GIFT OF ON TEXT- BOOK - *? English Literature,- With Copious Extracts from the Leading Authors, English and American, WITH FULL INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE METHOD IN WHICH THESE ARE TO BE STUDIED, ADAPTED FOR USE IN COLLEGES, HIGH SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES, BY BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., rofessor of the English Language ana Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, Author of a " Text-Book on Rhetoric" and one of the Authors of Reed &* Kellogg 1 s " Graded Lessons in English" and " Higher Lessons in English." *\ B R A ' K A " r^v r TH ^V TY.J NEW YORK: CLA!IK & MAYNARD, PUBLISHERS, 734 BROADWAY. 1884. COPTBIQHT, 1882, BY BPAINERD KELLOGG. PREFACE. May we not hope and expect that our children are to be taught English literature better than their parents were ? The intelligent teacher is now brushing aside the text-book that keeps pupil and authors apart, and he and they are allowed to meet face to face. How we could ever have thought that the study of what some one had said about literature or its authors was a study of literature itself excites our wonder now; we wonder that as pupils we did not detect the usurp- er, and rise against him in indignant revolt. Some of us have learned what our teachers did not seem to know that grievous wrong is done a pupil in furnishing him a mass of second-hand knowledge concerning authors, and in substi- tuting the study of this mass for the study of the authors them- selves. Indeed, is it not to utter an educational truism now to say that no greater harm can be inflicted upon a pupil in any study than doing for him in it what he can do for himself? Such help takes from him the keen relish which the discovery of a fact or the conquest of a principle gives; it robs him of the pleasure which such conquest or discovery yields; it deprives him of the inestimable discipline which such labor compels; and it weakens his hold upon the fact or the princi- ple, which slips from a grasp that would have been tenacious had he made the attainment unaided. Better far than the whole prepared for him and communicated to him by text- book or teacher would be the half or the tenth founcj. out 11489? Preface. by himself better that among his possessions, independently acquired, there should be some error than that through fear of error he should be kept from making any self -relying effort. But we have not said, and do not say, that a text-book in English literature is not needed by the pupil ; we say only that it should not assume functions which do not belong to it. A text-book, we think, is needed. It is needed to furnish the pupil that which he cannot help himself to. It may group the authors so that their places in the line and their relations to each other can be seen by the pupil ; it may throw light upon the authors' times and surroundings, and note the great influences at work helping to make their writings what they are ; it may point out such of these as should be studied, and may present extracts from them full of the author's real flavor; it may teach the pupil how these are to be studied, soliciting and exacting his judgment at every step of the way which leads from the author's diction up through his style and thought to the author himself ; it may present critical esti- mates of the leading writers, by those competent to make them, provided it requires the pupil to accept these judgments only as he finds them borne out by the passages quoted or the writings referred to ; in all these ways and in other ways it may place the pupil on the best possible footing with those whose acquaintance it is his business as well as his pleasure to make. Such functions as these, discharged by a text-book, would justify its use; and such a text-book we have tried to make the one we now present. The Primer of English Literature by Stopford Brooke, ad- mirably adapted for our purpose, has been chosen as the basis, or nucleus, of our work. The excellence of the Primer is our only apology for its appropriation. Great liberties have been taken with the text. Many passages have been eliminated specially those criticised by Matthew Arnold in his review of the work. The Primer has been rearranged to suit our purpose, and has been cut up into Lessons. All the matter Preface. 5 taken from Mr. Brooke has been enclosed in quotation marks. We have added a Biographical and Topical Index, which contains much valuable information concerning authors that is not to be found in the body of the work. The Eight Periods in which Mr. Brooke places English literature, and into which it seems naturally to fall, have, with slight changes, been retained. . Each Period is preceded by a Lesson containing a brief resume of the great historical events that have had somewhat to do in shaping or in coloring the literature of that Period. The pupil, it is hoped, will be able to see the better in the light thus shed. We have inserted short estimates of the leading authors, made by the best ^English and American critics. These criticisms are to be used as indicated above, and as pointed out in the Introductory Lesson. They are not to take the place of the pupil's work, but are themselves to be judged by him, and ratified or amended according to his findings in the study of the authors themselves. Extracts, as many and as ample as the limits of a text-book would allow, have been made from the principal writers of each Period. We have tried to find such as contain the characteristic traits of their authors both in thought and in expression. But few of these extracts have, so far as we know, ever seen the light in books of selections anthologies of poetry or prose. iNone of them, we may say, have been worn threadbare by use, or nave lost their freshness by tne pupil's familiarity with them in school-readers. There is less need than formerly of such extracts, now that short classics, full of good things from the best authors, and admirably annotated, can be easily and cheaply procured. We heartily commend for use in the class-room the list of short English Classics, already quite extensive, published by Clark & Maynard, and the list entitled American Classics for Schools, issued by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. We have prepared a Bibliography for the most eminent 6 Preface. authors. This will be of service to such teachers and pupils as have access to public libraries, and who care to correct or supplement their knowledge by reading the opinions of others. We had for a long time been making these Bib- liographies, when we found the work already largely done for us in the catalogue of the Brooklyn Library. Since then the catalogue has been freely used. It will be seen that the greater part of the references are to Magazine articles, and that these are recent. Whatever may be claimed for the critics of the generations gone, it will be allowed that never has criticism been more discriminating, delicate, just, and appreciative than it is now. In the Introductory Lesson we have indicated how we wish the book to be studied. The method there detailed has grown up out of a long experience with classes in literature. It is that, also, up to which the work in Reed and Kellogg's Grammars and in Kellogg's Rhetoric has led the pupil; it completes such work, and applies it to the study of authors. We beg teachers to examine the method carefully, and test it by trial before rejecting it. We wish here to express our grateful acknowledgments to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., to G. P. Putnam's Sons, and to Messrs. Appleton & Co. for the generous use they have allowed us of the sterling works published by them. It is through their kindness that we have been enabled to supple- ment our historical account and critical estimate of American literature with more than sixty pages of choice extracts from the best American authors. POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, Brooklyn, N. Y., CONTENTS. PERIOD I. Periods of English Literature. 12 Requisites for the Study 13 The Text-Book - 14 I. Classification 15 II. Diction 16 III. Sentences 16 fl. Perspicuity 16 2. Imagery 16 3. Energy 16 4 and 5. Wit, Pathos. . 17 6. Elegance 17 v. Thought 17 vi. Feeling 17 . fl. Rhythm , 18 BJ2. Metre 18 *& [3. Rhyme 18 Further Remarks 18 PAGE The Celts the Roman Con- quest 20 Anglo-Saxons the Conquest. 21 Danish Invasions 21 The English Tongue 23 How Written 24 Beowulf 24 Caedmon. 26 Adhelm and Cynewulf ... 28 Vercelli and Exeter Book. 28 fFinnesburg 29 -g J Brunanburgh 30 ^ [Maldon 30 Bseda 31 Alfred 32 JSlfric and Eng. Chron- icle.. . 34 111 PERIOD II. People at and after the Conquest 36 Scotland, France, and Gun- powder 36 Effect of the Conquest upon the Language 37 Religious Poetry Ormin and Langland 39 Story- ( Layamon*and Others 43 1 John Gower. ........ 45 English Lyrics 46 History Chroniclers 48 Mandeville and Wyclif 49 The King's English 51 His three Periods. ... 52 His Character 55 His Canterbury Tales 56 Criticisms of him and Extracts from... 58 Chau- cer. Contents. PERIOD III. Houses of Lancaster and York, and War of the Roses. ..... 69 Revival of Learning 69 Conquest of Ireland 69 { Interest in Litera- l ture 70 j Italian Influence 71 [Caxton'sWork 71 Prose under Henry VIII 72 Prose and the Reformation ... 73 j3*.-pydgate 74 J|iOccleve 75 Cgl I Ballads, etc 76 S [Chevy Chase 77 43 P PAGE f Celtic Elements 80 National Elements 81 Individual Element 81 Barbour and James I. of Scotland 82 Henryson , 83 Dunbar and Douglass 84 f Under jHawes.. 87 Chaucer's 4 , Influence. ( Skelton 87 fWyatt 88 Lallan I Surrey 88 influence. 1 Blank- Verse . 89 I Wilson.., 89 PERIOD IV. Material and Religious Condi- tion of the People, and Troubles with Spain and Ireland 91 Satires, Epigrams, Songs, etc 92 Masques, Pageants, and Interludes 93 Translations 93 Educational 94 Theological 94 Stories 94 Histories, Unpublished Writings 95 'Lyly and Sidney 96 Theological Literature 98 Hooker 98 Essays Bacon 98 History 99 Travels and Tales 100 Extract from Sidney 100 From Hooker 103 From Bacon'. 104 Spenser's Faerie Queen . . . His Minor Poems ......... Extract from Faerie Queen Love Poetry ..... . ....... Patriotic Poetry .......... Philosophical Poetry ..... Translations .............. f Miracle-Plays ......... Moral-Plays ........... Interludes ............ The Regular Drama. . . The Theatre .......... Lyly and Marlowe ---- Shakespeare ........... His Four Periods ...... Ben Jonson ........... Extract from Jonson . . His Masques .......... Beaumont and Fletcher Massinger and Ford. . . Webster and Chapman. .Shirley and Davenant. 108 111 112 116 117 119 119 121 122 123 124 124 126V 132 132 136 138 139 146 146 147 148 149 Contents. PEKIOD V. Historical Sketch 151 'Browne and Fuller 152 Taylor and Baxter 153 Extract from Fuller 154 Extract from Taylor 157 Extract from Browne 159 Decline of Poetry 161 Metaphysical Poetry 161 Lyric and Satirical 162 Rural Poetry 163 Religious Poetry 164 PAGE f John Milton 165 > Early Poems 165 His Prose during the Com- monwealth 166 Paradise Lost 168 i Later Poems 170 I His Work 171 | The Pilgrim's Progress. ... 172 From Milton's Prose 174 From Pilgrim's Progress. , 176 I From Milton's Poetry 180 PERIOD VI. Historical Sketch 187 "Change of Style and Subj. 188 Transition Poets 191 Satirist 192 Lyrist 193 Dramatist 194 .Extract from 196 f Theological and Political. 201 I Miscellaneous and Party. . 203 [Extract from Locke 206 Pope's Three Periods 208 The Minor Poets 211 Poetry of Natural Descrip- tion 211 Extract from Pope." 212 Swift 218 Defoe 219 Berkeley 219 Addison and Steele 219 Extract from Addison. . . * 222 PERIOD VII. Historical Sketch 225 f A Good Style 226 6 The Long Peace 226 1 The Press. 226 [Continental Influence. 227 I 9 * ( Richardson 228 l-Mrij Sterne and Goldsmith. 229 I & [Fielding Extract ... 229 f Hume and Gibbon 233 | J Biography and Travels. 235 g [Extract from Gibbon. . 236 Philosophical Hume 239 Political Burke, A. Smith . 239 [Miscellaneous Johnson... 241 Study of Classics Revived. 243 Study of Chaucer and the Elizabethan Poets 243 Interest in the Past 244 Change of Style 245 Nature the Subject 246 Man the Subject 248 Scottish Poetry 249 Blake's Poetry 249 Man and Nature in Cow- per's poetry 250 Extracts from 253 Burns The Love-Poet. ... 258 Extracts from.. . 260 10 Contents. PERIOD VIII. Brief Historical Sketch 268 [Miss Austen and Scott 269 rf I Extract from Scott 271 * -( Lytton, Bronte, Thacke- % ray, Dickens, and Geo. [ Eliot 277 His _ j Hallam, Macaulay, Mil- tory.j man, and Napier. .. 278 Biogra- j Lockhart, Southey, phy. } Forster, & Stanley 279 Theo. j Paley and Coleridge . . 279 ]Lit ' I John Henry Newman. 280 [Thackeray . 281 | | Macaulay 286 1 1 1 Newman 289 ** Geo. Eliot 292 [Dickens 301 [Mill, Hamilton, Ben- and f tham, and Blackstone 307 Misc. j Burke, Carlyle, and : ' [ Ruskin 308 Ext'aj Carlyle 310 from ^ j) e Q u i nC ey 316 The Law of Colonies 320 American Literature of the Seventeenth Cent.. 324 Ext. from John Smith . . 326 American Literature of the Eighteenth Cent. . . 329 Extract from Edwards . . 332 Ext. from Benj. Franklin 335 Ext. from John Adams. . 338 American Literature of ^ Nineteenth Cent. . . 340 [Irving and Extracts from 344 jj $ Prescott and Motley . . . , *"] g j Holmes and Ext. from. , Jjfi Emerson and Ext. from, [Hawthorne, Ext. from., The Fr. 350 351 356 362 366 Rev. and the Poets. Crabbe, Bloomfield, Southey, and Coleridge 367 Wordsworth Man and Na- ture 369 Extracts from 374 Scott 384 Campbell, Rogers, and Moore. 385 Extracts from Campbell 387 Extract from Moore 389 Byron Position as a Poet. . . 389 Extracts from 392 Shelley 399 Extract from 403 Keats 406 Extract from 408 Tennyson 410 Extracts from 412 Morris and Others. 421 Extract from Morris 422 Bryant 429 Extracts from 430 j Longfellow 438 Extract from 440 Whittier 446 Lowell 446 Extracts from 448 Extract from Whittier. . . 458 PERIODS or ENGLISH LITERATURE. PERIOD I. Before the Norman Conquest, 670-1060. PERIOD II. From the Conquest to Chaucer 's Death, 1066-1400. PERIOD III. From Chaucer* s Death to Elizabeth, 1400-1558. PERIOD IV. Elizabeth s Reign, 1558-1603. PERIOD V. From Elizabeth s Death to the Res- toration, 1603-1660. PERIOD YI. From the Restoration to SwifVs Death, 1660-1745. PERIOD VII. From SwifVs Death to the French Revolution, 1745-1789. PERIOD VIII. From the French Revolution onwards, 1789 ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY LESSON 1. INTRODUCTORY. REQUISITES FOB THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, To teach one English literature is to acquaint him with the writ- ings which constitute it. It is to put him in the way of getting at the characteristics of those who in a memorable degree have contributed to it ; and to lead him along this way until the traits peculiar to each are distinctly seen by him, and in some measure of intimacy the desired acquaintance with them is reached. To such a study it is evident that the student should come prepared ; he should bring to it respectable attain- ments, and a respectable discipline acquired in making these attainments. What rhetoric can teach him of thought and its invention, of words and the handling of them, of sentences in their myriad variety, of the cardinal qualities of style, of the great classes of literary productions, and all that this instruction can do in developing his power to discriminate and to classify he should bring to this work. Some knowledge of what goes to the making of literature and so of what he is to seek in it, some standard of excellence by which to judge the writings he is to study, and a faculty to compare, to estimate, and to decide are desirable, may we not say needful, at the outset. THE TEXT-BOOK, The text-book can aid the pupil in his work it will be something if it aids without hindering 14 Introductory. him. Instead of coining in between the pupil and the author to keep them apart with matter of its own, it should come only to introduce the one to the other, and to put the one on the best possible footing with the other. It has no right to substitute, for what the author has written, something which another has said about his writings, and call the study of this the study of English literature. It has no right to tax the memory of the pupil in the learning of this, and omit calling his judgment into vigorous exercise by a careful study of the authors themselves. The text-book may map out literature by dividing it into the periods into which it naturally falls; some account of the great events which have helped to shape the literature of each period may be given; the continuity of the literary stream through all these changes in its channel may be traced ; the influence of his surroundings upon an author and his reaction upon them may be indicated ; the productions of each writer should be named ; a more ample description of this and that great representative of his period may be given ; and even a critical estimate of some works may be made that the pupil through the glasses thus furnished may see what his unaided vision could not detect : but all this, be it remembered, the book should offer the pupil, not as the end of his study, but only as a means to place him in a better attitude for forming his own opinions, and to enable him to judge more accurately because of the light thus added. Let this also be remembered that what the author of the text-book or the critics whom he quotes may say of these writings is not to be received and retailed without question, but is to be passed upon by the pupil himself, and ratified or amended according to his find- ings in the extracts given or the works referred to for study in the preparation of his lesson, and for reading in the class- room. Only by making the pupils witnesses to give the evidence, advocates to arrange and present it, and the jury to weigh it and decide upon it, will the study be made interesting Introductory. 15 and profitable in the highest degree. Only thus can a culti- vated taste and a sound judgment be formed to guide pupils in their after-reading, and a key be placed in their hands to unlock the treasures of literature the study of which will be to most of them the best, perhaps the only, means with which to continue the life-long work of education. How THIS WORK IS TO BE STUDIED. We wish here to point out more in detail how this work should be studied to younger teachers the experience of an elder may be useful. The ques- tions below are framed for all except the eight historical Lessons, which introduce the periods of our literature. Some of these questions may seem trifling, others may be too diffi- cult. The teacher will take into account the age and ability of his class, and the rank of the author under discussion. He will take counsel from his experience and from his use of methods David could not fight in the armor of another. Eemembering that he cannot shift from himself the responsi- bility for his work, he will use his best discretion in conducting it. But if the line here traced is followed, we ask that these questions shall not be put in detail. They are grouped under headings, such as classification and diction. Let each pupil take the heading assigned him, and answer the questions under it without interrogation from the teacher or interruption from any one. The recitation is his work and his only. The direction of the whole, correction of what is amiss, and expan- sion of what is only suggested will give the teacher all needed occupation. If any heading is too comprehensive for a single pupil, he may share it with another, with others. The ques- tions under classification relate to the text ; those under the heads which follow relate to the author's writings. Insist that the pupil, in answering these, shall put his finger upon the words or passages from which he claims to derive his opinion. His answers, when he has ended, will provoke question and objection, and furnish matter for profitable debate. I. CLASSIFICATION. In what period is the writer placed? What great 16 Introductory. men are representative of it, and what is their exact date? Who were his contemporaries? To what class* of prose writers or of poets does he belong? What are his works? What is said of him? Of them? Have his productions become classic? II. DICTION. As a whole, are his words long or short? Simple or abstruse? Native in origin or foreign? Does he use words with pre- cision, or is he careless of their exact meanings? Does he handle them with ease? Has he a copious vocabulary? Judged by our standard, is he always grammatically correct? III. SENTENCES. Does he affect long sentences or short? Are they diffuse or epigrammatic? Are they sonorous, or are they written with slight regard to the ear? Are they mainly simple? Compound? Com- plex? Are his complex sentences involved and intricate, or is the con- nection of clauses obvious? In the arrangement of parts, does he incline to the natural order or to the transposed? Are any of his sentences climaxes, the parts growing in importance as the sentence proceeds? Are any periods, keeping the meaning in suspense till the close? Are any loose sentences, containing each at least one point before the end at which the sense is complete, the part following not making complete sense? Does he abound in parentheses? Is he happy in grouping his sentences into paragraphs? IV. STYLE. 1. PERSPICUITY. Is the author always clear? If so, to what is his perspicuity owing? If not, is his obscurity due to imperfect mastery of his subject? To an inexact use of words? To the use of strange words technical, obsolete, foreign, or newly-coined? To excess of words tautology or verbosity? To the omission of needed words? To expression too condensed? To a careless use of personal pronouns? To a faulty arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses? To an over- loading of the sentence that destroys unity? 2. IMAGERY. Does he use imagery? Does he use an excess of it? Is his imagery helpful to the thought? Are any of his figures of speech used only for ornament? What class of figures does he prefer? Do his figures contain allusions? From what sources are his figures drawn? Are any faulty? 3. ENERGY. Is the writer distinguished for strength? If so, is it due to vigor of thought? To strong feeling? To the use of specific words? To conciseness of expression? To the transposed order of arrangement? To rapidity of movement? To striking imagery? To idiomatic ex- pression? To apt quotations? To the use of the climax? To the use of * For explanation of this and of other points in this Lesson, see Kellogg's Rhetoric. Introductory. 17 the period? To variety in the structure of his sentences? To variety in the kinds of sentences used? 4 and 5. WIT AND PATHOS. Is the author witty? If so, does he pre- fer wit with malice in it? Or that without hostility humor? Has he pathetic passages? 6. ELEGANCE. Is the production remarkable for beauty ? If so, is the beauty in the thought? Is it secured by the choice of euphonious words? By beautiful imagery? By long and flowing sentences? By sentences harmonious and symmetrical, with parts nicely balanced? For what quality of style is the author chiefly distinguished? Is the style as a whole attractive to you? Would further study of it be profitable to you? Is it adapted to the thought? Does it lend value to the thought? Does the author show a mastery of the art of expression? Are you curious to see more of his writings? V. THOUGHT. Is the author's grasp of his thought firm ? Is the selec- tion crowded with thought? Does he make fine distinctions in his thinking? Is his thought profound or superficial? Original or common- place? True or erroneous? Does he deal with facts only, or is he highly imaginative? Is he dogmatic? Is he controversial? What is the topic of the extract, and what is the gist of his thought upon it? Is he didactic? Is he aiming mainly to please? Is he persuasive? Had he observed much? Had he read widely? Was he a man of great learning? Had he digested and assimilated his knowledge? If argu- mentative, is his reasoning easily followed? Does he cling closely to his subject, or does he digress? Is his reasoning open to any criticism? Do his paragraphs develop each a topic or sub-topic of the subject? Is the transition from one paragraph to another easy and natural? Is the connection between them close? VI. FEELING. Is the author's heart in his writings or only his intellect? If the writing is colored by sentiment, what feelings of the reader are principally appealed to? What in a subordinate degree? Does the thought predominate over the feeling, or the feeling over the thought? Is the author hopeful and inspiring? Is he genial and delightful? If so, because of what? Is he in love with his kind, or is he cynical? Is he in love with external nature? If so, with what phase or department of it? Is he sincere or affected? What else would you infer of his disposition and character? Do you feel after reading him that you know him? Does further acquaintance with him seem desirable? The questions asked above apply to Prose. But, omitting those under the headings Sentences and Energy, some of those under Perspicuity, and those under Thought which relate to argumentative writing, they apply 18 Introductory. to Poetry also. Make much of Feeling in relation to poetry. A few questions, peculiar to poetry, may be set down under the head of FORM. 1. RHYTHM. What foot prevails in the poem? Is it dissyl- labic or trisyllabic? What other feet, if any, are substituted for this, and where? In the scansion, is elision, or slurring, anywhere resorted to? Can you scan the poem? 2. METRE. How many feet are there in the standard, or prevailing, line? And so, in what metre is the poem written? What is the metre of those lines varying from the standard? 3. RHYME. Do the lines rhyme, or is the poem in blank-verse? FURTHER REMARKS. On some productions, questions, in ad- dition to those above, will be asked, or suggestions will be made. Characteristic specimens from only the principal authors, and not from all of these, can, in a work of this kind, be given or referred to for study. How many authors shall be studied in this way and how long they shall be studied are questions difficult to answer. Much depends upon the attain- ments and maturity of the class, and much upon the time allowed for the work. There are those who insist that but a few even of the best should be taken up, and that the pupil should tarry with these until his acquaintance has ripened into real intimacy. But such intimacy with a few, even if attainable when the material for comparison and contrast is scanty, must be paid for by total ignorance of literature as a whole. There is danger, too, that it would nourish in the pupil that "conceit of knowledge" which "is the arrest of progress." It would not cultivate breadth of view or catho- licity of taste. It is at issue with the aim of all other educa- tion in the preparatory school and in college, which is to open up to the pupil many departments of study and to enter him a little way in each, without attempting to make him a profi- cient in any. Better a taste of the characteristic flavor of many authors, a taste that will crave feeding when school days are over, than a long and relishable feast upon a few which shall leave the pupil without appetite for more food of the same, or of a different, kind. The man of many books Introductory. 19 may well heed the warning, Beware of the man of one book; not, however, because of this home-bred wit's superior knowl- edge, but rather because of his intolerable bigotry and one- sidedness. There are those, too, who in this study disallow all such methods as the one we have been unfolding, who even dis- courage the reading of extracts by the pupils, except under the teacher's supervision and with his explanation in the class- room, where he and they are jointly to commune with the author. Communion with the author is, of course, the one thing desired. Everything in the study should lead up to it as the goal. But how is this goal of communion, joint com- munion if you please, to be reached except by a start at some definite point, and by an orderly progress from it. The writer's thought is in his expression, the one can be got at only by and through the other. He is in both, both are his may we not say both are he. Shakespeare's thought, satu- rated with feeling, could it be divorced, as it cannot, from Shakespeare's diction and style, would lose its charm and its power; could it be reached by the pupil, as it cannot, without approaching it through his diction and style, the wliole of the dramatist would not be seen the pupil would not then stand in the presence of Shakespeare himself. But we unite with all who disparage methods that divert the pupil's attention from what we have seen is its proper ob- ject, and concentrate it upon a prolonged examination of the author's words in their etymology and history, making this a study of linguistics and not of literature. Differ, however, as we may in other respects, in this one thing all will agree that by the study of English literature the pupil is to be put in the way of deriving intellectual culture and intense enjoyment from books; that any method of study by which he secures these is good ; and that that method is the best by which he secures them in the largest measure. PERIOD I. BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 670-1066. 2. Brief Historical Sketch. Britain, at the beginning of the historic period, was inhabited by Celts. This race occupied Gaul, a part of Spain, the north of Italy, and some provinces of Central Europe, also. They belong to the great Indo-European family, the other members of which are the peoples using or having used (1) the Indian languages, notably the Sanskrit, of Northern Hindostan, (2) the Iranian of ancient and modern Persia, (3) the Hellenic of ancient Greece and the modern Greek, (4) the Slavonic, of which the Russian is chief, (5) the Italic, of which the Latin is the great representative, and (6) the Teutonic, subdivisible into the Gothic, the Scandinavian, the High Germanic, and the Low Ger- manic. The Celts of Britain were independent tribes, rarely uniting against a common foe. They lived in huts hollowed out of hills, sides vaulted and roofs thatched, or in circular houses with low stone walls and conical roofs ten or twelve families under one roof. Practiced polyandry. Lived on the products of the chase, on fruits, milk, and flesh, and in the South on grain bruised and baked. Wore tunics and short trowsers and cloaks; wove, made earthenware and the implements of war, and tattooed their bodies. Religion Druidism; the priests, called Druids, were somewhat educated, decided all disputes public and private, were exempt from taxes and all public duties, and offered sacrifices, even human. The Celts held the soul to be immortal, be- lieved in transmigration, and burned their dead, or buried them doubled up in cists or lying straight in canoe-shaped coffins. Irish teachers visit Britain and make converts to Christianity before 400 A.D. Caesar disclosed Britain to the Romans, 55 and 54 B.C. Agricola pushed its conquest to the Friths of Forth and of Clyde, 78-84 A.D. The Romans held Britain by fortified posts Eboricum (York) the central one connected by broad military roads passing straight over hills, and crossing morasses on piles. Romans exacted tribute, and afterward taxes on arable and on pasture land, and customs at the ports, proscribed Druidism, abolished tattooing, made cremation general, quickened agriculture, and exported History. 21 corn. By 420 A.D., the Roman legions are recalled to defend Rome against the northern hordes. Angles, Saxons, and Jutes of the Teutonic race, dwelling about the mouths of the Elbe, begin the conquest of Britain by 450, complete it by 607. Celts exterminated or driven to the moun- tains. Few Celtic words, dating from this period, in our language. Their names given to the rivers survive. Sovereignty of the Anglo- Saxons at first in the hands of the people. War gives birth to mon- archy, the king chosen from the leaders in battle. Houses of stone or timber, sometimes with an upper story, mead hall the principal room, no chimneys. Had chairs, stools, and benches, used carpets and cush- ions, glass drinking cups, few plates and knives, no forks,^(pd a board on trestles for a table. Ate animal food, fish, and .grain ground by hand or in water mills and baked in ovens. ^%apons were the sword, battle axe, bow and arrow, dagger, spear, wooden shield with iron boss, and mail of leather. Prisoners taken in battle, debtors surrendering themselves, and criminals were made slaves. Land was divided, into marks, each occupied by a community of related families. In time, marks unite to form shires (32 in Alfred's reign, 871-901), each with its own organization legal, political, and religious. Shires (now counties) unite to form a kingdom. Wives practically bought at first, polygamy forbidden, voluntary separation allowed, and children could be sold or possibly put to death by the parent. Religion Scandinavian, names of the gods seen in the names of some of our days of the week. Names of demons and water sprites survive in Old Scratch, Old Nick, and Deuce. This religion drove Christianity out of Britain. Right of private re- venge claimed at first, afterward crimes and injuries could be expiated with money. In Alfred's time, death was the punishment for murder and for some other crimes. Christianity introduced from Rome, 597 A.D., by Augustine, who became first Archbishop of Canterbury. From 607 onward, the Anglo-Saxons were fighting each other, until in 827 the seven or eight kingdoms were united under Egbert, king of Wessex, who now styled himself "King of the English." The glorious period of A. S. history is the reign of Alfred the Great. Frequent Danish in- vasions from 832-1011. Danish kings on the throne, 1013-1042. Did not materially change the institutions or the language, which was the Anglo-Saxon, the mother-tongue of the English of to-day. Anglo- Saxon dynasty restored by Edward the Confessor, 1042. Conquest of the country by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, 1066. To THE TEACHER. Make as much as the hour will allow of each historical Lesson. Develop points that are only suggested. Emphasize especially those events that iccount for any feature or phase of the literature. Literature of Period /., 670-1066. LESSON 3. THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. " This is the story of what great English men and women thought and felt, and then wrote down in good prose or beautiful poetry in the English language. The story is a long one. It begins about the year 670, and it is still going on in the year 1882. Into this book, then, is to be put the story of 1,200 years. Eng- lish men and women have 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 I belong to a great company which has been teach- ing and delighting the world for more than 1,000 years.' And that is a fact in which those who write and those who read ought to feel a noble pride. THE ENGLISH AND THE WELSH, This literature is written in English, the tongue of our fathers. They lived, while England was still called Britain, in Sleswick, Jutland, and Holstein; but, either because they were pressed from the inland or for pure love of adventure, they took to the sea, and, landing at various parts of Britain at various times, drove back, after 150 years of hard fighting, the Britons, whom they called Welsh, to the land now called Wales, and to Cornwall. It is well for those who study English literature to remember that in these two places the Britons remained as a distinct race with a distinct literature of their own, because the stories and the poetry of the Britons crept afterwards into English literature and had a great influence upon it. The whole tale of King Arthur, of which English poetry and even English prose is so full, was a British tale. THE ENGLISH* TONGUE. Of the language in which our * " There is no good re'ason for rejecting the term Anglo-Saxon, and, as has been proposed, employing English as the name of the language from the earliest date to the present day. A change of nomenclature like this would expose us to the incon- venience not merely of embracing within one designation objects which have been The Language, First English. Poetry. 23 literature is written we can say little here. Of course it has changed its look very much since it began to be written. The earliest form of our English tongue is very different from modern English in form, pronunciation, and appearance, and one must learn it almost as if it were a foreign tongue; but still the language written in the year 700 is the same as that in which the prose of the Bible is written, just as much as the tree planted a hundred years ago is the same tree to-day. It is this sameness of language, as well as the sameness of na- tional spirit, which makes the literature one literature for 1200 years. THE FIRST ENGLISH POETRY, When the English came to Britain, they were great warriors and great sea pirates ' sea wolves' as a Roman poet calls them; and all English poetry down to the present day is full of war, and still more of the sea. No other nation has ever written so much sea-poetry. It was in the blood of these men, who chanted their sea war-songs as they sailed. But they were more than mere warriors. They were a home-loving people when settled either in Sleswick or in England, and all English literature from the first writings to the last is full of domestic love, the dearness of home, and the ties of kinsfolk. They were a religious people, even as heathen, conventionally separated but of confounding things logically distinct; for, though our modern English is built upon, and mainly derived from, the Anglo-Saxon, the two dialects are now so discrepant that the fullest knowledge of one would not alone suffice to render the other intelligible to either the eye or the ear. They are too unlike in vocabulary and in inflectional character to be still considered as one speech." George P. Marsh. These reasons are equally conclusive against calling our earliest literature Eng- lish. Wherever, then, in this Lesson and in the three or four following, Mr. Brooke uses English to designate either the language or the literature before 1066 or even 1150, we suggest that Anglo-Saxon be substituted for ifby the teacher and the pupil. This distribution of our language and our literature, adopted by some of our latest and best authorities, seems to us excellent: I. Anglo-Saxon ................................................. 4501150 n. in. Middle English .............................................. 13501550 IV. Modern English ............................................ 1550 -- . 24 Literature of Period /., 670-1066. still more so when they became Christian; and their poetry is as much tinged with religion as with war. Whenever literature died down in England, it rose again in poetry; and the first poetry at each recovery was religious, or linked to religion. We shall soon see that the first poems were of war and religion. English. Poetry was different then from what it is now. It was not written in rhyme, nor were its syllables counted. The lines are short; the beat of the verse depends on the emphasis given by the use of the same letter, except in the case of vowels, at the beginning of words; and the emphasis of the words depends on the thought. The lines are written in pairs; and in the best work the two chief words in the first and the one chief word in the second usually begin with the same letter. Here is one example from a war-song: ' TFigu wintrum geong I ' TFarrior of winters young TFbrdum maBlde.' With words spake.' After the Norman Conquest there gradually crept in a French system of rhymes and of metres, which we find full-grown in Chaucer's works. But unrhymed and alliterative verse lasted in poetry to the reign of John, and alliteration was blended with rhyme up to the sixteenth century. The latest form of it occurs in Scotland. . The greatest early Poems remaining are two Beowulf and Ccedmon's Paraphrase of the Bible. The first is on the whole a war story, the second is religious; and on these two subjects of war and religion English poetry for the most part speaks till the Conquest. Beowulf was brought into England from the Continent^ and was rewritten in parts by a Christian Englishman of Northumbria. It is a story of the great deeds and death of a hero named Beowulf. Its social interest lies in what it tells us of the manners and customs of these people before they came to the island; its poetical interest lies in its descriptions of wild nature, of the lives and feelings of the Beowulf. men of that time, and of the way in which the Nature-worship of these men made dreadful and savage places seem dwelt in as if the places had a spirit by monstrous beings. For it was thus that all that half -natural, half-spiritual world began in English poetry which, when men grew gentler and the coun- try more cultivated, became so beautiful as faeryland. Here is the description (taken from Thorpe's edition of the poem) of the dwelling-place of the Grendel, a man-fiend that devoured men, and whom Beowulf overcomes in battle: ' Hie dygel lond They that secret land warigeaS wulf-hleo$u, inhabit, the wolf's retreats, windige nsessas, windy nesses, frecne fen-gelad, the dangerous fen-path, Saer fyrgen-stream. under naessa genipu, nij>er gewitetJ, flod under foldan. Nis J>aet feor heonon, mil gemearces, J>aet se mere standeS, ofer j>sem hongiaft hrinde-bearwas . Pe}>a eal gesset ; gesawon j>a sefter wsetere wyrm-cynnes fela, sellice sge-dracan, sund cunnian ; swylce on nses-hleofum nicras licgean, Sa on undern mail oft bewitigaft sorhfulne sitS on segl-rade, wyrmas and wildeor : where the mountain-stream, under the nesses' mists, downward flows, the flood under the earth. It is not far thence. a mile's distance, that the mere stands, over which hang barky groves * The band all sat; they saw along the water of the worm-kind many, strange sea dragons, tempting the deep ; also in the headland-clefts nickers lying, which at morning time oft keep their sorrowful course on the sail-road, worms and wild beasts'. 26 Literature of Period /., 670-1066. To THE TEACHER. Note the two A. S. characters for our th ; the one, in line 2, for th in thine; the other, in line 7, for th in thin. Italicized words in the translation have no equivalents in the original. Ask the pupils to name the A. S. words of the extract still in our language, though changed in spelling. " The love of wild nature m English poetry, and the peo- pling of it with wild, half -human things begin in work like this. After the fight Beowulf returns to his own land, where he rules well for many years, till a Fire-drake, who guards a treas- ure, comes down to harry his people. The old king goes out then to fight his last fight, slays the dragon, but dies of its flaming breath, and his body is burned high up on a sea- washed Ness, or headland." " Similes are very rare in A. S. poetry. The whole romance of Beo- wulf contains only five, and these are of the simplest kind ; the vessel gliding swiftly over the waves is compared to a bird; the Grendel's eyes to fire; his nails to steel; the light which Beowulf finds in the Grendel's dwelling, under the waters, resembles the serene light of the sun; and the sword which has been bathed in the monster's blood melts immediately like ice." Wright. BIBLIOGRAPHY. ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND THE ANGLO-SAXON WRITERS. Turner's Hist, of Manners, Poetry, and Lit. of the Anglo-Saxons ; H. Corson's Hand-book of A. S. and Early Eng.; H. Morley's Eng. Writers; T. Wright's Bio- graphia Britannica Literaria ; Guest's Hist. Eng. Rhythms ; Taine's Eng. Lit. ; Craik's Eng. Lit.; J. J. Conybeare's Illust. of A. S. Poetry; G. P. Marsh's Origin und Hist, of Eng. Lang.; Prof. Ten Brink's Hist. Eng. Lit.; H. 'Sweet's Hist, of A. 8. Poetry; A. S. l*it. in Encyclo. Britannica; in Johnson's Cyclo.; in Appleton's, and 'in others. LESSON 4. CJEDMOW.- "The poem of Beowulf has the grave Teutonic power, but ; t is not native to English soil. It is not the first true English poem. That is the work of (LEDMON, and is also from Northumbria. The story of it, as told by Baeda, proves that the making of songs was common at the time. Csedmon was a servant to the monastery of Hild, an abbess of royal blood, at Whitby in Yorkshire. He was somewhat aged when the gift of song came to him, and he knew nothing of the art of verse, so that at the feasts, when for the sake of mirth all sang Ccedmon. 27 in turn, he left the table. One night, having done so and gone to the stables, for he had care of the cattle, he fell asleep, and One came to him in vision and said, ' Caedmon, sing me some song/ And he answered, ' I cannot sing; for this cause I left the feast and came hither.' Then said the other, 'However, you shall sing.' 'What shall I sing?' he replied. /Sing the beginning of created things,' answered the other. Where- upon he began to sing verses to the praise of God, and, awak- ing, remembered what he had sung, and added more in verse worthy of God. In the morning he came to the steward, and told him of the gift he had received, and, being brought to Hild, was ordered to tell his dream before learned men that they might give judgment whence his verses came. And, when they had heard, they all said that heavenly grace had been conferred on him by our Lord. Caedmon's poem, written about 670, is for us the beginning of English poetry, and the story of its origin ought to be loved by us. Nor should we fail to reverence the place where it began. Above the small and land-locked, harbor of Whitby rises and juts out towards the sea the dark cliff where Hild's monastery stood, looking out over the German Ocean. It is a wild, wind-swept upland, and the sea beats furiously be- neath, and standing there one feels that it is a fitting birthplace for the poetry of the sea-ruling nation. Nor is the verse of the first poet without the stormy note of the scenery among which it was written. In it also the old, fierce, war element is felt when Csedmon comes to sing the wrath of the rebel angels with God and the overthrow of Pharaoh's host, and the lines, repeating, as was the old English way, the thought a second time, fall like stroke on stroke in battle. But the poem is religious throughout Christianity speaks in it simply, sternly, with fire, and brings with it a new world of spiritual romance and feeling. The subjects of the poem were taken from the Bible, in fact Caedmon paraphrased the history of the Old and the New Testament. Ho sang the creation of the world, the 28 Literature of Period /., 670-1066. history of Israel, the book of Daniel, the whole story of the life of Christ, future judgment, purgatory, hell, and heaven. All who heard it thought it divinely given. ' Others after him/ says Bseda, ( tried to make religious poems, but none could vie with him, for he did not learn the art of poetry from men, nor of men, but from God.' It was thus that English song began in religion. The most famous passage of the poem not only illustrates the dark sadness, the fierce love of freedom, and the power of painting distinct characters which has always marked English poetry, but it is also famous for its likeness to a parallel passage in Milton. It is when C^dmon describes the proud and angry cry of Satan against God from his bed of * chains in hell. The two great English poets may be brought together over a space of a thousand years in another way, for both died in such peace that those who watched beside them knew not when they died. LESSEE OLD ENGLISH POEMS. Of the poetry that came af- ter Caedmon we have few remains. But we have many things said which show us that his poem, like all great works, gave birth to a number of similar ones. The increase of monasteries, where men of letters lived, naturally made the written poetry religious. But an immense quantity of secular poetry was sung about the country. ALDHELM, a young man when Csed- mon died, and afterwards Abbot of Malmesbury, united the song-maker to the religious poet. He was a skilled musician, and it is said that he had not his equal in the making or sing- ing of English verse. His songs were popular in King Alfred's time, and a pretty story tells that, when the traders came into the town on the Sunday, he, in the character of a gleeman, stood on the bridge and sang them songs, with which he mixed up Scripture text and teaching. Of all this wide-spread poetry we have now only the few poems brought together in a book preserved at Exeter, in another found at Yercelli, and in a few leaflets of manuscripts. The poems in the Vercelli book are all religious legends of saints and addresses to the soul; Early Christian Poetry and War Poetry. 29 those in the Exeter book are hymns and sacred poems. The famous Traveller's Song and the Lament of Deor inserted in it are of the older and pagan time. In both there are poems by CYNEWULF, whose work is remarkably fine. They are all Christian in tone. The few touches of love of nature in them dwell on gentle, not on savage, scenery. They are sorrowful when they speak of the life of men, tender when they touch on the love of home, as tender as this little bit which still lives for us out of that old world: 'Dear is the welcome guest to the Frisian wife when the vessel strands; his ship is come, and her husband to his house, her own provider. And she welcomes him in, washes his weedy garment, and clothes him anew. It is pleasant on shore to him whom his love awaits.' Of the scattered pieces the finest are two fragments, one long, on the story of Judith, and another short, in which Death speaks to Man, and describes i the low and hateful and door- less house,' of which he keeps the key. But stern as the fragment is, with its English manner of looking dreadful things in the face, and with its English pathos, the religi- ous poetry of this time always went with faith beyond the grave. Thus we are told that King Eadgar, in the ode on his death in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 'chose for himself another light, beautiful and pleasant, and left this feeble life.' The war poetry of England at this time was probably as plentiful as the religious. But it was not likely to be written down by the writers who lived in religious houses. It was sung from feast to feast and in the halls of kings, and it naturally decayed when the English were trodden down by the Normans. But we have two examples of what kind it was, and how fine it was, in the Battle Song of Brunariburh, 937, and in the Song of the Fight at Maldon, 991. A still earlier fragment exists in a short account of the Battle of Finnesburg, probably of the same time and belonging to as long a story as the story of Beowulf. Two short odes on the victories of King Eadmund 30 Literature of Period /., 670-1066. and on the coronation of King Eadgar, inserted in the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, complete the list of war poems. The Songs of Brunanburh and Maldon are fine war odes, the fitting sources, both in their short and rapid lines and in their almost Homeric simplicity and force, of such war-songs as the ' Battle of the Baltic' and the ' Charge of the Light Bri- gade.' The first describes the fight of King ^Ethelstan with Anlaf the Dane. From morn till night they fought till they were 'weary of red battle' in the 'hard hand play,' till five young kings and seven earls of Anlaf 's host lay in that fighting place ' quieted by swords,' and the Northmen fled, and only ( the screamers of war were left behind, the black raven and the eagle to feast on the white flesh, and the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey beast tho wolf in the wood.' The second is the story of the death of Brihtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes. It contains 690 lines. In the speeches of heralds and warriors before the fight, in the speeches and single combats of the chiefs, in the loud laugh and mock which follow a good death-stroke, in the rapid rush of the verse when the battle is joined, the poem, though broken, as Homer's verse is not, is Homeric. In the rude chivalry which disdains to take vantage ground of the Danes, in the way in which the friends and churls of Brihtnoth die, one by one, avenging their lord, keeping faithful the tie of kinship and clanship, in the cry not to yield a foot's breadth of earth, in the loving sadness with which home is spoken of, the poem is English to the core. And in the midst of it all, like a song from another land, but a song heard often in English fights from then till now, is the last prayer of the great earl, when, dying, he commends his soul with thankfulness to God. " frose Bceda, JElfred, and The Chronicle. 31 5. OLD ENGLISH PROSE. "It is pleasant to think that I may not unfairly make English prose begin with B^EDA. He was born about A.D. 673, and was, like Caedmon, a Northumbrian. From 683 he spent his life at Jarrow, in the same monastery, he says, ' and while attentive to the rule of mine order, and the service of the Church, my constant pleasure lay in learn- ing or teaching or writing.' He long enjoyed that pleasure, for his quiet life was long, and from boyhood till his very last hour his toil was unceasing. Forty-five works prove his industry, and their fame over the whole of learned Europe during his time proves their value. His learning was as various as it was great. All that the world then knew of science, music, rhetoric, medicine, arithmetic, astronomy, and physics was brought together by him ; and his life was as gentle and himself as loved as his work was great. His books were written in Latin, and with these we have nothing to do, but his was the first effort to make English prose a literary language, for his last work was a Translation of the Gospel of St. John, as almost his last words were in English verse. In the story of his death, told by his disciple, CUTHBERT is the first record of English prose writing. When the last day came, the dying man called his scholars to him that he might dictate more of his translation. ' There is still a chapter wanting,' said the scribe, ' and it is hard for thee to question thyself longer.' ' It is easily done,' said Baeda, ' take thy pen and write quickly. ' Through the day they wrote, and when evening fell, ' There is yet one sentence unwritten, dear master,' said the youth. ' Write it quickly,' said the mas- ter. 'It is finished now.'* ( Thou sayest truth,' was the reply, 'all is finished now.' He sang the 'Glory to God,' and died. It is to that scene that English prose looks back as its sacred source, as it is in the greatness and variety of 32 Literature of Period /., 670-1066. Baeda's Latin work that English literature strikes its key- note. JELFKED's WORK. When Bseda died, North umbria was the home of English literature. Though as yet written mostly in Latin, it was a wide-spread literature. Wilfrid of York and Benedict Biscop had founded libraries and established monas- tic schools far and wide. Six hundred scholars gathered round Bseda ere he died. But towards the end of his life, this northern literature began to decay, and after 866 it was, we may say, blotted out by the Danes. The long battle with these invaders WMS lost in Northumbria, but it was gained for a time by ^Elf red the Great in Wessex ; and with ALFRED'S literary work learning changed its seat from the north to the south. But he made it by his writings an English, not a Latin, literature ; and in his translations he, since Baeda's work is lost, is the true father of English prose. As Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of English prose. At Winchester Alfred took the English tongue and made it the tongue in which history, philoso- phy, law, and religion spoke to the English people. No work was ever done more eagerly or more practically. He brought scholars from different parts of the world. He set up schools in his monasteries. He presided over a school in his own court. He made himself master of a literary Eng- lish style, and he did this that he might teach his people. He translated the popular manuals of the time into English, but he edited them with large additions of his own, needful, as he thought, for English use. He gave his nation moral philosophy in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy ; a uni- versal history, with geographical chapters of his own, in the History of Orosius ; a history of England in Bcedcfs History, giving to some details a West Saxon form ; and a religious hand-book in the Pastoral Rule of Pope Gregory. We do not- quite know whether he worked himself at the English, or Anglo-Saxon, Chronicle, but at least it was in his reign Prose Alfred and The Chronicle. 33 that it rose out of meagre lists into a full narrative of events. To him, then, we look back as the father of English liter- ature." " With the Peace of Wedmore in 878 began a work even more noble than this deliverance of Wessex from the Dane. ' So long as I have lived,' wrote Alfred in later days, 'I have striven to live worthily.' He longed, when death overtook him, ' to leave to the men that come after a remembrance of me in good works.' The aim has been more than fulfilled. The memory of the life and doings of the noblest of English rulers has come down to us living and distinct through the mists of ex- aggeration and legend that gathered round it. He really lived for the good of his people. He is the first instance, in the history of Christen- dom, of the Christian King, of a ruler who put aside every personal aim or ambition to devote himself to the welfare of those whom he ruled. The defence of his realm provided for, he devoted himself to its good government. His work was of a simple and practical order. .He was wanting in the imaginative qualities which mark the higher statesman, nor can we trace in his acts any sign of the creative faculty or any per- ception of new ideas. In politics as in war, or in his after dealings with letters, he simply took what was closest at hand, and made the best of it. The laws of Ini and Offu were codified and amended, justice was more rigidly administered, corporal punishment was substituted inmost cases for the old blood -wite, or money-fine, and the right of private revenge was curtailed. The strong moral bent of Alfred's mind was seen in some of the novelties of his legislation. The Ten Commandments and a por- tion of the Law of Moses were prefixed to his code, and thus became part of the law of the land. Labor on Sundays and holy days was made criminal, and heavy punishments were exacted for sacrilege, per- jury, and the seduction of nuns. The spirit of adventure that made him in youth the first huntsman of his day, and the reckless daring of his early manhood took later and graver form in the activity thai found time amidst the cares of state for the daily duties of religion, for converse with strangers, for study and translation, for learning poems by heart, for planning buildings and instructing craftsmen in gold-work, for teaching even falconers and dog-keepers their business. Restless as he was, his activity was the activity of a mind strictly practical. ^Elfred was pre-eminently a man of business, careful of detail, labori- ious, and methodical. He carried in his bosom a little hand-book, in which he jotted down things as they struck him now a bit of family genealogy, now a prayer, and now a story, such as that of Bishop Eald- 34 Literature of Period /., 670-1066. helm's singing sacred songs on the bridge. Each hour of the king's day had its peculiar task ; there "was the same order in the division of his revenue and in the arrangement of his court. But, active and busy as he was, his temper remained simple and kindly. Neither the wars nor the legislation of ^Elfred was destined to leave such lasting traces upon England as the impulse he gave to its literature. His end indeed even in this was practical rather than literary. What he aimed at was simply the education of his people. As yet Wessex was the most ignorant of the English kingdoms. ' When I began to reign,' said ./Elf red, ' I cannot remember one south of Thames who couid explain his service-book in English.' To remedy this ignorance ^Elfred desired that at least every free-born youth who possessed the means should ' abide at his book till he can well understand English writing.' " /. E. Green. THE LATER OLD ENGLISH PROSE. "The impulse Alfred gave soon fell away, but it was revived under King Eadgar, when ^Ethelwald, Bishop of Winchester, made it his constant work to keep up English schools and to translate Latin works into English, and when Archbishop Dunstan took up the same pursuits with eagerness. JSthelwald's school sent out from it a scholar and abbot named ^ELFEIC. He takes rank as the first large translator of the Bible, turning into English the first seven hooks and part of Job. We owe to him a series of Homilies and his Colloquy, afterwards edited by another .^Elfric, may be called the first English-Latin dictionary. But this revival had no sooner begun to take root than the North- men came again in force upon the land and conquered it. During the long interweaving of Danes and English together under Danish kings from 1013 to 1042, no English literature arose. It was not till the quiet reign of Edward the Confes- sor that it again began to live. But no sooner was it born than the Norman invasion repressed, but did not quench, its life. THE ENGLISH CHRONICLE. One great monument, however, of old English prose lasts beyond the Conquest. 'It is the Eng- lish Chronicle, and in it the literature is continuous from Alfred to Stephen. At first it was nothing but a record of Prose 2Elfre d and The Chronicle. 35 the births and deaths of bishops and kings, and was probably a West Saxon Chronicle. Alfred edited it from various sources, added largely to it from Baeda, and raised it to the dignity of a national history. After his reign, and that of his son Eadward, 901-925, it becomes scanty, but songs and odes are inserted in it. In the reign of ^Ethelred and during the Danish kings, its fulness returns, and, growing by addi- tions from various quarters, it continues to be the great con- temporary authority in English history till 1154, when it abruptly closes with the death of Stephen. ' It is the first his- tory of any Teutonic people in their own language; it is the earliest and the most venerable monument of English prose.' In it old English poetry sang its last song, in its death old English prose dies. It is not till the reign of John that Eng- lish poetry in any extended form appears again in the Brut of Layamon. It js not till the reign of Edward the Third that original English prose again begins." "Taking the Chronicle as a whole, I know not where else to find a series of annals so barren of all human interest, and for all purposes of real history so worthless." Oeo. P. Marsh. SCHEME FOB KEVIEW O Periods of English Literature. . 12 Requisites for the Study 13 The Text-Book 14 I ! Classification 15 H. Diction 16 Hi. Sentences 16 f 1. Perspicuity 16 2. Imagery 16 IS 3. Energy 16 4 and 5. Wit, Pathos.. . . 17 H [6. Elegance 17 V. Thought 17 vi. Feeling 17 a fl. Rhythm , 18 RS-J2. Metre 18 >% 13. Rhyme 18 rther Remarks 18 The Celts the Roman Con- quest 20 Anglo-Saxons the Conquest. . 21 Danish Invasions 21 The English Tongue 23 [How Written 24 Beowulf 24 Casdmon 26 Adhelm and Cynewulf 28 Vercelli and Exeter Book. . 28 h f Finnesburg 29 \\ll\ Brunanburgh 30 5 [** [Maldon 30 SifBaBda 31 gSl J JBlfred 32 a ] ^Elfric and Eng. Chron- H^ I icle.. 04 PERIOD II. FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF CHAUCER, 1066-1400. LESSON 6. Brief Historical Sketch. At the time of the Norman Conquest, the Anglo-Saxons and their literature were languishing. The Conquest did not cause, only hastened, the downfall of the Saxon Commonwealth. It infused new life into the exhausted race. Rescued it from sinking into utter barbarism. Feudalism introduced by William. King the feudal lord and source of all jurisdiction. Crown vassals, afterward called Barons, greater and lesser, held fiefs directly from the king. Thanes were feudatories of vassals. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the larger towns secure by charter the right of self-taxation, the control of their trade, and self-government; serfs the right to buy their freedom ; and villeins the right to commute labor-service by the payment of money. Art of weaving woollen cloth introduced by the Flemings about 1110. Trial by jury begins, 1166. Partial conquest of Ireland by Strongbow, under Hen. II., 1170. Richard's Crusade, 1190-94. Loss of Normandy, 1204. John grants Magna Charta, 1215. First sum- mons of burgesses to Parliament, 1265. The independence of Scotland from the overlordship of England, secured by Wallace and Bruce, recog- nized by Treaty of Northampton, 1328. With the battle of Cressy, 1346, Edward III. begins the Hundred Years' War for the recovery of the English possessions in France, acquired by the marriage of Hen. II., the first of the Plantagenet kings, with Eleanor of Acquitaine. This war and that with Scotland developed the spirit of English nation- ality. First use of gunpowder and of artillery at this battle of Cressy. Gunpowder makes war a profession, undermines feudalism, destroying military service, the tenure by which land under it was held, and ad- vances civilization. Treaty of -Bretigny, by which Gascony, Guienne, Poitou, Santoigne, and Calais came into the full possession of the Eng- lish, and Edward's claim to the Crown of France and to Normandy was waived, 1360. Dress and diet of each class fixed by statute, 1363. Peasant's Revolt under Wat Tyler, 1381. Rich. II. invades Ireland, 1394 History. 37 aud 1399. Four visitations of the Black Death, sweeping off 2,500,000 people, one half of the population of England, 1348-9, 1361-2, 1369, and 1375-6. Population of London in Chaucer's time about 35,000 (now 4,000,000). First royal proclamation in the English language, 1258. Pleadings in law-courts required to be in English by act of Parliament, 1362. Instruction in the schools was in English after 1349. The eight Crusades for the recovery of Jerusalem between 1095 and 1272. The Norman Conquest (1) stripped the native speech of gram- matical inflections, (2) abolished a large number of its formative suf- fixes and prefixes, (3) destroyed its power of forming self-explaining compounds, (4) caused the loss of vast numbers of its words from one third to one half of all it possessed, (5) brought in a multitude of French words and opened the door for the Latin (the two now forming three tenths of our vocabulary), added (6) prefixes and suffixes and (7) the comparison of adjectives by the use of adverbs, (8) generalized the use of 8 as a plural termination of nouns, (9) introduced the custom of indicating the possessive relation by a preposition, of, and (10) helped to bring in or to extend the use of to before the infinitive. In the admixture of races, humor, lightness, imagination, and sensibility to beauty were added to the plain and solid, but obtuse, Saxon mind. LESSON 7. GENERAL OUTLINE. "The invasion of Britain by the Eng- lish made the island, its speech, and its literature English. The invasion of England by the Danes left the speech and literature still English. The Danes were of same stock and tongue as the people invaded, and were absorbed by them. The invasion of England by the Normans seemed likely to crush the English people, to root out their literature, and even to threaten their speech. But that which happened to the Danes happened to the Normans also, and for the same reason. They were originally of like blood with the Eng- lish, and of like speech; and, though during their settlement in Normandy they had become French in manner and lan- guage, and their literature French, yet the old blood prevailed in the end. The Norman felt his kindred with the English tongue and spirit, became an Englishman, and left the French 88 Literature of Period II., 1066-1400. tongue to speak and write in English. He, too, was absorbed, and into English literature and speech were taken some French elements he had brought with him. It was a pro- cess slower in literature than it was in the political history, but it began from the political struggle. Up to the time of Henry II. the Norman troubled himself but little about the English tongue. But when French foreigners came pouring into the land in the train of Henry and his sons, the Norman allied himself with the Englishman against these foreigners, and the English tongue began to rise into importance. Its literature grew slowly, but as quickly as most of the litera- tures of Europe, and it never ceased to grow. There are English sermons of the same century, and now, early in the next century, at the central time of this struggle, after the death of Richard the First, the Brut of Layamon and the Or- mulum come forth within ten years of each other to prove the continuity, the survival, and the victory of the English tongue. When the patriotic struggle closed in the reign of Edward I., English literature had risen again through the song, the sermon, and the poem, into importance, and was written by a people made up of Norman and Englishman welded into one by the fight against the foreigner. But, though the foreigner was driven out, his literature influenced and continued to influence the new English poetry. The poetry, we say, for in this revival the literature was only poeti- cal. All prose, with the exception of a few sermons and some religious works from the French, was written in Latin. RELIGIOUS POETKY AND STGBY-TELLING POETBY. These are the two main streams into which this poetical literature divides itself. The religious poetry is entirely English in spirit and a poetry of the people, from the Ormulum of Ormin, 1215, to the Vision of Piers the Plowman, in which poem the distinctly Eng- lish poetry reached its truest expression in 1362. The story- telling poetry is English at its beginning but becomes more and more influenced by the romantic poetry of France, and in Poetry Ormin, Langland, and Others. 39 the end grows in Chaucer's hands into a poetry of the court and of high society, a literary in contrast with a popular, poetry. But even in this the spirit of the poetry is English, though the manner is French. Chaucer becomes less French and even less Italian, till at last we find him entirely national in the Canterbury Tales, the best example of English story-telling we possess. The struggle, then, of England, against the foreigner, to become and remain England finds its parallel in the struggle of English poetry, against the influence of foreign poetry, to become and remain English. Both struggles were long and wearisome, but in both England was triumphant. She became a nation, and she won a national literature. It is the steps of this struggle we have now to trace along the two lines already laid down the poetry of religion and the poetry of story-telling; but to do so we must begin in both in- stances with the Norman Conquest. THE RELIGIOUS POETEY, The religious revival of the llth century was strongly felt in Normandy, and both the knights and the Churchmen who came to England with William the Conqueror and during his son's reign were founders of abbeys whence the country was civilized. In Henry I.'s reign the religion of England was further quickened by missionary monks sent by Bernard of Clairvaux. London was stirred to rebuild St. Paul's, and abbeys rose in all the well-watered val- leys of the North. The English citizens of London and the English peasants in the country received a new religious life from the foreign noble and the foreign monk, and both were drawn together through a common worship. When this took place, a desire arose for religious hand-books in the English tongue. ORMLN-'S Ormulum is a type of these. We may date it, though not precisely, at 1215,,the date of the Great Char- ter. It is entirely English, not five French words are to be found in it. It is a metrical version of the service of each day with the addition of a sermon in verse. The book was called Ormulum, 'for this that Orm it wrought/ Orm being a con- 40 Literature of Period //., 1066-1400. traction for Ormin. It marks the rise of English religious literature, and its religion is simple and rustic. Orm's ideal monk is to be ' a very pure man, and altogether without prop- erty, except that he shall be found in simple meat and clothes/ He will have 'a hard and stiff and rough and heavy life to lead. All his heart and desire ought to be aye toward heaven, and his Master well to serve.' This was English religion in the country at this date. LITERATURE AND THE FRIARS. There was little religion in the towns, but this was soon changed. In 1221 the Mendicant Friars came to England, and they chose the towns for their work. Their influence was great, and they drew Norman and English more closely together on the ground of religion. In 1303 ROBERT OF BRU^NE translated a French poem, the Manual of Sins (written thirty years earlier by William of Waddington), under the title of Handlyng Sinne. WILLIAM OF SHOREHAM translated the whole of the Psalter into Eng- lish prose about 1327, and wrote religious poems. The Cur- sor Mundi, written about 1320, and thought ' the best book of all ' by men of that time, was a metrical version of the Old and the New Testament, interspersed, as was the Handlyng Sinne, with legends of saints. Some scattered Sermons, and in 1340 the AyenMte of Inwyt (Remorse of Conscience), translated from the French, mark how English prose was rising through religion. About the same year RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE wrote in Latin, and in Northumbrian English for the ( unlearned,' a poem called the Pricke of Conscience, and some prose treatises. The poem marks the close of the religious influence of the Friars. In the Vision of Piers the Plowman, the protest its writer jmakes for purity of life is also a protest against the foul life land the hypocrisy of the Friars. In this poem, the whole of the popular English religion of the time of Chaucer is repre- sented. In it also the natural, unliterary, country English is best represented. Its author, WILLIAM LANGLAKD, though we Poetry Ormin, Langland, and Others. 41 are not certain of his Christian name, was born about 1332, at Cleobury Mortimer, in Shropshire. His Vision begins with a description of his sleeping on the Malvern Hills, and the first text of it was probably written in the country in 1362. At the accession of Richard II., 1377, he was in London. The great popularity of his poem made him in that year, and again in the year 1393, send forth two more texts of his poem. In these texts he added to the original Vision the poems of Do Wei, Do Bet, and Do Best. In 1399 lie wrote at Bristol his last poem, The Deposition of Richard II. , and then died, prob- ably in 1400. He paints his portrait as he was when he lived in Cornhill, a tall, gaunt figure, whom men called Long Will ; clothed in the black robes in which he sung for a few pence at the funerals of the rich ; hating to take his cap off his shaven head to bow to the lords and ladies that rode by in silver and furs as he stalked in observant moodiness along the Strand. It is this figure which in indignant sorrow walks througli the whole poem. His VISION. The dream of the 'field full of folk,' with which it begins, brings together nearly as many typical char- acters as the Tales of Chaucer do. In the first part, the Truth sought for is righteous dealing in Church and Law and State. In the second part, the Truth sought for is that of righteous life. None of those who wish to find Truth know the way till Piers the Plowman, who at last enters the poem, directs them aright. The search for a righteous life is a search to Do Well, to Do Better, to Do Best, the three titles of the poems which were added afterwards. In a series of dreams and a highly-wrought allegory, Do Well, Do Better, and Do Best are identified with Jesus Christ, who appears at last as Love, in the dress of Piers the Plowman. The second of these poems describes Christ's death, his struggle with sin, his resurrection, and the victory over Death and the Devil. And the dreamer wakes in a transport of joy, with the Easter 42 Literature of Period //., 1066-1400. chimes pealing in his ears. But as Langland looked round on the world, the victory did not seem real, and the stern dreamer passed out of triumph into the dark sorrow in which he lived. He dreams again in Do Best, and sees, as Christ leaves the earth, the reign of Antichrist. Evils attack the Church and mankind. Envy, Pride, and Sloth, helped by the Friars, besiege Conscience. Conscience cries on Contrition to help him, but Contrition is asleep, and Conscience, all but despairing, grasps his pilgrim staff and sets out to wander over the world, praying for luck and health, ( till he have Piers the Plowman,' till he find the Saviour. This is the poem which wrought so strongly in men's minds that its influence was almost as great as Wyclif's in the revolt which had now begun against Latin Christianity. Its fame was so great that it produced imitators. About 1394 another alliterative poem was set forth by an unknown author, with the title of Pierce the Plowman's Crede, and the Plowman's Tale, wrongly attributed to Chaucer, is another witness to the popularity of Langland." BIBLIOGRAPHY. OHMULUM AND PIERS PLOWMAN. G. P. Marsh's Lectures on Eng. Lang., Lectures V., VI., XIX., and XXIV.; Marsh's Or. and Hist. Eng. Lang., Lec- tures IV. and VII. Also many works referred to at the end of Lesson 3. Poetry Layamon, Gower, and Others. 43 LESSON 8. ENGLISH STORY-TELLING POETRY. " This grew out of his- torical literature. There was a Welsh priest at the court of Henry I., called GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, who took upon himself to write history. He had been given, he said, an ancient Welsh book to translate, which told in verse the his- tory of Britain from the days when Brut, the great grandson of JEneas, landed on its shores, through the whole history of King Arthur and his Round Table down to Cadwallo, a Welsh king who died in 689. . The Latin translation he made of this he called a history. The real historians were angry at the fiction, and declared that throughout the whole of it 'he had lied saucily and shamelessly.' It was indeed only a clever putting together of a number of Welsh legends, but it was the beginning of story-telling in England. Every one who read it was delighted with it; it made, as we shoul, sounds or sound. 33 Much surer. " Abbey-clock, clock in the tower. 24 Knew each hour. * 6 Then he crowed, that is, each hour, as the sun climbs 15 an hour. 64 Literature of Period 77., 1066-1400. His comb was redder than the fyn coral, And bataylld l as it were a cast el wal. His bile 2 was blak, and as the geet 3 it schon; Like asure 4 were his legges and his ton ; 5 His nayles whitter than the lilye flour, 6 And lik the burnischt gold was his colour. This gentil cok hadde in his governaunce Sevene hennes for to don al his pleasaunce, Whiche were his sustres and his paramoures, And wonder 1 like to him as of coloures, Of whiche the faireste hewed 8 on hire throte Was cleped 9 fayre damoysele Pertelote. Curteys 10 sche was, discret, and debonaire, 11 And containable, 1 - and bar hire self ful faire Syn thilke" day that sche was seven night old That trewely sche hath the herte in hold Of Chauntecleer loken in every lith; 13 He lovede hire so that wel him was therwith. But such a joye was it to here hem synge, Whan that the brighte sonn8 gan to springe In swete accord, "my lief is faren on londe." 14 For thilke tyme, as I have uuderstonde, Bestes and briddes cowde speke and synge. And so byfel that in a dawenynge, As Chauutecleer among his wyve~s alle Sat on his perche", that was in the halle, And next him sat this faire* Pertelote, This Chauntecleer gan gronen in his throte As man that in his dreem is dreeched 15 sore. And whan that Pertelote thus herde him rore, Sche was agast, 16 and sayde, " O herte deere, What eyleth 17 you to grone in this manere? Ye ben a verray sleper, fy, for schame!" And lie answerde and sayde thus, "Madame, I praye you that ye take it nought agrief. Me mette 18 how that I romede up and doun 1 Indented, as a castle wall seems to be with its turrets. a Bill. 3 Jet. 4 Azure 6 Toes. 6 Flower. 7 Wonderfully. * Colored. 9 Called. "Courteous. " Gra- cious. 12 Sociable. 1S Locked in every limb, bound to her in every muscle. 14 My beloved is gone away from some popular song, i 8 Troubled. 16 Afraid. 17 Ails, is I dreamed. Poetry Chaucer's. 65 Withinne oure yerde, wker as 1 I saugh a beest, Was lik an hound, and wolde nan maad areest* Upon iny body and wolde ban bad me deed. His colour was bitwixe yelwe and reed; And tipped was bis tail and bothe bis eeres With, blak, unlik the remenaunt of his heres; His snowte smal, with glowyng eyeu tweye. 3 Yet of bis look for feere almost I deye; This causede ine my gronyug douteles." " Avoy!" quod 4 scbe, " f y on yow berteles! Alias!" quod scbe, "for, by that God above, Now ban ye lost myn herte and al my love; I can nought love a coward, by my feith. For, certes, 5 what so euy womman seith, We alle desiren, if it mighte be, To ban housbondCs hardy, wise, and fre, And secre, 6 and no iiygard, ne no fool, Ne him that is agast of every tool, 1 Ne noon avauntour, 8 by that God above. How dorste ye sayn for schame unto youre love That any thing migbte make yow aferd? Han ye no mannes herte, and ban a berd?" Whan that the moneth in which the world bigan That highte 9 March, whan God first made man, Was complet, and y-pass6d were also, Syn March bygan, thritty dayes and tuo, Byfel that Chauntecleer in al bis pride, His seven wyv6s walkyng him by syde, Caste up bis eyghen to the brigbte sonne That in the signe of Taurus hadde i-ronne Twenty degrees and oon, and somewhat more; He knew by kynde, 10 and by noon other lore, That it was prime, 11 and crew with blisful stevene. 13 " The sonne," he sayde, " is clomben up on hevene Fourty degrees and oon, and more i-wis. 13 Madame Pertelote, my worldes blis, Herkneth these blisful briddes how they synge, And seth the fressche floures how they springe; 1 Where. * Attack, s Two eyes. Fie! said. 6 Certainly. Secret. 7 Weap- on. "Boaster. Is called. Nature. " Nine o'clock. 2 Voice. "Truly. 66 Literature of Period II, 1066-1400. Ful is myn liert of revel and solaas." But sodeinly him fel a sorweful caas; 1 For evere the latter ende of joye is wo. God wot 2 that worldly joye is soone ago. A coP-fox, ful of sleigh iniquite, That in the grove hadde woned 4 yeres thre, By heigh ymagiuacioun forncast, 5 The same nighte thurghout the heggCs brast 6 Into the yerd, ther 7 Chauntecleer the faire Was wont, and eek his wyves, to repaire; ^ And in a bed of wortes 8 stille he lay Til it was passed undern 9 of the day, Waytyng his tyme on Chauntecleer to falle, As gladly doon these homicides alle. This Chauntecleer, whan he gan him espye, He wolde han fled, but that the fox anon Saide, " Gentil sire, alias! wher wol ye goon? Be ye affrayd of me that am youre freend? Now, certes, I were worse than a feend, If I to yow wolde 10 harm or vileynye. I am nought come youre counsail for tespye. But trewely the cause of my comynge Was oonly for to herkne how that ye singe. - x My lord, youre fader. (God his soule blesse) And eek youre moder of hire gentilesse Han in myn hous i-been to my gret ese; And, certes, sire, ful fayn wolde I yow plese. But for men speke of syngyng, I wol saye, So mot I brouke 11 wel myn eyen twaye, Save you, I herde nevere man so synge As "dede youre fader in the morwenynge. Certes it was of herte al that he song. And for to make his vois the more strong, He wolde so peyne him 12 that with bothe his eyen He moste wynke, so lowde he wolde crien, 1 Mishap, a Knows. s Crafty. Dwelt. 6 Preordained. Burst. 7 Where. 8 Herbs. 9 Time of the mid -day meal. 10 Wished, would do. ai So may I enjoy. J 2 Take such pains. Poetry Chaucer. 67 And stonden on his typtoon 1 therwithal And strecche forth his nekke, long and smal. " This Chauntecleer stood heighe upon his toos, Strecching his nekke, and held his eyghen cloos, And gan to crowe lowde for the noones; And daun Russel, the fox, sterte up at oones, And by the garget 2 hente Chauntecleer, And on his bak toward the woode him beer. Certes, such cry ne lamentacioun Was nevere of ladies maad whan Ilioun Was wonne, and Pirrus with his streite 3 swerd, * Whan he hadde hent kyng Priam by the berd And slayn him (as saith us Eneydos), As maden alle the hennes in the clos, Whan they hadde seyn of Chauntecleer the sighte. But soveraignly dame Pertelote schrighte 4 Ful lowder than dide Hasdrubales wyf, Whan that hire housbonde hadde lost his lyf. Lo, how fortune torneth sodeinly The hope and pride eek of hire enemy! This cok that lay upon the foxes bak In all his drede, unto the fox he spak, And saide, " Sire, if that I were as ye, Yet schulde I sayn (as wis 5 God helpe me), ' Turneth agein, ye proude cherles alle, A verray pestilens upon yow falle ! Now am I come unto this woodes syde, Maugre 6 youre heed, the cok schal heer abyde; I wol him ete, in faith, and that anoon.'" The fox answerede, " In faith, it schal be doon." And as he spak that word, al sodeinly This cok brak from his mouth delyverly, 7 And heigh upon a tree he fleigh anoon. And whan the fox seigh that he was i-goon, " Alias!" quod he, " O Chauntecleer, alias! I have to yow," quod he, "y-don trespaa, In-as-moche as I makede yow aferd, Whan I yow hente, and broughte out of the yerd ; ^ \ i f _. 1 Tip-toes. a Throat. 3 Drawn. 4 Shrieked. 6 As truly. 6 In spite of. 7 Quickly. 68 . Literature of Period //., 1066-1400. But, sire, 1 dede it in no wikke entente. Com dotm, and I schal telle yow what I mente. I schal seye soth to yow, God help me so." " Nay than," quod he, "I schrewe 1 us bothe" tuo And first I schrewe myself, bothe blood and boones, If thou bigile me any ofter than oones. Thou schalt no more, thurgh thy flaterye, Do 2 me to synge, and wynke" with myn eye. For he that wynketh whan he scholde see, Al wilfully, God let him never the 3 !" " Nay," quod the fox, " but God give him meschaunce 4 That is so undiscret of governaunce, That jangleth whan he scholde" holde his pees." Lo, such it is for to be reccheles 5 And necgligent and truste on flaterie. But ye that holden this tale a folye, As of a fox or of a cok and hen, Taketh the moralite therof, goode men. For seint Poul saith that al that writen is To oure doctrine 6 it is i- write i-wys. Taketh the fruyt, and let the chaf be stille. Now goode God, if that it be thy wille As saith my lord, so make us alle good men, And bringe us to his heighe blisse. Amen. FURTHER READING. The remainder of the Prologue, The Knightes Tale, The Tal of the Man of Laive, The Squieres Tale, The Seconde Nonnes Tale, and The Clerkes Tale, in the Clarendon Press Series, and The Parlament of Foules, edited by Prof. Lounsbury. Keep the pupils with Chaucer till they in some degree appreciate the ease, freshness, simplicity, sweetness, tenderness, good sense, good humor, and wholesomeness of his writings. For questions, see Lesson 1. SCHEME FOE EEVIEW. People at and after the Conquest 36 Scotland, France, and Gun- powder , 36 Effect of the Conquest upon English Lyrics 46 History Chroniclers 48 Mandeville and Wyclif 49 The King's English 51 the Language 37 r His three Periods ... 52 Religious Poetry Ormin and Chaucer. < His Character 55 Langland 39 [ His Canterbury Tales 56 story- ( Layamon and Others . 43 Telling Poetry. | John Gower 45 Criticism of him and Extracts from.. . 58 1 Curse. 2 Cause. 3 Prosper. 4 Misfortune. 6 Careless. 6 Instruction. PERIOD III. FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH TO ELIZABETH, 1400-1558. 12. Brief Historical Sketch. First English statute enacting religious blood- shed was that against the Lollards, followers of Wyclif, 1401. Battle of Agincourt, by which Normandy was reconquered, 1415. The Hun- dred Years' War ended and France delivered, 1451. Joan of Arc the French leader, 1423-31. Jack Cade's Revolt, 1450. House of Lancaster Hen. IV., Hen. V., and Hen. VI. 1399-1461. House of York EdTl IV., Ed. V., and Rich. III. 1461-1485^ War of the Roses, in which S the castles were battered down, and the nobility almost destroyed, J 1452-1485. At its close on Bosworth Field, the Earl of Richmond, a Lancastrian, marries Eliz. of York, and becomes Hen. VII., the first Tudor king^ At the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, 1453 (they had settled in Europe, 1356) the learned scholars studying the Greek manuscripts there fled principally to Italy. Disclosure of the stores of Greek literature wrought the Revival of Learning. Caxton set up the first printing-press in England, ^Tg. Only thJe gentry ate wheaten bread; poorer people ate bread made of barley or rye, sometimes of peas, beans, or oats. Plaster ceilings not yet used. Chimneys intro- duced about 1485. Discovery of America by Columbus, 1492. Grocyn and Colet the first to teach Greek in England, at Oxford, 1490- 1500. Hen. VIII. succeeded Hen. VII., 1509. Erasmus professor of Greek at Cambridge, 1511. Hen. VIII. fought the battle of Flodden Field against the Scots, 151 3. Magellan circumnavigated the earth, 1519. Hen. VIIL^became head of the Eng. Church, 1531. First pavement in London, 1534. Sir Thomas More beheaded for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy to Hen. VIII., 1535. Dissolution of monasteries in England, 1536-9. Rebellion in Ireland crushed, 1535, and in 1541 Hen. VIII. received the title "King of Ireland." During Ed. VI. 's reign, 1547-53, English prayer-book prepared by Cranmer. Under Mary, 1553-8, English Church again acknowledges the pope, and persecution of heresy is resumed. 70 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. 13. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY PROSE. "The last poems of Chaucer and Langland bring our story up to the year 1400. The century that followed is the most barren in the literature. History sank down into a few Latin chroniclers, of whom THOMAS WALSINGHAM is best known. Two Riming Chroni- cles were written in Henry V.'s time by ANDREW OF WYNTOUN, a Scotchman, and JOHN HARDING, an Englishman. JOHN CAPGEAVE wrote in English, in Edward IV. 's reign, a Chroni- cle of England which began with the Creation. Political prose is then represented by SIR JOHN FORTESCUE'S book on the Difference between Absolute and Limited Monarchy. It is the second important book in the history of English prose. The religious war between the Lollards and the Church went on during the reigns of Henry V. and VI., and, in the reign of the latter, EEGINALD PECOCK took it out of Latin into homely English. He fought the Lollards with their own weapons, with sermons preached in English, and with tracts in English; and after 1449, when Bishop of Chichester, he published his work The Represser of overmuch Blaming of the Clergy. It pleased neither party. The Lollards disliked it, because it de- fended the customs and doctrines of the Church. Churchmen burnt it, because it agreed with the l Bible-men ' that the Bible is the only rule of faith. Both abjured it, because it 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 the book is a fine example of early prose. GROWTH OF INTEREST IN LITERATURE. Little creative work was done in this century, and that little was poor. There was small learning in the monasteries, and few books were writ- ten. But a good deal of interest in literature was scattered about the country, and it increased as the century went on. The Wars of the Koses stopped the writing, but not the reatf Fifteenth Century Prose. 71 ing, of books. We have in the Paston Letters, 1422-1505, the correspondence of a country family from Henry VI. to Henry VII., pleasantly, even correctly, written passages which refer to translations of the classics, and to manuscripts' being sent to and fro for reading. Henry VI., Edward IV. , and some of the great nobles were lovers of books. Men like Duke Humphrey of Gloucester made libraries, and brought over Italian scholars to England to translate Greek works. There were fine scholars in England, like John Lord Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who had won fame in the schools of Italy. Be- fore 1474, when Caxton finished the first book said to have been printed in England, TJie Game and Playe of the Chesse, a number of French translations of the Latin authors were widely read. There was, therefore, in England, a general, though an uninformed, interest in the ancient writers. FIEST INFLUENCE OF THE ITALIAN REVIVAL. Such an in- terest was added to by the revival of letters which arose at this time in Italy, and the sixteenth century had not long begun before many Englishmen went to Italy to read and study the old Greek authors on whom the scholars driven from Constan- tinople, at its capture by the Turks in 1453, were lecturing in the schools of Florence. Printing enabled these men on their return to render the classic books they loved, into English for their own people. The English began to do their own work as translators ; and, from the time of Henry VIII. onwards, there is scarcely any literary fury equal to that with which the young scholars fell upon the ancient authors, and filled the land with English versions of them. It is, then, in the slow upgrowth, during this century, of interest in and study of the ancients that we are to see the gathering together at its source of *one of the streams which fed that great river of Elizabethan literature, which it is so great a mistake to think burst suddenly up through the earth. INFLUENCE OF CAXTON'S WORK. We find another of these sources in the work of our first printer, WILLIAM CAXTON". 72 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. The first book that bears the inscription, ' Imprynted by me, William Caxton, at Westmynstre,' is The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers. Caxton did little or nothing for classical learning. His translation of the ^Eneid of Vergil is from a contemptible French romance. But he preserved for us Chaucer and Lydgate and Gower with zealous care. He printed the Chronicles of Brut and Higden ; he translated the Golden Legend: and the Morte d' Arthur, written by SIR THOMAS MALORY in the reign of Edward IV., one of the finest and simplest examples of early prose, was printed by him with all the care of one who loved the ' noble acts of chivalry.' 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 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 themselves, being more widely read, not only made poets but a public that loved poetry. If classic literature, then, was one of the sources in this century of the Elizabethan literature, the recovery of old English poetry was another. PROSE UNDER HENRY VIII. With the exception of Cax ton's work all the good prose of the fifteenth century was written before the death of Edward IV. The reigns of Richard III. and of Henry VII. produced no prose of any value, but the country awakened from its dulness with the accession of Henry VIII. , 1509. A band of new scholars, who had studied in Italy, taught Greek in Oxford, Cambridge, and London. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, with John Lily, the grammarian, set on foot a school where the classics were taught in a new and practical way. Erasmus, who had all the enthusiasm Prose under Henry VIII. 73 which sets others on fire, taught in England, and with Grocyn, Linacre, Sir Thomas More, and Archbishop Warharn formed a centre from which a liberal and wise theology was spread. The new learning which had been born in Italy, and which these men represented in England, stirred and gave life to everything, and woke up English Prose from its sleep. Much of the new life of English Literature was due to the patronage of the young king. It was Henry VIII. who supported SIR THOMAS ELYOT, and encouraged him to write books in the yulgar tongue that he might delight his countrymen. It was the king who asked LORD BERBERS to translate Froissart, a book which ( made a landmark in our tongue/ and who made LELAND, our first English writer on antiquarian subjects, the ' King's Antiquary.' It was the king to whom EOGER ASCHAM dedicated his first work, and the king sent him abroad to pursue his studies. This book, the Toxophilus, or the School of Shooting, 1545, was written for the pleasure of the yeomen and gentlemen of England, in their own tongue. Ascham apologizes for this, and the apology marks the state of English prose. ' Everything has been done excellently in Greek and Latin, but in the English tongue so meanly that no man can do worse/ He has done his work well, and in quaint but charming English. PROSE AND THE REFORMATION. But the man who did best in English prose was SIR THOMAS MORE in the earliest Eng- lish history, the History of Edward V. and Richard III. 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. English prose grew larger and richer under his pen, and began that stately step which future historians followed. The work is said to have been written in 1513, but it was not printed till 1557. The most famous book More wrote, The Utopia, was not written in English. The most famous controversy he had was with WILLIAM TYNDALE, a man who in his translation of the New Testament, 1525, 74 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. ' fixed our tongue once for all. ' His style was as purely Eng- lish as More's, and of what kind it was may be read in our Bibles, for our authorized version is still in great part his translation. In this work, Tyndale was assisted by WILLIAM ROY, a runaway friar ; his friend ROGERS, the first martyr in Mary's reign, added to it a translation of the Apocrypha, and made up what was wanting in Tyndale's translation from Chronicles to Malachi, out of COVERDALE'S translation. It was this Bible which, revised by Coverdale and edited and re-edited as Cromwell's Bible, 1539, and again as Cranmer's Bible, 1540, was set up in every parish church in England. It got north into Scotland and made the Low- land English more like the London English, and, after its revisal in 1611, went with the Puritan fathers to New England, and fixed the standard of English in America. There is no other book which has had so great an influence on the style of English literature. In Edward VI. 's reign CRAKMER edited the English Prayer Book, 1549-52. Its English is a good deal mixed with Latin words, and its style is sometimes weak and heavy, but, on the whole, it is a fine example of stately prose. LATIMER, on the contrary, whose Sermon on the Ploughers and other sermons were delivered in 1549 and in 1552, wrote in a plain, shrewd style, which by its humor and rude directness made him the first preacher of his day." BIBLIOGRAPHY. CAXTON AND MORE. I. Disraeli's Amenit ies of Lit.; C. Knight's Old Printer and Mod. Press ; Mackintosh's Life of More ; J. Campbell's Lord Chan, of Eng.; F. Myers' Lectures on Great Men; E. Lodge's Portraits; Froude's Hist, of Eng.; Fort. Rev., v. 9, 1868, and v. 14, 1870; N. Br. Rev., v. 30, 1859. 14. THE FIFTEENTH CENTTIEY POETBY. " The only literature which reached any strength was poetical, but even that is almost wholly confined to the reign of Henry VI. The new day of poetry still went on, but its noon in Chaucer was now succeeded by the grey afternoon of Lydgate, and the dull Fifteenth Century Poetry. 75 twilight of Occleve. JOHN LYDGATE, a monk of Bury, who was thirty years of age when Chaucer died, wrote nothing of importance till Henry VI. 's reign. Though a long-winded and third-rate poet, he was a delightful man ; fresh, natural, and happy even to his old age, when he recalls himself as a boy ( weeping for nought, and anon after glad.' There was scarcely any literary work he could not do. He rhymed his- tory, ballads, and legends till the monastery was delighted. He made pageants for Henry VI. , masks and May-games for aldermen, mummeries for the Lord Mayor, and satirical bal- lads on the follies of .the day. Educated at Oxford, a traveller in France and Italy, he knew the literature of his time, and he even dabbled in the sciences. He enjoyed everything, but had not the power of adequately expressing his enjoyment. He was as much a lover of nature as was Chaucer, but he cannot make us feel the beauty of nature as Chaucer does. It is his story-telling which brings him closest to Chaucer. His three chief poems are the Falls of Princes, The Storie of Thebes, and the Troye Book. The first is a transla- tion of a book of Boccaccio's. It tells the tragic fates of great men from the time of Adam to the capture of King John of France, at Poitiers. There is a touch of the drama in the plan, which was suggested by the pageants of the time. The dead princes appear before Boccaccio pensive in his library, and each relates his downfall. The Storie of Thebes is an additional Canterbury Tale, and the Troye Book is a ver- sion from the French of the prose romance of Guido della Colonna, a Sicilian poet, if the book be not in truth origi- nally French. The Complaint of the Black Knight, usually given to Chaucer, is stated to be Lydgate's by Shirley, the contemporary of him and of Chaucer. I should like to be able to call him the author of the pretty little poem called the Cuckoo and the Nightingale, included in Chaucer's works. But its authorship is unknown. THOMAS OCCLEVE, who wrote chiefly in Henry V.'s reign, 76 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. about 1420, was nothing but a bad versifier. His one merit is that he loved Chaucer. With his loss ' the whole land smart- ith,' he says, and he breaks out into a kind of rapture once: ' Thou wert acquainted with Chaucer ! Pardie, God save his soul, The first finder of our faire langage.' And it is in the MS. of his longest poem, The Governail of Princes, that he caused to be drawn, with ' fond idolatry/ the portrait of his master. With this long piece of verse we mark the decay of the poetry of England. Romances and lays were still translated ; there were verses written on such sub- jects as hunting and alchemy. Caxton himself produced a poem ; but the only thing here worth noticing is, that at the end of the century some of our ballads were printed. Ballads, lays, and 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 accompanied by music and dancing. We have seen war celebrated in Minot's songs, and the political ballad is represented by the lampoon made by some follower of Simon de Montfort on the day of the battle of Lewes, and by the Elegy on Edward I.'s Death. But the ballad went over the whole land among the people. The trader, the apprentices, the poor of the cities, and the peas- antry had their own songs. They tended to collect them- selves round some legendary name, like Robin Hood, or some historical character made legendary, like Randolf, Earl of Chester. Sloth, in Piers Plowman's Vision, does not know his paternoster, but he does know the rhymes of these heroes. A crowd of minstrels sang them through city and village. The very friar sang them, 'and made his Englissch swete upon his tunge.' A collection of Robin Hood ballads was soon printed under the title of A Lytel Geste of RoUn Hood, by Wynken de Worde. The Nut Brown Maid, The Battle of Otterlurn, and Chevy Chase may belong to the end of the Chevy Chase. 77 century, though probably not in the form we possess them. It was not, however, till much later that any collection of ballads was made ; and few, as we possess them, can be dated farther back than the reign of Elizabeth." From Chevy Chase. (Prof. Child's edition.) The Pers owt off Northombarlande, And a vowe to God rnayd he, That he wold hunte in the mountayns Off Chyviat, within days thre, In the mauger 1 of dought Dogles, And all that ever with him be. The fattiste hartes in all Cheviat He sayd he wold kill, and cary them away: " Be my feth" sayd the dougheti* Doglas agayn, " I wyll let 3 that hontyng yf that I may." Then the Pers owt of Banborowe cam, With him a myghte& meany; 4 With fifteen hondrith archares bold off blood and bone, The wear chosen owt of shyars thre. He sayd, "It was the Duglas promys This day to met me hear; But I wyste 5 he wold faylle, verament:" 6 A great oth the Pers6 swear. At the laste a squyar of Northombelonde Lokyde at his hand full ny; He was war a" 7 the doughetie Doglas cornynge, With him a myghttS meany. The dougheti Dogglas on a -stede He rode att his men bef orne ; His armor glytteryde as dyd a glede; 8 A bolder barne 9 was never born. % " Tell me whos men ye ar," he says, " Or whos men that ye be: Who gave youe leave to hunte in this Chyviat chays. In the spyt of me?" 1 Spite. a Doughty, brave. 3 Hinder. 4 Company. 6 Knew. 6 Truly. 7 A\vare of. 8 Live coal. Man. 78 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. The first mane that ever him an answear mayd, Yt was the good lord Pers6 : "We wyll not tell the whoys men we ar," he says, "Nor whos men thet we be; But we wyll hount hear in this chays, In the spyt of thyne and of the. 1 The fattiste hartes in all Chyviat We have kyld, and cast 2 to carry them a-way :" " Be my troth," sayd the dough te Dogglas agayn, "Ther-for the ton 3 of us shall de 4 this day." Then sayd the dought& Doglas Unto the lord Perse: " To kyll all thes giltles men, Alas, it wear great pitt ! But, Pers6, thowe art a lord of lande, I am a yerle 6 callyd within my contrS; Let all our men uppone a parti 6 stande, And do the battell off the and of me." Then bespayke a squyar off Northombarlonde, Richard Wytharyngton was him nam; " It shall never be told in Sothe- Ynglonde, " he says, " To kyng Herry the fourth for sham. I wat 7 youe byn great lordes twaw, I am a poor squyar of lande; I wyll never se, my captayne fyght on a fylde, And stande myselffe, and loocke on, But whyll I may my weppone welde, I wyll not [fay I] both hart and hande." At last the Duglas and the Perse" met, Lyk to captayns of myght and of mayne; The swapte 8 togethar tyll the both swat, 9 With swordes that wear of fyn myllan. 10 * Thee. a Propose. * One. < Die. 6 Earl. Apart, 7 Know. 8 They smote. 9 Sweat. 10 Milan steel. CJievy Chase. 79 With that ther cam an arrowe hastely, Forthe off a myghtt wane; 1 Hit 2 hathe strekene the yerle Duglas In at the brest bane. The Pers6 leanyde on his brande, And sawe the Duglas de ; He tooke the dede mane be the hande, And sayd, "Wo ys me for the!" Off all that se a Skottishe knyght, Was callyd Sir Hewe the Monggonbyrry,- 8 He sawe the Duglas to the deth was dyght, 4 He spendyd 5 a spear, a trusti tre. 6 He set uppone the lord Perse A dynte 7 that was full soare; With a suar 8 spear of a myghtt tre Clean thorow the body he the Pers6 ber, A' the tothar 10 syde that a man myght se A large cloth yard and mare: T^owe better captayns wear nat in Cristiante, 11 Then that day slain wear ther. This battell begane in Chyviat An owar 12 before the none, And when even-song bell was rang, The battell was not half done. Of fifteen hondrith archars of Ynglonde Went away but fifti and thre; Of twenty hondrith spear-men of Skotlonde But even five and fifti. For Wetharryngton my harte was wo, Thet ever he slayne shulde be ; For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to, Yet he knyled and fought on hys kny. 1 One, man. * It. 8 Montgomery. * Done. 6 Grasped. Spear-shaft. T Blow. 8 Sure. 9 Bare. 10 The other. J1 Christendom. lf Hour. 80 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. LESSON 15. SCOTTISH POETRY. " This is poetry written in the English tongue by men living in Scotland. These men, though call- ing themselves Scotchmen, are of good English blood. But the blood, as I think, was mixed with an infusion of Celtic blood. Old Northumbria extended from the Humber to the Eirth of Forth, leaving, however, on its western border a line of unconquered land which took in Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland in England, and over the border most of the western country between the Clyde and Sol way Firth. This unconquered country was the Welsh kingdom of Strath- clyde, and it was dwelt in by the Celtic race. The present English part of it was soon conquered, and the Celts were driven out. But in the part to the north of the Solway Firth, the Celts were not driven out. They remained, lived with the Englishmen who were settled over the old Northumbria, inter- married with them, and became under Scot kings one mixed people. Literature in the Lowlands, then, would have Celtic elements in it ; literature in England was purely Teutonic. The one sprang from a mixed, the other from an unmixed race. I draw attention to this, because it seems to me to account for certain peculiarities in Scottish poetry which color the whole of it, which rule over it, and are specially Celtic. CELTIC ELEMENTS OF SCOTTISH POETRY, The first of these \|is the love of wild nature for its own sake. There is a pas- sionate, close, and poetical observation and description of natural scenery in Scotland, from the earliest times of its poetry, such as is not seen in English poetry till the time of v Wordsworth. The second is the love of color. All early Scottish poetry differs from English in the extraordinary way in which color is insisted on, and at times in the lavish exag- Scottish Poetry. 81 geration of it. The third is the wittier, more rollicking humor in the Scottish poetry, which is distinctly Celtic in contrast with that humor which has its root in sadness, and which belongs to the Teutonic races. Few things are really more different than the humor of Chaucer and the humor of Dun- bar, than the humor of Cowper and that of Burns. These are the special Celtic elements in the Lowland poetry. Its National Elements came into it from the circumstances under which Scotland rose into a separate kingdom. The first of these is the strong, almost fierce, assertion of national life. The English were as national as the Scots, and felt the emotion of patriotism as strongly. But they had no need to assert it; they were not oppressed. But for nearly forty years the Scotch resisted for their very life the efforts of England to conquer them. And the war of freedom left its traces on their poetry from Barbour to Burns and Walter Scott in the almost obtrusive way in which Scotland and Scottish liberty and Scottish heroes are thrust forward in their verse. Their passionate nationality appears in another form in their descriptive poetry. The natural description of Chaucer, Shakespeare, or evon 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 Scotch landscape, and, in the work of such men as Gawin Douglas, the love of Scotland and the love of nature mingle their influences together to make him sit down, as it were, to paint, with his eye on everything he paints, a series of Scotch landscapes. It is done without any artistic composition; it reads like a catalogue, but it is work which stands quite alone at the time he wrote. There is nothing even resembling it in England for centuries after. ITS INDIVIDUAL ELEMENT. There is one more special element in early Scottish poetry which arose, I think, out of its political circumstances. All through the struggle for free- 82 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. dom, carried on, as it was at first, by small bands under separate leaders till they all came together under a leader like Bruce, a much__greater amount ofj^dividualit^ and a greater habit oilT^^re~createdamong" the Scotch than among the English. Men fought for their own land, and lived in their own way. Every little border chieftain, almost every border farmer was, or felt himself to be, his own master. The poets would be likely to share in this individual quality, and, in spite of the overpowering influence of Chaucer, to strike out new veins of poetic thought and new methods of poetic expression. And this is what happened. Long before forms of poetry like the short pastoral or the fable had appeared in England, the Scottish poets had started them. They were less docile imitators than the English, but their work in the new forms they started was not so good as the after English work in the same forms. The first of the Scottish poets, omitting Thomas of Ercel- doune, is JOHN BARBOUR, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. His long poem of The Bruce represents the whole of the eager struggle for Scottish freedom against the English which closed at Bannockburn; and the national spirit, which I have mentioned, springs in it, full grown, into li p e. But it is temperate, it does not pass into the fury against England which is so plain in writers like BLIND HARRY, who, about 1461, composed a long poem in the heroic couplet of Chaucer, on the deeds of William Wallace. Barbour was often in Eng- land for the sake of study, and his patriotism, though strong, is tolerant of England. The date of his poem is 1375, 7; it never mentions Chaucer, and Barbour is the only early Scot- tish poet on whom Chaucer had no influence. In the next poet we find the influence of Chaucer, and it is hereafter con- tinuous 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 the Fourth, The Scottish Poetry. 83 poem which he wrote, The Kincfs Quhair, 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 Eime Royal. In six cantos, sweeter, tenderer, and purer than any other verse till we come to Spenser, he describes the beginning of his love and its happy end. ( I must write,' he says, ( so much, because I have come so from Hell to Heaven.' Nor did the flower of his love and hers ever fade. She defended him in the last ghastly scene of murder when his kingly life ended. There is something especially pathetic in the lover of Chaucer, in the first poet of sentiment in Scotland's being slain so cruelly. He was no blind imitator of Chaucer. We are conscious at once of an original element in his work. The natural descrip- tion is more varied, the color is more vivid, and there is a modern self-reflective quality, a touch of spiritual feeling, which does not belong to Chaucer at all. The poems of The Kirk on the Green and Peebles to the Play have been attrib- uted to him. If they are his, he originated a new vein of poetry, which Burns afterwards carried out the comic and satirical ballad poem. But they are more likely to be by James V. ROBEKT HEKRYSON", who died before 1508, a school-master in Dunfermline, was also an imitator of Chaucer, and his Testament of Cresseid continues Chaucer's Troilus. But he set on foot two new forms of poetry. He made poems out of the fables. They differ entirely from the short, neat form in which Gay and La Fontaine treated the fable. 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 Scotch scenery. He also began the short pastoral in his Robin and Makyne. It is a natural, prettily turned dialogue ; and a subtile Celtic wit, such as charms us in Duncan Grey, runs through it. The individuality which struck out two original lines of poetic work in these poems appears again in his sketch of the graces 84 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. 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 life, such as Sir H. Wotton's Character of a Happy Life, or Wordsworth's Happy Warrior. But among lesser men, whom we need not mention, the greatest is WILLIAM DUKBAR. He carries the influence of Chaucer on to the end of the fifteenth century and into the six- teenth. Few have possessed a more masculine genius, and his work was as varied in its range as it was original. He followed the form and plan of Chaucer in his two poems of The Thistle and the Rose, 1503, and The Golden Terge, 1508, the first on the marriage of James IV. to Margaret Tudor, the second an allegory of Love, Beauty, Keason, 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 matched only 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 humor which makes the little thing unique. A man almost as remarkable as Dunbar is GAWLN" DOUG- LAS, Bishop of Dunkeld, who died in 1522, at the Court of Henry VIII. , and was buried in the Savoy. He is the author of the first metrical English translation from the original of any Latin book. He translated Ovid's Art of Love, and after- wards, with truth and spirit, the JEneid of Vergil, 1513. To each book of the ^Jneid he wrote a prologue of his own. And it is chiefly by these that he takes rank among the Scot- tish poets. Three of them are descriptions of the country in May, in autumn, and in winter. The scenery is altogether >cotchj and the fe\v Chaucerisms that appear seem absurdly Scottish Poetry. 85 out of place in a picture of nature which is as close as if it had been done by Keats in his early time. The color is superb, the landscape is described with an excessive detail, but the poem is not composed by any art into a whole. Still it astonishes the reader, and it is only by bringing in the Celtic element of love of nature that we can account for the vast distance between work like this and contemporary work in England such as Skelton's. Of Douglas's other original work, one poem, The Palace of Honour, 1501, continues the influence of Chaucer. There were a number of other Scottish poets belonging to this time who are all remembered and praised by SIR DAVID LYNDSAY, whom it is best to mention in this place, because he still connects Scottish poetry with Chaucer. He was born about 1490 and is the last of the old Scottish school, and the most popular. He is the most popular, because he is not only the Poet but also the Reformer. His poem, The Dreme, 1528, connects him with 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 and sleet. The place is a cave over the sea, whence Lyndsay sees the weltering of the waves. Chaucer goes to sleep over Ovid or Cicero, Lyndsay falls into dream as he thinks of the ' false world's instability' wavering like the sea waves. The differ- ence marks not only the difference 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 Dreme, and in two other poems the Complaint to the King, and the Testament of the King's Papyngo is absorbed in the evils and sorrows of the people, and in the desire to reform the abuses of the Church, of the Court, of party, of the nobility. In 1539 his Satire of the Three Estates, a Morality inter- spersed with interludes, was represented before James V. at Linlithgow. It was first acted in 1535, and was a daring attack 86 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. on the ignorance, profligacy, and exactions of the priesthood, on the vices and flattery of the favorites 'a mocking of abuses used in the country by diverse sorts of estate/ A still bolder poem, and one thought so even by himself, is the Monarchie, 1553, his last work. Reformer as he was, he was more a social and political than a religious one. He bears the same relation to Knox as Langland did to Wiclif. When he was sixty-five years old, he saw the fruits of his work. Ecclesiastical councils met to reform the Church. But the reform soon went beyond his temperate wishes. In 1557 the Reformation in Scotland was fairly launched when in Decem- ber the Congregation signed the Bond of Association. Lyndsay had died three years before ; he is as much the reformer as he is the poet, of a transition time. ' Still his verse hath charms/ but it was neither sweet nor imaginative. He *had genuine satire, great moral breadth, much preaching power in verse, coarse, broad humor in plenty, and more dramatic power and invention than the rest of his fellows, and he lived an active, bold, and brave life in a very stormy time." LESSON 16. POETRY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CHAUCER. " We shall speak in this and in the next two paragraphs only of the poets in England whose work was due to the publication of Chaucer, Grower, and Lydgate by Caxton. After a short revival that influence died, and a new one entered from Italy into English verse in the poems of Surrey and Wyatt. The transition period between the one influence and the other is of great interest. We see how the old poets had been neglected by the way in which the new poets speak of them as of something wonderful, and by the indignant reproach a man like Hawes makes when he says that people care for nothing but ballads, and will not read these old books. But the reproach was unwise. It is better for the interests of literature to make a new ballad than to read an Poetry from 1500-1558. 87 old poem, and the ballads of England kept up the original vein of poetry. It is one of the signs of a new poetic life in a nation when it is fond of poetry which, like the ballad, has to do with the human interests of the present: and, when that kind of human poetry pleases the upper classes as well as the lower, a resurrection of poetry is at hand. HA WES AND SKELTON. At such a time we are likely to find imitators of the old work, and in the reign of Henry VII. STEPHEN HAWES recast a poem of Lydgate's (?) The Temple of Glass, and imitated Chaucer's work and the old allegory in his Pastime of Pleasure, 1506. We shall also find men who, while they still follow the old, leave it for an original line, because they are more moved by human life in the present than in the past. Their work will be popular, it may even resemble the form of the ballad. Such a man was JOHN SKELTON, who wrote in Henry VII. 's and in Henry VIII. 's reign, and died, 1529. His earliest poems were after the man- ner of Chaucer, but he soon took a manner of his own, and, being greatly excited by the cry of the people for Church reformation, wrote a bitter satire on Wolsey for his pride, and on the clergy for their luxury. His poem, Wliy come ye not to Court 9 was a fierce satire on the great Cardinal. That of Colin Clout was the cry of the country Colin, and of the Clout or mechanic of the town, against the corruption of the Church. Both are written in short, < rude, rayling rimes, pleas- ing only the popular ear,' and Skelton chose them for that purpose. Both have a rough, impetuous power; their lan- guage is coarse, full even of slang, but Skelton could use any language he pleased. He was an admirable scholar. Erasmus culls him the ' glory and light of English letters,' and Caxton says that he improved our language. Colin Clout represents the whole popular feeling of the time just before the movement of the Reformation took a new turn by the opposition of the Pope to Henry's divorce. It was not only 88 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. in this satirical vein that Skelton wrote. We owe to him some pretty and new love lyrics ; and the Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe, which tells the grief of a nun, called Jane Scrope, for the death of her sparrow, is one of the gayest and most inven- tive poems in the language. Skelton stands quite alone between the last nicker of the influence of Chaucer, whose last true imitator he was, and the rise _o_f a new Italian influence in England in the poems of Surrey and Wyatt. In his own special work he was entirely original, and, standing thus between two periods of poetry, he is a kind of landmark in English literature. The Ship of Fooles, 1508, by BARCLAY, is of this time, but it has no value. Ifc is a recast of a work pub- lished at Basel, and was popular because it attacked the follies and questions of the time. It was written in Chaucer's stanza. ITALIAN INFLUENCE WYATT AND STJBREY. While poetry under Skelton and Lyndsay became an instrument of reform, it revived as an art at the close of Henry VIII. 's reign in SIR THOMAS WYATT and the EARL OF SURREY. They were both Italian travellers, and, in taking back to England the inspira- tion they had gained from Petrarca, they ve-made English poetry. They are the first really modern English poets; the first who have anything of the modern manner. Though Italian in sentiment, their language is more English than Chaucer's is, they use fewer romance words. They handed down this purity of English to the Elizabethan poets, to Sackville, Spenser, and Shakespeare. They introduced a new. kind of poetry, the amourist poetry. The 'AMOURISTS/ as they are called, were poets who composed poems on the subject of love sonnets mingled with lyrical pieces after the manner of Petrarca, and in accord with the love philosophy he built on Plato. The Hundred Passions of WATSON, the sonnets of Sidney, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Drumrnond are all poems of this kind, and the same impulse in a similar form appears in the sonnets of Kosetti and Mrs. Browning of our time.. Poetry from 1500-1558. The subjects of Wytitt and Surrey were chiefly lyrical, and the fact that they imitated the same model has made some likeness between them. Like their personal char- acters, however, the poetry of Wyatt is the more thought- ful and the more strongly felt, but Surrey^ 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.' > Such verse as Skelton's became impossible. A new standard was made, below which the after poets could not fall. They also added new stanza measures to English verse, and enlarged T in this way the ' lyrical range.' Surrey was the first, in his translation of Vergil's JEneid, to use the ten-syllabled, un- rhymed verse, which we now call BLANK-VERSE. In his hands it is not worthy of praise; it had neither the true form nor the harmony into which it grew afterwards. Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, introduced it into drama; Marlowe, in his Tam- burlaine, made it the proper verse of the drama; and Shake- speare, Beaumont, and Massinger used it splendidly. In plays it has a special manner of its o^n; in poetry proper it was, we may say, not only created but perfected by Milton. The new impulse thus given to poetry was all but arrested by the bigotry that prevailed during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, and all the work of the New Learning seemed to be useless. But THOMAS WILSON'S book in English on Rhet- oric and Logic in 1553, and the publication of THOS. TUSSER'S Pointes of Husbandne and of Tottel's Miscellany of Uncertain Authors, 1557, in the last years of Mary's reign, proved that something was stirring beneath the gloom. The latter book contained the poems of Surrey and Wyatt, and others by Grimald, by Lord Vaux, and Lord Berners. The date should be remembered, for it is the first printed book of modern English poetry. It proves that men cared now more for the new than for the old poets, that the time of imitating Chaucer was over, and that of original creation was begun. It ushers in the Elizabethan literature." 90 Literature of Period III., 1400-1558. SCHEME FOR REVIEW. 3 *" eg Houses of Lancaster and York " and War of the Roses 69 Revival of Learning 69 Conquest of Ireland 69 Interest in Literature ... 70 Italian Influence 71 Caxton'sWork 71 Prose under Henry VIII 72 Prose and the Reformation 73 Lydgate 74 Occleve 75 Ballads, etc 76 Chevy Chase 77 i gs Is 8-5 Celtic Elements 80 National Elements 81 Individual Element 81 Barbour and James I. of Scotland 82 Henryson 83 Dunbar and Douglass 84 Under r Hawes 87 Chaucer's -( Influence. ( Skelton 87 f Wyatt 88 Under Surrey Italian Influence. I Blank-Verse.. 89 I Wilson PERIOD IV. ELIZABETH'S REIGN, 1558-1603. LESSOIST 17. Brief Historical Sketch. Elizabeth's first Parliament undid Mary's work, repealed the statutes of heres} 7 ", dissolved the refounded monasteries, and restored the Royal Supremacy. Manufactures of all kinds are stimulated, commerce is developed, and the diet of the com- mon people improved; pewter plates replace wooden trenchers, and feather beds straw mattresses; carpets supersede rushes, glass windows become common, and houses are no longer built for defence, but for comfort, and of brick instead of wood. Members of the House of Com- mons no longer paid. The thirty-nine articles of faith enacted by Parliament, 1562. Hawkins begins Slave Trade with Africa, 1562. First penal statute against Catholics and first Poor Law, 1562. Puri- tans secede from English Church, 1566. The Revolt of the Netherlands against Philip II. assisted by Elizabeth, 1575 and on. Futile attempts to colonize America made by Gilbert, 1578, and by Raleigh, 1584, 6, and 7. Drake circumnavigated the earth, 1577. London supplied by water in pipes, 1582. Potatoes and tobacco introduced, 1586. Mary, Queen of Scots, executed by Elizabeth, 1587. Spanish Armada defeated, 1588. Episcopacy abolished in Scotland and Presbyterianism established as the state religion, 1596. Ruin of second Armada, 1597. Bodleian library founded at Oxford, 1598. East India Company chartered, 1600. Magnetism discovered same year. Earl of Essex executed, 1601. Tyrone's rebellion in Ireland crushed, 1603. Wonders of the New World powerfully influenced the literature of this period. 18. ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. " This may be said to begin with Surrey and "Wyatt. But as their poems were published shortly before Elizabeth came to the throne, we date the be- 92 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. ginning of the earlier Elizabethan literature from the year of her accession, 1558. The era of this earlier literature lasted till 1579, and was followed by the great literary outburst, as it has been called, of the days of Spenser and Shakespeare. The apparent suddenness of this outburst has been an object of wonder. Men have searched for its causes chiefly in those which led to the revival of learning, and no doubt these bore on England as they did on the whole of Europe. But we shall best seek its nearest causes in the work done during the early years of Elizabeth, and in doing so we shall find that the outburst was not so sudden after all. It was preceded by a various, plentiful, but inferior, literature, in which new forms of poetry and prose- writing were tried, and new veins of thought opened, which were afterwards wrought out fully and splendidly. All the germs of the coming age are to be found in these twenty years. The outburst of a plant into flower seems sudden, but the whole growth of the plant has caused it, and the flowering of Elizabethan literature was the slow result of the growth of the previous literature and the influences that bore upon it. The Earlier Elizabethan Poetry, 1558-1579, is first repre- sented by SACKVILLE, Lord Buckhurst. The Mirror of Magistrates, 1559, for which he wrote the Induction and one tale, is a poem on the model of Boccaccio's Falls of Princes, already imitated by Lydgate. Seven poets, along with Sack- ville, contributed tales to it, but his poem is the only one of any value, The Induction paints the poet's descent into Avernus, and his meeting with Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whose fate he tells with a grave and inventive imagination. Being written in the manner and stanza of the elder poets, this poem has been called the transition between Lydgate and Spenser. But it does truly belong to the old time; it is as modern as Spenser. GEOKGE GASCOIGKE, whose satire, the Steele Glas, 1576, is our first long satirical poem, is the best among a crowd of lesser poets who came after Sackville, Poetry and Prose, 1558-1579. 93 They wrote legends, pieces on the wars and discoveries of the Englishmen of their day, epitaphs, epigrams, songs, sonnets, elegies, fables, and sets of love poems; and the best things they did were collected in a miscellany called the Paradise, of Dainty Devices, in 1576. This book, with Tottel's, set on foot in the later years of Elizabeth a crowd of other miscel- lanies of poetry, which were of great use to the poets. Lyri- cal poetry and that which we may call ' occasional poetry ' were now fairly started. 2. 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 university, at the houses of the nobility, and at the court on all important days, some obscure versifier, or a young scholar at the Inns of Court, at Oxford, or at Cambridge produced a masque or a pageant, or wrote or translated a play. The habit of play-writing became common; a kind of school, one might almost say a manufac- ture, of plays arose, which partly accounts for the rapid pro- duction, the excellence, and the multitude of plays that we find after 1579. 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 un- educated kind, in the larger drama that was to follow. The literary men, on the other hand, ransacked, in order to find subjects and scenes for their pageants, ancient and mediasval and modern literature, and many of them in doing so became fine scholars. The imagination of England was quickened and educated in this way, and, as Biblical stories were also largely used, the images of oriental life were added to the materials of imagination. 3. Frequent translations 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 jn Henry VIII. 's and in Edward VI.'s time, ancient authors 94 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. had been made English; and before 1579, Vergil, Ovid, Cicero, Demosthenes, and many Greek and Latin plays were trans- lated. In this way the best models were brought before the English people, and it is in the influence of the spirit of Greek and Roman literature on literary form and execution that we are to find one of the vital causes of the greatness of the later Elizabethan literature. The Earlier Elizabethan Prose, 1558-1579, began with the ScJiolemaster of ASCHAM, published 1570. This book, which is on education, is the work of the scholar of the New Learn- ing of the time of Henry VIII. who has lived on into another time. It is not, properly speaking, Elizabethan, it is like a stranger in a new land and among new manners. 2. Tlieological reform stirred men to literary work. A great number of satirical ballads and pamphlets and plays issued every year from obscure presses and filled the land. Writers, like George Gascoigne and, still more, BARSTABY GOOGE, rep- resent in their work the hatred the young men had of the old religious system. It was a spirit which did not do much for literature, but it quickened the habit of composition, and made it easier. The Bible also became common property, and its language glided into all theological writing and gave it a literary tone; while the publication of JOHN" Fox's Acts and Monuments, or Book of Martyrs, 1563, gave to the people all over England a book which, by its simple style, the ease of its story-telling, and its popular charm, made the very peas- ants who heard it read feel what is meant by literature. 3. The love of stories again awoke. The old English tales and ballads were eagerly read and collected. Italian Tales by various authors were translated and sown so broadcast over London by William Painter, in his collection, The Palace of Pleasure, 1566, by George Turbervile and others, that it is said they were to be bought at every bookstall. A great number of subjects for prose and poetry were thus made ready for literary men, and fiction became possible in English literature. Poetry and Prose, 1558-1579. 95 Another influence of the same kind bore on literature. It was that given by the stories of the voyagers, who, in the new commercial activity of the country, penetrated into strange lands. 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 impression made by the wonders told by the sailors and captains who explored and fought from the North Pole to the Southern Seas. 4. 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, HOLIN- SHED, and others at least supplied materials for the study and use of the historical drama. 5. Lastly, we have proof that there was a large number of persons writing who did not publish their works. It was con- sidered 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 Eiipliu<>* enchanted the whole of court society ; when a great gentle- man, like Sir Philip Sidney, became a writer. Literature was made the fashion, and, the disgrace being taken from it, the production became enormous. Manuscripts written and laid by were at once sent forth ; and, when the rush began, it grew by its own force. Those who had previously been kept from writing by its unpopularity now took it up eagerly, and those who had written before wrote twice as much now. The great improvement also in literary quality is easily accounted for by this that men strove to equal such work as Sidney's or Spen- ser's, and that a wi4er and sharper criticism arose/' 96 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. 19. THE PBOSE OF THE LATER ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE, 1579- 1603. "This begins with the publication of Lyly's Eupliues in 1579, and with the writing of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia and his Defence of Poetrie, 1580-81. The Eupliues and the Arcadia carried on the story- telling literature ; the Defence of Poetrie created a new form of literature, that of criticism. The Eupliues was the work of JOHN LTLY, poet and drama- tist. It is in two parts, Eupliues and JEuphues 9 England. In six years it ran through five editions, so great was its popularity. Its prose style is too poetic, but it is admirable for its smooth- ness and charm, and its very faults were of use in softening the rudeness of previous prose. The story is long and is more a loose framework into which Lyly could fit his thoughts on love, friendship, education, and religion than a true story. The second part is made up of several stories in one, and is a picture of the Englishman abroad. 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 end- less metaphors from the classics and natural history, its curious and gorgeous descriptions of dress, and its pale imita- tion 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, though written in 1580, did not appear till after his death. It is more poetic in style than the Euphues, and Sidney him- self, as he wrote it under the trees of Wilton, would have called it a poem. It is less the image of the time than of the man. Most people 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 Prose Sidney and Others. 97 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 a part of the third, which alone were writ- ten by him. It is a romance mixed up with pastoral stories after the fashion of the Spanish romances. The characters are real, but the story is confused by endless digressions. The sentiment is too fine and delicate for the world. The descriptions are picturesque, and the sentences are made as perfect as possible. A quaint or poetic thought or an epigram appears in every line. There is no real art in it or in its prose. But it is so full of poetical thought that it became a mine into which poets dug for subjects. Criticism began with Sidney's Defence of Poetrie. Its style shows us that he felt how faulty the prose of the Arcadia was. The book made a new step in the creation of a dignified English prose. It is still too flowery, but in it the fantastic prose of his own Arcadia and of the Eupliues dies. As criti- cism it is chiefly concerned with poetry. It defends, against STEPHEN Gossosr's School of Abuse, in which poetry and plays were attacked from the Puritan point" of view, the nobler uses >f poetry. Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser are praised, and >he other poets made little of in its pages. It was followed by WEBBE'S Discourse of English Poetrie, written ' to stir re up some other of meet abilitie to bestow travell on the matter. Already the other was travailing, and the Arte of English Poesie, supposed to be written by GEOKGE PUTTEHHAM, was published in 1589. It is the most elaborate book on the whole subject in Elizabeth's reign, and it marks the strong interest now taken in poetry in the highest society that the author says he writes it ' to help the courtiers and the gentle- women of the court to write good poetry, that the art may become vulgar for all Englishmen's use.' LATER THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. Before we come to the Poetry we will give an account of the Prose into which the tendencies of the earlier years of Elizabeth grew. The first is 98 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. that of theology. For a long time it remained only a literature 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 controversy, and Nash, the dramatist, made himself famous in the war by the vigor and fierceness of his wit. Over this troubled sea rose at last the stately work of KICHAKD HOOKEK. 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 literary prose that we possess." "Hooker affords our first example of an elaborate, high-sounding, ' periodic style.' His sentences, in their general character, are long and involved. With all their excellencies, they are not good models for English periods. In writing our first elaborate theological treatise, his fine ear was irresistibly caught by the rhythm of Latin models ; and, while he learned from them a more even proportion of sentence, he learned also to build an elaborate rhythm at the expense of native idiom. Attention to clearness and simplicity in the structure of paragraphs was a thing unknown in the age of Elizabeth, and Hooker was, in this re- spect, neither better nor worse than the good writers of his time." William Minto. THE ESSAY. " We may place alongside of it, as the other great prose work of Elizabeth's later time, the development of the Essay in LORD BACON'S Essays, 1597. Their highest literary merit is their combination of charm and even of poetic prose with conciseness of expression and fulness of thought. The rest of Bacon's work belongs to the following reign. The splendor of the form, and of the English prose of the Advance- Prose Bacon and Others. 99 ment of Learning, afterwards written in the Latin language, and intended to be worked up by the addition of the Novum Organum and the Sylva Sylvarum into the treatise of the Instauratio Magna, which Bacon meant to be a philosophy of human knowledge, raises it into the realm of pure literature." "The works of Bacon afford very little food for ordinary human feelings. All the pleasure we gain from them is founded upon their intellectual excellencies. Even the similitudes are intellectual rather than emotional, ingenious rather than touching or poetical. To adapt an image of Ben Jonson's, the wine of Bacon's writings is a dry wine. As we read, we experience the pleasure of surmounting obstacles; we are electrified by unexpected analogies, and the sudden revelations of new aspects in familiar things; and we sympathise more or less with the boundless 1 exhilaration of a mind that pierces with ease and swiftness through barriers that reduce other minds to torpor and stagnancy. The opinions contained in his Essays, observations and precepts on man and society, are perhaps the most permanent evidence of his sagacity. In this field he was thoroughly at home; the study of mankind occupied the largest part of his time." William Minto. " JOHN FLORIO'S translation of the Essays of Montaigne, 1603, is also worth mentioning, because Shakespeare used the book and because we trace Montaigne's influence on English literature even before his re translation by Charles Cotton. History, except in the publication of the earlier Chronicles by Archbishop Parker, does not appear again in Elizabeth's reign; but in the next reign Camden, Spelman, and John Speed continued the antiquarian researches of Stow and Graf ton. Bacon published a history of Henry VII. , ,and SAMUEL DAKIEL, 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' History of the Turks and SIB 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 literary not only from the ease and 100 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. vigor of its style but from its still spirit of melancholy thought. The Literature of Travel was carried on by the publication in 1589 of HAKLUYT'S Navigation, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, enlarged afterwards in 1625 by SAMUEL PURCHAS, who had himself written a book called Purchas, his Pilgrimage; or The Relations and Religions of the World. The influence of a compilation of this kind, containing the great deeds of the English on the seas, has been felt ever since in the literature of fiction and poetry. In the Tales, which poured out like a flood from the dram- atists, from such men as Peele and Lodge and Greene, we find the origin of English fiction and the subjects of many of our plays; while the fantastic attempt to revive the practices of chivalry, which we have seen in the Arcadia, found food in the translation of a new school of romances, such as Amadis of Gaul, Palmerin of England, and the Seven Champions of Christendom." BIBLIOGRAPHY. SIDNEY AND HOOKER. Disraeli's Amen, of Lit.; R. Southey's Fragment of Life of; Marsa's Orig. and Hist. Eng. Lit.; E. P. Whipple's Lit. of the Age ofEliz.; Minto's Man. of Eng. Prose Lit.; Littell, v. 3, 1863; N. A. Rev., v. 88, 1859; Eel. Mag., Apr., 1847; and Dec., 1855; N. Br. Rev., v. 26, 1856-7. BACON. Essays with Annotations by Whately ; Works with Life by B. Montagu; Minto's Man. of Eng. Prose Lit.; Boyd's Autumn Holidays ; Littell, 1863, v. 3; Nat. Quar. Rev., v.6, 1863; Eraser's Mag., v. 55, 1857; N. Br. Rev., v. 27, 1857; Eel. Mag., Oct., 1849; Feb., 1855; and Feb., 1857. LESSON 2O. From Sidney's Defence of Poetrie. Nowe therein of all Sciences is our Poet the Monarch. For he dooth not only show the way but giveth so sweete a prospect into the way as will intice any man to enter into it. Nay, he dooth, as if your jour- ney should lie through a fai re Vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of Grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to passe further. He beginncth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent 1 with interpretations, and load the memory with cloubtfirlnesse; but lice * Margin. Prose Sidney's. 101 cometh to you with words set in delightfull proportion, either accom- panied with, or prepared for, the well enchauntiug skill of Musicke; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And,, pre- tending no more, doth iutende the winning of the mind from wicked- nesse to vertue ; even as the childe is often brought to take most whol- som things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant tast; which, if one should beginue to tell them the nature of Aloes or Rufoarb they shoulde receive, woulde sooner take their Phisicke at their eares then 1 at their mouth. So is it in men, (most of which are childish in the best things till they bee cradled in their graves) glad they will be to heare the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, and Aeneas: and hearing them, must needs heare the right description of wisdom, valure, 2 and justice; which, if they had been barely, that is to say, philosophically set out, they would sweare they bee brought to schoole againe. Sith, 3 then, Poetrie is of all humane 4 learning the most auncient, and of most fatherly antiquitie, as from whence other learnings have taken their beginnings; sith it is so universall, that no learned Nation dooth despise it, nor no barbarous Nation is without it; sith both Roman and Greek gave divine names unto it, the one of prophecying, the other of making; and that indeede that name of making is fit for him, consider- ing that, where as other Arts retaine themselves within their subject and receive, as it were, their beeing from it, the Poet onely, bringeth his owne stuffe, and dooth not learne a conceite 5 out of a matter, but mak- eth matter for a conceite; sith neither his description nor his ende con- taineth any evill, the thing described cannot be evill; sith his effects be so good as to teach goodnes and to delight the learners; sith therein (namely in morrall doctrine, the chief e of all knowledges,) hee dooth not onely farre passe the Historian, but for instructing is well nigh com- parable to the Philosopher, and for moving leaves him behind him; sith the holy scripture (wherein there is no uncleannes) hath whole parts in it poetical!, and that even our Saviour Christ vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; sith all his 6 kindes are not onlie in their united formes but in their severed dissections fully commendable, I think (and think I thinke rightly) the Lawrell crowne appointed for triumphing Captaines, doth worthilie (of al other learnings) honor the Poets tryumph. So that sith the ever-praiseworthy Poesie is full of vertue-breeding de- lightfulnes, and voyde of no gyfte that ought to be in the noble name of learning; sith the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; sith the 1 Than. 2 Valor. 8 Since. 4 Human. 6 Conception. Its not yet in the language. 102 Literature of 'Period IV., 1558-1603. ^ . - ; cause why it is not esteemed in Englande is the fault of Poet-apes not Poets; sith, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor Poesie, and to bee hon- ored by Poesie, I conjure you all that have had the evill lucke to reade this incke-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the nyne Muses no more to scorne the sacred misteries of Poesie; no more to laugh at the name of Poets, as though they were next iuheritours to Fooles; no more to jest at the reverent title of Rymer: but to beleeve with Aristotle that they were the auncierit Treasurers of the Graecians Divinity; to beleeve with Bembus that they were first bringers in of all civilitie ; to beleeve with Scaliger that no Philosophers precepts can sooner make you an honest man, then the reading of Virgill ; to beleeve with Clauserus that it pleased the heavenly Deitie, by Hesiod and Homer, under the vayle of fables, to give us all knowledge, Logick, Rethorick, Philosophy, natu- rall and morall; to beleeve with me that there are many misteries con- tained in Poetrie, which of purpose were written darkely, lest by pro- phane wits it should bee abused ; to beleeve with Landin that they are so beloved of the Gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to beleeve themselves when they tell you they will make you immortall by their verses. Thus doing, your name shal florish in the Printers shoppes; thus do- ing, you shall bee of kinne to many a poeticall Preface; thus doing, you shall be most fayre, most ritch, most wise, most all, you shall dwell upon Superlatives; thus doing, though you be Libertino patre natus, 1 you shall suddenly grow Hercules proles; s thus doing, your soule shal be placed with Dantes Beatrix or Virgils Anchises. But if (fie of such a but) you be borne so neere the dull making Cataphract of Nilus 3 that you cannot heare the Plannet-like Musick of Poetrie; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift it selfe up to looke to the sky of Poetry; or rather, by a certaine rusticall dis- daine will become such a Home 4 as to be a Momus 5 of Poetry ; then, though I will not wish unto you the Asses eares of Midas, 6 nor to bee driven by a Poets verses (as Bubonax was) to hang himselfe, nor to be rimed to death, as is sayd to be doone in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalfe of all Poets, that, while you live, you live in love and never get favour for lacking skill of a Sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an Epitaph. i Of a father who was a freedman. 2 Of the race of Hercules (son of Jupiter). 8 There were three celebrated cataracts of the Nile. 4 A dolt. 6 God of raillery. 6 Ears lengthened for holding Pan's reed to be superior to Apollo's lyre. Prose Hooker's. 103 From Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth to the other nourishment and life are in the bosom of the earth concealed; and, if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant both to them which undertake it and for the lookers on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort; albeit the grounds and first original causes from which they have sprung be unknown, as to the greater part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious, for better exami- nation of their quality it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them, to be discovered. All things that are have some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth anything ever begin to exercise the same without some fore-con- ceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be obtained unless the actions whereby it is obtained were regular, that is to say, made suit- able, fit, and correspondent with their end by some canon, rule, or law. As it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered that after a law is once published it presently takes effect far and wide, all states fram- ing themselves thereunto, even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world; since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labor hath been to do his will. "He made a law for the rain; he gave his decree unto the sea, that the waters should not pass his commandment." Now, if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation 1 of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubilities 2 turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now 1 Observance. 2 Turnings. 104 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way; the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture; the winds breathe out their last gasp; the clouds yield no rain; the earth be de- feated of heavenly influence; the fruits of the earth pine away as chil- dren at the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief; what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures 1 unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world ? Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever^ though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy. From Bacon's Essays. Of Great Place. Men in great place are thrice servants servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as 2 they have no freedom, neither in their persons nor in their actions nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains ; and it is some- times base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery,and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. Nay, men cannot retire when they would, neither will they when it were reason, 3 but are impatient of privateness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow; like old towns- men that will be still sitting at their street door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy, for, it ihey judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it; but, if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within ; for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Created things. 2 That. 3 Reasonable. Prose Bacort s. 105 Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves; and, while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind. In place there is license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for, in evil, the best condition is not to will, 1 the second not to can.' 2 But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams except they be put in act, and that cannot be without power and place as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works are the end of man's motion, and conscience 3 of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest; for if a man can be partaker of God's theatre, 4 he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest. Of Youth, and Age. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business; for the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them, but in new things abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business, but the errors of aged men amount but to this that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage 5 of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end without con- sideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon, absurdly; care not 6 to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, like an un- ready horse that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, 7 but content themselves with the mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; 8 and good for succession, that young men may be learners while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for extern 9 accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favor and popularity youth; but, for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the preeminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text, "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams," inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream; and, certainly, the more a man drink- 1 Desire. 2 Be able. 3 Consciousness. 4 Work. 6 Management. 8 Are not caution. 7 Extent. 8 The other. 9 Outward. 106 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. eth of the world, the more it intoxicateth ; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections. From Bacon's Advancement of Learning. For the conceit 1 that learning should dispose men to leisure and private- ness 2 and make men slothful, it were a strange thing if that which ac- custometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should induce slothfulness; whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed that no kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned; for other persons love it for profit, as an hireling, that loves the work for the wages ; or for honor, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or be- cause it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them occasion to pleasure or displeasure; or because it exerciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good humor and pleasing conceits toward themselves; or because it advanceth any other their ends. So that as it is said of untrue valors, that some men's valors are in the eyes of them that look on; so such men's industries are in the eyes of others, or at least in regard of their own designments : 3 only learned men love business as an action according to nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body, taking pleasure in the action itself and not in the purchase; 4 so that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business which can hold or de- tain their mind. And if any man be laborious in reading and study and yet idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness of spirit and not of learning. Well may it be that such a point of a man's nature may make him give himself to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his nature. And that learning should take up too much time or leisure, I answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be hath (no question) many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business, and then the question is but how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent, whether in pleasures or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary, ^schines, that was a man given to pleasure and told him that his orations did smell of the lamp. "Indeed," said Demosthenes, "there is a great difference between the things that you and I do by lamp-light. " So as no man need doubt 5 that learning will expulse 6 business, but rather it will keep 1 Conception. a Privacy. ' Designs. 4 Acquisition. 8 Fear. Drive out. Poetry Spenser. 107 and defend the possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both. Again, for that other conceit that learning should undermine the rev- erence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation 1 and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and under- stood it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, 2 and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart 3 and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear 4 this assertion, con- sidering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes. And as to the judgment of Cato the Censer, he was well punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended; for, when he was past threescore years old, he was taken with an ex- treme desire to go to school again and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well demonstrate that his former censure 5 of the Grecian learning was rather an affected grav- ity than according to the inward sense of his own opinion. And as for Virgil's verses, though it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the Romans the art of empire and leaving to others the arts of sub- jects; yet so much is manifest that the Romans never ascended to that height of empire till the time they had ascended to the height of other arts. LESSON 21. THE LATER POETRY OF THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE, 1579-1603. EDMUND SPENSER, "The later Elizabethan poetry begins with the ShepJieardes Calender of SPENSER. Spenser was born in London, 1552, and educated at Merchant Taylor's School and at Cambridge, which he left at the age of twenty-four. His early boyhood was passed in London, and he went frequently to an English home among the glens of Lancashire. He returned thither after he left Cambridge, and fell in love with a ( fair widowe's daughter of the glen,' whom 1 Slander. Manageable. 8 Perverse. 4 Make clear. fl Opinion. 108 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. he called Kosalind. His love was not returned, and her cold- ness drove him southward. His college friend, Gabriel Harvey, made him known to Leicester, and probably, since Harvey was ( Leicester's man,' to Philip Sidney, Leicester's nephew; and it was at Sidney's house of Penshurst that the Shepheardes Calender was made, and the Faerie Queen begun. % The publication of the former work in 1579 at once made Spenser the first poet of the day, and its literary freshness was such that men felt that, for the first time since Chaucer, England had given birth to a great poet. It was a pastoral poem, divided into twelve eclogues, one for each month of the year. Shepherds and shepherd life were mixed in its verse with complaints for his lost love, with a desire for Church reform, with loyalty to the Queen. It marks the strong love of old English poetry by its reference to Chaucer, though it is in form imitated from the French pastoral of Clement Marot. The only tie it really has to Chaucer is in the choice of disused English words and spell-, ing, a practice of Spenser's which somewhat spoils the Faerie Queen. The Puritanism of the poem does not lie in any at- tack on the Episcopal theory, but in an attack on the sloth and pomp of the clergy, and in a demand for a nobler moral life. It is the same in the Faerie Queen. THE FAERIE QUEEN. The twelve books of this poem were to represent the twelve moral virtues, each in the person of a knight who was to conquer all the separate sins and errors which were at battle with the virtue he personified. In Arthur, the king of the company, the Magnificence of the whole of virtue was to be represented, and he was at last to arrive at union with the Faerie Queen, that divine glory of God to which all human thought and act aspired. This was Spenser's Puritanism the desire after a perfectly pure life for State and Church and Man. It was opposed in State and Church, he held, by the power of Eome, which he paints as Duessa, the falsehood which wears the garb of truth, and who Poetry Spenser. 109 also serves to represent her in whom Catholicism most threat- ened England Mary, Queen of Scots. Puritan in this sense, he is not Puritan in any other. He had nothing to do with the attack on Prelacy which was then raging, and the last canto of the Faerie Queen represents Calidore, the -knight of courtesy, sent forth to bridle ' the blatant beast/ the many- tongued and noisy Presbyterian body which attacked the Church. The poem, however, soars far above this region of debate into the calm and pure air of art. It is the poem of the hu- man soul and all its powers struggling towards the perfect love, the love which is God.J Filled full with christianized platonism, the ideas of truth, justice, temperance, courtesy do not remain ideas in Spenser's mind, as in Plato's, but become real personages, whose lives and battles he honors and tells in verse so delicate, so gliding, and so steeped in the finer life of poetry, that he has been called the poet's poet. As thejnobler Puritanism of the time is found in it, so also are' the oth^TnHueirceT'of the time. It goes back, as men were doing then, to the old times for its framework, to the Celtic story of Arthur and his knights, which Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chaucer and Thomas Malory had loved. It represents the new love of^chivalry, the new love of classical learning^ the new delight"lp mystic theories of love and religion. It is full of those allegorical schemes in which doc- trines and heresies, virtues and vices were contrasted and personified. It takes up and uses the popular legends of fairies, dwarfs, and giants, and mingles them with the savages and the wonders of the New World, of which the voyagers told in every company. Nearly the whole spirit of the Eng- lish Renaissance under Elizabeth, except its coarser and baser elements, is in its pages. Of anything impure or ugly or/ violent, there is not a trace. Spenser walks through the! whole of this woven world of faerie, 'With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace.' 110 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. The first three books were finished in Ireland, whither he had gone as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton in 1580. Ealeigh listened to them in 1589 at Kilcolman Castle, among the alder shades of the river Mulla, that fed the lake below the castle. Delighted with the poem, he took Spenser to England. The books were published in 1590, and the Queen, the Court, and the whole of England soon shared in Raleigh's delight. It was the first great ideal poem that England had produced, and it is the source of all our modern poetry. It has neyer ceased to make poets, and it will not lose its power while our language lasts." "The interest in The Faerie Queen is twofold. There is the interest of the moral picture which it presents, and there is the interest of it as a work of poetical art. The moral picture is of the ideal of noble manliness in Elizabeth's time. Besides the writers and the thinkers, the statesmen and the plotters, the traders and the commons, of that fruitful and vigorous age, there were the men of action the men who fought in France and the Netherlands and Ireland; the men who created the English navy, and showed how it could be used ; the men who tried for the north-west passage with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and sailed round the world with Sir Francis Drake, and planted colonies in America with Sir Walter Raleigh ; the men who chased the Armada to destruction, and dealt the return buffet to Spanish pride in the harbor of Cadiz; men who treated the sea as the rightful dominion of their mistress, and, seeking adventures on it far and near, with or without her leave, reaped its rich harvests of plunder from Spanish treasure-ships and West Indian islands, or from the ex- posed towns and churches of the Spanish coast. They were at once men of daring enterprise, and sometimes very rough execution; and yet men with all the cultivation and refinement of the time courtiers, scholars, penmen, poets These are the men whom Spenser had before his eyes in drawing his knights their ideas of loyalty, of gallantry, of the worth and use of life, their aims, their enthusiasm, their temptations, their foes, their defeats, their triumphs. As a work of art The Faerie Queen at once astonishes us by the won- derful fertility and richness of the writer's invention and imagination, by the facility with which he finds or makes language for his needs, and, above all, by the singular music and sweetness of his verse. The main theme seldom varies: it is a noble knight, fighting, overcoming, tempted, delivered; or a beautiful lady, plotted against, distressed, in Poetry Spenser. Ill danger, rescued. The poet's affluence of fancy and speech gives a new turn and color to each adventure. But, besides that under these conditions there must be monotony, the poet's art, admirable as it is, gives room for objections. Spenser's style is an imitation of the antique; and an imitation, however good, must want the master charm of naturalness, reality, simple truth. And in his system of work, with his brightness and quickness and fluency, he wanted self-restraint the power of holding himself in, and of judging soundly of fitness and proportion. There was a looseness and careless- ness, partly belonging to his age, partly his own. In the use of mate- rials, nothing comes amiss to him. He had no scruples as a copyist. He took without ceremony any piece of old metal word or story or image which came t<5. his hand, and threw it into the melting-pot of his imagination to come out fused with his own materials, often trans- formed, but often unchanged. The effect was sometimes happy, but not always so." R. W. Church. SPENSER'S MINOR POEMS. " The next year, 1591, Spenser, being still in England, collected his -smaller poems and pub- lished them. Among them Mother Hulbard's Tale is a bright imitation of Chaucer, and the Tears of the Muses supports my statement that literature was looked on coldly previous to 1580, by the complaint the Muses make in it of their subjects' being despised in England. Sidney had died in 1586, and three of these poems bemoan his death. The others are of slight importance, and the whole collection was entitled Com- plaints. Returning to Ireland, he gave an account of his visit in Colin Clout's come Home again, 1591, and at last, after more than a year's pursuit, won his second love for his wife, and found with her perfect happiness. A long series of Son- nets records the progress of his wooing, and the Epithalatnion^ his marriage hymn, is the most glorious love-song in the^Eng- lish tongue. At the close of 1595 he carried to England, in a second visit, the last three books of the Faerie Queen. The next year he spent in London, and published these books with his other poems, the Profhalamion on the marriage of Lord Worcester's daughters, and his ^fymnes to Love and Beauty, and to Heavenly Love and Beauty, in which the love philosophy of Petrarca is enshrined. The end of his life was 112 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. sorrowful. In 1598 the Irish rising took place, his castle was burnt, and he 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." BIBLIOGRAPHY. SPENSER. G. L. Craik's Spenser and his Poetry ; Eng. Men of Let- ters Series; Ward's Anthology; Disraeli's Amen, of Lit.; Hewitt's Homes of the Brit. Poets, vol. 1; Lowell's Among my Books, 2d Ser.; Whipple's Lit. of the age of Eliz.; Clar. Press Ed. of Faerie Queen; Minto's Char, of Eng. Poets ; Atlantic, v.2, 1858; West. Rev., v. 87, 18G7; Allibon >, v. 2. From Spenser's Faerie Queen. Thus being entred, they behold around A large and spacious plaine, on every side Strowed with pleasauus; 1 whose faire grassy ground Mantled with greene, and goodly beautifide With all the ornaments of Floraes pride, Wherewith her mother Art, as halfe in scorne Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride Did decke her, and too lavishly adorne, When forth from virgin bowre she comes in th' early morne. Thereto the heveus alwayes joviall Lookt on them lovely, still in stedfast state, Ne suffred storme nor frost on them to fall, Their tender buds or leaves to violate: Nor scorching heat, nor cold intemperate, T'afflict the creatures which therein did dwell; But the rnilde aire with season moderate Gently attempred, and disposed so well That still it breathed forth sweet spirit and holesome 2 smell: More sweet and holesome then 3 the pleasaunt 1 ill Of Rhodope, 4 on which the nimphe that bore A gyauiit babe her selfe for grief e did kill; Or the Thessalian Tempe, 5 where of yore Faire Daphne Phoebus hart with love did gore; 1 Pleasantness. 2 Wholesome. s Than. 4 On the frontier of Thrace. * A long, deep defUe. Poetry Spenser's. 113 Or Ida 1 where the gods lov'd to repaire. Whenever they their hevenly bowres forlore; Or sweet Parnasse, 2 the haunt of muses faire, Or Eden selfe. if ought with Eden mote compaire. Much wondred Guyon at the faire aspect Of that sweet place, yet suffred no delight To sincke into his sence nor mind affect; But passed forth, and lookt still forward right, Bridling his will and maistering his might: Till that he came unto another gate ; No gate, but like one, being goodly dight With boughes and braunches, which did broad dilate Their clasping armes in wanton wreathings intricate. There the most daintie paradise on ground Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye, In which all pleasures plenteously abownd, And none does others happinesse envye ; The painted flowres, the trees upshooting hye, The dales for shade, the hilles for breathing space, The trembling groves, the christall running by; And that, which all faire workes doth most aggrace, 8 The art which all that wrought appeared in no place. One would have thought, so cunningly the rude And scorned partes were mingled with the fine, That nature had for wantonesse ensude 4 Art, and that art at nature did repine; So striving each th' other to undermine, Each did the others worke more beautifie ; So diff'ring both in willes agreed in fine: 5 So all agreed, through sweete diversitie, This gardin to adorne with all varietie. And in the midst of all a fountaine stood Of richest substance that on earth might bee, So pure and shiny that the silver flood Through every channell running one might see; Most goodly it with curious imageree i Hill of Phrygia. 2 Hill sacred to the Muses. 8 Lend favor to. Followed after. End. 114 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes, Of which some seemed with lively jollitee To fly about, playing their wanton toyes, 1 Whylest others did themselves embay 2 in liquid joyes. And over all of purest gold was spred A trayle of y vie in his native hew ; For the rich metall was so coloured That wight 3 who did not well avis'd it vew, Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew : Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe, That themselves dipping in the silver dew Their fleecy flowres they fearfully did steepe, Which drops of christall seemed for wautones to weepe. Infinit streames continually did well Out of this fountaine, sweet and faire to see, The which into an ample laver 4 fell, And shortly grew to so great quantitie That like a little lake it seemd to bee; Whose depth exceeded not three cubits hight, That through the waves one might the bottom see All pav'd beneath with jasper shining bright, That seemed the fountaine in that sea did sayle upright. Eftsoones 1 they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote 2 delight a daintie eare, Such as attonce might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Eight hard it was for wight, which did it heare, To read what manner musicke that mote bee; For all that pleasing is to living eare Was there consorted in one harmonee; Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree. The joyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade, Their notes unto the voyce attempred sweet; Th' augelicall, soft, trembling voyces made To th' instruments divine respondence meet; Sports. 2 Bathe. 3 Person, * Basin, 6 Forthwith. 'Could. Poetry Love, Patriotic, and Philosophical. 115 The silver sounding instruments did meet With the base murmure of the waters fall ; The waters fall with difference discreet, 1 Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle, warbling wind low answered to all. FURTHER READINGS IN BOOK I. Opening stanzas of Canto I. ; some stanzas of Canto II., beginning with the seventh; opening stanzas of Canto III., and of Canto IV.; some stanzas of Canto V., beginning with the eighteenth; some stanzas of Canto X., beginning with the twelfth, and also some beginning with the fifty-first; and concluding stanzas of Canto XII., beginning at the twentieth. .LESSON THE FOUR PHASES OF THE LATER ELIZABETHAN POETRY. " Spenser reflected in his poems the spirit of the English Renaissance. The other poetry of Elizabeth's reign reflected the whole of English Life. The best way to arrange it omit- ting 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 order is a true chronological order. ]fir&t t then, if we compare England after 1580, as writers | have often done, to an ardent youth, we shall find, in the poetry of the first years that followed that date, all the ele- ments of youth. It is a poetry of love and romance and fancy. Secondly* and later on, when Englishmen grew older in feel- - ing, their unsettled 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 the great outburst of historical plays, and a set of poets whom I will call the patriotic poets. Thirdly, and later still, all enthusiasm died down into a graver and more thoughtful national life, and parallel with this are the tragedies of Shake- speare and the poets whom I will call philosophical. These three classes of Poets overlapped one another, and grew up * Varied, 116 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. gradually, but on the whole their succession represents a real succession of national thought and emotion. A 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 Rylstone, who vainly strove in sorrow against all the new national elements. ROBERT SOUTH- WELL, of Norfolk, a Jesuit priest, was the poet of Roman Cath- olic England. Imprisoned for three years, racked ten times, and finally executed, he wrote during his prison time his two / /longest poems, St. Peter's Complaint, and Mary Magdalene's y Funeral Tears, and it marks not only the large Roman Cath- olic element in the country but also the strange contrasts of the time that eleven editions of poems with these titles were published between 3593 and 1600, at a time when the Venus Jand Adonis of Shakespeare led the way for a multitude of poems that sang of love and delight and England's glory. To the first three we now turn. THE LOVE POETRY. I have called it by this name, because in all its best work (to be found in the first book of Mr. Palgrave's 'Golden Treasury') it is almost limited to that subject the sub- ject of youth. It is chiefly composed in the form of songs and sonnets, and was published in miscellanies in and after 1600. The most famous of these, in which men like Nicholas Breton, Henry Constable, Rd. Barnefield, and others wrote, are Eng- land's Helicon and Davison's Rhapsody and the Passionate pilgrim. The latter contained some poems of Shakespeare, and he is by virtue of these, and the songs in his Dramas, the best of these lyric writers. The songs themselves are ' old and plain, and dallying with the innocence of love.' They have natural sweetness, great simplicity of speech, and directness of statement. Some, as Shakespeare's, possess a ' passionate reality;' others a quaint pastoralism like shepherd life in por- celain, such as Marlowe's well known song, ( Come live with Poetry Love and Patriotic. 117 me and be my love; ' others a splendor of love and beauty as in Lodge's Song of Rosaline, and Spenser's on his mar- riage. The sonnets were written chiefly in series, and I have already said that such writers are called amourists. Such were Shakespeare's and the Amoretti of Spenser, and those to Diana by Constable. They were sometimes mixed with Can- zones and Ballatas after the Italian manner, and the best of these were a series by Sir Philip Sidney. A number of other sonnets and of longer love poems were written by the drama- tists before Shakespeare, by Peele and Greene and Marlowe and Lodge, far the finest being the Hero and Leander, which Marlowe left as a fragment to be completed by Chapman. Mingled up with these were small religious poems, the reflec- tion of the Puritan and the more religious Church element in English society. They were collected under such titles as the Handful of Honeysuckles, the Poor Widow's Mite, Psalms and Sonnets, and there are some good things among them written by William Hunnis. In one Scotch poet, WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHOKST- DEU, the friend of Ben Jonson, the love poet and the relig- ious poet were united. I mention him here, though his work properly belongs to the reign of James I., because his poetry really goes back in spirit and feeling to this time. He cannot be counted among the true Scottish poets. Drummond is entirely Elizabethan and English, and he is worthy to be named among the lyrical poets below Spenser and Shakespeare. His love sonnets have as much grace as Sidney's and less quaintness, his songs have of ten the grave simplicity of Wyatt's, and his religious poems, especially one solemn sonnet on John the Baptist, have a distant resemblance to the grandeur of Milton. THE PATRIOTIC POETRY. Among all this poetry of Eomance, Chivalry, Religion, and Love, rose a poetry which devoted itself to the glory of England. It was chiefly historical, and 118 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. as it may be said to have had i is germ in the Mirror of Magis- trates, so it had its perfect flower in the historical drama of Shakespeare. Men had now begun to have a great pride in England. She had stepped into the foremost rank, had out- witted France, subdued internal foes, beaten and humbled Spain on every sea. Hence the history of the land became precious, and the very rivers and hills and plains honorable, and to be sung and praised in verse. This poetic impulse is best represented in the works of three men WILLIAM WAR- NEE, SAMUEL DANIEL, and MICHAEL DRAYTON. Born within a few years of each other, about 1560, they all lived beyond the century, and the national poetry they set on foot lasted when the romantic poetry died. WILLIAM WARNER'S great book was Albion's England, 1586, a history of England in verse from the Deluge to Queen Elizabeth. It is clever, .humorous, crowded with stories, and runs to 10,000 lines. Its popularity was great, and the Eng- lish in which it was written deserved it. Such stories as Ar- g entile and Cur an and the Patient Countess prove him to have had a true and pathetic vein of poetry. His English is not, however, better than that of ' well -Ian guaged DANIEL,' who, among tragedies and pastoral comedies and poems of pure fancy, wrote in verse a prosaic History of the Civil Wars, 1595, as we have already found him writing history in prose. Spen- ser saw in him a new ' shepherd ' of poetry who did far sur- pass the others, and Coleridge says that the style of his Hy- men's Triumph may be declared ' imperishable English.' Of the three the greatest poet was DRAYTON. Two historical poems are his work the Civil Wars of Edward II. and the Barons, and England's Heroical Epistles, 1598. Not content with these, he set himself to glorify the whole of his land in the Polyolbion, thirty books, and more than 30,000 lines. It is a description in Alexandrines of the ' tracts, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of Britain, with inter- mixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities, wonders,. Poetry Philosophical and Translations. 119 pleasures, and commodities 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 1613, in James I. 's reign. PHILOSOPHICAL POETRY. Before that time a change had come. As the patriotic poets came after the romantic, so the romantic were followed by the philosophical poets. The youth and early manhood of the Elizabethan poetry passed, about 1600, into its thoughtful manhood. The land was set- tled; enterprise ceased to be the first thing; men sat down to think, and in poetry questions of religious and political phi- losophy were treated with ' sententious reasoning, grave, sub- tile, and condensed. ' Shakespeare, in his passage from com- edy to tragedy, in 1601, represents this change. The two poets who represent it are SIR JNO. DAVIES and FULKE GREVILLE, Lord Brooke. In Davies we find an ad- mirable instance of it. His earlier poem of the Orchestra, 1596, in which the whole world is explained as a dance, is as gay and bright as Spenser. His later poem, 1599, is compact and vigorous reasoning, for the most part without fancy. Its very title, Nosce te ipsum Know Thyself and its divisions, 1. ' On humane learning/ 2. ' The immortality 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 WOT- TON'S, on the Character of a Happy Life, are instances of the same change. It is still more marked in Greville's long, obscure poems on Human Learning, on Wars, and on Monarchy and Religion. They are political and historical treatises, not poems, and all in them, says Lamb, ' is made frozen and rigid by intellect,' Apart from poetry, 'they are worth notice as an indication of that thinking spirit on political science which was to produce the riper speculations of Hobbes, Harrington, and Locke.' TRANSLATIONS. There are three translators that take liter- 120 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. ary rank among the crowd that carried on the work of the earlier time. Two mark the influence of Italy, one the more power- ful influence of the Greek spirit. SIR JOHN HARINGTON in 1591 translated Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, FAIRFAX in 1600 translated Tasso's Jerusalem, and his book is 'one of the glories of Elizabeth's reign.' But the noblest translation is that of Homer's whole work by G-EORGE CHAPMAN, the dram- atist, 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 fourteen syllable stanza in which it is written has the fire and swiftness of Homer, but it has not his directness or dignity. Its ( inconquerable quaintness ' and diffuseness are as unlike the pure form and light and measure of Greek work as possible. But it is a distinct poem of such power that it will excite and delight all lovers of poetry, as it excited and delighted Keats." 23- EARLY DRAMATIC REPRESENTATION IN ENGLAND. " The drama, as in Greece, so in England, began in religion. In early times none but the clergy could read the stories of their religion, and it was not the custom to deliver sermons to the people. It was necessary to instruct uneducated men in the history of the Bible, in the Christian faith, in the lives of the Saints and Martyrs. Hence the Church set on foot miracle- plays and mysteries. We find the first of these about 1110, whui Geoffrey, afterwards Abbot of St. Albans, prepared his miracle play of St. Catherine for acting. Such plays be- came more frequent from the time of Henry II., and they were so common in Chaucer's time that they were the resort of idle gossips in Lent. The wife of Bath went to ' plays of mira- cles and marriages.' They were acted not only by the clergy The Drama Miracle-Plays. 121 but by the laity. About the year 1268, the town guilds began to take them into their own hands, and acted complete sets of plays, setting forth the whole of Scripture history from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. Each guild took one play in the set. They lasted sometimes three days, sometimes eight, and were represented on a great movable stage on wheels in the open spaces of the towns: Of these sets we have three remaining, the Towneley, Coventry, and Chester plays, 1300 1600. The first set has 32, the second 42, and the third 25 plays. The Miracle-Play was a representation of some portion of Scripture history, or of the life of some Saint of the Church. The Mystery was a representation of any portion of the New Testament history concerned with a mysterious subject, such as the Incarnation, the Atonement, or the Resurrection. It has been attempted to distinguish these more particular- ly, but they are mingled together in England into one. From the towns they went to the Court and to the houses of nobles. The Kings kept players of them, and we know that exhibit- ing Scripture plays at great festivals was part of the domestic regulations of the great houses, and that it was the Chaplain's business to write them. Their 'Dumb Show' and their 1 Chorus ' leave their trace in the regular drama. We cannot say that the modern drama arose after them, for it came in before they died out in England. They were still acted in Chester in 1577, and in Coventry in 1580." " There were neither theatres nor professional actors in England, in- deed in Europe, at the period when miracle-plays first came in vogue. The first performers in these plays were clergymen ; the first stages, or scaffolds, on which they were presented were set up in churches. Evi- dence that this was the case has been discovered in such profusion that it is needless to specify it more particularly in this place than to remark that councils and prelates finally found it necessary to forbid such per- formances either in churches or by the clergy. But it is worthy of remark that evidence of the ecclesiastical character of the first actors of our drama is preserved in dramatic literature to this day in the Latin 122 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. words of direction, Exit and Exeunt. After the exclusion of the clergy from the religious stage, lay-brothers, parish clerks, and the hangers-on of the priesthood naturally took the place of their spiritual fathers, under whose superintendence, or to speak precisely, management, the miracle-plays were brought out. Excluded from the church itself, the miracle-play found fitting refuge in the church-yard. But it was final- ly forbidden within all hallowed precincts, and was then presented upon a movable scaffold, or pageant, which was dragged through the town, and stopped for the performance at certain places designated by an announcement made a day or two before. At last the presentation of these plays fell entirely into the hands of laymen, and handicraftsmen became their actors; the members of the various guilds undertaking respectively certain plays which they made for the time their specialty. Thus the Shearmen and Taylors would represent one; the Coppers another; and so with the Smiths, the Skin- ners, the Fishmongers, and others. In the Chester series, Noah's flood was very appropriately assigned to the Water-dealers and Draw- ers of Dee. It is almost needless to remark that female characters were always played by striplings and young men. Women did not appear upon the English stage until the middle of the seventeenth century. It would seem that the priests appeared only as amateurs, and that their performances were gratuitous. But when laymen, or, at least, when handicraftsmen undertook the business, they were paid, as we know by the memorandums of accounts still existing." R. O. White. MOKAL-PLAYS. " The Morality was the next step to these, and in it we come to a representation which is closely connected with the drama. It was a play in which the characters were the Vices and Virtues, with the addition afterwards of alle- gorical personages, such as Riches, Good Deeds, Confession, Death, and any human condition or quality needed for the play. These characters were brought together in a rough story, at the end of which Virtue triumphed, or some moral principle was established. The dramatic fool grew up in the Moralities out of a personage called ' The Vice/ and the hu- morous element was introduced by the retaining of 'The Devil ' from the Miracle play, and by making the Vice torment him. They were continually represented, but, becoming The Drama Moral-Plays and Interludes. coarser, were finally supplanted by the regular drama about the end of Elizabeth's reign. The Transition between these and the regular Drama is not hard to trace. The Virtues and Vices were dull, because they stirred no human sympathy. Historical characters were there- fore then introduced, who were celebrated for a virtue or a vice; Brutus represented patriotism, Aristides represented justice; or, as in BALE'S Kynge Johan, historical and allegori- cal personages were mixed together. The transition was hast- ened by the impulse of the Keformation. The religious struggle came so home to men's hearts that they were not sat- isfied with subjects drawn from the past, and the Morality was used to support the Catholic or the Protestant side. Real men and women were shown under the thin cloaks of its alle- gorical characters; the vices and the follies of the time were displayed. It was the origin of satiric comedy. The stage was becoming a living power when this began. The excite- ment of the audience was now very different from that felt in listening to Virtues and Vices, and a demand arose for a com- edy and tragedy which should picture human life in all its forms. The Interludes of JOHN HEYWOOD, most of which were written for Court representation in Henry VIII. 's time, 1530, 1540, represent this further transition. They differed from the Morality in that most of the characters were drawn from real life, but they retained ' the Vice ' as a personage. The Inter- lude a short, humorous piece, to be acted in the midst of the Morality for the amusement of the people had been fre- quently used, but Heywood isolated it from the Morality, and made of it a kind of farce. Out of it we may say grew Eng- lish comedy." BIBLIOGRAPHY. THE DRAMA. R. G. White's Account of the Rise and Progress of; "Whipple's Lit. of A<)e of Eliz.; W. Hazlitt's Lectures on the Dra. Lit. of Age of Eliz.; T. Gilliland's Dramatic Mirror ;H. N. Hudson's Origin and Growth of ; J.Skel- ton's Early Eng. Life in; H. Ulrici's Sketch of Hist, of Eng. Drama ; Nat. Quar Hev., Dec., 1873. 124 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. THE REGULAR DRAMA. " The first; stage of the regular drama begins with the first English comedy, Ralph Roister Dois- ter, written by NICHOLAS UDALL, master of Eton, known to have been acted before 1551, but not published till 1566. It is our earliest picture of London manners; the characters are well drawn; It is divided into regular acts and scenes and is made in rhyme. The first English tragedy is Gorloduc, written by SACKVILLE and No ETON", and represented in 1562. The story was taken from British legend, and the characters are gravely sustained. But the piece was heavy and too solemn for the audience, and RICHARD EDWARDS by mixing tragic and comic elements together in his play, Damon and Pythias, acted about 1564, succeeded better. These two gave the impulse to a number of dramas from classical and modern story, which were acted at the Universi- ties, Inns of Court, and the Court up to 1580, when the drama, having gone through its boyhood, entered on a vigorous man- hood. More than fifty-two dramas, so quick was their pro- duction, are known to have been acted up to this time. Some were translated from the Greek, as the Jocasta from Euripides, and others from the Italian, as the Supposes from Ariosto, both by the same author, GEORGE GASCOIGKE, already mentioned as a satirist. These were acted in 1566. THE THEATRE. There was as yet no 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 Theatre. In the same year two others were set up in the fields about Shoreditch < The Theatre' and < The Cur- tain.' 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 The Regular Drama. 125 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, etc., were all the scenery used, and a board, stating the place of ac- tion, was hung out from the top when the scene changed. Boys acted the female parts. It was only after the Kestoration that movable scenery and actresses were introduced. No ' pencil's aid ' supplied the landscape of Shakespeare's plays. The for- est of Arden, the castle of Duncan were 'seen only by the intellectual eye." ; " The private theatres were entirely roofed in, while in the others the pit was uncovered, and of course the stage and the gallery were exposed to the external air. A flag was kept flying from the staff on the roof during the performance. The price of admission to the pit, or yard, varied, according to the pretensions of the theatre, from twopence, and even a penny, to sixpence; that to the boxes or rooms, from a shilling to two shillings, and even, on extraordinary occasions, half a crown. The theatre appears to have been always artificially lighted, in the body of the house by cressets, and upon the stage by large, rude chandeliers. The small band of musicians sat, not in an orchestra in front of the stage, but, it would seem, in a balcony projecting from the proscenium. People went early to the theatre, and, while waiting for the" play to begin, they read, gamed, smoked, drank, and cracked nuts and jokes together; those who set up for wits and gallants, or critics liked to appear upon the stage itself, which they were allowed to do all through the performance, lying upon the rushes, or sitting upon stools, for which they paid an extra price. Each day's exhibition was closed by a prayer for the Queen, offered by all the actors kneeling." R. G. White. THE SECOND STAGE OF THE REGULAR DRAMA. " This ranges from 1580 to 1596. It includes the work of Lyly, author of the Euphues, the plays of Peele, Greene, Lodge, Marlowe, Kyd, Munday, Chettle, Nash, and the earliest works of Shake- speare. During this time we know that more than 100 different plays were performed by four out of the eleven com- panies; 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 126 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. 1587, when .Marlowe, in his play of Tcvniburlaine, made blank verse the fashion. JOHN LYLY illustrates the three methods, for he wrote seven plays in prose, one in rhyme, and one (after Tanibur- laine) in blank verse. Some beautiful little songs scattered through them are the forerunners of the songs with which Shakespeare made his dramas bright, and the witty ' quips and cranks,' repartees, and similes of their fantastic prose dialogue were the school of Shakespeare's prose dialogue. PEELE, GREENE, and MAELOWE are the three important names of the period. They are the first in whose hands the play of human passion and action is expressed with any true dramatic effect. Peele and Greene make their characters act on, and draw out, one another in the several scenes, but they have no power of making a plot, or of working out their plays, scene by scene, to a natural conclusion. They are, in one word, without art, and their characters, even when they talk in good poetry, are neither natural nor simple. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, on the other hand, rose by de- grees and easily into mastery of his art. The difference between the unequal and violent action and thought of his Doctor Faustus and the quiet and orderly progression to its end of the play of Edward II. is all the more remarkable when we know that he died at thirty. Though less than Shakespeare, he was worthy to precede him. As he may be said to have invented and made the verse of the drama, so he created the English tragic drama. His plays are wrought with art to their end, his characters are sharply and strongly outlined. Each play illustrates one ruling passion in its growth, its power, and its extremes. Tamlurlaine paints the desire of universal empire; the Jew of Malta the passions of greed and hatred; Doctor Faustus the struggle and failure of man to possess all knowledge and all pleasure without toil and with- out law; Edward II. the misery of weakness and the agony of a king's ruin. Marlowe's verse is 'mighty,' his poetry Poetry Marlowe's. 127 strong and weak alike with passionate feeling, and expressed with, a turbulent magnificence of words and images, the fault of which is a very great want of temperance. It reflects his life and the lives of those with whom he lived. Marlowe lived and died an irreligious, imaginative, tender- hearted, licentious poet. Peele and Greene lived an even more riotous life and died as miserably, and they are examples of a crowd of other dramatists who passed their lives between the theatre, the wine-shop, and the prison. Their drama, in which we see the better side of the men, had all the marks of a wild youth. {It was daring, full of strong but unequal life, romantic, sometimes savage, often tender, always exaggerated in its treatment and expression of the human passions^) If it had no moderation, it had no tame dulness. If it was coarse, it was powerful, and it was above all national. It was a time full of strange contrasts, a time of fiery action and of senti- mental contemplation; a time of fancy and chivalry, indeli- cacy and buffoonery; of great national adventure and private bniwls; of literary quiet and polemic thought; of faith and infidelity and the whole of it is painted with truth, but with too glaring colors, in the drama of these men." From Marlowe's Edward II* Enter Matrevis, Grurney, and soldiers with King Edward. K. Edw. Friends, whither must unhappy Edward go? Will hateful Mortimer appoint no rest? Must I be vexd like the nightly bird, Whose sight is loathsome to all winged fowls ? When will the fury of his mind assuage? When will his heart be satisfied with blood? If mine will serve, unbowel straight this breast, And give my heart to Isabel and him : It is the chiefest mark they level at. * Ed. H., son of Ed. I. and father of Ed III., was King of England, 1307-27. His character was weak, and his reign disastrous. He was deposed by his nobles. This extract from the play treats of his imprisonment in the dungeon of Kenil- worth, his execution, and the feelings and doings of Ed. III. concerning his father's treatment, 128 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. Our. Not so, my liege, f he queen hath given this charge To keep your grace in safety: Your passions make your dolours to increase. K. Edw, This usage makes my misery increase. But can my air of life continue long, When all my senses are annoyed with stench? Within a dungeon England's king is kept, Where I am starv'd for want of sustenance. My daily diet is heart-breaking sobs, That almost rend the closet of my heart: Thus lives old Edward not reliev'd by any, And so must die, though pitied by many. Oh, water, gentle friends, to cool my thirst, And clear my body from foul excrements ! Mat. Why strive you thus? your labor is in vain. K. Edw. The wren may strive against the lion's strength, But all in vain : so vainly do I strive To seek for mercy at a tyrant's hand. Immortal powers, that know the painful cares That wait upon my poor, distressed soul, Oh, level all your looks upon these daring men That wrong their liege and sovereign, England's king! O Gaveston, it is for thee that I am wrong'd ! For me both thou and both the Spensers died; And for your sakes a thousand wrongs I'll take. The Spensers' ghosts, wherever they remain, Wish well to mine; then, tush, for them I'll die. Mat. 'Twixt theirs and yours shall be no enmity. Come, come, away! Now put the torches out, We'll enter in by darkness to Killingworth. Enter the younger Mortimer and Lightborn. T. Mart. Art thou so resolute as thou wast? Light. What else, my lord? and far more resolute. Y. Mart. And hast thou cast how to accomplish it? Light. Ay, ay; and none shall know which way he died, Y. Mort. But at his looks, Lightborn, thou wilt relent. Light. Kelent! ha, ha! I use much to relent. Y. Mort. Well, do it bravely, and be secret. Light. You shall not need to give instructions; Tis not the first time I have kill'd a man: Poetry Marlowe's. 129 I learn 'din Naples how to poison flowers; To strangle with a lawn thrust thro' the throat; To pierce the wind-pipe with a needle's point; Or, whilst one is asleep, to take a quill And blow a little powder in his ears; Or open his mouth, and pour quick-silver down. But yet I have a braver way than these. [Exit. [Enters Killingworth prison. K. Echo. Who's there? what light is that? Wherefore com'st thou ? Light. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news. K. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy looks, Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me. Light. To murder you, my most gracious lord! Far is it from my heart to do you harm. The queen sent me to see how you were us'd, For she relents at this your misery : And what eyes can refrain from shedding tears, To see a king in this most piteous state? K. Edw. Weep'st thou already? list awhile to me, And then thy heart, were it as Gurney's is, Or as Matrevis', hewn from the Caucasus, Yet will it melt ere I have done my tale. This dungeon where they keep me is the sink Wherein the filth of all the castle falls. Light. O villains! K. Edw. And there, in mire and puddle, have I stood This ten days' space; and, lest that I should sleep, One plays continually upon a drum. They give me bread and water, being a king; So that, for want of sleep and sustenance, My mind's distemper'd, and my body's numb'd, And "whether I have limbs or no I know not. Oh, would my blood dropp'd out from every vein, As doth this water from my tatter'd robes ! Tell Isabel, the queen, I look'd not thus, When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, And there unhors'd the Duke of Cleremont. Light. Oh, speak no more, my lord! this breaks my heart. Lie on this bed, and rest yourself awhile. 130 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. K. Edw. These looks of thine can harbor naught but death; I see my tragedy written in thy brows. Yet stay awhile; forbear thy bloody hand, And let me see the stroke before it comes, That even then when I shall lose my life, My mind may be more steadfast on my God. Light. What means your highness to mistrust me thus? K. Edw. What mean'st thou to dissemble with me thus? Light. These hands were never stain'd with innocent blood, Nor shall they now be tainted with a king's. K. Edw. Forgive my thought for having such a thought. One jewel have I left ; receive thou this. [Giving jewel. Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause, But every joint shakes as I give it thee. Oh, if thou harbor'st murder in thy heart, Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul! Know that I am a king: Oh, at that name I feel a hell of grief 1 Where is my crown? Gone, gone! and do I still remain alive? Light. You're overwatch'd, my lord; lie down and rest. K. Edw. But that grief keeps me waking, I should sleep ; For not these ten days have these eye-lids clos'd. Now, as I speak, they fall; and yet with fear Open again. Oh, wherefore sitt'st thou here? Light. If you mistrust me, I'll be gone, my lord. K. Edw. No, no; for, if thou mean'st to murder me, Thou wilt return again ; and therefore stay. [Sleeps. Light. He sleeps. K. Edw. [Waking] Oh, let me not die yet! Oh, stay awhile! Light. How now, my lord ! _ZT. Edw. Something still buzzeth in mine ears, And tells me, if I sleep, I never wake : This fear is that which makes me tremble thus ; And therefore tell me, wherefore art thou come? Light. To rid thee of thy life. Matrevis, come! Enter Matrevis and Gurney. K. Edw. I am too weak and feeble to resist. Assist me, sweet God, and receire my soull Light. Run for the table. Poetry Marlowe's. 131 K. Edw. Oh, spare me, or despatch me in a trice I Light. So, lay the table down, and stamp on it, But not too hard, lest that you bruise his body. Mat. I fear me that this cry will raise the town, And therefore let us take horse and away. Light. Tell me, sirs, was it not bravely done? Our. Excellent well, take this for thy reward. [Stabs Lightborn, who dies. Enter King Edw. III., Q. Isab., lords, and attendants. First Lord. Fear not, my lord, know that you are a king. K. Edw. III. Villain! T. Mori. How now, my lord! K Edw. III. Think not that I am frighted with thy words I My father's murdered through thy treachery; And thou shalt die, and on his mournful hearse Thy hateful and accursed head shall lie, To witness to the world that by thy means His kingly body was too soon interr'd. Q. Isab. Weep not, sweet son! K. Edw. III. Forbid not me to weep, he was my father; And had you lov'd him half so well as I, You could not bear his death thus patiently : But you, I fear, conspir'd with Mortimer. Ay, Mortimer, thou kuow'st that he is slain ; And so shalt thou be too. Why stays he here? Bring him unto a hurdle, drag him forth, Hang him, I say, and set his quarters up ; But bring his head back presently to me. Q. Isab. For my sake, sweet son, pity Mortimer! T. Mort. Madam, entreat not, I will rather die Than sue for life unto a paltry boy. K. Edw. Ill Hence with the traitor! with the murderert Y. Mort. Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel There is a point, to which when men aspire, They tumble headlong down: that point I touch'd, And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher, Why should I grieve at my declining fall? Farewell, fair queen; weep not for Mortimer, That scorns the world, and, as a traveller, Goes to discover countries yet unknown. 132 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. 35. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. " The greatest dramatist of the world now took up the work of Marlowe, and in twenty-eight years made the drama represent the whole of human life. He was born, it is thought, April 23, 1564, the son of a com- fortable burgess of Stratford-on-Avon. While he was still young, his father fell into poverty, and an interrupted educa- tion left the son an inferior scholar. He had l small Latin and less Greek.' But by dint of genius and by living in a society in which all sorts of information were attainable, he became an accomplished man. The story told of his deer- stealing in Charlecote woods is without proof, but it is likely that his youth was wild and passionate. At nineteen, he married Ann Hathaway, seven years older than himself, and was probably unhappy with her. For this reason or from poverty or from the driving of the genius that led him to the stage, he left Stratford about 1586-7, and went to London at the age of twenty-two, and, falling in with Marlowe, Greene and the rest, became an actor and a play-wright, and may have lived their unrestrained and riotous life for some years. His FIRST PERIOD. It is probable that before leaving Strat- ford he had sketched a part at least of his Venus and Adonis. 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 overladen poetry and its warm coloring made him, when it was published, 1591-3, at once the favorite of men like 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 many dramas of the time, but the first he is usually thought to have retouched is Titus Andronicus, and some time after, the First Part of Henry VI. Love's Labor's Lost, the first of his original plays, in which Poetry Shakespeare. 133 he quizzed and excelled the Euphuists in wit, was followed by the rapid farce of the Comedy of Errors. Out of these frolics of intellect and action he passed into pure poetry in the Midsummer Night's Dream, and mingled into fantastic beauty the classic legend, the mediaeval fairyland, and the clownish life of the English mechanic. Italian story then laid its charm upon him, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona preceded the southern glow of passion in Romeo and Juliet, in which he first reached tragic power. They complete, with Love's Labor's Won, afterwards recast as All's Well That Ends Well, the love plays of his early period. We may, perhaps, add to them the second act of an older play, Edward III. We should certainly read along with them, as belonging to the same passionate time, his Rape of Lucrece, a poem finally printed in 1594, one year later than the Venus and Adonis. 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, now seized on him, and he turned from love to begin his great series of historical plays with Richard II., 1593-4. Richard III. followed quickly. To introduce it and to complete the subject, he re- cast the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. (written by some unknown authors), and ended his first period with King John ; five plays in a little more than two years. His SECOND PERIOD, 1596 1602. 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 color 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 next in the three comedies of Falstaff, the First and Second Parts of Henry IV. and the Merry Wives of Windsor. The historical plays were then closed with Henry V.; a splendid dramatic song to the glory of England. The Globe theatre, in which he was one of the proprietors, 134 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. was built in 1599. In the comedies he wrote for it, Shake- speare 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 folio wed by the far-off forest world of As You Like It, where ' the time fleets carelessly,' and Eosalind's character 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 ex- perience had made him sad.' As yet it was but a touch; Twelfth Night shows no trace of it, though the play that fol- lowed, AH^s Well That Ends Well, again strikes a sadder note. We find this sadness fully grown in the later sonnets, which are said to have been finished about 1602. They were pub- lished in 1609. Shakespeare's life changed now, and his mind changed with it. He had grown wealthy during this period and famous, and was loved by society. He was the friend of the Earls of South- ampton and Essex, and of William Herbert, Lord Pembroke. The Queen patronized 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, as some have thought, have been concerned 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. Disgust of his profession as an actor and public and private ill weighed heavily on him, 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. His Third Period, 16021608, begins with the last days Poetry Shakespeare. 135 of Queen Elizabeth. It contains all the great tragedies, and opens with the fate of Hamlet, who felt, like the poet himself, that 'the time was out of joint.' Hamlet, 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 was next written, and is tragic in thought throughout. Julius Ccesar, Othello, Macbeth, Lear, Troilus and Cressida (finished from an incomplete work of his youth), Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, 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 men, the avenging wrath of conscience, the cruelty and punishment of weakness, the treachery, lust, jealousy, ingratitude, madness of men, the follies of the great, and the fickleness of the mob are all, with 4 thousand other varying moods and passions, painted, and ?elt as his own while he painted them, during this stern time. 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 und sorrow and fate but has risen above them into peaceful victory. Like his great contemporary, Bacon, he left the world and his own evil time behind him, and with the same quiet dignity sought the innocence and stillness of country life. The country breathes through all the dramas of this time. The flowers Perdita gathers in Winter's Tale and the frolic of the sheep-shearing he may have seen i-n the Stratford mead- ows; 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 recon- 136 Literature of Period F/., 1558-1603. oiled, it is said, to his wife, and the plays he writes speak of domestic peace and forgiveness. The story of Marina,, which he left unfinished, and which two later writers expanded into the play of Pericles, is the first of his closing series of dramas, The Two Noble Kinsmen of Fletcher, a great part of which is now, on doubtful grounds, I think, attributed to Shakespeare, and in which the poet sought the inspiration of Chaucer, would belong to this period. Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, and the Tempest bring his history up to 1612, and in the next year he closed his poetic life by writing, with Fletcher, Henry VIII. For three years he kept silence, and then, on the 23d of April, 1616, the day he reached the age of fifty-two as is supposed, he died. His WOBK. We can only guess with regard to Shake- speare's life; we can only guess with regard to his character. It has been tried to find out what he was from his sonnets and from his plays, 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 character. The most personal thing in all his writings is one that has scarcely been noticed. It is the Epilogue to the Tempest; and if it be, as is most probable, the last thing he ever wrote, then its cry for forgiveness, its tale of inward sorrow, only to be relieved by prayer, give us some dim insight into how the silence of those three years was passed; while its declaration of his aim in writing, ' which was to please,' the true defini- tion of an artist's aim should make us very cautious in our efforts to define his character from his works. Shakespeare made men and women whose dramatic action on each other, and towards a catastrophe, was intended to please the public, not to reveal himself. No commentary on his writings, no guesses about his life or character are worth much which do not rest on this canon as their foundation What he did, thought, learned, and felt, he did, thought, learned, and felt as an artist. And he was Poetry 8kdfa$peart. 137 never less the artist, through all the changes of the time. Fully influenced, as we see in Hamlet he was, by the graver and more philosophic cast of thought of the later time of Elizabeth; passing on into the reign of James I., when pedan- try took the place of gayety, and sensual the place of imagi- native love in the drama, and artificial art the place of that art which itself is nature; he preserves to the last the natu- ral 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 imagination than the Midsummer- Night's Dream, and as great in fancy, and yet there are fully twenty years between them. The only change is in the increase of power and in a closer and graver grasp of human nature. Around him the whole tone and manner of the drama altered for the worse as his life went on, but his work grew to the close in strength and beauty." NOTE." The dates and arrangement of Shakespeare's plays given above are only tentative. They are so placed by the conjectures of the latest criticism, and the conjectures wait for proof. Julius Ccesar, e.g., is now dated 1601." BIBLIOGRAPHY. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS. Clarendon Press Ed.; Miekle John's Ed.; J. P. Collier's Ed. ; Leopold Shakespeare Ed., with an Int. by F. J. Furnivall; Knight's Ed. ; H. H. Furness's New Variorum Ed. ; H. N. Hudson's Ed. ; Rolfe's Ed. ; R. G. White's Ed. ; G. C. Verplanck's Ed ; Dyce's Ed. ; and others. BIOGRAPHIES AND CRITICAL, STUDIES IN. H. N. Hudson's Lectures on Shak. and his Life, Art, and Characters of; S. T. Coleridge's Notes and Lectures upon Shak.; Dowden's Critical Study of Mind and Art of Shak.; T. Carlyle's Hero as Poet ; R W. Emerson's Shakespeare, or the Poet, in Rep. Men; Gervinus' Shak. Commen- taries ; H. Giles' Human Life in Shak. ; R. G. White's Memoirs of, with an Essay toward the Expression of the Genius of ; J. Weiss' Wit, Humor, and Shak.; J. R. Lowell's Among my Books ; Whipple's Lit. of Age of Eliz.; C. & M. C. Clarke's The Shak. Key; E. A. Abbott's Shak. Grammar ; H. Reed's Lectures on Eng. Hist, and Tragic Po. as illustrated by Shak. ; Minto's Characteristics of Eng. Poets. READING. It is impossible to quote from Shakespeare as much as is needed, and so we quote nothing. His plays, admirably annotated, are published separately, and can easily be procured. We suggest that a Comedy, As You Like It, or Much Ado About Nothing, for instance ; a Tragedy, Macbeth. King Lear, Othello, or Hamlet ; and a Historical play, Hen. IV., Part II., or Hen. V., be read. If possible, these should be read (1) till the pupils can give the plot of the play, (2) till they fairly understand the characters, and can point out the influence of each upon the others and his agency in the development of the play, (3) till they can quote the notable passages and tell who uttered them, and (4) till they have acquired som mastery of Shakespeare's language, imagery, and thought. 138 Literature of Period IV., 1568-1603. LESSON 26. BEN JONSON. " The Decay of the Drama begins while Shakespeare is alive. At first one can scarcely call it decay, it was so magnificent. For it began with ' rare BEN" JONSON/ who was born in 1573. His first play, in its very title, Every Man in his Humor, 1596-98, enables us to say in what the first step of this decay 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 cir- cumstance upon them. The drama in Ben Jonson's hands was the painting of that particular human nature which he saw in his own age; and his characters are not men and women as they are, but as they may become when they are mastered by a special bias of the mind, or HUMOR. * The Manners, now called Humors, feed the Stage/ says Jonson himself. Every Man in his Humor was followed by Every Man out of his Humor, and by Cynthia's Revels, written to satirize the courtiers. The fierce satire of these plays brought the town down upon him, and he replied to their ' noise ' in the Poet- aster, in which Dekker and Marston were satirized. Dekker answered with the Satiro-Mastix, a bitter parody on the Poet- aster, in which he did not spare Jonson's bodily defects. The staring Leviathan, as he calls Jonson, is not a very untrue description. Silent then for two years, he reappeared with the tragedy of Sejanus, and shortly after produced three splendid comedies in James I.'s reign, Volpone the Fox, The Silent Woman, and The Alchemist, 1605-9-10. 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 to weariness of Jonson's obscure learning, but its char- acter of Sir Epicure Mammon redeems it. In 1611 his Cati- Poetry Ben Jonsoris. 139 line appeared, and eight years after he was made Poet Lau- reate. Soon he became poor and palsy stricken, but his genius did not decay. The most graceful and tender thing he ever wrote was written in his old age. His pastoral drama, TJie Sad Shepherd, proves that, like Shakespeare, Jonson grew kinder and gentler as he grew near to death, and death took him in 1637. He was a great man. The power of the young Elizabethan age belonged to him; and he stands far below, but still worthily by, Shakespeare, ' a robust, surly, and ob- serving dramatist.' " From Jonson's Sejanus.* Enter Arruiitius. Arr. Still dost thou suffer- heaven I will no flame, No heat of sin make thy just wrath to boil In thy distemper'd bosom, and o'erflow The pitchy blazes of impiety Kindled beneath thy throne? Still canst thou sleep Patient, while vice doth make an antic face At thy dread power, and blow dust and smoke Into thy nostrils? Jove! will nothing wake thee? Must vile Sejanus pull thee by the beard Ere thou wilt open thy black-lidded eye, And look him dead? Well, snore on, dreaming gods, And let this last of that proud giant-race Heave mountain upon mountain, 'gainst your state Be good unto me, Fortune and you Powers, Whom I, expostulating, have profaned. I see what's equal with a prodigy, A great, a noble Roman, and an honest, Live an old man! * Sejanus was the prime minister of Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar, Emperor of Rome, 14-37 A.D. For eight years Sejanus possessed an undivided influence over his wicked master, and procured the death or banishment of almost every one op- posed to his own ambition the attainment of imperial power. The Senate were servile to him, and the people gave him honors second only to those accorded to the Emperor. Tiberius at length became aware of the plans of Sejanus, and had him arrested, condemned, and put to an ignominious death. This extract describes his eminence and the feelings of patriotic Romans toward him just before his fall. 140 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. Enter Lepidus. O Marcus Lepidus, When is our turn to bleed? Thyself and I, "Without our boast, are almost all the few Left to be honest in these impious times. Lep. What we are left to be we will be, Lucius, Though tyranny did stare as wide as death To fright us from it. Arr. 'T hath so on Sabinus. Lep. I saw him now drawn from the Gernouies, 1 And, what increased the direness of the fact, His faithful dog, upbraiding all us Romans, Never forsook the corps 2 , but seeing it thrown Into the stream, leap'd in, and drown'd with it. Arr. O act to be envied him of us men ! We are the next the hook lays hold on, Marcus. What are thy ,rts, good patriot, teach them me, That have preserved thy hairs to this white dye, And kept so reverend and so dear a head Safe on his 3 comely shoulders? Lep. Arts, Arruntius! None but the plain and passive fortitude To suffer and be silent; never stretch These arms against the torrent; live at home With my own thoughts, and innocence about me, Not tempting the wolves' jaws: these are my arts. Arr. I would begin to study 'em if I thought They would secure me. May I pray to Jove In secret and be safe? Ay, or aloud, With open wishes, so I do not mention Tiberius or Sejanus? Yes, I must If I speak out. Tis hard that. May I think And not be rack'd? What danger is't to dream. Talk in one's sleep, or cough? Who knows the law? May I shake my head without a comment? say It rains or it holds up, and not be thrown Upon the Gemonies? These now are things Whereon men's fortune, yea, their faith depends. 1 Steps near the Roman prison, down which bodies were thrown. Corpse. a Its. Poetry Ben Jonsorts. 141 Nothing hath privilege 'gainst the violent car. No place, no day, no hour, we see, is free, Not our religious and most sacred times, From some one kind of cruelty; all matter, Nay, all occasion pleaseth. Madmen's rage, The idleness of drunkards, women's nothing, Jester's simplicity all, all is good That can be catcht at. Nor is now the event Of any person, or for any crime, To be expected ; for 'tis always one. I dare tell you, whom I dare better trust, That our night-eyed Tiberius doth not see His minion's 1 drifts; or, if he do, he's not So arrant subtile as we fools do take him; To breed a mongrel up, in his own house, With his own blood, and, if the good gods please, At his own throat, flesh him, to take a leap. I do not beg it heaven ; but, if the fates Grant it these eyes, they must not wink. Lep. They must not see it, Lucius. Arr. Who should let* them? Lep. Zeal And duty, with the thought he is our prince. Arr. He is our monster: forfeited to vice So far as no rack'd virtue can redeem him. His loathed person fouler than all crimes: An emperor only in his lusts. Retired From all regard of his own fame or Rome's Into an obscure island, 3 where he lives Acting his tragedies with a comic face Amidst his rout of Chaldees; 4 spending hours, Days, weeks, and months, in the unkind abuse Of grave astrology, to the bane of men, Casting the scope of men's nativities, And having found aught worthy in their fortune, Kill, or precipitate them in the sea, And boast he can mock fate. Nay, muse not ; these 1 Seianua. a Hinder. s Sejanus had persuaded Tiberius to retire to the island of Caprese, now Capri, near Naples. 4 A Semitic people from Mesopotamia, given to astronomy and astrology. 142 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. Are far from ends 1 of evil, scarce degrees. He hath his slaughter-house at Capreae, Where he doth study murder as an art; And they are dearest in his grace that can Devise the deepest tortures. Thither, too, He hath his boys and beauteous girls ta'en up Out of our noblest houses, the best form'd, Best nurtured, and most modest ; what's their good Serves to provoke his bad. Some are allured, Some threatened; others, by their friends detained Are ravished hence, like captives, and, in sight Of their most grieved parents, dealt away Unto his spintries, 2 sellaries, 2 and slaves. To 3 this (what most strikes us and bleeding Rome) He is, with all his craft, become the ward To his own vassal, a stale catamite 4 , Whom he, upon our low and suffering necks, Hath raised from excrement 5 to side the gods, And have his proper sacrifice in Rome : Which Jove beholds, and yet will sooner rive A senseless oak with thunder than his trunk! Lep. I'll ne'er believe but Caesar hath some scent Of bold Sejanus' footing. These cross points Of varying letters and opposing consuls, Mingling his honors and his punishments, Feigning now ill, now well, raising Sejanus And then depressing him, as now of late In all reports we have it, cannot be Empty of practise: 'tis Tiberius' art. For having found his favorite grown too great, And with his greatness strong; that all the soldiers Are, with their leaders, made at his devotion; That almost all the senate are his creatures, Or hold on him their main dependencies, Either for benefit or hope or fear; And that himself hath lost much of his own, By parting unto him; and, by th' increase Of his rank, lusts, and rages, quite disarm'd Himself of love or other public means * His extremes. a Lewd people. 8 In addition to. * Ooe kept for unnatural purposes. 8 The dirt. Poetry Ben Jonsorts. 143 To dare an open contestation; His subtilty hath chose this doubling line To hold him even in: not so to fear him As wholly put him out, and yet give check Unto his farther boldness. Scene II. An Apartment in Sejanus' House. Sej. Swell, swell, my joys, and faint not to declare Yourselves as ample as your causes are. I did not live till now; this my first hour; Wherein I see my thoughts reach'd by my power. My roof receives me not ; 'tis air I tread, And at each step I feel my advanced head Knock out a star in heaven ! rear'd to this height, All my desires seem modest, poor, and slight That did before sound impudent: 'tis place Not blood discerns 1 the noble and the base. Is there not something more than to be Csesar? Must we rest there? it irks t' have come so far To be so near a stay. Caligula, "Would thou stood'st stiff, and many in our way! Winds lose their strength when they do empty fly Unmet of woods or buildings; great fires die That want their matter to withstand them; 80 It is our grief, and will be our loss, to know Oar power shall want opposites; 8 unless The gods, by mixing in the cause, would bless Our fortune with their conquest. That were worth Sejanus' strife, durst fates but bring it forth. Enter Terentius, Satrius, and Natta. Ter. Safety to great Sejanus ! Sej. NQW, Terentius? Ter. Hears not my lord the wonder? Sej. Speak it, no. Ter. I meet it violent in the people's mouths, Who run in routs to Pompey's theatre To view your statue, which, they say, sends forth A smoke, as from a furnace, black and dreadful. Sej. Some traitor hath put fire in : you, go see, 1 Separates. * Opponents. 144 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. And let the head be taken off to look What 'tis. Some slave hath practised an imposture To stir the people. Sat. The head, my lord, already is ta'en off, I saw it ; and, at opening, there leapt out A great and monstrous serpent. Sej. Monstrous! why? Had it a beard and horns? no heart? a tongue Forked as flattery? look'd it of the hue To such as live in great men's bosoms? was The spirit of it Macro's? l Hat. May it please The most divine Sejanus, in my days I have not seen a more extended, grown, Foul, spotted, vcnemous, ugly Sej. Oh, the fates! What a wild muster's here of attributes T' express a worm, a snake ! Ter. But how that should Come there, my lord! Sej. What, and you too Terentiusl 1 think you mean to make 't a prodigy In your reporting. Ter. Can the wise Sejanus Think heaven hath meant it less? Sej. Oh, superstition! Why, then the falling of our bed, that brake This morning, burden'd with the populous weight Of our expecting clients, to salute us; Or running of the cat betwixt our legs, As we set forth unto the Capitol, Were prodigies. Ter. I think them ominous, And would they had not happened! as, to-day The fate of some your servants, who, declining 2 Their way, not able, for the throng, to follow, Slipt down the Gemonies and brake their necks! Besides, in taking your last augury, No prosperous bird appear'd ; but croaking ravens 1 Rival and successor to Sejanus. 2 Turning from. Poetry Ben Jonsorts. 145 Flagg'd up and down, aud from the sacrifice Flew to the prison, where they sat all night Beating the air with their obstreperous 1 beaks! I dare not counsel but I would entreat That great Sejanus would attempt the gods Once more with sacrifice. %'. What excellent fools Religion makes of men! Believes Terentius, If these were dangers, as I shame to think them, The gods could change the certain course of fate? Or, if they could, they would, now in a moment, For a beeve's fat, or less, be bribed to invert Those long decrees? Then think the gods, like flies. Are to be taken with the steam of flesh Or blood, diffused about their altars: think Their power as cheap as I esteem it small. Of all the throng that fill th' Olympian hall And, without pity, lade poor Atlas' 2 back, I know not that one deity, but Fortune, To whom I would throw up in begging smoke One grain of incense ; or whose ear I'd buy With thus much oil. Her I, indeed, adore, And keep her grateful image in my house, Sometime belonging to a Roman king. To her I care not, if, for satisfying Your scrupulous phant'sies, sins, I go offer. Bid Our priest prepare us honey, milk, and poppy, His masculine odors, and night-vestments: say Our rites are instant, which performed, you'll see How vain and worthy laughter your fears be. Exeunt all but Scj. If you will, Destinies, that, after all, I faint now ere I touch my period, 3 You are but cruel; and I already have done Things great enough. All Rome hath been my slave ; The senate sate an idle looker on And witness of my power; when I have blush'd More to command than it to suffer: all The fathers have sate ready and prepared . 2 Doomed tn hold up the heavens. 3 Highest point. 146 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. To give me empire, temples, or their throats When I would ask 'em; and, what crowns the top, Rome, senate, people, all the world have seen Jove but my equal, Caesar but my second. 'Tis then your malice, Fates, who, but your own, Envy and fear to have my power long known. His MASQUES. "Bugged as Jonson was, he could turn to light and graceful work, and it is with his name that we con- nect the Masques. Masques were dramatic representations made for a festive 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 VIII. 's time, they reached splendor 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 Comus, and their scenic decoration was soon introduced into the regular theatres. Beaumont and Fletcher worked together, but out of more than fifty plays, all written in James I.'s reign, not more than fourteen were shared in by Beaumont, who died at the age of thirty in 1616. Fletcher survived him, and died in 1625. Both were of gentle birth. Beaumont, where we can trace his work, is weightier and more dignified than his comrade, but Fletcher was the better poet. Fletcher wrote rapidly, but his imagination worked slowly. Their Philaster and Thierry and Theodoret are fine examples of their tragic power. Fletch- er's Faithful Shepherdess is full of lovely poetry, and both are masters of grace and pathos and style. They enfeebled the Poetry Ben Jonson and Others. 147 blank verse of the drama, while they rendered it sweeter by using feminine endings and adding an eleventh syllable with great frequency. This gave freedom and elasticity to their verse and was suited to the dialogue of comedy, but it lowered the dignity of their tragedy. These two men mark a change in politics and society from Shakespeare's time. Shakespeare's loyalty is constitutional; Beaumont and Fletcher are blind supporters of James I.'s in- vention of the divine right of kings. Shakespeare's society was on the whole decent, and it is so in his plays. Beaumont and Fletcher are ' studiously indecent.' In contrast with them Shakespeare is as white as snow. Shakespeare's men are of the type of Sidney and Raleigh, Burleigh and Drake. The men of these two writers represent the ' young bloods' of the Stuart Court; and even the best of their older and graver men are base and foul in thought. Their women are either monsters of badness or of goodness. When they paint a good woman (two or three at most being excepted), she is beyond nature. The fact is, that the high art, which in Shake- speare sought to give a noble pleasure by being true to human nature in its natural aspects, sank now into the baser art, which wished to excite, at any cost, the passions of the audi- ence by representing human nature in unnatural aspects. In Massinger and Ford this evil is just as plainly marked. MASSINGER'S first dated play was the Virgin Martyr, 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 Sir Giles Overreach. No writer is fouler in language, and there is a want of unity of impression both in his plots and in his char- acters. He often sacrifices art to effect, and ' unlike Shake- speare, seems often to despise his own characters.' On the other hand, 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. His men and women are 148 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. far more natural than those cf Beaumont and Fletcher, and, with all his coarseness, he is the most moral of the secondary dramatists. Nowhere else is his work so great 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 conscience brings on injus- tice and cruelty. JOHN FORD, his contemporary, published his first play, the Lover's Melancholy, in 1629, and five years after, Perkin War- beck, the best historical drama after Shakespeare. Between these dates appeared others, of which the best is the Broken Heart. He carried to an extreme the tendency of the drama to unnatural and horrible subjects, but he did so with very great power. He has no comic humor, but no man has de- scribed better the worn and tortured human heart. WEBSTER AND OTHER DRAMATISTS. Higher as a poet, and possessing the same power as Ford, though not the same ex- quisite tenderness, was JOHN" WEBSTER, whose best drama, The Duchess of Malfi, was acted in 1616. Vittoria Gorombona was printed in 1612, and was followed by the Devil's Law Case, Appius and Virginia, and others. Webster's peculiar power of creating ghastly horror is redeemed from sensationalism by his poetic insight. His imagination easily saw, and ex- pressed in short and intense lines, the inmost thoughts and feelings of characters, whom he represents as wrought on by misery or crime or remorse, at their very highest point of pas- sion. In his worst characters there is some redeeming touch, and this poetic pity brings him nearer to Shakespeare than to the rest. He is also neither so coarse nor so great a king worshipper nor so irreligious as the others. We seem to taste the Puritan in his work. Two comedies. Westward Ho! and Northward Ho! remarkable for the light they throw on the manners of the time, were written by him along with THOMAS DEKKER. GEORGE CHAPMAN is the only one of the later Elizabethan Poetry Chapman and Others. 149 dramatists who kept the old fire of Marlowe, though he never had the naturalness or temperance which lifted Shakespeare far beyond Marlowe. The same power which we have seen in his translation of Homer is to be found in his plays. The mingling of intellectual power with imagination, and swollen violence of words and images with tender "and natural and often splendid passages, are entirely in the earlier Eliza- bethan manner. He, too, like Marlowe, to quote his own line, ' hurled instinctive lire about the world.' These were the greatest names among a crowd of dramatists. We can only mention John. Marston, Henry Glapthorne, Ki chard Brome, William Rowley, Thomas Middleton, Cyril Tourneur, and Thomas Heywood. Of the crowd, 'all of whom,' says Lamb, i spoke nearly the same language and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common,' JAMES SHIRLEY is the last. He lived till 1666. In him the fire and passion of the old time passes away, but some of the delicate poetry remains, and in him the Elizabethan drama dies. 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 WIL- LIAM 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 Restoration, it broke loose from the prison of Puri- tanism to indulge in a shameless license. In this rapid sketch of the Drama in England, we have been carried on beyond the death of Elizabeth to the date of the Restoration. It was necessary, because it keeps the whole story together. We now return to the time that followed the accession of James I." BIBLIOGRAPHY. BEN JONSON, BEAUMONT, AND FLETCHER S. A. Dunham's Lives of Lit. Men; W. Gifford's Memoir of; Taine's Hist, of Eng. Lit.; A. W. Ward's Hist. Eng. Dra. Lit.; Whipple's Lit. of the Age of Eliz.; T. H. Ward's Anthology; Littell, 1860, v. 2; Br. Quar. Rev., 1857: Eel. Mag., Feb. and Oct., 1847; Apr., 1856; May, 1858; and Oct., 1874. 150 Literature of Period IV., 1558-1603. SCHEME FOR REVIEW. - ^CJ *& II Material and Religious Condi- tion of the People, and Troubles with Spain and Ireland 91 Satires, Epigrams, Songs, etc 92 Masques, Pageants, and Interludes 93 Translations 93 [Educational 94 Theological 94 Stories 94 Histories, Unpublished Writings 95 Lyly and Sidney 96 Theological Literature 98 Hooker 98 Essays Bacon 98 History 99 Travels and Tales 100 Extract from Sidney. . . 100 From Hooker 103 From Bacon.. . 104 I :: I | | w Spenser's Faerie Queen 108 His Minor Poems Ill Extract from Faerie Queen 112 Love Poetry 116 Patriotic Poetry 117 Philosophical Poetry 119 Translations 119 Miracle-Plays 121 Moral-Plays 122 Interludes 123 The Regular Drama. . . 124 The Theatre 124 Lyly and Marlowe 126 Shakespeare 132 His Four Periods 132 His Work 136 Ben Jonson 138 Extract from Jonson. . . 139 His Masques 146 Beaumont and Fletcher 146 Massingerand Ford. . . . 147 Webster and Chapman. 148 Shirley and Davenant. . 149 PERIOD V. FROM ELIZABETH'S DEATH TO THE RESTORATION, 1603-1660. 27. Brief Historical Sketch. James VI. of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and of Darnley, comes to the English throne, 1603, as Jas. I., and is the first of the Stuart House. Gunpowder Plot, 1605. First permanent English settlement in America, at Jamestown, Virginia, 1607. Thermometer invented, 1610. King James's Bible, a revision of Wyclif's, Tyndale's, and Coverdale's translations, issued, 1611. Harvey discovers circulation of the blood, 1616. Expedition and death. of Ealeigh, 1617. Settlement of New England at Plymouth, 1620, the year negro slavery was introduced into. the Virginia Colony. Charles, son of James, married to Henrietta, daughter of Hen. IV. of France, became King of England, 1625. Hampden refused to pay his ship- money tax, 1637. Covenant signed in Scotland, 1638, an agreement by which the people bound themselves to resist the re-introduction of Episcopacy into Scotland. Long Parliament met, 1640. Strafford executed, 1641, and Laud, 1644. Civil war broke out, 1642. Puritans separate into Presbyterians and Independents. Battle of Naseby, 1645. Long Parliament reduced by Pride's Purge to the Rump, 1648. King executed, 1649. Conquest of Ireland by Cromwell, same year. Coffee- houses established in London, 1652. Eump Parliament abolished, 1653. Cromwell made Lord Protector, same year. Civil marriage legalized, same year. Post-Office established, 1657. Watches for the pocket first made in England, 1658. Cromwell died, 1658. Richard Cromwell made Protector, 1658. 152 Literature of Period F., 1603-1660. LESSON 28. PEOSE. " We have traced the decline of the drama of Eliza- beth up to the date of the Restoration. All poetry suffered in the same way after the reign of James I. It became fan- tastic in style and overwrought in thought. It was diffuse, or violent, in expression. Prose literature, on the contrary, gradually grew into greater excellence, spread itself over larger fields of thought, and took up a greater variety of sub- jects. The grave national gf.morprlp wlijlo-U Igaamifid nnftf.ina.1. ^^^^i^^ 1 ""*"*" ^^**BB^*i^*" 7 < increased prose.literature^x The paint ing of short s Characters' was DeguiiTy Sir T. CJverbury's book in 1614, and carried on by John Earle and Joseph Hall, afterwards made bishops. They mark the interest in individual life which now began to arise, and which soon took form in Biography. THOMAS FULLER'S Holy and Profane State, 1642, added to sketches of ' characters ' illustrations of them in the lives of famous persons, and in 1662 his Worthies of England still fur- ther set on foot the literature of Biography. TJie historical literature, which we have noticed already in the works of Ral- eigh and Bacon, was carried on by Fuller in his Church His- tory of Britain, 1656. He is a quaint and delightful writer; good sense, piety, and inventive wit are woven together in his work. We may place together ROBERT BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, and SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S Religio Medici, 1642, and Pseudodoxia as hooks which treat of miscellaneous subjects in a witty and learned fashion. 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 established the Bodleian at Oxford, and Sir Robert Cotton a library now placed in the British Museum. A number of small writers took part in the Puritan and Church controversies) among whom WILLIAM PRYNNE, a violent Puritan, deserves to be mentioned for big Histrio-Mastix, or Scourge of Players. Prose JPuller, Taylor^ and Others. 158 But there were others on each side who rose above the war of party into the calm air of spiritual religion. JEREMY TAYLOR at the close of Charles I.'s reign published his Or eat Exemplar and his Holy Living and Holy Dying, and shortly afterwards his Sermons. They had been preceded in 1647 by his Liberty of Prophesying, in which he claimed full freedom of Biblical interpretation as the right of all, and asked for only one standard of faith the Apostles' Creed. His work is especially literary. Weighty with argument, his sermons and books of devotion are still read among us for their sweet and deep devotion, for their rapidly flowing and poetic eloquence. Towards the end of the Civil Wars, EICHARD BAXTER, the great Puritan writer, wrote a good book, which, as it still re- mains a household book in England, takes its place in litera- ture. There are few cottages which do not possess a copy of Tfie Saint's Everlasting Rest; and there are few parsonages in England in which ROBERT LEIGHTON'S book on the Epistle of St. Peter is not also to be found. Leigh ton died in 1684, Archbishop of Glasgow. In philosophic literature I have al- ready spoken of Bacon, and of the political writers, such as Hobbes and Harrington, who wrote during the Common- wealth, I will speak hereafter in their proper place. Miscellaneous writing is further represented in the litera- ture of travel by GEORGE SANDYS and THOMAS CORYAT. Cory at' s Crudities, 1611, describes his journey through France and Italy; Sandys' book, 1615, a journey to the East. We have also from abroad some interesting letters from Sir Henry Wotton, and he gave Milton introductions to famous men in Italy. Wotton's quaint and pleasant friend IZAAK WALTON closes the list of these pre-Restoration writers with the Corn- pleat 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 the country which. now began to grow up in England. The style of all these writers links them to the age of Eliza- 154 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. beth. It did not follow the weighty gravity of Hooker, or the balanced calm and splendor of Bacon, but rather the witty quaintness of Lyly and of Sydney. The prose of men like Browne and Burton and Fuller is not as poetic as that of these Elizabethan writers, but it is just as fanciful. Even the prose of Jeremy Taylor is over poetical, and though it has all the Elizabethan ardor, it has also the Elizabethan faults of excessive wordiness and involved periods and images. It never knows where to stop. Milton's prose works, which shall be mentioned in their place in his life, are also Elizabethan in style. Their style has the fire and violence, the eloquence and diffuseness, of the earlier literature, but, in spite of the praise it has received, it is in reality scarcely to be called a style. It has all the faults a prose style can have except obscurity and vulgarity. Its bursts of eloquence ought to be in poetry, and it never charms except when Milton becomes purposely sim- ple in personal narrative. There is no pure style in prose writing till Hobbes began to write in English, indeed we may say till after the Restoration, unless we except, on grounds of weight anc^power, the styles of Bacon and Hooker." BIBLIOGRAPHY. FULLER, TAYLOR, and BROWNE. E. Lawrence's Lives of Brit. His- torians; H.Rogers' Life and Writings of; Minto's Man. Eng. Prose Lit.; Littell, v. 19, 1857; Cornhill Mag., v. 25, 1872; J. Foster's Grit. Essays; Contemp. Rev., v. 9, 1868; Quart. Rev., v. 131, 1871; Eel. Mag., Aug., 1851; Tuckerman's Characteristics; Bulwer's Crit. Writings; S. Johnson's Life of; Eel. Mag., v. 25, 1852; N. A. Rev., v. 94 1862. From Thomas Fuller. THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER. lie studieth Jiis scholars 1 natures as care- fully as they their books, and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a gram- mar of boys' natures, and reduce them all, saving some few exceptions, to these general rules : 1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two such planets in a youth presages much good unto him. To such a lad a frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures h^ useth with all gentleness. Prose Fuller's. 155 2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think, with the hare in the fable, that, running with snails, (so they count the rest of their school-fellows) they shall come soon enough to the post, though sleep- ing a good while before their starting. Oh! a good rod would finely take them napping! 3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines the stronger they be, the more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till they be clarified with age; and such afterwards prove the best. Bris- tol diamonds are both bright and squared and pointed by nature and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones, in India, are rough and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth acquit themselves afterwards the jewels of the country; aud, therefore, their dulness at first is to be -borne with, if they be diligent. That school- master deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed. 4. Those that are invincibly dull and negligent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boat- makers will chooso those crooked pieces of timber which other carpen- ters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics who will not serve for scholars. He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching. Not leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children to swallow; hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul that his scholars may go along with him. He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster better answereth the name paidotribe 1 than paidagogos* rather " tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good education." No wonder if his scholars hate the Muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends and furies. Such an Orbilius 3 mars more schol- ars than he makes. Their tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whose stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence, and whose mauling them about their heads hath dulled those who in quick- ness exceeded their master. He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to teach 1 Boyflogger. a Boyteacher. s A rigid disciplinarian, an Instructor of the poet Horace. 156 later atwe of Period 7, 1603-1660. Ma scholars logic. For, besides that logic may have an action of tres- pass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties, syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school ; and, oftentimes, youth are forced after- wards, in the University, to unlearn the fumbling skill they had before. Oat of his school he is no ichit pedantical in carriage or discourse, con- tenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not jingle with it in every company wherein he comes. MEMORY. It is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monu- ments thereof are kept and preserved. Plato makes it the mother of the Muses. Aristotle sets it one degree further, making experience the mother of arts, memory the parent of experience. Philosophers place it in the rear of the head; and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because tlwe naturally men dig for it, scratching it when they are at a loss. This, again, is twcrfold; one the simple retention of things, the other a regaining them when forgotten. Brute creatures equal, if not exceed, men in a bare retentive memory. Through how many labyrinths of woods, without other clew of thread than natural instinct, doth the hunted hare return to her muce! 1 How doth tlie little bee, flying into several meadows and gardens, sipping of many cups, yet never intoxicated, through an ocean (as I may say) of air steadily steer herself home, without help of cord or compass! But these cannot play an after-game, and recover what they have forgotten, which is done by the mediation of discourse. First soundly infix in thy mind whatthou desirest to remember. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that out of thy head which was there rather tacked than fastened? It is best knocking in the nail over- night, and clinching it the next morning. Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave. Re- member Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory is like a purse, if it be over-full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it. Take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof. Beza's case was peculiar and memorable. Being over fourscore years of age, he perfectly could say by heart any Greek chapter in St. Paul's Epistles, or anything else which he had learned long before, but forgot whatsoever was newly told him ; his memory, like an inn, retaining old guests, but having no room to entertain new. Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice 1 Gap in the hedge. Prose Jeremy Taylor's. 157 more weight trussed and packed up in bundles than when it lies un- towardly flapping and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly farrlled J up under heads are most portable. LESSON 29. From Jeremy Taylor TJie best use of speech. Our conversation must be "apt to comfort "the disconsolate; and than this, men in present can feel no greater charity. For, since half the duty of a Christian in this life consists in the exercise of passive graces; and the infinite variety of providence and the perpetual adversity of chances and the dissatisfaction and emptiness that is in things them- selves and the weariness and anguish of our spirit call us to the trial and exercise of patience even in the days of sunshine, and much more in the violent storms that shake our dwellings and make our hearts tremble; God hath sent some angels into the world whose office it is to refresh the sorrows of the poor and to lighten the eyes of the disconsolate. He hath made some creatures whose powers arc chiefly ordained to comfort, wine, and oil, and society, cordials, and variety; and time itself is checkered with black and white; stay but till to-morrow, and your pres- ent sorrow will be weary and will lie down to rest. But this is not all. God glories in the appellative that he is "the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;" and therefore to minister in the office is to become like God and to imitate the charities of Heaven. And God hath fitted mankind for it; man most needs it, and he feels his brother's wants by his own experience; and God hath given us speech, and the endearments of society, and pleasantness of conversa- tion, and powers of seasonable discourse, arguments to allay the sorrow by abating our apprehensions and taking out the sting or telling the periods of comfort or exciting hope or urging a precept and reconciling our affections and reciting promises or telling stories of the Divine mercy or changing it into duty or making the burden less by comparing it with greater or by proving it to be less than we deserve and that it is so intended and may become the instrument of virtue. And certain it is that, as nothing can better do it, so there is nothing greater for which God made our tongues, next to reciting his praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul. And what greater measure can we have than that we should bring joy to our brother, who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven and round about, and cannot find so much 1 Bundled, 158 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. rest as to lay his eyelids close together, than that thy tongue should be tuned with heavenly accents, and make the weary soul listen for light and ease: and, when he perceives that there is such a thing in the world and in the order of things as comfort and joy, to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the door of sighs and tears, and by little and little melt into showers of refreshment? This is the glory of thy voice, and employment fit for the brightest angel. But so have I seen the Sun kiss the frozen earth, which was bound up with the images of death and the colder breath of the north : and then the waters break from their enclosures and melt with joy and run in useful channels; and the flies do rise again from their little graves in walls, and dance awhile in the air, to tell that there is joy within and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of refreshments, become useful to mankind, and sing praises to her Redeemer. So is the heart of a sorrowful man under the discourses of a wise comforter; he breaks from the despairs of the grave, and the fetters and chains of sorrow ; he blesses God arid he blesses thee and he feels his life return- ing; for to be miserable is death, and nothing is life but to be comforted; and God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanks- giving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing and comforted and thankful persons. This part of communication does the work of God and of our neighbors, and bears us to Heaven in streams of joy made by the overflowings of our brother's comfort. It is a fearful thing to see a man despairing; none knows the sorrow and the intolerable anguish but themselves, and they that are damned; and so are all the loads of a wounded spirit, when the staff of a man's broken fortune bows his head to the ground, and sinks like an osier under the violence of a mighty tempest. But therefore, in proportion to this, I may tell the excellency of the employment, and the duty of that charity which bears the dying and languishing soul from the fringes of hell to the seat of the brightest stars, where God's face shines and re- flects comforts for ever and ever. And, though God hath for this especially intrusted his ministers and servants of the Church, and hath put into their hearts and notices great mn^.izinos of promises and arguments of hope and arts of the Spirit, yet God does not always send angels on these embassies, but sends a man, that every good man in his season may be to his brother in the place of God, to comfort and restore him. And, that it may appear how much it is the duty of us all to minister comfort to our brother, we may re- member that the same words and the same arguments do oftentimes much more prevail upon our spirits when they are applied by the hand Prose Browne* s. 159 of another than when they dwell in us and come from our own discours- ings. This is indeed the greatest and most holy charity. From Browne's Hydriotaphia Urn Burial. Now since these dead bones 1 have already outlasted 'the living ones of Methuselah, and in a yard underground, and thin walls of clay, outworn all the strong and specious 2 buildings above it, and quietly rested under the drums and trainplings of three conquests, 3 what prince can promise such diuturnity 4 unto his relics? Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments. What time the persons of these ossuaries 5 entered the famous nations of the dead and slept with princes and counsellors might admit a wifie solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones or what bodies these ashes made up were a question above antiquarism, not to be re- solved by man nor easily, perhaps, by spirits, except we consult the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made as good provision for their names as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones and be but pyramidally extant is a fallacy in duration. There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things; our fathers find their graves in our short memo- ries, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. (Grave- stones tell truth scarce forty years. 6 Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. To be read by bare inscrip- tions, like many in Gruter, 7 to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or first letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries, who we were, and have new names given us, like many of the mummies, are cold con- solations unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages. To be content that times to come should only know that there was such a man, not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan, 8 disparaging his horoscopal inclination and judg- ment of himself. Who cares to subsist like Hippocrates's 9 patients or Achilles's horses in Homer, under naked nominations, 10 without 1 Supposed to be of the Romans that occupied the island. The Romans burned the dead and buried the ashes in urns. Forty or fifty of these were dug up in Nor- folk in Brogue's time. 2 Showy. 3 Tell what three. * Duration. s Burial places. 6 Inscriptions wear away. 7 Born at Antwerp 1560, he lived awhile at Norwich. Browne's place, graduated at Leydeu, became a learned man, a professor, and author of many works, and died 16J27. 8 Born at Pavia 1501, died at Rome 1576. Was a noted astrologer. This explains the remainder of the sentence, 9 The father of physic, born about 460 B.C. l Merely named. 160 Literature of Period F., 1 603-1 660. deserts and noble acts, which are the balsam 1 of our memories, the entelecliia? and soul of our subsistencies? To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The Cauaanitish 3 woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias 3 with one. And who had not rather have been the good thief 3 than Pilate? 3 But the iniquity 4 of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana, 5 he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's 6 horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations, and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon 7 without the favor of the everlasting register. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more re- markable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. 8 The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? 9 Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands one mo- ment. And since death must be the Lucina 10 of life and even pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right clescensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it can- not be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes; since the brother of death 11 daily haunts us with dying mementos, and time, that grows old in itself, bids us hope no long duration; diutur- nity is a dream and folly of expectation. There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end all others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction which is the peculiar 19 of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from 1 Preserver. 2 That by which our existence (subsistences) actually is. 3 See Jolm iv, Matt, xiv, and Mark xxiii. 4 Inequality, partiality. 6 Daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and goddess of the chase. 8 An illustrious Rom. Emperor, the 14th, b. Tfi A.D., d. 133. 7 Commander of the Greek forces before Troy, and Thersites was a railler in his camp. 8 Hundred. 9 When the time past equalled that to come. i The goddess of childbirth. Sleep. ia Peculiarity. Poetry Lyric, Rural, and Religious. 161 the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frus- trates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous 1 memory. God who can only destroy our souls and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustration, and to hold long subsistence seems but a scape iu oblivion. But man is a no- ble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths \\ith equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infancy of his nature. LESSOIST 3O. THE DECLINE OF POETRY. " The various elements which we have noticed in the poetry of Elizabeth's reign, without the exception, even, of the slight Catholic element, though op- posed to each other, were filled with one spirit the love of England and the Queen. Nor were they ever sharply divided; they are found mixed together and modifying one another in the same poet, as, for instance, Puritanism 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 deatk The elements remained, but they were separated. Poetry was the bundle of sticks with the cord round it in Elizabeth's time; in the time of Charles I. it was the same bundle with the cord removed and the sticks set apart. 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 Puri- tans grew so defined and^m tense that England ceased to be at one, and the poets, though not so strongly as other classes, were separated into sections. A certain style, which induced Johnson to call them ' meta- physical,' belongs more or less to all these poets. They were those, Hallam says, * who labored after conceits, or novel turns 1 After death. 162 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. of thought, usually false, and resting on some equivocation of language or exceedingly remote analogy.' This form finds its true source in the fantastic style of the Euplmes and the Arca- dia. It grew up again towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, and it ended by greatly lessening good sense and clearness in English poetry. It was in the reaction from it, and in the determination to bring clear thought and clear expression of thought into English verse, that the school of Dryden and Pope the critical school began. The poetry from the later years of Elizabeth to Milton illustrates all these remarks. The Lyric Poetry struck a new note in the songs of Ben Jonson, such as the Hymn to Diana. They are less natural, less able to be sung, than Shakespeare's, more classical, more artificial. But they have no special tendency. Later on, during the reign of Charles I. and during the Civil War, the lyrics of THOMAS CAREW, SIR JOHN SUCKLING, COLONEL LOVELACE, and EGBERT HERRICK, whose Hesperides was pub- lished in 1648, have a special royalist and court character. They are, for the most part, light, pleasant, short songs and epigrams on the passing interests of the day, on the charms of the court beauties, on a lock of hair, a dress, on all the fleeting forms of fleeting love. Here and there we find a pure or pathetic song, and there are few of them which time has selected that do not possess a gay or a gentle grace. As the Civil War deepened, the special court poetry died, and the songs became songs of battle and marching, and devoted and violent loyalty. These have been lately collected under the title of Songs of the Cavaliers. Satirical Poetry, always arising when natural passion in poetry decays, is represented in the later days of Elizabeth by JOSEPH HALL, afterwards Bishop Hall, whose Viryidemiarum, 1597, satires partly in poetry, make him the master satirist of this time. JOHN DONNE, Dean of St. Paul's, who also partly belongs to the age of Elizabeth, was, with John Cleveland (a furious royalist and satirist of Charles I.'s time), the most ob- Poetry Lyric, Rural, and Religious. 163 scure and fanciful of the poets absurdly called Metaphysical. Donne, however, rose far above the rest in the beauty of thought, and in the tenderness of his religious and love poems. His satires are graphic pictures of the manners of the age of James I. GEORGE WITHER hit the follies and vices of the day so hard in his Abuses Stript and Whipt, 1613, that he was put into the Marshal sea prison, where he continued his satires in the Shepherd's Hunting. As the Puritan and the Koyalist became more opposed to one another, satirical poetry naturally became more bitter; but, like the poetry of the Civil "War, it took the form of short songs and pieces which went about the country, as those of Bishop Corbet did, in manuscript. THE RURAL POETRY. Ths pastoral now began to take a more truly rural form than the conventional pastorals of France and Italy, out of which it rose. In WILLIAM BROWNE'S Britannia's Pastorals, 1616, the element of pleasure in coun- try Ufe arises, and from this time it begins to grow in our poetry. It appears slightly in WITHER'S Shepherd's Hunting, but plainly in his Mistress of Philarete, a poem interspersed with lyrics. In dwelling so much as he did on the beauty of natural scenery away from cities, he brings a new element into English verse. Henceforth we always find a country poetry set over against a town poetry, a poetry of nature set over against a poetry of man. It is still stronger in ANDREW MARVELL, Milton's secretary, who, with the exception of Milton, did the finest work of this kind. In imaginative intensity, in the fusing together of personal feeling and thought with the delight received from nature, his verses on The Emigrants in the Bermudas and Tlie Thoughts in a Garden, and the little poem, The Girl describes her Fawn, are like the work of Wordsworth on one side, and like the best Elizabethan work on the other. They are the last and the truest echo of the lyrics of the time of Elizabeth, but they reach beyond them in the love of nature. SPENSEEIANS. Among these broken up forms of poetry, 164 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. there was one kind which was imitative of Spenser. PHINEAS FLETCHER, GILES FLETCHER, HE>TRY MORE in his Platonical Song of the Soul, 1642, and JOHN CHALKHILL in his Tliealma, owned him as their master. The Purple Island, 1633, of the first, an elaborate allegory of the body and mind of man, has some grace and sweetness, and tells us that the scientific ele- ment, which after the Kestoration took form in the setting up of the Koyal Society, was so far spread in England at his time as to influence the poets. RELIGIOUS POETRY. The Temptation and Victory of Christ, 1610, of GILES FLETCHER, is a lovely poem and gave hints to Milton for the Paradise Regained. It is one of the many re- ligious poems that now began to interest the people. Of these The Temple, 1631, of GEORGE HERBERT, rector of Bemer- ton, has been the most popular. The purity and profound devotion of its poetry have made it dear to all. Its gentle Church feeling has pleased all classes of churchmen ; its great quaintness, which removes it from true poetry, has added perhaps to its charm. With him we must rank HENRY VAUGHAN, the Silurist, whose Sacred Poems are equally de- votional, pure, and quaint, and FRANCIS QUARLES, whose Divine Emblems, 1635, is still read in the cottages of England. On the Eoman Catholic side, WILLIAM HABINGTON min- gled his devotion to his religion with the praises of his wife, under the name of Castara, 1634 ; and EICHARD CRASHAW, whose rich inventiveness was not made less rich by the religious mysticism which finally ]ed him to become a Eoman Catholic, published his Steps to the Temple in 1646. On the Puritan side, we may now place GEORGE WITHER, whose Hallelujah, 1641, a series of religious poems, was sent forth just before the Civil War began, when he left the king's side to support the Parliament. Finally, religious poetry, after the return of Charles II., passed on through the Davideis of ABRAHAM COWLEY, and the Divine Love of EDMUND WALLER to find its highest expression in the Paradise Lost. Poetry and Prose Milton and Bunyan. 16& We have thus traced through all its forms the decline of poetry. It is a poetry often beautiful, but as often injured by obscurity, over-fancifulness, confusion of thought and of images. From this decay we pass into a new world when we come to speak of Milton. Between the dying poetry of the past, and the uprising of a new kind in Dryden, stands alone the majestic work of a great genius who touches the Elizabethan time with one hand and our own time with the other." BIBLIOGRAPHY. HERBERT AND DONNE. Ward's Anthology; Mrs. Thompson's Celebrated Friendships; S. Brown's Lectures and Essays ; Walton's Lives of Her bert, Donne, etc; Eel. Mag., v. 32, 1854. LESSON 31. JOHN MILTON. " MILTON was the last of the Elizabethans, and, except Shakespeare, far the greatest of them all. Born in 1608, in Bread-street, he may have seen Shakespeare, for Milton remained in London till he was sixteen. 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 ' from his beauty and delicate taste and morality, he got soon a great fame, and during the seven years of his life at the university his poetic genius opened itself in the English poems of which I give the dates. On the Death of a Fair Infant, 1626. At a Vacation Exercise, 1628. On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, 1629. On the Circumcision, The Passion, Time, At a Solemn MusicJc, On the May Morning, On Shakespeare, 1630. On the University Carrier, Epitaph on Marchioness of Worcester, Sonnet 1., To the Nightingale, Sonnet 2., On Arriving at Age of Twenty-three, 1631. The last sonnet, when explained by a letter that accompanied it, shows that Milton, influenced by the sufferings of the Puri- tans, had given up his intention of becoming a clergyman. He left, therefore, the university in 1632, and went to live at Horton, near Windsor, where he spent five years, steadily 166 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. reading the Greek and Latm writers, and amusing himself with mathematics and music. Poetry was not neglected. The L? Allegro and II Penseroso were written in 1632, and probably the Arcades; Comus in 1634, and Lycidas in 1637. They all prove that, though Milton was Puritan in heart, his Puritanism was of that earlier type which neither disdained literature, art, or gaiety nor despised the ancient Church nor turned away from natural beauty. He could still enjoy the village dance, the masque, the lists, the music in the dim Cathedral; he could still mingle the learning of the Kenais- sance with his delight in the fields and flowers, with his feast- ing and his grief. He was as much the child of the New Learning as Spenser was, but his Puritanism was set deeper than Spenser's. In 1638 he went to Italy, the second home of so many of the English poets, and visited the great towns, making friends in Florence, where he saw Galileo, and in Rome. At Naples he heard the sad news of civil war, which determined him to return; 'inasmuch as I thought it base to be travelling at my ease for intellectual culture, while my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty.' But, hearing that the war had not yet arisen, he remained in Italy till the end of 1639, and at the meeting of the Long Parliament we find him in a house in Aldersgate, where he lived till 1645. He had pro- jected, while abroad, a great epic poem on the subject of Arthur (again the Welsh subject returns), but in London his mind changed, and among a number of subjects, tended at last to Paradise Lost, which he meant to throw into the form of a Greek Tragedy with lyrics and choruses. MILTON'S PROSE, THE COMMONWEALTH, Suddenly his whole life changed, and for twenty years, 1640-1660, he was carried out of art into politics, out of poetry into prose. Be- fore 1642, when the Civil War began, he had written five vigorous pamphlets against episcopacy. Six more pamphlets appeared in the next two years. One of these was the Areo- Poetry and Prose Milton t*/id Bunyan. 167 pagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, 1644, a bold and eloquent attack on the censorship of the press by the Presbyterians. The four pamphlets in which he advocated conditional divorce made him still more the horror of the Presbyterians. When, on the execution of the king, 1649, England became a republic, Milton defended the act in an answer to the Eikon Basilike, a portraiture of the suffer- ings of the king by Dr. Gauden, and continued to defend it in his famous Latin Defence for the People of England, 1651, in which he inflicted so pitiless a lashing on Salmasius, the great Leyden scholar, that his fame went over the whole of Europe. In the next year he wholly lost his sight. But he continued his work when Cromwell was made Protector, and wrote another Defence for the English People, 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 Para- dise Lost, about the date of the last of his sonnets. The two years that came before the Restoration were employed in a fruitless effort to prevent it by the publication of six more pamphlets. It was a wonder he was not put to death, and he was in hiding and in custody for a time. At last he settled in a house near Bunhill Fields. It was here .that Paradise Lost was finished, before the end of 1665, and then published in 1667." "One virtue these pamphlets possess the virtue of style. They are monuments of our language so remarkable that Milton's prose works must always be resorted to by students as long as English remains a medium of ideas. Putting Bacon aside, the condensed force and poig- nant brevity of whose aphoristic wisdom has no parallel in English, there is no other prosaist who possesses anything like Milton's command over the resources of our language. Neither Hooker nor Jeremy Taylor impresses the reader with a sense of unlimited power such as we feel to reside in Milton. Yast as is the wealth of magnificent, words which he flings with both hands carelessly upon the page, we feel that there is still much more in reserve. 168 Literature of Period "P., 1603-1660. Yet even on the score of style, Milton's prose is subject to serious de- ductions. His negligence is such as to amount to an absence of con- struction. He who in his verse trained the sentence with delicate sen- sibility to follow his guiding hand into exquisite syntax seems in his prose writing to abandon his meaning to shift for itself. Here Milton compares disadvantageously with Hooker. Hooker's elaborate sentence, like the sentence of Demosthenes, is composed of facts so hinged, of clauses so subordinated to the main thought, that we foresee the end from the beginning, and close the period with a sense of perfect round- ness and totality. Milton does not seem to have any notion of what a period means. He begins anywhere and leaves off, not when the sense closes, but when he is out of breath. We might have thought this pell- mell huddle of his words was explained, if not excused, by the exigen- cies of the party pamphlet, which cannot wait. But the same asyntactic disorder is equally found in the History of Britain, which he had in hand for forty years. Nor is it only the Miltonic sentence which is in- coherent, the whole arrangement of his topics is equally loose, disjointed, and desultory. Many of Milton's pamphlets are certainly party pleadings, choleric, one-sided, personal. But through them all runs the one redeeming char acteristic they are all written on the side of liberty. He defended re- ligious liberty against the prelates, civil liberty against the crown, the liberty of the press against the executive, liberty of conscience against the Presbyterians, and domestic liberty against the tyranny of canon law." Mark Pattison. PARADISE LOST. " We may perhaps regret that Milton was shut away from his art for twenty years, during which no verse was written but the sonnets. 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 forgotten his art. ' I may one day hope,' he said, speaking of his youth- ful studies, ' to have ye again, in a still time, when there shall be no chiding; not in these Noises/ and the saying strikes the note of calm sublimity which is kept in Paradise Lost. It opens with the awaking of the rebel angels in hell after Poetry and Prose Milton and Bunyan. 169 their fall from heaven, the consultation of their chiefs how best to carry on the war with God, and the resolve of Satan to go forth and tempt newly created man to fall. He takes his flight to the earth and finds Eden. Eden is then de- scribed, and Adam and Eve in their innocence. The next four books, from the fifth to the eighth, contain the Arch- angel Raphael's story of the war in heaven, the fall of Satan, and the creation of the world. The last four books describe the temptation and the fall of Man, the vision shown by Michael to Adam of the future and of the redemption of Man by Christ, and the expulsion from Paradise. The beauty of the poem is rather that of ideal purity, and of sublime thought expressed in language which has the severe loveliness of the best Greek sculpture. The interest collects round the character of Satan at first, but he grows more and more mean as the poem goes on, and seems to fall a second time, to lose all his original brightness, after his temptation of Eve. Indeed this second degradation of Satan after he has not only sinned himself but made innocence sin, and beaten back in himself the last remains of good, is one of the finest motives in the poem. In every part of the poem, in every character in it, as indeed in all his poems, Milton's in- tense individuality appears. It is a pleasure to find it. The egotism of such a man, said Coleridge, is a revelation of spirit." " The first of Englishmen to whom the designation Men of Letters is ap- propriate, Milton was also the noblest example of the type. He cultivated not letters but himself, and sought to enter into possession of his own mental kingdom not that he might reign there but that he might royally use its resources in building up a work which should bring honor to his country and his native tongue. The style of Paradise Lost is then only the natural expression of a soul thus exquisitely nourished upon the best thoughts and finest words of all ages. It is the language of one who lives in the companionship of the great and the wise of past time. It is inevitable that when such a one speaks, his tones, his accent, the melo- dies of his rhythm, the inner harmonies of 'his linked thoughts, the grace 170 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. of his allusive touch should escape the common ear. To follow Milton one should at least have tasted the same training through which he put himself. The many cannot see it, and complain that the poet is too learned. Whatever conclusion may be the true one from the public demand, we cannot be wrong in asserting that from the first, and now as then, Para- dise Lost has been more admired than read. The poet's wish and expec- tation that he should find ' fit audience though few ' has been fulfilled. Partly this has been due to his limitation, his unsympathetic disposition, the deficiency of the human element in his imagination, ami his presen- tation of mythical instead of real beings. But it is also, in part, a tribute to his excellence, and it is to be ascribed to the lofty strain which re- quires more effort to accompany than an average reader is able to make, a majestic demeanor which no parodist has been able to degrade, and a wealth of allusion demanding more literature than is possessed by any but the few whose life is lived with the poets. An appreciation of Mil- ton is the last reward of consummated scholarship." Mark Pattison. MILTON'S LATER POEMS. "It was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, published together in 1671. Paradise Regained opens with the journey of Christ into the wilderness%fter his baptism, and its four books describe the temptation of Christ by Satan, and the answers and victory of the Redeemer. The speeches in it drown 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 high- est power. The same solemn beauty of a quiet mind and a more, severe style than that of Paradise Lost make us feel in it that Milton has grown older. In Samson Agonistes, 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. Sam- son 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 his victorious death Milton's hopes for its final triumph. 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.' He wrote it blind Poetry and Prose Milton and Bunyan. 171 and old and fallen on evil days. But in it, as in the others, blindness did not prevent sight. No man saw more vividly and could say more vividly what he saw. Nor did age make him lose strength. The force of thought and verse in his last poem is only less than in Paradise Lost. Nor did evil days touch his imagination with weakness, or make less the dignity of his art. Till the end it was ' An undisturbed song of pure concent, Aye sung before the sapphire- colored throne, To Him that sits thereon.' It ended in his death, November, 1674. His WORK. To the greatness of the artist, Milton joined the majesty of a pure and lofty character. His poetic style was as lofty 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 free from the false conceits and the intem- perance of the Elizabethan writers, and yet is as Imaginative as theirs, and as various. He has their grace, naturalness, and intensity, when he chooses, and he adds to it a^ublinie^dig- nity; which they did not possess. All the kinds of poetry which he touched he touched with the ease of great strength, and with so much weight that they became new in his hands. He put a new 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 he kept satire for prose. In some points he was untrue to his descent from the Eliz- abethans, for he had no dramatic faculty and he had no humor. He summed up in himself all the higher influences of the Renaissance, and, when they had died in England, re- vived and handed them to us. His taste was as severe, his verse as polished, his method and language as strict as those of the school of Dryden and Pope that grew up when he was 172 Literature of Period F., 1603-1660. old. A literary past and present thus met in him, and, like all the greatest men, he did not fail to make a cast into the future. He began that pure poetry of natural description which has no higher examples to show in Wordsworth or Scott or Keats than his E Allegro and II Penseroso. Lastly, he did not represent in any way the England that followed the tyranny, the coarseness, the sensuality, the falseness, or the irreligion of the Stuarts, but he did represent Puritan England, and the whole career of Puritanism from its cradle to its grave. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. With Milton the great Elizabeth- an age of imaginative poetry and the spirit of the New Learn- ing said their last word. We might say that Puritanism also said its last great words with him, were it not that its spirit lasted in English life, were it not also that four years after his death, in 1678, JOHN" BU^YAN, who had previously written much, 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, and in 1682 the allegory of the Holy War. I class the Pilgrim's Progress here, because, in its imagina- tive fervor and poetry and in its quality of naturalness, it belongs to the spirit of the Elizabethan times. It belongs also to that time in this, that its simple and clear form grew up out of passionate feeling and not out of self-conscious art. It is the people's book and not the book of a literary class, and yet it lives in literature, because it first revealed the poetry which fervent belief in a spiritual world can kindle in the rudest hearts. In doing this, and in painting the various changes and feelings of the pilgrim's progress towards God, the book touched the deepest human interests, and set on foot a new and plentiful literature. Its language is the language of the Bible. It is a prose allegory conceived as an epic poem. As such it admits the vivid dramatic dialogue, the episodes, the descriptions, and the clear drawing of types of character which Poetry and Prose Milton and Bunyan. 173 give a different, but an equal, pleasure to a peasant boy and to an intellect like Lord Macaulay's." " Scholars of wide and critical acquaintance with literature are often unable to acquire an acceptably good, not to say an admirable, style; and, on the other hand, men who can read only their own language, and who have received little instruction even in that, often write and speak in a style that wins or commands attention, and in itself gives pleasure. Of these men John Bunyau is, perhaps, the most marked example. Better Eng- lish there could hardly be, or a style more admirable for every excellence, than appears throughout the writings of that tinker. No person who has read The Pilgrim's Progress can have forgotten the fight of Christian with Apollyon, which, for vividness of description and dramatic interest, puts to shame all the combats with knights and giants and men and drag- ons that can be found elsewhere in romance or poetry; but there are probably many who do not remember, and not a few, perhaps, who, in the very enjoyment of it, did not notice, the clearness, the spirit, the strength, and the simple beauty of the style in which that passage is written. For example, take the sentence which tells of the beginning of the tight : ' Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal Den that thou shalt go no further: here will I spill thy soul.' A man cannot be taught to write like that, nor can he by any study learn the mystery of such a style." R. G. White. BIBLIOGRAPHY. MILTON. D. Masson's Life of; English Men of Letters Series; W. E. Channing's Char, and Writings of; De Quincey's Essays ; S. Johnson's Lives of Eng. Poets; R. W. Emerson in Characteristics of Men of Gen.; Macaulay's Essays; Brydges' Imaginative Biography; P. Bayne's Essays; W. Hazlitt's Son- nets of; F. D. Maurice's Friendship of Books; J. R. Seeley's Politics and Poetry of, in his Rom. Imperialism; Addison's Essays in Spectator, published in pamphlet; W a.rd's Anthology; Lowell's Among my Books, ad Ser. ; Eel. Mag., Nov., 1849; Apr., 1852; and Nov., 1853. BUNYAN. Eng. Men of Let. Series; J. Tulloch's Eng. Puritanism and its Leaders; Macaulay's Essays: J. Baillie's Life Studies; Eel. Mag., July, 1851; and May, 1852. 174 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. LESSON 32. From Milton's Areopagitica. Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape, most glorious to look on ; but, when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon 1 with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis 2 made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, 3 nor ever shall do till her Master's second coining; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions 4 to stand at every place of oppor- tunity, forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that con- tinue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint. We boast our light; but, if we look not wisely on the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, 5 and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs brings them to such a place in the firmament where they may be seen evening or morning? The light which we have gained was given us not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitring of a bishop and the removing him from off the Presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy nation; no, if other things as great in the church and in the rule of life, both economical and political, be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zwinglius 6 and Calvin 6 hath beaconed up to us that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims. 'Tis their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will 1 Brother to the Egyptian god Osiris, who was venerated under the form of a bull, whom Typhon killed, and whose body he cut into twenty-six pieces. 2 Sister and spouse of Osiris. 3 The pamphlet was addressed to Parliament. 4 An official license was needed for the publication of any book. 6 Burning. Reformers--the one a Swiss, the other a Frenchman. Prose Milton' s. 175 hear with meekness nor can convince, yet all must bo suppressed which is not found in their syntagma. 1 They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity who neglect and permit not others to uuite those dissevered pieces whicli are yet wanting to the body of truth. To be still searching what we kuow not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it for all her body is homogeneal and propor- tional this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a church ; not the forced and outward union of cold and neutral and inwardly divided minds. Behold now this vast City/ 2 a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with God's protection ; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleagured truth than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas where- with to present, as with -their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation; others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly 3 and pregnant soil but wise and faith- ful laborers to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies ? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest ; there need not be five weeks; had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. A little generous prudence, a little forbear- ance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these dili- gences to join and unite in one general and brotherly search after truth. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pirrhus 4 did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a church or kingdom happy. Yet these are the men cried out against for schismatics and sectaries; as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some 1 Works. a London. 'Favoring. 4 King of Epirus, invited into Italy to aid the Tarentincs against Rome. 176 Literature of Period F, 1603-1660. squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort of irrational men who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built. And when every stone is laid artfully 1 together, it cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world; neither can every piece of the building be of one form; nay rather the perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes, that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant Nation rousing her self like a strong man* after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kind- ling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam ; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, whilo the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, .with those also that love the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means, and in their envi- ous gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms. From Bunyau's Pilgrim's Progress. I beheld, then, that they all went on till they came at the foot of tho hill Difficulty, at the bottom of which was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways besides that which came straight from the Gate; one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill; and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring, and drank thereof to refresh himself, and then he began to go up the hill. The other two also came to the foot of the hill ; but when they saw that the hill was steep and high, and that there were two other ways to go, and supposing also that these two ways might meet again with that up which Christian went, on the other side of the hill, therefore they were resolved to go in those ways. Now, the name of one of those was Dan- ger, and the name of the other Destruction. So the one took the way which is called Danger, which led him into a great wood; and the other took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell and rose no more. I looked then after Christian to see him go up the hill, where I per- ceived he fell from running to going, 3 and from going to clambering 1 With art. 2 The allusion is to Samson, Walking. Prose Bunyarf s. 177 upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now, about the mid-way to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbor, made by the Lord of the hill, for the refreshment of weary travellers; thither, therefore, Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him. Then he pulled his Roll out of his bosom and read therein to his comfort ; he also now began afresh to take a review of the coat or garment that was given to him as he stood by the Cross. Thus pleasing himself a while, he at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night; and in his sleep his Roll fell out of his hand. Now, as he was sleeping, there came one to him, and awaked him, saying, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, con- sider her ways, and be wise;" and with that, Christian suddenly started up, and sped him on his way, and went apace till he caine to the top of the hill. Now, when he was got up to the top of the hill, there came two men running to meet himarnjim; the name of the one was Timorous, and of the other Mistrust ; to whom Christian said, Sirs, what's the matter? you run the wrong way. Timorous answered that they were going to the city of Ziou, and had got up that difficult place; but said he, The farther we go, the more danger we meet with; wherefore we turned, and are going back again. Yes, said Mistrust, for just before us lie a couple of Lions in the way, whether sleeping or waking we know not; and we could not think, if we came within reach, but they would presently pull us in pieces. Then said Christian, You make me afraid; but whither shall I flee to be safe? If I go back to my own country, that is prepared for fire and brimstone, and I shall certainly perish there ; if I can get to the Celestial City, I am sure to be in safety there. I must venture: to go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life ever- lasting beyond it : I will yet go forward. So Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill and Christian went on his way. But, thinking again of what he had heard from the men, he felt in his bosom for his Roll that he might read therein and be comforted ; but he felt and found it not. Then was Christian in great distress, and knew not what to do; for he wanted that which used to relieve him, and that which should have been his pass into the Celestial City. Here, therefore, he began to be much perplexed, and knew not what to do: at last he bethought himself that he had slept in the arbor that is on the side of the hill; and, falling down upon his knees, he asked God's forgiveness for that foolish fact, and then went back to look for his Roll. But all the way back who can sufficiently set forth the sorrow of Christian's heart? Sometimes he sighed, sometimes he wept, and oftentimes he chid himself for 178 Literature of Period F., 1603-1660. being so foolish to fall asleep in that place which was erected only for a little refreshment for his weariness. Thus, therefore, he went back, carefully looking on this side and on that, all the way as he went, if hap- pily he might find his Roll that had been his comfort so many times in his journey. He went thus till he came again within sight of the arbor where he sat and slept; but that sight renewed his sorrow the more by bringing again, even afresh, his evil of sleeping into his mind. Thus, therefore, he now went on, bewailing his sinful sleep, saying, O wretched man that I am! that I should sleep in the daytime! that I should sleep in the midst of difficulty! that I should so indulge the flesh as to use that rest for ease to my flesh which the Lord of the hill hath erected only for the relief of the spirits of pilgrims ! Now by this time he was come to the arbor again, where for a while he sat down and wept; but at last, looking sorrowfully down under the settle, there he espied his Roll ; the which he with trembling and haste catched up and put into his bosom. But who can tell how joyful this man was when he had gotten his Roll again*! for this Roll was the as- surance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven. Therefore he laid it up in his bosom, gave thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay, and with joy and tears betook himself again to his journey. But O how nimbly did he go up the rest of the hill! Yet, be- fore he got up, the sun went down upon Christian; and this made him again recall the vanity of his sleeping to his remembrance. I must walk without the sun, darkness must cover the path of my feet, and I must hear the noise of the doleful creatures because of my sinful sleep! Now also he remembered the story that Mistrust and Timorous told him, of how they were frighted with the sight of the Lions. Then said Christian to himself again, These beasts range in the night for their prey, and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I shift them? How should I escape being by them torn in pieces? Thus he went on; but while he was thus bewailing his unhappy miscarriage, he lift up his eyes, and behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was Beautiful; and it stood just by the highway side. So I saw in my dream that he made haste and went forward that, if possible, he might get lodging there. Now, before he had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage which was about a furlong oft of the porter's lodge; and, looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way. Then he was afraid, for he thought noth- ing but death was before him; but the Porter at the lodge, whose name is Watchful, perceiving that Christian made a halt as if he would go back, cried unto him saying, Is thy strength so small? Fear not the Lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for a trial of faith Prose Bunyarts. 179 where it is, and for discovery of those that have none; keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee. Then I saw that he went on, trembling for fear of the Lions ; but, tak- ing good heed to the directions of the Porter, he heard them roar, but they did him no harm. Then he clapped his hands, and went on till he came and stood before the gate where the Porter was. Then said Christian to the Porter, Sir, what house is this? and may I lodge here to-night? The Porter answered, This house was built by the Lord of the hill, and he built it for the relief and security of pilgrims. The Porter also asked whence he was and whither he was going. Chr. I am come from the city of Destruction, and am going to Mount Zion ; but, because the sun is now set, I desire, if I may, to lodge here to-night, Por. But how doth it happen that you come so late? The sun is set. Chr. I had been here sooner, but that, wretched man that I am, I slept in the arbor that stands on the hill-side. Nay, I had notwith- standing that been here much sooner, but that in my sleep I lost my Evi- dence, and came without it to the brow of the hill; and then feeling for it and not finding it, I was forced, with sorrow of heart, to go back to the place where I slept my sleep ; where I found it, and now am come. Por. Well, I will call out one of the Virgins of this place who will, if she likes your talk, bring you in to the rest of the family, according to the rules of the house. So Watchful, the Porter, rang a bell, at the sound of which came out of the door of the house a grave and beautiful damsel, named Discretion, and asked why she was called. The Porter answered, This man is on a journey from the city of De- struction to Mount Zion, but, being weary and benighted, he asked me* if he might lodge here to-night. Then she asked him whence he was and whither he was going; and he told her. She asked him also how he got into the way; and he told her. Then she asked him what he had seen and met with in the way ; and he told her. And at last she asked his name. So he said, It is Christian; and I have so much the more a desire to lodge here to-night, because, by what I perceive, this place was built by the Lord of the hill for the relief and security of pilgrims. So she smiled, but the water stood in her eyes; and, after a little pause, she said, I will call forth two or three more of the family. So she ran to the door and called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little more discourse with him, had him in to the family; and many of them meeting him at the threshold of the house, said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; this house was built by the Lord of the hill on purpose to entertain such pilgrims in. Then he bowed his head, and followed them into the house. 180 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. 33. Milton's Hymn on tJie Nativity. It was the winter wild, While the heaven born child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature, in awe to him, Had doffed her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize : It was no season then for her To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour. Only with speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And, on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities. But he, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace ; She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And, waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. No war or battle's sound Was heard the world around ; The idle spear and shield were high uphung; The hooked chariot stood Unstained with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran 1 Lord was by. 1 Sovereign. Poetry Milton' s. 181 But peaceful was the night x Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began. The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kissed, Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence; And. will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer 1 that often warned them thence; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlightened world no more should need; He saw a greater Sun appear Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear. The shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row : Full little thought they than 2 That the mighty Pan 3 Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves or else their sheep Were all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet As never was by mortal fingers strook; 1 The morning star. 9 Then. 3 The pastoral god of Grecian mythology. 182 Literature of Period "P., 1603-1660. Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, , As all their souls in blissful rapture took: The air, such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. Nature, that heard such sound Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's 1 seat the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: She knew such harmony alone Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shame-faced Night arrayed ; The helmed cherubim And swordd seraphim Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born heir, Such music as, 'tis said, Before was never made, But when of old the sons of morning sung While the Creator great His constellations set, And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. Ring out, ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. 1 The moon's. Poetry Milton' 6-. 183 For, if such holy song- Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold ; And speckled Vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow ; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. But wisest Fate says, No, This must not yet be so; The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss, So both himself and us to glorify : Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: The aged Earth, aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake, When, at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for, from this happy day, The old dragon under ground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway ; 184 Literature of Period V., 1603-1660. And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges 1 the scaly horror of his folded tail. The oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo 2 from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. The lonely mountains o'er And the resounding shore A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale Edge*d with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth And on the holy hearth, The Lars 3 and Lemures 8 mourn with midnight plaint. In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens 4 at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. Peor 5 and Baalim 6 Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-battered god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, 6 Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyc Hammon 7 shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz 8 mourn. 1 To move as a lash. 2 A Grecian divinity whose temple was at Delphi. 8 Ghosts of the dead. 4 Priests. 6 The national god of the Moabites, it is thought. 8 Plural nouns denoting the gods and goddesses of Syria and Palestine. 7 Jupiter, as wor- shipped in Libya. His statue there had the head and horns of a ram. 8 A mcio,:i god. Poetry Miltorts. 185 And sullen Moloch, 1 fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue ; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue, The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis, haste. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud ; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbreled anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshiped ark. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded Infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn ; 2 Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damne'd crew. So, when the Sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. But see! the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest. Time is our tedious song should here have ending: National god of the Ammonites. a Eyes. 186 Literature of Period F, 1603-1660. Heaven's youngest-teemed star Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. FURTHER READING. I'.4Wegrro and II Penseroso (in pamphlet form, by Clark & Maynard, as also the whole of Bk. I. of Paradise Lost). Of Paradise Lost read Bk. 1., 11. 1-74; 242-330. Bk. II., 50-467; 629-883. Bk. III., 1-55. Bk. IV., 411-735. Bk. V., 153-208. Bk. VI., 171-353; 507-669; 824-892. Bk. VIII., 452-559; 618-753. Bk.IX., 205-392; 494-795. Bk. X., 845-965. Bk. XI., 226-285. Bk. XII., 606-649. SCHEME FOR REVIEW. Historical Sketch 151 Browne and Fuller 152 Taylor and Baxter 153 Extract from Fuller 154 Extract from Taylor 157 Extract from Browne 159 Decline of Poetry 161 Metaphysical Poetry, 161 Lyric and Satirical 162 Rural Poetry 163 Religious Prvetry 164 John Milton 165 Early Poems 165 His Prose during the Com- monwealth 166 Paradise Lost 168 Later Poems 170 His Work 171 The Pilgrim's Progress... 172 From Milton's Prose 174 From Pilgrim's Progress. . 176 From Milton's Poetry 180 PERIOD VI. FROM THE RESTORATION TO SWIFT'S DEATH, 1660-1745. 34. Brief Historical Sketch. House of Stuart restored in the person of Charles II., 1660. Twenty-eight of the Regicides arraigned, and thir- teen executed. Tea introduced, 1662. Royal Society chartered, same year. First newspaper, the Public Intelligencer, 1663. Star Chamber, monopolies, and Court of High Commission not restored. Sole right of Parliament to grant supplies to the Crown not disputed. Secret treaty made with France, by which Charles II. became a pensioner of Louis XIV. Great Plague in London, 1665-6. Great Fire, 1666. Titus Gates' affair, the " Popish Plot," 1678. Habeas Corpus act passed, 1679. Rye House Plot, 1682. Accession of Jas. II., 1685. Revocation of Edict of Nantes, 1685. Invasion of England and of Scotland by Monmouth and Argyle, same year. Jeffreys' bloody assizes follow. Quarrel of the king with the two Universities and Declaration of Indulgence, 1687. Trial of the seven bishops for petitioning to be excused from ordering the Declaration to be read in the churches, 1688. Revolution, by which Wm. of Orange and Mary came to the English throne made vacant by the flight of James, 1688. Grand Alliance of England, Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands against France formed by William, 1689. Irish sub- dued, 1690. White paper manufactured in England, same year. The Ministry becomes what it is now, the executive committee of the ma- jority of the House of Commons. Bank of England established, 1694. National Debt, 1697, 5,000,000. Second Grand Alliance of England, Holland, Hanover, and Austria, joined afterward by Prussia, the Ger- man Empire, and Portugal, is formed by William, and begins, 1702, the War of the Spanish Succession. Marlborough in command of the allied forces. Anne comes to the throne, 1702. National Debt, 1703, 14,000,000. England and Scotland united, 1707. About 1709 first 188 Literature of Period VL, 1660-1745. daily newspaper established. Impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell, 1709-10. Marlborough and the Whig party fall, and Oxford and Bolingbroke come into power, 1710. Crown, during the reigns of Wm. III. and Anne, be- comes less personal and more official. Veto on bills practically given up, last exercised, 1707. War of the Spanish Succession closed by the treaty of Utrecht, 1713. National Debt, 1714, 54,000,000 (now 800,000,000). George I., founder of the House of Hanover, comes to the throne, 1714. Invasion by the Pretender, son of Jas. II., 1715. Bolingbroke and Oxford impeached, 1715. South Sea Company estab- lished 1711, fails 1720. Sir Robt. Walpole Prime Minister, 1721-42. A great Peace Minister, removed the duties from more than 100 articles of export and from 30 of import. George II. conies to the throne, 1727. Methodism founded, at first within the Church, 1727-9. Separation of Methodism from the Church, 1738. Five great hospitals established, 1719-45. 35. POETKY. 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 used by a great genius like Shakespeare or Spenser, for a first rate poet creates rules of art ; his work itself is art. But when the art of poetry is making, its rules are not laid down, and 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 impassioned, and give pleasure because of the strong feeling that inspires it. But it will also be extravagant and unrestrained in its use of images and words because of ifcs want of art. This is the history of the style of the poets of the middle period of Elizabeth's reign. Afterwards thenational life grew chill, and the feelings of the poets also chilled7*TTien tne want'oTart in the style made itself felt. The far-fetched images, the hazarded meanings, Poetry Artificial Style. 189 the over-fanciful way of putting thoughts, the sensational ex- pression of feeling in which the Elizabethan poets indulged not only appeared in all their ugliness, when they were inspired by no warm feeling, but were indulged in far more than be- fore. Men tried to produce by extravagant use of words the same results that living feeling had produced, 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 history of the style of the poets from the later days of Elizabeth till the Civil War. The natural style, unregulated by art, had thus become un- natural. When it had reached that point, men began to feel how necessary it was that the style of poetry should be sub- jected 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 genius, which, as 1 said, creates of itself an artistic style, 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 and the sonnet wrote for the first time with absolute correctness. Another influence was that of the movement all over Europe towards inquiry 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 ex- aggerated. It is absurd to place the ' creaking lyre ' of Boileau side by side with Dryden's 'long resounding march and energy divine' of verse. Our critical school of poets have no French qualities in them even when they imitate the French. Further, our own poets had already, before the Restoration, begun the critical work, and the French influence served only 190 Literature of Period VI., 166U-1745. to give it a greater impulse. We shall see the growth of a colder and more correct spirit of art in Cowley, Denham, and Waller. Vigorous form was given to that spirit by Dryden, and perfection of artifice added to it by Pope. The artificial style succeeded to, and extinguished, the natural." " During the period now under review, the whole of English literary effort, but especially poetical effort, has one aim and is governed by one principle. This is the desire to attain perfection of form, a sense of the beauty of literary composition as such. It was found to be possible to please by your manner as well as by your matter, and having been shown to be possible, it became necessary. No writer who neglected the graces of style could gain acceptance by the public. If this definition of the literary aim which dominated all writing dur- ing the hundred years which followed 1660 be just, it follows from it that the period would be more favorable to prose than to poetry. What in fact came to pass was, that a compromise was effected between poetry and prose, and the leading writers adopted, as the most telling form of utterance, prosaic verse, metre without poetry. It is by courtesy that the versifiers of this century from Dryden to Churchill are styled poets. | They wanted inspiration, lofty sentiment, the heroic spul, chivalrous \devotion, the inner eye of faith above all, love and sympathy. They could not mean greatly. But such meaning as they had they labored to express in the neatest, most terse and pointed form which our lan- guage is capable of. If not poets, they were literary artists." Mark Pattison, CHANGE OF POETIC SUBJECT.-" The subject of the Eliza- bethan poets was Man as influenced by the Passions, and it was treated from the side of natural feeling. This was fully and splendidly done by Shakespeare. But after a time the subject followed, as we have seen in speaking of the drama, the same career as the style. It was treated in an extrav- agant and sensational manner, and the representation of the passions tended to become, and did become, unnatural or fantastic. Milton alone redeemed the subject from this vicious excess. He wrote in a grave and natural manner of the pas- sions of the human heart, and he made strong the religious passions of love of God, sorrow for sin, and others, in English Poetry Cowley, Waller, and Hutler. 191 poetry. But with him. the subject of man as influenced by the passions died for a time. Dryden, Pope, and their fol- lowers turned to another. They left the passions aside, and wrote of the things in which the intellect and the conscience, the social and political instincts in man were interested. In this way the satiric, didactic, philosophical, and party poetry of a new school arose. TRANSITION POETS. There were a few poets, writing partly before and partly after the Restoration, who represent the passage from the fantastic to the more correct style. ABRA- HAM COWLEY was one of these. His love poems, The Mistress, 1647, are courtly, witty, and have some of the Elizabethan imagination. His later poems, owing probably to his life in France, were more exact in verse, and more cold in form. The same may be said of EDMUND WALLER, who ( first made writing in rhyme easily an art.' He also lived a long time in France, and died in 1687. SIR JNO. DENHAM'S Cooper's Hill, 1643, was a favorite with Dryden for the ' majesty of its style.' It may rank as one of the first of our descriptive poems, and its didactic reflectiveness and the chill stream of its verse and thought link him closely to Pope. SIR W. DAVENANT'S Gondibert, 1651,, a heroic poem, is perhaps the most striking 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 dis- courses of rhyme and the rules of art, and represents the new 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 weapon by two men, each on a different side. ANDREW MARVELL'S Satires, after the Restoration, represent the Puritan's wrath with the vices of the court and king, and his shame for the disgrace of Eng- 192 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. land among the nations. Tho Hudibras of SAMUEL BUTLER, in 1663, represents the fierce 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 criti- cism, 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 Puritans, by its exaggeration. Satire should have at least the semblance of truth; yet Butler calls the Puritans cowards. We turn now to the first of these poets in whom poetry is founded on intellect rather than on feeling, and whose best verse is de- voted to argument and satire." BIBLIOGRAPHA. CowLEY, WALLER, and BUTLER. R. Bell's and S. Johnson's Live$ Eng. Poets; Ward's Anthology; Minto's Man. Eng. Prose Lit. ; J. Coleman's Hist. Essays; Bentley's Miscel., v. 37, 1855; N. A. Rev., v. 91, 1860; N. Br. Rev., v. 24, 1855-6, and v. 43, 1865; Fraser's Mag., v. 53, 1856. I/ESSON 36. JOHN DRYDEN, "He 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 Cromwellite till the Restoration, when he began the changes which mark his life. His poem on the death of the Protector was soon followed by the Astrcea Redux, which celebrated the return of justice to the realm in the person of Charles II. The Annus Mirabilis appeared in 1667, and in this his great power was first clearly shown. LJt is the power of clear reasoning expressing itself with entire ease in a rapid succession of condensed thoughts in verse.^ Such a power fitted Dryden for satire, and his Absalom ancT AMtopTiel is the foremost of English satires. He had been a playwriter till its appearance in 1681, and the rhymed plays which he had written enabled him to perfect the versification which is so remarkable in it and the poems that followed. The satirejtself , written in mockery of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, attacked Shaf tesbury as Ahito- Poetry Dryden and Others. 193 phel, was kind to Monmouth as Absalom, and, in its sketch of Buckingham as Zimri, the poet avenged himself for the Re- hearsal. 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 Shaftes- bury, and the Mac Flecknoe, in which Shad well, a rival poet, who had supported Shaftesbury's party, was made a laughing- stock. After these, Dryden taught theology in verse, and the Religio Laid, 1682, defends, and states the argument for, the Church of England. It was perhaps poverty that drove him, on the accession of James II., to change his religion, and the Hind and Panther, 1687, is as fine a model of clear reasoning in behalf of the milk-white hind of the Church of Rome as the Religio Laid was in behalf of the Church of England, which now becomes the spotted panther. A^jij^rj^iye^jioet his fables and translations, produced late in life, in 1700, give him a high rank, though the fine harmony of their verse does not win us to forget their coarse- ness, and their lack of that skill in arranging a story which comes from imaginative feeling. As_aj^ric poet his fame rests on the animated Ode for Si. Cecilia's Day. TTis translation of Vergil has fire, but wants the dignity and tenderness of the original. From Milton's death till his own, in 1700, Dryden reigned undisputed, and round his throne in Will's Coffeehouse, where he sat as 'Glorious John,' 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 last two. JoHisr OLDHAM won a short fame by his Satires on the Jesuits, 1679 ; and BISHOP KEK, 1668, set on foot, in his Morning and Evening Hymns, a new type of religious poetry." " Of the best English poetry it might be said that it is understanding aerated by imagination. In Dryden the solid part too often refused to mix kindly with the leaven, either remaining lumpish, or rising to a hasty 194 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. puffiness. Grace and lightness were with him much more a laborious achievement than a natural gift, and it is all the more remarkable that he should so often have attained to what seems such an easy perfection in both. He was not wholly and unconsciously a poet, but a thinker who sometimes lost himself on enchanted ground, and was transfigured by its touch. This preponderance in him of the reasoning over the intuitive facul- ties, the one always there, the other flashing in when you least expect it, accounts for that inequality and even incougruousness in his writing which makes one revise his judgment at every tenth page. In his prose you come upon passages that persuade you he is a poet, in spite of his verses' so often turning state's evidence against him as to convince you he is none. Now and then we come upon something that makes us hesitate again whether, after all, Diyden was not grandiose rather than great. He is best upon a level, table land it is true, and a very high level, but still somewhere between the loftier peaks of inspiration and the plain of every day life. As I read him, I cannot help thinking of an ostrich, to be classed with flying things and capable, what with leap and flap together, of leaving the earth for a longer or shorter space, but loving the open plain, where wing and foot help each other to something that is both flight and run at once. We always feel his epoch in him, that he was the lock which let our language down from its point of highest poetry to its level of easiest and most gently flowing prose. " J. E. Lowell. THE DRAMA, " The change that now passed over literature was as great in the drama as in poetry. Two acting compa- nies were formed on the king's return, under Thomas Killigrew andDavenant; actresses came upon the stage for the first time, and scenery began to be used. Dryden began his dramatic work with comedies, 1663, but soon after, following Corncille, though he abjured French influence, made rhyme, instead of blank-verse, the vehicle of tragedy. His tragedies, like the rest of the time, were written in a pompous heroic style. The DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM ridiculed them in the Rehearsal, 1671, and sometime after Dryden changed his style, and wrote in another manner, of which All for Love and the Spanish Friar, are perhaps the best examples. His plays have but little sentiment, for Dryden's treatment of the emotions is al- Poetry Dryden and Others. 195 ways brutal, but they have some neat intrigue, some fine pas- sages. JOHX CKOWNE'S Sir Courtly Nice, NAT LEE'S Rival Queens, and two pathetic tragedies by THOMAS OTWAY, The Orphan and Venice Preserved, are of the Restoration time and kept the stage. It was in Comedy that the dramatists of the Restoration ex- celled. William Wychcrlcy, whose gross vigor is remarkable, introduced the prose Comedy of Manners, in 1672, and Mrs. Belni, Sir George Etheregc, and others carried it on to tbe Revolution. The wit of their comedies is the wit of a vulgar and licentious society. After the Revolution, William Con- greve, Sir John Vanbrugh, and George Farquar made comedy more gentlemanly and its intrigue more subtile. Though without truth to nature, their plays sparkle with wit in every line. They exaggerate the vices of the time, but their immo- rality is partly forgotten in their swift and delightful gaiety. Jeremj^Collier's famous attack on the stage, 1698, may have had some influence in purifying it, but it was really the growth of a higher tone of society which improved it. It grew dull in the stupid plays of Steele, in ADDISON'S ponderous tragedy of Cato, 1713, and in the melancholy tragedies of Rowe, 1700- 13, whose name is, however, to be remembered as the first editor of Shakespeare, 1709-10. The four folio editions of Shakespeare had been previously set forth in 1623, 1632, 1664, and 1685. The Btggar's Opera, 1728, of GAY introduced a new form of dramatic literature, and Colley Gibber carried on the lighter comedy into the reign of George II. Fielding then made the stage the vehicle of criticism on the follies, literature, and politics of the time, and the actors, Foote and Garrick, did the same in their farces." BIBLIOGRAPHY. DRYDEN and CONOREVE. R. Bell's and S. Johnson's Lives of Eng. Poets; Macaulay's Essays ; Lowell's Among my Books ; D. Masson's Dryden and Lit. of the Rest.; H. Reed's Lectures on Brit. Poets ; Ward's Anthology; Ed. Rev., v. 102; West. Rev., v. G3, 1855; Eel. Mag:., Aug.. 1854 ; Coleridge's Northern Worthies; Thackeray's Eng. Humorists ; Thomson's Wits and Beaux of Society . 196 Literature of Period 77., 1660-1745. Dryden's Ode in, honor of St. Cecilia'' s Day. 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won By Philip's warlike son; Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne: His valiant peers were placed around; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: (So should desert in arms be crowned.) The lovely Thais, by his side, Sate, like a blooming Eastern bride, In flower of youth and beauty's pride. Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair. Chorux. Happy, happy, happy pair I None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair. Timotheus, placed on high Amid the tuneful quire, With flying fingers touched the lyre: The trembling notes ascend the sky, And heavenly joys inspire. The song began from Jove, Who left his blissful seats above (Such is the power of mighty love.) A dragon's fiery form belied the god, Sublime on radiant spires he rode. The listening crowd admire the lofty sound, A present deity! they shout around; A present deity! the vaulted roofs re-bound: With ravished cars The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres. Poetry Dryderts. 197 Chorus. With ravished ears The monarch hears, Etc. etc. etc. The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung, Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young. The jnlly god in triumph comes; Sound the trumpets; beat the drums; Flushed with a purple grace, He shows his honest face; Now give the hautboys breath: he comes! he comes! Bacchus, ev.er fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain; Bacchus' blessings arc a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure: Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure; Sweet is pleasure after pain. Chorus. Bacchus' blessings arc a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure: Etc. etc. etc. Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. The master saw the madness rise; His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; And, while he heaven and earth defied, Changed his hand, and checked his pride. He chose a mournful Muse Soft pity to infuse : He sung Darius great and good, By too severe a fate Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, Fallen from his high estate, And welt'ring in his blood; Deserted at his utmost need By those his former bounty fed. 198 Literature of Period VI. , 1660-1745. On the bare earth exposed he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes. With downcast looks the joyless victor sate, Revolving in his altered soul The various turns of chance below; And now and then a sigh he stole; And tears began to flow. Chorus. Revolving in his altered soul The various turns of chance below; Etc. etc. etc. The mighty master smiled to see That love was in the next degree: Twas but a kindred sound to move, For pity melts the mind to love. Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honor but an empty bubble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying; If the world be worth thy winning, Think, O think it worth enjoying: Lovely Thais sits beside thce, Take the good the gods provide thec! The many rend the skies with loud applause; So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause. The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gazed on the fair Who caused his care, And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, Sighed and looked, and sighed again: At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. Chorus. The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gazed on the fair Etc. etc. etc. Poetry Drydert s. 199 Now strike the golden lyre again: A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. Break his bands of sleep asunder, And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark, the horrid sound Has raised up his head! As awaked from the dead, And amazed, he stares around 'Revenge! revenge I' Timotheus cries, ' See the Furies arise, See the snakes that they rear, How they hiss in their hair, And the sparkles, that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those arc Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain Inglorious on the plain: Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew! Behold how they toss their torches on high, How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of their hostile gods!' The princes applaud, with a furious joy, And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way To light him to his prey, And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. Chorus. And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way Etc. etc. etc. Thus, long ago, Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, While organs yet were mute, Timotheus, to his breathing flute And sounding lyre, Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; 200 Literature of Period VI. , 1660-1745. The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds, With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown; He raised a mortal to the skies, She drew an angel down. Grand Chorus. At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast, from her sncfed store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds, With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown ; He raised a mortal to the skies, She drew an angel down. LESSON 37. THE PBOSE LITEBATUBE. "I have said that towards the end of Elizabeth's reign men settled down to think and inquire. Intellectual had succeeded to active life. We have seen this in the poetry of the time; and the great work of BACO^, which was then begun, represents the same thing in prose. He worked at not only all subjects of inquiry but also at the right method of enquiry. The Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum did not fulfil all he aimed at, but they did stir the whole of English intelligence into activity. In Science, the impulse he gave was only partly right, and the work of Science in England was behind that of the Conti- nent. The religious and the political struggle absorbed the country, and it was not till after the Restoration, with two exceptions, that scientific discovery advanced so far as to claim recognition in a history of Literature. The Royal Society Prose Science, Theology, and Politics. 201 was embodied in 1662, and astronomy, experimental chem- istry, 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's being mentioned among the literary men of England. In 1671 ISAAC NEWTON, 1642-1727, laid his Theory of Light before the Royal Society; in the year before the Revolution, his Principia established with 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, the first thing they will think upon is the true method and grounds of government, both divine and human. Two sides will be taken, the side of Authority and the side of Rea- son in Religion; the side of Authority and the side of Individ- ual Liberty in Politics. The Theological Literature of those who declared that rea- son 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 WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. With them Jeremy Taylor pleaded, as we have seen, the cause of religious liberty and toleration, and of rightness of life as more important than a correct theology. After the Restora- tion and Revolution, their work was carried on by BISHOP BURNET, ROBERT BOYLE, the philosopher, ARCHBISHOP TIL- LOTSON, and BISHOP BUTLER, whose Sermons and Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, 1736, endeavor to make peace between Authority and Reason. Many other divines of the English Church took one side or another, or opposed the growing Deism. ISAAC BARROW is to be mentioned for his sedate, ROBERT SOUTH for his fierce and witty, eloquence, and in them and in men like EDWARD STILLINGFLEET and WILLIAM SHERLOCK, English theological prose took form. 202 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. POLITICAL LITERATURE. The resistance to authority in the opposition to the theory of the Divine Right of Kings did not enter into Literature till after it had been worked out practically in the Civil War. During the Common wealth and after the Revolution, it took the form of a discussion on the abstract question of the Science of Government, and was min- gled with an inquiry into the origin of society and the ground of social life. THOMAS HOBBES, 1588-1674, during the Commonwealth, was the first who dealt with the question from the side of reason alone, and he is also the first of nil 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, 1651, declared (1) that the origin of all power was in the people, and (2) the end of all power was for the common weal. 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 Patriarclia, published in 1680. HENRY XEVILE in his Dialof/ne concerning Government, and JAMES HAHRIXGTOX in his romance, The Commonwealth of Oceana, published at the beginning of the Commonwealth, contended that all secure government was to be based on property, but Nevile supported a monarchy, and Harrington with whom I may class Algernon Sidney, executed in 1683, a democracy, on this basis. John Locke, 1632-1704, in his treatise on Civil Government followed, in 1689-1690, the two doctrines of "Hobbes, but with these two important additions (1) that the people have a right to take away the power given by them to the ruler, (2) that the ruler is responsible 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. Prose Science, Theology, and Politics. Locke carried the same spirit of free inquiry into the realm of religion, and in his three Letters on Toleration, 1G89-90-92, laid down the philosophical grounds for liberty of religious thought. He finished by entering the realm of metaphysical inquiry. In 1090 appeared his Essay concerning the Human Understanding, in which he investigated its limits and traced all ideas, and therefore all knowledge, to experience. In his clear statement 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 as much for the true method of thinking as Bacon had done for the science of nature. The intellectual stir of the time produced, apart from the great movement of thought, a good deal of Miscellaneous Lit- erature. SIR WILLIAM PETTY, in 16C7, made the first effort after a science of political economy in his Treatise on Taxes. Characters, essays, letter- writing, memoirs, all^camc to the front. The painting of short * characters 9 was carried on after "the Restoration by Sanil. Butler and W. Charlcton. These * characters' had no personality, but, as party spirit deepened, names thinly disguised were given to characters drawn of liv- ing men, and Dryden and Pope in poetry and all the prose wits of the time of Queen Anne and George I. made personal, and often violent, sketches of their opponents a special ele- ment in literature. After the Restoration, Cowley's small volume, and Dryden, in the masterly criticism on his art which he prefixed to some of his dramas, gave richness to the Essay. These two writers began, with Hobbcs, the second period of English prose, in which the style is easy, unaffected, moulded to the subject, and the proper words arc put in their proper places. It is as different from the style that came before it as the easy man- ners of a gentleman arc from those of a learned man unaccus- tomed to society. In William Ill's, time SIB W. TEMPLE'S 204 Literature of Period VI. , 1660-1745. pleasant Essays brings 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, in which Gray and Cowper, Byron and Beckford have done the best work. Pepys, in ] 660-69, and Evelyn, whose Diary grows full after 1640, begin that class of gossiping memoirs which have been of so much use in giving color to history. History itself at this time is little better than memoirs, and such a name may be fairly given to CLARENDON'S History of tlie Civil Wars, begun in 1641, and to BISHOP BURNET'S History of his own Time, and to his History of the Reformation, begun in 1679, completed in 1715. Finally, classical criticism, in the dis- cussion on the genuineness of the Letters of Phalaris, was created by Richard Bentley in 1697-99. THE LITERATURE OF QUEEN ANNE AND THE FIRST GEORGES. With the closing years of William III. and the accession of Queen Anne, 1702, a literature arose which was partly new and partly a continuation of that of the Restoration. The conflict between those who took the oath to the new dynasty and the Non jurors who refused, the hot blood that it pro- duced, the war between Dissent and Church and between the two parties which now took the names of Whig and Tory produced a mass of political pamphlets, of which Daniel Defoe's and Swift's were the best; of songs and ballads, like Lillibullero, which were sung in every street; of squibs, re- views, and satirical poems and letters. Everyone joined in it, and it rose into importance in the work of the greater men who mingled more literary studies with their political excite- ment. In politics all the abstract discussions we have men- tioned 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 soci* Prose Science, Theology, and Politics. 205 ety was hottest; and it is round this vivid city life that the literature of Queen Anne and the two following reigns is best grouped. 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 satirized and unduly praised them under names thinly disguised. Personalities were sent to and fro like shots in battle. Those who could do this work well were well rewarded, bub the rank and file of writers were left to starve. Literature was thus honored not for itself, but for the sake of party. The result was that the abler men low- ered it by making it a political tool, and the smaller men, the fry of Grub Street, degraded it by using it in the same way, only in a baser manner. Their flattery was as abject as their abuse was shameless, and both were stupid. They received and deserved the merciless 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 discussed all the varieties of social life, and painted town society more vividly than was done be- fore or has been 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. The society of the day was one in which all subjects of intellectual and scientific inquiry were eagerly debated, and the wit of this society was stimulated by its party spirit. Its literature reflected this in- tellectual excitement, and at no time in our history was literary work so vigorous and masculine on the various problems of thought and knowledge. Criticism being so active, the form in which thought was expressed was now especially dwelt on, and the result was, that the style of English prose became for the first time absolutely simple and clear, and English verse reached a neatness of expression and a closeness of thought 206 Literature of Period VI. , 1660-1745. as exquisite as it was artificial. At the same time, and for tho same reasons, Nature, Passion, and Imagination decayed in poetry." BIBLIOGRAPHY. HOBBES. I. Disraeli's Quarrels of A uthors; Grate's Minor Works; Hazlitl's Literary Remains; Tulloch Rat. Theology in Eng.; Contem. Rev., v. 7, 18G8; West. Rev., v. 87, 1867. LOCKE. T. Forster's Original Letters of with Sketch of Writings and Opinions; "King's Life of; Sir J. Mackintosh's Miscel. Works; R. Vaughu's Essays; Eng. Men of Let. Series; Lewes' Hist, of Philosophy; Ed. Rev., v. 90, From Locke's Conduct of the Understanding. Those who have read of everything arc thought to understand every- thing too, but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge, it is thinking [which] makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment. There arc indeed in some writers visible instances of deep thoughts, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these would give would be of great use, if their readers would observe and imitate them; all the rest at best are but particulars fit to be turned into knowledge; but that can be done only by our own meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said; and then, as far as we ap- prehend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is ours; without that it is but so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory may be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of knowl- edge not increased, by being able to repeat what others have said or produce the arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon weak and wrong principles. Books and reading arc looked upon to be the great helps of the under- standing and instruments of knowledge, as it must be allowed that they are; and yet I beg leave to question whether these do not prove a hin- drance to many, and keep several bookish men from attaining to solid and true knowledge. This I think I may be. permitted to say, that there is no part wherein the understanding needs a more careful and wary conduct than in the use of books: without which they will prove rather innorcnt amusements than profitable employments of our time, and brinir but small additions to our knowledge. There is not seldom to be found even amongst those who aim at knowledge [those] who with an unwearied industry employ their whole Prose Locke's. 207 time in books, who scarce allow themselves time to eat or sleep, but read and read aud read o*n, but yet make no great^idvances in real knowledge, though there be no defect in their intellectual faculties to which their little progress can be imputed. The mistake here is, that it is usually supposed that, by readiug, the author's knowledge is transfused into the reader's understanding; and so it is, but not by bare reading, but by reading and understanding what he writ. Whereby I mean not barely comprehending what is affirmed or denied in each proposition, though that great readers do not always Ihiak themselves concerned precisely to do, but to see and follow the train of his reasonings, observe the strength and clearness of their connection, and examine upon what they bottom. Without this a man may read the discourses of a very rational author, writ in a language and in propositions that he very well under- stands, and yet acquire not one jot of his knowledge; which consist- ing only in the perceived, certain, or probable connection of the ideas made use of in his reasonings, the reader's knowledge is no farther increased than he perceives that so much as he sees of this con- nection so much he knows of the truth or probability of that author's opinions. All that he relics on without this perception he takes upon trust, upon the author's credit, without any knowledge of it at all. This makes me not at all wonder to see some men so abound in citations, ar.d build so much upon authorities, it being the sole foundation on which they bottom most of their own tenets; so that in effect they have but a second- hand or implicit knowledge, i.e., are in the right if such an one from whom they borrowed it were in the right in that opinion which they took from him, which indeed is no knowledge at ail. Writers of this or former ages may be good witnesses of matters of fact which they deliver, which we may do well to take upon their authority ; but their credit can go no farther than this, it cannot at all affect the truth and false- hood of opinions, which have no other sort of trial but reason and proof, which they themselves make use of to make themselves knowing, and so must others too that will partake in their knowledge. Indeed, it is an advantage that they have been at the pains to find out the proofs, and lay them in that order that may show the truth or probability of their conclusions: and for this we owe them great ac- knowledgments for saving us the pains in searching out tbo^e proofs which they have collected for us, and which possibly, after all our pains, we might not have found, nor been able to have set them in so good alight as that which they left them us in. Upon this account we are mightily beholding to judicious writers of all ages for tljme discoveries and dis- 208 Literature of Period V7., 1660-1745. courses they Lave left behind them for our instruction, if we know how to make a right use of them; which is not to run them over in a hasty perusal, and perhaps lodge their opinions or some remarkable passages in our memories, but to enter into their reasonings, examine their proofs, and then judge of the truth or falsehood, probability or improbability of what they advance, not by any opinion we have entertained of the author, but by the evidence he produces, and the conviction he affords us, drawn from things themselves. Knowing is seeing, and, if it be so, it is madness to persuade ourselves that we do so by another man's eyes, let him use ever so many words to tell us that what he asserts is very visible. Till we ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it by our own understandings, we are as much in the dark and as void of knowledge as before, let us believe any learned author as much as we will. Euclid and Archimedes are allowed to be knowing, and to have de- monstrated what they say; and yet, whoever shall read over their writings without perceiving the connection of their proofs, and seeing what they show, though he may understand all their words, yet he is not the more knowing: he may believe indeed, but does not know what they say, and so is not advanced one jot in mathematical knowledge by all the reading of those approved mathematicians. LKSSOIST 38. ALEXANDER POPE. " Pope absorbed and reflected all the elements spoken of under party literature. Born in 1688, he wrote excellent verse at twelve years of age; the Pastorals appeared in 1709, and two years afterwards he took full rank as critical poet in the Essay on Criticism, 1711. The next year saw the first cast of his Rape of the Lock, the ' epos of society under Queen Anne/ and the most brilliant play of wit in English. This closed what we may call liis first period. He now became known to Swift and to Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbrokc, a statesman who was also a writer. With these and with Gay, Parnell, Prior, and Arbuthnot, Pope formed the Scriblerus Club, and soon rose into great fame by his Translation of the Iliad and Odyssey under George I., 1715-1725, for which he received 7,000 pounds. PoetryPope and Others. 209 He now, being at ease, lived at Twickenham, where he had completed his Homer. It was here, retired from the literary mob, that in bitter scorn of the many petty scribblers, he wrote in. 1728 the Dunciad, altered and enlarged in 1741. It was the fiercest of his satires and it closes his second period, which took much of its savageness from the influence of Swift. The third phase of Pope's literary life was closely linked to his friend Bolingbroke. It was in conversation with him that he originated the Essay on Man, 1732-4, and the Imitations of Horace. The Moral Essays, or Epistles to men and women, were written to praise those whom ho loved, and to satirize the bad poets and tlic social follies of the day, and all who disliked him or his party. In the last few years of his life, Bishop War bur ton, the writer of the Legation of Moses and editor of Shakespeare, helped him to fit the Moral Essay* into the plan of which the Essay on Man formed part. War- burton was Pope's last great friend; but almost his only old friend. By 1740 nearly all the members of his literary circle were dead, and a new race of poets and writers had grown up. In 1744 Pope died. He is our greatest master in didactic poetry, not so much because of the worth of the thoughts as because of the masterly form in which they are put. The Essay on Man, though its philosophy is poor and not his own, is crowded with lines that have passed into daily use. The Essay on Criticism is equally full of critical precepts put with exquisite skill. The Satires and Epistles are also didactic. They set virtue and cleverness over against vice and stupidity, and they illustrate both by types of character, in the drawing of which Pope is without a rival in our literature. His translation of Homer is made with great literary art, but for that very reason it does not make us feel the simplicity and directness of Homer. It has neither the manner of Ho- mer nor the spirit of the Greek life, just as Pope's descriptions have neither the manner nor the spirit of nature. 210 Literature of Period F/., 1660-1745. The heroic couplet, in which he wrote his translation and nearly all his work, he used in various subjects with a correct- ness that has never been surpassed, but it sometimes fails from being too smooth, and its cadences too regular. Finally, he was a true artist, hating those who degraded his art, and, at a time when men followed it for money and place and the applause of the club and of the town, he loved it faith- fully to the end for its own sake." "In two directions, in that of condensing and pointing his meaning, and in that of drawing the utmost harmony of sound out of the couplet, Pope carried versification far beyond the point at which it was when he took it up. Because, after Pope, his trick of versification became common property, we are apt to overlook the merit of the first inven- tion. But epigrammatic force and musical flow are not the sole elements of Pope's reputation. The matter which he worked up into his verse has a permanent value, and is indeed one of the most precious heirlooms which the eighteenth century has bequeathed us. And here we must distinguish between Pope when he attempts gen- eral themes, and Pope when he draws that which he knew the social life of his own day. When in the Pastorals he writes of natural beauty, in the Essay on Criticism he lays down the rules of writing, in the Essay on Man he versifies Leibnitzian optimism, he does not rise above the herd of eighteenth century writers, except in so far as his skill of lan- guage is more accomplished than theirs. It is where he comes to describe the one thing which he knew and about which he felt sympathy and antipathy 'the court and town of his time, in the Moral Essays, and the Satires and Epistks, that Pope found the proper material on which to lay out his elaborate workmanship. Where he moralizes or deduces general principles, he is superficial, second-hand, and one-sided as the veriest scribbler. Wherever he recedes from what was immediately close to him, the manners, passions, prejudices, sentiments of his own day, Pope has only such merit little enough as wit divorced from truth can have. He is at his best only where the delicacies and subtle felici- ties of his diction are employed to embody some transient phase of contemporary feeling. The complex web of society, with its indefinable shades, its minute personal affinities and repulsions, is the world in which Pope lived and moved, and which he has drawn in a few vivid lines, with a keenness and intensity with which there is nothing in our literature that can compare.'' Mark Pqttison. Poetry Pope and Others. 211 THE MINOR POETS. "The minor poets who surrounded Pope in the first two thirds of his life did not write in his man- ner nor approach his genius. THOMAS PAR:N T ELL is known by his Hermit, and both he and JOHN" GAY, in his six pastorals, The Shepherd's Week, 1714, touched on country life. Swift's poetical satires were coarse but always hit home, Addison cel- ebrated the battle of Blenheim in the Campaign, and his sweet grace is found in some devotional pieces; while Prior's charm- ing ease is best shown in the light narrative poetry which I may say began with him in the reign of William III. The Black-eyed Susan of Gay and TICKELL'S Colin and Lucy and CAREY'S Sally in our Alley and afterwards GOLDSMITH'S Ed- ivin and Angelina mark the rise of the modern ballad; a class of poetry wholly apart from the genius of Pope. The influence of the didactic and satirical poetry of the criti- cal school is found in Johnson's two satires on the manners of his time, the London, 1738, and the Vanity of Human Wishes, 1749; in ROBERT BLAIR'S dull poem of The Grave, 1743; in EDWARD YOUNG'S Night Thoughts, 1743, a poem on the im- mortality of the soul, and in his satires on The Universal Passion of Fame; in the tame work of Richard Savage, John- son's poor friend; and in the short-lived, but vigorous, satires of Charles Churchill, who died in 1764, twenty years after Savage. The Pleasures of the Imagination, 1744, by MARK AKENSIDE, belongs also in spirit to the time of Queen Anne, and was suggested by Addison's essays in the Spectator on imagination. THE POETRY or NATURAL DESCRIPTION. We have found already traces in the poets of a pleasure in rural things and the emotions they awakened. This appears chiefly among the Puritans, who, because they hated the politics of 'the Stuarts before the civil war and the corruption of the court after it, lived apart from the town in quietude. The best natural de- scription we have before the time of Pope is that of two Puri- tans, Marvell and Milton. 212 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. But the first poem devoted to natural description appeared while Pope was yet alive, in the very midst of a vigorous town poetry. It was the Seasons, 1726-30; and it is curious, remembering what I have said about the peculiar turn of the Scotch for natural description, that it was the work of JAMES THOMSON, a Scotchman. It described the scenery and coun- try 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 descrip- tions were too much like catalogues, the very fault of the pre- vious Scotch poets, and his style was always heavy and often cold, but he was the first poet who led the English people into that new world of nature in poetry, which has moved and enchanted us in the work of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson, but which was entirely impossible for Pope to un- derstand." BIBLIOORAPHV. POPE. Elwin's Life of ; R Bell's "ndS Johnson's Li ves ofEng. Poets; Ward's An,t'iol->jy ; DJ Qaincsv's BLOT. Essays and EWJ,>JS on, the Poets; I. Disraeli's Quarrels of Authors ; L. Stephen's Hours in a Library; Eng. Men of Let. Series; J. T. Fields' Yesterdays with Authors; W. Hewitt's Homes of Brit. Poets ; Thackeray's Eng. Humorists : Lowell's My Study Windows ; Fraser's Mag., v. 48, 1853, and v. 61, 1860; Eel. Mag., Dec.. 1847; N. Br. Rev., v. 75, 1872. THOMSON. Erskine's Essays upon; Howitt's Homzs of Brit. Poets ; S. Johnson's Lives of Eiifj. Poets ; J. Wilson's Recreations ; Eel. Mag., v. 29, 1853; New Monthly, June, 1855, and June, 1858. LESSON 39. From Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, P. Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The dog star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out: Fire in each eye and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walks can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide. By land, by water, they renew the charge. They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. Poetry Pope's. 213 No place is sacred, not the church is free, Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me. Is there a parson much be-mus'd in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza when he should engross? Is there who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls With desp'rate charcoal round his darkeu'd walls? All fly to Twit'iiain. and in humble strain Apply to me to keep them mad or vain. Friend to my life, (which did not you prolong The world had wanted many an idle song) What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love? A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped, If foes, they write, if friends, the3 T read me dead. Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I! Who can't be silent, and who will not lie: To laugh were want of goodness and of grace, And to be grave exceeds all pow'r of face. I sit with sad civility. I read With honest anguish and an aching head: Arjd drop at last, but in unwilling ears, This saving counsel, " Keep your piece nine j-ears." " Nine years!" cries he, who high in Drury-lane Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends, Oblig'd by hunger and request of friends; "The piece, you think, is incorrect? why take it, I'm all submission, what you'd have it make it." Three things another's modest wishes bound, My friendship and a prologue and ten pound. Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents' or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came. I left no calling for this idle trade, No duly broke, no father disobey'd; The muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife, To help me through this long disease, my life, 214 Literature of Period VI. , 1660-1745. To second, Arbuthnot, thy art and care And teach the being you preserv'd to bear. Soft were my numbers; who could take offence While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill; I wish'd the man a dinner, and sate still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd, I was not in debt. If want provok'd, or madness made them print, I wag'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint. Did some more sober critic come abroad ; If wrong, 1 smiled; if right, I kiss'd the rod. Pains, reading, study are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibalds. Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher that lives on syllables, Ev'u such small critics some regard may claim, Preserv'd in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs or straws or dirt or grubs or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the d 1 they got there. Were others angry, I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; But each man's secret standard in his mind, That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, This who can gratify? for who can gurss? The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown, Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year; He who, still wanting, tho' he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left; Poetry Pope's. 215 And he who now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning; And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad It is not poetry but prose run mad; All these my modest satire bade translate And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. How did they fume and stamp and roar and chafe! And swear not Addison himself was safe. Peace to all such! but were there one 1 whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, 2 no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous, eyes, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise ; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserv'd to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieg'd, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars ev'ry sentence raise And wonder with a foolish face of praise: Who but must laugh if such a man there be? Who would not weep if Atticus were he? Oh! let me live my own and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends and read what books I please; Above a patron, tho' I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend. I was not born for courts or great affairs ; I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; 1 This is Pope's famous satire upon Addison. a What is the allusion? 216 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. Can sleep without a poem in my head, Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead. A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead. Let Sporus 1 tremble. A. What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel ? P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoj's, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys. So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way, Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad In puns or politics or tales or lies Or spite or smut or rhymes or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that, acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's temper thus the rabbins have express'd A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest, Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. Not fortune's worshipper nor fashion's fool, Not lucre's madman nor ambition's tool, Not proud nor servile, be one poet's praise That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways; That flattery ev'n to kings he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same. 1 Lord Hervej. Poetry Popets. That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, But stoop'd to truth and moraliz'd his song; That not for fame but virtue's better end He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half-approving wit, The coxcomb hit or fearing to be hit; Laughed at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad; The distant threats of vengeance on his head, The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed ; The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown, Th' imputed trash, and duluess not his own; The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scupe, The libell'd person and the pictur'd shape; Abuse, on all he lov'd or lov'd him, spread, A friend in exile, or a father dead; The whisper, that, to greatness still too near, Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear; Welcome for thee, fair virtue, all the past; For thee, fair virtue, welcome ev'n the last! Of gentle blood (part shed in honor's cause, While yet in Britain honor had applause 1 ,) Each parent sprung A. What fortune, pray? P. Their own, And better got than Bestia's from the throne. Born to no pride, inheriting no strife, Nor marrying discord in a noble wife, Stranger to civil and religious rage, The good man walk'd innoxious through his age. No courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie. Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language but the language of the heart. By nature honest, by experience wise, Healthy by temperance and by exercise, His life, tho' long, to sickness pass'd unknown His death was instant, and without a groan. Oh! grant me thus to live, and thus to die, Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I. O Friend, may each domestic bliss be thine I Be no unpleasing melancholy mine. 18 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky ! On cares like these, if length of days attend, May heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend! Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene, And just as rich as when he serv'd a Queen. A. Whether that blessing be denied or giv'u, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n. LESSON 4O. PROSE LITERATURE. " 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 ago of which I have spoken. JONATHAN SWIFT, born in 1667, was the keenest of political partisans. The Battle of the Books, or the literary fight about the Letters of Phalaris, and the Tale of a Tub, a satire on the Presbyterians and the Papists, made his reputation in 1704 and established him as a satirist. Swift left the Whig for the Tory party, and his political tracts brought him Court favor and literary fame. On the fall of the Tory party at the accession of George I., he retired to the Deanery of St. Patrick in Ireland an embittered man, and the Drapier's Let- ters, 1724, written against Wood's halfpence, gained him popularity in a country that he hated. In 1726 his inven- tive genius, his savage satire, and his cruel indignation with life were all shown in Gulliver's Travels. The voyage to Lil- liput and Brobdingnag satirized 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 Prose Swift, Addis on, and Others. 219 English is more robust than Swift's, no wit more scathing, no life in private and public more sad and proud, no death more pitiable. He died in 1745 hopelessly insane. DAKIEL DEFOE, 1661-1731, was almost as vigorous a polit- ical writer as Swift, but he will live in literature by Robinson Crusoe, 1719. In it he equalled Gulliver's Travels in truth- ful representation, and excelled it in invention. The story lives and charms from day to day. With his other tales it makes him our first fine writer of fiction. But none of his stories are true novels; that is, they have no plot to the work- ing 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. Metaphysical Literature was enriched by the work of BISHOP BERKELEY, 1684-1753. His Minute Philosopher and other works questioned the real existence of matter, and founded on the denial of it an answer to the English Deists, round whom in the first half of the eighteenth century centred the struggle between the claims of natural and of revealed religion. Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and Wollaston, Tindal, Toland, and Collins, on the Deists' side, were opposed by Clarke, by Ben (ley, whose name is best known as the founder of the true school of classical criticism, and by Bishop Warburton. I may mention here a social satire, The Fable of__t]i.J^ 1 SM f by MAKDEVILLE, half poem, half prose dialogue, and finished in 1729. It tried "to prove that the vices of society are the foundation of civilization, and is the first of a new set of books which marked the rise in England of the boM the nature and ground of society which the French Kevolu- tiori afterwards increased. The Periodical Essay is connected with the names of JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719, and SIB , EICHARD STEELE, 1675-mg. This gay, light, and graceful kincTof literature, differing from such Essays as Bacon's as good conversation about a subject 220 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745, . ii- . i f _^r differs from a clear analysis of all its points, was begun in France by Montaigne in 1580. Charles Cotton, a wit of Charles II. 's time, re-translated Montaigne's Essays, and they soon found imitators in Cowley and Sir W. Temple. But the periodical Essay was created by Stcele and Addison. It was published three times a week, then daily, and it was anony- mous, and both these characters necessarily changed its form from that of an Essay of Montaigne. Steele began it in the Tatler, 1709, and it treated of every- thing that was going on in the world. He paints as a social humorist, the whole age of Queen Anne the political and literary disputes, the fine gentlemen and ladies, the characters of men, the humors of society, the new book, the new play; we live in the very streets and drawing-rooms of old London. ^Addison soon joined him, first in the Tatler, afterwards in the Spectator, 1711. His work is more critical, literary, and di- (Jagtic than his companion's. The characters he introduces, such as Roger de Coverlcy, arc finished studies after nature, and their talk is easy and dramatic. No humor is more fine and " tender; and, like Chaucer's, it is never bitter. The style adds to the charm, and it seems to grow out of the subjects treated of. Addison's work was a great one, lightly done. The- Spec- tator, the Guardian, and the Freeholder, in his hands, gave a better tone to manners, and a gentler one to political and liter- ary criticism. The essays published every Friday were chiefly on literary subjects, the Saturday essays chiefly on religious subjects. The former popularized literature, so that culture spread among the middle classes and crept down to the coun- try; the latter popularized 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." "Addison, appearing at a time when English literature was at a very low ebb, made an impression which his writings would not now pro- Prose Swift, Addison, and Others. 221 ducc, and won a reputation which was then his due, but which has long survived his comparative excellence. Charmed by the gentle flow of his thought, which, neither deep nor strong, neither subtle nor strug- gling with the obstacles of argument, might well flow easily, by his lambent humor, his playful fancy (he was very slenderly endowed with imagination), and the healthy tone of his miud, the writers of his own generation and those of the succeeding half century placed him upon a pedestal, in his right to which there has since been almost unquestioning acquiescence. He certainly did much for English literature, and more for English morals aud manners, which in his day were sadly in need of elevation and refinement. But, as a writer of English, he is not to be compared, except with great peril to his reputation, to at least a score of men who have flourished in the present century, and some of whom are now living." R. O. While. " That which chiefly distinguishes Addison from almost all the other great masters of ridicule is the grace, the nobleness, the moral purity which we find even in his merriment. If, as Soaine Jeuyus oddly ima- gined, a portion of the happiness of seraphim and just men made perfect be derived from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, their mirth must surely be none other than the mirth of Addisou ; a mirth consistent with tender compassion for all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that is sublime. Nothing grcnt, nothing amiable, no moral duty, no doctrine cf natural or revealed religion has ever been associated by Addison with any degrading idea. His human- ity is without a parallel in literary history. It may be confidently affirmed (hat he has blackened no mnn's character, nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find in all the volumes which he has left us a single taunt which can be called ungenerous or un- kind." Maca-ulay. BIBLIOGRAPHY. SWIFT. J. Forster's Life of: Eng. Men. of Let. Series: Jeffrey's Essays; S. Johnson's Lives of Eng. Poets; Thackeray's Eng. Humorists; Minto's Man. Eng. Prose Lit ; Ward's Anthology; Br. Quar. Rev., Oct., 1854: Black. Map:., v. 74, 1853; Tracer's Mao:., v. 01. 1850, and v. 76, 1867; N. A. Rev., Jan., 1868: N. Br. Rev., v. 51. 1870: Eel. Maf*.. May and Oct., 1849. DEFOE. W. Chad wick's Life and Times of : J. Forster's Hist, and Biog. Essays; Minto's Man. Eng. Pr. Lit.; L. Stephen's Hours in a Library; Eng. Men of Let. Series: Br Quar. Rev.. Oct.. 1869: Quar. Rev., v. 101, 1857; Cornhill Ma?*, v. 17, 1868. ADDISON. Minto's Man. Eng. Pr. Lit.; Eng. Men of Let. Series; Macaulay's Es- says; Hewitt's Homes and Haunts of Brit. Poets; S. Johnson's Lives of Eng. Poets; Taine's Hist. Eng. Lit.; Thackeray's Eng. Humorists, and in Henry Esmond; N. A. Rev., v . 79, 1851: Eel. Mag., Sept., 1874, and Apr., 1879. 222 Literature of Period VI., 1660-1745. From Addisou's Spectator.. I have now considered Milton's Paradise Lost under those four great Leads of the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language; and have shown that he excels, m general, under each of these heads. I hope that I have made several discoveries which may appear new even to those who are versed in critical learning. Were 1 indeed to choose my readers, by whose judgment 1 would stand or fall, they should not be such as are acquainted only with the French and Italian critics, but also with the ancient and moderns who have written in ei'her of the learned languages. Above all, 1 would have them well versed in the Greek and Latin poets, without which a man very often fancies that he understands a critic, when in reality he does not comprehend his meaning. It is in criticism, as in all other sciences and speculations; one who brings with him any implicit notions and observations which he has made in his reading of the poets, will find his own reflections method- ized and explained, and perhaps several little hints, that had passed in his mind, perfected and improved in the works of a good critic; whereas one \vl:o has not these previous lights is very often an utter stranger to what he reads, and apt to put a wrong interpretation upon it. Nor is it sufficient that a man who sets up for a judge in criticism should have perused the authors above-mentioned, unless he has also a clear and logical head. Without this talent he is perpetually puzzled and perplexed amidst his own blunders, mistakes the sense of those he would confute, or, if he chances to think right, does not know how to convey his thoughts to another with clearness and perspicuity. Aristotle, who was the best critic, was also one of the best logicians that ever ap- peared in the world. Mr. Locke's Essay on The Human Understanding would be thought a very odd book for a man to make himself master of, who would get a reputation by critical writings; though at the same time it is very certain that an author who has not learned the art of distinguishing be- tween words and things, and of ranging his thoughts and setting them in proper lights, whatever notions he may have, will lose himself in confusion and obscurity. I might further observe that there is not a Greek or a Latin critic who has not shown, even in the style of his criti- cisms, that he was a master of all the elegance and delicacy of his na- tive tongue. The truth of it is, there is nothing more absurd than for a man to set up for a critic, without a good insight into all the parts of learning; whereao many of those who have endeavored to signalize themselves by Prose Addition's. 223 works of this nature among our English writers are not only defective in the above-mentioned particulars but plainly discover by the phrases which they make use of, and by their confused way of thinking, that they are not acquainted with the most common and ordinary systems of arts and sciences. A few general rules extracted out of the French authors, with a certain cant of words, have sometimes set up an illiterate heavy writer for a most judicious and formidable critic. One great mark by which you may discover a critic who has neither taste nor learning is this, that he seldom ventures to praise any passage in an author which has not been before received and applauded by the public, and that his criticism turns wholly upon little faults and errors. This part of a critic is so very easy to succeed in that we find every ordinary reader, upon the publishing of a new poem, has wit and ill- nature enough to turn several passages of it into ridicule, and very often in the right place. This Mr. Drydeu has very agreeably remarked in those two celebrated lines: Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below. A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfec- tions, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation. The most ex- quisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are these, which a sour, uudis- tinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence. Tully observes that it is very easy to brand or fix a mark upon what he calls verbum ardens, or, as it may be rendered into English, a glowing bold expression, and to turn it into ridicule by a cold, ill-natured criticism. A little wit is equally capable of exposing a beauty and of aggravating a fault; and, though such a treatment of an author naturally produces indignation in the mind of an understanding reader, it has, however, its effect among the generality of those whose hands it falls into, the rabble of mankind bein-g very apt to think that everything which is laughed at with any mixture of wit is ridiculous in itself. Such a mirth as this is always unseasonable in a critic, as it rather prejudices the reader than convinces him, and is capable of making a beauty, as well as a blemish, the subject of derision. A man who can- not write with wit on a proper subject is dull and stupid, but one who shows it in an improper place is as impertinent and absurd. Be- sides, a man who has the gift of ridicule is very apt to find fault with 224 Literature of Period VI. , 1660-1745. anything that gives him an opportunity of exu'ting his beloved talent, and very often censures a. passage, not because there is any fault in it, but because he can be merry upon it. Such kinds of pleasantry are very unfair and disingenuous in works of criticism, in which the greatest masters, both ancient and modern, have always appeared with a serious and instructive air. As I intend in my next paper to show the defects in Milton's Paradise Lost, I thought fit to premise these few particulars, to the end that the reader may know I enter upon it, as on a very ungrateful work, and that I shall just point at the imperfections, without endeav- oring to inflame them with ridicule. I must also observe with Longinus that the productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertencies, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author which are scrupulously exact and conformable to all the rules of correct writing. I shall conclude my paper with a story out of Boccalini which suf- ficiently shows us the opinion that judicious author entertained of the sort of critics I have been here mentioning. A famous critic, says he, having gathered together all the faults of an eminent poet, made a pres- ent of them to Apollo, who received them very graciously, and re- solved to make the author a suitable return for the trouble he had been at in collecting them. In order to this he set before him a sack of wheat, as it had been just threshed out of the sheaf. He then bid him pick out the chaff from among the corn, and lay it aside by itself. The critic applied himself to the task with great industry and pleasure, and, after having made the due separation, was presented by Apollo with the chaff for his pains. FURTHER READING. The Sir Roger de Coverley papers, published in pamphlet form by Clark & Maynard. SCHEME FOB REVIEW. Historical Sketch 187 Change of Style and Subj . 188 Transition Poets. . . .191 f Satirist. 192 j Lyrist. 193 ] Dramatist 194 fi (.Extract from 196 | [Theological and Political.. 201 1 1 Miscellaneous and Party. . 203 * [Extract from Locke 206 Pope's Three Periods 208 The Minor Poets 211 Poetry of Natural Descrip- tion 211 Extract from Pope 212 Swift 218 Defoe 219 Berkeley 219 Addison and Steele 219 Extract from Addisou . . 223 PERIOD VII. FROM SWIFT'S DEATH TO THE FRENCH EEVOLTJTION, 1745-1789. 41. Brief Historical Sketch. Invasion by second Pretender, son of the first, 1745. Battle of Culloden, Apr. 16, 1746. England begins, 1755, the French and Indian War, closed by Treaty of Paris in 1763. Olive's Battle of Plassey in India, 1757. Eng. aids Frederic the Great in the Seven Years' War against Austria, France, and Russia, begun 1756. Era of the Elder Pitt, the Great Commoner, afterward Lord Chatham, the third quarter of this century. Under Clive the East India Co. con- quers a large part of India, 1755-67. Geo. III. succeeds Geo. II., 1760. His influence over his ministry almost supreme. Wilkes' Controversy, 1762-82. Stamp Act, 1764. Repeal of it, 1765. Watt invents Steam Engine, 1765, patents it, 1781. Arkwright's Spinning Machine, 1768. Regulation Acts, 1774. First great English Journals date from about 1770. Right of the press to criticise Parliament, ministers, and even the sovereign now established. Death of Chatham, 1778. American Revolution begins, 1775. Lord George Gordon Riots, 1780. American Independence acknowledged by Treaty of Paris, 1783. The Younger Pitt made Prime Minister, 1784. Mail Coaches introduced, 1784. East Indian possessions vastly increased by Warren Hastings, 1774^85. Arti- cles of impeachment presented against him by Burke, 1786. Trial began 1788, lasting till 1795, and resulting in his acquittal. Howard's Reform of prisons and prison discipline, 1774-90. French Revolu- tion, 1789. 226 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. 42. PROSE LITERATURE. "The rapid increase of manufac- tures, science, and prosperity which began with the middle of the eighteenth century is paralleled by the growth of Litera- ture. The general causes of this growth were: 1. A good prose style had been perfected, and the method of writing being made easy, production increased. Men were born, as it were, into a good school of the art of composition, and the boy of eighteen had no difficulty in making sentences which the Elizabethan writer could not have put together after fifty years of study. 2. The long peace after the. accession of the House of Han- over had left England at rest, and given it wealth. The re- claiming of waste tracts, and the increased wealth and trade made better communication necessary; and the country was soon covered with a network of highways. The leisure gave time to men to think and write: the quicker interchange be- tween the capital and the country spread over England the literature of the capital, and stirred men everywhere to write. The coaching services and the post carried the new book and the literary criticism to the villages, and awoke the men of genius there, who might otherwise have been silent. 3. The Press sent far and wide the news of the day, and grew in importance till it contained the opinions and writinsg of men like Canning. Such seed produced literary work in the country. Newspapers now began to play their part in litera- ture. They rose under the Commonwealth, but became im- portant when the censorship which reduced them to a mere broadsheet of news was removed after the Ee volution of 1688. The political sleep of the age of the first two Georges hin- dered 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, the Press claimed and Prose The Novel Fielding and Others. 227 obtained the right to criticise the conduct and measures of Ministers and Parliament and the King; and, after the strug- gle in 1771, the right to publish and comment on the debates in the two Houses. The great English Journals, the Morning Chronicle, the Post, the Herald, and the Times, gave an enormous impulse within the next twenty years to the production of books, and created a new class of literary men the Journalists. Later on, in 1802, the publication of the Edinburgh Revieiv, and afterwards of the Quarterly Review and Blackwood's Maga- zine, started another kind of prose writing, and by their criticisms on new books improved . and stimulated litera- ture. 4. Communication with the Continent had increased during the peaceable times of Walpole, and the wars that followed made it still easier. With its increase, two new and great outbursts of literature told upon England. France sent the works of 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 to the social and poli- tical life of man. Afterwards, the fresh German move- ment, 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 George III." " It seems as if a simple and natural prose were a thing which we might expect to come easy to communities of men, and to come early to them ; but we know from experience that it is not so. Poetry and the poetic form of expression naturally precede prose. We see this in ancient Greece. We see prose forming itself there gradually and with labor; we see it passing through more than one stage before it attains to thorough propriety and lucidity, long after forms of consummate ade- quacy have already been reached and used in poetry. It is a people's growth in practical life, and its native turn for developing this life and 228 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. for making progress in it which awaken the desire for a good prose a prose, plain, direct, intelligible, serviceable. The practical genius of our people could not but urge irresistibly to the production of a real prose style, because, for the purposes of modern life, the old English prose, the prose of Milton and Taylor, is cumber- some, unavailable, impossible. A dead language, the Latin, for a long time furnished the nations of Europe with an instrument of the kind superior to any which they had yet discovered in their own tongue. But such nations as England and France, called to a great historic life, and with powerful interests and gifts, were sure to feel the need of having a sound prose of their own, and to bring such a prose forth. They brought it forth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; France first, afterwards England." Matthew Arnold. THE NOVEL. " The novel is perhaps the most remarkable of the forms literature now took. It began in the reign of George II. No other books have ever produced so plentiful an offspring as the novels of Kichardson, Fielding, and Smol- lett. The novel arranges and combines round the passion of love and its course between two or more persons a number of events and of characters, which, in their action on one another, develop the plot of the story and bring about a sad or a happy close. The story may be laid at any time, in any class of society, in any place. The whole world and the whole of human life lie before it as its subject. Its vast sphere ac- counts for its vast production its human interest for its vast numbers of readers. .SAMUEL EiCHABDSOisr, 1689-1761 Awhile Pope was yet alive, wrote in the form of letters, and in two months' time, Pamela, 1740, and afterwards Clarissa Harlowe, 1748, and Sir Charles Grandison. The second is the best, and all are celebrated for their subtile and tender drawing of the human heart. They are novels of Sentiment; and their intense minuteness of detail gives them reality. Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett followed him with the novel of Eeal life, full of events, adventures, fun, and vivid painting of various kinds of life in England. Prose The Novel Fielding and Others. 229 FIELDING, 1707-1754, began with Joseph Andrews, 1742; SMOLLETT, 1721-1771, with Roderick Random, 1748. Both wrote many other stories, but in truthful representation of common life, and in the natural growth and winding up of the story, Fielding's Tom Jones. 1749^ is our English master-piece and model. Ten years thus sufficed to create an entirely new literature. LAURENCE STERJSTE^ 1713-1768, in his Tristram Shandy, 1759^ introduced the novel of Character in which events are few. His peculiar vein of labyrinthine humor and falsetto sentiment has been imitated, but never attained. We mention Johnson's Rasselas, 1759. as the first of our Didactic tales, and the Fool of Quality, by HE^RY BROOKE, as the first of our Theological tales. 'Under George III. new forms of fiction appeared. GOLD- SMITH'S Vicar of Wakefidfl, 1766^ was the first, and perhaps the most charming, of all those novels which we may call IdyllicPwEicn describe the loves and the simple lives of country people in country scenery. Miss BUR:CTEY'S Evelina, 1778, and Cecilia were the first novels of Society. MRS. IKCHBALD'S Simple Story, 1791, introduced the novel of Passion, and MBS. RADCLIFFE, in her wild and picturesque tales, the Romantic novel." BIBLIOGRAPHY. RICHARDSON. D. Masson's Brit. Novelists; Mrs. Oliphant's Hist. Sketches; L. Stephen's Hours in a Library; Fort. Rev., v, 12, 1869; Fraser's Mag., v. 62. 1860, and v. 71, 1865; West. Rev., v. 91, 1869. FIELDING. Thackeray's Eng. Humorists; Whipple's Essays and Reviews; Forsyth's Novels and Novelists; Scott's Lives of the Novelists; Black. Mag., v. 87, 1860; Fraser's Mag., v. 57, 1858, and v. 61, 1860; N. Br. Rev., v. 24, 1855; Qiiar. Rev., v. 98, 1856. STERNE. P. Fitzgerald's Life of ; Thack.'s Eng. Humorists; Scott's Lives of the Novelists; Tuckerman's Essays; Black. Mag., v. 97, 1865; Nat. Rev., v. 18, 1864; N. A. Rev., v. 81, 1865, and v. 107, 1868; Quar. Rev., v. 94, 1854. From Fielding's Tom Jones. Mr. Jones, being at last in a state of good spirits, agreed to carry an appointment, which he had before made, into execution. This was to attend Mrs. Miller and her youngest daughter into the gallery at the playhouse, and to admit Mr. Partridge as one of the company. For, as Jones had really that taste for humor which many affect, he expected 230 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. to enjoy much entertainment in the criticisms of Partridge; from whom he expected the simple dictates of nature, unimproved, indeed, but like- wise unadulterated, by art. In the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said it was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time without putting one another out. While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, "Look, look, madam; the very picture of the man in the end of the common prayer-book, before the gunpowder treason service." Nor could he help observing with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, that here were candles enough burned in one night to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelvemonth. As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones what man that was in the strange dress; "something," said he, " like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armor, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost/' To which Partridge replied with a smile, " Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one, if I saw him, better than that comes to. No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that, neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighborhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue till the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage. " O la! sir," said he, " I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of anything, for I know it is but a play; and, if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much company; and yet, if I was frightened, I am not the only person." " Why, who, "cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here besides thyself?" "Nay, you may call me coward if you will; but, if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay; go along with you! Ay, to be sure! Who's fool, then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness! What- Prose Fielding's. 231 ever happens it is good enough for you. Follow you? I'd follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is. the devil for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases. Oh! here he is again. No farther! No, you have gone far enough already ; farther than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions." Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush, hush, dear sir, don't you hear him?" And, during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes fixed partly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet succeeding likewise in him. When the scene was over, Jones said, " Why, Partridge, you exceed my expectations. You enjoy the play more than I conceived possible." "Nay, sir," answered Partridge, "if you are not afraid of the devil, I can't help it; but, to be sure, it is natural to be surprised at such things, though I know there is nothing in them: not that it was the ghost that surprised me, neither; for I should have known that to have been only a man in a strange dress; but, when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me." " And dost thou imagine then, Partridge," cries Jones, " that he was really frightened?" "Nay, sir," said Partridge, "did not you yourself observe after- wards, when he found it was his own father's spirit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been, had it been my own case. But hush! O la! what noise is that? There he is again. Well, to be certain, though I know there is nothing at all in it, I am glad I am not down yonder where those men are." Then, turning his eyes again upon Hamlet, " Ay, you may draw your sword; what signifies a sword against the power of the devil?" During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king's countenance. "Well," said he, "how people may be deceived by faces! Who would think, by looking in the king's face, that be had ever committed a murder?" He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction than that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire. Partridge sat in fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cried out, " There, sir, now; what say you now? is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you think me; and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears. I would not be in so bad a condition as what's his name? Squire Hamlet is there, 232 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. for all the world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth. " "Indeed you saw right," answered Jones. "Well," cries Partridge, "I know it is only a play; and besides, if there was anything in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for, as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. There, there; ay, no wonder you are in such a passion; shake the vile, wicked wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother, I should serve her so. To be sure, all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings. Ay, go about your business; I hate the sight of you." Our critic was now pretty silent till the play which Hamlet intro- duces before the king. This he did not at first understand, till Jones explained it to him ; but he no sooner entered into the spirit of it than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then turning to Mrs. Miller, he asked her if she did not imagine the king looked as if he was touched; "though he is," said he, "a good actor, and doth all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so much to answer for as that wicked man there hath, to sit upon a much higher chair than he sits upon. No wonder he ran away; for your sake I'll never trust an innocent face again." The grave-digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, who expressed much surprise at the number of skulls thrown upon the stage. To which Jones answered that it was one of the most famous burial- places about town. " No wonder, then," cries Partridge, " that the place is haunted. But I never saw in my life a worse grave-digger. I had a sexton, when I was clerk, that should have dug three graves while he is digging one. The fellow handles a spade as if it was the first time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing. You had rather sing than work, I believe." Upon Hamlet's taking up the skull, he cried out, "Well! it is strange to see how fearless some men are; I never could bring myself to touch anything belonging to a dead man, on any ac- count. He seemed frightened enough, too, at the ghost, I thought." Little more worth remembering occurred during the play; at the end of which Jones asked him which of the players he had liked best. To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, " The king, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." Prose History, Biography, and Travels. 233 "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but, indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other. Any- body may see he is an actor." Thus ended the adventure at the playhouse, where Partridge had afforded great mirth net only to Jones and Mrs. Miller but to all who sat within hearing, whc were more attentive to what he said than to anything that passed on the stage. He durst not go to bed all that night for fear of the ghost ; and, for many nights after, sweated two or three hours, before he went to sleep, with the same apprehensions, and waked several times in great horrors, crying out, " Lord have mercy upon us! there it is." LESSOTST 43. HISTORY. "History, to which we now turn, was raised into the rank of literature in the latter half of the eighteenth cen- tury by three men. JDAVID HUME'S History of England, finished 1761, is, in the importance it gives to letters, in its clear narrative and style, and in the writer's endeavor to make it a philosophic whole, our first literary history. Of DE. ROBERTSON'S His- tories of Scotland, of Charles F., and of America, the two last are literary by their descriptive and popular style, and show how our historical interests were reaching beyond our own land. EDWARD GIBBON, 1737-1794, excelled the others in his iTecline and Pall of the Homan Empire, completed in 1788. The execution of his work was as accurate and exhaustive as a scientific treatise. Gibbon's conception of the whole sub- ject was as poetical as a great picture. Rome, eastern and 234 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. western, was painted in the centre, dying slowly like a lion. Around it he pictured all the nations and hordes that wrought its ruin, told their stories from the beginning, and the results on themselves and on the world of their victories over Rome. The collecting and use of every detail of the art and costume and manners of the times he described, the reading and use of all the contemporary literature, the careful geographical detail, the marshalling of all this information with his facts, the great imaginative conception of the work as a whole, and the use of a full, and perhaps too heightened, style to add importance to the subject gave a new impulse and a new model to historical literature. The contemptuous tone of the book is made still more remarkable by the heavily-laden style, and the monotonous balance of every sentence. The bias Gibbon had against Christianity illustrates a common fault of historians. The historical value of Hume's history was spoiled by his personal dislike of the principles of our Revo- lution." "The faults of Gibbon's style are obvious enough, and its compensa- tory merits are not far to seek. No one can overlook its frequent tumid- ity and constant want of terseness. It lacks suppleness, ease, variety. It is not often distinguished by happy selection of epithet, and seems to ignore all delicacy of nuance. A prevailing grandiloquence, which eas- ily slides into pomposity, is its greatest blemish. It seems as if Gibbon had taken the stilted tone of the old French tragedy for his model, rather than the crisp and nervous prose ef the best French writers. We are constantly offended by a superfine diction lavished on barbarous chiefs and rough soldiers of the Lower Empire, which almost reproduces the high-flown rhetoric in which Corneille's and Racine's characters address each other. Such phrases as the 'majesty of the throne,' ' the dignity of the purple,' the 'wisdom of the senate ' recur with a rather jarring monotony, especially when the rest of the narrative was designed to show that there was no majesty nor dignity nor wisdom involved in the matter. We feel that the writer was thinking more of his sonorous sen tence than of the real fact. On the other hand, nothing but a want of candor or taste can lead any one to overlook the rare and great excellences of Gibbon's style. Prose History, Biography, and Travels. 235 First of all, it is singularly correct a rather common merit now, but not common in his day. But its sustained vigor and loftiness will al- ways be uncommon; above all, its rapidity and masculine length of stride are quite admirable. When he takes up his pen to describe a campaign or any great historic scene, we feel that we shall have some- thing worthy of the occasion, that we shall be carried swiftly and grandly through it all, without the suspicion of a breakdown of any kind's being possible. An indefinable stamp of weightiness is impressed on Gibbon's writing; he has a baritone manliness which banishes everything small, trivial, or weak. On the whole, we may say that his manner, with cer- tain manifest faults, is not unworthy of his matter, and the praise is great." J. C. Morrison. BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS, "These are linked at many points to History. The first was lifted into a higher place in literature by JOHNSON'S Lives of the Poets, 1779-81, and by BOSWELI/S Life of Johnson, 1791. The production of books of Travel, since James Bruce left for Africa in 1762 till the pres^ ent day, has increased as rapidly almost as that of the Novel, and there is scarcely any part of the world that has not been visited and described. In this way a vast amount of materials has been collected for the use of philosophers, poets, and his- torians. Travel has rarely produced literature, but it has been one of its assistants. Classic Comedy may be said to be represented by Tfie Goodnatured Man and She Stoops to Conquer of GOLDSMITH, and by The Rivals and the School for Scandal of SHERIDAN, all of which appeared between 1768 and 1778. Both men were Irishmen, but Goldsmith has more of the Celtic grace, and Sheridan of the Celtic wit. With Sheridan we may say that the history of the English drama closes." BIBLIOGRAPHY. HUME, ROBERTSON, and GIBBON. Eng. Men of Let. Series ; H. Brougham's Lives of Men of Let.; J. Forster's Crit. Essays ; Hume's My Own Life ; Contem. Rev., v. 11, 1869 ; E. Lawrence's Lives of Brit. Hist.; Bagehot's Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen; Sainte Beuve's Eng. Portraits; Eel. Mag., Nov., 1852. 236 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. From Gibbon's Decline and Fall. The noblest of the Greeks and the bravest of the allies were sum- moned to the palace to prepare them, on the evening of the 28th, for the duties and dangers of the general assault. The last speech of Palae- ologus was the funeral oration of the Roman Empire; he promised, he conjured, and he vainly attempted to infuse the hope which was extin- guished in his own mind. In this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and neither the gospel nor the church has proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their country. But the example of their prince and the confinement of a siege had armed these warriors with the courage of despair; and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful assembly. They wept, they embraced ; regard- less of their families and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor and some faithful com- panions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque, and devoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion. He reposed some mo- ments in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured; and mounted on horseback to visit the guards and explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Ca3sars. In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes succeed; but in this great and general attack, the military judgment and astro- logical knowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the morning, the memorable 29th of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian era. The preceding night had been strenuously employed : the troops, the cannon, and the fascines were advanced to the edge of the ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched with the prows and their scaling-ladders the less defensible walls of the harbor. Under pain of death, silence was enjoined; but the physical laws of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual might sup- press his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and labor of thousands must inevitably produce a strange confusion of dissonant clamors, which reached the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At daybreak, without the customary signal of the morning-gun, the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of Prose Gibbon 1 s. 237 their line of attack. The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host, a voluntary crowd, who fought without order or command; of the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall ; the most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet of the Christians was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence; the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death was more service- able than the life. Under their respective bashaws and sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led to the charge; their progress was various and doubtful; but, after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained and improved their advantage ; and the voice of the emperor was heard, encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last effort, the de- liverance of their country. In that fatal moment, the janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the spectator and judge of their valor; he was surrounded by ten thousand of his domestic troops whom he re- served for the decisive occasions; and the tide of battle was directed and impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of justice were posted behind the line to urge, to restrain, and to punish; and, if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were in the rear of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and attaballs; and experience has proved that the mechanical operation of sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits, will act on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of reason and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman Empire. The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections; the skilful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science; but, in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood and horror and confusion: nor shall I strive, at the distance of three centuries and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which there could be no spec- tators, and of which the actors themselves were incapable of forming any or adequate idea. 238 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain appalled the courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceived and stopped by the indefatigable emperor. ' ' Your wound, " exclaimed Palae- ologus, "is slight; the danger is pressing; your presence is necessary; and whither will you retire?" "I will retire," said the trembling Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;" and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the honors of a military life ; and the few days which he survived in Galata, or the isle of Chios, were em- bittered by his own and the public reproach. His example was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to aheap of ruins; in a circuit of several miles, some places must be found more easy of access or more feebly guarded ; and, if the besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was irrecover- ably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward was Hassan, the janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his scimitar in one hand, and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward fortifica- tion ; of the thirty janizaries who were emulous of his valor eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit; the giant was precipitated from the rampart; he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was possible; the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage-ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who ac- complished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen, and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his person, sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of Palaeologus and Cantacuzene; his mournful exclamation was heard, " Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple; amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death, resistance and order were no more; the Greeks fled towards the city, and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass Prose Political and Miscellaneous. 239 of the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the breaches of the inner wall, and, as they advanced into the streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar on. the side of the harbor. In the first heat of their pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the sword ; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty, and the victors acknowledged that they should imme- diately have given quarter, if the valor of the emperor and his chosen bauds had not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part 01 the capital. It was thus, afk-r a siege of fifty-three days, that Constan- tinople was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet II. Her em- pire only had been subverted by the Latins ; her religion was trampled, in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. LESSON 44. PHILOSOPHICAL AND POLITICAL LITERATURE. " These weiv both stimulated by the great movement of thought on all sub- jects pertaining to the natural rights of man which was led by Voltaire and Rousseau. In philosophy the historian David Hume led the way, and the transparent clearness of his style gave full force to opinions which made utility the only meas- ure of virtue, and the knowledge of our ignorance the only certain knowledge. In Political Literature, EDMUND BUEKE, born 1731, ia our greatest, almost our only, writer of this time. From 1756 to 1797, when he died, his treatises and speeches proved their right to the title of literature by their extraordinary influence on the country. Philosophical reasoning and poetic passion were wedded together in them on the side of conserv- atism, and every art of eloquence was used with the mastery that imagination gives. His Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1773, was perhaps the best of his works in point of style. All Burke's work is more literature than oratory. Many of his speeches enthralled their hearers, but many more put them to sleep. The very men, however, who slept under him in the House read over and over again the same speech, when 240 Literature of Period VIL, 1745-1789. published, with renewed delight. Goldsmith's praise of him, that he ' wound himself into his subject like a serpent/ gives the reason why he sometimes failed as an orator, why he always succeeded as a writer." " The varieties of Burke's literary or rhetorical method are very strik- ing. It is almost incredible that the superb imaginative amplification of the description of Hyder Ali's descent upon the Carnatic should be from the same pen as the grave, simple, unadorned Address to the King, 1777, where each sentence falls on the ear with the accent of some gold- en-ton gued oracle of the wise gods. His stride is the stride of a giant, from the sentimental beauty of the picture of Marie Antoinette at Versailles to the learning, positiveness, and cool, judicial mastery of the Report on the Lords' Journals, 1794. Even in the coolest and dryest of his pieces, there is the mark of greatness, of grasp, of comprehension. In all its varieties Burke's style is noble, earnest, deep-flowing, because his sentiment was lofty and fervid, and went with sincerity and ardent disciplined travail of judgment. Burke had the style of his subjects, the amplitude, the weight-mess, the laboriousness, the sense, the high flight, the grandeur, proper to a man dealing with imperial themes the freedom of nations, the justice of rulers, the fortunes of great socie- ties, the sacredness of law. Burke will always be read with delight and edification, because, in the midst of discussions on the local and the accidental, he scatters apothegms that take us into the regions of lasting wisdom. In the midst of the torrent of his most strenuous and passionate deliverances, he sud- denly rises aloof from his immediate subject, and in all tranquility re- minds us of some permanent relation of things, some enduring truth of human life or society. We do not hear the organ tones of Milton, for faith and freedom had other notes in the seventeenth century. There is none of the complacent and wise-browed sagacity of Bacon, for Burke's were days of eager, personal strife and party fire and civil division. We are not exhilarated by the cheerfulness, the polish, the fine man- ners of Bolingbroke, for Burke had an anxious conscience, and was earnest and intent that the good should triumph. And yet Burke is among the greatest of those who have wrought marvels in the prose of our English tongue. " John Morky. POLITICAL ECONOMY. " Before Burke, anew class of politi- cal writings had arisen which concerned themselves with \ social and economical reformj The immense increase of the Prose Political and Miscellaneous. 241 industry, wealth, and commerce of the country, from 1720 to 1770, aroused inquiry into the laws that regulate wealth, and ADAM SMITH, 1 723-1790, a professor at Glasgow, who had in 1759 written his book on the Moral Sentiments, published in 1776 the Wealth of Nations. By its theory, that labor is the source of wealtn, and that to give the laborer 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 commerce were stumbling-blocks in the way of the wealth of any state, he created the Science of Political Economy, and started the theory and practice of Free Trade. All the questions of labor and capital were now placed on a scientific basis, and since that time the literature of the whole of the subject has engaged great thinkers. Connected with this were all the writings on the subjects of the_^0w and education and reform. MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. During the whole of the time from the days of Adclison onwards, the finer literature of prose had flourished. With SAMUEL JOHNSON-, born 1709, began the literary man such as we know him in modern times, who, independent of patronage or party, lives by his pen, and finds in the public his only paymaster. The Essay was con- tinued by him in his Rambler, 1750-2, and Idler, but, in these papers, lightness, the essence of Addison's and Steele's Essays in the Spectator and Tatler, is not found. His celebrated letter to Lord Chesterfield gave the death- blow to patronage. The great Dictionary "of the English Language, 1755, at which he worked unhelped, and which he published without support, was the first book that appealed solely to the public. He represents thus a new class. But he was also the last representative of the literary king who, like Dryden and Pope, held a kind of court in London. "When he died, 1784, London was no longer the only literary centre, and poetry and prose were produced from all parts of the country." 242 Literature of Period VIL, 1745-1789. "Johnson's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical, spasmodic action. The most obvi- ous peculiarity is the tendency, which he noticed himself, to use too big words and too many of them. It was not, however, the mere bigness of the words that distinguished his style, but a peculiar love of putting the abstract for the concrete, of using awkward inversions, and of bal- ancing his sentences in a monotonous rhythm, which give the appearance, as they sometimes correspond to the reality, of elaborate, logical dis- crimination. With all its faults the style has the merits of masculine directness. The inversions are not such as to complicate the construction. As Bos- well remarks, he never uses a parenthesis; and his style, though pon- derous and wearisome, is as transparent as the smarter snip-snap of Macaulay. This singular mannerism appears in his earliest writings; it is most marked at the time of the Rambler; whilst, in the Lives of the Poets, although I think that the trick of inversion has become com- moner, the other peculiarities have been so far softened as to be inof- fensive." Leslie Stephen. " GOLDSMITH'S Citizen of the World, a series of letters sup- posed to be written by a Chinese traveller in England, and collected in 1762, satirizes the manners and fashionable fol- lies of the time. Several other series followed, but they are now unreadable. One man alone in our own century caught the old inspiration, and with a humor less easy, but more subtile, than Addison's. It was Charles Lamb, in the Essays of JEJlia, and the fineness of perception he showed in these was equally displayed in his criticisms on the old dramatists. The miscellaneous literature of the latter half of the eigh- teenth century includes, also, the admirable Letters of GRAY, the poet; THOMAS WARTON'S History of English Poetry, which founded a new school of poetic criticism; the many collections of periodical essays, all of which ceased in 1787; Burke's Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and, Beautiful; and the Letters of Junius, political invectives, written in a style which has preserved them to this day." BIBLIOGRAPHY. BURKE. T. Macknight's Life and Times of; Eng. Men of Let. Series; J.Timbs' Anecdote Biog.\ Brougham's Sketches of Statesmen; F. D. Mau- Poetry Gray, Goldsmith, and Others. 243 rice's Friendship of Books ; S. Rogers' Recollections ; Minto's Man, of Eng. Pr. Lit.; G. Croly's Hist. Sketches ; Eel. Mag., Jan. and Feb., 1852, and Feb. and March, 1862; N. A. Rev., v. 88, 1859. JOHNSON. Boswell's Life of ; Hawthorne's Our Old Home; Macaulay's Essays; Eng. Men of Let. Series: A. Murphy's Essay on Life and Genius of; N. Drake's Essays; T. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship; Ed. Rev., Oct., 1859; Quar. Rev., v. 103, 1858, and v. 105, 1859; Allibone's Crit. Dictionary. JUNIUS. C. Chabot's The Hand-Writing of Junius professionally investigated' J. Jaques' Hist, of Junius and His Works; De Quincey's Lit. Reminiscences; J. Forster's Crit. Essays; West. Rev., Oct., 1871; Quar. Rev., Apr., 1871; Temple Bar, Oct., 1873. 45. POETEY. THE ELEMENTS AND FORMS OF THE NEW POETRY. "The period we are now studying may not improperly be called a time of transition in poetry. 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. 1. The study of the Greek and Latin classics revived, and with it a more artistic poetry. Not only correct form, for which Pope sought, but beautiful form was sought after. Men like Thomas Gray and William Collins strove to pour into their work that simplicity of beauiy whicn tHe Greek poets and Italians like Petrarca had reached as the last result of genius restrained by art. Their poems, published between 1746 and 1757, re- main apart as a unique type of poetry. The refined work- manship of these poets, their manner of blending together natural feeling and natural scenery, their studious care in the choice of words are worthy of special study. 2. The study of the Elizabethan and of the earlier poets like Chaucer and of the whole course of poetry in England was taken up with great interest. Shakespeare 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 Odeon the Progress of Poesy illustrates this new interest. Thomas Warton wrote his History of English 244 Literature of Period VIL, 1745-1789. Poetry, 1774-78, and in doing so gave fresh material to the poets. They began to take delight in the childlikeness and naturalness of Chaucer as distinguished from the artificial and critical verse of the school of Pope. Shakespeare was studied in a more accurate way. Pope's, Theobald's, Sir Thomas Hanmer's, and Warburton's editions of Shakespeare were suc- ceeded by Johnson's in 1765; and Garrick, the actor, began the restoration of the genuine text of Shakespeare's plays for the stage. Spenser formed the spirit and work of some poets, and T. Warton wrote an essay on the Faerie Queen. WILLIAM SHEN- STONE'S Schoolmistress, 1742, was one of these Spenserian poems, and so was the Castle of TndoJ^^e. 1748. by JAMES TIIOMSOX, author of the tieasniiN. JAMES BKATTIE, in the" Minstrel, 1774,~a"6!io!acTic poemjlollo wed the stanza and man- ner of Spenser. A new element, interest in the romantic past, was added by the publication of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 1765. JThe narrative ballad and^ the^narrative romance, afterwards taken up and perfected by Sir Walter Scott, now struck their roots afresh in English poetry. Men began to seek among the ruder times of history for wild, natural stories of human life; and the pleasure in these increased and accompanied the growing love of lonely, even of savage, scenery. The Ossian, 1762, of JAMES MACPHERSOST, which gave itself out as a translation of Gaelic epic poems, is an example of this new element. Still more remarkable in this way were the poems of THOM- AS CHATTEBToy, the ' marvellous boy,' who died by his own hand, m i?70, at the age of seventeen. They were imitations of old poetry. He pretended lo have discovered, in a muni- ment room at Bristol, the Death o^jSir^Charles Bawdin and other poems by an imaginary monk named Thomas Rowley. Written with quaint spelling, and with a great deal of lyrical invention, they raised around them a great controversy. J Poetry Gray, Goldsmith, and Others. 245 may mention as an instance of the same tendency, even before the Reliques, Gray's translations from the Norse and British poetry, and his poem of the Bard, in which the bards of Wales are celebrated. CHANGE OF STYLE. We have seen how the natural style of the Elizabethan poets had ended by producing an unnatural style. In reaction from this, the critical poets set aside natural feeling, as having nothing to do with the expression of thought in verse, and wrote according to rules of art which they had painfully worked out. Their style in doing this lost life and fire; and, losing these, lost art, which has its roots in emotion, and gained artifice, which has its roots in intellectual analysis. Being unwarmed by any natural feeling, it became as un- natural, considered as a poetic style, as that of the later Eliza- bethan poets. We may sum up, then, the whole history of the style of poetry from Elizabeth to George I. the style of the first-rate poets being excepted in these words: Nature without Art, and Art without Nature, had reached similar hut not identical results in style. But in the process two things had been learned. First, *\ that artistic rules were necessary, and, secondly, that natural | feeling was necessary in order that poetry should have a style' fitted to express nobly the emotions and thoughts of man. The way was therefore now made ready for a style in which the Art should itself be Nature, and it sprang at once into being in the work of the poets of this time. The style of Gray and JTInTHna is polished to the finest point, and yet is instinct with natural feeling. Goldsmith is natural even to simplicity, and yet his verse is even more accurate than Pope's. Cowper's jstyle, in such poems as the Lines to his Mother's Picture, and in lyrics like the Loss of the Royal George, arises out of the simplest pathos, and yet is as jmre in expression as Greek poetry. The work was then done; but as yet the element of fervent passion did not enter into poetry. We shall see how that came in after 1789. 246 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. CHANGE OF SUBJECT NATURE. Up to the age of Pope the subject of man was treated, and we have seen how many phases it went through. There remained the subject of Na- ture 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 used only as a background to the "picture of human life. It now begun to take a much larger place in poetry, and after a time grew to occupy a dis- tinct place of its own apart from Man. The impulse given by Thomson to poetry of this kind was soon followed. Men left the town to visit the country and record their feelings. WILLIAM SOMERVILLE'S Chase, 1735, and JOHN" DYEK'S Grongar Hill, 1726, a description of a journey in South Wales, and his Fleece, 1757, are full of country sights and scenes: even Akenside mingled his spuri- ous philosophy with pictures of solitary natural scenery. Foreign travel now enlarged the love of nature. The Let- ters of GRAY, 1716-1771, some of the best in the English lan- guage, describe natural scenery with a minuteness quite new in English Literature. In his poetry he used the description of nature as ' its most graceful ornament,' but never made it the subject. In the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, and in the Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, natural sce- nery is interwoven with reflections on human life, and used to point its moral. COLLINS observes the same method in his Ode on the Passions and the Ode to Evening. There is, then, as yet no love of nature for its own sake. A further step was made by OLIVER GOLDSMITH^ 1728-74, in his Traveller, 1764, a sketch of national manners and gov- ernments, and in his Deserted Village, 1770- He describes natural scenery with less^emotion than Collins, and does not moralize it like Gray. The scenes he paints are pure pictures, and he has no personal interest in them. The next step was made by men like the two Wartons and by John Logan, 1782. Their poems do not speak of nature Poetry Gray, Goldsmith, and Others. 243 and human life, but of nature and themselves. They see the reflection of their own joys and sorrows in the woods and streams, and for the first time the pleasure of being alone with nature apart from men became a distinct element in modern poetry. In the later poets it becomes one of their main subjects. These were the steps towards that love of nature for its own sake which we shall find in the poets who followed Cowper. One poem of the time almost anticipates it. It is the Minstrels, 1771, of JAMES BEATTIE. This poem represents a young poet educated almost altogether by lonely communion with and love of nature, and both in the spirit and in the treatment of the first part of the story resembles very closely Wordsworth's description of his own education by nature, in the beginning of the Prelude, and the history of the peddler in the first book of the Excursion." " Goldsmith was peculiarly happy in writing bright and airy verses; the grace and lightness of his touch have rarely been approached. The Deserted Village is one of the most graceful and touching poems in the English language. It is clear bird-singing; but there is a pathetic note in it. No one better knew than himself the value of those finished and musical lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem, the grace and sweetness and tender pathetic charm of which make it one of the literary treasures of the English people.'' William Black. BIBLIOGRAPHY. GRAY. Mitforetry of the poor and the ballad. We have not mentioned it since Sir David Lyndsay, for, with the exception of stray songs, its voice was silent for a century and a half. It revived in ALLAN RAMSAY, a friend of Pope and Gay. His light pieces of rus- tic humor were followed by the Tea Table Miscellany and the Ever-Green, collections of existing Scottish songs mixed up with some of his own. They carried on the song of rural life and love and humor which Burns perfected. Ramsey's pas- toral drama of the Gentle Shepherd, 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, and his occasional pieces, 1773, are chiefly concerned with the rude and humorous life of Edinburgh. The Ballad, always continuous in Scotland, took a more mod- ern but very pathetic form in such productions as Auld Robin Gray and the Flowers of the Forest, a mourning for those who fell at Flodden Field. The peculiarities I have dwelt on already continue in this revival. There is the same nation- ality, the same rough wit, the same love of nature, but the / / r love of color has lessened. 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. 1. They represent the new elements. The Poetical Sketches, written in 1777, illustrate the new study of the Elizabethan poets. Blake imitated Spenser, and, in his short fragment of Edward 111., we near again and again the note of Marlowe's violent imagination. A short poem To the Muses is a cry for the restoration to English poetry of the old poetic passion it had lost. In some ballad poems we trace the influence rep- resented by Ossian and given by the publication of Percy's Reliques. 250 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. 2. We find also in his work certain elements which belonged to the second period of which I shall now speak. The love ^)f animals is one. A great love of children and the poetry of home is another. He also anticipated, in 1789 and 1794, when his Songs of Innocence and Experience were written, the simple natural poetry of ordinary life which "Words worth per- fected in the Lyrical Ballads, 1798. Further still, we find in these poems traces of the democratic element, of the hatred of priestcraft, and of the Avar with social wrongs which came much later into English poetry. We even find traces of the mysticism and the search after the problem of life that fill so ^i^MMMMMMM. ^^^^^W much of our poetry after 1832. i 3. But that which is most special in Blake is his extraordi- nary reproduction of the spirit, tone, and ring of the Eliza- bethan songs, of the inimitable innocence and fearlessness J which belong to the childhood of a new literature. The lit- tle poems too in the Songs of Innocence, on infancy and first motherhood, and on subjects like the Lamb, are without rival in our language for ideal simplicity and a perfection of singing 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 and ghastly hor- ror. Blake stands alone in our poetry, and his work coming where it did, between 1777 and 1794, makes it the more re- markable. We turn now to William Oowper, who represents fully and more widely than either Crabbe or Burns the new elements on which I have dwelt. WILLIAM COWPER, The first poems of WILLIAM COWPER, 1731-1800, were the Olney Hymns, 1779, written along wME John Newton, and in these the religious poetry of Charles Wesley was continued. The profound personal religion, gloomy even to insanity as it often became, which fills the whole of Oowper's poetry, introduced a theological element into English poetry which continually increased till within the last ten years, when it has gradually ceased. Poetry Cowper. 251 His didactic and satirical poems, 1782, link him backwards to the last age. His translation of Homer, 1791, and of shorter pieces from the Latin and Greek, connects him with the classical influence, his interest in Milton with the revived study of the English Poets. The playful and gentle vein of humor which he showed in John Gilpin and other poems re- minds us of Addison, and opened a new kind of verse to poets. With this kind of humor is connected a simple pathos of which Cowper is our greatest master. The Lines to Mary Unwin and to his Mother's Picture prove, with the work of Blake, that pure natural feeling, wholly free from artifice, had returned to English song. A wholly new element 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 de- scription of himself and his life in the country, his home, his friends, his thoughts as he walked, the quiet landscape of Olney, the life of the poor people about him, mixed up with disquisitions on political and social subjects, and, at the end, a prophecy of the victory of the Kingdom of G-od. The change in it in relation to the subject of Nature is very great. Cow- per is the first poet who loves Nature entirely for her own sake. He paints only what he sees, but he paints it with the affection of a child for a flower and with the minute ob- servation of a man. The change in relation to the subject of Man is equally great. The idea of Mankind as a whole, which we have seen growing up, is fully formed in Cowper's mind. The range of his in- terests is as wide as the world, and all men form one brother- hood. All the social questions of Education, Prisons, Hospitals, city and country life, the state of the poor and their sorrows, the question of universal freedom and of slavery, of human wrong and oppression, of just and free government, of inter- national intercourse and union, and, above all, the entirely 252 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. new question of the future destiny of the race, as a whole, are introduced by Cowper into English poetry. And though splendor and passion were added, by the poets who succeeded him, to the new poetry, yet they worked on the thoughts he had laid down, and he is their leader." " Cowper is one of the first symptoms, if not the originator, of a revolution in style which is soon to become a revolution in ideas. The ' clear, crisp English ' of his verse is not the work of a man who be- longs to a school, or follows some conventional pattern. It is for his amusement, he repeats again and again in his letters, that he is a poet; just as it has been for his amusement that he has worked in the garden and made rabbit-hutches. He writes because it pleases him, without a thought of his fame or of contriving what the world will admire. The Task, his most characteristic poem, is indeed a work of great labor; but the labor is not directed, as Pope's labor was directed, to- wards methodizing or arranging the material, towards working up the argument, towards forcing the ideas into the most striking situations. The labor is in the cadences and the language; as for the thoughts, they are allowed to show themselves just as they come, in their natural order, so that the poem reads like the speech of a man talking to himself. To turn from a poem of Cowper's to a poem of Pope's, or even of Goldsmith's, is to turn from one sphere of art to quite another, from unconscious to conscious art. ' Formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery,' as Sou they said. And how much that means! It means that the day of critical, and so-called classical, poetry is over; that the day of spontaneous, natural, romantic poetry has begun. Burns and Wordsworth are not yet, but they are close at hand. We read Cowper not for his passion or for his ideas, but for his love of nature and his faithful rendering of her beauty, for his truth of portraiture, for his humor, for his pathos; for the refined honesty of bis style, for the melancholy interest of his life, and for the simplicity and the loveli- ness of his character." Thomas H. Ward. BIBLIOGRAPHY. COWPER. Cowper's Letters; Southey's Life of ; Bagehot's Esti- mates of some Eng. and Scotchmen; F. Jeffrey's Essays; Thomson's Celebrated Friendships; Eng. Men of Let. Series; Ward's Anthology; Black. Mag., v. 109,1871; Fort. Rev., v. 3, 1865; Fraser's Mag., v. 64, 1861;. Nat. Quar. Rev., v. 7, 1863; N. Br. Rev., v. 22, 1854; Quar. Rev., v. 107, 1860. Poetry Cowper' s. 253 47. Cowper's On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine thy own sweet smiles I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, "Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!" The meek intelligence of those dear eyes- Blest be the art that can immortalize, The art that, baffles time's tyrannic claim To quench it here shines on me still the same. Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, welcome guest, though unexpected here, Who bidst me honor with an artless song, Affectionate, a mother lost so long, 1 will obey, not willingly alone But gladly, as the precept were her own. And, while that face renews my filial grief, Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, A momentary dream that thou art she. My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if sou-Is can weep in bliss Ah, that maternal smile ! it answers Yes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial-day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu. But was it such ? It was. Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting sound shall pass my lips no more. Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return, 254 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. What ardently I wished I long believed, And, disappointed still, was still deceived; By disappointment every day beguiled, Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, I learned at last submission to my lot, But, though 1 less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin day by day Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capped, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession ! but the record fair That memory keeps of all thy kindness there Still outlives many a storm that has effaced A thousand other themes less deeply traced. Thy nightly visits to my chamber made That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, The biscuit or confectionery plum ; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed; All this, and more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and breaks That humor interposed too often makes; All this, still legible in memory's page, And still to be so to my latest age, Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honors to thee as my numbers may; Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the piuk, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin Poetry Cowper^ s. 255 And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak and stroke my head and smile Could those few pleasant hours again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? I would not trust my heart the dear delight Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might. But no what here we call our life is such, So little to be loved, and thou so much, That I should ill requite thee to constrain Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed) Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, There sits quiescent on the floods that show Her beauteous form reflected clear below, While airs, impregnated with incense, play Around her, fanning light her streamers gay; So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore " Where tempests never beat nor billows roar." And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchored by thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, Always from port withheld, always distressed, Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tost, Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost, And day by day some current's thwarting force Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he ! That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. My boast is not that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth; But higher far my proud pretensions rise The son of parents passed into the skies! And now, farewell Time, unrevoked, has run His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again; To have renewed the joys that once were mine, Without the sin of violating thine, 256 Literature of Period VII. , 1745-1789. And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, And I can view this mimic show of thee, Time has but half succeeded in his theft Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. From TJie Task The Winter Evening. Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her un wrinkled face reflected bright, He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn, And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some, To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all. But oh the important budget! ushered in With such heart-shaking music who can say What are its tidings? Have our troops awaked? Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave? Is India free? and does she wear her plumed And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, And the loud laugh I long to know them all; I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, And give them voice and utterance once again. Poetry Cowper's. 257 Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. O Winter 1 ruler of the inverted year, Thy scattered air with sleet like ashes filled, Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fringed with, a beard made white with other snows Thau those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car,' indebted to no wheels, But urged by storms along its slippery way, I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemest, And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold'st the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning east, Shortening his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, Down to the rosy west; but kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering, at short notice, in one group The family dispersed, and fixing thought, Not less dispersed by daylight and its carea, I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed retirement and the hours Of long, uninterrupted evening know. No rattling wheels stop short before these gates; No powdered pert, proficient in the art Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors Till the street rings; no stationary steeds Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, The silent circle fan themselves and quake: But here the needle plies its busy task, The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower, Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, Unfolds its bosom ; buds and leaves and sprigs 258 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, Follow the nimble finger of the fair; A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blow With most success when all besides decay. The poet's or historian's page, by one Made vocal for the amusement of the rest, The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds The touch from many a trembling chord strikes out, And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, And in the charming strife triumphant still, Beguile the night, and set a keener edge On female industry: the threaded steel Flies swiftly, and, unfelt, the task proceeds. LESSON 48. BtJENS. " One element, the passionate treatment of love, had been on the whole absent from our poetry since the Restoration. It was restored by ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796. In his love songs we hear again, only with greater truth of natural feeling, the same music which in the age of Elizabeth enchanted the world. It was as a love-poet that he began to write, and the first edition of his poems appeared in 1786. He was not only the poet of love, but also of the new excitement about Man. Himself poor, he sang the poor. Neither poverty nor low birth made a man the worse the man was ' a man for a' that' He did the same work in Scot- land in 1786 which Crabbe began in England in 1783 and Cowper 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 the new tender- ness for animals. The birds, sheep, cattle, and wild creatures of the wood and field fill as large a space in the poetry of Burns as in that of Wordsworth and Coleridge. He carried on also the Celtic elements of Scotch poetry, but he mingled them with others specially English. The rattling fun of the Jolly Beggars and of Tarn o'Shanter is united to a life-like painting of human character which is peculiarly Poetry Burns. 259 English. A certain large gentleness of feeling often made his wit into that true humor which is more English than Celtic, and the passionate pathos of such poems as Mary in Heaven is connected with this vein of humor, and is also more English thau Scotch. The special nationality of Scotch poetry is as strong in Burns as in any of his predecessors, but it is also mingled with a larger view of man than the merely national one. Nor did he fail to carry on the Scotch love of nature, though he shows the English influence in using natu- ral description, not for the love of nature alone, hut 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. With Robert Burns poetry written in the Scotch dialect may be said to say its last word of genius, though it lingered on in JAMES HOGG'S pretty poem of Kilmeny in The Queen's Wake, 1813, and continues a song-making existence to the present day." "Burns' poetry shares with all poetry of the first order of excellence the life and movement not of one age but of all ages, that which belongs to what Wordsworth calls ' the essential passions ' of human nature. It is the voice of nature which we hear in his poetry, and it is of that nature one touch of which makes the whole world kin. It is doubtful whether any other poet, ancient or modern, has evoked as much per- sonal attachment of a fervid and perfervid quality as Burns has been able to draw to himself. It is an attachment the amount and quality of which are not to be explained by anything in the history of the man, anything apart from the exercise of his genius as a poet. What renders it at all intelligible is, that human nature, in its most ordinary shapes, is more poetical than it looks, and that, exactly at those moments of its consciousness in which it is most truly, because most vividly and power- fully and poetically, itself, Burns has a voice to give to it. He is not the poet's poet, which Shelley no doubt meant to be, or the philosopher's poet, which Wordsworth, in spite of himself, is. He is the poet of homely human nature, not half so homely or prosaic as it seems. The passions which live in his poetry and by which it lives are the essential passions of human nature. His imagination, humor, pathos, the qualities in respect to which his genius is most powerful 260 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. and opulent, are without reserve placed at their disposal and submitted to their dictation. His claim to be considered the first of song-writers is hardly disputed. His lyrical passion drew its strength from various and opposite sources, from the clashing experiences, habits, and emo- tions of a nature which needed nothing so much as regulation and harmony. But it is itself harmony as perfect as the song of the linnet and the thrush piping to a summer evening of peace on earth and glory in the western sky. Whatever the poet's eye had seen of beauty, or his heart had felt of mirth or sadness or madness, melts into and be- comes a tone, a chord of music of which, but for one singer, the world should hardly have known the power to thrill the universal heart." John Service. BIBLIOGRAPHY. BURNS. Chambers' Life and Works of ; T. Carlyle's Essays ; Eng. Men of Let. Series ; H. Giles' Illus. of Genius ; Howitf s Homes and Haunts of Brit. Poets; John Wilson's Essays; Ward's Anthology; H. Miller's Essays; At. Monthly, v. 6, 1860; Nat. Quar. Rev., v, 6, 1863, and v. 18, 1869; N. Br. Rev., v. 16, 1851-2. Burns' Afton Water. Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 1 Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise; My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro' the glen, Ye wild, whistling black birds in }'on thorny den, Thou green -crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear, I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair. How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills, Far marked with the courses of clear, winding rills; There daily I wander as noon rises high, My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow; There oft as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea, 2 The sweet scented birk 3 shades my Mary and me. Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, And winds by the cot where my Mary resides; How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, As, gathering sweet flowrets, she stems thy clear wave. i Declivities. * Fie i d . s Birch-tree. Poetry Burns' s. 261 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. For A' That and J.' That. Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward-slave, we pass him by We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure, and a' that, The rank is but the guinea's stamp The man's the gowd l for a' that. What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin-grey, 2 and a' that? Gie 3 fools their silks, and knaves their wine A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that; The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that. Ye see yon birkie, 4 ca'd a lord, Wha struts and stares and a' that; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof 5 for a' that : For a' that, and a' that, His ribband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that. A prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest roan's aboon 6 his might, Gude faith, he mauna fa' that! 7 For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities and a' that; ' Gold. 2 Coarse woollen cloth. 3 Give. * Conceited fellow. 6 Ninny. Above. 7 Must not try that. 262 Literature of Period V77., 1745-1789. The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Are higher rank than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree l and a' that: For a' that, and a' that, It's com in' yet for a' that, That man to man, the world 2 o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that! To a Mountain Daisy. Wee, modest, crimson -tipped flow'r, Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure 3 Thy slender stem: To spare thec now is past my pow'r, Thou bonie gem. Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonie Lark, companion meet! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet! 4 "WT 6 speckl'd breast, When upward springing, blythe, to greet The purpling East. Cauld blew the bitter-biting North Upon thy early, humble birth; Yet cheerfully tliou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, High-shelt'ring woods and wa's 6 maun shield; But thou, beneath the random bield 1 O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble 8 -field, Unseen, alane. * Be victor. a A dissyllable. Dust. Moisture. s With. * Walls. 7 Shelter. 8 Dry stubble. Poetry Burns' s. There, in thy scanty mantle clad. Thy snawie bosoin sun- ward spiead, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise; But now the share 1 uptears thy bed, And low thou lies! Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow 'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid Low i' the dust, Such is the fate of simple bard, On life's rough ocean luckless starr'dl Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o'er! Such fate to suffering worth is giv'u, Who long with wants and woes has striv'n, By human pride or cunning driv'n To mis'ry's brink, Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but heav'n, He, ruin'd, sink! Ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, That fate is thine no distant date; Stern ruin's plough-share drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom! My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing. She is a winsome 2 wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonie wee thing, Tliis sweet wee wife o' mine. - Plougfi-sbare. Light-hearted 264 Literature of Period VII., 1745-1789. I never saw a fairer, - I never lo'ed a dearer, And neist 1 my heart I'll wear her, For fear my jewel tine.'-' She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonie wee thing, This sweet wee wife o' mine. The warld's wrack 3 we share o't, The warstle 4 and the care o't; Wi' her I'll blythely bear it, And think my lot divine. Epistle to a Young Friend. I lang hoc thought, my youthfu' friend, A something to have sent you, Tho' it should serve nae other end Than just a kind memento; But how the subject-theme may gang, 5 Let time and chance determine; Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps, turn out a sermon. Ye'll try the world soon, my lad, And, Andrew dear, believe me, Yc'll find mankind an unco squad 8 And muckle they may grieve ye: For care and trouble set your thought, Ev'n when your end's attained; And a' your views may come to nought, When cv'ry nerve is strained. I'll no say men are villains a'; The real, hardened wicked Wha hae nae check but human law . Are to a few restricked. But, och! mankind are unco weak, An' little to be trusted; If self the wavering balance shake, It's rarely right adjusted ! Next. a TO lose. 3 Trouble. Struggle. 5 Co. Strange crew. Poetry Burns' s. 265 Yet they wha fa' 1 in fortune's strife, Their fate we shouldna censure, For still the important end of life They equally may answer: A man may hae an honest heart, Tho' poortith 8 hourly stare him; A man may tak a neebor's part Yet hae nae cash to spare him. Aye free, aff-han', 3 your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony; But still keep something to yoursc Ye scarcely tell to ony. 4 Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can Frae critical dissection; But keek 5 thro' ev'ry other man Wi' sharpen'd, sly inspection. The sacred lowe 6 o' weel-plac'd lex Luxuriantly indulge it; But never tempt th' illicit rove, Tho' naething should divulge it: I wave the quantum 7 o' the sin, The hazard o' concealing ; But, och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling! To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile Assiduous wait upon her; And gather gear 8 by ev'ry wile That's justified by honor: Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant, But for the glorious privilege Of being independent. The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip To haud 9 the wretch in order; But where ye feel your honor grip 10 Let that aye be your border: i Who fall. Poverty. Off-hand. Any. 6 TV^p. 8 Flame. 7 Amount. Riches. 9 Hold. 10 Touched. 266 Literature of Period V7/., 1745-1789. Its slightest touches, instant pause Debar a' side pretences; And resolutely keep its laws, Uncaring consequences. <"~ The great Creator to revere Must sure become the creature : But still the preaching cant forbear, And ev'u the rigid feature; Yet ne'er with wits profane to range Be complaisance 1 extended ; An atheist laugh's a poor exchange For Deity offended! When ranting round in pleasure's ring, Religion may be blinded; Or, if she gie 2 a random sting, It may be little minded; But when on life we're tempest-driv'n, A conscience but 3 a canker, A correspondence fix'd wi' Hcav'n Is sure a noble anchor! Adieu, dear, amiable youth! Your heart can ne'er be wanting! May prudence, fortitude, and truth Erect your brow undaunting! In ploughman phrase, " God send you speed," 4 Still daily to grow wiser; And may ye better reck the rede 6 Then ever did th' Adviser! Highland Mary. Ye banks and braes find streams around The castle o' MontgomerjM Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie: 6 There simmer 7 first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry; For there I took the last farcweel O' my sweet Highland Mary. Courtesy. Give. 8 Without. * Success. 6 Heed the advice. Muddy. 7 Summer. Poetry -^-Burns' $. How sweetly bloomed the gay, green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom, As underneath their fragrant shade I clasped her to my bosom ! The golden hours on angel wings Flew o'er me and my dearie; For dear to me, as light and life, Was my sweet Highland Mary. Wi' niony a vow and locked embrace Our parting was fu' tender; And, pledging aft to meet again, We tore oursels asunder: But, oh ! fell -death's untimely frost, That nipt my flower sae early! Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay That wraps my Highland Mary. O pale, pale now, those rosy lips I aft hae kissed sae fondly 1 And closed for aye the sparkling glance That dwelt on me sae kindly! And mould'ring now in silent dust That heart thatlo'cd me dearly! But still within my bosom's core Shall live my Highland Mary. SCHEME FOR REVIEW. V Historical Sketch 225 f A Good Style 226 The Long Peace 226 The Press 226 .Continental Influence. 227 ^ [Richardson 228 1 1 j Sterne and Goldsmith. 229 r fc [Fielding Extract 229 Hume and Gibbon 233 Biography and Travels. 235 Extract from Gibbon.. 236 Philosophical Plume 239 Political Burke, A. Smith 239 Miscellaneous Johnson . . 241 Study of Classics Revived. 243 Study of Chaucer and the Elizabethan Poets 243 Interest in the Past 244 Change of Style 245 Nature the Subject 246 Man the Subject 248 Scottish Poetry 249 Blake's Poetry 249 Man and Nature in Cow- per's Poetry 250 Extracts from 253 Burns the Love-Poet 258 Extracts from.. . 260 PERIOD VIII. FROM THE FRENCH KEVOLUTION ONWARDS, 1789 . I/ESSON 49, Brief Historical Sketch. In 1793 war began with France; it ended June 18, 1815. Vaccination introduced, 1796. Rebellion in Ireland put down, 1800. Union of Ireland with England, 1800. Undulatory theory of light established, 1802. Battle of Trafalgar and death of Nelson, 1805. Death of Pitt, 1806. Slave Trade abolished, 1807. Against Napoleon's Berlin decree, 1806, which made it lawful for French vessels to seize neutral vessels sailing from English ports with English merchandise, the celebrated retaliatory Orders in Council are issued, 1807, declaring France and all subject states in a state of blockade and that vessels attempting to trade with their ports may be seized. In 1807 the American Congress retaliates with the Embargo, and in 1809 prohibits intercourse with England and France till the re- strictions on neutral commerce are relaxed. War declared against the U. S.in 1812, ended, 1814. Streets of London first lighted with gas, 1814. Holy Alliance formed, 1815. First steamer, the Savannah, crosses the Atlantic, 1819. George IV. comes to the throne, 1820. Roman Catholics admitted to Parliament, 1829. First Railway, from Liverpool to Manches- ter, 1830. Wm. IV. succeeds Geo. IV., 1830." Reform Bill, 1832. Slavery abolished in British colonies, 1833. East India trade thrown open, 1833. Great "Tractarian Movement" by Newman, Pusey, and Keble begun, 1833. System of National Education begun, 1834. Victoria succeeds William IV., 1837. The Opium War with China, 1839. Penny Postage, 1840. Transportation for Crime abandoned, 1840. Ashburton Treaty respecting our N. E. boundary, 1842. Potato famine in Ireland, 1845. Treaty determining the boundary of Oregon, 1846. Corn Laws repealed, 1846. French Revolution and flight of Louis Philippe do England, 1848. Suppression of the Chartists and of Irish rebels, 1848. Peel's death, 1850. Crystal Palace Exhibition, 1851. Crimean War, 1854-5. Sepoy Mutiny in India, 1857-8. East India Co. abolished, and sovereignty of \ Prose Novels Scott and Others. 269 India transferred to the Crown, 1858. Jews admitted to Parliament, 1858. Death of Prince Albert, 1861. Civil War in the U. S., 1861-5. First Cable between Europe and America, 1866 . Irish Church dis-estab- lished, 1869. Abolition of religious tests in the Universities and of pur- chase in the army, 1871. Alabama Claims Treaty negotiated at Wash- ington, 1871. Tribunal of Arbitration meets at Geneva, same year, and awards for loss of ships and cargoes and for interest, $15,500,000. Victoria becomes Empress of India, 1876. Irish Land Bill, 1881. LESSON 5O. PROSE NOVELS. "The interest kindled in political ques- tions by the French Revolution showed itself in a new class of novels, and the Political stories of HOLCROFT and WILLIAM GODWIN opened a new realm to the novelist, while the latter excluded love altogether from his story of Caleb Williams. MRS. OPIE made Domestic life the sphere of her graceful and pathetic stories, 1806. Miss EDGEWORTH, in her Irish stories, gave the first impulse to the novel of National character, and, in her other tales, to the novel with a Moral purpose, 1801- 1811. Miss AUSTEN, 1775-1817, with 'an exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from truth of description and sentiment,' produced the best stories we have of everyday English society. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion were all written between 1811 and 1817. SIR WALTER SCOTT, 1771-1832, the great Enchanter, now began the long series of his novels. Men are still alive who well remember the wonder and delight of the land when Waverley, 1814, was published. In the rapidity of his work, Scott recalls the Elizabethan time. Guy Mannering, his next tale, was written in six weeks. The Bride of Lammermoor, as great in fateful pathos as Romeo and Juliet, was done in a fortnight. His national tales, such as TJie Heart of Midlothian and The Antiquary, are written as if he saw directly all the char- 270 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 acters and scenes, and, when he saw them, enjoyed them so much that he could not help writing them down. And the art with which this was done was so inspired that, since Shake- speare, there is nothing we can compare to it. ' All is great in the Waverley Novels,' says Goethe, 'material, effects, charac- ters, execution.' In the vivid portraiture and dramatic telling of such tales as Kenilworth and Quentin Durward, he created the Historical Novel. His last tale of power was the Fair Maid of Perth in 1828; his last effort in 1831 was made the year before he died. He raised the whole of the literature of the novel into one of the greatest influences that bear on the human mind. The words his uncle once said to him may be applied to the work he did, ' God bless thcc, Walter, my man! Thou hast risen to be great, but thou wast always good.' " " I do not think one of bis successors can compare with him for a moment in the ease and truth with which he pointed not merely the life of his own time and country seldom, indeed, that of precisel} 7 his own time but that of days long past, and often, too, of scenes far distant. Scott needed a certain largeness of type, a strongly marked class-life, and, where it was possible, a free, out-of-doors life, for his delineations. No one could paint beggars and gipsies and wandering fiddlers and mercenary soldiers and peasants and farmers and lawyers and magistrates and preachers and courtiers and statesmen and, best of all, perhaps, queens and kings with anything like his ability. But, when it came to describing the small differences of manner, differences not due to external habits so much as to internal sentiment or education or mere domestic circumstance, he was beyond his proper field. And it was well for the world that it was so. The domestic novel, when really of the highest kind, is no doubt a perfect work of art, and an unfailing source of amusement; but it has nothing of the tonic influence, the large instructiveness, the stimulating air of Scott's historic tales. His conception of women of his own or of a higher class was always too romantic. He hardly ventured, as it were, in his tenderness for them, to look deeply into their little weaknesses and intricacies of charac- ter. With women of an inferior class he had not this feeling. But once make a woman beautiful or in any way an object of homage to him, and !5cott bowed so low before the image of her that he could not go deep Prose Scott's. 271 into her heart. He could no more have analyzed such a woman, as Thackeray analyzed Lady Castlewood or Amelia or Becky, or as George Eliot analyzed Rosamond Vmcy, than he could have vivisected Camp or Maida 1 . To some extent, therefore, Scott's pictures of women remain something in the style of the miniatures of the last age bright and beautiful beings without any special character in them. But then how living are his men, whether coarse or noble!" Richard II. Hutton. BIBLIOGRAPHY. SCOTT. Lockhart Life of; D. Masson's Brit. Novelists; W. H. Prescott's Miscellanies; Bulwer's Crit. Writings; Carlyle's Essays; Eng. Men of Let. Series; L. Stephen's Hours in a Library; H. MartineaiTs Miscellanies; Harper's Month., vs. 26, 36, 43, and 44; N. A. Rev., v. 87, 1858; Quar. Rev., v. 124, 1868; Alli- bone's Crit. Dictionary. From Scott's Guy Mannering. This was Abel Sampson, commonly called, from his occupation as a pedagogue, Dominie Sampson. He was of low birth, but having evinced, even from his cradle, an uncommon seriousness of disposition, the poor parents were encouraged to hope that their bairn,* as they ex- pressed it, "might wag his pow 3 in a pulpit yet." With an ambitious view to such a consummation, they pinched and pared, rose early and lay down late, ate dry bread and drank cold water, to secure to Abel the means of learning. Meantime, his tall, ungainly figure, his taciturn and grave manners, and some grotesque habits of swinging his limbs and screwing his visage while reciting his task made poor Sampson the ridicule of all his school-companions. The same qualities secured him at Glasgow College a plentiful share of the same sort of notice. Half the youthful mob of " the yards" used to assemble regularly to see Dom- inie Sampson (for he had already attained that honorable title) descend the stairs from the Greek class, with his lexicon under his arm. his long misshapen legs sprawling abroad, and keeping awkward time to the play of his immense shoulder blades, as they raised and depressed the loose and threadbare black coat which was his constant and only wear. . When he spoke, the efforts of the professor (professor of divinity, though he was) were totally inadequate to restrain the inextinguishable laughter of the students, and sometimes even to repress his own. The long, sallow visage, the goggle eyes, the huge under jaw, which ap- peared not to open and shut by an act of volition, but to be dropped and hoisted up again by some complicated machinery within the inner man, the harsh and dissonant voice, and the screech-owl notes to which 1 His favorite dogs. * Child. Head, 272 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 it was exalted when he was exhorted to pronounce more distinctly, all added fresh subject for mirth to the torn cloak and shattered shoe, which have afforded legitimate subjects of raillery against the poor scholar, from Juvenal's 1 time downward. It was never known that Sampson either exhibited irritability at this ill usage, or made the least attempt to retort upon his tormentors. He slunk from college by the most secret paths he could discover, and plunged himself into his miserable lodging, where, for eighteen-pence a week, he was allowed the benefit of a straw mattress, and, if his landlady was in good humor, permission to study his task by her fire. Under all these disadvantages, he obtained a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, and some ac- quaintance with the sciences. In progress of time, Abel Sampson, probationer of divinity, was ad- mitted to the privileges of a preacher. But, alas! partly from his own bashfulness, partly owing to a strong and obvious disposition to risi- bility, which pervaded the congregation upon his first attempt, he be- came totally incapable of proceeding in his intended discourse gasped, grinned hideously, rolled his eyes till the congregation thought them flying out of his head shut the Bible stumbled down the pulpit- stairs, trampling upon the old women who generally take their station there, and was ever after designated as a " stickit 2 minister." And thus he wandered back to his own country, with blighted hopes and prospects, to share the poverty of his parents. As he had neither friend nor confidant, hardly even an acquaintance, no one had the means of observing closely how Dominie Sampson bore a disappointment which supplied the whole town with a week's sport. To all appearance, the equanimity of Sampson was unshaken. He sought to assist his parents by teaching a school, and soon had plenty of scholars, but very few fees. In fact, he taught the sons of farmers for what they chose to give him, and the poor for nothing; and, to the shame of the former be it spoken, the pedagogue's gains never equalled those of a skilful ploughman. He wrote, however, a good hand, and added something to his pittance by copying accounts and writing letters for Ellangowan. Now it must be confessed that our friend Sampson, although a pro- found scholar and mathematician, had not travelled so far in philosophy as to doubt the reality of witchcraft or apparitions. Born, indeed, at a time when a doubt in the existence of witches was interpreted as equiva- lent to a justification of their infernal practices, a belief of such legends 1 A noted Roman Satirist. 2 Incompetent. Prose Scot? s. 273 had been impressed upon the Dominie as an article indivisible from his religious faith; and perhaps it would have been equally difficult to have induced him to doubt the one as the other. With these feelings, and in a thick, misty day, which was already drawing to its close, Dominie Sampson did not pass the Kairn of Derncleugh \vithout some feelings of tacit horror. What, then, was his astonishment, when, on passing the door that door which was supposed to have been placed there by one of the later Lairds of Elhmgowan to prevent presumptuous strangers from incur- ring the dangers of the haunted vault that door supposed to be always locked, and the key of which was popularly said to be deposited with the presbytery that door, that very door opened suddenly, and the figure of Meg Merrilies, well known, though not seen for many a revolv- ing year, was placed at once before the eyes of the startled Dominie! She stood immediately before him in the foot-path, confronting him so ab- solutely that he could not avoid her except by fairly turning back, which his manhood prevented him from thinking of. "I kenn'd 1 ye wad 2 be here." she said with her harsh and hollow voice; "I ken wha 3 ye seek, but ye maun 4 do my bidding." "Get thee behind me!" said the alarmed Dominie "Avoid ye! Conjuro te sceleslissima^miquissima atque miserrima Conjuro tef/f* Meg stood her ground against this tremendous volley of superlatives, which Sampson hawked up from the pit of his stomach, and hurled at her in thunder. "Is the carl daft," 6 she said, " wi' his glamour?" 7 " Conjuro," continued the Dominie, "abjuro, s contestor 8 " "What, in the name of Sathan, are ye feared for, wi' your French gibberish 9 that would make a dog sick? Listen, ye stickit stibbler, 10 to what I tell ye, or ye sail rue 11 it while there's a limb o' ye hings to anither! Tell Colonel Mannering that I ken he's seeking me. He kens, and I ken, that the blood will be wiped out, and the lost will be found, And Bertram's right and Bertram's might Shall meet on Ellangowan height. Hae, there's a letter to him ; I was gaun 1 ' 2 to send it in another way. I can- na write mysell; but I hae 13 them that will baith write and read, and ride and rin for me. Tell him the time's coming now and the weird's dreed 14 1 Knew. 2 Would. 3 Who. 4 Must. 5 I adjure thee thou most accursed, spite- ful, and wretched one, I adjure thee. 6 Man foolish. 7 Spell. 8 I swear and attest. 9 Inarticulate babble. 10 Good-for-nothing minister. J1 Shall repent., 12 Going. * 3 Have. 14 Fate is accomplished. 274 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . and the wheel's turning. Bid him look at the stars, as he has looked at them before. Will ye mind a' this?" "Assuredly," said the Dominie, "I am dubious for, woman, lam perturbed at thy words, and my flesh quakes to hear thee." "They'll do you nae 1 ill though, and may be muckle gude." 8 "Avoid ye! I desire no good that comes by unlawful means." "Fule-body that thou art!" said Meg, stepping up to him with a frown of indignation that made her dark eyes flash like lamps from under her bent brows "Fule-bodyl If I meant ye wrang, couldna I clod 3 ye over that craig, and wad man ken how ye cam by your end mair than Frank Kennedy? Hear ye that, ye worricow?" 4 "In the name of all that is good," said the Dominie, recoiling, and pointing his long pewter-headed walking-cane like a javelin at the sup- posed sorceress, "in the name of all that is good, bide 5 off hands! I will not be handled woman, stand off, upon thine own proper peril! desist, I say I am strong lo, I will resist!" Here his speech was cut short; for Meg, armed with supernatural strength, (as the Dominie as- serted) broke in upon his guard, put by a thrust which he made at her with his cane, and lifted him into the vault, " as easily," said he, "as I could sway a Kitchen's Atlas. " " Sit down there," she said, pushing the half-throttled preacher with some violence against a broken chair "sit down there, and gather your wind and your senses, ye black barrow-tram 6 of the Kirk 7 that ye are! Are ye fou 8 or fasting?" "Fasting from all but sin," answered the Dominie, who, recovering his voice, and finding his exorcisms only served to exasperate the in- tractable sorceress, thought it best to affect complaisance and submission, inwardly conning over, however, the wholesome conjurations which he durst no longer utter aloud. But as the Dominie's brain was by no means equal to carry on two trains of ideas at the same time, a word or two of his mental exercise sometimes escaped, and mingled with his uttered speech in a manner ludicrous enough, especially as the poor man shrunk himself together after every escape of the kind, from terror of the effect it might produce upon the irritable feelings of the witch. Meg, in the meanwhile, went to a great black cauldron that was boil- ing on a fire on the floor, and, lifting the lid, an odor was diffused through the vault, which, if the vapors of a witch's cauldron could in aught be trusted, promised better things than the hell-broth which such vessels are usually supposed to contain. It was, in fact, the savor of a 1 No. ^ Much good. s Throw. * Scarecrow, * Peep, A terra derisive of his ministerial office, r Church. 8 .Drunk, Prose Scoffs. 275 goodly stew, composed of fowls, hares, partridges, and moorgame, boiled iu a large mess with potatoes, onions, and leeks, and, from the size of the cauldron, appeared to be prepared for half a dozen people at least. "So ye hae eat naething a' day?" said Meg, heaving a large portion of this mess into a brown dish, and strewing it savorily with salt and pepper. "Nothing," answered the Dominie " scelestissima that is, gude wife." "Hae, then," said she, placing the dish before him, "there's what will warm your heart,." " 1 do not hunger malefica 1 that is to say Mrs. Merrilies!" for he said unto himself, " The savor is sweet, but it hath been cooked by a Canidia- or an ErichthotJ." 8 " If ye dinna eat instantly, and put some saul in ye, by the bread and the salt, I'll put it down your throat wi' the cutty 4 spoon, scaulding as it is, and whether ye will or no. Gape, 5 sinner, and swallow." Sampson, afraid of eye of newt, 6 and toe of frog, tigers' chaudrons, 7 and so forth, had determined not to venture; but the smell of the stew was fast melting his obstinacy, which flowed from his chops as it were in streams of water, and the witch's threats decided him to feed. Hunger and fear are excellent casuists. "Saul," said Hunger, "feasted with the witch of Endor." "And," quoth Fear, "the salt which she sprinkled upon the food showeth plainly it is not a necromantic banquet, in which that seasoning never occurs." "And besides," says Hunger, after the first spoonful, " it is savory and refreshing viands." " So yc like the meat?" said the hostess. "Yea," answered the Dominie, "and I give thee thanks sceleratis- sima! 8 which means Mrs. Margaret." " Aweel, eat your fill, but, an 9 ye kenn'd how it was gotten, ye may be wadna like it sae weel." Sampson's spoon dropped, in the act of carrying its load to his mouth. " There's been mony a moonlight watch to bring a' that trade thegither," 10 continued Meg, " the folk that are to eat that dinner thought little o' your game-laws." "Is that all?" thought Sampson, resuming his spoon, and shovelling away manfully; " I will not lack my food upon that argument." " Now, ye maun tak a dram." "I will," quoth Sampson "Conjuro tc that is, I thank you heartily," 1 Evil-doer. 2 A reputed sorceress at Rome. 8 A Thessalian witch. 4 A large dish spoon. 6 Open the mouth. Lizard. 7 Entrails an allusion to the witch in IT/icbe'h. * Mo=t "icVprl npe. 9 Tf. i stuff together. 276 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 for he thought to himself, in for a penny in for a pound; and he fairly drank the witch's health in a cupful of brandy. When he had put this cope-stone 1 upon Meg's good cheer, he felt, as he said, mightily ele- vated and afraid of no evil which could beftill unto him. " Will ye remember my errand now?" said Meg Merrilies; "I ken by the cast o' your ee 2 that ye're anilher man than when ye cam in." " I will, Mrs. Margaret," repeated Sampson stoutly; "I will deliver unto him the sealed yepistle, and I will add what you please to send by word of mouth." " Then I'll make it short," says Meg. " Tell him to look at the stars without fail this night, and to do what I desire him in that letter, as he would wish , That Bertram's right and Bertram's might Should meet on Ellangowan height. I have seen him twice when he saw na me; I ken when he was in the country first, and I ken what's brought him back again. Up, an' to the gate! ye're ower lang here follow me." Sampson followed the sibyl accordingly, who guided him about a quarter of a mile through the woods, by a shorter cut than he could have found for himself; they then entered upon the common, Meg still inarching before him at a great pace, until she gained the top of a small hillock which overhung the road. "Here," she said, " stand still here. Look how the setting sun breaks through yon cloud that's been darkening the lift 3 a' day. See where the first stream o' light fa's 4 it's upon Donagild's round tower the auldest tower in the Castle of Ellangowan that's no for naething! See as it's glooming 5 to seaward abune 6 yon sloop in the bay that's no for nae- thing, neither. Here I stood on this very spot," said she, drawing herself up so as not to lose one hair-breadth of her uncommon height, and stretching out her long, sinewy arm and clenched hand " here I stood when I tauld the last Laird o' Ellangowan what was coming on his house; and did that fa' to the ground? Na it hit even ower sair! 7 And here, where I broke the wand of peace ower him here I stand again to bid God bless and prosper the just heir of Ellangowan, that will sure be brought to his ain; 8 and the best laird he shall be that El- langowan has seen for three hundred years. I'll no live to see it, may- be; but there will be mony a blythe ee see it, though mine be closed. And now, Abel Sampson, as ever ye lo'ed the house of Ellangowau, i Top-stone. 2 Eye. 3 Sky. Falls. 6 Darkening. Above. 7 Too sorely. 8 Own. Prose Novels. 277 away wi' my message to the English Colonel, as if life and death were upon your haste." So saying, she turned suddenly from the amazed Dominie, and re- gained with swift and long strides the shelter of the wood from which she had issued, at the point where it most encroached upon the com- mon. Sampson gazed after her for a moment in utter astonishment. and then obeyed her directions, hurrying to Woodbourne at a pace very unusual for him, exclaiming three times, "Prodigious! prodigious! pro-di-gi-ous!" 51. NOVELS. "JoHN'GALT and Miss FERRIER followed Scott in describing Scottish life and society. With the peace of 1815 arose new forms of fiction and travel, which became very popular when the close of the war with Napoleon opened the world again to Englishmen, and gave birth to the tale of For- eign scenery and manners. THOMAS HOPE'S Anastasius, 1819, was the first. LOCKHART began the Classical novel in Valerius. Fashionable society was now painted by THEODORE HOOK, MRS. TROLLOPE, and MRS. GORE; and Eural life by Miss MITFORD in Our Village. EDWARD BULWER LYTTON", 1805-1873, began with the Fashionable novel in Pelham, 1827, and followed it with a long succession of tales on historical, classical, and romantic subjects. Towards the close of his life, he changed his man- ner altogether, and The Caxtons and those that followed are novels of Modern Society. The tone of them all from the beginning to the end is too high-pitched for real life, but each of them, being kept in the same key throughout, has a reality of its own. CHARLOTTE BRONTE, 1816-1855, revived in Jane Eyre the novel of Passion, and Miss Yonge set on foot the Eeligious novel in support of a special school of theology. We need only mention Captain Marryatt, whose delightful sea stories carry on the seamen of Smollett to our own times. Miss Martineau and Mr. Disraeli continued the novel of Political 278 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 >. opinion and economy, and Charles Kingsley applied the novel to the social and theological problems of our own day. Three other great names are too close to us to admit of comment CHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870, WILLIAM M. THACKERAY, 1811-1863, and the novelist who is known as GEORGE ELIOT. It will be seen then that the Novel claims almost every sphere of human interest as its own, and it has this special character, that it is the only kind of literature in which women have done excellently. HISTORY. W. MITFORD'S History of Greece, completed in 1810, is made untrue by his hatred of a democracy; and DR. LLNGARD'S excellent History of England, 1819, is influenced by his dislike of the Reformation. HENRY HALLAM, 1778- 1859, was the first who wrote history in England with so careful a love of truth and with so accurate a judgment of the relative value of facts and things thp-t prejudice was ex- cluded. His Europe during the Middle Ages, 1818, and his Literature of Europe, 1837-8, are distinguished for their ex- haustive and judicial summing up of facts; and his Constitu- tional History of England, 1827, set on foot a new kind of history in the best way. Our own history now engaged a number of writers. The great work of LORD MACAULAY, 1800-1859, told the story of the Revolution of 1688 in a style sometimes too emphatic, often monotonous from its mannerism, but always clear. Its vivid word-painting of characters and great events, and the splendid use, in such descriptions, of his vast knowledge of details, gave as great an impulse to the literature of history as Gibbon had done in his day, and his Historical Essays on the times and statesmen between the Restoration and Pitt are masterpieces of their kind. SIR FRANCIS PALGRAVE gave interest to the study of the early English period, and in our own day a critical English history school has arisen, of which MR. FREEMAN and PRO- FESSOR STUBBS are the leaders. Prose History, Biography, and TJieology. 279 v. 66, 1857 ; Macmillan, Feb., 1860 ; N. Br. Rev., v. 27, 1857, and 33, 1860 ; Eel. Mag., Feb., 1862. I-iESSON 52. Thackeray. " In painting, however mechanical, the painter's mind finds always some expression. In photography it is difficult for the most accomplished artist to put into his mirror any trace of individual genius. Perfect and admirable as a photograph seems, it is a cold and lifeless image of what, in the reality, was animated with the breath of God. We mid this photographic quality in Thackeray's early writings. There seems to be no sympathy between the writer and his characters. They are, as it were, on the further side of the glass he holds to them. He scrutinizes them with an anatomical microscope; he submits them calmly to vivisection. This attitude of mind gives a peculiar tone to his productions. Even in his later works we think Mr. Thackeray has been over-influenced by this negative element. In Pendennis it is the lesson embodied in the hero. The Colonel of the Newcomes, of all Thackeray's creations the noblest and most gracious, is sacrificed to his daughter-in- law by a certain odious and improbable identification in the displays of her folly and pettiness. Thus it is natural that a peculiar ironical sadness, a negative element, should rarely be unfelt in the pages of this great writer. The sense of the irony of things suggests a true picture of the world so nearly like the false picture which might be drawn by the satirist that we must not be surprised if Mr. Thackeray has more than occasionally fallen into satire or mockery. A tone of over-severity, more than a hint of irony infect Esmond and the Virginians, are painfully prominent in Vanity Fair and and in Pendennis. It is true that Thackeray's admirable humor, a qual- ity of his so well-known and appreciated that an allusion to it will be enough, springs from the contrasts of life which this irony affords him, and is his justification for recurrence to it. It is equally true that a hundred examples may be produced, displaying the sweet and noble nature, the scorn of baseness, and the ' love of love ' which in reality underlie the sneer and the smartness, yet these naturally tell on readers with the greater vividness. We cannot sum up this criticism better than by suggesting a contrast to the reader. Compare the tone of mind impressed on us by the writ- ings of that great-hearted man to whose honors as laureate of living novelists Mr. Thackeray has unquestionably succeeded. Scott's Bride of Lammermoor certainly contains not less than Pendennis of the mean 282 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . ness of man and the coldness of woman. Each has the same defect want of depth in passionate delineation. Each is deficient in what it is fashionable to call ' a high view of life.' Each, again, presents a drama of human existence with magnificent power. Yet, in final impression, the difference we feel is wider than the difference between the atmos- phere of a theatre and the atmosphere of fresh-water; of a ball supper- room and of the ' incorruptible sea.' We close the Bride of Lammer- moor with a sense of healthy pain and healthy pleasure; Pendennis \vith a vanitas vanitatum." George Eliot. From Thackeray's Newcomes. A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy window, sat perched on a tree, looking down at a great, big frog in a pool under- neath him. The frog's hideous, large eyes were goggling out of his head in a manner which appeared quite ridiculous to the old black-a- moor, who watched the splay-footed, slimy wretch with that peculiar grim humor belonging to crows. Not far from the frog a fat ox was browsing; while a few lambs frisked about the meadow, or nibbled the grass and buttercups there. Who should come into the farther end of the field but a wolf? He was so cunningly dressed up in sheep's clothing that the very lambs did not know master wolf; nay, one of them, whose dam the wolf had just eaten, after which he had thrown her skin over his shoulders, ran up in- nocently toward the devouring monster, mistaking him for mamma. "He-he!" says a fox, sneaking round the hedge-paling, over which the tree grew whereupon the crow was perched, looking down on the frog who was staring with his goggle eyes fit to burst with envy, and croaking abuse at the ox. " How absurd those lambs are ! Yonder silly, little, knock-kneed, baah-ling does not know the old wolf dressed in the sheep's fleece. He is the same old rogue who gobbled up little Red Riding Hood's grandmother for lunch, and swallowed little Red Riding Hood for supper. He-he!" An owl, that was hidden in the hollow of the tree, woke up. "O ho, master fox," says she, " I cannot see you, but I smell you! If some folks like lambs, other folks like geese," says the owl. "And yonr ladyship is fond of mice," says the fox. "The Chinese eat them," says the owl, " and I have read that they are very fond of dogs," continued the old lady. " I wish they would exterminate every cur of them off the face of the earth," said the fox. " And I have also read in works of travel that the French eat frogs," continued the owl. "Aha, my friend Crapaud! are you there? That was a very pretty concert we sang together last night!" Frost Thackeray's. 283 "If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef," croaked out the frog " great, big, brutal, bellowing oxen!" "Ho, whoo!" says the owl, "I have heard that Ihe English are toad- eaters, too!" "But who ever heard of them eating an owl or a fox, madam?" says Reynard, " or their sitting down and taking a crow to pick," adds the polite rogue, with a bow to the old crow, who was perched above them with the cheese in his mouth. " We are privileged animals, all of us; at least, we never furnish dishes for the odious orgies of man." "I am the bird of wisdom," says the owl; "I was the companion of Pallas Minerva; I am frequently represented in the Egyptian monu- ments." "I have seen you over the British barn-doors," said the fox, with a grin. " You have a deal of scholarship, Mrs. Owl. I know a thing or two myself; but am, I confess it, no scholar a mere man of the world a fellow that lives by his wits a mere country gentleman." "You sneer at scholarship," continues the owl, with a sneer on her venerable face. " I read a good deal of a night." " When I am engaged deciphering the cocks and hens at roost," says the fox. " It's a pity for all that you can't read; that board nailed over my head would give you some information." "What docs it say?" says the fox. "I can't spell in the daylight," answered the owl; and, giving a yawn, went back to sleep till evening in the hollow of her tree. "A fig for her hieroglyphics!" said the fox, looking up at the crow in the tree. "What airs our slow neighbor gives herself! She pretends to all the wisdom; whereas, your reverences, the crows, are endowed with gifts far superior to those benighted old big-wigs of owls, who blink in the darkness and call their hooting singing. How noble it is to hear a chorus of crows! There are twenty-four brethren of the Order of St. Corvinus who have builded themselves a convent near a wood which I frequent; what a droning and a chanting they keep up! I pro- test their reverences' singing is nothing to yours! You sing so deli- ciousl} r in parts, do for the love of harmony favor me with a solo!" While this conversation was going on, the ox was champing the grass; the frog was eying him in such a rage at his superior proportions that he would have spurted venom at him if he could, and that he would have burst, only that is impossible, from sheer envy: the little lambkin was lying unsuspiciously at the side of the wolf in fleecy hosiery, who did not as yet molest her, being replenished with the mutton, her mnm- 284 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 ma. But now the wolf's eyes began to glare and bis sbarp, white teeth to show, and be rose up with a growl, and began to think he should like lamb for supper. " What large eyes you have got!" bleated out the lamb, with rather a timid look. " The better to see you with, my dear." " What large teeth you have got!" "The better to*' At this moment such a terrific yell filled the field that all its inhab- itants started with terror. It was from a donkey, who had somehow got a lion's skin, and now came in at the hedge, pursued by some men and boys with sticks and guns. When the wolf in sheep's clothing heard the bellow of the ass in the lion's skin, fancying that the monarch of the forest was near, he ran away as fast as his disguise would let him. When the ox heard the noise, he dashed round the meadow-ditch, and with one trample of his hoof squashed the frog who had been abusing him. When the crow saw the people with guns coming, he instantly dropped the cheese out of his mouth, and took to wing. When the fox saw the cheese drop, he immediately made a jump at it (for he knew the donkey's voice, and that his asinine bray was not a bit like his royal master's roar), and, making for the cheese, fell into a steel-trap, which snapped off his tail ; without which he was obliged to go into the world, pretending, forsooth, that it was the fashion not to wear tails any more, and that the fox-party were better without 'em. Meanwhile, a boy with a stick came up, and belabored master donkey until he roared louder than ever. The wolf, with the sheep's clothing draggling about his legs, ^Suld not run fast, and was detected and shot by one of the men. The blind old owl, whirring out of the hollow tree, quite amazed at the disturbance, flounced into the face of a plow- boy, who knocked her down with a pitchfork. The butcher came and quietly led off the ox and the lamb; and the farmer, finding the fox's brush in the trap, hung it over his mantel-piece and always bragged that he had been in at his death. 'What a farrago of old fables is this! What a dressing' up in old clothes!" says the critic. (I think I see such a one a Solomon that sits in judgment over us authors, and chops up our children.) "As sure as I am just and wise, modest, learned, and religious, so surely I have read something very like this stuff and nonsense about jackasses and foxes before. That wolf in sheep's clothing! do I not know him? That fox discoursing with the crow! have I not previously heard of him? Yes, Prose Thackeray's. 285 in Lafontaine's fables. Let us get the Dictionary and the Fable and the Biographic Universelle, article Lafontaine, and confound the impostor." " Then in what a contemptuous way," may Solomon go on to remark, " does this author speak of human nature! There is scarce one of these characters he represents but is a villain. The fox is a flatterer; the frog is an emblem of impotence and envy; the wolf in sheep's clothing a bloodthirsty hypocrite, wearing the garb of innocence; the ass in the lion's skin a quack trying to terrify by assuming the appearance of a forest monarch; the ox a stupid common-place; the only innocent being in the writer's (stolen) apologue is a fool the idiotic lamb, who does not know his own mother." And then the critic, if in a virtuous mood, may indulge in some fine writing regarding the holy beauteousuess ot maternal affection. Why not? If authors sneer, it is the critic's business to sneer at them for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or who would care about his opinion? And his livelihood is to find fault. Besides, he is right sometimes; and the stories he reads, and the characters drawn in them are old, sure enough. What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables: tremblers and boasters; victims and bullies; dupes and knaves; long- eared Neddies, giving themselves leo- nine airs; Tartuffes, wearing virtuous clothing; lovers and their trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first page of the human story do not love and lies, too, begin? So the tales were told ages before ^Esop : and asses under lions' manes roared in Hebrew ; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan ; and wolves in sheep's clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanscrit, no doubt. The sun shines to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the tree overhead, while I am writ- ing, sing very much the same note they ha\ c sung ever since they were finches. Nay, since last he besought good-natured friends to listen once a month to his talking, a friend of the writer has seen the Now World, and found the (featherless) birds there exceedingly like their brethren of Europe. There may be nothing new under and including the sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer, until the night comes and quiet. And then will wake Morrow, and the eyes that look on it. This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will wear peacock's feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks; in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the splen- dor of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks, and the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert squeaking; 286 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . in which lions in love will have their claws pared by sly virgins; in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let us hope, come by their own; in which there will be black crape and white favors; in which there will be tears under orange-flower wreaths and jokes in mourning- coaches; in which there will be dinners of herbs with con- tentment and without; and banquets of stalled oxen where there is care and hatred ay, and kindness and friendship, too, along with the feast. It does not follow that all men arc honest because they arc poor; and I have known some who were friendly and generous, although they had plenty of money. There are some grcatlandlords who do not grind down their tenants; there are actually bishops who are not hypocrites; there are liberal men even among the Whigs, and the Eadicals themselves arc not all Aristocrats at heart. But who ever heard of giving the moral before the Fable? Children are only led to accept the one after their delectation over the other: let us take care lest our readers skip both; and so let us bring them on quickly our wolves and lambs, our foxes and lions, our roaring donkeys, our billing ring-doves, our motherly partlets, and crowing chanticleers. Macaulay. "There is little to notice in Macaulay's vocabulary ex- cept its copiousness. He has no eccentricities like De Quincey or Carlyle; he employs neither slang nor scholastic technicalities, and he never coins a new word. He cannot be said to use an excess of Latin words, and he is not a purist in the matter of Saxon. His command of expression was proportioned to the extraordinary compass of his memory. The copiousness appears not so much in the Shakespearian form of accumulating synonyms one upon another as in a profuse way of re- peating a thought in several different sentences. This is especially noticeable in the opening passages of some of his essays. Macaulay's is a style that may truly be called ' artificial ' from his ex- cessive use of striking artifices of style balanced sentences, abrupt transitions, and pointed figures of speech. The peculiarities of the mechanism of his style are expressed in such general terms as 'abrupt/ ' pointed,' ' oratorical.' His sentences have the compact finish produced b} the frequent occurrence of the periodic arrangement. He is not uni- formly periodic; he often prefers a loose structure, and he very rarely has recourse to the forced inversions that we find occasionally in De Quincey. Yet there is a sufficient interspersion of periodic arrangements to produce an impression of firmness. We may notice incidentally his lavish use of antithesis. The con- trasts are really more numerous than might be thought at first glance; the bnre framework is ?o overlaid and disguised by the extraordinary a*. Prose Macaulatf s. 287 fulness of expression that many of them escape notice. When we !ook narrowly, we see that there is a constant play of antithesis. Not only is word set over against word, clause against clause, and sentence against sentence; there are contrasts on a more extensive scale. One group of sentences answers to another, and paragraphs are balanced against para- graphs. His pages are illuminated not only by little sparks of antithesis but by broad flashes. A rhetorician of so decided a turn as Macaulay could not fail to use the rhetorician's greatest art the climax. In every paragraph that rises above the ordinary level of feeling, we are conscious of being led on to a crowning demonstration. Macaulay's composition is as far from being abstruse as printed mat- ter can well be. One caa trace in his writing a constant effort to make himself intelligible to the meanest capacity. He loves to dazzle and to argue, but above everything else he is anxious to be understood. His ideal evidently is to turn a subject over on every side, to place it in all lights, and to address himself to every variety of prejudice and preoccu- pation in his audience." William Minto. From Macaulay's Essay on Warren Eastings. Burke's knowledge of India was such as few, even of those Europeans who have passed many }'ears in that country, have attained, and such as certainly was never attained by any other public man who had not quitted Europe. He had studied the history, the laws, and the usages of the East with an industry such as is seldom found united to so much genius and so much sensibility. Others have, perhaps, been equally laborious, and have collected an equal mass of materials. But the man- ner in which Burke brought his higher powers of intellect to work on statements of facts, and on tables of figures, was peculiar to himself. In every part of those huge bales of Indian Information, which repelled almost all other readers, his mind, at once philosophical and poetical, found something to instruct or to delight. His reason analyzed and di- gested those vast and shapeless masses; his imagination animated and colored them. Out of darkness and dulness and confusion, he formed a multitude of ingenious theories and vivid pictures. He had, in the highest degree, that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future, in the distant and in the unreal. India and its inhabitants were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning sun, the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree, the rice-field, the tank, the huge trees, older 288 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . than the Mogul Empire, under which the village crowds assemble, the thatched roof of the peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the rnosque where the imaum prays with his face to Mecca, the drums and banners and gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the air, the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, descending the steps to the river side, the black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, the elephants with their canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady, all these things were to him as the objects amidst which his own life had been passed, as the objects which lay on the road between Beaconsfield and St. James Street. All India was present to the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of sovereigns to the wild moor where the gipsy camp was pitched, from the bazar, humming like a bee- hive with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to scare away the hyajnas. He had just as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuucomar as of the exe- cution of Dr. Dodd. From Macaulay's Ilistwy. The Pontificate, exposed to new dangers more formidable than had ever before threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which was animated by intense enthusiasm and organised with exquisite skill. When the Jesuits came to the rescue, they found the Papacy in extreme peril; but from that moment the tide of battle turned. Protestantism, which had, during a whole generation, carried all before it, was stopped in its progress, and rapidly beaten back from the foot of the Alps to the shores of the Baltic. Before the Order had existed a hundred years, it had filled the whole world with memorials of great things done and suf- fered for the faith. No other religious community could produce a list of men so variously distinguished; none had extended its operations over so vast a space; yet in none had there ever been such perfect unity of feeling and action. There was no region of the globe, no walk of specu- la* ve or of active life in which Jesuits were not to be found. They guided the counsels of kings. They deciphered Latin inscriptions. They observed the motions of Jupiter's satellites. They published whole libraries, controversy, casuistry, history, treatises on optics, Alcaic* odes, editions of the fathers, madrigals, catechisms, and lampoons. The liberal education of youth passed almost entirely into their hands, and was conducted by them .with conspicuous ability. They appeared to Prose Macaulatf s. 289 have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation. Enmity itself was compelled to own that, in the art of managing and forming the tender mind, they had no equals Meanwhile they assiduously and successfully cultivated the eloquence of the pulpit. With still greater assiduity and still greater success they applied themselves to the ministry of the confessional. Throughout Roman Catholic Europe the secrets of every government and of almost every family of note were in their keeping. They glided from one Pro- testant country to another under innumerable disguises, as gay cavaliers, as simple rustics, as Puritan preachers. They wandered to countries which neither mercantile avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever impelled any stranger to explore. They were to be found in the garb of Manda- rins, superintending the observatory at Pekin. They were to be found spade in hand, teaching the rudiments of agriculture to the savages of Paraguay. Yet, whatever might be their residence, whatever might be their em- ployment, their spirit was the same, entire devotion to the common cause, unreasoning obedience to the central authority. None of them had chosen his dwelling-place or his vocation for himself. "Whether the Jesuit should live under the arctic circle or under the equator, whether he should pass his life in arranging gems and collating manu- scripts at the Vatican or in persuading naked barbarians under the South- ern Cross not to eat each other, were matters which he left with pro- found submission to the decision of others. If he was wanted at Lima, he was on the Atlantic in the next fleet. If he was wanted at Bagdad, he was toiling through the desert with the next caravan. If his ministry were needed in some country where his life was more insecure than that of a wolf, where it was a crime to harbor him, where the heads and quarters of his brethren, fixed in the public places, showed him what he had to expect, he went without remonstrance or hesitation to his doom. Nor is this heroic spirit yet extinct. When, in our own time, a new and terrible pestilence passed round the globe, when, in some great cities, fear had dissolved all the ties which hold society together, when the secular clergy had forsaken their flocks, when medical succor was not to be purchased by gold, when the strongest natural affections had yielded to the love of life, even then the Jesuit was found by the pallet which bishop and curate, physician and nurse, father and mother, had deserted, bending over infected lips to catch the faint accents of con- fession, and holding up to the last, before the expiring penitent, the image of the expiring Redeemer. 290 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 From Newman's Grammar of Assent. Science gives us the grounds, or premises, from which religious truths are to be enforced ; but it does not set about inferring them, much less does it reach the inference that is not its province. It brings before us phenomena, and it leaves us, if we will, to call them works of design, wisdom, or benevolence; and, further still, if we will, to proceed to con- fess an intelligent Creator. We have to take its facts, and to give them a meaning and to draw our own conclusions from them. First comes knowl- edge, then a view, then reasoning, and then belief. This is why science has so little of a religious tendency deductions have no power of per- suasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testi- mony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion; it is not a thing which is, but which we are quite sure about; and it has often been ob- served that we never say we are sure and certain without implying that we doubt. To say that a thing must be is to admit that it may not be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations; he dies for reali- ties. This is why a literary religion is so little to be depended upon. It looks well in fair weather; but its doctrines are opinions, and, when called to suffer for them, it slips them between its folios, or burns them at its hearth. And this again is the secret of the distrust and raillery with which moralists have been so commonly visited. They say, and do not. Why? Because they are contemplating the fitness of tilings, and they live by the square when they should be realizing their high maxims in the concrete. I have no confidence, then, in philosophers who cannot help being re- ligious, and are Christians by implication. They sit at home, and reach forward to distances which astonish us; but they hit without grasping, and are sometimes as confident about shadows as about realities. They have worked out by a calculation the lay of a country which they never saw, and mapped it by means of a gazetteer; and, like blind men, though they can put a stranger on his way, they cannot walk straight themselves, and do not feel it quite their business to walk at all. Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude; first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of converting by a syllogism. Tell men to gain notions of a Creator from his works, and, if they were to set about it, (which nobody does) they would be jaded and wearied by the Prose George Eliot's. 291 labyrinth they were tracing. Their minds would be gorged and sur- feited by the logical operation. Logicians are more set upon conclud- ing rightly than on right conclusions. They cannot see the end for the process. Few men have that power of mind which may hold fast and firmly a variety of thoughts. We ridicule men of one idea; but a great many of us are born to be such, and we should be happier if we knew it. To most men argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful, and considerably less impressive. After all, man is not a reasoning animal ; he is a seeing, feeling, con- templating, acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and precise. It is very well to freshen our impressions and convictions from physics, but to create them we must go elsewhere. Sir Robert Peel "never can think it possible that a mind can be so constituted that, after being familiarized with the wonderful discoveries which have been made in every part of experimental science, it can retire from such con- templation without more enlarged conceptions of God's providence, and a higher reverence for his name." If he speaks of religious minds, he perpetrates a truism; if of irreligious, he insinuates a paradox. Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences; we shall never have done beginning, if we determine to begin with proof. We shall ever be laying our foundations, we shall turn theology into evidences and divines into textuaries. We shall never get at our first principles. Resolve to believe nothing, and you must prove your proof and analyze your elements, sinking farther and farther, and finding in the lowest depth a lower deep, till you come to the broad bosom of skepticism. I would rather be bound to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Christianity is true than to demonstrate a moral governance from the physical world. Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for every- thing, we shall never come to action; to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith. 53. George Eliot. " We feel that, however much we may admire the other great English novelists, there is none who would make the study of George Eliot superfluous. The sphere which she made her own is that quiet English country life which she knew in early youth. It has been described with more or less vivacity and sympathy by many observers. Nobody has approached George Eliot in the power of seizing its essen- tial characteristics and exhibiting its real charm. She has done for U what Scott did for the Scotch peasantry, or Fielding for the eighteenth 292 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . century Englishman, or Thackeray for the higher social stratum of his time. Its last traces are vanishing so rapidly amidst the changes of modern revolution, that its picture could hardly be drawn again, even if there were an artist of equal skill and penetration. And thus, when the name of George Eliot is mentioned, it calls up, to me at least, and, I suspect, to most readers, not so much her later and more ambitious works, as the exquisite series of scenes so lovingly and vividly presented in the earlier stage. She has been approached, if she has not been surpassed, by other writ- ers in her idyllic effects. But there is something less easily paralleled in the peculiar vein of humor which is the essential complement of the more tender passages. Mrs. Poyser is necessary to balance the solemnity of Dinah Morris; Silas Marner would lose half his impressiveness if he were not in contrast with the inimitable party in the ' Rainbow ' parlor. It is enough to take note of the fact that George Eliot possessed a vein of humor, of which it is little to say that it is incomparably superior in depth, if not in delicacy, to that of any feminine writer. It is the humor of a calm, contemplative mind, familiar with wide fields of knowledge, and capable of observing the little dramas of rustic life from a higher standing-point. It is not in these earlier books at any rate that she obtrudes her acquirements upon us; for, if here and there we find some of those scientific illusions which afterward became a kind of mannerism, they are introduced without any appearance of forcing. It is simply that she is awake to those quaint aspects of the little world before her, which only show their quaiutness to the cultivated intellect. There is the breadth of touch, the large-minded equable spirit of lov- ing, contemplative thought, which is fully conscious of the narrow limitations of the actor's thoughts and habits, but does not cease on that account to sympathize with his joys and sorrows. We are on a petty stage, but not in a stifling atmosphere, and we are not called upon to accept the prejudices of the actors, or to be angry with them, but simply to understand and be tolerant." Leslie Stephen. From George Eliot's Adam Bede. Hetty was coming down stairs, and Mrs. Poyser, in her plain bonnet and shawl, was standing below. If ever a girl looked as if she had been made of roses, that girl was Hetty in her Sunday hat and frock. For her hat was trimmed with pink, and her frock had pink spots sprinkled on a white ground. There was nothing but pink and white about her, except in her dark hair and eyes and her little buckled shoes. Mrs. Poyser was provoked at herself, for she could hardly keep from smiling, as any Prose George Eliot s. 293 mortal is inclined to do at the sight of pretty, round things. So she turned without speaking and joined the group outside the house door, followed by Hetty, whose heart was fluttering so at the thought of some one she expected to see at church that she hardly felt the ground she trod on. And now the little procession set off. Mr. Poyser was in his Sunday suit of drab, with a red and green waistcoat, and a green watch-ribbon, having a large cornelian seal attached, pendent like a plumb-line from that promontory where his watch-pocket was situated; a silk handker- chief of a yellow tone round his neck, and excellent gray-ribbed stock- ings, knitted by Mrs. Poyser's own hands, setting off the proportions of his leg. Mr. Poyser had no reason to be ashamed of his leg, and sus- pected that the growing abuse of top-boots and other fashions tending to disguise the nether limbs, had their origin in a pitiable degeneracy of the human calf. Still less had he reason to be ashamed of his round, jolly face, which was good-humor itself, as he said, " Come, Hetty, come, little uns!" and, giving his arm to his wife, led the way through the causeway gate into the yard. The " little uns" addressed were Marty and Tommy, boys of nine and seven, in little fustian tailed coats and knee-breeches, relieved by rosy cheeks and black eyes; looking as much like their father as a very small elephant is like a very large one. Hetty walked between them, and behind came patient Molly, whose task it was to carry Totty through the yard and over all the wet places on the road; for Totty, having speedily recovered from her threatened fever, had insisted on going to church to-day, and especially on wearing her red-and-black necklace outside her tippet. And there were many wet places for her to be carried over this afternoon, for there had been heavy showers in the morning, though now the clouds had rolled off and lay in towering silvery masses on the horizon. You might have known it was Sunday if you had only waked up in the farm-yard. The cocks and the hens seemed to know it, and made only crooning subdued noises; the very bull-dog looked less savage, as if he would have been satisfied with a smaller bite than usual. The sunshine seemed to call all things to rest and not to labor; it was asleep itself on the moss-grown cow-shed ; on the group of white ducks nest- ling together with their bills tucked under their wings; on the old black sow stretched languidly on the straw, while her largest young one found an excellent spring-bed on his mother's fat ribs; on Alick, the shepherd, in his new smock-frock, taking an uneasy siesta, half-sitting, half-standing on the granary steps. Alick was of opinion that church, 294 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 , like other luxuries, was not to be indulged in often by a foreman who had the weather and tiie ewes on his inind. " Church! nay I'n gotten summat else to think on," was an answer which he often uttered in a tone of bitter significance that silenced farther question. I feel sure Alick meant no irreverence ; indeed, I know that his mind was not of a speculative, negative cast, and he would on no account have missed going to church on Christmas-day, Easter Sunday, and " Whissuntide. But he had a general impression that public worship and religious cere- monies, like other non-productive employments, were intended for peo- ple who had leisure. "There's father a- standing at the yard gate," said Martin Poyser. " I reckon he wants to watch us down the field. It's wonderful what .sight he has, and him turned seventy-five," " Ah! I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babbies," said Mrs. Poyser; "they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God Almighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep." Old Martin opened the gate as he saw the family procession approach- ing, and held it wide open, leaning on his stick pleased to do this bit of work; for, like all old men whose life has been spent in labor, he. liked to feel that he was still useful that there was a better crop of onions in the garden because he was by at the sowing, and that the cows would be milked the better if he staid at home on a Sunday afternoon to look on. He always went to church on Sacrament Sundays, but not very regularly at other times; on wet Sundays, or whenever he had a touch of rheumatism, he used to read the three first chapters of Genesis instead. " They'll ha putten Thias Bede i' the ground afore ye get to the church- yard," he said, as his son came up. "It 'ud ha' been better luck if they'd ha' buried him i' the forenoon when the rain was fallin' ; there's no likelihoods of a drop now, an' the moon lies like a boat there, dost see? That's a sure sign of fair weather; there's a many as is false, but that's sure." " A y> ay," said the son, "I'm in hopes it'll hold up now." "Mind what the parson says mind what the parson says, my lads," said grandfather to the black-eyed youngsters in knee-breeches, con- scious of a marble or two in their pockets, which they looked forward to handling a little, secretly, during the sermon. And when they were all gone, the old man leaned on the gate again, watching them across the lane, along the Home Close, and through the far gate, till they disappeared behind a bend in the hedge. For the \ Prose George ElioVs. 296 hedgerows in those days shut out one's view, even on the better-man- aged farms; and this afternoon the dog-roses were tossing out their pink wreaths, the night-shade was in its yellow and purple glory, the pale honeysuckle grew out of reach, peeping high up out of a holly bush, and, over all, an ash or a sycamore every now and then threw its shadow across the path. There were acquaintances at other gates who had to move aside and let them pass; at the gate of the Home Close there was half the dairy of cows standing one behind the other, extremely slow to understand that their large bodies might be in the way; at the far gate there was the mare holding her head over the bars, and beside her the liver-colored foal with its head toward its mother's flank, apparently still much embar- rassed by its own straddling existence. The way lay entirely through Mr. Poyser's own fields till they reached the main road leading to the village, and he turned a keen eye on the stock and the crops as they went along, while Mrs. Poyser was ready to supply a running commen- tary on them all. The woman who manages a dairy has a large share in making the rent, so she may well be allowed to have her opinion on stock and their " keep" an exercise which strengthens her understand- ing so much that she finds herself able to give her husband advice on most other subjects. " There's that short-horned Sally," she said, as they entered the Home Close, and she caught sight of the meek beast that lay chewing the cud, and looking at her with a sleepy eye. "I begin to hate the sight o' the cow ; and I say now what I said three weeks ago, the sooner we get rid of her th' better, for there's that little yallow cow as doesn't give half the milk and yet I've twice as much butter from her." "Why, thee't not like the women in general," said Mr. Poyser; "they like the short-horns, as give such a lot of milk. There's Chowne's wife wants him to buy no other sort." "What's it sinnify what Chowne's wife likes? a poor soft thing, wi' no more head-piece nor a sparrow. She'd take a big cullender to strain her lard wi', and then wander as the scratchin's run through. I've seen enough of her to know as I'll niver take a servant from her house again all huggermugger and you'd niver know, when you went in, whether it was Monday or Friday, the wash draggin' on to th' end o' the week ; and as for her cheese, I know well enough it rose like a loaf in a tin last year. An' then she talks o' the weather bein' i' fault, as there's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots." " Well, Chowne's been wanting to buy Sally, so we can get rid of her, 296 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . if thee lik'st," said Mr. Poyser, secretly proud of his wife's superior power of putting two and two together; indeed, on recent market days, he had more than once boasted of her discernment in this very matter of short-horns. " Ay, them as choose a soft for a wife may's well buy up the short- horns, for, if you get your head stuck in a bog, your legs may's well go after it. Eh! talk o' legs, there's legs for you," Mrs. Poyser continued, as Totty, who had been set down now the road was dry, toddled on in front of her father and mother. " There's shapes! An' she's got such a long foot, she'll be her father's own child." "Ay, she'll be welly such a one as Hetty i' ten years time, ony she's got thy colored eyes. I niver remember a blue eye i' my family; my mother had eyes as black as sloes, just like Hetty's. " "The child 'ull be none the worse for having summat as isn't like Hetty. An' I'm none for having her so over pretty. Though, for the matter o' that, there's people wi' light hair an' blue eyes as pretty as them wi' black. If Dinah had got a bit o' color in her cheeks, an' didn't stick that Methodist cap on her head, enough to frighten the crows, folks 'ud think her as pretty as Hetty." 'Nay, nay," said Mr. Poyser, with rather a contemptuous emphasis, " thee dostna know the pints of a woman. The men 'ud niver run after Dinah as they would after Hetty." "What care I what the men 'ud run after? It's well seen what choice the most of 'em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o' wives you see, like bits o' gauze ribbin, good for nothing when the color's gone." "Well, well, thee canstna say but what I know'd how to make a choice when I married thee," said Mr. Poyser, who usually settled little conjugal disputes by a compliment of this sort, "and thee was twice as buxom as Dinah ten years ago." " I niver said as a woman had need to be ugly to make a good missis of a house. There's Chowne's wife ugly enough to turn the milk an' save the rennet, but she'll niver save nothing any other way. But as for Dinah, poor child, she's niver likely to be buxom as long as she'll make her dinner o' cake and water, for the sake o' giving to them as want. She provoked me past bearing sometimes; and, as I told her, she went clean again' the Scriptur, for that says, ' Love your neighbor as your- self;' but I said, ' if you loved your neighbor no better nor you do your- self, Dinah, it's little enough you'd do for him. You'd be thinking he might do well enough on a half -empty stomach.' Eh, I wonder where she is this blessed Sunday! sitting by that sick woman, I daresay, as she'd set her heart on going to all of a sudden. " Prose George BlioVs. 297 " Ah! it was a pity she should take such megrims int' her head, when she might ha' stayed wi' us all summer, and eaten twice as much as she wanted, and it 'ud niver ha' been missed. She made no odds in th' house at all, for she sat as still at her sewing as a bird on the nest, and was uncommon nimble at running to fetch anything. If Hetty gets married, thee'dst like to ha' Dinah wi' thee constant." "It's no use thinkin' o' that," said Mrs. Poyser. " You might as well beckon to the flyin' swallow, as ask Dinah to come an' live here com- fortable like other folks. If any thing could turn her I should ha' turned her, for I've talked to net for an hour on end, and scolded her too ; for she's my own sister's child, and it behoves me to do what I can for her. But eh, poor thing, as soon as she'd said us ' good-bye, ' an' got into the cart, an' looked back at me with her pale face, as is welly like her aunt Judith come back from heaven, I begun to be frightened to think o' the set downs I'd given her ; for it comes over you sometimes as if she'd a way o' knowing the rights o' things more nor other folks have. But I'll niver give in as that's 'cause she's a Methodist, no more nor a white calf's white 'cause it eats out o' the same bucket wi' a black un." " Nay," said Mr. Poyser, with as near an approach to a snarl as his good-nature would allow; "I've no opinion o' the Methodists. It's oiiy trades-folks as turn Methodists, you niver knew a farmer bitten wi' them maggots. There's maybe a workman now and then, as isn't over cliver at's work, takes to preachin' an' that, like Seth Bede. But you see Adam, as has got one of the best head-pieces hereabout, knows better; he's a good Churchman, else I'd niver encourage him for a sweetheart for Hetty." Adam was hungering for a sight of Dinah ; and when that sort of hunger reaches a certain stage, a lover is likely to still it though he may have to put his future in pawn. But what harm could he do by going to Snowfield? Dinah could not be displeased with him for it; she had not forbidden him to go; she must surely expect that he would go before long. By the second Sun- day in October, this view of the case had become so clear to Adam, that he was already on his way to Snowfield, on horseback this time, for his hours were precious now. and he had borrowed Jonathan Surge's good nag for the journey. What keen memories went along the road with him! He had often been to Oakbourne and back since that first journey to Snowfield, but beyond Oakbourne, the gray stone walls, the broken country, the meagre 298 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . trees, seemed to be telling him afresh the story of that painful past which he knew so well by heart,.' But no story is the same to us after a lapse of time ; or rather, we who read it are no longer the same in- terpreters; and Adam this morning brought with him new thoughts through that gray country thoughts which gave an altered significance to its story of the past. That is a base and selfish, even a blasphemous, spirit which rejoices and is thankful over the past evil that has blighted or crushed another, because it has been made the source of unforeseen good to ourselves; Adam could never cease to mourn over that mystery of human sorrow which had been brought so close to him; he could never thank God for another's misery. And if I were capable of that narrow-sighted joy in Adam's behalf, I should still know he was not the man to feel it for him. self; he would have shaken his head at such a sentiment, and said, "Evil's evil, and sorrow's sorrow, and you can't alter its nature by wrapping it up in other words. Other folks were not created for my sake, that I should think all square when things turn out well for me." But it is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad experience has brought us is worth our own personal share of pain; surely it is not possible to feel otherwise, any more than it would be possible for a man with cataract to regret the painful process by which his dim, blurred sight of men as trees walking had been exchanged for clear outline and effulgent day. The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it the sense of added strength; we can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy than a painter or a musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a philosopher to his less complete formula. Something like this sense of enlarged being was in Adam's mind this Sunday morning, as he rode along in vivid recollection of the past. His feeling toward Dinah, the hope of passing his life with her had been the distant unseen point toward which that hard journey from Snowfield eighteen mouths ago had been leading him. " It's like as if it was a new strength to me," he said to himself, "love her, and know as she loves me. I shall look t' her to help me to see things right. For she's better than I am there's less o' self in her, and pride. And it's a feel- ing as gives you a sort o' liberty, as if you could walk more fearless, when you've more trust in another than y' have in yourself. I've always been thinking I knew better than them as belonged to me, and that's a poor sort o' life, when you can't look to them nearest to you t' help you with a bit better thought than what you've got inside you a'ready." Prose George Eliot s. 299 It was more than two o'clock in the afternoon when Adam came in sight of the gray town on the hill-side, and looked seurchingly toward the green valley below for the first glimpse of the old thatched roof near the ugly red mill. The scene looked less harsh in the soft October sun- shine than it had done in the eager time of early spring; and the one grand charm it possessed, in common with all wide-stretching woodless regions that it filled you with a new consciousness of the over-arching sky had a milder, more soothing influence than usual on this almost cloudless day. Adam's doubts and fears melted under this influence as the delicate web-like clouds had gradually melted away into the clear blue above him. He seemed to see Dinah's gentle face assuring him, with its looks alone, of all he longed to know. He did not expect Dinah to be at home at this hour, but he got down from his horse and tied it at the little gate that he might ask where she was gone to day. He had set his mind on following her and bringing her home. She was gone to Sloman's End, a hamlet about three miles off, over. the hill, the old woman told him; had set off directly after morning chapel, to preach in a cottage there, as her habit was. Any body at the town would tell him the way to Sloman's End. So Adam got on his horse again and rode to the town, putting up at the old inn, and taking a hasty dinner there in the company of the too chatty land- lord, from whose friendly questions and reminiscences he was glad to escape as soon as possible, and set out toward Sloman's End. With all his haste, it was nearly four o'clock before he could set off, and he thought that as Dinah had gone so early, she would, perhaps, already be near returning. The little, gray, desolate-looking hamlet, unscreened by sheltering trees, lay in sight long before he reached it ; and, as he came near, he could hear the sound of voices singing a hymn. "Per- haps that's the last hymn before they come away," Adam thought; "I'll walk back a bit, and turn again to meet her, farther off the village." He walked back till he got nearly to the top of the hill again, and seated himself on a loose stone against the low wall, to watch till he should see the little black figure leaving the hamlet and winding up the hill. He chose this spot, almost at the top of the hill, because it' was away from all eyes no house, no cattle, not even a nibbling sheep near, no presence but the still lights and shadows, and the great em- bracing sky. She was much longer coming than he expected ; he waited an hour at least, watching for her and thinking of her, while the afternoon shad- ows lengthened, and the light grew softer. At last he saw the little black figure coming from between the gray houses, and gradually ap- 300 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 -. preaching the foot of the hill. Slowly, Adam thought ; but Dinah was really walking at her usual pace, with a light, quiet step. Now she was beginning to wind along the path up the hill, but Adam would not move yet; he would not meet her too soon; he had set his heart on meeting her in this assured loneliness. And now he began to fear lest he should startle her too much ; " Yet, "he thought, " she's not one tobeoverstartled; she's always so calm and quiet, as if she was prepared for anything." What was she thinking of as she wound up the hill? Perhaps she had found complete repose without him, and had ceased to feel any need of his love. On the verge of a decision we all tremble ; hope pauses with fluttering wings. But now at last she was very near, and Adam rose from the stone wall. It happened that, just as he walked forward, Dinah had paused and turned around to look back at the village : who does not pause and look back in mounting a hill? Adam was glad, for, with the fine instinct of a lover, he felt that it would be best for her to hear his voice before she saw him. He came within three paces of her, and then said, "Dinah!" She started without looking round, as if she connected the sound with no place. " Dinah!" Adam said again. He knew quite well what was in her mind. She was so accustomed to think of impressions as purely spiritual monitions, that she looked for no material visible accompani- ment of the voice. But this second time she looked around. What a look of yearning love it was that the mild gray eyes turned on the strong dark-eyed man ! She did not start again at the sight of him ; she said nothing, but moved toward him so that his arm could clasp her round. And they walked on so in silence, while the warm tears fell. Adam was content, and said nothing. It was Dinah who spoke first. "Adam," she said, "it is the Divine Will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me, and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a fullness of strength to bear and do our heavenly Father's will, that I had lost before." Adam paused and looked into her sincere, loving eyes. " Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us." And they kissed each other with a deep joy. What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting. Prose Charles DicTcens's. 301 From Dickens's Pickwick Papers. "Nathaniel Winkle!" said Mr. Skimpin. " Here!" replied a feeble voice. Mr. Winkle entered the witness-box, and, having been duly sworn, bowed to the judge with considerable deference. " Don't look at me, sir," said the judge, sharply, in acknowledgment of the salute; " look at the jury." Mr. Winkle obeyed the mandate, and looked at the place where he thought it most probable the jury might be ; for seeing anything in his then state of intellectual complication was wholly out of the question. Mr. Winkle was then examined by Mr. Skimpin, who, being a prom- ising young man of two or three and forty, was of course anxious to confuse a witness who was notoriously predisposed in favor of the other side, as much as he could. "Now, sir," said Mr. Skimpin, "have the goodness to let his lordship and the jury know, what your name is, will you?" And Mr. Skimpin inclined his head on one side to listen with great sharpness to the an- swer, and glanced at the jury meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected Mr. Winkle's natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him. " Winkle," replied the witness. "What is your Christian name, sir?" angrily inquired the little judge. "Nathaniel, sir." "Daniel, any other name?" " Nathaniel, sir, my lord, I mean." "Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel?" "No, my lord, only Nathaniel, not Daniel at all." "What did you tell me it was Daniel for then, sir?" inquired the judge. " I didn't, my lord," replied Mr. Winkle. "You did, sir," replied the judge, with a severe frown. "How could I have got Daniel on my notes unless you told me so, sir?" This argument was of course unanswerable. "Mr. Winkle has rather a short memory, my lord," interposed Mr. Skimpin, with another glance at the jury. "We shall find means to refresh it before we have quite done with him, I dare say." " You had better be careful, sir," said the little judge, with a sinister look at the witness. Poor Mr. Winkle bowed, and endeavored to feign an easiness of man- 302 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 ner, which, in his then state of confusion, gave him rather the air of a disconcerted pickpocket. "Now, Mr. Winkle," said Mr. Skimpin, " attend to me, if you please, sir; and let me recommend you, for your own sake, to bear in mind his lordship's injunctions to be careful. I believe you are a particular friend of Pickwick, the defendant, are you not?" " I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as well as I recollect at this mo- ment, nearly " " Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are you, or are you not, a particular friend of the defendant's?" " I was just about to say, that " "Will you, or will you not, answer my question, sir?" " If you don't answer the question, you'll be committed, sir," inter posed the little judge, looking over his note-book. "Come, sir," said Mr. Skimpin; "yes or no, if you please." " Yes, I am," replied Mr. Winkle. "Yes, you are. And why couldn't you say that at once, sir? Per- haps you know the plaintiff too, eh, Mr. Winkle?" "I don't know her; I've seen her." " O, you don't know her, but you've seen her? Now, have the good- ness to tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by that, Mr. Winkle?" "I mean that lam not intimate with her, but that I have seen her when I went to call on Mr. Pickwick, in Goswell Street." "How often have you seen her, sir?" "How of ten?" "Yes, Mr. Winkle, how often? I'll repeat the question for you a dozen times, if you require it, sir." And the learned gentleman, with a firm and steady frown, placed his hands on his hips and smiled suspi- ciously at the jury. On this question there arose the edifying brow-beating customary on such points. First of all, Mr. Winkle said it was quite impossible for him to say how many times he had seen Mrs. Bardell. Then he was asked if he had seen her twenty times, to which he replied, " Certainly, more than that. " Then he was asked whether he hadn't seen her a hundred times, whether he couldn't swear that he had seen her more than fifty times, whether he didn't know that he had seen her at least seventy- five times, and so forth; the satisfactory conclusion which was arrived at at last being, that he had better take care of himself, and mind what he was about. The witness having been by these me'ans reduced to the requisite ebb of nervous perplexity, the examination was continued as follows: Prose Charles Dickens* s. 303 "Pray, Mr. Winkle, do you remember calling on the defendant Pick- wick, and these apartments in the plaintiff's house in Goswell Street, on one particular morning in the month of July last?" "Yes, I do." "Were you accompanied on that occasion by a friend of the name of Tupman, and another of the name of Snodgrass?" "Yes, I was." " Are they here?" " Yes, they are," replied Mr. Winkle, looking very earnestly towards the spot where his friends were stationed. "Pray attend to me, Mr. Winkle, and never mind your friends," said Mr. Skimpin with another expressive look at the jury. "They must tell their stories without any previous consultation with you, if none has yet taken place (another look at the jury). Now, sir, tell the gentlemen of the jury what you saw on entering the defendant's room on this partic- ular morning. Come; out with it, sir; we must have it sooner or later." "The defendant, Mr. Pickwick, was holding the plaintiff in his arms, with his hands clasping her waist," replied Mr. Winkle, with natural hesitation, "and the plaintiff appeared to have fainted away." "Did you hear the defendant say anything?" " I heard him call Mrs. Bardell a good creature, and I heard him ask her to compose herself, for what a situation it was if anybody should come, or words to that effect." "Now, Mr. Winkle, I have only one more question to ask you, and I beg you to bear in mind his lordship's caution. Will you undertake to swear that Pickwick, the defendant, did not say on the occasion in question, ' My dear Mrs. Bardell, you're a good creature; compose your- self to this situation, for to this situation you must come,' or words to that effect?" "I I didn't understand him so, certainly." said Mr. Winkle, as- tounded at this ingenious dove-tailing of the few words he had heard. " I was on the staircase and couldn't hear distinctly; the impression on my mind is " "The gentlemen of the jury want none of the impressions on your mind, Mr. Winkle, which I fear would be of little service to honest, straight- forward men," interposed Mr. Skimpin. " You were on the staircase, and didn't distinctly hear; but you will not swear that Pickwick did not make use of the expressions I have quoted? Do I understand that?" "No, I will not," replied Mr. Winkle; and down sat Mr. Skimpin with a triumphant countenance. Susannah Sanders was then called, and examined by Serjeant Buzfuz. and cross-examined by Serjeant Snubbiu. Had always said and believed 304 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 that Pickwick would rnarry Mrs. Bardell; knew that Mrs. Bardell's being engaged to Pickwick was the current topic of conversation in the neigh- borhood after the fainting in July; had been told it herself by Mrs. Mudberry, which kept a mangle, and Mrs. Bunkin, which clear-starched, but did not see either Mrs. Mudberry or Mrs. Bunkin in court. Had heard Pickwick ask the little boy how he should like to have another father. Did not know that Mrs. Bardell was at that time keeping com- pany with the baker, but did know that the baker was then a single man, and is now married. Couldn't swear that Mrs. Bardell was not very fond of the baker, but should think that the baker was not very fond of Mrs. Bardell, or he wouldn't have married somebody else. Thought Mrs. Bardell fainted away on the morning in July, because Pickwick asked her to name the day. Knew that she (witness) fainted away stone-dead when Mr. Sanders asked her to name the day, and be- lieved that everybody as called herself a lady would do the same under similar circumstances. Heard Pickwick ask the boy the question about the marbles, but upon her oath did not know the difference between an alley tor and a commoney. Serjeant Buzfuz now rose with more importance than he had ever ex- hibited, if that were possible, and vociferated, "Call Samuel Weller." It was quite unnecessary to call Samuel Weller; for Samuel Weller stepped briskly into the box the instant his name was pronounced ; and, placing his hat on the floor and his arms on the rail, took a bird's-eye view of the bar, and a comprehensive survey of the bench, with a re- markably cheerful and lively aspect. "What's your name, sir?" inquired the judge. "Sam Weller, my lord," replied that gentleman. "Do you spell it with a ' V ' or a ' W?' inquired the judge. "That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord," replied Sam. ' ' I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my life; but I spells it with a ' V.' " Here a voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, "Quite right too, Sam- evil, quite right. Put it down a we, my lord, put it down a we." "Who is that, who dares to address the court?" said the little judge, looking up. "Usher." "Yes, my lord." " Bring that person here instantly." "Yes, my lord." But as the usher didn't find the person, he didn't bring him; and, after a great commotion, all the people who had got up to look for the culprit sat down again. The little judge, turned to the witness as soon Prose Charles Dickens 's. 305 as his indignation would allow him to speak, and said, " Do you know who that was, sir?" "I rayther suspect it was my father, my lord," replied Sam. "Do you see him here now?" said the judge. "No, I don't, my lord, "replied Sam, staring right up into the lantern in the roof of the court. "If you could have pointed him out, I would have committed him instantly," said the judge. ' Sam bowed his acknowledgments, and turned with unimpaired cheer- fulness of countenance towards Serjeant Buzfuz. "Now, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz. "Now, sir," replied Sam. "I believe you are in the service of Mr. Pickwick, the defendant in this case. Speak up, if you please, Mr. Weller." " I mean to speak up, sir," replied Sam. " I am in the service o' that 'ere genTm'n, and a wery good service it is." "Little to do, and plenty to get, I suppose?" said Serjeant Buzfuz, with jocularity. "O, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes, " replied Sam. "You must not tell us what the soldier, or any other man said, sir," interposed the judge; "it's not evidence." "Wery good, my lord," replied Sam. "Do you recollect anything particular happening on the morning when you were first engaged by the defendant; eh, Mr. Weller?" said Serjeant Buzfuz. "Yes, I do, sir," replied Sam. "Have the goodness to tell the jury what it was." "I had a reg'lar new fit-out o' clothes that mornin', gen'l'm'n of the jury," said Sam; "and that was a wery partickler and uncommon cir- cumstance with me in those days." Hereupon there was a general laugh; and the little judge, looking with an angry countenance over his desk, said, "You had better be careful, sir." "So Mr. Pickwick said at the time, my lord," replied Sam; "and I was wery careful o' that 'ere suit o' clothes, wery careful indeed, my lord." The judge looked sternly at Sam for full two minutes; but Sam's features were so perfectly calm and serene that the judge said nothing, and motioned Serjeant Buzfuz to proceed. "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz, folding 306 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 his arms emphatically, and turning half round to the jury, as if in mute assurance that he would bother the witness yet, " do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller. that you saw nothing of this fainting on the part of the plaintiff in the arms of the defendant, which you have heard de- scribed by the witnesses?" " Certainly not," replied Sam. "I was in the passage till they called me up, and then the old lady was not there." " Now, attend, Mr. Wellef," said Serjeant Buzfuz, dipping a large pen into the inkstand before him, for the purpose of frightening Sam with a show of taking down his answer. " You were in the passage, and yet saw nothing of what was going forward. Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?" "Yes, I have a pair of eyes," replied Sam; "and that's just it. If they was a pair o' patent double-million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'r'aps I might be able to see through a flight o' stairs and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see my wision's limited." At this answer, which was delivered without the slightest appearance of irritation, and with the most complete simplicity and equanimity of manner, the spectators tittered, the little judge smiled, and Serjeant Buzfuz looked particularly foolish. After a short consultation with Dodson and Fogg, the learned Serjeant again turned toward Sam, and said, with a painful effort to conceal his vexation, "Now, Mr. Weller, I'll ask you a question on another point, if you please." "If you please, sir," said Sam, with the utmost good-humor. "Do you remember going up to Mrs. Bardell's house one night in November last?" "O, yes, wery well." "O, you do remember that, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz, re- covering his spirits; "I thought we should get at something at last." " I rayther thought that, too, sir," replied Sam; and at this the spec- tators tittered again. " Well, I suppose you went up to have a little talk about this trial, eh, Mr. Weller?" said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking knowingly at the jury. " I went up to pay the rent; but we did get a talkin' about the trial," replied Sam. "O, you did get a talking about the trial," said Serjeant Buzfuz, brightening up with the anticipation of some important discovery. " Now what passed about the trial? Will you have the goodness to tell us, Mr. Weller?" " Vith all the pleasure in life, sir," replied Sam. "Arter a few un- important observations from the two wjrtuous females as has been 1789 the society by which he was surrounded and infected, and which all but succeeded in seducing him. His greatness, as well as his weakness, lay in the fact that from boyhood battle was the breath of his being. To tell him not to fight was like telling Wordsworth not to reflect, or Shelley not to sing. His instrument is a trumpet of challenge; and he lived, as he appropriately died, in the progress of an unaccomplished campaign." John Nichol. "His personality inspires no love like that which makes the devotees of Shelley as faithful to the man as they are loyal to the poet. His in- tellect, though robust and masculine, is not of the kind to which we willingly submit. As a man, as a thinker, as an artist, he is out of har- mony with us. Nevertheless, nothing can be more certain than Byron's commanding place in English literature. He is the only British poet of the nineteenth century who is also European; nor will the lapse of time fail to make his greatness clearer to his fellow-countrymen, when a just critical judgment finally dominates the fluctuations of fashion to whicb he has been subject. " J. A. Symonds. BIBLIOGRAPHY. BYRON. T. Moore's Letters and Journals of; H. Giles' Lecture* and Essays; Macaulay's Essays; Eng. Men of Let. Series ; Ward's Anthology, Whipple's Charac. of Men of Genius, and Essays and Reviews; Hewitt's Homes and Haunts of Brit. Poets; J. Morley's Crit. Miscel. ; J. Paget's Paradoxes; Fras. Mag., v. 80, 1869; Quar. Rev., v. 127, 1869; West. Rev., v. 69, 1858; Eel. Mag., Jan. and Oct., 1872; and Nov., 1880. Byron's Napoleon's Farewett. Farewell to the Land where the gloom of my Glory Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name She abandons me now, but the page of her story, . The brightest or blackest, is filled with my fame. I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only "When the meteor of conquest allured me too far; I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely The last single captive to millions in war. Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd me^ I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, But thy weakness decrees I should leave as 1 found thee, Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth. Oh ! for the veteran hearts that were wasted In strife with the storm, when their battles were won Then the eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted, Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun! Poetry Byron's. 893 Farewell to thee, France! but when Liberty rallies Once more in thy regions, remember me then. The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys; Though wither'd, thy tear will unfold it again. Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us, And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us, Then turn thee, and call on the Chief of thy choice! From Childe Harold An August Evening in Italy. The moon is up, and yet it is not night Sunset divides the sky with her, a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colors seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the Day joins the past Eternit3 r ; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air an island of the blest! A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven: but still Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Khaetian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaim'd her order: gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose, Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows ; Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar, Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse : And now they change; a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till 'tis gone and all is gray. 394 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . From Parisina. It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whisper'd word; And gentle winds and waters near Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf a browner hue, And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure, Which follows the decline of day, As twilight melts beneath the moon away. But it is not to list to the waterfall That Parisina leaves her hall, And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light That the lady walks in the shadow of night; And, if she sits in Este's bower, 'Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower. She listens, but not for the nightingale, Though her ear expects as soft a tale. There glides a step through the foliage thick, And her cheek grows pale, and her heart beats quick. There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves, And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves; A moment more, and they shall meet, 'Tis past her lover's at her feet. From The Siege of Corinth. Lightly and brightly breaks away The Morning from her mantle gray, And the Noon will look on a sultry day. Hark to the trump and the drum And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne, And the neigh of the steed and the multitude's hum And the clash and the shout," They cornel they ccmel" Poetry Byron's. 395 The horestails are pluck'd from the ground, and the sword From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word. Tartar and Spahi and Turcoman, Strike your tents, and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain That the fugitive may flee in vain When he breaks from the town ; and none escape, Aged or young, in the Christian shape; While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they pass. The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein; Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane; White is the foam of their champ on the bit: The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit; The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar, And crush the wall they have crumbled before. Forms in his phalanx each Janizar, Alp at their head ; his right arm is bare, So is the blade of his scimitar; ^ The khan and the pachas are all at their post; The vizier himself at the head of the host. When the culverin's signal is fired, then on; Leave not in Corinth a living one A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls. God and the prophet Alia Hu! Up to the skies with that wild halloo! " There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale; And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail? He who first downs with the red cross may crave His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!" Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier; The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear, And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire: Silence hark to the signal fire ! The rampart is won and the spoil begun And all but the after carnage done. But here and there, where 'vantage ground Against the foe may still be found, 896 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . Desperate groups of twelve or ten Make a pause, and turn again With banded backs against the wall Fiercely stand, or, fighting, fall. There stood an old man his hairs were white, But his veteran arm was full of might: So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray The dead before him, on that day, In a semicircle lay; Still he combated unwounded, Though retreating, unsurrounded. Many a scar of former fight Lurk'd beneath his corslet bright; But of every wound his body bore, Each and all had been ta'en before: Though aged, he was so iron of limb Few of our youth could cope with him. Still the old man stood erect, And Alp's career a moment check'd. "Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take, For thine own, thy daughter's sake." "Never, renegade, never! Though the life of thy gift would last forever." " Francesca! Oh, my promised bride! Must she too perish by thy pride?" " She is safe." " Where? where?" "In heaven; From whence. thy traitor soul is driven Far from thee, and undefiled." Grimly then Minotti smiled. As he saw Alp staggering bow Before his words, as with a blow. "Oh God! when died she?" " Yesternight Nor weep I for her spirit's flight. None of my pure race shall be Slaves to Mahomet and thee. Come on!" That challenge is in vain Alp's already with the slain! While Minotti's words were wreaking More revenge in bitter speaking Poetry Byron's. 897 Than his falchion's point had found Had the time allowed to wound, From within the neighboring porch Of a long-defended church, Where the last and desperate few Would the failing fight renew, The sharp shot dash'd Alp to the ground. Ere an eye could view the wound That crash'd through the brain of the infidel, Round he spun, and down he fell. The Destruction of Sennacheinb. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still! And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock- beating surf. And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlif ted, the trumpet unblown. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And their idols are broke in the temple of Baal , And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! 898 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . From Don Juan. The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set. The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute Have found the fame your shores refuse; Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo farther west Than your sires' " Islands of the Blest." The mountains look on Marathon And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations; all were his! He counted them at break of day And, when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Though link'd among a fetter'd race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear. Poetry Shelley. 399 Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush? Our fathers bled. Earth ! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylae! What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no; the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise, we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb. OTHER READING. Cantos I and II of Prophecy of Dante and the Prisoner of Chillon> in pamphlet, by Clark & Maynard. LESSON 63. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY." In Shelley, 1792-1823, the imagination is supreme and the intellect its servant. He pro- duced, while yet a boy, some utterly worthless tales, but soon showed in Queen Mob, 1813, the influence of the revolution- ary era combined in him with a violent attack on the existing forms of religion. The poem is a poor one, but its poverty prophesies greatness. Its chief idea was the new one that had come into literature the idea of the destined perfection of mankind in a future golden age. The whole heart of Shelley was absorbed in this conception, in its faith, and in the hopes it stirred. To help the world towards it and to denounce and overthrow all that stood in its way was the object of half of Shelley's poetry. 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 Mob is an example of the first, Alastor of the second. The hopes for man with which Queen Mob was written grew cold; he himself fell ill and looked for death; the world seemed chilled to all the ideas he loved, and he turned from writing about mankind to describe in Alastor the life and 400 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . wandering and death of a lonely poet. It was himself he de- scribed, but Shelley was too stern a moralist to allow that a life lived apart from human interests was a noble one, and'the title of the poem expresses this. It is Alastor ' a spirit of evil, a spirit of solitude.' How wrong he felt such a life to be is seen in his next poem, the Revolt of Islam, 1817. He wrote it with the hope that men were beginning 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. But it is still only a martyr's hope that the poet possesses. The two chief characters of the poem, Laon and Cythna, are both slain in their struggle against tyranny, but their sacrifice is to bring forth hereafter the fruit of freedom. The poem itself has finer passages in it than Alastor, but as a whole it is inferior to it. It is quite formless. The same year Shelley went to Italy, and renewed health and the climate gave him renewed power. Rosalind and Helen appeared, and, in 1818, Julian and Maddalo was written. The first tale cir- cles round a social subject that interested him, the second is a familiar conversation on the story of a madman in San Lazzaro at Venice. In it his poetry becomes more masculine, and he has for the first time won mastery over his art. The new life and joy he had now gained brought back his enthusiasm for mankind, and he broke out into the splendid lyric drama of Prometheus Unbound. Prometheus bound on his rock represents Humanity suffering under the reign of Evil impersonated in Jupiter. Asia, at the beginning of the drama separated from Prometheus, is the all-pervading Love which in loving makes the universe of nature. The time comes when Evil is overthrown. Prometheus is then deliv- ered and united to Asia; that is, Man is wedded to the spirit in Nature, and Good is all in all. The fourth act is the choral song of the regenerated universe. It is the finest example we have of the working out in poetry of that idea of a glorious Poetry Shelley. 401 destiny for the whole of Man which Cowper introduced into English poetry. The marriage of Asia and Prometheus, of Nature and Humanity, the distinct existence of each for that purpose, is the same idea as Wordsworth's, differently ex- pressed; and Shelley and he are the only two poets who have touched it philosophically, Wordsworth with most contem- plation, Shelley with most imagination. Shelley's poetry of Man reached its height in Prometheus Unbound, and he turned now to try his matured power upon other subjects. Two of these were neither personal nor for the sake of man. The first was the drama of the Cenci, the gravest and no- blest tragedy since Webster wrote, which we possess. It is as restrained in expression as the previous poem is exuberant; yet there is no other 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, belonging 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, Epipsycliidion is the most impalpable, but, to those who care for Shelley's ethereal world, the finest, poem he ever wrote. No critic can ever compre- hend it; it is the artist's poem, and all Shelley's philosophy of life is contained in it. Of the same class is the Witch of Atlas, the poem in which he has personified divine Imagination in her work in poetry and all her attendants and all 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 Wind, mingle together personal feelings and prophetic hopes for Man. Some are lyrics of Nature; some are dedicated to the rebuke of tyranny and the cause of liberty; others belong to the passion of love, and others are written on the shadows of dim dreams of thought. They form together the most sensitive, the mo:t imaginative, 402 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 and the most musical, but the least tangible, lyrical poetry we possess. As the poet of Nature, he had the same idea as Wordsworth, that Nature was alive; but while Wordsworth made the active principle which filled and made Nature to be Thought, Shel- ley made it Love. As each distinct thing in Nature had to Wordsworth a thinking spirit in it, so each thing had to Shel- ley a loving spirit in it; even the invisible spheres of vapor sucked by the sun from the forest pool had each its indwell- ing spirit. We feel, then, that Shelley as well as Wordsworth, and for a similar reason, could give a special love to, and therefore describe vividly, each thing he saw. He wants the closeness of grasp of nature which Wordsworth and Keats had, but he had the power in a far greater degree than they of de- scribing a vast landscape melting into indefinite distance. In this he stands first among English poets, and is in poetry what Turner was in landscape painting. Towards the end of his life, his poetry became overloaded with mystical metaphysics. 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 cor- dium, ' Heart of hearts,' written on his tomb, well says what all who love poetry feel when they think of him." " As a poet, Shelley contributed a new quality to English literature a quality of ideality, freedom, and spiritual audacity which severe crit- ics of other nations think we lack. Whether we consider his minor songs, his odes, or his more complicated choral dramas, we acknowledge that he was the loftiest and the most spontaneous singer of our lan- guage. In range of power also he was conspicuous above the rest. Not only did he write the best lyrics but the best tragedy, the best transla- tions, and the best familiar poems of his century. While his genius was so varied and its flight so unapproached in swift- ness, it would be vain. to deny that Shelley, as an artist, had faults. The most prominent of these are haste, incoherence, verbal carelessness, jn- eoinpleteness. a want of narrative force, and a weak hold on objective Poetry Shelley's. 403 realities In his eager self-abandonment to inspiration, he produced much that is unsatisfactory simply because it is not ripe. There was no defect of power in him, but a defect of patience; and the final word to be pronounced in estimating the larger bulk of his poetry is the word immature. Not only was the poet young but the fruit of his young mind had been plucked before it had been duly mellowed by reflection. He did not care enough for common things to present them with artistic fulness. He was intolerant of detail, and thus failed to model with the roundness that we find in Goethe's work. He flew at tne grand, the spacious, the sublime, and did not always succeed in realizing for his readers what he had imagined. A certain want of faith in his own powers prevented him from finishing what he began. Some of these defects were in a great measure the correlative of his chief quality ideality. He composed with all his faculties, mental, emotional, and physical, at the utmost strain, at a white heat of intense fervor, striving to attain one object the truest and most passionate in- vestiture for the thoughts which had inflamed his ever-quick imagina- tion. The result is, that his finest work has more the stamp of some- thing natural and elemental the wind, the sea, the depth of air than of a mere artistic product. Plato would have said the Muses filled this man with sacred madness, and when he wrote, he was no longer in his own control. There was, moreover, ever-present in his nature an effort, an aspiration after a better than the best this world can show which prompted him to blend the choicest products of his thought and fancy with the fairest images borrowed from the earth on which he lived. This persistent upward striving, this earnestness, this passionate inten- sity, this piety of soul, and purity of inspiration, give a quite unique spirituality to his poems." John A. Symonds. BIBLIOGRAPHY. SHELLEY. W. M. Rossetti's Memoir of; Eng. Men of Let. Series; W. Bagehot's Estimates, etc.; De Quincey's Essays on the Poets; Hewitt's Homes of Brit. Poets; Ward's Anthology; L. Hunt's Memoirs of ; J. L. Peacock's Works; At. Mo., v. 6,1860; and 11, 1363; Macmillan, Nov., 1860; Black. Mag., T. Ill, 1812; Dub. U. Mag., v. 67, 1866; Harper's Mo., v. 38; Nat. Rev., v. 16, 1863; N. Br. Rev., v. 34, 1861; Quar. Rev., v. 110. 1861; West Rev., v. 69, 1858; New Mo. Mag., vs. 34, 35, and 38; Eel. Mag., May, 1879, and Aug., 1880. Shelley's The Cloud. I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid. In their noondav dreams, 404 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the Blast. Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers Lightning, my pilot, sits; In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea ; Over the rills and the crags and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream under mountain or stream The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack When the morning-star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain-crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And, when Sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove. Poetry Shelley's. 405 That orbSd maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the Moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And, wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The Stars peep behind her and peer. And 1 laugh to see them whirl and flee Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these. I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof; The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist Earth was laughing below. I am the daughter of the Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when, with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleamB Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise, and unbuild it again. 406 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 64. JOHN KEATS. "Keats lies near Shelley, cut off like him ere his genius ripened; not so great, but possessing per- haps greater possibilities of greatness; not so ideal, but for that very reason closer in his grasp of 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 in France had started in England, as Shel- ley marks the attempt to revive it. Keats, finding nothing to move him in an age which had now sunk into apathy on these points, went back to Greek and mediaeval life to find his subjects, and established, in doing so, that which has been called the literary poetry of England. His first subject, after some minor poems in 1817, was Endymion, 1818, his last Hyperion, 1820. These, along with Lamia, were poems of Greek life. Endymion has all the faults and all the promise of a great poet's early work, and no one knew its faults better than Keats, whose preface is a model of just self-judgment. Hyperion, a fragment of a tale of the overthrow of the Titans, is itself like a Titanic torso, and in it the faults of Endymion are repaired and its promise fulfilled. Both are filled with that which was deepest in the mind of Keats, the love of loveliness for its own sake, the sense of its rightful and pre-eminent power; and, in the sin- gleness of worship which he gave to Beauty, Keats is espe- cially the artist, and the true father of the latest modern school of poetry. Not content with carrying us into Greek life, he took us back into mediaeval romance, and in this also he started a new type of poetry. There are two poems which mark this revival Isabella, and the Eve of St. Agnes. Isabella is a Poetry Keats. 407 version of Boccaccio's tale of the Pot of Basil; St. Agnes' Eve is, as far as I know, original; the former is purely mediaeval, the latter is tinged with the conventional mediasvalism of Spenser. Both poems are however modern and individual. The overwrought daintiness of style, the pure sensuousness, the subtle flavor of feeling belong to no one but Keats. Their originality has caused much imitation of them, but they are too original for imitation. In smaller poems, such as the Ode to a Grecian Urn, the poem to Autumn, and some sonnets, he is perhaps at his very best. In these and in all, his painting of Nature is as close and as direct as Wordsworth's; less full of the imagination that links human thought to Nature, but more full of the imagi- nation which broods upon enjoyment of beauty. His career was short; he had scarcely begun to write when death took him away from the loveliness he loved so keenly. Consump- tion drove him to Rome, and there he died almost alone. He lies not far from Shelley, near the pyramid of Caius Cestius." "Poetry, according to Milton's famous saying, should be 'simple, sensuous, impassioned.' Keats, as a poet, is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous; the question with some people will be, whether he is any- thing else. ' The yearning passion for the Beautiful,' which was with Keats, as he himself truly says, the master-passion, is not a passion of the sensuous or sentimental man, is not a passion of the sensuous or sentimental poet. It is an intellectual and spiritual passion. In his last days Keats wrote, 'I have loved the principle of beauty in all things; and, if I had had time, I would have made myself remembered.' He has made himself remembered, and remembered as no merely sen- suous poet could be; and he has done it by having 'loved the principle of beauty in all things.' For to see things in their beauty is to see things in their truth, and Keats knew it. And with beauty goes not only truth, joy goes with her also; and this too Keats saw and said. It is no small thing to have so loved the principle of beauty as to perceive the necessary relation of beauty with truth, and of both with joy. Let and hindered as he was, and with a short time and imperfect ex- perience, by virtue of his feeling for beauty and of his perception of the vital connection of beauty with truth, Keats accomplished so much 408 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . in poetry that in one of the two great modes by which poetry interpret*, in the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, he ranks with Shakespeare. No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in. expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of loveliness. For the second great half of poetic interpretation, for that faculty of moral in- terpretation which is in Shakespeare, and is informed by him with the same power of beauty as his naturalistic interpretation, Keats was not ripe." MattJiew Arnold. BIBLIOGRAPHY. KEATS. Milnes' Life, Letters, and Lit. Remains of; De Quincey's Essays; Howitt's Homes and Haunts of Brit. Poets; Ward's Anthology; Lowell's Among My Books, 2d Ser. ; S. Phillips' Essays from the Times; Macmillan, Nov., 1860; At. Mo., v. 7, 1861; and 11, 1863; Temple Bar, July, 1873; Eel. Mag., Feb., 1849: Gent's. Mag., Feb., 1873. Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk. 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness, That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full- throated ease. Oh for a draught of vintage that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provengal song, and sun-burnt mirth! Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim! Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; Poetry Keats' s. 409 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last, grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards. Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding, mossy ways c I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine, Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid -May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen, and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a muse"d rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath. Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain- To thy high requiem become a sod. 410 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home. She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn 1 the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades. Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music; do I wake or sleep? 65. TENNYSON. "Keats marks the exhaustion 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 poetry. But with the Reform agitation, and the new religious agitation at Oxford, which was of the same date, a new excitement or a new form of the old, came on England, and with it a new tribe of poets arose, among whom we live. The elements of their poetry were also new, though their germs were sown in the previous poetry. It took up the theological, sceptical, social, and political questions which disturbed England. It gave itself to metaphysics and to analysis of human character. It carried the love of nat- ural scenery into almost every county in England, aud de- scribed the whole land. Some of its best writers are ROBERT Poetry Tennyson. 41 1 BROWNING, MBS. BROWNING, MATTHEW ARNOLD, and A. H. CLOUGH. One of them, ALFRED TENNYSON, lias for forty years re- mained the first. All the great subjects of his time he has touched poetically, and enlightened. His feeling for Nature is accurate, loving, and of a wide range.' His human sympa- thy fills as wide a field. The large interests of mankind and of his own time, the lives of simple people, and the subtler phases of thought and feeling which arise in our overwrought society are wisely and tenderly written of in his poems. His drawing of distinct human characters is the best we have in pure poetry since Chaucer wrote. He writes true songs, and he has excelled all English writers in the pure Idyll. The Idylls of the King are a kind of epic, and he has lately tried the drama. In lyrical measures, as in the form of his blank verse, he is as inventive as original. It is by the breadth of his range that he most conclusively takes the first place among the modern poets." " If I may take my own experience as an indication of the nature of Tennyson's influence generally, I should say that he is pre-eminently distinguished by the quality of charm. The element of sweetness per- vades his poetry; sweetness too subtle to define, sweetness never permit ted to cloy the reader, sweetness cunningly allied with, or relieved by, what the poet calls ' the bitter of the sweet.' I accept the ancient canon of criticism that poetry ought to be not only beautiful but sweet, and I think that it is in the exceeding beauty of Tennyson's that one chief secret of its sweetness lies. Not only do these poems display no vulgar smartness but no fun, no humor, no caricature. A Greek severity of style is everywhere apparent ; a reverence as of one for whom song has in very truth the sacredness of worship. And even if we decide that in the work of Tennyson as a whole there is too much of rule and measure, too marked an absence of humor, too little of the wild witching graces of freedom, we are, I think, safe in regarding the classic purity, the chastened enthusiasm in one word, the moderation, of his first poems as a good omen. The earnestness noted by Hallam was the best proof of capacity to take pains, the best guarantee of staying power. 412 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . To describe his command of language by any ordinary terms expres- sive of fluency or force would be to convey an idea both inadequate and erroneous. It is not only that he knows every word in the language suited to express his every idea; he can select with the ease of magic the word that above all others is best for his purpose: nor is it that he can at once summon to his aid the best word the language affords; with an art which Shakespeare never scrupled to apply, though in our day it is apt to be counted mere Germanism, and pronounced contrary to the genius of the language, he combines old words into new epithets, he daringly mingles all colors to bring out tints that never were on sea or shore. His words gleam like pearls and opals, like rubies and emeralds. He yokes the stern vocables of the English tongue to the chariot of his imagination, and they become gracefully brilliant as the leopards of Bacchus, soft and glowing as the Cytherean doves. He must have been born with an ear for verbal sounds, an instinctive appreciation of the beautiful and delicate in words, hardly ever equalled. Though his later works speak less of the blossom-time show less of the efflorescence and iridescence, and mere glance and gleam of colored words they display no falling off, but rather an advance, in the mightier elements of rhythmic speech. " Peter Bayne. BIBLIOGRAPHY. TENNYSON. P. Bayne's Lessons from my Masters; Bromley's Es- says; Stedman's Victorian Poets; Taine's Hist. Eng. Lit.; J. Sterling's Essays and Tales; Howitt's Homes and Haunts of Brit. Poets; Black. Mag , v. 79, 1856; 88, 1860; and 96, 1864; Fras. Mag., v. 52, 1855; 53, 1856; and 60, 1859: N. Br. Rev., v. 31, 1849; 41, 1864; and 53, 1871; Ed. Rev., vs. 102 and 131; Quar. Rev., v. 106, 1859; 119, 1866; 128, 1870; and 131, 1871; West. Rev., v. 72, 1859; and 82, 1864; Nat. Quar. Rev., v. 5, 1862; and 19, 1869; Contem. Rev., v. 7, 1867; New Englander, v. 18, 1860; and 22, 1868. MKS. BROWNING. Black. Mag., v. 81, 1857: and 87, 1860; Nat, Quar. Rev., v. 1, 1860; and 5, 1862; N. Br. Rev., v. 26, 1856; 36, 1862; and 51, 1870; N. A. Rev., v. 85 1857. MR. BROWNING. Ed. Rev., v. 120, 1864; 130, 1869; and 135. 1872; Fort. Rev., v. 11, 1869; and 16, 1871; Macmillan, Jan. and Apr., 1869; Contem. Rev., Jan. and Feb. 1867; and May, 1874; N. Br. Rev., v. 34, 1861; and 49, 1868. From Tennyson's Maud. Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the mfisk of the roses blown. Poetry Tennyson's. 413 For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun that she loves, To faint in his light, and to die. % All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon ; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd To the dancers dancing in time; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon. I said to the lily, " There is but one With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone? She is weary of dance and play." Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away. I said to the rose, "The brief night goes In babble and revel andVine. young lord-lover, what sighs are those For one that will never be thine? But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, " For ever and ever, mine." And the soul of the rose went into my blood, As the music clash'd in the hall; And long by the garden lake I stood, For I heard your rivulet fall From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood Our wood, that is dearer than all; From the meadow your walks have left so sweet That, whenever a March-wind sighs, He sets the jewel-print of your feet In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we meet And the valleys of Paradise, 414 Literature of Period V7//., 1789 -. The slender acacia would not shake One long milk-bloom on the tree; The white lake-blossom fell into the lake As the pimpernel dozed on the lee; But the rose was awake all night for your sake, Knowing your promise to me ; The lilies and roses were all awake, They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun. There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near;" And the white rose weeps, " She is late;" The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear;" And the lily whispers, " I wait." She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead ; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red. 1 lie Defence of Lucknow. Banner of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast thou Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle-cry! Never with mightier glory than when we had rear'd thee on high Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Lucknow Shot thro' the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised thee anew, And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Poetry Tennyson's. 415 Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our lives Women and children among us, God help them, our children and wives! Hold it we might and for fifteen days or for twenty at most. "Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!" Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the best of the brave : Cold were his brows when we kiss'd him we laid him that night in his grave. " Every man die at his post!" and there hail'd on our houses and halls Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-balls, Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight harricade, Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stoopt to the spade, Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro' it, their shot and their shell, Death for their spies were among us, their marksmen were told of our best, So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that could think for the rest; Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled us round Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a street, Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in the ground! Mine? Yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! and creep thro' the hole! Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him the murderous mole! Quiet, ah! quiet wait till the point of the pick axe be thro'! Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again than before Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew! Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap echo'd away, Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hell- Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell. What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan ! Storm at the water-gate! storm at the Bailey -gate! storm, and it ran Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drown'd by the tide- So many thousands that, if they be bold enough, who shall escape? 416 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 Kill or be kill'd, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men! Ready! take aim at their leaders their masses are gapp'd with our grape- Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward again, Flying and foil'd at the last by the handful they could not subdue ; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and limb, Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure, Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him; Still could we watch at all points? we were everyday fewer and fewer. There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper thr.t past: " Children and wives if the tigers leap into the fold unawares Every man die at his post and the foe may outlive us at last Better to fall by the hands that they love than to fall into theirs!" Roar upon roar, in a moment two mines, by the enemy sprung, Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades. Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true! Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusillades Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung, Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand- grenades; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Then on another wild morning another wild earthquake out-tore Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good paces or more. Rifleman, high on the roof, hidden there from the light of the sun One has leapt up on the breach, crying out, " Follow me, follow me!" Mark him he falls! then another, and him too, and down goes he. Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the traitors had won? Boardings and rafters and doors an embrasure! make way for the gun! Now double-charge it with grape! It is charged and we fire, and they run. Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his due! Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and few, Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them and slew, That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India blew. Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight! But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all thro' the night Poetry Tennyson} s. 417 Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, the;r lying alarms. Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and sounding.- to arms, Ever the labor of fifty, that had to be done by five, Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive, Ever the day with its traitorous deatli from the loopholes around, Ever the night with its cofflnless corpse to be laid in the ground, Heat like the mouth of hell, or a deluge of cataract skies, Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies, Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field, Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be heal'd, Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful-pitiless knife, Torture and trouble in vain, for it never could save us a life. Valor of delicate women who tended the hospital bed, Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead, Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief, Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief, Havelock baffled or beaten, or butchered for all that we knew Then day and night, day and night, coming down on the still shatter'd walls, Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon-balls But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Hark! Cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout, Outram and Havelock breaking their way through the fell mutineers? Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears! All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout, Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer with conquering cheers, t Sick from the hospital echo them, women and children come out, Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock's good fusileers, Kissing the war-harden'd hand of the Highlander wet with their tears! Dance to the- pibroch! saved! we are saved! is it you? is it you? Saved by the valor of Havelock, saved by the blessing of Heaven! "Hold it for fifteen days!" we have held it for eighty-seven! And ever aloft on the palace-roof the old banner of England blew. From IjOcksUy Hall. Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn; Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall, 418 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach 1 wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed ; When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In- the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. And I said, " My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. And she turn'd her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes Saying, " I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long." Love took up the glass of time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. O my cousin, shallow-hearted ! O my Amy, mine no more! O the drtttry, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! Is it well to wish thee happy? having known me to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! Poetry Tennyson's. 419 Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine, Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, take his hand in thine. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought ; Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. He will answer to the purpose easy things to understand Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand! Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth! Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool! What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are roll'd in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother- Age 1 Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life; Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field. And at night along the dusky highway, near and nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men; Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do. For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; 420 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm ; Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. So I triumphed, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, Left me with a palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; Eye to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint, Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point; Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping uigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns. What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Tho' the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's? Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, They to whom my foolish passion \vere a target for their scorn: Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let us range. Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Mother-Age, (for mine I know not) help me as when life begun : Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun- Oh, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. Conies a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fail on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. Poetry William Morris. 421 66. MORRIS AND OTHERS. "Within the last ten years, the impulse given in '32 has died away. The vital interest in theological and social questions, in human questions of the present has decayed; and the same thing which we find in the case of Keats has again taken place. A new class of literary poets has arisen, who have no care for a present they think dull, for religious questions to which they see no end. They too have gone back to Greek and mediaeval and old Norse life for their subjects. They find much of their inspi- ration in Italy and in Chaucer; but they continue to love poetry and the poetry of natural description. No English poetry exceeds SWINBURNE'S in varied melody; and the poems of ROSSETTI, within their limited range, are instinct with pas- sion at once subtle and intense. Of them all WILLIAM MORRIS is the greatest, and of him much more is to be expected. At present he is our most delightful story-teller. He loses much by being too long, but we pardon the length for the ideal charm. The Death of Jason and the stories told month by month in the Earthly Paradise, a Greek and mediaeval story alternately, will long live to give pleasure to the holiday times of men. It is some pity that it is foreign and not English story, but we can bear to hear alien tales, for Tennyson has always kept us close to the scenery, the traditions, the daily life, and the history of England; and his last poem, the drama of Queen Mary, 1875, is written almost exactly twelve hundred years since the date of our first poem, Csedmon's Paraphrase. To think of one and then of the other, and of the great and continuous stream of literature that has flowed between them, is more than enough to make us all proud of the name of Englishmen." BIBLIOGRAPHY. ROSSETTI. Stedman's Vic. Poets; Oath. World, May, 1874; Fras. Mag,, May, 1870; Fort. Rev., v. 13, 1870; West. Rev., v. 95, 1871; Contem. Rev., v. 18, 1871. 422 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . MORRIS. Ed. Rev., v. 133, 1871; Fort. Rev., July, 1867; Contem. Rev., Dec., 1874; Fras. Mag., v. 79, 1869; New Englander, v. 30, 1871; Scrib. Mo., Feb., 1875; West. Rev., v. 90, 1868 SWINBURNE. Lowell's My Study Windoivs; Stedman's Vie. Poets; Lond. Quar. Rev., Jan., 1869; Oath. World, Dec., 1874; Fras. Mag., v. 71, 18G5; and 74, 1868; Galaxy, Dec., 1866; Nat. Quar. Rev., v. 14, 1867; West. Rev., v. 87, 1867. From Morris's Life and Death of Jason * But when they reached the precinct of the God, And on the hallowed turf their feet now trod, Medea turned to Jason, and she said, " O love, turn round, and note the goodlihead My father's palace shows beneath the stars. Bethink thee of the men grown old in wars, Who do my bidding; what delights I have, How many ladies lie in wait to save My life from toil and carefulness, and think How sweet a cup I have been used to drink, And how I cast it to the ground for thee. Upon the day thou weariest of me, I wish that thou mayst somewhat think of this, And 'twixt thy new-found kisses, and the bliss Of something sweeter than thine old delight, Remember thee a little of this night Of marvels, and this starlit, silent place, And these two lovers, standing face to face." " O love," he said, " by what thing shall I swear That while I live thou shalt not be less dear Than thou art now?" "Nay, sweet," she said, " let be; Wert thou more fickle than the restless sea, Still should I love thee, knowing thee for such ; Whom I know not, indeed, but fear the touch * Pelias dethroned his brother ^Eson, King of lolchos, and sought the life of Jason, Jason's son. The boy was concealed, and, reaching maturity, demanded the crown. Pelias promised it to him if he would fetch him a famous golden fleece that of a ram sacrificed to Jupiter and given to JEetes, King of Colchis. Jason organized an expedition, and set sail in the ship Argo. Arriving at Colchis, Jason wins the love of Medea, daughter of ^Eetes, and is helped by her to perform the hard tasks imposed by her father as a condition of receiving the fleece. The tasks performed, ^Eetes refuses the reward. The going of Jason and Medea to the temple where the treasure was kept, the charming of the monster that guarded it, the capture of the fleece, and their escape are described in the j assage quoted. Poetry William Morris's. 423 Of Fortune's hand when she beholds our bliss, And knows that nought is good to me but this, But now be ready, for I long full sore To hear the merry dashing of the oar, And feel the freshness of the following breeze That sets me free, and sniff the rough salt seas. Look! yonder thou mayst see armed shadows steal Down to the quays, the guiders of thy keel; Now follow me, though little shalt thou do To gain this thing, if Hecate be true Unto her servant. Nay, draw not thy sword, And, for thy life, speak not a single word Until I bid thee, else may all be lost, And of this game our lives yet pay the cost." Then toward the brazen temple-door she went, Wherefrom, half -open, a faint gleam was sent; For little need of lock it had forsooth, Because its sleepless guardian knew no ruth, And had no lust for precious things or gold. Whom, drawing near, Jason could now behold, As back Medea thrust the heavy door, For prone he lay upon the gleaming floor, Not moving, though his restless, glittering eyes Gave unto them no least hope of surprise. Hideous he was, where all things else were fair; Dull-skinned, foul-spotted, with lank, rusty hair About his neck ; and hooked yellow claws Just showed from 'neath his belly and huge jaws, Closed in the hideous semblance of a smile. Then Jason shuddered, wondering with what wile That fair king's daughter such a beast could tame. And of his sheathed sword had but little shame. But being within the doors, both mantle grey And heavy gown Medea cast away, And in thin clinging silk alone was clad, And round her neck a golden chain she had, Whereto was hung a harp of silver white. Then the great dragon, at that glittering sight, Raised himself up upon his loathly feet, As if to meet her, while her fingers sweet Already moved amongst the golden strings, 424 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 Preluding nameless and delicious things. But now she beckoned Jason to her side, For slowly towards them 'gan the beast to glide, And when close to his love the hero came, She whispered breathlessly, " On me the blame If here we perish ; if I give the word, Then know that all is lost, and draw thy sword, And manlike die in battle with the beast; So dying shalt thou fail to see at least This body thou desiredst so to see, In thy despite here mangled wretchedly. Peace, for he cometh. O thou Goddess bright, What help wilt thou be unto me this night?" So murmured she, while ceaselessly she drew Her fingers through the strings, and fuller grew The tinkling music ; but the beast, drawn nigh, Went slower still, and, turning, presently Began to move around them in a ring. And as he went, there fell a strange rattling Of his dry scales; but, as he turned, she turned, Nor failed to meet the eyes that on her burned, With steadfast eyes, and, lastly, clear and strong Her voice broke forth in sweet melodious song: " O evil thing, what brought thee here To be a wonder and a fear Unto the river-haunting folk? Was it the God of Day that broke The shadow of thy windless trees, Gleaming from golden palaces, And shod with light, and armed with light, Made thy slime stone, and day thy night, And drove thee forth unwillingly Within his golden house to lie? Or rather, thy dull, waveless lake Didst thou not leave for her dread sake Who, passing swift from glade to glade, The forest-dwellers makes afraid With shimmering of her silver bow And dreadful arrows? Even so I bid thee now to yield to me, Her maid, who overmastered thee, Poetry William Morris's. 425 The three-formed dreadful one who reigns In heaven and the fiery plains, But on the green earth best of all. Lo, now thine upraised crest let fall, Relax thy limbs, let both thine eyes Be closed, and bestial fantasies Fill thy dull head till dawn of day And we are far upon our way." As thus she sung, the beast seemed not to hear Her words at first, but ever drew anear, Circling about them, and Medea's face Grew pale unto the lips, though still the place Rung with the piercing sweetness of her song. But slower soon he dragged his length along, And on his limbs he tottered, till at last All feebly by the wondering prince he passed, And whining to Medea's feet he crept, With eyes half closed, as though well-nigh he slept, And there before her laid his head adown; Who, shuddering, on his wrinkled neck and brown Set her white foot, and whispered, " Haste, O love! Behold the keys; haste! while the Gods above Are friendly to us; there behold the shrine Where thou canst see the lamp of silver shine. Nay, draw not death upon both thee and me With fearless kisses; fear, until the sea Shall fold green arms about us lovingly, And kindly Venus to thy keel be nigh." Then lightly from her soft side Jason stept, While still upon the beast her foot she kept, Still murmuring softly many an unknown word, As when through half -shut casements the brown bird We hearken, when the night is come in June, And thick-leaved woods are 'twixt us and his tune. Therewith he threw the last door open wide, Whose hammered iron did the marvel hide, And shut his dazzled eyes, and stretched his hands Out towards the sea-born wonder of all lands, And buried them deep in the locks of gold, Grasping the fleece within his mighty hold. 426 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 Which when Medea saw, her gown of grey She caught up from the ground, and drew away Her "wearied foot from off the rugged beast, And, while from her soft strain she never ceased, In the dull folds she hid her silk from sight, And then, as bending 'neath the burden bright, Jason drew nigh, joyful, yet still afraid, She met him, and her wide grey mantle laid Over the fleece, whispering, "Make no delay; He sleeps who never slept by night or day Till now; nor will his charmed sleep be long. Light-foot am I, and sure thine arms are strong; Haste, then! no word! nor turn about to gaze At me, as he who in the shadowy ways Turned round to see once more the twice-lost face." Then swiftly did they leave the dreadful place, Turning no look behind, and reached the street, That with familiar look and kind did greet Those wanderers, mazed with marvels and with fear. And so, unchallenged, did they draw anear The long white quays, and at the street's end now Beheld the ships' masts standing row by row Stark black against the stars. Then cautiously Peered Jason forth, ere they took heart to try The open starlit place ; but nought he saw Except the night- wind twitching the loose straw From half -unloaded keels, and nought he heard But the strange twittering of a caged green bird Within an Indian ship, and from the hill A distant baying; yea, all was so still, Somewhat they doubted, natheless forth they passed, And Argo's painted sides they reached at last. Then saw Medea men like shadows grey Rise from the darksome decks, who took straightway With murmured joy, from Jason's outstretched hands, The conquered fleece, the wonder of all lands, While with strong arms he took the royal maid, And in their hold the precious burthen laid; And scarce her dainty feet could touch the deck, Ere down he leapt, and little now did reck That loudly clanged his armor therewithal. Poetry William Morris's. 427 But, turning townward, did Medea call, " O noble Jason, and ye heroes strong, To sea! to sea! nor pray ye loiter long; For surely shall ye see the beacons flare Ere in rnid stream ye are, and running fair On toward the sea with tide and oar and sail. My father wakes, nor bides he to bewail His loss and me ; I see his turret gleam As he goes toward the beacon, and down stream Absyrtus lurks before the sandy bar In mighty keel well-manned and dight for war." Now swift beneath the oar-strokes Argo flew, While the sun rose behind them, and they drew Unto the river's mouth, nor failed to see Absyrtus' galley waiting watchfully Betwixt them and the white-topped turbid bar. Therefore they gat them ready now for war, With joyful hearts, for sharp they sniffed the sea, And saw the great waves tumbling green and free Outside the bar upon the way to Greece, The rough green way to glory and sweet peace. Then to the prow gat Jason, and the maid Must needs be with him, though right sore afraid, As nearing now the Colchian ship, they hung On balanced oars; but the wild Areas strung His deadly bow, and clomb into the top. Then Jason cried, " Absyrtus, will ye stop Our peaceful keel, or let us take the sea? Soothly, have we no will to fight with thee If we may pass unfoughten; therefore say What is it thou wilt have this dawn of day?" Now on the other prow Absyrtus stood, His visage red with eager, wrathful blood, And in his right hand shook a mighty spear, And said, " O seafarers, ye pass not here, For gifts or prayers, but, if it must be so, Over our sunken bulwarks shall ye go." Then Jason wrathfully threw up his head, But ere the shout came, fair Medea said, In trembling whisper thrilling through his ear " Haste, quick upon them! if before is fear 428 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 Behind is death." Then Jason, turning, saw A tall ship staggering with the gusty flaw, Just entering the long reach where they were, And heard her horns through the fresh morning air. Then lifted he his hand, and witli a cry Back flew the balanced oars full orderly, And toward the doomed ship migLty Argo passed; Thereon Absyrtus shouted loud, and cast His spear at Jason, that before his feet Stuck in the deck ; then out the arrows fleet Burst from the Colchians; and scarce did they spare Medea's trembling side and bosom fair; But Jason, roaring as the lioness When round her helpless whelps the hunters press, Whirled round his head his mighty brass-bound spear, That, flying, smote the prince beneath the ear, As Areas' arrow sunk into his side. Then, falling, scarce he met the rushing tide, Ere Argo's mighty prow had thrust apart The huddled oars, and through the fair ship's heart Had thrust her iron beak, then the green wave Rushed in as rush the waters through a cave That tunnels half a sea-girt, lonely rock. Then drawing swiftly backward from the shock, And heeding not the cries of fear and woe, They left the waters dealing with their foe; Then at the following ship threw back a shout, And seaward o'er the bar drave Argo out. Then joyful felt all men as now at last From hill to green hill of the sea they passed ; But chiefly joyed Medea, as now grew The Colchian hills behind them faint and blue, And like a white speck showed the following ship. There 'neath the canopy, lip pressed to lip, They sat and told their love, till scarce he thought What precious burden back to -Greece he brought Besides the maid, nor for his kingdom cared, As on her beauty with wet eyes he stared, And heard her sweet voice soft as in a dream, Where all seems gained, and trouble dead does seem. Poetry Bryant. 429 LESSON 67. AMEBICAN POETRY. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born at Cummingtou, Mass., 1794; entered Williams College, 1810; admitted to the bar, 1815; became connected with the Even- ing Post, 1826, and afterwards was its editor-in-chief. Wrote Thanatopsis at the age of eighteen; published his first volume of poems, 1821; the first complete collection, 1832; and an additional volume, 1864. His translation of the Iliad ap- peared 1870; and of the Odyssey, 1871. He died in 1878. " The poetry of Bryant is not great in amount, but it represents a great deal of work, as few men are more finished artists than he, or more patient in shaping and polishing their productions. No piece of verse ever left his hands till it had received the last touch demanded by the most correct judgment and the most fastidious taste. Thus the style of his poetry is always admirable. Nowhere can one find in what he has written a careless or slovenly expression, an awkward phrase, or an ill- chosen word. He never puts in an epithet to fill out a line, and never uses one which could be improved by substituting another. The range within which he moves is not wide. He has not written narrative or dramatic poems; he has not painted poetical portraits; he has not aspired to the honors of satire, of wit, or of humor; he has made no contributions to the poetry of passion. His poems may be divided into two great classes those which express the moral aspect of human- ity, and those which interpret the language of Nature ; though it may be added that in not a few of his productions these two elements are combined. Those of the former class are not so remarkable for originality of treatment as for the beauty and truth with which they express the re- flections of the general mind and the emotions of the general heart. In these poems we see our own experience returned to us, touched with the lights and colored with the hues of the most exquisite poetry. In his study of Nature he combines the faculty and the vision, the eye of the naturalist and the imagination of the poet. No man observes the outward shows of earth and sky more accurately; no man feels them more vividly; no man describes them more beautifully." G. S.Hillard. 430 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 Bryant's The Snow Shower. Stand here by my side and turn, I pray, On the lake below thy gentle eyes; The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, And dark and silent the water lies; And out of that frozen mist the snow In wavering flakes begins to flow; Flake after flake They sink in the dark and silent lake. See how in a living swarm they come From the chambers beyond that misty veil; Some hover awhile in air, and some Rush prone from the sky like summer hail. All, dropping swiftly or settling slow, Meet, and are still in the depths below ; Flake after flake Dissolved in the dark and silent lake. Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud, Come floating downward in airy play, Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd That whiten by night the Milky Way; There broader and burlier masses fall ; The sullen water buries them all Flake after flake- All drowned in the dark and silent lake. And some, as on tender wings they glide From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray, Are joined in their fall, and, side by side, Come clinging along their unsteady way ; A& friend with friend, or husband with wife Makes hand in hand the passage of life; Each mated flake Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake. Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste Stream down the snows, till the air is white, As, myriads by myriads madly chased, They fling themselves from their shadowy height. Poetry Bryanf s. 431 The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, What speed they make, with their grave so nigh, Flake after flake, To lie in the dark and silent lake! I see in thy gentle eyes a tear; They turn to me in sorrowful thought; Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear, Who were for a time and now are not; Like these fair children of cloud and frost That glisten a moment and then are lost, Flake after flake- All lost in the dark and silent lake. Yet look again, for the clouds divide; A gleam of blue on the water lies; And, far away, on the mountain-side, A sunbeam falls from the opening skies. But the hurrying host that flew between The cloud and the water no more is seen; Flake after flake At rest in the dark and silent lake. June. I gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round; And thought that, when I came to lie Within the silent ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain turf should break A cell within the frozen mould, A coffin borne through sleet, And icy clouds above it rolled, While fierce the tempests beat Away! I will not think of these Blue be the sky, and soft the breeze, Earth green beneath the feet, And be the damp mould gently pressed Into my narrow place of rest. 482 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 There, through the long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell ; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard The housewife bee and humming-bird. And what if cheerful shouts at noon Come, from the village sent, Or songs of maids, beneath the moon With fairy laughter blent? And what if, in the evening light, Betrothed lovers walk in sight Of my low monument? I would the lovely scene around Might know no sadder sight nor sound. I know, I know I should not see The season's glorious show, Nor would its brightness shine for me, Nor its wild music flow; But if, around my place of sleep, The friends I love should come to weep, They might not haste to go. Soft airs and song and light and bloom Should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their softened hearts should bear Tbe thought of what has been, And speak of one who cannot share The gladness of the scene; Whose part, in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills, Is that his grave is green ; And deeply would their hearts rejoice To hear again his living voice. Poetry BryanVs. 433 Robert of Lincoln. Merrily swinging on briar and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame, Over the mountain -side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: Bob-o'-link, bob o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Snug and sate is that nest of ours, Hidden among the summer flowers. Chee, chee, chee. Robert of Lincoln is gaily drest, Wearing a bright black wedding-coat; White are his shoulders and white his crest, Hear him call in his merry note : Bob-o'-link, bob- o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Look, what a nice new coat is mine, Sure there was never a bird so fine. Chee, chee, chee. Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, Passing at home a patient life, Broods in the grass while her husband sings; Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Brood, kind creature; you need not fear Thieves and robbers while I am here. Chee, chee, chee. Modest and shy as a nun is she ; One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man ; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can. Chee, chee, chee. 434 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . Six white eggs on a bed of hay, Flecked with purple, a pretty sight! There as the mother sits all day, Robert is singing with all his might: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Nice, good wife, that never goes out, Keeping house while I frolic about. Chee, chee, chee. Soon as the little ones chip the shell, Six wide mouths are open for food; Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well, Gathering seeds for the hungry brood. Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; This new life is likely to be Hard for a gay young fellow like me. Chee, chee, chee. Robert of Lincoln at length is made Sober with work, and silent with care; Off is his holiday garment laid, Half forgotten that merry air, Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Nobody knows but my mate and I Where our nest and our nestlings lie. Chee, chee, chee. Summer wanes; the children are grown; Fun and frolic no more he knows; Robert of Lincoln 's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; When you can pipe that merry old strain, Bobert of Lincoln, come back again. Chee, chee, chee. Poetry EryanV s. 435 Translation from the Odyssey. They took their rest. But, when the child of dawn, Aurora, rosy-fingered, looked abroad, Ulysses put his vest and mantle on; The nymph, too, in a robe of silver white, Ample and delicate and beautiful, Arrayed herself, and round about her loins Wound a fair golden girdle, drew a veil Over her head, and planned to send away Magnanimous Ulysses. She bestowed A heavy axe of steel and double-edged, Well fitted to the hand, the handle wrought Of olive wood, firm set and beautiful. A polished adze she gave him next, and led The way to a far corner of the isle Where lofty trees, alders and poplars, stood, And firs that reached the clouds, sapless and dry Long since, and fitter thus to ride the waves. Then, having shown where grew the tallest trees, Calypso, glorious goddess, sought her home. Trees then he felled, and soon the task was done. Twenty in all he brought to earth, and squared Their trunks with the sharp steel, and carefully He smoothed their sides, and wrought them by a line. Calypso, gracious goddess, having brought Wimbles, he bored the beams, and, fitting them Together, made them fast with nails and clamps. As when some builder, skilful in his art, Frames, for a ship of burden, the broad keel, Such ample breadth Ulysses gave the raft. Upon the massy beams he reared a deck, And floored it with long planks from end to end. On this a mast he raised, and to the mast Fitted a yard ; he shaped a rudder neat To guide the raft along her course, and round With woven work of willow boughs he fenced Her sides against the dashings of the sea. Calypso, gracious goddess, brought him store Of canvas, which he fitly shaped to sails, And, rigging her with cords and ropes and stays, 436 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 Heaved her with levers into the great deep. 'Twas the fourth day; his labors now were done, And, on the fifth, the goddess from her isle Dismissed him, newly from the bath, arrayed In garments given by her, that shed perfumes. A skin of dark red wine she put on board, A larger one of water, and for food A basket, stored with viands such as please The appetite. A friendly wind and soft She sent before. The great Ulysses spread His canvas joyfully to catch the breeze, And sat and guided with nice care the helm, Gazing with fixed eye on the Pleiades, Bootes setting late, and the Great Bear, By others called the Wain, which, wheeling round, Looks ever toward Orion, and alone Dips not into the waters of the deep. For so Calypso, glorious goddess, bade That, on his ocean journey, he should keep That constellation ever on his left. Now seventeen days were in the voyage past, And on the eighteenth shadowy heights appeared, The nearest point of the Pheacian land, Lying on the dark ocean like a shield. To a Waterfowl. Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake or marge of river wide Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side? Poetry Bryant? s. 437 There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air, Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end ; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight In the long way that I must tread alone Will lead my steps aright. The Future Life, How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead, When all of thee that time could wither sleeps, And perishes among the dust we tread? For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain If there I meet thy gentle presence not; Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again In thy ser.enest eyes the tender thought. Will not thy own mek heart demand me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven? 438 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, And larger movements of the unfettered mind, Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? The love that lived through all the stormy past, And meekly with my harsher nature bore, And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, Shall it expire with life and be no more? A happier lot than mine and larger light Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will In cheerful homage to the rule of right, And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. For me the sordid cares in which I dwell Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll ; And wrath has left its scar that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same? Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, The wisdom that I learned so ill in this The wisdom which is love till I become Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? LESSON 68. AMERICAN POETRY. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was born at Portland, Me., in 1807; was graduated at Bow- doin College in 1825; and, after studying in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, entered, in 1828, upon the professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin, to which he had been elected in 1826. In 1835 he was elected to the chair of modern lan- guages and literature at Harvard College. In 1836 he entered upon his new professorship, occupying Cragie House, Wash- ington's headquarters, which he afterwards bought and made Poetry Longfellow. 439 his home. Published Hyperion and Voices in the Night in 1839; The Spanish Student, a drama, in 1843; Evangeline in 1847; Kavanagh, a tale, in 1849; The Song of Hiawatha in 1855; The Courtship of Miles Standish in 1858; The Tales of a Wayside Inn (of which The Birds of Killingworth is one) in 1863; a Translation of Dante in 1867-70; and other poems during these years and since. He resigned his Chair at Har- vard in 1854, and in 1874 received a large complimentary vote for the lord rectorship of the University of Edinburgh. He died March 24, 1882. "In Longfellow's latest books we are aware of the same magic that charmed us of yore. The poet keeps throughout the grace and subtile power of the past; he keeps all that was ever his own, even to the love of profuse simile, and the quaint doubt of his reader implied by the elaborated meaning; and he loses only the tints and flavors not thoroughly assimilated or not native in him. Throughout is the same habit of recondite and scholarly allusion, the same quick sympathy with the beautiful in simple and common things, the same universality, the same tenderness for country and for home. Over all presides individ- uality superior to accidents of resemblance, and distinguishing each poem with traits unmistakably and only the author's ; and the equality in the long procession of his beautiful thoughts never wearies, but is like that of some fine bass-relief in which the varying allegory reveals one manner and many inspirations. Together with this peculiar artistic quality in the poems of Mr. Longfellow is a spiritual maturity, which the reader cannot fail to notice. As there never has been anything unripe or decrepit in this master's art, so there never has been anything crude or faltering in his devotion to greatness and purity in life. His work is not the record of a career beginning in generous and impossible dreams, and ending in sordid doubt and pitiful despite ; nor the history of a soul born to spirit- ual poverty, and working at last into tardy hopes and sympathies which scarcely suffice to discharge the errors of the past. His books tell of a soul clothed at once in human affections and divine aspirations, of a poetic nature filled with conscious and instinctive reverence for the supreme office of poetry in the world. They form, indeed, so perfect a biography of the author that, if one knew nothing of his literary life, here one might read more than could otherwise be told of its usefulness and beauty. 440 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 It is, of course, not the poet's merely literary life that is recorded in his books. He who touches the hearts of others inust write from his own, and doubtless the songs of a true poet preserve the memory, not only of all the events but of all the moods of his life. But the hospi- tality that invites the whole world home is exquisitely proud and shy, and its house is built like those old palaces in which a secret gallery was made for the musicians, and gay or plaintive music from an invisible source delighted the banqueting guests. " N. A. Review. Longfellow's Ihe Birds of Killingworth. It was the season when, through all the land, The merle and mavis build, and, building, sing Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand Whom Saxon Csedmon calls the Blithe-heart King; When on the boughs the purple buds expand, The banners of the vanguard of the Spring, And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap And wave their fluttering signals from the steep. The robin and the blue- bird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said, "Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!" Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed, Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet Of tropic isle remote, and, passing, hailed The village with the cheers of all their fleet; Or, quarrelling together, laughed and railed Like foreign sailors landed in the street Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys. Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, In fabulous days, some hundred years ago; And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, Poetry Longfellow's. 441 That mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe; They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words To swift destruction the whole race of birds. And a town- meeting was convened straightway To set a price upon the guilty heads Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, Levied blackmail upon the garden beds And corn-fields, and beheld without dismay The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds, The skeleton that waited at their feast, Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased. Then from his house, a temple painted white, With fluted columns, and a roof of red, The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight! Slowly descending, with majestic tread, Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right, Down the long street he walked, as one who said, " A town that boasts inhabitants like me Can have no lack of good society!" From the Academy, whose belfry crowned The hill of Science with its vane of brass, Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round Now at the clouds and now at the green grass, And all absorbed in reveries profound Of fair Almira in the upper class, Who was, as in a sonnet he had said, As pure as water and as good as bread. And next the Deacon issued from his door, In his voluminous neck-cloth white as snow; A suit of sable bombazine he wore; His form was ponderous, and his step was slow ; There never was so wise a man before ; He seemed the incarnate "Well, I told you so!" And to perpetuate his great renown There was a street named after him in town. 442 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . These came together in the new town-hall, With sundry farmers from the region round. The Squire presided, dignified and tall, His air impressive, and his reasoning sound; 111 fared it with the birds, both great and small, Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found, But enemies enough, who every one Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun. When they had ended, from his place apart Rose the Preceptor to redress the wrong, And, trembling like a steed before the start, Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng: Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart To speak out what was in him, clear and strong, Alike regardless of their smile or frown, And quite determined not to be laughed down. "Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, From his Republic banished without pity The Poets; in this little town of yours You put to death, by means of a Committee, The ballad-singers and the Troubadours, The street-musicians of the heavenly city, The birds, who make sweet music for us all In our dark hours, as David did for Saul. The thrush that carols at the dawn of day From the green steeples of the piny wood ; The oriole in the elm ; the noisy jay, Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The blue-bird balanced on some topmost spray, Flooding with melody the neighborhood; Linnet and meadow-lark and all the throng That dwell in nests and have the gift of song. You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain Of a scant handful, more or less, of wheat Or rye or barley or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet, Poetry Longfellow's. 443 Searching for worm or weevil after rain! Or a few cherries that are not so sweet As are the songs these uninvited guests Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts. Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these? Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught The dialect they speak, where melodies Alone are the interpreters of thought? Whose household words are songs in many keys, Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught. Whose habitations in the tree-tops even Are half-way houses on the road to heaven. Think, every morning when the sun peeps through The dim, leaf -latticed windows of the grove, How jubilant the happy birds renew Their old, melodious madrigals of love! And when you think of this, remember, too, 'Tis always morning somewhere, and above The awakening continents, from shore to shore, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams, As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams! Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds Make up for the lost music, when your teams Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more The feathered gleaners follow to your door? What ! would you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whirr Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake? 444 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 You call them thieves and pillagers ; but know They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the slug and snail. How can I teach your children gentleness And mercy to the weak and reverence For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less The self-same light, although averted hence, When, by your laws, your actions, and your speech, You contradict the very things I teach?" With this he closed; and through the audience went A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves; The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent Their yellow heads together like their sheaves; Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves. The birds were doomed ; and, as the record shows, A bounty offered for the heads of crows. There was another audience out of reach, Who had no voice nor vote in making laws, But in the papers read his little speech, And crowned his modest temples with applause. They made him conscious, each one more than each, He still was victor, vanquished in their cause. Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, O fair Almira at the Academy! And so the dreadful massacre began ; O'er fields and orchards and o'er woodland crests, The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran. Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts, Poetry Longfellow's. 445 Or wounded crept away from sight of man, While the young died of famine in their nests; A slaughter to be told in groans, not words, The very St. Bartholomew of Birds! The summer came, and all the birds were dead ; The days were like hot coals; the very ground Was burned to ashes ; in the orchards fed Myriads of caterpillars, and around The cultivated fields and garden beds Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found No foe to check their march till they had made The land a desert, without leaf or shade. Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town, Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down The canker-worms upon the passers-by, Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown, Who shook them off with just a little cry; They were the terror of each favorite walk, The endless theme of all the village talk. The farmers grew impatient, but a few Confessed their error, and would not complain, For, after all, the best thing one can do When it is raining, is to let it rain. Then they repealed the law, although they knew It would not call the dead to life again ; As school-boys, rinding their mistake too late, Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. ! That year in Killingworth the Autumn came Without the light of his majestic look, The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day book. A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame, And drowned themselves despairing in the. brook, While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, Lamenting the dead children of the air. 446 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 But the next spring a stranger sight was seen, A sight that never yet by bard was sung, As great a wonder as it would have been If some dumb animal had found a tongue! A wagon, overarched with evergreen, Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung, All full of singing-birds, came down the street, Filling the air with music wild and sweet. From all the country round these birds were brought, By order of the town, with anxious quest, And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought In woods and fields the places they loved best, Singing loud canticles, which many thought Were satires to the authorities addressed, While others, listening in green lanes, averred Such lovely music never had been heard ! But blither still and louder carolled they Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know It was the fair Almira's wedding-day, And everywhere, around, above, below, When the Preceptor bore his bride away, Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow, And a new heaven bent over a new earth Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. 69. AMERICAN POETRY. JOH^ GREENLEAF WHITTIER was born at Haverhill, Mass., 1807. Spent two years at the Haverhill Academy; became Editor of the American Manufacturer, 1829; of the New England Weekly Review, 1830; of the Pennsylvania Freeman, 1838; and Corresponding Editor of the National Era. 1847. Has lived for many years in literary retirement. Several editions of his poems have been printed, among the best of which is the Centennial Edition of 1876. His prose writings are numerous. JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL was born at Cambridge, Mass., Poetry Lowell's. 447 1819; was graduated at Harvard College, 1838, and at Harvard Law School, 1840; published a small volume of poems, A Year's Life, 1841; another volume, 1844; and in 1848 another, containing The Vision of Sir Launfal, A Fable for Critics, and The Biglow Papers, first series. He succeeded Longfel- low as Professor of modern languages and literature at Har- vard, 1855; was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1857-62; and of the North American Review, 1863-72. Published a new series of Biglow Papers, 1867; and two volumes of essays, My Study Windows and Among My Books, 1870. A second series of the latter followed soon after. In 1880 Lowell be- came IT. S. Minister to England. " The leading articles in Mr. Lowell's volumes, notably those on Dry- den, Shakespeare, Lessing, Wordsworth, and Milton, exhibit, with some difference of degree, perhaps, the same conscientious thoroughness, the same minutest accuracy of observation, the same elegance and force of language, the same mastery of aesthetic principles, and, what is equally essential to all good criticism, a healthful moral tone such as is born only of sound principles and genuine convic- tion. Instead of the one-sidedness of the partisan and special plead- er, one finds in all the fairness and candor which spring naturally from largeness of mind and a simple love of truth It is worthy of special notice, too, that in estimating the merit of literary work, Mr. Lowell, although himself a university professor, finds his standard and test of excellence rather in direct appeal to the consciousness, the intuitions, and the common judgments and sensibilities of men, than in any con ventional canons or dicta of the schools. His criticisms carry convic tion to the mind of the average reader who knows little and cares lesu about the prescribed rules of composition not because of their recog- nized accord with received authorities, but because they command the sanction of his reason and his heart." Bay Palmer. " The poems of Mr. Lowell have a peculiar and specific value, derived partly from their intrinsic merits, and partly from the time and circum- stances of their composition. He began to write at a time when the re- formatory agitations of New England had developed among the refined and enlightened classes an unwonted activity and independence of thought. Theories of metaphysics and religion, previously unknown on this side of the Atlantic, and a more fervent appreciation of the scope of 448 Literature of Period VIII. , 1789 . that sentiment of 'humanity,' underlying and prompting the recent movements of social amelioration, had initiated a convulsion with which our political and religious world still shakes from side to side. Of course, literature could not withstand the contagion, and of all our young poets no one more distinctly received and embodied the new spirit of the age than Mr. Lowell. This, we think, furnishes the key- note and explanation of his poems. An acquaintance with the contem- porary events which suggested or affected their composition is as essen- tial to the full enjoyment of them as a knowledge of the life and times of Wordsworth is to the full understanding of the philosophy of ' The Excursion,' which grew out of them; and the want of this among ordi- nary readers may account for the limited popularity of a large portion of the more elaborate efforts of the New England poet. This peculiar- ity it is which has limited the circle of Mr. Lowell's readers in some degree he has been obliged to create the taste he would gratify. In what other modern poet shall we find a more manly and robust mould of imagination and thought, a more subtile insight, a more intense sympathy with nature in all her forms, or a soul more alive to those moods and impressions which a close and loving intimacy with nature and humanity can alone create? What poet has expressed with more homely beauty and directness those sweet and precious, but almost voiceless, sentiments and emotions which have their hiding-place in the innermost chambers of every human heart?" N. A. Review. Lowell's The Changeling* I had a little daughter, And she was given to me To lead me gently backward To the Heavenly Father's knee, That I, by the force of nature, Might in some dim wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this wayward soul of mine. I know not how others saw her, But to me she was wholly fair. And the light of the heaven she came from Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; * For illustrations of Lowell's prose, see his criticises 3 various authors throuarh- *ut th'is work. Poetry Lowells. 449 For it was as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples On the yellow bed of a brook. To what can I liken her smiling Upon me, her kneeling lover? How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, And dimpled her wholly over, Till her outstretched hands smiled also, And I almost seemed to see The very heart of her mother Sending. sun through her veins to mel She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth, And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zincali But loosed the hampering strings, And, when they had opened her cage-door, My little bird used her wings. But they left in her stead a changeling, A little angel child, That seems like her bud in full blossom, And smiles as she never smiled. When I wake in the morning, I see it Where she always used to lie, And I feel as weak as a violet Alone 'neath the awful sky; As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see AH the wonders of faithful nature Still worked for the love of me, Winds wander, and dews drip earth wnrd. Rain falls, suns rise and set, Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. 450 Literature of Period T 7 ///., 1789 . This child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle, And it sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. The Courtin'.* God makes sech nights, all white an' still Fur'z you can look or listen. Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten. Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown An' peeked in thru' the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone, 'Ith no one nigh to hender. A fireplace filled the room's one side With half a cord o' wood in There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) To bake ye to a puddin'. The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out Towards the pootiest, bless her, An' leetle flames danced all about The chiny on the dresser. Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, An' in amongst 'em rusted The ole queen's-arm thet gran'thor Young Fetched back from Concord, busted. The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez the apples she was peelin'. * This poem and the two series of The Biglow Papers are written in the Yankee dialect. Poetry Lowell's. 451 T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look On seek a blessed cretur, A dogrose blushin' to a brook Ain't modester nor sweeter. He was six foot o' man A 1, Clean grit an' human natur'; None couldn't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells All is, he couldn't love 'em. But long o' her his veins 'ould run All crinkly like curled maple, The side she breshed felt full o' sun Ez a south slope in Ap'il. She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing Ez hisn in the choir; My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, She knowed the Lord was nigher. An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, When her new meetin'-bunnet Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair O' blue eyes sot upon it. Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some ! She seemed to 've got a new soul, . For she felt sartin sure he'd come, Down to her very shoe-sole. She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, A-raspin' on the scraper, All ways to once her feelins flew Like sparks in burnt-up paper. He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the sekle, His heart kep' goin' p.ty-pat, ut horn went pity Zekle, 452 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, Parin' away like murder. " You wan't to see my Pa, I s'pose?" " Wai .... no ... I come dasignin' " " To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." To say why gals acts so or so, Or don't, 'ould be presuming Mebby to mean yes an' say no Comes nateral to women. He stood a spell on one foot fust, Then stood a spell on t'other, An' on which one he felt the wust He couldn't ha' told ye nuther. Says he, " I'd better call agin ;" Says she, "Think likely. Mister;" Thet last word pricked him like a pin, An' .... wal, he up an' kist her. When ma bimeby upon 'em slips, Huldy sot pale ez ashes, All kin' o' smily roun' the lips An' teary roun' the lashes. For she was jis' the quiet kind Whose natures never vary, Like streams that keep a summer mind Snowhid in Jenooary. The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued Too tight for all expressin', Tell mother see how metters stood, An' gin 'em both her blessin'. Then her red come back like the tide Down to the Bay o' Fundy, An' all I know is, they was cried Jn meetin' come nex' Sunday. Poetry Lowell's. 453 Vision of Sir Launfal* Prelude to Part Second. Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak v It had gathered all the cold, And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; It carried a shiver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare. The little brook heard it and built a roof 'IjTeath which he could house him, winter- proof ; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and clrttmbers out of sight. Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; * The story ran that the Holy Grail, the Cup out of which Jesus partook of the last supper with his disciples, was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathe*,, and remained many years in the keeping of his descendants. It was incumbent on those having charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed. One of these violating this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. To go in search of it was said to have been a favorite enterprise with the knights of the mythic Arthur's Court. In this poem of Lowell's, Sir Launfal is represented as having a vision as he lay asleep on the rushes through the night before he is to start out in search of the Holy Cup. The first of the vision, in which the knight sees himself, young, strong, haughty, and splendidly arrayed, set forth in the spring-time is described in Part First of the poem. The last of the vision in which the knight sees himself, old, bent, in rags, and humbled in spirit, return in the winter-time, unsuccessful in his search, is described in Part Second, which we quote. This Part is preceded by a Prelude descriptive of winter, as Part First is by a Prelu'le descriptive of spring. 454 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 . Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thickly with diamond drops, That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one. No mortal builder's most rare device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost. "Within the hall are song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With the lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings, Singing, in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own, Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless I" The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch A.S he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, Poetry Lowell's. 455 And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. Part Second. There was never a leaf on bush or tree. The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; The river was dumb and could not speak, For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; A single crow on the tree-top bleak From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, As if her veins were sapless and old, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. Sir Lauufal turned from his own hard gate, For another heir in his earldom sate; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; Little he recked of his earldom's loss, No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, But deep in his soul the sign he wore, The badge of the suffering and the poor. Sir Launfal's raiment, thin and spare, "Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, For it was just at the Christmas time; So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for a shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long ago: He sees the snake-like caravan crawl O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun, As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its slender necklace of grass, The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, And with its own self like an infant played, And waved its signal of palms. 456 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 - . "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;" The happy camels may reach the spring, But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, Tht leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, That cowers beside him, a thing as lone And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas In the desolate horror of his disease. And Sir Luunfal said, " I behold in thee An image of Him who died on the tree; Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns And to thy life were not denied '; The wounds in the hands and feet and side: Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me; Behold, through him, I give to thee I" Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he Remembered in what a haughtier guise He had flung an alms to leprosie, When he girt his young life up in gilded mail And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. The heart within him was ashes and dust; He parted in twain his single crust, He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink, Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, Twas water out of a wooden bowl Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place ; The leper no longer crouched at his side, But stood before him glorified, Shining and tall and fair and straight As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate Himself the Gate whereby men can Enter the temple of God in Man. Poetry Lowell's. 457 > His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as siiows on the brine, Which mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was calmer than silence said, "Lo, it is I, be not afraid! In many climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; Behold it is here this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; This crust is my body broken for thee, This water His blood that died on the tree; The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need; Not what we give, but what we share For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : " The Grail in my castle here is found! Hang my idle armor up on the wall, Let it be the spider's banquet hall; He must be fenced with stronger mail Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." The castle gate stands open now, And the wanderer is welcome to the hall As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall, The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, She entered with him in disguise, And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on ground, She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land Has hall and bower at his command; And there's no poor man in the North Countree But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 468 Literature of Period VIII., 1789 f. Whittier's The Eternal Goodness. friends ! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear. 1 trace your lines of argument ; Your logic, linked and strong, I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong. But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds; Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads. Who fathoms the Eternal Thought ? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God ! He needeth not The poor device of man. I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread, with boldness shod; I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God. Ye praise His justice; even such His pitying love I deem: Ye seek a king ; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam. Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss; I hear our Lord's beatitudes, And prayer upon the cross. More than your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas! I know; Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, Too small the merit show. I bow my forehead to the dust, I veil mine eyes for shame, And urge, in trembling self-distrust, A prayer without a claim. Poetry Whittier's. 459 I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within, I hear, with groan and travail-cries, The world confess its sin. Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed stake my spirit clings; I know that God is good ! Not mine to look where cherubim And seraphs may not see, But nothing can be good in Him Which .evil is in me. The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above ; I know not of His hate, I know His goodness and His love. I dimly guess, from blessings known, Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments too are right. I long for household voices gone, For vanished smiles I long; But God hath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong. I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies. And, if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain. No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove ; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love. 460 Literature of Period VIIL, 1789 . And so, beside the Silent Sea, I wait the muffled oar ; . No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their froiuled palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. O brothers ! if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way. And Thou, O Lord, by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee! Scheme for Review. 461 SCHEME FOR REVIEW. Brief Historical Sketch 268 fMiss Austen and Scott 269 Extract from Scott 271 Lytton, Bronte, Thacke- ray, Dickens, and Geo. Eliot 277 His _ ( Hallam, Macaulay, Mil- tT- | man, and Napier. . . 278 Biogra- j Lockhart, Southey, phy. | Forster, & Stanley 279 Theo. jPaley and Coleridge. . 279 ut - | John Henry Newman. 280 [Thackeray 281 | |Macaulay 286 fig-j Newman 289 I* Geo. Eliot 292 [Dickens 301 fMill, Hamilton, Ben- JJa I tham, and Blackstone 307 Misc. 1 Burke, Carlyle, and : * [ Ruskin 308 Ext'ai Carlyle 310 from -j D G Quincey 316 The Law of Colonies 320 American Literature of the Seventeenth Cent.. 324 Ext. from John Smith . . 326 American Literature of the Eighteenth Cent. . . 329 Extract from Edwards.. 333 Ext, from Ben j. Franklin 335 Ext. from John Adams. . 338 American Literature of the Nineteenth Cent. . . 340 I f Irving and Extracts from 344 *f I Prescott and Motley 350 * o | Holmes and Ext. from. . 351 Jfc Emerson and Ext. from. 356 [Hawthorne, Ext. from.. 362 The Fr. Rev. and the Poets. . 366 Crabbe, Bloomfield, Southey, and Coleridge '. . . . 367 Wordsworth Man and Na- ture 369 Extracts from 374 Scott 384 Campbell, Rogers, and Moore. 385 Extracts from Campbell 387 Extract from Moore 389 Byron Position as a Poet. . . 389 Extracts from 392 Shelley 399 Extract from 403 Keats 406 Extract from 408 Tennyson 410 Extracts from 412 Morris and Others 421 Extract from Morris 422 Bryant 429 Extracts from 430 Longfellow 438 Extract from 440 Whittier 446 Lowell 446 Extracts from 448 Extract from Whittier. . . 458 r INDEX, BIOGRAPHICAL AND TOPICAL. Adams, John 338-40 Addison, Joseph, b. at Milston. in 1672; entered Queen's College, Ox- ford; a good scholar and a writer of Latin verse; intended for the Church, but Halifax persuaded him to enter the service of the state; a pension of 300 in 1699; visited France and Italy; lost the pension, and returned 1703; wrote The Campaign in praise of Marlborough; under-secretary of state in 1706; M. P. in 1708; secretary to Lord Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with salary of 2000, 1709; began with Steele The Spectator a daily from March 1, 1711, to December, 1712, and revived as a tri-weekly in 1714. Again secretary to Lord Lieuten- ant of Ireland; took his seat at the Board of Trade in 1715, and began The Freeholder; married the countess- dowager of Warwick in 1716, and lived three years to regret it; secretary of state, 1717; d. 1719 195, 219-24 Adhelm, b. about 656, in Wessex; taught by the learned Adrian; entered the monastery at Malmesbury at the age of sixteen; afterwards abbot; went to Rome; upon his return helped to settle the dispute concerning the celebration of Easter; d. 707 28 Alfred, b. in Berkshire 848; sent at the age of five to Rome and again at the age of seven; remained there a year; came to the throne, 871 ; driven by the Danes from it; routed them at Ed- dington, 878; was recognized as king of all England, 886; rebuilt London that year; kingdom again invaded by the Danes, 894; Alfred defeated them in several battles, and drove them from the island; is said by some to have founded Oxford; d. 901.... 32-34. jElfric, "the grammarian," studied at Abington; went thence to Winchester; became a monk; bishop of Wilton; Archbishop of Canterbury, 995; d. 1006 34 American Literature, Prose.. 320-365 Poetry. 429-460 Ascham, Roger, b. about 1515; took his B.A. at Cambridge, 1534; college lecturer on Greek in 1537; Toxophilus, 1544; famous for his penmanship; tutor to princess Elizabeth; Latin Sec- retary to Queens Mary and Elizabeth; The Schoolmaster published by his widow, 1570; believed that boys could be lured to learning by love better than driven to it by beating; d. 1568 73 Austen, Miss, b. at Steventon, 1775; educated by her father; novels pic- ture the life of the middle classes; Scott says that her talent for describ- ing the characters of ordinary life was most wonderful; d. 1817 269 Bacon, L,ord, b. at London, 1561, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and nephew of Lord Burleigh; studied at Cambridge; visited France; returned to England at his father's death, 1579; admitted to the bar, 1582; M. P., 1589. and sat in every Parliament till 1614; was a noted speaker. "The fear of every man who heard him was, that he should make an end," says Ben Jonson ; was counsellor-extraordinary 464 Index, Biographical and Topical. to the queen, 1590; an unsuccessful candidate for the office of solicitor- general, 1594 ; received from his friend, the Earl of Essex, an estate worth in our money, to-day, $40,000; obliged by his position to appear against Essex in his trial for treason; knighted, 1603; solicitor-general, 1607; attorney-gen- eral, 1613; keeper of the great seal, 1617; lord high chancellor, 1618; Baron Verulam, 1618; Viscount Saint Albans, 1619; Novum Organum, a part of the Instauratio Magna, or Great Resto- ration, 1620; accused of taking bribes, by one Waynham, against whom he had decided a suit in chancery; sen- tenced, 1621 , to pay 40,000 and to im- prisonment; fine remitted and he set at liberty by the king; d. 1G26. 98, 99, 104-107 Baeda, b. in the county of Durham, 673? placed at the age of seven under Benedict Biscop, in the monastery of Wearmouth; deacon at nineteen and priest at thirty; lived at Jarrow (Yarrow); d. 735 31 Bale 123 Ballads, Chevy Chase 76-79 Barbour, John, b. 1316, at Aberdeen; became archdeacon of Aberdeen; vis- ited Oxford to complete his studies; d. 1396 82 Barrow, Isaac, b. in London, 1630; M.A. at Cambridge in 1652; ordained, and made professor of Greek at Cam- bridge, 1660; professor of mathemat- ics, 1663; resigned in favor of his pupil, Isaac Newton, 1669; master of Trinity College in 1672; d. 1677 201 Baxter, Richard, b. in Shropshire, 1615; ordained, 1638; vicar of Kidder- minster, 1640; chaplain to one of Crom- well's regiments, 1645; Saint's Ever- lasting Rest, 1649; chaplain to Charles II., 1660; refused the offer of a bish- opric; ejected from the Anglican Church by Act of Uniformity, 1662; fined 500 marks by Jeffries on charge of sedition, 1685; imprisoned 18 months for non-payment; his works are 168 lp all; d. 1691 ...153 Seattle, James 244, 247 Beaumont & Fletcher, the one b. 1586 in Leicestershire ; educated at Ox- ford; studied law; d. 1616. The other b. in Northamptonshire 1576; edu- cated at Cambridge: and d. 1625; as- sociated in authorship, producing a great number of plays. F. wrote after the death of B 146, 147 Bentham, Jeremy, b. in London, 1748; graduated at Oxford, 1766; admitted to the bar, 1772; fragment on Govern- ment, 1776; Introduction to the Prin- ciples of Morals and Legislation, 1789; he made utility the test and measure of virtue, and held that laws should promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number; published other works; Macaulay says he found juris- prudence a gibberish and left it a science; d. 1832 307 Beowulf 24-26 Berkeley, Bishop, b. at Kilcrin, Ire- land, 1684; New Theory of Vision, 1709, and Principles of Human Knowl- edge, 1710; Dean of Derry, 1724; came to this country, 1728, to found a college ; preached two years in Newport; abandoned the project of a college and returned; Minute Philosopher, 1732; bishop of Cloyne, 1734; d. 1753..219. Berners, Lord, educated at Oxford; travelled abroad; governor of Calais under Henry VIII. ; chancellor of the exchequer; translated Froissart and other works; d. 1532 73 Blackstone, Sir Wm 308 Blair, Robert 211 Blake, Wm 249, 250 Blank-Verse 89 Blind Harry ... 82 151 oo in field, Robt 367 Boswell 235 Boyle, Robt 201 Bronte, Charlotte (Currer Bell), b. at Thornton, 1816; taught school ; went to Brussels; she and her sisters pub- lished a volume of poems, 1846; her Jane Eyre, 1847; Shirley, 1849; Villette, 1852; The Professor, 1856; married Rev. A. B. Nichols, 1854; d. 1855 . . 277 Index, Biographical and Topical. 465 Brooke, Henry 229 Browne, Sir Thomas, b. in London, 1605; M.D. in Norwich many years; Religio Medici, 1643; Hydrotaphia, 1658; knighted, 1671; d. on his 77th birthday 152, 159-161 Browne, William 163 Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, b. near Ledbury, 1809; Prometheus Bound, 1833; Romaunt of the Page, 1839; two volumes of poems, 1844; mar- ried Robert Browning, 1846; Casa Guidi Windows, 1851; Aurora Leigh, 1856; d. 1861 410, 411 Browning, Robert, b. at Camberwell, 1812; educated at the University of London; Paracelsus, 1835; two volumes of poems, 1849; Men and Women, 1855; Ring and Vie Book, 1868.. 410, 411 Bryant, William Cullen, biography and works, see text 429-38 Buckingham, Duke of 194 Bulwer, Baron L,y tton, b. in Norfolk, 1805; graduated at Cambridge, 1826; visited France, and on his return pub- lished Falkland, 1827; Pelham, 1829; M. P. for St. Ives, 1831, and repre- sented the city of Lincoln, 1832-41; Last Days of Pompeii, 1834; Rienzi and many other novels and dramas, as Richelieu and Lady ofLyons,t olio wed ; knighted, 1838; Lord Rector of Glas- gow, 1856; became a peer, 1866: d. 1873 .277 Bunyaii, John, b. at Elstow, 1628; learned the trade of a tinker; served in the Parliamentary army, 1645; a Baptist preacher, 1655; sentenced to transportation as a promoter of seditious assemblies, sentence not executed ; imprisoned in Bedford jail, 1660-1672; Pilgrim's Progress, 1678- 84; Holy War, 1684; author of sixty volumes, great and small; d. 1688. 172, 173, 176-9 Burke, Edmund, b. in Dublin,1729; en- tered Trinity College, Dublin ; studied law in England; Vindication of Na- tional Society, 1756; essay on the Sub- lime and Beautiful, 1757; M. P. for Wendower, 1765, re-elected, 1768: made . a speech on American taxation in 1774; M. P. for Bristol, 1774; another great speech on the American question, 1775; paymaster of the forces, 1782; spoke on the East India Bill, 1783; on the debts of the nabob of Arcot, 1785; was leading manager in the impeach- ment of Hastings begun 1787; made his memorable speech in 1788; Reflec- tions on the Revolution in France, 1790; d. 1797 239, 240, 242, 308. Burnet, Bishop 201, 204 Burney, Miss, b. at Lynn-Regis, 1752; daughter of Dr. Charles Burney, an eminent musician; moved to London, 1760; father intimate with Johnson, Burke, etc.; she produced Evelina, 1778; Cecilia, 1782; she was made second keeper of the robes of Queen Charlotte, 1786; married to Count D'Arblay, 1793; d. at Bath in 1840. 229 Burns, Robert, b. near Ayr, Scotland, 1759 ; moved with his father to Mount Oliphant and to Lochlea; educated mostly at home; after his father's death, he moved, 1784, to Mossgiel; wrote many of his best poems, 1784-6; published a volume of them in 1786; resolved to migrate to the West In- dies, but the success of his book led him to abandon his resolution; was lionized in Edinburgh during the winter of '86 and '87; second edition of his poems, published in Edinburgh, brought him 500; made several tours in Scotland during 1^87; spent the next winter in Edinburgh ; took the farm of Ellisland near Dumfries; became an exciseman to eke out his fortune, and afterwards removed to Dumfries, where he died, 1796 258-67 Burton, Robert, b. at Lindley, 1576; educated at Oxford; vicar of St. Thomas, Oxford, 1616; Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621 ; an " amusing and in- structive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes," says Byron, com- posed to cure himself of melancholy: rector of Segrave, 1628; d. 1639 1C2 Butler, Bishop, b. at Wantage, 1692, 466 Index, Biographical and Topical. entered Oxford in 1714; preacher at | the Rolls Chapel, 1718; obtained the rich living of Stanhope, 1725; chaplain | to Lord Chancellor Talbot, 1733; bishop of Bristol, 1738, and of Dur- ham, 1750; d. 1752. His Analogy, j 1736, Lord Brougham says, is "the most argumentative and philosophical defence of Christianity ever submit- ted to the world." 201 Butler, Samuel, b. in Worcestershire, about 1600; entered the service of Sir Sam. Luke, an officer under Cromwell, supposed to be the original of Hudi- bras in the poem; parts of Hudibras, 1663, 1664, 1678; hostile to the Puri- tans; d. 1680 T....191, 192 Byron, George Gordon, b. in Lon- don, 1788; became Lord Byron by the | death of a grand uncle, 1798; went to I Trinity College, Cambridge, 1805, | where he remained two years; Hours j of Idleness, 1807; attacked in the Ed. \ Rev., and he replied in the English ' Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 1807; j took a two years' tour through Portu- gal, Spain, Turkey, and Greece; cantos I. and II. of Childe Harold, 1812, and awoke one morning to find himself famous; in the House of Lords; published many of his poems; married Miss Millbanke, 1815; she left him with their little daughter, and ! Byron never saw either again ; left for the continent, 1816; wrote canto III. ; of Childe Harold at Geneva; lived awhile in Venic3, and then at Ra- venna, Pisa, Genoa; wrote canto IV. ; of Childe Harold, and other poems, ' while in Italy; left Italy for Greece in \ 1823; d. at Missolonghi. 1824 389-99. j Caedmon, a native of Northumbria; ' originally a cow-herd: entered the monastery at Whitby : wrote a Para- phrase of portions of the Bible; d. j about 680 20-28 . Campbell, Thos., b. at Glasgow, 1777: educated at the Grammar-School and the University; Pleasures of Hope, J790; secured a pension of 200: , 1803; Rector of the rnuersity, 1827; re-elected, 1828 and '29; other poems and miscellaneous writings; moved to London, 1840; at Boulogne from 1842 till his death, 1844 385-9 Capgrave, John 70 Carew, Thomas 162 Carey 21 1 Carlyle, Thomas, b. at Ecclefechan, Scotland, 1795: entered the University of Edinburgh, 1809 or 1810, where he remained seven years; married Miss Welch, 1825, and settled on a farm in his native county; Life of Schiller, 1824, and a translation of Goethe's William Meister; Sartor Resartus, 1834; removed to London that year; History of the French Revolution, 1837 ; delivered lectures on Heroes and Hero- ivorship, in London, 1840; five volumes of Essays entitled Miscellanies, 1839 or '40; Life of Sterling, 1851; and Life of Frederick the Great, 1858-64; d. 1881 279,308-15 Caxton, b. about 1412; a London mer- chant; lived 30 years from 1441 in the Low Countries; learned the art of printing there; first book printed by him was a translation from the French The Game and Play of the Chess; translated, wrote, and printed indus- triously; in all he published 64 vol- umes; d. 1491 71,72 Chalkhill 164 Chapman, George, b 1557; enjoyed the society and friendship of Spenser and Shakespeare; published transla- tions of the Uiad, 1598, and of the Odyssey, 1614: wrote many comedies and tragedies: and d. 1634.. ..120, 148-9 Chatterton, Thos 244 Chaucer, b. in London, it Is now thought, 1340; was page to Lionel, 3d son of Ed. III. : in the English army in France in 1359; valet of the king's chamber in 1367: employed on royal missions to Italy, France, and Flan^ ders, 1370-80; held offices in the cus- toms for some years, from 1374; M.P. for Kent, 1386; dismissed from his place in the customs. 1'tfM: 89; lost Index, Biographical and Topical. 467 and became poor; restored to royal favor in 1399 ; d. 1400 53-69 Chillingworth 201 Chroniclers 48 Clarendon, Earl of (Edward Hyde), born at Dinton, 1608; educated at Ox- ford ; member of the Long Parliament ; of the popular party at first, after- ward a royalist; chancellor of the exchequer, and privy councillor, 1C43; with Charles in his long exile in France and Holland; prime minister and lord chancellor, 1660; Earl of Clarendon, 1661 ; impeached and ban- ished, 1667; d. at Rouen, 1674. Anne, his daughter, was married to the Duke of York, afterwards James H 204 Clough, Arthur Hugh, b. at Liver- pool, 1819; some years of his childhood spent in this country; educated at Rugby and Oxford ; Principal of Uni- versity Hill, London; visited U. S. again, 1852; held a post in the Educa- tion Office; Poems appeared, 1840-50; d. at Florence, 1861 410, 411 Coleridge,Samuel Taylor,b.at Ottery Saint Mary, 1772; entered Jesus Col- lege, Cambridge, 1790, but left with- out a degree; resolved to migrate with Southey to America and found a republic, or pantisocracy, but did not do it; lectured on moral and political subjects at Bristol, 1795; preached a little for the Unitarians; visited Ger- many with Wordsworth, 1798; in 1800 removed to the Lake district, where Southey and Wordsworth were; in 1805 renounced Unitarianism for Epis- copacy; lectured on Shakespeare and the fine arts at the Royal Institution, 1808; in 1810 left his wife and daughter for Southey to support; began tak- ing opium to excess; d. 1834. 279, 367-69 Collins 246 Congreve 195 Coverdale, Miles, b. in Yorkshire, 1485; took holy orders in 1514; em- braced the Reformed religion; pub- lished the entire Bible. 1535; edited tfc Cranmer Bible, 1539; bishop of Exeter, 1551; imprisoned and exiled; returned about 1558; d. 1565 74 Cowley, Abraham, b. in London, 1618: a volume of poems, 1633; entered Cambridge, 1636; ejected as a royalist, 1643; went with the queen to Paris 1646; the agent of the cipher-corre- spondence between her and Charles I.; failed of the expected reward at the Restoration; numerous poems and writings in prose; settled at Chertsey as a farmer; 1665; d. 1667. 164, 191 Cowper, William, b. at Great Berk- hamstead, 1731; educated at a private school and at Westminster; articled to a solicitor, a Mr. Chapman; excite- ment produced by his appointment to two clerkships in the House of Lords, and his disappointment because Ashly Cowper refused him his daughter in marriage prepared the way for an attack of insanity, 1763; became ac- quainted with the Unwins at Hunting- don ; after Mr. Unwin's death in 1767, he removed with the family to Olney; wrote the Olney Hymns there ; Table Talk and other poems, 1782; The Task and other poems, 1785; his Translation of Homer, 1791 ; d. 1800 250-58 j Crabbe, George, b. at Aldborough, 1754; went to London; assisted by Edmund Burke; The Library. 1781; ordained, 1782; The Village, 1783; Par- ish Register, 1807; The Borough, 1810; Tales in Verse, 1812; Tales of the Hall, 1819; d. 1832 367 Cranmer, Thomas, born at Aslacton, Nottinghamshire, 1489; a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge ; chaplain to Henry VIII. ; went to Rome to se- cure the pope's assent to Henry's divorce from Catharine: Archbishop of Canterbury. 1533; excommunicated, 1555; recanted, but was burnt at the stake, 1556 74 Crashaw 164 Crowne, John 195 Coryat 153 Cynewulf, a monk at Winchester: ab- bot of p<*t r V">f Qugh about 992; d. 1C08, 468 Index, Biographical and Topical. Authorities concerning him disagree. 29 Daniel, Samuel, b. at Taunton, 1562; educated at Oxford; lived in London; associated with Shakespeare; tutor to Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke; master of the queen's revels, 1603; said to have succeeded Spenser as poet-laureate ; d. 1619 99, 1 18 Davenant, b. at Oxford, 1605; poet- j laureate, 1637; a royalist in the civil j war, and knighted by Charles I., 1643; j confined in the Tower, and owed his safety to Milton; d. 1688 149, 191 Davies, Sir John, b. in Wiltshire, 1570; graduated at Oxford ; Nosce Teip- sum, 1599; solicitor-general of Ireland, 1603; attorney -general soon after; knighted, 1607; a work on the political state of Ireland, 1612; M. P., 1621; lord chief -justice, 1626; d. 1626 119" Defoe, Daniel, b. in London, 1663; joined the rebels under Monmouth, 1685; became a tradesman; wrote countless pamphlets; Robinson Cru- soe, 1719; for his ironical Shortest Way with Dissenters, fined, pilloried, and imprisoned; helped to promote the union of Scotland with England; d. 1731 219 Denhain, Sir John 191 De Quincey, Thoa., b. at Manchester, 1785 ; so mastered Greek at Bath that his teacher said he could harangue an Athenian mob; ran away in 1802 from the grammar-school of Manchester; lived in obscurity and great poverty in London; entered Oxford, 1803, where he remained five years; con- tracted there the habit of taking opium; lived twenty years at Gras- mere; married, 1816; gave himself to literary pursuits, writing mostly essays for the magazines on philosophical, biographical, and other topics; lived also in Glasgow and Edinburgh; d. 1859 308, 315-19 Dickens, Charles, b. at Landport, Portsmouth, 1812; studied in a college near Rochester; in an attorney's of- | flee; became a reporter for the Morn- i ing Chronicle; Sketches by Boz, 1836; Pickwick Papers, 1837; Oliver Twist, 1838; Nicholas Nickleby, 1839; visited the United States 1841 ; and American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit, describ- ing life and character here, followed ; his other novels appeared between 1840 and 1865; chief editor for a while of Daily News, 1845; started House- hold Words, a weekly periodical, 1850; All the Year Round, 1859; made a sec- ond visit to the United States, 1867, and read from his works in all the principal cities; d. 1870, leaving Edwin Drood unfinished 278, 301-7 Distribution of the Language and Literature 23 Donne, John, 162. Douglas, Gawin, b. 1474; finished his education at the University of Paris and entered the Church: became bish- op of Dunkeld, 1515; d. 1522 84, 85 Drayton 118 Drummond 117 Dryden, John, b. at Aldwinkle, 1631 ; a pupil of Dr. Busby; entered Cam- bridge 1650; M.A. 1657; married Lady Howard, daughter of Earl of Berk- shire, 1663; wrote poems from 1680 on; Poet-laureate, 1688, salary 200 a year; d. 1700, and was buried in Westminster Abbey 192-4, 196-200 Dunbar, b. at Salton, Scotland, about 1465; a Franciscan friar and preacher; employed by James IV. as secretary of embassy; received a small pension; The Thistle and the Rose, 1503; d. 1530. 84 Dyer, John 246 Early War Poetry. - - 29, 30 Edgeworth, Miss 269 Edwards, Jonathan 330, 332-5 Elements of Scottish Poetry. 80-82 Eliot, George (Mrs. Lewes), b. in War- wickshire, about 1820; carefully edu- cated; a pupil of Herbert Spencer; translated Strauss's Life of Christ, 1846: associate editor of West. Rev.: Scenes of Clerical Life appeared, 1858; Adam Bede, 1859; Mill on the Floss, 1860; Silas Marner, 1861 ; Romola, Index, BiograpJiical and Topical. 469 1863; Felix Holt, 1866; Middlemarch, 1871-2 ; Daniel Deronda, 1876 ; has published poetry also; d. 1881. 278, 291-300 Elyot, Sir Thomas 73 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, biography and works, see text 356-61 English Tongue 23 Fairfax 120 Ferguson, Robert 249 Ferrier, Miss 277 Fielding, Henry, b. at Sharpham Park, 1707; founder of the English family was a German count in Eng- land, who in the 13th century took the name ; sent to Eton ; at the University of Ley den for two years;- returned and wrote dramas; married, 1735; spent his wife's fortune; commenced the practice of law in 1740; Joseph An- drews, his first novel, 1742; others followed, greatest of which was Tom Jones; an editor and a pamphleteer; d. 1754 229-33 Filmer, Sir H 202 Fletcher, Giles 164 Fletcher, Phineas 164 Florio 99 Ford .148 Forster 279 Fortescue, Sir John 70 Fox, John, b. in Boston, Lincolnshire, 1517; tutor in the family of Sir Thos. Lucy; accused of heresy, 1545; expelled from his fellowship of Mag- dalen College; retired to the Conti- nent; Book of Martyrs, 1563; d. 1587. 94 Franklin, Benj 330, 335-8 Fuller, Thomas, b. at Aldwinkle, 1608; graduated at Cambridge, 1628; prebendary of Sarum, 1631; member of the Convocation, 1640; chaplain in the King's army, 1644-46; rector of Waltham, 1648-58; Church History, 1656; chaplain extraordinary to Chas. II., 1660; Worthies of England after his death, 1662; d. 1661 152, 154-57 Further Remarks 18, 19 Gascoigne, b. in Essex, about 1535; served in Holland under the Prince of Orange ; a courtier and an attendant of Elizabeth's ; d. 1577 92, 124 Gay, b. in Devonshire, 1688 ; published Rural Sports, dedicated to Pope, 1711; secretary to the Duchess of Marlbor- ough, 1712; secretary to Clarendon, ambassador to Hanover, 1714; Tri- via, 1715; lost his money in the South Sea Bubble, and was a dependant on the bounty of Duke of Queensberry from 1727 on; Fables and Beggar's Opera, 1727; d. 1732 195, 211 Gait, John 277 Geoffrey of Monmouth 43 Gibbon, Edward, b. at Putney, 1737; studied at Westminster and Oxford; a Roman Catholic, 1753; placed under a Protestant minister at Lausanne, Switzerland, 1753-8; studied history, and Latin and French literature there; entered parliament as a Tory, 1774; a member of the board of trade ; lived at Lausanne, 1783-93; chiefly occupied with The Decline and Fall the first vol. appearing in 1776, and the last in 1788; d. 1794 233-39 Godwin, Win 269 Goldsmith, Oliver, b. at Pallas, Ire- land, 1728; graduated at Dublin, 1749; prepared for the ministry, but rejected by the bishop ; sent to London by his un- cle to study law, but on the way spent his money in gaming; studied medi- cine 18 months, 1752-4, in Edinburgh; lived abroad, 1754-6, chiefly at Leyden; with one clean shirt and no money, he set out on foot for a tour of Europe ; in London, 1756; a proof-reader, an usher, and a hack writer; published Present State of Literature in Europe, 1759; Citizen of the World, 1760; The Traveller, 1764 ; Vicar of Wake field, 1766; The Good Natured Man, 1767; Deserted Village, 1770; She Stoops to Conquer, 1773 ; a member of Johnson's celebrated literary club ; d. 1774. 211, 229, 235, 242, 246 Googe, Barnaby 94 Gosson, Stephen 97 Gower, b. (?); owned landed prop- erty in several counties; is said to 470 Index, Biographical and Topical, have been chief justice of the com- mon pleas; blind in 1400; and d. 1408 45,46 Grafton 95 Gray, Thomas, b. in London, 1716; ed- ucated at Eton and at Cambridge, vis- ited France and Italy, 1739, with Hor- ace Walpole ; took his degree of bachelor of civil law, 1742; his Eleyy, 1749; refused the laureateship, made vacant by the death of Gibber; made professor of modern history at Cam- bridge, 1769; d. in 1771 246 Greek taught in England 72 Greene, Robert, b. at Norwich, 1560; B.A. at Cambridge, 1578; travelled in Italy and Spain; associated with Lodge, Peele, and Marlowe; novelist, poet, and dramatist ; published a pamphlet, A Groo.tsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repent- ance, warning his co-workers against the "upstart crow" [Shakespeare] "beautified with their feathers;" d. of a drunken debauch, 1592 126 Habington 164 Hakluyt 100 Hales, John 201 Hall, Joseph 162 Hallam, Arthur, b. at Windsor, 1777; educated at Eton and Oxford ; studied law; contributed to the Ed. Rev.; Europe during the Middle Ages, 1818; Constitutional History of England, 1827; Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 1838-9; Literary Essays and Characters, 1852; d. 1859 277 Hamilton, Sir Wm., b. at Glasgow, Scotland, 1788; in the University of Glasgow, 1803-6; in Oxford, 1807-10; studied law; in 1816 claimed the title of Sir in abeyance in his family for nearly a century before him; visited Germany, 1817, and again, 1820 ; a can- didate for the chair of moral philoso- phy, in the Un. of Ed., vacant by the death of Dr. Brown; town council elected John Wilson (Christopher North); professor of history in the University, 1821 ; in 1829 wrote his cele- brated criticism of Cousin, the Philoso- phy of the Unconditioned; contributed many other articles to the Ed. Rev.; elected to the chair of metaphysics and logic in the University, 1836; held it till his death, 1856 307 Harding, John, b. 1378; fought under Percy at Homildon ; was at Agincourt ; d. 1465 70 Harrington 120 Harrington, James 202 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 362-5 Henryson 38 Herbert, George 164 Herrick, Robert 162 Heywood, John 123 Historical Sketches, 20, 36, CO, 91, 151, 187-8, 225, 268-9 Hobbes, Thomas, b. at Malmesbury, 1588; educated at Oxford; in 1610, travelled as tutor to the future Earl of Devonshire; translated Thucydides, 1628; Human Nature, 1650; Levia- than, 1651; a royalist in the civil war; tutor to Charles II., then in Paris, in 1647; received a pension of 100 after the Restoration ; d.at the seat of his pa- tron, the Earl of Devonshire, 1679.. . .202 Hogg, James 259 riolcrof t 260 Holinshed, place and time of birth un- known; Shakespeare and historians borrowed largely from him; d. about 1580 95 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, biogra- phy and works, see text 351-6 Hood, Thomas, b. in London, 1798; sub-editor of London Magazine, 1821 ; Whims and Oddities, 1826; published many tales and poems ; editor of New Monthly Magazine; began Hoods Magazine, 1844; d. 1845 367 Hooker, Ri:-hard, b. at Heavytree, 1553; graduated at Oxford; ordained 1581; married a scolding wife; Master of the Temple, 1585; he and his col- league in the ministry, Walter Trav- ers, a Calvinist, did not agree; retired to the rectory of Boscombe, 1591; Ecclesiastical Polity, 1594-7; rector of Bishopsbourne from 1595 till his death in 1600 98, 103, 104 Index, Biographical and Topical. 471 How this Work is to be Studied. 15 Hope, Thomas 277 Hume, David, b. in Edinburgh, 1711; entered Edinburgh University ; began mercantile life, but soon gave it up; went to France; Treatise on Human Nature, 1738; the first part of Moral and Political Essays, 1741-2; reputa- tion for skepticism prevented his get- ting the chair of moral philosophy in the University, 1744; Inquiry concern- ing the Human Understanding, 1747; librarian of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, 1751-6; 1st vol of his His- tory of England, 1754; Inquiry con- cerning the Principles of Morals, 1752; visited Paris, 1763; under-secretary of state, 1767-8; chief of the literary cir- cle in Edinburgh ; d. 1776 233 Inchbald, Mrs 229 Influence of the Italian Revival. 71 Interludes 122 Irving, Washington, biography and works, see text 844-350. James the First of Scotland, b. 1394; sent to France, 1405; seized by a Brit- ish fleet; brought to London and thrown into the Tower: released, 1424, after 19 years captivity, and restored to his kingdom; checked the arro- gance of the Scottish nobles; a con- spiracy against him; assassinated, (^Johnson, Samuel,^ b?' at ~!Qtehfie,lci7 ^tTttT; entered "?embroKe College, Ox- ford, 1728; compelled to leave, 1731; was usher and hack-writer; married in 1736, and opened an academy in London, 1737; made literature his call- ing; London appeared in 1738; re- ported the debates in Parliament for the Gent. Magazine, 1740; Life of Savage, 1744; Vanity of Human Wishes, 1749; at work on the Diction- ary, 1747-55; wrote Easselas within a single week; a pension settled upon him, 1762; the centre of the famous Literary Club formed in 1764; visited Scotland and the Hebrides, 1773; Lives of the Poets, 1779-81; lived a long while in the family of Mrs. Thrale; d. 1784, and was buried in West. Abbey. 235, 241, 242 Jonsoii, Ben, b. at Westminster, 1574; entered Cambridge, 1790; forced by poverty to leave, and to as- sist his step father, a mason ; disgusted with this labor, enlisted in the army in Flanders; returned, killed a brother- actor in a duel; while in prison be- came a Roman Catholic, but returned to the Church of England ; his great plays, 1596-1612; Masques, subsequent- ly; poet-laureate, 1619, with a pension of 100 and a tierce of canary; inti- mate with Shakespeare; d. 1637, and buried in Westminster Abbey, with "O rare Ben Jonson" inscribed on his tombstone 138-146 Keats, John, b. in London, 1796; edu- cated at Enfield ; apprenticed to a sur- geon, 1810; his first poem, 1817; Endy- mion, severely criticised in Black- wood, and in the Quarterly Review, 1818; third vol., 1820 ; was wasting away with consumption, and set out for Rome, where he died, 1821. Was buried in the Protestant cemetery there, and on his stone is this inscrip- tion: Here lies one whose name was writ in ivater. ... 406-10 Ken, Bishop ....193 Killingfieet 201 King's English in 14th Century, 51 Kingsley, Charles 278-80 Knolles 99 Liuiigland, b. probably at Cleobury Mortimer, 1332; educated at Oxford; a fellow of Oriel College; attached to the monastery of Great Malvern; andd. about 1400 40-42 Lat imer Hugh, b. in Leicestershire, 1491; graduated at Cambridge; took holy orders; an eloquent preacher of the reformed religion; chaplain to Anne Boleyn, and bishop of Worces- ter, 1535; resigned his bishopric, 1539; imprisoned in the Tower till 1547; burned at the stake, 1555, with 472 Index ^ Biographical and Topical. Eidley, to whom he said, Be of good cheer, brother; we shall this day kin- dle such a torch in England as I trust shall never be extinguished 74 Layamon 43-44 Lee, Nat 195 Iceland, John, b. in London about 1506; took his degree at Cambridge, 1522; went to Oxford and to the Uni- versity of Paris; chaplain and libra- rian to Henry VIII. ; received the title "King's Antiquary" about 1533; stud- ied thoroughly the condition of Eng- land for six years ; made vast accu- mulations, largely unpublished at his death, 1552 73 Leighton, Robert 153 Lingard, John, b. at Winchester, 1771; studied at Douay; ordained a Roman Catholic priest, 1795; published His- tory of England, 1819-25; declined a cardinal's hat soon after; author of History of the A. S.Church; d.1851. 278. Locke, John, b. at Wrington, 1632; educated at Christ's College, Oxford; secretary of legation at Berlin, 1664 or 1665; in 1667 a member of the Earl of Shaftesbury's family, and directed the education of his son and grandson; visited the south of France for his health in 1675; with his patron in Hol- land from 1683-8; filled several civil offices on his return to England; On the Conduct of the Understanding, 1600; Letters on Toleration, 1689-92; last days spent at the house of Sir Francis Masham; d. 1704.... 202-3, 206-8 Lockhart, John Gibson, b. at Cam- busnethan, Scotland, 1794; studied at Glasgow U., 1807-10; graduated from Baliol College, Ox., as bachelor of law; contributor to Blackivood, 1817; mar- ried Sophia, daughter of Scott, 1820; Editor of Quar. Rev., 1826-53; Life of Burns, appeared 1825; Life of Scott, 1837-9; d. 1854 at Abbotsford, the seat of his daughter, Lady Hope, the only surviving descendant of Sir Walter, 277, 279 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth,biog- raphy and works, see text 438-46 Lovelace 168 Lowell, James Russell, biography and works, see text .446-57 Lydgate, b. 1375; a monk of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds; a priest in 1397; travelled on the Continent; taught school; d. about 1460 75 Lyly 96, 12u Lyndsay, Sir David, b. 1490; in the service of the prince, afterwards King James V. of Scotland, 1512-1524; d. 1557 85,86 Macaulay, Lord, b. at Rothley Tem- ple, 1800; entered Trinity College, Camb., 1818; admitted to the bar, 1826; essay on Milton, 1826; M. P. in 1830; made celebrated speeches on the Reform bill, 1830-32, and on the re- newal of the charter of the East India Co., 1833; was in India, 1835-8; M. P. for Edinburgh, 1838-47; 1st and 2d vols. of History of England, 1848; rector of the U. of Glasgow, in 1849; 3d and 4th vols. of History, in 1855; Baron Macaulay in 1857; d. 1859. 278, 286-8 Macpherson 244 Mallory, Sir Thomas 72 Mandeville, Bernard 219 Mandeville, Sir John, b. at St. Albans about 1300; educated for an M.D.; set out for the East, 1322; saw service in Egypt with the Sultan; penetrated to China; returned, and, 34 years after he began his travels, wrote his Mun- chausen account of them; d. at Liege, Belgium, 1372 49 Marlowe, b. at Canterbury, 1564 ; grad- uated at Cambridge, 1583; first part of Tamburlaine, 1586; Edward II., 1598; many other plays ; d. of a wound re- ceived in a quarrel, 1593 126-131 Marryatt, Capt 277 Marvell, Andrew 163, 191 Massinger 147 Mathers, The 328 Mill, John Stuart, b. in London, 1806; educated by his father; read Greek at the age of three; went to France: studied law; was a clerk in the East India Co. for 35 years; contributed to Inde, Biographical and Topical. 473 the West. Rev., and from 1835 to '40 was its principal conductor; System of Logic, 1843; Political Economy, 1848; On Liberty, and Dissertations and Discussions, 1859; M. P., 1865; resided henceforth near Avignon, France; married Mrs. Taylor, 1851; published many other works ; d. 1873. After his death his Autobiography, and the Three Essays appeared 307 Milmaii, Dean 279 Milton, b. in London, Dec. 9, 1608; en- tered Christ's College, Cambridge, 1625; left Cambridge, 1632; gave up intention of being a minister; spent 5 years at home, Horton; after the death of his mother in 1637, visited Leyden, Paris, and Rome; on his return taught a few pupils ; married Mary Powell, 1643; she left him in one month, but returned; Latin secretary to the Council of State, the executive branch of the Government, 1649-60; blind, 1654; married Catharine Wood- stock in 1656, and Elizabeth Minshull in 1663; Paradise Lost, 1667; Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes,Wil ; d. 1674. He and his widow realized 18 from Paradise Lost. 165-172, 174-176, 180-186 Minot, ^Laurence. 47 Minstrel, or gleeman 47 Miracle-Plays 120-122 Mitford, Wm. 278 Moore, Thos. 279, 386, 389 Moral-Plays 122 More, Henry 164 More, Sir Thomas, b. in London, 1478; entered Oxford in 1497, where he studied Greek; studied law at Lin- coln's Inn ; an under-sheriff of London, 1502; M. P., 1504; Hist, of Rich. III., 1513; sent on a mission to Flanders, 1514; Utopia, 1518; treasurer of the exchequer, 1521 ; Speaker of the House of Commons, 1523; Lord Chancellor, 1529; beheaded July 6, 1535, for re- fusing to take the oath of supremacy to Henrv VHI. " See me safe up," ne said to one neiping mm up the scaffold, "for my coming down I can shift for myself." As the axe was about to fall, he moved aside his beard, saying, " Pity that should be cut that has not committed treason" 73, 74 Morris, William, b. 1834; Life and Death of Jason, 1865; The Earthly Paradise, 1868; a translation of The jEneid, 1876 421-8 Motley, John Lothrop, biography and works, see text 351 Napier, Sir Wm., b. at Castletown, Ireland, 1785; entered the army, 1800; captain, 1804; went with Sir John Moore to Portugal, 1808; was in the great battles of the Peninsular War; major, 1811; lieutenant-colonel, 1813; published History of the War in the Peninsula, 1828-40; colonel, 1830; major-general, 1841; knighted, 1848; Lieutenant-general, 1851 ; published other works; d. 1860 279 Nevile, Henry 202 Newton, Sir Isaac, b. at Woolsthorpe, 1642; entered Trinity, Cambridge; dis- covered the binomial theorem, 1664, and the theory of fluxions, 1665; con- structed a refracting telescope, 1668; professor of mathematics, 1669; dis- covered that light consists of rays of different refrangibility, about 1669; lectured on optics, 1669-71 ; author of the Emission theory of light; fellow of Royal Society, 1672; Picard having accurately measured an arc of the earth's surface, Newton resumed, 1684, a work respecting universal gravitation, laid aside 16 years before because of incorrect data concerning the size of the earth ; he was so agitated by the proof that the orbit of the moon is curved by the force which causes the fall of an apple, working accord- ing to the same law, that he was obliged, it is said, to call in a friend to finish the calculation; Principia, 1687; M.P. for Cambridge, 1689, and again, 1703; a story, discredited by his biog- rapher, Brewster, is told, that in 1692 his dosr Diamond upset a burning candle among nis papers, destroying the work of 20 years; made master of 474 Index, Biographical and Topical. the mint, 1699; President of Royal Society, 1703-27; knighted in 1705; d. 1729 201 Newman, John Henry, b. in London, 1801; entered Oxford, 1816; fellow of Oriel College, 1822; ordained, 1824; vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford, and of Lit- tlemore, 1828; with Keble and Pusey started the " Tractarian movement," in favor of High Church doctrines, 1833; became a member of the R. C. Church, 1845; Apologia pro Vita Sua, 1864; Grammar of Assent, 1870; reply to Gladstone on the Vatican Decrees, 1875; has published many other works 280,289-90 Nicholas of Guilford 47 Norton 124 Occleve, b. about 1370; a lawyer and a poet 76 Oldham, John 193 Opie, Mrs. 269 Ormin 39, 40 Otway, Thomas 195 Paley, Wm. 279 Palgrave, Sir Francis 278 Paris, Matthew, b. about 1195; a Benedictine monk, 1217; sent to Nor- way in 1248 as visitor of his Order; d. 1259 48 Parnell, Thomas 211 Pecock, Reginald, b. 1390; studied at Oxford; priest, 1421; Bishop of St. Asaph, 14-14; Bishop of Chichester. 1449; his book against the Lollards offended the clergy ; was expelled from the Council at Westminster, 1457; books burnt; was deprived of his see; d. 1460 70 Peele 126 Pepys, Samuel, b. 1633; educated at Cambridge; clerk of the acts of the Navy, 1660-73; secretary for the affairs of the Navy, 1673-9; secretary to the admiralty ; President of the Royal So- ciety, 1684-86; imprisoned, 1679, for al- leged complicity in the Popish plot, and afterwards as a Jacobite ; kept a diary in short-hand, 1660-9, full of court and other gossip; Diary deciphered, 1825; d. 1703... 204 Periods of English Literature 12 Petty, Sir William 203 Pope, Alexander, b. at London, 1688; sickly and somewhat deformed; edu- cation scanty and desultory; in 1717, bought the villa of Twickenham with the subscription raised by Swift for his translation of Homer; intimate with the great literary men and statesmen of his time, with most of whom he quarrelled; writings de- scribed and their dates- given in the tftxt; d. 1744 208-210, 212-218 Prescott, William H., biography and works, see text 350-1 Prynne, William, b. in Somersetshire, 1600; graduated at Oxford, 1620; studied law; for his Player's Scourge the Star Chamber fined him 5000, degraded him from the bar, cut off his ears, burned EisTfoek^ and imprisoned him for life ; for his News from Ipswich, 1637, part of the punishment was re- peated, and S. L. (Seditious Libeller) burned into hischeeks; released, 1C41; awarded damages: elected to the Long Parliament; ejected by Pride's Purge; attacked Cromwell and the army in his writings; again impri- soned ; released ; d. (16(59. 152 Purchas .7?777v 100 Puttenharn '. 97 Quarles, Francis 164 Questions to be asked 77T\. .15-18 Kadcliffe, Mrs 228 Raleigh, Sir Walter, b. at Hayes, Devonshire, 1552; educated at Oxford; served under Sir John Norris, and the Prince of Orange, in the Nethenjands, 1676-9; aided in suppressing the Karl of Desmond's rebellion in Ireland; obtained from Elizabeth a patent for discoveries and colonization in North America; sent out an expedition under Amidas and Barlow, 1584; knighted, 1585; M.P. for Devonshire; sent to Vir- ginia seven vessels and 108 colonists under Sir Richard Grenville, who brought back tobacco and the potato; two vessels under Captain White, 1587, who founded Raleigh; imprisoned, Index, Biographical and Topical. 475 1592, for secretly marrying Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the maids of honor; sailed with 5 vessels, 1595, explored the coasts of Guiana, and ascended the Orinoco ; readmitted at Court, 1597; lost favor on the accession of James; accused of conspiring to raise Lady Arabella Stuart to the throne; condemned to death, 1603; kept 13 years in the Tower, where he wrote his History of the World; re- leased, and sailed, 1617, with 14 ships to discover the promised El Dorado in Guiana; lost several vessels and his gon, and returned unsuccessful; im- prisoned on the complaint of the Spanish Ambassador, Gbndomar, con- cerning his conduct in Guiana; his judges deciding his former sentence of death valid, he was put to death Oct. 29, 1618 99 Ramsay, Allan. 249 Requisites for the Study of English Literature 13 Richardson, Samuel 228 Richard Rolle of Hampole, b. at Thornton about 1290; went to Oxford; became a monk; d. 1349 40 Robert of Brunne 40 Robert of Gloucester 44 Robertson, Frederick 280 Rogers, Samuel, b. at Stoke Newing- ton, 1763; became a clerk and partner in his father's banking house; Pleas- ures of Memory, 1793; Epistle to a Friend, 173$; Human Life, 1819; Italy, 1822; house a resort of eminent lit- erary men and politicians; d.1835. . .386 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, b. in Lon- don, 1828; a painter and poet ; Poems, 1870; The Early Italian Poets, 1873; d. 1882 421 Royal Society 201 Roy, William 74 Ruskin, John, b. in London, 1819; ed- ucated at Oxford; studied drawing with Copley; admired Turner; Modern Painters, 1843-1860: Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849; The Stones of Venice, 1851-53; Lectures on Architec- ture and Painting, 1854; essays fol- lowed; Slade Professor of Art at Ox- ford, 1869 308 Sackville, b. at Buckhurst, Sussex,1527; went to Oxford and thence to Cam- bridge; M.P. at the age of 21; created Lord Buckhurst, 1566; minister to France, 1570; sent to the Netherlands to inquire into ths difficulty between the States and Leicester, 1587; im- prisoned because of a report unfavor- able to L. ; succeeded Lord Burleigh as Lord Treasurer, 1598; died at the Council-board of James I., 1608. 92, 124 Sandys 153 Schemes for Review 35, 68, 90, 150, 186, 224, 267, 461 Scott, Sir Walter, b. in Edinburgh, 1771 ; at 18 months of age a fever left him incurably lame ; entered the U. of Ed.. 1783, but was not a faithful student, a fact which he afterward de- plored; apprenticed to the law, 1786; began the study of German, 1792; pub- lished two vols. of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802; Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805; Marmion, 1808; Lady of the Lake, 1810; Vision of Don Roderick, 1811; Rokeby, 1813; Waverly, his first novel, 1814; was knighted in 1820; the best of the nov- els before 1826; this year the pub- lishing firm of the Ballantynes, in which he was a partner, failed, as did Constable & Co., with which it was connected; wife died same year; Scott sat down to write off a debt of 117,000; accomplished it, and Ab- botsford was saved to his heirs; had several paralytic attacks ; travelled on the continent; returned; d. 1832. 269-77, 384-5 Shakespeare, b. at Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, 1564; the third of eight (Betterton says ten) children; Mary Arden, his mother, was daughter of Robert Arden, gentleman, and John Shakespeare, his father, was son of a tenant of said Arden; of pure Saxon blood on both sides, R. G. White says; fairly educated in the Gram- Index, Biographical and Topical. mar School of Stratford; in Lon- don, 1585; worked at first with Mar- lowe, Greene, and Peele upon old plays; with his savings bought shares in the Black Friars' Theatre, and af- terwards in the Globe Theatre, built in 1594; invested also in the tithes of Stratford, and in the "New Place " there, built by the Cloptons; fre- quented the best society of London ; procured a coat of arms for his father in 1599, and so became gentle- man by descent; T^tired to " New Place" about 1611, on an income of what would be now $10,000 a year; d. 1616, on the day he became 52, if born April 23d. Oldest daughter, Susanna, wife of Dr. Hall, left a daughter who died without children; Shakespeare's son, Hanmet, a twin with Judith, died at the age of 12, and the three chil- dren of Judith, wife of Thos. Quiney, died unmarried 132-137. Shelley, Percy Bysslie, b. at Filed Place, 1792; educated at Eton and Oxford; expelled from Oxford, 1811, on account of his tract The Necessity of Atheism; married a Miss Westbrook same year; Queen Mob, 1813; separ- ated from his wife, 1814; married Mary Godwin, 1816; Alastor, same year; deprived of the custody of his children because of his religious opin- ions, 1817; left England for Italy, 1818; Cenci and Prometheus Unbound. 1819; Adonais, 1821; going from Leghorn to Lorici the boat was upset in a squall, and two weeks afterward his body drifted ashore and was burned by Byron ri Leigh Hunt, 1822. . .399-405 Sh~:.stone, William 244 Sheridan, lilt-hard Brinsley, b. in Dublin. 1751; educated at Harrow; studied law but was not admitted to the bar; produced The RivaJs and The Duenna, 1775; The School for Scan- dal, 1777; The Critic, 1779; M.P., 1780; Sec. of Treasury, 1783; won great rep- utation as an orator in the impeach- ment of Hastings; treasurer of the navy, 1806; lost heavily by the burn- ing of the Drury Lane Theatre, 1809; became intemperate and extravagant and poor; d. 1816 235 Sherlock 201 Shirley 149 Sidney, Sir Philip, b. at Penshurst, 1544; son of Sir Henry Sydney, and nephew of Earl of Leicester; entered Oxford, 1568 or 69; a favorite of Eliza- beth's, and sent by her on a mission to Vienna in 1577; knighted, 1583, and married a daughter of Sir Fran- cis Walsingham; went, as Governor of Flushing, to aid the Dutch against Spain ; mortally wounded at Zutphen, Sept., 1586; without tasting it he gave the water brought him to a dying sol- dier, saying, " Thy necessity is greater than mi..e." Possessed rare accom- plishments, was a gentleman, a soldier, and an author; and, according to William of Orange, one of the ripest and greatest councillors of state in that day in Europe 96, 97, 100-102 Skelton, b. 1460; studied at Cambridge; took holy orders; was tutor to Duke of York, afterwards Henry VHL; poet-laureate, 1529 *. .87, 88 Smith, Capt. John 326-8 Smith, Adam, b. at Kirkaldy, Scot- land, 1723; at the University of Ed., 1737-40, and afterward at Oxford; call- ed to the chair of logic in the Univer- sity of Glasgow, 1751, and to the chair of moral philosophy, 1752; published Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759; resigned his chair, in 1763; on the con- tinent two or three years; returned to Kirkaldy, 1766, where he spent ten years on his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; one of the commissioners of customs for Scotland in 1778; d. 1790 240-1 Smollett 229 Somerville, Wm 246 South, Robert 201 Southey 279 Southey, Robt., b. at Bristol, 1774; ed- ucated at Westminster School and at Index, Biographical and Topical. ' 477 Oxford; lived at Greta Hall, near Kes- wick, 1803-1843; wrote many prose works; Joan of Arc, 1796; Thalaba, 1802; Madoc, 1805; Curse of Kehama, 1810; made poet-laureate, 1813; Rod- erick, 1814; A Vision of Judgment, 1821 ; d. 1843 36T Southwell, b. at Horsham, 1560; edu- cated at Douay, France; rector of the English Jesuit College, Rome, 1585; missionary to England, 1586; thrown into the Tower, 1592, on charge of complicity in a plot against Elizabeth; ten times subjected to tor- ture; condemned to death for refus- ing the oath of supremacy; hanged, drawn, and quartered, 1595 116 Spenser, Edmund, b. in London, 1552; entered Cambridge as sizar (one se- curing his board and tuition free), 1569; made A.M., 1576; lived in the North of England; secretary to Lord Grey do Wilton, Viceroy of Ireland, 1580; received 3,028 acres of land, in- cluding the castle and manor of Kil- colman, from the forfeited estate of the Earl of Desmond; first three books of Fairie Queen in 1590; a pen- sion of 50 from the queen ; second three, 1596; sheriff of the County of Cork, 1598; house burned down and one child perished, in the Earl of Ty- rone's rebellion, 1598; d., destitute, 1599 107-115 Stanley, Dean 279 Steele, Richard 219 Sterne, L,awrence 229 Stow 95 Stubbs, Professor 278 Suckling, Sir John 162 Surrey, Earl of, b. 1515; was a scholar, courtier, and soldier; accompanied Henry VIII. to France in 1544; was Governor of Boulogne after its cap- ture; was recalled in 1546; arrested and executed, 1547 88, 89 Swift, Jonathan, b. in Dublin in 1667; sent to Trinity College, Dublin, by his uncle, 1682; became secretaiy to his distant relative, Sir Wni.Temple.about 1688; went to Ireland, 1694, and became prebendary of Kilroot, but returned to Temple next year; at Temple's death, 1699, made vicar of Laracor and Rathbeggan in Ireland; Tale of a Tub, in 1704; went over to the Tories, 1708; intimate with the Tory leaders; wrote numberless poetical pamphlets ; would have received a bishopric but for the Tale of a Tub; Dean of St. Patrick's, 1713; Gulliver's Travels,1726; wrote in behalf of the Irish ; d. insane and idiotic, 1745 218-9 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, b. near Henley-on-Thames, 1837; Ata- lanta in Calydon, 1864; Chastelard, 1865; Poems and Ballads, 1866; Both- well, a tragedy, 1874 393 Taylor, Jeremy, b. at Cambridge, 1613; rectory sequestered by Parlia- ment, 1642; taught school in Wales; Liberty of Prophesying, 1647; Holy Living and Dying, 1650; several times imprisoned for uttering royalist opin- ions; lived in Ireland. 1658; married a natural daughter of Charles I., for his second wife; made Bishop of Down and Connor and of Dromore by Charles II. ; d. in Ireland, 1667 153, 156-159 Temple, Sir Wm., b. in London in 1628; studied at Cambridge; travelled on the Continent, 1647-54; a baronet in 1666; negotiated the triple alliance be- tween England, Holland, and Sweden, against Louis XIV., 1668; dismissed from office, 1671 ; devised a plan for a new privy council for Charles II., 1679; declined the secretaryship of State; lived in retirement at Moor Park with Swift for secretary; took part in the great discussion concerning Ancient and Modern Learning; d. 1698 204 Tennyson, Alfred, b.at Somersby,1809; educated at Cambridge; a vol. of Poems, 1830; another vol., 1833; Locks- ley Hall, and other poems, 1842; The Princess, 1847; In Memoriam, a tribute to the memory of his friend, Arthur H. Hallan, 1850; Maud, 1854; Idylls of the King, 1859; Enoch Arden, 1864; 478 Index, Biographical and Topical. Queen May, 1875; many other poems during these years and since. Suc- ceeded Wordsworth as poet-laureate, 1851 410-21 Tickell 211 Tillotson, Archbishop 201 Thackeray, Wm. Makepeace, b. in Calcutta, 1811; educated at Cambridge ; became an artist; adopted literature; The Paris Sketch-Book, and The Great HaggartyDiamond,&boutl&lO;Vanity Fair appeared 1846; Pendennis, 1849- 50, and the other novels followed; visited the U. S., 1852, and repeated his Lectures on the Eng. Humorists; came again, 1856, and gave those on the Four Georges; Editor of the Corn- hill Mag., 1860; d. 1863 278, 282-86 Theatre, The 124-5 The Novel 228 The Text-Book 13-15 Thomson, James, b. in Roxburgshire, Scotland, 1700; studied theology in Edinburgh; renounced it for literary pursuits; published the Seasons, in the order of Winter, Summer, Spring, and Autumn, 1726-30; had a pension of 100 from the Prince of Wales; sur- veyor of Leeward Isles, 300 a year; d.1748 212,244 Udal, Nicholas 124 Vaughan, Henry 164 Walton, Isaac 153 Walton, Sir Henry, b. in Kent, 1568; educated at Oxford; abroad nine years; secretary to Earl of Essex; fled on his arrest in 1601 ; sent, 1604, as ambassador to Venice; on missions toother foreign courts; d. 1639 119 Walsingham, Thomas 70 Warner, William .118 Warton, Thomas... Webster, John * 143 Whlttier, John Greenleaf, biogra- phy and works, see text 446, 458-60 William of Malrnesbury, b. about 1095; went early into the monastery at Malmesbury, whence his name; made librarian there; d. about 1143 40 William of Shoreham 40 Wilson, Professor 308 Wilson, Thomas 89 AVither, George 163 Wordsworth, Wm., b. at Cocker- mouth, 1770; went to school at Hawks- head; at Cambridge, 1787-91; visited France; driven home by the Reign of Terror; a volume of poems, 1793; had a legacy of 900, 1795; married Mary Hutchinson, 1802, and inherited 1800 from his father's estate; The Prelude was finished 1805; two volumes of poems, 1807; moved with his family to Rydal Mount, on Lake Windermere, 1813; distributor of stamps, 1813; a pension of 300 a year in i842; poet- laureate, 1843; d. 1850 3">9-84 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, b. 1503; took the degree of M.A. at Cambridge, 1520; was knighted, 1536; sent on missions to Spain and the Netherlands; d 1542 88, 89 Wycherly 195 Wyclif, b. in Yorkshire about 1324; master of Balliol College, Oxford, 1361; received a living in Lincolnshire; made D.D. ; cited as a heretic to meet his judges at St. Paul's, 1376; with his fellow- workers completed his transla- tion of theBiMe, 1380; wrote against transubstantiation, 1381 ; summoned to Rome in 1384, but did not go: d. 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