they were inspired by no ardent feeling, but were indulged in far more than be- fore. Men tried to produce by extravagant use of words the same results that a passionate sense of life had pro- duced, and the more they failed the more extravagant and fantastic they became, till at last their poetry ceased to have clear meaning. This is the general history of the style of the poets from the later days of Elizabeth till the Civil War. (3) The natural style, unregulated by art, had thus become unnatural. When it had reached that point, men began to feel how necessary it was that the work of poetry should be subjected to the rules of art, and two influences partly caused and partly supported this desire. One was the influence of Milton. Milton, first by his superb genius, which, as I said, creates of itself rules of art, and secondly by his knowledge and imitation of the great classical models, was able to give the first example in England of a pure, grand, and finished style ; and in blank verse, in the lyric and the sonnet, wrote for the first time with absolute correctness. Another influence was that of the movement all over Europe towards inquiry 1/2 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. into the right way of doing things, and into the truth of things, a movement we shall soon see at work in science, politics, and religion. In poetry it produced a school of criticism which first took form in France, and the influence of Boileau, La Fontaine, and others who were striving after greater finish and neatness of expression, told on England now. It is an influence which has been exaggerated. It is absurd to place the " creaking lyre " of Boileau side by side with Dryden's " long resounding march and energy divine," Our critical school of poets have few French qualities in them even when they imi- tate the French. (4) Further, our own poets had already, before the Restoration, begun the critical work, and the French influence served only to give it a greater impulse. We shall see the growth of a colder and more correct phrasing and versification in Waller, Denham, and Cowley. Vigour was given to this new method in art by Dryden, and perfection of artifice added to it by Pope. The artificial style succeeded to and extinguished the natural, or to put it otherwise, a m.erely intellectual poetry finally overcame a poetry in which emotion always accompanied thought. 107. Change of Poetic Subject. — The subject of the Elizabethan poets was Man as influenced by the Pas- sions, and it was treated from the side of natural feeling. This was fully and splendidly done by Shakespeare. But after a time this subject followed, as we have seen in speaking of the drama, the same career as the style. It was treated in an extravagant and sensational manner. VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 73 and the representation of the passions tended to become unnatural or fantastic. Milton redeemed the subject from this vicious excess. He wrote in a grave and natu- ral manner of the passions of the human heart ; he made strong in English poetry the religious passions of love of God, of sorrow for sin, and he raised in song the moral passions into a solemn splendour. But with him the subject of man as influenced by the great passions died for a time. Dryden, Pope, and their followers turned to another subject. They left, except in Dryden's Dramas and Fables, the passions aside, and wrote of the things in which the intellect and the casuistical con- science, the social and political instincts in man, were interested. In this way the satiric, didactic, philosophi- cal, and party poetry of a new school arose. 108. The Poems in which the New School began belong in date to the age before the Restoration, but in spirit and form they were the sources of the poetry which is called classical or critical, or artificial. Edmund Waller, Sir John Denham, and Abraham Cowley are the pre- cursors of Dryden. Waller remodelled the heroic coup- let of Chaucer, and gave it the precise character which made it for nearly a century and a half the prevailing form of verse. He wrote his earliest poems about 1623, in precisely the same symmetrical manner as Dryden and Pope. His new manner was not followed for many years, till Denham published in 1642 his Coopei-'s Hill. " The excellence and dignity of rhyme were never fully known," said Dryden, " till Mr. Waller taught it, but this 174 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. sweetness of his lyric poetry was afterwards followed in the epic of Sir John Denham in his Cooper's Hilly The chill stream of this poem, which is neither "lyric" nor " epic," has the metrical cadence, but none of the grip and force of Dryden's verse. Cowley's earlier poems belong to the Elizabethan phantasies, but the later were, with the exception of some noble poems of personal feel- ing, cold and exact enough for the praise of the new school. He invented that curious misnomer — the Pin- daric Ode — which, among all its numerous offspring, had but one splendid child in Dryden's Alexajider's Feast When Gray took up the ode again, Cowley was not his master. Sir W. Davenant's Gondiderf, 165 1, also an heroic poem, is another example of this transition. Worthless as poetry, it represents the new interest in political philosophy and in science that was arising, and preludes the intellectual poetry. Its preface discourses of rhyme and the rules of art, and embodies the critical influence which came over with the exiled court from France. The critical school had therefore begun even before Dryden's poems were written. The change was less sudden than it seemed. Satiric poetry, soon to become a greater thing, was made during this transition time into a- powerful w^eapon by two men, each on a different side. Andrew Marvell's Satires, after the Restoration, exhibit the Puritan's wrath with the vices of the court and king, and his shame for the disgrace of England among the nations. The Hudi- bras of Samuel Butler, in 1663, represents the fierce VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE • 1 75 reaction which had set in against Puritanism. It is justly famed for wit, learning, good sense, and ingenious drollery, and, in accordance with the new criticism, it is absolutely without obscurity. It is often as terse as Pope's best work. But it is too long, its wit wearies us at last, and it undoes the force of its attack on the Puri- tans by its exaggeration. Satire should have at least the semblance of truth ; yet Butler calls the Puritans cow- ards. We turn now to the greatest of these poets in whom poetry is founded on intellect rather than on feel- ing, and whose verse is mostly devoted to argument and satire. 109. John Dryden was the first of the new, as Milton was the last of the elder, school of poetry. It was late in life that he gained fame. Born in 1631, he was a Crom- wellite till the Restoration, when he began the changes which mark his life. His poem on the death of the Pro- tector was soon followed by the Astrcea Redux, which celebrated the return of Justice to the realm in the per- son of Charles II. The Annus Mirabilis appeared in 1667, and in this his metrical ease was first clearly marked. But his power of exact reasoning expressing itself with powerful and ardent ease in a rapid succession of con- densed thoughts in verse, was not shown (save in drama) till he was fifty years old, in the first part of Absalom and Achitophel, the foremost of English satires. He had been a play writer for fourteen years, till its appearance in 1681, and the rhymed plays which he had written enabled him to perfect the versification which is now so remarkable 1/6 ■ ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. in his work. The satire itself, written in mockery of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, attacked Shaftesbury as Achitophel, was kind to Monmouth as Absalom, and in its sketch of Buckingham as Zimri the poet avenged himself for the Rehearsal. It was the first fine example of that party poetry which became still more bitter and personal in the hands of Pope. It was followed by the Medal, a new attack on Shaftesbury, and the Alac Fleck- noe, 1682, in which Shadwell, a rival poet, who had sup- ported Shaftesbury's party, was made the witless successor of Richard Flecknoe, a poet of all kinds of poetry, and master of none. Then in the same year, after the arrest of Monmouth, the second part of Absalom and Achito- phel appeared, all of which, except two hundred hues, was written by Nahum Tate. These were four terrible masterpieces of ruthless wit and portraiture. Then he turned to express his transient theology in verse, and the Religio Laid, 1682, defends and states the argument for the Church of England. It was perhaps poverty that led him to change his religion, and the Hind and Panther, 1687, is a model of melodious reasoning in behalf of the milk-white hind of the Church of Rome. The Dissenters are mercilessly treated under the image of the baser beasts ; while at first the Panther, the Church of Eng- land, is gently touched, but in the end lashed with sever- ity. However, Hind and Panther tell, at the close, two charming stories to one another. It produced in reply one of the happiest burlesques in English poetry, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, the work of Charles VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE I// Montague (Lord Halifax), and Mat Prior. Deprived of his offices at the Revolution, Dryden turned again to the drama and to prose, but the failure of the last of his good plays in 1694, drove him again from the stage, and he gave himself up to his Translation of Virgil which he published in 1697. As a narrative poet his Fables ^ Ancient and Modern, finished late in life, in 1699, give him a high rank in this class of poetry. They sin from coarseness, but in style, in magnificent march of verse, in intellectual but not imaginative fire, in ease but not in grace, they are excellent. As a lyric poet his fame rests on the animated Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687, and on Alexander' s Feast, 1697. From Milton's death, 1674, till his own in 1700, Dryden reigned undisputed, and round his throne in Will's Coffeehouse, where he sat as " Glorious Jolin," we may place the names of the lesser poets, the Earls of Dorset, Roscommon, and Mulgrave, Sir Charles Sedley, and the Earl of Rochester. The lighter poetry of the court lived on in the two last. John Oldham won a short fame by his Satire on the Jesuits, 1679; ^^d Bishop Ken, 1668, established, in \\\'s> Morn- ing and Evening Hymns, a new type of religious poetry. no. Prose Literature of the Restoration and Revolu- tion. Criticism. — As Dryden was now first in poetry, so he was in prose. No one can understand the poetry of this time, in its relation to the past, to the future, and to France, who does not read the Critical Essays pre- fixed to his dramas, On the Historical Poem, on dramatic rhyme, on Heroic Plays, on the classical writers, and hi§ N 1/8 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Essay on Dramatic Poetryi He is in these essays, not only the leader of modern Hterary criticism, but the leader of that modern prose in which the style is easy, unaffected, moulded to the subject, and in which the proper words are put in the proper places. Dryden was a great originator. III. Science. — During the Civil War the rehgious and political struggle absorbed the country, but yet, apart from the strife, a few men who cared for scien- tific matters met at one another's houses. Out of this little knot, after the Restoration, arose the Royal Society, embodied in 1662. Astronomy, experimental chemistry, medicine, mineralogy, zoology, botany, vegetable physi- ology, were all founded as studies, and their literature begun, in the age of the Restoration. One man's work was so great in science as to merit his name being men- tioned among the literary men of England. In 1671 Isaac Newton laid his Theory of Light before the Royal Society ; in the year before the Revolution his Principia established, by its proof of the theory of gravitation, the true system of the universe. It was in political and religious knowledge, however, that the intellectual inquiry of the nation was most shown. When the thinking spirit succeeds the active and adventurous in a people, one of the first things they will think upon is the true method and grounds of gov- ernment, both divine and human. Two sides will be taken : the side of authority and the side of reason in Religion ; the side of authority and the side of indi- vidual liberty in Politics. VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 79 112. The Theological Literature of those who declared that reason was supreme as a test of truth, arose with some men who met at Lord Falkland's just before the Civil War, and especially with John Hales and WilHam Chillingworth. The same kind of work, though modified towards more sedateness of expression, and less rational- istic, was now done by Archbishop Tillotson, and Bishop Burnet. In 1678, Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe is perhaps the best book on the controversy which then took form against those who were called Atheists. A number of divines in the Enghsh Church took sides for Authority or Reason, or opposed the growing Deism during the latter half of the seventeenth century. It was an age of preachers, and Isaac Barrow, Newton's predecessor in the chair of mathematics at Cambridge, could preach, with grave and copious elo- quence, for three hours at a time. Theological prose was strengthened by the publication of the sermons of Edward Stilhngfleet and William Sherlock, and their adversary, Robert South, was as witty in rhetoric as he was fierce in controversy. 113. Political Literature. — The resistance to authority in the opposition to the theory of the Divine Right of Kings did not much enter into literature till after the severe blow that theory received in the Civil War. Dur- ing the Commonwealth and after the Restoration the struggle took the form of a discussion on the abstract question of the Science of Government, and was mingled with an inquiry into the origin of society and the ground l80 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. of social life. Thomas Hobbes, during the Common- wealth, was the first who dealt with the question from the side of abstract reason, and he is also, before Dryden, the first of all our prose writers whose style may be said to be uniform and correct, and adapted carefully to the subjects on which he wrote. His treatise, the Leviathan, 165 1, declared (i) that the origin of all power was in the people, and (2) that the end of all power was the commonweal. It destroyed the theory of a Divine Right of Kings and Priests, but it created another kind of Divine Right when it said that the power lodged in rulers by the people could not be taken away by the people. Sir R. Filmer supported the side of Divine Right in his Patriarcha, pubhshed 1680. Henry Nevile, in his Dialogue concerning Government, and James Har- rington in his romance, The Commonwealth of Oceana, published at the beginning of the Commonwealth, con- tended that all secure government was to be based on property, but Nevile supported a monarchy, and Har- rington — with whom I may class Algernon Sidney, whose political treatise on government is as statesmanlike as it is finely written — a democracy, on this basis. I may here mention that it was during this period, in 1667, that the first effort was made after a Science of Political Economy by Sir WiUiam Petty in his Treatise on Taxes. The political pajnphlet wdiS also begun at this time by Sir Roger L' Estrange, and George Savile, Lord Halifax. 114. John Locke, after the Revolution, in 1690, fol- lowed the two doctrines of Hobbes in his treatises on VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE l8l Civil Government, but with these important additions — ( I ) that the people have a right to take away the power given by them to the ruler, (2) that the ruler is respon- sible to the people for the trust reposed in him, and (3) that legislative assemblies are Supreme as the voice of the people. This was the political philosophy of the Revolution. Locke carried the same spirit of free in- quiry into the realm of religion, and in his Letters on Toleration laid down the philosophical grounds for lib- erty of religious thought. He finished by entering the realm of metaphysical inquiry. In 1690 appeared his Essay concerning the Human Understanding, in which he investigated its limits, and traced all ideas, and there- fore all knowledge, to experience. In his clear state- ment of the way in which the Understanding works, in the way in which he guarded it and Language against their errors in the inquiry after truth, he did almost as much for the true method of thinking as Bacon had done for the science of nature. 115. The intellectual stir of the time produced, apart from the great movement of thought, a good deal of Miscellaneous Literature. The painting of short " char- acters " was carried on after the Restoration by Samuel Butler and W. Charleton. These '' characters " had no personality, but as party spirit deepened, names thinly disguised were given to characters drawn of hving men, and Dryden and Pope in poetry, and all the prose wits of the time of Queen Anne and George I., made per- sonal and often violent sketches of their opponents a 1 82 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. special element in literature. On the other hand, Izaak Walton's Lives, in 1670, are examples of kind, agreeable, and careful Biography. Cowley's small volume, written shortly before his death in 1667, gave richness to the Essay, and its prose almost anticipated the prose of Dry- den. John Evelyn's multitudinous writings are them- selves a miscellany. He wrote on painting, sculpture, architecture, timber (the Sylva), on gardening, com- merce, and he illustrates the searching spirit of the age. In William III.'s time Sir William 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-writing liter- ature of England. Pepys (1660-9), and Evelyn, whose Diary grows full after 1640, gave rise to that class of gos- siping Memoirs which has 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 Bishop Burnet's History of his Ow7i Time and to his History of the Reformation. Finally Classical Criticism, in the discussion on the genuineness of the Letters of Fhalaris, was created by Richard Bentley in 1697-9. Literature was therefore plentiful. It was also correct, but it was not inventive. 116. The Literature of Queen Anne and the First Georges. — With the closing years of William III. and the accession of Queen Anne (1702) a hterature arose which was partly new and partly a continuance of that of the Restoration. The conflict between those who VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 83 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 pohtical pamphlets, of which Daniel Defoe's and Swift's were the best ; of songs and ballads, like Lillibul- lero, which were sung in every street ; of squibs, reviews, of 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 political excite- ment. In politics, all the abstract discussions 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. 117. It was, with a few exceptions, a Party Literature. The Whig and Tory leaders enlisted on their sides the best poets and prose writers, who fiercely satirised and imduly praised them under names thinly disguised. Our " Augustan Age " was an age of unbridled slander. Per- sonahties were sent to and fro like shots in battle. 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 party. The result was that the abler men lowered it by making it a political tool,* and the smaller men, the fry of Grub 184 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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 desers^ed the merciless lashing which Pope was soon to give them in the Dunciad. 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 Hterary 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, \^^ form in which thought was expressed was now espe- cially dwelt on, and the result was that the style of English prose became even more simple than in Dryden's hands ; and English verse, leaving Dryden's power behind it, reached a neatness of expression as exquisite as it was artificial. At the same time, and for the same reasons, Nature, Passion, and Imagination decayed in poetry. 118. Alexander Pope absorbed and reflected all these elements. Born in 1688, he wrote tolerable verse at twelve years old ; the Pastorals appeared in 1 709, and two years afterwards he took full rank as the critical poet in the Essay on C7'iticism (1711). 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 1 2 hi5 sacred pastoral, VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 85 The Messiah, appeared, and in 17 13, when he pubHshed Wifidso?- Forest, he became known to Swift and to Henry St. John, Lord BoHngbroke. When these, with Gay, Parnell, Prior, Arbuthnot, and others, formed the Scrib- lerus Club, Pope joined them, and soon rose into great fame by his Translation of the Iliad (1715-20), and by the Translation of the Odyssey (1723-5), in which he was assisted by Fenton and Broome. Being now at ease, for he received fully 9000/. for this work, he published from his retreat at Twickenham, and in bitter scorn of the poetasters and of all the petty scribblers who annoyed him, the Dunciad, 1728. Its original hero was Lewis Theobald, but when the fourth book was published, under Warburton's influence, in 1742, Colley Gibber was en- throned as the King of Dunces instead of Theobald. The fiercest and finest of Pope's satires, it closes his second period which breathes the savageness of Swift. The third phase of Pope's hterary life was closely linked to his friend BoHngbroke. It was in conversation with him that he originated the Essay on Man (1732-4) and the Imitations of Horace. The Moral Essays, or Epis- tles 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 disHked him or his party. Among these, who has not read the Epistle to Dr. Arbtcthnot ? In the last few years of his life. Bishop Warburton, the writer of the Legation of Moses and editor of Shakespeare, helped him to fit the Moral Essays into the plan of which the Essay on Man formed 1 86 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. part. Warburton was Pope's last great friend ; but ahnost 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 1 744 he died. His Elegy on an Unfo7'tiinate Lady and the Epistle of Eloisa to Adelard show how he once tried to handle the passions of sorrow and love. The mas- terly form into which he threw the philosophical prin- ciples 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 C?'ificism is equally 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 cre- ative drawing of which Pope remains unrivalled, even by Dryden. His translation of Homer resembles Homer as much as London resembled Troy, or Marlborough Achilles, or Queen Anne Hecuba. It is done with great literary art, but for that very reason it does not make us feel the simplicity and directness of his original. It has neither the manner nor the spirit of the Greek, just as Pope's descriptions 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 had the VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 8/ Spirit of an artist, hating those who degraded his art, and at a time wlien 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. 119. 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 Arthu7'^ 1695, and Samuel Garth's mock heroic poem of the Dispensary appeared along with John Pom- fret's poems in 1699. In 1701, Defoe's Trueborn Eng- lishman defended William III. against those who said he was a foreigner, and Prior's finest ode, the Caimen Secu- iaj'e, took up the same cause. John Philips is known by his Miltonic burlesque of The Spkfidid Shilling, and his Cyder was a Georgic of the apple. Matthew Green's Spleen and Ambrose Phihp's Pastorals were contempo- rary with Pope's first poetry ; and John Gay's Shepherd's Week, six pastorals, 1714, were as Hghtly wrought as his famous Fables. He had a true vein of happy song, and Black-eyed Susan remains with the Beggars' Opera to please us still. The pohtical poems of Swift were coarse, but always hit home. Addison celebrated the Battle of Blenheim in the Ca?npaign, and his cultivated grace is found in some devotional pieces. On his death Thomas Tickell made a noble elegy. Prior's charming ease is best shown in the hght narrative poetry which we may say began with him in the reign of Wilham III. In Pope's later life a new and quickening impulse came upon poetry, and changed it root and branch. It arose in Ramsay's 105 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Gentle Shepherd, 1725, and in Thomson's Seasons, 1730, and it rang the knell of the manner and the spirit of the critical school. 120. The Prose Literature of Pope's time collects itself round four great names, Swift, Defoe, Addison, and Bishop Berkeley, and they all exhibit those elements of the age of which I have spoken. Jonathan Swift was the keenest of political partisans, for his fierce and earnest personality made everything he did ' impassioned. But he was far more than a partisan. He was the most original prose writer of his time — the man of genius among many men of talent. It was not till he was thirty years old, 1697, that he wrote the Battle of the Books, concern- ing the so-called Letters of Phalaris, and the Tale of a Tub, a satire on the Dissenters, the Papists, and even the Church of England. These books, published in 1704, made his reputation. He soon became the finest and most copious writer of pamphlets England had ever known. At first he supported the Whigs, but left them for the new Tory party in 1710, and, his tracts brought him court favour, while his literary fame was increased by many witty letters, poems, and arguments. On the fall of the Tory party at the accession of George I., 17 14, he retired to the Deanery of St. Patrick in Ireland, an embittered man, and the Drapier's Letters, 1724, writ- ten against Wood's halfpence, gained him popularity in a country that he hated. In 1726 his inventive genius, his savage satire, and his cruel indignation with life were all shown in Gulliver's Travels. The voyage to Lilliput VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OP POPE iSg and Brobdingnag satirised the politics and manners of England and Europe ; that to Laputa mocked the philoso- phers ; 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 life in private and public more sad and proud, no death more pitiable. He died in 1745 hopelessly insane. Daniel Defoe's 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 Review, published twice a week for a year, was wholly written by himself; 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 treated of in his journals, and his best art lay in the way he built up these stories out of mere sug- gestions. "The little art he is truly master of," said one of his contemporaries, " is of forging a story and impos- ing it on the world for truth." His circumstantial inven- tion, combined with a style which exactly fits it by its simphcity, is the root of the charm of the great story by which he chiefly lives in literature. Robinso?i Crusoe, 1 7 19, equalled Gulliver's Travels in truthful representa- tion, and excelled them in invention. The story Hves and charms from day to day. But none of his stories are real novels ; that is, they have no plot to the working out of which the characters 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. 190 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAf 121. Metaphysical Literature, which drifted into the- ology, was enriched by the work of Bishop Berkeley. The Platonic dialogue of Hylas a?id Philonous, 17 13, charms us even more than his subtle and elastic Shis, 1744. These books, with AlcipJwon, the Minute Philoso- pher , 1732, questioned the real existence of matter, — "no idea can exist," he said, "out of the mind," — and founded on the denial of it an answer to the Enghsh Deists, round whom in the first half of the eighteenth century centred the struggle between the claims of nat- ural and revealed rehgion. The influence of Shaftes- bury's Characteristics, 1711, was far more literary than metaphysical. He condemned metaphysics, but his phi- losophy, such as it was, inspired PojDe, and his cultivated thinking on several subjects made many writers in the next generation care for beauty and grace. He, like Bolingbroke, and Wollaston, Tindal, Toland, and Collins, on the Deists' side, were opposed by Samuel Clark, by Bentley, by Bishop Butler, and by Bishop Warburton. Bishop Butler's acute and solid reasoning treated in his Sen?ions 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 of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and C/?urse of Nattire, 1736, endeavours to make peace be- tween 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 VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE I9I of society are the foundation of civilisation, and is one of the first of a new set of books 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. 122. The Periodical Essay is connected with the names of Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele. The gay, ligljt, graceful, literary Essay, differing from such Essays as Bacon's as good conversation about a subject differs from a clear analysis of all its points, was begun in France by Montaigne in 1580. Charles Cot- ton, 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 St,eele and Addison. It was at first published three times a week, then daily, and it was anonymous, and both these characters necessarily changed its form from that of an essay by Montaigne. Steele began it in the Tatler, 1 709, and it treated of everything that was going on in the town. He paints 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 Tai- led', afterwards in the Spectator, 171 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. The humour is very 192 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. fine and tender ; and, like Chaucer's, it is never bitter. The style adds to the charm : in its varied cadence and subtle ease it has not been surpassed within its own peculiar sphere in England ; and it- seems to grow out of the subjects treated of. Addison's work was a great one, Hghtly done. The Spectato?', the Guardian, and the Freeholder, in his hands, gave a better tone to manners, and hence to morals, 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 popu- larised 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 123. The Drama after the Restoration took the tone of the court both in politics and religion, but its partisan- ship 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 playwriters. The great French dramatists, Corneille, VI RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 93 Racine, and Moliere, were translated and borrowed from again and again. The " three unities " of Corneille, and rhyme 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 Killigrew and Davenant ; actresses came on the stage for the first time, the ballet was intro- duced, and scenery began to be largely used. Dryden, whose masterly force was sure to strike the key-note that others followed, began his comedies in 1663, but turned to tragedy in the Indian Queen, 1664. This play, with the Indian Emperour, established for fourteen years the rhymed couplet as the dramatic verse. His defence of rhyme in the Essay on Dramatic Poesy asserted the originality of the English school, and denied that it fol- lowed the P'rench. The Maiden Queen, 1667, brought him new fame, and then Tyrannic Love and the Con- quest of Granada, 1672, induced the burlesque of the Rehearsal, written by the Duke of Buckingham, in which the bombastic extravagance of these heroic plays was ridiculed. Dryden now changed, in 1678, his dramatic manner, and following Shakespeare, "disencumbered himself from rhyme " in his fine tragedy of All for Love, and showed what power he had of low comedy in the Spanish Friar. After the Revolution, his tragedy of Don Sebastian ranks high, but not higher than his brill- iantly written comedy of Amphitryon, 1690. Dryden is o 194 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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, whose J? iv a/ Queens, 1667, deserves its praise; Thomas Otvvay, whose two pathetic tragedies, the Orphan and Venice Preserved, still keep the stage ; Thomas Southerne whose Fatal Marriage, 1694, was revived by Garrick ; and Congreve who once turned from comedy to write The Mourning Bride. It was in comedy, however, that the dramatists ex- celled. Sir George Etherege originated with great skill the new comedy of England with She IVou/d if She Could, 1668. Sedley, Mrs. Behn, Lacy, and Shadwell carry on to the Revolution that light Comedy of Man- ners which William Wycherley's gross vigour and natural plots lifted into an odious excellence in such plays as the Country Wife and the Plain Dealer. Three great come- dians followed Wycherley — William Congreve, whose well-bred ease is almost as remarkable as his brilliant wit ; Sir John Vanbrugh, and George Farquhar, both of whom have quick invention, gaiety, dash, and sincerity. The indecency of all these writers belongs to the time, but it is partly forgotten in their swift and sustained vivacity. This immorahty 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 love of purity, Steele, at this time, whose Lying Lover makes him the Vl RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE 1 95 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, 1 713, praised by Voltaire as the first tragcdie raisontiable, marks, in its total rejection of the drama of nature for the classical style, " a definite 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. Colley Gibber carried on into George II. 's time the fight and the sentimental comedy ; Fielding made the stage the vehicle of criticism on the follies, literature, and pofitics 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 lambent humour of Goldsmith's Good-natured Afan and She Stoops to Conquer, and the wit, almost as brilliant and more epigrammatic 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. 196 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. CHAPTER VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM THE DEATH OF POPE AND OF SWIFT TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE DEATH OF SCOTT 1745-1789-1832 124. Prose Literature. — The rapid increase of manu- factures, science, and prosperity which began with the middle of the eighteenth century is paralleled by the growth of Literature. The general causes of this growth were — ist, That a good prose style had been perfected, and the method of writing being made easy, production in- creased. Men were born, as it were, into a good school of the art of composition. 2ndly, The lo?ig peace after the accession of the House of Hanover had left England at rest, and given it wealth. The reclaiming of waste tracts, the increased population and trade, made better communication necessary ; and the country was soon covered with a network of high- ways. 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 everywhere to express their VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1745 TO 1789 I97 thoughts. The coaching services and the post carried the new book and the Hterary criticism to the villages, and awoke the men of talent there, who might otherwise have been silent. 3rdly, Tlie 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 censor- ship which reduced them to a mere broadsheet of news was removed after the Revolution of 1688. The politi- cal 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 Junius are connected, and which lasted from 1764 to 1771, the press claimed and obtained the right to criticise the conduct and measures of ministers and the king ; and the further right to publish and comment on the debates in the two Houses, 4thly, Communication with the Continent had in- creased during the peaceable times of Walpole, and the wars that followed made it still more common. With its increase two new and great outbursts of litera- ture told upon England. France sent the works of Montesquieu, of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alem- bert, 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 198 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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 of Pope. 125. Prose Literature between 1745 and the French Revolution may be said to be bound up with the literary lives of one man and his friends. Samuel Johnson, born in 1709, and whose first important prose work, the Life of Savage, appeared in 1744, was the last representative of the literary king, who, hke Dryden and Pope, held a court in London. Poor and un- known, he worked his way to fame, and his first poem, the London, 1738, satirised the town where he loved to live. His longer and better poem. The Vanity of Human Wishes, was published in 1749, and his moral power was never better shown than in its weighty verse. His one play, Lrene, was acted in the same year. He carried on the periodical essays in the Ramble^-, 1750-2, but in it, as afterwards in the Idler, grace and lightness, the essence of this kind of essay, were lost. Driven by poverty, Johnson undertook a greater work : the Dictionajj of the English 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 VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1745 TO 1 789 1 99 in the public their only paymaster. He represents thus a new class. In 1759 he set on foot the Didactic Novel in Rasselas. For a time he was one of the political pamphleteers, from 1770 to 1776. As he drew near to his death his Lives of the Poets appeared as prefaces to his edition of the poets in 1781, and lifted biography into a higher place in literature. But he did even more for hterature 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 devotedness, made of his master in 1791. Side by side with 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 senti- ment of which is absent from Johnson's Journey to the Western Isles. Both these men were masters of 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 So- ciety, a parody of Bolingbroke ; and his Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 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 Horace Walpole, whose Anecdotes of Painting, 1762-71, still please; 200 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP and whose familiar Letto's, malicious, light as froth, but amusing, retail with liveliness all the gossip of the time. Among all these books on the intellectual subjects of life arose to delight the lovers of quiet and the country the Natu7'al History of Selborne, by Gilbert White. His seeing eye and gentle heart are imaged in his fresh and happy style. 126. The Novel. — "There is more knowledge of the heart," said Johnson, " in one letter of Richardson's than in all Tom Jones, ^' 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. But the name is applied now to any story of human life which is woven by the action of characters or of events on characters to a chosen conclusion. Its form, far more flexible than that of the drama, admits of almost infinite development. The whole of human Hfe, at any time, at any place in the world, is its subject, and its vast sphere accounts for its vast production. Pamela, 1741, appeared while Pope was yet alive, and was the first of Richardson's novels. Like Clarissa Harloive, 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 litera- ture since the preceding age. Clarissa Harlowe is a masterpiece in its kind. Rich- VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1745 TO 1789 201 ardson himself is mastered day by day by the passionate creation of his characters : and their variety and the variety of their feehngs are drawn with a slow, diffusive, elaborate intensity which penetrates into the subtlest windings of the human heart. But all the characters are grouped round and enlighten Clarissa, the pure and ideal star of womanhood. The pathos of the book, its sincerity, its minute reaHty, have always, but slowly, im- passioned its readers, and it stirred as absorbing an interest in France as it did in England. "Take 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 said to be the English model of the novel. The constructive power of Fielding is absent from Smollett, but in inventive tale-telling and in cynical characterisa- tion, he is not easily equalled. Fielding, a master of observing and of recording what he observed, 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 Tristram Shandy m the same year as Rasselas, 1759. Tristram 202 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Shandy and tlie Sentimental Jou)-ney 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. It is carefully invented, and whimsically subtle ; and the sentiment is sometimes true, but mostly affected. But a certain unity is given to the book by the admirable consistency of the characters. A little later, in 1766, Goldsmith'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, but still in the same circle of Johnson's friends, Miss Burney's Evelifia, 1778, and her Cecilia, in which we detect John- son's Roman hand, were the first novels of society. 127. History shared in the progress made after 1745 in prose writing, and was raised into the rank of literature by three of Johnson's contemporaries. All of them were influenced by the French school, by Montesquieu and Voltaire. David Hume's History of England, finished in 1 761, is, in the writer's endeavour to make it a philo- sophic 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 sub- ject, and he wants sympathy with mankind and with his country. His manner is the manner of Voltaire, passion- less, keen, and elegant. Dr. Robertson, Hume's friend, was a careful and serious but also a cold writer. His histories of Scotland, of Charles V., and of America VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1745 TO 1789 2O3 show how historical interest again began to reach beyond England. Edward Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall oj the Romafi Empire, completed in 1788, gave a new im- pulse and a new model to historical literature, had no more sympathy with humanity than Hume, and his irony lowers throughout the human value of his history. But he had creative power, originality, and the enjoyment and imagination of his subject. It was at Rome in 1 764, while musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, that the idea of writing his book arose in 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 in his cave. 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 re- sults on themselves and on the world of their victories over Rome. This imaginative conception, together with the collecting and use of every detail of the arts, Hterature, customs, and manners of the times he described, the read- ing and use of all the contemporary literature, the careful geographical detail, the marshalling of all this information into his narration and towards his conclusion, the power with which he moved over this vast arena, and the use of a full if too grandiose a style to give importance to his subject, makes him the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research recognises as its master. 128. Philosophical and Political Literature. — Hutch- eson, Hartley, and Reid were inferior as philosophers to David Hume, who inquired, while he followed Locke, 204 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. into the nature of the human understanding, and based philosophy upon psychology. He constructed a science of man ; and finally limited all our knowledge 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 Ireatise of Human Natu7'e, 1739, was written in France, and was followed by the Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals in 1751. The Dia- logues on Natural Religion-wtre not published till after his death. These were his chief philosophical works. But in 1 741-2, he had pubHshed two volumes oi Essays Moral and Political, from which we might infer a politi- cal philosophy; and in 1752 the Political Discourses ap- peared, 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 Moi-al Sentiments, 1759, classes him also with the philosophers of Scotland. In his Wealth 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 country ; by its proof that all laws made to restrain, or to shape, or to promote com- merce, were stumbling-blocks in the way of the wealth of a state, he created the Science of Political Economy, and brought the theory of Free Trade into practice. 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 ^reat thinkers. As the VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1 745 TO 1 789 205 immense increase of the industry, wealth, and commerce of the country from 1720 to 1770 had thus stirred inquiry into the laws which regulate wealth, so now the Metho- dist movement, beginning in 1738, awoke an interest in the poor, and gave the first impulse to popular education. Social Reform became a literary 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 eloquence 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 Letters of Junius, political invectives (1769-72), whose trenchant style has preserved them to this day. Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770, maintained an aristocratic government ; and the next year appeared his famous Speech on American Taxation, while that on American Conciliation, 1774, was answered by his friend Johnson in Taxation no Tyran)iy. The most powerful of his works were the Reflections on the Fj-ench Revo- lution, 1 790, the Letter to a Noble Lord, and the Letters 206 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. on a Regicide Peace, 1796-7. The first of these, an- swered by Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, and by James Mackintosh's Vindicice Gallic ce, spread over all England a terror of the principles of the Revolution ; the third doubled the eagerness of England to carry on the war with France. As a writer he needed more temper- ance, but, if he had possessed it, we should probably have not had his magnificence. As an orator he ended by wearying his hearers, but the very men who slept under him in the House read over and over again the same speech when published with renewed delight. Gold- smith'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 generally suc- ceeded as a writer. 129. Prose from 1 789-1 832. Miscellaneous. — The death of Johnson marks a true period 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 doctrines of the French Revolution were eagerly supported 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 Lessing, Goethe, of all the new literature of Germany, began to tell upon us, in theology, in phi- losophy, and even in the novel. The great English Journals, the Morning Chronicle, the Times, the Alorning Post, the Alorning Herald, were all set on foot between VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1789 TO 1 832 20/ 1775 and 1793, between the war with America and the war with France ; and when men Hke Coleridge and Canning began to write in them the Hterature of journal- ism was started. A literature especially directed towards education arose in the CyclopcBdias, which began in 1778, and rapidly developed into vast dictionaries of know- ledge. Along with them were the many series issued from Edinburgh and London of Popular Miscellanies. A crowd of literary men found employment in writing about books rather than in writing them, and the literature of Criticism became a power. The Edinburgh Reviezv was established in 1802, and the Quarterly, its political op- ponent, in 1809, and these were soon followed by Eraser's and Blackwood's Magazine. Jeffrey, Professor Wilson, Sydney Smith, and a host of others wrote in these reviews on contemporary events and books. Interest in con- temporary stimulated interest in past literature, and Cole- ridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Campbell, Hazlitt, Southey, and Savage Landor carried on that study of the Eliza- bethan and earlier poets to which Warton had given so much impulse in the eighteenth century. Literary quar- rels concerning the nature of poetry produced books like Coleridge's Biographia Lileraria; and Wordsworth's Essays on his own art are in admirable prose. De QuiNCEY, one of the Edinburgh School, is, owing to the over-lapping and involved melody of his style, one of our best, 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 vigor- 208 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. ous lyrical work and poems, we may rank Walter Savage Landor, who deepened an interest in English and classic literature and made a literature of his own. Charles Lamb's inimitable fineness of perception was shown in his criticisms 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, more surprising, more self-pleased than Addison's. 130. Theological Literature had received a new im- pulse in 1738-91 from the evangelising work of John Wesley and Whitfield ; and their spiritual followers, Thomas Scott, Newton, and Cecil, made by their writ- ings the Evangelical School. William Paley, in his Evidences, defended Christianity from the common-sense point of view ; while the sermons of Robert Hall and of Dr. Chalmers are, in different ways, fine examples of devotional and philosophical eloquence. 131. The eloquent intelligence of Edinburgh con- tinued the Literature of Philosophy in the work of Dugald Stewart, Reid's successor, and in that of Dr. Browne, who for the most part opposed Hume's funda- mental idea that Psychology is a part of the science of life. Coleridge brought his own and German philosophy into the treatment of theological questions in the Aids to Reflection, and into various subjects of life in the Friend. The utilitarian view of morals was put forth by Jeremy Bentham with great power, but his chief work was in the province of law. He founded the philosophy of juris- VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1789 TO 1832 2O9 prudence, he invented a scientific legal v^ocabiilary, 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. 132. Biography and travel are Hnked at many points to history, and the Hterature of the former was enriched by Hayley's Cowper^ South ey's Life of Nelson, McCrie's Life of Knox, 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 biog- raphers and travellers have brought together the mate- rials 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. 133. The Historical School produced Mitford's Llis- tory of Greece and Lingard's History of England ; but it was Henry Hallam who for the first time wrote history in this country without prejudice. His Europe during the Middle Ages, i8i8, is distinguished by its exhaustive and judicial summing-up of facts, and his Constitutional History of England opened a new vein of history in the best way. Since his time, 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. p 2IO ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 134. 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 disclosed a new realm to the novelist. The Canterbury Tales of Sophia and Harriet Lee, and the wild and picturesque tales of Mrs. Radcliffe intro- duced the romantic novel. Mrs. Inchbald's Simple Story, 1 79 1, started the novel of passion, whilst Mrs. Opie made domestic Hfe 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, 1800-47. Miss Austen, "with an ex- quisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from truth of description and sen- timent," produced the best novels we have of everyday society, 1811-17. With the peace of 18 15 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 (1819) was the first. The classical novel arose in Lockhart's Valerius, and Miss Ferrier's humorous tales of Scottish Hfe 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 in- fluences that bear on human life. Men are still alive who remember the wonder and delight with which Waverley (1814) was welcomed. The swiftness of work combined with vast diligence which belongs to very great VII PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1789 TO 1832 211 genius belonged to him. Guy Mannering was written in six weeks, and the Bride of Lammerjnoor, as great in fateful pathos as Roifieo and Juliet, but more solemn, was done in a fortnight. There is then a certain abandon in his work which removes it from the dignity of the ancient writers, but we are repaid for this loss by the in- tensity, and the animated movement, the clear daylight, and the inspired delight in and with which he invented and wrote his stories. It is not composition ; it is Scott actually present in each of his personages, doing their deeds 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 we feel his living joy and love underneath each of the stories as a completing charm, as a spirit that en- chants the whole. And in these tales and in his poems his own deep kindliness, his sympathy with human nature, united, after years of enmity, the Highlands to the Lowlands. In the vivid portraiture and dramatic reality of such tales as Old Mortality and Quentin Dur- ward he created the historical novel. "All is great," said Goethe, speaking of one of these historical tales, " in the Waverley Novels ; material, effect, characters, execu- tion." In truth, so natural is Scott's invention, that it seems creation — even the landscape is woven through the events and in harmony with them. His comprehen- sive power, which drew with the same certainty so many characters in so many various classes, was the direct re- sult of his profound sympathy with the simpler feehngs 212 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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 romantic, and his per- sonal romance did not fail him when he came to be old. Like Shakespeare he kept that to the very close. The later years of his life were dark, but the almost unrivalled nobleness of his battle against ill fortune proves 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 long tale of power was the Fair Maid of Perth, 1828, 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 m literature. VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 213 CHAPTER VIII POETRY FROM 1 73O TO 1 83 2 135. The Elements and Forms of the New Poetry. — The poetry we are now to study may be divided into two periods. The first dates ft-om about the middle of Pope's life, and closes with the publication of Cowper's Task, 1785 ; the second begins with the Task and closes in 1832. The first is not wrongly called a time of transi- tion. The influence of the poetry of the past lasted ; new elements were added to poetry, and new forms of it took shape. There was a change also in the style and in the subject of poetry. Under these heads I shall bring together the various poetical works of this period. (i) The influence of the didactic and satirical poetry of the critical school Hngered among the new elements which first modified and then changed poetry altogether. It is found in Johnson's two satires on the manners of his time, the London, 1738, and the Vanity of Human Wishes, 1 749 ; in Robert Blair's dull poem of TJie Grave, 1743 ; in Edward Young's Night Thoughts, 1743, a poem on the immortality of the soul, and in his satires on The Universal Passion of fame ; in the tame work of 214 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Richard Savage, Johnson's poor friend ; and in the short- lived but vigorous satires of Charles Churchill, who died in 1764, twenty-one years after Savage. The Pleasures of the Imaginatio7i, 1744, by Mark Akenside, belongs also in spirit to the time of Queen Anne, and was sug- gested by Addison's essays in the Spectator on Imagi- nation. (2) The study of the Greek and Latin classics re- vived, and with it a more artistic poetry. Men Hke Thomas Gray and William Collins attempted to '' revive the just designs of Greece," not only in fitness of lan- guage, but in perfection of form. They are commonly placed together, but the genius of each was essentially different. What they had in common belonged to the age in which they lived, and one of these elements was a certain artificial phrasing from which they found it difficult to escape. Both sought beauty more than their fellows, but Collins found it more than Gray. He had the greater grace and the sweeter simplicity, and his Ode to Simplicity tells us the direction in which poetry was going. His best work, like The Ode to Evening, is near to Keats, and recalls that poet's imaginative way. His in- ferior work is often rude and his style sometimes obscure, but when he is touched by joy in ^' ecstatic trial," or when he sits with Melancholy in love of peace and gentle musing, he is indeed inspired by truth and loveliness. He died too young to do much in a perfect way. Gray was different. All is clear light in his work. There is no gradual dusky veil such as Collins threw with so much VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 21 5 charm over his expression. Out of his love of Greek work he drew his fine lucidity. Out of the spirit of his own time and from his own cultivated experience he drew the moral criticism of human life which gives his poetry its weight, even its heaviness. It is true the moral criticism, even in the Elegy, shares in the com- monplace, but it was not so commonplace in his time, and it is so full of a gentle charity that it transcends his time. He moved with easy power over many forms of poetry, but there is naturalness and no rudeness in the power. It was adorned by high ornament and finish. The Odes are far beyond their age, especially The Progress of Poesy, and each kind has its own appropri- ate manner. The Elegy will always remain one of the beloved poems of Englishmen. It is not only a piece of exquisite work ; it is steeped in England. It is contem- plative and might have been cold. On the contrary, even when it is conventional, it has a certain passion in its contemplation which is one of the marks of the work of Gray. Had he had more imagination he would have been greater, but the spirit of his age repressed nature in him. But he stands clear and bright, along with his brother, on the ridge between the old and the new. Having ascended through the old poetry, he saw the new landscape of song below him, felt its fresher air, and sent his own power into the men who arose after him. (3) The study of the Elizabethan and the earlier poets like Chaucer, and of the whole course of poetry in England, was taken up with great interest. Shakespeare 2l6 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. and Chaucer had engaged both Dryden and Pope ; but the whole subject was now enlarged. Gray, like Pope, projected a history of English poetry, and his Ode rn the Progj-ess of Poesy illustrates this new interest. Thomas Warton wrote his History of English Poetfy, 1774-81, and brought the lovers of poetry into closer contact with Chaucer. Pope's, Theobald's, Sir Thomas Hanmer's, and Warburton's editions of Shakespeare were succeeded by Johnson's in 1765 ; and Garrick began the restoration of the genuine text of Shakespeare's plays for the stage. Spenser formed the spirit and work of some poets, and Thomas Warton wrote an essay on the Faerie Queene. William Shenstone's Schoolmistress, 1 742, was one of these Spenserian poems, and so was Thom- son's delightful Castle of Indolence, 1748. James Beattie, in the Mifistrel, 1771, also followed the stanza and man- ner of Spenser. (4) A new element — interest in the romantic past — was aided by the publication of Dr. Percy's Reliqiies of Ancie tit English Poetry, 1765. The narrative ballad and the narrative romance, afterwards taken up and perfected by Sir Walter Scott, had already begun to strike their roots afresh in English poetry. The Braes of Yarrow and Mallet's IVilliatn and Marga?-et were written before 1725. Men now 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. Even before the Reliqiies were published, Gray's power of VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 21/ seeing into the right thing is seen in this matter. He entered the new paths, and in a new atmosphere, when he wrote of the Norse legends, or studied what he could learn of the poetry of Wales. The Ossian, 1762, of James Macpherson, which imposed itself on the public 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, " That sleepless soul who perished in his pride." He pretended to have discovered, in a muniment room at Bristol, the Death of Sir Charles Baivdin, and other poems, by an imaginary monk named Thomas Rowley, 1768. Written with quaint speUing, and with a great deal of lyrical invention, they raised around them a great controversy. His early death, at seventeen, has, by the pity of it, lifted his lyric poetry, romantic as it is, into more repute than it deserves. 136. Change of Style. — We have seen how the natural style of the Elizabethan poets had passed into a style which erred against the simplicity of natural expression. In reaction from this the critical poets set aside natural feeling, and wrote according to intellectual rules of art. Their style lost life and fire ; and losing these, lost art and gained artifice. Unwarraed by natural feeling, it be- came as unnatural a style, though in a different way, as that of the later Elizabethan poets. But out of the failure of nature without art, and of art without nature, 2l8 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. and cut of the happy union of both in scattered and particular examples, the way was now ready for a style in which the art should itself be nature, and it found its first absolute expression in a few of Covvper's lyrics. His style, in such poems as the Lines to Afcify UiiwiUy and in The Castaway, arises out of the simplest pathos, and yet is almost as pure in expression as a Greek elegy. The work was then done ; but the element of fervent passion did not enter into poetry till the poems of Robert Burns appeared in 1786. 137. Change of Subject. Nature. — The Poets have always worked on two great subjects — man and nature. Up to the age of Pope the subject of man was chiefly 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 chiefly used as a back- ground to the picture of human hfe. 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. Much of this was owing to the opening out of the wild country by new roads and to the increased safety of travel. It is the growth of this new subject which will engage us now. 138. The Poetry of Natural Description. — We have already found in the poets, but chiefly among the lyrical poets, a pleasure in rural scenery and the emotions it awakened. But nature is only, as in the work of Shake- vril POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 219 speare, Marvell, Milton, Vaiighan, or Herrick, incident- ally introduced. 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 Scots for natural de- scription, that it was the work of James Thomson, a Scots- man. It described the landscape 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 catalogues, the very fault of the previous Scottish poets, and his style was heavy and cold, but he was the first poet who deliber- ately led the English people into that separated world of natural description which has enchanted us in the work of modern poetry. The impulse he gave was soon fol- lowed. Men left the town to visit the country and record their feelings. John Dyer's Grongar Hill, 1 726, a description of a journey in South Wales, and his Fleece, 1757, are full of country sights and scenes: and even Akenside mingled his spurious philosophy with pictures of the sohtudes of nature. Foreign travel now enlarged the love of nature. The wilder country of England was eagerly visited. Gray's letters, some of the best in the English language, de- scribe the landscape of Yorkshire and Westmoreland with a minuteness quite new in English literature. In his poetry he used the description of nature as "its most 220 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. graceful ornament," but never made it the subject. It was interwoven with reflections on human life, and used to point its moral. CoUins observes the same method in his Ode on the Passions and the Ode to Evening. There is as yet but little love of nature entirely for its own sake. A further step was made by Ohver Gold- smith in his T^'aveller, 1764, a sketch of national man- ners and governments, and in his Deserted Village , 1770. He describes natural scenery with less emotion than Collins, but 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 a few years later by some fourth-rate men like the two Wartons. Their poems do not speak of nature and human life, but of nature and themselves. They see the reflection of their own passions in the woods and streams, and this self-conscious pleasure with lonely nature grew slowly into a main subject of poetry. 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, 1 771, of James Beattie. This poem represents a young poet educated almost altogether by soHtary communion with nature, and by love of her beauty ; and both in the spirit and treatment of the first part of the story resem- bles very closely Wordsworth's description of his own education by nature in the beginning of the Prelude. 139. Further Change of Subject. Man. — During this time the interest in mankind, that is, in man inde- VIII POETRY FROM 1 730 TO 1832 221 pendent of nation, class, and caste, which we have seen in prose, began to influence poetry. One form of it appeared in the pleasure the poets began to take in men of other nations than England ; another form of it — and this was increased by the Methodist revival — was a deep feeling for the lives of the poor. Thomson speaks with sympathy of the Siberian exile and the Mecca pilgrim, and the Traveller of Goldsmith enters into foreign questions. His Deserted Village, Shenstone's Schoolmistress, Gray's Elegy celebrate 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 Jemmy Dawson, Mickle's Mariner''s Wife, Goldsmith's Eihvin and Angelina, poems which started afresh a de- lightful type of poetry, afterwards worked out more com- pletely in the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth. In a class apart stands the Song to David^ a long poem written by Christopher Smart, a friend of Johnson's. Its power of metre and imaginative presentation of thoughts and things, and its mingling of sweet and grand religious poetry ought to make it better known. 140. Scottish Poetry illustrates and anticipates the poetry of the poor and the ballad. We have not men- tioned it since Sir David Lyndsay, for with the exception of stray songs its voice was almost silent for a century and a half. It revived in Allan Ramsay, a friend of 222 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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 Geftfle Shep- herd, 1725, is a pure, tender, and genuine picture of Scottish life and love among the poor and in the country. Robert Ferguson deserves to be named because he kindled the muse of Burns, but his occasional pieces, 1773, are chiefly concerned with the rude and humorous life of Edinburgh. One man, Michael Bruce, illustrates the Enghsh transition of which I have spoken. The Ballad, Scotland's dear companion, took a more modern but pathetic form in some Yarrow poems, in Auld Robin Gray and the Lament for Flodden. The peculiarities I have dwelt on already continue in this Scottish revival. There is the same nationality, the same rough wit, the same love of nature, but the love of colour has lessened. 141. 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 Eliza- bethan poets. Blake imitated Spenser, and in his short fragment of Edward III. we hear again the note of Marlowe's violent imagination. A short poem To the Mttses is a cry for the restoration to English poetry of the old poetic passion it had lost. In some ballad poems VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 223 we trace the influence represented by Ossian and quick- ened by the pubhcation of Percy's Reliques. (2) We find also in his work certain elements which belong 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 Experi- ence were written, the simple natural poetry of ordinary life which Wordsworth perfected in the Lyrical Ballads, 1798. Moreover, the democratic element, the hatred of priestcraft, and the cry against social wrongs which came much later into English poetry spring up in his poetry. Then, he was a full Mystic, and through his mysticism appears that search after the true aims of life and after a freer theology which characterise our poetry after 1832. (3) He cast back as well as forward, and reproduced in his songs the spirit, movement, and music of the Eliza- bethan songs. The little poems in the Songs of Inno- cence, on infancy and first motherhood, and on subjects like the Lamb, are without rival in our language for sim- phcity, tenderness, and joy. The Songs of Experience give the reverse side of the Songs of Innocence, and they see the evil of the world as a child with a man's heart would see it — with exaggerated horror. This small but predictive work of Blake, coming where it did, between 1777 and 1794, going back to Elizabethan lyrics and for- ward to those of Wordsworth, is very remarkable. 142. William Cowper's first poems were some of the Olney Hymns, 1 7 79, and in these the religious poetry of 224 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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 theological element into English poetry which continually increased till it died out with Browning and Tennyson. His didactic and satirical poems in 1782 link him back- wards 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 play- ful and gentle vein of humour which he showed in John Gilpin and other jDoems, opened a new kind of verse to poets. With this kind of humour is connected a simple pathos of which Cowper is a great master. The Lines to Alary Unwin and to his Mother's Picture prove, with the work of Blake, that pure natural feeling wholly free from artifice had returned to EngHsh song. A new ele- ment was also introduced by him and Blake — the love of animals and the poetry of their relation to man, a vein plentifully worked by after poets. His greatest work was the Task, 1785. It is mainly a description of himself and a 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 disqui- sitions on political and social subjects, and at the end, a prophecy of the victory of the Kingdom of God. The change in it in relation to the subject of nature is very great. Cowper loves nature entirely for her own sake. The change in relation to the subject of man is equally VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 225 great. The idea of mankind as a whole which we have seen growing up is fully formed in Cowper's mind. 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 so far their forerunner. 143. George Crabbe took up the side of the poetry of man which had to do with the lives of the poor in the Village J 1783, and in the Parish Register^ 1807. In the short tales related in these books we are brought face to face with the sacrifices, temptations, love, and crimes of humble life, and the effect of these poems in widening human sympathies was great among his readers. His work wanted the humour of Cowper, and though often pathetic and always forcible, was perhaps too unrelenting for pure pathos. He did much better work afterwards in his Tales of the Hall. His work on nature is as mi- nute 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, finished in 1798, and the Rural TaleSy are poems as cheerful as Crabbe's were stern, and his descriptions of rural hfe are not less faithful. The poetry of the poor, thus started, long continued in our verse. Wordsworth added to it new features, and Thomas Hood in short pieces like the So?ig of the Shirt gave it a direct bearing on social evils. 144. One element, the passionate treatment of love, had been on the whole absent from our poetry since the Q 226 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Restoration. It was restored by Robert Burns. In his love songs we hear again, even more simply, more directly, the same natural music which in the age of Elizabeth en- chanted the world. It was as a love-poet that he began to write, and the first edition of his poems appeared in 1786. But he was not only the poet of love, but also of the new excitement about mankind. Himself poor, he sang the poor. He did the same work in Scotland in 1786 which Crabbe began in England in 1783 and Cow- per in 1785, and it is worth remarking how the dates run together. As in Cowper, so also in Burns, the further widening of human sympathies is shown in his tenderness for animals. He carried on also the Celtic elements of Scottish poetry, but the rattling fun of the Jolly Beggars and of Tam o' Shunter is united to a life-like painting of human character which is peculiarly English. A large gentleness of feehng often made his wit into that true humour which is more English than Celtic, and the pas- sionate pathos of such poems as Mary in Heaven is con- nected with this vein of English humour. The special nationality of Scottish 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 Scottish love of nature, though he shows the Enghsh influence in using natural descrip- tion 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. VIII POETRY FROM 1 730 TO 1832 22/ 145. The French Revolution and the Poets. — Certain ideas relating to mankind considered as a whole had been growing up in Europe for some centuries, and we have seen their influence on the work of Cowper, Crabbe, and Burns. These ideas spoke of a return to nature, and of the best hfe being found in the country rather than in the town, so that the simple life of the poor and the scenery of the country were idealised into subjects for poetry. They spoke also of natural rights that belonged to every man, and which united all men to one another. All men were 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 citizens. The divisions therefore which wealth and rank and caste and national boundaries had made were theo- retically put aside as wrong. Such ideas had been growing into the political, moral, and religious life of men ever since the Renaissance, and they brought with them their own emotions. France, which does much of the formative work of Europe, had for some time past expressed them constantly in her literature. She now expressed, them in the action which overthrew the Bastille in 1789 and proclaimed the new Constitution in the fol- lowing year. They passed then from an abstract to a concrete form, and became active powers in the world, and it is round the excitement they kindled in England that the work of the poets from 1790 to 1832 can best be grouped. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey ac- cepted them at lirst with joy, but receded from them 228 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. when they ended in the violence of the Reign of Terror, and in the imperiahsm of Napoleon. Scott turned from them with pain to write of the romantic past which they destroyed. Byron did not express them themselves, but he expressed the whole 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 in half his poetry 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. But, in giving the French Revolution its due weight, we must always remember that these ideas existed al- ready in England and were expressed by the poets. The French outburst precipitated them, and started our new poetry with a rush and a surprise. But the enthusiasm soon suffered a chill, and a great part of our new poetry was impelled, not by the Revolution, but by the indig- nant revolt against what followed on it. Moreover, I have already shown that fully half of the new Hnes of thought and feeling on which the poetry of England ran in the nineteenth century had been laid down in the century which preceded it, and they were com- pleted now. 146. Robert Southey began his political Hfe with the revolutionary poem of JVa^ Tyler, 1 794 ; and between 1 801 and 1 8 14 wrote Thalaba^ Madoc^ The Curse of VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 229 Kehama, and Roderick the Last of the Goths. Thalaba and Kehama are stories of Arabian and of Indian mythol- ogy. They are real poems, and have the interest of good narrative and the charm of musical metre, but the finer spirit of poetry is not in them. Roderick is the most human and the most poetical. His Vision of Judgment, written on the death of George III., and ridi- culed by Byron in another Vision, proves him to have become a Tory of Tories. Samuel T. Coleridge could not turn round so completely, but the stormy enthusiasm of his early poems was lessened when in 1796 he wrote the Ode on the Departing Year and France, an Ode, 1798. His early poems are transitional, partly based on Gray, violent and obscure in style. But when he came to live with Wordsworth, he gained simplicity, and for a short time his poetic spirit was at the height of joy and production. But his early disappointment about France was bitter, and then, too, he injured his own life. The noble 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 unique of its kind. For exquisite metrical movement and for imaginative phantasy, there is nothing in our language to be compared with Christahel and Kubla Khan. The Ancient Mariner, published as one of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798, belongs to the dim country between earth and heaven, where the fairy music is heard, sometimes dreadful, sometimes lovely, but, always 230 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. lonely. All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in pure gold. 147. 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 his 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 French shore at the very time when the whole land was "mad with joy." The end of 1 791 saw him again 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 Brissotins, he got home to Eng- land before the execution of Louis XVL in 1793, and published his Descriptive Sketches and the Evening Walk. 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 hfe he had then chosen — the hfe 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 first volume of the Lyrical Ballads. After a winter in Germany with Coleridge, where the Prelude was be- gun, he took a small cottage at Grasmere, and the VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 23 1 first book of The Recluse tells of his settlement in that quiet valley. It tells also of the passion and intensity of the young man who saw infinite visions of work before him, and who lived poor, in daily and unbroken joy. It was in this irradiated world that he wrote the best of his poems. There in 1805-6 he finished the Prelude. Another set of the Lyrical Ballads appeared in 1800, and in* 1807 other poems. The Exctirsion belongs to 18 14. From that time till his death he produced from his home at Rydal Mount a long suc- cession of poems. 148. Wordsworth and Nature. — The 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. Words- worth conceived, as poet, that nature was alive. It had, he imagined, one living soul which, entering into flower, stream, or mountain, gave them each a soul of their own. Between this Spirit in nature and the mind of man there was a prearranged harmony which enabled nature to communicate its own thoughts to man, and man to reflect upon them, until an absolute union be- tween them was established. This was, in fact, the theory of the Florentine Neo-Platonists of the Renais- sance. They did not care for nature, but when Words- worth either reconceived or adopted this idea, it made him the first who loved nature with a personal love, for she, being living, and personal, and not only his 232 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. reflection, was made capable of being loved as a man loves a woman. He could brood on her character, her ways, her words, her life, as he did on those of his wife or sister. Hence arose his minute and loving ob- servation of her and his passionate description of all her Hfe. This was his poetic philosophy with regard to nature, and bound up as it was with the idea of God as the Thought which pervaded and made the world, it rose into a poetic religion of nature and man. 149. Wordsworth and Man. — The poet 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 him- self makes his claim on our reverence as a poet. He relates in the Prelude 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 the first. It was only during his life in France and in the excitement of the new theories and their ac- tivity that he was swept away from nature and found himself thinking of man as distinct from her and first VIII POETRY FROM 1 730 TO 1832 233 in importance. But the hopes he had formed from the Revolution broke down. All his dreams about a new life for mankind were made vile when France gave up liberty 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 litera- ture, 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 founda- tions of what he felt to be a truer view of mankind than the theories of the French 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 his interest in the larger move- ments of mankind. His love of hberty and hatred of oppression revived. He saw in Napoleon the enemy of the human race. A 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, an- other the fate of Toussaint the negro chief ; others cele- brated the struggle of Hofer and the Tyrolese, others the struggle of Spain. Two thanksgiving 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, and 234 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. badly, on Education, the Poor Laws, and other sub- jects. 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 he is the foremost singer of those who threw around the lives of homely men and women the glory and sweet- . ness 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 de- sired it to be, a force to soothe and heal the weary soul of the world, a power like one of nature's, to strengthen or awaken the imagination in mankind. 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. 150. Sir Walter Scott was Wordsworth's dear friend, and his career as a poet began with the Lay of the Last Minstrel^ 1805. But before that he had collected, inspired by his revolt from the Revolution to the re- gretted past, the songs and ballads of the Border. Maj'ffiion was pubhshed 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 sad- ness and exultation of life with equal power, do not count in our estimate of him. He brought the narrative poem into a new and delightful excellence. In Mar- ption and the Lady of the Lake his wonderful inventiveness VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 235 in story and character 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 Scottish quality, is a finer colourist. Nearly all his natural description is of the wild scenery of the Highlands and the Lowland moorland. He touched it with a pencil so light, grace- ful, and true, that the very names are made forever romantic ; while his faithful love for the places he de- scribes fills his poetry with the finer spirit of his own tender humanity. 151.. 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. He will chiefly live by his lyrics. Hohenlinden, the Battle of the Baltic, the iMarhiers of England, are splendid specimens of the war poetry of England ; and the So7tg to the Evening Star and Lord Ullin's Daughter, full of tender feeling, mark the influence of the more natural style that Wordsworth had brought to excellence. 152. Rogers and Moore. — The Pleasures of Memory, 1792, and the Italy, 1822, 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 poems of Thomas 2^6 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Moore may be referred. They are the songs he wrote to the Irish airs collected in 1796. The best of them have for their hidden subject the struggle of Ireland against England. Many of them have lyrical beauty and soft melody. At times they reach true pathos, but their lightly lifted gaiety is also delightful. 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. 153. We turn to very different types of men when we come to Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Of the three, Lord Byron had most of the quahty we call force. Born in 1788, his Hours of Idleness, a collection of short poems, in 1 80 7, was mercilessly lashed in the Edi7ibu7-gh Review. The attack only served to awaken his genius, and he replied with astonishing vigour in the satire of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers in 1809. Eastern travel gave birth to the first two cantos of Childe Harold, 181 2, Jo the Giaour and the Bride of Abydos in 181 3, to the Corsair d,x\^ Lara in 1814. The Siege of Coiiiith, Par- isina, the Prisoner of Chillon, Manfred, and Childe Harold were finished before 1819. In 18 18 he began a new style in Beppo, which he developed fully in the successive issues of Don Juan, 1819-24. During this time he published a number of dramas, partly historical, as his Mari7io Faliero, partly imaginative, as the Cain. His life had been wild and useless, but he died in trying to redeem it for the sake of the freedom of Greece. At Missolonghi he was seized with fever, and passed away in April, 1824. VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1 832 23/ 154. The Position of Byron as a Poet is a curious one. He is partly of tlie past and partly of the present. Some- thing of the school of Pope clings to him ; yet no one so completely broke away from old measures and old man- ners to make his poetry individual, not imitative. 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 philosophy except that which centres round the problem 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 in this strong personality, put before us with such obstinate power, but it wearies us at last. Finally it wearied himself. As he grew in power, he escaped from his morbid self, and ran into the opposite extreme in Don Juan. It is chiefly in it that he shows the influence of the revolutionary 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 absolute freedom of individual act and thought in opposition 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 was done can scarcely be approved. 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 238 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. reflected in her moods. But he also escapes from this position of the later 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, as well as his amazing productiveness, which mark him specially. But it is always more power of the intellect than of the imagination. 155. In Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the contrary, the imagination is first and the intellect second. He pro- duced while yet a boy some worthless tales, but soon showed in Queen Mab, 181 3, the influence of the revolu- tionary era, combined in him with a violent attack on the existing forms of religion. One half of Shelley's poetry, and of his heart, was devoted to help the world towards the golden year he prophesied in Queen Mab, 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 Mab was written grew cold, and he turned from writing about mankind to describe in Alastor the fife and wandering and death of a lonely poet. But the Alastor who isolated the poet from man- kind was, in Shelley's own thought, a spirit of evil, and his next poem, the Revolt of Islam, 181 7, unites him again to the interests of humanity. He wrote it with the VIII POETRY FROM 1 730 TO 1832 239 hope that men were beginnmg to recover from the apathy and despair into which the failure of the revolutionary ideas had thrown them, and to show them what they should strive and hope for, and destroy. The poem itself has finer passages in it than Alastor, but as a whole it is inferior to it. It is far too formless. The same year Shelley went to Italy, and never returned to England. He then produced Rosalind and Helen and Julian and Maddalo ; but the new health and joy he now gained brought back his enthusiasm for mankind, and he broke out into the splendid lyric drama of Prometheus Unbou7id. Asia, at the beginning of the drama separated from Pro- metheus, is the all-pervading Love which in loving makes the universe of nature. When Prometheus is united to Asia, the spirit of Love in man is wedded to the spirit of Love in nature, and all the world of man and nature is redeemed. 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 philosophi- cally, Wordsworth with most contemplation, Shelley with most imagination. Prometheus Unbound is 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 ^nan. The first, the drama of the Cencij is as restrained in 240 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. 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 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 imaged all her attendants, and her doings among men. As a 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 Wi?id, mingle together personal feeling and prophetic hope for man- kind. Some are lyrics of pure nature ; some are dedi- cated to the rebuke of tyranny and the cause of liberty ; others belong to the indefinite passion he called 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 musi- cal, but the least tangible lyrical poetry we possess. As the poet of nature, he had the same idea as Words- worth, that nature was alive : but while Wordsworth made the active principle which filled and made nature to be Thought, Shelley made it Love. The natural VIII POETRY FROM 1 730 TO 1 832 24 1 world was dear then to his soul as well as to his eye, but he loved best its indefinite aspects. 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, the doings of the great sea, and vast realms of landscape. He is in this, as well as in his eye for subtle colour, the Turner of poetry. What he might have been we cannot tell, for 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 cordium, " Heart of hearts," written on his tomb, well says what all who love poetry feel when they think of him. 156. John Keats Hes near him, cut off like him before his genius ripened ; 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 great human questions which stirred Shelley ; the present was entirely without interest to him. He marks the close of that poetic movement which the ideas of the Revolution had crystallised in England, as Shelley marks the attempt to revive it. Keats, seeing nothing to move him in an age which had now sunk into apathy on these points, went back to Spenser, and especially to Shakespeare's minor poems, to find his inspiration ; to Greek and mediaeval life to find his subjects, and established, in doing so, that which has been called the literary poetry of England. Leigh 242 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Hunt, his friend and Shelley's, did part of this work. The first subject on which Keats worked, after some minor poems in 181 7, was Endyitiion, 1818, his last, Hyperion, 1820. These, along with La?nia, which is, on the whole, the finest of his longer poems, 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. Its rhythm was derived from Milton, but its poetry is wholly his own. But the mind of Keats was as yet too luxuriant to support the greatness of his subject's argument, and the poem dies away. It is beautiful, even in death. Both poems 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 ideal poet. Then 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. Agnes. Mediaeval in subject, they are modern in manner ; but they are, above all, of the poet himself. Their magic is all his own. In smaller poems, such as the Ode on a Grecian Urn, the poem To Autumn, to the Nightingale, and some sonnets, he is the fairest of all Apollo's children. He knew the inner soul of words. He felt the world where ideas and their forms are one, where nature and VIII POETRY FROM 1 730 TO 1 832 243 humanity, before they divide, flow from a single source. In all his poems, his painting of nature is as close as Wordsworth's, but more ideal ; less full of the imagina- tion that links human thought to nature, but more full of the imagination which broods upon enjoyment of beauty. He was not much interested in human questions, but as his mind grew, humanity made a more and more impera- tive call upon him. Had he lived, his poetry would have dealt more closely with the heart of man. His letters, some of the most original in the English language, show this clearly. The second draft of Hyperion, unpublished in his Hfetime, and inferior as poetry to the first, accuses himself of apartness from mankind, and expresses his resolve to write of Man, the greatest subject of all. Whether he could have done this well remains unknown. His career was short ; he had scarcely begun to wTite when death took him away from the loveliness he loved so keenly. Consumption drove him to Rome, and there he died, save for one friend, alone. He lies not far from Shelley, on the " slope of green access," near the pyramid of Caius Cestius. He sleeps apart ; he is him- self a world apart. 157. Modern English Poetry. — Keats marks the ex- haustion of the impulse which began with Burns and Cowper. There was no longer now in England any large wave of public thought or feeling such as could awaken the national emotion and life out of which poetry is naturally born. We have then, arising after the deaths of Keats, Shelley, and Byron, a number of pretty little 244 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. poems, having no inward fire, no idea, no marked char- acter. They might be written by any versifier at any time, and express pleasant, indifferent thought in pleas- ant verse. Such were Mrs. Hemans' poems, and those of L. E. L., and such were Tennyson's earliest poems, in 1830. There were, however, a few men who, close to 1820 and 1822, had drunk at the fountain of Shelley, and who, for a very brief time, continued, amid the apathy, to write with some imagination and fervour. T. L. Bed- does, whose only valuable work was done between 1822 and 1825, was one of these. George Darley, whose Sylvia earned the praise of Coleridge, was another. They rep- resent in their imitation of Shelley, in their untutored imagination, the last struggles of the poetic phase which closed with the death of Byron. When Browning imitated or rather loved Shelley in his first poem, Pauline^ it was to bid Shelley farewell ; when Tennyson imitated Byron and was haunted by Keats in his first poems, it was also to bid them both farewell. Then Tennyson and Browning passed on to strike unexpected waters out of the rocks and to pour two rivers of fresh poetry over the world. For with the Reform agitation, and the twofold religious movement at Oxford, which was of the same date, a novel national excitement came on England, and with it the new tribe of poets arose among whom we have lived. The elements of their poetry were also new, though we can trace their beginnings in the previous poetry. This poetry took up, so far as Art could touch them, the theological, social, and even the political ques- VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 245 tions which disturbed England. It came, before long, moved by the critical and scientific inquiries into the origins of religion and man and the physical world, to represent the scepticism of England and the struggle for faith against doubt. It gave itself to metaphysics, but chiefly under the expression and analysis of the characters of men and women. It played with a vast variety of subjects, and treated them all with a personal passion which filled them with emotion. It worked out, from the point of view of deep feehng, the relation of man to God, and of man to sorrow and immor- tality. It studied and brought to great excellence the Idyll, the Song, and the short poem on classic subjects with a reference to modern Hfe. It increased, to an amazing extent, the lyrical poetry of England. The short lyric was never written in such numbers and of such excellence since the days of Elizabeth. It recapt- ured and clothed in a new dress the Arthurian tale, and linked us, back through many poets, to the days of legend and delight. It re-established for us in this new time, as the most natural and most emotional subject of English poetry, England, her history, her people, and her landscape, so that the new poets have described not only the whole land but the natural scenery and histori- cal story, the human and animal life of the separate counties. Our native land, as in the days of Elizabeth, has been idealised. Nor did this new impulse stay in England only. It went abroad for its subjects, and especially to Italy. It 246 ^ ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. Strove to express the main characteristics of periods of history and of art, of the origins of rehgions and of Chris- tianity, of classic and Renaissance thought at critical times, and of lyric passion in modern life. Indeed, it aimed at a universal representation of human life and at a subtle characterisation of individual temperaments. Thus, it was a poetry of England, and also of the larger world beyond England. Apart from the main stream of poetry, there were separate streams which represented distinct passages in the general movement. The Sonnets of Charles Tenny- son Turner, which began in 1830, stand by their grace and tenderness at the head of a large production of poetry which describes with him the shy, sequestered, observant life of the English scholar and lover of nature, of country piety and country people. One man among them stands alone, William Barnes, of Dorsetshire. The time will come when the dialect in which he wrote will cease to prevent the lovers of poetry from appreciating at its full worth a poetry which, written in the mother- tongue of the poor and of his own heart, is as close to the lives and souls of simple folk as it is to the woods and streams, the skies and farms of rustic England. Among them also is Coventry Patmore, who, though alive, belongs to the past. What Barnes did for the peasant and the farmer, Patmore did for the cultivated Hfe which in quiet English counties gathers round the church, the parsonage, and the hall, the lives and piety of the English homes that are still the haunts of ancient VIII POETRY FROM 1730 TO 1832 24/ peace. His work, with its retired and careful if over- delicate note, is a true picture of a small part of English life. But it has the faults of its excellences. The High Church and Broad Church movements, as they were called, produced two sets of poetical writers who also stand somewhat apart from the main line of English poetry. The first is best represented by John Keble, whose Christian Year, in 1827, with its poetry, so good within its own range, so weak beyond it, was the source of many books of poems of a similar but inferior char- acter. On the other hand the impulse towards a wider theology was combined in some poets with a laxer moral- ity than England is accustomed to maintain, and Bailey's Festus, 1839, was the first of a number of sensational poems which painted the struggles of the spirit towards immortal life, and of the senses towards mortal love with equal effervescence. A noble translation of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald, and the fine ballad- songs and Andromeda of Charles Kingsley, may also be said to flow apart from the main stream in which poetry flowed. Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning (whose wife will justly share his fame) began to write between 1830 and 1833, and continued their work side by side for fifty years, when they died, almost together. Both of them were wholly original, and both of them, differing at every point of their art, kept with extraordinary vitality their main powers, and were capable of fresh invention, even to the very last. They passed through a long period of change and development, during which all the existing 248 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAP. foundations of faith and knowledge and art were dug out, investigated, tested, and an attempt made to reconstruct them, an attempt which still pursues its work. They lived and wrote in sympathy with the emotions which this long struggle created in the minds of men, and ex- pressed as much of these emotions as naturally fell within their capability and within the sphere of poetry. And this they did with great eagerness and intensity. Their love of beauty and of their art was unbroken, and they had as much power, as they had desire, to shape the thought and the loveliness they saw — great poets who have illuminated, impelled, adorned, and exalted the world in which we live. At first the great inquiry into the roots of things dis- turbed the next generation of poets, those who stepped to the front between 1850 and i860 ; and as Arthur Hugh Clough expressed the trouble of the want of clear light on the fates of men and their only refuge in duty, so Matthew Arnold, more deeply troubled, embodied in his poetry, even in his early book of 1852, the restlessness, the dimness, the hopelessness of a world which had lost the vision of the ancient stars and could cling to nothing but a stoic conduct. But he did this with keen sorrow, and with a vivid interest in the world around him. Then about i860 the poets grew weary of the whole struggle. Theology, the just aim and ends of life, science, political and social questions, ceased on the whole to awaken the slightest interest in them. Exactly that which took place in the case of Keats now took place. The poets sought VIII POETRY FROM 173° TO 1832 249 only for what was beautiful, romantic, of ancient heroism, far from a tossed and wearied world, far from all its tiresome questions. Dante G. Rossetti, whose sister, Christina, touched the romantic and religious lyric with original beauty, was the leader of this school. He, and others still alive, found their chief subjects in ancient Rome and Greece, in stories and lyrics of passion, in mediaeval romance, in Norse legends, in the old England of Chaucer, and in Italy. But this literary poetry has now almost ceased to be produced, and has been suc- ceeded as in 1825 by a vast criticism of poetry, and by a multitudinous production, much inspired from France, of poetry, chiefly lyrical, which has few elements of endur- ance and Uttle relation to Hfe. What will emerge from this we cannot tell, but we only need some new human inspiration, having a close relation to the present, and bearing with it a universal emotion, to create in England another school of poetry as great as that which arose in the beginning of this century, and worthy of the tradi- tions which have made England the creator and lover of poetry for more than 1200 years. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE A.D. 449 .... English History begins in Britain. The Jutes land in Thanet. 597 .... Christianity brought into England by Augustine; 627 .... And into Northumbria by Paulinus. 635, et seq. . The Celtic Missionaries evangelise Northumbria. 664 .... The Synod of Whitby. 670-80 . . The poems of Csedmon. 669-71 . . School of Canterbury; Archbishop Theodore. 68o?-709. . The literary work of Ealdhelm. (Born 656.) 690 (cir.) . The laws of Ine. 674-82 . . Wearmouth, Jarrow, and their libraries, founded by Benedict Biscop. 673 .... B^eda, Benedict's scholar, born. 731 .... Baeda's Ecclesiastical History. (Death of Baeda, 735.) 735 .... Ecgberht, Archljp. of York, establishes the School of York and the \Ahx.zxy. (Died 766.) 766-82 . . ^thelbert and Alcuin make York the centre of European learning. 782-92 . . Alcuin carries the learning of York to Europe. 793 .... The first Viking raid on Northumbria. Cynewulf (born about 720) wrote his poems prob- ably in the latter half of this century. 800 .... Charles the Great crowned emperor. 830 .... About this date the " Heliand," an Old Saxon poem, was written. 251 252 ENGLISH LITERATURE A.D. 867-76 . . The final destruction of the seats of learning in Northumbria by " the Army." 8yi .... The accession of /Elfred. 886 (cir.) . Alfred begins his literary work. The English Chronicle is first carefully edited in this reign. 901 .... Death of ^^ilfred. 913. . , . Rolf settles in Normandy. 937 .... Song of Battle of Brunanburh, in the Chronicle. 961-88 . . Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. 964, et seq. . King Eadgar, with /Ethehvold and Oswald, Bishops of Winchester and Worcester, revives English monachism in Wessex and East Angha. 971 . . . . Blickling Homilies. 991 . . . . Song of the Battle of Maldon. 991-96 . . ^Ifric's Homilies; after 1005, his Treatise on the Old and New Testament. (Died 1020-25.) 1031 . . . Swegen of Denmark becomes King of England. 1042-65 . . Reign of Edward the Confessor. England's first contact with French Romance. Latin translation of a late Greek Romance, Apol- lonius of Tyre, and of two small books belonging to the Alexander Saga. 1066 . . . The Lay of Roland is brought to England. 1066 . . . ] Villi am /. 1070 . . . Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. The " Charlemagne," Norman poem, before the end of the nth century. 107 1 . . . The Exeter Book given by Leofric, Bishop of Exe- ter, to his Cathedral. 1085 . . . The Domesday Book. io8y . . . JVilliam IF. crowned by Lanfranc. 1093 . . . Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. 1095 . . . The beginning of the Crusades. The stories of the East soon come to the West. 1 100 . . . Henry I. 1 109 . . . University of Paris rises into importance with Wil- liam of Champeaux and Peter Abelard. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 253 A.D. 1 I 10 , III8 . I I 20 . 1126-43 I I 29 . "35-54 JI3S • 1132-35 "54 • "55 • 1 160 . 1156-59? 1160-70 (cir.) 1160-70 1 1 70 . 1 1 70-90 1180-90? ii8g U98 Miracle play of St, Catherine. End of Florence of Worcester's Chronicle. End of William of Malmesbury's Historia regum Anglorum. William of Malmesbury's Historise novelise. End of Simeon of Durham's Chronicle. Henry of Huntingdon's History of England. Stephen. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Britonum. Final form, 1 147. English Chronicle ends. Gesta Stephani. Hexham Chroniclers. At the end of reign of Henry I, and during Stephen's reign the Cistercians brought about a religious revival. The Abbeys founded in the North. Henry II. Wace's Geste des Bretons (Brut d'Engleterre). Benoit de Sainte More's R6man de Troie. John of Salisbury's Polycraticus. Walter Map's De Nugis curialium; Golias. The Lais of Marie de France; written in Eng- land. Robert de Boron's Le petit Saint Graal. Wace finishes his Roman de Rou. Le Grand Saint Graal; Queste de Saint Graal; Lancelot du Lac, by Walter Map? Chrestien de Troye's Conte de Graal (Percevale). Chronicle of Benedict of Peterborough, continued by Roger of Howden. Ranulf de Glanvill's work on English law. Richard Fitz Nigel's Dialogus de Scaccario. Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis) — Itinera- rium; Journey in Wales; Conquest of Ireland — written in this and the two following reigns. Richard I. William of Newborough's Chronicle. 254 ENGLISH LITERATURE In the middle of the 1 2th century the troubadour poetry of Southern France rose into its fine flower in the work of Bernart de Ventadorn. He had been preceded by Guilhem de Poitiers, the first troubadour of whom we know. Bertrand de Born, Geoffrey Rudel, Pierre Vidal are famous troubadours of this cen- tury. The lyrics of Northern France, those of the trouveres, grew out of this Provencal poetry. No lyrical poetry in England in this century. The chansons de geste of the last century in France were largely added to in this. Great literary activity prevailed in Wales from the middle of this century down to the death of Llewellyn in 1 282. The epic of the Cid was shaped about 1160-70 out of ballads that had sung the border battles of Moors and Spaniards. In Germany the Minnelieder arose in the middle of the century, and Wolfram von Eschenbach introduced his new conception of Parzival into the Arthurian legend. Also in the middle of this century the Niebelungen Lied was cast into its form. Italian poetry began with Ciullo d'Alcamo in Sicily, and Folca- chiero of Siena, in the years 1172-78. In this century also the mediaeval tales from India were cast into the History of the Seven Sages, and into the Disciplina Clericalis. These materials were moulded into various shapes by the French poets, and afterwards in England. A.D. iigg 1 150-1200 1 200-30 . 1205 . . 1205 (cir.) 1215 . . 1210-50 . 1216 . . 1235-73 • Chronicle of Richard of Devizes. Annals of Barn- well. Chronicle of Jocelyn of Brakelond, and others. Sayings of Alfred. Roman de la Rose (Part I.) by Guillaume de Lorris. Loss of Normandy. Layamon's Brut. The Orrmulum. The Great Charter. Reign of Frederick II. Italian poetry in Sicily. Henry III. Chronicle of Roger of Wendover at vSt. Albans. Matthew Paris' Greater Chronicle; History of England; Lives of earlier abbots. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 255 A.D. 1220-76 . 1220 (cir.) 1220 (cir.) 1221 . . 1224 . . 1225 . . 1225-35?. 1230-40 (cir 1235-53 • 1250 (cir.) 1258 . . 1262 . . 1264 . . I 264 . . 1268 . . Guido Guinicelli. Father of new national litera- ture in Italy. Owl and Nightingale (Dorsetshire). Ancren Rivvle (Dorsetshire). Coming of Black Friars to England (Dominicans). Coming of Grey Friars (Franciscans). St. Francis of Assisi's Song to the Sun. The Bestiary. ) King Horn. Robert Grossetete (Bp. of Lincoln). Chastel d'amour. Genesis and Exodus. Provisions of Oxford, Proclamation of King's adhesion to them — in English as well as French. Miracle plays acted by the Town Guilds. Battle of Lewes — Ballad. Corpus Christi Day appointed; fully observed, 1311. Roger Bacon's Opus Majus. After Lewes and its war-ballad, the Love Lyric begins in such verse as the Throstle and the Nightingale and the Cuckoo Song. Also the religious lyric in such verse as the Sorrows of Christ and the Lullaby, and the Love Song of Thomas de Hales, a P^anciscan. Also the satirical lyric, such as the Land of Cockayne. In this reign Adam Marsh (De Marisco) has a famous Franciscan school at Oxford. The Harrowing of Hell, first dramatic piece in English, belongs to this reign. Northumbria begins again to write in second half of century. 12^2 .1280-87 1290-93 . 1300 (cir.) Edward /. The Alexander Romance in English in this reign. The Tristan Story is also widely spread. Romances arise in Northumbria. Many war-ballads. Guido delle Colonne's (a poet of Sicily, born 1250) Historia Destructionis Trojae. Visited England and wrote Historia de regibus et rebus Angliae. Dante's Vita Nuova. Gesta Romanorum. 256 ENGLISH LITERATURE 1300 (cir.) . Havelok the Dane. 1303 . . . Robert Manning of Biunne's Handlyng Synne. His Chronicle finished 1338. 1300-05 . . Roman de la Rose (Part IL), by Jean de Meung. /J07 . . . Edivard IL 1303-21 . . Dante's Divine Comedy. 1324 . . . Court of Love at Toulouse. 1320-30 . . Cursor Mundi (Northumbrian). William Shore- ham's Poems (Kentish). A Cycle of Homilies, Legend Cycle (both Northumbrian) are now worked at. Sir Tristrem; Sire Otuel; Guy of Warwick ; Bevis of Hampton ; all now in English. i^sy . . . Edward III. 1330 . . . Pilgrimage of Human Life, a French poem by Guillaume de Delguileville, Legenda Aurea, by Jacobus a Voragine, Bishop of Genoa. Guillaume de Machault.(B. I282(cir.); d. I370(cir.),) 1340 (cir.) . Richard Rolle of Hampole's Pricke of Conscience. 1340 . . . Dan Michel of Northgate's Ayenbite of Inwyt. 1 34 1 . . . Petrarca crowned laureate at Rome. 1345 . . . Death of Richard Aungerville, Bishop of Durham, writer of Philobiblion ; leaves library to Oxford. 1333-52 . . Songs of Laurence Minot on King Edward's wars. 1350, el seq. . Collections of books, and University foundations in England now begin to serve literature. 1350-53 . . Decameron of Boccaccio. 1341, LaTeseide. 1348, Filostrato. 1350 (cir.) . Romances are now written on the Welsh marches in alliterative Old English verse ; subject and niise-en-schie French, verse and diction national. Among first of these, Joseph of Arimathie and two fragments of an Alexander Romance. 1355 . . . William of Palerne. 1350? Tale of Gamelyn. 1355 (cir.) . Anturs of Arthur at the Tarnawathelan. 1360-70 (cir.) Sir Gawayne and the Grene ^ Perhaps by the Knight, Pearl, Cleanness >- " philosophica] and Patience. ) Strode." CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 257 A.D. 1362-63 1366-70 1375 1377 1377 1378? 1379 1380 . 1380-83 1382-85 1383 (cir.) 1385^89 . 1393? . • 1395 • • 1398? . Langland's Vision of Piers the Plowman. (A-Text.) Chaucer's first poems. Book of the Duchess, 1369. Petrarca's Griselda. Barbour's Bruce. Richard II. B-Text of Piers the Plowman. Wyclif's Summa in Theologia. New College, Oxford ; Latin School at Winchester founded by William of Wykeham. Wyclif's translation of the Bible. Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida. Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, Hous of Fame, Legend of Good Women. Wyclif's Trialogus. (Died 1384.) Chaucer's Prologue and many of the Canterbury Tales. Gower's Confessio Amantis. Chrysoloras comes to Florence to teach Greek. Guarino Guarini teaches Greek at Venice, Florence, Ferrara. (Born 1370; died 1460.) C-Text of Piers the Plowman. From Boccaccio to the middle of the i6th century a great mass of Italian Novelle were produced; used in England for plays, stories, &c. 1399 1400 1411-12 '413 1415 1421 J422 1422 1422 1423 1424-25 Henry IV. Death of Chaucer and Langland. Hoccleve's Gouvernail of Princes. Henry V. Eustache Deschamps dies. Alain Chartier and Christine de Pisan, his contemporaries. Lydgate's Troy Book. 1424-25, Story of Thebes. Henry VI. James I. of Scotland : The King's Quair. Paston Letters begin ; end 1509. John Aurispa brings from Greece to Italy more than 200 MSS. Lydgate's Falles of Princes. 258 ENGLISH LITERATURE A.D. 1427 Filelfo, laden with MSS., returns from Greece to Florence. Pletho, Bessarion, Gaza have diffused the spirit of ancient learn- ing in Italy by 1440. Universities at Pavia, Turin, Ferrara, Flor- ence, &c. Eight hundred MSS. left by Niccolo Niccoli to Florence, in 1436; cradle of the Laurentian Library. 1449 1453 1450 (cir.) 1460-80 1461 1470 1474-76 1481 14S3 1485 1495? 1501 1503 1504 1506 1507 1507-08 1509 ' 1509 . 1513 • 1513? . 1515 • 1516 . 1516 . 151S? . 1518? . Pecock's Repressor of Overmuch blaming of the Clergy. Fall of Constantinople. Invention of Printing. Poems of Robert Henryson. Edivard IV. Malory's Morte Darthur. Caxton sets up printing press at Westminster. Luigi Pulci's Morgante Maggiore. Ed%vard V. Richard III. Henry VII. Boiardo's Orlando Inamorato begun. Gawin Douglas' Palace of Honour. Dunbar's Thistle and Rose. Sannazaro's Arcadia. Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure. Skelton's Bowge of Court; Boke of Phyllip Sparowe. Dunbar's Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins. Henry VIIL Erasmus: Praise of Folly. Gawin Douglas : Translation of the ^neid. Sir Thos. More's Life of Edward V. and History of Richard III. written. Trissino's Sofonisba; first use of blank verse in Italy. Ariosto's Orlando Furioso begun; the rest in 1 532. Sir Thos, More's Utopia, written in Latin. Skelton's Colin Clout. Amadis de Gaul translated into English. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 259 A.D. 1524 . 1527 • 1528 . 1520-40 1532, et seq. 1535 1540 154I? 1545 1547 1549 1549-5- 1551 1553 1553 1557 1558 1559 1561-62 1562 . 1563 1563 1570 1571 1575 1576 1576 1576 1577 Ronsard born. (Died 1586.) Tyndale's translation of the New Testament. Lyndsay's Drenie. Heywood's Interludes. Rabelais' Gargantua, &c. Lyndsay's Satire of the Three Estates. Cranmer's Bible. Ralph Roister Doister, first English comedy, printed 1566. Ascham's Toxophilus. Edzuard VI. Latimer's Sermon on the Ploughers. English Prayer Book. Ralph Robinson's translation of More's Utopia into English. Mary. Lyndsay's Monarchic. Tottel's Miscellany ; poems by Wyatt and Surrey. Elizabeth. Sackville's Mirror for Magistrates. Gorboduc, the first English Tragedy. Printed as Ferrex and Porrex, 1571. Phaer's Virgil. Many other translations of the classics before 1579. Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Sackville's Induction to Mirror for Magistrates. Ascham's Schoolmaster. R. Edward's Damon and Pithias printed. Comedy of Gammer Gurton's Needle printed. Play of Apius and Virginia printed. Paradise of Dainty Devices; 1578, Gorgeous Gal- lery of Gallant Inventions; 1584, HandfuU of Pleasant Delights — all Poetical Miscellanies. Three theatres built in London ; Blackfriars, the Curtain, the Theatre. Gascoigne's Steele Glas. (First verse satire.) Holinshed's Chronicle. 26o ENGLISH LITERATURE AD. 1579-80 . . Lyly's Euphues. 1 580-1601 (cir.) his dramas. 1579 . . . Spenser's Shepheards Calendar. 1579 . . . North's Plutarch's Lives. 1580-81 . . Sidney's Arcadia and Apologie for Poetrie. 1580-88 . . Montaigne's Essaies. 1 58 1 . . . Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata. 1582? . . . Watson's Hecatoinpathia or Passionate Century. 1583-1625? . Pamphleteers: Greene, Lodge, G. Harvey, Nash, Dekker, Breton. 1584-92 . . Dramas of Greene. 1583, ct scq., Tales in prose. 1584-98 . . Dramas of Peele. 1586 . . . Warner's Albion's England. 1587 . . . Marlowe's Tamburlaine acted. (Printed 1590.) 1588-90 . . Marlowe's Faustus, Jev^r of Malta, Edward II. 1588-90 . . Series of Martin Marprelate Tracts. 1588-90? . . Love's Labour's Lost. 1589 . . . Hakluyt's Voyages. 1590 . . . Spenser's Faerie Queene (Books i.-iii. 1596, iv.-vi.). 1 59 1 . . . Harrington's translation of Ariosto's Orlando. 1593 . . . Donne's Satires (died 1626). 1593 . . . Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. 1594 . . . Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity (Bks. i.-iv. 1597, v.). 1593-96 . . Many collections of Sonnets. 1595 . . . Daniel's Hist, of Civil Wars of York and Lancaster. i^^6, et seq. . Ben Jonson's Dramas. (Died 1637.) 1594-96 . . Merchant of Venice. 1597 . . . Bacon's Essays. (First set.) 1597-98 . . Hall's Satires. 1598 . . . Chapman's Homer (First part). Sylvester's trans- lation of Du Bartas. 1598-99 . . Marston's Satires. 1596-98 . . Drayton's Barons' Wars and England's Heroical Epistles. 1599 . . . The Globe Theatre built. 1600 . . . England's Helicon; England's Parnassus; Belve- dere; all poetical Miscellanies. 1600 . . . Fairfax's translation of Tasso. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 261 A.D. 1600 . i6cx)-8i 1603 (cir.^ ? . 1603 . . . 1603 . 1603 . 1604 . 1605 . 1606-16 1609 . 1610-25 ( cir.) 1610 . 1611 . 1612 . 1612-20 1613-14 1613-16 1613 . 1613 . 1613 . 1614 . 1615 . 1615 . 1616 . 1621 . 1622 . 1623 . 1623 . 1623 . Lope de Vega began his dramas about 1590, and continued writing till his death in 1635. Calderon, who had a large influence on the French Drama of the 17th and i8th centuries, on the English Restoration Drama, and on the Italian, German and English poetry of i8th and 19th centuries. The Return from Parnassus. Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays. "James I. Knolles' History of the Turks. Authorised Version of the Bible. Bacon's Advancement of Learning (Books i. and ii.). Cervantes' Don Quixote. Shakespeare's Sonnets published. Dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher. Giles Fletcher's Christ's Victory. Speed's History of Great Britain. Webster's first drama. The White Devil (printed). T. Shelton's Translation of Don Quixote. Drayton's Polyolbion. Browne's Britannia's Pastorals; 1614, The Shep- herd's Pipe. Purchas his Pilgrimage. Wither's Abuses Stript and Whipt. Drummond of Hawthornden's hrst poem. (D. 1649.) Raleigh's History of the World. Sandys' Travels. Wither's Shepherd's Hunting. Chapman's Homer finished. Shakespeare dies. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Massinger's Virgin Martyr. (Died 1639.) Webster's Duchess of Malfi (printed). Waller's first poems. The " First Folio " of Shakespeare. Chapman, Tourneur, Middleton, and other drama- tists wrote during this reign. 262 ENGLISH LITERATURE A.D. 162^ . . . Charles /. 1628 . . . Harvey's De Motu Sanguinis. 1629 . . . Milton's Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. 1631 . . . George Herbert's Temple. 1635? . . . Sir Thos. Browne's Religio Medici (pub. 1642). 1632-37 . . Milton's Allegro, Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas. 1633 . . . Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island. 1634 . . . Ford's historical play of Perkin Warbeck. 1636 . . . Corneille's first tragedy, the Cid. His last play, 1675. 1636 . . . French Academy founded. 1640 . . . Thomas Carew's poems. 1 64 1 . . . Milton's first pamphlet. 1641 . . . Evelyn's Diary begins (ends 1697; published 1818). 1642 . . . Theatres closed. 1642 . . . Fuller's Holy and Profane state. 1642 . . . Denham's Cooper's Hill. 1642 . . . Hobbes' De Cive. 1644 . . . Milton's Areopagitica. 1645 • • • Waller's poems. 1645 . . . Meetings held which lead to formation of the Royal Society. 1646 . . . Crashaw's Steps to the Temple. 1647 . . . Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. 1647 • • • Cowley's Mistress. Davideis, i64i(?). 1647-48 . . Herrick's Noble Numbers; Hesperides. 1648 ... J. Beaumont's Psyche or Love's Mystery. 1648 . . . Suckling's Fragmenta Aurea. 1649 . . . Lovelace's Lucasta. i64g . . . Covimomvealth. 1650 . . . Baxter's Saints' Rest. 1650 . . . Milton's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano. 1650-52 . . Marvell's Garden poems written. 1650-56 . . Vaughan's Silex Scintillans. 1650-57 . . Pascal's Provincial Letters. 1 65 1 . . . Hobbes' Leviathan. 1653 ... Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler. 1653 . . . Moliere's first play. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 263 A.t>. 1656 . . . Harrington's Oceana. 1659 . . . Dryden's Stanzas on the Death of Cromwell. 1659 . . . Corneille's Essay on the Three Unities. 1659-60 . . Pepys' Diary begins (finished 1669; published 1825). 1660 . . . Boileau's first satire. ibbo . . . Charles II. 1660 . . . Re-opening of the theatres by Davenant and Killigrew. 1662 . . . Royal Society incorporated. 1663 . . . Dryden's first play, the Wild Gallant. 1663 . . . Butler's Hudibras (Part I.). 1663 . . . Algernon Sidney's Discourses concerning Govern- ment, published 1698. 1663 . . . The London Public Intelligencer. (Becomes the London Gazette, 1666.) 1663-67 . . Plays of Racine. Esther, 1689 (?), Athalie, 1 690(7) . 1664 ... La Fontaine's first book of Contes. 1667 . . . Dryden's Annus Mirabilis; Essay on Dramatic Poesy. 1667 . . . Cowley's Essays. 1667 . . . Milton's Paradise Lost. 1667 . . . Petty's Treatise on Taxes. 1668 . . . La Fontaine's first book of Fables. (Died 1695.) 1670 . . . Izaak Walton's Lives. 1670 . . . Pascal's Les Pensees. 1 67 1 . . . Paradise Regained. Samson Agonistes. 1671-77 . . Dramas of Wycherley. 1672 . . . Dryden's Essay on Heroic Plays. 1674 . . . Boileau's Art of Poetry. 1678 . . . Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. (Part I.) 1678 . . . Dryden's All for Love. (In blank verse.) 1678 . . . Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe. 1680 . . . Filmer's Patriarcha. 1 68 1 . . . Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel. (First part.) 1682 . . . Dryden's Medal, Macflecknoe, Religio Laici. 1684 . . . Pilgrim's Progress. (Part H.) Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion written during this reign. (Published 1707.) 264 A.D. j68s . 1687 . 1687 • 1687 . i688-8g 1690 . 1692 . I 693- I 700 1694 . I 697-1 705 1698 . 1 698- 1 707 1700 . 1700 . jyo2 . 1 702-05 1704 . 1704 . 1704-13 1709 . 1 709-1 1 1709-44 1709 . 1711-12-1. 1712 1713 • 1714 . J714 . 1715-20 1715,^/^.-. 1719 . 1724-34 1725 . 1726-30 1726-27 ENGLISH LITERATURE yames IT. Newton's Principia. Defoe's first tract. La Bruyere's Les Caracteres. The Revolution. William III. Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. Sir Wm. Temple's Miscellanea, Vol. ii. Congreve's dramas. Dryden's Last Play. Dramas of Vanbrugh. Collier's Short View of the Immorality of the Stage. Dramas of Farquhar. Dryden's Fables. (Nov. 1699.) Prior's Carmen Seculare. Anne. Steele's Plays. (1722. Comedy of the Conscious Lovers, his last play.) Swift's Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books. (Writ- ten by 1596-97.) Addison's Campaign. Rosamond (opera), 1706. Defoe's Review. Mat Prior's Poems. The Tatler. Writings of Bishop Berkeley. Pope's Pastorals. (Written 1704-05.) The Spectator. Pope's Rape of the Lock. Addison's Cato. Gay's Shepherd's Week. George I. Pope's Homer's Iliad. Le Sage's Gil Bias. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. (Final form 1714.) 1720-25, Other novels. Bp. Burnet's History of my own Times published. Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd. (First form 1723.) Thomson's Seasons. Swift's Gulliver's Travels. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 265 172J . . . George II. 727 . . . Gay's Fables. 1728, Beggar's Opera. [728 . . , Pope's Dunciad. (Firstforni. Others in 1729-42-43.) [728 . . . Voltaire's Henriade. 730 . . . Marivaux : Lejeudel'amouretduhasard. (D.1763.) [732-34 . . Pope's Essay on Man. Moral Essays, 1732-35. [735 . . . Johnson's Translation of Lobo's Voyage to Abys- sinia. (His first work.) [736 . . . Butler's Analogy of Religion. [737 . . . Shenstone's Schoolmistress. (Final form, 1742.) [738 . . . Johnson's London. ;739 . . . Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. 1740 . . . Richardson's Pamela. 1748, Clarissa Harlowe. 741 . . . Warburton's Divine Legation. [740-41 . . Hume's Essays. [742 . . . Fielding's Joseph Andrews. 1749, Tom Jones. [744 . . . Johnson's Life of Savage. 744 . . . Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination. [746 . . . Collins' Odes. [742-69 . . Gray's Poems. (Collected edition 1768.) 748 . . . Smollett's Roderick Random. [748 . . . Thomson's Castle of Indolence. ■748 . . , Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois. [749 . . . Diderot's Encyclopedie begun. [749 . . . Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes; Irene. [750-52 . . Johnson's Rambler. [751-52 , . Hume's Principles of Morals and Political Discourses. [754 . . . Richardson's Sir Chas. Grandison. [754-61 . . Hume's History of England. [755 . . . Johnson's Dictionary. [756 . . . Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful; Vin- dication of Natural Society. [757 . . . Hume's Natural History of Rehgion. [758 . . . Robertson's History of Scotland. 1769, Charles V. [758 . . . Lessing's Litteraturbriefe. 759 . . . Johnson's Rasselas. 759 . . . Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments. 266 ENGLISH LITERATURE 1759 . . . Sterne's Tristram Shandy. (Vols, i and 2.) 1759-90 . . Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses on Art. 7760 . . . George III. 1760 . . . Rousseau's Nouvelle Helo'ise. 1760 . . . Sterne's Tristram Shandy. (2 vols. ; finished 1765.) 1761-64 . . Poems of Churchill. 1762 . . . Falconer's Shipwreck. 1760-65 . . Macpherson's Ossian. 1765 . . . Goldsmith's Traveller. 1764-70 . . Chatterton's Poems. 1765 . . . Bishop Percy's Reliques of English Poetry. 1765 . . . H. Walpole's Castle of Otranto. 1766 . . . Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. (Written 1762?) 1766 . . . Lessing's Laokoon. 1768-78 . . Plays of Goldsmith and Sheridan. 1769 . . . Burke's Present State of the Nation. 1769-72 . . Letters of Junius. 1770 . . . Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents. 1770 . . . Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 1771-74 . . Beattie's Minstrel. 1773 . . . Ferguson's Poems. 1774 . . . Burke's Speech on American Taxation. 1774 . . . Goethe's Werther. 1775 . . . Beaumarchais : Le mariage de Figaro. 1775 . . . Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. 1776 . . . Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. 1777-81 . . T. Warton's History of English Poetry. 1776-88 . . Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1777 . . . Robertson's History of America. 1778 . . . Frances Burney's Evelina. 1779-81 . . Johnson's English Poets. 1 781 . . . Schiller's Die Rauber. 1783 . . . Crabbe's Village. 1783 . . . Blake's Poetical Sketches. 1785 . . . Cowper's Task. 1786 . . . Samuel Rogers' Poems. 1786 . . . Burns' first Poems. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 267 A.D. 1789 . . . Blake's Songs of Innocence. 1794, Songs of Experience. 1789 . . . White's Natural History of Selborne. 1790 . . . Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1791-92 . . Paine's Rights of Man. 1794-95, Age of Reason. 1 79 1 . . . Boswell's Life of Johnson. 1792-91 . . Arthur Young's Travels in France. 1793 . . . Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice. 1793 • • • Wordsworth's Evening Walk ; Descriptive Sketches. 1794 . . . Coleridge and Southey's Fall of Robespierre. 1796 . . . Poems; by Coleridge and Lamb. 1796 . . . Scott's translation of Burger's Lenore. 1796-97 . . Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace. 1797 . . . Poems by Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd. 1797 . . . Poetry of the Anti- Jacobin. •* 1798 . . . Lyrical Ballads; by Coleridge and Wordsworth. 1798 . . . Malthus' Essay on the Principles of Population. 1798 . . . Landor's Gebir and other Poems. 1798 . . . Ebenezer Elliott's Vernal Walk. 1799 . . . Scott's translation of Gotz von Berlichingen. 1799 . . . Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. 1800 . . . Coleridge's translation of Schiller's Wallenstein. 1801 . . . Southey's Thalaba. (He continued writing till 1843.) 1802 . . . Scott's Border Minstrelsy. 1802 . . . The Edinburgh Review. 1805 . . . Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 1807 . . . Byron's Hours of Idleness. 1807 . . . Wordsworth's Poems in 2 vols. 1807 . . . T. Moore's Irish Melodies begun. 1807-08 . . Lamb's Specimens of Dramatic Poetry. 1808 . . . Scott's Marmion. 1810, Lady of the Lake. 1809 . . . The Quarterly Review. 1809 . . . Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 1810 . . . Allan Cunningham's first published poems. (D. 1842.) 1811-18 . . Novels of Jane Austen. 1822-33 . . Prof. Wilscjn'sNoctesAmbrosiance. (In Blackwood.) 1812-18 . . Byron's Childe Harold. 268 ENGLISH LITERATURE 1 813 . . . Shelley's Queen Mab. 1816, Alastor. 1814 . . . Scott's Waverley. (His novels continue till 1831.) 1814 . . . Wordsworth's Excursion. 18 14 . . . H. Gary's Translation of Dante. 1816 . . . Coleridge's Christabel ; Kubla Khan. 1816? . . . Leigh Hunt's Story of Rimini. 1817 . . . Byron's Manfred. 1818, Beppo; 1819-23, Don Juan. 181 7 . . . Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. 181 7 . . . Keats' first poems. i^i']^ et seq. . Hazlitt's Dramatic and Poetical Criticisms. (Died 1830.) 1818 . . . Hallam's View of the State of Europe during the Mid- dle Ages. 1827, Constitutional Hist, of England. 1820 . . . George fV. 1820 . . . Keats' Hyperion and other Poems. 1820 . . . Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. 1 821 . . . Byron's Cain and other dramas. 1821 . . . DeQuincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. 1821 . . . Shelley's Adonais and Epipsychidion. 182 i-r;; . . Lamb's Essays of Elia. 1822 . . . T. L. Beddoes' Bride's Tragedy. 1822 . . . Rogers' Italy. 1824 . . . Carlyle's translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. 1826 . . . Poems by Two Brothers. (Chas. and Alfd. Tennyson.) 1827 . . . Keble's Christian Year. 1830 . . . William IV. 1830 . . . Alfred Tennyson : Poems. 1830 . . . Moore's Life of Byron. 1830 . . Mrs. Hemans' Songs of the Affections. 1831, ft si'ij. . Ebenezer Elliott's Corn Law Rhymes. 1831 . . . Robert Browning's Pauline; published 1833. 1832 . . . Death of Sir Walter Scott. Death of Goethe. INDEX Born. Died. 1672 Addison, Joseph, 182, 183, 187, 191, 192, 195. . . .1719 849 Alfred, King, 3, 15, 19, 23, 24, 27 901 Fl. 1006 ^If ric (Grammaticus) ,29 Fl. 1005 .Sllfric (Bata), 29 908? ^thelwold, Bishop, 28 984 1721 Akenside, Mark, 214, 219 1770 735 Alcuin, 27 804 Alexander, Sir W. (see Stirling, Earl of) Fl. 1420 Andrew of Wyntoun, 91 1555 Andrewes, Lancelot, 153, 154 1626 1667 Arbuthnot, Dr. John, 185 1735 1822 Arnold, Matthew, 248 1888 1515 Ascham, Roger, 84, 99 1568 1775 Austen, Jane, 210 1817 1561 Bacon, Sir Francis, 104, 108, 109, 123, 144, 152. .1626 673 Baeda, 3, 7, 14, 15, 25, 26 735 1816 Bailey, Philip, 247 1316? Barbour, John, 91 1395 1475? Barclay, Alexander, 88 1552 1820 Barnes, William, 246 1886 1630 Barrow, Isaac, 179 1677 1615 Baxter, Richard, 154 1691 1735 Beattie, James, 216, 220 1803 1584 Beaumont, Francis, 144-145 1616 1616 Beaumont, Joseph, 159 1699 1803 Beddoes, Thomas, 244 1849 1640 Behn, Aphra, 194 1689 269 2/0 ENGLISH LITERATURE Born. Died. 628? Benedict, Biscop, 26 690 1748 Bentham, Jeremy, 208 1832 1662 Bentley, Richard, 182, 190 1742 1685 Berkeley, Bishop, 188, 190 1753 1388? Berners, Juliana, 75 1467 Berners, Lord, 83 1532 1650? Blackmore, Sir Richard, 187 1729 1699 Blair, Robert, 213 1746 1757 Blake, William, 222-224 1827 Fl. 1470-1492. . . .Blind Harry, 91 1766 Bloomfield, Robert, 225 1823 1545 Bodley, Sir Thomas, 154 1613 1678 Bolingbroke, Lord, 185, 190, 199 1751 1740 Boswell, James, 199 1795 1627 Boyle, Robert, 151 1691 Broome, Richard, 148 1652? 1554 Brooke, Lord (Fulke Greville), 123 1628 1689 Broome, William, 185 1745 1778 Brown, Thomas, 208 1820 1605 Browne, Sir Thomas, 154 1682 1591 Browne, William, 157 1643 1812 Browning, Robert, 224, 244, 247 1889 1730 Bruce, James, 209 1794 1746 Bruce, Michael, 221, 222 1767 1628 Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 176, 193 1687 1628 Bunyan, John, 168 1688 1729 Burke, Edmund, 199, 205 1797 1643 Burnet, Bishop, 1797182 1715 1752 Bumey, Frances (Madame D'Arblay), 202. . . .1840 1759 Burns, Robert, 90, 222, 226, 243 1796 1577 Burton, Robert, 154 1640 1692 Butler, Bishop, 190 1752 1612 Butler, Samuel, 174, 181 1680 1788 Byron, Lord, 236, 237, 243, 244 1824 Fl. 670 Caedmon, 3, 12-19 1551 Camden, William, 151 1623 1777 Campbell, Thomas, 207, 235 1844 Temp. Hen. VL.Campeden, Hugh de, 75 Campion, Thomas, 108 1619 INDEX 271 Born. Died. 1770 Canning, George, 207 1827 1393 Capgrave, John, 75 1464 1598?. Carew, Thomas, 158 1639? 1795 Carlyle, Thomas, 206 1881 1422? Caxton, William, 77, 78, £6, 87 1491? 1748 Cecil, Richard, 208 1810 1667? Centlivre, Susannah, 194 1723 1780 Chalmers, Dr., 208 1847 1559? Chapman, George, 117, 141-143 1634 1619 Charleton, Walter, 181 1707 1752 Chatterton, Thomas, 217 1770 1340 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 34, 52, 61-70, 78, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 216 1400 1514 Cheke, Sir John, 82 1557 FI. 1430 Chestre, Thomas, 75 1602 Chillingworth, William, 150, 153, 179 1644 1731 Churchill, Charles, 214 1764 1671 Cibber, CoUey, 185, 195 1757 1609 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 150, 153. . . . 1674 1675 Clarke, Samuel, 190 1729? 1819 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 248 1861 1772 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 122, 166, 206-208, 227, 229, 230 1834 1467? Colet, John, 82, 104 1519 1650 Collier, Jeremy, 194 1726 1676 Collins, Anthony, 190 1729 1721 Collins, William, 157, 214, 220 1759 1732 Colman, George (elder) , 195 1794 1762 Colman, George (younger), 195 1836 1670 Congreve, William, 194, 195 1729 1562 Constable, Henry, 119, 156 1613 1577? Coryat, Thomas, 152 1617 1630 Cotton, Charles, 117, 191 1687 1571 Cotton, Sir Robert, 154 1631 1488 Coverdale, Miles, 85 1568 1618 Cowley, Abraham, 159, 172, 173, 182, 191 1667 1731 Cowper, William, 90, 213, 222-225, 243 1800 1754 Crabbe, George, 222, 225 1832 1489 Cranmer, Thomas, 85 1556 1613? Crashaw, Richard, 7, 157, 158 1649 1617 Cudworth, Ralph, 179 1688 272 ENGLISH LITERATURE Born. Died. 1732 Cumberland, Richard, 195 181 1 Fl. 8th century . .Cynewulf, 5-7, 12, 15, 19, 21, 22, 48, 49 1562 Daniel, Samuel, 108, 119, 121, 152 1619 1795 Darley, George, 244 1846 1606 Davenant, Sir William, 148, 174, 193 1668 Fl. 1623 Davenport, Robert, 148 1569 Davies, Sir John, 123 1626 P'l. 1606 Day, John, 143 1661? Defoe, Daniel, 183, 187-189 1731 1570? Dekker, Thomas, 141, 142 1641? 1615 Denham, Sir John, 172, 173 1669 1785 De Quincey, Thomas, 207 1859 1573 Donne, John, 124, 157 1631 1637 Dorset, Charles Sackville, Earl of, 177 1706 1474? Douglas, Gawin, 90, 93 1522 1563 Drayton, Michael, 119, 121, 122 1631 1585 Drummond, of Hawthornden, William, 124, 157. 1649 1631 Dryden, John, 68, 159, 168, 172-174, 178, 181, 184, 193, 198, 216, 238 1700 Du Jon Francis (see Junius) 1465? Dunbar, William, 90, 92-94 1530? 924 Dunstan, Archbishop, 28 988 1700? I^yer, John, 219 1758 640? Ealdhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, 3, 18. 709 1601? Earle, John, 153 1665 Ecgberht, Archbishop, 27 766 1767 Edgeworth, Maria, 210 1849 1490? Elyot, Sir Thomas, 83 1546 1467 Erasmus, 82, 87 1536 1635? Etherege, Sir George, 194 1691 1620 Evelyn, John, 182 1706 Fairfax, Edward, 116 1635 1678 Farquhar, George, 194 1707 1683 Fenton, Elijah, 185 1730 1750 Fergusson, Robert, 222 1774 1782 Ferrier, Susan, 210 1854 1707 Fielding, Henry, 195, 201 1754 Filmer, Sir Robert, 180 1653 INDEX 273 Born. - Died. 1459? Fisher, Bishop, 82 1535 1809 Fitzgerald, Edward, 247 1883 Flecknoe, Richard, 176 1678? Flemming, Robert, 80 1483 1588? Fletcher, Giles, 157 1623 1579 Fletcher, John, 139, 144, 1^5, 161 1625 1582 Fletcher, Phineas, 157 1650 Florence of Worcester, 39 1118 1553? Florio, John, 117 1625 1720 Foote, Samuel, 195 1777 Fl. 1639 Ford, John, 147 1394? Fortescue, Sir John, '^'] 1476? 1516 Foxe, John, loi 1587 1608 Fuller, Thomas, 153, 154 1661 Fl. 1140? Gaimar, Geoffrey, 41 1717 Garrick, David, 195, 216 1779 1661 Garth, Sir Samuel, 187 1719 1525? Gascoigne, George, 99, 124 1577 1685 Gay, John, 185, 187, 195, 222 1732 mo? Geoffrey of Monmouth, 40, 44, 71 1154 1737 Gibbon, Edward, 203 1794 Fl. 1639 Glapthorne, Henry, 148 Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of , 79 1446 1756 Godwin, William, 210 1836 1536? Golding, Arthur, 100 1605? 1728 Goldsmith, Oliver, 195, 199, 202, 206, 220, 221 1774 1540 Googe, Bamaby, loi 1594 1555 Gosson, Stephen, 108 1624 1325? Gower, John, 58. 59. 69, 79 1408 Grafton, Richard, 102, 152 1572? 1716 Gray, Thomas, 157, 174, 215-216, 219-221, 23s 1771 1696 Green, Matthew, 187 1737 1560? Greene, Robert, no, 131, 132, 134.. . .' 1592 Greville, Fulke (see Brooke, Lord) Grey, William, Bishop of Ely, 80 1478 1519 Grimoald, Nicholas, 97 1562 1446? Grocyn, William, 82 1519 Gunthorpe, John, Dean of Wells, 80 1498 T 274 ENGLISH LITERATURE Born. Died. 1605 Habington, William, 159 1654 1552? Hakluyt, Richard, 109 1616 1584 Hales, John, 153, 179 1656 1651 Halifax, Charles Montague, Lord, 177 1715 1574 Hall, Joseph, Bishop of Norwich, 124, 153 1656 1764 Hall, Robert, 208 1831 1777 Hallam, Henry, 209 1859 1677 Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 216 1746 1378 Harding, John, 75 1465? 1561 Harington, Sir John, 116 1612 1611 Harrington, James, 123, 180 1677 1705 Hartley, David, 203 1757 1545? Harvey, Gabriel, loi, 108, no 1630 1578 Harvey, William, 151 1657 Hawes, Stephen, 86 1523? 1745 Hayley, William, 209 1820 1778 Hazlitt, William, 207 1830 1793 Hemans, Felicia, 244 1835 1084? Henry of Huntingdon, 40 1155 1430? Henryson, Robert, 92 1506? 1593 Herbert, George, 157, 158 1633 1591 Herrick, Robert, 157-160, 219 1674 1497? Heywood, John, 128 1580? Heywood, Thomas, 100 1650? Higden, Ranulf , 70 1364 1588 Hobbes, Thomas, 123, 150, 153, 180 1679 1370? Hoccleve, Thomas, 73 1450? 1745 Holcroft, Thomas, 210 1809 Holinshed, Raphael, 102 1580? 1799 Hood, Thomas, 225 1845 1554? Hooker, Richard, 109 1600 1770? Hope, Thomas, 210 1831 171 1 Hume, David, 202-205, 208 1776 Hunnis, William, 120 1597 1784 Hunt, Leigh, 241, 242 1859 1694 Hutcheson, Francis, 203 1746 1753 Inchbald, Elizabeth, 210 1821 1394 James L of Scotland, 91 1437 1773 Jeffrey, Francis, 207 1850 Fl. 1387 John of Trevisa, 70, 78 INDEX 275 Born. I^'ed. 1709 Johnson, Samuel, 197, 198, 205, 213, 216 1784 1573? Jonson, Ben, 109, 133, 141, 142, 144, 157, 160 .. . 1637 1589 Junius (Francis du Jon), 16. 1677 iSth century "Junius" (writer of the "Letters," 1769- 1772) , 197, 205 1795 Keats, John, 117, 228, 240-244 1821 1792 Keble, John, 247 1866 1637 Ken, Thomas, Bishop, 177 ?7ii 1819 Kingsley, Charles, 247 1875 1550? Knolles, Richard, 152 1610 1557? Kyd, Thomas, 131 i595? Lacy, John, 194 1681 1775 Lamb, Charles, 123, 148, 207, 208 1834 1802 Landon, Letitia Elizabeth ("L. E. L."), 244.. 1838 1775 Landor, Walter Savage, 207, 208 1864 1735 Langhom, Dr. John, 221 1779 1330? Langland, William, 49, 52-58, loi 1400 1485? Latimer, Hugh, Bishop of Worcester, 86 1555 Fl. 1200 Layamon, 33, 34. 41-43. 48 1757 Lee, Harriet, 210 1851 1653? Lee, Nat, 194 1692 1750 Lee, Sophia, 210 1824 1506? Leland, John, 83 1552 Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, 3 1072 1616 L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 180 1704 Lichfield, William, 75 i447 1468? Lilly, William, 82 1522 1771 Lingard, John, 209 1851 1632 Locke, John, 123, 180 1704 1794 Lockhart, John Gibson, 209, 210 1854 1558? Lodge, Thomas, no, 120, 124 1625 1618 Lovelace, Richard, 158 1658 1370? Lydgate, John, 47.72,73.78, 99. loi ^451^' 1554? Lyly, John, 106, 131 1606 1490 Lyndsay, Sir David, 94, 95, 221 1555 1765 Mackintosh, Sir James, 206 1832 1697 Macklin, Charles, 195 i797 1772 McCrie, Thomas, 209 1835 1736 Macpherson, James, 217 1796 2/6 ENGLISH LITERATURE Born. Died. 1705? Mallet, David, 216 ■ 1765 FI. 1470 Malory, Sir Thomas, j-j 1766 Malthus, Thomas, 209 1834 1670? Mandeville, Bernard, 190 1733 14th century . . . .Maundevile, Sir John, 70 Fl. 1288-1388. . . .Mannyng, of Brunne, Robert, 38, 51 Fl. 1200 Map, Walter, 45 1564 Marlowe, Christopher, 119, 120, 131 133, 143, 222 1593 1575? Marston, John, 124, 141, 142 1634 1621 Marvell, Andrew, 157, 161, 174, 175, 219 1678 1583 Massinger, Philip, 146 1640 Matthew Paris, 39 1259 1595 May, Thomas, 153 1650 1735 Mickle, William, 221 1788 1570? Middleton, Thomas, 146 1627 1773 Mill, James, 209 1836 1608 Milton, John, 16, 90, 96, 144, 155, 161-168, 171, 173, 219, 224 1674 1300? Minot, Laurence, 51 1352? 1744 Mitford, William, 209 1827 Montague, Charles (see Halifax, Lord) 1779 Moore, Thomas, 209, 236 1852 1614 More, Henry, 159 1687 1478 More, Sir Thomas, 40, 82, 83 1535 1649 Mulgrave, John Sheffield, Earl of, 177 1721 1727 Murphy, Arthur, 195 1805 Fl. 1638 Nabbes, Thomas, 148 1567 Nash, Thomas, 108, 131 1601 Fl. 1375 Nassington, William of, 75 1620 Nevile, Henry, 180 1694 1642 Newton, Sir Isaac, 178 1727 1725 Newton, John, 208 1807 Fl. 1250 Nicholas of Guildford, 50 Fl. 1390 Nicholas of Hereford, 57 1535? North, Sir Thomas, 117 1601? 1532 Norton, Thomas, 75, 129 1584 1653 Oldham, John, 177 1683 1769 Opie, Amelia, 210 1853 INDEX 277 Born. Died. 1075 •. .Ordericus Vitalis, 39 1143? Fl. 1200 Orrmin, 42 Oswald of Worcester, 28 972 1652 Otway, Thomas, 194 1685 158 1 Overbury, Sir Thomas, 153 1613 1737 Paine, Thomas, 206 1809 1540? Painter, William, 102 1594 1743 Paley, William, 208 1805 1504 Parker, Archbishop, 151 1575 1679 Parnell, Thomas, 185 1718 1823 Patmore, Coventry, 246 1395? Pecock, Reginald, tj 1460? 1558? Peele, George, no. 131, 135 1597? 1633 Pepys, Samuel, 182 1703 1729 Percy, Thomas, Bishop, 216, 223 1811 1623 Petty, Sir William, 151, 180 1687 1510? Phaer, Thomas, 100 1560 1675? Phillips, Ambrose, 187 1749 1676 Phillips, John, 187 1709 Phreas, John, 80 1465 1667 Pomfret, John, 187 1702 1500 Pole, Reginald, 104 1558 1688 Pope, Alexander, 173, 175, 176, 181, 184-188, 190, 198, 200, 213, 216, 219, 222 1744 1664 Prior, Matthew, 177, 185, 187 1721 1600 Prynne, William, 155 1669 1577 Purchas, Samuel, 152 1626 FI. 15th century. Purvey, John, 57 After 1427 1530? Puttenham, George, 107 1600? 1592 Quarles, Francis, 159 1644 1764 Radcliffe, Ann, 210 1823 1552 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 114, 11 ■;, 152 1618 1686 Ramsay, Allan, 187, 221, 222 1758 1605 Randolph, Thomas, 148 1634 1710 Reid, Thomas, 203 1796 1723 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 199 1792 1772 Ricardo, David, 209 1823 2yS ENGLISH LITERATURE Born. Died. 1689 Richardson, Samuel, 200 1761 Ripley, George, 75 • 1490 Fl. 1295 Robert of Gloucester, 44 1721 Robertson, William, 202 1793 Fl, 1551 Robinson, Ralph, 83 1647 Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 177 1680 1509? Rogers, John, 85 1555 1763 Rogers, Samuel, 228, 235 1855 Rolle, of Hampole, Richard, 38 1349 1634 Roscommon, Dillon Wentworth, Earl of, 177. . . 1684 1828 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 249 1882 1830 Rossetti, Christina, 249 1894 1674 Rowe, Nicholas, 195 1718 Fl. 17th century. . Rowley, William, 148 Roy, William, 85 1531 1636 Russell, Lady Rachel, 182 1723 1536 Sackville, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, 95, 96, 99, 100, 129 1608 St. John, Henry (see Bolingbroke, Lord) 1577 Sandys, George, 152 1644 1697 Savage, Richard, 214 1743 Savile, George (see Halifax, Lord) 1747 Scott, Thomas, 208 1821 1771 Scott, Sir Walter, 90, 206, 210-212, 216, 228, 234 1832 1639 Sedley, Sir Charles, 177, 194 1701 1584 Selden, John, 151, 152 1654 Sellynge, William, 80 1640 Shadwell, Thomas, 176, 194 1692 1671 Shaftesbury, Anthony, Earl of, 190 1713 1564 Shakespeare, William, 82, 90, 96, 98, 117-121, 130-142, 161, 170-172, 193, 212, 216, 218 1616 1792 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 22, 228, 236, 238-244. . .1822 1714 Shenstone, William, 216, 221 1763 1751 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 195 1816 1641 Sherlock, William, 179 1707 1596 Shirley, James, 148, 160 1666 Fl. 1440 Shirley, John, 78 1577 Sibbes, Richard, 154 1635 1622 Sidney, Algernon, 180 1683 INDEX 279 Born. Died. 1554 Sidney, Sir Philip, 102, 106-108, in, 115, 119 . .1586 FI. nth and j Simeon of Durham, 39 I2th centuries ' 1460? Skelton, John, 79. 87, 88. 95 1528? 1722 Smart, Christopher, 221 1771 1723 Smith, Adam, 204 1790 1512 Smith, Sir Thomas, 82 1577 1771 Smith, Sydney, 207 1845 1721 Smollett, Tobias, 201 1771 1633 South, Robert, 179 1716 1660 Southerne, Thomas, 194 1746 1774 Southey, Robert, 207, 209, 227-229 1843 1560? Southwell, Robert, 118 1595 1552 Speed, John, 151 1629 1562 Spelman, Sir Henry, 151 1641 1552? Spenser, Edmund, 91, 95, 99, 107, 110-117, 119, 122, 157, 170, 216, 222 1599 1672 Steele, Sir Richard, 191, 192 1729 1713 Sterne, Laurence, 201, 202 1768 1753 Stewart, Dugald, 208 1828 1635 Stillingfleet, Edward, 179 1699 1567? Stirling, Sir William Alexander, Earl of, 124, 157 1640 1525 Stow, John, 102, 152 1605 1609 Suckling, Sir John, 148, 158 1642 1516? Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 86, 88, 95-97- • ^547 1667 Swift, Jonathan, 183, 185, 188, 189, 198 1745 1837 . . .Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 7 1613 Taylor, Jeremy, 153 1667 1628 Temple, Sir William, 182, 191 1699 1809 Tennyson, Alfred, 5, 7, 20, 41, 67, 224, 244, 246, 247 1892 1688 Theobald, Lewis, 185, 216 1744 1225? Thomas of Erceldoune, 91 1300? 1700 Thomson, James, 94, 157, i83, 219, 235 1748 1686 Tickell, Thomas, 187 1740 1630 Tillotson, John, Archbishop, 179 1694 1656 Tindal, Matthew, 190 i733 1670 Toland, John, 190 1722 Fl. 1551 Tottel, Richard, 97, 100 280 ENGLISH LITERATURE Born. Died. Fl. 1600-1613 Tourneur, Cyril, 143 1530? Turbervile, George, loi, 102 iS94? 1808 Turner, Charles Tennyson, 246 1879 Turpin, Archbishop, 45 1526? Tusser, Thomas, 97 1580 1484? Tyndale, William, 83, 84 1536 1505 Udall, Nicholas, 129 1556 1580 Ussher, Archbishop, 15 1656 1666? Vanbrugh, Sir John, 194 1726 1621 Vaughan, Henry, 159, 219 1693 1120? Wace, 41 1184? 1605 Waller, Edmund, 159, 172, 173 1687 1616 Wallis, John, 151 1703 1717 Walpole, Horace, 199 1797 1676 Walpole, Sir Robert, 197 1745 1593 Walton, Izaak, 155, 182 1683 1698 Warburton, William, Bishop, 185, 190, 216 1779 1460 Warham, Archbishop, 82 1532 1558? Warner, William, 121 1609 1722 Warton, Joseph, 220 1800 1728 Warton, Thomas, 207, 216, 220 1790 Fl. i6th century. Webbe, William, 107 1582? Webster, John, 144, 146 1652? 1708 Wesley, Charles, 224 1788 1703 Wesley, John, 208 1791 1714 Whitfield, George, 208 1770 1720 White, Gilbert, 200 1793 1727 Wilkes, John, 197 1797 1095? William of Malmesbury, 39 1142? Fl. 1327 William of Shoreham, 38 Fl. 13th century. William of Waddington, 38 1785 Wilson, Professor John (Christopher North), 207 1854 1520? Wilson, Thomas, 97 1581 1588 Wither, George, 157, 159, 161 1667 1659 Wollaston, William, 190 1724 Worcester, John Tiptoft, Earl of , 79 1470 1770 Wordsworth, William, 92, 118, 207, 221, 223, 225, 227, 230-234. 239, 243 1850 INDEX 281 Born. Died. 1568 Wotton, Sir Henry, 92, 123, 152 1639 Fl. 1002-T023. . . . Wulfstan, Archbishop, 29 1503 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 86, 88, 95, 96 1542 1640? Wycherley, William, 194 1715 1320? Wyclif, John, 52, 53, 57 1384 1681 Young, Edward, 213 1765 INDEX TO FOREIGN AUTHORS Born. Died. 1474 Ariosto, no, 116 1533 1313 Boccaccio, 61, 62, 74, 80, 99 1375 1434 Boiardo, no 1494 1636 Boileau, 172 171 1 Calprenede, 192 1663 1424 Chalcondylas, 82 1511 Fl. nth century. .Chrestien of Troyes, 44 106 B.c Cicero, 94, 100 43 B.C. Contarini, 104 1550 1606 Coraeille, 192 1684 1717 D'Alembert, 197 1783 1265 Dante, 61, 62, 70 1321 Dares Phrygius, 47 385 B.c Demosthenes, 100 322 B.C. Dictys Cretensis, 47 1713 Diderot, 197 1784 1749 Goethe, 198, 206, 211 1832 13th century Guido delle Colonne, 47 Homer, 117, 143, 186, 224 65 B.c Horace, 163 8 B.C. 1621 La Fontaine, 172 1695 1729 Lessing, 192, 206 1781 1496 Marot, III 1544 T280? Meung, Jean de, 59 282 INDEX 283 Born. Died. 1622 Moliere, 193 1673 1533 Montaigne, 117, 191 1592 1689 Montesquieu, 197, 202 1755 43 B.c Ovid, 94, 100 17 A.D, 1304 Petrarca, 58, 61, 80, 96, 116 1374 427 B.c Plato, 96 347 B.C. Fl. 50-100 Plutarch, 100 1639 Racine, 193 1699 Fl. i2th century. .Robert of Boron, 44 1712 Rousseau, 197 1778 1458 Sannazaro, 102 1530 1759 Schiller, 198 1805 1601 Scudery, 192 1667 Fl. 930. Skallagrimsson, Egil, 24 45? Statius, 47 96? 1544 Tasso, no, 116 1595 70 B.c Virgil, 7, 47, 93, 96, 100, 177 19 B.C. 1694 .Voltaire, 132, 135, 195, 197, 202 1778 STUDENTS' READINGS AND QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE •j^2^^^ STUDENTS' READINGS AND QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE BY HARRIET L. MASON DREXEL INSTITUTE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1898 All rights reserved. Co- hr - Copyright, 1898, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. NorfajooU i^ress J. S. Cushinp; & Co. — Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER I English Literature before the Norman Conquest (670-1066) PAGE Syllabus A. The Anglo-Saxon Age 19 Questions on the Period . . . . . -. . 22 CHAPTER II From the Conquest to Chaucer's Death (1066- I 400) Syllabus A. The Age of Transition English .... 25 Syllabus B. Study of Chaucer 28 Questions on the Period ....... 30 CHAPTER III From Chaucer's Death to Elizabeth (1400- 1 558) Syllabus A. The Barren Age and the Italian Renaissance . 34 Questions on the Period ....... 37 CHAPTER IV The Reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) • Syllabus A. Exclusive of the Drama 40 Syllabus B. The Drama 42 Syllabus C. Study of Shakespeare 44 Questions on the Period 47 5 CONTENTS CHAPTER V From Elizabeth's Death to the Restoration (1603- I 660) PAGE Syllabus A. The Puritan Age ...... 53 Questions on the Period ....... 56 CHAPTER VI From the Restoration to the Death of Pope and Swift (1 660- 1 745) Syllabus A. The Critical Age 60 Questions on the Period ...... 63 CHAPTER VH Prose Literature, from the Death of Pope to the French Revolution, and from the French Revolution to the Death of Scott (I 745- I 789-1 832) Syllabus A. The Dictatorship of Samuel Johnson . . 67 Syllabus B. The Stir of New Thought made by the French Revolution ....... 70 Questions on the Period 73 CHAPTER VIII Poetry from i 730-1832 Syllabus A. Transition Poetry 77 Syllabus B. Beginning of Modern Poetry .... 79 Questions on the Period . . . . . . .81 INTRODUCTION It has been conceded that Stopford Brooke's "Outlines of English Literature " is a classic, and that it is likely to remain one. In the February Bookman, 1898, the following state- ment by Mr. Brander Matthews is made : "And here it is that is less interesting than Mr. Stopford Brooke's "Outlines of English Literature," and Pro- fessor Jebbs' "Outlines of Greek Literature," — the two best brief histories of literature in our language, having both of them the elementary virtues Matthew Arnold insisted upon, and having each of them also a delightful savor of indi- viduality." There is a tendency at the present time to make the study of literature in schools too detailed, too microscopic, too specialized, so that the general sweep, the large view, is lost sight of. We are in danger of losing the capacity for catho- licity in literature. Mr. Brooke, with rare power, has given us the broad view. And to see through his eyes is the best possible equipment for any student of literature, either for general knowledge or as a basis for special knowledge later on. But as a text-book, the hand-book, of course, must be sup- plemented, and this requires an infinite amount of labor for each teacher, and much hektograph work, — perhaps person- ally done. This " Students' Readings and Questions " has 7 8 INTRODUCTION grown out of the necessity of the author to give something into her students' hands for actual work i?i the library. In the form of syllabuses and slips it has been tested, and is being tested by her classes every day. The "Readings" are all original extracts, or texts, selected to represent Mr. Brooke's rating of authors, and to interest the student. A large amount of imaginative literature, by poem or novel, is added as a clothing for the period studied. In accordance with the best accepted methods of instruction, very little critical matter is given. It is the author himself, not what others have thought of him, that the student should know. The " Questions " call the attention of the student to the salient points made by Mr. Brooke in his development. They challenge a search, and are by no means leading questions. They also seek to suggest the continuity of the spirit of English literature, — a continuity which Mr. Brooke has marked most signally. The plan of using " Students' Readings and Questions " in the author's own classes has been as follows : First. An assignment of a certain amount on the reading list is made, together with the general reading. At the next recitation students bring in the result of their search. They are encouraged to give their own impressions of what they have read. Then, by questioning, they are led to see the part each author plays in the story of our English literature. In this class discussion there is every opportunity for each teacher to impress his own individuality, and at the same time develop his students' power of assimilation and dis- crimination. In the same fashion the reading-list is covered. Second. So far, the chapter in the hand-book covering the period studied has been used only as reference. It is now to INTRODUCTION 9 be re-read as a whole to get the development, — a develop- ment which the students are better able to appreciate from the study of the reading-list. To direct their attention to these points the " Questions " are used in the reading. Then in recitation the " Questions " are answered, and the resume of the period is thus completed. To any one wishing to take up the study of English litera- ture without a teacher, this book, it is believed, would be of great service. But primarily, the author's hope is that in this work already done, other teachers of literature may perhaps find a saving for their own time and labor. And though . based upon Mr. Brooke's handbook, the " Readings and Questions " may be used with any handbook of English literature. LIST OF REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY BY AUTHORS [In the syllabuses the references appear under the name of the author ; as, Morley, I ; Brooke, In this list the full title of the book, its pub- lisher, and date of publication are given. The word (text) appearing in the syllabuses shows that the reference book is an original text : viz., "Sir Thomas More, Utopia (text)," means that the student handles the complete Utopia that More wrote.] Addison, Joseph . . . The Spectator (Bohn's lib.). N.Y. Mac- millan, 1885. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; ed. Benjamin Thorpe. 2 v. L. Long- mans, 1 86 1. Archer, Thomas . . . Highway of Letters. N.Y. Randolph. Preface 1883. Arnold, Matthew . . . Poems. (Aster ed.) N.Y. Crowell, n. d. Austen, Jane Emma. 2 v. B. Roberts, 1892. Persuasion. B. Roberts, 1892. Bacon, Francis .... Essays. (Abbot ed.) 2 v. N.Y. Long- mans, 1889. Bacon, G: P ed. A Midsummer Night's Dream. N.Y. Longmans, 1895. Bates, Charlotte F. . . ed. Cambridge Library of Poetry and Song. N.Y. Crowell, 1892. Barr, Mrs. A. E. ... Friend Olivia. N.Y. Dodd, 1890. Black, William .... Judith Shakespeare. N.Y. Harpers, 1S93. Brandes, G : M. C. . . William Shakespeare. 2 v. N.Y. Mac- millan, 1898. II 12 REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES Brink, Bernhard ten . History of English Literature. 3 v. N.Y. Holt, 1889-92. Five Lectures on Shakespeare. N.Y. Holt, 1895. Brooke, S. A History of Early English Literature. N.Y. Macmillan, 1892. Bryant, W: C Poems. (Household ed.). B. Houghton. Bunyan, John Pilgrim's Progress. B. Houghton, 1887. Byron, G: G. Noel, Lord Poems. (Apollo ed.) L. Whit- taker, 1897. Chambers, Robert . . ed. Cyclopaedia of English Literature. 2 v. Phil. Lippincott, 1876 or any later edi- tion. Chatterton, Thomas . Poems. 2 v. N.Y. Macmillan, 1891. Clarke, C: C Riches of Chaucer. N.Y. Macmillan, 1896. Coleridge, S. T Letters and Notes on Shakespeare. L. Bell, 1888. Poems. (Astor ed.) N.Y. Crowell, n. d. Craik, Henry English Prose Selections. 5 V. N.Y. Macmillan, 1893-95. Deane, Mary Mr. Zinzan of Bath. N.Y. Button, 1891. Defoe, Daniel Journal of the Plague in London. (Bohn's ed.) N.Y. Macmillan, 1888. De Quincey, Thomas Works. 13 v. N.Y. Macmillan, 1890. Dobson, Austin .... Poems. 2 v. N.Y. Dodd, 1892. Dowden, Edward . . . Introduction to Shakespeare. N.Y. Blackie, 1895. Transcripts and Studies. L. Paul, 1888. Shakespere; His Mind and Art. L. Paul, 1887. Doyle, A. C White Company. N.Y. Lovell, 1891. Earle, John Anglo-Saxon Literature. London Society, 1888. Beowulf in Prose. L. Clarendon Press, 1892. REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES 1 3 Edgeworth, Maria . . Castle Rackrent. (Illustrated standard novels.) N.Y. Macmillan, n. d. Fielding, Henry. . . . Tom Jones. 2 v. L. Dent, 1893. Filon, P. M. A Garrick's Pupil. C. McClurg, 1893. Garnett, J. M Selections in English Prose. B. Ginn, 1891. Gervinus, G: G Shakespeare Commentaries. L. Smith, 1887. Gesta Romanorum ; tr. by Charles Swan. (Bohn's lib.) N.Y. Macmillan, n. d. Gibbon, Edward . . . Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 3v. Phil. Lippincott, 1887. Goldsmith, Oliver. . . She Stoops to Conquer. (Literary gems.) N.Y. Putnam, n. d. Vicar of Wakefield. (Illus. by Hugh Thomson.) N.Y. Macmillan, 1891. Green, Robert; Marlowe, Christopher; Jonson, Ben. Poems. (Bohn's lib.) N.Y. Macmillan, 1889. Green, J: R: Short History of the English People. (Illus. ed.) 4v. N.Y. Harper, 1893-95. Hall, Jno. Lesslie . . . Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic. B. Heath, 1897. Hallam, Henry .... View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. 3 v. L. Murray, 1878. Hardy, A. S Passe Rose. B. Houghton, 1889. Hawei's, Mrs. M. E. (Joy) Chaucer for Schools. Phil. Lippin- cott, 1886. Hazlitt, William . . . Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. N.Y. Macmillan, 1890. Sketches and Essays. N.Y. Macmillan, 1890. Hume, David History of England. 6 v. N.Y. Harper, 1850-53. Jameson, Mrs. A. B. (Murphy) Shakespeare^s Heroines. N.Y. Macmillan, 1897. Johnson, Samuel . . . Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. (Laurel Crowned Tales.) C McClurg, 1890. 14 REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES Johnson, Samuel. . . Livesof the Poets; ed. by Matthew Arnold. N.Y. Macmillan, 1886. Boswell, James. Life of Johnson; ed. by G: B. Hill. 6v. N.Y. Harper, 1891. Jusserand, J: J. A. A. J, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. L. Unwin, 1890. Piers Ploughman. N.Y. Putnam, 1894. Keats, John Poems. (Astor ed.) N.Y. Crowell, n. d. Kingsley, Charles . . . Westward Ho ! N.Y. Macmillan, 1890. Lamb, Charles .... Essays. (Temple classics.) 2 v. L. Dent, 1897. Landor, W. S Imaginary conversations. 6 v. L. Dent, 1891. Lanier, Sidney . . . . ed. Boys' Percy. N.Y. Scribner, 1882. Boys' Froissart. N.Y. Scribner, 1881. Lingard, John History of England. 10 v. Dub. Duffy, 1888. Longfellow, H: W. . . ed. Poets and Poetry of Europe. B. Houghton, 1893. Poems. (Household ed.) B. Houghton. Lowell, J. R Literary Essays. 5 v. B. Houghton, 1864-92. Macfarland, C Camp of Refuge. N.Y. Longmans, 1895. Mackay, Charles . . . Comp. 1 001 Gems of Poetry. L. Rout- ledge, n. d. Main, D. M Comp. Treasury of English sonnets. Manchester, Ireland, 1880. Malory, Sir Thomas . ed. Mort d' Arthur. (Temple classics.) 4v. L. Dent, 1897. Selections from Malory's Mort d' Arthur; ed. by William Mead. B. Ginnj 1896. Marlowe, Christopher Plays. (Mermaid ed.) L. Vizetelly, 1890. Maundevile, Sir John Marvellous Adventures of Sir John Maun- devile. West. Constable, 1895. McPherson, James . . Ossian's Poems, N.Y. Macmillan, 1885. Milton, John Poems. (Aldine ed.) 2 v. N.Y. Mac- millan. REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES 15 Mills, Abraham . . Minto, William . . Moore, Frankfort . Moore, Thomas . . More, Sir Thomas Morley, Henry . . Cassell. Amantis. N.Y. Morris, Richard, and Moulton, Richard . . O'Connor, William . . Palgrave, F. T Paston Letters, The; Percy, Dr. Thomas . . Richardson, A. S. . . . Robertson, Dr Rossetti, D. G Saintsbury, George o . Scott, Sir Walter, Bart. Shakespeare, William Shelley, P. B , British Literature. 2 v. N.Y. Harper, 1851. . Mediation of Ralph Hardelot. N.Y. Har- pers, 1888. Jessamy Bride. N.Y. Stone, 1896. , Poems. (Astor ed.) N.Y. Crowell. , Utopia. (Camelot classics.) L. Scott. English Writers. ii v. N.Y. Cassell, 1887-91. Shorter English Poems, ed. Gower's Confessio Routledge, 1889. Skeat, W. W. Specimens of Early Eng' lish. 2 parts. N.Y. Macmillan, 1887 Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. Ox Clarendon Press, 1888. Three Tales. B. Houghton, 1892. Golden Treasury. (First series.) Macmillan, 1891, or (Astor ed.) Crowell. ed. by James Gairdner. 3 v. L. niillan, 1874. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, L. Bell, 1889, or i v. (Astor ed.) Crowell, n. d. Familiar Talks on English Literature. C. McClurg, 1892. History of Charles V. 3 v. Phila. Lip- pincott, 1884. Poems. (Astor ed.) N.Y. Crowell, n. d. English Prose. C. Jensen, 1886. Novels. (Victoria ed.) E. Black, 1897. Poems. (Globe ed.) N.Y. Macmillan. Plays. (Temple ed.) L. Dent. Sonnets. (Temple classics.) L. Dent. Poems. (Astor ed.) N.Y. Crowell. N.Y. N.Y. Mac- 2 V. N.Y. l6 REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES Sheridan, R. B Rivals, and School for Scandal. B. Hough- ton, 1891. Shorthouse, J: H:. . . John Inglesant. N.Y. Macmillan, 1889. Sidney, Sir Philip . . Arcadia. L. Low, 1893. Smollett, Tobias . . . Humphrey Qinker. 2 v. Phila. Lippin- cott, 1895. Songs of Three Centuries ; ed. by J. G. Whittier. B. Houghton, 1875. Southey, Robert .... Life of Nelson. N.Y. Macmillan, -1891. Spenser, Edmund . . . Poetical Works. (Aldine ed.) 5 v. N.Y. Macmillan, 1891. Sterne, Laurence . . . Tristram Shandy. 3 v. Phila. Lippin- cotf, 1894. Swift, Jonathan .... Gulliver's Travels. L. Routledge, n. d. Letters and Journals (selected by Stanley Lane Poole). L. Kegan, 1885. Stevenson, R. L. . . . Kidnapped. N.Y. Scribner, 1889. Taine, H. A History of English Literature. 2 v. N.Y. Holt, 1 89 1. Tennyson, Alfred . . . Poems. (Globe ed.) Macmillan. Thackeray, W: M. . . Henry Esmond. (Biographical ed.) N.Y. Harper, 1898. Walton, Izaak The Complete Angler. C. McClurg, 1893. Ward, T: H: English Poets. 4 v. N.Y. Macmillan, 1897. Watson, William . . . Wordsworth's Grave. N.Y. Stokes, 1892. Welsh, Alfred Development of English Literature. 2 v. in I. C. Griggs, 1891. Wendell, Barrett . . . William Shakespeare. N.Y. Scribner, 1894. Weyman, S. J Shrewsbury. N.Y. Longmans, 1898. Wingate, Charles . . . Shakespeare's Heroines on the Stage. N.Y. Crowell, 1895. Shakespeare's Heroes on the Stage. N.Y. Crowell, 1896. REFERENCE BOOKS IN THE SYLLABUSES 1/ Winter, William . . . Shadows of the Stage. Three series. N.Y. Macmillan. Winslow, Catherine . Readings from the Old Dramatists. 2 parts. B. Lee, 1895. Woods, M. L Esther Vanhomrigh. N.Y. Hovendon, 1891. Wordsworth, William Poems. (Atheneum Press series.) B. Ginn, 1898. c ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST (670-1066) A. ANGLO-SAXON AGE Poetry of the The Traveller's Song Older Eng land over Seas ' ' Poetry of Early Eng- land Deor's Complaint . . Fight at Finnesburg, Beowulf (text) .... (Widsith) Brooke, pp. 3, 4. Morley,Vol.II,pp.9, 10, 11. Morley, Vol. II, pp. 15, 16. Taine, Vol. I, p. 49, ten Brink, I, p. 31. Welsh, Vol. I, p. 99. Earle's Beowulf, pp. 30-35. Hall's Beowulf, Chs. XIX, XXXVI, XXXVII. ten Brink, I, pp. 29, 30. Welsh, Vol. I, pp. 96-98. Paraphrase of the Bible Caedmon. (Genesis) .... Brooke, pp. 292-297. Taine, pp. 52, 53. ten Brink, pp. 43-45. Welsh, pp. 140-142. Religious Songs . . . Ealdhelm, Abbott of Malmes- bury. Judith . . . Unknown Brooke, pp. 333, 334. Taine, Vol. I, pp. 55, 56. Welsh, Vol. I, pp. 99, 100. 10 20 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS Poetry of Early Eng- land Prose of Early Eng- land The Wanderer, Unknown Brooke, pp, 364-368. ten Brink, I, p. 62. The Ruin . ... " Longfellow's Poem, p. 29. Taine, Vol. I, p. 54. Welsh, Vol. I, p. loi. The Seafarer . " Brooke, pp. 362, 363. Morley, II, p. 21. The Grave ... " Longfellow's Poem, p. 28. Taine, I, p. 49. Welsh, I, p. 100. Riddle Cynewulf, ten Brink, I, p. 52. Dream of the Holy Rood . . Song of Brunanburh Fight at Maldon . . Brooke, pp. 440-443. ten Brink, I, pp. 53, 54. Brooke, pp. 316, 317. ten Brink, I, p. 91. Longfellow's Poem, p. 19. ten Brink, I, pp. 93-97. Welsh, I, p. 91. Exeter and Vercelli Books : Fortunes of Man . . Morley's Shorter English Poems, pp. 9, 10. Translation of St. John Bceda the Venerable (lost). Translations Alfred the Great. Richardson, A. S., pp. 38, 39- Welsh, I, pp. 151, 152. Anglo-Saxon Chron- icle (B.C. 60-1154) . Brooke, p. 244. Taine, I, p. 62. Welsh, I, pp. 121, 122. Homilies yElfric. ten Brink, I, pp, 105-107. Earle's xA-nglo-Saxon Lit- erature, p. 218. ANGLO-SAXON AGE 21 Prose of Early Eng- land General Reading Homilies . . . Wulfstan. ten Brink, I, p. in. Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature, pp. 223, 224. Harold Bulwer-Lytton. Passe Rose Arthur Hardy. Thanatopsis • • • Bryant. Skeleton in Armor Longfellow. The Sailor Boy Tennyson. Charge of the Light Brigade . . Tennyson. Green's Short History of England, Ch. I, The Saxons, Section I. Taine, I, Book I, Ch. I, Sections 1-3. 22 STUDENTS READIXGS AND QUESTIONS QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I 1. About what time does English literature begin? 2. Why may the English be proud of their literature? 3. Whence did the English come into England? 4. What people did they drive back? 5. What became of the literature of this people? 6. How does modern English differ from the early English language ? 7. What poetry in MSS. exists in this early tongue? 8. What are the two principal characteristics of this early verse? 9. Give an example of this early form. 10. What three pieces were written on the continent previous to the Anglo-Saxons coming to England? 1 1 . Which of these is ( i ) sad in feeling ; (2) which glad ; (3) and which full of martial spirit ? 12. What is the old Enghsh epic? What does an epic poem mean? 13. In what part of England is the scenery laid? 14. What was the name of the sea-monster and that of his mother? 15. How many creatures did Beowulf slay? 16. What in the poem shows the old German legend carried down in the Nibelungen Lied? 1 7 . What operas give us pictures of the old Anglo-Saxon life and feeling? 18. Where does the social interest of the poem He? 19. Give examples of the fatalism in it. 20. What descriptions are instinct with the characteristic spirit of English poetry ? 21. Why may this poem be called our "Genesis"? 22. Quote four lines from it. 23. What evidences of Christianity in it? ANGLO-SAXON AGE 23 24. How did Christianity modify English poetry? 25. What is our first true English poem? 26. Describe its birthplace, showing that it was a fitting one for the poetry of the English nation. 27. How does Kipling's "Recessional" breathe the same spirit? 28. What is the date of this early poem? 29. Why is the author called the " Saxon Milton"? 30. What in the poem is characteristic of Teutonic domestic manners ? 31 . What tale is told of ^dhelm ? 32. What religious poem celebrates a Jewish heroine? 33. What is meant by the Exeter and Vercelli books? 34. What poem shows the mourning over a desolated city, — probably Bath, England? 35. What modern poem of Thomas Moore has the same feeling ? 36. Which of the old English poems is the most of an artistic whole ? 37. What poem gives a dialogue between an old and young man ? 38. What modern poem of Tennyson's breathes the same spirit ? 39. What poem is filled with the spirit of Bryant's "Than- atopsis," and why? 40. Who is the only one of these early poets whose per- sonality and life is known to us ? 41. Into what two divisions may his poems fall? 42. Why has more religious than war poetry come down to us from this period? 43. What two war poems were inserted in the Chronicle? 44. What two English poems of Tennyson have the same feeling? 45. Which one of the Old English poems seems more savage, and why? 24 students' readings and questions 46. Who was the "Father of EngHsh Prose"? 47. Why may we call him an encyclopedia? 48. In what language were most of his books written? 49. Describe the sacred scene of his death. 50. What famous English scholar left England to go to the court of Charles the Great to found schools? 5 1 . What novel gives a picture of the Court School of Charles the Great? 52. Why is Winchester said to be the cradle of English prose ? 53. What did Alfred do with the English tongue? 54. What kind of books did he translate? 55. How did ^Ifric continue Alfred's work? 56. What piece of impassioned prose shows the inroad made by the Danes? 57. What is the "first history of any Teutonic people in their own language " ? 58. How many years does it cover? 59. What is the character of its make-up ? 60. What English novel gives a picture of Anglo-Saxon England ? 61. What replies does this early literature give to Sin, and Joy, and Death, and Grief? II FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER'S DEATH (1066-1400) A. AGE OF IRANSITION ENGLISH Religious Poetry Historical and Story- telling Poetry Ormulum Orm. Morley, III, pp. 232-235. Morris's Specimens of Early English, Part I, pp. 40, 41. Prick of Conscience, Richard Hampole. Chambers, I, p. II. Handlyng Synne . . Robert of Brunne. Morley, III, pp. 360-363. Piers Ploughman . William Langland. Jusserand's Piers, pp. 23-32. (Pictures also.) Welsh, I, pp. 1 77-181. Brut Layamon. Earle's Anglo-Saxon Litera- ture, pp. 249, 250. Morley, III, pp. 212-231. ten Brink, pp. 191, 192. Gesta Romanorum (text), pp. 106-108. Confessio Amantis, John Gower (text). Morley's Gower, pp. 402-405. Welsh, I, pp. 182-185. Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight . . ten Brink, I, pp. 337-341. 25 26 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS Historical and Story- telling Poetry Early Songs and Ballads Prose The Pearl Morley, IV, pp. 144-149. Poet Lore, Vol. V, pp. 434-436. ten Brink, I, p. 348. Chaucer See Separate Syllabus. Cuckoo Song .... Morley, III, p. 246. Taine, I, p. 89. Canute's Song .... Morley, III, p. 240. Easter Song ten Brink, I, p. 311, 312. The Owl and the Nightingale .... ten Brink, pp. 215-217. Land of Cokaygne . Morley's Shorter English Poems, pp. 18-20. Richardson, A. S., pp. 49-54. Taine, I, pp. 103-106. Ward, I, pp. 243-245. . Lawrence Minot. Morley's Shorter English Poems, pp. 30-33. Morley, III, pp. 235-238. ten Brink, pp. 200, 202, 203. Welsh, I, p. II 7. Robin Hood War Lyrics Siege of Calais Ancren Riwle The Travels of Sir John Maundevile, Translation of the Bible Maundevile, pp. 349-361, and p. 392. Welsh, I, pp. 195, 196. John Wyclif. Craik, I, p. 35. (See pictures in John Wyclif, Heroes of Na- tions Series.) General Reading The Camp of Refuge . . . C. McFarland. Ivanhoe Scott. Thomas a Becket Tennyson. AGE OF TRANSITION ENGLISH AND CHAUCER 2/ General Rosamond (Scribner's, Vol. VII, p. 783.) Reading Barrett Wendell. The Brazen Android, William O'Connor in " Three Tales." The White Company, A, Conan Doyle. Taine, I, The Normans, Book I, Ch. II, Sections 1-3. 28 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS B. STUDY OF CHAUCER " Dan Chaucer — the first warbler — whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious time of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still." — Tennyson. Biography Chaucer's Home; His London; Appearance; Court Life; Prosperity; Adversity; Life Work. Haweis's Chaucer for Schools, pp. 4-26. Canterbury {a) The Prologue (text) , Clarke's Riches of Chaucer, ™" pp. 59-86. Haweis, pp. 31-46. Richardson, pp. 71-79. Pictures of Knight Archer, p. 12. tocSu^ Jusserand'sWayfaringLife, p. I. Squire Archer, p. 20. Yeoman. Prioress Jusserand'sWayfaringLife, p. 105. Monk. Friar Jusserand'sWayfaringLife, p. 279. Merchant Jusserand's Wayfaring Life, p. 242. Clerk. Sergeant-at-law . Archer, p. 16. Franklin. Wife of Bath . . . Archer, p. 1 7. Parish Priest. Ploughman. AGE OF TRANSITION ENGLISH AND CHAUCER 29 Pictures of Summoner. the Pilgrims Pardoner Archer, p. ^3- to Canterbury ^ , Jusserand, p. 337. (All pictures given in Green's Short Illus. History, Vol. I, pp. 419-430.) ((5) The Clerk's Tale : Patient Griselda . . Haweis's, pp. 87-1 10. Clarke's Riches of Chaucer, pp. 196-226. («r) The Pardoner's Tale : The Rioters .... Haweis's, pp. 1 62-1 71. Nature Poem To a Daisy Haweis, p. 181. Influence Lowell's Essays, Vol. IH, p. 291. General Mediation of Ralph Hardelot . . William Minto. Reading j^ast of the Barons Bulwer-Lytton. Richard II Shakespeare. 30 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II 1. To what modern Asiatic people may the Normans be likened in their aptness and power of adaptability ? 2. What four social systems which affected the life of Europe were in their prime during this period ? 3. Explain the phrase : The Normans were the bridge on which the culture of Europe passed to England. 4. Why did the English finally absorb the Normans? 5. What two poems show the continuity and victory of the English tongue over the Norman-French ? 6. Into what two main streams does the poetical literature divide itself? 7. Name the poems which mark the beginning and end of each stream. 8. What quickening do the names of Lanfranc and Anselm suggest ? 9. What was the first religious Handbook in the English tongue ? 10. What other religious poems show that the Normans were writing religious works in English ? 11. What new taste in literature did the Normans bring? 12. Who was the great representative of this class of litera- ture, and how does his work mark the welding of Eng- lish and Norman? 13. In what poem — an outgrowth of this historical love — did the old Celtic tales come into English litera- ture? 14. How do we know that the writer looked upon it as a patriotic work ? 15. What were the four romantic cycles which fed the appe- tite for story-telling? 16. What was the story book of the middle ages, not only in England, but in Europe? AGE OF TRANSITION ENGLISH AND CHAUCER 3 1 17. What is our earliest " In Memoriam," thoroughly English in spirit, recently found and returned to "Britain's lyric coronet '' ? 18. What English ballads embody the feud between the Norman baron and the poor Saxon yeoman? 19. What English folk-songs have come down to us from this time? 20. In whose lyrics were the great wars of Edward III cele- brated ? 21. What lyric shows the monk's heaven to have degenerated to a sort of celestial kitchen? 22. What two cries for reform are embodied in "Piers Ploughman " ? 23. What return to Anglo-Saxon verse is found in the poem ? 24. What novel gives us a picture of Wat Tyler's rebellion ? 25. What was the Ancren Riwle? 26. What voice from the university echoed the voice of Langland ? ~- 27. What were the names of his followers? 28. What prose work made English the popular language of religious thought and feeling? 29. How does the work of the "Moral Gower" illustrate the change in the literary language of the time ? 30. What famous scientist of the time, and where is there a good story of his invention, — the head that would talk? 31. What famous churchman met martyrdom through one of the Norman kings, and yi what modern drama is there a good account of it ? 32. What beautiful woman is also connected with this bril- liant Norman period, and what American has written a creditable poem concerning her tragic death ? 33. What three kings' reigns in England does Chaucer's court life cover? 32 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS 34. In his diplomatic missions, what new world of art was opened to Chaucer? 35. How did he use the period of adversity that came to him? 36. In what year did he die, and where was he buried? 37. How did he look, and what were some of his character- istics ? 38. How old was Chaucer when he began the Canterbury Tales ? 39. How does his length of time in writing them resemble Tennyson's length of time in the production of the Idyls of the King? 40. What was the scheme of the poem? What poem by Longfellow is somewhat similar in scheme ? 41. Why is Chaucer said to be the greatest painter of social life in the fourteenth century? 42. What characters in the Prologue illustrate the chivalry of the time, and how are they contrasted? 43. How does Chaucer bring out the daintiness of the Prioress ? 44. Which character dressed in green suggests Robin Hood, — the Saxon type ? 45. Which character signalized by a love of books suggests Chaucer himself? 46. What has made the Parish Priest the model for all re- ligious teachers? 47. What in the Pardoner shows that the time for a reform in religion is needed? 48. How does the monk serve to illustrate the truth of " Land of Cokaygne " ? 49. How is Patient Griselda a true type of a mediaeval woman ? 50. What in '^The Rioters" has the grimness of the old Anglo-Saxon spirit ? AGE OF TRANSITION ENGLISH AND CHAUCER 33 51. What shows that Chaucer is really an artist in his work? 52. Contrast Gower and William Langland with him in this respect. 53. How does his position in the history of English poetry resemble that of Dante in the history of the poetry of Italy? 54. What service did each do for his own country's tongue? 55. What is meant by the "King's English"? 56. Were Chaucer's works well known during his lifetime, and were they printed while he lived? 57. By whom were the books made, and in what places? 58. What charming prose tales of imaginary travel appeared at this time? Who was the author? 59. How many different languages have been spoken in Britain from earliest history up to the death of Chaucer? Which survives? 60. What had the Norman-French spirit added to the Saxon literature ? 61. What novel gives you a picture of the times of William I ? Ill FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH TO ELIZABETH (1400-1558) A. THE BARREN AGE AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE Poetry: Thomas Hoccleve . " Governail of Princes." (a) Imitators Morley, VI, pp. 1 24-1 31. of Chaucer j^j^^^ Lydgate . . . . " London Lickpenny." Morley's Shorter English Poems, pp. 53-55. Ward, I, p. 119. (3) Original John Skelton .... "Colin Clout." ^^ ^^^^ Chambers, I, p. 32. Morley's Shorter English Poems, pp. 1 29-141. (<:) Ballads Nut Brown Mayde . Morley's Shorter English (Gypsy Chil- Poems, pp. 70-74. drenofSong) ^ . , '^^ ' '^ Lanier s Percy, p. 214. Battle of Otterborne, Lanier's Percy, p. 114. Chevy Chase .... Morley's Shorter English Poems, p. 105. ( Edward Dowden's " Tran- Spenser the Teacher J scripts and Studies." 42 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS B. THE DRAMA The Origin of the Drama Lyrics of Elizabethan Dramatists The Creator of the English Tragic Drama The Miracle Play . . " Slaying of Isaac." Winslow, I, pp. 8-18. The Morality Play. The Interlude .... " Back and Side Go Bare." Chambers, I, p. 126. John Lyly. " Cupid and Campaspe," Palgrave, LI. Robert Green. " Sephestia's Song," Poems of Green, p. 34. " Shepherd's Wife's Song," Poems of Green, p. %},. Christopher Marlowe. "Passionate Shepherd," Palgrave, V. Ben Jonson. • " To Ceha," Palgrave, XC. "Charis; Her Triumph," Poems of Green, pp. 381, 382. " Still to be Neat," Bates's Cambridge Book, p. 310; Chambers, I, p. 109. John Heywood. " Goodmorrow," Palgrave, LII. Thomas Dekker. "The Happy Heart," Palgrave, LIV. Beaumont and Fletcher. " Melancholy," Morley's Shorter English Poems, p. 272. John Shirley. " Death the Leveller," Palgrave, LXIX. Christopher Marlowe (Mermaid edition uf plays). ( . at 1 tt Poets, Vol. II, p. 400. The Founder John Dryden. Prose Literary Criticism : Essay on Dramatic Poetry : "Old Dramatists," Craik, III, p. 152. Poetry of Party Satire : Absalom and Achitophel : "On Shaftesbury," Ward, II, p. 454. Poetry of Church Argument : Religio Laici : "Tradition," Ward, II, p. 463. Hind and Panther : " Unity of the Catholic Church," Ward, II, p. 466. Lyrics : St. Cecilia's Day, Palgrave, LXIII. Alexander's Feast, Ward, II, p. 478. of the Critical School Prose of Queen Anne and the First Georges {b) AGE OF POPE Dean Swift. Gulliver's Travels (text) : Voyage to Lilliput, Ch. I. Journal to Stella (text). Letters, 11, 16, 25. 60 THE CRITICAL AGE 6i Prose of Queen Anne and tbe First Georges Poetry of the ' • Cor- rect" School The Periodi- cal Essay The Close of the Elder English Drama Daniel Defoe. Journal of the Plague in London, first 20 pages. Bishop Berkeley. The Minute Philosopher: " Delusions of the Senses," Craik, Vol. IV, p. 34. John Locke. Essay on the Understanding : " Perception," Craik, III, p. 180. Alexander Pope. Essay on Criticism, Ward, Vol. Ill, pp. 70-73. Essay on Man, Ward, Vol. Ill, pp. 85-88. The Dunciad, Ward, Vol. Ill, pp. 127-129. Rape of the Lock, Vol. Ill, pp. 73-80. Joseph Addison. Sir Roger at Church: "The Spectator," No. 112. Death of Sir Roger: "Spectator," No. 517, Craik, III, p. 520. Richard Steele. Recollection of Childhood, Craik, Vol. Ill, p. 477. The Coverley Portrait Gallery, Craik, Vol. Ill, p. 482. Richard Sheridan. The Rivals (text) : Mrs. Malaprop, Act I, Scene 2. Bob Acres as a challenger. Act III, Scene 4. School for Scandal (text) : Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, Act II, Scenes i and 2. Charles Surface auctions his ancestors' portraits, Act IV, Scene i. Oliver Goldsmith. She Stoops to Conquer (text) : Squire Hardcastle instructs his servants, Act II, Scene i. Tony Lumpkin's deception, Act V, Scenes i and 2. 62 students' readings and questions Reading Shrewsbury Stanley Weyman. Henry Esmond Thackeray. Esther Vanhomrigh M. S. Woods. Mr. ZinZan of Bath Mary Deane. THE CRITICAL AGE 63 QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VI 1. (a) Why did the natural style of Chaucer and Shake- speare become artistic? (h) Why did the style of second-rate Elizabethan poets lack art? (c) When the national life grew chill, how did this want of art show itself? (^0 Of the poets of what time is this the general history? (e) At this point, what did men see was necessary? (/) What two influences partly brought this about? (g) What succeeded to and ex- tinguished the natural style in poetry ? 2. With Shakespeare and Milton, what had been the subject for poetry ? 3. With the new school, what change in subject came? 4. What poets show that the critical spirit had begun even before the exiled court had come over from France ? 5. To what class of poems does Hudibras belong, and what does it mark? 6. Who was the leader of the new school of poetry? 7. What is the first fine example of party poetry that we have ? 8. What two poems show his power of reasoning upon opposite sides? 9. What lyric of his celebrates the music of the organ? Which tells how Thais "fired another Troy"? ID. Explain the force of his title, " Glorious John." 1 1 . What work did he do for prose criticism ? 12. What society was established at this time which shows how the spirit of inquiry was abroad? 13. What was the great name in this line of investigation? 14. What two sides in theology did the thinking mind of England take? 15. In politics, who destroyed the theory of the Divine Right of kings and priests, and in what document ? 64 students' readings and questions 16. What two things did his treatise declare, and what new kind of a Divine Right doctrine did he give? 17. By his treatise on civil government, what three points did John Locke add to Hobbes' doctrine? 18. What political event was the outcome of this reason- ing? 19. What was the work Locke did in his "Essay concerning Understanding " ? 20. (a) What form did history take during this time, and to what gossipy courtier are we indebted greatly for a picture of the Restoration court ? (d) What novel gives a picture of the controversies of William and Mary's time? 21. After the Revolution, what effect had the quarrel between the Whigs and Tories upon abstract discussions of politics ? 22. Where was this life concentrated? 23. How was literature pressed into the service? 24. What was it wholly taken up with discussing and paint- ing? 25. What was the result upon the style of English prose and English verse? 26. What poet absorbed and reflected all these elements of the age ? Which work gave him full rank as a critical poet? 27. In what poem — with mock solemnity — did he give a brilliant picture of eighteenth century beaux and belles? 28. What satire of Pope is directed against Grub Street, and what is its rank ? 29. What poem of his, though poor in philosophy, is rich in quotable lines that have become everyday phrases? 30. How did Pope secure the spirit of Homer in the transla- tion of the "Iliad"? The critical age 65 31. Give an example of the heroic couplet in which he wrote most of his verse. 32. What witty American poet used this form very largely? 33. How did Pope show the spirit of an artist? 34. What was the general character of the minor poets who surrounded him? 35. What rang the knell of the manner and spirit of Pope's school ? 36. Who is the most original prose writer of the time? 37. What book of his, that young people find entertaining, holds veiled in its lines a savage mockery of life and man ? 38. What is there in his life and death that is pitiable? 39. What novel gives a picture of his love for Stella and Vanessa ? 40. Who could invent facts and make them pass as truths? 41. What book of his long deceived the medical public? 42. In what does the charm of his style lie? 43. What question in metaphysics did Bishop Berkeley raise which is still an interesting one, and will doubtless ever be ? 44. What book marked the beginning of bold speculations on the nature and ground of society ? 45. What form of literature did Steele and Addison create? How did it differ from any previous kind of essay? 46. What were the " Tatler," the " Spectator," and the " Guardian " ? 47. How did the subjects treated of by these men represent the life of old London ? 48. What did their work do for the society of that time? 49. What character studies of theirs have a charm of delicate humor unsurpassed in literature? 50. What novel gives a picture of the personalities of Addi- son and Steele in the self-same classic prose in which they wrote ? F 66 students' readings and questions 51. What life did the plays written in the Restoration repre- sent ? 52. What innovations came to the stage? 53. In what class of drama did the dramatists excel? By what was the brilliancy and dash of the plays marred ? 54. What two Irishmen carried on the wit of the Restoration comedy, yet eliminated the indecency? 55. What are the characteristics suggested by personalities such as Mrs. Malaprop, Bob Acres. Tony Lumpkin, Lady Teazle? 56. With what character is our Joseph Jefferson associated? 57. With whom does the classic English drama close? 58. What story gives a good picture of the fashionable Bath and " the pump-rooms " of that day ? 59. Describe the "coffee-rooms'" and the effect of their estab- lishment upon literature. 60. What had the critical age contributed to English litera- ture? VII PROSE LITERATURE, FROM THE DEATH OF POPE AND SWIFT TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE DEATH OF SCOTT (1745-1789-1832) A. THE DICTATORSHIP OF SAMUEL JOHNSON (1745-1789) The ' ' Last Literary King ' ' The Founders of the Modern Novel Samuel Johnson. Compiler of the first EngHsh Dictionary. Biographer : Lives of the Poets. Essayist : The Rambler. Didactic Novelist : Rasselas. Critic : Preface to Shakespeare ; Garnett's English Prose, pp. 433-435- Conversationalist: Shovi^n in B.oswell's Johnson, Craik, IV, pp. 489-495- Samuel Richardson. Clarissa Harlowe : Death of Clarissa, Craik, IV, p. 63. Death of Lovelace, Saintsbury's English Prose, p. 170. Henry Fielding. Tom Jones (text) : Description of Sophia Weston, Book IV, Ch. II. Partridge at the Plav, Book XVI, Ch. V. 67 68 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS The Founders of the Modern Novel History Philosophy and Political Economy Tobias Smollett. Humphrey Clinker (text) : Letters of Winfred Jenkins, Vol. I, p. 53; Vol. II, p. 55. Letter of William Lloyd, Vol. II, p. 232. Laurence Sterne. Tristram Shandy : The Death of Bobby, Craik, IV, p. 213. Corporal Trim and the Curate, p. 216. Oliver Goldsmith. The Vicar of Wakefield : Description of the Family, Ch. I. The Family Portrait, Ch. XVI. Dr. Primrose going to Jail, Ch. XXV. (Pictures in edition of Scribner & Welford, London, 1 880.) David Hume. History of England (text) : " Sir Walter Raleigh Expedition," Vol. IV, Ch. XLVIII, pp. 304-308. Edward Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (text) : " Ruin of Rome in 15th Century," Vol. VII, Ch. LXXI, pp. 442-447- Dr. Robertson. Charles V : " Resignation of a Crown," Craik, IV, p. 284. David Hume. Inquiry concerning Human Understanding : " Reason No Aid to Religion," Craik, IV, p. 205. Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations : " Power Sacrificed to Selfishness," Craik, IV, p. 326. THE DICTATORSHIP OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 69 Philosophy Edmund Burke. and Political Reflections on the French Revolution : Economy ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ Chivalry," Craik, IV, p. 402. General Garrick's Pupil Augustine Filon. Reading Xhe Jessamy Bride .... Frankfort Moore. Kidnapped R. S. Stevenson. JO STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS B. THE STIR OF NEW THOUGHT MADE BY THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789-1832) The Great English Dailies The Maga- zines The Essay- ists Causerie Writers Biography The Times; The Morning Chronicle; The Morning Post. The Edinburgh Review; The Quarterly; Frazer's; Blackwood's Magazine. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare (text) : Character of Hamlet, pp. 355-359; p. 365. Character of Othello, pp. 390-394. Walter Savage Lander. Imaginary Conversations (text) : Louis IV and Father La Chaise, Vol. II, p. 323. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Vol. V, p. 66, Thomas DeQuincey. DeQuincey's Works (text) : Levana and Our Lady of Sorrow, Vol. XIII, pp. 362-369. Vision of Sudden Death, Vol. XIII, p. 311. Joan of Arc, Vol. V, pp. 384-386. Charles Lamb. Essays of Elia (text) : Old China. Dream Children. New Year's Eve. William Hazlitt. Sketches and Essays : First Acquaintance with Poets, p. 255. Persons One W^ould Wish to Have Seen, p. 278. Robert Southey. Life of Nelson (text) : Death of Nelson, Ch. IX, pp. 373-377. THOUGHT MADE BY FRENCH REVOLUTION J\ History 1 he Novel A. Historical John Lingard. History of England, Vol. VI (text) : Death of Mary, Queen of Scots, Ch. VI, pp. 459- 472. Henry Hallam. Europe during the Middle Ages (text) : Vol. I, Ch. I, Part II, pp. 79-81. Maria Edgeworth. Castle Rackrent; Craik, IV, p. 620. " Thady's Description of an Irish Landlord." Jane Austen. Emma (text) : Analysis of Her Love and Her Plan,Vol. II, Ch. III. Persuasion : The Elliot Family, Ch. i. Sir Walter Scott. (Table of Principal Novels.) English 1 The Talisman. 2 Ivanhoe. 3 Kenilworth. Epochs 1 193 Richard the Lion- Hearted. 1 194 Richard the Lion- Hearted. 1575 Queen Elizabeth. 4 The Fortunes of Nigel. 1620 James I. 5 Woodstock. 1652 Civil Wars. 6 Peveril of the Peak. 1660 Charles II. Scottish Epochs I Castle Dangerous. 1306 Black Douglas. 2 Fair Maid of Perth. 1402 Robert III. 3 The Monastery. 1559 Mary Queen of Scots, 4 The Abbot. 1568 Mary Queen of Scots. *5 Legend of Montrose. 1645 Civil Wars. 6 Old Mortality. 1679 Scotch Covenanters. 7 Waverley. 1745 Pretenders. * Read starred novels. 72 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS A. Historical B. Social Continental Epochs I Quentin Durward. 1470 Louis XI. I Bride of Lammermoor. 1700 2 Guy Mannering. 1750 *3 The Heart of Midlothian. 17CX) * Read starred novels. JOHNSONIAN AGE ; THE NEW THOUGHT 73 QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VII 1. What were the four general causes of the rapid growth of literature from 1745? 2. Around whom did prose literature now centre itself until the French Revolution? 3. What literary kings, who held court in England (Lon- don), had preceded him, and why was he the last one? 4. What qualities did his style lack that make him, as a familiar essayist, a failure? 5. What made him the first of the modern literary men who, independent of patrons, lived by their pen ? 6. Under what circumstances did he write "Rasselas"? 7. How did he lift biography to a higher place in literature? 8. What was the Johnsonian style of prose? 9. How did Johnson do more for literature than by writ- ing? and where do we get knowledge of that power of his? 10. Who were some of Johnson's friends? 11. Who were the makers of the modern novel? and how did it differ from DeFoe's stories? 12. What is the charm of "Clarissa Harlowe"? 13. How do these novels of sentiment mark a change in the novels of literature? 14. What is the English model of a novel in point of plot? and with what sort of a pencil is the life drawn? 15. What nineteenth century novelist looked to Fielding as a master? 16. What novelist first introduced the device of making a character humorous from misspelled letters? 17. In what respect was he the prototype of Dickens? 18. What author dealt in high life? which with the middle class ? and which in low life ? 74 STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS 19. What is the characteristic of Laurence Sterne's most noted story? and what is one of the principal char- acters ? 20. What was the novel of idyllic life that charms to this day ? 21. Who is the principal character that by his unworldliness stands almost alone in literature? 22. What history did David Hume write? and who influenced his manner of writing? 23. How do the histories of Dr. Robertson show that his- torical interest reaches beyond England? 24. Who is the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research recognizes as its master? 25. What shows that his conception of the work was that of an artist? 26. Could a modern historian cover the history of so many years in such a short compass with equal power? 27. What did Hume's " Inquiry concerning Human Under- standing" make the limit of man's knowledge? What did it make the measure of virtue? 28. Who created the science of political economy? 29. What theory did his book hold that is much discussed to-day ? 30. How did social reform become a literary subject? 31. What powerful orator wrote to uphold conservatism in politics, saying, ''Those who attempt to level never equalize '' ? 32. Of whom did he say, " I had thought a thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened insult " ? 33. What novel gives you a picture of the actors David Gar- rick and Mrs. Siddons, both friends of Dr. Johnson? 34. What novel deals with the romantic love story of Dr. Goldsmith ? 35. When did London cease to be the only literary centre? JOHNSONIAN AGE ; THE NEW THOUGHT 75 36 What stirred like leaven through much of the literary work of England? 37. Later on, what other outside influence began to tell? 38. What literature was started that to-day wields perhaps the greatest influence? 39. How did the literature of criticism become a power? 40. Who was a pioneer in modern Shakespearian criticism — that criticism which interprets rather than judges ? 41. What writer so understood the past centuries that he could produce in imaginary conversations their men and women? 42. How has Andrew Lang attempted to do something of the same thing? In what burlesque way has John Ken- drick Bangs reincarnated the past notables? 43. In what writer did prose take on an involved melody — an impassioned quality usually found only in poetry ? 44. In what respect was his personality like Hawthorne's? 45. Who was the master of "causerie"? and what is the charm of his humor? 46. Which essay of his shows with tender retrospection that the happiest days are not those of prosperity? 47. What other causerie writer has a charm second only to Elia? 48. In what essay does he speak with rare reverence of Shakespeare and of Christ? 49. What names of this time are associated with theological literature ? 50. What city is identified with continuing the literature of philosophy? 51. In what province was Jeremy Bentham's chief work done ? 52. By what biography is Southey's name remembered in literature ? 53. Who is the Catholic historian of England? ']6 students' readings and questions 54. With whom did history begin to be without prejudice, and become more worthy the name of literature? 55. What form of prose literature was the most largely used and developed during this time? 56. With whom was the political novel established? What novel of Mrs. Humphrey Ward^s is a recent expression of this same type ? , 57. What impulse to the novel did Maria Edgeworth give? 58. Who produced the best novels of everyday society that still hold that rank ? 59. What American reahsts to-day follow the school? 60. In whom here may Barrie and Maclaren look for the be- ginning of their humorous stories of Scotch life ? 61. What did Walter Scott do for the novel? What charac- teristics of his work came from his swiftness in writing? 62. How were his novels peacemakers? 63. What shows his great sympathy? 64. Give some idea of the great scope of the historical field he covered. 65. In what novels did George Eliot and Stevenson seek to produce the historical novel of Scott ? 66. In what respect was Scotfs personality like Shakespeare's ? 67. How is the brave honor of the man shown? 68. In this period, what forms of prose literature have become powers ? VIII POETRY FROM 1 730-1832 A. TRANSITION POETRY (1730-1790) Students of the Greek Beauty of Form Restorers of the Romantic Past Revival of Shakespeare and Chaucer Pioneers in the Poetry of Nature and of Simple Lives William Collins. Ode to Evening, Ward's English Poets, III, p. 287. How Sleep the Brave, Palgrave, CXXIV. Thomas Gray. Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Palgrave, CXLVII. Dr. Percy. Reliques of English Poetry (text) : ^' As Ye Came from the Holy Land," Vol. I, p. 313- James McPherson. Ossian's Poems (text): "The Warrior's Grave," Temora, Book 7. Thomas Chatterton. Poems, Vol. II. Song in ^lla, p. 71, Stanzas CV-CXIV. Shown by new editions of their work. James Thomson. The Seasons : "A Snow Scene," Ward, III, p. 173. "The Coming of Rain," Ward, HI, p. 175. 77 y8 students' readings and questions Pioneers in Oliver Goldsmith. the Poetry of ^^^ Deserted Village, Ward, III, p. 373. Nature and of ° ' ' r 0/0 Simple Lives vVilliam Black. Songs of Innocence and Experience : "The Lamb," Ward, III, pp. 604, 605. "The Tiger," Ward, III, p. 607. The Return William Cowper. to Natural The Task : Feeling : , „ ^ ^ " Relish of a Fair Prospect," \Vard, III, p. 41:7. (a) Nature for ri ' » t- t j / its Own To Mary, Ward, III, p. 482. Sake Lines to a Mother's Picture, Ward, III, p. 478. (i) Sympathy George Crabbe. with the „, ,..„ Poor The Village: "The Convict's Dream," Ward, III, p. 587. (c) Love Robert Burns. Lyrics u q^ ^e^t Thou in the Cold Blast," Ward, III, P- 571- " O, My Love's Like a Red, Red Rose," Palgrave, CL. "To Mary in Heaven," Songs of Three Centuries, p. 82. "John Anderson, My Jo," Ward, III, 551. BEGINNING OF MODERN POETRY 79 />\ THE BEGINNING OF MODERN POETRY (1790-1832) The Return to Natural Feeling Deepened by the Ideas of the French Revolution Samuel Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner, p. loi (text). Youth and Age, Palgrave, CCLXXX, William Wordsworth. "Three Years She Grew," Palgrave, CLXXIX. "The Solitary Reaper," Ward, IV, p. 41. "The Nightingale," Ward, IV, p. 53. "I Wandered Lonely," Ward, IV, p. 51. "Lines on Revisiting Tintern Abbey," Ward, IV, p. 18. "The World is Too Much With Us," Main's Eng. Sonnets, CLXXXIX. Sir Walter Scott. Lady of the Lake (text) : Sunset in the Trosachs, Canto I, 11-14. Sunrise on Loch Katrine, Canto III, 2. Battle Scene in Trosachs, Canto VI, 15-22. ** A Weary Lot is Thine," Songs of Three Cen- turies, p. 105. Thomas Campbell. Hohenlinden, Palgrave, CCXV. Thomas Moore. " The Harp that Once thro' Tara," looi Gems P)f Poetry, p. 302. " Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms," Ward, IV, p. 316. Lord Byron. Childe Harold (text) : Battle of Waterloo, Canto III, 21-28. The Dying Gladiator, Canto IV, 140, 141. Address to the Ocean, Canto IV, 178-184. 8o STUDENTS READINGS AND QUESTIONS The Return to Natural Feeling Deepened by the Ideas of the French Revolution Establish- ment of Lit- erary Poetry Prisoner of Chillon. Mazeppa's Ride, stanzas 9-17. Percy Bysshe Shelley (text) : Ode to the West Wind, Ward, IV, p. 375. The Cloud, Ward, IV, p. 381. The Skylark, Ward, Vol. IV, p. 383. Stanzas Written in Dejection, Palgrave, CCXXVII. Hymn of Pan, Ward, IV, p. 380. " Life of Life thy Lips Enkindle," Ward, IV, p. 379. Prometheus Unbound, Act II, Scene 5. John Keats. Lamia (text). Eve of St. Agnes. To a Nightingale, Ward, IV, p. 451. Ode to a Grecian Urn, Ward, IV, p. 454. " When I Have Fears that I May Cease To Be," Palgrave, CXCIX. Keats' Last Sonnet, Palgrave, CXCVIII. General Reading Wordsworth's Grave William Watson. TRANSITION AND MODERN POETRY Si QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VIII 1. Why is the period from 1730 to 1785 called the period of transition ? 2. What shows that the influence of the critical school still lingered ? 3. What new element did Gray and Collins seek? What hampered them ? 4. Which was more successful in the finding? What was his best work ? Why did he not achieve more ? 5. With what poem "steeped in England " is Gray identi- fied. Why, though contemplative, is it not cold? Why was not Gray greater as a poet? 6. What study shows that men had become dissatisfied with the Pope style of poetry? 7. How was the interest in the romantic past greatly aided ? How does this show that the " love of town life '' was going? 8. What poems did James McPherson write? For what did he palm it off on the public? What growing love did the poem appeal to ? 9. What were the forgeries of " the marvellous boy " ? What was his pitiable death? 10. What does the very success of these forgeries prove re- garding the old critical spirit ? 1 1 . Why had the natural style of the later Elizabethan poets failed for lack of art? Why, finally, had the artificial poetry failed? 12. What style came out of the happy union of both, and in what lyric of Cowper's is it found? 13. Up to the age of Pope, what had been the chief subject of poetry ? Now what change in subject is growing up ? 14. How had previous poets always dealt with nature? How did a Scotsman lead English people into a new world ? G S2 STUDENTS^ READINGS AND QUESTIONS 15. What further enlarged the love of nature? 16. In what two forms did the interest in man show itself? 17. What poem of Goldsmith's charmingly illustrates this coming change of subject in both nature and man ? 18. How long had Scottish poetry been silent? How did Allan Ramsay now represent the new poetry? 19. In what respect is the work of William Blake remark- able ? What little poems of his are unrivalled in sim- plicity ? 20. With what poet can we feel that the return to natural feeling has come ? 21. In what poem does he show this love of nature for its own sake? 22. How did George Crabbe express the new "poetry of the poor"? 23. What famous song of Thomas Hood's, in the Victorian age, was a development of this new view of man? 24. How long had the passionate treatment of love been absent from our poetry? 25. Who restored the love lyric? Name two of his lyrics. 26. How does the poem, " The Cotter's Saturday Night,'' do for Scotland what Crabbe did for England ? 27. What poem of his shows the Celtic wit? How does his work show that, though thoroughly Scotch, it is Eng- lish, too? 28. What ideas relating to mankind were expressed in the work of Cowper, Crabbe, and Burns ? 29. What country finally expressed these ideas in action ? What did they become in the world? What English poets received them first with joy, but receded after- ward? Who turned from them with pain to restore by imagination the past they destroyed? What was the attitude of Byron and Shelley to them? 30. What special thing did these ideas bring back into the style of poetry ? Transition and modern poetry 83 31. What shows that the French Revolution deepened the lines of society already existing rather than created new ones ? 32. What is the most poetical of Southey's poems? Can he take high rank as a poet ? 33. Whose best poetic work might be bound in twenty pages, but that should be bound in pure gold ? What is its characteristic ? 34. What sorrows of his does this line refer to : " Life went a-Maying with Nature, Hope, and Poesy when I was young " ? 35. What poem of his shows a wider sympathy with man that extends to all created things : " He prayeth best who loveth best, All things both great and small "? 36. What great poet does the name "Rydal Mount" suggest, and how was he able to live the simple life he had chosen? 37. What poem reveals his history as a poet of nature and of man ? 38. How did his conception of nature differ from any other held up to this time? How did it rise into a poetic religion ? 39. How was he led through this love of nature to love of man ? 40. When was he left without love of nature or man? How did his sister Dorothy save his mind? What shows that he recovered interest in the larger movements of mankind ? 41. Quote from Brooke, p. 234, lines 10-14, as to what his work has become. 42. What lyric of his describes the beauty of his love, Lucy Gray? Name two others that are instinct with the love of flowers and birds. 84 students' readings and questions 43. How did Scott happen to make his collection of songs and ballads of the Border? What were his best poems ? What old Scottish quality does he carry on in his style ? 44. What other Scottish poet lives chiefly by his war lyrics ? Name one of the noted lyrics. 45. What is the curious thing about Samuel Rogers' work? 46. What poems of Moore voice the struggle of Ireland against England? What political change did they help on? 47. Of the three younger poets, which had most of the quality we call force? How did his life show it? 48. Why is the position of Byron as a poet a strange one? 49. How do his earlier poems show that he had no interest in mankind, only in his own personality? In which poem did he escape from his morbid self, and how does it show the influence of the revolutionary spirit? 50. How did his treatment of nature show both the old and the new school? 51. What poem of his is a sort of glorified guide-book for European travel? Which poem may symbolize his own nature, bound to the wild horse of passion? 52. In what respect does he resemble Dryden? What other quality was predominant that was also the special power of eighteenth century writers ? 53. What quality was first in Shelley's poetry? 54. In what early poem did he ally himself with mankind ? 55. What idea of Wordsworth's does he carry out in the splendid lyric drama, ''Prometheus Unbound"? 56. In what drama does his expression show most restraint, yet where passion and thought are wrought together with rare power? 57. What poem is a lament for John Keats, and in what sort of a world does it belong? What is Shelley's rank as TRANSITION AND MODERN POETRY 85 a lyricist? Name one of the gladdest lyrics and name his finest one. 58. Compare him with Wordsworth as a poet of nature. 59. Why may he be called the Turner of poetry.? 60. How was his genius cut off before it ripened.? What in- scription on his tomb will characterize him to all who love poetry? 61. What poet was utterly untouched by the spirit of the French Revolution? 62. How did he establish "literary poetry " for England? 6^. What poem of Greek life is the finest of his long poems ? 64. In what respect is Keats especially an ideal poet? 65. In what poem of medieval time does his magic tell us how " two lovers fled away into the storm " ? 66. In what short poem has he crystallized Greek beauty for- ever? 67. Contrast his painting of nature with that of Wordsworth. 68. What might we have expected his poetry would deal with if he had lived ? 69. Who marks the exhaustion of the impulse that began with Burns and Cowper? 70. Why may William Watson's poem, "Wordsworth's Grave," be called a review of the poetry of the century ? 71. What two modern English poets began their work by bidding farewell to Shelley and Byron and Keats? 72. In what new age (grouped around what queen) does their individual poetic work belong? THE HISTORY OF EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE. Being the History of English Poetry from its 'Beginnings to the Accession of King /Elf red. BY THE REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE. WITH MAPS. Large i2mo. Gilt top, $2.50. NOTICES. *' I had been eagerly awaiting it, and find it on examination distinctly the best treatise on its subject." — Prof. Charles F. Richardson, Dartmotith College. " I know of no literary estimate of Anglo-Saxon poetry that in breadth of view and sympathetic appreciation can be compared with this." — Prof. W. E. Mead, IVesleyan University. " In this work we have the view of a real lover of literature, and we have its utterance in a diction graceful enough to make the reading an intellectual pleas- ure in itself." — -The Christian Union. " No other book exists in English from which a reader unacquainted with Anglo-Saxon may gain so vivid a sense of the literary quality of our earliest poetry." — The Dial. " A delightful exposition of the poetic spirit and achievement of the eighth century." — Chicago Tribune. " In Mr. Stopford Brooke's monumental work he strives with rare skill and insight to present our earliest national poetry as a living literature, and not as a mere material for research." — London Times. " It is a monument of scholarship and learning, while it furnishes an authen- tic history of English literature at a period when little before was known respect- ing it." — Public Opinion. " It is a comprehensive critical account of Anglo-Saxon poetry from its be- ginnings to the accession of King Alfred. A thorough knowledge of the Anglo- Saxon language was needed by the man who undertook such a weighty enterprise, and this knowledge is possessed by Mr. Brooke in a degree probably unsurpassed by any living scholar." — Evening Bulletin. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. I A HISTORY OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE, BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY. Price, $1.00, net. NOTICES. " The work has been most judiciously done and in a literary style and perfec- tion which, alas, the present era has furnished too few examples." — Christian at Work. " Mr. Saintsbury has produced a most useful, first-hand survey — comprehen- sive, compendious, and spirited — of that unique period of literary history when * all the muses still were in their prime.' One knows not where else to look for so well-proportioned and well-ordered conspectus of the astonishingly varied and rich products of the turning English mind during the century that begins with Tortel's Miscellany and the birth of Bacon, and closes with the restoration." — T/te Dial. '* Regarding Mr. Saintsbury's work we know not where else to find so com- pact, yet comprehensive, so judicious, weighty, and well written a review and critique of Elizabethan literature. 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He is the most obvious person to write the history of its literature, and this attractive volume ought to be the final and standard work on his chosen theme." — The Literary World. " We have never had a more useful record of this period." — Boston Evening Traveler. " A brilliant addition to critical exposition. Written in a finished and elegant style, which gives enchantment even to the parts of the narrative of a biographi- cal and statistical character, the work illumines obscure writings and literature and brings new interest to famous ones. One of its great excellences is the easy transition made from one style of writing to another. The plan is distinct and well-preserved, but the continuity between parts is so close that unity and cohe- rence mark the work in a material degree." — Boston Journal. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, ee FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 3 A HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. (1780-1895.) BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. NOTICES. " We should far exceed the limits of our space if we attempted to illustrate a quarter of the good things to be found in this ' History.' We will not venture even to touch what will be to many the most interesting portion of it, the chapter on the novel since 1850. The biographical details are judiciously selected, skil- fully worked in, and pleasantly told. While it is possible that another hundred years may shake some of Mr. Saintsbury's conclusions, for the present a student who follows him with deference will have the company of an unusually well- furnished and an eminently sane guide, and will be likely to reach a much more satisfactory state of knowledge than by attempting to find his own way through the wide fields of this great century's literature." — The Critic. 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