MANUAL ENGLISH LITERATURE DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS OF ADVANCED GRADES. BY N. K. ROYSE, AUTHOR OF "A MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.' PHILADELPHIA: COWPERTHWAIT & CO. 1882. COPYRIGHT, BY N. K. ROYSE. 1881. '/ PREFACE. TF the matter of the present work shall fail to apologize satis- factorily for its appearance in the already numerous family of manuals of English literature, it is still hoped that the man- ner in which such matter is presented the arrangement of the work will commend it as something unlike and possibly superior to its sister manuals as a normal guide to the student. The author believes that the study of any literature properly begins with the writings of its living authors, and proceeds from these to those of modern, and from modern to those of early authors, the earliest coming last. And he rests his belief in this matter on the indisputable fact that the literature most readily comprehensible to any student is that of his own country and his own age ; for the literary atmosphere the peculiar idi- oms, the natural surroundings, the moral, sesthetical, social, and political ideas and sentiments breathed by living, native au- thors is the same that is breathed by himself. An American student, therefore, should commence his study of literature with the writings of living American authors.* This done, the stu- dent's next step evidently is to take up the writings of living English authors, and from them, as from its mouth, to ascend the successive levels of the great stream of English literature to its fountain head. To facilitate this accomplishment is the purpose of the present manual. . * With a view to promote this end the author prepared, some years ago, his " Man- ual of American Literature." M111G88 IV PREFACE. It may be objected to the foregoing plan that the literature of no age can be intelligently studied without at the same time taking into account the national and social bearings upon it of preceding literary epochs. This is undoubtedly true ; and to obviate the difficulty the author has devoted the first part of this work to a sketch of the history of English literature, begin- ning at its remote source and descending in chronological order to its present Amazonian mouth ; for a satisfactory understand- ing of which the student need not to be acquainted with the writings of any author. The plan of the work, therefore, natu- rally divides itself into two parts part first being a sketch of the history of English literature, chronologically considered, and part second an epitome of the lives and works of the represen- tative writers of English literature, treated of in an inverse chronological order. Another peculiarity of the present manual is, that it brings into prominent notice only such writers as are universally ac- knowledged to be representative. Life is not long enough espe- cially student life for an exhaustive study of any literature ; and if it were, it is questionable whether the wisest policy would not restrict one to a study of the works of the most eminent writers. Such, at any rate, is the policy of the present work, only fifty-three writers being treated of at length. Writers of less importance are scarcely more than named, classified, and located. N. K. ROYSE. CINCINNATI, 1881. CONTENTS. PART FIRST. A Sketch of the History of English Literature. PAGE THE CELTS ]7 ROMAN DOMINATION 18 THE SAXON CONQUEST 18 EARLY CELTIC LITERATURE 18 THE SAXONS .... 19 THE ANGLO-SAXONS, OR ENGLISH 19 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 20 BEOWULF, CAEDMON'S PARAPHRASE 20 " THE VENERABLE BEDE," AND OTHERS . ''/' -20 THE NORMAN CONQUEST, ITS EFFECTS 21 EARLY LATIN PROSE WRITERS 22 BRUT, ORMULUM, THE OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE, ETC. . . 22 A NEW LANGUAGE 23 THE VISION OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN, ETC 24 JOHN GOWER, HIS WRITINGS .24 EARLIEST ENGLISH PROSE LITERATURE 24 JOHN DE WYCLIFFE 25 THE NEW NATION 25 SUMMARY OF LINGUISTIC EPOCHS 25 GEOFFREY CHAUCER 25 From Chaucer to Elizabeth. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY . . . .26 INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING 26 ROBIN HOOD, AND OTHER BALLADS . . . . . . .27 OCCLEVE AND LYDGATE 27 JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND, DUNBAR . . . ... . .27 HENRYSON, "BLIND HARRY" 27 PROSE WRITERS OF THE EPOCH 27 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 28 THE REFORMATION 29 THE FIRST COMEDY, MASQUES,- INTERLUDES 29 BERNERS' FROISSART 29 SIR THOMAS MORE LIFE OF RICHARD III., UTOPIA . , . 29 TYNDALE, CRANMER, RIDLEY, LATIMER, CHEKE, ASCHAM . . 30 l* v Vl CONTENTS. PAGE THE POETS OF THE EPOCH SKELTON, HAWES, SURREY, WYATT, LYNDSAY 30 The Age of Elisabeth and James I. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPOCH 31 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 32 EDMUND SPENSER 32 OTHER POETS OF THE EPOCH GASCOIGNE, SACKVILL-E, DANIEL, DRAYTON, DONNE, HALL 33 PROSE LITERATURE OF THE EPOCH 33 SIR WALTER EALEIGH, HOLLINSHED, CAMDEN, SPEED, FOXE, DANIEL 33 THEOLOGICAL WRITERS 33 PHILOSOPHY HOBBES, BACON 34 ROBERT BURTON, HIS ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY . . . .34 THE DRAMA OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 35 DEVELOPMENT OF THE DRAMA MIRACLE PLAYS, THE MORALI- TIES, INTERLUDES, LEGITIMATE DRAMA . . . . 35, 36 GORBODUC, KYNGE JOHAN 36 RALPH ROISTER DOISTER 36 EARLY PLAYERS, EARLY THEATRES 36 DRAMATISTS OF THE EPOCH LYLY, KYD, PEELE, NASH, GREENE, MARLOWE, SHAKESPEARE, JONSON 36, 37 OTHER DRAMATISTS BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, MASSINGER, FORD, WEBSTER, MIDDLETON, CHAPMAN, DEKKER, HEYWOOD . 37 Epoch of the Civil War and Commonwealth. CHARACTER OF THE LITERATURE OF THE EPOCH . . . .38 THE POETS COWLEY, QUALES, HERRICK, W T ALLER, CLEVELAND, LOVELACE, SUCKLING, HERBERT, CRASHAW, CAREW, DENHAM 38, 39 JOHN MILTON 39 PROSE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY EPOCH . . . .39 SIR THOMAS BROWNE, JEREMY TAYLOR, CHILLINGWORTH, HALES, FULLER, BAXTER 39, 40 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LITERATURE OF THIS EPOCH . . .40 JOHN BUNYAN 40 The Age of the Restoration. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE 40, 41 SAMUEL BUTLER 41 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DRAMA 41 ETHEREGE, WYCHERLEY, VANBRUGH, FARQUHAR, CONGREVE, OTWAY, LEE, SOUTHERNS, ROWE, ETC 42 The Epoch of the Revolution. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE EPOCH . . .42 PHILOSOPHY JOHN LOCKE . 43 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE THEOLOGY BARROW, TILLOTSON, SOUTH, STILLINGFLEET, SPRAT, SHERLOCK, BURNET 43 SCIENCE SIR ISAAC NEWTON 43 The Eighteenth Century. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POETRY OF THE EPOCH . . . .44 POPE, SWIFT, ARBUTHNOT, PRIOR, GAY, PARNELL, YOUNG . 44, 45 EISE OF THE ESSAY SIR EICHARD STEELE, TEMPLE, SHAFTES- BURY, ATTERBURY, BOLINGBROKE, MANDEVILLE, BERKELEY, LADY MONTAGU, JOSEPH ADDISON. 45 EISE OF THE NOVEL, OR PROSE FICTION 45 DEFOE, EICHARDSON, FIELDING, SMOLLETT, GOLDSMITH, LAURENCE STERNE 46 HISTORY HUME, KOBERTSON, GIBBON ...... 46 BURKE, JOHNSON 46 OTHER PROSE WRITERS BOSWELL, ADAM SMITH, BLACKSTONE, BISHOP BUTLER, PALEY 46 LETTERS OF JUNIUS . . . . ... . . .46 ORATORY AND ORATORS 46 TRANSITIONAL POETS THOMSON, GRAY .47 OTHER POETS SHENSTONE, COLLINS, AKENSIDE, MACPHERSON, CHATTERTON, CRABBE .47 THE COMIC DRAMA SHERIDAN, GARRICK, FOOTE, CUMBERLAND, THE COLMANS .47 The Nineteenth Century. DAWN OF THE TRANSITION 47 ^REVOLUTIONARY AGENCIES .48 KEVIVAL OF KOMANTIC LITERATURE ON THE CONTINENT . . 48 EFFECTS OF THE REVIVAL IN ENGLAND 49 INTERNAL CAUSES COWPER, BURNS 49 ENGLISH KOMANTIC SCHOOL OF LITERATURE 50 HISTORICAL POETS AND EOMANCISTS. . . . . . .50 PSYCHOLOGICAL POETS 50 Modern Poetry ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND CHARACTERISTIC WRITERS . . 51 Modern Fiction PECULIARITIES OF ITS THREE EARLIER DEVEL- OPMENTS . 52, 53 CHARACTERISTICS OF ITS LATEST DEVELOPMENTS . . . .54 EFFECTS OF MODERN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EVENTS ON THE PROSE FICTION OF THE PRESENT 55 EXTENT AND CAPABILITIES OF FICTION . . . 55, 56, 57, 58 Modern History ITS JUDICIAL SPIRIT, ITS INDUSTRY OF EE- SEARCH, ITS BREADTH OF TREATMENT, ITS PICTURESQUENESS, ITS PHILOSOPHIC SPIRIT 59, 61, 62 ITS EARLIEST EMINENT EXPONENTS 60 Viil CONTENTS. PAGE ITS LATER REPRESENTATIVE WRITERS 62 Modern Periodical Literature . 62 ITS ORIGIN AND EXTENT 63 NATURE OF THE REVIEW 63 NATURE OF THE MAGAZINE 64 Modern Philosophy, Theology, Science, Oratory, and Criticism 64 PECULIARITIES OF MODERN INQUIRY ....... 65 EMINENT RADICAL EXPONENTS 65 EMINENT CONSERVATIVE EXPONENTS 65 GENERAL PROGRESS OF THE CENTURY . 65 PAJKT SECOND. Representative English Writers. The Nineteenth Century. POETS. ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . .66, 68, 70, 77 EXTRACT FROM THE PRINCESS 67 " " IN MEMORIAM . . 69 " " THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 71 " " QUEEN MARY 77 CRITICISMS 70, 76, 77, 80 ROBERT BROWNING, 1812. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS . . . .83, 84, 87, 90, 94 AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 83 PIPPA'S MUSINGS ON A NEW YEAR'S DAY 85 EXTRACT FROM THE RING AND THE BOOK 87 POMPILIA'S DYING WORDS : . . 88 THE FAIR AND FIFINE 91 CRITICISMS 90, 93 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 1809-1861. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS .... 95, 97, 101, 106 THREE SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 96 EXTRACTS FROM CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 97 " AURORA LEIGH 102 CRITICISMS 96, 101, 106 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 1775-1864. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . 108,111,114,117 EXTRACT FROM GEBIR ... .108 CONTENTS. ix PAGE EXTRACT FROM COUNT JULIAN Ill " IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 115 CRITICISMS 108, 114, 117 THOMAS MOORE, 1779-1852. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . 119,127,128 THE MEETING OF THE WATERS 120 DEAR HARP OF MY COUNTRY 120 WHEN COLD IN THE EARTH . .121 EXTRACT FROM VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN . . . .122 " " THE FIRE-WORSHIPERS 123 " " PARADISE AND THE PERI 124 CRITICISMS . . ......... . . 120, 121, 127 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . ' . . . . . 129 A FAREWELL 130 LINES COMPOSED NEAR TINTERN ABBEY 131 To A HIGHLAND GIRL . . . . . . . . . 135 SONNET 137 EXTRACT FROM THE EXCURSION . .138 CRITICISMS . . . . . . . . . .129, 137 141 THOMAS HOOD, 1798-1845. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS ..... 143, 145, 148 THE SHADE'S DEFENSE OF THE FAIRIES 143 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT 146 LAST VERSES . 148 THE DISCOVERY 149 THE DUEL: A SERIOUS BALLAD 150 A SERENADE . . . , 152 CRITICISMS 153 ROBERT SOUTHEY, 1774-1843. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . 155, 158, 161, 163 EXTRACT FROM MADOC 155 THALABA'S ADMISSION TO PARADISE 158 RODERICK IN BATTLE 161 CRITICISMS 163 FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMAXS, 1794-1835. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 166 BERNARDO DEL CARPIO 168 THE MESSAGE TO THE DEAD 169 THE VOICE OF SPRING . - . . 171 EXTRACT FROM DE CHATILLON 173 CRITICISMS . . .176 CONTENTS. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1772-1834. PAGE BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 177 THE ANCIENT MARINER PART 1 180 PART II. . 182 HYMN BEFORE THE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI . . 183 ON SENSIBILITY 185 CRITICISMS 183, 186 LORD BYRON, 1788-1824. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 187. EXTRACTS FROM CHILDE HAROLD: LAKE LEMAN 188 BALL AT BRUSSELS 191 EXTRACT FROM MANFRED 192 CRITICISMS 191, 196 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792-1822. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 198 EXTRACT FROM QUEEN MAB . . 200 " " PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 202 " HELLAS 204 To A SKYLARK 205 EXTRACT FROM EPIPSYCHIDION 208 CRITICAL OPINION * . 199 FICTIONISTS. "GEORGE ELIOT," 1820-1880. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 210 EXTRACT FROM ADAM BEDE 211 " " MlDDLEMARCH 213 CRITICISMS 216 EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON, 1805-1873. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 217, 228 EXTRACT FROM MY NOVEL 218 " " KENELM CHILLINGLY 220 " " THE LADY OF LYONS 224 CRITICISMS 228 CHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . 230, 235, 237, 239, 242 MR. PICKWICK AT Miss TOMKIN'S SCHOOL 232 THE SACKING OF NEWGATE PRISON 236 THE WIND 238 DEATH OF LITTLE PAUL 239 CRITICISM . 242 CONTENTS. xi WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863. pAQE BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 245 A QUARREL ABOUT AN HEIRESS 246 A VISIT TO CASTLEWOOD 250 CRITICISM ' 254 SIR WALTER SCOTT, 1771-1832. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS 255, 259 'EXTRACT FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE . . . / . . 256 " " ROB ROY . . 260 " " IVANHOE . . . 262 CRITICISMS 258, 264 ESSAYISTS. JOHN RUSKIN, 1819. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 266 GREATNESS IN ART 267 A PICTURE AND ITS LANDSCAPE 268 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE 269 THE LAMP OF MEMORY 270 CRITICISM 272 THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 1785-1859. BIOGRAPHY: LIST OF WORKS 273 EXTRACT FROM THE CONFESSIONS . . . . . . . 274 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH 275 CRITICISMS 278 JOHN WILSON, 1785-1854. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 279 ADDRESS TO A WILD DEER 281 EXTRACT FROM RECREATIONS . . 283 " KOCTES AMBROSIAN^ . . . . . . 284 CRITICISMS 280, 286 CHARLES LAMB, 1775-1834. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 287 EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAYS OF ELIA: THE CONVALESCENT 288 DREAM-CHILDREN 289 CRITICISMS 291 WILLIAM HAZLITT, 1778-1830. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 292 ON THE PLEASURE OF PAINTING 294 ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH .... 296 CRITICISMS . . 293, 298 Xli CONTENTS. HISTORIANS. JAMES ANTHONY FKOUDE, 1818. PAGE BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS 300, 304 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA .... 300 THE CHARACTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 302 CRITICISMS 303 THOMAS CAKLYLE, 1795-1881. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 305 EXTRACTS FROM SARTOR KESARTUS 306 THE HERO GENERALLY AND AS DIVINITY . . . . 308 THE HERO AS POET . .309 THE HERO AS PRIEST 309 THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS 309 THE HERO AS KING 310 THE BATTLE OF PRAG 311 CRITICISMS 313 GEORGE GROTE, 1794-1871. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS ..... 314, 319, 321 THE ARGON AUTIC EXPEDITION 314 THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMAE 316 LIFE OF PLATO 319 CRITICISMS 317, 3'20 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, 1800-1859. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 322 HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE 323 CHARACTER OF THE PURITANS 326 THE BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR 328 WILLIAM AND MARY 331 CRITICISMS 326, 328, 332 HENRY HALLAM, 1777-1859. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS 334, 336, 339 CHARACTER OF CHARLEMAGNE 334 ABOUT TOURNAMENTS . 335 THE EARLY STATE OF IRELAND 336 CRITICISMS 336, 338 The Eighteenth Century. POETS. WILLIAM COWPER, 1731-1800. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . 340, 343, 349 MY MOTHER'S PICTURE . 340 CONTENTS. Xlli PAGE A SUMMER LANDSCAPE 344 A WINTER SCENE 345 THE PREACHER 347 KEPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE 350 THE SHRUBBERY 351 CRITICISM 351 BOBEET BURKS, 1759-1796. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . . . 353 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT . ,. . . . . 355 To A MOUNTAIN DAISY 359 THE WHISTLE 361 YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS . * 363 WINTER: A DIRGE 364 BRUCE AT BANNOCKBURN 364 FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON . 365 CRITICISMS .......... . 366 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . . . 368 EXTRACT FROM THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD 371 EXTRACTS FROM THE DESERTED VILLAGE 374 CRITICISMS ". 379 THOMAS GRAY, 1716-1771. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 380 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD . . . .381 CRITICISM 385 JAMES THOMSON, WOO-1748. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS 386 EXTRACT FROM SPRING 387 " " SUMMER .389 " " AUTUMN 390 " " WINTER . .391 HYMN TO THE SEASONS 392 THE CASTLE 395 CRITICISM 397 ALEXANDER POPE, 1688-1744. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS 398 MESSIAH: A SACRED ECLOGUE. ....... 400 THE RAPE OF TILE LOCK CANTO THIRD 403 EXTRACTS FROM AN ESSAY ON MAN 405 " ELOISA TO ABELARD 408 CRITICISMS 410 2 xiv CONTENTS. FICTIONISTS. TOBIAS SMOLLETT, 1721-1771. PAGE BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 411 EXTRACT FROM HUMPHREY CLINKER 413 CRITICISM 418 SAMUEL RICHARDSON, 1689-1761. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . . 419 LETTER 300 CLARISSA TO HER MOTHER 421 " 388 BELFORD TO LOVELACE 422 " 418 LOVELACE TO BELFORD 424 CRITICISM 425 HENRY FIELDING, 1707-1754. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 427 EXTRACTS FROM TOM JONES 429, 430 CRITICISM 433 DANIEL DE FOE, 1661-1731. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 434 EXTRACT FROM KOBINSON CRUSOE 436 CRITICISMS . . 441 HISTORIANS. EDWARD GIBBON, 1737-1794. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WORKS 443 BELISARIUS' DEFENSE OF ROME 445 THE PRINCES AND THE PALACE OF CONSTANTINOPLE . . . 447 CRITICISM 448 DAVID HUME, 1711-1776. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 450 BATTLE OF POICTIERS . 451 EXECUTION OF CHARLES 1 454 CHARLES' CHARACTER . 455 CRITICISMS 456 MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, 1751-1816. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS 458 EXTRACT FROM THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL 459 EXTRACTS FROM SPEECH AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS . . . 464 CRITICISMS 465 . EDMUND BURKE, 1730-1797. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . . . 467 EXTRACT FROM ESSAY ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL . . 469 CONTENTS. xv PAGE EXTRACT FROM SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA . 470 " " SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS . . 472 " SPEECH ON THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS 473 " PAMPHLET ON THE FRENCH KEVOLUTION . . 474 CRITICISMS 475 SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 477 THREE EXTRACTS FROM THE EAMBLER .... 479, 482, 483 CRITICISMS 485 JONATHAN SWIFT, 1667-1745. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS 487 EXTRACT FROM A TALE OF A TUB 490 " A VOYAGE TO LILIPUT . . . . . 493 " A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG . . . . . 495 CRITICISM . 496 JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 497 EXTRACTS FROM CATO 500 No. 440 FROM SPECTATOR 503 No. 441 " " 504 No. 463 " 506 CRITICISM 508 Epoch of the Commonwealth and Restoration. JOHN DEYDEN, 1631-1700. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 509 EXTRACT FROM DON SEBASTIAN 512 ALEXANDER'S FEAST 519 CRITICISMS 522 JOHN BUNYAN, 1628-1688. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 523 EXTRACT FROM THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 524 CRITICISMS 527 SAMUEL BUTLER, 1612-1680. BIOGRAPHY : HISTORY OF WRITINGS 529 EXTRACT FROM HUDIBRAS 530 CRITICISM ' 537 JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674, BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 538 EXTRACTS FROM AREOPAGITICA . 542 xvi CONTENTS. PAGE EXTRACT FROM PARADISE LOST, BOOK I. . . . . 545 " " " " " V 546 "VI 548 " X 552 "XI 552 CRITICISMS 553 Epoch of Elizabeth and James I. BEN JONSON, 1574-1637. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . . 555 EXTRACT FROM EPICOENE 558 " " THE SAD SHEPHERD 564 CRITICISMS 568 WILLIAM SHAKESPEAKE, 1564-1616. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WORKS ....... 569 MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM, ACT I., Sc. II 572 " " " III., "1 574 KING RICHARD III., ACT I., Sc. IV 577 MACBETH, ACT V., Sc. V. 583 " V., " VII 584 CRITICISM 586 FRANCIS BACON, 1561-1626. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS 588 SOLOMON'S HOUSE 591 OF STUDIES 593 OF ADVERSITY 594 CRITICISMS 595 EDMUND SPENSER, 1552-1599. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS . . . . . . 597 THE DRAGON 600 THE BOWRE or BLISSE 604 DIANA 610 CRITICISM 612 The Age of Chaucer. GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 1328-1400. BIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF WRITINGS. . . . . . 613 EXTRACT FROM THE KNIGHT'S TALE 617 " " MILLER'S TALE 619 " SIRE CLERK OF OXENFORDE'S TALE . . .621 CRITICISM 615, 616, 627 ENGLISH LITERATURE. A MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. z_ A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The Celts. The earliest inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any knowledge consisted of various branches the Gaelic, the Cymric, the Teutonic, and the Scandinavian of the great Celtic family, which, issuing from the East, had long before the Christian era fixed, in so far as their nomadic instinct would allow, their residence in those portions of northern and western Europe that border the Baltic and North "seas. These pristine people, whom we shall now call Britons, at the time when Greek and Eoman navigators made their acquaintance, had acquired in the southern and level portions of the island some rude knowledge of agriculture, and in their dwellings, in their implements of war, and their tools, and in their dress, had made some slight advance upon their aboriginal simplicity. But in the mountainous and less arable regions of the north and west, they very generally led the wandering life of herdsmen, tattooed their bodies, clothed them- selves in skins of beasts, and lodged in miserable and temporary huts. The entire people were divided into small tribes, each under the nominal control of a chieftain ; for their innate spirit of indepen- dence would brook only the slightest political restraints. War was their almost constant employment; and consequently the attain- ment of physical strength and the skillful use of warlike weapons were the great objects of their ambition. Their religion was super- stitious in the extreme, and their priests the Druids exercised, in a most absolute manner, the offices of religious and secular teachers, lawgivers, and judges. 2* B 17 1 S 3A- NUA L OF ENGLISH LITER A TURE. Roman Domination. But even these barbarians excited the cupidity of Julius Csesar, and a portion of them at least, in 55 B.C., fell under the Roman yoke. The ensuing five hundred years, dur- ing which the conquerors maintained a more or less perfect con- trol of the southern and central portions of the island, were pro- ductive of material changes in the manners and customs of the subjugated Britons. Their primitive mantle of skins was replaced by the toga, a vest, tunic, and trowsers of cloth ; the rude hut and frail boat, made of osiers and skins, gave place to comparatively substantial and comfortable dwellings and serviceable galleys; a coined currency supplanted the practice of bartering; Christianity displaced Druidical worship ; and not a few of the native youth repaired to Rome for their education, and, returning, did much toward promoting what daily intercourse between the Romans and Britons had from the beginning necessitated the introduction of divers Latin words and grammatical forms into their vernacular. But this imposed and largely superficial civilization was doomed to an almost complete extinction ; for when the Romans, in 448 A.D., withdrew from Britain, to defend their menaced empire at home, the aboriginal barbarians of the island now known as Picts and Scots swept like an avalanche from the mountain fastnesses of Caledonia and Wales, southward and eastward, deso- lating in a day, as it were, the exogenous growths of nearly five centuries. The Sttxon Conquest. The Britons, enervated by the late domination of the Romans, called on the Saxons, the most for- midable of those cognate Celtic tribes that inhabited the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland, to assist them in repell- ing the invasion of the native barbarians. The Saxons readily re- sponded ; but having accomplished the work to which they were invited, next subjugated the Britons also; and subsequently, being reinforced by numerous swarms of their tribe from the Conti- nent, they established, in a comparatively brief space, the Saxon Heptarchy. Early Celtic Literature. The fierce struggles which at- tended the Saxon triumph were productive of the earliest fruits of insular Celtic literature. The battle of Cattraeth, supposed to have been fought in 570, was celebrated by ANEURIN, one of the foremost of the ancient bards, in his poem of Gododin. Urien, the great Cymric chief of the north of England, had his warlike exploits sung by LLYWAIICH the Old ; while in the south, King Arthur's achievements were extolled by MERLIN. Indeed, it is certain that, from the earliest centuries of the Chris- HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 tian era, there existed a distinct literary class among the Celts of the British Isles. The officially recognized poet, and the historian by hereditary descent, no less than the Druid and the chief, con- stituted essential features of the tribal establishment. A vivid and bold imagination, that sought expression in figurative language ; delight in bright colors and in music; a high sense of honor, and a fervid religious enthusiasm, these were the leading elements of the Celtic mind. The Saxon conquest effectually drove the Celts of the north arid west, and also many of the Britons, into the mountains of Wales, the highlands of Scotland^ and across the sea into Ireland; and here, to-day, we find in the patois and old legends of the rustic population the nearest approximation to the speech and literature of the primitive inhabitants of the British Isles. The participation of the ancient Celtic speech in the present constitution of the Eng- lish language is quite inappreciable, only a very small number of our words being traceable directly to the Celtic ; and the influence of its rude and scanty literature it is beyond the nicest discernment to detect. The Saxons. The Saxons, who for the next four hundred years maintained rule in England, were a branch of the great Teutonic race which occupied western and north-western Europe. With heavy bodies, fierce blue eyes, flaxen hair, of a cold tempera- ment, given to drunkenness and gluttony, and quarrelsome, it may be readily supposed that they were little, if any, superior to the supplanted Britons. But underneath these grossnesses there were large capabilities and noble tendencies. Earnestness, a spirit of self-reliance, fidelity to duty, a 'high sense of chastity, a masculine strength of will, and courage, were some of the native qualities of these inchoate Englishmen. The Saxons, however, were not alone in their occupancy of England. Closely following them, there came to such portions of the island as lay opposite their continental homes, Scandinavians, Danes, and Frisians the latter the ancestors of the modern Dutch, all Teutonic tribes. These all, after some contention, through community of interest and intermarriages, very naturally fused to- gether as one people, under the foreign name of ANGLO-SAXONS the term meaning only English Saxon but under the domestic name of ENGLISH. The inevitable result of this merging of tribes into a common people was a fusion also of the various Teutonic dialects, which these several tribes employed and which were closely related, into one common speech, which at home was called, after the people, English, and abroad, Anglo-Saxon. 20 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Early Anglo-Saxon Literature. These Teutonic immi- grants brought to England, along with their weapons of war, savage customs, and pagan worship, certain rude battle-songs, and a heroic legend concerning a chief named Beowulf. After the fusion of tribes and dialects to which we have alluded had been accomplished, probably in the seventh century, this saga, or poem, was translated into the new tongue, and thus became one of the most ancient monuments of Anglo-Saxon, or, as it is sometimes called, First English Literature.* As early as the fourth century, it is pretty certain that Christian missionaries, both native and continental, began their pious labors in the British Isles. Such, of the native Celtic stock, were Morgan of England, St. Patrick of Ireland, and St. David of Wales. Indeed, it was mainly through Celtic teachers that the English of the north received their first religious instruction ; and under these spiritual influences sprang up about 670 the second great poem of Anglo- Saxon literature Caedmon's Paraphrase.^ In both of the foregoing poems, as well as in all others of an Anglo-Saxon origin, there was neither rhyme nor a regular recur- rence of syllables of varying lengths. The sole secret of their mechanism lay in bringing together in the same line a certain number of words two or three beginning with the same letter, a species of meter called alliteration. If we except two collections of Anglo-Saxon poems, known as the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book, the writings of the period ex- tending from the time of Caedmon to the Norman Conquest were, for the most part, produced by monastics in Latin, this language being most emphatically at that time the medium of the learned. Of such writers were Aldhelm, the " venerable " Bede, Wilfred, Alctiin, and John Scotus, surnamed Erigena. The most import- ant of their writings was Bede's Ecclesiastical History. I * The poem describes the expedition of Beowulf, a prince of divine origin, from England to Norway, for the purpose of destroying a monster that secretly wrought havoc at night among the warrior sleepers in the royal hall. The hero succeeds in driving the monster, whose name was Grendel, back into his native fen. Afterward he himself becomes ruler, encounters another dragon, by which he is slain, and is finally buried under a great barrow on a lofty promontory. The incidents of the poem, though manifestly fictitious, vividly set forth the genuine lives of the Scandi- navian and Danish chiefs of those days; the peculiar customs, ceremonies, and con- versation of the old banquet hall, where were gathered the chief and his hearth- sharers, being graphically delineated. t In this poem its author sings of Creation, the War in Heaven. Satan, the Fall of Man, the Flood, Abraham, the Passage of the Red Sea. and events of the Book of Daniel, closing the epic with Belshazzar's Feast. J " Bede did not doubt reported miracles, and that part of the religious faith of his time supplies details which we should be glad now to exchange for other infor- HISTORICAL SKETCH. 21 King Alfred, either personally or as a patron, also contributed much toward the literary advancement of his age by his transla- tions of good and useful Latin writings, and by his establishment of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. "The best Anglo-Saxon writers were purists in style, and re- luctantly admitted Latin words into their vocabulary. Hence the number of such in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, the works of Alfric and of Alfred, and, indeed, in all the native literature of England, so long as A^nglo-Saxon continued to be a written language, is very small. "Although the Anglo-Saxon is the bubbling well-spring whose sweet waters have given a specific flavor to the broader and more impetuous current of our maternal speech, yet the literature of ancient Anglia stands in no such relation to that of modern Eng- land. Beowulf, and the songs of Caedmon and Cynewulf, and even the relics of the great Alfred, were buried out of sight and forgot- ten long before any work, now recognized as distinctively English in spirit, had been conceived in the imagination of its author. The earliest truly English writers borrowed neither imagery nor thought nor plan, seldom even form, from older native models, and hence Anglo-Saxon literature, so far from being the mother, was not even the nurse of the infant genius which opened its eyes to the sun of England five centuries ago."* The Normitn Conquest. The latter part of the eleventh cen- tury witnessed a momentous event for England, in its subjugation by the Normans under William the Conqueror. These Normans, though originally descended from the same Teutonic stock as were the Anglo-Saxons, had, by proximity of residence to and inter- course with the people of southern and interior Europe, imbibed from them no small draughts of civilization and culture. Their rude vernacular they had exchanged for a dialect of the great Ro- mance speech, then prevalent in south-western Europe, and which was a modification of classical Latin. Their predatory and nomadic habits as Northmen, they had discarded for the systematic institu- tions of Feudalism, and their rugged sagas were displaced by the lais, romances, and fabliaux of the literature of chivalry. These feudal institutions and this chivalresque literature and mation upon matters whereof he gives too bare a chronicle ; but whatever its defects, he has left us a history of the early years of England, succinct, yet often warm with life ; business-like, and yet childlike in its tone ; at once practical and spiritual, sim- ply just, and the work of a true scholar, breathing love to God and man. We owe to Bede alone the knowledge of much that is most interesting in our early history. Bede died in the year 735, three years after the completion of his history." .4 First Sketch of English Literature. MORLEY. * The English Language and its Early Literature. MARSH. 22 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. language the Normans transplanted into England at the time of the Conquest. Superiority of skill in civic and military aft'airs remained with the conquerors, superiority of numbers with the conquered. The imported language the Norman-French be- came, therefore, the speech of the court and governing class; the native Anglo-Saxon continued to be the language of the masses; while Latin, as formerly, constituted the vehicle of the writings of monastics and the learned generally. Consequently, for about two hundred years after the Conquest, England pre- sented the interesting spectacle of three distinct languages, each maintained by a class efficient either in point of intellectual or numerical force, subsisting side by side with but slight evidence of any intermixture. Of these three the Latin maintained a predomi- nance as a written language. The chief authors were ecclesiastics.* But the common people, as well as the cloistered and privileged classes, had their literary purveyors. Walter Map rendered into Anglo-Saxon, and, it is conceded, largely vitalized and gave present interest to, the romances concerning Arthur; while in the depart- ment of original vernacular poetry, we meet with Layamon, author of Brutfi a poem of 32,250 lines ; Ormin, author of the poem Ormu- lum, and Nicholas of Guildford, author of The Owl and the Nightin- gale. Beside these, there sprung up homilies, creeds, pater-nosters, gaudia, and devotional poems in no small number. Translations also of popular French romances into the Anglo-Saxon were made in the reign of Henry III. Such, for example, were King Horn, * Of such writers, we may name as the most prominent, Ordericus Vitalus, author of an Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy; William of Malmesbury. author of the History of the Kings of England; Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of History of British Kings ; John of Salisbury, Athelard of Bath, writers on mathematics and science : Ralph Glanville, author of a treatise Upon the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England; Joseph of Exeter and Alexander Neckam, authors of Latin poems ; Geoffrey de Vinsauf, whose work, De Nova Poetria, was the earliest piece of literary criticism ; Giraldus Cambrensis, author of History of the Conquest of Ire- land; Roger Bacon, the great philosopher of his day, as attested by his works, Opus Majus, Opus Minus, and Opus Tertium. Other representatives of Anglo-Norman liter- ature were, of theologians and schoolmen, Lanfranc, Anselm, Peter of Blois, Alex- ander Hale.s, John Scotus, William of Occam ; of chroniclers, William of Poictiers, Henry of Huntingdon, Matthew Paris, Ralph Higden ; of poets, Hilarius and Walter Mapes. f " This commenced with the destruction of Troy and the flight of ^Eneas, from whom descended Brutus, the founder of the British monarchy, and extends to the reign of Athelstan. The authorities on which Layamon founds his narrative, as he himself states, are the English book that St. Beda made. The versification is irregu- lar, sometimes unrhymed and alliterative, like that of the Anglo-Saxons, and some- times rhymed like that of Wace ; sometimes merely rhythmical, sometimes in lines composed of regular feet, thus showing, in the structure of the verse as well as in the syntax, evidences of Normau influence. The rhymed lines bear but a small proportion to the alliterative, and in general the rhythm follows that of Anglo- Saxon models." The English Language and its Early Literature. MARSH. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 23 and the Romance of Alexander. To this period also belong the first Miracle Plays enacted in England, which were imported from France by Hilarius, an Englishman. A New Language. The potent influence exerted by a gradual commingling of social and political interests forbade that the lin- guistic barriers between ecclesiastic Latin, courtly Norman-French, and democratic Anglo-Saxon should long remain unbroken. The transaction of the ordinary affairs of life demanded a verbal under- standing and communication between sovereign and subject, be- tween knight and vassal, between priest and layman. This un- derstanding and this communication were established by mutual sacrifices, principally of the structural peculiarities of the speech of each of the peoples brought into contact. Even before the Conquest, changes had begun to appear in the orthography of the Anglo-Saxon tongue; as, for instance, the substitution of the vowel e for the different inflectional terminations. The Conquest brought about a large influx of French and Latin words, which found a permanent place in the subsequent language, either by crowding out vernaculars or else by expanding the vo- cabulary. Then, in the early and awkward attempts of each peo- ple to speak the language of the other, there arose marked con- tractions and modifications in pronunciation and orthography; inflections were ignorantly omitted ; their places being taken by articles, auxiliaries, and prepositions. In this manner a new language began to assert itself in England, composed, as to its philological elements, of Norman-French, classic Latin, and Anglo- Saxon, and characterized, in grammatical structure, by the em- ployment of particles and auxiliaries of relationship in place of the ancient inflections.* In some such condition was the language when Chaucer, about the middle of the fourteenth century, seized on its yet plastic ele- ments, and with a strong and skillful hand moulded them into definite and symmetrical structures. A special chapter will here- * " The Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French, from the union of which the Eng- lish is chiefly derived, were inflected languages, and had the syntactical peculiari- ties common to most grammars with inflections ; but in the friction between the two, the variable and more loosely attached growths of both were rubbed off, and the speech of England, in becoming stamped as distinctively English, dropped so many native, and supplied their place with so few borrowed, verbal and nominal endings, that it ceased to belong to the inflected class of tongues, and adopted a grammar, founded in a considerable degree upon principles which characterize that of neither of the parent stocks from which it is derived. It is altogether a new philological individual, distinct in linguistic character from all other European speeches, and not theoretically to be assimilated to them." The English Language and its Early Litera- ture. MARSH. 24 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. after be devoted to the writings of this illustrious pioneer of Eng- lish literature. Though, as we have seen, most of the writings now known to us, of the period reaching from the Conquest to Chaucer, were the works of ecclesiastics, and were composed in Latin, the sympathies of the masses demanded for their excitement, and realized too, com- positions wrought in the vernacular dialect, and breathing a free and native spirit and fancy. Such were Richard Rolle's poem, The Pricke of Conscience, the war epics of Lawrence Minot, and Robert Langlande's Vision of Piers Ploughman* (1360-1370). The most considerable literary figure of this epoch, however, was John Gower, who wrote three great poetical works, Speculum Meditantis, in French; Vox Clamantis, in Latin; and Confessio Amantis, in English. f English Prose Literature received its first contribution from Sir John de Mandeville, a traveler of extensive experience in Ori- ental lands. The account of his travels was dedicated to Edward III., in 1356.J * "The Vision of Piers Ploughman derives its interest, not from the absolute novelty of its revelation, but partly from its literary form, partly from the moral and social bearings of its subject the corruptions of the nobility and of the several depart- ments of the government, the vices of the clergy, and the abuses of the church ; in short, from its connection with the actual life and opinion of its time, into which it gives us a clearer insight than many a labored history. Its dialect, its tone, and its poetic dress alike conspired to secure to the Vision a wide circulation among the commonalty of the realm. The movement of the poem is, to a considerable extent, dialogistic, and in these portions the dialect is evidently colloquial, though the characters are not sufficiently individualized to give the performance much of dramatic effect; but it seems extremely well calculated to influence the class for whose use it was chiefly intended, and the success it met with sufficiently proves that, in spite of its Latin quotations, it was, in the main, well suited to their compre- hension." The English Language and its Early Literature. MARSH. f " Of original imaginative power, the poem shows not the slightest trace, and its principal merit lies in the sententious passages which are here and there interspersed, and which, whether borrowed or original, are often pithy and striking. The Con- fessio Amantis did not directly aid in enlarging the vocabulary or improving the syntax of English ; and it did not introduce new metrical forms or enrich the poeti- cal diction. But it was useful in diffusing a knowledge of the new literary tongue, in familiarizing the English speech as a written language to those whose proper heri- tage it was but who had been taught alien accents through a foreign nurse thus giving to it its just and lawful predominance in the land where it was cradled, and had now grown to a strong and luxuriant adolescence. "Gower was rather an imitator of Chaucer than the creator of his own literary style ; but his works, as being of a higher moral tone, or at least of higher moral pre- tensions, and at the same time of less artificial refinement, were calculated to reach and influence a somewhat larger class than that which would be attracted by the poems of Chaucer, and, consequently, they seem to have had a wider circu- lation." G. P. MARSH. I Although the style and grammatical structure of Mandeville are idiomatic, yet the proportion of words of Latin and French origin employed by him in his straight- forward, unpo tical, and unadorned narrative, is greater than that found in the HISTORICAL SKETCH. 25 One more achievement, and that of primary importance, remains to be noticed ; namely, the translation of the Bible into the new tongue, about 1380, by John de Wycliffe. The Anglo-Saxons had long be- fore possessed a translation into their vernacular of the Gospels, and there were extant numerous translations of fragments of Scrip- ture in the French ; but, excepting the Psalter, there existed up to the time of which we now speak no translation into the new or English tongue of any considerable portion of the sacred writings. Grateful, no doubt, for the service the knowledge of God's word had rendered him, in enlightening his conscience and preparing his mind for an apprehension of the fallacies, presumptions, and cor- ruptions of the priesthood and papacy, this pious, learned, and courageous priest resolved by his own labor, however vast, to place in the hands of the common people the same infallible safeguard of their sacred rights.* The New Nation. Concurrent with the development of the English language was the evolution of the English people. Just as the native Anglo-Saxon words came to take place side by side with Norman-French and scholarly Latin in the constitution of the new language, so the native people, either by coalition with disaffected Norman nobles, or by bold, independent struggles, suc- ceeded gradually in raising themselves above the mean condition of serfs and vassals, to the enjoyment of personal liberty, the pos- session of political rights and property, and the exercise of official functions. The insular and continental wars waged by the Plari- tagenets discovered, in their most striking light, the sturdy energies and sterling virtues of the indigenous yeomanry of England ; and it was soon realized by the ruling class that he who would insure control in the future affairs of the realm must respect and foster the welfare of the masses. Out of this reciprocity of interests there speedily issued a spirit of unity and nationality, each constituent element of the nation- ality parting, as in the fusion of the separate languages, with minor peculiarities, to assume harmonious relations in a new whole. Thus, about the middle of the fourteenth century, England dis- works of Langlande, Chaucer, Gower, or any other English poet of that century." G. P. MARSH. *"One of the most important effects produced by the Wycliffe versions on the English language was the establishment of what is called the sacred or religious dia- lect, which was first fixed in those versions, and has, with little variation, continued to be the language of devotion and of scriptural translation to the present day. "Although Langlande and the school of Wycliffe are not to be looked upon as great immediate agencies in the general improvement of written English, or as standards of the literary dialect in their own age, there can be little doubt that they did exercise a direct influence upon the diction of Chaucer, and, through him, on the whole literature of the nation." G. P. MARSH. 3 26 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. closes the grand spectacle of the simultaneous rise of a new nation, a new language, and a new literature, each to be hereafter known as English.* From Chaucer to Elizabeth. The fourteenth century, with its stirring events and splendid literary productions, having passed, there succeeded a protracted barren period in the history of Eng- lish literature. This is to be attributed largely to the internecine struggles and the exhausting civil wars that characterized this epoch of English history, and which, as it were, constituted the final encounter between declining and enfeebled feudalism, and the rising and lusty spirit of the modern life. Among the great events that contributed to the triumph of the latter, were the invention of printing, the discovery of a passage around the Cape of Good Hope, the unveiling of the American continent, and the breaking out of the Reformation. Though these events were tardy in producing discernible effects in the life and literature of the English ; yet, by largely expandingthe intellectual vision, by augmenting knowledge, by multiplying ideas, by enlightening the conscience and calling into action moral sentiments, and by promoting intellectual and social intercourse, they prepared the way for the incoming of the glorious literary epoch of the reign of Elizabeth. The fifteenth century may be said to have contributed less, both in amount and value, to the national literature than any pre- vious century since the Norman conquest. It was rather a con- servative and arf accumulative era than a productive one. It was, pre-eminently, the age of the establishment of institutions of learning. Forty new universities are reckoned to have been founded in different parts of the continent; and in England there sprung up the colleges of Lincoln, All Souls', Magdalen, King's, and Queen's; and in Scotland, those of St. Andrew's and Glasgow. Within these institutions, toward the close of the fifteenth century, and much more fully during the sixteenth, the study of the classic languages and literatures was inaugurated; thus introducing among the dull abstractions of scholastic philosophy and the dry formularies of canon law the enchanting forms and the poetic de- tails of pagan mythology. To the close of this century belongs the introduction into Eng- * To indicate approximately the boundaries of the successive linguistic changes that have occurred in England, the following summary may be of some service : I. Anglo-Saxon, or First English, from A. D. 450 to 1066. II. Semi-Saxon, or Second English, from A. D. 1066 to 1250. III. Old English, from A. D. 1250 to 1350. IV. Middle English, from A. D. 1350 to 1550. V. Modern English, from A. D. 1550 to the present lime. Old, Middle, and Modern English have also been styled Third English. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 27 land of the printing-press by William Caxton. The first work of this deft handmaid of literature was to multiply copies of such books as were then in the greatest demand. These were religious treatises and imported romances ; the reading public at that time being restricted to the ecclesiastical and aristocratical classes. The successor of Caxton in the printing business was Wunken de Worde, who, among his first publications, gave to the public, about 1490, the earliest collection of Robin Hood ballads, called 'A Lytel Geste of Robyn H.odc: k The best known of the English poets of the early part of the period we are now considering were Occleve and Lydgate. The first is supposed to have flourished about 1420. His works, which survive chiefly in manuscript, indicate a very meager endowment of poetic feeling, are prevailing didactic in character, and are, to a great extent, translations. Lydgate, who attained his greatest fame about 1430, was a monk well skilled in the language and literature, not only of England, but also of Italy and France. He would seem to have followed rhyming as a trade, his verses being very numer- ous, and embracing a vast variety of subjects. Owing to the celeb- rity of his subjects, The Falls of Princes, The Stone of Thebes, and the Troy Book, his poems obtained the most considerable circula- tion of any of the century. The first was borrowed from Boccaccio, and the other two were adaptations from the classic narratives of the middle ages. Scotland's contribution to the poets of the century comprised, among others, Andrew of Wynton, James I., Dunbar, Douglas, Henryson, Barbour, and " Blind Harry." f The prose writers of the greater part of the fifteenth century * Robin Hood is said to be a corruption of the name of Robert Fitzooth, reputed Earl of Huntingdon, who, having squandered his patrimony, and having been out- lawed for debt, lived in the woods the life of a freebooter, setting at defiance the stringent forest laws of the Norman kings. With his hundred dexterous archers, and with his trusty friends Little John, William Scadlock, George a Green Finder, Much, and Friar Tuck, all obedient to the magic summons of his bugle-horn, Robin Hood impersonated, in his lawless but magnanimous career, the unconquerable spirit of the Saxon yeomanry. The Ballads commemorate the heroic deeds of these foresters in a species of verse inimitable for its simplicity, its pathos, its ardor, and the picturesqueness of its descriptions. The authors of these ballads were uncouth, wandering minstrels, who, similarly to the troubadours or jongleurs of Spain and France, recited their compositions with animated movements of the face and body in the midst of a circle of their countrymen, who. with joined hands, imitated the gestures and movements of the poet. Their varying movements to and fro, and from side to side, gave rise to the name of this sort of minstrelsy, ballare meaning to in- cline to this side and that. The ballads of The Battle of Otterburn and Chevy Chase had a Northern, Scottish, or Border origin ; but were of the same general poetic character as those of Robin Hood. The delightful colloquial ballad of The Nut- Brown Maid was composed about the close of the fifteenth century. t James I., who was seized in his youth by Henry IV., and held as a prisoner in 28 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. were neither numerous nor eminent. The age appears to have been too tumultuous and too illiberal to foster the freedom of opinion inaugurated by Wyclitfe. Yet one writer of spirit arose in the person of Pecock, who, in his principal work, The Repressor of over-much Blaming of the Clergy, written about 1-150, while he com- bated the extreme opinions of the followers of Wyclifte the Lol- lards, denied the infallibility of the decisions of ecumenical coun- cils, maintained the supreme authority of the Bible in matters of faith, and denounced religious dogmas based simply on the ipse dixit of papal authority. His work is esteemed the ablest example of philosophical argumentation that had appeared up to that time in England, as well as one of the best illustrations of the superior theological dialect of the day. The last quarter of the fifteenth century, as previously remarked, witnessed the introduction of printing into England by Caxton. Within the first sixteen years following this event, some sixty-seven editions of works were published, most of them copies of English writings of the preceding century. Of original English works of this period there appears to have been none. The sixteenth century, the ante-Elizabethan portion of it, though more productive of literary works than its predecessor, must like- wise be characterized as a period of acquisition. It seemed to have been the effort of the English mind in this age to possess itself of the superior knowledge and culture of the peoples of the Continent, even at the sacrifice of independent thought. It was this bent, England for some twenty years, wrote a poem of about fourteen hundred lines, called King's Quair that is, the king's book. This is a rhapsody on the lady Joanna Beaufort, whom he afterward married, and whom he first saw from his prison window. The style is largely allegorical; and, in smoothness and skill of versification, in delicacy of feeling, and in poetic merits generally, it is regarded as the best specimen of English verse that appeared prior to the second half of the six- teenth century. Dunbar was the author of The Thistle and the Rose, a court poem in Chaucer's stanza ; The Golden Terge; Lament for the Makars, or poets, a poem " warm with re- ligious feeling and a sense of human fellowship, speaking high thought in homely prose, with a true poet's blending of pathos and good humor;" the The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, a metrical contention in dialogue ; and the Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, a fantastical allegory. " In The Thistle and the Rose and The Golden Terge, he is gracefully conventional ; in all his other poetry he is himself ; he utters thoughts of his own, and illustrates the life of his own time. No poet from Chaucer till his own time equaled Dunbar in the range of genius. He could pass from broad jest to a pathos truer for its homeliness. He had a play of fancy reaching to the nobler heights of thought, a delicacy joined with a terse vigor of expression in short poems that put the grace of God into their worldly wisdom." HENEY MORLEY. Henryson imitated Chaucer in his Testament of Oresseid, and was author of the lovely pastoral Robene and Makyne. Henry the Minstrel, or " Blind Harry." as he was commonly called, composed a poem of l'_>,000 lines commemorating the exploits of William Wallace. In this poem there is manifest a vigor of expression and rug- gedness of versification which, combined with its independent spirit and its national theme, mark it as the most original and Scottish production of the times. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 29 doubtless, that carried it in the pursuit of classical erudition, par- ticularly the Greek language and literature, to a positively mis- chievous extent. Further along, toward the close of the reign of Henry VIII., the same acquisitive impulse brought about an inti- mate acquaintance with, and an imitation of the literature of, the great Italian poets, Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Petrarch. From the mental inertness and complacent literary servility which threatened to follow this infatuation for foreign literatures, the century was happily delivered by the electric thrill of the Ref- ormation. This, while it perpetrated some wrongs, set men a thinking, challenged their best reasoning and criticising powers, and opened their eyes to the necessity and surpassing beauty of holy living. The literary fruits of this innovating and rousing in- fluence were spirited, as well as learned, discussions, and whole- some, as well as pungent and extravagant, satires. To this epoch of English literature belongs its first comedy. This was Ralph Roister Doister, a hearty jest at worldly vanity, written by Nicholas Udall. Masques, pantomimic performances by persons in disguise, and Interludes, satirical dialogues pronounced between meat at the banquet for the entertainment of the guests, though not originating at this time, came into more general practice during the reign of Henry VIII., than during any previous time. The chief writer of Interludes at this time was John Heywood. During the first quarter of the sixteenth century, we encounter, .imong its significant literary effects, Lord Berners' Translation of n c. Chronicles of Froissart.* It is said to have been executed at the command of Henry VIII., who hoped that the vivid and interesting sketches given by the prince of chroniclers, Froissart, of the chival- rous achievements of the Black Prince, might reconcile his subjects to the expenses of a war with France, for the recovering thence of the ancient patrimony of the Norman dynasty of England. The most classical piece of secular prose composition yet pro- duced was the Life of Richard III., ascribed to Sir Thomas More. * " Lord Berners' translation of Froissart was the first really important work printed in the English language relating to modern history. It was almost the only acces- sible source of information respecting the local history of England and her relations to the Continental powers in the fourteenth century ; for though the scene is for the most part laid in France and Spain, yet it contains a pretty full account of the wars of Edward III. with the Scots, and of the insurrectionary movements in the time of Richard II. ; and, moreover, England was a direct party to almost every event which it narrates as belonging more immediately to the domestic history of France or of Spain. It must, therefore, independently of its philological worth, be considered as a work of great importance in English literary history, because it undoubtedly con- cributed essentially to give direction to literary pursuits in England, and thus to lay 'he foundation of an entire and very prominent branch of native literature." The hnglish Language and Us Early Literature. MARSH. 30 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Aside from the historical value of the work, its author succeeded in investing it with a purity of diction and grammatical regularity hitherto attained only in theological writings. But the work by which this learned and good man was best known was his Utopia. This is a fiction, originally written (1515) in Latin, but afterward (in 1551) translated into English, wherein the author attempts, after tne manner of Plato, to picture an ideal republic, whose laws and regulations, both social and political, are philosophically per- fect-. His religious controversial writings were very generally marred, both in phraseology and thought, by the bitterness and violence of his sectarian zeal. Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, executed with un- common accuracy, as well as with vigor, purity, and eloquence of style, appeared in 1526. Of the writings of the great leaders of the English Reformation, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, those of Latimer are most worthy of attention for the simplicity and familiarity both of the language employed and the topics consid- ered; these being such as were daily in use among the common people. As exponents, therefore, of the state of the spoken lan- guage and of the actual life of his times, they are invaluable. As a writer in whose correct and graceful style were exhibited the legitimate effects of classical culture, we may instance Sir John Cheke, professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge, and author of the Hurt of Sedition. Last of the noteworthy prose writers of this epoch we may name Roger Ascham, author of Toxophilus. His aim in this work was to recommend to English- men the use of their old national weapon, the bow; and at the same time he would, by his own example, recommend a recur- rence to a pure style and a more vernacular diction in writing. He also wrote a treatise on teaching, entitled the Schoolmaster. The Poets figuring most prominently in this epoch were Skel- ton, Hawes, Surrey, Wyatt, and Lyndsay, all of whom flourished in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. John Skelton (1460-1529), author of the Booke of Colin Clout, Mln/ Come ye not to Court, and the Bouge of Court, WHS esteemed by Erasmus as " the light and ornament of English letters." His Eng- lish writings consisted largely of satires upon popular abuses, sev- eral of them being directed against Cardinal Wolsey. In these poems Skelton proves himself a master of ribaldry and coarse in- vective. " Even in the most reckless of these compositions, how- ever, he rattles along, through serise and nonsense, with a vivacity that had been a stranger to our poetry for many a weary day; and his freedom and spirit, even where most unrefined, must have been HISTORICAL SKETCH. 31 exhilarating after the long fit of somnolency in which the English muse had dozed away the last hundred years. But much even of Skelton's satiric verse is instinct with genuine poetic vigor, and a fancy alert, sparkling, and various to a wonderful degree."* His non-satirical poetry is quite destitute of invention, and is insuf- ferably tame and pedantic. Stephen Hawes, the principal poet of the reign of Henry VII., was author of several poems, the chief of which was the allegory, TJie Pastime of Pleasure. He was a scholarly man ; was well versed in the poetry of England, France, and Italy, and was a great ad- mirer as well as imitator of Lydgate ; but was possessed of very little poetic individuality. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was born about 1517, and is ac- credited as being the first English writer who employed blank verse. The subject of his experiment was the second and fourth books of the '"^Eneid," which he translated into ten-syllabled lines of me- ter without rhyme, after a new fashion in Italian literature. His original works, of a secular character, were a Satire against the Cit- izens of London, and Sonnets, and love-poems imitative of the erotic class of Italian poetry ; also, of a religious sort, Paraphrases of the first five chapters of Ecclesiastes, and several Psalms. That species of metrical composition called the Sonnet was intro- duced into English literature by Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder (1503-1542). His poetry comprised songs, sonnets, ballads, ron- deaux, and complaints, delicate and varied in melody, that closely resembled the class of poems then fashionable in Italy and France.f The Age of Elisabeth and James I. The age of Feudalism had now passed away. The gloomy castles and battlemented fortresses, with their garrisons of mailed and helmeted warriors, had become converted into cheerful and ornate palaces, of Gothic and Italian styles of architecture, filled with magnificently cos- tumed and decorously behaving gentlemen and ladies. The cheer- ful industries of peace had pushed aside the grim employments of war, and men found opportunity and inducement for cultivat- ing the nobler parts of their natures. With security of life and property, and freedom of action, came a desire to enjoy life, and to multiply its comforts and delights. The senses, which meager * Literature and Learning in England. CRAIK. t Of the Scottish poets of the sixteenth century, Sir David Lyndsay, born in 1490, merits a special mention. His works are quite numerous. The most important of them are The Dream, The Complaint. The Testament of the Popingo, or Popinjay, A Satire of the Three Estates a morality play, and his last longest, and gravest. The Mon- archic. He was emphatically the satirist and social reformer of his age. and his poetry is remarkable for a vigor of tone and a fertility of invention. 32 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. living, the devastations of war, and the asceticism of a gloomy and bigoted religion, had hitherto robbed of their natural aliment, now that the obstacles were removed, sprang forward with irrepressible greed. The eye must be dazzled, the ear tickled, and the senses generally intoxicated. Accordingly, we see, at this time, an ex- traordinary display of tournaments, masquerades, banquets, theatri- cal and operatic entertainments, rustic fetes and pageants of every description. This sudden and universal lust for the sensuous had its rise in the pagan influence which, originating in revived Italy, had spread successively through France, Spain, and Germany. The introduc- tion of classic literature into England to which reference has been already made prepared the minds of the people for a re- ception of the ideas of the beautiful, the sensuous, and the natural, which the literature of such writers as Surrey and Wyatt, the masques and interludes, and the increased intercourse of the Eng- lish at this time with the people of the south of Europe, readily transformed into splendid realities. As a matter of course, this new, vigorous, merry, and natu- ralistic life of the people must impress its distinctive features upon the literature of the epoch ; and accordingly we find it characterized by an originality and boldness of conception, a fecundity and irregu- larity of imagination, and a picturesqueness of expression, unparal- leled in the history of any literature. As one of the most striking types of the luxuriance and freedom of spirit of the literature of this epoch, we may cite the writings of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1580), a great lord, a man of liberal cul- ture, an extensive traveler, a courtier, a man of the world, and a gallant officer. His principal work was The Arcadia, a sort of poetical romance, which depicts the external life, the elegant man- ners, and excessive sentiments of polite society of his times. It abounds, too, in romantic tales, tragical incidents, and fantastic episodes, suggested by, and, in a measure, descriptive of the court festivals and rustic merry-makings of the age. His Defense, of Poesie is of a more serious and elevated character. " In his eyes," says Taine, " if there is any art or science capable of augmenting and cultivating our generosity, it is poetry. He draws comparison after comparison between it and philosophy or history, whose pre- tensions he laughs at and dismisses. He fights for poetry as a knight for his lady, and in what heroic and splendid style ! " Besides the above works, he wrote a number of refined Sonnets. The bright particular star, however, of the literary dawn we are now viewing, was Edmund Spenser (1553-1099) ; for a detailed HISTORICAL SKETCH. 33 account of whose life and writings the reader is referred to a sepa- rate chapter in the latter part of this volume.* The Prose "Writing- of this epoch was not less voluminous nor less remarkable than the poetry. An abundance of ideas and fan- cies, uttered in the order, or rather disorder, of their occurrence ; a profusely ornamented and intensely figurative, though not a pol- ished, style ; earnest, solid, and learned arguments, expressed in elaborate and stately periods; .much coarseness and little delicacy; much substance and little grace of form, these were the mascu- line features of this first eminent English prose. And was it not natural that, in an age surcharged as was this with great events, its describers should be busied rather with the matter of thought and with ideas than with the punctilios of style? Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), the eminent soldier, courtier, navigator, and scholar, occupies a prominent place among the prose writers of his day. To relieve the tedium and melancholy of a long imprisonment, he boldly essayed to write a History of the World; but was successful in carrying the narrative only as far as the year 170 B. c. The work is largely didactic, abounds in grand thoughts and eloquent periods ; and, considering the circumstances and the time of the author, is an extraordinary production.! On Theology, the epoch furnishes the names of such writers as Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury ; Richard Hooker, author of Ecclesias- *As flourishing in the same epoch with the foregoing poets, but of vastly minor importance, we may name George Gascoigne, author of Steel Glass; Thomas Sack- ville, projector and part author of A Mirrourfor Magistrates; Samuel Daniel, whose chief work, The History of the Civil Wars, is a versified narrative of the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster ; Michael Drayton, author of Polyolbion, a descriptive, legendary, and allegorical poem in thirty cantos, The Barons' Wars, The Muses' Ely- sium, and several others ; John Donne, writer of amatory verses, epigrams, epistles, and particularly satires ; and Joseph Hall, whose Virgidemiarum entitles him to be considered the founder of satire. Of other poets who flourished during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., we may name Turbervile, Davies, the Fletchers, Southwell, Churchyard, Edwards, Warner, Chapman, Lord Brooke, Fairfax ; and of the Scottish poets of the same interval, William Drummond and the Earl of Stirling. t Among the other historical writers of this epoch, we may name Raphael Hollins- hed, author of the chronicles and historical descriptions which afterward afforded Shakespeare so rich a mine of materials for the composition of several of his semi- historical and semi-traditional plays ; William Camden, author of Britannia & work on the topography and history of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Reliquiae Britannica& treatise on the first inhabitants of Britain, and Annals of England during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth ; John Speed, whose Historic of Great Britain evinced a discrimination on the part of its author in the selection of his facts wholly unprecedented in the historical writings of the day ; Foxe. author of the plainly and vigorously executed Book of Martyrs & work which exerted a powerful influence in weakening the hold of Catholicism in England; and Samuel Daniel, already named among the poets, who published a History of England from the Con- quest to the Reign of Edward III. a work lacking in vigor of treatment, but abound- ing in good sense, and, according to Hallam, " written with a freedom from all stiff- ness, and a purity of style, which hardly any other work of so early a date exhibits." C 34 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. tical Polity, a memorable defense of the laws, rites, and cere- monies of the Established Church; Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who, by his work, De Veritate, achieved the notoriety of being one of the earliest and ablest advocates of deism in England ; Bishop Andrewes, and others of less note. The Philosophy of the epoch is represented, in its metaphysi- cal, moral, and political aspects, by the writings of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), and in its practical and physical aspects, by the works of Lord Bacon. Hobbes, a man of profound learning and of remarkable mental activity, wrote Leviathan, an argument upholding the principles of monarchical governments, a Treatise on Human Nature, and a Letter on Liberty and Necessity. As a metaphysician, he believed that all our knowledge was purely sensuous, and that, therefore, matter was the only reality in the universe ; as a moral philoso- pher, he confounded the moral principles of good and evil with the physical sensations of pleasure and pain, thus making man the helpless victim of necessity ; and as a political economist, he justified, upon the ground of expediency alone, the maintenance of an absolute monarchy. As a writer, he was pre-eminent for closeness, lucidity, and cogency of argument, combined with clear- ness of style. The great intellectual father, however, of Hobbes, indeed, the father of philosophy itself, in England, was Lord Bacon. Further along a separate chapter will be devoted to a consideration of the merits of this illustrious thinker and litterateur. Literary eccen- tricity in the person and writings of Robert Burton* (1576-1640), author of the celebrated treatise, the Anatomy of Melancholy, de- serves a mention. *" Robert Burton, an ecclesiastic and university recluse, who passed his life in libraries, and dabbled in all the sciences, as learned as Rabelais, of an inexhausti- ble and overflowing memory ; unequal, moreover, gifted with enthusiasm, and spas- modically gay, but as a rule sad and morose, to the extent of confessing in his epitaph that melancholy made up his life and his death. In the first place original, enamored of his own intelligence, and one of the earliest models of that singular English mood which, withdrawing man within himself, develops in him at one time imagination, at another scrupulousness, at another oddity, and makes of him, according to circumstances, a poet, an eccentric, a humorist, a madman, or a puri- tan. He read on for thirty years, put an encyclopaedia into his head, and now, to amuse and relieve himself, takes a folio of blank paper. Twenty lines of a poet, a dozen lines of a treatise on agriculture, a folio column of heraldry, the patience, the record of the fever fits of hypochondria, the history of the particle que, a scrap of metaphysics, this is what passes through his brain in a quarter of an hour: it is a carnival of ideas and phrases, Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, philosophical, geometrical, medical, poetical, astrological, musical, pedagogic, heaped one on the other, an enormous medley, a prodigious mass of jumbled quotations, jostling thoughts, with the vivacity and the transport of a feast of unreason." Taine's Eng- lish Literature. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 35 The Drama. Of all the giant growths that characterized the Elizabethan epoch, that of the drama was the most extraordinary. "Forty poets, amongst them ten of superior rank, and the greatest of all artists [Shakespeare] who have represented the soul in words; many hundreds of pieces, and nearly fifty masterpieces; the drama extended over all the provinces of history, imagination, and fancy, expanded so as to embrace comedy, tragedy, pastoral, and fanciful literature to represent all degrees of human con- dition, and all the caprices of human invention to express all the sensitive details of actual truth, and all the philosophic grandeur of general reflection ; the stage, disencumbered of all precept and freed from all imitation, given up and appropriated in the mi- nutest particulars to the reigning taste and the public intelligence all this was a vast and manifold work, capable by its flexibility, its greatness, and its form, of receiving and preserving the exact imprint of the age and of the nation."* Let us trace, of necessity very briefly, the processes of growth involved in this most splendid of literary developments. Its ori- gin is to be sought for as far back, perhaps, as the epoch immedi- ately succeeding the Norman Conquest, in the crude attempts then made at setting forth in dramatic form legends of the lives of the saints and striking incidents of Bible history. These repre- sentations, called Miracle Plays, or Mysteries, and which were common in Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, were composed and acted by ecclesiastics. The churches served for theatres, and the temporarily erected stages answered for heaven, earth, and hell, whereon monks or priests and their assistants figured as imper- sonators of the Godhead, angels, saints, martyrs, and devils. The above species of dramatic representation continued in vogue until about the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the spread of that learning which hitherto had been the monopoly of ecclesi- astics among the upper and middle classes of society, called into being a less exclusively religious sort of play known as The Morali- ties. In this, abstract or allegorical characters, such as Youth, Ke- pentance, Avarice, Luxury, Pride, Vice, etc.. constituted the dram- atis persons of the play, in place of, as formerly, the Deity, and the Devil with their attendant spirits, and the Patriarchs and Saints. Bishop Bale was a prolific inventor of these Moralities. The next step toward a secularization of these representations was realized in the production of Interludes, in which work John Heywood, a writer of the time of Henry VIII., took an active part. These were a shorter, more humorous, and less didactic sort of composition than the Moralities ; in many instances being made to * Tome's English Literature. 36 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. answer the purpose of entertainment wholly, as when introduced at the banquets and festivals of those times. Then the intro- duction and spread of classical literature among the intelligent ranks of society during the latter part of the fifteenth and a greater part of the sixteenth centuries not only further secularized these dramatic representations, but, indeed, paganized them to a very considerable extent, driving out the chaste Virtues from among the dramatis persona?, and installing in their places the voluptuous Gods, Goddesses, Muses, and Cupids of the ancient world. One step more, the substitution of the incidents and persons of real, every-day life, and of the events and personages of history, for the fictions of ideal, allegorical, and grotesque invention, brings us to the production of legitimate drama. The earliest known ^specimen of this sort of composition was Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex, a tragedy in blank verse, written jointly by Thomas Sack- ville and Thomas Norton. The incidents of this play-are borrowed from the fabulous British annals, but its treatment is in imitation of the Greek tragedians. The old play of Kynge Johan, composed by John Bale (1495- 1563), holds a place intermediate between the Moralities and the purely historical plays. As representing the whims and amusing weaknesses of humanity, in that variety of writing called Comedy, Ralph Roister Doister, written between the years 1534 and 1541 by Nicholas Udall, is supposed to have been the earliest example. These early dramatic compositions were acted by amateurs, who. were, to some extent, the servants of sovereigns and the nobles, and who, under the supervision of one called Officer of the Revels, wandered from place to place, giving their representations, now at court, now in the mansions of lords or rural grandees, sometimes in town- or college-halls, and sometimes in the courtyards of inns. Ere the lapse of the sixteenth century, however, these wandering bands of indifferent actors and singers had given place to pro- fessional performers, and the temporary stage was exchanged for the permanent theatre. The best known of the London theatres of this date were the Globe and the Blackfriars. But these play- houses and their successors for many years were sadly deficient in those architectural and scenic appointments which render theatres of the present day so admirable for producing the illusions neces- sary for the vivid realization of a play. Of the writers who furnished plays for the early theatres, the principal ones immediately preceding Shakespeare were Lyly, author of Endymion, Sappho and Phaon, and several others ; Kyd, author of Hieronymo, the Spanish Tragedy; Peele, author of David and Bethsabe, Absalom, and Edward J. ; Nash, Greene, and Chris- HISTORICAL SKETCH. 37 topher Marlowe.* The last was by all odds the most gifted of the playwrights just named. The play which. first brought Marlowe into notice was Tambur- laine the Great, which has been laconically defined as " rant glori- fied." His next and greatest work was The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, whose hero was the same marvelous necromancer, astrologer, and magician, that Goethe, in more modern times, im- mortalized in his "Faust." Marlowe attained in this play the highest point yet reached in the drama of the epoch. His remain- ing plays were the Jew of Malta and Edward II. In these works their author is generally allowed to have established blank verse as the measure for English dramatic poetry, and to have largely promoted its employment. All the foregoing dramatists were intimate friends and brother wits ; and being well educated, and not a little vain of the renown acquired by their plays, regarded with no small nor delicately ex- pressed contempt the arrival in their midst of an obscure and illiterate actor and patcher of plays, named William Shakespeare. f Chief of the contemporaneous, but, as compared with Shake- speare, secondary dramatists of this epoch, were Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, Webster, Middleton, Chapman, Dekker, Shirley, and Heywood.J * " Marlowe is a name that stands high, and almost first, in this list of dramatic worthies. He was a little before Shakespeare's time, and has a marked character both from him and the rest. There is a lust of power in his writings, a hunger and thirst after unrighteousness, a glow of the imagination, unhallowed by anything but its own energies. His thoughts burn within him like a furnace with bickering flames, or throwing out black smoke and mists that hide the dawn of genius, or like a poisonous mineral, corrode the heart." HAZLIIT. f See specia^ chapters on Shakespeare and Jonson. t The first two, so intimately interwoven were their labors, are invariably named together. The following plays may be cited as some of the products of their joint authorship : Philaster, The Maid's Tragedy, A King and no King, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Cupid' s Revenge, The Scornful Lady, and The Laws of Candy. " Tradi- tion, dating from their own time, gave pre-eminence to Fletcher for luxuriance of fancy and invention, and to Beaumont for critical judgment, to which it was said that even Ben Jonson submitted his writings. The wit and poetry of these plays were spent chiefly on themes of love. Their authors, capable of higher flights, so far accommodated their good work to the lower tone of the playhouse as to earn praise for having ' understood and imitated much better than Shakespeare the con- versation of gentlemen whose wild debaucheries and quickness of wit in repartee no poet can ever paint as they have done. Humor, which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe ; they represented all the passions very lively.' " MORLEY. Philip Massinger (1584-1640), a man of gentle extraction and of a liberal education, wrote a number of plays, characterized by a dignity of moral sentiment, an elegance and harmony of expression, and a fondness for classical allusion, but lacking in unity and naturalness of plot. Of the less than a score that remain to us the finest are The Virgin Martyr, The Duke of Milan, Bondman, and A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the last still keeping possession of the stage. 38 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Epoch of the Civil War and Commonwealth. The po- litical degeneracy, in comparison with the robust character of the reign of Elizabeth, that ensued in the latter part of the reign of James I., and during the whole of that of Charles I., was concomitant with the literary declension that, in the early part of the seventeenth century, succeeded the unparalleled brilliancy of the preceding literary epoch, the epoch of Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, and their worthy contemporaries. Perhaps this literary declension was not directly superinduced by the prevailing and growing political and social corruption ; but, certain it is, it was concurrent with it; and at the same time that the healthy and abundant juices of national power, dignity, and respectability escaped from the body politic, the sinuous, lusty, sensuous, and beautiful presence disappeared from the literature. " With Carew, Suckling, and Herrick, prettiness takes the place of the beautiful. They are rather wits of the court, cavaliers of fashion, who wish to try their hand at imagination and style. In their hands love becomes gallantry ; they write songs, fugitive pieces, compliments to the ladies. The divine faces, the serious or profound looks, the virgin or impassioned expression which burst forth at every step in the early poets, have disappeared; here we see nothing but agreeable countenances painted in agree- able verses. The only objects they can paint, at last, are little graceful things, a kiss, a May-day festivity, a dewy primrose, a marriage morning, a bee. Instead of writing to say things, they / write to say them well ; they outbid their neighbors, and strain every mode of speech ; they push art over on the side to which it had a leaning; and, as in this age it had a leaning towards vehemence and imagination, they pile up their emphasis and coloring."* The group of poets just described comprises Cowley, Quales, Wither, Herrick, Waller, Cleveland, Lovelace, Suckling, Herbert, Crashaw, Davenant, Carew, and Denham. Our purpose to avoid John Ford (1586-1639) was author of the Witch of Edmonton, the Broken Heart, Brother and Sister, and a number of other plays, all evincing large dramatic ability for depicting the vicissitudes of human love and passion. "An artificial elaborate- ness is the general characteristic of Ford's style. In this respect his plays are quite distinct from the exuberance and unstudied force which characterized his imme- diate predecessors. There is too much of scholastic subtlety, an innate perversity of understanding, a predominance of will, which either seeks the imitation of inad- missible subjects, or to stimulate its own faculties by taking the most barren, and making something out of nothing, in a spirit of contradiction." HAZLITT. " No one has equaled Webster in creating desperate characters, utter wretches, bitter misanthropes, in blackening and blaspheming human life ; above all, in de- picting the shameless depravity and refined ferocity of Italian manners." TAINE. Chief among his tragedies are The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi. * Taine's English Literature. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 39 detail respecting minor writers allows us to speak at length of but one of these the first. Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) wrote the Mistress, a .collection of love-poems, a number of Pindaric Odes, a fragmentary epic called Davideis, Essays in Verse and Prose, and, between the ages of ten and twenty years, several plays. Precocious, well-instructed, par- licularly in classical lore, of an amiable disposition and polished manners, correct and studious in his habits, he imbibed, and then exhibited, the finical and fastidious literary tastes of his age in so marked a manner, as to have attained an unprecedented popu- larity. The indifference, however, with which his poetry is now regarded is quite as unprecedented. The explanation of this re- markable literary decline is patent. Cowley wrote, not what he felt, not what he had experienced, but what he had read about, and what he fancied. He wrote, not to give utterance, in a natural manner, to ideas and fervors that demanded expression, but to show how formally and prettily he could phrase ordinary and fashionable conceits. As Taine remarks, "He possesses all the capacity to say whatever pleases him, but he has just nothing to say." He was a most accomplished poetical craftsman, full of ingenious allusions and sparkling fancies; but a poet a revealer of human hearts and lives, or an interpreter of Nature he was in no sense. Even his love poems bear the evidence of having been composed as metrical exercises, his imagination rather than his heart supplying their weak inspiration. His Davideis, which was begun for a great Scriptural epic, and abandoned after the fourth canto, is proof that even for the display of those powers of fancy and elevation of moral tone that mark some of his minor pieces, he possessed no sustained power. Cowley met, however, the re- quirement of his age, euphuistic verse-making, and was there- fore esteemed great. In point of merit immeasurable apart from the foregoing poets of this epoch, indeed, as constituting an epoch of his own, arose, at this time, the grandest creator of imaginative and sublime poetry the world has ever produced, John Milton, who in the latter part of this work shall claim an extended notice. The principal prose -writers of this revolutionary epoch pos- sessing a peculiarly literary interest were Sir Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor. The first, whose works are of a very miscellaneous character, wrote Hydriotaphia, a treatise on urn-burial ; Pseudoxia Epidemica, a series of essays on common errors ; and Religio Medici, an expression of his personal opinions and feelings, theological and otherwise. Taylor was author of a very large number of works, 40 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. among which we may name his controversial treatise On the Liberty of Prophesying, his Holy Living, Holy Dying, and Sermons. Of other prose writers of this epoch, those claiming a mention are William Chillingworth, John Hales, Thomas Fuller, and Richard Baxter. It is well worthy of notice that all these prose writers were theologians; a fact not to be wondered at, however, when we con- sider that this was the period of the great religious contentions that took place between the Anglican Church and its rival sects, the Presbyterians. Puritans, and Independents. The full effect upon the literature of the age of the abolition of monarchy and the establishment of the Commonwealth, is not to be seen until some time after the period occupied by the preceding writers. The decorum and austerity that obtained in the personal conduct and in the domestic life of the Protector and his partisans, and which, by these, was very generally propagated, in its course working the abolition of theatres, and days, places, and modes of amusement generally, and which, by caring exclusively for the permanence and sobriety of society, lost sight of the essential amenities of life, moditied quite as perceptibly the character of the current literature. Beauty and imagination were driven out before the lash of in- coming dullness and literalness. Strength and directness of ex- pression, solidity of statement, and a prevailing moral or religious import, were the inseparable elements of the existing literature. "We find amongst them," says Taine, "only excited theologians, minute controversialists, energetic men of action, limited and patient minds, engrossed in positive proofs and practical labors, void of general ideas and refined tastes, resting upon texts, dry and obstinate reasoners, who twisted the Scriptures in order to extract from it a form of government or a table of dogma." And what more reasonable result to expect than that beauty- and joy-loving, nature-worshiping, and ideal poets should fly this angular, harsh, matter-of-fact, and wrangling age? One, however, though not a poet technically, did not fly. He remained be- hind the rest; and though he not only became habituated to the austerities of the day, but even one of their most enthusiastic ad- vocates, he did not even then succeed in annihilating the innate poetry of his nature. We mean John Bunyan, who, though chi on- ologically belonging to the next epoch, was a legitimate offspring of the influences just described. A separate chapter will hereafter be devoted to this eminent allegorist. The Age of the Restoration. The constraint and asceticism which had been fastened upon the English during the continuance HISTORICAL SKETCH. 41 of the Commonwealth, when that this government succumbed be- fore the restoration of royalty in the ascension of Charles II., were immediately burst off as galling bands, and society rapidly lapsed into licentiousness. Eeligion and virtue, which, in the popular mind, had become identical with Puritanism and fanaticism, were supplanted by atheism and vice. Religionists, in turn, were dis- ciplined and persecuted by Roysterers. Public amusements were resumed with fourfold their former zest and patronage, and the King himself encouraged dissoluteness by his own scandalous life. This moral defection, this social and political rottenness, con- ceived in and excreted from the highest ranks of the nation, spread with remarkable malignancy throughout all grades of society, and, as an inevitable consequence, polluted the literature of the day. Among the poets, the most eminent embodiment of many of the vicious, though not the grossest, characteristics of this literary epoch, was Samuel Butler; to whom we shall appropriate a special notice in a subsequent chapter. "The drama, early attacked by the Puritans, passed into the hands of the royalists. Suppressed during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, it was revived at the Restoration, under the most immediate influence of the court party. The consequence was that the drama, while marked with some high intellectual qualities, more especially those of wit and insight, now became more corrupt than ever before, had in it less constructive power, and discon- nected itself from this time onward almost wholly from litera- ture." * On no species of writing did the exaggerated ideas and impure sentiments of the age leave a more characteristic impress than on the dramatic literature of this epoch. The comprehensive scope of the old Elizabethan masters of dramatic conception, wherein drama, tragedy, and comedy interwove their varying threads for the production of a single harmonious life-fabric, was, by these later dramatists, divided, after the French manner, into two dis- tinct literary provinces) namely, tragedy and comedy. And each of these how different from the corresponding creations of the Shakesperean dramatists! A pompous, distorted, heroic tragedy takes the place of the rich, romantic drama; and comedy, shorn of its fanciful elements, becomes the literal vehicle of the actual accidents of society. In a word, the romance, poetry, and ideality of human nature are eliminated, and nothing is left but exagger- ated sentiment and a minute delineation of real life. * The Philosophy of English Literature. BASCOM. 42 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. But what is worse still, natural and holy affections are ignored for passions and lusts ; historical and legitimate incidents are dis- carded for fashionable and obscene ones ; the imagination ceases to be exercised, and the senses only are administered to ; and the language, from original boldness and picturesqueness, degenerates into coarseness and filthiness. Vigor there is, but it is the aban- donment of the animal appetites ; dramatic conception there is, but it is the portraiture not of man in general, but of some indi- vidual; wit there is, not only of the pungent, biting, and mawkish sort, but strained and elaborated wit ; while humor, playful, artless, fanciful humor, is entirely wanting. It is the naked, shameless, shocking real that we here meet with; the lovely and delicate ideal is nowhere to be found. The leading exponents of this new dramatic literature were Etherege, author of the Man of Mode; Wycherley, author of the comedies Country Wife and Plain Dealer; Vanbrugh, author of Relapse, Provoked Wife, the Confederacy, and several other come- dies ; Farquhar, author of the plays the Constant Couple, the In- constant, and the Beaux 1 Stratagem ; Congreve, an eminent writer both of comedies and tragedies, the Old Bachelor and Love for Love being among the best of his productions in the department of comedy, and the Mourning Bride a fair sample of his dramatic ability ; Otway, an exclusively tragic dramatist, whose best plays were the Orphan and Venice Preserved; Lee, South erne, Howe, Mrs. Behn, Shadwell, and Crowne. The most prominent literary type of this epoch of the Restora- tion, and one who exhibited among the first of his contemporaries the literary characteristics of his age, but whose fertility and strength of imagination allied him in no mean measure to his Elizabethan predecessors, was John Dryden. To this writer we shall hereafter invite the student's attention more particularly. Clarendon, author of History of the Great Rebellion; Izaak Wal- ton, author of the Complete Angler, a delightful treatise on his favorite employment of fishing; George Savile, Marquis of Hal- ifax, writer of political tracts; John Evelyn, author of treatises on gardening and forestry ; Samuel Pepys, whose Diary is a minute and faithful portraiture of the scandalous society of his day ; and Sir Roger L/Estrange, a vigorous pamphleteer of the Royalist party are among the foremost prose writers of the age of the Res- toration. The Epoch of the Revolution. The social and political cor- ruption of the reigns of Charles II. and his more immediate suc- cessors was purged awav very gradually, however, and not without HISTORICAL SKETCH. 43 divers returns of the disorder by the forces of constitutional free- dom, scientific and philosophical inquiry, and fundamental English morality, that were brought into action by the Revolution of 1688. We encountered in the age of Elizabeth the sensuous, lusty, jolly Englishman ; during the Commonwealth, the practical, fanatical, and morose Englishman ; under Charles II. and James II., the sensual and unbridled Englishman ; but in the Englishman of this revolutionary epoch we may contemplate all the foregoing char- acteristics brought, not completely indeed, but measurably, under the control of an innate and dominant moral sense. Regularity and propriety, dictated by a calm and unwavering conviction of their justness, and commended by dearly-bought ex- perience, now appear conspicuously in the administration of national affairs, in the usages and sentiments of society, and in the arrangements of private life. This social and political revolution precipitated a literary one. The Drama and Comedy, lately so prostituted, are now quite abandoned, and literary activity gradu- ally shifts its current into the safer channels of theological and philosophical dissertation, and eventually into those of the Essay and Romance. In the department of philosophy, John Locke (1632-1704) merits our particular notice. His writings were numerous and of great variety in their subject matter. Among them we may enumerate his Letters on Toleration, Treatise on Civil Government, Essay on the Human Understanding, and essays On Education and On Christi- anity. Locke's influence in behalf of civil and religious liberty and liberal education was very considerable. Not so salutary, how- ever, was his philosophical influence, which tended directly and powerfully toward strengthening the claims of materialism. As a writer, he combined an uncommon acuteness and range of obser- vation with logical consecutiveness and cogency, and a clearness and charm of style. The theological and polemical literature of the epoch was repre- sented by the works of such divines as Isaac Barrow, John Tillot- son, Robert South, Stillingfleet, Sprat, Sherlock, Cudworth, and Burriet. Did it come within the province of the present work to notice the developments of science that took place contemporaneously with the various literary movements, the names of several dis- tinguished scientists belonging to the present epoch might be instanced. We may be allowed, however, to notice very briefly one of the most illustrious philosophers not only of this epoch, but of any age Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). His scientific 44 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. works were the Philosophise Naturalis Principia Mathematica and a treatise on Optics. Besides these, he wrote discourses upon the Prophesies and Scriptural Chronology. His genius was not un- equaled by his modesty ; for he invariably attributed his scientific successes to patient investigation rather than to superiority of intellect. The Eighteenth Century. We have already alluded to the political and social melioration that resulted from the Revolution -of 1688. The regularity, sense, order, morality, and improved man- ners that gradually came to be characteristic of the English of the eighteenth century, found their counterparts, if not their legitimate issue, in the literature of the same period. The writings of this age, whether poetical or prose, are remarkable, as compared with those of preceding ones, for their superior symmetry, delicacy, and polish. The ancient classical writers were sedulously studied as models of style, and their peculiarities were imitated in every species of composition.* The most illustrious exponents of the English classical school the Augustan poets, as they have been styled were Pope and Swift. A consideration of their merits will constitute separate chapters at a later stage of our study. Of the writers who were contemporary with Pope and Swift, the fame of Arbuthnot is connected with his History of John Bull, that of Prior with Alma and Solomon, that of Gay with the Beggars' * In no branch was it displayed more manifestly than in poetry, and at no time did it appear more clearly than under Queen Anne. The poets had just attained to the art which they had discovered. For sixty years they were approaching it ; now they possess it, handle it ; already they employ and exaggerate it. The style is at the same time finished and artificial. Open the first that coines to hand, Parnell or Philips, Addison or Prior, Gay or Tickell, you find a certain turn of mind, versifica- tion, language. Pass to a second, the same form reappears ; you would say that they were imitations one of another. Go on to a third ; the same diction, the same apos- trophes, the same fashion of arranging an epithet and rounding a period. Turn over the whole lot, with little individual difference, they seem to be all cast in the same mold. One is more epicurean, another more moral, another more biting: but the noble language, the oratorical pomp, the classical correctness, reign throughout; the substantive is accompanied by its adjective, its knight of honor; antithesis balances the symmetrical architecture; the verb, as in Lucan or Statius, is displayed, flanked on each side by a noun decorated by an epithet; one would say that the verse had been fabricated by a machine, so uniform is the make ; we forget what it means, we are tempted to count the feet on our fingers ; we know beforehand what poetical ornaments are to embellish it. There is a theatrical dressing, contrasts, allusions, mythological elegances. Greek or Latin quotations. There is a scholastic solidity, sententious maxims, philosophic commonplaces, moral developments, oratorical exactness. " So here we see classical art find its center in the neighbors of Pope, and above all in Pope. Then, after being half effaced, mingle with foreign elements until it dis- appears in the poetry which succeeded it." Taine's English Literature. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 45 Opera, and that of Parnell with The Hermit. But superior to these in poetic genius and in the popular favor his verse obtained was Edward Young (1681-1765), author of The Night Thoughts. This poem, so replete with sublime and pathetic sentiments and with eloquent passages, is not a little marred, however, by its prevailing somberness, and by the author's unhappy bias for antithesis and for pointed contrasts. /Ohe eighteenth century may be said to have witnessed the rise of two new sorts of literary production in England. One of these was that form of composition called the Essay. In its original form this consisted of brief dissertations upon subjects related to politics, morality, and criticism of authors. These it was the care to present in a lively and interesting style, and with a view both to entertaining and edifying the reader. These essays were issued in sheets or in pamphlets, and, in several instances, attained to a very considerable circulation. The first periodical of this character was established by Sir Rich- ard Steele, in 1709, and was called the Tatler. Its success was rapid and large. About a year afterward, however, it was converted into the still more popular Spectator, and this, in turn, was succeeded by the Guardian. Associated with Steele in these enterprises were Addison, Swift, Berkeley, Budgell, and several others. Later in the century this same species of literature was revived by Samuel Johnson, who, with scarcely any assistance, founded and sus- tained the Idler and the Rambler. Our limits and our aim both exclude, save from a mere mention, the names of Sir William Temple, Lord Shaftesbury, Bishop Atter- bury, Bolingbroke, Mandeville, Bishop Berkeley, and Lady Mon- tagu, prose writers of the present epoch. Addison, whose style is regarded as the model of correct, polished, and elegant writing, we shall reserve for future treatment. The employment of prose narrative for the delineation of the characters, habits, passions, and incidents of real life, thus creating the department of the Novel or Prose Fiction, was the other liter- ary novelty of the century. The age of the drama the picturesque drama of the Elizabethan epoch, and the sprightly, licentious drama of the period immediately ensuing had now passed away; and the age that succeeded was not only one of prose compo- sition, but, by contrast with the intense vitality and ideal range of the former, also a prosaic era. Even romance, which in its origi- nal continental form embraced all of the poetic elements charac- teristic of the early English drama, parted with much of its ideal essence in becoming Anglicized; while the novel, from what it was 46 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. as known to the Italians, the Spaniards, and the French of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, descended to a realistic depiction of contemporary concerns of society and the home. And not sim- ply a depiction, but one with a motive a moral purpose involved in it. This particular sort of literature was inaugurated by the writings of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith, and Sterne. An extended notice of these writers will be found further along. Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), whom the narrowness of our lim- its reduces to this brief paragraph, wrote Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. Extraordinary minuteness, absence of plot, wonderful variety of matter, great capriciousness of treatment, an epicurean taste, and pathos and humor indiscriminately blended, are the characteristics of Tristram Shandy. History. Historical writing, though it had appeared early and had reappeared frequently, realized so splendid a development in the eighteenth century that, as contrasted with its previous attain- ments, it may indeed be said to have experienced in this era a re- generation. The names of those participating most conspicuously in this achievement are Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Robertson's contribution to the historical literature of the cen- tury consisted of the History of Scotland, History of the Reign of Charles V., and History of the Discovery of America. Though not always an accurate narrator, Robertson was always an interesting and eloquent writer; his treatment being lucid and comprehen- sive, and his style rich, vivid, and melodious. Hume and Gibbon, and that most splendid prose writer of his age, Edmund Burke, also Samuel Johnson, will be noticed in separate chapters here- after. Other and somewhat noted prose writers of the eighteenth cen- tury were James Boswell (1740-1795), biographer of Doctor John- son; Adam Smith (1723-1790), originator in England of the science of Political Economy; Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), author of Commentaries on the Laws of England; Bishop Butler (1692-1752), author of the Analogy between Natural and Revealed Religion; and William Paley (1743-1805), author of the Evidences of Christianity, and a Treatise on Natural Theology. The Letters of Junius, the most caustic attacks upon public men and measures of the times, belong to this literary epoch. Within the same era, too, we shall discover in the speecnes of Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Fox (the great Commoner), Walpole, Burke, Sheri- dan, and Windham, the most splendid flowering of English oratory. We have now come to the boundary of a new era in English lit- HISTORICAL SKETCH. 47 erature, the era of the revival of the romantic type of thought and style ; but before we cross it, it will be well to notice a few re- maining writers who flourished in, as it were, a transitional period, and whose productions aided materially in ushering in the new and glorious era just alluded to. Chief of these were Thomson and Gray. For a notice of the writings of these poets, the reader is referred to the second part of this work. Several of the minor poets of the eighteenth century deserve a mention. Such were William Shenstone, author of the School- mistress; William Collins, author of several charming Odes and Lyrics; Mark Akenside, author of The. Pleasures of the Imagination; Macpherson, Chatterton, and George Crabbe. Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote The Village, The Parish Register, The Borough, Sir Eustace Grey, and several other poems. " He thoroughly knew and profoundly analyzed the hearts of men : the virtues, the vices, the weakness, and the heroism of the poor he has anatomized with a stern but not unloving hand. No poet has more subtly traced the motives which regulate human conduct; and his descrip- tions of nature are marked by the same unequaled power of render- ing interesting, by the sheer force of truth and exactness, the most unattractive features of the external world." * The Comic Drama of the latter half of the eighteenth century found its ablest exponents in David Garrick, the celebrated actor; Foote, Cumberland, the two Colmans, and Sheridan. The works of the last will be hereafter noticed in a separate chapter. The Nineteenth Century. The beginning of the nineteenth century proved the beginning also of a new era in the history of English literature. The preceding age, with its Popes, Swifts. Ad- disons, Humes, and Burkes, had imparted to every description of letters a classical perfection of form. Whatever the subject-matter might be, the style was invariably precise, regular, and highly polished. Natural sentiments and humors, instead of finding ex- pression in simple and robust language, took on the genteel garb of pompous diction, allegorical phrase, and sonorous periods. The dawn of the transition to that freer and more natural play of thought and expression characteristic of the present cen- tury, was heralded by such auroral streaks as the Seasons of Thom- son, the Odes of Collins and Gray, and, along with these, a little star-group, the Rcliques of Ancient English Poetry, Bishop Percy's collection of the old Minstrel Ballads of the Middle Ages, published in 1765. But more significant agencies than these lay just beyond * Shaw's Outlines of English Literature. 48 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. the horizon in political events transpiring on the continents of Europe and America. The writings of such men as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Eousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot, in denying the exclusiveness and author- ity of the clergy, the hereditary immunities and prerogatives of the aristocracy, in promulgating the doctrine of the equality of all men before God and the law, and in advocating democratic ideas of government, had aroused Continental thought and life to a new and violent activity. The puissant and leavening principles thus set in motion spread with marvelous facility and acceptance throughout all the more intelligent parts of Europe, working, as their immediate and practical results, the abolition of the Order of Jesuits and of the Inquisition, the opening of institutions of learning, the formation of societies for the dissemination of knowl- edge and literary culture, the recasting and the more equitable administration of the laws, more liberal legislation, the encourage- ment of the arts and sciences, and the revival of chivalric and romantic ideas. In France, where this movement experienced its extreme de- velopment, its various tendencies were rapidly engulfed in one grand and sweeping vortex of political revolution; but in Ger- many, though it lacked not here a political aspect also, it became distinctively a philosophical movement a revolution of ideas and literary taste. This people "sought religious sentiment beyond dogma, poetic beauty beyond rules, critical truth beyond myths. They desired to grasp natural and moral powers themselves, inde- pendently of the fictitious supports to which their predecessors had attached them."* Poets and prose writers now arose, who, discarding the artificial, conventional, and dead-level life of the age, sought their inspiration in the ideas and customs of the middle ages, and in the religious contemplation of the East. "The faith in miracles and the religious mysticism of an early period of Christianity, the love affairs and the sensuous religious worship of the departed days of chivalry, the sacred art of the middle ages, the flowery poetry of the East, the popular songs and the meditative world of fable of the distant past, permanently engaged their interest. It was for this reason that their views were directed to the forgotten productions of the literature of romance, whilst, following the example of Herder, they collected and elaborated the legends, traditions, and popular songs of German antiquity, and then sought to introduce the chivalrous poetry of the Italians and Spaniards into Germany by * Taine's English Literature. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 49 means of translations ; and drew the mythology, and the poetry founded upon it, of the East and of the Scandinavian North, within the circle of their activity." * Such is a glimpse of the political, moral, and sesthetical forces that, near the commencement of the nineteenth century, began to surge like tidal waves about the national, domestic, and literary life of the English people. Their political influences, though vaguely felt in the national mind, were, by the sturdy, conservative, practical character of the people, successfully resisted at this time. " New theories could not arise in this society armed against new theories. Yet the revolution made its entrance ; it entered disguised, and through a byway, so as not to be recognized. It was not social ideas, as in France, that were transformed, nor philosophical ideas, as in Germany, but literary ideas ; the great rising tide of the modern mind, which elsewhere overturned the whole edifice of human conditions and speculations, succeeded here only at first in changing style and taste. It was a slight change, at least apparently, but on the whole of equal value with the others ; for this renovation in the manner of writing is a renovation in the manner of thinking : the one led to all the rest, as the movement of a central pivot con- strains the movement of all the indented wheels."f But there were internal causes, as well as external ones, which conspired in the production of this new era of literature. We have already alluded to the natural and romantic notes sounded through the Anglican temple of modern classicism by the labors of Thom- son, Collins, Gray, and Bishop Percy. A little later, and these notes are again heard, purged of all art, free, full, deliciously and strangely sweet, in the poems of Robert Burns and William Cowper. These both were by birth poets ; art had nothing to do with their making. The one by birth and early surroundings, the other from choice and natural bias, were isolated from the artificial and epicurean spirit of the times in which they lived. Their muse took to Nature and to the natural life of man instinctively, and uttered its fancies and fervors in language pure as light, sparkling as dew, and fresh, varied, and picturesque as the features of the landscape. They hated the conventional and meretricious in thought, princi- ple, and life, as well as in style, and were never weary of exposing and lampooning hypocrisy and pedantry. From courts and crowds they turned away with a genuine disgust, and found their readiest employ in singing in simple strains the vicissitudes of domestic and common life. Man with them was estimated at his true worth, the wealth of his naked soul, the nobility of his conduct, and * Weber's Outlines of Universal History. t Taine's English Literature. 5 D 50 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Nature to them was the wild picturesqueness of Scotland or the garden beauty of England. The writings of these men had not a little to do with precipitating the revolution of the popular literary taste which followed close upon their times. And now, upon the threshold of the present century, directed not only by the influences already noticed, but largely also by the reactionary philosophical theories of the times, the skepticism of the French school and the pantheism and the mysticism of the Ger- man, appears the English romantic school of literature ; pro- ducing, on the one hand, historical poetry and romance, and, on the other, psychological poetry. Scott, Campbell, Southey, Moore, Landor, and Leigh Hunt are eminent types of the former class of writers, while Wordsworth, Crabbe, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats represent with varying exactness the latter. The former sought their themes and materials among the mid- dle and early ages and in distant and little known lands, and brought them forth to the public eye, all hideous with barbaric grossness or dazzling with Oriental magnificence. They rea- soned: ''The barbarian, the feudal man, the cavalier of the Re- naissance, the Mussulman, the Indian, each age and each race, has conceived its beauty. Let us enjoy it, and for this purpose put our- selves in the place of the discoverers; altogether; for it will not suffice to represent, like the previous novelists and dramatists, modern and national manners under old and foreign names ; let us paint the sentiments of other ages and other races with their own features, however different these features may be from our own, and however unpleasing to our taste. Let us show our character as he was, grotesque or not, with his costume and speech ; let him be fierce and superstitious if he was so ; let us dash the barbarian with blood, and load the covenanter with his bundle of biblical texts. Then one by one on the literary stage men saw the vanished or distant civilization return : first the middle age and the Renaissance, then Arabia, Hindostan, and Persia; then the classical age and the eighteenth century itself ; and the historic taste becomes so eager, that from literature the contagion spread to other arts."* Thus sprang up Waverley, Ivan- hoe, Lalla Rookh, Thalaba, Roderick the Last of the Goths, The Curse of Kehama, and other poems and romances of a like semi-historical character. The other branch of this school, the psychological poets, made human life and destiny the great burden of their thoughts and musings. Their eyes were turned inward, upon the soul, to explore * Tainc'ti LiKjUnlt Litc.rutu.re. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 51 the sources and comprehend the end of the vague longings and bold aspirations that troubled them. What is man ? and what his mission ? were the great problems they would fain solve. Some, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, sought a solution by the light of Christian ethics, while others, like Byron, Shelley, and Keats, in the glamour of pagan visions. There was a diversity, too, in the styles of these different writers and in their themes, Wordsworth's being pre-eminently realistic and homely, Shelley's marvelously fantastic and abstracted, and Byron's intensely passionate, dramatic, and sensuous. But all, from their several points of view, and ac- cording to a certain preconceived philosophy of life, sought to eluci- date the problem of human existence. We have now had a tolerably fair view of the youthful features of this modern literature. Of obscure birth, from a youth spent in the sweet and peaceful employ of a pastoral life, with a counte- nance ruddy from the kindly caresses of Nature, armed with homely and simple weapons, but actuated by a divinely-inspired purpose, this New Literature comes boldly forth to meet, amidst taunts and sneers, the brass-clad, formidably armed, thoroughly disciplined, and victorious Goliath the classicism of the eighteenth century. The struggle is brief. Perfect art and gigantic conventionalism fall, mortally smitten by the rude stone of natural expression and feeling. It will be our next endeavor to follow this new literature through its main branches of poetry, fiction, history, and critical writing, down to the present; noticing, briefly, the nature and peculiarities of each. Modern Poetry. The distinctive features of modern English poetry have already been sketched, and the most eminent of its earlier representatives Cowper, Crabbe, Burns, Scott, Byron, Moore, Shelley, Keats, Campbell, Leigh Hunt, Landor, Words- worth, Coleridge, and Southey named. To continue this worthy roll, and to make it reasonably complete down to the present time, there should be added the names of Tennyson, Browning, Hood, Henry Taylor, Knowles, Procter ("Barry Cornwall"), Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, Buchanan, Macdonald, Henry Bulwer-Lytton (" Owen Meredith "), William Morris, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Hemans, Eliza Cook, Mrs. Norton, Joanna Baillie, and Jean Ingelow.* * Other names still worthy of a mention are Samuel Rogers, William L. Bowles, James Montgomery, Horace Smith, William Herbert, Thomas H. Bayly, James Gra- hame, William Sotheby, Dr. Heber, Robert Pollock, W. M. Praed, Hartley and Sara Coleridge, Mrs. Southey, Robert Montgomery, Miss Landon (" L. E. L "), George Croly, James Hogg, Allan Cunningham, Henry K. White, William Motherwell, and Gerald Massey. 52 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. A lively sympathy, naturally expressed, with living sentiments and actions, whether trivial or momentous, and whenever the life of the past engages attention a realistic interpretation of the same, these are the broad and fundamental characteristics of the poetry of these later or living writers. With these, style has become as capricious and varied a thing as human nature itself, the word, the phrase, the figure, the period, all being despotically dictated by the idiosyncrasies of mind and life of the individual, or by the natural peculiarities of the scene described. Along with this prevalent and fundamental realism, there exists, of course, a great variety in the matter and style of thought. Some, like Tennyson, the Brownings, and Matthew Arnold, are largely subjective in their treatment; the external world serving them chiefly for purposes of illustration. Their phraseology is often obscure, and their ideas sometimes appear provokingly in- definite ; but all have given us not a few instances of a melody and polish of versification, a wealth and fitness of imagery, and a grace and spirituality of poetic conception unapproached by any other living poets. Others, like Mrs. Hemans, Eliza Cook, Jean Ingelow, Mrs. Nor- ton, Joanna Baillie, and, to a certain extent, " Barry Cornwall," have sung the domestic affections, and have depicted the concerns of humble life and the familiar aspects of nature so really and so feelingly, as forever to endear themselves to the popular mind and heart. Others, again, like Charles Mackay, Alexander Smith, and Fred- erick Locker, have chosen their themes and literary properties from the city, and have devoted themselves to representing the manifold interests and experiences of the toiling, jostling, prosaic multitude. And others still, like William Morris and Robert Buchanan, have addressed themselves to the work of reproducing, after the quaint and picturesque fashion of Chaucer, the fables and mythologic romances of classic times; while some, like George Macdonald, have sought their inspiration in the touching episodes of scriptural history. Modern Fiction. "We see, indeed, that the great literary controversy between Classicism and Romanticism was a direct result of the French revolution. In that crisis, the Gothic depths of the western European mind were broken into; and though, polit- ically, the immediate effect was a disgust of the past, and a longing toward the future as the era of human emancipation, yet, intel- lectually, the effect was a contempt for classic modes of fancy and composition, and a letting loose of the imagination upon Nature HISTORICAL SKETCH. 53 in her wildest and grandest recesses, and upon whatever in human history could supply aught in affinity with the furious workings of contemporary, passion. The Gothic Romance, of the picturesque and the ghostly, afforded the necessary conditions."* As exponents of this new species of prose fiction, we may instance Horace Walpole (1717-1797), author of The Castle of Otranto ; Clara Reeve (1725-1803), author of the Old English Baron; Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), author of The Romance of the Forest and The Mysteries of Udolpho; Matthew G. Lewis, Charles R. Maturin, G. P. R. James, and Mrs. Shelley. Casting the scenes of their fictions in the Middle Ages, or, if in more recent times, in those parts of southern Europe inseparably associated with romantic ideas and customs, these writers sought, by the employment of supernatural adjuncts, to involve the incidents and personages of their story in a prevail- ing mystery in an impending catastrophe of horror. But the more direct fruits of the revolutionary ideas of 1789, as developed in prose fiction, were met with in the combined political and romantic writings of Robert Bage, Thomas Holcroft, and, more markedly still, in those of William Godwin. In 1794, the latter, already well known as a political writer, published his novel, Caleb Williams, or Things as they are. He himself characterized it as "a study and delineation of things passing in the moral world," " a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded des- potism by which man becomes the destroyer of man." This work he followed up with St. Leon, Fleetwood, Mandeville, and Cloudesley, all with a view to propagating the social and political theories ad- vocated by the visionary and ultra, but philanthropic, minds of the age. All the trappings of supernatural embellishment, so charac- teristic of the preceding school of writers, are in these works dis- carded ; the interests of the present life and an earnest effort for its amelioration taking the places of feudal concerns and romantic fantasies. True, this practical and didactic aim, judged of by the terms of its presentation, seems highly ideal; but none the less did it concern itself exclusively with actual and present affairs. It was the ideal seeking to penetrate and thereby to ennoble the real; or, rather, the genuine real struggling to slough off the conven- tionalisms and disguises of an artificial life. Still another phase of the tendencies of this revolutionary epoch, as reflected in the glass of fiction, was the portraiture of the life and manners of existing society. The former artificial demarcations of classes had been gradually worn away by the tramp of general refinement and popular freedom ; and the writer, that would now * Hassan's British Novelists and their Styles. 5* 54 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. delineate the various aspects of society, must penetrate beyond the uniformly well-dressed and genteelly-behaved crowd into the inner and social life of individuals and classes. To do this demanded a close, incisive, and conscientious study of character, of human motives, and of the effects of human conduct. Thus was the nov- elist brought into actual contact with the realities of his own times. A glance at the names of the principal laborers in this department of fiction, reveals the noticeable fact that most of the writers were women.* The most eminent of these writers were Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Miss Mitford. The first (1765-1849), through the im- mense number, variety, and excellence of her works, has delighted and instructed readers of all ages. For the very young, she has written the charming tales entitled Frank, Harry and Lucy, and Rosamond; for those somewhat more advanced, Simple Susan, En- nui, Leonora, and Belinda; and for the mature reader, Castle Rock- rent, Patronage, and the Absentee. In the last three works, our authoress has delineated, in all its humor, pathos, merits, and de- merits, the peculiarities of the Irish peasantry. " In her writings we see the Irish peasant as he is ; and it is im- possible to conceive a greater contrast than that of her animated sketches and the conventional Irishman of the stage or of fiction. The services rendered by Maria Edgeworth to the cause of com- mon sense are incalculable ; and the singular absence of enthusi- asm in her writings, whether religious, political, or social, only makes us more wonder at the force, vivacity, and consistency with which she has drawn a large and varied gallery of character."! Passing from Ireland to England, we meet with Miss Austen (1775-1817), working a vein a little higher up in the social strata the society of the English country gentleman. With scarcely any plot, and with an almost total lack of picturesqueness and variety in persons and incidents, she has yet, with a unique precision and naturalness, photographed the rural gentry of England in her Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. Miss Mitford (1789-1855) has succeeded in painting, with exqui- site grace and fidelity, the village life and scenery of England. " Our Village is one of the most delightful books in the language: it is full of those home scenes which form the most exquisite pecu- liarity, not only of the external nature, but also of the social life of the country.''^ * Of the number we may name Miss Burney, the Misses Lee, Mrs. Smith, Inchbald, Opie, Brunton, Hamilton, Trollope, Misses Edgeworth, Austen, Mitford, and Hannah More, and Lady Morgan. t Shaw's Outlines of English Literature. J Ibid. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 55 We now have before us a fair summary of the earliest effects upon English prose fiction wrought by the revolutionary impulses of the Continent. Those effects, as we have seen, had three distinct manifestations. One was the turning of the mind away from the coldness, inanity, and artificialness of the classical style of though* and expression of the eighteenth century to the warmth, sensu. ousness, and robustness of the romantic literature and life of thfc Gothic ages : another and one in an opposite direction was the repudiation of all past ideas and sentiments, and the attempt to create, out of the events and sentiments of the stirring present, an inartificial and realistic school of thought and expression ; while the third was the simple and accurate portraiture of the manners and humors of the various classes of existing society. The first was effective in carrying the mind back to a forgotten freshness; the second, in projecting it into a future Utopia of ideas ; the third, in restricting it to a thorough understanding of, and to a making the best of, the present constitution of affairs. We now stand fairly within the precincts of nineteenth cen- tury fiction, and, as we cast our eyes over the prospect, are all but bewildered by the numerous ramifications into which the three main currents we have been heretofore following suddenly divide. An able and recent critic includes these varieties under no less than thirteen distinct heads.* * We have (1) The Novel of- Scottish Life and Manners, with such writers as Scott, Gait, Hogg, Cunningham, Lockhart, Wilson, Miller, Macdonald, and others; (2) The Novel of Irish Life and Manners, its best representatives being Miss Edgeworth, Banim, Croker, Griffin, Carleton, Lover, Lever, and Mrs. Hall: (3) The Novel of Eng- lish Life and Manners, with, as its exponents, Scott, Hoqk, \Vard, Miss Austen, Miss Mitford, Disraeli, Sir Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, Thackeray, Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Trollope, Anthony Trollope, Lady Blessington, Miss Martineau, Jerrold, Mrs. Crowe, Lewes, Brooks, Mrs. Marsh, Miss Bronte, Miss Muloch, "George Eliot," Mrs. Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, Kingsley, Thomas Hughes, Mrs. Oliphant, and others; (4) The Fashionable Novel, depicting aristocratic metropolitan life, with such representa- tives as Caroline Lamb, Hook, Disraeli, Sir Bulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Trollope, Lady Blessington, Thackeray in a measure and others; (5) The Illustrious Crim- inal Novel, with such contributors as Sir Bulwer-Lytton and Mr. Ainsworth; (6) The Traveler's Novel, illustrated by Sir Bulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Trollope, and Thackeray ; (7) The Novel of American Manners and Society, represented by the writ- ings of Mrs. Trollope, Captain Marry at, and partially by Dickens and Thackeray; (8) The Oriental Novel, as set forth in the works of Beckford, Hope, Morier, Eraser, Disraeli, and others ; (9) TJie Military Novel, and (10) The Naval Novel, as exemplified in the writings of Geig, Maxwell, Lever, Lover, Marryat, Chamier, Hannay, Cupp- les, Glasscock, Howard, and Trelawney : (11) The Novel of Supernatural Phantasy, of which Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein, Bulwer's Zanoni, and some of the tales of Jerrold, and some of the Christmas stories of Dickens are examples ; (12) The Art and Culture Novel, not perfectly realized in any English fiction, but approached occasionally by some of Bulwer's, Thackeray's, " George Eliot's," and Charles Kingsley's creations ; and (13) The Historical Novel, as seen in the works of Scott, G. P. R. James, Godwin, Bulwer, Horace Smith, Ainsworth, Kingsley, Thackeray, Dickens, Lockhart, Collins, and many others. 56 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. These varieties do not exhaust all the forms under which fiction has displayed itself, but they must suffice for the purposes of our sketch. In order to properly comprehend the origin and growth of this wonderful flowering in the domain, not of fiction only, but of lit- erature generally, it will be necessary to turn again our attention to the political and social events that were transpiring in Europe during these years of modern literary activity. The doctrines of popular sovereignty, of democratic and con- stitutional government, of religious toleration, and of free thought and speech, which had gained considerable ascendancy during the Revolution of 1789 and for a brief period thereafter, received a serious check by the formation, in 1815, of that imperial partner- ship called the Holy Alliance. Under color of promoting brotherly love, and of maintaining religion, peace, and justice throughout Europe, this Alliance, for a time, succeeded in ignoring all love, but infatuation for the sovereign ; all religion, but conformity to the prescribed one; all peace, but supine submission to author- ity; and all justice, but acquiescence in the prerogatives of the despot. But while princes and their aristocratic minions were bent on securing the permanency of monarchical institutions, the people very generally directed their efforts toward inaugurating consti- tutional governments. All over the Continent, constitutionalism made its inroads and celebrated its triumphs. The prerogatives of monarchs, hierarchs, and nobility, heretofore allowed as inherent and indefeasible, were now called in question, weighed in the balance of common sense, and largely abridged, the surplus being found to legitimately belong to the middle and lower classes of society. Government was redefined; the idea that it was a mutual compact between sovereign and subject, in which each reserved as inviolable certain privileges, supplanting the former notion that the one was born to govern and the other to be governed. Among the rights claimed by the people were those of freedom of speech and of conscience, and participation in legislative and judicial proceedings. In some quarters indeed, by a few earnest souls in all quarters the very existence of an hereditary ruler and privileged classes was regarded as absurd and intolerable; and the democratic idea, that the people were by sacred right their own rulers, was boldly proclaimed and heroically contended for. Nay, in the heat of their zeal for popular rights, it was declared by the most ultra the Communists and Socialists of France that all men were socially and pecuniarily equal ; and that therefore there HISTORICAL SKETCH. 57 should be a leveling of all distinctions between classes, and an equal distribution of property and labor. To appreciate the social, political, religious, and intellectual fer- ment, which the meeting of the antagonistic ideas of monarchists, constitutionalists, and red-republicans produced, one need only to turn to the history of Europe during the first half of the present century. Riots, insurrections, imprisonments, banishments, exe- cutions, assassinations, and sanguinary wars, as revolting in extent and degree as any that have ever fouled the pages of history, mark with tears and blood the steps of modern European progress. In England, owing to the fact that many of the reforms agitated on the Continent had already obtained, such as a constitutional government, liberty of the press and speech, and religious tolera- tion, and owing also to the deliberate and conservative temper of the people, these political commotions operated with comparative moderation. And yet did they operate with sufficient influence to keep the minds of the British people alive to their peculiar interests. As a result of the long contest with France, English capital, and as a natural consequence the land, had gradually passed into the hands of the aristocracy. Manufactures, and commerce too, were monopolized by a few princely capitalists. Taxation upon all articles of trade, necessaries of life, houses and lands, and heavy levies to sustain an extravagant court, fell grievously upon the middle and rapidly increasing lower orders of the people. But hard upon the heels of these abuses followed the avenging " Char- tists," who demanded universal suffrage, yearly parliaments, and vote by ballot. A relaxation of some of the more pressing grievances checked and tempered for the time being this popular outbreak ; but by degrees, and through the persistent and rational efforts of the people, its original demands have, in these later years, come to be conceded almost to the letter. To-day, even by virtue of what has been already attained, to say nothing of what present grand movements looking to universal suffrage and popular education speedily portend, England stands confessed before the world as the least monarchical, and to put it positively, the most democratic, of all monarchies. Without attempting to particularize, we may indicate in a gen- eral way how the political and social events just sketched modi- fied, indeed, revolutionized, contemporary literature. Their effects are best shown in the prose fiction of the past half century. One class of novelists, like Thackeray, has bent its energies to exposing the shams and corruption of titled life; another, like 58 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Dickens, to bringing to light and to eliciting public sympathy and alleviation for the condition of the poor and seemingly vicious. Both would look on humanity, whether clad in purple and fine linen or in filthy rags, and appraise it as noble or mean according to its inherent possessions. Character and conduct, according to their measurement, and not accidents of birth or helps of fortune, make the man a man, and therefore eminent above all accessories, or a brute, and therefore groveling in spite of all accessories. Other novelists have preferred exposing political or social or ju- dicial abuses, as exemplified in existing institutions and usages, and have thus made themselves the propagandists of reform meas- ures. This they have done not by argument or lampoon, but by a faithful, particular, and lively portraiture of the evils and evil- doers. As specimens of this species of fiction, we may name, Alton Locke, Felix Holt, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Hard Times, and Little Dorritt. Still another sort of novelists is met with in the delineators of provincial life and manners. Yorkshire has had its artist in Miss Bronte, Lancashire in Mrs. Gaskell, and Devonshire in Mr. Kings- ley, not to speak of writers who, like Dickens, have delineated the types of several non-metropolitan parts. In considering these various species of fiction, it is interesting, too, to note how largely public events and actors have been allowed to suggest incidents and furnish characters. In these writings, no less prominently than in works of history and biography, we meet with political conspiracies, club-meetings, and riots and strikes among workingmen; and we have such characters as the Socialist, the Foreign Refugee, the Red Eepublican, the Government Spy, the Chartist Orator, the Strong-Minded Woman, the Jesuit, the Roman Catholic Priest, the High-Church Parson, the Broad-Church Parson, the Low-Church Parson, the Dissenting Preacher, the Methodist, the Materialist, the Spiritualist, the Positivist, the Whig, the Tory, and all the rest. Mixing with these realistic elements, in a disguise more or less complete, we find a marked effort on the part of not a few of these modern novelists to inculcate phil- osophical or political or religious theories, the rationalism, social- ism, positivism, whigism, toryism, or republicanism, of their pecu- liar liking. Reviewing, now, what has been already presented, and allow- ing for the much more that with ampler space might have been presented, are we not bound to confess that surely we have fallen upon a realistic literature, one worthy in every lineament of its eminently human countenance of the age that has given it birth, the realistic nineteenth century? HISTORICAL SKETCH. 59 Another fact that may not be omitted from this sketch of the literary peculiarities of the present century is the preponderance of fiction not only over every other species of composition, but over all other species combined. And this preponderance consists not alone in the superior bulk of this sort of-writing, but in the surpassing interest it enlists. What the drama was to Elizabethan times, and the essay and didactic poem to the age of Anne, that the novel has come to be in this Victorian age.* Modern History. The questioning, sifting, judicial spirit, which, as we have already noticed, had so largely entered into the political and social movements of the present century, and which has so thoroughly convulsed and transformed the old order of things, has, with equal influence, operated upon modern histor- ical writing. Far from accepting immemorial statements as au- thentic, it persists ir examining anew the grounds of evidence for such statements. With the same temerity with which it had weighed the crowns of monarchs, the hats of bishops, and the badges of hereditary and assumed agents of authority generally, in the balances of equity and common sense, it also challenges the time-honored and pretentious authority of works called histories. So rigid in treatment is this spirit, that it insists on excluding from the pale of evidence at least so far as profane history is con- cerned every supernatural element; and it persists in regarding men, in all ages of the world, as having been swayed by the prompt- ings of a human nature fundamentally the same. And its audacity is equaled only by its unweariedness of investiga- tion. It takes up author after author of those previously regarded * " That the novel is popular at present, we know ; that there is a sufficient reason for this popularity, we also know ; and this sufficient reason is not very difficult to discover. First, then, it may be premised that our most esteemed novels concern themselves with delineations of modern life, and that modern life, in virtue of our immersion in it, and the complexity of its relations, can be represented more fully and satisfactorily by prose than through the higher medium of verse. " The novel is the mirror in which society looks, in order that she may become acquainted with her own countenance. The provinces of prose and verse may be very strictly denned. Verse can deal with the tent of Achilles, prose with the mod- ern drawing-room or dining-table. When men and women fell in love, as they did in the old ballads, verse could not, with all its resources, overdo the delights or agonies of the passion. When people fall in love as they do at this age of the world, when the passion is clogged and embarrassed by marriage settlements, when the lawyer has as much to do with the union of lovers as Cupid, we see at once that the time for the epithalamium is gone, and that verse cannot assist at the bridal. " Another reason for the popularity of the modern novel may be found in the advance of prose during the last century as a medium of expression, 'that other harmony of prose,' as Dry den called it, with a far reaching gleam into its capabilities. We do not write verse so supremely now as Shakespeare- and his companions did, but as a whole we write prose better." North British Review, February, 1863. 60 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. as reliable, carefully compares their several statements upon every point ; these again it compares with the allusions of contemporary literature, with the evidence of existing monuments, with inscrip- tions found upon exhumed and ancient works of art, and these again with the subtle testimony of languages and dialects. What remains unprecipitated by this series of tests is recognized and named as historical truth, all the rest is thrown away as the sedi- ment of fable. And as we have seen that this iconoclastic and critical spirit, in its political development, had its origin in Western Europe, so now we are called upon to note that, in its historical development also, it owns a Continental origin. The most eminent and successful of its earliest expositors was Niebuhr. In his History of Rome, the first volume of which was published in Germany in 1811, he showed that much of what is recorded by Livy as historical truth is, in reality, pure legend and myth ; and that many of the long-accepted and marvelous stories concerning the seven kings are simply poetic fictions. The courageous, truth-seeking, and truth- speaking spirit of this pioneer of genuine historical writing appeared shortly afterward, in England, in the persons of Dr. Thomas Arnold, Bishop Thirl- wall, and George Grote. The first, by his History of Rome, accom- plished for English students what Niebuhr had for German. The record, however, which was conducted in pure and vigorous Eng- lish through three volumes, was broken off at the end of the sec- ond Punic War by the death of its author. The others have each written a History of Greece, which are not more remarkable for the thorough acquaintance with sources of information they evince and their sympathetic treatment, than for their rigid elimination of all matters suspected as fabulous or legendary, and for the un- strained and common-sense view they take of men and events. By these writers with whom also we must not fail to associate Sir George Lewis, author of An Inquiry into the Credibility of the early Roman History "the old times, which were ignorantly ad- mired and extravagantly lauded, have been carefully measured by what we know of the workings of the human nature to-day. The institutions, the principles, the passions, the aims and the achieve- ments of such men as Pericles and Alcibiades, of Cicero and Seneca, of Catiline and the Caesars, have been examined, not under the colored lights of blind admiration, nor by the weird lights of myth-making credulity, nor the false lights of blind or lying parti- sanship, but by the dry and white light which is reflected from the aims, principles, and passions of men in similar circumstances in modern times the good men not being over good for human HISTORICAL SKETCH. 61 nature, and the bad not so much, and so desperately, worse than the very bad of later times. In short, the historian has learned to measure the ancient world by the modern world, in- stead of by an extravagant and distorted creation of his own bewildered imagination and his excited fancy ; because the mod- ern is known to be the actual world, and as such illustrates those permanent laws and forces of humanity by which alone all his- tory, whether old or recent, can be rationally estimated and judged."* Another characteristic of modern historical writing is its philan- thropy, so to speak, and breadth of treatment. It concerns itself not with the so-called great men alone, the conquerors, kings, states- men, and literati, nor yet with the aristocratic and governing classes merely, nor again with revolutionary events simply, but it represents as well the doings and feelings of the middling and lower classes of society, and pictures the march of civic and social reforms. It essays to reproduce before the modern mind a partic- ular, vivid, and accurate panorama of the whole life of the past, its court life, its serf and peasant and citizen life, its external con- quests and its domestic economies, its notions and usages of gov- ernment and religion, its attitude as respects the sciences, arts, and refinements and industries generally of a civilized state, and its peculiar and transmitted influence. In this pictorial attempt, the modern historian finds exercise not only for an unusual industry and energy, but a legitimate scope also for his imagination, an imagination that not, as for- merly, creates and embellishes out of its own unsubstantial and fantastic fabrics, but which simply fills out to their original pro- portions and invests with pristine color, warmth, and action the skeletons and fossils of the past. But the modern method would not stop here. However much it may have accomplished by an expurgation of illusory elements, by a comprehensive and systematic collocation of authentic ma- terials, and by a graphic style, it would aspire to one more attain- ment, namely, the discovery of a philosophy of human conduct. The material universe displays to our view a countless variety of phe- nomena. Formerly, when science was in its cradle, or had not been born, to each of these phenomena there was assigned a special cause or agent. As science advanced, these phenomena came to be gathered into little groups, each group claiming a cause com- mon to every member of it. Then these groups came to be merged a number of them into one, and these more general ones * Books and Reading, by Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D. 62 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. finally into other fewer and still more comprehensive, until at the present Btage of scientific knowledge it is ascertained that a few grand causes underlie all physical phenomena. Now, a similar method of generalization the modern historian would apply to the facts and incidents of human life. He would regard all the individual and national events of the past as so many social and moral phenomena, susceptible of classification under the grasp and control of a few great human principles or laws. He believes it to be his province, not only to narrate truthfully, graphically, and exhaustively the events of the past, but to pene- trate into the very feelings and thoughts of their actors, and there ascertain the motives and influences which impelled them, and then, by classifying these agencies, finally to derive, as it were, a general law of human action. Of course, different historians, according to the number of the agencies they recognize, and their admitted individual importance and mutual harmony, arrive at different conclusions respecting the same historical events; but that broad, underlying agencies of human action have operated, and are now operating in society, all admit, and all are bent on discovering. Some, like Draper, have thought that they had found the secret of human conduct in physiological phenomena, atmospheric and chemical agencies being the great excitants ; some, like Buckle, have conceived men as the victims of gigantic material laws, which, fate-like, constrain them for good or for evil ; on the contrary, some, like Froude, credit human liberty, caprice, and passion with the responsibility; and others again, like Arnold and Goldwin Smith, recognize above all the heterogeneities of human conduct the presidence of a uni- fying and beneficent Deity. Among the leading writers who have exemplified more or less fully the foregoing methods of modern historical treatment, we may name, in addition to those already mentioned, Lord Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle, Henry Hallam, Adam Smith, Sir James Mackin- tosh, Sir Archibald Alison, H. H. Milman, Geo. Rawlinson, Sir Francis Palgrave, E. A. Freeman, and Robert Vaughan. Modern Periodical Literature. The student of current Eng- lish literature cannot fail of being impressed by the number, vari- ety, and special excellence of its periodical publications. Quarter- lies, Monthlies, Fortnightlies, Weeklies, and Dailies fairly compass him with their proffered services, great or small, grave or gay. Were it certain that Alfred the Great had instituted this species of literature, and that every royal patron of letters and every eminent writer, through all the intervening centuries, had promoted the HISTORICAL SKETCH. 63 movement, even then there would be room for congratulation on its present flourishing state; but when it is known that, with a very Sew exceptions on the part of daily newspapers, all these periodi- cal publications we mean those now publishing have sprung up within the limits of the present century, it becomes a matter of the profoundest astonishment, and the fact stamps the present age as the epoch of English prose writing. The earliest of these periodicals was The Edinburgh Review. It was founded in 1802, by Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, and Francis Homer. Its tone, whether in questions of politics, religion, or literature, was bold and independent. It opposed the political views and measures of the existing adminis- tration, and, rejecting all precedent and time-honored authority, discussed anew questions of theology, literature, and aesthetics. To counteract more especially the political so-called heresies of The Edinburgh, the friends of constitutional integrity established in London, in 1809, The Quarterly Review, with William Gifford, and shortly afterward John G. Lockhart, as editor. With a like design, Blackwood's Magazine was originated in 1817, in Edinburgh. This magazine was fortunate in numbering among its earliest contributors John Wilson and John G. Lockhart, who brought to its pages a brilliancy, versatility, and piquancy that secured it immediate prominence. Of the eminent writers who have, from time to time, contributed to the above periodicals, we may name, omitting those named be- fore, Mackintosh, Carlyle, Macaulay, Talfourd, Scott, Hogg, Words- worth, Lamb, Coleridge, De Quincey, Alison, Bulwer, Jerrold, Lander, Aytoun, Hazlitt, Moir, and Croker. Following the lead of the foregoing periodicals, there has gradually sprung up a large number of like publications of greater or less authority in the realm of letters. Such are TJie Westminster Review, TJie North British Re- view, The Dublin Review, The Contemporary Review, The Fortnightly Review, The British Quarterly Review, Erasers Magazine, Macmillan's Magazine, Cornhill Magazine, and Dublin University Magazine. Many others of a lighter and more popular character might be enume- rated. The Reviews are devoted to thoughtful and critical writings. They are made up of dissertations upon current political, religious, social, scientific, and sesthetical questions, and of criticisms upon past and contemporary literature. Their contributors comprise the ripest scholars and acutest thinkers of the day, as is evidenced by the profound, elaborate, and discriminating character of the articles presented. The style of these writings is also worthy of notice. The eliminating, incisive, truth-discerning spirit, which, 64 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. as we have seen, with the historians worked the rejection of all mere gloss of narration, with these reviewers and essayists, operates in the rejection of extravagance of statement and meretricious ornamentation. Precision, strength, and fullness of statement are sought after, mere declamation and sonorous verbiage being de- spised. The Magizines, while they partake, in a measure, of the char- acteristics just noticed, embody also the lighter elements of litera- ture. They include the musings of poets, the imaginings of ro- mancists, and the picturesque narratives of travelers. The poetical and fictitious writings of not a few of the leading modern English authors made their first appearance, piecemeal, in the monthly or weekly magazine. The style of these writings is adapted to their peculiar matter ; the grave, logical, elaborate, sententious manner of the Review giving place to a lightsome, flowing, naive, and ornate expression. Modern Philosophy, Tlieology, and Science. Did it come within the province of a work of the special and cursory nature of the present to follow into all its branchings this luxuriant spirit of the present age, it would be easy to discover its peculiar florescence in the fields of Philosophy, Theology, Science, and Art. It may not be amiss, however, to bestow a passing glance upon these. The realistic and practical elements which we have noticed as entering so markedly into modern poetry, fiction, history, and prose writing generally, have become significant elements also in the philosophic, theologic, scientific, and aBsthetical speculations of the age. Controversy has been, in a great measure, shifted from abstract to concrete grounds. Mental and psychological phe- nomena now claim less attention than historical and physical data. Man's sphere of knowledge is sought to be extended rather by in- crease of sensible facts, by larger and better acquaintance with the material universe, than by refinements in metaphysics. Philosophy and Science have both shaken off the long-conceded, hereditary authority of Theology, and now claim a perfect right to pursue their investigations and discussions, and to draw their conclusions, independently. A severely' critical and skeptical spirit has pos- sessed all, compelling the theologian, with the zeal and candor of a first investigator, to a re-examination of the grounds of his ortho- doxy , the authenticity and genuineness of Scriptural records, and the scientist, no less zealously, to a scrutiny of the old and a search for the new of physical phenomena. "What is truth?" is the overmastering demand, and to apprehend and comprehend it, at the sacrifice, if need be, of every cherished dogma of the past, the heroic endeavor. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 65 In the van of these modern crusaders, conservatism would say filibusters, as representing, variously, mental philosophy, march James Mill, John S. Mill, and G. H. Lewes ; as representing theology, F. W. Newman, Rowland Williams, Bishop Colenso, Dean Stanley, Prof. Seeley, and James Martineau ; as representing science, Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall.* This modern spirit of inquiry, if not originated, has certainly been fostered by the immense increase in facilities for investiga- tion afforded by the present century. The sciences of geology, analytical chemistry, comparative anatomy, biology, philology, archaeology, and kindred branches, aided by improved mechan- ical a'ppliances, have prodigiously enlarged the boundaries of hu- man knowledge. In this general and thorough quest, stones have been upturned, skeletons exhumed, manuscripts discovered, imple- ments of aboriginal tribes unearthed, strata explored, and ele- mental compounds analyzed, that have yielded, sometimes con- firmatory, sometimes contradictory, and sometimes ambiguous, but always interesting, testimony. Did it come within the limited province of the present work to note the effects of the distinctive influences of the nineteenth cen- tury more especially those of the third quarter of the century upon the oratorical, critical, and sasthetical literature of the day, much might be added to the foregoing. Suffice it to say, that these departments, no less than those already particularized, have been permeated and remolded by the potent leaven of the age.f * Of writers whose views, in their several spheres of thought, have kept closer to the landmarks of general belief, we may name, of philosophers, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir William Hamilton, and J. D. Morell ; of theologians, J. H. Newman, Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop Manning, Dr. Pusey, Robert Hall, Thomas Chalmers, F. W. Robertson. H. L. Mansel, William Thomson, Archbishop Whately, G. S. Faber, Dean Trench, J. B. Lightfoot, Dean Alford, C. H. Spurgeon, John Gumming, F. W, Farrar, and Prof. Fairbairn; of scientists, Sir John Herschel, Sir David Brewster, Michael Faraday, Hugh Miller, William Whewell, Richard Owen, Sir Charles Lyell, and J. H. Stirling. t A few of the best known names in these several departments are, of orators, George Canning, Lord Brougham. Sir James Mackintosh, Daniel O'Connell, Richard L. Sheil, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Lord Macaulay, Lord Stanley, Lord Palmerston, Richard Cobden, Lord Lyndhurst, Earl Grey, Mr. Bright, Mr. T. Milner Gibson, Mr. Roebuck, Rev. Hugh McNeile, Benjamin Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone; of critical writers, Isaac Disraeli, Nathan Drake, Matthew Arnold, R. A. Vaughan, David Masson, and J. C. Shairp ; of writers on art, A. W. Lindsay, Mrs. Jameson, C. L. Eastlake, and John Ruskin ; of philologists, R. C. Trench, Max Miiller, F. W. Far- rar, and Dean Alford. 6* E REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH WRITERS. ALFRED TENNYSON. Not of the howling dervishes of song, Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, Art thou, sweet historian of the heart ! Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong, To thee our love and our allegiance, For thy allegiance to the poet's art. LONGFELLOW. ALFRED TENNYSON was born at Sornersby, in Lincolnshire, England, in 1809. His poetical bent and talent announced themselves while he was yet a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in 1829, he won the Chancellor's medal by his blank verse poem of Timbuctoo. The next year, being still an undergraduate, he published a volume entitled Poems, chiefly Lyrical. Three years later (1833) appeared another volume of Poems, which included as its gems, " Mari- ana in the South," " The Palace of Art," " A Dream of Fair Women," and "The May Queen." A period of nine years passed before the next volume appeared. In this were presented " Morte D'Arthur," " Locksley Hall," " Godiva," "Dora," " Lady Clara Vere De Vere," and other poems. In 1847, The Princess, a Medley, was issued. This " is a fairy tale as senti- mental as those of Shakespeare. Tennyson here thought and felt like a young knight of the Renaissance. The mark of this kind of mind is a superabundance, as it were, a superfluity of sap. In the character of the Princess, as in those of As You Like It, there is an over-fullness of fancy and emotion. They have re- course, to express their thought, to all ages and lands; they carry speech to the most reckless rashness ; they clothe and burden every idea with a sparkling image, which drags and 66 TENNYSON. 67 glitters upon it like a brocade clustered with jewels. They are excessive, refined, ready to weep, laugh, adore, jest, inclined to mingle adoration and jests, urged by a nervous rapture to contrasts, and even extremes. To satisfy the subtlety and su- perabundance of their originality, they need fairy tales and masquerades. In fact, the Princess is both."* From the Pro- logue of this poem we extract the following passage : All within The sward was trim as any garden lawn : And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends From neighbor seats : and there was Ralph himself, A broken statue propt against the wall, As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, Half child, half woman, as she was, had wound A scarf of orange round the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook Glow like a sunbeam : near his tomb a feast Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests, And there we joined them : then the maiden Aunt Took this fair day for text, and from it preached An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great ; but we, unworthier, told Of college : he had climbed across the spikes, And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs ; and one Discussed his tutor, rough to common men But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; And one the Master, as a rogue in grain Veneered with sanctimonious theory. But while they talked, above their heads I saw The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought My book to mind ; and opening this, I read Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, And much I praised her nobleness, and " where " Asked Walter, patting Lilia's head, (she lay Beside him,) "lives there such a woman now?" * Taine's English Literature, Vol. II. 68 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Quick answered Lilia, " There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down : It is but bringing up ; no more than that : You men have done it : how I hate you all ! Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children ! O, I wish That I were some great Princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man's, And I would teach them all that men are taught ; We are twice as quick ! " And here she shook aside The hand that played the patron with her curls. And one said, smiling, " Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ealph Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest, Some boy would spy it." At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandaled foot : " That 's your light way ; but I would make it death For any male thing but to peep at us." Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed ; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she : But Walter hailed a score of names upon her, And " petty Ogress," and " ungrateful Puss," And swore he longed at college, only longed, All else was well, for she-society. They boated and they cricketed ; they talked At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; They lost their weeks ; they vext the souls of deans ; They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends, And caught the blossom of the flying terms, But missed the mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, Part banter, part affection. In Memoriam the most elaborate and tender monody in the language inspired by the memory of Arthur H. Hallam, his dearest and deceased friend, was published in 1850. From the TENNYSON. 69 innumerable passages of beauty and pathos that mark the poem we cull the following : xcix. I climb the hill: from end to end, Of all the landscape underneath, I find no place that does not breathe Some gracious memory of my friend; No gray old grange, or lonely fold, Or low morass and whispering reed, Or simple stile from mead to mead, Or sheep walk up the windy wold; Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw That hears the latest linnet trill, Nor quarry trenched along the hill, And haunted by the wrangling daw; Nor runlet tinkling from the rock; Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves To left and right through meadowy curves, That feed the mothers of the flock ; But each has pleased a kindred eye, And each reflects a kindlier day; And, leaving these, to pass away, I think once more he seems to die. c. Unwatched the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved that beech shall gather brown, This maple burn itself away; Unloved, the sunflower, shining fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air; Unloved, by many a sandy bar, The brook shall babble down the plain, At noon, or when the lesser wain Is twisting round the polar star; Uncared for, gird the windy grove, And flood the haunts of hern and crake; Or into silver arrows break The sailing moon in creek and cove; 70 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow, And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger's child ; As year by year the laborer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills. cxxv. Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring. Love is and was my King and Lord, And will be, though as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and sleep Encompassed by his faithful guard, And hear at times a sentinel Who moves about from place to place And whispers to the worlds of space In the deep night, that all is well. " To one self-toned lyre is every successive lay sung ; the inspi- ration is derived but from one source ; and from the fields of art, science, and philosophy, the poet returns to his home of love in the soul of his friend. Before the chords vibrate we know the sound that will fall on the ear, but the sweetness of the notes, the earnest truth of the thought, the comprehensiveness of the love, relieve them of all monotony. United to every emotion of joy or grief to which the poet gives utterance, is the pure chrysolite of his love, now bright as day ever was in summer clime, now shaded by a mist of tears."* The year 1851 witnessed our poet's coronation as Poet-Laureate, as successor to Wordsworth. Four years later Maud " came out in its originality and excellence of form, in its truth of humanness, and in its large and subtle dramatic unity; came out, too, decked in a new guise of that old lyric loveliness always the salient char- acteristic of the Laureate's books. "f Idyls of the King, comprising the poems of "Enid," "Vivien," "Elaine," and "Guinevere," ap- * Westminster Review, Oct., 1850. t London quarterly Review, April, 1870. TENNYSON. 71 peared in 1859. These "Idyls" were continued in the volume The Holy Grail and Other Poems, published in 1869, and com- pleted in The Last Tournament and Gareth and Lynette, published in 1872. The following extract is taken from "The Passing of Arthur," the same poem a little enlarged which we before noticed under the title of " Morte D'Arthur." So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur's table, man by man, Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord, King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land. On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: "The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep the men I loved. I think that w r e Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. "I perish by this people which I made, Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more, but let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, Holding the sword and how I row'd across And took it, and have worn it, like a king: And, wheresoever I am sung or told In after time, this also shall be known: But now delay not: take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word." 72 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: "It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. A little thing may harm a wounded man. Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewelry. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw : but at last it seem'd Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd There in the many-knotted water-flags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded king. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : "Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? What 'is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? " And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: " I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag." To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: "Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." TENNYSON. 73 Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud: " And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost forever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men." . . . So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded king. Then spake King Arthur, breathing heavily: "What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : "I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds." To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: "Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe unto me! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all iny knights In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; Either for lust of gold, or ttke a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands." Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword, And strongly wheeFd and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. 7 74 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish' d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere, And lightly went the other to the king. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : "Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" The above description is given as reply. And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: "My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words, Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. ... Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream by these Three Queens with crowns of gold and from them rose A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice, an agony Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world. Then murmur'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge," And to the barge they came. Then those three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the king, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, TENNYSON. 75 And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colorless, and like the withered moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne were parch'd with dust; Or clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter'd column lay the king; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, " Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved, Which was an image of the mighty world ; And I, the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds." And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure ! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?' For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 76 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. "But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seest if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island valley of Avilion ; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. These Idyls " are full of beauties in their own peculiar manner of workmanship ; fine ideas abound throughout them ; the music of words is heard through their varying pages in many a perfect lyric; and they possess numerous passages which, for weight of thought weightily set forth, have long ago passed into the permanent sta- tion of household words. In fine, the stock of the English tongue and the tone of the English mind cannot fail to benefit from them. But the men and women do they individually and collectively stand carved in the heart as well as shaped in the mind? To us they have always presented a certain remoteness, totally uncon- nected with the remoteness of the times ; and we have never been able to divest ourselves of the idea that they were being moved by an external hand, holding with a somewhat painful anxiety all their threads, rather than by inner, deep-down impulses, such as would lead us to lay heart to heart with them and share in the burden of their woe, or joy in the brightness of their joy. " It is not that the poems are wanting in pathos; for much that we read in connection with the long-suffering Enid, the love-strick- en Elaine, the vanity-befooled Merlin, the conscience-crushed Guinevere, is moving and eloquent, as well as beautiful ; but if we analyze carefully the nature of the feeling called up by this mo- tive eloquence, we find it to be rather a sense that such things that the poet tells are possible as occurrences to ourselves, or to those personally dear to us, than a vivid carefulness as to what is hap- pening to the persons concerned in the poetic fiction, in a word, a lyric rather than a dramatic pathos." * * London Quarterly Review, April, 1870. TENNYSON. 77 In 1864 Enoch Arden and Other Poems was given to the public. " Enoch Arden is a true idyl. It is a simple story of a seafaring man's sorrows ; not aspiring to the dimensions or pompous march of the strain which sings heroes and their exploits ; but charming the heart by its true pathos, and the ear by a sweet music of its own. . . The poet indulges in no digressions, in no descriptions which are not required for its full comprehension ; he rehearses no long conversations, and makes no unnecessary remarks of his own. On the one hand, there is no sentimental dawdling over the sad situations which occur in the narrative ; on the other, there is no hurry in the march, and no excessive compression of any of its portions. . . Amongst other things we have been struck by the delicate management of that slight infusion of the supernatural which adds dignity to its humble hero's fate. . . But if the Lau- reate thus knows how to deal with the unwarranted beliefs of the simple, and how to extract from them poetic embellishment, he also knows how to make a noble use of their religious faith. And it is not too much to say that some of the most beautiful passages in Enoch Arden are those in which Holy Scripture is reverently quoted. "Another secret of the Laureate's strength is the way in which he suits his background of landscape to the -figures in his fore- ground, and so pictures the aspects of nature as seen by a human eye and felt by a human heart; whose joys they reflect by their brightness, or trouble with apprehension by their gloom ; whose sorrow they soften by their mute sympathy,' or increase by the seeming mockery of sharp and violent contrast."* The year 1875 witnessed Tennyson's appearance in a new poetic guise that of dramatist, Queen Mary being the theme. The fol- lowing passage is from ACT V. SCENE I. London. Hall in the Palace. Enter PHILIP. Philip. Sir Nicholas tells you true, And you must look to Calais when I go. Mary. Go ! must you go, indeed again so soon ? Why, nature's licensed vagabond, the swallow, That might live always in the sun's warm heart, Stays longer here in our poor north than you : Knows where he nested ever comes again. Philip. And, Madam, so shall I. * Blackwood's Magazine, Nov.. 1864. 7* 78 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Mary. O, will you ? will you ? I am faint with fear that you will come no more. Philip. Ay, ay ; but many voices call me hence. Mary. Voices I hear unhappy rumors nay, I say not, I believe. What voices call you Dearer than mine that should be dearest to you? Alas, my Lord ! what voices and how many ? Philip. The voices of Castile and Aragon, Granada, Naples, Sicily, and Milan, The voices of Franche-Comte' and the Netherlands, The voices of Peru and Mexico, Tunis, and Oran, and the Philippines, And all the fair spice-islands of the East. Mary (admiringly). You are the mightiest monarch upon earth, I but a little Queen; and so, indeed, Need you the more; and wherefore could you not Helm the huge vessel of your state, my liege, Here, by the side of her who loves you most? Philip. No, Madam, no! a candle in the sun Is all but smoke a star beside the moon Is all but lost ; your people will not crown me Your people are as cheerless as your clime ; Hate me and mine: witness the brawls, the gibbets. Here swings a Spaniard there an Englishman; The peoples are unlike as their complexion; Yet will I be your swallow and return But now I cannot bide. Mary. Not to help me? They hate me also for my love to you, My Philip ; and these judgments on the land Harvestless autumns, horrible agues, plague Philip. The blood and sweat of heretics at the stake Is God's best dew upon the barren field. Burn more! Mary. I will, I will; and you will stay. Philip. Have I not said? Madam, I came to sue Your Council and yourself to declare war. Mary. Sir, there are many English in your ranks To help you battle. Philip. So far, good. I say I came to see your Council and yourself To declare war against the King of France. TENNYSON. 79 Mary. Not to see me? Philip. Ay, Madam, to see you. Unalterably and pesteringly fond! [Aside. But, soon or late, you must have war with France ; King Henry warms your traitors at his hearth. Carew is there, and Thomas Stafford there. Courtenay, belike Mary. A fool and featherhead ! Philip. Ay, but they use his -name. In brief, this Henry Stirs up your land against you to the intent That you may lose your English heritage. And then, your Scottish namesake marrying The Dauphin, he would weld France, England, Scotland, Into one sword to hack at Spain and me. Mary. And yet the Pope is now colleagued with France; You make your wars upon him down in Italy : Philip, can that be well? Philip. Content you, Madam; You must abide my judgment, and my father's, Who deem it a most just and holy war. The Pope would cast the Spaniard out of Naples : He calls us worse than Jews, Moors, Saracens. The Pope has push'd his horns beyond his mitre Beyond his province. Now, Duke Alva will but touch him on the horns, And he withdraws ; and of his holy head For Alva is true son of the true church No hair is harmed. Will you not help me here? Mary. Alas! the Council will not hear of war. They say your wars are not the wars of England. They will not lay more taxes on a land So hunger-nipt and wretched; and you know The crown is poor. We have given the church-lands back. The nobles would not; nay, they clapt their hands Upon their swords when ask'd; and therefore God Is hard upon the people. What's to be done? Sir, I will move them in your cause again, And me will raise us loans and subsidies Among the merchants ; and Sir Thomas Gresham Will aid us. There is Antwerp and the Jews. Philip. Madam, my thanks. Mary. And you will stay your going? Philip. And further to discourage and lay lame The plots of France, altho' you love her not, 80 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. You must proclaim Elizabeth your heir. She stands between you and the Queen of Scots. Mary. The Queen of Scots at least is Catholic. Philip. Ay, Madam, Catholic; but I will not have The King of France the King of England too. Mary. But she's a heretic, and when I am gone, Brings the new learning back. Philip. It must be done. You must proclaim Elizabeth your heir. Mary. Then it is done; but you will stay your going Somewhat beyond your settled purpose? Philip. No ! Mary. What, not one day? Philip. You beat upon the rock. Mary. And I am broken there. Philip. Is this a place To wail in, Madam? what! a public hall. Go in, I pray you. Mary. Do not seem so changed. Say go ; but only say it lovingly. Philip. You do mistake. I am not one to change. I never loved you more. Mary. Sire, I obey you. Come, quickly. Philip. Ay. [Exit MARY. "To sum np our opinion of Queen Mary, we are inclined to think it the best specimen of the literary drama which has been written in our time. It is, at least, admirable in form. . . Of the dra- matic spirit, in the Shakespearian sense, the play has nothing. It lacks the personal interest which might recall the genius of national action, and excite the ardor of patriotism by the representation 011 the stage of great historic examples. It is guilty, too, of the blun- der, at once historic and dramatic, of making a heroine out of Bloody Mary. . . But as an intellectual exercise, as a scientific study of abstract motives, as a stimulant of those subtle ideas which the luxurious modem imagination delights to substitute for action, as a monument of ingenious and refined expression, in all these points Mr. Tennyson's drama may long continue to afford pleasure to the reader." * In 1876 the Laureate favored his numerous admirers with a * British Quarterly Review, 1875. TENNYSON. 81 second dramatic poem, entitled Harold. It comprehends the pe- riod of English history between the death of Edward the Confessor and the battle of Hastings, and is interwoven with a touching love story. Since the above date, Lover's Tale, The Revenge a ballad, and several minor poems have appeared. "When Tennyson published his first poems, the critics found fault with them. He held his peace. For ten (nine) years no one saw his name in a review, nor even in a publisher's catalogue. But when he appeared again before the public, his books had made their way alone and under the surface, and he passed at once for the greatest poet of his country and his time. "Men were surprised, and with a pleasing surprise. The potent generation of poets who had just died out, had passed like a whirl- wind. Like their forerunners of the sixteenth century, they had carried away and hurried everything to its extremes. . . Men wanted to rest after so many efforts and so much excess. Quitting the imaginative, sentimental, and satanic school, Tennyson appeared exquisite. All the forms and ideas which had pleased them were found in him, but purified, modulated, set in a splendid style. He completed an age; he enjoyed that which had agitated others; his poetry was like the lovely evenings in summer : the outlines of the landscape are then the same as in the day-time ; but the splendor of the dazzling dome is dulled ; the reinvigorated flowers lift them- selves up, and the cairn sun, on the horizon, harmoniously blends in a network of crimson rays the woods and meadows which it just before burned by its brightness. " What first attracted people were Tennyson's portraits of women. Adeline, Eleanore, Lilian, the May Queen, were keepsake charac- ters from the hand of a lover and an artist. . . I have translated many ideas and many styles, but I shall not attempt to translate one of these portraits. Each word of them is like a tint, curiously deepened or shaded by the neighboring tint, with all the boldness and success of happiest refinement. The least alteration would obscure all. And there could not be too much of an art so just, so consummate, in painting the charming prettinesses, the sudden hauteurs, the half-blushes, the imperceptible and fleeting caprices of feminine beauty. He opposes, harmonizes them, makes them, as it were, into a gallery. . . "He caressed them (all things refined and exquisite) so carefully, that his verses appeared at times far-fetched, affected, almost eu- phuistic. He gave them too much adornment and polishing; he seemed like an epicurean in style as well as in beauty. He looked for pretty rustic scenes, touching remembrances, curious or pure F 82 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. sentiments. He made them into elegies, pastorals, and idyls. He wrote in every accent, and delighted in entering into the feelings of all ages. He wrote of St. Agnes, St. Simeon Stylites, Ulysses, (Enone, Sir Galahad, Lady Clare, Fatima, the Sleeping Beauty. He imitated alternately Homer and Chaucer, Theocritus and Spenser, the old English poets and the old Arabian poets. He gave life successively to the little real events of English life, and the great fantastic adventurer of extinguished chivalry. He was like those musicians who use their bow in the service of all mas- ters. He strayed through nature and history, with no pre-occupa- tion, without fierce passion, bent on feeling, relishing, culling from all parts, in the flower-stand of the drawing-room, and in the rustic hedge-rows, the rare or wild flowers or scent or beauty could charm or amuse him. Men entered into his pleasure; smelt the graceful bouquets which he knew so well how to put together; preferred those which he took from the country; found that his talent was nowhere more easy. They admire'd the minute obser- vation and refined sentiment which knew how to grasp and interpret the fleeting aspects." * "A poet, like other men, is beset by the difficulty of doing justice in his representations to forms of thought opposite to his own, and to manifold phases of feeling which his judgment and education teach him to regard with suspicion or even condemnation. Yet this the poet must do, or he ceases any longer to hold the key to men's inner hearts and deepest emotions. . . We do not say that Tennyson is without any portion of this last loftiest characteristic; but we submit that his didactic and moralizing vein is occasionally suicidal to- the accomplishment of his poetic purposes; and there is in many of his poems an absence of that comprehensive spirit of self-identification with every conceivable form of thought and feeling and all possible conditions of humanity, which is the very life-blood of a poet given for all time."f "Whatever be the nature of the Laureate's poems from time to time issued, there is one thing which we seem, so far, to be always, with trifling exceptions, safe in expecting; namely, samples of the English tongue which, regarded merely as terse, crisp, and absolutely compact specimens of expression, almost no one can rival. Tennyson has reduced the combined clarity, brevity, and pithiness of our language to the lowest term yet attained; and probably there is hardly a keenly-observant writer of the day, whether he write in prose or in verse, but has largely benefited by the simple linguistic refinements of the Laureate. " J * Taine's EnglMi Literature, Vol. II. f Westminster Review, Oct., 1864. J London Quarterly Review, April, 1870. ROBERT BROWNING. ROBERT BROWNING was born in 1812, at Camberwell, a suburb of London, and was educated at London University. Several of the earliest years of his manhood were spent in Italy, a country whose art, whose social, monastic, mediaeval, and physical life, and whose history imparted, in after years, a pre- dominating color to his poetical creations. At twenty-three, Browning entered the lists where poet- knights contest their claims, as author of Paracelsus. It is a dramatic poem, re-enacting the psychological life of that am- bitious alchemist, magician, and physician who aspired to know the essence of nature's mysteries. This poem was followed, in 1837, by his tragedy of Strafford, a not-very-happy attempt at portraying the English life of the times of Charles I. The dra- matic poem of Sordello, founded upon incidents in the history of the Mantuan poet of that name whom Dante imagines him- self to have met in purgatory, appeared in 1840. Next came, in 1843, A Blot on the 'Scutcheon, a tragedy of singular in- tensity. The interval between 1842 and 1846 was fertile in a number of poems, of which we may name King Victor and King Charles a tragedy ; Columbe's Birthday a play ; The Return of the Druses and Luria tragedies ; A Souls Tragedy, and Dra- matic Romances and Lyrics. From the last we select AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. You know, we French stormed Eatisbon: A mile or so away On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day ; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind. Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, 83 84 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall," Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew Until he reached the mound. Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy : You hardly could suspect (So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came thro'.) You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two. "Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace, We've got you Ratisbon! The Marshal's in the market-place, And you'll be there anon To see your flag-bird flap his vans Where I, to heart's desire, Perched him ! " The Chiefs eye flashed ; his plans Soared up again like fire. The Chief's eye flashed; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes: " You 're wounded ! " " Nay," his soldier's pride Touched to the quick, he said: "I'm killed, Sire!" And, his chief beside, Smiling the boy fell dead. Browning married, in 1846, the distinguished poetess, Elizabeth Barrett, since when, until recently, he has resided in Italy, for the most part at Florence. From this home of art was issued, in 1850, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, and Pippa Passes. " For any one who desires with small study to know this poet, Pippa Passes is the work to be read. It runs through all his octaves of pathos and humor, passion, character. Hence it is as full of fantastic life as a masquer- ade. In most of the other dramas Italian subtlety, ecclesiastical or otherwise, is the leading idea. It struggles through King Victor and King Charles, fails in the Return of the Druses, breaks a Titanic barbarian heart in Luria, laughs to scorn all patriotism, all sin- cerity, in A Sours Tragedy. Its germ is the character of Monsignor, in Pippa Passes."* Let us hear Pippa's musings on a New-year's Day in her mean chamber at Asolo. * British Quarterly Rcriri*. March, 1869. ROBERT BROWNING. 85 Worship whom else ? For am I not, this day, Whate'er I please? What shall I please to-day? My morning, noon, eve, night how spend my day ? To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk, The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk : But, this one day, I have leave to go And play out my fancy's fullest games: I may fancy all day and it shall be so That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo! See ! up the hill-side yonder, through the morning, Some one shall love me, as the world calls love : I am no less than Ottima, take warning ! The gardens, and the great stone house above, And other house for shrubs, all glass in front, Are mine ; where Sebald steals, as he is wont, To court me, while old Luca yet reposes ; And therefore, till the shrub-house door uncloses, I ... what, now? give abundant cause for prate About me Ottima, I mean of late, Too bold, too confident she '11 still face down The spitemllest of talkers in our town How we talk in the little town below! But love, love, love there's better love, I know! This foolish love was only day's first offer; I choose my next love to defy the scoffer: For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally Out of Possango church at noon? Their house looks over Orcana valley Why should I not be the bride as soon As Ottima? For I saw, beside, Arrive last night that little bride -=- Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash Of the pale, snow-pure cheek and black bright tresses, Blacker than all except the black eyelash; I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses! So strict was she, the veil .Should cover close her pale Pure cheeks a bride to look at and scarce touch, Scarce touch, remember, Jules ! for are not such Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature, As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature? A soft and easy life these ladies lead! Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed 8 86 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, Keep that foot its lady primness, Let those ankles never swerve From their exquisite reserve, Yet have to trip along the streets like me, All but naked to the knee! How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss So startling as her real first infant kiss? Oh, no not envy, this ! Not envy, sure ! for if you gave me Leave to take or to refuse, In earnest, do you think I'd choose That sort of new love to enslave me? Mine should have lapped me round from the beginning; As little fear of losing it as winning! Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives, And only parents' love can last our lives: At eve the son and mother, gentle pair, Commune inside our turret; what prevents My being Luigi? while that mossy lair Of lizards through the winter-time, is stirred With each to each imparting sweet intents For this new-year, as brooding bird to bird (For I observe of late, the evening walk Of Luigi and his mother, always ends Inside our ruined turret, where they talk, Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends) Let me be cared about, kept out of harm, And schemed for, safe in love as with a charm ; Let me be Luigi! ... If I only knew What was my mother's face my father, too ! Nay, if you come to that, best love of all Is God's; then why not have God's love befall Myself as, in the Palace by the Dome, Monsignor? who to-night will bless the home Of his dead brother; and God will bless in turn That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly burn With love for all men: I, to-night at least, Would be that holy and beloved priest! Now wait! even I already seem to shr.re In God's love: what does New-year's hymn declare? What other meaning do these verses bear? All service ranks the same with God: If now, as formerly He trod ROBERT BROWNING. 87 Paradise, His presence fills Our earth, each only as God wills Can work God's puppets, best and worst, Are we ; there is no last nor first. Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain than this, ye call A "great event" should come to pass, Than that f Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in, or exceed ! And more of it and more of it ! oh, yes I will pass by, and see their happiness, And envy none being just as great, no doubt, Useful to men, and dear to God, as they! A pretty thing to care about So mightily, this single holiday! But let the sun shine! Wherefore repine? With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, Down the grass-path grey with dew, Under the pine-wood, blind with boughs, Where the swallow never flew As yet, nor cicale dared carouse Dared carouse! Men and Women followed in 1855 ; Dramatis Personce, in 1864 ; and The Eing and the Boole, in 1869. The gist of the last poem we will let the poet himself disclose. Count Guido Franceschini the Aretine, Descended of an ancient house, though poor, A beak-nosed, bushy-bearded, black-haired lord, Lean, pallid, low of stature yet robust, Fifty years old, having four years ago Married Pompilia Comparini, young, . Good, beautiful, at Rome, where she was born, And brought her to Arezzo, where they lived Unhappy lives, whatever curse the cause, This husband, taking four accomplices, Followed this wife to Rome, where she was fled From their Arezzo to find peace again, In convoy, eight months earlier, of a priest, Aretine also, of still nobler birth, Guiseppe Caponsacchi, and caught her there Quiet in a villa on a Christinas night, 88 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. With only Pietro and Violante by, Both her putative parents ; killed the three, Aged, they, seventy each, and she seventeen, And, two weeks since, the mother of his babe First-born and heir to what the style was worth O' the Guido who determined, dared and did This deed just as he purposed point by point. Then, bent upon escape, but hotly pressed, And captured with his co-mates that same night, He, brought to trial, stood on this defence Injury to his honor caused the act; That since his wife was false (as manifest By flight from home in such companionship), Death, punishment deserved of the false wife And faithless parents who abetted her I' the flight aforesaid, wronged nor God nor man. " Not false she, nor yet faithless they," replied The accuser ; " cloaked and masked this murder glooms ; True was Pompilia, loyal, too, the pair ; Out of the man's own heart this monster curled, This crime coiled with connivancy at crime, His victim's breast, he tells you, hatched and reared ; Uncoil we and stretch stark the worm of hell ! " A month the trial swayed this way and that Ere judgment settled down on Guide's guilt ; Then was the Pope, that good Twelfth Innocent, Appealed to: who well weighed what went before, Affirmed the guilt and gave the guilty doom. Of the eight repetitions of this story, we select from Pom- pilia's her dying words. For that most woeful man my husband once, Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath, I pardon him? So far as lies in me, I give him for his good the life he takes, Praying the world will therefore acquiesce. Let him make God amends, none, none to me Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate Mockingly styled him husband and me wife, Himself this way at least pronounced divorce, Blotted the marriage-bond : this blood of mine Flies forth exultingly at any door, Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow. We shall not meet in this world nor the next, But where will God be absent? In His face Is light, but in His shadow healing too : ROBERT BROWNING. 80 Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed! And as my presence was importunate, My earthly good, temptation and a snare, Nothing about me but drew somehow down His hate upon me, somewhat so excused Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him, May my evanishment forevermore Help further to relieve the heart that cast Such object of its natural loathing forth ! So he was made; he nowise made himself: I could not love him, but his mother did. His soul has never lain beside my soul ; But for the unresisting body, thanks! He burned that garment spotted by the flesh ! Whatever he touched is rightly ruined: plague It caught, and disinfection it had craved Still but for Guido ; I am saved through him So as by fire; to him thanks and farewell! Even for my babe, my boy, there's safety thence From the sudden death of me, I mean : we poor Weak souls, how we endeavor to be strong! I was already using up my life, This portion, now, should do him such a good, This other go to keep off such an ill! The great life; see, a breath and it is gone! So is detached, so left all by itself The little life, the fact which means so much. Shall not God stoop the kindlier to His work, His marvel of creation, foot would crush, Now that the hand He trusted to receive And hold it, lets the treasure fall perforce? The better: He shall have in orphanage His own way all the clearlier: if my babe Outlive the hour and he has lived two weeks It is through God who knows I am not by. Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black, And sets the tongue, might lie so long at rest, Trying to talk? Let us leave God alone! Why should I doubt He will explain in time What I feel now, but fail to find the words? My babe nor was, nor is, nor yet shall be Count Guido Franceschini's child at all Only his mother's, born of love, not hate! So shall I have my rights in after-time. It seems absurd, impossible to-day ; So seems so much else not explained but known. 8* 90 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. " A poem of twenty-one thousand lines is based on a story which would suit a contemporary sensation novelist. The old vein of Italian subtlety runs through it. The construction of the poem is quite original. The story is told over and over again from va- rious points of view. The effect produced upon the mind resem- bles that which results from reading through a long trial in the newspapers evidence in extenso, speeches of all the counsel, the judge's summing up, and the subsequent comments of a dozen different journals. " There are two important objections to this poem, considered as a work of art. It is a primary canon of criticism that a great poem can be based only on a great human action. But the character and conduct of Guido Franceschini are mean and ignoble : he is a creature wholly contemptible. . . And the construction of the poem is, in our opinion, as faulty as its action ; to give eight ver- sions of the same story, yet nowhere to tell the story in its true and direct form, is of course original, but is certainly inartistic. It is the newspaper in blank verse. . . "Browning's method is, however, saved from being wearisome by his exercise of that peculiar faculty which he alone possesses. When, for example, Guido is pleading or confessing, it is not the rascal Count, as a great dramatist would make it, but the poet himself, who for the moment is acting Guido. He thrusts himself with marvelous skill into many characters, but he never forgets himself. You hear the poet's voice behind the mask. We find in this poem the same ruggedness of expression, the same difficulty of clothing thought in fit words, which pertained to all its pred- ecessors." * A volume of Browning's poems published in 1872 included Fifine at the Fair, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, and Herve Riel. Of the first of these, " The scene is at Browning's favorite Breton site of Pornic ; the husband and the wife go to look at a traveling show that has come into the town over night, and they discuss the prin- ciple which gives to social outcasts and pariahs a self-contentment of their own. He, the husband, gives money to, and makes too much of, a saucy Gipsy girl of the troupe ; has to explain his fancy and defend it; take his wife a walk, and tells her, with all sorts of philosophical amplifications and digressions, the meaning and moral of such fancies, and how they do her no wrong; profounds Platonic ideas of the relation of real to ideal form ; shows how to the esoteric mind the Fifines and their tribe have their perfection and true place in the universe ; gets into the deepest generalities of life * British Quarterly Review, March, 18G9. ROBERT BROWNING. 91 and religion, phenomenon and noumenon ; explains on the way how there is one way of winning power over men, and another over women ; relates dreams, visions, masques, all invented to figure forth his views of human dealing and destiny. . . Say one must its form is wilfully uncouth and entangled, that suggestions and analogies, clutched at as many of these are, will surely not come out sound thought when they are reduced into normal form."* Here is the show and its heroine. Oh, trip and skip, Elvire ! Link arm in arm with me : Like husband and like wife, together let us see The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage. Now, who supposed the night would play us such a prank ? That what was raw and brown, rough pole and shaven plank, Mere bit of hoarding, half by trestle propped, half tub, Would flaunt it forth as brisk as butterfly from grub ? This comes of sun and air, of autumn afternoon, And Pornic and Saint Gille, whose feast affords the boon, This scaffold turned parterre, this flower-bed in full blow, Bateleurs, baladines ! We shall not miss the show ! They pace and promenade ; they presently will dance : What good were else i' the drum and fife ? O pleasant land of France ! Who saw them make their entry ? At wink of eve, be sure, They love to steal a march, nor lightly risk the lure. They keep their treasure hid, nor state ( improvident ) Before the time is ripe, each wonder of their tent, Yon six-legged sheep, to wit, and he who beats a gong, Lifts cap, and waves salute, exhilarates the throng, Their ape of many years and much adventure, grim And gray with pitying fools who find a joke in him. Or, best, the human beauty, Mimi, Toinette, Fifine, Tricot fines down if fat, pudding plumps up if lean, Ere, shedding petticoat, modesty and such toys, They bounce forth, squalid girls transformed to gamesome boys. No, no, thrice, Pornic, no ! Perpend the authentic tale ! 'T was not for every Gawain to gaze upon the Grail ! But whoso went his rounds when flew bat, flitted midge, Might hear across the dusk where both roads join the bridge, Hard by the little port creak a slow caravan, A chimneyed house on wheels ; so shyly-sheathed, began * The Fortnightly Review, July, 1872. 92 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To broaden out the bud, which, bursting unaware, Now takes away our breath, queen-tulip of the Fair ! Yet morning promised much ; for, pitched and slung and reared On terrace 'neath the tower, 'twixt tree and tree appeared An airy structure : how the pennon from its dome, Frenetic to be free, makes one red stretch for home ! The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy ; Since what lolls full in front, a furlong from the booth, But ocean-idleness, sky-blue, and millpond-smooth ? Go boldly, enter booth, disburse the coin at bar Of doorway where presides the master of the troop, And forthwith you survey his Graces in a group, Live picture, picturesque no doubt, and close to life : His sisters, right and left ; the Grace in front, his wife. Next, who is this performs the feat of the trapeze ? Lo, she is launched : look, fie, the fairy ! how she flees O'er all those heads thrust back ! mouths, eyes, one gape and stare. No scrap of skirt impedes free passage through the air, Till, plumb on the other side, she lights, and laughs again, That fairy form, whereof each muscle, nay, each vein, The curious may inspect, his daughter that he sells Each rustic for five sous. Desiderate aught else O' the vender? As you leave his show, why, joke the man : " You cheat : your six-legged sheep, I recollect, began Both life and trade, last year, trimmed properly and dipt As the Twin-headed Babe and Human Nondescript." What does he care ? You paid his price, may pass your jest, So values he repute, good fame, and all the rest. This way, this way, Fifine ! Here 's she shall make my thoughts be surer what they mean ! First let me read the signs, portray your past mistake The gipsy's foreign self, no swarth our sun could bake, Yet where 's a woolly trace, degrades the wiry hair ? And note the Greek-nymph nose, and oh, my Hebrew pair Of eye and eye, o'erarched by velvet of the mule, That swim as in a sea, that dip and rise and roll, Spilling the light around ! while either ear is cut Thin as a dusk-leaved rose carved from a cocoanut. And then her neck ! now, grant you had the power to deck, Just as your fancy pleased, the bistre-length of neck ; Could lay, to shine against it shade, a moon-like row Of pearl, each round and white as bubble Cupids blow ROBERT BROWNING. 93 Big out of mother's milk : what pearl-moon would surpass That string of mock-turquoise, those almandines of glass, Where girlhood terminates ? for with breasts'-birth commence The boy, and page-costume, till pink and impudence End admirably all : complete, the creature trips Our way now, brings sunshine upon her spangled hips, As here she fronts us full, with pose half frank, half fierce ! " To read Browning one must exert himself, but he will exert himself to some purpose. If he finds the meaning difficult of access, it is always worth his effort if he has to dive deep he rises with his pearl. Indeed, in Browning's best poems he makes us feel that what we took for obscurity in him was superficiality in ourselves. We are far from meaning that all his obscurity is like the obscurity of the stars, dependent simply on the feebleness of man's vision. On the contrary, our admiration for his genius only makes us feel the more acutely that its inspirations are too often straightened by the garb of whimsical mannerisms with which he clothes them. . . " There is nothing sickly or dreamy in him : he has a clear eye, a vigorous grasp, and courage to utter what he sees and handles. His robust energy is informed by a subtle, penetrating spirit, and this blending of opposite qualities gives bis mind a rough piquancy that reminds one of a russet apple. His keen glance pierces into all the secrets of human character, but, being as thoroughly alive to the outward as to the inward, he reveals those secrets, not by a process of dissection, but by dramatic painting. "Browning has no soothing strains, no chants, no lullabies; he rarely gives" voice to our melancholy, still less to our gaiety; he sets our thoughts at work rather than our emotions. But though eminently a thinker, he is as far as possible from prosaic; his mode of presentation is always concrete, artistic, and, when it is most felicitous, dramatic. . . The greatest deficiency we feel in his poetry is its want of music. His lyrics, instead of tripping along with easy grace, or rolling with a torrent-like grandeur, seem to be struggling painfully under a burden too heavy for them ; and many of them have the disagreeable, puzzling effect of a charade, rather than the touching or animating influence of a song. " We have said that he is never prosaic ; and it is remarkable that in his blank verse, though it is often colloquial, we are never shocked by the sudden lapse into prose. Wordsworth is, on the whole, a far more musical poet than Browning, yet we remem- ber no line in Browning so prosaic as many of Wordsworth's. But 94 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. we must also say that though Browning never flounders helplessly 'on the plain, he rarely soars above a certain table-land a footing between the level of prose and the topmost heights of poetry. He does not take possession of our souls and set them aglow, as the greatest poets the greatest artists do. We admire his power, we are not subdued to it. Language with him does not seem spon- taneously to link itself into song, as sounds link themselves into melody in the mind of the creative musician ; he rather seems by his commanding power to compel language into verse. He has chosen verse as his medium ; but of our greatest poets we feel that they had no choice: verse chose them."* In 1873 was published Red Cotton Nightcap Country, which was followed in 1875 by The Inn Album and Aristophanes' Apology, in 1876 by Pacchiarotto, and in 1878 by La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Croisic. Summing up the various merits and demerits of this last poem, an able review remarks : " After all, who of our poets is so full- minded as he [Browning], pouring without stint from treasures which run over with richness ? The alertness, the compression of thought, the riotous expansion of fancy, the plunge into torrents of life, the sudden calm of an awed mind, all these are here in this book as in his earlier poems, and we have no fears that Browning will really grow old any faster than we do." f * British Quarterly Review, 1864. f Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1876. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. ELIZABETH BARRETT was born in London, in 1809. Sur- rounding affluence, and refinement, and a precocious literary bent conspired to render our poetess remarkable from her very childhood. When only ten she had manifested a faculty for composing both in prose and poetry, and when fifteen her prom- ising efforts were well known to quite a circle of friends. Her first volume, entitled Essay on Mind and other Poems, was pub- lished when she was but seventeen. The work, however, which first really brought Miss Barrett into public notice was her translation of Prometheus Bound, which was published in 1833. As the achievement of a young lady, this work was regarded with much indulgence, but as a worthy rendition of ^Eschylus a marked failure. The poetess herself, before long, came to realize its weakness, for she made a subsequent and much more successful effort at a new rendering. About 1837, the, death by drowning before her eyes of a much-loved brother so completely shocked Miss Barrett's nat- urally delicate constitution as to render necessary almost soli- tary confinement in a dark room for several years. It was during these years of seclusion chiefly, and when her mind, abstracted from the sight and sympathy of the sensible world, directed its large native energies to the contemplation of spir- itual and divine realities, that she composed such poems as The Seraphim, A Drama of Exile, Isabel's Child, The Soul's Traveling, and several of her most touching sonnets. Her emergence from this state of intense subjectivity and re- ligious meditation into that of social and cheery experience is seen in the Sonnets from the Portuguese and Lady Geraldines Courtship. From the Sonnets. we select the following three : 95 96 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Yes, call me by my pet name ! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear Fond voices, which, being drawn and reconciled Into the music of Heaven's undefiled, Call me no longer. Silence on the bier, While /call God . . . call God! So let thy mouth Be heir to those who are now examinate : Gather the north flowers to complete the south, And catch the early love up in the late ! Yes, call me by that name, and I, in truth, With the same heart, will answer, and not w r ait. With the same heart, I said, I '11 answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name Lo, the vain promise ! Is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy ? When called before, I told how hastily I dropped my flowers, or brake off from a game, To run and answer with the smile that came At play last moment, and went on with me Through my obedience. When I answer now, I drop a grave thought ; break from solitude : Yet still my heart goes to thee, . . ponder how. . . Not as to a single good, but all my good ! Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow That no child's foot could run fast as this blood. If I leave all for thee, will thou exchange And be all to me ? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing, and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors . . . another home than this ? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change ? That 's hardest ! If to conquer love has tried, To conquer grief tries more ... as all things prove : For grief indeed is love and grief beside. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love Yet love me wilt thou ? Open thine heart wide, And fold within the wet w r ings of thy dove. " In this series of sonnets we have unquestionably one of Miss Barrett's most beautiful and worthy productions. In style they are ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 97 openly indeed by the title avowedly an imitation of the four- teenth and fifteenth century love-poetry ; but to imitate this is so nearly equivalent to imitating nature of the simplest and loftiest kind, that it is scarcely to be spoken of as a defect of originality. The forty-four sonnets constitute consecutive stanzas of what is properly speaking one poem. They are lofty, simple, and passion- ate not at all the less passionate for being highly intellectual and even metaphysical." * In 1846 Miss Barrett married Robert Browning, the poet, and re- moved to Florence, Italy. " The proud and happy bride of a man of genius, she wakes to new interests ; the world itself grows large, and present, and vivid before her. Its manifold progress, its politics, its social hopes and activities, and especially the great political revolution she witnessed in Italy, all these take possession of her heart, and impress a new character on her poetry. She who had lived only in the past or the future, lives now in the present ; she who had lived only for immortality, lives also in the grand life of humanity." f These new experiences were embodied in the poem called Casa Guidi Windows, published in 1851. The following extracts will re- veal, to some extent, the leading features of this poem: The day was such a day As Florence owes the sun. The sky above, Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay, And palpitate in glory like a dove Who has flown too fast, full-hearted ! take away The image ! for the heart of man beat higher That day in Florence, flooding all her streets And piazzas with a tumult and desire. The people, with accumulated heats, And faces turned one way, as if one fire Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats, And went up toward the palace Pitti wall, To thank their Grand-duke, who, not quite of course, Had graciously permitted, at their call, The citizens to use their civic force To guard their civic homes. So, one and all, The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source Of this new good, at Florence ; taking it As good so far, presageful of more good, The first torch of Italian freedom, lit * North British Review, Feb., 1857. t British Quarterly Review, Oct., 1861. 9 G 98 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To toss in the next tiger's face who should Approach too near them in a greedy fit, The first pulse of an even flow of blood, To prove the level of Italian veins Toward rights perceived and granted. How we gazed From Casa Guidi windows, while, in trains Of orderly procession banners raised, And intermittent bursts of martial strains Which died upon the shout, as if amazed By gladness beyond music they passed on ! The magistracy, with insignia, passed ; And all the people shouted in the sun, And all the thousand windows which had cast A ripple of silks, in blue and scarlet, down, As if the houses overflowed at last, Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes. The lawyers passed ; and still arose the shout, And hands broke from the windows to surprise Those grave, calm brows with bay -tree leaves thrown out. The priesthood passed : the friars, with worldly-wise, Keen sidelong glances from their beards about The street to see who shouted ! many a monk Who takes a long rope in the waist, was there ! Whereat the popular exultation drunk With indrawn " vivas/' the whole sunny air, While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk A cloud of kerchiefed hands ! " the church makes fair Her welcome in the new Pope's name." Ensued The black sign of the " martyrs ! " name no name, But count the graves in silence. Next, were viewed The artists ; next, the trades ; and after came The people, flag and sign, and rights as good, And very loud the shout was for that same Motto, " II Popolo," II Popolo, The word means dukedom, empire, majesty, And kings in such an hour might read it so. And next, with banners, each in his degree, Deputed representatives a-row Of every separate state of Tuscany : Siena's she-wolf, bristling on the fold Of the first flag, preceded Pisa's hare ; And Massa's lion floated calm in gold, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. Pienza's following with his silver stare ; Arezzo's steed pranced clear from bridle-hold, And well might shout our Florence, greeting there These, and more brethren ! Last, the world had sent The various children of her teeming flanks Greeks, English, French as if to a parliament Of lovers of her Italy in ranks, Each bearing its land's symbols reverent ; At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof Arose ! the very house-walls seemed to bend, The very windows, up from door to roof, Flashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend With passionate looks, the gesture's whirling off A hurricane of leaves I Three hours did end While all these passed ; and ever in the crowd, Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept Their beards moist, shouted ; some few laughed aloud, And none asked any why they laughed and wept : Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed Did it move warmly ; two months' babies leapt Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black, Wide, glittering eyes looked elsewhere ; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back ; And peasant maidens, smoothly 'tired and tressed, Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings ; while old blind men would not rest, But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw. And Vallombrosa, we two went to see Last June, beloved companion, where sublime The mountains live in holy families, And the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb Half up their breasts ; just stagger as they seize Some gray crag drop back with it many a time, And straggle blindly down the precipice ! The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick That June day, knee-deep, with dead beechen leaves, As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick, And his eyes blind. O waterfalls And forests ! sound and silence ! mountains bare, 100 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. That leap up peak by peak, and catch the palls Of purple and silver mist to rend and share With one another, at electric calls Of life in the sunbeams, till we cannot dare Fix your shapes, count your number ! we must think Your beauty and your glory helped to fill The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink, He never more was thirsty when God's will Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link By which he had drawn from Nature's visible The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this, He sang of Adam's paradise and smiled, Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is The place divine to English man and child And pilgrims leave their souls here in a kiss. A cry is up in England, which doth ring The hollow world through, that for ends of trade And virtue, and God's better worshipping, We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace, And leave those rusty wars that eat the soul, Beside their clippings at our golden fleece. I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole Of immemorial, undeciduous trees, Would write, as lovers use, upon a scroll The holy name of Peace, and set it high Where none could pluck it down. On trees, I say, Not upon gibbets ! With the greenery Of dewy branches and the flowery May, Sweet mediation betwixt earth and sky Providing, for the shepherd's holiday ! Not upon gibbets ! though the vulture leaves The bones to quiet, which he first picked bare. Not upon dungeons ! though the wretch who grieves And groans within, stirs less the outer air Than any little field-mouse stirs the sheaves. Not upon chain-bolts ! though the slave's despair Has dulled his helpless, miserable brain, And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip, To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain. Nor yet on starving homes I where many a lip Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain ! I love no peace which is not fellowship, And which includes not mercy. I would have Rather the raking of the guns across ELIZABETH BARRETT BKQ,W3ftJr8.'> ' it)!* The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave. Rather the struggle in the slippery fosse Of dying men and horses, and the wave Blood-bubbling. . . Enough said ! By Christ's own cross, And by the faint heart of my womanhood, Such things are better than a Peace which sits Beside the hearth in self-commended mood, And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits Are howling out of doors against the good Of the poor wanderer. What ! your peace admits Of outside anguish while it keeps at home? I loathe to take its name upon my tongue 'Tis nowise peace. Tis treason, stiff with doom, 'T is gagged despair, and inarticulate wrong, Annihilated Poland, stifled Rome, Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting 'neath the thong, And Austria wearing a smooth olive-leaf On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress The life from these Italian souls, in brief. O Lord of Peace, who art Lord of Righteousness, Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief, Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress, And give us peace which is no counterfeit ! " Casa Guidi Windows is, to our thinking, the happiest of its author's performances, if not the highest. The difficulty of the metre, in which every rhyme occurs thrice, here as in the sonnet, seems to act as a restraint upon the authoress's imagination, pre- venting it from indulging in that kind of flight of which boldness may be said to be the only recommendation. Her genius nowhere rises in so spirited a style, or maintains so steady an altitude, as in those poems in which she submits herself to the heaviest fetters of external form ; whereas in blank verse, and in other measures, not sufficiently weighted with rule, her imagination ' pitches ' like a kite without a tail." * In 1856 appeared Aurora Leigh Mrs. Browning's most elaborate work. " This poem is two thousand lines longer than ' Paradise Lost.' We do not know how to describe it better than by saying that it is a novel in verse, a novel of the modern didactic species, written chiefly for the advocacy of distinct ' convictions upon Life and Art.' " * As a sample of the descriptive energy of the work, we present the following extract : * North British Review, Feb., 1857. 9* 1'0'2 MANUAL 'OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. I had a little chamber in the house, As green as any privet-hedge a bird Might choose to build in, though the nest itself Could show but dead-brown sticks and straws ; the walls Were green, the carpet was pure green, the straight, Small bed was curtained greenly, and the folds Hung green about the window, which^let in The out-door world with all its greenery. You could not push your head out and escape A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle, But so you were baptized into the grace And privilege of seeing, . . . First, the lime, (I had enough there, of the lime, be sure, My morning-dream, was often hummed away By the bees in it ;) past the lime, the lawn, Which, after sweeping broadly round the house, Went trickling through the shrubberies in a stream Of tender turf, and wove and lost itself Among the acacias, over which you saw The irregular line of elms by the deep lane Which stopped the grounds and dammed the overflow Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight The lane was ; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge Dispensed such odors, though his stick well-crooked Might reach the lowest trail of blossoming briar Which dipped upon the wall. Behind the elms, And through their tops, you saw the folded hills Striped up and down with hedges (burly oaks Projecting from the lines to show themselves), Through which my cousin Romney's chimneys smoked As still as when a silent mouth on frost Breathes showing where the woodlands hid Leigh Hall ; While, far above, a jut of table-land, A promontory without water, stretched, You could not catch it if the days were thick, Or took it for a cloud ; but, otherwise The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve And use it for an anvil till he had filled The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts, And proved he need not rest so early : then, When all his setting trouble was resolved To a trance of passive glory, you might see ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 103 In apparition on the golden sky ( Alas, my Giotto's background ! ) the sheep run Along the fine clear outline, small as mice That run along a witch's scarlet thread. Not a grand nature. Not my chestnut- woods Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs To the precipices. Not my headlong leaps Of waters, that cry out for joy or fear In leaping through the palpitating pines, Like a white soul tossed out to eternity With thrills of time upon it. Not indeed My multitudinous mountains, sitting in The magic circle, with the mutual touch Electric, panting from their full deep hearts Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for Communion and commission. Italy Is one thing, England one. As a passage in the philosophic and didactic vein, this : Natural things And spiritual, who separates those two In art, in morals, or the social drift, Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse, Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide This apple of life, and cut it through the pips, The perfect round which fitted Venus' hand Has perished utterly as if we ate Both halves. Without the spiritual, observe, The natural 's impossible ; no form, No motion ! Without sensuous, spiritual Is inappreciable ; no beauty or power ! And in this twofold sphere the twofold man ( And still the artist is intensely a man ) Holds firmly by the natural, to reach The spiritual beyond it, fixes still The type with mortal vision, to pierce through, With eyes immortal, to the antetype Some call the ideal, better call the real, And certain to be called so presently When things shall have their names. Look long enough On any peasant's face here, coarse and lined, You '11 catch Antinous somewhere in that clay, As perfect-featured as he yearns at Rome MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. From marble pale with beauty ; then persist, And, if your apprehension's competent, You '11 find some fairer angel at his back, As much exceeding him, as he the boor, And pushing him with empyreal disdain For ever out of sight. " There's nothing great Nor small," has said a poet of our day, ( Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve And not be thrown out by the matin's bell, ) And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing 's small ! No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ; No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ; No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim : And, glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, In such a little tremor of the blood The whole strong clamor of a vehement soul Doth utter itself distinct. Earth 's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God : But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware More and more, from the first similitude. Our last extract discloses Aurora Leigh's emotions on return- ing as a mature woman to the Italian home of her childhood. I took up the old days With all their Tuscan pleasures, worn and spoiled, Like some lost book we dropped in the long grass On such a happy summer-afternoon When last we read it with a loving friend, And find in autumn, when the friend is gone, The grass cut short, the weather changed, too late, And stare at, as at something wonderful For sorrow, thinking how two hands, before, Had held up what is left to only one, And how we smiled when such a vehement nail Impressed the tiny dint here, which presents This verse in fire forever ! Tenderly And mournfully I lived. I knew the birds And insects, which look fathered by the flowers And emulous of their hues : I recognized The moths, with that great overpoise of wings Which makes a mystery of them how at all ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 105 They can stop flying : butterflies, that be.ar Upon their blue wings such red emblems round, They seem to scorch the blue air into holes Each flight they take : and fire-flies, that suspire In short, soft lapses of transported flame Across the tingling Dark, while overhead The constant and inviolable stars Outburn those lights of love : melodious owls, (If music had but one note and was sad, 'T would sound just so,) and all the silent swirl Of bats, that seem to follow in the air Some grand circumference of a shadowy dome To which we are blind : and then, the nightingales, Which pluck our heart across a garden-wall, (When walking in the town) and carry it So high into the bowery almond-trees, We tremble and are afraid, and feel as if The golden flood of moonlight unaware Dissolved the pillars of the steady earth And made it less substantial. And I knew The harmless opal snakes, and large-mouthed frogs, (Those noisy vaunters of their shallow streams,) And lizards, the green lightnings of the wall, Which, if you sit down still, nor sigh too loud, Will flatter you, and take you for a stone, And flash familiarly about your feet With such prodigious eyes in such small heads ! I knew them, though they had somewhat dwindled from My childish imagery, and kept in mind How last I sat among them equally, In fellowship and mateship, as a child Will bear him still toward insect, beast, and bird, Before the Adam in^him has foregone All privilege of Eden, making friends And talk with such a bird or such a goat, And buying many a two-inch-wide rush-cage To let out the caged cricket on a tree, Saying, "Oh, my dear grillino, were you cramped? And are you happy with the ilex-leaves ? And do you love me who have let you go ? Say yes in singing, and I '11 understand." But now the creatures all seemed farther off, No longer mine, nor like me ; only there, A gulf between us. I could yearn indeed, Like other rich one, for a drop of dew 106 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To cool this heat, a drop of the early dew, The irrecoverable child-innocence, (Before the heart took fire and withered life,) When childhood might pair equally with birds ; But now . . . the birds were grown too proud for us ! Alas, the very sun forbids the dew. And I, I had come back to an empty nest, Which every bird 's too wise for. How I heard My father's step on that deserted ground, His voice along that silence, as he told The names of bird and insect, tree and flower, And all the presentations of the stars Across Valdarno, interposing still " My child," " my child." When fathers say " my child," 'Tis easier to conceive the universe, And life's transitions down the steps of law. "The command of imagery shown by Mrs. Browning in this poem is really surprising, even in this day when every poetaster seems to be endowed with a more or less startling amount of that power; but Mrs. Browning seldom goes out of her way for an image, as nearly all our other versifiers are in the habit of doing continually. There is a vital continuity through the whole of this immensely long work, which is thus remarkably and most favorably distinguished from the sand-weaving of so many of her contempo- raries. The earnestness of the authoress is also, plainly, without affectation, and her enthusiasm for truth and beauty, as she appre- hends them, unbounded. A work upon such a scale, and with such a scope, had it been faultless, would have been the greatest work of the age ; but, unhappily, there are faults, and very serious ones. The poem has evidently been written in a very small pro- portion of the time which a work so very ambitiously conceived ought to have taken. The language, which in passionate scenes is simple and real, in other parts becomes very turgid and unpoetical. These, and other artistic defects, detract somewhat from the gen- eral effect of the poem ; but no one who reads it with true poetic sympathy, can withhold his tribute of admiration from a work possessing so many of the highest excellencies." * Poems before Congress or Napoleon III. was published in 1860, and set forth our author's opinions upon French affairs. In 1863, a volume entitled Last Poems, comprising chiefly verses left in man- uscript, made its appearance, thus completing Mrs. Browning's writings. She died in Florence, June 29, 1861, in the same house * JVo?-//t British Review, Feb., ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 107 (Casa Guidi) in which she had lived fourteen years, and where her entire married life had been passed. "Mrs. Browning's greatest failure is in her metaphors : some of them are excellent, but when they are bad and they are often bad they are very bad. 13y a single ugly phrase, a single hideous word, she every now and then mars the harmony of a whole page of beauty. She sadly wants simplicity, and the calm strength that flows from it. She writes in a high fever. She is constantly intro- ducing geographical, geological, and antiquarian references, almost always out of place, and often incorrect. . . In recoil from mincing" fastidiousness, she now and then seems coarse. She will not be taxed with squeamishness, and introduces words unnecessarily which are eschewed in the most familiar conversation. . . In the presentation alike of character and scenery, Mrs. Browning has proved herself in every sense a master. Those pictures of England and of Italy, which so adorn the first and seventh books of Aurora Leigh, will take a permanent rank among our best specimens of descriptive poetry." * "A general tone of sadness pervades Mrs. Browning's poetry. As we read, there is a constant feeling that the writer is one weary of the world. This is not apparently from disappointment or pressure of any great grief, still less from cynicism or unbelieving despair. Every page evinces a deep-felt love for man as well as a heart at rest with God. The sadness is of that far nobler cast, peculiar to higher and unworldly natures, and which in part consti- tutes the melancholy so often attributed to poets. It arises from the constant presence of an ideal, which, though originally gained amidst the contemplation of earthly things, makes all the glory of earth look pale." t * Westminster Review, Oct., 1857. f British Quarterly Review, Oct., 1865. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR was born, January 30, 1775, at Warwick, " in the best house of the town.' : Wealth and Refine- ment met him on the threshold of life, bestowing, among their earliest gifts, education at Rugby School (1785), and at Trinity College, Oxford (1793), and qualifying him for the bar. He re- mained on the family estate, in the chosen employment of letters, until about 1805 ; during which interval he gave to the world (or rather a chosen few of it) a first volume of poems (1795) and GeUr (1798). Of Gebir, the poet Southey, in a letter to its author, says : " I look upon Gebir as I do upon Dante's long poem in the Italian, not as a good poem, but as containing the finest poetry in the language." And De Quincey remarks: " The main attraction of the poem lay in the picturesqueness of the images, attitudes, groups, dispersed everywhere. The eye seemed to rest every- where upon festal processions, upon the panels of Theban gates, or upon sculptured vases." The following extract is from the Sixth Book of this poem : Now to Aurora borne by dappled steeds The sacred gate of orient pearl and gold, Smitten with Lucifer's light silver wand, Expanded slow to strains of harmony ; The waves beneath in purpling rows, like doves Glancing with wanton coyness tow'rd their queen, Heav'd softly. . . Ocean and earth and heaven war jubilee, For 'twas the morning pointed out by Fate When an immortal maid and mortal man Should share each other's nature knit in bliss. The brave Iberians far the beach o'erspread Ere dawn, with distant awe ; none hear the mew, None mark the curlew flapping o'er the field ; Silence held all, and fond expectancy. Now suddenly the conch above the sea 108 LANDOE. 109 Sounds, and goes sounding through the woods profound. They, where they hear the echo, turn their eyes, But nothing see they, save.a purple mist Roll from the distant mountain down the shore ; It rolls, it sails, it settles, it dissolves : Now shines the Nymph to human eye reveal'd, And leads her Tamar timorous o'er the waves. Immortals crowding round congratulate The shepherd ; he shrinks back, of breath bereft : His vesture clinging closely round his limbs Unfelt, while they the whole fair form admire, He fears that he has lost it, then he fears The wave has mov'd it, most to look he fears. Scarce the sweet flowing music he imbibes, Or sees the peopled ocean ; scarce he sees Spio with sparkling eyes, and Berce Demure, and young lone, less renown'd, Not less divine ; mild-natured, Beauty form'd Her face, her heart Fidelity ; for gods Design'd, a mortal too lone lov'd. These were the Nymphs elected for the hour Of Hesperus and Hymen ; these had strown The bridal bed, these tuned afresh the shells, Wiping the green that hoarsen'd them within ; These wove the chaplets, and at night resolv'd To drive the dolphins from the wreathed door. * * * * * * * The Nymph discourses : " Thus we may sport at leisure when we go Where, lov'd by Neptune and the Naiad, lov'd By pensive Dryad pale, and Oread, The sprightly Nymph whom constant Zephyr woos, Rhine rolls his beryl-color'd wave ; than Rhine What river from the mountains ever came More stately ? most the simple crown adorns Of rushes and of willows intertwined With here and there a flower : his lofty brow Shaded with vines and mistletoe and oak He rears, and mystic bards his fame resound. Or gliding opposite, th' Illyrian gulf Will harbor us from ill." While thus she spake She toucht his eyelashes with libant lip And breath'd ambrosial odors, o'er his cheek Celestial w^armth suffusing : grief disperst, And strength and pleasure beam'd upon his brow. Then pointed she before him r first arose 10 110 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To her astonisht and delighted view The sacred isle that shrines the queen of love. It stood so near him, so acute each sense, That not the sympathy of lutes alone Or coo serene or billing strife of doves, But murmurs, whispers, nay the very sighs Which he himself had utter' d once, he heard. Next, but long after and far off, appear The cloudlike cliffs and thousand towers of Crete, And further to the right the Cyclades ; Phoebus had rais'd and fixt them, to surround His native Delos and aeriel fane. He saw the land of Pelope, host of gods, . Saw the steep ridge where Corinth after stood Beckoning the serious with the smiling Arts Into her sunbright bay He heard the voice of rivers ; he descried Pindan Peneus and the slender Nymphs That tread his banks but fear the thundering tide ; These, and Amphrysos and Apidanos And poplar-crown'd Sperchios, and, reclined On restless rocks, Enipeus, where the winds Scatter'd above the weeds his hoary hair. " Look yonder ! " cried the Nymph. Tamar lookt Where the waves whitened on the desert shore. When from amid grey ocean first he caught The heights of Calpe, sadden'd he exclaim'd, " Rock of Iberia ! fixt by Jove, and hung With all his thunder-bearing clouds, I hail Thy ridges rough and cheerless ! what tho' Spring Nor kiss thy brow nor cool it with a flower, Yet will I hail thee, hail thy flinty couch Where Valor and where Virtue have reposed." The Nymph said, sweetly smiling, " Fickle Man, Would'st thou thy country ? would'st those caves abhorr'd, Dungeons and portals that exclude the day ? Gebir, though generous, just, humane, inhaled Rank venom from these mansions. Rest, O king, In Egypt thou ! nor, Tamar ! pant for sway. With horrid chorus, Pain, Disease, Death, Stamp on the slippery pavement of the proud, And ring their sounding emptiness through earth, Possess the ocean, me, thyself, and peace." And now the chariot of the Sun descends, LAN DOR. Ill The waves rush hurried from his foaming steeds, Smoke issues from their nostrils at the gate, Which, when they enter, with huge golden bar Atlas and Calpe close across the sea. Three years later (1808) we find Landor as a volunteer under Blake, testing the perils and hardships of a soldier's life, and for meritorious conduct winning for himself the rank of Colonel. In 1811 he married "a girl without a sixpence, and with very few accomplishments," but " pretty, graceful, and good-tempered," and established himself in a new and beautiful estate, the Abbey of Llanthony. The next year he brought out Count Julian; a Tragedy. COUNT JULIAN. ACT /.SCENE III. Guard. A messenger of peace is at the gate, My lord, safe access, private audience, And free return, he claims. Julian. Conduct him in. [RODERIGO enters as a herald. A messenger of peace ! audacious man ! In what attire appearest thou ? a herald's ? Under no garb can such a wretch be safe. Roderigo. Thy violence and fancied wrongs I know, And what thy sacrilegious hands would do, O traitor and apostate ! Julian. What they would They cannot : thee of kingdom and of life 'T is easy to despoil, thyself the traitor, Thyself the violator of allegiance. O would all-righteous Heaven they could restore The joy of innocence, the calm of age, The probity of manhood, pride of arms, And confidence of honor ! the august And holy lawn trampled beneath thy feet, And Spain ! O parent, I have lost thee too ! Yes, thou wilt curse me in thy latter days, Me, thine avenger-. I have fought her foe, Roderigo, I have gloried in her sons, Sublime in hardihood and piety : Her strength was mine : I, sailing by her cliffs, By promontory after promontory, Opening like flags along some castle-tower, Have sworn before the cross upon our mast Ne'er shall invader wave his standard there. Roderigo. Yet there thou planted it, false man, thyself. 112 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Julian. Accursed he who makes me this reproach, And made it just ! Had I been happy still, I had been blameless : I had died with glory Upon the walls of Centa. Roderigo. Which thy treason surrendered to the Infidel. Julian. 'T is hard And base to live beneath a conqueror ; Yet, amid all this grief and infamy, 'T were something to have rusht upon the ranks In their advance ; 't were something to have stood Defeat, discomfiture, and, when around No beacon blazes, no far axle groans Thro' the wide plain, no sound of sustenance Or succor soothes the still-believing ear, To fight upon the last dismantled tower, And yield to valor, if we yield at all. But rather should my neck lie trampled down By every Saracen and Moor on earth, Than my own country see her laws o'erturned By those who should protect them. Sir, no prince Shall ruin Spain, and, least of all, her own. Is any just or glorious act in view, Your oaths forbid it : is your avarice, Or, if there be such, any viler passion To have its giddy range and to be gorged, It rises over all your sacraments, A hooded mystery, holier than they all. . . . Roderigo. Come, I offer grace, Honor, dominion : send away these slaves, Or leave them to our sword, and all beyond The distant Ebro to the towns of France Shall bless thy name and bow before thy throne. I will myself accompany thee, I, The king, will hail thee brother. Julian. Ne'er shalt thou Henceforth be king : the nation in thy name May issue edicts, champions may command The vassal multitudes of marshal'd war, And the fierce charger shrink before the shouts, Lower'd as if earth had open'd at his feet, While thy mail'd semblance rises tow'rd the ranks, But God alone sees thee. Roderigo. What hopest thou ? To conquer Spain, and rule a ravaged land ? To compass me around ? to murder me ? LAND OR. 113 Julian. No. Don Eoderigo : swear thou, in the fight That thou wilt meet me, hand to hand, alone, That, if I ever save thee from a foe. . . . Loderigo. I swear what honor asks. First, to Co villa* Do thou present my crown and dignity. Julian. Darest thou offer any price for shame ? Roderigo. Love and repentance. Julian. Egilonaf lives ; And were she buried with her ancestors, Covilla should not be the gaze of men, Should not, despoil'd of honor, rule the free. Roderigo. Stern man ! her virtues well deserve the throne. Julian. And Egilona, what hath she deserv'd, The good, the lovely ? Roderigo. But the realm in vain Hoped a succession. Julian. Thou hast torn away The roots of royalty. Roderigo. For her, for thee. Julian. Blind insolence ! base insincerity ! Power and renown no mortal ever shared Who could retain or grasp them to himself: And, for Covilla ? patience! peace! for her? She call upon her God, and outrage him At his own altar ! she repeat the vows She violates in repeating ! who abhors Thee and thy crimes, and wants no crown of thine. Roderigo. Have then the Saracens possest thee quite ? And wilt thou never yield me thy consent? Julian. Never. Roderigo. So deep in guilt, in treachery ! Forced to acknowledge it ! forced to avow The traitor ! Julian. Not to thee, who reignest not, But to a country ever dear to me, And dearer now than ever ! What we love Is loveliest in departure ! One I thought, As every father thinks, the best of all, Graceful and mild and sensible and chaste ; Now all these qualities of form and soul Fade from before me, nor on any one Can I repose, or be consoled by any. * Julian's daughter. t Roderigo's wife. 10* tt 114: MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And yet in this torn heart I love her more Than I could love her when I dwelt on each, Or claspt them all united, and thankt God, Without a wish beyond. Away, thou fiend ! ignominy, last and worst of all ! 1 weep before thee . . like a child . . like mine . . And tell my woes, fount of them all ! to thee ! In 1814, on account of financial embarrassment and trouble with his tenantry, Landor leaves England for the Continent. While at Tours, the next year, he published the Latin poems entitled Idyllia Heroica. Passing through France, he reaches Italy in 1815. Here he spends, with brief interruptions and one considerable absence of twenty-one years passed at Bath, England, the remainder of his long life ; drinking in the inspiration of Italian skies and hills and waters, and living not only in a thorough knowledge of existing places and persons, but even more in a profound and extraordinary intimacy with all the classic associations and history of Southern Europe. It was during this continental life that he composed the greater number of his Imaginary Conversations, the work upon which his reputation as a writer chiefly depends. " What a weighty book they (the Imaginary Conversations] make ! How rich in scholarship ! how correct, concise, and pure in style ! how full of imagination, wit, and humor! how well informed! how bold in speculation ! how various in interest ! how universal in sympathy ! In these hundred and twenty-five dialogues making allowance for every shortcoming or excess the most familiar and the most august shapes of the past are reanimated with vigor, grace, and beauty. Its long-dead ashes rekindle suddenly their wonted fires, and again shoot up into warmth and brightness. Large utter- ance, musical and varied voices, ' thoughts that breathe ' for the world's advancement, ' words that burn ' against the world's oppres- sion, sound on throughout these lofty and earnest pages. We are in the high and good company of wits and men of letters ; of church- men, lawyers, and statesmen; of party-men, soldiers, and kings; of the most tender, delicate, and noble women ; and of figures that seem this instant to have left for us the Agora or the schools of Athens, the Forum or the Senate of Rome. At one moment we have politicians discussing the deepest questions of state ; at an- other, philosophers still more largely philosophizing, poets talk- ing of poetry, men of the world of worldly matters, Italians and French of their respective Literatures and Manners."* Edinburgh Rcvinv, Vol. Ixxxui. LANDOR. 115 Space and our poet's best interests will not warrant us in present- ing entire any one of the Conversations ; we shall therefore confine ourself to a few significant and characteristic extracts from them. From Marchese Pallavincini and Walter Landor. Who in the world could ever cut down a linden, or dare in his senses to break a twig from off one? To a linden was fastened the son of William Tell, when the apple was cloven on his head. Years afterward, often did the father look higher and lower, and searched laboriously, to descry if any mark were remaining of the cord upon its bark ! often must he have inhaled this very odor ! what a refreshment was it to a father's breast! The flowers of the linden should be the only incense offered up in the churches to God. Happy the man whose aspirations are pure enough to mingle with it ! How many fond and how many lively thoughts have been nurtured under this tree ! how many kind hearts have beaten here ! Its branches are not so numerous as the couples they have invited to sit beside it, nor its blossoms and leaves as the expressions of tenderness it has witnessed. What appeals to the pure all-seeing heavens ! what similitudes to the ever- lasting mountains! what protestations of eternal truth and constancy! from those who now are earth ; they, and their shrouds, and their coffins! The caper and fig-tree have split the monument. Emblems of past loves and future hopes, severed names which the holiest rites united, broken letters of brief happiness, bestrew the road, and speak to the passer-by in vain. From Landor, English Visitor, and Florentine Visitor. If anything could engage me to visit Rome, to endure the sight of her scarred and awful ruins, telling their stories on the ground in the midst of bell-ringers and pantomimes ; if I could let charnel-houses and opera- houses, consuls arid popes, tribunes and cardinals, senatorial orators and preaching friars, clash in my mind; it would be that 1 might afterward spend an hour in solitude, where the pyramid of Cestius stands against the wall, and points to the humbler tombs of Keats and Shelley. Nothing so attracts my heart as ruins in deserts, or so repels it as ruins in the circle of fashion. What is so shocking as the hard verity of Death swept by the rustling masquerade of Life! And does not Mortality of herself teach us how little we are, without placing us amid the trivialities of patch-work pomp, where Virgil led the gods to found an empire, where Cicero saved and Csesar shook the world ! From The Cardinal- Leg ate Albani and Picture Dealers. Legate. Titian ennobled men; Correggio raised children into angels; Raffael performed the more arduous work of restoring to woman her pris- tine purity. Perugino was worthy of leading him by the hand. I am not surprised that Rubens is the prime favorite of tulip-fanciers; but give me the clear warm mornings of Correggio, which his large-eyed angels so enjoy. Give me the glowing afternoons of Titian ; his majestic men, his gorgeous women, and (with a prayer to protect my virtue) his Bacchantes. Yet, Signors! we may descant on grace and majesty as we will; believe me, there is neither majesty so calm, concentrated, sublime, and self-pos- 116 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. sessed (true attributes of the divine), nor is there grace at one time so hu- man, at another time so superhuman, as in Raffael. He leads us into heaven ; but neither in satin robes nor with ruddy faces. He excludes the glare of light from the sanctuary ; but there is an ever-burning lamp, an ever-ascending hymn ; and the purified eye sees, as distinctly as is law- ful, the divinity of the place. I delight in Titian, I love Correggio, I wonder at the vastness of Michael Angelo ; I admire, love, wonder, and then fall down before Raffael. From Lucian and Timotheus. Lucian. The best sight is not that which sees best in the dark or the twilight; for no objects are then visible in their true colors and just pro- portions; but it is that which presents to us things as they are, and indi- cates what is within our reach and what is beyond it. Never were any three writers, of high celebrity, so little understood in the main character, as Plato, Diogenes, and Epicurus. Plato is a perfect master of logic and rhetoric ; and whenever he errs in either, as I have proved to you he does occasionally, he errs through perseverance, not through unwariness. His language often settles into clear and most beautiful prose, often takes an imperfect and incoherent shape of poetry, and often, cloud against cloud, bursts with a vehement detonation in the air. Diogenes was hated both by the vulgar and the philosophers. By the philosophers, because he exposed their ignorance, ridiculed their jealousies, and rebuked their pride; by the vulgar, because they never can endure a man apparently of their own class who avoids their society and partakes in none of their humors, prejudices, and animosities. What right has he to be greater or better than they are? he who wears older clothes, who eats staler fish, and possesses no vote to imprison or banish anybody. I am now ashamed that I mingled in the rabble, and that I could not resist the childish mischief of smoking him in his tub. He was the wisest man of his time, not excepting Aristoteles; for he knew that he was greater than Philip or Alexander. Aristoteles did not know that he himself was, or, knowing it, did not act up to his knowl- edge ; and here is a deficiency of wisdom. From Andrew Marvel and Bishop Parker. Marvel. Under the highest of their immeasurable Alps, all is not valley and verdure: in some places there are frothy cataracts, there are the fruit- less beds of noisy torrents, and there are dull and hollow glaciers. He must be a bad writer, or, however, a very indifferent one, in whom there are no inequalities. The plants of such tableland are diminutive, and never worth gathering. What would you think of .a man's eyes to which all things appear of the same magnitude and at the same elevation ? You must think nearly so of a writer who makes as much of small things as of great. The vigorous mind has mountains to climb and valleys to repose in. Is there any sea without its shoals ? On that which the poet navigates, lie rises intrepidly as the waves rise round him, and sits composedly as they subside. From the same. Marvel. True, my lord ! but in some we recognize the dust of gold and (he ashes of the phoenix ; in others the dust of the gateway and the ashes of turf and stubble. With the greatest rulers upon earth, head and crown LAND OR. 117 drop together, and are overlooked. It is true we read of them in history; but we also read in history of crocodiles and hyenas. "With great writers, whether in poetry or prose, what falls alway is scarcely more or other than a vesture. The features of the man are imprinted on his works; and more lamps burn over them, and more religiously, than are lighted in temples or churches. Milton, and men like him, bring their own incense, kindle it with their own h're, and leave it unconsumed and unconsumable : and their music, by day and by night, swells along a vault commemorate with the vault of heaven. * * * * # * * The arrogant, the privileged, the stiff upholders of established wrong, the deaf opponents of equitable reformation, the lazy consumers of ill-re- quited industry, the fraudulent who, unable to stop the course of the sun, pervert the direction of the gnomon, all these peradventures may be grad- ually consumed by the process of silent contempt, or suddenly scattered by the tempest of popular indignation. As we see in masquerades the real judge and the real soldier stopped and mocked by the fictitious, so do we see in the carnival of to-day the real man of dignity hustled, shoved aside, and derided, by those who are invested with the semblance by the milli- ners of the court. The populace is taught to respect this livery alone, and is proud of being permitted to look through the grating at such ephemeral frippery. And yet false gems and false metals have never been valued above real ones. Until our people alter these notions; until they estimate the wise and virtuous above the silly and profligate, the man of genius above the man of title; until they hold the knave and cheat of St. James' as low as the knave and cheat of St. Giles' ; they are fitter for the slave- market than for any other station. During the interval of Landor's residence at Bath (1836-1857), he wrote Pericles and Aspasia, The Pentameron, Andrea of Hungary, and several other plays ; another series of the Conversations, The Hellenics, and Last Fruit of an Old Tree. He died September 17, 1864, at his Italian home near Florence, in the ninetieth year of his age. " With many high excellencies, Landor's poetry must ever re- main ' a sealed hook ' to the multitude ; for whoever prefers to the obviously sublime, beautiful, and true, the grotesque, the visionary, and the involved, must submit to be admired by the capricious select, who can alone relish such elements in composition. In the case of Landor, this waywardness is the more to be regretted as in his genius there are elements, vigorous, fine, and fresh, which might have enabled his muse to soar with eagle pinions high over Par- nassus. He seems, however, all along, to have systematically ad- dressed himself only to the ear of an audience fit, though few, and even to ignore the competency of a popular tribunal. " He moulds exclusively according to the antique, and often with classical severity ; but although quite willing to admit his general power, I cannot help thinking that his independence of thought not unfrequently degenerates into a tone something like proud self- 118 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. sufficiency. We have genius, learning, and knowledge, ever appar- ently in abundance, but ever of a peculiar kind ; and often, after all, from a sheer love of paradox, he follows, by a side-wind, the very authority apparently held in contempt. "His poetic diction is involved and difficult, obscure from never- ending attempts at compression, and only redeemed by a pictur- esque power, and a word-painting, in which he was subsequently followed by Hunt, Keats, and Tennyson. His imagery is cold and statuesque ' we start, for life is wanting there ; ' but the habit of first composing his pieces in Latin, and then translating them into his mother tongue said to be his actual practice may readily be set down as a main source of their obscurity and apparent af- fectation. He has nothing like geniality of feeling, or warmth of coloring, in his portraits or pictures. His wit is cumbrous ; when he exhibits point, it is rather the poisoned sting than the exciting spur ; and his glitter can only be compared to sunshine refracted from an icicle." * * Dr. Moir in Poetical, Literature of Past Half Century. THOMAS MOORE. THOMAS MOORE was born in Aungier Street, Dublin, May 28, 1779. The muses of Poetry and of Music, it would seem, like Pharaoh's daughter, espied him when just emerging into life on its sequestered waters, and claimed him for their own divine child, but consented to leave his rearing with his earth-born mother. This duty she discharged most scrupulously, nourish- ing him continually on scraps of poetry and patriotic songs, until, in a short time, the precocious young nursling had well- nigh converted the house in which he was born unlovely as an ark of bulrushes into a local Helicon, whither nocked the young and the gay of the neighborhood to hear his marvellous singing and recitations. From repeating the songs of others, he early turned to cre- ating songs of his own ; and though practical duties fell to his lot, such as the. weighing and measuring out of groceries and liquors in his father's store, the conning of tasks and the com- peting for prizes and degrees at Trinity College, and the prepa- ration, more or less laborious, for entering on the practice of law in London, yet through all his divine instinct of song asserted itself more really and engaged his powers more fully, than any of these prosaic and sordid concerns. His earliest celebrity was gained by a translation of the Odes of Anacreon, in 1800. Encouraged by the eclat of this perform- ance, he brought out, the next year, his first volume of original poems, under the disguise of The Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little. Then, at most capricious intervals, during a period of almost half a century, appeared successively Epistles, Odes, Poems, Melodies, Satires, Romances, Biographies, Ballads, and Songs. The most popular and truly meritorious of these were 119 120 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. his Irish Melodies, written from time to time between the years 1807 and 1834, and his Lalla Rookh, published in 1817, while our poet resided at Ashbourne. Byron has said : " Moore is one of the few writers who will survive the age in which he so deservedly flourishes. He will live in his Irish Melodies. They will go down to posterity with the music : both will last as long as Ireland, or as music and poetry." Another* adds: "His Irish and National Melodies will be immortal ; and they will be so for this reason, that they express the feelings which spring up in the breast of every successive generation at the most important and imaginative period of life. They have the delicacy of refined life without its fastidiousness, the warmth of natural feeling without its rudeness." Of the Melodies we present the following specimens : THE MEETING OF THE WATERS. There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; Oh ! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene Her purest of crystal and brightest of green ; 'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill, Oh! no, it was something more exquisite still. 'T was that friends, the belov'd of my bosom, were near, Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear, And who felt how the best charms of nature improve, When we see them reflected from looks that we love. Sweet vale of Avoca ! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best, Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace. DEAR HARP OF MY COUNTRY. Dear harp of my country ! in darkness I found thee, The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long, When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee, And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song ! *Sir Archibald Alison in History of Europe. MOORE. 121 The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness Have waken 'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill ; But, so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of sadness, That ev'n in thy mirth it will steal from thee still. Dear harp of my country ! farewell to thy numbers, This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine ! Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, Till touch'd by some hand less unworthy than mine. If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover, Have throbb'd at our lay, 't is thy glory alone ; I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over, And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own. WHEN COLD IN THE EARTH. When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved, Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then; Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed, Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again. And, oh ! if 't is pain to remember how far From the pathways of light he was tempted to roam, Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star That arose on his darkness, and guided him home. From thee and thy innocent beauty first came The revealings, that taught him true love to adore, To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame From the idols he blindly had knelt to before. O'er the waves of a life, long benighted and wild, Thou earnest, like a soft, golden calm o'er the sea; And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled On his ev'ning horizon, the light was from thee. And tho', sometimes, the shades of past folly might rise, And tho' falsehood again would allure him to stray, He but turn'd to the glory that dwelt in those eyes, And the folly, the falsehood, soon vanish'd away. As the Priests of the Sun, when their altar grew dim, At the day-beam alone could its lustre repair, So, if virtue a moment grew languid in him, He but flew to that smile and rekindled it there. Moore's achievement in the creation of Lalla Rookh has been esti- mated by a very able review* in the following terms : " He has, by accurate and extensive reading, imbued his mind with so familiar * Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1817. 11 122 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. a knowledge of Eastern scenery that we feel as if we were reading the poetry of one of the children of the Sun. No European image ever breaks or steals in to destroy the illusion ; every tone and hue and form is purely and intensely Asiatic; and the language, faces, forms, dresses, mien, sentiments, passions, actions, and characters of the different agents are all congenial with the flowery earth they inhabit, and the burning sky that glows over their heads." "There is not only a richness and brilliancy of diction and imagery spread over the whole work, that indicate the greatest activity and elegance of fancy in the author; but it is everywhere pervaded, still more strikingly, by a strain of tender and noble feel- ing, poured out with such warmth and abundance as to steal in- sensibly on the heart of the reader, and gradually to overflow it with a tide of sympathetic emotion. There are passages, indeed, and these neither few nor brief, over which the very Genius of Poetry seems to have breathed his richest enchantment where the melody of the verse and the beauty of the images conspire so har- moniously with the force and tenderness of the emotion, that the whole is blended into one deep and bright stream of sweetness and feeling, along which the spirit of the reader is borne passively away, through long reaches of delight."* The following fragmentary description of the Haram's chambers, from the Veiled Prophet of KJwrassan, will serve as a sample of our poet's Oriental word painting. Meanwhile, through vast illuminated halls, Silent and bright, where nothing but the falls Of fragrant waters, gushing with cool sound From many a jasper fount, is heard around, Young Azim roams bewildered, nor can guess What means this maze of light and loneliness. Here, the way leads, o'er tessellated floors Or mats of Cairo, through long corridors, Where, ranged in cassolets and silver urns, Sweet wood of alve or of sandal burns; And spicy rods, such as illume at night The bowers of Tibet, send forth odorous light, Like Peris' wands, when pointing out the road For some pure Spirit to its blest abode: And here, at once, the glittering saloon Bursts on his sight, boundless and bright as noon; Where, in the midst, reflecting back the rays In broken rainbows, a fresh fountain plays Lord Francis Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review, Nov., 1817. MOORE. 123 High as th' enamelled cupola, which towers All rich with Arabesques of gold and flowers: And the mosaic floor beneath shines through The sprinkling of that fountain's silvery dew, Like the wet, glistening shells, of every dye, That on the margin of the Red Sea lie. Here, too, he traces the kind visitings Of woman's love in .those fair, living things Of land and wave, whose fate in bondage thrown For their weak loveliness is like her own ! On one side gleaming with a sudden grace Through water, brilliant as the crystal vase In which it undulates, small fishes shine, Like golden ingots from a fairy mine ; While, on the other, latticed lightly in With odoriferous woods of Comorin, Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen ; Gay, sparkling loories, such as gleam between The crimson blossoms of the coral tree In the warm isles of India's sunny sea ; Mecca's blue sacred pigeon, and the thrush Of Hindostan, whose holy warblings gush, At evening, from the tall pagoda's top ; Those golden birds that, in the spice-time, drop About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food Whose scent has lured them o'er the summer flood; And those that under Araby's soft sun Build their high nests of budding cinnamon; In short, all rare and beauteous things, that fly Through the pure element, here calmly lie Sleeping in light, like the green birds that dwell In Eden's radiant fields of asphodel! As a specimen of patriotic ardor, this passage from The Fire- Worshipers is offered. O for a tongue to curse the slave, Whose treason, like a deadly blight, Comes o'er the councils of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might ! May life's unblessed cup for him Be drugged with treacheries to the brim, With hopes, that but allure to fly, With joys, that vanish while he sips, Like Dead-Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, But turn to ashes on the lips! 124 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. His country's curse, his children's shame, Outcast of virtue, peace, and fame, May he, at last, with lips of flame On the parched desert thirsting die, While lakes, that shone in mockery nigh, Are fading off, untouched, untasted, Like the once glorious hopes he blasted! And, when from earth his spirit flies, Just Prophet, let the damned-one dwell Full in the sight of Paradise, Beholding heaven and feeling hell! This last extract, from Paradise and the Peri, exhibits our poet's ability in dealing with the tender and diviner emotions of the human soul. The Peri is herein spoken of. Cheered by this hope, she bends her thither ; Still laughs the radiant eye of Heaven, Nor have the golden bowers of Even In the rich West begun to wither; When, o'er the vale of Balbec winging Slowly, she sees a child at play, Among the rosy wild flowers singing, As rosy and as wild as they ; Chasing, with eager hands and eyes, The beautiful blue damsel-flies, That fluttered round the jasmine stems, Like winged flowers or flying gems; And, near the boy, who, tired with play, Now nestling mid the roses lay, She saw a wearied man dismount From his hot steed, and on the brink Of a small minaret's rustic fount Impatient fling him down to drink. Then swift his haggard brow he turned To the fair child, who fearless sat, Though never yet hath daybeam burned Upon a brow more fierce than that, Sullenly fierce a mixture dire, Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire ; In which the Peri's eye could read Dark tales of many a ruthless deed; The ruined maid the shrine profaned Oaths broken and the threshold stained With blood of guests I there written, all, Black as the damning drops that fall MOORE. 125 From the denouncing Angel's pen, Ere Mercy weeps them out again. Yet tranquil now that man of crime (As if the balmy evening time Softened his spirit) looked and lay, Watching the rosy infant's play: Though still, whene'er his eye by chance Fell on the boy's, its lurid glance Met that unclouded, joyous gaze, As torches, that have burnt all night Through some impure and godless rite, Encounter morning's glorious rays. But, hark! the vesper call to prayer, As slow the orb of daylight sets, Is rising sweetly on the air, From Syria's thousand minarets! The boy has started from the bed Of flowers, where he had laid his head, And down upon the fragrant sod Kneels, with his forehead to the south, Lisping th' eternal name of God From Purity's own cherub mouth, And looking, while his hands and eyes Are lifted to the glowing skies, Like a stray babe of Paradise, Just lighted on that flowery plain, And seeking for its home again. Oh! 'twas a sight that heaven that child A scene, which might have well beguiled Even haughty Eblis of a sigh For glories lost and peace gone by! And how felt he, the wretched Man Eeclining there while memory ran O'er many a year of guilt and strife, Flew o'er the dark flood of his life, Nor found one sunny resting-place, Nor brought him back one branch of grace? "There was a time," he said, in mild, Heart-humbled tones, "thou blessed chilli When, young, and haply pure as thou, I looked and prayed like thee but now " 126 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. He hung his head each nobler aim, And hope, and feeling, which had slept From boyhood's hour, that instant came Fresh o'er him, and he wept he wept! Blest tears of soul-felt penitence ! In whose benign, redeeming flow Is felt the first, the only sense Of guiltless joy that guilt can know. " There 's a drop," said the Peri, " that down from the moon Falls through the withering airs of June Upon Egypt's land, of so healing a power, So balmy a virtue, that ev'n in the hour That drop descends, contagion dies, And health reanimates earth and skies! Oh, is it not thus, thou man of sin The precious tears of repentance fall? Though foul thy fiery plagues within, One heavenly drop hath dispelled them all!" And now behold him kneeling there By the child's side, in humble prayer, While the same sunbeam shines upon The guilty and the guiltless one, And hymns of joy proclaim through Heaven The triumph of a Soul Forgiven! 'Twas when the golden orb had set, While on their knees they lingered yet, There fell a light more lovely far Than ever came from sun or star, Upon the tear that, warm and meek, Dewed that repentant sinner's cheek. To mortal eye this light might seem A northern flash or meteor beam But well th' enraptured Peri knew 'Twas a bright smile the Angel threw From Heaven's Gate, to hail that tear, Her harbinger of glory near ! "Joy, joy for ever! my task is done The Gates are passed, and Heaven is won f Oh! am I not happy? I am, I am To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad Are the diamond turrets of Shadukiam, And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad! MOORE. 127 "Farewell, ye odors of earth, that die Passing away like a lover's sigh; My feast is now of the Tooba Tree, Whose scent is the breath of eternity! Farewell, ye vanishing flowers, that shone In my fairy wreath, so bright and brief; O! what are the brightest that e'er have blown, To the lote-tree, springing by Alla's throne, Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf! Joy, joy for ever ! my task is done The gates are passed, and Heaven is won ! " In 1817 Moore took up his abode at Sloperton, where, excepting the time spent in European and American travel, a residence of two or three years in France, flying visits to Ireland and Scotland, and not unfrequent nor brief stays at London, he lived during the remainder of his life, in easy access of Lord Lansclowne's valuable library and aristocratic society, with kind friends around him, his home a sort of wayside bower, where the great folks from London found it convenient to stop and be regaled with the poet's sweet songs and good cheer. "What Moore was in London, must Horace have been in Rome the same genial boon companion the same sweet lyric poet the same true patriot the same playful satirist. Take which phase of Moore's character you like, you will find the corresponding traits in his Roman prototype: the very subjects which inspired their muse the very accidents of their life have a curious resemblance. Born of lowly parentage, each raised himself to a position of hon- orable intimacy with the highest of the land; and each looked back with mindful love to the old home and the fond parents. . . . Each poet had the same love for the country, but each loved dearly, in the height of the season, when the grandees poured in from Baiae or from Bath, to leave the Sabine farm or the Wiltshire cot- tage, and mingle among the crowds that thronged the mother city of their nation. If Horace drew around him an admiring circle to hear him recite his latest ode, Moore, too, could always attract the guests at Lady Donegal's, or Lord Moira's, to hearken to his last new melody. . . . Horace, no less than Moore, 'ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all ; ' and, like Moore, charmed his readers equally by the tender beauty of his love songs, the fire of his patriotic odes, and the sparkling grace that adorns his epistles and his satires."* * Westminster Review, July, 1853. 128 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. He died February 25, 1852. "To conclude, Thomas Moore has been styled the national poet of Ireland ; and so he is, in the same sense Tasso is of the Vene- tians, or Beranger of the French, or Burns of Scotland ; for he has patriotically consecrated his finest powers to the exposition and illustration of Ireland's peculiar feelings and associations, local, personal, and traditionary. Hence he is beloved by his country- men, and deserves to be so, beyond all Ireland's other poets. " The poetry of Moore abstracting the artificial glare and glitter, which are its drawbacks is of an elevated and ethereal kind, full of harmony, and spirit, and splendor : of the heroic romantic vir- tues of man, and the clinging, confiding tenderness of woman ; of the beauty of the inferior creatures, and the magnificence of na- ture. . . . His muse is like one of his own Eastern Peris, full of life, light, and beauty a froward and restless cherub, too animated to be ever listless, and too full of buoyant gaiety to bestow aught but a transient te^r, a passing sigh, on the misfortunes, or crimes, or follies, of mankind whose delight is in the witcheries of art and nature; whose flight is above the damping materialities of the grosser elements whose thoughts are a concatenation of thick- blown fancies, whose syllables are music." * *D. M. Moir's Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born at Cockermouth in Cumber- land, April 7, 1770. Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear : Much favored in my birthplace, and no less In that beloved vale* to which erelong We were transplanted, there were we let loose For sports of wider range. Ere T had told Ten birthdays, when among the mountain slopes Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy, With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung, To range the open heights where woodcocks run Along the smooth green turf, f " He was from the first in tolerably easy circumstances, and had a small fortune. Happily married, amidst the favors of government and the respect of the public, he lived peacefully on the margin of a beautiful lake, in sight of noble mountains, in the pleasant retirement of an elegant house (Rydal Mount), amidst the admiration and attentions of distinguished and chosen friends, engrossed by contemplations which no storm came to distract, and by poetry, which was produced without any hindrance. " In this deep calm he listens to his own thoughts ; the peace was so great, within him and around him, that he could perceive ftie imperceptible. He saw a grandeur, a beauty, lessons in the trivial events which weave the woof of our most commonplace days. He needed not, for the sake of emotion, either splendid sights or unusual actions. The dazzling glare of the lamps, the pomp of the theatre, would have shocked him ; his eyes are too delicate, accustomed to sweet and uniform tints." J * Vale of Esthwaite. f Prelude, Book I. J Taine's English Literature, Vol. II. I 129 130 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. He was appointed successor to Southey, as poet-laureate, in 1843. This distinction he accepted as a tribute of respect to his poetical name and genius, and not as an office imposing on him the production of government panegyrics. He died April 23, 1850, at the ripo age of eighty years. A FAREWELL. Farewell, thou little nook of mountain-ground, Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair Of that magnificent temple which doth bound One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare; Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair, The loveliest spot that man hath ever found, Farewell! we leave thee to Heaven's peaceful care, Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround. Our boat is safely anchored by the shore, And there will safely ride when we are gone ; The flowering shrubs that deck our humble door Will prosper, though unattended and alone : Fields, goods, and far-off chattels we have none : These narrow bounds contain our private store Of things earth makes, and sun doth shine upon ; Here are they in our sight, we have no more. Sunshine and shower be with you, bud and bell ! For two months now in vain we shall be sought; We leave you here in solitude to dwell With these our latest gifts of tender thought; Thou, like the morning, in thy saffron coat, Bright gowan, and marsh-marigold, farewell ! Whom from the borders of the Lake we brought, And placed together near our rocky Well. We go for One to whom ye will be dear; And she will prize this Bower, this Indian shed, Our own contrivance, Building without peer ! A gentle Maid, whose heart is lowly bred, Whose pleasures are in wild fields gathered, With joyousness, and with a thoughtful cheer, Will come to you ; to you herself will wed ; And love the blessed life that we lead here. Dear Spot! which we have watched with tender heed, Bringing thee chosen plants and blossoms blown Among the distant mountains, flower and weed, WORDSWORTH. 131 Which thou hast taken to thee as thy own, Making all kindness registered and known ; Thou for our sakes, though Nature's child indeed, Fair in thyself and beautiful alone, Hast taken gifts which thou dost little need. And O most constant, yet most fickle Place, That hast thy wayward moods, as thou dost show To them who look not daily on thy face ; Who, being loved, in love no bounds dost know, And sayst, when we forsake thee, "Let them go!" Thou easy-hearted Thing, with thy wild race Of weeds and flowers, till we return be slow, And travel with the year at a soft pace. Help us to tell Her tales of years gone by, And this sweet spring, the best beloved and best; Joy will be flown in its mortality; Something must stay to tell us of the rest. Here, thronged with primroses, the steep rock's breast Glittered at evening like a starry sky ; And in this bush our sparrow built her nest, Of which I sang one song that will not die. O happy Garden ! whose seclusion deep Hath been so friendly to industrious hours ; And to soft slumbers, that did gently steep Our spirits, carrying with them dreams of flowers, And wild notes warbled among leafy bowers; Two burning months let summer overleap, And, coming back with Her who will be ours, Into thy bosom we again shall creep.* LINES, % Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 011 revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798. Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild, secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose * Poems Founded on the Affections. 32 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees ! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration; feelings too Of unremembered pleasure : such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burden of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh ! how oft In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, WORDSWORTH. 133 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee ! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 1 came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by; To me was all in all. I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thoughts supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur ; other gifts Have followed ; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh rior grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, 12 134 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth ; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half create, And what perceive ; well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the muse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. Nor perchance, If I w r ere not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay ; For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river ; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend ; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. O yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister ! and this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy : for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure ; when the mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; O, then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, WORDSWORTH. 135 Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thoti remember me, And these my exhortations ! Nor, perchance, If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshiper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service ; rather say With warmer love, oh ! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! TO A HIGHLAND GIRL. (At Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond.) Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower Of beauty is thy earthly dower! Twice seven consenting years have shed Their utmost bounty on thy head: And these gray rocks; that household lawn Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn ; This fall of water that doth make A murmur near the silent lake ; This little bay; a quiet road That holds in shelter thy Abode, In truth together do ye seem Like something fashioned in a dream; Such forms as from their covert peep When earthly cares are laid asleep! But, O fair Creature! in the light Of common day, so heavenly bright, I bless thee, Vision as thou art, I bless thee with a human heart; God shield thee to thy latest years! Thee neither know I, nor thy peers; And -yet my eyes are filled with tears. With earnest feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace 136 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Benignity and homebred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness : Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread ! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs From quick and eager visitings Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach Of thy few words of English speech : A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife That gives thy gestures grace and life! So have I, not unmoved in mind, Seen birds of tempest-loving kind Thus beating up against the wind. What hand but would a garland cull For thee, who art so beautiful? happy pleasure! here to dwell Beside thee in some heathy dell; Adopt your homely ways, and dress, A Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess! But I could frame a wish for thee More like a grave reality: Thou art to me but as a wave Of the wild sea ; and I would have Some claim upon thee, if I could, Though but of common neighborhood. What joy to hear thee, and to see! Thy. elder brother I would be, Thy father, anything to thee ! Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace Hath led me to this lonely place. Joy have I had; and going hence 1 bear away my recompense. In spots like these it is we prize Our memory, feel that she hath eyes: Then, why should I be loth to stir ? I feel this place was made for her; To give new pleasure like the past, Continued long as life shall last. WORDSWORTH. 137 Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart, Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part; For I, methinks, till I grow old, As fair before me shall behold, As I do now, the cabin small, The lake, the bay, the waterfall ; And thee, the Spirit of them all ! * SONNET. Advance, come forth from thy Tyrolean ground, Dear Liberty ! stern Nymph of soul untamed ; Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the mountains named! Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound And o 'er the eternal snows, like Echo, bound ; Like Echo, when the hunter train at dawn Have roused her from her sleep: and forest-lawn, Cliffs, woods; and caves, her viewless steps unsound, And babble of her pastime! On, dread power! With such invisible motion speed thy flight, Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height, Through the green vales and through the herdsman's bower, That all the Alps may gladden in thy might, Here, there, and in all places at one hour. "Wordsworth's great work, The Excursion, appeared in 1814. This is a fragment of a projected great moral epic, discussing and solving the mightiest questions concerning God, nature, and man, our moral constitution, our duties, and our hopes. Its dramatic interest is exceedingly small ; its structure is very inartificial ; and the characters represented in it are devoid of life and probability. That a*n old Scottish peddler, a country clergyman, and a disap- pointed visionary, should reason so continuously and so sublimely on the destinies of man, is in itself a gross want of verisimilitude ; and the purely speculative nature of their interminable arguments, ' On knowledge, will, and fate,' are not relieved from their monotony even by the abundant and beau- tiful descriptions and the pathetic episodes so thickly interspersed. . . . But, on the other hand, so sublime are the subjects on which they reason, so lofty and seraphic is their tone, and so deep a glow of humanity is perceptible throughout, that no reader, but such as seek in poetry for mere food for the curiosity and imagination, can study this grand composition without ever-increasing reverence and delight." f From this poem we make the following extract. The " Sage " speaks : * Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803. f Shaw's Outlines of English Literature. 12* 138 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy ; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, I doubt not, when to you it doth impart Authentic tidings of invisible things; Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; And central peace, subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation. Here you stand, Adore, and worship, when you know it not ; Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will. Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel. The estate of man would be indeed forlorn, If false conclusions of the reasoning power Made the eye blind, and closed the passages Through which the ear converses with the heart. Has not the soul, the being of your life, Received a shock of awful consciousness, In some calm season, when these lofty rocks At night's approach bring down the unclouded sky, To rest upon their circumambient walls ; A temple framing of dimensions vast, And yet not too enormous for the sound Of human anthems, choral song, or burst Sublime of instrumental harmony, To glorify the eternal ! what if these Did never break the stillness that prevails Here, if the solemn nightingale be mute, And the soft woodlark here did never chant Her vespers, Nature fails not to provide Impulse and utterance. The whispering air Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights, And blind recesses of the caverned rocks ; The little rills, and waters numberless, Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes With the loud streams : and often, at the hour When issue forth the lirst pale stars, is heard, WORDSWORTH. 139 Within the circuit of this fabric huge, One voice, the solitary raven, flying Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, Unseen, perchance, above all power of sight, An iron knell! with echoes from afar Faint, and still fainter, as the cry, with which The wanderer accompanies her flight Through the calm region, fades upon the ear, Diminishing by distance till it seemed To expire; yet from the abyss is caught again, And yet again recovered! But descending From these imaginative heights, that yield Far-stretching views into eternity, Acknowledge that to Nature's humbler power Your cherished sullenness is forced to bend Even here, where her amenities are sown With sparing hand. Then trust yourself abroad To range her blooming bowers, and spacious fields, Where on the labors of the happy throng She smiles, including in her wide embrace City, and town, and tower, and sea with ships Sprinkled ; be our companion while we track Her rivers populous with gliding life ; While, free as air, o'er printless sands we march, Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods; Roaming, or resting under grateful shade In peace and meditative cheerfulness; Where living things, and things inanimate, Do speak, at Heaven's command, to eye and ear, And speak to social reason's inner sense, With inarticulate language. For the Man Who, in this spirit, communes with the Forms Of Nature, who with understanding heart Both knows and loves such objects as excite No morbid passions, no disquietude, No vengeance, and no hatred needs must feel The joy of that pure principle of love So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose But seek for objects of a kindred love In fellow-natures, and a kindred joy. Accordingly, he by degrees perceives His feelings of aversion softened down ; HO MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. A holy tenderness pervade his frame. His sanity of reason not impaired, Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear, From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round And seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks: Until abhorrence and contempt are things He only knows by name ; and, if he hear, From other mouths, the language which they speak, He is compassionate ; and has no thought, No feeling, which can overcome his love. And further ; by contemplating these Forms In the relations which they bear to man, He shall discern, how, through the 'various means Which silently they yield, are multiplied The spiritual presences of absent things. Trust me, that, for the instructed, time will come When they shall meet no object but may teach Some acceptable lesson to their minds Of human suffering, or human joy. So shall they learn, while all things speak of man, Their duties from all forms ; and general laws, And local accidents, shall tend alike To rouse, to urge ; and, with the will, confer The ability to spread the blessings wide Of true philanthropy. The light of love Not failing, perseverance from their steps . Departing not, for them shall be confirmed The glorious habit by which sense is made Subservient still to moral purposes, Auxiliary to divine. That change shall clothe The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore The burden of existence. Science then Shall be a precious visitant; and then, And only then, be worthy of her name : For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye, Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang Chained to its object in brute slavery ; But, taught with patient interest to watch The processes of things, and serve the cause Of order and distinctness, not for this Shall it forget that its most noble use, Its most illustrious province, must be found In furnishing clear guidance, a support Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive power. So build we up the Being that we are ; WORDSWORTH. 141 Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, We shall be wise perforce ; and, while inspired By choice, and conscious that the Will is free, Shall move unswerving, even as if impelled By strict necessity, along the path Of order and of good. Whate'er we see, Or feel, shall tend to quicken and refine ; Shall fix, in calmer seats of moral strength, Earthly desires ; and raise, to loftier heights Of divine love, our intellectual soul. An eminent contemporary,* a most intimate friend and an ardent admirer of our poet, has catalogued his peculiarities in the following compact and vigorous passage : " First. An austere purity of language, both grammatically and logically ; in short, a perfect appropriateness of the words to the meaning. Secondly. A correspondent weight and sanity of the thoughts and sentiments, won, not from books, but from the poet's own meditations. They are fresh, and have the dew upon them. Thirdly. The sinewy strength and originality of single lines and paragraphs ; the frequent curiosa felicitas of his diction. Fourthly. The perfect truth of nature in his images and descriptions, as taken immediately from nature, and proving a long and genial intimacy with the very spirit which gives a physiognomic expression to all the works of nature. Fifthly. A meditative pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility; a sympathy with man as man, the sympathy, indeed, of a contemplator rather than a fellow-sufferer and co-mate, but of a contemplator from whose view no difference of rank conceals the sameness of the nature ; no injuries of wind or weather or toil, or even of ignorance, wholly disguise the human face divine. Last, and preeminently, I chal- lenge for this poet the gift of imagination, in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is always graceful, and sometimes recondite. But in imaginative power he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton, and yet in a mind perfectly unborrowed and his own. To employ his own words, he does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects 'Add the gleam, The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream.' " All this is true of a large part of, perhaps the greater part * S. T. Coleridge, in Biographia Literaria. 142 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. of, Wordsworth's poetry; the rest has been quite as truthfully characterized, we think, by a more recent and very able critic.* "Half of his pieces are childish, almost foolish (see Peter Bell ; The White Doe; The Kitten and Falling Leaves, etc.) ; dull events de- scribed in a dull style, one nullity after another, and that on prin- ciple. All the poets in the world would not reconcile us to such tedium. Certainly a cat playing with three dry leaves may furnish a philosophical reflection, and figure forth a wise man sporting with the fallen leaves of life; but eighty lines on such a subject make us yawn much worse, smile. At this rate you will find a lesson in an old tooth-brush, which still continues in use. Doubtless, also, the ways of Providence are unfathomable, and a selfish and brutal workman like Peter Bell may be converted by the beautiful con- duct of an ass full of virtue and unselfishness ; but this sentimental prettiness quickly grows insipid, and the style, by its intentional ingenuousness, renders it still more insipid. . . . You must consider your emotions very precious, that you put them all under glass. There are only three or four events in each of our lives worthy of being related; our powerful sensations deserve to be exhibited, be- cause they recapitulate our whole existence ; but not the little effects of the little agitations which pass through us, and the imperceptible oscillations of our everyday condition. " The specialty of the artist is to cast great ideas in moulds as great as they; Wordsworth's moulds are of bad common clay, notched, unable to hold the noble metal which they ought to con- tain. But the metal is genuinely noble ; and besides several very beautiful sonnets, there is now and then a work, amongst others The Excursion, in which we forget the poverty of the scenery to ad- mire the purity and elevation of the thought." * Tame in his English Literature, Vol. II. THOMAS HOOD. THOMAS HOOD was born in London, May 23, 1798. His edu- cation was meager; and at an early age he was apprenticed to his uncle, an engraver. This employment, though damaging to his health and obnoxious to his tastes, proved in the end a great advantage, enabling him to illustrate his comicalities with cuts correspondingly amusing. His debut as a litterateur was made while he was recuperating for a couple of years tn Dundee. A first appearance in type was followed by a number of contributions to the " Dundee Magazine ; " and these experiments, added to others of a like sort, subsequently made in London, eventuated in his becoming " a sort of sub-editor " of the " London Magazine," in 1821. A few years later, Hood published his first book Odes and Ad- dresses to Great People, which was written conjointly with his brother-in-law. His contributions to the magazine were col- lected and published in 1826, under the title of Whims and Oddities. In the same year appeared the Pica of the Midsum- mer Fairies, "in which the author's exquisitely delicate fancy runs riot in very prodigality of wit." From this poem we ex- tract the Shade's defence of the Fairies. 'T is these that free the small entangled fly, Caught in the venomed spider's crafty snare; These be the petty surgeons that apply The healing balsams to the wounded hare, Bedded in bloody fern, no creature's care! These be providers for the orphan brood, Whose tender mother hath been slain in air, Quitting with gaping bill her darlings' food, Hard by the verge of her domestic wood. 'Tis these befriend the timid, trembling stag, When, with a bursting heart beset with fears, He feels his saving speed begin to flag; For then they quench the fatal taint with tears, 143 144 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And prompt fresh shifts in his alarmed ears, So piteously they view all bloody morts; Or if the gunner, with his arm, appears, Like noisy pyes and jays, with harsh reports, They warn the wild fowl of his deadly sports. For these are kindly ministers of nature, To soothe all covert hurts and dumb distress; Pretty they be, and very small of stature, For mercy still consorts with littleness; Wherefore the sum of good is still the less, And mischief grossest in this world of wrong; So do these charitable dwarfs redress The tenfold ravages of giants strong, To whom great malice and great might belong. Likewise to them are poets much beholden For secret favors in the midnight glooms; Brave Spenser quaffed out of their goblets golden, And saw their tables spread of prompt mushrooms, And heard their horns of honeysuckle blooms Sounding upon the air most soothing soft, Like humming bees busy about the brooms, And glanced this fair queen's witchery full oft, And in her magic wain soared far aloft. Nay, I myself, though mortal, once was nursed By fairy gossips, friendly at my birth, And in my childish ear glib Mab rehearsed Her breezy travels round our planet's girth, Telling me wonders of the moon and earth; My gramarye at her grave lap I conned, Where Puck had been convened to make me mirth ; I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond, And toyed with Oberon's permitted wand. With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed me, And delicate cates after my sunset meal, And took me by my childish hand, and led me By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel, Whose awful bases deep, dark woods conceal, Staining some dead lake with their verdant dyes: And when the West sparkled at Phoebus' wheel, With fairy euphrasy they purged mine eyes, To let me see their cities in the skies. HOOD. 145 'T was they first schooled my young imagination To take its nights like any new-fledged bird, And showed the span of winged meditation Stretched wider than things grossly seen or heard. With sweet, swift Ariel how I soared and stirred The fragrant blooms of spiritual bowers ! 'T was they endeared what I have still preferred, Nature's blest attributes and balmy powers, Her hills, and vales, and brooks, sweet birds and flowers ! Wherefore with all true loyalty and duty Will I regard them in my honoring rhyme, With love for love, and homages to beauty, And magic thoughts gathered in night's cool clime, With studious verse trancing the dragon Time, Strong as old Merlin's necromantic spells ; So these dear monarchs of the summer's prime Shall live unstartled by his dreadful yells, T^ll shrill larks warn them to their flowery cells. The National Tales appeared in 1827. Two years later, Hood commenced the publication of the " Comic Annual," which he carried forward with increasing success until 1834, when, by the failure of a firm, he became bankrupt. His proud and honorable nature, however, refused to have recourse to the bankruptcy court, and with a determination to liquidate his debts by literary toil, he went to the Continent. Here, through much ill-health, Hood worked on indefatigably. " The public at home, that laughed over the quaint quips and cuts which the never-failing 'Comic' brought them, little thought with what pain and difficulty its mirth-inspiring pages were written. Yet, day by day, and often far into the night, the scratch of the pen was heard in his little room, and when, as often happened, the writer was so exhausted as to be unable to hold it, propped up by pillows, he still dictated to his wife the never-failing series of joke and pun."* Hood returned home in 1840. The next year, on the death of Theodore Hook, he was appointed editor of the " New Monthly Magazine," the periodical in which, a short time before, he had published his famous poem, Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg. " In the Christmas number of ' Punch ' for 1843 appeared the Song of the Shirt. For the first time Hood really caught the ear of the world as a singer. The song went straight to the heart of the * Weslmineter Review, April, 1871. 13 K 146 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. nation it was copied into every paper, the verses were on every tongue, and little boys sang it on the streets." * We present it. THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the " Song of the Shirt ! " "Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work work work, Till the stars shine through the roof! It's O! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian workl "Work work work Till the brain begins to swim! Work work work Till the eyes are heavy and dim I Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream! "O, men, with sisters dear! 0, men, with mothers and wives ! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives ! Stitch stitch stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt. "But why do I talk of death? That phantom of grisly bone, I hardly fear his terrible shape, It seems so like my own It seems so like my own, Because of the fasts I keep; * Westminster Review, April, 1871. HOOD. 147 O, God ! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap ! "Work! work! work! My labor never flags ; And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, A crust of bread and rags. The shattered roof and this naked floor A table a broken chair . And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there! " Work work work ! From weary chime to chime, Work work work, As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band, Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed As well as the w r eary hand. " Work work work, In the dull December light, And work work work, When the weather is warm and bright While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, As if to show me their sunny backs, And twit me with the spring. "O! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet, For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want, And the walk that costs a meal! "O! but for one short hour! A respite however brief! No blessed leisure for love or hope, But only time for grief! A little weeping would ease my heart, But in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread ! " 148 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the rich! She sang this " Song of the Shirt ! " Hood's engagement with the "New Monthly Magazine" was ter- minated in 1843, in order that he might carry into effect a long- cherished plan of starting a magazine of his own. This was accom- plished in January of the following year by the appearance of " Hood's Magazine." But alas! the realization came too late to afford the anticipated satisfaction. Though the magazine became unprecedented!} 7 popular, great financial difficulties were met with in carrying it through the earlier numbers ; and, worst of all, Hood's health, always feeble and for several years past very precarious, utterly failed him this year. " Yet, in the midst of all his troubles and illness like a nightin- gale singing in the stormy dark he composed many of his best songs; the Haunted House, the Lady's Dream, The Laborer's Lay, and The Bridge of Sighs, having appeared in rapid succession. . . . In the February number of his Magazine appeared the last verses Hood ever wrote verses worthy of a dying poet: "* Farewell, life! my senses swim, And the world is growing dim; Thronging shadows cloud the light, Like the advent of the night Colder, colder, colder still, Upward steals a vapor chill; Strong the earthy odor grows I smell the mould above the rose! Welcome, life! the spirit strives! Strength returns and hope revives; Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn Fly like shadows at the morn, O'er the earth there comes a bloom; Sunny light for sullen gloom, Warm perfume for vapor cold I smell the rose above the mould! * Westminster Review, April, 1871. HOOD. 149 Hood died on May 3, 1845. As a sample of Hood's felicity in humorous prose composition, we present THE DISCOVERY. "It's a nasty evening," said Mr. Dornton, the stock-broker, as he settled himself in the last inside place of the last Fulham coach, driven by our old friend Mat an especial friend in need, be it remembered, to the fair sex. " I would n't be outside," said Mr. Jones, another stock-broker, " for a trifle." " Nor I, as a speculation in options," said Mr. Parsons, another frequenter of the Alley. " I wonder what Mat is waiting for," said Mr. Tidwell, " for we are full, inside and ouW Mr. Tidwell's doubt was soon solved, the coach-door opened, and Mat somewhat ostentatiously inquired, what indeed he very well knew "I be- lieve every place is took up inside?" "We're all here," answered Mr. Jones, on behalf of the usual comple- ment of old stagers, " I told you so, ma'am," said Mat, to a female who stood beside him, but still leaving the door open to an invitation from within. However, nobody spoke on the contrary, I felt Mr. Hindmarsh, my next neighbor, dilating himself like the frog in the fable. " I don't know what I shall do," excLtimed the woman ; " I 've nowhere to go to, and it 's raining cats and dogs !" "You'd better not hang about, anyhow," said Mat, " for you may ketch your death, and I'm the last coach, ain't I, Mr. Jones?" " To be sure you are," said Mr. Jones, rather impatiently ; " shut the door." " I told the lady the gentlemen could n't make room for her," answered Mat, in a tone of apology, " I'm very sorry, my dear" (turning towards the female), "you should have my seat, if you could hold the ribbons but such a pretty one as you ought to have a coach of her own." He began slowly closing the door. "Stop, Mat, stop!" cried Mr. Dornton, and the door quickly unclosed again; "I can't give up my place, for I'm expected home to dinner; but if the lady would n't object to sit on my knees " "Not the least in the world," answered Mat, eagerly; "you won't ob- ject, will you, ma'am, for once in the way, with a married gentleman, and a wet night, and the last coach on the road?" "If I thought I shouldn't uncommode," said the lady, precipitately furling her wet umbrella, which she handed into one gentleman, whilst she favored another with her muddy pattens. She then followed herself, Mat shutting the door behind her, in such a manner as to help her in. " I 'm sure I'm obliged for the favor," she said, looking round; "but which gen- tleman was so kind?" " It was I who had the pleasure of proposing, Madam," said Mr. Dornton : and before he pronounced the last word she was in his lap, with the assur- 13* 150 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ance that she would sit as lightsome as she could. Both parties seemed very well pleased with the agreement; but to judge according to the rules of Lavater, the rest of the company were but ill at ease. For my own part, I candidly confess I was equally out of humor with myself and the person who had set me such an example of gallantry. I, who had read the lays of the Troubadours the awards of the old "Courts of Love" the lives of the ''preux Chevaliers" the history of Sir Charles Grandison to be outdone in courtesy to the sex by a married stock -broker ! How I grudged him the honor she conferred upon him how I envied his feel- ings ! I did not stand alone, I suspect, in this unjustifiable jealousy ; Messrs. Jones, Hindmarsh, Tidwell, and Parsons seemed equally disinclined to forgive the chivalrous act which had, as true knights, lowered all our crests and blotted our scutcheons, and cut off our spurs. Many an unfair jibe was launched at the champion of the fair, and when he attempted to enter into conversation with the lady, he was interrupted by incessant questions of " What is stirring in the Alley ? " " What is doing in Dutch ?" " How are the Kentes ? " To all these questions Mr. Dornton incontinently returned business-like answers according to the last Stock Exchange quotations; and he was in the middle of an elaborate enumeration, that so-and-so was very firm, and so-and-so very low, and this rather brisk, and that getting up, and opera- tions, and fluctuations, and so forth, when somebody inquired about Spanish Bonds. " They are looking up, my dear," answered Mr. Dornton, somewhat ab- stractedly ; and before the other stock-brokers had done tittering the stage stopped. A bell was rung, and whilst Mat stood beside the open coach- door, a staid female in a calash and clogs, with a lantern in her hand, came clattering pompously down a front garden. "Is Susan Pegge come?" inquired a shrill voice. "Yes, I be," replied the lady who had been dry-nursed from town; "are you, rna'am, number ten, Grove Place?" " This is Mr. Dornton's," said the dignified woman in the hood, advanc- ing her lantern, " and mercy on us ! you 're in master's lap ! " A shout of laughter from five of the inside passengers corroborated the assertion, and like a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-devant lady, forget- ting her umbrella and her pattens, bolted out of the coach, and with feline celerity rushed up the garden, and down the area, of number ten. "Eenounce the woman!" said Mr. Dornton, as he scuttled out of the stage. " Why the devil didn't she tell me she was the new cook?" The following poems must serve as representatives of a class that constitutes the bulk of Hood's writings. THE DUEL: A SERIOUS BALLAD. In Brentford town, of old renown, There lived a Mister Bray, Who fell in love with Lucy Bell, And so did Mr. Clay. HOOD. 151 To see her ride from Hammersmith, By all it was allowed, Such fair outsides are seldom seen, Such angels on a "Cloud." Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay, You choose to rival me, And court Miss Bell, but there your court No thoroughfare shall be. Unless you now give up your suit, You may repent your love; I who have shot a pigeon match, Can. shoot a turtle dove. So pray before you woo her more, Consider what you do; If you pop aught to Lucy Bell, I '11 pop it into you. Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray, Your threate I quite explode; One who has been a volunteer, Knows how to prime and load. And so I say to you unless Your passion quiet keeps, I who have shot and hit bulls' eyes, May chance fco hit a sheep's. Now gold is oft for silver changed, And that for copper red; But these two went away to give Each other change for lend. But first they sought a friend a-piece, This pleasant thought to give When they were dead, they thus should have Two seconds still to live. To measure out the ground not long The seconds then forebore, And having taken one rash step They took a dozen more. They next prepared each pistol-pan Against the deadly strife, By putting in the prime of death Against the prime of life. 152 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Now all was ready for the foes, But when they took their stands, ear made them tremble so they found They both were shaking hands. Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., Here one of us may fall, And like St. Paul's Cathedral now, Be doom'd to have a ball. I do confess I did attach Misconduct to your name; If I withdraw the charge, will then Your ramrod do the same? Said Mr. B., I do agree- But think of Honor's Courts! If we go off without a shot, There will be strange reports. But look, the morning now is bright. Though cloudy it begun; Why can't we aim above, as if We had call'd out the sun? So up into the harmless air, Their bullets they did send; And may all other duels have That upshot in the end. A SERENADE. "Lullaby, O lullaby!" Thus I heard a father cry ; "Lullaby, O lullaby! The brat will never shut an eye; Hither come, some power divine! Close his lids, or open mine ! " "Lullaby, O lullaby! What the devil makes him cry? 4 Lullaby, O lullaby ! Still he stares I wonder why- Why are not the sons of earth Blind, like puppies, from the birth ?* "Lullaby, O lullaby!" Thus I heard the father cry; "Lullaby, O lullaby! Mary, you must come and try! HOOD. 153 Hush, O hush, for mercy's sake The more I sing, the more you wake!" "Lullaby, O lullaby! Fie, you little creature, fie ! Lullaby, lullaby! Is no poppy-syrup nigh? Give him some, or give him all, I am nodding to his fall ! " " Lullaby, O lullaby ! Two such nights and I shall die! Lullaby, O lullaby ! He'll be bruised, and so shall I, How can I from bed-posts keep, When I'm walking in my sleep!" 11 Lullaby, O lullaby ! Sleep his very looks deny Lullaby, lullaby! Nature soon will stupefy My nerves relax, my eyes grow dim Who's that fallen me or him?" " Thomas Hood was the prince of wits. His nature was so steeped in the choicest spirit of humor that it continually bubbled over in quip and jest, like a cool spring welling up in desert places. He was the magician of words, ruling language with a despotic sway, and by a wave of his wand compelling it to perform the strangest transformations. His style is as simple and earnest as possible. The words are mostly common Saxon words with which every one is familiar, but they are chosen with exquisite taste. Hood spoke like a child artlessly, naturally, yet with that wisdom and wit, and ' tears and laughter for all times ! ' "The popularity of his humorous writings is very wonderful, if we bear in mind the evanescent character of wit, and especially that form of wit which we call ' punning.' Other comic books grow stale; time robs them of their flavor, and steals their charms, but Hood's Own is as fresh to-day as when it first appeared. The secret lies in this. Through all Hood's comicalities there is an under- current of truth, of fresh child-like humor, and, paradoxical as it may appear, an intense spirit of sad earnestness. This man, who was wont to tickle the world into laughter, was yet not always merry himself. His tears were as often tears of pain as of joy, and he put on a sunny face at times to hide from his friends the agony which too frequently gnawed within. 154: MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. "With all his modesty, too, Hood was conscious as no great man can help being conscious of his great powers, and their partial though necessary misapplication. He felt that he was meant to be something better than an inspired jester, and because the world refused him leisure to indulge his aspirations his soul fretted silently. . . Hood's fame as a wit has hurt his reputation as a poet. His mind was steeped in the spirit of Elizabethan litera- ture. In his verse we catch once more the echo of a by -gone age ; the fresh, quaint flavor of times when thought was simple ; the strong, clear, trickling language of a people who spoke their mind. His verse is clear and ringing as a bell; it falls on the ear like pleasant music, not a note is out of tune. "Hood was not one of those men of commanding intellect who arise but once or twice at most in a nation's history. Rather is he enshrined amid the Lares and Penates of our hearts our house- hold favorites, our Charles Lambs and Sir Philip Sidneys ; a kind, genial, honest-hearted man of genius, whom we feel it is good to know and pleasant to remember; whose laugh has a hearty ring wherewith to blow away the cob-webs of sorrow and care, and the shake of whose hand does one's heart good. There have been greater writers in our nation's history; and a few more as great, but there has been no one whose noble efforts in behalf of the poor, the outcast, and the sinning, will serve to embalm his mem- ory and his works in a kindlier affection and regard than Thomas Hood, 'the darling of the English heart.' "* * Westminster Review, April, 1871. ROBERT SOUTHEY. ROBERT SOUTHEY was born at Bedminster, near Bristol, on the 12th of August, 1774. At fourteen he entered Westminster, and four years after gained admittance to Baliol College, Ox- ford. On leaving college, three well-known and influential characters met him at the door; one, in flowing vestments, and with aspect and speech supernal, invited him to sacerdotal orders and honors; another, with an air no less imposing, but with a clamorous arid worldly tongue, pressed him to political strife and preferment; while the third, with fawn-like sim- plicity, but with angelic grace and sweetness, beckoned him to more private pursuits. He left Church with a kiss of good- will, with a single hand-shake he turned from State, and arm in arm went with the Genius of Literature. Southey's earliest literary efforts were put forth for the im- mediate purpose of obtaining means toward aiding the accom- plishment of Coleridge's scheme of a " Pantisocracy " on the banks of the Susquehanna. To this end he wrote Joan of Arc, which was published in 1795. Madoc was commenced at Bath in the autumn of 1794 and finished in 1799. " This subject," (the discovery of America by the Welsh prince Madoc,) says Southey, " I had fixed upon when a school-boy, and had often conversed upon the probabilities of the story with the school- fellow to whom, sixteen years afterwards, I had the satisfaction of inscribing the poem." The following description of the destruction of a great ser- pent is from Part II. of Madoc. Far in the hill, Cave within cave, the ample grotto pierced, Three chambers in the rock. Fit vestibule, The first to that wild temple, long and low, Shut out the outward day. The second vault Had its own daylight from a central chasm High in the hollow; here the Image stood, 155 156 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Their rude idolatry, a sculptured snake, If term of art may such misshapen form Beseem, around a human figure coil'd, And all begrimed with blood. The inmost cell Dark ; and far up within its blackest depth They saw the Serpent's still small eye of fire. Not if they thinn'd the forest for their pile, Could they, with flame or suffocating smoke, Destroy him there; for through the open roof The clouds would pass away. They paused not long ; " Drive him beneath the chasm," Cadwallon cried, " And hem him in with fire, and from above We crush him." Forth they went, and climb'd the hill With all their people. Their united strength Loosen'd the rocks, and ranged them round the brink, Impending. With Cadwallon on the height Ten Britons wait; ten with the Prince descend, And with a firebrand each in either hand, Enter the outer cave. Madoc advanced, And at the entrance of the inner den, He took his stand alone. A bow he bore, And arrows round whose heads dry tow was twined, In pine-gum dipp'd, he kindled these, and shot The fiery shafts. Upon the scaly skin, As on a rock, the bone-tipp'd arrows fell, But at their bright and blazing light efiray'd, Out rush'd the reptile. Madoc from his path Retired against the side, and call'd his men, And in they came, and circled round the snake ; And shaking all their flames, as with a wheel Of fire they ring'd him in. From side to side The monster turns ! where'er he turns, the flame Flares in his nostrils and his blinking eyes; Nor aught against the dreaded element Did that brute force avail, which could have crush'd Milo's young limbs, or Theban Hercules, Or old Manoah's mightier son, ere yet Shorn of his strength. They press him now, and now Give back, here urging, and here yielding way, Till right beneath the chasm they centre him. At once the crags are loosed, and down they fall Thundering. They fell like thunder, but the crash SOU THEY. 157 Of scale and bone was heard. In agony The Serpent writhed beneath the blow; in vain, From under the incumbent load essay'd To drag his mangled folds. One heavier stone Fasten'd and flatten'd him; yet still, with tail Ten cubits %ong, he lash'd the air, and foined From side to side, and raised his raging head Above the height of man, though half his length Lay mutilate. Who then had felt the force Of that wild fury, little had to him Buckles or corselet profited, or mail, Or might of human arm. The Britons shrunk Beyond its arc of motion; but the Prince Took a long spear, and springing on the stone Which fix'd the monster down, provoked his rage. Uplifts the Snake his head retorted, high He lifts it over Madoc, then darts down To seize his prey. The Prince, with foot advanced, Inclines his body back, and points the spear With sure and certain aim, then drives it up, Into his open jaws; two cubits deep It pierced, the monster forcing on the wound. He closed his teeth for anguish, and bit short The ashen hilt. But not the rage which now Clangs all his scales, can from its seat dislodge The barbed shaft; nor those contortions wild, Nor those convulsive shudderings, nor the throes Which shake his inmost entrails, as with the air In suffocating gulps the monster now Inhales his own life-blood. The Prince descends ; He lifts another lance ; and now the Snake, Gasping, as if exhausted, on the ground Reclines his head one moment. Madoc seized That moment, planted in his eye the spear, Then setting foot upon his neck, drove down Through bone, and brain, and throat, and to the earth Infixed the mortal weapon. Yet once more The Snake essay'd to rise; his dying strength Fail'd him, nor longer did those mighty folds Obey the moving impulse, crush'd and scotch'd ; In every ring, through all his mangled length, The shrinking muscles quiver'd, then collapsed In death. 14 158 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. "In those days," says our poet, "I was an early riser: the time so gained was usually employed in carrying on the poem which I had in hand, and when Charles Danvers came down to breakfast on the morning after Madoc was completed, I had the first hundred lines of Thalaba to show him, fresh from the mint." It was com- pleted and published in 1800. From Book VI. of this poem we quote what may be styled : THALABA'S ADMISSION TO PARADISE. This was a wild and wondrous scene, Strange and beautiful, as where By Oton-tala, like a sea of stars, The hundred sources of Hoangho burst. High mountains closed the vale, Bare rocky mountains, to all living things Inhospitable; on whose sides no herb Rooted, no insect fed, no bird awoke Their echoes, save the Eagle, strong of wing, A lonely plunderer, that afar Sought in the vales his prey. Thither toward those mountains Thalaba Following, as he believed, the path prescribed By Destiny, advanced. Up a wide vale that led into their depths, A stony vale between receding heights Of stone, he wound his way. A cheerless place ! the solitary Bee, Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, Flew there on restless wing, Seeking in vain one flower, whereon to fix. Still Thalaba holds on ; The winding vale now narrows on his view, And steeper of ascent, Right ward and leftward rise the rocks; And now they meet across the vale. Was it the toil of human hands Had hewn a passage in the rock, Through whose rude portal- way The light of heaven was seen? Rude and low the portal-way; Beyond, the same ascending straits Went winding up the wilds. SOU THEY. 159 Still a bare, silent, solitary glen, A fearful silence and a solitude That made itself be felt; And stepper now the ascent, A rugged path, that tired The straining muscles, toiling slowly up. At length, again a rock Stretch'd o'er the narrow vale ; There also had a portal-way been hewn, But gates of massy iron barr'd the pass, Huge, solid, heavy -hinged. There hung a horn beside the gate, Ivory-tipp'd and brazen-mouth'd. He took the ivory tip, And through the brazen mouth he breathed; Like a long thunder-peal, From rock to rock rebounding rung the blast; The gates of iron, by no human arm Unfolded, turning on their hinges slow, Disclosed the passage of the rock. He enter'd, and the iron gates fell to, And with a clap like thunder closed him in. It was a narrow, winding way ; Dim lamps suspended from the vault, Lent to the gloom an agitated light. Winding it pierced the rock, A long, descending path, By gates of iron closed; There also hung a horn beside, Of ivory tip and brazen mouth; Again he took the ivory tip, And gave the brazen mouth its voice again. Not now in thunder spake the horn, But breathed a sweet and thrilling melody. The gates flew open, and a flood of light Rush'd on his dazzled eyes. Was it to earthly Eden, lost so long, The fated Youth had found his wondrous w r ay? But earthly Eden boasts No t3rraced palaces, No rich pavilions bright with woven gold, Like these, that, in the vale, Rise amid odorous groves. The astonish'd Thalaba, 160 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Doubting as though an unsubstantial dream Beguiled him, closed his eyes, And open'd them again; And yet uncertified, He press'd them close, and, as he look'd around, Question'd the strange reality again. He did not dream ; They still were there The glittering tents, The odorous groves, The gorgeous palaces. . . . Where'er his eye could reach, Fair structures, rainbow-hued, arose ; And rich pavilions, through the opening woods, Gleam'd from their waving curtains sunny gold; And, winding through the verdant vale, Went streams of liquid light And fluted cypresses rear'd up Their living obelisks; And broad-leav'd lane-trees, in long colonnades, O'er-arch'd delightful walks, Where round their trunks the thousand tendrilPd vine Wound up and hung the boughs with greener wreaths, And clusters not their own. Wearied with endless beauty, did his eyes Return for rest? beside him teems the earth With tulips, like the ruddy evening streak'd ; And here the lily hangs her head of snow; And here, amid her sable cup, Shines the red eye-spot, like one brightest star, The solitary twinkler of the night; And here the rose expands Her paradise of leaves. Then on his ear what sounds Of harmony arose! Far music and the distance-mellow'd song From bowers of merriment; The waterfall remote; The murmuring of the leafy groves ; The single nightingale Perch'd in the rosier by, so richly toned, That never from that most melodious bird, Singing a love-song to his brooding mate, Did Thraciari shepherd by the grave SOU THEY. 161 Of Orpheus hear a sweeter melody, Though tfcere the Spirit of the Sepulchre All his own power infuse, to swell The incense that he loves. . . . Full of the bliss, yet still awake To wonder, on went Thalaba ; On every side the song of mirth, The music of festivity, Invite the passing youth. Wearied at length with hunger and with heat. He enters in a banquet room, Where, round a fountain brink, On silken carpets sate the festive train. Instant through all his frame Delightful coolness spread ; The playing fount refresh'd The agitated air; The very light came cool'd through silvering panes Of pearly shell, like the pale moon-beam tinged ; Or where the wine-vase fill'd the aperture, Rosy as rising mom, or softer gleam Of saffron, like the sunny evening mist : Through every hue, and streak'd by all, The flowing fountain play'd. Around the water-edge Vessels of wine, alternate placed, Ruby and amber, tinged its little waves. From golden goblets there The guests sate quaffing the delicious 'juice Of Shizaz' golden grape. In 1804, Southey removed to Greta Hall, near Keswick, in Cum- berland, where, excepting occasional visits to London, several ex- cursions to various parts of England and the Continent, he passed the remainder of his life. Roderick, the Last of the Goths, was com- menced at Keswick, 1809, and there finished in 1814. RODERICK IN BATTLE. The Avenger hastened on In search of Ebba ; and in the heat of fight Rejoicing, and forgetful of all else, Set up his cry, as he was wont in youth, " Roderick the Goth ! " his war-cry known so well. . . . The unreflecting throng, who yesterday, 14* L 162 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. If it had passed their lips, would with a curse Have clogged it, echoed it as if it came From some celestial voice in the air, revealed To be the certain pledge of all their hopes. " Roderick the Goth ! Roderick and Victory ! Roderick and Vengeance ! " O'er the field it spread, All hearts and tongues uniting in the cry; Mountains and rocks and vales re-echoed round ; And he, rejoicing in his strength, rode on, Laying on the Moors with that good sword, and smote And overthrew, and scattered and destroyed, And trampled down ; and still at every blow Exultingly he sent the war-cry forth, " Roderick the Goth 1 Roderick and Victory ! Roderick and Vengeance ! " Thus he made his way, Smiting and slaying, through the astonished ranks, Till he beheld, where on a fiery barb, Ebba, performing well a soldier's part, Dealt to the right and left his deadly blows. With mutual rage they met. The renegade Displays a cimeter, the "splendid gift Of Walid, from Damascus sent; its hilt Embossed with gems, its blade of perfect steel, Which, like a mirror sparkling to the sun With dazzling splendor, flashed. The Goth objects His shield, and on its rim received the edge Driven from its aim aside, and of its force Diminished. Many a frustrate stroke was dealt On either part, and many a foin and thrust Aimed and rebated ; many a deadly blow, Strait or reverse, delivered and repelled. Roderick at length with better speed hath reached The Apostate's turban ; and, through all its folds, The true Cantabrian weapon, making way, Attained his forehead. " Wretch ! " the avenger cried, "It comes from Roderick's hand! Roderick the Goth! Who spared, who trusted thee, and was betrayed ! Go, tell thy father now how thou hast sped With all thy treasons ! " Saying thus, he seized The miserable, who, blinded now with blood, Reeled in the saddle ; and, with sidelong step Backing Orelio, drew him to the ground. He shrieking, as beneath the horse's feet SOUTHEY. 163 He fell, forgot his late-learnt creed, and called On Mary's name. The dreadful Goth passed on, Still plunging through the thickest war, and still Scattering, where'er he turned, the affrighted ranks. * * * * * # * The evening darkened, but the avenging sword Turned not away its edge till night had closed Upon the field of blood. The Chieftain then Blew the recall, and from their perfect work Returned rejoicing, all but he for whom All looked with most expectance. . . . Upon the banks Of Sella was Orelio found, his legs And flanks incarnadined, his poitrel smeared With froth and foam and gore, his silver mane Sprinkled with blood, which hung on every hair, Aspersed like dewdrops; trembling there he stood From the toil of battle, and at times sent forth His tremulous voice far echoing loud and shrill, A frequent anxious cry, with which he seemed To call the master whom he loved so well, And who had thus again forsaken him. Siverian's helm and cuirass on the grass Lay near ; and Julian's sword, its hilt and chain Clotted with blood: but where was he whose hand Had wielded it so well that glorious day? Days, months, and years and generations passed, And centuries held their course, before, far off Within a hermitage near Viseu's walls, A humble tomb was found, which bore inscribed In ancient characters King Roderick's name. "Of all Southey's great poems, Roderick is assuredly the best, and must ever keep its place among the first-class productions of the age. It was the achievement of his matured genius, and is, through- out, more consistent and sustained than Thalaba, Madoc, or Kehama. Hence it is, perhaps, that its beauties stand less prominently for- ward from the general text; but they are more in number, and higher in excellence, than those of his other works. "* Without attempting to pursue further the story of Southey's numerous literary achievements, let it suffice to note that, after about twenty years of laborious probation, he was, in 1813, adjudged worthy of the proud appointment of Poet-laureate. The last few * D. M. Moir's Poetical Literature of past Half-Century. 164 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. years of his life were saddened by a gradual decay of his intellect; and he died, March 21, 1843. "Southey would have been a remarkable man in whatever he turned his attention to, let it have been law, physic, or divinity, the accountant's desk or the merchant's wharf, the pen or the sword. His enterprise, like his industry, was boundless ; his self- appreciation was justly high ; his spirits were exuberantly elastic, his courage indomitable. To himself he was the hardest of task- masters ; and he was not contented, like Coleridge, with merely meditating great things, but uniformly carried them through, com- pelling himself to a more than Egyptian bondage for it was from year to year, and every day, and all day long, and to the end of his life." * " Joan of Arc is an English and French story ; Thalaba, Arabian ; Kehama, Indian ; Madoc, Welch and American ; and Roderick, Spanish and Moorish ; nor would it be easy to say (setting aside the first, which was a very youthful work) in which of these noble poems Southey has most successfully performed an achievement entirely beyond the power of any but the highest genius. In Ma- doc, and especially in Roderick, he has relied on the truth of nature, as it is seen in the history of great national transactions and events. In Thalaba and in Kehama, though in them, too, he has brought to bear an almost boundless love, he follows the leading of Fancy and Imagination, and walks in a world of wonders. Seldom, if ever, has one and the same poet exhibited such power in such dif- ferent kinds of poetry in Truth a Master, and in Fiction a Ma- gician. " It is easy to assert that he draws on his vast stores of knowledge gathered from books, and that we have but to look at the multi- farious accumulation of notes appended to his great Poems to see that they are not inventions. The materials of poetry indeed are there often the raw materials seldom more ; but the Imagination that moulded them into beautiful, or magnificent, or wondrous shapes, is all his own, and has shown itself most creative. Southey never was among the Arabians nor Hindoos, and therefore had to trust to travelers. But had he not been a poet he might have read till he was blind, nor ever seen 'The palm grove inlanded amid the waste,' where with Oneiza in her Father's Tent ' How happily the years of Thalaba went by ! ' * D. M. Moir's Poetical Literature of past Half-Century. SOU THEY. 165 In what guidance but that of his own genius did he descend with the Destroyer into the Domdaniel Caves? And who showed him the Swerga's Bowers of Bliss ? Who built for him with all its palaces that submarine City of the Dead, safe in its far-down silence from the superficial thunder of the sea? " The greatness as well as the originality of Southey's genius is seen in the conception of every one of his five chief works with the exception of Joan of Arc, which was written in very early youth, and is chiefly distinguished by a fine enthusiasm. They are one and all National Poems, wonderfully true to the customs and char- acters of the. inhabitants of the countries in which are laid the scenes of all their various adventures and enterprises, and the poet has entirely succeeded in investing with an individual interest each representative of a race." * "The sole objection to Southey's poems is, that they are too in- tensely objective too much reflect the mind, as spreading itself out upon external things too little exhibit the mind, as introverting itself upon its own thoughts and feelings." f * Recreations of Christopher North. f De Quincey's Literary Remains. FELICIA DOROTHEA REMANS. FELICIA DOROTHEA BROWNE was born in Liverpool, Sept. 25, 1794. "She was distinguished, almost from her cradle, by ex- treme beauty and precocious talents. Before she had attained the age of seven, her father, having suffered commercial re- verses, broke up his establishment in Liverpool, and removed with his family into Wales, where, for the next nine years, they resided at Gwrych, near Abergele, in Denbighshire, a large old mansion close to the sea, and shut in by a picturesque range of mountains. " In the calm seclusion of this romantic region, with ample range through the treasures of an extensive library, the young poetess passed a happy childhood, to which she would often fondly revert amidst the vicissitudes of her after life. Here she imbibed that intense love of Nature which ever afterwards 1 haunted her like a passion,' and that warm attachment for the ' green land of Wales ; ' its affectionate, true-hearted people their traditions, their music, and all their interesting character- istics, which she cherished to the last hour of her existence."* Indeed, by far the greater part of her after life was also spent in this wild and romantic country. This happy girlhood, and her marriage in 18] 2 with Captain Hemans, and his cruel desertion of her six years later, leaving her with a family of five children to rear, were the great effi- cient influences of her life ; and they fully account, the one for the fidelity and sympathy that pervade her descriptions of nat- ural scenery, and the other for the sorrow chastened by Chris- tian faith that tones her pictures of human life. When only fifteen, "a collection of her poems, which had long been regarded amongst her friends with a degree of admi- ration, perhaps more partial than judicious, was submitted to * Memoir of Mrs. Hemans by her Sister. 166 HEMANS. 167 the world." The next four years of her life were passed in study : a knowledge of the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian languages having been acquired, and a decided taste for drawing and music, and aesthetical studies generally, having been developed. In 1812 a volume of poems, entitled The Domestic Affections, was published. The next five years wrought a marked change in the character of Mrs. Hemans 1 poetry. It had become " correct, classical, and highly polished ; but it wanted warmth : it partook more of the nature of statuary than of painting. She fettered her mind with facts and authorities, and drew upon her memory when she might have relied upon her imagination." Of such a char- acter are The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy, Modern Greece, and some of the poems in the volume named Tales and Historic Scenes, all of which appeared within these years. In " Blackwood's Magazine" for September, 1819, was published The Meeting of Wallace and Bruce, a poem which secured a public prize in competition with a great number of others on the same theme. It was followed, the next year, by The Sceptic. The classical character of her verse, to which reference has just been made, continued to distinguish her subsequent writ- ings, particularly Dartmoor (1821) another prize poem, Vespers of Palermo, Siege of Valencia, and the Last Constantine (1823) dramas. " The study of modern German poetry, and of 'Wordsworth, changed, while it expanded, her views, and The Forest Sanctuary (1826) seems to have been composed with great elaboration, doubtless, while in their transition state."* In the same year with the last-named poem appeared Lays of Many Lands. " She has transfused into her German or Scan- dinavian legends the imaginative and daring tone of the orig- inals, without the mystical exaggerations of the one, or the painful fierceness and coarseness of the other she has preserved the clearness and elegance of the French, without their cold- ness or affectation and the tenderness and simplicity of the early Italians, without their diifuseness or languor. "f Mrs. Hemans' remaining poems, with the exception of her National Lyrics (1834), proclaim themselves as frank, warm, * Blackwood's Magazine, Dec., 1848. f Francis Jeffrey in Edinburgh Review. 168 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. and spontaneous utterances of personal experience the experi- ence of a pure and sweet soul early and long and grievously saddened yet upbearing with Christian fortitude. The poems of this character were Records of Woman (1828), Songs of the Affections (1830), Hymns for Childhood, and Scenes and Hymns of Life (1834). The last five years of her life were passed at Dublin, where she died. May 16, 1835. The two extracts that follow are taken from Sonys of the Affections. BERNARDO DEL, CARPIO. The warrior bow'd his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire, And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprison'd sire : " I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train, I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord ! oh, break my father's chain ! " " Rise, rise ! even now thy father comes, a ransom'd man this day : Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way." Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed, And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's foamy speed. And lo ! from far, as on they press'd, there came a glittering band, With one that midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land ; " Now haste, Bernardo, haste ! for there, in very truth, is he, The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearn'd so long to see." His dark eye flash'd, his proud breast heaved, his cheek's blood came and went ; He reach'd that gray-hair'd chieftain's side, and there, dismounting, bent; A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took, What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook ? That hand was cold a frozen thing it dropp'd from his like lead : He look'd up to the face above the face was of the dead ! A plume waved o'er the noble brow the brow was fix'd and white ; He met at last his father's eyes but in them was no sight f Up from the ground he sprung, and gazed, but who could paint that gaze? They hush'd their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze ; They might have chain'd him, as before that stony form he stood, For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood. " Father ! " at length he murmur'd low, and wept like childhood then Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men ! HE MANS. 169 Pie thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young renown, He flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down. Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow, " No more, there is no more," he said, " to lift the sword for now. My king is false, my hope betray'd, my father oh ! the worth, The glory and the loveliness, are pass'd away from earth ! " I thought to stand where banners waved, my sire ! beside thee yet I would that these our kindred blood on Spain's free soil had met ! Thou wouldst have known my spirit then for thee my fields were won, And thou hast perish'd in thy chains, as though thou hadst no son ! " Then, starting from the ground once more, he seized the monarch's rein, Amidst the pale and wilder'd looks of all the courtier train ; And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led, And sternly set them face to face the king before the dead ! " Came I not forth upon my pledge, my father's hand to kiss ? Be still, and gaze thou on, false king ! and tell me what is this ! The voice, the glance, the heart I sought give answer, where are .they? If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, send life through this cold clay! " Into these glassy eyes put light. Be still ! keep down thine ire, Bid these white lips a blessing speak this earth is not my sire ! Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was shed, Thou canst not and a king ! His dust be mountains on thy head ! " He loosed the steed ; his slack hand fell upon the silent face He cast one long, deep, troubled look then turn'd from that sad place : His hope was crush'd, his after-fate untold in martial strain, His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain. THE MESSAGE TO THE DEAD. Thou 'rt passing hence, my brother ! O my earliest friend, farewell ! Thou 'rt leaving me, without thy voice, In a lonely home to dwell ; And from the hills, and from the hearth, And from the household tree, With thee departs the lingering mirth, The brightness goes with the'e. 15 170 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. But thou, my friend, my brother ! Thou'rt speeding to the shore Where the dirgelike tone of parting words Shall smite the soul no more! And thou wilt see our holy dead, The lost on earth and main : Into the sheaf of kindred hearts, Thou wilt be bound again! Tell, then, our friend of boyhood That yet his name is heard On the blue mountains, whence his youth Pass'd like a swift, bright bird. The light of his exulting brow, The vision of his glee, Are on me still oh! still I trust That smile again to see. And tell our fair young sister, The rose cut down in spring, That yet my gushing soul is fill'd With lays she loved to sing. Her soft deep eyes look through my dreams, Tender and sadly sweet; Tell her my heart within me burns Once more that gaze to meet. And tell our white-hair'd father, That in the paths he trod, The child he loved, the last on earth, Yet walks and worships God. Say, that his last fond blessing yet Rests on my soul like dew, And by its hallowing might I trust Once more his face to view. And tell our gentle mother, That on her grave I pour The sorrows of my spirit forth, As on her breast of yore. Happy thou art that soon, how soon, Our good and bright will see ! O brother, brother ! may I dwell, Ere long, with them and thee ! The next, from her Miscellaneous Poems, may serve as a fair exponent of our poetess's felicity as a delineator of nature. HE MANS. 171 THE VOICE OF SPRING. I come, I come ! ye have call'd me long I come o'er the mountains with light and song! Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth By the winds which tell of the violet's birth, By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass, By the green leaves opening as I pass. I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowers By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers, And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains; But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom, To speak of the ruin or the tomb! I have look'd on the hills of the stormy North, And the larch has hung all his tassels forth, The fisher is out on the sunny sea, And the reindeer bounds o'er the pastures free, And the pine has a fringe of softer green, And the moss looks bright where my foot hath been. I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh, And call'd out each voice of the deep blue sky; From the night-bird's lay through the starry time, In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime, To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes, When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks. From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain, They are sweeping on to the silvery main, They are flashing down from the mountain brows, They are flinging spray o'er the forest boughs, They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves, And the earth resounds with the joy of waves ! Come forth, O ye children of gladness ! come ! Where the violets lie may be now your home. Ye of the rose-lip and dew-bright eye, And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly ! With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay, Come forth to the sunshine I may not stay. Away from the dwellings of care-worn men, The waters are sparkling in grove and glen! 172 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Away from the chamber and sullen hearth, The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth ! The light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains, And youth is abroad in my green domains. But ye ! ye are changed since ye met me last ! There is something bright from your features pass'd! There is that come over your brow and eye Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die ! Ye smile ! but your smile hath a dimness yet : Oh! what have you look'd on since last we met? Ye are changed, ye are changed ! and I see not here All whom I saw in the vanish'd year! There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright, Which toss'd in the breeze with a play of light; There were eyes in whose glistening laughter lay No faint remembrance of dull decay ! There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head, As if for a banquet all earth were spread ; There were voices that rang through the sapphire sky, And had not a sound of mortality! Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains pass'd? Ye have look'd on death since ye met me last! I know whence the shadow comes o'er you now Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow ! Ye have given the lonely to earth's embrace She has taken the fairest of beauty's race, With their laughing eyes and their festal crown: They are gone from amongst you in silence down! They are gone from amongst you, the young and fair, Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair! But I know of a land where there falls no blight I shall find them there, with their eyes of light ! Where Death midst the blooms of the morn may dwell, I tarry no longer farewell, farewell ! The summer is coming, on soft winds borne Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn ! For me, I depart to a brighter shore Ye are mark'd by care, ye are mine no more; I go where the loved who have left you dwell, And the flowers are not Death's. Fare ye well, farewell ! HE MANS. 173 Our concluding extract is from De Chatillon; or, The Crusa- ders, a tragedy published after the author's death. Characters: Raimer de Chatillon, a French Baron; Aymer, his brother; Melech, a Saracen Emir; Moraima, daughter of Melech, and beloved of Aymer. ACT V. SCENE II. A Pavilion in the Camp of Melech. Melech. It must be that these sounds and sights of war Shake her too gentle nature. Yes, her cheek Fades hourly in my sight ! What other cause None, none! She must go hence 1 Choose from thy band The bravest, Sadi ! and the longest tried, And I will send my child Voice without. Where is your chief? (Arab and Turkish soldiers enter with De Chatillon.) Arab Chief. The sons of Kedar's tribe have brought to the son Of the prophet's house a prisoner ! Mel. (half drawing his sword.) Chatillon ! That slew my boy ! Thanks for the avenger's hour ! Sadi, their guerdon give it them the gold ! And me the vengeance ! This is he That slew my first-born ! Christian ! thou hast been Our nation's deadliest foe ! Rai. 'T is joy to hear I have not lived in vain ! Mel. Thou bear'st thyself With a conqueror's mein ! What is thy hope from me ? Rai. A soldier's death. Mel. Then thou would'st/ear a slave's? Rai. Fear ! As if man's own spirit had not power To make his death a triumph ! Waste not words ; Let my blood bathe thine own sword. Infidel ! I slew thy son! (Looking at his broken sword.) Ay, there 's the red mark here ! Mel. Thou darest to tell me this! (A tumult heard without, voices crying a Chatillon. !) Rai. My brother's voice ! He is saved ! Mel. (calling.) What, ho ! my guards ! (Aymer enters with the knights fighting their way through Melech 's soldiers, who are driven before them.) Aym. On with the war-cry of our ancient house, For the Cross De Chatillon ! 15* 174 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. (Knights shout.) For the Cross De Chatillon ! (Raimer attempts to break from his guards. Sadi enters with more soldiers to the assistance of Melech. Aymer and the knights are overpowered. Aymer is wounded and falls.) Mel. Bring fetters bind the captives ! Rai. Lost all lost ! No ! he is saved ! (he goes up to Aymer.) Brother, my brother ! hast thou pardon'd me That which I did to save thee ? Speak ! forgive ! Aym. (turning from him.) Thou see'st I die for thee ! She is avenged ! Rai. I am no murderer ! hear me ! turn to me ! We are parting by the grave ! (Moraima enters veiled, and goes up to Melech.) Mor. Father ! ! look not sternly on thy child, I came to plead. They said thou had'st condemn'd A Christian knight to die Mel. Hence to thy tent ! Away begone ! Aym. (attempting to rise.) Moraima ! hath her spirit come To make death beautiful? Moraima! speak. Mor. It was his voice ! Aymer ! (She rushes to him, throwing aside her veil.) Aym. Thou livest thou livest ! I knew thou could'st not die ! Look on me still. Thou livest ! and makest this world so full of joy But I depart ! Mel. Moraima ! hence ! is this A place for thee ? Mor. Away! away! There is no place but this for me on earth ! Where should I go ? There is no place but this ! My soul is bound to it ! Mel. (to the Guards.) Back, slaves, and look not on her ! (They retreat to the background.) 'T was for this she droop'd to the earth. Aym. Moraima, fare thee well ! Think on me ! I have loved thee ! I take hence That deep love with my soul ! for well I know It must be deathless ! Mor. O ! thou hast not known HE MANS. 175 What woman's love is ! Aymer, Aymer, stay ! If I could die for thee ! My heart has grown So strong in its despair ! Rai. (turning from them.} And all the past Forgotten ! our young days !---His last thoughts hers / The Infidel's! Aym. (turning his head.) Thou art no murderer ! Peace Between us peace, my brother! In our deaths We shall be join'd once more ! Rai. (holding the cross of the sword before him.) Look yet on this ! Aym. If thou had'st only told me that she lived ! But our hearts meet at last! (kisses the cross.) Moraima ! save my brother ! Look on me ! Joy there is joy in death ! (dies on Raimer's arm.) Mor. Speak speak once more ! Aymer ! how is it that I call on thee, And that thou answerest not? Have we not loved? Death ! death ! and this is death ! Rai. So thou art -gone, Aymer ! I never thought to weep again But now farewell ! Thou wert the bravest knight That e'er laid lance in rest and thou didst wear The noblest form that ever woman's eye Dwelt on with love ; and till that fatal dream Came o'er thee ! Aymer ! Aymer ! thou wert still The most true-hearted brother ! there thou art Whose breast was once my shield ! I never thought That foes should see me weep ! but there thou art, 4 Aymer, my brother ! Mor. (suddenly rising.} With his last, last breath He bade me save his brother ! (Falling at her father^ 's feet.) Father, spare The Christian spare him ! Mel. For thy sake spare him That slew thy father's son ! Shame to thy race ! Soldiers ! come nearer with your levell'd spears ! Yet nearer ; Gird him in ? my boy's young blood Is on his sword, Christian, abjure thy faith, Or die thine hour is come ! Rai. ( Throwing himself on the spears.) Thou hast mine answer, Infidel ! 176 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. (Catting aloud to the Knights.) Knights of France ! Herman ! De Foix ! Du Mornay ! be ye strong ! Your hour will come ! Must the old war-cry cease ? (Half raising himself, and waving the Cross triumphantly.) For the Cross De Chatillon ! [He dies. 11 How vividly the verse reflects the life ! How redolent of nature is her poetry! how true her pictures of mountain, and forest, and river, and sky ! It is singular how, without the least apparent effort, all the persons she brings before us are immediately local- ized on the green earth trees wave around them, flowers spring at their feet, as if this were quite natural and unavoidable. " But if she loved in nature, pre-eminently, the beautiful and the serene or what she could represent as such to her imagination it was otherwise with human life. Here the stream of thought ran always in the shade, reflecting in a thousand shapes the sad- ness which had overshadowed her own existence. Yet her sadness was without bitterness or impatience it was a resigned and Chris- tian melancholy ; and if the spirit of man is represented as tossed from disappointment to disappointment, there is always a brighter and serener world behind, to receive the wanderer at last. "One great and pervading excellence of Mrs. Hemans, as a writer, is her entire dedication of her genius and talents to the cause of healthy morality and sound religion. The sentiment may be, on occasion, somewhat refined ; it may be too delicate, in some instances, for the common taste, but never is it mawkish or mor- bid. The general fault of her poetry consists in its being rather too romantical. We have a little too much of banners in churches, and flowers on graves, or self-immolated youths, and broken- hearted damsels ; too frequent a reference to the Syrian plains, and knights in panoply, and vigils of arms, as mere illustrations of the noble in character, or the heroic in devotion. * " When placed beside, and contrasted with, her great contempo- raries, the excellences of Mrs. Hemans are sufficiently distinct and characteristic. There can he no doubt of this, more especially in her later and best writings, in which she makes incidents elucidate feelings. In this magic circle limited it may be she has no rival. Hence, from the picturesqueness, the harmony, the delicacy and grace, which her compositions display, she is peculiarly the poet of her own sex. Her pictures are not more distinguished for accuracy of touch than for elegance of finish. Everything is clear, and defined, and palpable ; nothing is enveloped in accommodating haze. She is ever alive to the dignity of her calling and the purity of her sex."* * Blackwood's Magazine, Dec., 1848. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born October 21, 1772, at Ottery, St. Mary, Devonshire. " He was the youngest of ten children, and, as his father, the vicar of the parish of Ottery, and master of the grammar-school, had but a small salary, the means of the family were much straitened."* Describing his early years, the poet himself says : " I became a dreamer, and acquired an indisposition to all bodily activity ; I was fretful, and inordinately passionate ; and as I could not play at anything, and was slothful, I was despised and hated by the boys; and, because I could read and spell, and had, I may truly say, a memory and understanding forced into almost unnatural ripeness, I was flattered and wondered at" by all the old women. "f In July, 1782, he was admitted to Christ Hospital, where, during a period of eight years, he maintained a high character for scholarship, and thereby won preferment to Jesus College, Cambridge, at which school, however, he spent only about two years. Leaving Cambridge very abruptly, and for reasons not certainly known, he went to London in 1793, and here, find- ing himself without friends and without means, he suddenly enlisted as a common soldier. From this unhappy service he was shortly released by the accidental discovery of his scholarly attainments. It was at Christ Hospital that he formed the acquaintance of Charles Lamb, and now, returning to his friends from the army, he first meets, at Oxford, Robert Southey; the two illustrious and devoted friends who afterward mingled in and influenced more than any others our poet's society and life. With the latter he soon afterward concocted a scheme for establishing, on the banks of the Susquehanna, a " social colony, in which there * Memoir. t Letter to Mr. Poole. M 177 178 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. was to be a community of property, and all that was selfish was to be proscribed." But, like most of his extraordinary projects, it proved abortive. About this time, and while visiting Cambridge, he published (1794) The Fall of Robespierre, a drama written jointly by him- self and Southey. " It was little better than a versified news- paper, and did not possess merit enough to overcome the want of dramatic interest that attaches to plays founded on contem- poraneous events." The winter and spring of the following year were employed in giving public lectures at Bristol on political, religious, and moral subjects, two of which were after- ward published. In April, 1796, his first volume of poems ap- peared. About the same time he began the publication of a Miscellany, called The Watchman, which survived through only ten numbers (about two months), its performance falling far short of its ambitious promise. The next year (1797), while enjoying the society of Words- w.orth and Lamb, in the vicinity of Stowey, he published a second and enlarged edition of poems. " This year has been called the annus mirabilis of Coleridge's life ; his poetical powers had reached their culminating point. That wonderful poem, The Ancient Mariner ; the first and perhaps the more beautiful part of Christabel; the finest of his tragedies, Remorse, were all com- posed in its course, as well as the beautiful little poem entitled Love"* Hazlitt has remarked: " His Ancient Mariner is his most remarkable performance, and the only one that I could point out to any one as giving an adequate idea of his great natural powers." In September, 1798, our poet, in company with Wordsworth, left England on a visit to Germany, and spent five months of the time at the University of Gottingen. Returning the next year, he located at London, and began writing for the "Morning Post." In 1800 appeared his Translation of Schiller s Wallen- stein, " one of the best of Coleridge's works, and one of the finest translations that our language possesses." The same year he left London and went to live at Keswick, in the beautiful Lake region. The next three years were prolific in little else than literary schemes, which were but half conceived when abandoned. * Memoir. COLERIDGE. 179 Coleridge had, before the present date, become a confirmed opium-eater, and was, at this time, suffering indescribable tor- tures, bodily and mental, in consequence thereof. In hope of alleviating his miseries and restoring his broken health he went abroad, first to Malta, and afterward to Rome ; but, in 1806, returned home, unimproved. Two or three years later he abandoned his family to the care of Southey, and went to live with Wordsworth at Grassmere. " Here The Friend was pro- jected, and in good part written, and here its publication, in numbers, commenced on the 8th of June, 1809." We next hear of Coleridge in London, delivering a course of lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, and writing articles for the "Courier," which were favorably received and well paid for. The character of his life for the greater part of the next four or five years is perhaps best portrayed by a passage from one of Coleridge's letters written at the time. He writes : "Conceive a poor miserable wretch, w r ho for many years has been attempt- ing to beat off pain by a constant recurrence to the vice which produces it. Conceive a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for others the road to that heaven from which his crimes exclude him ! In short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and you will form as tolerable a notion of my state as it is possible for a good man to have." In April, 1816, Coleridge went to Mr. Gillman'sat Highgate, and there, attended by a devotion and benevolence on the part of host and hostess rarely if ever precedented, passed the re- mainder of his mournful and restless life. Here, in a most lovely retreat, " like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle," he spent much of his time in discoursing upon all im- aginable topics, and with surprising volubility and fervor, to the friends and distinguished visitors who flocked to see and hear him. The literary products of these last eighteen years were two Lay Sermons, the second part and conclusion of Christabel, a volume of poems entitled Sibylline Leaves, Biographia Literaria, Zapolya, a Christmas Tale, another series of Lectures and Aids to Reflection. Coleridge died July 25, 1834. 180 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. THE ANCIENT MARINER. PART I. It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. " By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ; The guests are met, the feast is set : May'st hear the merry din." He holds him with his skinny hand, " There was a ship," quoth he. "Hold off! unhand me, grey -beard loon!" Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child : The Mariner hath his will. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. " The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light-house top. The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon " The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes The merry minstrelsy. The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear ; COLERIDGE. 181 And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. " And now the storm-blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along. With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled. And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald. And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen: No shapes of men nor beasts we ken The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around : It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound ! At length did cross an Albatross, Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name. It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through! And a good south wind sprung up behind, The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hallo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; While all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine." 16 182 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. " God save thee, ancient Mariner ! From the fiends, that plague thee thus ! Why look'st thou so?" "With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross." PART II. "The sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left Went down into the sea. And the good south wind still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play Came to the mariner's hallo! And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe : For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow, Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'T was right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'T was sad as sad could be ; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; COLERIDGE. 183 As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea. About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night ; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue and white. And some in dreams assured were Of the Spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow. And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross the Albatross About my neck was hung " " Leading off his verse stands the Ancient Mariner probably the most characteristic manifestation of his powers and one of the strongest and wildest sallies of pure imagination anywhere to be found, whether in reference to machinery or manner. It is a unique performance, reminding us of nothing else. We cannot idealize anything relating to earth so utterly unearthly as it is so far re- moved beyond the boundary of common associations." * HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star On his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful head, sovran Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base D. M. Moir's Poetical Literature of past Half-fJentunj. 184 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful Form ! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently ! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity! dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 1 worshiped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy : Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven ! Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my Heart, awake ! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn. Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale ! O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise ! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came,) Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest? COLERIDGE. 185 Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge. Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice ! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm ! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the element! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! Thou too, hoar Mount ! w r ith thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me Rise, ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth ! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. The following brief extract is taken from an essay " On Sensi- bility," in Aids to Reflection. Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensi- bility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice Do you in good earnest aim at 1C* 186 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. dignity of character? By all the treasures of a peaceful mind, by all the charms of an open countenance, I conjure you, O youth ! turn away from those who live in the twilight between vice and virtue. Are not reason, discrimination, law, and deliberate choice, the distinguishing characters of humanity? Can aught then worthy of a human being proceed from a habit of soul, which would exclude all these and (to borrow a metaphor from paganism) prefer the den of Trophonius to the temple and oracles of the God of light? Can anything manly, I say, proceed from those, who for law and light would substitute shapeless feelings, sentiments, impulses, which, as far as they differ from the vital workings in the brute animals, owe the difference to their former connection with the proper virtues of humanity ; as dendrites derive the outlines, that constitute their value above other clay-stones, from the casual neighborhood and pressure of the plants, the names of which they assume. Remember, that love itself in its highest earthly bearing, as the ground of the marriage union, becomes love by an inward fiat of the will, by a completing and sealing act of moral election, and lays claim to permanence only under the form of duty. " These books (Aids to Reflection and The Friend) came from one whose vocation was in the world of art ; and yet, perhaps, of all books that have been influential in modern times, they are farthest from the classical form bundles of notes the original matter in- separably mixed up with that borrowed from others the whole just that preparation for an artistic effect which the finished artist would be careful one day to destroy." * " What the reader of our own generation will least find in Cole- ridge's prose writings is the excitement of the literary sense. And yet in those gray volumes we have the productions of one who made way ever by a charm, the charm of voice, of aspect, of lan- guage, above all, by the intellectual charm of new, moving, luminous ideas. Perhaps the chief offense in Coleridge is an excess of serious- ness, a seriousness that arises not from any moral principle, but from a misconception of the perfect manner, "f " His studies lay not in classical sunshine, but in the twilight of monastic speculation, and of Gothic romance. . . . He would not keep the high-road if he could find a by-path ; and he thrust aside the obvious and true, to clutch at the quaint and the curious. In short, in defiance of the jeweler's estimate, he would have preferred a moonstone, simply because it had fallen down from another sphere, to the richest diamond ever dug from the mines of Golconda/'J " It has been imputed to Coleridge, that, notwithstanding the multifarious riches of his own mind, he was fond of borrowing ideas from others. Nor was this without foundation ; and it was wrong. But after all, and deducting every item that has been claimed for others, enough, and more than enough, remains to leave his high literary status beyond challenge. "3 * Westminster Review, January, 1866. t Ibid. % D. M. Moir's Poetical Literature oj past Half - Century. g Ibid. LORD BYRON. GEORGE GORDON, Lord Byron, only son of Captain John Byron, of the Guards, and Catherine Gordon, of Gight, was born January 22, 1788, in Holies Street, London. His father, a man of dissolute and expensive habits, died when our poet was but three years old. Receiving the rudiments of his edu- cation at the grammar-school in Aberdeen, Byron passed the next four years at Harrow, and then, in 1805, entered Trinity College, Cambridge. His first attempt at poetry is said to have been made at twelve years of age, and in 1806 he caused to be printed a small volume of poems for private circulation. The first work of which the general public had knowledge was The Hours of Idleness, published in 1807. It was very ungraciously, even unmercifully, handled by the " Edinburgh Review;" and two years later Byron quite as unmercifully retorted in a satire, en- titled English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. In 1809 Byron took his seat in the House of Lords ; but dis- gusted with the unfriendly reception he there met with, almost immediately retired to his home, Newstead Abbey, and shortly afterward set out upon a tour of the Continent. During an ab- sence of between two and three years, he visited portions of Portugal, Spain, Greece, Turkey, and Asia Minor. Soon after his return, in 1812, he published the first two cantos of Childe Harold, whose reception was such as to cause its author to con- fess : " I awoke one morning and found myself famous." In 1813 he produced successively Giaour, Bride of Abydos written in a week and The Corsair written in ten days. Two years later he married Anne Isabella Milbanke, whom he eulo- gized as " a very superior woman ; " but between whom and him- self, he at the same time affirmed, there did not exist " one spark of love on either side." Their married life was of but little more than a year's continuance. 187 188 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. In 1816 Byron published The Siege of Corinth and Parisina. Owing to the social disfavor into which he had fallen in conse- quence of his late matrimonial disagreement, he left England, in 1816, for the second and last time. He directed his course to Switzerland, where, during the same year, he composed the third canto of Childe Harold, The Prisoner of Chilian, Darkness, The Dream, and also a part of Manfred, completing the same at Venice in 1817. The next two years were passed in Venice, and bore as their literary fruits, The Lament of Tasso, Beppo, the fourth canto of Childe Harold, Marino Faliero, The Foscari, Mazeppa, and a part of Don Juan. Here, too, was contracted that unfortunate and scandalous relation between Byron and the Countess Guic- cioli. The years from 1819 to 1821 were spent at Ravenna, whence he gave to the world Don Juan, The Prophecy of Dante, Sardanapalus, and the mysteries Heaven and Earth, and Cain. During these years, too, he associated with the poet Shelley at whose sad funeral he assisted, and, in conjunction with the Brothers Hunt, he engaged in publishing for a short time " The Liberal." About this time a great revolutionary struggle broke out in Greece, and thither, in. 1823, Byron went; bringing to the good cause the aid both of his enthusiastic advocacy and of a liberal purse. But the excitement, the vexations, and the exposures of the soldier's life were too severe for his already enfeebled con- stitution ; and his proud, sensitive, brave, generouc, impulsive, intractable spirit succumbed to the only King of Terrors it had ever recognized, on April 19th, 1824. From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III., we select the following verses : Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwell in, is a thing Which warns me with its stillness to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction; once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. BYRON. 189 It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep ; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; He is an evening reveler, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill : At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill; But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven, If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That .fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. All heaven and earth are still though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : All heaven and earth are still: from the high host Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast, All is concenter'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defense The sky is changed ! and suoh a change ! O night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue; 190 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! And this is in the night: most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight A portion of the tempest and of thee ! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 't is black ; and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: For here, not one, but many, make their play, And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around: of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd His lightnings, as if he did understand That in such gaps as desolation work'd, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll Of your departing voices is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless if I rest. But where of ye, tempests, is the goal ? Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest? Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me; could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe into one word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contained no tomb, BYRON. 191 And glowing into day: we may resume The march of our existence; and thus I, Still on thy shores, fair Leman, may find room And food for meditation, nor pass by Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. " Byron's is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying upon itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to, all other things." * " He does not let objects speak, but forces them to answer him. Amidst their peace, he is only occupied by his own emotion. He raises them to the tone of his soul, and compels them to repeat bis own cries. All is inflated here, as in himself; the vast strophe rolls along, carrying on its overflowing bed the flood of vehement ideas ; declamation unfolds itself, pompous, and at times artificial, but potent, and so often sublime that the rhetorical dotings, which he yet preserved, disappeared under the afflux of splendors, with which it is loaded."! There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell ; But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! Did ye not hear it? No; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet. But hark ! that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! Arm ! arm ! it is it is the cannon's opening roar ! . . . . Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness; * William Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets, f Taine's English Literature^ Vol. II. 192 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated : who would guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise! And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips "The foe! They come! they come !".... And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, alas ! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, The morn the marshaling in arms the day Battle's magnificently stern array ! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent I* SCENE IV. Interior of the Tower. MANFRED, alone. The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, * Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III. BYRON. 193 I learn'd the language of another world, I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall, Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome ; The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Caesar's palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song Begun and died upon the gentle wind. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn beach Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot. Where the Csesars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through level'd battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ; But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection! While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. Ad thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which soften'd down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries ; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old I- The dead, but sceptered sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns. 'Twas such a night! 'Tis strange that I recall it at this time; But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight Even at the moment when they should array Themselves in pensive orders. Enter the ABBOT. Abbot. My good lord, I crave a second grace for this approach; But yet let not my humble zeal offend By its abruptness all it hath of ill 17 N 194 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Recoils on me; its good in the effect May light upon your head could I say heart Could I touch that, with words or prayers, I should Recall a noble spirit which had wander'd, But is not yet all lost. Man. Thou know'st *me not ! My days are number'd, and my deeds recorded : Retire, or 'twill be dangerous Away ! Abbot. Thou dost not mean to menace me? Man. Not I; I simply tell thee peril is at hand, And would preserve thee. Abbot. What dost mean? Man. Look there! What dost thou see? Abbot. Nothing. Man. Look there, I say, And steadfastly; now tell me what thou seest. Abbot. That which should shake me ; but I fear it not. I see a dusk and awful figure rise, Like an infernal god, from out the earth ; His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form Robed as with angry clouds ; he stands between Thyself and me but I do fear him not. Man. Thou hast no cause he shall not harm thee but His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy, I say to thee Retire ! Abbot. And I reply Never till I have battled with this fiend. What doth he here? Man. Why ay what doth he here? I did not send for him he is unbidden. Abbot. Alas, lost mortal ! what with guests like these Hast thou to do ? I tremble for thy sake : Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on him ? Ah! he unveils his aspect: on his brow The thunder-scars are graven; from his eye Glares forth the immortality of hell Avaunt ! Man. Pronounce what is thy mission? Spirit. Come ! Abbot. What art thou, unknown being? answer! speak! Spirit. The genius of this mortal. Come! 'tis time. BYRON. 195 Man. I am prepared for all things, but deny The power which summons me. Who sent thee here? Spirit. Thou 'It know anon Come! come! Man. I have commanded Things of an essence greater far than thine, And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence ! Spirit. Mortal! thine hour is come Away! I say. Man. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not To render up my soul to such as thee : Away ! I '11 die as I have lived alone. Spirit. Then I must summon up my brethren. Rise ! [Other Spirits rise up. Abbot. A vaunt, ye evil ones ! A vaunt, I say ; Ye have no power where piety hath power, And I do charge thee in the name Spirit. Old man! We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order : Waste not thy holy words on idle uses ; It were in vain : this man is forfeited. Once more I summon him Away! away! Man. I do defy ye, though I feel my soul Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye. Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath To breathe my scorn upon ye earthly strength To wrestle, though with spirits ; what ye take Shall be ta'en limb by limb. Spirit. Reluctant mortal! Is this the Magian who would so pervade The world invisible, and make himself Almost our equal? Can it be that thou Art thus in love with life ? the very life Which made thee wretched! Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest ! My life is in its last hour ; that I know, Nor would redeem a moment of that hour. I do not combat against death, but thee And thy surrounding angels; my past power Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, But by superior science penance daring And length of watching strength of mind and skill In knowledge of our fathers when the earth Saw men and spirits walking side by side, And gave ye no supremacy : I stand 196 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Upon my strength I do defy deny Spurn back and scorn ye! Spirit. But thy many crimes Have made thee Man. What are they to such as thee? Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes, And greater criminals? Back to thy hell! Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel ; Thou never shalt possess me, that I know ; What I have done is done ; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine: The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts Is its own origin of ill and end, And its own place and time; its innate sense, When stripp'd of this mortality, derives No color from the fleeting things without ; But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, Born from the knowledge of its own desert. Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me ; I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey But was my own destroyer, and will be My own hereafter. Back, ye baffled fiends ! The hand of death is on me, but not yours! [ The Demons disappear. Abbot. Alas ! how pale thou art thy lips are white ; And thy breast heaves and in thy gasping throat The accents rattle Give thy prayers to Heaven ; Pray albeit but in thought but die not thus. Man. 'Tis over my dull eyes can fix thee not; But all things swim around me, and the earth Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well Give me thy hand. Abbot. Cold cold even to the heart But yet one prayer Alas ! how fares it with thee ? Man. Old man ! 't is not so difficult to die. [Manfred expires. Abbot. He's gone his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight Whither? I dread to think but he is gone.* " Lord Byron had nothing dramatic in his genius. He was, in- deed, the reverse of a great dramatist ; the very antithesis to a great * Manfred : A Dramatic Poem. BYRON. 197 dramatist. All his characters Harold looking back on the western sky from which his country and the sun are receding together ; the Giaour, standing apart in the gloom of the side-aisle, and casting a haggard scowl from under his long hood at the crucifix and the censer ; Conrad, leaning on his sword by the watch-tower ; Lara, smiling on the dancers; Alp, gazing steadily on the fatal cloud as it passes before the moon ; Manfred, wandering among the preci- pices of Berne; Azo, on the judgment-seat; Ugo, at the bar; Lam- bro, frowning on the siesta of his daughter and Juan ; Cain, present- ing his unacceptable offering all are essentially the same. The varieties are varieties merely of age, situation, and costume. "His women, like his men, are all of one breed. Haidee is a half-savage and girlish Julia; Julia is a civilized and matronly Haidee. Leila is a wedded Zuleika Zuleika a virgin Leila It is hardly too much to say that Lord Byron could exhibit only one man and only one woman a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart ; a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection ; a woman all softness and gentleness, loving to caress and to be caressed, but capable of being transformed by love into a tigress. ****** " Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, its perennial waters of bitterness. Never was there such variety in monotony as that of Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single note of human anguish of which he was not mas- ter. Year after year, and month after month, he continued to re- peat that to be wretched is the destiny of all ; that to be eminently wretched, is the destiny of the eminent; that all the desires by which we are cursed lead alike to misery ; if they are not gratified, to the misery of disappointment ; if they are gratified, to the misery of satiety. ********* " That his poetry will undergo (has undergone) a severe sifting ; that much of what has been admired by his contemporaries will be (has been) rejected as worthless, we have little doubt. But we have as little doubt, that, after the closest scrutiny, there will still remain much that can only perish with the English language."* * Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 127, 128. 17* PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY was born August 4, 1792, at Field Place, in Sussex. He was of an ancient family, being descended from the Sackvilles, a name not unworthily connected with the beginnings of Elizabethan literature. His earlier schooling was obtained at Sion House, Brentford, and at Eton. The most striking incidents of his career at the latter were his resistance to the time-honored custom of fagging, his composition at the age of fifteen of two melodramatic romances, and his falling in love with his cousin Harriet Grove. At sixteen Shelley entered the University of Oxford. Hia favorite occupations here were microscopic studies, chemistry, and botany. He was expelled from the University about 1811 for a pamphlet which he wrote on the Necessity of Atheism; and the same year h^ forfeited his father's favor and assistance by marrying the pretty daughter of a coffee-house keeper. About three years later he separated from his wife for reasons not certainly known, and eloped with Miss Godwin, daughter of the novelist, to Switzerland. In 1816, when his wife had committed suicide, Shelley mar- ried Miss Godwin and returned to England. The two children by his first wife were taken away from him by a decision of the Lord Chancellor, on the ground that the author of Queen Mob an atheistical poem of his youth was not the proper person to have the custody of children. His subsequent life in England is represented to have been characterized by many acts of benevolence to the poor and suffering of his immediate neigh- borhood, and by noble displays of generosity toward his un- fortunate friends. His last days were passed in Italy, whither he had gone in search of a climate more congenial to his delicate constitution than that of England. He was drowned, July 8, 1822, by the capsizing of his sail-boat, while on her return from Leghorn 198 SHELLEY. 199 to Lerici. His body was burned, in accordance with the quar- antine laws of Tuscany, and his ashes were deposited by his brother-poets, Byron and Leigh Hunt, in the Protestant burial- ground at Rome. Shelley's productions are Queen Mob ; Alastor,or the Spirit of Solitude; Revolt -of Islam, Hellas, Witch of Atlas, fierce invec- tives against religion, marriage, kingcraft, and priestcraft; Prometheus Unbound, The Cenci dramatic poems ; a narrative poem Rosalind and Helen; Adonis a lament on the early death of Keats ; The Sensitive Plant, a number of minor poems, and several volumes of Essays and Letters. "Is not this the life of a genuine poet? Eyes fixed on the splendid apparitions with which he peopled space, he went through the world not seeing the high road, stumbling over the stones of the roadside. That knowledge of life which most poets have in common with novelists, he had not. When he tried to create characters and events in Queen Mob, in Alastor, in The Revolt of Islam, in Prometheus he only produced unsubstantial phantoms. Once only, in the Cenci, did he inspire a living figure worthy of Webster or old Ford; but in some sort in spite of himself, and be- cause in it the sentiments were so unheard of and so strained that they suited superhuman conceptions. Elsewhere his world is throughout beyond our own. The laws of life are suspended or transformed. We move "in this world between heaven and earth, in abstraction, dreamland, symbolism : the beings float in it like those fantastic figures which we see in the clouds, and which alternately undulate and change form capriciously, in their robes of snow and gold. "For souls thus constituted, the great consolation is nature. They are too fairly sensitive to find a distraction in the spectacle and picture o*f human passions. Shelley instinctively avoided it; this sight reopened his own wounds. He was happier in the woods, at the sea-side, in contemplation of grand landscapes. The rocks, clouds, and meadows, which to ordinary eyes seem dull and insensible, are, to a wide sympathy, living and divine existences, which are an agreeable change from men. . . . " Shelley spent most of his life in the open air, especially in his boat ; first 011 the Thames, then on the lake of Geneva, then on the Arno, and in the Italian waters. He loved desert and solitary places, where man enjoys the pleasure of believing infinite what he sees, infinite as his soul. This love was a deep Germanic instinct, 200 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, which, allied to pagan emotions, produced his poetry, pantheistic and yet pensive, almost Greek and yet English, in which fancy plays like a simple, dreamy child, with the splendid skein of forms and colors. A cloud, a plant, a sunrise, these are his characters : they were those of the primitive poets, when they took the light- ning for a bird of fire, and the clouds for the flocks of heaven. "But what a secret ardor beyond these splendid images, and how we feel the heat of the furnace beyond the colored phantoms, which it sets afloat over the horizon 1 Has any one since Shak- speare and Spenser lighted on such tender and such grand ecsta- sies? Has any one painted so magnificently the cloud which watches by night in the sky, enveloping in its net the swarm of golden bees, the stars? Read those verses on the garden, in which the sensitive plant dreams. Alas! they are the dreams of the poet, and the happy visions which floated in his virgin heart up to the moment when it opened out and withered."* From Queen Mob, published shortly after his expulsion from college, we extract the following : The Fairy and the Soul proceeded; The silver clouds disparted; And as the car of magic they ascended, Again the speechless music swelled, Again the courses of the air, Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen, Shaking the beamy reins, Bade them pursue their way. The magic car moved on, The night was fair, and countless stars Studded heaven's dark blue vault, Just o'er the eastern wave Peeped the first faint smile of morn: The magic car moved on From the celestial hoofs The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew, And where the burning wheels Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak, Was traced a line of lightning. Now it flew far above a rock, The utmost verge of earth, The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Lowered o'er the silver sea. * Taine's English Literature, Vol. II. SHELLEY. 201 Far, far below the chariot's path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous Ocean lay. The mirror of its stillness showed The pale and waning stars, The chariot's fiery track, And the gray light of morn Tinging those fleecy clouds That canopied the dawn. Seemed it, that the chariot's way Lay through the midst of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged With shades of infinite color, And semicircled with a belt Flashing incessant meteors. The magic car moved on. As they approached their goal, The coursers seemed to gather speed ; The sea no longer was distinguished ; earth Appear'd a vast and shadowy sphere; The sun's unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave; Its rays of rapid light Parted round the chariot's swifter course, And fell, like ocean's feathery spray Dashed from the boiling surge Before a vessel's prow. The magic car moved on. Earth's distant orb appeared The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven; Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems rolled, And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory. It was a sight of wonder: some Were horned like the crescent moon; Some shed a mild and silver beam Like Hesperus o'er the western sea; Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, Like worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like suns, and as the chariot passed, Eclipsed all other light. Spirit of Nature! here! In this interminable wilderness 202 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Of worlds, at whose immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee : Yet not the meanest worm That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Less shares thy eternal breath. Spirit of Nature ! thou ! Imperishable as this scene, Here is thy fitting temple! As a specimen of sublime and intense, as well as graphic, composition, we cite, from Prometheus Unbound, written in 1819, while our poet was roaming through Italy, the following : ACT I. Prometheus discovered bound to a Precipice. Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds Which Thou and I alone of living things Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, And toil, and hecatombs of broken . hearts, With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, And moments aye divided by keen pangs Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, Scorn and despair, these are mine empire. More glorious far than that which thou survey est From thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God, Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured ; without herb, Insect, or beast, or shape, or sound of life. Ah, me, alas ! pain, pain ever, for ever ! No change, no pause, no hope ! Yet I endure. I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt? SHELLEY. 203 I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, Has it not seen ? The Sea, in storm or calm, Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below, Have its deaf waves not heard my agony? Ah, me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains Eat with their burning cold into my bones. Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips His beak in poison not his own, tears up My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by, The ghastly people of the realm of dream, Mocking me : and the Earthquake-fiends are charged To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds When the rocks split and close again behind: While from their loud abysses howling throng The genii of the storm, urging the rage Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. And yet to me welcome is day and night. Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn, Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs The leaden-colored east ; for then they lead The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood From these pale feet, which then might trample thee If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. Disdain ! Ah, no ! I pity thee. What ruin Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven! How will thy soul, cloven to its depths with terror, Gape like a hell within ! I speak in grief, Not exultation, for I hate no more, As then ere misery made me wise. The curse Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains, Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell ! Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost, Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept Shuddering through India ! Thou serenest Air, Through which the Sun walks burning without beams! And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss, As thunder, louder than your own, made rock The orbed world ! If then my words had power, 204 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Though I am changed so that aught evil wish Is dead within ; although no memory be Of what is hate, let them not lose it now! Next we present, as a sample of patriotic rapture, an ex- tract from Hellas, written in 1821. CHORUS. In the great morning of the world, The spirit of God with might unfurled The flag of freedom over Chaos, And all its banded anarchs fled, Like vultures frighted from Imaus, Before an earthquake's tread. So from Time's tempestuous dawn -Freedom's splendor burst and shone: Thermopylae and Marathon Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted, The springing Fire. The winged glory On Philippi half-alighted, Like an eagle on a promontory. Its unwearied wings could fan The quenchless ashes of Milan. From age to age, from man to man It lived; and lit from land to land Florence, Albion, Switzerland. Then night fell ; and, as from night, Re-assuniing fiery flight, From the West swift Freedom came, Against the course of heaven and doom, A second sun arrayed in flame, To burn, to kindle, to illume. From far Atlantis its young beams Chased the shadows and the dreams. France, with all her sanguine steams, Hid, but quenched it not ; again Through clouds its shafts of glory reign From utmost Germany to Spain. As an eagle fed with morning Scorns the embattled tempest's warning, When she seeks her aerie hanging In the mountain-cedar's hair, And her brood expect the clanging Of her wings through the wild air, SHELLEY. 205 Sick with famine; Freedom, so To what of Greece remaineth now Return ; her hoary ruins glow Like orient mountains lost in day; Beneath the safety of her wings Her renovated nurslings play, And in the naked lightnings Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes. Let Freedom leave, where'er she flies, A Desert, or a Paradise ; Let the beautiful and the brave Share her glory, or a grave. Of the poems written in 1820, perhaps the most beautiful, certainly the most popular, is TO A SKYLARK. Hail to thee, blithe spirit, Bird thou never wert, That from heaven or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run ; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 18 206 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not ; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy -winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine; I have never heard Praise of love or w T ine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. SHELLEY. 207 Chorus hymeneal, * Or triumphal chant Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be : Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught ; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear ; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From thy lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 208 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. We close with the following fragment from Epipsychidion, a poem written in 1821. There was a Being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor Paved her light steps; on an imagined shore, Under the gray beak of some promontory She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, That I beheld her not. In solitudes Her voice came to me through the whispering woods, And from the fountains, and the odors deep Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there, Breathed but of her to the enamored air ; And from the breezes whether low or loud, And from the rain of every passing cloud, And from the singing of the summer-birds, And from all. sounds, all silence. In the words Of antique verse and high romance, in form, Sound, color in whatever checks that storm Which with the shattered present chokes the past; And in that best philosophy, whose taste Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom As glorious as a fiery martyrdom ; Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire, And towards the loadstar of my one desire I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight Is as a dead leafs in the owlet light, When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. But she, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, Past, like a God throned on a winged planet, Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, Into the dreary cone of our life's shade ; And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, I would have followed, though the grave between Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen; SHELLEY. 209 When a voice said : " O Thou of hearts the weakest, The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest." Then I "Where?" the world's echo answered "where!" And in that silence, and in my despair, I questioned every tongueless wind that flew Over my tower of mourning, if it knew Whither 'twas fled, this soul out of my soul; And murmured names and spells which have control Over the sightless tyrants of our fate ; But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate The night which closed on her; nor uncreate That world within this Chaos, mine and me, Of which she was the veiled Divinity. 18* O GEORGE ELIOT. THE owner of this nom de plume was Mary Ann Evans. She was born November 22, 1820, at Griff, near Nuneaton, in War- wickshire. From childhood she evinced unusual strength and activity of mind, and while still youthful had acquired a very fair knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, and Hebrew. She also attained considerable proficiency in instru- mental music, becoming an accomplished pianist. Until about twenty she resided in her native place ; and from among its quiet scenes and prosaic happenings culled not a few of the characters and incidents that found expression in her earlier fictions. Those of her later writings are, doubtless, in a large measure to be attributed to a visit to the continent, which she undertook in 1849, and also to frequent subsequent visits. For several years before Miss Evans became known as a novel- ist, she was a frequent contributor to various London periodi- cals ; and such were the vigor and ripeness of her articles, that her mask of " George Eliot " very effectually concealed her sex. Her merits as a novelist were first decidedly demonstrated in Adam Bede, published in 1858. The works that have since not only sustained, but also heightened, the lustre of that first effort are Scenes of Clerical Life (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), /Silas Mdrner (1861), Eomola (1863), Felix Holt (1866), The Spanish Gypsy a poem (1868), Agatha a poem (1869), Arm- gart : a Dramatic Poem (1871), Middlemarch (1872), Legend of Jubal a poem (1874), Daniel Deronda (1876), and Impressions of Theophrasius Such (1879). In 1853 Miss Evans agreed to an unconventional union with George H. Lewes, a litterateur of some note. This lasted until the latter's death in 1878. In May, 1880, Mrs. Lewes married Mr. J. W. Cross ; but after an interval of only six months, passed in continental travel, died suddenly on December 22, 1880. 210 ELIOT. 211 From Adam Bede we extract the following : This little walk was a rest to Adam, and he was unconsciously under the charm of the moment. It was summer morning in his heart, and he saw Hetty in the sunshine a sunshine without glare, with slanting rays that tremble between the delicate shadows of the leaves. He thought, yesterday, when he put out his hand to her as they came out of church, that there was a touch of melancholy kindness in her face such as he had not seen before, and he took it as a sign that she had some sympathy with his family trouble^ Poor fellow! that touch of melancholy came from quite another source ; but how was he to know ? We look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. It was impossible for Adam not to feel that what had happened in the last week had brought the prospect of marriage nearer to him. Hitherto he had felt keenly the danger that some other man might step in and get possession of Hetty's heart and hand, while he himself was still in a position that made him shrink from asking her to accept him. Even if he had had a strong hope that she was fond of him and his hope was far from being strong he had been too heavily burdened with other claims to provide a home for himself and Hetty a home such as he could expect her to be content with after the comfort and plenty of a farm. Like all strong natures, Adam had confidence in his ability to achieve something in the future ; he felt sure he should some day, if he lived, be able to maintain a family and make a good broad path for himself; but he had too cool a head not to estimate to the full the obstacles that were to be overcome. And the time would be so long! And there was Hetty, like a bright-cheeked apple hanging over the orchard wall, in sight of every body, and every body must long for her! To be sure, if she loved him very much, she would be content to wait for him; but did she love him? His hopes had never risen so high that he had dared to ask her. He was clear- sighted enough to be aware that her uncle and aunt would have looked kindly on his suit, and indeed without this encouragement he would never have persevered in going to the Farm : but it was impossible to come to any but fluctuating conclusions about Hetty's feelings. She was like a kitten, and had the same distractingly pretty looks, that meant nothing, for every body that came near her. &* *-#-X--fc##-X--&* But it was Adam's strength, not its correlatine hardness, that influenced his meditations this morning. He had long made up his mind that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming young girl, so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing poverty with a growing family. And his savings had been so constantly drawn upon (besides the terrible sweep of paying for Seth's substitute in the militia), that he ha*d not enough money beforehand to furnish even a small cottage, and keep something in reserve against a rainy day. He had good hope *that he should be "firmer on his legs" by-and-by; but he could not be satisfied* with a vague confidence in his arm and brain; he must have definite plans, and set about them at once. The partnership with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present there were things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept ; but Adam thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for them- 212 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITPIRATURE. selves in addition to their journeyman's work, by buying a small stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for which Adam had no end of contrivances. Seth might gain more by working at separate jobs under Adam's direction than by his journeyman's work ; and Adam, in his over-hours, could do all the "nice" work, that required peculiar skill. The money gained in this way, with the good wages he received as foreman, would soon enable them to get beforehand with the world, so sparingly as they would all live now. No sooner had this little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact calculations about the wood to be bought, and the particular article of furniture that should be undertaken first a kitchen cupboard of his own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding-doors and bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household provender, and such a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good housewife would be in rapture with it, and fall through all the gradation of melancholy longing till her husband promised to buy it for her. Adam pictured to himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her keen eye, and try- ing in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty, and Adam was again beguiled from calculations and con- trivances into dreams and hopes. Yes, he would go and see her this evening it was so long since he had been at the Hall Farm. He would have liked to go to the night-school, to see why Bartle Massey had not been at church yesterday, for he feared his old friend was ill ; but, unless he could manage both visits, this last must be put off till to-morrow the desire to be near Hetty, and to speak to her again, was too strong. As he made up his mind to this, he was coming very near to the end of his walk, within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of the old house. The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work, is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture; the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy. All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the labor of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still, creative activity of our thought. Look at Adam through the rest of the day, as he stands on the scaffolding with the two- feet ruler in his hand, whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a floor-joist or a window-frame is to be overcome; or as he pushes one of the younger workmen aside, and takes his place in up- heaving a weight of timber, saying, "Let alone, lad ! thee'st got too much gristle i' thy bones yet;" or as he fixes his keen black eyes on the motions of a workman on the other side of the room, and warns him that his dis- tances are not right. Look at this broad-shouldered man with the bare muscular arms, and the thick, firm black hair, tossed about like trodden meadow-grass whenever he takes off his paper cap, and with the strong baritone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn psalm- tunes, as if seeking some outlet for superfluous strength, yet presently check- ing himself, apparently crossed with some thought which jars with the singing. Perhaps, if you had been already in the secret, you might not have guessed what sad memories, what warm affection, what tender fluttering hopes, had their home in this athletic body with the broken finger-nails in this rough man, who knew no better lyrics than he could find in the Old and New Version and an occasional hymn ; who knew the smallest possible ELIOT. 213 amount of profane history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of the sun, and the changes of the seasons, lay in the region of mystery, just made visible by fragmentary knowledge. It had cost Adam a great deal of trouble, and work in over-hours, to know what he knew over and above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with, which was made easy to him by inborn inherited faculty to get the mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without anv other mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller, and, morever, to learn his musical notes and part-ranging. Besides all this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal books; "Poor Richard's Massey had lent him. He might have had many more books from Bartle Massey, but he had no time for reading "the common print," as Lisbeth called it, so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry. Our remaining extract is from Middlemarch. Mrs. Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the parlor-door and said, "There you are, Caleb. Have you had your dinner ? " (Mr. Garth's meals were much subordinated to "business.") "Oh, yes, a good dinner cold mutton and I don't know what. Where is Mary?" " In the garden with Letty, I think." "Fred is not come yet?" "No. Are you going out again without taking tea, Caleb?" said Mrs. Garth, seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the hat which he had just taken off. "No, no; I'm only going to Mary a minute." Mary was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing loftily hung between two pear-trees. She had a pink kerchief tied over her head, making a little poke to shade her eyes from the level sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed and screamed wildly. Seeing her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet him, pushing back the pink kerchief and smiling afar ofl'at him with the involuntary smile of loving pleasure. " I came to look for you, Mary," said Mr. Garth. " Let us walk about a bit." Mary knew quite well that her father had something particular to say. His eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty's age. She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of nut-trees. "It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary," said her father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand. "Not a sad^vhile, father I mean to be merry," said M*ary, laughingly. " I have been single and merry for four and twenty years and more. I sup- 214 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. pose it will not be quite as long again as that." Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, <; If you are contented with Fred?" Caleb screwed np his mouth and turned his head aside wisely. " Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things." "Did I?" said Caleb, rather slyly. "Yes; I put it all down, and the date, Anno Domini, and every thing," said Mary. " You like things to be neatly booked. And then his behavior to you, father, is really good he has a deep respect for you ; and it is im- possible to have a better temper than Fred has." "Ay, ay you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match." "No, indeed, father. I don't love him because he is a fine match." "What for, then?" "Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scold- ing any one else so well ; and that "is a point to be thought of in a husband." "Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb, returning to his first tone. "There's no other wish come into it since things have been going on as they have been of late ? (Caleb meant a great deal in that vague phrase ;) because, better late than never. A woman must n't force her heart she'll do a man no good by that." " My feelings have not changed, father," said Mary, calmly. " I shall be constant to Fred as long as. he is constant to me. I don't think either of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might admire them. It would make too great a difference to us like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for every thing. We must wait for each other a long while ; but Fred knows that." Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his stick on the grassy walk. Then he said, with emotion in his voice, " Well, I've got a bit of news. What do you think of Fred going to live at Stone Court, and managing the land there?" "How can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly. "He would manage it for-his aunt Bulstrode. The poor woman has been to me begging and praying. She wants to do the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for him. With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn for farming." " Oh, Fred would be so happy ! It is too good to believe." "Ah! but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head warningly, "I must take it on my shoulders, and be responsible, and see after everything and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so. Fred had need be careful." "Perhaps it is too much, father," said Mary, checked in her joy. "There would be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble." "Nay, nay work is my delight, child, when it doesn't vex your mother. And then, if you and Fred get married," here Caleb's voice shook just per- ceptibly, "he'll be steady and saving ; and you've got your mother's cley- erness,"and mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him in order. He'll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first, because I think you'd like to tell him by yourselves. After that, I could talk it well over with him, and we could go into business and the nature of things." ELIOT. 215 "Oh, you dear, good father ! " cried Mary, putting her hands round her father's neck, while lie bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed. " I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!" "Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better." "Impossible," said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; "husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in good order." When they were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them, Mary saw Fred at the orchard-gate, and went to meet him. " What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth ! " said Mary, as Fred stood still and raised his hat to her with playful formality. "You are not learning economy." "Now that is too bad, Mary," said Fred. "Just look at the edges of these coat-cuffs ! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look respectable. I am saving up three suits one for a wedding-suit." "How very droll you will look! like a gentleman in an old-fashioned book." "Oh no, they will keep two years." "Two years! be reasonable, Fred," said Mary, turning to walk. "Don't encourage flattering expectations." " Why not? One lives on them better than on unflattering ones. If we can't be married in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when it conies." "I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged flat- tering expectations, and they did him harm." "Mary, if you've got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt. I shall go into the house to Mr. Garth. I 'm out of spirits. My father is so cut up home is not like itself. I can't bear any more bad news." "Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money every year till all the stock and furniture were your own, and you were a distinguished agricultural character, as Mr. Borthrop Trumbull says rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly weather-worn?" "You don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said Fred, color- ing slightly, nevertheless. "That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and lie never talks nonsense," said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he grasped her hand as they walked till it rather hurt her; but she would not complain. "Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be married directly." " Not so fast, sir ; how do you know that I would not rather defer our mar- riage for some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and then, if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for jilting you." "Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling. "Tell me seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of it because you love me best." " It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it because I love you best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation. They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred 216 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITER AT GEE. almost in a whisper said, " When we were first engaged, with the umbrella, ring, Mary, you used to " The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary's eyes, but the fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him, and, bouncing against them, said, "Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in ? or may I eat your cake ? " "The sphere which George Eliot has made specially her own is that quiet English country life which she knew in early youth. Nobody has approached her in the power of seizing its essential characteristics and exhibiting its real charm. She possesses 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. . . . 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 to be tolerant. "The so-called masculine quality in George Eliot her wide and calm intelligence was certainly combined with a thoroughly fem- inine nature ; and the more one reads her books and notes her real triumphs, the more strongly this comes out. . . . Her stories are pre-eminently studies of character in this sense, that her main and conscious purpose is to set before us the living beings in what may be called, with due apology, their statical relations to show them in their quiet and normal state, not under the stress of exceptional events." * " No preacher of our day has done so much to mold the moral aspirations of her contemporaries as has she. She has a voice to reach the many and words to arrest the few. She afforded the liveliest entertainment to the ordinary novel-reader and the deep- est speculation to many who never looked into another novel. Her influence was as wide as it was profound." f * Cornhill Magazine, March, 1881. t Contemporary Review, February, 1881. EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON. EDWARD GEORGE BULWER, LORD LYTTON, was born at Heydon Hall, in Norfolk, in May, 1805. From, under the care of a fond and cultured mother he went, at an early age," to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where, in 1825, he carried off the Chancellor's Prize Medal for English Versification by his poem, Sculpture. The next year he graduated. With Bulwer, composition was begun as a pastime of youth, an Oriental tale, called Ismael, having been written as early as 1820, and, not to speak of numerous minor attempts, both in prose and in verse, Weeds and Wild Flowers, in 1826. Between 1828 and 1832 appeared such works as Pelham, The Disowned, Devereux, Paul Clifford, The /Siamese Twins a satirical poem, and Eugene Aram. These, together with Ernest Maltravers, and its complement, Alice, or the Mysteries, which succeeded at short intervals, constitute the first and most objectionable class of Bulwer 's novels. They abound in most extravagant fancies set forth in most extravagant language, and they deal largely with immoral and vicious phases of life and conduct. Purer and worthier themes, and a chaster and more scholarly treatment, have characterized the numerous volumes which have since swarmed, as it were, from his teeming brain, such, for instance, as The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Eienzi (1835), The Last of the Barons (1843), The New Timon a poetical romance of London (1846), The Caxtons (1850), My Novel (1851), What will He do with It (1858), A Strange Story (1861), Kcnclm Chillingly (1873), and The Parisians, published post- humously in 1873. To these novels must be added three of the most popular, and, as respects their acting qualities, the most successful dramas of the age The Lady of Lyons, Richelieu, and Money, which were given to the public about 1838. 19 217 218 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Besides the original poems already named, Bulwer has exer- cised his poetical talents riot unworthily in producing a version of the Poems and Ballads of Schiller, and in versifying the legends of King Arthur. History, too, has claimed a contri- bution from his ready and versatile pen, as is evidenced by his History of Athens. He was, also, for a brief period, editor of the " New Monthly Magazine." We introduce at this place, an extract from the concluding part of My Novel. On his return to England, he purchased a small house amidst the most beautiful scenes of Devonshire, and there patiently commenced a work in which he designed to bequeath to his country his noblest thoughts in their fairest forms. Some men best develop their ideas by constant exer- cise; their thoughts spring from their brain ready-armed, and seek, like the fabled goddess, to take constant part in the wars of men. And such are, perhaps, on the whole, the most vigorous and lofty writers; but Leonard did not belong to this class. Sweetness and serenity were the main characteristics of his genius ; and these were deepened by his profound sense of his domestic happiness. To wander alone with Helen by the banks of the murmurous river; to gaze with her on the deep still sea; to feel that his thoughts, even when most silent, were comprehended by the intuition of love, and reflected on that translucent sympathy so yearned for and so rarely found by poets : these were the sabbaths of his soul, necessary to fit him for its labors ; for the writer has this advantage over other men that his repose is not in- dolence. His duties, rightly fulfilled, are discharged to earth, and men in other capacities than those of action. If he is not seen among those who act, he is all the while maturing some noiseless influence, which will guide or illumine, civilize or elevate, the restless men whose noblest actions are but the obedient agencies of the thoughts of writers. Call not, then, the poet whom we place amidst the varieties of life, the sybarite of literary ease if, returning on summer ever, Helen's light footstep by his musing side, he greets his sequestered home, with its trellised flowers smiling out from amidst the lonely cliffs in which it is embedded ; while, lovers still, though wedded long, they turn to each other with such deep joy in their speaking eyes, grateful that the world, with its various distractions and noisy conflicts, lies so far from their actual existence ; only united to them by the happy link that the writer weaves invisibly with the hearts that he moves and the souls that he inspires. No! Character and circumstance alike unfitted Leonard for the strife of the thronged literary democracy ; they led towards the development of the gentler and purer portions of his nature, to the gradual suppression of the more combative and turbulent. The influence of the happy light under which his genius so silently and calmly grew, was seen in the exquisite harmony of its colors, rather than the gorgeous diversities of their glow. His contemplation, intent upon objects of peaceful beauty, and undisturbed by rude anxieties and vehement passions, suggested only kindred reproductions to the creative faculty bv which it was vivified ; so that the whole man was BULWER. 219 not only a poet, but, as it were, a poem a living idyl, calling into pastoral music every reed that sighed and trembled along the stream of life. And Helen was so united to a nature of this kind, she so guarded the ideal existence in which it breathes! All the little cares and troubles of the common practical life she appropriated so quietly to herself the stronger of the two, as should be a poet's wife, in the necessary household duties of prudence and forethought. Thus, if the man's genius made the home a temple, the woman's wisdom gave to the temple the security of the fortress. They have only one child a girl ; they call her Nora. She has the father's soul-lit eyes, and the mother's warm human smile. She assists Helen in the morning's noiseless domestic duties; she sits in the evening at Leonard's feet, while he reads or writes. In each light grief of child- hood she steals to the mother's knee ; but in each young impulse of delight, or each brighter flash of progressive reason, she springs to the father's breast. Sweet Helen, thou hast taught her this, taking to thyself the shadows even of thine infant's life, and leaving to thy partner's eyes only its rosy light ! Leonard, at last, has completed the work which has been the joy and the labor of so many years the work which he regards as the flower of all his spiritual being, and to which he has committed all the hopes that unite the creatures of to-day with the generations of the future. The work has gone through the press, each line lingered over with the elaborate patience of the artist, loath to part with the thought he has sculptured into form, while an improving touch can be imparted by the chisel. He has accepted an invitation from Norreys. In the restless excitement (strange to him, since his first happy maiden effort) he has gone to London. Unrecognized in the huge metropolis, he has watched to see if the world acknowledged the new tie he has woven between its busy life and his secluded toil. And the work came out in an unpropitious hour; other things were occupying the public; the world was not at leisure to heed him, and the book did not penetrate into the great circle of readers. But a savage critic had seized on it, and mangled, distorted, deformed it, con- founding together defect and beauty in one mocking ridicule; and the beauties have not yet found an exponent, nor the defects a defender; and the publisher shakes his head, points to groaning shelves, and delicately hints that the work which was to be the epitome of the sacred life within life, does not hit the taste of the day. Leonard thinks over the years that his still labor has cost him, and knows that he has exhausted'the richest mines of his intellect; and that long years will elapse before he can recruit that capital of ideas which is necessary to sink new shafts, and bring to light fresh ore; and the deep despondency of intellect, frustrated in its highest aims, has seized him, and all he has before done is involved in failure by the defeat of the crowning effort. Failure, and irrecoverable, seems his whole ambition as a writer; his whole existence in the fair Ideal seems to have been a profitless dream, and the face of the Ideal itself is obscured. And even Norreys frankly, though kindly, intimates that the life of a metropolis is essential to the healthful intuition of a writer in the intel- lectual wants of his age; since every great writer supplies a want in his own generation, for some feeling to be announced, some truth to be revealed, and as this maxim is generally sound, as most great writers have lived in 220 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. cities, Leonard dares not dwell on the exception ; it is only success that justifies the attempt to be an exception to the common rule; and with the blunt manhood of his nature, which is not a poet's, Norreys sums up with, "What then? One experiment has failed; fit your life to your genius, and try again." Try again ! Easy counsel enough to the man of ready resource and quick, combative mind; but to Leonard, how hard and how harsh ! " Fit his life to his genius ! " renounce contemplation and Nature for the jostle of Oxford Street! would that life not scare away the genius for ever ? Perplexed and despondent, though still struggling for fortitude, he returns to his home, and there at his hearth awaits the Soother, and there is the voice that repeats the passages most beloved, and prophesies so con- fidently of future fame; and gradually all around smiles from the smile of Helen. And the profound conviction that Heaven places human hap- piness beyond the reach of the world's contempt or praise, circulates through his system and restores its serene calm. And he feels that the duty of the intellect is to accomplish and perfect itself to harmonize its sounds into music that may be heard in Heaven, though it wake not an echo on the earth. If this be done, as with some men, best amidst the din and the discord, be it so; if, as with him, best in. silence, be it so too. And the next day he reclines with Helen by the sea-shore, gazing calmly as before on the measureless sunlit ocean; and Helen, looking into his face, sees that it is sunlit as the deep. His hand steals within her own, in the gratitude that endears beyond the power of passion, and he murmurs gently, "Blessed be the woman who consoles." The work found its way at length into fame, and the fame sent its voice loud to the poet's home. But the applause of the world had not a sound so sweet to his ear, as when, in doubt, humiliation, and sadness, the lips of his Helen had whispered, "Hope! and believe." As exhibiting, in a rather striking and amusing fashion, some of the youthful peculiarities of its hero, we present the follow- ing extract from Kenelm Chillingly : The morning after these birthday rejoicings, Sir Peter and Lady Chil- lingly held a long consultation on the peculiarities of their heir, and the best mode of instilling into his mind the expediency either of entertaining more pleasing views, or at least of professing less unpopular sentiments, compatibly, of course, though they did not say it, with the new ideas that were to govern his century. Having come to an agreement on this deli- cate subject, they went forth, arm-in-arm, in search of their heir. Kenelm seldom met them at breakfast. He was an early riser, and accustomed to solitary rambles before his parents were out of bed. The worthy pair found Kenelm seated on the banks of a trout-stream that meandered through Chillingly Park, dipping his line into the water, and yawning, with apparent relief in that operation. "Does fishing amuse you, my boy?'' said Sir Peter, heartily. " Not in the least, sir," answered Kenelm. "Then why do you do it?" asked Lady Chillingly. " Because I know nothing else that amuses me more." BULWER. 221 " Ah ! that is it," said Sir Peter ; " the whole secret of Kenelm's oddities is to be found in these words, ray dear; he needs amusement. Voltaire says truly ' amusement is one of the wants of man ;' and if Kenelm could be' amused like other people, he could be like other people." " In that case," said Kenelm, gravely, and extracting from the water a small but lively trout, which settled itself in Lady Chillingly's lap "in that case I would rather not be amused. I have no interest in the absurd- ities of other people. The instinct of self-preservation compels me to have some interest in my own." " Kenelm, sir," exclaimed Lady Chillingly, with an animation into which her tranquil Ladyship was very rarely betrayed, "take away that horrid damp thing; put down your rod and attend to what your father says. Your strange conduct gives us cause of serious anxiety." Kenelm unhooked the trout, deposited the fish in his basket, and, raising his large eyes to his father's face, said, "What is there in my conduct that occasions you displeasure?" "Not displeasure, Kenelm," said Sir Peter, kindly, ''but anxiety; your mother has hit upon the right word. You see, my dear son, that it is my wish that you should distinguish yourself in the world. You might repre- sent this country as your ancestors have done before. I had looked forward to the proceedings of yesterday as an admirable occasion for your introduc- tion to your future constituents. Oratory is the talent most appreciated in a fine country, and why should you not be an orator? Demosthenes says that delivery, delivery, delivery, is the art of oratory ; and your delivery is excellent, graceful, self-possessed, classical." " Pardon me, my dear father. Demosthenes does not say delivery, nor action, as the word is commonly rendered; he says, 'acting a stage- play' virdxpiffif : the art by which a man delivers a speech in a feigned character whence we get the word hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy ! is, according to Demosthenes, the triple art of the orator. Do you wish me to become triply a hypocrite?" " Kenelm, I am ashamed of you. You know as well as I do that it is only by metaphor that you can twist the word ascribed to the great Athe- nian into the sense of hypocrisy. But assuming it, as you say, to mean not delivery, but acting, I understand why your debut as an orator was not suc- cessful. Your delivery was excellent, your acting defective. An orator should please, conciliate, persuade, prepossess. You did the reverse of all this, and though you produced a great effect, the effect was so decidedly to your disadvantage that it would have lost you an election on any hustings in England." "Am I to understand, my dear father," said Kenelm, in the mournful and compassionate tones with which a pious minister of the church reproves some abandoned and hoary sinner "am I to understand that you would commend to your son the adoption of deliberate falsehood for the gain of a selfish advantage ? " "Deliberate falsehood ! you impertinent puppy!" "Puppy!" repeated Kenelm, not indignantly, but musingly "puppy! A well-bred puppy takes after its parents." Sir Peter burst out laughing. Lady Chillingly rose with dignity, shook her gown, unfolded her para- sol, and stalked away speechless. 19* 222 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. "Now, look you, Kenelm," said Sir Peter, as soon as lie had composed himself. " These quips and humors of yours are amusing enough to an eccentric m:m like myself, but they will not do for the world ; and how at your age, and with the rare advantages you have had in an early introduc- tion to the best intellectual society, under the guidance of a tutor acquainted with the new ideas which are to influence the conduct of statesmen, you could have made so silly a speech as you did yesterday, I cannot un- derstand." " My dear father, allow me to assure you that the ideas I expressed are the new ideas most in vogue ideas expressed in still plainer, or, if you prefer the epithet, still sillier terms than I employed. You will find them instilled into the public mind by ' The Londoner/ and by most intellectual journals of a liberal character." " Kenelm, Kenelm, such ideas would turn the world topsy-turvy." " New ideas always do tend to turn old ideas topsy-turvy. And the world, after all, is only an idea, which is turned topsy-turvy with every successive century." "You make me sick of the word ideas. Leave off your metaphysics and study real life." " It is real life which I did study under Mr. Welby. He is the Archi- mandrite of Eealism. It is sham life which you wish me to study. To oblige you I am willing to commence it. I dare say it is very pleasant. Real life is not; on the contrary dull." And Kenelm yawned again. " Have you no young friends among your fellow-collegians ? " "Friends! certainly not, sir. But I believe I have some* enemies, who answer the same purpose as friends, only they don't hurt one so much." " Do you mean to say that you lived alone at Cambridge ? " " No ; I lived a good deal with Aristophanes, and a little with Conic Sections and Hydrostatics." " Books. Dry company." " More innocent, at least, than moist company. Did you ever get drunk, sir?" " Drunk !- " I tried to do so once with the young companions whom you would com- mend to me as friends. I don't think I succeeded, but I woke with a head- ache. Keal life at college abounds with headache." " Kenelm, my boy, one thing is clear you must travel." " As you please, sir. Marcus Antonius says that it is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upwards or downwards. When shall I start ?" "Very soon. Of course there are preparations to make; you should have a traveling companion. I don't mean a tutor you are too clever and too steady to need one; but a pleasant, sensible, well-mannered young person of your own age." "My own age male or female?" Sir Peter tried hard to frown. The utmost he could do was to reply gravely, " Female] If I said you were too steady to need a tutor, it was because you have hitherto seemed little likely to be led out of your way by female allurements. Among your other studies, may I inquire if you have included that which no man has ever yet thoroughly mastered the study of woman?" BULWER. 223 " Certainly. Do you object to my catching another trout?" " Trout be blest, or the reverse. So you have studied woman. I should never have thought it. Where and when did you commence that depart- ment of science ? " "When? ever since I was ten years old. Where? first in your own house, then at college. Hush ! a bite," and another trout left its native element and alighted on Sir Peter's nose, whence it was solemnly trans- ferred to the basket. "At ten years old, and in my house! That flaunting hussy Jane, the under-housemaid " "Jane! No, sir. Pamela, Miss Byron, Clarissa females in Richard- son, who, according to Dr. Johnson, 'taught the passions to move at the command of virtue.' I trust for your sake that Dr. Johnson did not err in that assertion, for I found all these females at night in your own private apartments." "Oh !" said Sir Peter, "that's all." " All I remember at ten years old," replied Kenelra. "And at Mr. Welby's or at college," proceeded Sir Peter, timorously, "was your acquaintance with females of the same kind?" Kenelm shook his head. " Much worse; they were very naughty indeed at college." " I should think so, with such a lot of young fellows running after them." "Very few fellows run after the females I mean rather avoid them." " So much the better." "No, my father, so much the worse; without an intimate knowledge of those females there is little use going to college at all." " Explain yourself." " Every one who receives a classical education is introduced into their society Pyrrha and Lydia, Glycera and Corinna, and many more, all of the same sort ; and then the females in Aristophanes what do you say to them, sir?" " Is it only females who lived 2000 or 3000 years ago, or more probably never lived at all, whose intimacy you have cultivated? Have you never admired any real women ?" " Heal women ! I never met one. Never met a woman who was not a sham a sham from the moment she is told to be pretty-behaved, conceal her sentiments, and look fibs when she does not speak them. But if I am to learn sham life, I suppose I must put up with sham women." "Have you been crossed in love, that you speak so bitterly of the sex?" "I don't speak bitterly of the sex. Examine any woman on her oath, and she '11 own she is a "sham, always has been, and always will be, and is proud of it." "I am glad your mother is not by to hear you. You will think differ- ently one of these days. Meanwhile, to turn to the other sex, is there no young man of your own rank with whom you would like to travel ? " " Certainly not. I hate quarreling." " As you please. But you cannot go quite alone ; I will find you a good traveling servant. I must write to town to-day about your preparations, and in another week or so I hope all will be ready. Your allowance will 224 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. be whatever you like to fix it at ; you have never been extravagant, and boy I love you. Amuse yourself, enjoy yourself, and come back cured of your oddities, but preserving your honor." Sir Peter bent down and kissed his son's brow. Kenelm was moved : he rose, put his arm around his father's shoulder, and lovingly said, in an undertone, " If ever I am tempted to do a base thing, may I remember whose son I am I shall be safe then " He withdrew his arm as he said this, and took his solitary way along the banks of the stream, forgetful of rod and line. The following scene from the Lady of Lyons will illustrate Bulwer's peculiarities as a dramatist. ACT III. SCENE II. Melnotte's cottage Widow bustling about a table spread for supper. Widow. So, I think that looks very neat. . He sent me a line, so blotted that I can scarcely read it, to say he would be here almost immediately. She must have loved him well indeed to have forgotten his birth ; for though he was introduced to her in disguise, he is too honorable not to have revealed to her the artifice, which her love only could forgive. Well I do not wonder at it ; for though my son is not a prince, he ought to be one, and that's almost as good. (Knock at the door.} Ah ! here they are. Enter MELNOTTE and PAULINE. Widow. Oh, my boy the pride of my heart ! welcome, welcome ! I beg pardon, ma'am, but I do love him so ! Pauline. Good woman, I really why prince, what is this? does the old lady know you ? Oh, I guess you have done her som'e service. Another proof of your kind hea'rt, is it not ? Mel. Of my kind heart, ay ! Pauline. So you know the prince ? Widow. Know him, madam ? Ah, I begin to fear it is you who know him not ! Pauline. Do you think she is mad ? Can we stay here, my lord ? I think there is something very wild about her. Mel. Madam, I no, I cannot tell her ; my knees knock together ; what a coward is a man who has lost his honor ! Speak to her speak to her (to his mother) tell her that O Heaven, that I were dead ! Pauline. How confused he looks ! this strange place ! this woman what can it mean ? I half suspect Who are you, madam ? who are you ? can't you speak ? are you struck dumb ? Widow. Claude, you have not deceived her? Ah, shame upon you ! I thought that, before you went to the altar, she was to have known all. BULWER. 225 Pauline. All ! what ! My blood freezes in my veins ! Widow. Poor lady ! dare I tell her, Claude? (Melnotte makes a sign of assent.) Know you not then, madam, that this young man is of poor though honest parents ? Know you not that you are wedded to my son, Claude Melnotte ? Pauline. Your son ! hold hold ! do not speak to me. (Approaches Melnotte, and lays her hand upon his arm.) Is this a jest? is it? I know it is, only speak one word one look one smile. I cannot believe I who loved thee so I cannot believe that thou art such a No, I will not wrong thee by a harsh word Speak ! Mel. Leave us have pity on her, on. me : leave us. Widow. Oh, Claude, that I should live to see thee bowed by shame ! thee of whom I was so proud ! (Exit.) Pauline. Her son her son ! Mel. Now. lady, hear me. Pauline. Hear thee ! Ay, speak her son ! have fiends a parent ? speak, That thou mayst silence curses speak ! Mel. No, curse me : Thy curse would blast me less than thy forgiveness. Pauline (laughing wildly.) "This is thy palace where the perfumed light Steals through the mist of alabaster lamps, And every air is heavy with the sighs Of orange-groves, and music from sweet lutes, And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth I' the midst of roses!" Dost thou like the picture? This is my bridal home, and thou my bridegroom. fool dupe wretch ! I see it all The by- word and the jeer of every tongue In Lyons. Hast thou in thy heart one touch Of human kindness ? "if thou hast, why, kill me, And save thy wife from madness. No, it cannot It cannot be : this is some horrid dream : 1 shall wake soon. (Touching him.) Art flesh? art man? or but The shadow seen in sleep? It is too real. What have I done to thee ? how sinned against thee, That thou should'st crush me thus? Mel. Pauline, by pride Angels have fallen ere thy time : by pride That sole alloy of thy most lovely mould The evil spirit of a bitter love, And a revengeful heart, had power upon thee : I saw thee midst the flow'rs the lowly boy P 226 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Tended, unmark'd by thee a spirit of bloom, And joy, and freshness, as if Spring itself Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape ! I saw thee, and the passionate heart of man Enter'd the breast of the wild-dreaming boy. And from that hour I grew what to the last I shall be thine adorer ! Well, this love, Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt, became A fountain of ambition and bright hope ; I thought of tales that by the winter hearth Old gossips tell how maidens sprung from kings Have stoop'd from their high sphere ; how love, like death, Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home In the soft palace of a fairy Future ! My father died ; and I, the peasant-born, Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise Out of the prison of my mean estate ; And, with such jewels as the exploring mind Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom From those twin gaolers of the daring heart- Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image, Glass'd in my soul, took all the hues of glory, And lured me on to those inspiring toils By which man masters men ! For thee I grew A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages. For thee I sought to borrow from each grace, And every muse, such attributes as lend Ideal charms to love. I thought of thee, And passion taught me poesy of thee, And on the painter's canvas grew the life Of beauty! Art became the shadow Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes ! Men call'd me vain some mad I heeded not; But still toil'd on hoped on for it was sweet, If not to win, to- feel more worthy thee ! Pauline. Has he a magic to exorcise hate ! Mel. At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour The thoughts that burst their channels into song, And sent them to thee such a tribute, lady, As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest. The name appended by the burning heart That long'd to show its idol what bright things It had created yea, the enthusiast's name, That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn That very hour when passion, turn'd to wrath, BULWER. 227 Resembled hatred most when thy disdain Made my whole soul a chaos in that hour The tempters found me a revengeful tool For their revenge. Thou had'st trampled on the worm It turn'd and stung thee ! Paulina. Love, sir, hath no sting. What was the slight of a poor powerless girl To the deep wrong of this most vile revenge ? Oh, how I loved this man! a serf a slave! Mel. Hold, lady ! No, not slave ! Despair is free ! I will not tell thee of the throes the struggles The anguish the remorse : No, let it pass And let me come to such most poor atonement Yet in my power. Pauline [Approaching her, and about to take her hand. Pauline. No, touch me not ! I know my fate. You are, by law, my tyrant And I O Heaven! a peasant's wife! I'll work Toil drudge do what thou wilt but touch me not; Let my wrongs make me sacred ! Mel. Do not fear me. Thou dost not know me, madam : at the altar My vengeance ceased my guilty oath expired ! Henceforth, no image of some marble saint, Niched in cathedral aisles, is hallow'd more From the rude hand of sacrilegious wrong. I am thy husband nay, thou need'st not shudder ; Here, at thy feet, I lay a husband's rights. A marriage thus unholy unfulfill'd A bond of fraud is, by the laws of France, Made void and null. To-night sleep sleep in peace. To-morrow, pure and virgin as the morn I bore thee, bathed in blushes, from the Thy father's arms shall take thee to thy The law shall do thee justice, and restore Thy right to bless another with thy love. And when thou art happy, and hast half forgot Him who so loved so wrong'd thee, think at least Heaven left some remnant of the a'ngel still In that poor peasant's nature ! Ho ! my mother ! Enter Widow. Conduct this lady (she is not my wife ; She is our guest, our honor'd guest, my mother) To the poor chamber, where the sleep of virtue, 228 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Never, beneath my father's honest roof, Ev'n villains dared to mar! Now, lady, now, I think thou wilt believe me. Go, my mother! Widow. She is not thy wife ! Mel. Hush, hush ! for mercy's sake ! Speak not, but go. [Exeunt. Mel. [sinking down] All angels bless and guard her ! But Bulwer has figured in political life also. In 1832 he was returned to Parliament as a member from Lincoln, and continued steadfast in his Radical views until 1841. In 1847, being a candi- date for the suffrages of the " Protectionists " of the county of Lincoln, he was defeated ; but five years later he was returned to the House of Commons by the voters of Herts. " Despite of physi- cal defects which would have discouraged almost any other man from entering into public life at all, he had succeeded in winning a reputation as a great speaker in a debate where Palrnerston, Gladstone, Bright, and Disraeli were champions. So deaf that he could not hear the arguments of his opponents, so defective in utterance as to become often unintelligible, he actually made the House of Commons doubt for a while whether a new great orator had not come among them. It was not great oratory after all ; it was not true oratory of any kind ; but it was a splendid imitation of the real thing the finest electroplate anywhere to be found."* During the Derby Ministry, in 1858, Bulwer held the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies. It was during the early part of this political career, and moved by its peculiar influences, that he published the pamphlet The Crisis, which attained to an exten- sive circulation. He was raised to the peerage in 1866. His death occurred at Torquay, in Devonshire, on the 18th of January, 1873, while the proof-sheets of his last novel The Parisians were just leaving his hands. " If Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton would be content to be taken for what he is, a respectable place might be assigned to him in the ranks of modern novelists. His historical romances cannot, in- deed, be classed with those either of Scott or of his more immediate artistic predecessor, Chateaubriand. In describing the growth of character, and the influence of varying circumstances upon it the branch of art on which he most plumes himself he never comes within distance of 'George Eliot.' His portraits are not distinct, like Trollope's, nor finished and lifelike, like Thackeray's ; his plots are never so carefully worked out as Wilkie Collins', nor has he the * " Modern Leaders" by Justin McCarthy. BULWER. 229 eye of that writer and of Thackeray for a telling dramatic situation. He is neither original, pathetic, nor amusing, as is Dickens, nor lively and dashing, as are Mr. Lever and the author of ' Guy Liv- ingstone.' In fact, it would be hard to mention any one quality of genius or style in which he has not a living superior. " But although he is nowhere first, he is throughout a sufficiently good second to justify considerable praise. His ideas are generally ingenious, his incidents are varied, he is fertile in expedients ; and when the number of characters and situations are taken into account, it must be owned that he reproduces himself but little. Many shrewd remarks and a few witty ones are scattered up and down his pages. His favorite contrast between speculative and practical life is enforced with a persistency which proves that he has both thought and acted ; and we believe him to be free from the vanity with which he is often charged, of making himself his own hero. With some grave exceptions, such as Eugene Aram, Ernest Maltravers, Alice, and Lucretia, his books are not objection- able in tone and substance ; and even when he offends, we believe that the fault may be traced rather to a fault of taste than to a perverted imagination. "A high and somewhat chivalrous vein of sentiment runs through his writings, passing sometimes into passages of real eloquence and often into a diffused poetic imagery. He tries to be on the right side of things, and has a true sympathy for the struggling and unfortunate. He has always been loyal to his adopted profession, and in the background of his works we may see the figure of an English gentleman of more than ordinary abilities and informa- tion. He is unquestionably the first of the particular school to which he belongs that of sentimental melodrama. ' The general style in which tbese novels are written is not, in our judgment, either appropriate or striking. It would be difficult to extract a dozen pages which show any real command over the resources of the English tongue. The language is never bold, vig- orous, or terse; it is sometimes eloquent, more rarely picturesque; very often it degenerates into mere bombast, or into a dilute mock heroic. And there is throughout a manner, more easily felt than described,which educated people in general most carefully eschew."* * The Westminster Review, April, 1865. 20 CHARLES DICKENS. CHARLES DICKENS was born at Landport in Portsea, February 7, 1812. Debarred by a very delicate constitution, and by fre- quent attacks of illness, from active participation in the sports usual with boys of his age, he found a very satisfactory com- pensation in the society of books. What Dickens has written of the youth of " David Copper- field " was, in the following particulars, literally true of himself: " My father had left a small collection of books in a little room up-stairs to which I had access, and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, ' Roderick Random,' ' Peregrine Pickle,' ' Humphrey Clinker,' ' Tom Jones/ the ' Vicar of Wakefield,' ' Don Quixote,' ' Gil Bias,' and ' Robin- son Crusoe,' came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time." " The usual result followed. The child took to writing, himself, and became famous in his childish circle for having written a tragedy called Misnar, the Sultan of India."* But Chatham, the scene of these childhood delights, he was separated from, when about nine years of age, by the removal of his father to Somerset House, London. Here, at this tender age, the bitterest experiences of his whole life awaited him. His father fell into debt, and was finally thrown into the Marshalsea prison ; whither, shortly, he was followed by the entire family, save Charles and his sister Fanny. Charles, now about ten years old, found employment in a t4 crazy, tumble- down " blacking-warehouse; where, associated with coarse, ignorant boys, Bob Fagin and Poll Green, he fell to covering pots of paste-blacking. Of this adventure he wrote in later * Forster's Life of Dickens, Vol. I. 230 DICKENS. 231 years : " No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship ; compared these every-day as- sociates with those of my happier childhood ; and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast. The deep remembrance of the sense I had of being -utterly neglected and hopeless; of the shame I felt in my position ; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from me, never to be brought back any more ; can- not be written." Out of this " Slough of Despond" young Charles was rescued two years later, and sent, until fourteen years of age, to Welling- ton House Academy; where, according to his own statement, " the boys trained white mice much better than the master trained the boys." A year or two spent as " office-lad " to attorneys, followed by about eighteen months' intense application to the study of Phonography, brought him, at the age of nineteen, into- the " gallery " as a Parliamentary reporter. Three years later, January (1834), but while still reporting, Dickens first saw him- self in print. " He has described himself dropping this paper stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box in a dark office up a dark court in Fleet Street ; and he has told his agitation when it appeared in all the glory of print : ' On which occasion I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there.' ' This was the beginning of those unique Sketches by J5oz, which at once decided the public in their author's favor. These Sketches, collected into two volumes, and published in 1836, con- stituted Dickens's first work. In the spring of the last-named year was begun, in shilling numbers, the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, edited by J3oz, the most purely amusing and the uniquest of Dickens' works. From it we extract, as a specimen of its author's ability in the department of humor, * Forster's Life of Dickens, Vol. I. 232 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE AT MISS TOMKINS' SCHOOL. Half-past ten o'clock arrived, and it was time for Mr. Pickwick to issue forth on his delicate errand. Resisting Sam's tender of his great coat, in order that he might have no incnmbrance in scaling the wall, he set forth, followed by his attendant. . . They found the house, read the brass-plate, walked round the wall, and stopped at that portion of it which divided them from the bottom of the garden. " You will return to the inn, Sam, when you have assisted me over," said Mr. Pickwick. " Wery well, sir." "And you will sit up 'till I return." "Cert'nly, sir." " Take hold of my leg; and, when I say 'Over/ raise me gently." " All right, sir." Having settled these preliminaries, Mr. Pickwick grasped the top of the wall, and gave the word " Over,'' which was literally obeyed. Whether his body partook in some degree of the elasticity of his mind, or whether Mr. Weller's notions of a gentle push were of a somewhat rougher description than Mr. Pickwick's, the immediate effect of his assistance was to jerk that immortal gentleman completely over the wall on to the bed beneath, where, after crushing three gooseberry bushes, and a rose-tree, he finally alighted at full length. "You ha'n't hurt yourself, I hope, sir," said Sam, in a loud whisper, as soon as he recovered from the surprise consequent upon the mysterious dis- appearance of his master. "I have not hurt myself, Sam, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, from the other side of the wall, " but I rather think thai you have hurt me." " I hope not, sir," said Sam. "Never mind," said Mr. Pickwick, rising, "it's nothing but a few scratches. Go away, or we shall be overheard." " Good-by, sir." " Good-by." With stealthy steps Sam Weller departed, leaving Mr. Pickwick alone in the garden Mr. Pickwick had meditated himself into a doze, when he was roused by the chimes of the neighboring church ringing out the hour half-past eleven. "That is the time," thought Mr. Pickwick, getting cautiously on his feet. He looked up at the house. The lights had disappeared, and the shutters were closed all in bed, no doubt. He walked on tip-toe to the door, and gave a gentle tap. Two or three minutes passing without any reply, he gave another tap rather louder, and then another rather louder than that. At length the sound of feet was audible on the stairs, and then the light of a candle shone through the key -hole of the door. There was a good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and the door was slowly opened. Now the door opened outwards : and as the door opened wider and wider, Mr. Pickwick receded behind it, more and more. W T hat was his astonishment when he just peeped out by way of caution, to see that the person who had opened it was not Job Trotter, but a servant-girl with a candle in her hand! DICKENS. 233 " It must have been the cat, Sarah," said the girl, addressing herself to some one in the house. "Puss, puss, puss tit, tit, tit." But no animal heing decoyed by these blandishments, the girl slowly closed the door, and refastened it ; leaving Mr. Pickwick drawn up straight against the wall. *"..-'"*-.# "What a dreadful situation ! " said Mr. Pickwick. He looked up at the house all was dark. They must have gone to bed now. He would try the signal again. He walked on tip-toe across the moist gravel, and tapped at the door. He held his breath, and listened at the key-hole. No reply : very odd. Another knock. He listened again. There was a low whispering inside, and then a voice cried "Who's there?" "That's not Job," thought Mr. Pickwick, hastily drawing himself straight up against the wall again "It's a woman." He had scarcely had time to form this conclusion, when a window above stairs was thrown up, and three or four female voices repeated the query " Who's there ?" Mr. Pickwick dared not move hand or foot. It was clear that the whole establishment was roused. He made up his mind to remain where he was, until the alarm had subsided : and then by a supernatural effort to get over the wall, or perish in the attempt. What was his discomfiture, when he heard the chain and bolts withdrawn, and saw the door slowly opening, wider and wider ! He retreated into the corner, step by step; but do what he would, the interposition of his own person prevented its being opened to its utmost width. "Who's there?" screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices from the stair-case inside, consisting of the spinster lady of the establishment, three teachers, five female servants, and thirty boarders, all half-dressed, and in a forest of curl-papers. Of course Mr. Pickwick did n't say who was there : and then the burden of the chorus changed into " Lor' ! I am so fright- ened." " Cook," said the lady abbess, who took care to be on the top stair, the very last of the group "Cook, why don't you go a little way into the garden?" " Please, ma'am, I don't like," responded the cook. "Lor', what a stupid thing that cook is!" said the thirty boarders. "Cook," said the lady abbess, with great dignity; " don't answer me, if you please. I insist upon your looking into the garden immediately." Here the cook began to cry, and the housemaid said it was "a shame!" for which partisanship she received a month's warning on the spot. "Do you hear, cook?" said the lady abbess, stamping her foot, im- patiently. " Don't you hear your missis, cook?" said the three teachers. " What an impudent thing that co>k is!" said the thirty boarders. The unfortunate cook, thus strongly urged, advanced a step or two, and holding her candle just where it prevented her seeing anything at all, de- clared there was nothing there, and it must have been the wind. The door was just going to be closed in consequence, when an inquisitive boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful screaming, which called back the cook and the housemaid, and all the more ad-, venturous, in no time. " What is the matter with Miss Smithers?" said the lady abbess, as the aforesaid Miss Smithers proceeded to go into hysterics of four young lady 234 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. power. "Lor', Miss Smithers, dear," said the other nine and twenty boarders. " Oh, the man the man behind the door ! " screamed Miss Smithers. The lady abbess no sooner heard this appalling cry, than she retreated to her own bedroom, double-locked the door, and fainted away comfortably. The boarders, and the teachers, and the servants, fell back up the stairs, and upon each other; and never was such a screaming, and fainting, and struggling beheld. In the midst of the tumult, Mr. Pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst them. " Ladies dear ladies," said Mr. Pickwick. " Oh, he says we're dear," cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. " Oh, the wretch ! " " Ladies," roared Mr. Pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of his situation. "Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady of the house." "Oh, what a ferocious monster !" screamed another teacher. " He wants Miss Tomkins." Here there was a general scream. "Ring the alarm bell, somebody!" cried a dozen voices. "Don't don't," shouted Mr. Pickwick. " Look at me. Do I look like a robber? My dear ladies you may bind me hand and leg, or lock me up in a closet, if you like. Only hear what I have got to say only hear me." "How did you come in our garden ?" faltered the housemaid. "Call the lady of the house, and I'll tell her everything everything," said Mr. Pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. "Call her only be quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything." It was proposed, as a test of Mr. Pickwick's sincerity, that he should immediately submit to personal restraint; and that gentleman having con- sented to hold a conference with Miss Tomkins, from the interior of a closet in which the day boarders hung up their bonnets and sandwich-bags, lie at once stepped into it, of his own accord, and was securely locked in. This revived the others; and Miss Tomkins having been brought-to, and brought down, the conference began. "What did you do in my garden, Man?" said Miss Tomkins, in a faint voice. " I came to warn you, that one of your young ladies was going to elope to-night," replied Mr. Pickwick, from the interior of the closet. " Elope ! " exclaimed Miss Tomkins, the three teachers, the thirty boarders, and the five servants. " Who with ? " " Your friend, Mr. Charles Fitz Marshall." " My friend! 1 don't know any such person." "Well; Mr. Jingle, then." " I never heard the name in my life." "Then, 1 have been deceived, and deluded," said Mr. Pickwick. "I have been the victim of a conspiracy a foul and base conspiracy. Send to the Angel, my dear ma'am, if you don't believe me; send to the Angel for Mr. Pickwick's man-servant, I implore you, ma'am." . . . So two of the servants were despatched to the Angel in search of Mr. Samuel Weller: and the remaining three stopped behind to protect Miss Tomkins, and the three teachers, and the thirty boarders. And Mr. Pick- DICKENS. 235 wick sat down in the closet, beneath a grove of sandwich bags, and awaited the return of the messengers, with all the philosophy and fortitude he could summon to his aid. An hour and a half elapsed before they came back, and when they did come, Mr. Pickwick recognized, in addition to the voice of Mr. Samuel Weller, two other voices, the tones of which struck familiarly on his ear; hut whose they were, he could not for the life of him call to mind. A very brief conversation ensued. The door was unlocked. Mr. Pickwick stepped out of the closet, and found himself in the presence of the whole establish- ment of Westgate House, Mr. Samuel Weller, and old Wardle, and his destined son-in-law, Mr. Trundle ! "My dear friend," said Mr. Pickwick, running forward and grasping Wardle's hand, "my dear friend, pray, for Heaven's sake, explain to this lady the unfortunate and dreadful situation in which I am placed. You must have heard it from my servant; say, at all events, my dear fellow, that I am neither a robber nor a madman." " I have said so, my dear friend. I have said so already," replied Mr. Wardle, shaking the right hand of his friend, while Mr. Trundle shook the left. "And whoever says, or has said, he is," interposed Mr. W T eller, stepping forward, "says that which is not the truth, but so far from it, on the con- trary, quite the reverse. And if there's any number o' men on these here premises as has said so, I shall be wery happv to give 'em all a wery con- vincing proof o' their being mistaken, in this here wery room, if these wery respectable ladies '11 have the goodness to retire and order 'em up, one at a time." Having delivered this defiance with great volubility, Mr. W r eller struck his open palm emphatically with his clenched fist, and winked pleasantly on Miss Tornkins; the intensity of whose horror at her supposing it within the bounds of possibility that there could be any men on the premises of W T estgate House Establishment for Young Ladies, it is impossible to describe. Mr. Pickwick's explanation having been already partially made, was soon concluded. But neither in the course of his walk home with his friends, nor afterwards when seated before a blazing fire at the supper he so much needed, could a single observation be drawn from him. He seemed bewildered and amazed. While the last of the Pickwick Papers was being penned, Oliver Twist was begun, and during the years 1837-38 completed in monthly numbers. Hardly had the last work left his hands, when Nicholas Nickleby was undertaken, and between February 1838 and October 1839 finished. The beginning of the year 1840 marked the opening of The Old Curiosity Shop, which was closed in the Spring of the next year. Dickens's next work Barnaby Rudge was begun during the progress of Oliver Twist, but, except at intervals, had been laid aside until the completion of The Old Curiosity Shop, when it was resumed and finished in weekly parts before the end of 1841. As an in- stance of our author's vivid descriptive power, we cite, from this work, 236 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. THE SACKING OF NEWGATE PRISON. And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and on the strong building; for those who could not reach the door spent their fierce rnge on anything even on the great blocks of stone, which shivered their weapons into fragments, and made their hands and arms tingle as if the walls were active in their stout resistance, and dealt them back their blows. The clash of iron ringing upon iron mingled with the deafening tumult, and sounded high above it, as the great sledge-hammer rattled on the nailed and plated door: the sparks flew off' in showers; men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relieved each other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work ; but there stood the portal still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and, saving for the dints upon its battered surface, quite unchanged. While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task ; and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the sum- mit of the walls they were too short to scale; and some again engaged a body of police a hundred strong, and beat them back and trod them under foot by force of numbers; others besieged the house on which the jailer had appeared, and, driving in the door, brought out his furniture, and piled it up against the prison gate, to make a bonfire which should burn it down. As soon as this device was understood, all those who had labored hitherto, cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap; which reached half- way across the street, and was so high, that those who threw more fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper's goods, were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they smeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood by, await- ing the result. The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first, they crowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks; but when it grew hotter and fiercer when it crackled, leaped, and roared, like a great furnace when it shone upon the opposite houses, and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habita- tion when, through the deep-red heat and glow, the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface, now gliding off' with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St. Sepulchre's, so often point- ing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jew- elled when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest dis- tance in the fiery vista with their specks of brightness when wall and tower, and roof and chimney-stack, seemed drunK, and in the flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out upon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect then the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, and clamor, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred them- selves to fe>d the lire, and keep it at its height. DICKENS. 237 Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over against the prison parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils, as it were, from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although the glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and, rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile; still the fire was tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it men were going always. They never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard, that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in ; if one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that, although they knew the pain, and thirst, and pressure to be unendurable. Those who fell down in fainting-fits and were not crushed or burnt, were carried to an inn-yard close at hand, and dashed with water from a pump, of which buckets full were passed from man to man among the crowd ; but such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting to be first that, for the most part, the whole contents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips of one man being moistened. Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the war and outcry, those who were nearest to the pile heaped up again the burning fragments that came toppling down, and raked the fire about the door, which, although a sheet of flame, was still a door fast locked and barred, and kept them out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides, above the people's heads to such as stood about the ladder, and some of them, climbing up to the top- most stave, and holding on with one hand by the prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast these fire-brands on the roof, or down into the yards within. In many instances their efforts were successful; which occasioned a new and appalling addition to the horror of the scene; for the prisoners within, seeing from between their bars that the fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know that they were in danger of being burnt alive. This terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell, and from yard to yard, vented itself in such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks for help, that the whole jail resounded with the noise; which was loudly heard, even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of the flames, and was so full of agony and despair, that it made the boldest tremble In June, 1841, Dickens visited Scotland, acquainting himself with its wildest Highland scenery ; and, at the invitation of distinguished citizens, partook of a public dinner in his honor in Edinburgh. This trip was followed, the next year, by a first visit to America, during which he passed through the principal cities of Canada, and also those of the United States as far to the south-west as St. Louis. Everywhere he realized that his fame as a novelist had preceded him, and his reception was rendered even annoyingly cordial and ceremonious. The succeeding fall brought out, as the result of his observations of scenery, institutions, and customs, his American Notes. The first number of Martin Chuzzlewit appeared in January, 1843, the entire work occupying him until midsummer of the next year. From this volume, as another sample of Dickens' graphic and 238 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. minute word-painting, though of a different sort from the last quoted, we instance his description of THE WIND. An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and rattled as they moved in skeleton dances to its moaning music. The withering leaves, no longer quiet, hurried to and fro in search of shelter from its chill pursuit; the laborer unyoked his horses, and with head bent down, trudged briskly home beside them ; and from the cottage windows lights began to glance and wink upon the darkening fields. Then the village forge came out in all its bright importance. The lusty bellows roared Ha, ha! to the clear fire, which roared in turn, and bade the shining sparks dance gaily to the merry clinking of the hammers on the anvil. The gleaming iron, in its emulation, sparkled too, and shed its red- hot gems around profusely. . . . Out upon the angry wind ! how from sighing, it began to bluster round the merry forge, banging at the wicket, and grumbling in the chimney, as if it bullied the jolly bellows for doing anything to order. And what an impotent swaggerer it was too, for all its noise: for if it had any influence on that hoarse companion, it was but to make him roar his cheerful song the louder, and by consequence to make the fire burn the brighter, and the sparks to dance more gaily yet: at length, they whizzed so madly round and round, that it was too much for a surly wind to bear; so off it flew with a howl, giving the old sign before the ale-house door such a cufFas it went, that the Blue Dragon was more rampant than usual ever afterwards, and indeed, before Christmas, reared clean out of his crazy frame. It was small tyranny for a respectable wind to go wreaking its vengeance on such poor creatures as the fallen leaves; but this wind happening to come up with a great heap of them just after venting its humor on the insulted Dragon, did so disperse and scatter them that they fled away, pell-mell, some here, some there, rolling over each other, whirling round and round upon their thin edges, taking frantic flights into the air, and playing all manner of extraordinary gambols in the extremity of their distress. Nor was this enough for its malicious fury ; for not content with driving them abroad, it charged small parties of them and hunted them into the wheelwright's saw-pit, and below the planks and timbers in the yard, and, scattering the saw-dust in the air, it looked for them underneath, and when it did meet with any, whew! how it drove them on and followed at their heels ! The scared leaves only flew the faster for all this, and a giddy chase it was ; for they got into unfrequented places, where there was no outlet, and where their pursuer kept them edging round and round at his pleasure; and they crept under the eaves of houses, and clung tightly to the sides of hayricks, like bats; and tore in at open chamber windows, and cowered close to hedges; and in short went anywhere for safety. But the oddest freak they achieved was, to take advantage of the sudden opening of Mr. Pecksniff's front door, to dash wildly into his passage; whither the wind, following close upon them, and finding the back door open, incontinently blew but the lighted candle held by Miss Pecksniff and slammed the front door against Mr. Pecksniff, who was at that moment entering, with such violence, that in the twinkling of an eye he lay on his DICKENS. 239 back at the bottom of the steps. Being by this time weary of such trifling performances, the boisterous rover hurried away rejoicing, roaring over moor and meadow, hill and flat, until it got out to sea, where it met with other winds similarly disposed, and made a night of it. The year 1843 was memorable, too, as inaugurating in (he Christmas Carol, the annual advent of his Christmas stories. The next year, and a part also of 1845, found Dickens enjoying a delightful, and much-needed, too, season of rest and recreation in Italy, principally at Genoa, with no literary product save the Chimes a second Christmas book. The remainder of the' latter year was passed in England, bringing, at its close, to the delight of the public, a third holiday annual the Cricket on the Hearth. The glimpse he had caught of Switzerland, 011 his late return home, filled Dickens with an ardent desire to gain a more perfect experience of the grand scenery and hardy life of that country ; and the next year (1846), with the exception of a brief sojourn in Paris, was devoted to this eject. It was while here at Lausanne that his fourth Christmas Story The Battle of Life, was written, and Dombey and Son was begun. The latter was completed in England, in the spring of 1848. In this work we meet with Dickens' masterpiece of pathos, in the DEATH OF LITTLE PAUL. Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly ; not caring much how the time went, but watching it and watching everything about him with observing eyes. When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great city: and now he thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the hosts of stars; and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea. As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they paused, and lose them in the hollow distance, he would He and watch the many-colored rings about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His only trouble was the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try to stop it to stem it with his childish hands or choke its way with sand ; and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out! But a word from Florence, who wa always at his side, restored him to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told Floy of his dream, and smiled. ***** **** " Floy ! " he said, " what is that ? " "Where, dearest?" 240 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 11 There ! at the bottom of the bed." " There's nothing there, except papa!" The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside, said: " My own boy ! Don't you know me ? " Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father? But the face, so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in pain ; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned aw:iy quickly from the little bed, and went out at the door One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the drawing-room down stairs, and he thought she must have loved sweet Florence better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when she felt that she was dying; for even he, her brother, who had such dear love for her could have no greater wish than that. The train of thought sug- gested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother; for he could not remember whether they had told him yes or no, the river running very fast, and confusing his mind. " Floy, did I ever see mamma ? " " No, darling ; why ? " " Did I never see any kind face, like mamma's, looking at me when I was a baby, Floy ? " He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before him. "Oh, yes, dear!" "Whose, Floy?" " Your old nurse's. Often." "And where is my old nurse?" said Paul. "Is she dead, too? Floy, are we all dead, except you ? " There was a hurry in the room for an instant longer, perhaps; but it seemed no more : then all was still again ; and Florence, with her face quite colorless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. Her arm trembled very much. " Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please ! " "She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow." " Thank you, Floy ! " Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he awoke the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and warm. He lay a little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains rustling in the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, "Floy, is it to-morrow? Is she come ? " Some one seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul thought he heard her telling him, when he had closed his eyes again, that she would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept her word perhaps she had never been away but the next thing that happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke woke mind and body and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about him. There was no grey mist before them, as there had been sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their names. "And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" said the child, regarding with a radiant smile a figure coming in. Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of DICKENS. 241 him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity. " Floy! this is a kind good face 1" said Paul. " I am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse ! Stay here ! " His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew. " Who was that who said 'Walter'?" he asked, looking round. "Some one said Walter. Is he here ? I should like to see him very much." Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, "Call him back, then : let him come up ! " After a short pause of expectation, during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder on his nurse, and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made him a favorite with Paul ; and when Paul saw him, he stretched out his hand, and said, " Good-bye ! " "Good-bye, my child !" cried Mrs. Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head. "Not good-bye?" For an instant Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. "Ah, yes/' he said placidly, "good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!" turning his head to where he stood, and putting out his hand again, " Where is papa ? " He felt his father's breath upon his cheek before the words had parted from his lips. "Remember Walter, dear papa," he whispered, looking in his face. "Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter!" The feeble hand waved in the air, as if it cried " good-bye ! " to Walter once again. " Now lay me down," he said, " and Floy come close to me, and let me see you ! " Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. "How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy ! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said so I" Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank ! He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it ; but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck. " Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face ! But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me as I go ! " The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion ! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion Death!.... 21 Q 242 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. So thoroughly occupied was Dickens with writing the last-named novel, that his Christmas story for 1847, though actually begun in the fall of that year, was necessarily laid aside until the next year, when it appeared as The Haunted Man. David Copperfield was pro- jected in the summer of 1849, while Dickens was enjoying his first sea-side holiday, and concluded in the latter part of the following year. About the same time, a project long revolved in our author's mind arrived at maturity, in the establishment of a miscellany of general literature, called " Household Words," of which he became the editor. Through the pages of this periodical and its successor, "All the Year Eound" (begun in 1860), were given to the world, chapter by chapter, Bleak House (1852-53) an exposure of Chan- cery Court abuses; Hard Times (1854) a blow at the false civiliza- tion of the present ; Little Dorritt (1856) a picture of unselfishness, as well as an exhibit of the evils of debtors' prisons ; A Tale of Two Cities (1859-60) a tragical diorama of revolutionary days in France; Great Expectations (1861-62) ; Our Mutual Friend (1865) ; and The Mystery of Edwin Drood the work from the midst of which the master's hand was so suddenly withdrawn by death, June 9, 1870. The episodes of relaxation from literary toil and the leading per- sonal incidents of the later years of our author's life were a second visit to Switzerland and Italy in 1853, several visits to Boulogne and Paris during the years 1853-56, the purchase and occupation of Gadshill Place in 1856, several reading tours, and a second visit to America in 1867. " Dickens is a poet; he is as much at home in the imaginative world as in the actual. Objects take their hue from the thoughts of his characters. His imagination is so lively, that it carries every- thing with it in the path which it chooses. If the character is happy, the stones, flowers, and clouds must be happy too ; if he is sad, nature must weep with him. Even to the ugly houses in the street, all speak. The style runs through a swarm of visions ; it breaks out into the strangest oddities Dickens does not hunt after quaint- nesses ; they come to him. His excessive imagination is like a string too tightly stretched ; it produces of itself, without any violent shock, sounds not otherwise heard "The imagination of Dickens is like that of monomaniacs. To plunge one's self into an idea, to be absorbed by it, to see nothing else, to repeat it under a hundred forms, to enlarge it, to carry it thus enlarged to the eye of the spectator, to dazzle and overwhelm him with it, to stamp it upon him so tenacious and impressive that he can never again tear it from his memory, these are the great features of this imagination and style Therefore Dickens is admirable in the depicture of hallucinations. We see that he feela DICKENS. 243 himself those of his characters, that he is engrossed by their ideas, that he enters into their madness. As an Englishman and a moral- ist, he has described remorse frequently. Perhaps it may be said that he makes a scarecrow of it, and that an artist is wrong to trans- form himself into an assistant of the policeman and the preacher. What of that? The portrait of Jonas Chuzzlewit is so terrible, that we may pardon it for being useful " Dickens does not perceive great things ; this is the second feature of his imagination. Enthusiasm seizes him in connection with everything, especially in connection with vulgar (common) objects, a curiosity-shop, a sign-post, a town-crier. He has vigor, he does not attain beauty He will be lost, like the painters of his coun- try, in the minute and impassioned observation of small things ; he will have no love of beautiful forms and fine colors "When the mind, with rapt attention, penetrates the minute details of a precise image, joy and grief shake the whole man. Dickens has this attention, and sees these details : this is why he meets everywhere with objects of exaltation. He never abandons his impassioned tone; he never rests in a natural style, and in simple narrative ; he only rails or weeps ; he writes but satires or elegies. He has the feverish sensibility of a woman who laughs loudly, or melts into tears at the sudden shock of the slightest occurrence. This impassioned style is extremely potent, and to it may be attributed half the glory of Dickens " This sensibility can hardly have more than two issues laughter and tears. There are others, but they are only reached by lofty eloquence; they are the path to sublimity, and from this path Dickens is cut off. Yet there is no writer who knows better how to touch and melt; he makes us weep absolutely shed tears; before reading him we did not know there was so much pity in the heart. The grief of a child, who wishes to be loved by his father, and whom his father does not love ; the despairing love and slow death of a poor half-imbecile young man : all these pictures of secret grief leave an ineffaceable impression. The tears which he sheds are genuine, and comparison is their only source. "This same writer is the most railing, the most comic, the most jocose of English authors. And it is moreover a singular gaiety! It is the only kind which would harmonize with this impassioned sensibility. Wounded by misfortunes and vices, Dickens avenges himself by ridicule. He does not paint, he punishes. Nothing could be more damaging than those long chapters of sustained irony, in which the sarcasm is pressed, line after line, more san- guinary and piercing in the chosen adversary He makes 244 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. hypocrisy so deformed and monstrous, that his hypocrite ceases to resemble a man ; you would call him one of those fantastic figures whose nose is greater than his body. This extravagant comicality springs from excess of imagination " In reality, the novels of Dickens can be reduced to one phrase, to wit : Be good, and love ; there is genuine joy only in emotions of the heart; sensibility in the whole man. Leave science to the wise, pride to the nobles, luxury to the rich ; have compassion on humble wretchedness; the smallest and most despised being may in himself be worth as much as thousands of the powerful and the proud. Take care not to bruise the delicate souls which flourish in all conditions, under all costumes, in all ages. Believe that humanhvy, pity, forgiveness, are the finest things in man ; believe that intimacy, expansion, tenderness, tears, are the finest things in the world. To live is nothing ; to be powerful, learned, illustrious, is little ; to be useful is not enough. He alone has lived and is a man who has wept at the remembrance of a benefit, given or received."* * Taine's English Literature, Vol. II. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was born in 1811, at Calcutta. His father dying four years after, his mother re- moved with her son to England in 1817. When about twelve years of age he was sent to the Charterhouse school, from whence, about 1828, he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge. Among his fellow-students at Trinity was the poet Tennyson, with whom he became intimate, and for whom and for whose poetry he cherished a life-long admiration. Thackeray's literary career began while at college, in his part editorship of a series of humorous papers, under the title of " The Snob ; a Literary and Scientific Journal." Though originally intended for the bar, Thackeray's bent was toward art ; for ministering to which he resided for some time first at Rome, and afterwards at Paris. His happiest attain- ment in this direction, however, consisted in those off-hand pen-and-ink sketches of character and situation, such as, at a later period, served to illustrate his nobler literary productions. It was in 1834 that Thackeray became a contributor to " Fraser's Magazine," his articles relating chiefly to the Fine Arts and to his experiences in Paris. Two years later he en- gaged, for a short time, in the publication in London of a news- paper called the " Constitutional and Public Ledger." In 1840 he collected certain of his sketches, previously contributed to " Fraser's " and other magazines, into a volume, with the title of The Paris Sketch Book his first independent publication. Sketches, stories, a ballad, notes of a journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, and Christmas books published under the droll nom de plume of Michael Angelo Titmarsh, made up the sum of Thackeray's literary efforts for the next six years. From February, 1847, to July, 1848, was published, in monthly num- bers, Vanity Fair, the work in which Thackeray first caught 21* " 245 246 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. the ear of the great public. In 1849 he gave to the world, in two volumes, his second fiction, namely: History of Pendennis, also, during the same year, Dr. Birch and Rebecca and Rowena. Two years later, Thackeray appeared before the public in a new character, that of a lecturer, his subjects being the English Humorists. His experiment proved surprisingly suc- cessful in England ; and, a year later, was the means of intro- ducing him personally to his many admirers in the United States. In 1852 The Adventures of Henry Esmond, complete jn three volumes, made its appearance. The most striking feature of the work was a most elaborate imitation of the style and mode of thought of the time of Queen Anne'e reign. The year 1855 was productive of The Newcomes, which contained traces of kindlier and lovelier characterization than any he had yet given. A second visit to the United States, equally successful with his first, both as regards its literary and its pecuniary features, was made in 1856. The subject of his lectures was the four Georges. The Virginians, a tale of the last century, and illus- trated by the author, was commenced in monthly parts, in the fall of 1857. Three years later, Thackeray realized a long- cherished design in the starting of the "Cornhill Magazine," in which were given to the public the series of Roundabout Papers, and the stories of Lovel the Widower and Philip on his Way through the World. Thackeray died December 24, 1863, leaving unaccomplished the promise made a month or two before in the " Cornhill," that in the early numbers of that magazine for the year 1864 he would commence " a new serial story." From Vanity Fair, Vol. I., we produce A QUARREL ABOUT AN HEIRESS. Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she was to realize. He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughter's amiable attachment to the young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest pleasure as a father, to see the love of his girls so well disposed. "You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that splendor and rank to which you are accustomed at the West End, my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Kussell Square. My daughters are plain, disinterested THACKERAY. 247 girls, but their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived an attachment for you which does them honor I say which does them honor. I'm a plain, simple, humble British merchant an honest one, as my respected friends Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who were the correspond- ents of your late lamented father. You'll find us a united, simple, happy, and, I think I may say, respected family a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome, my dear Miss Rhoda Rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms to you, it does, really. I'm a frank man, and I like you. A glass of Champagne ! Hicks, Champagne to Miss Swartz." There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he said, and that the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of affection for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity Fair fasten on to rich folks quite naturally. If the simplest people are disposed to look not a little kindly on great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the British public to say that the notion of "Wealth has not. something awful and pleasing to him ; and you, if you are told that the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to look at him with a certain interest); if the simple look benevolently on money, how much more do your old worldlings regard it! Their affections rush out to meet and welcome money. Their kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it. I know some respectable people who don't consider themselves at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who has not a certain competency, or place in society. They give a lease to their feelings on proper occasions. And the proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family, who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up a hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most romantic advocate of friendship at first sight could desire. What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and Miss Wirt agreed), and how much better than that insignificant little Amelia! Such a dashing young fellow as he is, with his good looks, rank, and accomplishments, would be the very husband for her. Visions of balls in Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies, who talked of nothing but George and his grand acquaintances to their beloved new friend. Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for his son. He should leave the army; he should go into Parliament; he should cut a figure in the fashion "and in the state. His blood boiled with honest British exultation, as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled In the person of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of a glorious line of baronets. He worked in the City and on 'Change, until he knew every- thing relating to the fortune of the heiress, how her money was placed, and where her estates lay. Young Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants, would have liked to make a bid for her himself (it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was booked to Maria. Osborne. But not being able to secure her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her as a sister-in-law. " Let George cut in directly and win her," was his advice. " Strike while the iron's hot, you know while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks some d d fellow from the West End will corne in with a title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men out, as Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's. The sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my sentiments," the wag said; though, when Osborne had left the bank parlor, Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and what a 248 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. pretty girl she was, and how attached to George Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had befallen that unlucky young woman. While thus George Osborne' s good feelings, and his good friend and genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the truant to Amelia's feet, George's parent and sisters were arranging this splendid match for him, which they never dreamed he would resist. When the elder Osborne gave what he called a " hint," there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning. lie called kicking a footman down stairs a hint to the latter to leave his service. With his usual frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the day his son was married to her ward ; and called that proposal a hint, and considered it a very dex- terous piece of diplomacy. He gave George finally such another hint regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out of hand, as lie would have ordered his butler to draw a cork, or his clerk to write a letter. This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet to him. The contrast of her manners and appearance with those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and opera-boxes, thought lie; fancy being seen in them by the side of such a mahogany charmer sis that! Add to all, that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the Senior; when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered, as his father in his most .stern moments. . . . The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of the Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of all their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her friend and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being, as we have before had occasion to show, of a very warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection with quite a tropical ardor. And if the truth may be told, I dare say that she too had some selfish attraction in the Russell Square house; and in a word, thought George Osborne a very nice young man. His whiskers had made an impression upon her, on the very first night she beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we know, she was not the first woman who had been charmed by them. George had an air at once swaggering and melancholy, languid and fierce. He looked like a man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her mother's death to her, or preluding a declaration of love. He trampled over all the young bucks of his father's circle, and was the hero among those third-rate men. Som^e few sneered at him and hated him. Some, like Dobbin, fanatically, ad- mired him. And his whiskers had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves round the affections of Miss Swartz. Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell Square, that simple and good-natured young woman was quite in a flurry to see her dear Miss Osbornes. She went to great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and bonnets, and in prodigious feathers. She adorned her person in her utmost skill to please the Conqueror, and exhibited all her simple accomplishments to win his favor. The girls would ask her, with THACKERAY. 249 the greatest gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to herself. During these delectable entertain- ments, Miss Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility. The day after George had his hint from his father, and a short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling upon a sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy. He had been to pass three hours witb Amelia, his dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and honest Swartz in her favorite amber-colored satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and girncracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May day. The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation, talked about fashions and the last drawing-room until he was perfectly sick of their chatter. He contrasted their behavior with little Emmy's, their shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft movements and modest graces. Poor Swartz was seated in a place where Emmy had been accustomed to sit. Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin lap. Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes rolled about. She was doing nothing with perfect contentment, and thinking herself charming. Anything so becoming as the satin the sisters had never seen. " Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, " she looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all 1 could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa- cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of sentiment, however. The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. " Stop that d thing," George howled out in a fury from the sofa. " It makes me mad. You play us something, Miss Swartz, do. Sing something, anything but the Battle of Prague." "Shall I sing Blue-Eyed Mary, or the air from the Cabinet?" Miss Swartz asked. "That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said. "We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa. "I can sing Fluvy du Tajy," Swartz said, in a meek voice, "if I had the words." It was the last of the worthy young woman's collection. "O Fleuve du Tage," Miss Maria cried ; " we have the song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was. Now it happened that this song, then in the height of the fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young friend of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss Swartz, having concluded the ditty with George's applause (for he remembered that it was a favorite of Amelia's), was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and she saw "Amelia Sedley" written in the corner. "Lor*!" cried Miss Swnrtz, spinning swiftly round on the music-stool, "is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at Miss P.'s at Hammersmith? I know it is. It's her, and Tell me about her where is she? " 250 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. " Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said hastily. " Her family has disgraced itself. Her father cheated papa, and as for her, she is never to be mentioned here" This was Miss Maria's return for George's rude- ness about the Battle of Prague. "Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing up. "God bless you' for it, Miss Swartz. Don't believe what the girls say. She's not to blame at any rate. She's the best " " You know you're not to speak about her, George," cried Jane. " Papa forbids it." "Who's to prevent me?" George cried out. "I mil speak of her. I say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the sweetest girl in England; and that, bankrupt or no, mv sisters are not fit to hold candles to her. If you like her, go and see her, Miss Swartz; she wants friends now ; and I say. God bless everybody who befriends her. Anybody who speaks kindly of her is my friend ; anybody who speaks against her is my enemy. Thank you, Miss Swartz;" and he went up and wrung her hand. "George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly. "I say," George said fiercely, "1 thank everybody who loves Amelia Sed " He stopped. Old Osborne was in the room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot coals. Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the generations ot Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative of resolution and defiance, that the elder man quailed in his turn, and looked away. He felt that the tussle was coming. "Mrs. Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner," he said. "Give your arm to Miss Swartz, George," and they marched. From Book III. of The Adventures of Henry Esmond we quote A VISIT TO CASTLEWOOD. Esmond took horses to Castlewood. He had not seen its ancient gray towers and well-remembered woods for nearly fourteen years, and since lie rode thence with my lord, to whom his mistress with her young chil- dren by her side waved an adieu. What ages seemed to have passed since then, what years of action and passion, of care, love, hope, disaster! The children were grown up now, and had stories of their own. As for Esmond, he felt to be a hundred years old ; his dear mistress only seemed unchanged ; she looked and welcomed him quite as of old. There \vas the fountain in the court babbling its familiar music, the old hall and its furniture, the carved chair my late lord used, the very flagon he drank from. Esmond's mistress knew he would like to sleep in the little room he used to occupy; 'twas made ready for him, and wall-flowers and sweet herbs set in the adjoining chamber, the chaplain's room. In tears of not unmanlv emotion, with prayers of submission to the awful Dispenser of death and lite, of good and evil fortune, Mr. Esmond passed a part of that first night at Castlewood lying awake for many hours as the clock kept tolling (in tones so well remembered), looking back, as all men will, that revisit their home of childhood, over the great gulf ot time, and surveying himself on the distant bank yonder, a sad little mel- ancholy boy with his lord still alive his dear mistress, u girl yet, her THACKERAY. 251 children sporting around her. Years ago, a boy on that very bed, when she had blessed him and called him her knight, he had made'a vow to be faithful and never desert her dear service. Had he kept that fond boyish promise ? Yes, before heaven ; yes, praise be to God ! His life had been hers; his blood, his fortune, his name, his whole heart ever since had been hers and_ her children's. All night long he was dreaming his boyhood over again, and waking fitfully; he half fancied he heard Father Holt calling to him from the next chamber, and that he was coming in and out from the mysterious window. Esmond rose up before the dawn, passed into the next room, where the air was heavy with the odor of the wall-flowers ; looked into the brazier where the papers had been burnt, into the old presses where Holt's books and papers had been kept, and tried the spring and whether the window worked still. The spring had not been touched for years, but yielded at length, and the whole fabric of the window sank down. He lifted it and it relapsed into its frame ; no one had ever passed thence since Holt used it sixteen years ago. . . . I was interrupted by a tapping of a light finger at the ring of the chamber-door: 'twas rny kind mistress, with her face full of love and welcome. She, too, had passed the night wakefully no doubt ; but neither asked the other how the hours had been spent. There are things we divine without speaking, and know though they happen out of our sight. This fond lady hath told me that she knew both days when I was wounded abroad. Who shall say how far sympathy reaches, and how truly love can prophesy? "I looked into your room," was all she said; "the bed was vacant, the little old bed ! I knew I should find you here." And tender and blushing faintly with a benediction in her eyes, the gentle creature kissed him. They walked out, hand-in-hand, through the old court, and to the terrace- walk, where the grass was glistening with dew, and the birds in the green woods above were singing their delicious choruses under the blushing morn- ing sky. How well all things were remembered ! The ancient towers and gables of the hall darkling against the east, the purple shadows on the green slopes, the quaint devices and carvings of the dial, the forest-crowned heights, the fair yellow plain cheerful with crops and corn, the shining river rolling through it towards the pearly hills beyond ; all these were before us, along with a thousand beautiful memories of our youth, beautiful and sad, but as real and vivid in our minds as that fair and always- remembered scene our eyes beheld once more. We forget nothing. The memory sleeps, but wakens again ; I often think how it shall be when, after the last sleep of death, the reveille shall rouse us for ever, and the past in one flash of self-consciousness rush back, like the soul-revivified. The house would not be up for some hours yet (it was July, and the dawn was only just awake), and here Esmond opened himself to his mis- tress, of the business he had in hand, and what part Frank was to play in it. He knew he could confide anything to her, and that the fond soul would die rather than reveal it; and bidding her keep the secret from all, lie laid it entirely before his mistress (always as staunch a little loyalist as any in the kingdom), and indeed was quite sure that any plan of his was secure of her applause and sympathy. Never was such a glorious scheme to her partial mind, never such a devoted knight to execute it. An hour or two may have passed whilst they were having their colloquy. Beatrix came out to them just as their talk was over; her tall beautiful form robed 252 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. in sable (which she wore without ostentation ever since last year's catastro- phe), sweeping over the green terrace, and casting its shadows before her across the grass. She made us one of her grand curtsies smiling, and called us "the young people." She was older, paler, and more majestic than in tine year before ; her mother seemed the youngest of the two. She never once spoke of her grief, Lady Castlewood told -Esmond, or alluded, save by a quiet word or two, to the death of her hopes Esmond's visit home was but for two days the business he had in hand calling him away, and out of the country. Ere he went, he saw Beatrix but once alone, and then she summoned him out of the long tapestry room, where he and his mistress were sitting, quite as in old times, into ths adjoining chamber, that had been Viscountess Isabel's sleeping apartment, and where Esmond perfectly well remembered seeing the old lady sitting up in the bed, in her night-rail, that morning when the troop of guard came to fetch her. Here stood Beatrix in her black robes, holding a box in her hand; 'twas that which Esmond had given her before her marriage, stamped with a coronet which the disappointed girl was never to wear; and containing his aunt's legacy of diamonds. "You had best take these with you, Harry," says she; "I have no need of diamonds any more." There was not the least token of emotion in her quiet low voice. She held out the black shagreen-case with her fair arm, that did not shake in the least. Esmond saw she wore a black velvet bracelet on it, with my Lord Duke's picture in enamel; he had given it her but three days before he fell. Esmond said the stones were his no longer, and strove to turn off that proffered restoration with a laugh ; "Of what good," says lie, " are they to me? The diamond loop to his hat did not set off Prince Eugene, and will not make my yellow face look any handsomer." "You will give them to your wife, cousin," says she. " My cousin, your wife has a lovely complexion and shape." " Beatrix," Esmond burst out, the old fire flaming out as it would at times, "will you wear those trinkets at your marriage? You whispered once you did not know me : you know me better now : how I sought, what I have sighed for for ten years, what foregone ! " "A price for your constancy, my lord !" says she; "such a preux chev- alier wants to be paid. Oh, fie, cousin ! " "Again," Esmond spoke out, "if I do something you have at heart; something worthy of me and'you; something that shall make me a name with which to endow you ; will you take it? There was a chance for me once, you said; is it impossible to recall it? Never shake your head, but hear me ; say you will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bring you fame, will that please you.? If I do what you desire most what he who is dead desired most will that soften you?" " What is it, Henry ? " says she, her face lighting up ; " what mean you ? " " Ask no questions," he said ; " wait, and give me but time ; if I bring back that you long for, that I have a thousand times heard you pray for, will you have no reward for him who has done you that service? Put away those trinkets, keep them : it shall not be at my marriage, it shall be at yours ; but if man can do it, I swear a day shall come when there shall be a feast in your house, and you shall be proud to wear them. I say no THACKERAY. 253 more now ; put aside these words, and lock away yonder box until the day when I shall remind you of both. All I pray of you now is, to wait and to remember." "You are going out of the country?" says Beatrix, in some agitation. " Yes, to-morrow," says Esmond. "To Lorraine, cousin?" says Beatrix, laying her hand on his arm; 'twas the hand on which she wore the Duke's bracelet. "Stay, Harry!" continued she, with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomed to show. " Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you who would not, that has known such love as yours has been for us all? But I think I have no heart; at least, I have never seen the man that could touch it; and, had I found him, I would have followed him in rags had he been a private soldier, or to sea, like one of those buccaneers you used to read to us about when we were children. I would do anything for such a man, bear anything for him: but I never found one. You were ever too much of a slave to win my heart; even my Lord Duke could not command it. I had not been happy had I married him. I knew that three months after our engagement and was too vain to break it. Oh, Harry ! I cried once or twice, not for him, but with tears of rage because I could not be sorry for him. I was frightened to find I was glad of his death ; and were I joined to you, I should have the same sense of servitude, the same longing to escape. We should both be unhappy, and you the most, who are as jealous as the Duke was himself. "I tried to love him; I tried, indeed I did: affected gladness when he came: submitted to hear when he was by me, and tried the wife's part I thought I was to play for the rest of my days. But half an hour of that complaisance wearied me, and what would a lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he was speaking ; and I was thinking, Oh, that this man would drop rny hand, and rise up from before my feet ! I knew his great and noble qualities, greater and nobler than mine a thousand times, as yours are, cousin, I tell you, a million and a million times better. But 'twas not for these 1 took him. I took him to have a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and do not deplore him and I often thought, as I listened to his fond vows and ardent words, Oh, if I yield to this man, and meet the other, I shall hate him and leave him ! " I am not good, Harry : my mother is gentle and good like an angel. I wonder how she should have had such a child. She is weak, but she would die rather than do a wrong; I am stronger than she, but I would do it out of defiance. I do not care for what the parsons tell me with their droning sermons : I used to see them at court as mean and as worthless as the meanest woman there. Oh, 1 am sick and weary of the world ! I wait but for one thing, and when 'tis done, I will take F rank's religion and your poor mother's, and go into a nunnery, and end like her. Shall I wear the diamonds then ? they say the nuns wear their best trinkets the day they take the veil. I will put them away as you bid me; farewell, cousin : mamma is pacing the next room, racking her little head to know what we have been saying. She is jealous, all women are. I sometimes think that is the only womanly quality I have. " Farewell. Farewell, brother." She gave him her cheek as a brotherly privilege. The cheek was as cold as marble. He rid away from Castlewood to attempt the task he was bound on, and stand or fall by it; in truth, his state of mind was such, that he was eager 22 254 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. for some outward excitement to counteract that gnawing malady which he was inwardly enduring. " The first characteristic which strikes the reader of Thackeray is unquestionably his humor. It is a kind of penetrating force throughout all his works, now lashed into sarcasm and anon dis- solved in pathos. It is one of the great mistakes regarding this author that he is satirical and nothing else. He is one of the best of English humorists simply because his nature is sensitive at all points. If ever a man's humor were useful to instruct as well as to delight, it was that of Michael Angelo Titmarsh. When he laughs we know he will do it fairly his eye wanders round all, and neither friend nor foe, if vulnerable, can keep out the arrows of his wit. " A second quality that is observable in him is his fidelity. And to this we do not attach the restricted meaning that the persons of his novels are faithful to nature though that they incontestably are but the wide import of being true to the results of life as we see them daily. He does not allow the development of a story to destroy the unities of character, and in this respect he resembles the greatest of all writers. " The subjectivenrss of Thackeray is another quality which has greatly enhanced the value of his works. So eminently subjective are they, that those of his friends who know him well are able to trace in them the successive stages of his personal career, and to show in what manner the incidents of his own life operated upon his novels. There are but few incidents in the whole series that are not drawn either from his personal history or the history of some one of his friends or acquaintances. This is, doubtless, one of the most influential causes of the reality of his stories. Not- withstanding the multiplicity of his personages, there are not two which in any sense resemble each other. " Leading out of his subjectiveness, or rather being a broader and grander development of it, we come to the fourth great char- acteristic of Thackeray, his humanity. That is the crown and glory of his work. The man was true as the light of heaven to the generous instincts of his nature. To veil at times this side of his character was essential, in order to give play to that satire which kills. If his mission was to exalt the good and the pure, it was also as decidedly his mission to abase the false. To do this he must necessarily appear severe. But who that reads him well can fail to perceive that the eye accustomed to blaze with scorn could also moisten with sympathy and affection?"* * Edinburgh, Review, January, 1873. SIR WALTER SCOTT. SIR WALTER SCOTT was born August 15, 1771, in Edinburgh. From his earliest years he evinced a keen appetite for incidents of a romantic and chivalrous nature ; memorizing with great facility and gusto every border-raid ballad and nursery ditty that he could anywhere come upon; and, a few years later, when about thirteen, deriving absorbing pleasure from Percy's fragments of ancient poetry. To use his own words: "The whole Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy tribe I abhorred, and it required the art of Burney, or the feeling of Mackenzie, to fix my attention upon a domestic tale. But all that was adven- turous and romantic, that touched upon knight-errantry, I devoured." School days past, he gratified still further his youthful pas- sion by several years of travel through the wildest and most picturesque parts of Scotland ; examining natural and artificial curiosities, mingling with its pastoral mountaineers, arid glean- ing thence a rich store of old ballads and legends, which, in after years, he gave to the world in his first publication Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Then followed, in 1786, his indenture as a writer to the Signet; in 1792, his admission to the bar ; shortly afterward, his promotion to the office of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, and in 1806 his appointment as Clerk of the Court of Sessions. But the year before our last date, Scott came before the public, and not without considerable eclat, as a poet, in the authorship of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Then, for about ten years, there followed an almost continuous procession of poems, in which it was thought that their author had quite exhausted both his own fertility and that of Scottish life itself. These were Mannion, The Lady of the Lake, Vision of Don Roderick, Rolceby, The Bridal of Triermain, The Lord of the Isles, and Harold the Dauntless. 255 256 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. From The Lady of the Lake, Canto I., we select the following passages : But scarce again his horn he wound, When lo! forth starting at the sound, From underneath an aged oak, That slanted from the islet rock, A damsel guider of its way, A little skiff shot to the bay, That round the promontory steep Led its deep line in graceful sweep, Eddying, in almost viewless wave, The weeping-willow twig to lave, And kiss, with whispering sound and slow, The beach of pebbles bright as snow. The boat had touch'd this silver strand, Just as the Hunter left his stand, And stood conceal'd amid the brake, To view this Lady of the Lake. The maiden paused, as if again She thought to catch the distant strain. With head up-raised, and look intent, And eye and ear attentive bent, And locks flung back, and lips apart, Like monument of Grecian art, In listening mood, she seem'd to stand, The guardian Naiad of the strand. * ' * * * * A Chieftain's daughter seem'd the maid; Her satin snood, her silken plaid, Her golden brooch, such birth betray'd. And seldom was a snood amid Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, Whose glossy black to shame might bring The plumage of the raven's wing; And seldom o'er a breast so fair, Mantled a plaid with modest care, And never brooch the folds combined Above a heart more good and kind. * # * # * Impatient of the silent horn, Now on the gale her voice was borne : " Father ! " she cried ; the rocks around Loved to prolong the gentle sound. A while she paused, no answer came, " Malcolm, was thine the blast ? " the name SCOTT. 257 Less resolutely utter'd fell, The echoes could not catch the swell. " A stranger I," the Huntsman said, Advancing from the hazel shade. The maid, alarmed, with hasty oar, Push'd her light shallop from the shore, And when a space was gained between, Closer she drew her bosom's screen; (So forth the startled swan would swing, So turn to prune his ruffled wing;) Then safe, though flutter'd and amazed, She paused, and on the stranger gazed. Not his the form, nor his the eye, That youthful maidens wont to fly. x- & * # * A while the maid the stranger eyed, And, reassured, at length replied, - , That Highland halls were open still To wilder'd wanderers of the hill. "Nor think you unexpected come To yon lone isle, our desert home ; Before the heath had lost the dew, This morn, a couch was pull'd for you ; On yonder mountain's purple head Have ptarmigan and heath-cock bled, And our broad nets have swept the mere, To furnish forth your evening cheer." " Now, by the rood, my lovely maid, Your courtesy has err'd," he said ; " No right have I to claim, misplaced, The welcome of expected guest. A wanderer, here by fortune tost, My way, my friends, my courser lost, I ne'er before, believe me, fair, Have ever drawn your mountain air, Till on this lake's romantic strand, I found a fey in fairy land ! " The huntsman accompanies the Lady to her Sire's Mansion, where, during the hospitalities of the evening, the latter sings the following song : " Soldier, rest ! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking: 22* R 258 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking. In our isle' enchanted hall, Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, Fairy strains of music fall, Every sense in slumber dewing. Soldier, rest ! thy wariare o'er, Dream of fighting fields no more: Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil, nor night of waking. "No rude sound shall reach thine ear, Armor's clang, or war-steed champing, Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern strand his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing, Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping." She paused then, blushing, led the lay To grace the stranger of the day. * * '* * # _' " Huntsman, rest ! thy chase is done, While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not, with the rising sun, Bugles her shall sound reveille. Sleep! the deer is in his den; Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying; Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen, How thy gallant steed lay dying. Huntsman, rest ; thy chase is done, Think not of the rising sun, For at dawning to assail ye, / Here no bugles sound reveille." " Scott's poetry belongs to the class of improvisatori poetry. It has neither depth, height, nor breadth in it; neither uncommon strength, nor uncommon refinement of thought, sentiment, or language. It has no originality. But if this author has no research, no moving power in his own breast, he relies with the greater safety and success on the force of his subject. He selects a story such as is sure to please, full of incidents, characters, SCOTT. 259 peculiar manners, costume, and scenery ; and he tells it in a way that can offend no one. " In a word, I conceive that he is to the great poet what an excellent mimic is to a great actor. There is no determinate im- pression left on the mind by reading his poetry. It has no results. The reader rises up from the perusal with new images and associa- tions, but he remains the same man that he was before. A great mind is one that moulds the minds of others.""* In 1814 appeared a prose fiction, entitled Waverley, which, in the immense popularity to which it rapidly succeeded, constituted an unparalleled event hitherto in the annals of British literature. Its author, however, was not known to the public. Then, in the next ensuing decade, there issued, evidently from the same mysterious source, Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, several series of Tales of My Landlord, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Visionary, The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth, The Pirate, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, St. Ronan's Well, Red Gauntlet, and Tales of the Crusaders an average of a volume and a half a year. In the vigorous inquest for the author of these marvellously popular fictions, suspicion fell early upon Scott; and his evasions and final denial availed nothing in the end for preventing his discovery. With the enormous profits accruing from the publica- tion of the foregoing fictions, Sir Walter for he had been made a baronet in 1820 transformed his modest cottage at Abbotsford into a magnificent feudal castle a "romance in stone and lime," wherein, for several years, he maintained a princely a national hospitality for all who chose to call. But envious calamity followed close upon the heels of this splendid prosperity ; for Scott, through the failure of his publishers the Ballantynes with whom he had business connections, was involved in a vast debt of over a hundred thousand pounds. Though fifty-five years of age at this time, he at once set resolutely to work to repair his misfortune by new earnings of his pen. And so eminently successful was he, that, in the six years that remained to him for work, he reduced his gigantic liabilities to considerably less than one-half their original size. The works by whose sale he accomplished this laudable result were Woodstock, Napoleon, Chron- icles of the Canongate, Anne of Geier stein, Castle Dangerous, Count Robert of Paris, and several minor works. In this Herculean task, however, which Scott had set for himself, though grandly his mental powers responded to the demand, he sadly overestimated his physical endurance. His strength had so * William Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets. 260 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. noticeably declined at the beginning of 1831, that he was obliged to go abroad to recuperate. For about six months he tried in vain the salubrious climate of Italy ; and returning home in June of the next year, he breathed his last on September 21, 1832. Our first prose extract shall be from JRob Roy, a work wherein Scott has given us some of the most vivid representations of the wild and picturesque life of the Highlands. The echoes of the rocks and the ravines, on either side, now rang to the trumpets of the cavalry, which, forming themselves into two distinct bodies, began to move down the valley at a slow trot. That commanded by Major Galbraith soon took to the right hand, and crossed the Forth, for the pur- pose of taking up the quarters assigned them for the night, when they were to occupy, as I understood, an old castle in the vicinity. They formed a lively object while crossing the stream, but were soon lost in winding up the bank on the opposite side, which was clothed with wood. We continued our march with considerable good order. To ensure the safe custody of the prisoner,* the Duke had caused him to be placed on horseback behind one of his retainers, called, as I was informed, Ewan of Brigglands, one of the largest and strongest men who were present. A horse-belt, passed round the bodies of both, and buckled before the yeoman's breast, rendered it impossible for Hob Boy to free himself from his keeper. I was directed to keep close beside them, and accommodated for the pur- pose with a troop-horse. We were as closely surrounded by the soldiers as the width of the road would permit, and had always at least one, if not two, on each side with pistol in hand. In this manner we traveled for a certain distance, until we arrived at a place where we also were to cross the river. The Forth, as being the outlet of a lake, is of considerable depth, even where less important in point of width, and the descent to the ford was by a broken precipitous ravine, which only permitted one horseman to descend at once. The rear and centre of our small body halting on the bank while the front files passed down in succession, produced a considerable delay, as is usual on such occasions, and even some confusion ; for a number of those riders, who made no proper part of the squadron, crowded to the ford without regu- larity, and made the militia cavalry, although tolerably well drilled, par- take in some degree of their own disorder. It was while we were thus huddled together on the bank that I heard Rob Roy whisper to the man behind whom he was placed on horseback, " Your father, I^wan, wadna hae carried an auld friend to the shambles, like a calf, for a' the Duke? in Christendom." Ewan returned no answer, but shrugged, as one who would express by that sign that what he was doing was none of his own choice. "And when the MacGregors come down the glen, and ye see toom faulds, a bluidy hearth-stane, and the fire flashing out between the rafters o' your house, ye may be thinking then, Ewan, that were your friend Rob * Rob Roy. SCOTT. 261 to the fore, you would have had that safe which it will make your heart sair to lose." Ewan of Brigglands again shrugged and groaned, but remained silent. " It's a sair thing," continued Bob, sliding his insinuations so gently into Ewan's ear that they reached no other but mine, who certainly saw myself in no shape called upon to destroy his prospects of escape. "It's a sair thing, that Ewan of Brigglands, whom Roy MacGregor has helped with hand, sword, and purse, suld mind a gloom from a great man, mair than a friend's life." Ewan seemed sorely agitated, but was silent. We heard the Duke's voice from the opposite bank call, " Bring over the prisoner." Ewan put his horse in motion, and just as I heard Roy say, "Never weigh a MacGregor's bluid against a broken whang o' leather, for there will be another accounting to gie for it baith here and hereafter," they passed me hastily, and, dashing forward rather precipitately, entered the water. " Not yet, Sir not yet," said some of the troopers to me, as I was about to follow, while others pressed forward into the stream. I saw the Duke on the other side, by the waning light, engaged in com- manding his people to get into order, as they landed dispersedly, some higher, some lower. Many had crossed, some were in the water, and the rest were preparing to follow, when a sudden splash warned ~ni that MacGregor's eloquence had prevailed on Ewan to give him freedom and a chance for life. The Duke also heard the sound, and instantly guessed its meaning. "Dog!" he exclaimed to Ewan as he landed, "where is your prisoner?" and, without waiting to hear the apology which the terrified vassal began to falter forth, he fired a pistol at his head, whether fatally I know not, and exclaimed, "Gentlemen, disperse and pursue the villain An hundred guineas for him that secures Hob Boy!" All became an instant scene of the most lively confusion. Rob Roy, disengaged from his bonds, doubtless by Ewan's slipping the buckle of his belt, had dropped off at the horse's tail, and instantly dived, passing under the belly of the troop-horse which was on his left hand. But as he was obliged to come to the surface an instant for air, the glimpse of his tartan plaid drew the attention of the troopers, some of whom plunged into the river with a total disregard to their own safety, rushing, according to the expression of their country, through pool and stream, sometimes swim- ming their horses, sometimes losing them and struggling for (heir own lives. Others less zealous, or more prudent, broke off in different direc- tions, and galloped up and down the banks, to watch the places at which the fugitive might possibly land. The hollowing, the whooping, the calls for aid at different points, where they saw, or conceived they saw, some vestige of him they were seeking, the frequent repoH of pistols and carbines, fired at every object which excited the least suspicion, the sight of so many horsemen riding about, in and out of the river, and striking with their long broadswords at whatever excited their attention, joined to the vain exertions used by their officers to restore order and regularity, and all this in so wild a scene, and visible only by the imperfect twilight of an autumn evening, made the most extraordinary hubbub I had hitherto witnessed. 1 WJV 262 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. indeed left alone to observe it, for our whole cavalcade had dispersed in pursuit, or at least to see the event of the search. Indeed, as I partly suspected at the time, and afterwards learned with certainty, many of those who seemed most active in their attempts to waylay and recover the fugi- tive, were, in actual truth, least desirous that he should be taken, and only joined in the cry to increase the general confusion, and to give Kob Roy a better opportunity of escaping. Escape, indeed, was not difficult for a swimmer so expert as the free- booter, as soon as he had eluded the first burst of pursuit. At one time he was closely pressed, and several blows were made, which flashed in the water around him ; the scene much resembled one of the otter-hunts which I had seen at Osbaldis.tone-Hall, where the animal is detected by the hounds from its being necessitated to put his nose above the stream to vent or breathe, while he is enabled to elude them by getting under water again as soon as he has refreshed himself by respiration. MacGregor, however, had a trick beyond the otter; for he contrived, when very closely pursued, to disengage himself unobserved from his plaid, and suffer it to float down the stream, where in its progress it quickly attracted general attention ; many of the horsemen were thus put upon a false scent, and several shots and stabs were averted from the party lor whom they were designed. Once fairly out of view, the recovery of the prisoner became almost impossible, since, in so many places, the river was rendered inaccessible by the steepness of its banks, or the thickets of alders, poplars, and birch, whicn, overhanging its banks, prevented the approach of horsemen. Errors and accidents had also happened among the pursuers, whose task the approaching night rendered every moment more hopeless. Some got themselves involved in the eddies of the stream, and required the assistance of their companions to save them from drowning. Others, hurt by shots or blows in the confused melee, implored help or threatened vengeance, and in one or two instances such accidents led to actual strife. The trumpets, therefore, sounded the retreat, announcing that the com- manding officer, with whatsoever unwillingness, had for the present relin- quished hopes of the important prize which had thus unexpectedly escaped his grasp, and the troopers began slowly, reluctantly, and brawling with each other as they returned, again to assume their ranks. I could see them darkening, as they formed on the southern bank of the river, whose murmurs, long drowned by the louder cries of vengeful pursuit, were now heard hoarsely mingled with the deep, discontented, and reproachful voices of the disappointed horsemen. The following description of a tournament is taken from the first volume of Ivanhoe : The proclamation having been made, the heralds withdrew to their stations. The knights, entering at either end of the lists in long proces- sion, arranged themselves in a double file, precisely opposite to each other, the leader of each party being in the centre of the foremost rank, a post which he did not occupy until each had carefully arranged the ranks of his party, and stationed every one in his place. * -; * * % * >;- As yet the knights held their long lances upright, their bright points glancing to the sun, and the streamers with which they were decorated SCOTT. 263 fluttering over the plumage of the helmets The marshals then with- drew from the lists, and William de Wyvil, with a voice of thunder, pro- nounced the signal words, Laissez oiler ! The trumpets sounded as he spoke the spears of the champions were at once lowered and placed in the rests the spurs were dashed into the flanks of the horses, and the two foremost ranks of either party rushed upon each other in full gallop, and met in the middle of the lists with a shock, the sound of which was heard at a mile's distance. The rear rank of each party, advanced at a slower pace to sustain the defeated, and follow up the success of the victors of their party. * * * * * * * The champions thus encountering each other with the utmost fury, and with alternate success, the tide of battle seemed to flow now toward the southern, now toward the northern extremity of the lists, as one or the other party prevailed. Meantime the clang of the blows, and the shouts of the combatants, mixed fearfully with the sound of the trumpets, and drowned the groans of those who fell, and lay rolling defenceless beneath the feet of the horses. The splendid armor of the combatants was now defaced with dust and blood, and gave way at every stroke of the sword and battle-axe. The gay plumage, shorn from the crests, drifted upon the breeze like snow-flakes. '"' : ''#'#'# ; - '-.* When the field became thin by the numbers on either side who had yielded themselves vanquished, had been compelled to the extremity of the lists, or been otherwise rendered incapable of continuing the strife, the Templar and the Disinherited Knight at length encountered hand to hand, with all the fury that mortal animosity, joined to rivalry of honor, could inspire. Such was the address of each in parrying and striking, that the spectators broke forth into a unanimous and involuntary shout, expressive of their delight and admiration. But at this moment the party of the Disinherited Knight had the worst ; the gigantic arm of Front-de-Boeuf on the one flank, and the ponderous strength of Athelstane on the other, bearing down and dispersing those im- mediately exposed to them. Finding themselves freed from their immediate antagonists, it seems to have occurred to both these knights at the same instant, that they would render the most decisive advantage to their party, by aiding the Templar in his contest with his rival. Turning their horses, therefore, at the same moment, the Norman spurred against the Disinherited Knight on the one side, and the Saxon on the other. " Beware ! beware ! Sir Disinherited ! " was shouted so universally, that the knight became aware of his danger ; and, striking a full blow at the Templar, he reined back his steed in the same moment, so as to escape the charge of Athelstane and Front-de-Boeuf. These knights, therefore, their aim being thus eluded, rushed from opposite sides betwixt the object of their attack and the Templar, almost running their horses against each other ere they could stop their career. * # * * * # * There was among the ranks of the Disinherited Knight a champion in black armor, mounted on a black horse, large of size, tall, and to all appear- ance powerful and strong, like the rider by whom he was mounted. This knight, who bore on his shield no device of any kind, had hitherto evinced very little interest in the event of the fight, beating off' with seeming ease 264 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. those combatants. who attacked him, but neither pursuing his advantages, nor himself assailing any one. In short, he had hitherto acted the part of a spectator rather than of a party in the tournament, a circumstance which procured him among the spectators the name of the Black Sluggard. At once this knight seemed to throw aside his apathy, when he discov- ered the leader of his party so hard bestead ; for, setting spurs to his horse, which was quite fresh, he came to his assistance like a thunder-bolt, ex- claiming in a voice like a trumpet-call," Disinherited ! to the rescue ! " It was high time ; for, while the Disinherited Knight was pressing upon the Templar, Front-de-Boeuf had got nigh to him with his uplifted sword ; but ere the blow could descend, the Sable Knight dealt a stroke on the head, which, glancing from the polished helmet, lighted with violence scarcely abated on the chamfron of the steed, and Front-de-Boeuf rolled on the ground, both horse and man equally stunned by the fury of the blow. The Sable Knight then turned his horse upon Athelstane of Conings- burgh ; and his own sword having been broken in his encounter with Front-de-Boeuf, he wrenched from the hand of the bulky Saxon the battle- axe which he wielded, and, like one familiar with the use of the weapon, bestowed him such a blow upon the crest, that Athelstane also lay sense- less on the field. Having achieved this double feat, for which he was the more highly applauded that it was totally unexpected from him, the Knight seemed to resume the sluggishness of his character, returning calmly to the northern extremity of the lists, leaving his leader to cope as he best could with Brian de Bois-Guilbert. This was no longer a matter of so much difficulty as formerly. The Templar's horse had bled much, and gave way under the shock of the Disinherited Knight's charge. Brian de Bois-Guilbert rolled on the field, encumbered with the stirrup, from which he was unable to draw his foot. His antagonist sprung from horseback, waved his fatal sword over the head of his adversary, and commanded him to yield himself; when Prince John, more moved by the Templar's dangerous situation than he had been by that of his rival, saved him the mortification of confessing himself vanquished, by casting down his warder, and putting an end to the conflict. " From Walter Scott we learned history. And yet is this history ? All these pictures of a distant age are false. Costumes, scenery, externals alone are exact; actions, speech, sentiments, all the rest is civilized, embellished, arranged in modern guise. We might suspect it when looking at the character and life of the author ; for what does he desire, and what do the guests, eager to hear him, demand ? Is he a lover of truth as it is, foul and fierce ; an inquis- itive explorer, indifferent to contemporary applause, bent alone on defining the transformations of living nature ? By no means. He is in history, as he is at Abbotsford, bent on arranging points of view and Gothic halls. The moon will come in well there between the towers; here is a nicely placed breastplate, the ray of light which it throws back is pleasant to see above these old hangings ; suppose we took out the feudal garments from the wardrobe and invited the guests to a masquerade ? SCOTT. 265 " Is there a man more suited than the author to compose such a spectacle? He is a good Protestant, a good husband, a good father, very moral, so decided a Tory that he carries off as a relic a glass from which the king has just drunk. In addition, he has neither talent nor leisure to reach the depth of his characters. He devotes himself to the exterior; he sees and describes forms and externals much more at length than feelings and internals. Again, he treats his mind like a coal-mine, serviceable for quick working, and for the greatest possible gain ; a volume in a month, sometimes in a fortnight even, and this volume is worth one thou- sand pounds. * # * *''* * * " Walter Scott pauses on the threshold of the soul, and in the vestibule of history, selects in the Renaissance and the Middle-age only the fit and agreeable, blots out frank language, licentious sensuality, bestial ferocity. After all, his characters, to whatever age he transports them, are his neighbors, ' cannie ' farmers, vain lairds, gloved gentlemen, young marriageable ladies, all more or less commonplace, that is, well-ordered by education and character, hundreds of miles away from the voluptuous fools of the Restora- tion, or the heroic brutes and fierce beasts of the Middle-age. As he has the richest supply of costumes, and the most inexhaustible talent for scenic effect, he makes his whole world get on very pleasantly, and composes tales which, in truth, have only the merit of fashion, but which yet may last a hundred years."* " Farthermore, surely he was a blind critic who did not recognize here a certain genial sunshiny freshness and picturesqueness ; paintings both of scenery and figures, very graceful, brilliant, occasionally full of grace and glowing brightness, blended in the softest composure ; in fact, a deep and sincere love of the beau- tiful in nature and in man, and the readiest faculty of expressing this by imagination and by word. It is the utterance of a man of open soul ; of a brave, large, far-seeing man, who has a true broth- erhood with all men. In joyous picturesqueness and fellow-feeling freedom of eye and heart; or to say it in a word, in general health- iness of mind, these novels prove Scott to have been amongst the foremost writers." f Taine's English Literature, Vol. II. f Carlyle's Miscellaneous Writings. 23 JOHN RUSKIN. JOHN RUSKIN was born in London, in February, 1819. His education was received at Christ Church, Oxford, where, in 1839, he won the Newdigate Prize for English poetry. Graduating in 1842, he has since devoted almost exclusively the energies of his genius and the wealth of a varied knowledge to the study of the Fine Arts particularly Painting and Architecture. As recognitions of the celebrity he has attained in this life-long and all-absorbing pursuit, he was, in 1867, appointed Rode Lecturer at Cambridge, and two years later, was honored as Slade Pro- fessor of Art in the University of Oxford. Not to name all the works which have emanated from his prolific and versatile pen within the interval of thirty years, considerably more than a volume for each year, we will enu- merate only those of a more generally interesting character, such, for instance, as the Modern Painters (five volumes, 1843- 60), The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), The Stones of Venice (three volumes, 1851-53), Pre-Baphaelitism (1851), Lectures on Architecture and Painting (1854), The Two Paths (lectures on Art and its application to Decoration and Manufac- ture, 1859), " Unto this Last " (four essays on the first principles of Political Economy, 1862), The Crown of Wild Olive (three lectures on Work, Traffic, and War, 1866), Fors Clavigera (letters to the Workingmen and Laborers of Great Britain, 1871), The Eagle s Nest (ten lectures on the relation of Natural Science to Art, 1872), Ariadne Florentine/, (six lectures on wood and metal engraving, 1873-76), and The Laws of Fesole (treatise on ele- mentary Principles and Practice of Drawing and Painting, 1877-78.) Our first two extracts are from the Modern Painters. 2f>0 E USKIN. 267 GREATNESS IN ART. There is therefore a distinction to be made between what is ornamental in language and what is expressive. That part of it which is necessary to the embodying and conveying the thought is worthy of respect and atten- tion, as necessary to excellence, though not the test of it. But that part of it which is decorative has little more to do with the intrinsic excellence of the picture than the frame or the varnishing of it. And this caution in distinguishing between the ornamental and the expressive is peculiarly necessary in painting; for, in the language of words, it is nearly impossible for that which is not expressive to be beautiful, except by mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which is immediately stigmatized as error. But the beauty of mere language in painting is not only very attractive and entertaining to the spectator, but requires for its attainment no small exertion of mind and devotion of time by the artist. Hence, in art, men have frequently fancied that they were becoming rhetoricians and poets when they. were only learning to speak melodiously; and the judge has over and over again advanced to the honor of authors those who were never more than ornamental writing-masters. Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, excepting always those of Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt, are ostentatioas exhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of useless and senseless words; while the early efforts of Cimabue and Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the stammering lips of infants. It is not by ranking the former as more than mechanics, or the latter as less than artists, that the taste of the multitude, always awake to the lowest pleasures which art can bestow, and blunt to the highest, is to be formed or elevated. It must be the part of the judicious critic carefully to dis- tinguish what is language, and what is thought, and to rank and praise pictures chiefly for the Tatter, considering the former as a totally inferior excellence, and one which cannot be compared with, or weighed against, thought in any way, nor in any degree whatsoever. The picture which has the nobler and more numerous ideas, however awkwardly expressed, is a greater and a better picture than that which has the less noble and less numerous ideas, however beautifully expressed. No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or frag- ment of thought. Three pen-strokes of Raffaelle are a greater and a better picture than the most finished work that ever Carlo Dolci polished into inanity. A finished work of a great artist is only better than its sketch, if the sources of pleasure belonging to color and realization valuable in them- selves are so employed as to increase the irnpressiveness of the thought. But if one atom of thought has vanished, all color, all finish, all execution, all ornament, are too dearly bought. Nothing but thought can pay for thought; and the instant that the increasing refinement or finish of the picture begins to be paid for by the loss of the faintest shadow of an idea, that instant all refinement or finish is an excrescence and a deformity. . . . If I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is capable of conveying. If I were to say, on the contrary, that the best picture was that which most closely imitated nature, I should assume that art could only please by imitating nature, and I should cast out of the pale of criticism those parts of. works of art which are not imitative, that is to 268 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. say, intrinsic beauties of color and form, and those works of art wholly, which, like the arabesques of Raffaelle in the Loggias, are not imitative at all. Now I want a definition of art wide enough to include all its varieties of aim: I do not say therefore that the art is greatest which gives most pleasure, because, perhaps, there is some art whose end is to teach, and not to please. I do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us most, because, perhaps, there is some art whose end is to please, and not to teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best, because, perhaps, there is some art whose end is to create, and not to imitate. But I say that the art is greatest which conveys to the mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and exalts the faculty by which it is received. From the Chapter on "Truth of Color" we extract what we will name A PICTURE AND ITS LANDSCAPE. There is, in the first room of the National Gallery, a landscape attributed to Gaspar Poussin, called sometimes Aricia, sometimes Le or La Kiccia, according to the fancy of catalogue printers. Whether it can be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to Albano, I will not take upon me to determine, seeing that most of the towns of these old masters are quite as like one place as another; but, at any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of leaves each. Ihese bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly greenish the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock, which, of course would, in nature have been cool and gray beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being more completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing like color in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road, which, in order to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed, from the quantity of vege- tation usually present on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green gray, and the truth of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown. Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage-road, the first turn after you leave Albano, not a little impeded by the worthy suc- cessors of the ancient prototypes of Veiento. It had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct lighting up the infinity of its arches like the bridge of chaos. But as 1 climbed the long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline of the domes of Albano and graceful darkness of its ilex grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep, palpitating azure, half ether and half- dew. The noon-day sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it t;s E US KIN. 269 with rain. I cannot call it color, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivered with buoyant and burning life ; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the gray walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every blade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset ; the motionless masses of dark rock, dark, though flushed with scarlet lichen, casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over all, the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea. The Seven Lamps of Architecture furnishes our remaining extracts. We quote from " The Lamp of Sacrifice." It has been said it ought always to be said, for it is true that a better and a more honorable offering is made to our Master in ministry to the poor, in extending the knowledge of His name, in the practice of the virtues by which that name is hallowed, than in material presents to His temple. Assuredly it is so : woe to all who think that any other kind or manner of offering may in any wise take the place of these! Do the people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word? Then it is no time for smoothing pillars and carving pulpits ; let us have enough first of walls and roofs. Do the people need teaching from house to house, and bread from day to day ? Then they are deacons and ministers we want, not architects. I insist on this, I plead for this ; but let us examine our- selves, and see if this be indeed the reason for our backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not between God's house and His poor : it is not between God's house and His Gospel. It is between God's house and ours. Have we no tesselated colors on our floors ? no frescoed fancies on our roofs ? no niched statuary in our corridors? no gilded furniture in our chambers? no costly stones in our cabinets ? Has even the tithe of these been offered ? They are, or they ought to be, the signs that enough has been devoted to the great purpose of human stewardship, and that there remains to us what we can spend in luxury ; but there is a greater and prouder luxury than this selfish one, that of bringing a portion of such things as these into sacred service, and presenting them for a memorial that our pleasure as well as our toil has been hallowed by the remembrance of Him who gave both the strength and the reward. And until this has been done, 1 do not see how such possessions can be retained in happiness. I do not understand the feeling which would arch our own gates and pave our own thresholds, and leave the church with its narrow door and foot-worn sill ; the feeling which enriches our own chamber with all man- 23* 270 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ner of costliness, and endures the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. There is seldom even so severe a choice to be made, seldom so much self-denial to be exercised. There are isolated cases, in which men's happiness and mental activity depend upon a certain degree of luxury in their houses ; but then this is true luxury, felt and tasted, and profited by. In the plurality of instances nothing of the kind is attempted, nor can be enjoyed ; men's average resources cannot reach it ; and that which they can reach gives them no pleasure and might be spared. I am no advocate for meanness of private habitation. I would fain intro- duce into it all magnificence, care, and beauty, when they are possible ; but I would not have that useless expense in unnoticed fineries or formalities ; cornicings of ceilings and graining of doors, and fringing of curtains, and thousands such; things which have become foolishly and apathetically habitual things on whose common appliance hang whole trades, to which there never yet belonged the blessing of giving one ray of real pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most contemptible uses things which cause half the expense of life, and destroy more than half its comfort, manliness, respectability, freshness, and facility. I speak from experience : I know what it is to live in a cottage with a deal floor and roof, and a hearth of mica slate ; and I know it to be in many respects healthier and happier than living between a Turkey carpet and gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fender. I do not say that such things have not their place and propriety; but I say this, emphatically, that the tenth part of the expense which is sacrificed in domestic vanities, if not absolutely and meaninglessly lost in domestic discomforts and incumbrances, would, if collectively offered and wisely employed, build a marble church for every town in England; such a church as it should be a joy and a blessing even to pass near in our daily ways and walks, and as it would bring the light into the eyes to see from afar, lifting its fair height above the purple crowd of humble roofs. Our concluding extract is from THE LAMP OF MEMORY. Among the hours of his life to which the writer looks back with peculiar gratitude, as having been marked with more than ordinary fulness of joy or clearness of teaching, is one passed, now some years ago, near time of sunset, among the broken masses of pine forest which skirt the course of the Ain, above the village of Champagnole, in the Jura. It is a spot which has all the solemnity, with none of the savageness of the Alps; where there is a sense of a great power beginning to be manifested in the earth, and of a deep and majestic concord in the rise of the long low lines of piny hills ; the first utterance of those mighty mountain symphonies, soon to be more loudly lifted and wildly broken along the battlements of the Alps. But their strength is as yet restrained ; and the far-reaching ridges of pastoral mountain succeed each other, like the long and sighing swell which moves over quiet waters from some far-off stormy sea. And there is a deep tenderness pervading that vast monotony. The destructive forces and the stern expression of the central ranges are alike withdrawn. No frost-ploughed, dust-encumbered paths of ancient glacier fret the soft Jura pastures; no splintered heaps of ruin break the fair ranks of her forests ; no pale, defiled, or furious rivers rend their rude and R US KIN, 271 changeful ways among her rocks. Patiently, eddy by eddy, the clear green streams wind along their well-known beds ; and under the dark quietness of the undisturbed pines, there spring up, year by year, such company of joyful flowers as I know not the like of among all the blessings of the earth. It was spring-time, too; and all were coming forth in clusters crowded for very love ; there was room enough for all, but they crushed their leaves into all manner of strange shapes only to be nearer each other. There was the wood anemone, star after star, closing every now and then into nebula? ; and there was the oxalis, troop by troop, like virginal proces- sions of the Mois de Marie, the dark vertical clefts in the limestone choked up with them as with heavy snow, and touched with ivy on the ed^es ivy as light and lovely as the vine ; and, ever and anon, a blue gush of violets, and cowslip bells in sunny places ; and in the more open ground, the vetch, and comfrey, and mezereon, and the small sapphire buds of the Polygala Alpina, and the wild strawberry, just a blossom or two, all showered amidst the golden softness of deep, warm, amber-colored moss. I came out presently on the edge of the ravine : the solemn murmur of its waters rose suddenly from beneath, mixed with the singing of the thrushes among the pine boughs ; and, on the opposite side of the valley, walled all along as it was by gray cliffs of limestone, there was a hawk sailing slowly off their brow, touching them nearly with his wings, and with the shadows of the pines nickering upon his plumage from above ; but with a fall of a hundred fathoms under his breast, and the curling pools of the green river gliding and glittering dizzily beneath him, their foam globes moving with him as he flew. It would be difficult to conceive a scene less dependent upon any other interest than that of its own secluded and serious beauty ; but the writer well remembers the sudden blankness and chill which were cast upon it when he endeavored, in order more strictly to arrive at the sources of its impressiveness, to imagine it, for a moment, a scene in some aboriginal forest of the New Continent. The flowers in an instant lost their light, the river its music ; the hills became oppressively desolate ; a heaviness in the boughs of the darkened forest showed how much of their former power had been dependent upon a life which was not theirs, how much of the glory of the imperishable, or continually renewed, creation is reflected from things more precious in their memories" than it, in its renewing. Those ever springing flowers and ever flowing streams had been dyed by the deep colors of human endurance, valor, and virtue ; and the crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening sky received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell eastward over the iron wall of Joux and the four-square keep of Granson. It is as the centralization and protectress of this sacred influence, that Architecture is to be regarded by us with the most serious thought. We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears ! how many pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few stones left one upon another ! The ambition of the old Babel builders was well directed for this world : there are but two strong conquerors of the for- getfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier 1 in its reality; it is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength wrought,and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life. 272 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The age of Homer is surrounded with darkness, his very personality with doubt. Not so that of Pericles : and the day is coming when we shall con- fess, that we have learned more of Greece out of the crumbled fragments of her sculpture than even from her sweet singers or soldier historians. And if indeed there be any profit in our knowledge of the past, or any joy in the thought of being remembered hereafter, which can give strength to present exertion, or patience to present endurance, there are two duties respecting national architecture whose importance it is impossible to over- rate ; the first, to render the architecture of the day historical ; and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of inheritances, that of past ages. "Less than almost any other author can he be judged by his worst passages. It is impossible, indeed, to consider his many and multifarious works as containing a great body of sound criticism. They have too deep an impress throughout of his self-will and eccentricity for us ever to accept his judgments without a degree of hesitation and distrust. He is a thorough partisan ; and appears to see no merit in what he dislikes, no faults in what he is pleased to admire. He praises excellence, but we must understand it as excellence in the abstract; we can never feel sure that the par- ticular person or object on which his remarks are made is excellent. So, too, with his blame; we are never certain that the objects to which it is applied deserve it. We may learn more, perhaps, from his writings than from almost any others in the world ; but we must discriminate for ourselves, and not follow blindly where our guide is so exceedingly apt to lead us into error." * " No man has said truer or finer things than Buskin ; no man has taken greater liberties with the common sense of his readers. His contempt of all that is little and mean, his fidelity to all that is true and good, his noble religious faith and sentiment, his fear- lessness, chivalry, and prophetic fervor, are beyond all praise. His paradoxes are most provoking. In spite of many faults of con- struction, Buskin is the most effective of English writers. His eloquence and fervor carry all before them. He shows to greatest advantage in select passages. Paragraphs might be selected from his writings which are the finest specimens of prose-poetry which this generation has produced ; and apart from such, there is a gen- eral eloquence and suggest! ven ess of expression, which fills his style with rich harmony and color. Buskin is a preacher rather than an art-critic. He preaches about the moral aims and ends of art, about its relations to life, and about the life to which it has relation, and he inspires us with fine noble sentiment. He also says many true things about the theory of art, but his theory of art is not, therefore, always true." f Westminster Review, Oct., 1863. t British Quarterly Review, Oct., 1870. THOMAS DE QUINCEY. THOMAS DE QUINCEY was born of well-to-do parents near Manchester, August 15, 1785. His father dying in 1793, young De Quincey was left in care of a guardian, who but imperfectly appreciated the morbidly sensitive temperament and precociously active faculties of his ward. After several years of schooling at Bath and at Winkfield, he desired his guardian to send him to the University of Oxford ; and failing to secure this privilege, he ran away from his tutor, and "set off on foot, carrying a small parcel with some articles of dress under his arm ; a small English poet in one pocket, and a small duodecimo volume, con- taining about nine plays of Euripides, in the other." This was the beginning of an extensive tramp through parts of England and Wales, during which, he tells us, he lodged at farm-houses, subsisted on way-side berries, and on such casual hospitality as he received in return for writing letters of bus- iness for cottagers, and love-epistles for young serving-women to their sweethearts. At length, after long wanderings, he arrived in London, where, for about four months, he frequently suffered the keenest pangs of hunger, and endured all the miseries inci- dent to a penniless and friendless lad. Then a reconciliation was effected with his relatives, and in 1803 he attained his desire of entering Oxford. It was during the next year, 1804, that De Quincey, by resort- ing to opium to lull certain rheumatic pains, took the fatal step, that imparted to all his after life its sad, phantasmagorial char- acter. The remaining incidents of his life are few, and, as compared with the one last named, trivial. In 1809 he took a cottage at Grasmere, and for the ensuing ten years lived there, in almost daily intercourse with his noted neighbors Words- worth, Coleridge, Southey, and Wilson. In 1821, we find him again in London, not friendless and unknown, however; but S 273 274 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. with Lamb, Hazlitt, Hood, and other eminent litterateurs as associates, engaged in writing for the "London Magazine." Finally we meet him in Edinburgh, as one of the famous " Black- wood " clique. Through the periodicals just named, and others of the day, De Quincey, for nearly half a century exhibited to the literary world the unique and dazzling phases of his genius as a writer, in a brilliant succession of autobiographic sketches, literary reminiscences, essays, and historical, philosophical, and critical dissertations. He died in Edinburgh, December 8, 1859. The following extract, from Confessions of an English Opium- Eater, will, we think, convey a pretty fair idea of De Quincey 's graphic style, while it reveals the stages of growth of the masterly horror that afflicted his whole being : In the early stage of my malady, the splendors of my dreams were chiefly architectural ; and I beheld such pomp of cities and palaces as was never yet beheld by the waking eye, unless in the clouds To my archi- tecture succeeded dreams of lakes, and silvery expanses of water : these haunted me so much, that I feared (though possibly it will appear ludicrous to a medical man) that some dropsical state or tendency of the brain might thus be making itself (to use a metaphysical word) objective, and the sentient organ project itself as its own object The waters now changed their character, from translucent lakes, shining like mirrors, they now became seas and oceans. And now came a tremen- dous change, which, unfolding itself slowly like a scroll, through many months, promised an abiding torment ; and, in fact, it never left me until the winding up of my case. Hitherto the human face had often mixed in my dreams, but not despotically, nor with any special power of tormenting. But now that which I have called the tyranny of the human face, began to unfold itself. Perhaps some part of my London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it may, now it was that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face began to appear; the sea appeared paved with innumerable faces, upturned to the heavens; faces, imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centuries : my agitation was infinite, my mind tossed, and surged with the ocean. I know not whether others share in my feelings on this point ; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to forego England, and to live in China, and among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad. I could sooner live with lunatics, or brute animals. This, and much more than I can say, or have time to say, the reader must enter into, before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of oriental imagery, and mythological tortures, impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights, I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled 'them together in China or indostan. DE QUINCEY. 275 From kindred feelings, I soon brought Egypt and all her goods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by mon- keys, by paroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms : I was the idol ; I was the priest; I was worshiped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris. I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried, for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles ; and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud. Sooner or later came a reflex of feeling that swallowed up the astonish- ment, and left me, not so much in terror, as in hatred and abomination of what I saw. Over every form, and threat, and punishment, and dim sight- less incarceration, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity that drove me into an oppression as of madness. Into these dreams only, it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles, especially the last. The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than almost all the rest. I was compelled to live with him ; and (as was always the case, almost, in my dreams) for centuries. I escaped sometimes, and found myself in Chi- nese houses with cane tables, etc. All the feet of the tables, sofas, etc., soon became instinct with life : the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied into a thousand repetitions ; and I stood loathing and fascinated. And so often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams, that many times the very same dream was broken up in the very same way. I heard gentle voices speaking to me (I hear everything when I am sleeping), and instantly I awoke : it was broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside ; coine to show me their colored shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed for going out. I protest that so awful was the transition from the damned crocodile, and the other unutterable monsters and abortions of my dreams, to the sight of innocent human natures and of infancy, that, in the mighty and sudden revulsion of mind, I wept, and could not forbear it, as I kissed their faces. From the essay on The English Mail- Coach, we present an extract from THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which might be gathering ahead, ah ! what a sudden mystery qf fear, what a sigh of woe, was that which stole upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was heard ? A whisper it was a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off' secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable ; that, being known, was not, therefore, healed. What could be done who was it that could do it to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses ? Could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coachman ? You, reader, think that it would have been in your power to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was vised between his upper and lower thigh, this 276 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. was impossible. Easy, was it? See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries. Unbridle him, for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Easy, was it ? Unhorse me, then, that imperial rider ; knock me those marble feet from those marble stirrups of Charlemagne. . . . Before us lay an avenue, "straight as an arrow, six hundred yards, per- haps, in length ; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light ; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this Gothic aisle, a frail reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and by his side a young lady. Ah, young sir! what are you about? If it is requisite that you should whisper your communications to this young lady though really I see nobody, at an hour and on a road so solitary, likely to overhear you is it therefore requisite that you should carry your lips forward to hers ? The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour ; and the parties within it being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half. Oh heavens! what is it that I shall do? Speaking or acting, what help can I offer? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the tale might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the " Iliad" to prompt the sole resource that remained. Yet so it was. Sud- denly I remembered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No: but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant; such a shout would suffice as might carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people, and cne gig horse. I shouted and the young man heard me not. A second time 1 shouted and now he heard me, for now he raised his head. . . . Pie saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down : already its gloomy shadow darkened above him ; and already he was meas- uring his strength to deal wath it. Ah ! what a vulgar thing does courage seem, when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a-day : ah ! what a sublime thing does" courage seem, when some fearful summons on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some tumultuous crisis, from which lie two courses, ani a voice says to him audibly, "One way lies hope; take the other, and mourn forever ! " How grand a triumph, if, even then, amidst the raving of all around him, and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to con- front his situation is able to retire for a moment into solitude with God, and to seek his counsel from him ! For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in the conflict before him. For five seconds more of his seventy he sat immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five more, perhaps, he sat with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for light that should guide him to the better choice. Then suddenly he rose, stood upright, and by a powerful strain upon the reinsj raisini>- his horse's forefeet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant tho little equipage in a position nearly at right angles to ours. Thus far his condition was not improved, except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a DE QUINCEY. 277 second. If no more were done, nothing was done ; for the little carriage still occupied the very center of our path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late : fifteen of the seventy seconds may still be unexhausted ; and one almighty bound may avail to clear the ground. Hurry, then hurry ! for the flying moments they hurry ! Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man ! for the cruel hoofs of our horses they also hurry ! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. But fear not for him, if human energy can suffice ; faithful was he that drove to his terrific duty ; faithful was the horse to Ins command. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand, by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore-feet upon the crown or arching center of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our overtowering shadow : that was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the \vreck that per- ished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage was that certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? Glance of eve, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Faster than ever mill-race we ran past them in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit ! Even in that moment the thunder of collision spoke aloud. Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the off wheel of the little gig, which stood rather obliquely, and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded ter- rifically. I rose in horror, to gaze upon the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated station 1 looked down, and looked back upon the scene, which in a moment told its own tale, and wrote all its records on my heart forever. Here was the map of the passion that now had finished. The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party might be supposed untouched by the passion of death. The little cany carriage partly, perhaps, from the violent torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it as if it sympathized with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man trembled not, nor shivered. He sat like a rock. But his was the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round; for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady But the lady ! Oh, heavens ! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, faint- ing, praying, raving, despairing? Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case ; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of that unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawn- light, dreamlight from the manly tenderness of this flattering whispering, murmuring love suddenly as from the woods and fields suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation suddenly as from the ground 24 278 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death, the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice. The moments were numbered ; the strife was finished ; the vision was closed. In the twinkling of an eye, our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle ; at right angles we wheeled into our former direction ; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams forever. "That De Quincey could write with a force and elegance seldom attained to, will be questioned by no one even superficially ac- quainted with his works; such essays as 'The Theban Sphynx,' and ' Protestantism/ could only have been written by a consum- mate master of style as well as an ingenious and subtle thinker; but these excellencies are often obscured behind a cloud of ram- bling words in which the ideas float loosely and feebly, and make us involuntarily think of the daily half-pint of laudanum under whose deadly thrall those brilliant faculties were benumbed. Sometimes page follows page of such just thinking and scholarly writing, that we seem to be going on prosperously to the goal where we shall find the solid result, in the form of a distinct idea or a piece of definite, trustworthy knowledge ; but no this we hardly ever do find; we are suddenly drawn aside into some vexatious byway, or plunged into a thicket of conjectural interjections, or decoyed into labyrinthine notes which lead, only too seductively, far away from the question in hand. ... In spite of their many faults of diffuseness, vagueness, and rambling incompleteness, many of these essays exhibit a mastery of language and rare felic- ity of expression seldom to be equalled in modern literature." * LIST OF WORKS. Vol. I. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. " II. Biographical Essays. " III. Miscellaneous Essays. " IV. The Csesars. " V. Life and Manners. Vols. VI. and VII. Literary Reminiscences. " VIII. and IX. Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers. Vol. X. Essays on the Poets and Other English Writers. Vols. XI. and XII. Historical and Critical Essays. " XIII. and XIV. Essays on Philosophical Writers, etc. Vol. XV. Letters to a Young Man, etc. Vols. XVI. and XVII. Theological Essays and Other Papers. Vol. XVIII. Note-Book of an English Opium-Eater. Vols. XIX. and XX. Memorials and Other Papers. * Westminster Renew, January, 1863. JOHN WILSON. JOHN WILSON, better known as " Christopher North," was Lorn at Paisley, Scotland, May 18, 1785. He entered Glasgow College in 1797, where he remained four years, engaged in, besides the usual studies, the writing of essays and poems, love- making, arid all manner of athletic sports, in all of which he is confessed to have stood foremost. He next passed to Oxford, and there entered himself as a gentleman-commoner of Mag- dalen College. College days past, he settled in 1807 on the picturesque estate of Ellery, in Cumberland, on Lake Winderrnere. Here, in daily intercourse with such rare spirits as the Coleridges, Southey, Lloyd, Wordsworth, and De Quincey, all of whom dwelt within easy reach ; in his loved recreations of boating, fishing, hunting, and cock-fighting; in daily, and oft-times nightly, excursions on foot over the hills and mountains of the neighborhood; and also in literary occupation, he spent most enjoy ably the next eight years of his life. His first effort as an author of poetry was put forth during this period ; resulting in the publication, in 1812, of the Isle of Palms, and minor poems. The poem lacked all of those elements passion, humor, high spirits, that afterward came to be so characteristic of Wilson's writings, a pure elevated tone and a musical versification being almost its only commendable qualities. Himself dissatisfied with this first venture, he made, four years later, in The Qity of the Plague, a second experiment, with the determination that, if it did not prove more acceptable to the public than the first, it should be his last. And although it was generally conceded that the latter was a much superior production, being intenser, more evenly sustained, fuller of nat- ural beauty and human sympathy, yet it did prove his last court to the Muse. 279 280 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. In 1815, in consequence of the entire loss of his fortune through the ill-management of an uncle, he removed to Edin- burgh, and was then and there admitted to the Scottish Bar ; but it can hardly be said that he ever entered on the practice of law. Two years later, he began his long and illustrious career as a litterateur simultaneously with the starting of " Blackwood's Magazine." Of this magazine he was made the editor, and through its pages, for a period of thirty-five years, he charmed and dazzled the public with sketches of personal adventure, criticisms upon books arid authors, and the most brilliant and fantastic essays. Through " Blackwood " appeared the original papers, since collected and published under the titles, Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life (1822), The Genius and Character of Burns (1841), Critical and Miscellaneous Articles (1842), Recreations of Chris- topher North (1842), Nodes Ambrosiance (1843), Specimens of the British Critics (1846), and his last work, Dies Boreales (1850). Besides these, Wilson published in book form, in 1823, a tale entitled The Trials of Margaret Lindsay, and two years later, another called the Foresters, together with a volume of Poems and Dramatic Pieces. , Collaterally with his editorial life, Wilson led that also of Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, lecturing daily during five months of the year. " He did what was better than any pretended additions to the sum of human knowledge in the domain of Moral Philosophy: he gave, to the best of his capacity, what was certainly neither shallow nor contemptible, an exposition of the motives of human action ; the grounds of the distinction between virtue and vice ; the effects of the passions ; the duties of man as an individual, a member of society, and an immortal creature accountable to God. These topics he analyzed with no common acuteness, and illustrated with an eloquence which has not been in modern times surpassed in any university chair. And thus he won the attention and fascinated the hearts of thirty annual successions of Scottish students, stimulating them to generous ambition, and a love of all things pure, and lovely, and of good report; while in his private relations they ever found him a sympathetic friend and counselor, a man full of the milk of human kindness, and so utterly destitute of academic pride or reserve, that he was never ashamed to confess WILSON. 281 his difficulties, and did not disdain to open them in discussion even with ingenuous boys." * Frcm both these spheres of labor and renown, this man, active, strong, and beautiful alike in person and mind, was removed, in 1852, by the gripe of rheumatism and paralysis. Decrepit and demented, he died April 3, 1854. From the volume containing The City of the Plague we quote what has been very generally regarded as one of Wilson's hap- piest poetical efforts, the ADDRESS TO A WILD DEER. Magnificent creature ! so stately and bright ! In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight; For what hath the child of the desert to dread, Wafting up his own mountains that far-beaming head ; Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale? Hail ! King of the wild and the beautiful ! hail ! Hail! Idol divine! whom Nature hath borne O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the morn, Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain and moor, As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore ; For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee. Up! up to yon cliff! like a King to his throne! O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone A throne which the eagle is glad to resign Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine. There the bright heather springs up in love of thy breast Lo! the clouds in the depth of the sky are at rest; And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill! In the hush of the mountains, ye antlers lie still Though your branches now toss in the storm of delight, Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height, One moment thou bright Apparition! delay! Then melt o'er the crags, like the sun from the day. Aloft on the weather-gleam, scorning the earth, The wild spirit hung in majestical mirth; In dalliance with danger, he bounded in bliss, O'er the fathomless gloom of each moaning abyss ; O'er the grim rocks careering with prosperous motion, Like a ship by herself in full sail o'er the ocean! * British Quarterly Review, April, 1863. 24* 282 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Then proudly he turned ere he sank to the dell, And shook from his forehead a haughty farewell, While his horns in a crescent of radiance shone, Like a flag burning bright when the vessel is gone. -x- * * * * * # * * Where now is the light of thy far-beaming brow? Fleet son of the wilderness! where art thou now? Again o'er yon crag thou return'st to my sight, Like the horns of the moon from a cloud of the night! Serene on thy travel as soul in a dream Thou needest no bridge o'er the rush of the stream. With thy presence the pine-grove is filled, as with light, And the caves, as thou passest, one moment are bright. Through the arch of the rainbow that lies on the rock 'Mid the rnist stealing up from the cataract's shock, Thou fling'st thy bold beauty, exulting and free, O'er a pit of grini darkness, that roars like the sea. His voyage is o'er! As if struck by a spell He motionless stands in the hush of the dell, There softly and slowly sinks down on his breast, In the midst of his pastime enamored of rest. A stream in a clear pool that endeth its race A dancing ray chained to one sunshiny place A cloud by the winds to calm solitude driven A hurricane dead in the silence of heaven ! Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee! Magnificent prison inclosing the free! With rock-wall encircled with precipice crowned Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound. 'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature doth keep One bright spot of green for her favorite's sleep; And close to that covert, as clear as the skies When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies, Where the creature at rest can his image behold Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold! How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife With the stir of enjoyment the spirit of life. The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake, Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake ! Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings, And away in the midst of his roundelay springs ; 'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than himself, The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf. Then starts from his labor, unwearied and ga^ And, circling the antlers, booms far, far uway. WILSON. 283 While high up the mountains, in silence remote, The cuckoo, unseen, is repeating his note, And mellowing echo, on watch in the skies, Like a voice from some loftier climate replies. With wide-branching antlers, a guard to his breast, There lies the wild Creature, even stately in rest ! 'Mid the grandeur of nature, composed and serene, And proud in his heart of the mountainous scene, He lifts his calm eye to the eagle and raven, At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven, As if in his soul the bold Animal smiled To his friends of the sky, the joint heirs of the wild. . From the Recreations of Christopher North we excerpt the following bit of arabesque : Nightfall, and we are once more at the Hut of the Three Torrents. Small Amy is grown familiar now, and, almost without being asked, sings us the choicest of her Gaelic airs a few, too, of Lowland melody : all merry, yet all sad if in smiles begun, ending in a shewer or at least a tender mist of tears. Heard'st thou ever such a syren as this Celtic child ? Did we not always tell you that fairies were indeed realities of the twilight or moonlight world ? And she is their Queen. Hark ! what thunder of applause! The waterfall at the head of the great Corrie thunders encore with a hundred echoes. But the songs are over, and the small singer gono to her heather bed. There is a Highland moon ! The shield of an unfaller*. archangel. There are not many stars but those two, ay, that One, i sufficient to sustain the glory of the night. Be not alarmed at that low, wide, solemn, and melancholy sound. Kunlets, torrents, rivers, lochs, and seas reeds, heather, forests, caves, and clifis, all are sound, sounding together a choral anthem. Gracious heavens ! what mistakes people have fallen into when writing about solitude ! A man leaves a town for a few months, and goes with his wife and family, and a traveling library, into some solitary glen. Friends are perpetually visiting him from afar, or the neighboring gentry leaving their cards, while his servant-boy rides daily to the post-village for his letters and newspapers. And call you that solitude? The whole world is with you, morning, noon, and night. But go by yourself, without book or friend, and live a month in this hut at the head of Glenevis. Go at dawn among the cliffs of yonder pine forest, and wait there till night hangs her moon-lamp in heaven. Com- mune with your own soul, and be still. Let the images of departed years rise, phantom-like, of their own awful accord from the darkness of your memory, and pass away into the wood-gloom or the mountain mist. Will conscience dread such specters ? Will you quake before them, and bow down your head on the mossy root of some old oak, and sob in the stern silence of the haunted place? Thoughts, feelings, passions, spectral deeds, will come rushing around your lair, as with the sound of the wings of innumer- ous birds ay, many of them like birds of prey, to gnaw your very heart. How many duties undischarged! How many opportunities neglected! 284 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. How many pleasures devoured ! How many sins hugged ! How many wickednesses perpetrated ! The desert looks more grim, the heaven lowers, and the sun, like God's own eye, stares in upon your conscience ! But such is not the solitude of our beautiful young shepherd girl of the Hut of the Three Torrents. Her soul is as clear, as calm as the pool pictured at times by the floating clouds that let fall their shadows through among the overhanging birch-trees. What harm could she ever do? What harm could she ever think? She may have wept for there is sorrow without sin ; may have wept even at her prayers for there is penitence free from guilt, and innocence itself often kneels in contrition. Down the long glen she accompanies the stream to the house of God, sings her psalms, and returns wearied to her heather bed. She is, indeed, a solitary child ; the eagle, and the raven, and the "red-deer see that she is so, anil echo knows it when from her airy cliff she repeats the happy creature's song. Her world is within this one glen. In this one glen she may live all her days be wooed, won, wedded, buried. Buried, said me? Oh, why think of burial when gazing on that resplendent head? Interminable tracts of the shining day await her, the lonely darling of Nature ; nor dare Time ever eclipse the lustre of those wild-beaming eyes ! Her beauty shall be immortal, like that of her country's fairies. So, Flower of the Wilderness, we wave towards thee a joyful, though an everlasting, farewell. Our next extract ia from Nodes Ambrosiance : Tickler. But, oh ! my dear North, what grouse-sonp at Dalnacardoch ! You smell it on the homeward hill, as if it were exhaling from the heather ; deeper and deeper still, as you approach the beautiful chimney vomiting forth its intermitting columns of cloud-like peat smoke, that melts afar over the wilderness ! North. Yes, Tickler, it was Burke that vindicated the claims of smells to the character of the sublime and beautiful. Tickler. Yes, yes ! Burke it was. As you enter the inn, the divine afflatus penetrates your soul. When up-stairs, perhaps in the garret, adorn- ing for dinner, it rises like a cloud of rich distilled perfumes through every chink on the floor, every cranny of the wall. The little mouse issues from his hole, close to the foot of the bed-post, and raising himself, squirrel-like, on his hind legs, whets his tusks with his merry paws, and smoothes his whiskers. North. Shakesperean ! Tickler. There we are, a band of brothers round the glorious tureen ! Down goes the ladle into "a profundis clamavi." and up floats from that blessed Erebus a dozen cunningly resuscitated spirits. Old cocks, bitter to the back-bone, lovingly alternating with young pouts, whose swelling bosoms might seduce an anchorite ! North (rising}. I must ring for supper. Ambrose Ambrose Ambrose ! Tickler. No respect of persons at Dalnacardoch ! I plump them into the plates around son.? selection. No matter although the soup play splash from preser to croupier. There, too, sit a few choice spirits of pointers round the board Don Jupiter Sancho "and the rest" with steadfast eyes and dewy chops, patient alike of heat, cold, thirst, and hunger dogs of the desert indeed, and nose-led by unerring instinct right up to the cowering covey in the heather groves on the mountain-side. WILSON. 285 North. Is eagle good eating, Timothy ? Pococke, the traveler, used to eat lion : lion pasty is excellent, it is said but is not eagle tough ? Tickler. Thigh good, devilled. The delight of the Highlands is in the Highland feeling. That feeling is entirely destroyed by stages and regular progression. The waterfalls do not tell upon sober parties it is tedious in the extreme to be drenched to the skin along high-roads the rattle of wheels blends meanly with thunder and lightning is contemptible seen from the window of a glass coach. To enjoy mist, you must be in the heart of it as a solitary hunter, shooter, or angler. Lightning is nothing unless a thousand feet below you, and the live thunder must be heard leaping, as Byron says, from mountain to mountain, otherwise you might as well listen to a mock peal from the pit of a theatre. North. The Fall of Foyers is terrible a deep abyss, savage rock-works, hideous groans, ghost-like vapors, and a rumble as if from eternity. Tickler. The Falls of the Clyde are majestic. Over C'orra Linn the river rolls exultingly ; and, recovering itself from that headlong plunge, after some troubled struggles among the shattered cliffs, away it floats in stately pomp, dallying with the noble banks, and subsiding into a deep, bright, foaming current. Then what woods and groves crowning the noble rocks ! How cheerful laughs the cottage pestered by the spray ! and how vivid the verdure on each ivied ruin ! The cooing of the cushats is a solemn accom- paniment to the cataract, and aloft in heaven the choughs reply to that voice of the Forest. North. Yes, Tickler what, after all, equals nature ! Here in Ambrose's waiting for a board of oysters the season has recommenced I can sit with my cigar in my mouth, and as the whiff ascends, fancy sees the spray of Stonebyres, or of the Falls of the Beauly, the radiant mists of the Dresne ! I agree with Bowles, that nature is all in all for the purpose of poetry Art stark naught. Tickler. Yet softly. Who planted those trees by that river side? Art. Who pruned them? Art. Who gave room to their giant arms to span that roaring chasm? Art. Who reared yon edifice on the cliff? Art. Who flung that stately arch from rock to rock, under which the martins twitter over the unfeared cataract? Art. W T ho darkened that long line of precipice with dreadful or glorious associations? Art, polity, law, war, outrage, and history, writing her hieroglyphics with fire on the scarred visage of those natural battlements. Is that a hermit's cell? Art scooped it out of the living stone. Is that an oratory ? Art smoothed the floor for the knee of the penitent. Are the bones of the holy slumbering in that cemetery? Art changed the hollow rock into a tomb, and when the dead saint was laid into the sepulchre, Art joined its music with the torrent's roar, and the mingled anthem rose to the stars which Art had numbered and sprinkled into stations over the firmament of Heaven. W T hat then would Bowles be at, and why more last words to Roscoe ? Who made his ink, his pens, and his paper? Art. Who published his books? Art. Who criticised them? Art. Who would fain have damned them? The Art of the Edinburgh Review. And who has been their salvation? The Art of Blackwopd's Magazine. North. Go on, I '11 follow thee. Is a great military road over a mountain, groaning with artillery, bristling with bayonets, sounding with bands of music, trampling with cavalry, red, blue, and yellow with war-dresses, streaming it may be with blood, and overburdened with the standards of 286 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. mighty nations, less poetical than a vast untrodden Andes, magnificent as may be its solitudes beneath the moon or stare? Is a naked savage more poetical than with his plume, club, war-mat, and tomahawk? Is a log of wood, be it a whole uprooted pine, drifting on the ocean, as poetical as a hundred-oared canoe ? What more sublime than the anchor by which a great ship hangs in safety within roar of the whirlpool ? Than the plum- met that speaks of the rock foundations of the eternal sea ? Tickler. What is the chief end of man ? Art. That is a clencher. North. I cannot imagine, for the life of me, what Ambrose is about. Hush ! there he comes. (Enter Ambrose.} W T hat is the meaning of this, sir? Ambrose. Unfold. (Folding-doors thrown open and supper-table is shown.} Tickler. What an epergne! Art art. (Transeunt o nines,} "One of the most characteristic qualities of Wilson's prose is its exuberant diffuseness, its glorious disregard of bounds and curbs. He could write, when be chose, with perfect concentration upon one subject, and a clear evolution of thought to a definite aim, as many of his articles in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' distinctly prove. But it was not the method he did for the most part choose. He pre- ferred to let his overflowing thoughts and fancies run on at their ' own sweet will,' like one of the wild mountain-streams of his own native land. He delighted to mingle together the most boisterous hilarity, and the most sentimental musing ; to pass in the course of a single paper from scholarly criticism to descriptions of out-door sport; or to ascend from humorous banter and nonsense into high flights of poetical or philosophic eloquence. That was, in fact, his forte, and in that kind of writing he may be said to stand unap- proached and alone. " The defects of that rhapsodical style, which is illustrated in the Noctes and the Recreations, are as much on the surface as the merits : and if we test these singular compositions by the rules of a pedantic rhetoric, or by that worst method of criticism which can do noth- ing except by comparison with fixed models, they must certainly be pronounced very anomalous and extravagant. They contrast astoundingly with the chaste and orderly precision of Addison, or the uniform richness and stately dignity of Macau lay. Their humor often verges on coarseness, their pathos on sentimentality, and their eloquence on bombast. Yet with all that, there is nothing like them of their own sort in the English or any other language. Amid all their wilful extravagancies they contain passages of sur- passing eloquence and beauty ; they are pervaded throughout by a vein of high and pure moral feeling; they bring us into contact at every point with the freshness and freedom of nature ; and they never betray a thought that is ungenerous, uncharitable, or un- believing."* * British Quarterly Review, April, 186?. CHARLES LAMB. CHARLES LAMB was born, February 18, 1775, in Crown Office Row, in the Inner Temple, London. His descent was of the humblest ; but not so humble, as to cause him to omit a pleasur- able reference to it in his Elia recollections. In 1782, through the influence of a friend, he received a presentation to Christ's Hospital ; and there his remarkable sweetness of disposition won him a degree of favor among his associates, which is not often secured by one of slight stature, delicate frame, and con- stitutional nervousness and timidity. Lamb remained in this institution until his fifteenth year, acquiring a fair knowledge of the classics, and contracting some valuable friendships, chief of which was that of Coleridge. Immediately upon leaving school, he obtained a clerkship in the South Sea House ; from which, in 1795, he was transferred to the India House. The slender salary he here received he devoted to the maintenance of his parents and sister. And when the latter, during an attack of lunacy, killed her mother, Lamb, who was about to be married, at once gave up all in- tentions of matrimony, and devoted his earnings and his private leisure to the welfare of his afflicted sister. He remained in the employ of the India House for twenty- nine years, when, through the generosity of the Directors, he was retired on an annual pension of 440 It was during his brief intervals of leisure throughout these long years of clerical drudgery, and during the short space that succeeded his release, that Lamb penned his delightful works, Essays of Elia, Let- ters, Essays, Poems, Rosamund Gray, Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, John Woodvil. Lamb died in 1834, at the age of fifty-nine. "As converser and stimulator of witty scholarly converse, Lamb was unapproachable. The anecdotes recorded of him show that 287 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. his coruscations of wit were not mere fire-works, let off abruptly, but falling stars, generated by the atmosphere of the night. Hence many of the best of his jokes read ruggedly, torn away from the circumstances which produced them. . . . He deliberately preferred an old folio to a fine gentleman ; the parlor of the Salutation tavern with Coleridge to any elegant trivial drawing-room; the genial to the genteel. He was pre-eminently human, and detested all the fopperies and elegancies which dehumanize a man. The great burthen of his life we have seen; the great felicity of his life was that among his equals, he found friends so like himself, yet so dif- ferent, true lovers of literature, men who thought for themselves, intellect that aided the development of his own."* The extracts that follow are from The Essays of Elm. THE COITVALESCENT. If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick bed. How the patient lords it there ; what caprices be acts without control ! how king-like he sways his pillow tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and lowering, and thumping, and flatting;, and moulding it, to the ever-varying requisitions of his throb- bing temples. He changes sides oftener than a politician. ' Now he lies full length, then half-length, obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite across the bed ; and none accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four cur- tains he is absolute. They are his Mare Clausum. How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of the Law to him. He has nothing to think of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or within them, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him not. ... He has put on the strong armor of sickness, he is wrapped in the callous hide of suffering ; he keeps his sympathy, like some curious vintage, under trusty lock arid key, for his own use only. . . . He is forever plotting how to do some good to himself ; studying little stratagems and artificial alleviations. He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an allowable fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and sorrowing members. Sometimes he meditates as of a thing apart from him upon his poor aching head, and that dull pain which, dozing or waking, lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance of pain, not to be removed without opening the very skull, as it seemed, to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated fingers. He compassionates himself all over ; and his bed is a very discipline of humanity, and tender heart. He cares for few spectators to his tragedy. Only that punctual face of the old nurse pleases him, that announces his broths and his cordials. He likes it because it is so unmoved, and because he can pour forth his feverish ejaculations before it as unreservedly as to his bed-post. To the world's business he is dead. Fie understands not what the callings and occupations of mortals are ; only he has a glimmering conceit of some such thing, when British Quarterly Review, April, 1807. LAMB. 289 the doctor makes his daily call : and even in the lines on that busy face he reads no multiplicity of patients, but solely conceives of himself as the sick man. . . . To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives. Compare the silent tread, and quiet ministry, almost by the eye only, with which he is served with the careless demeanor, the unceremonious goings in and out (slapping of doors, or leaving them open) of the very same attendants, when he is get- ting a little better and you will confess, that from the bed of sickness (throne let me rather call it) to the elbow-chair of convalescence, is a fall from dignity, amounting to a deposition. How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine stature ! Where is now the space, which he occu- pied so lately, in his own, in the family's eye ? The scene of his regalities, his sick-room, which was the presence-cham- ber, where he lay and acted his despotic fancies how is it reduced to a common bed-room ? The trimness of the very bed has something petty and unmeaning about it. It is made every day. How unlike to that wavy, many -furrowed, oceanic surface, which it presented so short a time since, when to make it was a service not to be thought of at oftener than three or four day revolutions, when the patient was with pain and grief to be lifted for a little while out of it, to submit to the encroachments of unwelcome neatness, ancj. decencies which his shaken frame deprecated ; then to be lifted into it again, for another three or four days' respite, to flounder it out of shape again, while every fresh furrow was an historical record of some shifting posture, some uneasy turning, some seeking for a little ease ; and the shrunken skin scarce told a truer story than the crumpled coverlid. . . . Perhaps some relic of the sick man's dream of greatness survives in the still lingering visitations of the medical attendant. But how is he, too, changed with everything else ! Can this be he this man of news of chat of anecdote of everything but physic can this be he, who so lately came between the patient and his cruel enemy, as on solemn embassy from Nature, erecting herself into a high mediating party ? Pshaw ! 't is some old woman. Farewell with him all that made sickness pompous the spell that hushed the household the desert-like stillness, felt throughout its inmost chambers the mute attendance the inquiry by looks the still softer delicacies of self-attention the sole and single eye of distemper alonely fixed upon itself world-thoughts excluded the man a world unto himself his own theatre -what a speck is he dwindled into ! DREAM CHILDREN; A REVERIE. Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were chil- dren ; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great- uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grand- mother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived), which had been the scene so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children of the Wood Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grand- mother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had onl/the charge of it committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more 25 T 290 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county ; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in. a sort while she lived, which after- wards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and -tarried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the" old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry, too, of the neighbor*- hood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, lecause she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread " her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and IIOAV in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted the best dancer, 1 was saying, in the country, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her do^ n with pain ; but it could never bend her good spirits, cr make them stoop, Lut they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. . . . Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great hoi.se in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve (.'sesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them ; how I could never be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their wornout hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a soli- tary gardening man would cross me and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at or in lying about upon the fresh 'grass with all the fine garden smells around me or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings; 1 had more pleasure in these busy- idle diversions than in all the sweet flavors of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children. . . . Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L , because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us ; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over ihe country in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out ; and how their uncle grew ii[ to man's estate a? brave as he was handsome ; and how he used to carry LAMB. 291 me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy many a mile when I could not walk for pain ; and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient, and in pain ; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago; and how though I did not cry and take it to heart as some do, as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. . . . Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W n; when sud- denly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or- whose that bright hair was ; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: " We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartram father. We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name" and immediately awakening, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side ; but John L was gone forever. "The prose essays under the~signature of Elia, form the most delightful section amongst Lamb's works. They traverse a pecu- liar kind of observation, sequestered from general interest; and they are composed in a spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch the ear of the noisy crowd, clamoring for strong sensations. But this retired delicacy itself, the pensiveness chequered by gleams of the fanciful, and the humor that is touched with cross-lights of pathos, together with the picturesque quaintness of the objects casually described, whether men, or things, or usages, and, in the rear of all this, the constant recurrence to ancient recollections and to decaying forms of household life, as things retiring before the tumult of new and revolutionary generations ; these traits in combination communicate to the papers a grace and strength of originality which nothing in any literature approaches, whether for degree or kind of excellence, except the most felicitous papers of Addison."* " His works will be received as amongst the most elaborately finished gems of literature; as cabinet specimens which express the utmost Delicacy, purity, and tenderness of the national intel- lect, togetherV with the rarest felicity of finish and expression, although it may he the province of other modes of .literature to exhibit the brightest models in the grander and more impassioned forms of intellectual power." f * De Quincey's Biographical Essays. f De Quincey's Literary R^m nisce.ices. WILLIAM HAZLITT. WILLIAM HAZLITT was born April 10, 1778, at Maidstone, in Kent. At nine years of age he was put to a day-school at Wem, where, as he describes himself about a year after, he drew eyes and noses and faces ; read Ovid's Metamorphoses and Eutropius ; taught a boy of sixteen, who had begun arithmetic eight months before him, how to cipher ; generally stood at the head of his class in spelling ; and was one of the best leapers in the school. In 1793 he was entered as a student at the Unitarian College, Hackney, with a view on his father's part to prepare him for the Dissenting Ministry. But so decided became his antipathy to this destiny, that at length he was permitted to leave college and turn his attention to painting ; for which art he had always exhibited a great fondness and no little aptitude. His success, however, though marked in the estimation of his friends, fell despicably below his own exalted conception of what genuine art demanded. " His final determination, therefore, was to relinquish all idea of the art as a profession. But this strong effort, itself a proof of a strong mind, was not made without arousing him to a sense of his powers of expression in another form of his capacity to realize as well as to imagine ; and he resolved upon the simple process of changing the implement of art the substitution of the pen for the pencil. It was then that he turned his thoughts to literature as a means of liveli- hood. Still the use of the pencil was, for many years after, the amusement and solace of his leisure hours, and at various periods he was induced to take the portraits of friends to whom he was more closely attached." * In pursuance of this new plan of life, Hazlitt came to London in 1803, where, two years later, he published his first work, Principles of Human Action a work which had employed his * Biographical Sketch by his son, Wm. Hazlitt, Jr. 292 HAZLITT. 293 hours of literary effort for the eight years preceding its appear- ance. The next eight years, spent chiefly at the delightful retreat of Winterslow, number among their products a pam- phlet entitled Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, an abridgment of Tucker's " Light of Nature," a Peply to Malthuss Work on Population, an English Grammar, The Eloquence of the British Senate, and Memoirs of Holcroft. " At the Russell Institution in 1813, he delivered a series of profound and masterly lectures upon the History and Progress of English Philosophy, comprehending a review of the theories and arguments of our principal metaphysicians, with incidental sketches of some of those of France, and his own opinions upon the various features of his subject." * It was shortly after this that he became connected with the public press, first as a Par- liamentary reporter, and afterward, at intervals, until shortly before his death, as a writer of political and theatrical crit- icisms. In 1817 appeared two volumes of collected essays, under the title of the Pound Table. " Scattered throughout these essays is a wealth of thought and poetry, beside which half the con- temporaries of their author seem as paupers. Hazlitt's remark- able faculty of saying brilliant things, in which the wit only ministers to the wisdom, is very conspicuous in all. His graver aphorisms are peculiar in this : they are for the most part philosophical distinctions." f " Hazlitt's success as a lecturer on a former occasion induced him, in the year 1818, to undertake a series of lectures on the Comic Writers, and the Poets of England, and on the Dramatic Lit- erature of the Age of Elizabeth. These he delivered at the -Surrey Institution, and they were all subsequently published in single volumes under their respective titles. "He introduces us almost corporally into the divine presence of the Great of old time enables us to hear the living oracles of wisdom drop from their lips and makes us partakers, not only of those joys which they diffused, but of those which they felt in the inmost recesses of their souls. His intense admiration of intellectual beauty seems always to sharpen his critical faculties. * Biographical Sketch by his son, Wm. Hazlitt. Jr. f Edward Bulwer Lytlon. 25 * 203 294 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. He perceives it, by a kind of intuitive power, how deeply soever it may be buried in rubbish ; and separates it, in a moment, from all that would encumber or deface it. In a word, he at once analyzes and describes, so that our enjoyments of loveliness are not chilled, but brightened, by our acquaintance with their inward sources. The knowledge communicated in his lectures, breaks no sweet enchantment, nor chills one feeling of youthful joy. His criticisms, while they extend our insight into the cause of poetical excellence, teach us, at the same time, more keenly to enjoy, and more fondly to revere it."* Hazlitt's next published work was the Characters of Shakspeare's Plays. " It is, in truth, rather an encomium on Shakspeare, than a commentary or critique on him and is written, more to show extraordinary love than extraordinary knowledge of his produc- tions. There is nothing niggardly in Hazlitt's praises, and nothing affected in his raptures. He seems animated throughout with a full and hearty sympathy with the delight which his author should inspire, and pours himself gladly out in explanation of it, with a fluency and ardor, obviously much more akin to enthusiasm than affectation." f The works which marked the remaining years of our author's life were A View of the English Stage (1818), Liber Anioris, Critical Account of the Principal Picture Galleries of England, and Table-Talk, published in 1824; Spirit of the Age (1825), a series of criticisms upon the more prominent literary men of the time; Plain Speaker (1826), which with Table-Talk was made up of essays upon litera- ture and art; Selections from the British Poets (1829) ; Life of Napo- leon and Northcote's Conversations (1830). Many of the essays com- prised in these various works were originally contributed as distinct articles to the leading Magazines and Eeviews of the day. Hazlitt died on the 18th of September, 1830. Reserving Hazlitt's criticisms upon authors for quotation when those authors shall in turn claim our attention, we present, as pos- sessing greater general interest, two essays from Table-Talk. ON THE PLEASURE OF PAINTING. In writing, you have to contend with the world ; in painting, you have only to carry on a friendly strife with Nature. You sit down to your task, and are happy. From the moment that you take up the pencil, and look Nature in the face, you are at peace with your own heart. No angry pas- sions rise to disturb the silent progress of the work, to shake the hand, or dim the brow : no irritable humors are set afloat : you have no absurd opinions to combat, no point to strain, no adversary to crush, no fool to * T. N. Talfourd. t Francis Jeffrey. HAZLITT. 295 annoy you are actuated by fear or favor to no man. There is " no juggling here," no sophistry, no intrigue, no tampering with the evidence, no attempt to make black white or white black ; but you resign yourself into the hands of a greater power, that of Nature, with the simplicity of a child, and the devotion of an enthusiast " Study with joy . Her manner, and with rapture taste her style." .... I have not much pleasure in writing these Essays, or in reading them afterwards ; though I own that I now and then meet with a phrase that I like, or a thought that strikes me as a true one. I sometimes have to write them twice over ; then it is necessary to read the proof, to prevent mistakes by the printer ; so that by the time they appear in a tangible shape, and one can con them over with a conscious, sidelong glance to the public ap- probation, they have lost their gloss and relish, and become " more tedious than a twice-told tale." .... But I cannot say, from my own experience, that the same process takes place in transferring our ideas to canvas ; they gain more than they lose in the mechanical transformation. One is never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you knew already, but what you have just discovered. In the former case, you translate feelings into words; in the latter, names into things. There is a continual creation out of nothing going on. With every stroke of the brush, a new field of inquiry is laid open ; new difficulties arise, and new triumphs are prepared over them. By com- paring the imitation with the original, you see what you have done, and how much you have still to do. One part of a picture shames another, and you determine to paint up to yourself, if you cannot come up to Nature. Every object becomes lustrous from the light thrown back upon it by the mirror of art : and by the aid of the pencil we may be said to touch and handle the objects of sight. The air-wove visions that hover on the verge of existence have a bodily presence given them on the canvas : the form of beauty is changed into a substance : the drearn and glory of the universe is made " palpable to feel- ing as to sight." And see ! a rainbow starts from the canvas, with all its humid train of glory, as if it were drawn from its cloudy arch in heaven. The spangled landscape glitters with drops of dew after the shower. The "fleecy fools" show their coats in the gleams of the setting sun. The shep- herds pipe their farewell notes in the fresh evening air. And is this bright vision made from a dead, dull blank, like a bubble reflecting the mighty fabric of the universe ? We would think this miracle of Rubens' s pencil possible to be performed ? Who, having seen it, would not spend his life to do the like ? See how the rich fallows, the bare stubble-field, the scanty harvest-home, drag in Rembrandt's landscapes ! How often have I looked at them and Nature, and tried to do the same, till the very " light thickened," and there was an earthiness in the feeling of the air ! There is no end of the refine- ments of art and nature in this respect. One may look at the misty glim- mering horizon, till the eye dazzles, and the imagination is lost in the hope to transfer the whole interminable expanse at one blow upon the canvas. . . . One of the most delightful parts of my life was one fine summer, when I used to walk out of an evening to catch the last light of the sun, gemming the green slopes or russet lawns, and gilding tower or tree, while the blue sky gradually turned to purple and gold, or skirted with dusky gray, hung 296 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. its broad marble pavement over all, as we see it in the great master of Italian landscape One of my first attempts was a picture of my father, who was then in a green old age, with strong-marked features, and scarred with the small-pox. 1 drew it with a broad light crossing the face, looking down, with spectacles on, reading. The sketch promised well ; and 1 set to work to finish it, de- termined to spare no time nor pains. My father was willing to sit as long as I pleased ; for there is a natural desire in the mind of man to sit for one's picture, to be the object of continued attention, to have one's likeness multi- plied ; and besides his satisfaction in the picture, he had some pride in the artist, though he would rather I should have written a sermon than have painted like Rembrandt or like Raphael ! Those winter days, with the gleams of sunshine coming through the chapel windows, and cheered by the notes of the robin red-breast in our garden, as my afternoon's work drew to a close, were among the happiest of my life. 'When I gave the effect I intended to any part of the picture for which I had prepared my colors, when 1 imitated the roughness of the skin by a lucky stroke of the pencil, when 1 hit the clear pearly tone of a vein, when I gave the ruddy complexion of health, the blood circulating under the broad shadows of one side of the face, I thought my fortune made ; or rather it was already more than made, in my fancying that I might one day be able to say with Correggio, " I also am a painter /" It was an idle thought, a boy's conceit ; but it did not make me less happy at the time. I used regularly to set my work in the chair to look at it through the long evenings ; and many a time did I return to take leave of it, before I could go to bed at night. I remember sending it with a throbbing heart to the Exhibition, and seeing it hung up there by the side of one of the Hon. Mr. Skeffington. There was nothing in common between them, but that they were the portraits of two very good-natured men. I think, but am not sure, that I finished this portrait (or another afterwards) on the same day that the news of the battle of Austerlitz came ; I walked out in the afternoon, and, as I returned, saw the evening star set over a poor man's cottage with other thoughts and feelings than I shall ever have again. O for the revolution of the great Platonic year, that those times might come over again ! I could sleep out the three hundred and sixty-five thousand intervening years very contentedly ! The picture is left : the table, the chair, the window where I learned to construe Livy, the chapel where my father preached, remain where they were ; but he himself is gone to rest, full of years, of faith, of hope, and charity ! ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my broth- er's, and a tine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals. One half of time indeed is spent the other half remains in store for us with all its countless treasures, for there is no line drawn and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. Death, old age, are words without a mean- ing, a dream, a fiction, with which we have nothing to do. Others may have undergone, or may still undergo them we " bear a charmed life," which laughs to scorn all such idle fancies. As, in setting out on a delight- ful journey, we strain our eager sight forward, " Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail," HAZLITT. 297 and see no end to prospect after prospect, new objects presenting themselves as we advance, so in the outset of life we see no end to our desires nor to the opportunities of gratifying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag, and it seems that we can go on so for ever. We look round in a new world, full of life and motion, and ceaseless progress, and feel in ourselves all the vigor and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present signs how we shall be left behind in the race, de- cline into old age, and drop into the grave. It is the simplicity and, as it were, abstractedness of our feelings in youth that (so to speak) identifies us with our nature and (our experience being weak and our passions strong) makes us fancy ourselves immortal like it. Our short-lived connection with being, we fondly flatter ourselves, is an in- dissoluble and lasting union. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our desires, and hushed into fancied security by the roar of the universe around us we quaff the cup of life with eager thirst without draining it, and joy and hope seem ever mantling to the brim objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that there is no room for the thoughts of death. We are too much dazzled by the gorgeousness and novelty of the bright waking dream about us to discern the dim shadow lingering for us in the distance. Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit us to detach our thoughts that way even if we could. We are too much absorbed in present objects and pursuits. While the spirit of youth remains unimpaired, ere " the wine of life is drunk," we are like people intoxicated or in a fever, who are hurried away by the violence of their own sensations : it is only as present objects begin to pall upon the sense, as we have been disappointed in our favorite pur- suits, cut off from our closest ties, that we by degrees become weaned from the world, that passion loosens its hold upon futurity, and that we begin to contemplate as in a glass darkl$ the possibility of parting with it for good. Till then the example of others has no effect upon us. Casualties we avoid ; the slow approaches of age we play at hide-and-seek with. Like the foolish fat scullion in Sterne, who hears that Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is, " So am not I !" The idea of death, instead of staggering our confidence, only seems to strengthen and enhance our sense of the pos- session and our enjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like leaves or be mowed down by the scythe of Time like grass : these are but meta- phors to the unreflecting, buoyant ears and overweening presumption of youth. It is not till we see the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy withering around us, that we give up the flattering delusions that before led us on, and that the emptiness and dreariness of the prospect before us reconciles us hypothetically to the silence of the grave. Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges are most mysterious. Our first and strongest impressions are borrowed from the mighty scene that is opened to us, and we unconsciously transfer its durability as well as its splendor to ourselves. Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night. We know our existence only by ourselves, and confound our knowl- edge with the objects of it. We and Nature are therefore one. We do not go from a play till the last act is ended, and the lights are about to be extinguished. But the fairy face of Nature still shines on : shall we be called away before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce had a glimpse of what is going on? Like children, our step-mother, Nature, holds us up 298 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. to see the raree-show of the universe, and then, as if we were a burden tc her to support, lets us fall down again. Yet what brave sublunary things does not this pageant present, like a ball or fete of the universe! To see the golden sun, the azure sky, the outstretched ocean ; to walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand creatures ; to look down yawning precipices or over distant sunny vales ; to see the world spread out under one's feet on a map ; to bring the stars near, to view the smallest insect through a microscope ; to read history, and consider the revolutions of empire and the successions of generations ; to hear of the glory of Tyre, of Sidon, of Babylon, and of Susa, and to say all these were before me and are now nothing ; to say I exist in such a point of time, and in such a point of space ; to be a spectator and a part of its every moving scene ; to witness the change of season, of spring and autumn, of winter and summer ; to feel hot and cold, pleasure and pain, beauty and deformity, right and wrong; to be sensible to the accidents of nature ; to consider the mighty world of eye and ear ; to listen to the stock-dove's notes amid the forest deep ; to journey over moor and mountain ; to hear the midnight-sainted choir ; to visit lighted halls, or the cathedral's gloom, or sit in crowded theatres and see life itself mocked ; to study the works of art, and refine the sense of beauty to agony ; to worship fame, and to dream of immortality ; to look upon the Vatican, and to read Shakspeare ; to gather up the wisdom of the ancients, and to pry into the future ; to listen to the trump of war, the shout of victory ; to question history as to the movements of the human heart ; to seek for truth ; to plead the cause of humanity ; to overlook the world as if Time and Nature poured their treasures at our feet, to be and to do all this, and then in a moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from us as by a juggler's trick, or a phantasmagoria ! There is something in this transition from all to nothing that shocks us and damps the enthusiasm of youth new flushed with hope and pleasure, and we cast the comfortless thought as far from us as we can. "As an author, Hazlitt maybe contemplated principally in three aspects, as a mcral and political reasoner ; as an observer of char- acter and manners ; and as a critic in literature and painting. His metaphysical and political essays contain rich treasures, sought with years of patient toil, and poured forth with careless prod- igality, materials for thinking, a small part of which wisely em- ployed will enrich him who makes them his own, but the choice is not wholly unattended with perplexity and danger. He had, indeed, as passionate a desire for truth as others have for wealth, or power, or fame. The purpose of his research was always steady and pure ; and no temptation from without could induce him to pervert or to conceal the faith that was in him. But, besides that love of truth, that sincerity in pursuing it, and that boldness in telling it, he had earnest aspirations after the beautiful, a strong sense of pleasure, an intense consciousness of his own individual being, which broke the current of abstract speculation into dazzling eddies, and sometimes turned it astray. One of the most remark- ab.e effects of the strong sense of the personal on Hazlitt's abstract HAZL1TT. 299 speculation, is a habit of confounding his own feelings and expe- riences in relation to a subject with proofs of some theory which had grown out of them, or had become associated with them. "The same causes diminished the immediate effect of Hazlitt's political writings. It was the fashion to denounce him as a sour Jacobin ; but no description could be more unjust. Under the in- fluence of some bitter feeling, he occasionally poured out a furious invective against those whom he regarded as the enemies of liberty or the apostates from its cause; but, in general, his force was diverted (unconsciously to himself) by figures and fantasies, by fine and quaint allusions, by quotations from his favorite authors, intro- duced with singular felicity as respects the direct link of association, but tending by their very beauty to unnerve the mind of the reader, and substitute the sense of luxury for that of hatred or anger. In some of his essays, when the reasoning is most cogent, every other sentence contains some exquisite passage from Shakspeare, or Fletcher, or Wordsworth, trailing after it a line of golden associa- tionsor some reference to a novel over which we have a thousand times forgotten the wrongs of mankind ; till in the recurring shock of pleasurable surprise, the main argument escapes us. "If the experiences and the sympathies which acted so power- fully on the mind of Hazlitt detract somewhat from his authority as a reasoner, they give an unprecedented interest and value to his essays on character and books. The excellence of these works differs not so much in degree as in kind from that of all others of their class. There is a weight and substance about them, which makes us feel that amidst all their nice and dexterous analysis, they are in no small measure creations. The quantity of thought which is accumulated upon his favorite subjects; the variety and richness of the illustrations ; and the strong sense of beauty and pleasure which pervades and animates the composition, give them a place, if not above, yet apart from the writings of all other essayists. The intense interest which he takes ir. his theme, and which prompts him to adorn it lavishly with the spoils of many an intellectual struggle, commends it to the feelings as well as to the understanding, and makes the thread of his argument seem to us like a fibre of our own moral being."" 31 * Thoughts upon Hazlitt, by T. N. Talfourd. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE was born at Totness, in Devonshire, April 23, 1818. He was educated at Oxford, and subsequently was made a Fellow of Exeter College. His first volume The Shadows of the Clouds, a novel, was published in 1847. Two years later appeared his second volume The Nemesis of Faith a work of a widely different character from the first. This was followed, in 1854, by The Book of Job " One of the finest idyllic critiques in our language ; free in its treatment, but full of fine religious sympathies." Froude's real importance as a writer, however, and certainly his reputation as such, was not assured until 1856, at which date he began the publication of his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. The work extends through twelve volumes, and was not completed until 1870. As a specimen of our author's power in the direc- tion of graphic description, we cite, in part, THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. The Spanish fleet was anchored close on the edge of the shoal water, and to attack it where it lay was impossible. It was determined to drive them out into the channel with fire-ships, of which they were known to be afraid. Among the volunteer vessels which had attached themselves to the fleet, there were many that would be useless in action, and as fit as the best for the service for which they were now needed. Eight were taken, the rigging smeared rapidly with pitch, the hulls filled with any useless mate- rial which could be extemporized that would contribute to the blaze. The sky was cloudy. The moon was late in its last quarter, and did not rise till morning ; and the tide, towards midnight, set directly down from the English position to where the ships of the Armada, seeking shelter from the bend of the coast, lay huddled dangerously close. Long, low, sighing gusts from the westward promised the rising of a gale. The crews of the condemned vessels undertook to pilot them to their destination, and then belay the sheets, lash the helm, fire, and leave them. Thus, when the Spanish bells were about striking twelve, and, save the watch on deck, soldier and seaman lay stretched in sleep, certain dark objects which had been seen dimly drifting on the tide near where the galleons lay thickest, shot suddenly into pyramids of light, flames leaping oOU FROUDE. 301 from ruddy sail to sail, flickering on the ropes and forecastles, foremasts and bowsprits a lurid blaze of conflagration. A cool commander might have ordered out his boats and towed the fireships clear; but Medina Sidonia, with a strain already upon him beyond the strength of his capac- ity, saw coming upon him some terrible engines of destruction, like the floating mine which had shattered Parma's bridge at Antwerp. Panic spread through the entire Armada ; the enemy they most dreaded was upon them. The galleons were each riding with two anchors; for their misfortune few of them were provided with a third. A shot was fired from the San Martin as a signal to cut or slip their cables and make to sea. Amidst cries and confusion, and lighted to their work by the blaze, they set sail and cleared away, congratulating themselves, when they had reached the open water and found that all or most of them were safe, on the skill with which they had defeated the machinations of the enemy. They lay to six miles from shore, intending to return with the daylight, recover their anchors, and resume their old position. . . . Drake, whose larger mind comprehended the position in its broader bearings, was determined not only that he (the Spanish commander) should never see his anchors again, but that he should be driven north through the Narrow Seas. The wind was still rising and threatened a storm. He had seen enough of the sailing powers of the gallegns to be assured that until it shifted they could make no way against it ; and once in the North Sea they would be in unknown waters, without a harbor into which they could venture to run, and at all events for a time cut off' from their commu- nication with Dunkirk. They had drifted in the night further than they intended, and when the sun rose they were scattered over a large surface oft* Gravelines. Signals were sent up for them to collect and make back for Calais ; but Drake, with his own squadron, and Henry Seymour, with the squadron of the Straits, having the advantage of wind, speed, and skill, came on them while they were still dispersed. Seymour opened the action at eight in the morning with a cluster of galleons on the Spaniards' extreme right. .Reserving their fires till within a hundred and twenty yards, and wasting no cartridges at any longer distance, the English ships continued through the entire forenoon to pour into them one continuous rain of shot. They were driven in upon their own center, where they became entangled in a confused and helpless mass, a mere target to the English guns, Sir William Winter alone delivering five hundred shot into them, " never out of harquebuz range, and often within speaking Distance." Drake himself, meanwhile, had fallen on Medina Sidonia and Oquendo, who, with a score of galleons better handled than the rest, were endeavor- ing to keep sea room, and retain some command of themselves. But their wretched sailing powers put them at a disadvantage for which skill and courage could not compensate. The English were always to windward of them, and hemmed in at every turn, they too were forced back upon their consorts, hunted together as a shepherd hunts sheep upon a common, and the whole mass of them forced slowly towards the shoals and banks on the Flanders coast. Howard came up at noon to join in the work of destruction. The English accounts tell a simple story. The Spaniards' gun practice, which had been always bad, was helpless beyond past experience. Their want of ammunition was not suspected, for they continued to fire throughout the day after their slow, awkward fashion ; but their guns, worked on rolling 26 302 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. platforms by soldiers unused to the sea, sent their shot into the air or into the water; while the English, themselves almost untouched, fired into them without intermission from eight in the morning till sunset, " when almost the last cartridge was spent, and every man was weary with labor." They took no prizes, and attempted to take none. Their orders were to sink or destroy. They saw three large galleons go down. Three others, as the wind fell westerly, they saw reeling helplessly towards Ostend, and the fate of these they heard of afterwards ; but of the general effect of the fire, neither at the time nor afterwards did they know anything beyond its practical and broad results. Our second extract will exhibit Froude's felicity as a delineator of character. THE CHARACTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. In fighting out her long quarrel with Spain, and building her Church system out of the broken masonry of Popery, her concluding years passed away. The great men who had upheld the throne in the days of her peril dropped one by one into the grave. Walsingham died soon after the defeat of the Armada, ruined in fortune, and weary of his ungrateful service. Hunsdon, Knollys, Burghley, Drake, followed at brief intervals, and their mistress was left by herself, standing, as it seemed, on the pinnacle of earthly glory, yet in all the loneliness of greatness, and unable to enjoy the honors which Burghley's policy had won for, her. The first place among the Pro- testant Powers, which had been so often offered her, and so often refused, had been forced upon her in spite of herself. " She was Head of the Name," but it gave her no pleasure. She was the last of her race. No Tudor would sit again on the English throne. Her own sad prophecy was fulfilled, and she lived to see those whom she most trusted turning their eyes to the rising sun. Old age was coming upon her, bringing with it perhaps a consciousness of failing facul- ties ; and solitary in the midst of splendor, and friendless among the circle of adorers who swore they lived but in her presence, she grew weary of a life which had ceased to 'interest her. Sickening of a vague disease she sought no help from medicine, and finally refused to take food. She could not rest in her bed, but sate silent on cushions, staring into vacancy with fixed and stony eyes, and so at last she died Circumstances more than clloice threw her originally on the side of the Keformation, and when she -told the Spanish Ambassadors that she had been forced into the separation from the Papacy against her will, she prob- ably spoke but the truth. She was identified in her birth with the cause of independence. The first battle had been fought over her cradle, and her right to be on the throne turned morally, if not in law, on the legiti- macy ef Queen Catherine's divorce. Her sister had persecuted her as the child of the woman who had caused her mother so much misery, and her friends, therefore, had naturally been those who were most her sister's ene- mies. She could not have submitted to the Pope without condemning her father, or admitting a taint upon her own birth, while in Mary of Scotland she had a rival ready to take advantage of any concession which she might be tempted to make. For these reasons, and not from any sympathy with the views, either of Luther or Calvin, she chose her party at her accession. She found herself compelled against her will to become the patron of heretics and rebels in FROUDE. 303 whose objects she had no interest, and in whose theology she had no belief. She resented the necessity while she submitted to it, and her vacillations are explained by the reluctance with which each successive step was forced upon her, on a road which she detested. It would have been easy for a Protestant to be decided. It would have been easy for a Catholic to be decided. To Elizabeth the speculations of so-called divines were but as ropes of sand and sea-slime leading to the moon, and the doctrines for which they were rending each other to pieces a dream of fools or enthusiasts. Unfortunately her keenness of insight was not combined with any proiound concern for serious things. She saw through the emptiness of the forms in which religion presented itself to the world. She had none the more any larger or deeper conviction of her own. She was without the intellectual emotions which give human character its consistency and power. One moral quality she possessed in an eminent degree : she was supremely brave. For thirty years she was perpetually a mark for assassination, and her spirits were never affected, and she was never frightened into cruelty. She had a proper contempt also for idle luxury and indulgence. She lived simply, worked hard, and ruled her household with rigid economy. But her vanity was as insatiable as it was commonplace. No flattery was too tawdry to find a welcome with her, and as she had no repugnance to false words in others, she was equally liberal of them herself. Her entire nature was saturated with artifice. Except when speaking some round untruth Elizabeth never could be simple. Her letters and her speeches were as fantastic as her dress, and her meaning as involved as her policy. She was unnatural even in her prayers, and she carried her affectations into the presence of the Almighty. Obligations of honor were not only occasionally forgotten by her, but she did not seem to understand what honor meant. "The justice of some of Froude's verdicts has been reasonably disputed. His misplaced reliance on statutory evidence; his too- ready faith in the heroism and integrity of men swayed by passion and self-interest, or dumbfoundered under the menace of a royal reign of terror ; and his naive acceptance of preposterous excuses for the excesses of despotic wilfulness, are generally known and allowed. Equally conspicuous are the patient research, the fresh- ness, vigor, and eloquence of the copious narrative of the Tudor princes, to the composition of which he has dedicated twenty of the best years of his life." * " Speaking generally, Froude is rather a pictorial than a philo- sophic historian ; and he is less felicitous in making out the broader bearings of the course of events than in tracing them separately and in reproducing them. He is more apt in seizing the form of an age, than its general spirit and remote tendencies; and he rather gives us a striking narrative than places us in a point of view from which we can see the march of events in their relations with the past and the future. His reflective power, in short, is infe- rior to his creative and dramatic ability ; and we see the results, not only in his method of minute but generally graphic description, and in his love for historical scenes, but in his abstinence from * Westminster Review, October, 1870. 304 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. generalizing from facts, from drawing any large and deep conclu- sions, from endeavoring to compass in a few sentences clear deduc- tions from any series of phenomena. " Fronde belongs to the school of Carlyle, but he is not an imita- tor of that great writer; he equals him in industry and profound study, and if inferior in dramatic force, he is calmer and more natural in his tone, more thoughtful in his remarks on events, more unaffected in his narrative, and more simple and life like in his portraits. "As regards the composition of these volumes, great as is the beauty of some passages, and noble as is the style, on the whole, the narrative is occasionally cumbrous ; and perhaps for a general reader too many original documents have been cited."* In 1867, appeared a first series of essays, that had been contrib- uted by our author during the previous seventeen years to the Westminster Review and Eraser's Magazine mainly, entitled Short Studies of (*reat Subjects; a second series following in 1871 and others still since then. Speaking of these essays, a prominent review * remarks : "We often dissent from his opinion; we often feel that his imagination throws an illusive glamour over the facts of history ; he is prone to laborious demonstrations of historical paradox; but he is a scholarly, conscientious, and able writer almost a great one/' The honorable office of Rector of the University of St. Andrew's was conferred on Fronde in March, 1869. His next work, the first volume of which was issued in 1872, was entitled The English in Ireland. "There can be no doubt that this is a book' which will give great offence and arouse the bitterest indignation. We cannot conceal from ourselves that its tone is often extravagantly, almost savagely severe, and that Irish faults and crimes are hunted down with a ferocity which has something of the bloodhound in the relentless pertinacity of its pursuit. Sometimes it more resembles the speech of an accusing counsel, or the pamphlet of a politi- cal partisan, than a dispassionate narrative of past events; and in certain passages is rather an indictment than a history. But both the partisanship and the savageness are obviously not attributable to any unfairness of mind, nor even to any real injustice of esti- mate, but to a temperament to which some particular follies and vices are so especially repugnant that they inevitably come in for a disproportionate, though not an undue, share of blame. "f His history of Julius Csesar, published in 1879, completes the list of his works up to the present date. * British Quarterly Review, January, 1867. f London Quarterly Review, January, 1873. THOMAS CARLYLE. THOMAS CARLYLE was born December 4, 1795, near Eccle- fechan, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. About 1810 he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where, during a stay of some seven years, he acquired no little reputation for proficiency in mathematics, and for an enthusiastic acquaintance with the German language and literature. .In 1824 he virtually in- augurated his celebrated career as an essayist and critic by con- tributing a series of brilliant biographical articles to the " Edin- burgh Encyclopaedia," and to the "New Edinburgh Review." These half dozen or so essays did not, however, prevent him attesting the strength of his early preferences; for during the same year he completed translations of Legendres Geometry, and of Goethe s Wilhelm Meister, and also published in numbers in the " London Magazine" a Life of Schiller. The next year Carlyle settled at Craigenputtoch, a rural quie- tude in his native county, "six miles removed from every one who in any case might visit him," whence he issued critical arid biographical essays to the " Edinburgh Review," the " Foreign Quarterly Review," and "Eraser's Magazine;" the most char- acteristic of which were in 1834 collected into book form under the quaint title of Sartor Resartus. At the last named date he removed to London, where he spent a number of years. In 1837 he gave to the public The French Revolution, which was followed in 1839 by Chartism. Six lectures, delivered in London in 1840, were published the next year, under the name of Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History. A volume called Miscel- lanies, which comprised a number of the critical and miscel- laneous essays previously contributed to Reviews and Magazines, was issued about 1840. Then followed, successively, Past and Present (1843), Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (1845), Latter Day Pamphlets (1850), Life of John Sterling (1851), Life of Frederick the Or eat (1858-64), The Early Kings of Norway 26 * U G05 306 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. (1875), and also' The Portraits of John Knox. In 1866 Carlyle was installed Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. He died February 5, 1881. The two extracts that follow are from Sartor Resartus, and illustrate, as we think, the two alternating moods of the work, the one of profound sentiment, the other of grotesque satire. Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey Tent, musing and meditating ; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains; over me, as roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure flowing curtains, namely, of the Four azure Winds, on whose bottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. And then to fancy the fair Castles, that stood sheltered in these Mountain hollows; with their green flower lawns, and white dames and damosels, lovely enough : or better still, the straw-roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with her children round her : all hidden and protectingly folded up in the valley-folds ; yet there arid alive, as sure as if I beheld them. Or to see, as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Vil- lages, that lay round my mountain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont to speak to me (by their steeple-bells) with metal tongue; and, in almost all veather, proclaimed their vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds ; whereon, as on a culinary horologue, I might read the hour of the day. . . . Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger through the Distance : around some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the eddying vapor gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like a mad witch's hair ; till, after a space, it vanished, and, in the clear sunbeam, your Schreckhorn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapor had held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest in thy great fermenting vat and laboratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O Nature ! Or what is Nature? I la ! why do I not name thce God? Art thou not the " Living Garment of God?" O Heavens, is it, in very deed, He then that ever speaks through thee ; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me ? Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of that Truth and Beginning cf Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla ; ah ! like the mother's voice to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults; like soft streamings of celestial music to my too exasperated heart, came that Evan- gel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house with spec- tres : but godlike and my Father's. With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellow man ; with an infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art thou not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden ; and thy Bed of Rest is but a grave. O my Brother, my Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears from thy eyes ! Truly, the din of many- voiced Life, which in this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer a maddening discord, but a melting one : like inarticulate cries, and sobbings of a dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, with her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not my cruel Stepdame ; Man, with his so mad Wants and so mean Endeavors, had become the dearer to me ; and even for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him brother. Thus CARLYLE. 307 was I standing in the porch of that " Sanctuary of Sorrow ; " by strange, steep ways, had I too been guided thither ; and ere long its sacred gates would open, and the " Divine Depth of Sorrow " lie disclosed to me. The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those Shells and outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devilish passion any longer lodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of Man : I mean, to Empty, or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do reverence : to the fine frogged broadcloth, nowise to the " straddling animal with bandy legs" which it holds, and makes a Dignitary of? Who ever saw any Lord my-lorded in tattered blanket, fastened with wooden skewer ? Neverthe- less, 1 say, there is in such worship a shade of hypocrisy, a practical decep- tion : for how often does the Body appropriate what was meant for the Cloth only ! Whoso would avoid Falsehood, which is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps see good to take a different course. That reverence which cannot act without obstruction and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have free course when they are empty. Even as, for Hindoo Wor- shipers, the Pagoda is not less sacred than the God; so do I too worship the hollow cloth Garment with equal fervor as when it contained the Man ; nay, with more, for I now fear no deception, of myself or of others. W T hat still dignity dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes ! How meekly it bears its honors ! No haughty looks, no scornful gesture : silent and serene, it fronts the world ; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries the physiognomy of its Head : but the vanity and the stu- pidity, and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The Coat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike ; the Breeches, in modest sim- plicity, depend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow ; the Waistcoat hides no evil passion, no riotous desire ; hunger or thirst now dwell not in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the carking cares and foul vices of the World ; and rides there, on its Clothes-horse, as, on a Pegasus, like some skyey Messenger, or purified Apparition, visiting our low Earth. Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuberosity of Civilized Life, the Capital of England ; and meditated, and questioned Destiny, under that ink-sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan broth ; and was one lone soul amid those grinding millions : often have I turned into their Old Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck heart I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through a sanhe- drim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive in their silence : the past witnesses and instruments of Woe and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in "the Prison men call Life." Friends ! trust not the heart of that man for whom old Clothes are not venerable. Watch, too, with reverence, that bearded Jew- ish high-priest, who, with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom, sum- mons them from the four winds ! On his head, like the Pope, he has three Hats, a real triple tiara; on either hand are the similitude of wings, whereon the summoned garments come to alight ; and ever, as he slowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep, fearful note, as if through a trumpet he were proclaiming : " Ghosts of Life, come to Judgment ! " Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts, he will purify you in his Purgatory, with fire and with water ; and, one day, new-created ye shall reappear. Oh ! let him in whom the flame of Devotion is ready to go out, who has never worshiped, and knows not what to worship, pace and repace, with austerest thought, the pavement cf Monmouth Street, and say whether nis 308 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. heart and his eyes still continue dry. If Field Lane, with its long flutter- ing rows of yellow handkerchiefs,' be a Dionysius' Ear, where, in stifled, jarring hubbub, we hear the Indictment which Poverty and Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it has left them these cast-out and trodden-under- foot of Want, Darkness, and the Devil, then is Monmouth Street a Mirza's Hill, where, in motley vision, the whole Pageant of Existence passes awfully before us ; with its wail and jubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, church bells and gallows ropes, farce-tragedy, beast-godhood, the Bedlam of Creation! From Carlyle's work On Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History, we excerpt : I. THE HERO GENERALLY AND AS DIVINITY. We have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great Men, their manner of appearance in our world's business, how they have shaped themselves in the world's history, what ideas men formed of them, what work they did ; on Heroes, namely, and on their reception and perform- ance ; what I call Hero-worship and the Heroic in human affairs. A large topic; indeed, an illimitable one; wide as Universal I 1 istory itself. For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the model less patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain ; all things that we see standing accom- plished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwell in the Great Men sent into the world : the soul of the whole world's history, it may justly be con- sidered, were the history of these. One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, with- out gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens, which has enlightened the darkness of the world, and this not as a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven, a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness, in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them. . . . And if worship even of a star had some meaning in it, how much more might that of a Hero! Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man. 1 say great men are still admirable ; I say there is, at bot- tom, nothing else admirable ! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivif/ing influence in man's life. Keligion I find stands upon it ; not Paganism only, but far higher and truer religion, all religion hitherto submission, burning that the germ of whom we do not name here ! Let sacred silence meditale that sacred mat- ter; you will-find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant through- out man' a whole history on earth. CARLYLE. 309 H. THE HERO AS POET. The Poet is a heroic figure belonging to all ages ; whom all ages possess, when once he is produced ; whom the newest age as the oldest may pro- duce, and will produce, always when Nature pleases. Let Nature send a Hero-soul ; in no age is it other than possible that he may be shaped into a Poet. I will remark again, however, as a fact not unimportant to be understood, that the different sphere constitutes the grand origin of such distinction; that the Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest, or what you will, according to the kind of wor]d he finds himself born into. I con- fess I have no notion of a truly great man that could not be all sorts of men. The Poet who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas, would never make a stanza worth much. He could not sing the Heroic warrior, unless he himself were at least a Heroic warrior too. I fancy there is in him the Politician, the Thinker, Legislator, Philosopher ; in one or the other degree he could have been, he is all these. So too I cannot understand how a Mirabeau, with that great glowing heart, with the fire that was in it, with the bursting tears that were in it, could not have written verses, tragedies, poems, and touched all hearts in that w r ay, had his course of life and education led him thitherward. The grand fundamental character is that of Great Man ; that the man be great. Napoleon has words in him which are like Austerlitz Battles. Louis Four- teenth's Marshals are a kind of poetical men withal ; the things Turenne says are full of sagacity and geniality, like sayings of Samuel Johnson. The great heart, the clear, deep-seeing eye : there it lies ; no man what- ever, in what province soever, can prosper at all without these. Petrarch and Boccaccio did diplomatic messages, it seems, quite well ; one can easily believe it ; they had done things a little harder than these ! Burns, a gifted song-writer, might have made a still better Mirabeau. Shakspeare, one knows not what he could not have made, in the supreme degree. m. THE HERO AS PRIEST. The Priest too, as I understand it, is a kind of Prophet ; in him too there is required to be a light of inspiration, as we must name it. He pre- sides over the worship of the people ; is the Uniter of them with the Un- seen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of the people; as the Prophet is their spiritual King with many captains : he guides them heavenward, by wise guidance through this Karth and its work. The ideal of him is, that he too be what we can call a voice from the unseen Heaven ; interpreting, even as the Prophet did, and in a more familiar manner unfolding the same to men. The unseen Heaven, the "open secret of the Universe," which so few have an eye for ! lie is the Prophet shorn of his more awful splendor ; burning with mild equable radiance, as the enlightener of daily life. This, I say, is the ideal of a Priest. So in old times ; so in these, and in all times. IV. THE HERO AS MAN OP LETTERS. The Hero as Man of Letters, again, is altogether a product of these new ages; and so long as the wondrous art of Writing, or of Ready-writing which we call Printing, subsists, he may be expected to continue, as one of the main forms of I leroism for all future ages. He is, in various respects, a very singular phenomenon. He is new, I say ; he has hardly lasted above a century in the world yet. Never, till about a hundred years 310 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. was there seen any figure of a Great Soul living apart in that anomalous manner; endeavoring to speak forth the inspiration that was in him by Printed Books, and find place and subsistence by what the world would please to give him for doing that. Much has been sold and bought, and left to make its own bargain in the market-place ; but the inspired wisdom of a Heroic soul never till then, in that naked manner. He, with his copy- rights and copy-wrongs, in his squalid garret, in his rusty coat; ruling (for this is what he does) from his grave, after death, whole nations and gener- ations who would, or would not, give him bread while living, is a rather curious spectacle ! Few shapes of Heroism can be more unexpected. . . . If Hero be taken to mean genuine, then I say the Hero as Man of Let- ters will be found discharging a function for us which is ever honorable, ever the highest ; and was once well known to be the highest. He is utter- ing forth, in such way as he has, the inspired soul of him ; all that a man, in any case, can do. I say inspired; for what we call "originality," "sin- cerity," " genius," the heroic quality we have no good name for, signifies that. The Hero is he who lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine, and Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the Temporary, Trivial : his being is in that ; he' declares that abroad, by act or speech as it may be, in declaring himself abroad. His life is a piece of the everlasting heart of Nature herself : all men's life is, but the weak may know not the fact, and are untrue to it, in most times ; the strong few are strong, heroic, perennial, because it cannot be hidden from them. The Man of Letters, like every Hero, is there to proclaim this in such sort as he can. Intrinsically it is the same function which the old generations named a man Prophet, Priest, Divinity for doing ; which all manner of Heroes, by speech or by act, are sent into the world to do. V. THE HERO AS KING. The Commander over Men, he to whose will our wills are to be subordi- nated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of Heroism ; Priest, Teacher, what- soever of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us Avith constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do. He is called R Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, Take thou in charge this day!" So he spake, and speaking sheathed The good sword by his side, And, with his harness on his back, Plunged headlong in the tide. No sound of joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank; But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank ; And when above the surges They saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer. MACAULAY. 325 But fiercely ran the current, Swollen high by months of rain : And fast his blood was flowing; And he was sore in pain, And heavy with his armor, And spent with changing blows : And oft they thought him sinking, But still again he rose. Never, I. ween, did swimmer, In such an evil case, Struggle through such a raging flood Safe to the landing place: But his limbs were borne up bravely By the brave heart within, And our good father Tiber Bare bravely up his chin. " Curse on him ! " quoth false Sextus, "Will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day We should have sacked the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena, " And bring him safe to shore ; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never seen before." And now he feels the bottom ; Now on dry earth he stands, Now round him throng the Fathers To press his gory hands ; And now with shouts and clapping, And noise of weeping loud, He enters through the River-gate, Borne by the joyous crowd. They gave him of the corn-land, That was of public right, As much as two strong oxen Could plough from morn till night. And they made a molten image, And set it up on high, And there it stands unto this day To witness if I lie. It stands in the Comitium, Plain for all folk to see ; 326 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Horatius in his harness, Halting upon one knee ; And underneath is written, In letters all of gold, How valiantly he kept the bridge In the brave days of old. " It is a great merit of these poems that they are free from am- bition and exaggeration. Nothing seems overdone; no tawdry piece of finery disfigures the simplicity of the plan that has been chosen. They seem to have been framed with great artistic^ skill, with much self-denial and abstinence from anything incongruous, and with a very successful imitation of the effects intended to be represented. Yet every here and there images of beauty and ex- pressions of feeling are thrown out that are wholly independent of Rome or the Romans, and that appeal to the widest sensibilities of the human heart. In point of homeliness of thought and lan- guage there is often a boldness which none but a man conscious of great powers of writing would have ventured to show." * His Essay on Milton, published in August, 1825, introduced Macaulay to the readers of the " Edinburgh Review ; " following which effort, he continued for about a score of years to contribute to this periodical essay after essay, in all about forty, unsurpassed in varied and accurate erudition, and in fervid eloquence, by any compositions of the kind in the English language. From his essay on Milton we excerpt his summary of the character of the Puritans, which, though it may be somewhat familiar, we cannot afford to pass by, if we would cite the most splendid single passage to be found in our author's essays. The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and external interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Provi- dence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. ' The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor ; and, confident of that favor, * Professor Wilson in Black-wood's Magazine, Dec., 1842. MA CA ULA Y. 327 they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands : their diadems crowns of glory that should never fade away ! On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt : for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged on whose slightest actions the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short- sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained on his ac- count. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangel- ist and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God ! Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all self- abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker ; but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judg- ment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorroAvs, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose 328 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegale's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain ; not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. "Macaulay enlightens inattentive minds, as well as he convinces opposing minds; he manifests as well as he persuades. It is impossible not to understand him ; he approaches the subject under every aspect, he turns it over on every side ; it seems as though he addressed himself to every spectator, and studied to make himself understood by every individual ; he calculates the scope of every mind, and seeks for each a lit mode of exposition ; he takes us all by the hand, and leads us alternately to the end, which he has marked out beforehand. When a subject is obscure, he is not content with a first explanation ; he gives a second, then a third : he sheds light in abundance from all sides, he searches for it in all regions of history ; and the wonderful thing is, that he is never long. In reading him we find ourselves in our proper sphere; we feel as though we were born to understand; we are annoyed to have taken twilight so long for day ; we rejoice to see this abounding light rising and leaping forth in streams; the exact style, the antithesis of ideas, the harmonious construction, the art- fully balanced paragraphs, the vigorous summaries, the regular sequence of thoughts, the frequent comparisons, the fine arrange- ment of the whole not an idea or phrase of his writings in which the talent and the desire to explain, the characteristic of an orator, does not shine forth." * History, and particularly English history, had always been a favorite study with Macaulay; and as a result of this application, he gave to the public, in 1849, the first two volumes of a work which, beginning with the accession of James II., where Hume's history terminated, was designed to bring the history of the Eng- lish nation to a point within the memory of those now living. But two additional volumes, published in 1855, and a fragmentary fifth one, issued since the author's death, have sufficed for carrying out the original intent only as far as the year 1702. Volume L furnishes us with the following description of THE BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR. And now the time for the great hazard drew near. The night was not ill suited for such an enterprise. The moon was indeed at the full, and the northern streamers were shining brilliantly. But the marsh fog lay so thick on Sedgemoor, that no object could be discerned there at the distance of fifty paces. * Taine's English Literature, Vol. II. MACAULAY. 329 The clock struck eleven, and the duke, with his body-guard, rode out of the castle. He was not in the frame of mind which befits one who is about to strike a decisive blow. The very children who pressed to see him pass observed, and long remembered, that his look was sad and full of evil augury. His army marched by a circuitous path, nearly six miles in length, toward the royal encampment on Sedgemoor. Part of the route is to this day called War Lane. The foot were led by Monmouth himself. The horse were confided to Grey, in spite of the remonstrances of some who remembered the mishap at Bridport. Orders were given that strict silence should be preserved, that no drum should be beaten, and no shot fired. The word by which the insurgents were to recognize one another in the darkness was Soho. It had doubtless been selected in allusion to Soho Fields in London, where their leader's palace stood. At about one in the morning of Monday, the sixth of July, the rebels w r ere on the open moor. But between them and the enemy lay three broad rhines filled with water and soft mud. Two of these, called the Black Ditch and the Langmocr Rhine, Monmouth knew that he must pass ; but, strange to say, the existence of a trench, called the Bussex Rhine, which immediately covered the royal encampment, had not been mentioned to him by any of his scouts. The wains which carried the ammunition remained at the entrance of the moor. The horse and foot, in a long, narrow column, passed the Black Ditch by a causeway. There was a similar causeway across the Langmoor Rhine ; but the guide, in the fog, missed his way. There was some delay and some tumult before the error could be rectified. At length the passage was effected ; but, in the confusion, a pistol went off. Some men of the Horse Guards, who were on watch, heard the report, and perceived that a great multitude was advancing through the mist. They fired their car- bines, and galloped off in different directions to give the alarm. Some hastened to Weston Zoyland, where the cavalry lay. One trooper spurred to the encampment of the infantry, and cried out, vehemently, that the enemy was at hand. The drums of Dumbarton's regiment beat to arms, and the men got fast into their ranks. It was time ; for Monmouth was already drawing up his army for action. He ordered Grey to lead the way with the cavalry, and 'ollowed himself at the head of the infantry. Grey pushed on till his progress was unexpectedly arrested by the Bussex Rhine. On the opposite side of the ditch the king's foot were hastily forming in order of battle. "For whom are you?" called out an officer of the Foot Guards. "For the king," replied a voice from the ranks of the rebel cavalry. " For which king?" was then demanded. The answer was a shout of "King Mon- mouth," mingled with the war cry, which forty years before had been inscribed on the colors of the parliamentary regiments, " God with us." The royal troops instantly fired such a volley of musketry as sent the rebel horse flying in all directions. The world agree to ascribe this ignominious rout to Grey's pusillanimity ; yet it is by no means clear that Churchill would have succeeded better at the head of men who had never before handled arms on horseback, and whose horses were unused, not only to stand fire, but to obey the rein. A few minutes after the duke's horse had dispersed themselves over the moor, his infantry came up, running fast, and guided through the gloom by the lighted matches of Dumbarton's regiment. Monmouth was startled by finding that a broad and profound trench lay 28* 330 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. between him and the camp which he had hoped to surprise. The insur- gents halted on the edge of the Rhine, and fired. Part of the royal infantry on the opposite bank returned the fire. During three-quarters of an hour the roar of the musketry was incessant. The Somersetshire peasants behaved themselves as if they had been veteran soldiers, save only that they leveled their pieces too high. But now the other divisions of the royal army were in motion. The Life Guards and Blues came pricking fast from West on Zoyland, and scat- tered in an instant some of Grey's horse who had attempted to rally. The fugitives spread a panic among their comrades in the rear, who had charge of the ammunition. The wagoners drove off at full speed, and never stopped till they were many miles from the field of battle. Monmouth had hitherto done his part like a stout and able warrior. He had been seen on foot, pike in hand, encouraging his inl'antry by voice and by ex- ample. He was too Avell acquainted with military affairs not to know that all was over. His men had lost the advantage which surprise and darkness had given them. They were deserted by the horse and by the ammunition wagons. The king's forces were now united and in good order. Feversham had been awakened by the firing, had got out of bed, had adjusted his cravat, had looked at himself well in the glass, and had come to see what his men were doing. Meanwhile, what was of much more importance, Churchill had rapidly made an entirely new disposition of the royal infantry. The day was about to break. The event of a conflict on an open plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtful ; yet Monmouth should have felt that it was not for him to fly while thousands whom affection for him had hurried to destruction were still fighting manfully in his cause. But vain hopes and the intense love of life prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal cavalry would soon be in the rear, and would interrupt his retreat, lie mounted and rode from the field. Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. The Life Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues on the left ; but the Somersetshire clowns, with their scythes and the butt ends of their muskets, faced the royal horse like good soldiers. Oglethorpe made a vigorous attempt to break them, and was manfully repulsed. Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer, whose name afterward obtained a melancholy celebrity, charged on the other flank. His men were beaten back. He was himself struck to the ground, and lay for a time as one dead. But the struggle of the hardy rustics could not last. Their powder and ball were spent. Cries were heard of " Ammunition ! for God's sake, ammunition ! " But no ammuni- tion was at hand. And now the king's artillery came up. It had been posted half a mile off, on the high road from Weston Zoyland to Bridgewater.. So defective were then the appointments of an English army that there would have been much difficulty in dragging the great guns to the place where the battle was raging, had not the Bishop of Winchester offered his coach- horses and traces for the purpose. Even when the guns had arrived, there was such a want of gunners that a sergeant of Dumbarton's regiment was forced to take on himself the management of several pieces. The cannon, however, though ill served, brought the engagement to a speedy close. The pikes of the rebel battalions began to shake ; the ranks broke. The king's cavalry charged again, and bore down everything before them. The king's infantry came pouring across the ditch. Even in that extremity the MAC A ULA Y. 331 Mendip miners stood bravely to their arms, and sold their lives dearly. But the rout was in a few minutes complete. Three hundred of the sol- diers had been killed or wounded. Of the rebels more than a thousand lay dead on the moor. From Vol. III. we produce the following passages, descriptive, first, of WILLIAM AND MARY. His manners gave almost universal offense. He was, in truth, far better qualified to save a nation than to adorn a court. In the highest parts of statesmanship, he had no equal among his contemporaries. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil liberty and the Reformed faith, had been pre- served by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered from foreign, and England from domestic foes. Obstacles appa- rently insurmountable had been interposed between him and the ends on which he was intent, and these obstacles his genius had turned into step- ping-stones. Under his dexterous management, the hereditary enemies of his house had helped him to mount a throne, and the persecutors of his religion had helped him to rescue his religion from persecution. Fleets and armies, collected to withstand him, had, without a struggle, submitted to his orders. Factions and sects, divided by moral antipathies, had recognized him as their common head. Without carnage, without devastation, he had won a victory compared with which all the victories of Gustavus and Turenne were insignificant. In a few weeks he had changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had destroyed. In every Continental country where Protestant congregations met, fervent thanks were offered to God, who, from among the progeny of His servants, Maurice, the deliverer of Germany, and William, the deliverer of Holland, had raised up a third deliverer, the wisest and mightiest of all. ... One of the chief functions of our sovereigns had long been to preside over the society of the capital. That function Charles the Second had performed with immense success. His easy bow, his good stories, his style of dancing and playing tennis, the sound of his cordial laugh, were familiar to all London. One day he was seen among the elms of St. James' Park chatting with Dryden about poetry. Another day his arm was on Tom Durfey's shoulder; and his majesty was taking a second while his com- panion sang " Phillida, Phillida," or " To horse, brave boys, to Newmarket, to horse." But of this sociableness William was entirely destitute. He seldom came forth from his closet ; and when he appeared in the public rooms, he stood among the crowd of courtiers and ladies stern and abstracted, making no jest and smiling at none. His freezing look, his silence, the dry and concise answers which he uttered when he could keep silence no longer, disgusted noblemen who had been accustomed to be slapped on the back by their royal masters, called Jack or Harry, congratulated about race-cups, or rallied about actresses. The women missed the homage due to their sex. They observed that the king spoke in a somewhat imperious tone, even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely loved and esteemed. They were amused ani shocked to see him, when the Priii- 332 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. cess Anne dined with him, and when the first green peas of the year were put on the table, devour the whole dish without offering a spoonful to her royal highness ; and they pronounced that this great soldier and politician was no better than a Low Dutch bear. One misfortune, which was imputed to him as a crime, was his bad Eng- lish. He spoke our language, but not well. His accent was foreign, his diction was inelegant, and his vocabulary seems to have been no larger than Avas necessary for the transaction of business. To the difficulty which he felt in expressing himself, and to his consciousness that his pronuncia- tion was bad, must be partly ascribed the taciturnity and the short answers which gave so much offense. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or of understanding. He never once, during his whole reign, showed him- self at the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension. Those who are acquainted with the panegyrical odes of that age will per- haps be of opinion that he did not lose much by his ignorance. It is true that his wife did her best to supply what was wanting, and that she was excellently qualified to be the head of the court. She was English by birth, and English also in her tastes and feelings. Her face was hand- some, her port majestic, her temper sweet and lively, her manners affable and graceful. Her understanding, though very imperfectly cultivated, was quick. There was no want of feminine wit and shrewdness in her conver- sation, and her letters were so well expressed that they deserved to be well spelled. She took much pleasure in the lighter kinds of literature, and did something toward bringing books into fashion among ladies of quality. The stainless purity of her private life, and the strict attention which she paid to her religious duties, were the more respectable, because she was singularly free from censoriousness, and discouraged scandal as much as vice. . . . Her charities were munificent and judicious ; and, though she made no ostentatious display of them, it was known that she retrenched from her own state in order to relieve Protestants whom persecution had driven from France and Ireland, and who were starving in the garrets of London. So amiable was her conduct, that she was generally spoken of with esteem and tenderness by the most respectable of those who disap- proved of the manner in which she had been raised to the throne, and even of those who refused to acknowledge her as queen. The same eminent critic quoted before comments as follows: "The history is universal, and not broken. It comprehends events of every kind, and treats of them simultaneously. Some have related the history of races, others of classes, others of governments, others of sentiments, ideas, and manners; Macaulay has related all. He has separated nothing, and passed nothing by. His por- traits are mingled with his narrative. Read those of Danby, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, Howe, during the account of a cession, between two parliamentary divisions. Short curious anecdotes, domestic details, the description of furniture, intersect, without disjointing, the record of a war. A political dissertation precedes or follows the relation of a battle; at other times the author is a tourist or a psychologist before becoming a politician or a tactician. MACAULAY. 333 " He is successively an economist, a literary man, a publicist, an artist, an historian, a biographer, a story-teller, even a philosopher ; by this diversity of parts he imitates the diversity of human life, and presents to the eyes, heart, mind, all the faculties of man, the complete history of the civilization of his country. " I know no historian who has a surer, better furnished, better regulated memory. When he is relating the actions of a man or a party, he sees in an instant all the events of his history, and all the maxims of his conduct; he has all the details present; he remembers them every moment, in great numbers. No one has so well taught or known history. He is as much steeped in it as his personages. . . . No one explains better, or so much, as Macaulay. It seems as if he were making a wager with his reader, and said to him : Be as absent in mind, as stupid, as ignorant as you please; in vain you will be absent in mind, you shall listen to me; in vain you will be stupid, you shall understand ; in vain you will be igno- rant, you shall learn. . . . " He proves all that he says, with astonishing vigor and authority. We are almost certain never to go astray in following him. If he cites a witness, he begins by measuring the veracity and intelligence of the authors quoted, and by correcting the errors they may have committed, through negligence or partiality. If he pronounces a judgment, he relies on the most certain facts, the clearest principles, the simplest and most logical deductions. If he develops an argu- ment, he never loses himself in a digression ; he always has his goal before his eyes ; he advances towards it by the surest and straightest road. If he rises to general consideration, he mounts step by step through all the grades of generalization, without omitting one; he feels the ground every instant; he neither adds nor subtracts from facts; he desires, at the cost of every precaution and research, to arrive at the precise truth. He knows an infinity of details of every kind ; he owns a great number of philosophic ideas of every spe- cies ; but his erudition is as well tempered as his philosophy, and both -constitute a coin worthy of circulation, amongst all thinking minds." HENRY HALLAM. HENRY HALLAM was born at Windsor, in the year 1777. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. On completing his collegiate course he located in London, where before many years he won a name as a litterateur and as a philanthropist. The work that brought him into general notice, however, was his View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, i. e., from the middle of the fifth to the end of the fifteenth century, which was given to the public in 1818. Our first extract from this work shall be the CHARACTER OF CHARLEMAGNE. The epoch made by Charlemagne in the history of the world, the illustrious families which prided themselves in him as their progenitor, the very legions of romance, which are full of his fabulous exploits, have cast a lustre around his head, and testify the greatness that has embodied itself in his name. None indeed of Charlemagne's wars can be compared with the Saracenic victory of Charles Martel ; but that was a contest for freedom, his for conquest ; and fame is more partial to successful aggression than to patriotic resistance. As a scholar, his acquisitions were probably little superior to those of his unrespected son ; and in several points of view the glory of Charlemagne might be extenuated by an analytical dissection. But, rejecting a mode of judging equally uncandid and fallacious, we shall find that he possessed in everything that grandeur of conception which distinguishes extraordinary minds. Like Alexander, he seemed born for universal innovation : in a life restlessly active, we see him reforming the coinage, and establishing the legal divisions of money ; gathering about him the learned of every country ; founding schools and collecting libraries ; interfering, but with the tone of a king, in religious controversies ; aiming, though prematurely, at the formation of a naval force ; attempting, for the sake of commerce, the magnificent enterprise of uniting the Rhine and the Danube ; and meditating to mold the discordant codes of Roman and bar- barian laws into a uniform system. The great qualities of Charlemagne were indeed alloyed by the vices of a barbarian and a conqueror. Nine wives, whom he divorced with very little ceremony, attest the license of his private life, which his temperance and frugality can hardly be said to redeem. Unsparing of blood, though not constitutionally cruel, and Avholly indifferent to the means which his ambition prescribed, he beheaded in one day four thousand Saxons ; an act of atrocious butchery, after which his persecuting edicts, pronouncing the pain of death against those who refused baptism, or even who ate flesh during Lent, seem scarcely worthy of notice. This union of barbarous 334 HALL AM. 335 ferocity with elevated views of national improvement, might suggest the parallel of Peter the Great. But the degrading habits and brute violence of the Muscovite place him at an immense distance from the restorer of the empire. A strong sympathy for intellectual excellence was the leading character- istic of Charlemagne, and this undoubtedly biased him in the chief political error of his conduct, that of encouraging the power and pretensions of the hierarchy. But, perhaps, his greatest eulogy is written in the disgraces of succeeding times, and the miseries of Europe. He stands alone like a beacon upon a waste, or a rock in the broad ocean. His sceptre was as the bow of Ulysses, which could not be drawn by any weaker hand. In the dark ages of European history, the reign of Charlemagne affords a solitary resting-place between two long periods of turbulence and ignominy, deriv- ing the advantages of contrast both from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had formed an empire which they were nu- Avorthy and unequal to maintain. Our second extract from the same work shall be ABOUT TOURNAMENTS. The kings of France and England held solemn or plenary courts at the great festivals, or at other times, where the name of knight was always a, title to admittance ; and the masque of chivalry, if T may use the expres- sion, was acted in pageants and ceremonies, fantastical enough in our appre- hension, but well calculated for those heated understandings. Here the peacock and the pheasant, birds of high fame in romance, received the homage of all true knights. The most singular festival of this kind was that celebrated by Philip, duke of Burgundy, in 1453. In the midst of the banquet a pageant was introduced, representing the calamitous state of religion in consequence of the recent capture of Constantinople. This was followed by the appearance of a pheasant, which was laid before the duke, and to which the knights present addressed their vows to undertake a crusade, in the following very characteristic preamble : I swear before God my creator in the first place, and the glorious Virgin his mother, and next before the ladies and the pheasant. Tournaments were a still more powerful incentive to emulation. These may be considered to have arisen about the middle of the eleventh century ; for* though every martial people have found diversion in representing the image of war, yet the name of tournaments, and the laws that regulated them, cannot be traced any higher. Every scenic performance of modern times must be tame in comparison of these animating combats. At a tournament, the space enclosed within the lists was surrounded by sovereign princes and their noblest barons, by knights of established renown, and all that rank and beauty had most distinguished among the fair. Covered with steel, and known only by the emblazoned shield, or by the favors of their mistresses, a still prouder bearing, the combatants rushed forward to a strife without enmity, but not without danger. Though their weapons Avere pointless, and sometimes only of Avood, though they were bound by the laws of tournaments to strike only upon the strong armor of the trunk, or, as it Avas called, between the four limbs, those impetuous con- flicts often terminated in Avounds and death. 336 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The church uttered her excommunications in vain against so wanton an exposure to peril ; but it was more easy for her to excite than to restrain that martial enthusiasm. Victory in a tournament was little less glorious, and perhaps at the moment more exquisitely felt, than in the field ; since no battle could assemble such witnesses of valor. " Honor to the sons of the brave," resounded amid the din of martial music from the lips of the minstrels, as the conqueror advanced to receive the prize from his queen or his mistress ; while the surrounding multitude acknowledged in his prow- ess of that day an augury of triumphs that might in more serious contests be blended with those of his country. Speaking of the work represented by the preceding extracts, the "Edinburgh Review" remarks: "Mr. Hallam appears to have bestowed much time and much reflection on his subject. ... To a familiar acquaintance with the early chronicles and original histories of the Barbarians, he has added a diligent examination of their laws; and wherever records throw their steady and certain light on the progress of events, he has consulted them with care. But it is not the labor and industry employed by Mr. Hallam in the composition of this work, nor even the valuable and interesting information it contains, that constitute its chief or peculiar merit. It is written throughout with a spirit of freedom and liberality that do credit to the author. A firm but temperate love of liberty, an enlightened but cautious philosophy, form its distinguished excellence. We never find the author attempting to palliate injustice or excuse oppression : and whenever he treats of popular rights, or pronounces upon the con- tentions of subjects with their sovereigns, we meet with a freedom and intrepidity of discussion that remind us of better times. But, though a decided enemy to the encroachments of arbitrary power, Mr. Hallam is no infatuated admirer of ancient turbulence nor blind apologist of popular excesses. If, indeed, there is any quality of his work that merits our unqualified approbation, it is the spirit of fairness and impartiality that pervades the whole." About nine years after the publication of the foregoing work, appeared (1827) our author's second historical production The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. Chapter XVIII. of this work contains the following concise and comprehensive exhibit of THE EARLY STATE OF IRELAND. In the twelfth century it is evident that the Irish nation had made far less progress in the road of improvement than any other of Europe in circum- stances of climate and position so little unfavorable. They had no arts that deserve the name, nor any commerce, their best line of sea-coast being occupied by the Norwegians. They had no fortified towns, nor any houses HA LLA M. 337 or castles of stone, the first having been erected at Tuam a very few years before the invasion of Henry. Their conversion to Christianity, indeed, and the multitude of cathedral and conventual churches erected throughout the island, had been the cause, and probably the sole cause, of the rise of some cities, or villages with that name, such as Armagh, Cashel, and Trim ; but neither the chiefs nor the people loved to be confined within their precincts, and chose rather to dwell in scattered cabins amid the free soli- tude of bogs and mountains. As we might expect, their qualities were such as belong to man by his original nature, and which he displays in all parts of the globe where the state of society is inartificial : they were gay, generous, hospitable, ardent in attachment and hate, credulous of falsehood, prone to anger and violence, generally crafty and cruel. With these very general attributes of a bar- barous people, the Irish character was distinguished by a peculiar vivacity of imagination, an enthusiasm and impetuosity of passion, and a more than ordinary bias toward a submissive and superstitious spirit in religion. This spirit may justly be traced, in a great measure, to the virtues and piety of the early preachers of the Gospel in that country. Their influ- ence, though at this remote age and with our imperfect knowledge it may hardly be distinguishable amid the licentiousness and ferocity of a rude people, was necessarily directed to counteract those vices, and cannot have failed to mitigate and compensate their evil. Jn the seventh and eighth centuries, while a total ignorance seemed to overspread the face of Europe, the monasteries and schools of Ireland preserved, in the best manner they could, such learning as had survived the revolutions of the Roman world. But the learning of monasteries had never much effect in dispelling the ignorance of the laity ; and, indeed, even in them, it had decayed long before the twelfth century. The clergy were respected and numerous, the bishops alone amounting at one time to no less than three hundred ; and it has been maintained by our most learned writers, that they were wholly independent of the See of Rome till, a little before the English invasion, one of their primates thought fit to solicit the pall from thence on his con- secration, according to the discipline long practiced in our Western churches. It will be readily perceived that the government of Ireland must have, been almost entirely aristocratical, and, though not strictly feudal, not very unlike that of the feudal confederacies in France during the ninth and tenth centuries. It was, perhaps, still more oppressive. The ancient con- dition of the common people of Ireland, says Sir James Ware, was very little different from slavery. Unless we believe this condition to have been greatly deteriorated under the rule of their native chieftains after the Eng- lish settlement, for which there seems no good reason, we must give little credit to the fanciful pictures of prosperity and happiness in that period of aboriginal independence which the Irish, in their discontent with later times, have been apt to draw. They had, no doubt, like all other nations, good and wise princes, as well as tyrants and usurpers ; but we find by their annals that, out of two hundred ancient kings, of whom some brief memorials are recorded, not more than thirty came to a natural death, while for the later period, the oppression of the Irish chieftains, and of those degenerate English who trod in their steps, and emulated the vices they should have restrained, is the one constant theme of history. Their exactions kept the peasants in hopeless poverty, their tyranny in perpetual fear. The chief claimed a right of taking from his tenants provisions for his own use at discretion, or 29 W 338 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. of sojourning in their houses. This was called coshery, and is somewhat analogous to the royal prerogative of purveyance. A still more terrible oppression was the quartering of the lords' soldiers on the people, some- times mitigated by a composition, called by the Irish bonaght ; for the perpetual warfare of these petty chieftains had given rise to the employ- ment of mercenary troops, partly natives, partly from Scotland, known by the uncouth name of Kerns and Gallowgl asses, who proved the scourge of Ireland down to its subjugation by Elizabeth. This unusually backward condition of society furnished but an inauspi- cious presage for the future. Yet we may be led by the analogy of other countries to think it probable that, if Ireland had not tempted the cupidity of her neighbors, there would have arisen in the course of time some Egbert or Harold Harfager to consolidate the provincial kingdoms into one heredi- tary monarchy, which, by the adoption of better laws, the increase of com- merce, and a frequent intercourse with the chief courts *of Europe, might have taken as respectable a station as that of Scotland in the Common- wealth of Christendom. If the two islands had afterward become incorpo- rated through intermarriage of their sovereigns, as would very likely have taken place, it might have been on such conditions. of equality as Ireland, till lately, has never known, and certainly without that long tragedy of crime and misfortune which her annals unfold. In an elaborate and able review of the Constitutional History, written in 1828, Macaulay observes : " Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other writer of our time for the office which he has undertaken. He has great industry and great acute- ness. His knowledge is extensive, various, and profound. His mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its grasp and by the delicacy of its tact. His speculations have none of that vague- ness which is the common fault of political philosophy. On the contrary, they are strikingly practical. They teach us not only the general rule, but the mode of applying it to solve particular cases. "The style is sometimes harsh, and sometimes obscure. We have also here and there remarked a little of that unpleasant trick which Gibbon brought into fashion the trick, we mean, of narrat- ing by implication and allusion. Mr. Hallam, however, has an excuse which Gibbon had not. His work is designed for readers who are already acquainted with the ordinary books on English history, and who can therefore unriddle these little enigmas with- out difficulty. " His work is eminently judicial. Its whole spirit is that of the bench, not of the bar. He sums up with a calm, steady impar- tiality, turning neither to the right nor to the left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the advocates on both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear their conflicting misstate- ments and sophisms exposed. On a general survey, we do not scruple to pronounce the Constitutional History the most impartial book that we ever read. . . . HALL AM. 339 " We should probably like Mr. Hallam's book more, if instead of pointing out, with strict fidelity, the bright points and the dark spots of both parties, he had exerted himself to whitewash the one and to blacken the other. But we should certainly prize it far less. Eulogy and invective may be had for the asking. But for cold, rigid justice the one weight and the one measure we know not where else we can look." As a recognition of the rare merit of the two works already men- tioned, Hallani had bestowed on him, in 1830, one of the two valu- able medals instituted by George IV. for eminence in historical composition. In 1837-39 appeared the third and last great pro- duction of our author Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. Volume LXXII. of the "Edinburgh Review" pronounces this "The most important contribution to literary history which English libraries have received for many years. It has a dry and austere style, uni- formly clear, indeed, and English, but sometimes chastised to a degree of tameness, sometimes, though not often, laboriously figura- tive, and loaded with rather heavy ornament. But most assuredly the reader who does not employ it merely to fill up the leisure of a few hours, but consults it for guidance, and refers to its author- ity, will never use it without an augmented sense of its value, and respect for its author. He will be struck with the modest simplic- ity with which its stores of very extensive erudition are displayed. He will be struck with an honesty, even in the mere conduct of the work, rarely found in publications pretending to anything like the same amount of research." Hallam died in January, 1859. WILLIAM COWPER. poets ! from a maniac's tongue Was poured the deathless singing! Christians ! at your cross of hope A hopeless hand was clinging! men ! this man, in brotherhood, Your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, And died while ye were smiling. MRS. BKOWNING. WILLIAM COWPER was born on the 15th of November, 1731, at Great Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, of which place his father was rector. At the age of six he lost his mother. " I can truly say," said Cowper, nearly fifty years after her death, " that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day) in which I do not think of her : such was the impres- sion her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short." We may no longer doubt the genuineness of his profession, when we read the verses he wrote, a little later, on the receipt of his mother's picture out of Nor- folk, the gift of a cousin ; verses which Hazlitt has declared to be " some of the most pathetic that ever were written." O that those lips had language! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine thy own sweet smile 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 remembrance of one so dear, welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 340 COWPER. 341 Who bidd'st me honor with an artless song, Affectionate, a Mother lost so long. I 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 learn'd that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? Hover'd 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 souls can weep in bliss Ah, that maternal smile ! it answers Yes. I heard the bell toll'd 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 word shall pass my lips no more! Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. What ardently I wish'd, I long believed, And, disappointed still, was still deceived. By expectation 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 learn'd at last submission to my lot ; But, though I 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-capt, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we call'd the pastoral house our own. Shortlived possession! but the record fair, That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced 29* 342 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 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 bestow'd By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow'd ; All this, and more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughen'd 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 scorn'd 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 pink, and jessamine, I prick'd them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile,) Could those few pleasant days 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 weather'd and the ocean cross'd) Shoots into port at some well-haven'd 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 reach'd the shore " Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar," And thy loved Consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchor'd by thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, Always from port withheld, always distress'd COWPER. Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-toss'd, Sails ripp'd, seams opening wide, and compass lost, And day by day some current's thwarting force Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. Yet O 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 wish'd is done. By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again ; To have renew'd the joys that once were mine, Without the sin of violating thine; 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. A few years after his mother's death a complaint in his eyes, which threatened blindness, caused his removal to the house of a female oculist in London, from whence, at the age of ten, he was sent to Westminster school. About seven years were spent here, our poet leaving the school with a considerable classical reputa- tion to enter on the study of law. In 1752 he took chambers in the Temple, but during the eleven years of his occupancy neither got, nor sought to get, any practice. This professional failure must be attributed for the most part to a morbid sensitiveness and constitutional melancholy, which from, early youth had verily dominated over him the same that the bare thought of appearing, a few years later, at the bar of the House of Lords and taking the oath necessary to qualify him as Clerk of the Journals, excited into insanity. In this sad state he remained for a year and a half in charge of Doctor Cotton of St. Alban's; when, recovering his reason, he removed to Huntingdon, and there formed the invaluable acquaintance of Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Unwin. Of the latter he wrote, in March, 1766, " The lady in whose house I live is so excellent a person, and regards me with a friendship so truly Christian, that I could almost fancy my mother restored to life again, to compensate me for all the friends I have lost and all my connexions broken." With this motherly woman he removed, after her husband's 844 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. death, to Olney; and here he contracted another most fortunate friendship, that of Rev. John Newton. But alas! his mind, which had been tolerably free from annoyance for eight years, now (1773) exhibited a return of its former derangement. A conviction that his soul was excluded from the reach of Divine mercy took possession of him, and despite the expostulations of esteemed friends, held him in its gloomy power more or less completely to the end of his life. His first volume of poems, including The Progress of Error, Truth, Table-Talk, and Expostulation, was published in 1781, when our author was fifty years of age. Its appearance was no doubt largely due to the encouraging influence Mrs. Unwin exerted over the poet. Indeed, the tender, sympathetic, and sunny companionship of women seeni8 to have been a vital and salutary element of Cowper's poetic life ; for it is pretty well authenticated that to the suggestions of Lady Austen, Lady Hesketh, Lady Throckmorton, and Mrs. Unwin, are to be traced the themes at least of many of his happiest creations, such, for instance, as the Task, TJie History of John Gilpin, and his translation of Homer. The Task was published in 1785. From this poem Book I. The Sofa we excerpt the following passages, descriptive of a summer landscape. Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjured up To serve occasions of poetic pomp, But genuine, and art partner of them all. How oft, upon yon eminence, our pace Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have borne The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, While Admiration, feeding at the eye, And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene. Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd The distant plough slow moving, and beside His laboring team, that swerved not from the track, The sturdy swain, diminish'd to a boy ! Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er, Conducts the eye along his sinuous course, Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, Stand, never overlook'd, our favorite elms, That screen the herdsman's solitary hut ; While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, That as with molten glass inlays the vale, COWPER. 345 The sloping land recedes into the clouds; Displaying on its varied side the grace Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells Just undulates upon the listening ear, Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote. Scenes must be beautiful, which, daily view'd, Please daily, and whose novelty survives Long knowledge a*nd the scrutiny of years : Praise justly due to those that I describe. Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music not unlike The dash of Ocean on his winding shore, And lull the spirit, while they fill the mind ; Unnumber'd branches waving in the blast, And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once. Nor less composure waits upon the roar Of distant floods, or on the softer voice Of neighboring fountain, or of rills that slip Through the cle'ft rock, and, chiming as they fall Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length In matted grass, that with a livelier green Betrays the secret of their silent course. Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, But animated Nature sweeter still, To soothe and satisfy the human ear. Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night : nor these alone, whose notes Nice-finger'd Art must emulate in vain, But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime In still repeated circles, screaming loud, The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl, That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, Yet heard in sc-enes where peace for ever reigns, And only there, please highly for their sake. And now, turning the glass a little, we come upon a winter scene. O Winter, ruler of the inverted year, Thy scatter'd hair with sleet-like ashes fill'd, 346 Myl.Vf7.lL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fringed with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age, thy forehead wrapp'd in clouds, A leafless branch thy scepter, 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 seem'st, 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 cares. I crown thee King of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening know. No rattling wheels stop short before these gates; No powder'd pest, 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, And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, Follow the nimble finger of the fair ; A wreath, that cannot fade, or 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 shakes 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. CO WPER. 347 The volume closed, the customary rites Of the last meal commence. A Roman meal ; . Such as the mistress of the world once found Delicious, when her patriots of high note, Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors, And under an old oak's domestic shade, Enjoy'd, spare feast ! a radish and an egg. Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull, Nor such as with a frown forbids the play Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth : Nor do we madly, like an impious world, Who deem, religion frenzy, and the God That made them an intruder on their joys, Start at His awful name, or deem His praise A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone, Exciting oft our gratitude and love, While we retrace with Memory's wand, That calls the past to our exact review, The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare, The disappointed foe, deliverance found Unlook'd for, life preserved, and peace restored, Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. evenings worthy of the gods ! exclaim'd The Sabine Bard. O evenings, I reply, More to be prized and coveted than yours, As more illumined, and with nobler truths, That I, and mine, and those we love enjoy. Next let us listen to " The Timepiece," as it sublimely meas- ures otf for us the following eloquent satire : Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own. Paul should himself direct me. I would trace His master-strokes, and draw from his design. 1 would express him simple, grave, sincere ; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner ; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture ; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too ; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men. Behold the picture ! Is it like ? Like whom ? 348 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The things that mount the" rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again; pronounce a text, Cry hem ; and, reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene ! In man or woman, but far most in man, And most of all in man that ministers And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn ; Object of my implacable disgust. What ! will a man play tricks, will he indulge A silly, fond conceit, of his fair form, And just proportion, fashionable mien, And pretty face, in presence of his God ? Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes, As with the diamond on his lily hand, And play his brilliant parts before my eyes, When I am hungry for the bread of life? He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames His noble office, and, instead of truth, Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock. Therefore, avaunt all attitude, and stare, And start theatric, practiced at the glass ! I seek divine simplicity in him Who handles things divine; and all besides, Though learn'd with labor, and though much admired By curious eyes and judgments ill-inform'd, To me is odious as the nasal twang Heard at conventicle, where worthy men, Misled by custom, strain celestial themes Through the press'd nostril, spectacle-bestrid. Some, decent in demeanor while they preach, That task perform'd, relapse into themselves ; And, having spoken wisely, at the close Grow wanton, and give proof to every eye, Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not! Forth comes the pocket-mirror. First we stroke An eyebrow ; next compose a straggling lock ; Then, with an air most gracefully perform'd, Fall back into our seat, extend an arm, And lay it at its ease with gentle care, With handkerchief in hand depending low: The better hand, more busy, gives the nose Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye COWPER. 349 With opera-glass, to watch the moving scene, And recognise the slow-retiring fair. Now, this is fulsome, and offends me more Than in a churchman slovenly neglect And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind May be indifferent to her house of clay, And slight the hovel as beneath her care; But how a body so fantastic, trim, And quaint, in its deportment and attire, Can lodge a heavenly mind demands a doubt. He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech. Tis pitiful To court a grin, when you should woo a soul. To break a jest, when pity would inspire Pathetic exhortation ; and to address The skittish fancy with facetious tales, When sent with God's commission to the heart! So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip Or merry turn in all he ever wrote, And I consent you take it for your text, Your only one, till sides and benches fail. No ! he was serious in a serious cause, And understood too well the weighty terms That he had ta'en in charge. He would not stoop To conquer those, by jocular exploits, Whom truth and soberness assailed in vain. A second volume of poems, including Tirocinium ; or, A Review of Schools, was published in 1784. The translation of Homer was completed and published by subscription in 1791. Cowper next undertook, in conjunction with his friend William Hayley, an edition of Milton, which work, however, was never completed. In 1794 a pension of three hundred pounds was granted him by government. The remainder of our poet's life was more than usually character- ized by mental despondency and torturing fancies. In its few lucid intervals he was occupied with a revision of his translation of Homer, with translating Greek epigrams, and with composing a few short Latin and English poems the " Cast-away " being the last of his original verses. The death of his devoted friend, Mrs. Unwin, in 1796, proved the removal of the last of the few objects he had ever considered life worth living for, and he rapidly sank into a state of immitigable despondency, dying on -the 25th of April, 1800. 30 350 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. As an example of an exceptional style of composition with Cowper, we cite the REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS. Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose, The spectacles set them unhappily wrong ; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ought to belong. So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning; While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws, So famed for his talent in nicely discerning. In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear, And your Lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession, time out of mind. Then holding the spectacles up to the court, Your Lordship observes they are made with a straddle, As wide as the ridge of the Nose is ; in short, Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle. Again, would your Lordship a moment suppose ('Tis a case that has happen'd, and may be again,) That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles then ? On the whole it appears, and my argument shows, With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them. Then shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how,) He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes ; But what were his arguments few people know, For the court did not think they were equally wise. So his Lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone, Decisive and clear, without one if or but That, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, By daylight or candlelight Eyes should be shut ! Our concluding extract will serve as a transcript of Cowper's prevailing state of mind and thought : COW PER. 351 THE SHRUBBERY. Oh, happy shades to me unblest ! Friendly to peace, but not to me ! \ How ill the scene that offers rest, And heart that cannot rest, agree ! This glassy stream, that spreading pine, Those alders quivering to the breeze, Might soothe a soul less hurt than mine, And please, if anything could please. But fix'd unalterable Care Forgoes not what she feels within ; Shows the same sadness everywhere, And slights the season and the scene. For all that pleased in wood or lawn, While Peace possess'd these silent bowers Her animating smile withdrawn, Has lost its beauties and its powers. The saint or moralist should tread This moss-grown alley, musing, slow ; They seek like me the secret shade, But not like me to nourish woe! Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste Alike admonish not to roam ; These tell me of enjoyments past, And those of sorrows yet to come. "The great merit of this writer appears to us to consist in the boldness and originality of his composition, and in the fortunate audacity with which he has carried the dominion of poetry into" regions that had been considered as inaccessible to her ambition. Cowper was one of the first who reclaimed the natural liberty of invention, and walked abroad in the open field of observation as freely as those by whom it was originally trodden. He passed from the imitation of poets to the imitation of nature, and ventured boldly upon the representation of objects that had not been sancti- fied by the description of any of his predecessors. In the ordinary occupations and duties of domestic life, and the consequences of modern manners, in the common scenery of a rustic situation, and the obvious contemplation of our public institutions, he has found a multitude of subjects for ridicule and reflection, for pathetic and picturesque description, for moral declamation, and devotional rap- 352 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ture, that would have been looked upon with disdain, or with despair, by most of our poetical adventurers. "He took as wide a range in language, too, as in matter; and, shaking off the tawdry incumbrance of that poetical diction which had nearly reduced the art to the skilful collocation of a set of con- ventional phrases, he made no scruple to set down in verse every expression that would have been admitted in prose, and to take advantage of all the varieties with which our language could supply him. " But, in disdaining to follow the footsteps of others, he has fre- quently mistaken the way, and has been exasperated, by their blunders, to rush into opposite extremes. In his contempt for their scrupulous selection of topics, he has introduced some that are un- questionably low and uninteresting ; and in his zeal to strip off the tinsel and embroidery of their language, he has sometimes torn it into terrible rents and beggarly tatters. He is a great master of English, and evidently values himself upon his skill and facility in the application of rich and diversified idioms : but he has indulged himself in this exercise a little too fondly, and has degraded some grave and animated passages by the unlucky introduction of expres- sions unquestionably too colloquial and familiar." * * Francis Jeffrey in Edinburgh Review. ROBERT BURNS. The lark of Scotia's morning sky ! Whose voice may sing his praises? With heaven's own sunlight in his eye, He walked among the daisies, Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong He soared to fields of glory ; But left his land her sweetest song And earth her saddest story. HOLMES. EGBERT BURNS was born January 25, 1759, in the Parish of Alloway, near Ayr, Scotland. His father a farmer of very meager means was a thoughtful, earnest, pious, and not unin- telligent man, to whose active interest Robert owed no small part of his early training ; while to his mother, and to an old woman who lived in the family, he was indebted for his knowl- edge of and his keen relish for the early ballads, the legendary tales, and the ghost and witch lore of his native country. Much farming and little schooling were the two main ingredients of Burns's youthful years ; but, touched by the vitalizing writings of Shakespeare, Pope, and Allan Ramsay, it was during this same period of rusticity that he began to be sensible of his poetic gift, and felt a divine urgency to its exercise. His instinctive repugnance to the harsh, unlovable tenets of the Calvinism of his day, was the most conspicuous occasion of his earliest literary efforts; the fruits whereof we recognize in those satires, The Holy Fair, The Ordination, and Holy Willies Prayer. Burns's first volume of poems was published for the express purpose of obtaining the means to enable him to fly from his "native banks of Ayr," to avoid the consequences of certain distressful entanglements of a social nature, which in the heat and indiscretion of youth he had involved himself in. A copy of this volume falling into the hands of Dr. Blacklock of Edin- burgh, was the cause of his being invited to that center of Scotch 30* X 353 354 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. culture. And so, in 1786, instead of the friendless exile from his native country he had despairingly elected for himself, we behold him arrived in that country's splendid capital, the invited and the most highly flattered guest of its men of wealth and of letters. He spends, unspoilt, several months in the midst of these blandishments ; obtains a handsome subscription to his volume of poems; from which, together with the sale of his copyright, he is said to have realized no less than 700 ; visits the English border, also the northern parts of Scotland ; then returns to his obscure home ; retrieves his late disgraceful conduct by honor- ably marrying Jane Armour ; and, in 1788, settles down to the life of a farmer in Elliesland. The three years that immediately followed were, he maintains, the happiest of his whole life. Among the occasional products of his muse, at this period, was the long, spirited, and amusing witch-tale of Tarn O'/Shanter. In 1791, Burns quitted the peaceful, virtuous employments of his farm for an appointment as exciseman at the town of Dumfries. Here, it is generally allowed, began his downward career ; for he not only frequented the clubs, where he met spirits somewhat kindred to his own, but even condescended to lavish the pearly treasures of his heart and brain upon swinish revelers. Nevertheless, it was 'during the four or five years of his residence at Dumfries that he produced his finest lyrics. But the almost continual dissipation that marked his life here, together with the grief experienced from the death of his only daughter, excited to their fatalest activity certain life-long or- ganic disorders, and Burns died July 21, 1796. " With our readers in general, with men of right feeling any- where, we are not required to plead for Burns. In pitying admi- ration, he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler Mauso- leum than that one of marble ; neither will his Works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of man. While the Sbake- speares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves, this little .Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye: for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workman- ship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing cur- rent, into the light of day ; and often will the traveler turn aside B URNS. 355 to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines."* THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. " The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole." My lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend ! No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end : My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene: The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ; What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; Ah ! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween ! November chill blows loud wi' angry sugh ; f The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh: The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher J thro' To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle,$ blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie Wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary kiaugh || and care beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. Belyve,f the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out amang the farmers roun': Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie** rin A cannieft errand to a neeber town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, * Carlyle in Edinburgh Review, 1828. t Bluster. J Stagger. Fire. || Anxiety. If Presently. ** Heedful. ft Dexterous. 356 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, Or deposite her sair won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers : * The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd, fleet ; Each tells the uncos f that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; Anticipation forward points the view. The Mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars J auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new ; The Father mixes a' wi' admonition due. Their master's an' their mistress's command, The younkers a' are warned to obey ; And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play : "And O! be sure to fear the^Lord alway ! And mind your duty, duly, morn and night ! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain, that sought the Lord aright ! " But, hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily Mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek, With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak ; Weel pleas'd the Mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake. Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben ; || A strappan youth ; he taks the Mother's eye ; Ely the Jenny sees the visit 's no ill ta'en ; The Father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.fl The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate,** an' laithfu', scarce can weel behave ; The Mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave ; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.ff * Inquires. t News. t Makes. g Knows. || Into the room. f Cows. ** Bashful. ft The rest. BUENS. 357 happy love ! where love like this is found ! O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! 1 've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare "If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale." Is there, in human form, that bears a heart A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild? But now the supper crowns the simple board, The halesome parritch,* chief of Scotia's food : The soupe their only hawkief does afford, That 'yont t the hallan snugly J chows her cood : The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain'dg kebbuck, fell,|| An' aft he 's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell, How 'twas a towmond^ auld, sin' lint** was i'the bell.** The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; The Sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, The big ha-Bible, ance his father's pride ; His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart ff haffets ff wearing thin and bare ; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And " Let us worship God ! " he says, with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; / V They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim ; Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name ; * Oatmeal pudding, f Cow. J Beyond the wall. \ Well-kept cheese. || Biting or keen. fl Twelvemonth. ** Flax in flower. ft Gray temples. j 358 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Or noble Elgin beats, the heaven-ward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : Compai'd with these, Italian trills are tame ; The tickl'd ear no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. The priest-like Father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; ,jOr, Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; Or wrapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay his head : How his first followers and servants sped, The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : How he who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand : And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heaven's command. Then kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King, The Saint, the Father, and the Husband prays : Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," >That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear : While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. Conipar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, f When men display to congregations wide, Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart! (j The pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul ; And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol. BURNS. 359 Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: Their Parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide ; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. - From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad : Princes and lords are but -the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God;" And certes, in fair virtue's heav'nly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; "What is a lordling's pomp? A cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refin'd ! ) Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! And, O ! may heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted heart: ^ . Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride, ) 1 Or nobly die, the second glorious part, < j^"'' C*-^fPrie patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, On turning one down with the plough, in April, 1786. Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, Thou 's met me in an evil hour ; For I maun* crush amang the stouref * Must. t Dust. 360 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Thy slender stem: To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonnie gem. Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet ! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Upon thy early, humble birth ; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High shelt'ring woods and wa's* maun shield; But thou, beneath the random bield f O' clod or stane, Adorns the histiej stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in- thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise; But now the share 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 soil'd, is laid Low i' the dust. Such is the fate of simple bard, On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore, 'Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o'er! * Walls. t Shelter. % Dry or barren. BURNS. 361 Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, Who long with wants and woes has striv'n, By human pride or cunning driv'n To mis'ry's brink, 'Till wrenched of every 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 ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, 'Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom ! THE WHISTLE. " In the train of Anne of Denmark," says Burns, " when she came to Scotland with our James the Sixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on the table, and who- ever was the last able to blow it. everybody else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off' the whistle as a trophy of victory." The present contest took place in the dining-room of Friars-Carse, Burns being present as the judge. I sing of a whistle, a whistle of worth, I sing of a w T histle, the pride of the North, Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king, And long with this whistle all Scotland shall ring. Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal, The god of the bottle sends down from his hall " This whistle 's your challenge to Scotland get o'er, And drink them to hell, sir! or ne'er see me more!" Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell, What champions ventur'd, what champions fell; The son of great Loda was conqueror still, And blew on his whistle his requiem shrill. Till Robert, the Lord of the Cairn and the Scaur, Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war, He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea, No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd ; Which now in his house has for ages remain'd; Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood, The jovial contest again have renew'd. Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw ; Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law ; 31 362 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins ; And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines. Craigdarrqch began, with a tongue smooth as oil, Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil ; Or else he would muster the heads of the clan, And once more, in claret, try which was the man. " By the gods of the ancients ! " Glenriddel replies, "Before I surrender so glorious a prize, I '11 conjure the ghost of the great Rosie More, And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er." Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend, But he ne'er turn'd his back on his foe or his friend, Said, toss down the whistle, the prize of the field, And, knee-deep in claret, he'd die or he'd yield. To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; But for wine and for welcome not more known to fame Than the sense, wit, and taste of a sweet lovely dame. A bard was selected to witness the fray, And tell future ages the feats of the day ; A bard who detested all sadness and spleen, And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been. The dinner being over, the claret they ply, And ev'ry new cork is a new spring of joy ; In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set, And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet. Gay pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; Bright Phoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core, And vow'd that to leave them he was quite forlorn, Till Cynthia hinted he'd find them next morn. Six bottles a-piece had well worn out the night, When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight, Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red, And swore 'twas the way that their ancestor did. Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage, No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage ; A high-ruling Elder to wallow in wine! He left the foul business to folks less divine. BURNS. 363 The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end; But who can with fate and quart-bumpers contend ? Though fate said a hero shall perish in light; So up rose bright Phoebus and down fell the knight. Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink ; " Craigdarroch, thou 'It soar when creation shall sink ; But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme, Come one bottle more and have at the sublime! " Thy line, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce, Shall heroes and patriots ever produce: So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day ! " YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. " This song," says Burns, " alludes to a part of my private history, which it is of no consequence to the world to know." " Nannie " is likely the heroine. Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide, That nurse in their bosom the youth o' .the Clyde, Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the heather to feed, And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed.* Not Cowrie's rich valleys, nor Forth's sunny shores, To me hae the charms o' yon wild, mossy moors ; For there, by a lanely and sequester'd stream, Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. Amang thae wild mountains shall still by my path, Ilk f stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath ; J For there, wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove, While o'er us unheeded flee the swift hours o' love. She is not the fairest, altho' she is fair ; O' nice education but sma' is her share ; Her parentage humble as humble can be ; But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me. To beauty what man but maun $ yield him a prize, In her armor of glances, and blushes, and sighs? And when wit and refinement hae polished her darts, They dazzle OOT een as they flee to our hearts. But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling e'e, Has lustre outshining the diamond to me : * As written by Burns, the last two lines of each verse are repeated, f Each. t Bottom land or plain. \ Must. 364 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And the heart beating love as I'm clasp'd in her arms, O, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms ! WINTER: A DIRGE. This is one of Burns's earliest poems, and was written during the season it com memorates, "just after a train of misfortunes." The wintry west extends his blast, And hail and rain does blaw; Or the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw; While tumbling brown, the burn* comes down, And roars frae bank to brae; And bird and beast in eovert rest, And pass the heartless day. "The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," The joyless winter day Let others fear, to me more dear Than all the pride of May: The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join ; The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine! Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil, Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, Because they are Thy will ! Then all I want (0, do Thou grant This one request of mine!) Since to enjoy Thou dost deny, Assist me to resign! BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN.f Written in September, 1793. Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ; Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victorie! Now 's the day, and now 's the hour ; See the front o' battle lour: See approach proud Edward's pow'r Chains and slaverie! * A stream of water. f This is the poet's first and favorite version. BURNS. 365 Wha will be a traitor-knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa', Let him follow me! By oppression's woes and pains! By our sons in servile chains! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free! Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die. FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. Flow gently, sweet Afton ! among thy green braes, Flow gently, I '11 sing thee a song in thy praise : My Mary 's asleep by thy murmuring stream Flow glently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. Thou stock -dove, whose echo resounds thro' the glen ; Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yori 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 mark'd 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 evening weeps over the lea, The sweet-scented birk 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 flow'rets she stems thy clear wave. 31* 366 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 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. "The excellence of Burns is, indeed, among the rarest, whether in poetry or prose; but, at the same time, it is plain and easily recognized : his Sincerity, his indisputable air of Truth. Here are no fabulous woes or joys; no hollow fantastic sentimentalities; no wiredrawn refinings, either in thought or feeling: the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in his own understanding, and been a light to his own steps. He does not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience : it is the scenes he has lived and labored amidst, that he describes : those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in his soul, noble thoughts, and defi- nite resolves ; and he speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because his heart is too full to be silent. He speaks it, too, with such melody and modulation as he can; 'in homely rustic jingle;' but it is his own, and genuine. . . . " In addition to his sincerity, it has another peculiar merit. It displays itself in his choice of subjects, or rather in his indifference as to subjects, and the power he has of making all subjects inter- esting. . . . He shows himself at least a poet of Nature's own mak- ing; and Nature, after all, is still the grand agent in making poets. . . . Independently of this essential gift of poetic feeling, a certain rugged sterling worth pervades whatever Burns has written: a virtue, as of green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in his poetry ; it is redolent of natural life, and hardy, natural men. . . . We see in him the gentleness, the trembling pity of a woman, with the deep earnestness, the force and passionate ardor of a hero. Tears lie in him, and consuming fire; as lightning lurks in the drops of the summer cloud. . . . " And observe with what a prompt and eager force he grasps his subject, be it what it may ! ... Is it of reason ; some truth to be dis- covered? No sophistry, no vain surface logic detains him; quick, resolute, unerring, he pierces through into the marrow of the ques- tion ; and speaks his verdict with an emphasis that cannot be for- gotten. Is it of description ; some visual object to be represented? No poet of any age or nation is more graphic than Burns : the characteristic features disclose themselves to him at a glance; three lines from his hand, and we have a likeness. And, in that B URNS. 367 rough dialect, in that rude, often awkward metre, so clear, and definite a likeness ! "But, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift of Burns is fine as well as strong. The more delicate relations of things could not well have escaped his eye, for they were intimately present to his heart. . . . No one, at all events, is ignorant that in the poetry of Burns, keenness of insight keeps pace with keenness of feeling; that his light is not more pervading than his warmth. He is a man of the most impassioned temper ; with passions not strong only, but noble, and of the sort in which great virtues and great poems take their rise. It is reverence, it is Love towards all Nature that inspires him, that opens his eyes to its beauty, and makes heart and voice eloquent in its praise. . . . " By far the most finished, complete, and truly inspired pieces of Burns are, without dispute, to be found among his Songs. The reason may be, that Song is a brief and simple species of composi- tion ; and requires nothing so much for its perfection as genuine poetic feeling, genuine music of heart. . . . Independently of the clear, manly, heartfelt sentiment that ever pervades his poetry, his Songs are honest in another point of view : in form, as well as in spirit. They do not affect to be set to music, but they actually and in themselves are music; they have received their life, and fash- ioned themselves together, in the medium of Harmony, as Venus rose from the bosom of the sea. The story, the feeling, is not detailed, but suggested; not said, or spouted, in rhetorical com- pleteness and coherence; but sung, in fitful gushes, in glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in warblings not of the voice only, but of the whole mind. . . . "With what tenderness he sings, yet with what vehemence and entireness ! There is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy : he burns with the sternest ire, or laughs with the loudest or slyest mirth; and yet he is sweet and soft. If we further take into account the immense variety of his subjects; how, from the loud, flowing revel in Willie brew'd a peck "o Maut, to the still, rapt enthusiasm of sadness for Mary in Heaven; from the glad, kind greeting of Auld Langsyne, or the comic archness of Duncan Gray, to the fire-eyed fury of Scots, wha hae wV Wallace bled, he has found a tone and words for every mood of man's heart, it will seem a small praise if we rank him as first of all British song-writers."* * Carlyle in Edinburgh Review, 1828. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born November 10, 1728, at the hamlet of Pallas, Longford County, Ireland. His parents were respectable, but very poor. At the age of six he was placed in charge of the village school-master an old soldier and vagabond pedagogue, who fed the minds of his unruly pupils mainly on campaigning stories, fairy superstitions, and doggerel of his own making. Such a master was a godsend to young Goldsmith, to whom severe study was ever repugnant, but whose nature eagerly devoured and assimilated all that partook of the fabu- lous, the romantic, and the poetic. His career at several schools to which he was sent at a later date through the assistance of his uncle, John Goldsmith is thus described by one of his biographers.* " Even at these schools his proficiency does not appear to have been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, rather than dull, and, on the whole, appears to have been well thought of by his teachers. In his studies he inclined toward the Latin poets and historians ; relished Ovid and Horace, and delighted in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in reading and trans- lating Tacitus, and was brought to pay attention to style in his compositions by a reproof from his brother Henry, to whom he had written brief and confused letters, and who told him in reply, that, if he had but little to say, to endeavor to say that well." At length in 1745 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizer, or poor scholar. Here he spent about four years, prin- cipally in neglecting his studies, and in cultivating convivial habits. Leaving the college, he reluctantly consented to pre- pare himself for holy orders. The character of this preparation is sketched as follows by Irving. " During this loitering life * Washington Irving. 36S GOLDSMITH. 369 Goldsmith pursued no study, but rather amused himself with miscellaneous reading ; such as biography, travels, poetry, novels, plays everything, in short, that administered to the imagination. Sometimes he strolled along the banks of the river Inny ; where, in after years, when he had become famous, his favorite seats and haunts used to be pointed out. Often he joined in the rustic sports of the villagers, and became adroit at throwing the sledge, a favorite feat of activity and strength in Ireland." As the result of such a course of study he failed of ordination. After this, Goldsmith served for a short time as a tutor in a gentleman's family, and immediately upon canceling his engage- ment squandered his earnings in a journey to Cork. His friends next determined for our author seems ever to have been inca- pable of determining anything for himself that he should try the law ; but the fifty pounds wherewith his uncle supplied him for this purpose he lost in a gambling-house in Dublin. At the instance of Dean Goldsmith, another kinsman, he next essayed physic. Two years were spent in Edinburgh, and another at Ley den, on the Continent, in attendance upon medical lectures. But at this juncture, having spent for some costly tulip-roots, as a present for his generous uncle John, all the money he had borrowed for conveying him to Paris, where he intended to complete his medical studies, " he actually set off on a tour of the Continent, in February, 1755, with but one spare shirt, a flute, and a single guinea." Two years were thus consumed, during which he attended the chemical lectures of Kouelle at Paris, made the acquaintance of Voltaire, and traveled on foot through parts of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, procuring his beggarly subsistence prin- cipally by his indifferent skill upon the flute, and by disputations upon philosophy and literature at certain of the universities and convents. Returning to England, he at length, with great difficulty, found his way to London, where " we find him launched on the great metropolis, or rather, drifting about its streets, at night, in the gloomy month of February, with but a few half-pence in his pocket." Usher to a school, assistant in a laboratory, physi- Y 370 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. cian, proof-reader, school-master, these were the makeshifts by which poor Goldsmith barely kept himself alive for his first year in London. In 1757 Goldsmith assumed incredible as it may appear in view of the multifarious stations he had already flitted into and out of still another character that of a literary hack. This he began as a contributor to the " Monthly Review ; " and, as a scribbler for various periodicals, a compiler of works on history, literature, biography, and natural history, and a writer of prefaces, notes, and introductions, excepting, of course, those rare intervals of original authorship, protracted its killing drudgery to the day of his death. About 1760, Goldsmith became personally acquainted with Dr. Johnson, " The great Cham of Literature," in whom he found a most constant and valuable friend. These, together with Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent, Langton, Beauclerc, Chamier, and Hawkins, shortly afterward formed what subsequently became the famous Literary Club. Improved and stimulated by the society of such cultured and powerful minds, Goldsmith, in the moments of leisure that interspersed his hours of mercenary toil, converted his large experience of life into those charming and lasting compositions, whose famil- iarity might almost excuse their mention , the Vicar ofWakefield, the Traveler, the Deserted Village, and She Stoops to Conquer. " I received, one morning," says Dr. Johnson, " a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return ; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill." GOLDSMITH. 371 "This novel was the Vicar of Wakefield, which was not published, however, until two years after the above incident. It was rescued from its dusty imprisonment in the drawer of an unappreciative publisher, by the eclat resulting from the publication of the Trav- eler (1764). "The plan of the latter was conceived many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, and a sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry in Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a wider scope; but it was probably contracted through diffidence, in the process of finishing the parts. It had laid by him for several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesitation, and after much revision, that he at length sub- mitted it to Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter encouraged him to finish it for the press ; and Dr. Johnson himself contributed a few lines towards the conclusion."* At his summer retreat for the ^ear 1768 a little embowered cottage agreeably situated about eight miles from London, he composed the greater part of the Deserted Village, which was not published, however, until 1770. The characters and the scenery of this beautiful poem were all suggested by the personages, surround- ings, and incidents of his boyhood's home at Lissoy, his father and his brother alternately sitting for the picture of the pastor. The revenue arising from the publication of these works, although meager in any one instance, together with that derived from his numerous literary "jobs, "was considerable, at least enough, had it been economically managed, to have placed him in comfort- able circumstances during the latter part of his life ; but so im- pulsively generous was his nature, as well as improvident, that these hard-earned wages were no sooner got in hand, than thrown away either in sumptuous suppers or in the most indiscreet char- ities. Between merry " Clubs " and specious " Acquaintances " he was robbed, or rather robbed himself, not only of the comforts, but even of the necessaries of life. Health and its attendant, spirits, went along with his means, death shortly following these. He died April 4, 1774. From the many choice incidents that abound in the Vicar of Wakefield, we select the following: Whatever might have been Sophia's sensations, the rest of the family was easily consoled for Mr. Burchell's absence by the company of our landlord, whose visits now became more frequent and longer. He usually came in the morning, and while my son and I followed our occupation abroad, he sat with the family at home, and amused them by describing the town, * Biography of Goldsmith, by Washington Irving. 372 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. with every part of which he was particularly acquainted. He could repeat all the observations that were retailed in the atmosphere of the play-houses, and had all the good things of the high wits by rote, long before they made their way into the jest-books. The intervals between conversation were employed in teaching my daughters piquet, or sometimes in setting my two little ones to box, to make them sharp, as he called it : but the hopes of having him for a son-in-law, in some measure blinded us to all his imper- fections. It must be owned that my wife laid a thousand schemes to entrap him ; or, to speak more tenderly, used every art to magnify the merit of her daughter. If the cakes at tea ate short and crisp, they were made by Olivia ; if the gooseberry wine was well knit, the gooseberries were of her gathering ; it was her fingers which gave the pickles their peculiar green ; and in the composition of a pudding, it was her judgment that mixed the ingredients. Then the poor woman would sometimes tell the 'Squire, that she thought him and Olivia extremely of a size, and would bid both stand up to see which was the tallest. These instances of cunning, which she thought impenetrable, yet which everybody saw through, were very pleas- ing to our benefactor, who gave every day some new proofs of his passion, which, though they had not arisen "to proposals of marriage, yet we thought fell but little short of it ; and his slowness was attributed sometimes to native bashfulness, and sometimes to his fear of offending his uncle. An occur- rence, however, which happened soon after, put it beyond a doubt that he designed to become one of our family my wife even regarded it as an absolute promise. My wife and daughter happening to return a visit to neighbor Flambor- ough's, found that family had lately got their pictures drawn by a limner who traveled the country and took likenesses for fifteen shillings a head. As this family and ours had long a sort of rivalry in point of taste, our spirit took the alarm at this stolen march upon us, and notwithstanding all [ could say, and I said much, it was resolved that we should have pic- tures done too. Having, therefore, engaged the limner for what could I do ? our next deliberation was to show the superiority of our tastes in the attitudes. As for our neighbor's family, there were seven of them, and they were drawn with seven oranges, a thing quite out of taste, no variety in life, no composition in the world. We desired to have something in a brighter style, and, after many debates, at length came to an unanimous res- olution of being drawn together in one large historical family piece. This would be cheaper, since one fraftne would serve for all, and it would be infinitely more genteel ; for all families of any taste were now drawn in the same manner. As we did not immediately recollect an historical subject to hit us, we were contented each with being drawn as independent historical figures. My wife desired to be represented as Venus, and the painter was desired not to be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair. Her two little ones were to be as Cupids by her side, while I, in my gown and band, was to present her with my books on the Whist onian controversy. Olivia would be drawn as an Amazon sitting upon a bank of flowers, dressed in a green Joseph, richly laced with gold, and a whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing; and Moses was to be dressed out with a hat and white feather. Onr taste so much pleased the 'Squire, that he insisted as being put in as one of the familv in the character of Alexander the Great, at Olivia's feet. This GOLDSMITH. 373 was considered by us all as an indication of his desire to be introduced into the family, nor could we refuse his request. The painter was therefore set to work, and as he wrought with assiduity and expedition, in less than four days the whole was completed. The piece was large, and it must be owned he did not spare his colors ; for which my wife gave him great encomiums. We were all perfectly satisfied with his performance ; but an unfortunate circumstance had not occurred till the Eicture was finished, which now struck us with dismay. It was so very irge that we had no place in the house to fix it. How we all came to dis- regard so material a point is inconceivable ; but certain it is, we had been all greatly remiss. The picture, therefore, instead of gratifying our vanity, as we hoped, leaned, in a most mortifying manner, against the kitchen wall, where the canvas was stretched and painted, much too large to be got through any of the doors, and the jest of all our neighbors. One compared it to Kobinson Crusoe's long-boat, too large to be removed ; another thought it more resembled a reel in a bottle : some wondered how it could be got out, but still more were amazed how it ever got in. But though it excited the ridicule of some, it effectually raised more malicious suggestions in many. The 'Squire's portrait being found united with ours, was an honor too great to escape envy. Scandalous whispers began to circulate at our expense, and our tranquillity was continually dis- turbed by persons who came as friends to tell us what was said of us by enemies. These reports we always resented with becoming spirit; but scandal ever improves by opposition. We once again, therefore, entered into a consultation upon obviating the malice of our enemies, and at last came to a resolution which had too much cunning to give me entire satisfaction. It was this : as our principal object was to discover the honor of Mr. Thornhill's (the 'Squire) addresses, my wife undertook to sound him, by pretending to ask his advice in the choice of a husband for her eldest daughter. If this was not found sufficient to induce him to a declaration, it was then resolved to terrify him with a rival. To this last step, however, I would by no means give my consent, till Olivia gave me the most solemn assurances that she would marry the person pro- vided to rival him on this occasion, if he did not prevent it by taking her himself. Such was the scheme laid, which, though I did not strenuously oppose, I did not entirely approve. The next time, therefore, that Mr. Thornhill came to see us, my girls took care to be out of the way, in order to give their mamma an opportu- nity of putting her scheme into execution ; but they only retired to the next room, whence they could overhear the whole conversation. My wife artfully introduced it, by observing that one of the Miss Flamboroughs was like to have a good match of it in Mr. Spanker. To this the 'Squire assent- ing, she proceeded to remark, that they who had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands. " But heaven help," continued she, " the girls that have none. What signifies beauty, Mr. Thornhill ? or what sig- nifies all the virtue, and all the qualifications in the world, in this age of self-interest ? It is not, what is she ? but what has she ? is all the cry." " Madam," returned he, " I highly approve the justice, as well as the nov- elty of your remarks, and if I were a king, it should be otherwise. It should then, indeed, be fine times with the girls without fortunes : our two young ladies should be the first for whom I would provide." " Ah, sir," returned my wife, "you are pleased to be facetious: but I wish 32 374 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. I were a queen, and then I know where my eldest daughter should look for a husband, but now, that you have put it into my head, seriously, Mr. Thornhill, can't you recommend me a proper husband for her ? she is now nineteen years old, well grown and well educated, and, in my humble opinion, does not want for parts." " Madam," replied he, " if I were to choose, I would find out a person possessed of every accomplishment that can make an angel happy. One with prudence, fortune, taste, and sincerity ; such, madam, would be, in my opinion, the proper husband." " Ay, sir," said she, " but do you know of any such person?" "No, madam," returned he, "it is impossible to know any person who deserves to be her husband : she 's too great a treasure for one man's possession ; she 's a goddess ! Upon my soul, I speak what I think ; she 's an angel." " Ah, Mr. Thornhill, you only flatter my poor girl ; but we have been thinking of marrying her to one of your tenants whose mother is lately dead, and who wants a manager : you know whom I mean, Farmer Wil- liams ; a warm man, Mr. Thornhill, able to give her good bread ; and who has several times made her proposals (which was actually the case) : but, sir," concluded she, " I should be glad to have your approbation of our choice." " How ! madam ! " replied he, " my approbation ! My approbation of such a choice ! Never ! What ! sacrifice so much beauty, and sense, and goodness, to a creature insensible of the blessing ! Excuse me, I can never approve of such a piece of injustice ! And I have my reasons." " Indeed, sir," cried Deborah, "if you have your reasons^ that's another affair, but I should be glad to know those reasons." " Excuse me, madam," returned he, " they lie too deep for discovery (laying his hand upon his bosom) ; they remain buried, riveted here." . After he was gone, upon a general consultation, we could not tell what to make of these fine sentiments. Olivia considered them as instances of the most exalted passion ; but I was not quite so sanguine ; it seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them ; yet whatever they might portend, it was resolved to prosecute the scheme of Farmer Williams, who, from my daughter's first appearance in the coun- try, had paid her his addresses. Our remaining extracts are from the Deserted Village. Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheer'd the laboring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, And parting summer's ling'ring blooms delay'd: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endear'd each scene. How often have I paus'd on every charm, The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm, The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church that topt the neighboring hill, GOLDSMITH. 375 The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made! How often have I bless'd the coming day, When toil remitting lent its turn to play, And all the village train, from labor free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree, While many a pastime circled in the shade, The young contending as the old survey'd ; And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground, And sleights of art and feats of strength went round; And still as each repeated pleasure tir'd, Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir'd; The dancing pair that simply sought renown, By holding out to tire each other down ; The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter titter'd round the place; The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, The matron's glance that would those looks reprove. These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please: These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed, These were thy charms but all these charms are fled. Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green : One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain ; No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But, chok'd with sedges, works its weary way ; Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall, And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away, thy children leave the land. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied. 376 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiPd, And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place ; Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour; For other aims his heart had learnt to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain ; The long-remember'd beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd ; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away ; Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side ; But in his duty prompt at every call, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all ; And, as a bird each fond endearment tries, To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, The reverend champion stood. At his control, Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; GOLDSMITH. 377 Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distrest ; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school: A man severe he was, and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew ; Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; Full well the busy whisper circling round Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd: Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declar'd how much he knew, 'T was certain he could write, and cypher too ; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge : In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill, For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still ; While words of learned length, and thund'ring sound, Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around ; And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew, That one small head could carry all he knew. # -::- -::- * * * * Ye friends to trt.th, ye statesmen who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 'T is yours to judge, how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting folly haily them from her shore; 32* 378 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound, And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name, That leaves our useful products still the same. Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds : The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth ; His seat, where solitary sports are seen, Indignant spurns the cottage from the green; Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies. While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure all, In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes; But when those charms aro past, for charms are frail, When time advances, and when lovers fail, She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress. Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd ; In nature's simplest charms at first array'd, But verging to decline, its splendors rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; While, scourg'd by famine from the smiling land, The mournful peasant leads his humble band; And while he sinks, without one arm to save, The country blooms a garden, and a grave. * * -x- * * -x- Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That call'd them from their native walks away; When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last, And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain For seats like these beyond the western main; And shuddering still to face the distant deep, Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep. The good old sire, the first prepar'd to go To new-found worlds, and wept for other's woe ; But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave. GOLDSMITH. 379 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, The fond companion of his helpless years, Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, And left a lover's for her father's arms. With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, And blest the cot where every pleasure rose, And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear, And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear ; Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief In all the silent manliness of grief. As a writer of light drama Goldsmith is pronouncedly amusing decidedly laughter-provoking. His plots are usually strained and unnatural, and his characters are eccentrics rather than normal men and women ; but there are always present in his plays all those ingenious contrivances of situation, of individual action, and of dialogue, that constitute stage effect. His prose writings are admirable condensations of the subject they treat of. They are undoubtedly superficial, uncritical, and inaccurate, but they never lack attractiveness. Dr. Johnson's pre- diction concerning Goldsmith, to wit, " He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as agreeable as a Persian tale," was veri- fied to the letter. In fiction Goldsmith was a master of the art of delineating the amiable weaknesses and foibles of human nature. Though his satire bore a stinging rod in its right hand, its eyes were ever moist with sympathetic tears. The characteristics of his poetry were simplicity, chasteness and sweetness of sentiment, selectness of expression, a most musical versification, vivid description of natural scenery, and an earnest, moral purpose. " Goldsmith, both in verse and prose, was one of the most delight- ful writers in the language. His verse flows like a limpid stream. His ease is quite unconscious. Everything in him is spontaneous, unstudied, unaffected ; yet elegant, harmonious, graceful, and nearly faultless As a poet, he is the most flowing and elegant of our versifiers since Pope, with traits of artless nature which Pope had not, and with a peculiar felicity in his turns upon words, which he constantly repeated with delightful effect." * * Essays by William Hazlitt. THOMAS GRAY. THOMAS GRAY was born in Cornhill, December 26, 1716. He was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, graduating at the latter in 1738. From his letters written while at college, we learn that he neglected mathematical studies for poetry, classi- cal literature, modern languages, history, and polite learning generally. Shortly after completing his studies, upon the invitation of Horace Walpole, whose acquaintance he made at Eton, Gray succeeded in gratifying his observing and inquisitive mind, and his aesthetic tastes, by an extensive tour through the most inter- esting parts of France and Italy. Works of art, marvels ir architecture, music, foreign languages, manners, and customs, all became ministers to his susceptible and assimilating nature, informing his mind, enriching his fancy, and educating his tastes. His beautiful Alcaic Ode was composed during these travels. On his return home, Gray again took up his residence at Cambridge, with the professed intention of studying law. For this study, however, he manifested no natural liking or aptness; and accordingly we find him employing his mind mainly in the perusal of the classic authors, in making translations from them, and in composing Latin epistles, Greek epigrams, and English odes. It was not until 1747 that Gray first ventured before the pub- lic as an author, when he published the Ode on a Distant Pros- pect of Eton College. The study of Greek literature seems' to have engrossed his attention for the next two years ; when he finished what had been commenced a number of years before, and what has immortalized his name the Elegy Written in a Coun- try Churchyard. In 1757, we find Gray arrived in London for the purpose of publishing his Odes The Bard, The Progress of Poesy, and several others. 380 GRAY. 381 Upon the death of Gibber, Poet-Laureate, the laureateship was offered to Gray ; but he declined it for the following reasons : "The office itself," said he, " has always humbled the possessor hitherto : if he were a poor writer, by making him more con- spicuous ; and if he were a good one, by setting him at war with the little fry of his own profession ; for there are poets little enough, even to envy a poet-laureate." In 1768, Gray had bestowed upon him by the Duke of Grafton the Professorship of Modern History in the University ; and the next year, when his patron was elected to the chancellorship, he celebrated the event by a fine Ode, which was set to music. When we add that his quiet and studious life of the next few years was varied by occasional visits of recreation to his friends in various rural parts of England and Scotland, and that he described some of these in very interesting and graphic Letters, we have completed the comparatively uneventful story of our poet's career. He died July 30, 1771. " Perhaps." wrote the Rev. Mr. Temple, " Gray was the most learned man in Europe : he was equally acquainted with the ele- gant and profound parts of science, and that, not superficially, but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England, France, and Italy ; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his study. Voyages and Travels of all sorts were his favorite amusements ; and he had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening." As our sole specimen of Gray's poetry, we present what has been called by Hazlitt " one of the most classical productions that ever was penned by a refined and thoughtful mind, moralizing on human life ; " the ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: 382 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bow'r, Molest her ancient, solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mold'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flatt'ry soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre : GRAY. 383 But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Kich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd ; Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quenx-h the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray ; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply : And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb forgetful ness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? 384 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonor'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, " Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn : "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree ; Another came ; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he : " The next, with dirges due in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne : Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown : Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send ; He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear, He gained from heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frail lie;-; from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. GRAY. 385 " Of all English poets Gray was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetical style seems to be capable. If Virgil and his scholar Racine may be allowed to have united somewhat more ease with their elegance, no other poet approaches Gray in this kind of excellence. The degree of poetical invention diffused over such a style, the balance of taste and of fancy necessary to produce it, and the art with which the offensive boldness of imagery is polished away, are not indeed always perceptible to the common reader, nor do they convey to any mind the same species of gratification which is felt from the perusal of those poems which seem to be the unpremeditated effusions of enthusiasm. But to the eye of the critic, and more especially to the artist, they afford a new kind of pleasure, not incompatible with 'a distinct perception of the art employed, and somewhat similar to the grand emotions excited by the reflection on the skill and toil exerted in the construction of a magnificent palace. They can only be classed among the secondary pleasures of poetry, but they never can exist without a great degree of its higher excellencies. " Almost all his poetry was lyrical that species which, issuing from a mind in the highest state of excitement, requires an inten- sity of feeling which, for a long composition, the genius of no poet could support. Those who complained of its brevity and its rapid- ity, only confessed their own inability to follow the movements of poetical inspiration. Of the two grand attributes of the Ode, Dry- den had displayed the enthusiasm, Gray exhibited the magnifi- cence. He is also the only modern English writer whose Latin Verses deserve general notice, but we must lament that such diffi- cult trifles had diverted his genius from its natural objects. In his Letters he has shown the descriptive power of a poet, and in new combinations of generally familiar words, which he seems to have caught from Madame de Sevigne (though it must be said he was somewhat quaint), he was eminently happy. It may be added, that he deserves the comparatively trifling praise of having been the most learned poet since Milton."* * Sketch of Gray's poetical character by Sir James Mackintosh. 33 Z JAMES THOMSON. JAMES THOMSON was born at Ednam, Roxburghshire, Scotland, September 11, 1700. The first three years of his schooling were passed at the grammar-school in Jedburgh, whither he was sent at the age of twelve. In 1715 he repaired to the University of Edinburgh, and there completed his course, with the intention of entering the ministry. But the five ensuing years of prepara- tion that were gone through with as a student of divinity availed nothing for accomplishing the intended object ; for the next year (1725) we find Thomson in London, penniless, and all but friend- less, nevertheless confident that work and glory awaited him in the metropolis. In a little room over the shop of one Millan, a bookseller, he completed, in 1726, Winter, his first poem, and sold it to his down-stairs neighbor for the suta. of three guineas. It was some- time before even this paltry sum was shown not to have been an injudicious investment on the part of Mr. Millan. Accident bringing the poem into a fair circulation, however, it was fol- lowed the next year by Summer, and this, in 1728, by Spring. As an indication of Thomson's advancing favor in the estimation of that least flattering class of critics the publishers it should be stated that he received fifty guineas for Spring. In 1729 he produced Britannia, which, after enjoying a brief popularity, fell into a state of extraordinary neglect. Hoping to secure both greater profit and fame by writing for the stage, he brought out in 1730 the tragedy of Sophonisla. Aristocratic patronage temporarity insured it a flattering success, but when this was withheld the play soon dropped out of public favor. Autumn now (1730) made its appearance in company with its predecessors of a similar character, the four being styled the /Seasons. " Thomson was at the height of his fame. Five years before he was a stranger in the thoroughfares of the great soli- 386 THOMSON. 387 tude ; and now, having successfully accomplished the work which first introduced him to notice, few amongst his contemporaries could boast so brilliant a catalogue of friends and patrons."* Through the kindness of one of these patrons, he was enabled to spend about a year visiting points of interest on the Conti- nent. The fruits of his political observations during this tour were presented in 1735-36 in his poem of Liberty. "Liberty" says Dr. Johnson, " called in vain upon her votaries to read her praises, and reward her encomiast : her praises were condemned to harbor spiders and to gather dust : none of Thomson's per- formances were so little regarded." Between the years 1738 and 1745, our poet produced his tragedies of Agamemnon, Edward and Eleanor a, and Tancred and Sigismunda ; the last of which is regarded as the best, though none of them ever proved successful as plays. The Castle of Indolence, which had occupied his muse at intervals for some fifteen years, was published in 1748. " It originally consisted of merely a few disconnected stanzas, intended to ridicule in some of his friends the love of idleness with which they were in the habit of charging him ; but the personal raillery gradually expanded into a moral lesson, until the poem at last grew to its present dimensions." * Thomson's tragedy of Coriolanus was not published until after his death, which event occurred August 27, 1748. EXTRACT FROM SPRING. From the moist meadow to the withered hill, Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs ; And swells, and deepens, to the cherished eye. The hawthorn whitens ; and the juicy groves Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed, In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales ; Where the deer rustle through the twining brake, And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed In all the colors of the flushing year By Nature's swift and secret working hand, The garden glows, and fills the liberal air With lavish fragrance; while the promised fruit * Memoir by Robert Bell. 388 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Lies like a little embryo, unperceived, Within its crimson folds. Now from the town, Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps, Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, Where freshness breathes; and dash the trembling drops From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk; Or taste the smell of daisy; or ascend Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains, And see the country, far diffused around, One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower Of mingled blossoms : where the raptured eye Hurries from joy to joy ; and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies. * * * * # * When first the soul of love is sent abroad, Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin, In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing; And try again the long-forgotten strain, At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows The soft infusion prevalent, and wide, Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows In music unconfined. Up springs the lark, Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn : Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads .Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush, And woodlark, o'er the kind-contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake ; The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove; Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Poured out profusely, silent; joined to these Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, THOMSON. 389 And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, Aid the full concert; while the stockdove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole. EXTRACT FROM SUMMER. 'T is raging noon ; and, vertical, the sun Darts on the head direct his forceful rays. O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns ; and all From pole to pole, is undistinguished blaze. In vain the sight, dejected to the ground, Stoops for relief; thence hot-ascending steams And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root Of vegetation parched, the cleaving fields And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose, Blast fancy's bloom, and wither even the soul. Echo no more returns the cheerful sound Of sharpening scythe; the mower, sinking, heaps O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed ; And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants. The very streams look languid from afar; Or, through the unsheltered glade, impatient, seem To hurl into the covert of the grove Welcome, ye shades ! ye bowery thickets, hail ! Ye lofty pines ! ye venerable oaks ! Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep ! Delicious is your shelter to the soul, As to the hunted hart the sallying spring, Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink. Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides ; The heart beats glad; the fresh expanded eye And ear resume their watch ; the sinews knit ; And life shoots swift through all the lightened limbs. Around the adjoining brook that purls along The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock, Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool, Now starting to a sudden stream, and now Gently diffused into a limpid plain, A various group the herds and flocks compose, Rural confusion!" On the grassy bank Some ruminating lie; while others stand Half in the flood, and often bending sip 33* 390 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The circling surface. In the middle droops The strong laborious ox, of honest front, Which incomposed he shakes ; and from his sides The troublous insects lashes with his tail, Returning still. Amid his subjects safe, Slumbers the monarch-swain; his careless arm Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustained; Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands filled ; There, listening every noise, his watchful dog. EXTRACT FROM AUTUMN. But see the fading many-colored -woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown ; a crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun, Of every hue from wan declining green To sooty dark. There now the lonesome muse, Low -whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks ; And give the Season in its latest view. Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm Fleeces unbounded ether ; whose least wave Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn The gentle current ; while, illumined wide, The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun, And through their lucid veil his softened force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd, And soar above this little scene of things ; To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet, To soothe the throbbing passions into peace, And woo lone quiet in her silent walks. Thus solitary, and in pensive guise, Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead, And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil. Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse ; While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late Swelled all the music of the swarming shades, Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock ! With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And nought save chattering discord in their note. THOMSON. 391 Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy ; and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes, a miserable prey, In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground ! The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires ; for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove Oft startling such as, studious, walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air. But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams ; Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower, The forest- walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide he withered waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields ; And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign. Even what remained Of bolder fruits falls from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around The desolated prospect thrills the soul. EXTRACT FROM WINTER. The keener tempests come: and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along ; And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends, At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter-robe of purest white. 'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melth Along the mazy current. Low, the woods Bow their hoar head ; and, ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening ray, Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. 392 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats ; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth ; then, hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet. The floodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snarer, and dogs, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the black heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair ; then, sad dispersed, Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow. And now we present, entire, the Hymn, which supplemented the foregoing poems upon their joint appearance as the Seasons : A HYMN. These, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart, is joy. Then comes Thy glory in the Summer^ months, With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year; \ And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter, awful Thou ! with clouds and storms THOMSON. 393 Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled, Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore, And humblest Nature with Thy northern blast. Mysterious round ! what skill, what force divine, Deep felt, in these appear ! a simple train, Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined ; Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade ; And all so forming an harmonious whole ; That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand, That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; Works in the secret deep ; shoots, steaming, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring ; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life. Nature, attend ! join every living soul, Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join ; and, ardent, raise Ope general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes: Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms! Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. And ye, whose bolder . note is heard afar, Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound ; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him ; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, 394 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams, Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. Great source of day! best image here below Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, From world to world, the vital ocean round, On Nature write with every beam His praise. The thunder rolls : be hushed the prostrate world ; While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. Bleat out afresh, ye hills ; ye mossy rocks, Retain the sound: the broad responsive low, Ye valleys, raise ; for the Great Shepherd reigns ; And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands all, awake : a boundless song Burst from the groves ; and when the restless day, Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds ! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, Crown the great hymn ! in swarming cities vast, Assembled men, to the deep organ join The long-resounding voice, oft-breaking clear, At solemn pauses, through the swelling base ; And, as each mingling flame increases each, In one united ardor rise to heaven. Or if you rather choose the rural shade, And find a fane in every sacred grove; There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the Summer-ray Eussets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, Or Winter rises in the blackening earth, Be my tongue mute my fancy paint no more, And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat ! Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Eivers unknown to song where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles 'tis nought to me: THOMSON. 395 Since God is ever present, ever felt, In the void waste as in the city full ; And where He vital spreads there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey ; there, with new powers, Will rising wonders sing; I cannot go Where Universal Love not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons ; From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in Him, in light ineffable ! Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise. From The Castle of Indolence, we cite the following verses, descriptive of THE CASTLE. The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell, Ne cursed knocker plied by villain's hand, Self-opened into halls, where, who can tell What elegance and grandeur wide expand ; The pride of Turkey and of Persia land? Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread, And couches stretched around in seemly band ; And endless pillows rise to prop the head; So that each spacious room was one full-swelling bed; And everywhere huge covered tables stood, With wines high-flavored and rich viands crowned: Whatever sprightly juice or tasteful food On the green bosom of this earth are found, And all ocean 'genders in his round, Some hand unseen then silently displayed, Even undemanded by a sign or sound; You need but wish, and, instantly obeyed, Fair ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses played. Here freedom reigned, without the least alloy ; Nor gossip's tale, nor ancient maiden's gall, Nor saintly spleen, durst murmur at our joy, And with envenomed tongue our pleasures pall. For why? there was but one great rule for all; To wit, that each should work his own desire, And eat, drink, study, sleep, as it may fall, 396 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Or melt the time in love, or wake the lyre, And carol what, unbid, the muses might inspire. The rooms with costly tapestry were hung, Where was inwoven many a gentle tale, Such as of old the rural poets sung, Or of Arcadian or Sicilian vale; Reclining lovers, in the lonely dale, Poured forth at large the sweetly tortured heart ; Or, sighing tender passion, swelled the gale, And taught charmed echo to resound their smart ; While flocks, woods, streams around, repose, and peace impart. Each sound, too, here to languishment inclined, Lulled the weak bosom, and induced ease ; Aerial music in the warbling wind, At distance rising oft, by small degrees, Nearer and nearer came, till o'er the trees It hung, and breathed such soul-dissolving airs, As did, alas ! with soft perdition please : Entangled deep in its enchanting snares, The listening heart forgot all duties and all cares. A certain music, never known before, Here lulled the pensive, melancholy mind ; Full easily obtained. Behoves no more, But sidelong, to the gently waving wind, To lay the well tuned instrument reclined ; From which, with airy flying fingers light, Beyond each mortal touch the most refined, The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight: Whence, with just cause, the harp of Aeolus it hight. Ah, me! what hand can touch the string so fine, Who up the lofty diapason roll Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, Then let them down again into the soul! Now rising love they fanned ; now pleasing dole They breathed, in tender musings through the heart ; And now a graver sacred strain they stole, As when seraphic hands a hymn impart : Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art ! Near the pavilions where we slept, still ran Soft tinkling streams, and dashing waters fell, And sobbing breezes sighed, and oft began (So worked the wizard) wintry storms to swell, As heaven and earth they would together mell ; THOMSON. 397 At doors and windows, threatening, seemed to call The demons of the tempest, growling fell, Yet the least entrance found they none at all : Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy hall. And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams, Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace; O'er which were shadowy cast elysian gleams, That played, in waving lights, from place to place, And shed a roseate smile on Nature's face. Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array, So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space; Ne could it e'er such melting forms display, As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay. " As a writer, Thomson is entitled to one praise of the highest kind : his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet ; the eye that distinguishes, in everything presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that once- comprehends the vast and attends to the minute. "His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the splendor of Summer, the tran- quillity of Autumn, and the horror of Winter, take in their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his sentiments. " His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his images and thoughts ' both their lustre and their shade ; ' such as invest them with splendor, through which perhaps they are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may be_charged with filling the ear more than the mind."* * Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Most Eminent English Pods. 34 ALEXANDER POPE. ALEXANDER POPE was born on or about the 21st of May, 1688, in Lombard street, London. At the age of eight he began learning the rudiments of Greek and Latin under the care of the family priest, and afterwards further pursued his studies at the Catholic seminary at Twyford, and at a school in London. On the removal of his father to Binfield, in Windsor Forest, our poet, though but twelve years old, resolved on thoroughly educating himself. To this object he devoted most unremit- tingly the next seven or eight years of his life ; rendering into English various interesting compositions of the leading Greek, Latin, and French poets and prose-writers ; studying Tasso and Ariosto through approved translations, and reading and mem- orizing the best parts of Spenser, Waller, and Dryden. Pope began writing verses at a very early age, one of his first effusions, the Ode to Solitude, having been composed when he was about twelve years old. When between thirteen and fif- teen he wrote an epic called Alcander, consisting of four books, of a thousand lines each, in which he imitated the styles of all his favorite poets Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statius, Virgil, Homer. His Pastorate were written at sixteen, though their publication was delayed for several years ; and his Essay on Criticism ap- peared when he was only twenty-one. Hazlitt pronounces the latter "a double-refined essence of wit and' sense," and adds, " the quantity of thought and observation in this work, for so young a man as Pope was when he wrote it, is wonderful : unless we adopt the supposition that most men of genius spend the rest of their lives in teaching others what they themselves have learned under twenty. The conciseness and felicity of the expression are equally remarkable." " The stealing of Miss Belle Fermor's hair by Lord Petre," says Pope, " was taken too seriously, and caused an estrange- 398 POPE. 399 ment between the two families, though they had lived so long in great friendship before. A common acquaintance, and well- wisher to both, desired me to write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again. It was with this view that I wrote the Rape of the Lock, which was well received, and had its effect in the two families." It was published anonymously in 1711, and at that time consisted of only 350 lines ; but it was afterwards (1714) amplified to double that length, and was em- bellished with the machinery of the Sylphs. Hazlitt says of this poem : " It is the most exquisite specimen of fillagree work ever invented. It is admirable in proportion as it is made of nothing. It is made of gauze and silver span- gles. The most glittering appearance is given to everything, to paste, pomatum, billet-doux, and patches. Airs, languid airs breathe around; the atmosphere is perfumed with affectation. A toilette is described with the solemnity of an altar raised to the goddess of vanity, and the history of a silver bodkin is given with all the pomp of heraldry. No pains are spared, no profusion of ornament, no splendor of poetic diction, to set off the meanest, things. You hardly know whether to laugh or to weep. It is the triumph of insignificance, the apotheosis of foppery and folly. It is the perfection of the mock heroic." The Messiah, The Dying Christian to his Soul, and The Temple of Fame first appeared in 1712, and also, about the same year, the Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. The next year was signalized by the publication of Windsor Forest and the Ode on St. Cecilia s Day. The translation of Homer's Iliad next engaged Pope's energies. He says of it : u The Iliad took me up six years; and during that time, and particularly the first part of it, I was often under great pain and apprehension. Though I conquered the thoughts of it in the day, they would frighten me in the night. When I fell into the method of translating thirty or forty verses before I got up, and piddled with it the rest of the morning, it went on easy enough ; and when I was thoroughly got into the way of it, I did the rest with pleasure." In 1715 Pope induced his parents to sell their property at Binfield and remove with him to Twickenham. Here he pur- chased a delightful villa on the banks of the Thames, where he 400 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. resided during the rest of his life. A collection of his miscel- laneous poems was brought out in 1717, containing, among others, his fine and eloquent verses entitled Eloisa to Abelard. Pope's next achievement was the translation of Homer's Odyssey, which was given to the public in the years 1725-26. Four of the books the 1st, 4th, 19th, and 20th were trans- lated by Fenton ; eight the 2d, 6th, 8th, llth, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23d by Broome, and the remaining twelve by Pope him- self. The Dunciad a withering satire, directed against his many and virulent traducers, was published in its first perfect form in 1729. Of Pope's various Essays, the most celebrated is the Essay on Man. It was issued in four separate epistles, the first of which appeared in 1732. The Universal Prayer followed in 1738. limitations of the Epistles and Satires of Horace and of Donne, Epitaphs, Epistles, and Miscellanies filled up the remaining years of our poet's life a life which, always frail and full of pain, closed May 30, 1744. Pope's acquaintance with the prominent men of his time, political as well as literary, was extensive ; Sir Wm. Trumbull, Earl of Halifax, Wycherley, Addison, Steele, Gay, Tickell, Swift, Parnell, Arbuthnot, Atterbury, Harley, Lord Boling- broke, Congreve, Walpole, the painter Jervas, and others scarcely less noted, being among the choicest of his friends. Of his lady friends, Martha and Teresa Blount and Lady Mon- tague were the most intimate. MESSIAH, A SACRED ECLOGUE: IN IMITATION OP VIRGIL'S POLLIO. Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong. The mossy fountains, and the silvan shades, The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids, Delight no more O Thou my voice inspire Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire! Rapt into future times, the bard begun : A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son ! From Jesse's root behold a branch arise, Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies: The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move, And on its top descends the mystic dove. POPE. 401 Ye heavens ! from high the dewy nectar pour, And in soft silence shed the kindly shower ! The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid, From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade. All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail ; Returning Justice lift aloft- her scale ; Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn ! Oh, spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born ! See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring, With/ all the incense of the breathing spring: See lofty Lebanon his head advance, See nodding forests on the mountains dance: See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise, And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies ! Hark ! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers ; Prepare the way ! a God, a God appears ; A God, a God ! the vocal hills reply, The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity. Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies ! Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys, rise; With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay ; Be smooth, ye rocks ; ye rapid floods, give way ; The Saviour comes ! by ancient bards foretold ! Hear him, ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold ! He from thick films shall purge the visual ray, And on the sightless eyeball pour the day: 'Tis he the obstructed paths of sound shall clear, And bid new music charm the unfolding ear: The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego, And leap exulting like the bounding roe. No sigh, no murmur the wide world shall hear, From every face he wipes off every tear. In adamantine chains shall Death be bound, And Hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound. As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care, Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air, Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs, By day o'ersees them, and by night protects, The tender lambs he raises in his arms, Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms; Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage, The promised Father of the future age. No more shall nation against nation rise, Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes, 34* 2A 402 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er, The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more; But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end. Then palaces shall rise ; the joyful son Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun; Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field. The swain, in barren deserts with surprise See lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise ; And start, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear New falls of water murmuring in his ear. On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods. Waste sandy valleys, once perplex VI with thorn, The spiry fir and shapely box adorn ; To leafless shrubs the flowering palms succeed, And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed. The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead ; The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk and speckled snake, Pleased the green lustre of the scales survey, And with their forky tongue shall innocently play. Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise! Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes ! See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn ; See future sons, and daughters yet unborn, In crowding ranks on every side arise, Demanding life, impatient for the skies! See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ; See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings, And heap'd with products of Sabean springs, For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. See heaven its sparkling portals wide display, And break upon thee in n flood of day. No more the rising sun shall gild the morn, Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn; But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze O'erflow thy courts; the Light himself shall shine Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine! POPE. 403 The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away ; But fix'd his word, his saving power remains ; Thy realm forever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns! From The Rape of the Lock, we select Canto Third. Close by those meads, forever crown'd with flowers, Where Thames with pride surveys his rising towers, There stands a structure of majestic frame, Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name. Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home ; Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea. Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a court; In various talk the instructive hours they pass'd Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last ; One speaks the glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen ; A third interprets motions, looks, and ey* 2K 546 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, Where joy forever dwells ! Hail, horrors ; hail, Infernal world ! and thou, profoundest hell, Receive thy new possessor; one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be; all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free ; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy; will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure; and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell : Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. BOOK V. Beginning with 136th line. SCENE Paradise ; ADAM and EVE the speakers. So all was cleared, and to the field they haste. But first, from under shady arborous roof Soon as they forth were come to open sight Of day-spring and the sun, who, scarce uprisen > With wheels yet hovering o'er the ocean-brim, Shot parallel to the earth his dewy ray, Discovering in wide landskip all the east Of Paradise and Eden's happy plains, Lowly they bow'd adoring, and began Their orisons, each morning duly paid In various style ; for neither various style Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced, or sung Unmeditated ; such prompt eloquence Flow'd from their lips, in prose or numerous verse, More tuneable than needed lute to harp To add more sweetness ; and they thus began : These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty! thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair ; thyself how wondrous then ! Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light, Angels ; for ye behold him, and with songs MILTON. 547 And choral symphonies, day without night, Circle his throne rejoicing: ye in heaven; On earth join all ye creatures to extol Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet; praise him in thy sphere While day arises, that sweet hour of prime. Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul, Acknowledge him thy greater ; sound his praise In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st, And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thou fall'st. Moon, that meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st, With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies ; And ye five other wandering fires, that move In mystic dance not without song, resound His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light. Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change Vary to our great Maker still new praise. Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray, Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold, In honor to the world's great Author rise ; Whether to deck with clouds the uncolor'd sky, Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers, Rising or falling still advance his praise. His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye pines, With every plant, in sign of worship wave. Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. Join voices, all ye living souls : ye birds, That singing up to heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep ; Witness if I be silent, morn or even, To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade, Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise. Hail, universal Lord ! be bounteous still To give us only good ; and if the night Have gather'd ought of evil or conceal'd, Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark. MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. BOOK VI. Beginning with line 189. Descriptive of the combat between ABDIEL and SATAN. A noble stroke he lifted high, Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight, Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield, Such ruin intercept; ten paces huge He back recoil'd; the tenth on bended knee His massy spear upstay'd : as if on earth Winds under ground, or waters forcing way, Sidelong had push'd a mountain from his seat, Half sunk with all his pines. Amazement seized The rebel thrones, but greater rage, to see Thus foil'd their mightiest ; ours joy fill'd, and shout Presage of victory, and fierce desire Of battle: whereat Michael bid sound The archangel trumpet : through the vast of heaven It sounded, and the faithful armies rung Hosanna to the Highest: nor stood at gaze The adverse legions, nor less hideous join'd The horrid shock. Now storming fury rose, And clamor such as heard in heaven till now Was never; arms on armor clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots raged : dire was the noise Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew, And flying vaulted either host with fire. So under fiery cope together rush'd Both battle's main with ruinous assault And inextinguishable rage. All heaven Resounded ; and had earth been then, all earth Had to her center shook. What wonder? when Millions of fierce encountering angels fought On either side, the least of whom could wield These elements, and arm him with the force Of all their regions ; how much more of power Army against army numberless to raise Dreadful combustion warring ; and disturb, Though not destroy, their happy native seat : Had not the eternal King omnipotent, From his strong hold of heaven, high overruled And limited their might. . . . Long time in even scale The battle hung ; till Satan, who that day MILTON. 549 Prodigious power had shown, and met in arms No equal, ranging through the dire attack Of fighting seraphim confused, at length Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and felPd Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway Brandish'd aloft, the horrid edge came down Wide-wasting: such destruction to withstand He hasted, and opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield, A vast circumference. At his approach, The great archangel from his warlike toil Surceased ; and glad, as hoping here to end Intestine war in heaven, the arch-foe subdued Or captive dragg'd in chains Now waved their fiery swords, and in the air Made horrid circles ; two broad suns their shields Blazed opposite, while expectation stood In horror : from each hand with speed retired, Where erst was thickest fight, the angelic throng, And left large field, unsafe within the wind Of such commotion ; such as, to set forth Great things by small, if, nature's concord broke, Among the constellations war were sprung, Two planets, rushing from aspect malign Of fiercest opposition, in mid sky Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound. Together both, with next to Almighty arm Uplifted eminent, one stroke they aim'd That might determine, and not need repeat, As not of power at once ; nor odds appeas'd In might or swift prevention : but the sword Of Michael from the armory of God Was given him temper'd so, that neither keen Nor solid might resist that edge: it met The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite Descending, and in half cut sheer ; nor stay'd, But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared All his right side. Then Satan first knew pain, And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore The grinding sword with discontinuous wound Pass'd through him: but the ethereal substance closed, Not long divisible ; and from the gash A stream of nectarous humor issuing flow'd Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed, 550 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And all his armor stain'd, erewhile so bright. Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run By angels many and strong, who interposed Defence: while others bore him on their shields Back to his chariot, where it stood retired From off the files of war: there they him laid Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame, To find himself not matchless, and his pride Humbled by such rebuke ; so far beneath His confidence to equal God in power. Yet soon he heal'd ; for spirits that live throughout Vital in every part, not as frail man In entrails, heart or head, liver or veins, Cannot but by annihilation die ; Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound Receive, no more than can the fluid air: All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, All intellect, all sense ; and, as they please, They limb themselves, and color, shape, or size Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare. The Son of God himself now enters upon the sc'ene of action. He, o'er his sceptre bowing, rose From the right hand of Glory where he sat ; And the third sacred morn began to shine, Dawning through heaven : forth rush'd with whirlwind sound The chariot of paternal Deity, Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn, Itself instinct with spirit, but convoy'd By four cherubic shapes ; four faces each Had wondrous ; as with stars, their bodies all And wings were set with eyes ; with eyes the wheels Of beryl, and careering fires between ; Over their heads a crystal firmament, Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure Amber, and colors of the showery arch. He, in celestial panoply all arm'd Of radiant Urim, work divinely .wrought, Ascended ; at his right hand Victory Sat eagle-wing'd ; beside him hung his bow And quiver with three-bolted thunder stored; And from about him fierce effusion roll'd Of smoke, and bickering flame, and sparkles dire. MILTON. 551 Attended with ten thousand thousand saints, He onward came; far off his coming shone: And twenty thousand (I their number heard) Chariots of God, half on each hand were seen, He on the wings of cherub rode sublime On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned, Illustrious far and wide; but by his own First seen; them unexpected joy surprised, When the great ensign of Messiah blazed Aloft by angels "borne, his sign in heaven ; Under whose conduct Michael soon reduced His army, circumfused on either wing, Under their Head imbodied all in one. Before him Power Divine his way prepared: At his command the uprooted hills retired Each to his place; they heard his vt)ice and went Obsequious: heaven his wonted face renew'd, And with fresh flowerets hill and valley smiled. #*.#.*.*,* At once the Four spread out their starry wings With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs Of his fierce chariot roll'd as with the sound Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host, He on his impious foes right onward drove, Gloomy as night; under his burning wheels The stedfast empyrean shook throughout, All but the throne itself of God. Full soon Among them he arrived ; in his right hand Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent Before him, such as in their souls infix'd Plagues : they, astonish'd, all resistance lost, All courage; down their idle weapons dropp'd: O'er shields, and helms, and helmed heads he rode Of thrones and mighty seraphim prostrate; That wish'd the mountains now might be again Thrown on them, as a shelter from his ire. Nor less on either side tempestuous fell His arrows from the fourfold-visaged Four. Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels Distinct alike with multitude of eyes; One spirit in them ruled; and every eye Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire Among the accursed, that wither'd all their strength, And of their wonted vigor left them drain'd, Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen. 552 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd His thunder in mid volley ; for he meant Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven : The overthrown he raised ; and as a herd Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd, Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursued With terrors and with furies to the bounds And crystal wall of heaven ; which, opening wide, Roll'd inward, and a spacious gap disclosed Into the wasteful deep : the monstrous sight Struck them with horror backward, but far worse Urged them behind: headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of heaven: eternal wrath Burn'd after them to the bottomless pit. BOOK X-. Beginning with 914th line. Forsake me not thus, Adam ! witness, Heaven, What love sincere, and reverence in my heart I bear thee, and unweeting have offended, Unhappily deceived! Thy suppliant, I beg, and clasp thy knees : bereave me not, Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, Thy counsel, in this uttermost distress My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee, Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps, Between us two let there be peace; both joining, As join'd in injuries, one enmity Against a foe by doom express assign'd us, That cruel serpent: on me exercise not Thy hatred for this misery befallen; On me already lost, me than thyself More miserable! both have sinn'd; but thou Against God only, I against God and thee ; And to the place of judgment will return, There with my cries importune Heaven, that all The sentence, from thy head removed, may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe ; Me, me only, just object of his ire ! BOOK XI. Beginning with 268th line. O unexpected stroke, worse than of death ! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave Thee, native soil ! these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend, Quiet though sad, the respite of that day MILTON. 553 That must be mortal to us both. O flowers, That never will in other climate grow, My early visitation, and my last At Even, which I bred up with tender hand From the first opening bud, and gave ye names ! Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ? Thee lastly, nuptial bower ! by me adorn'd With what to sight or smell was sweet ! from thee How shall I part, and whither wander down Into a lower world, to this obscure And wild? how shall we breathe in other air Less pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits ? "It is by his poetry that Milton is best known. By the general suffrage of the civilized world, his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton is the extreme remoteness of the associa- tions, by means of which it acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so much by what it expresses as by what it sug- gests, not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The works of Milton cannot be com- prehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of the reader cooperate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the melody. "Of all the poets who have introduced into their works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has succeeded best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him. . . . Poetry, which relates to the beings of another world, ought to be at once mysterious and pic- turesque. That of Milton is so. His Spirits are unlike those of almost all other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. They are not metaphysical abstractions. They are not wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tasso and Klopstock. They have just enough in common with human nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions and veiled in mysterious gloom. " Though Milton wrote the Paradise Lost at a time of life when images of beauty and tenderness are in general beginning to fade, even from those minds in which they have not been effaced by 47 554 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. anxiety and disappointment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely and delightful in the physical and in the moral world. Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or loved better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of shady fountains. His conception of love unites all the voluptuousness of the Oriental harem, and all the gallantry of the chivalric tournament, with all the pure and quiet affection of an English fireside. His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche." * " Milton's chief talent, and, indeed, his distinguishing excellence, lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the mod- erns who rival him in every other part of poetry ; but in the great- ness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets both modern and ancient, Homer only excepted. It is impossible for the imag- ination of man to distend itself with greater ideas than those which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth books. ... By the choice of the noblest words and phrases which our tongue would afford him, he has carried our language to a greater height than any of the English poets have ever done before or after him, and made the sublimity of his style equal to that of his sentiments." f " It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher than in those parts of his controversial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to bor- row his own majestic language, ' a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies.' " * * Lord Macaulay's Essay on Milton. f Addison's Essay on Paradise Lost. j Macaulay's Essay on Milton. BEN JONSON. BEN JONSON was born in the early part of the year 1574, in (probably) the city of Westminster. After a few years spent in a private school, Jonson, through the kindness of a friend, now unknown, was sent successively to Westminster school and to Cambridge University. The lack of means, however, ren- dered his stay at the university very brief, and he returned home to pursue, for a time, his step-father's trade of bricklaying. But bricklaying so completely disgusted young Ben, that to escape it he fled to the Continent, and entered, as a volunteer, the army in Flanders. His service as a soldier extended through only one campaign ; but it was signalized by a successful en- counter with an opposing champion in the presence of both armies. Returning home, Jonson, now about nineteen years of age, began a theatrical career. This was interrupted for a time by a duel with a fellow-player, in which Jonson killed his antag- onist and was himself severely wounded. He was thrown into prison for murder, and, to quote his own words, " brought near the gallows;" but was subsequently liberated. While incar- cerated, he became, through the influence of an attendant priest, a convert to the Roman Catholic faith ; but this step he retraced in maturer years. Once more at liberty, Jonson resumed his theatrical pursuits, and, among the first of his dramas, produced, about 1596, Every Man in his Humor. His severely classical conception of dra- matic construction, his stern moral purpose, and his high estimate of the office of poetry, rendered this drama, as also most of his subsequent ones, only tolerably successful as a play. " His was not language calculated to win the audiences of those days, nor did Jonson, on any occasion, stoop to court their favor by un- worthy condescensions to their prejudices. He had nobler aims 555 556 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. in view to correct their taste, to inform their judgment, to improve their morals ; and to these he steadily adhered through good and evil report, and through all the exigencies of his check- ered life. It cannot, therefore, be wondered that he was no favorite with the vulgar, and that those who trusted for a part of their success to the expedients thus openly condemned, should eagerly raise and zealously perpetrate a clamor against him."* This sort of writing did, however, commend Jonson to the esteem of the more select ranks of the wise and good and great; among them Queen Elizabeth herself, who by her presence hon- ored the production of his next play Every Man out of his Humor. The following year (1600), Jonson brought out Cyn- thia s Revels! a comical satire, intended to ridicule the grave and pedantic manners and grotesque humors of the court. The latter play proved the occasion of divers bitter attacks upon our poet, not only from the parties ridiculed, but also from a little knot of actors, critics, and playwrights, headed by Mars- ton and Decker. These latter, Jonson shortly relieved of the necessity of arrogating to themselves the stripes intended for others, by providing them with a stinging and unmistakable lampoon in the Poetaster, brought out in 1601. Two years later, he wrote his first tragedy, /Sejanus, in which Shakespeare played a part. About this time, too, Jonson became a member of the cele- brated club that met at the " Mermaid ; " where, in company with Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, and others hardly less eminent, he poured forth, in return for the liberal draughts of wine which he poured down, an incessant and brilliant current of wit, wisdom, and learning. In 1605, Marston and Chapman brought out a comedy called Eastward Hoe! which reflected somewhat upon the Scotch, and for which impunity they were incarcerated by James. Although Jonson's part in the composition of the play was so slight as not to include him within the royal displeasure, yet, in magna- nimity of soul, he voluntarily accompanied his friends to prison, and held himself ready to suffer with them. They were all, however, very soon released with whole ears and noses. * Memoirs of Lcn Jonson, by \Yilliam Gifford. JONSON. 557 Up to this time, besides accomplishing the literary results already noticed, Jonson " had written several of his Masques and Entertainments, and almost the whole of his Epigrams; he had translated Horace, and, as it would seem, Aristotle's Poetics, and prepared a voluminous body of notes to illustrate them ; he had made prodigious collections in theology, history, and poetry, from the best writers, and, perhaps, drawn up his grammar."* In 1605, he produced the comedy of the Fox, or, Volpone. It was written in five weeks, and yet it has been said of it, that " The English stage had hitherto seen nothing so truly classical, so learned, so correct, and so chaste."* From 1606 to 1610 inclusive, Jonson was principally engaged in the composition of masques and entertainments, designed exclusively for the amusement of the nobility and the court, in the sumptuous privacy of their palaces. Among these were the Masque and Barriers, the Masque of Beauty, the Masque of Queens, and the Masque of Oberon. At varying intervals of one or two years, beginning with Silent Woman; or, Epicoene which appeared in 1609 the Alchemist, a comedy; Cataline, a tragedy; Bartholomew Fair, and The Devil 's an Ass t were given to the public. In 1613, we find Jonson in Paris, mingling in the society of the most distinguished of literary and court circles ; in 1616, he has conferred upon him, by letters-patent, a pension for life of a hundred marks, and, it is presumed, is created poet-laureate; and the two following years visits Scotland. Here he makes the acquaintance of the poet Drummond, who, in return for the most unbounded confidence and affection on Jonson's part, shortly afterwards maliciously betrayed to the public, in their most inauspicious phase, our poet's private judgments concerning the eminent men and works of the age. From 1616 to 1625, Jonson had written nothing for the stage; when in the latter year, he brought forth the comedy the Staple of News. About this time, two evils began to harass our poet want and disease. Only four years elapse, when we find him. confined to his room, and writing, from sheer necessity, the comedy of the New Inn. An allusion in this play to the king * Memoirs of Ben Jonson, by William Gifford. 47* 558 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. and queen touched Charles, and he sent him the present of a hundred pounds. Subsequently, in answer to Jonson's poetical Petition to the best of Mbnarchs, Masters, Men, the king converted his annuity of one hundred marks into one hundred pounds, and added, of his own accord, a tierce of our poet's favorite wine. The remaining, distressful years of Jonson's life were pro- ductive of the Magnetic Lady, the Tale of a Tub, and several masques and epigrams. But, " one bright and sunny ray yet looks through the gloom which hung over his closing hours. In this he produced the Sad Shepherd, a pastoral drama of exquisite beauty, which may not only safely be opposed to the most per- fect of his early works, but to any similar performance in any age or country."* Jonson died August 6, 1637, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. A common pavement stone, intended as temporary only, was laid upon his grave, upon which Sir John Young caused to be cut the unique and significant inscription, rare Ben Jonson ! From Epicoene; or, the Silent Woman, we make the following extract : A CT III. SCENE II. A Room in MOROSE'S House. Enter MOROSE a hater of aU noise, EPICOENE, his newly-married wife supposed to be a silent woman, PARSON, and CUTBEARD a barber. Mor. Sir, there 's an angel for yourself, and a brace of angels for your cold. Muse not at this manage cf my bounty. It is fit we should thank fortune, double to nature, for any benefit she confers upon us ; besides, it is your imperfection, but my solace. Par. (Speaks as having a cold.) I thank your worship; so it is mine, now. Mor. What says he, Cutbeard ? Cat. He says, praesto, sir, whensoever your worship needs him, he can be ready with the like. He got this cold with sitting up late, and singing catches with cloth-workers. Mor. No more. I thank him. Par. God keep your worship, and give you much joy with your fat spouse! uh! uh! uh! Mor. 0, O ! stay, Cutbeard ! let him give me five shillings of my money back. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so it is equity to mulct injuries. I will have it. What says he ? * Memoirs of Ben Jonson, by William Gifford. JONS ON. 559 Cut. He cannot change it, sir. Mor. It must be changed. Cut. (Aside to Parson.) Cough again. Mor. What says he? Cut. He will cough out the rest, sir. Par. Uh, uh, uh! Mor. Away, away with him ! stop his mouth ! away ! I forgive it. [Exit CUT. thrusting out the PAR. Epi. Fie, master Morose, that you will use this violence to a man of the church. Mor. How! Epi. It does not become your gravity, or breeding, as you pretend, in court, to have offer'd this outrage on a waterman, or any more boisterous creature, much less on a man of his civil coat. Mor. You can speak then ! Epi. Yes, sir. Mor. Speak out, I mean. Epi. Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a statue, or a motion only ? one of the French puppets, with the eyes turned with a wire? or some innocent out of the hospital, that would stand with her hands thus, and a plaise-motith, and look upon you? Mor. O immodesty! a manifest woman ! What! Cutbeard! Epi. Nay, never quarrel with Cutbeard, sir; it is too late now. I confess it doth bate somewhat of the modesty I had, when I write simply maid : but I hope I shall make it a stock still competent to the estate and dignity of your wife. Mor. She can talk ! Epi. Yes, indeed, sir. Enter MUTE. Mor. What sirrah! None of my knaves there? where is this impostor Cutbeard ? [Mute makes signs. Epi. Speak to him, fellow, speak to him ! I '11 have none of this coacted, unnatural dumbness in my house, in a family where I govern. [Exit Mute. Mor. She is my regent already ! I have married a Penthesilea, a Semiramis ; sold my liberty to a distaff. Enter TRUEWIT. True. Where's master Morose? Mor. Is he come again ! Lord have mercy upon me ! True. I wish you all joy, mistress Epicoene, with your grave and honorable match. Epi.. I return you the thanks, master Truewit, so friendly a wish deserves. 560 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Mor. She has acquaintance, too! True. God save you, sir, and give you all contentment in your fair choice, here ! Before, I was the bird of night to you, the owl ; but now I am the messenger of peace, a dove, and bring you the glad wishes of many friends to the celebration of this good hour. Mor. What hour, sir? True. Your marriage hour, sir. I commend your resolution, that, notwithstanding all the dangers I laid afore you, in the voice of a night-crow, would yet go on, and be yourself. It shows you a man constant to your own ends, and upright to your purposes, that would not be put off with left-handed cries. Mor. How should you arrive at the knowledge of so much? True. Why, did you ever hope, sir, committing the secrecy of it to a barber, that less than the whole town should know it ? you might as w^ell have told it the conduit, or the bake-house, or the infantry that follow the court, and with more security. Could your gravity forget so old and so noted a remnant, as lippis et tonsoribus notumf Well, sir, forgive it yourself, now, the fault, and be communicable with your friends. Here will be three or four fashionable ladies from the college to visit you presently, and their train of minions and followers. Mor. Bar my doors! bar my doors! Where are all my eaters? my mouths, now? [Enter Servants.] Bar my doors, you varlets! Epi. He is a varlet that stirs to such an office. Let them stand open. I would see him that dares move his eyes toward it. Shall I have a barricade made against my friends, to be barr'd of any pleasure they can bring in to me, with their honorable visitation? [Exeunt Servants. Mor. Amazonian impudence! True. Nay, faith, in this, sir, she speaks but reason. . . . Give the day to open pleasures, and jollities of feasting, of music, of revels, of discourse; we'll have all, sir, that may make your Hymen high and happy. Mor. O my torment, my torment ! True. Nay, if you endure the first half hour, sir, so tediously, and with this irksomeness, what comfort and hope can this fair gentle- woman make to herself hereafter, in the consideration of so many years as are to come. Mor. Of my affliction. Good sir, depart, and let her do it alone. True. I have done, sir. Mor. That cursed barber. True. Yes, faith, a cursed wretch indeed, sir. Mor. I have married his cittern, that 's common to all men. Some plague above the plague JONSON. 561 True. All Egypt's ten plagues. Mor. Revenge me on him ! True. 'T is very well, sir. If you laid on a curse or two more, I '11 assure you he '11 bear them. As, that may he get the small-pox with seeking to cure it, sir ; or, that while he is curling another man's hair, his own may drop off; or, for burning some fellow's lock, he may have his brain beat out with the curling-iron. Mor. No, let the wretch live wretched. May he get the itch, and his shop so lousy as no man dare come at him, nor he come at no man ! True. Ay, and if he would swallow all his balls for pills, let not them purge him. Mor. Let his warming-pan be ever cold. True. A perpetual frost underneath it, sir. Mor. Let him never hope to see fire again. True. But in hell, sir. Mor. His chairs be always empty, his scissors rust, and his combs mould in their cases. True. Very dreadful that ! And may he lose the invention, sir, of carving lanterns in paper. Mor. Let him be glad to eat his sponge for bread. True. And drink lotium to it, and much good do him. Mor. Or, for want of bread True. Eat ear-wax, sir. I '11 help you. Or, draw his own teeth, and add them to the lute-string. Mor. No, beat the old ones to powder, and make bread of them. True. Yes, make meal of the mill-stones. Mor. May all the botches and burns that he has cured on others break out upon him. True. And he now forget the euro of them in himself, sir ; or, if he do remember it, let him have scraped all his linen into lint for 't, and have not a rag left him for to set up with. Mor. Let him never set up again, but have the gout in his hands forever ! Now, no more, sir. True. O, that last was too high set ; you might go less with him, i' faith, and be revenged enough ; as, that he never be able to new- paint his pole * Mor. Good sir, no more, I forgot myself. True. Or, want credit to take up with a comb-maker Mor. No more, sir. True. Or, having broken his glass in a former despair, fall now into u much greater, of ever getting another Mor. I beseech you, no more. 2L 562 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. True. Or, that he never be trusted with trimming of any but chim- ney-sweepers Mor. Sir True. Or, may he cut a collier's throat with his razor, by chance- medley, and yet be hanged for 't. Mor. I will forgive him, rather than hear any more. I beseech .you, sir. Enter DAW, introducing LADY HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, and MAVIS. Daw. This way, madam. Mor. O, the sea breaks in upon me ! another flood ! an inundation ! I shall be overwhelmed with noise. It beats already at my shores. I feel an earthquake in myself for 't. Daw. 'Give you joy, mistress. Mor. Has she servants, too ! Daw. I have brought some ladies here to see and know you. My Lady Haughty (As he presents them severally, Epicoene kisses them.) this my lady Centaure mistress Dol Mavis mistress Trusty, my lady Haughty's woman. Where 's your husband ? let 's see him : can he endure no noise ? let me come to him. Mor. What nomenclator is this ! True. Sir John Daw, sir, your wife's servant, this. Mor. A Daw, and her servant ! O, 't is decreed, 'tis decreed of me, an' she have such servants. (Going.) True. Nay, sir, you must kiss the ladies ; you must not go away, now : they come toward you to seek you out. Hau. I' faith, master Morose, would you steal a marriage thus, in the midst of so many friends, and not acquaint us ? Well, I '11 kiss you, notwithstanding the justice of my quarrel : you shall give m.e leave, mistress, to use a becoming familiarity with your husband. Epi. Your ladyship does me an honor in it, to let me know he is so worthy your favor : as you have done both him and me grace to visit so unprepared a pair to entertain you. Mor. Compliment ! compliment ' Epi. But I must lay the burden of that upon my servant here. Hau. It shall not need, Mistress Morose ; we will all bear, rather than one shall be opprest. Mor. I know it : and you will teach her the faculty, if she be to learn it. [ Walks aside while the rest talk apart. Hau. Is this the silent woman ? Cen. Nay, she has found her tongue since she was married, Master Truewit says. Hau. O, Master Truewit ! save you. What kind of creature is your bride here ? she speaks, methinks ! JONSON. 563 True. Yes, madam, believe it, she is a gentlewoman of very abso- lute behavior, and of a good race. Hau. And Jack Daw told us she could not speak ! True. So it was carried in plot, madam, to put her upon this old fellow, by Sir Dauphine, his nephew, and one or two more of us : but she is a woman of an excellent assurance, and an extraordinary wit and tongue. You shall see her make rare sport with Daw ere night. . . . Enter CLERIMONT, followed by a number of Musicians. Cler. By your leave, ladies. Do you want any music? I have brought you variety of noises. Play, sirs, all of you. Nor. 0, a plot, a plot, a plot, upon me ! this day I shall be their anvil to work on, they will grate me asunder ! 'T is worse than the noise of a saw. Cler. No, they are hair, rosin, and guts : I can give you the receipt. True. Peace, boys ! Cler. Play ! I say ! True. Peace, rascals ! You see who 's your friend now, sir : take courage, put on a martyr's resolution. Mock down all their attempt- ings with patience; 'tis but a day, and I would suffer heroically. Should an ass exceed me in fortitude? No. You betray your infirmity with your hanging dull ears, and make them insult: bear up bravely, and constantly. [La-Foole passes over the stage as a Server, followed by servants carrying dishes, and Mistress Otter.] Look you here, sir, what honor is done you unexpectedly your nephew; a wedding-dinner come, and a knight-server before it, for the more reputation : and fine Mistress Otter, your neighbor, in the tail of it. Mor. Is that Gorgon, that Medusa come ? hide me, hide me ! True. I warrant you, sir, she will not transform you. Look upon her with a good courage. Pray you entertain her, and conduct your guests in. No ! Mistress bride, will you entreat in the ladies ? your bridegroom is so shame-faced, here. Epi. Will it please your ladyship, madam ? Hau. With the benefit of your company, mistress. . . . Enter CAPTAIN OTTEK. True. Captain Otter ! what news ? Ott. I have brought my bull, bear, and horse, in private, and yonder are the trumpeters without, and the drum, gentlemen. [ The drum and trumpets sound within. Mor. 0,0,0! Ott. And we will have a rouse in each of them, anon, for bold Britons, i' faith. [They sound again. 564 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Mor. O, O, O I Omnes. Follow, follow, follow. Our remaining extract shall be from The /Sad /Shepherd. ACT I. SCENE I. Sherwood Forest. Robin Hood's bower in the fore-ground. Enter AEGLAMOUR, the Sad. Aegl. Here she was wont to go! and here! and here! Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow : The world may find the spring by following her, For other print her airy steps ne'er left. Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk! But like the soft west wind she shot along, And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot. [Exit. SCENE II. Another part of the same. Enter MARIAN, FRIAR TUCK, JOHN, GEORGE- A-GREEN, and MUCH. Mar. Know you, or can you guess, my merry men, What 't is that keeps your master, Robin Hood, So long, both from his Marian and the wood ? Tack. Forsooth, madam, he will be here by noon, And prays it of your bounty, as a boon, That you by then have kill'd him venison some, To feast his jolly friends, who hither come In threaves to frolic with him, and make cheer : Here's Little John hath harbor'd you a deer, I see by his tackling. John. And a hart of ten, I trow he be, madam, or blame your men : For by his slot, his entries, and his port, His frayings, fewmets, he doth promise sport, And standing 'fore the dogs ; he bears a head Large and well-beam'd, with all rights summ'd and spread. Mar. Let 's rouse him quickly, and lay on the hounds. John. Scathlock is ready with them on the grounds ; So is his brother Scarlet : now they have found His lair, they have him sure within the pound. Mar. Away then, when my Robin bids a feast, 'Twere sin in Marian to defraud a guest. [Exeunt MARIAN and JOHN with the Woodmen. Tack. And I, the chaplain, here am left to be Steward to-day, and charge you all in fee, JONSON. 565 To d'on your liveries, see the bower drest, And fit the fine devices for the feast: You, George, must care to make the baldrick trim, And garland that must crown, or her, or him, Whose flock this year hath brought the earliest lamb. George. Good father Tuck, at your commands I am, To cut the table out o' the green sward, Or any other service for my lord : To carve the guests large seats ; and these lain in With turf, as soft and smooth as the mole's skin : And hang the bulled nosegays 'bove their heads, *####*** The piper's bank, whereon to sit and play ; And a fair dial to mete out the day. Our master's feast shall want no just delights, His entertainments must have all the rites. Much. Ay, and all choice that plenty can send in ; Bread, wine, acates, fowl, feather, fish or fin, For which my father's nets have swept the Trent Enter AEGLAMOUR. Aeg. And have you found her? Much. Whom? Aeg. My drowned love, Earine ! the sweet Earine, The bright and beautiful Earine! Have you not heard of my Earine? Just by your father's mill I think I am right Are not you Much, the miller's son? Much. I am. Aeg. And bailiff to brave Robin Hood? Much. The same. Aeg. Close by your father's mills, Earine, Earine was drown'd ! O my Earine ! Old Maudlin tells me so, and Douce, her daughter Have you swept the river, say you, and not found her? Much. For fowl and fish, we have. Aeg. O, not for her ! You are goodly friends ! right charitable men ! Nay, keep your way and leave me ; make your toys, Your tales, your posies, that you talk'd of; all Your entertainments : you not injure me. Only if I may enjoy my cypress wreath, And you will let me weep, 'tis all I ask, 48 566 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Till I be turn'd to water, as was she ! And troth, what less suit can you grant a man? Tuck. His phantasie is hurt, let us now leave him ; The wound is yet too fresh to admit searching. [Exit. Aeg. Searching ! where should I search, or on what track ? Can my slow drop of tears, or this dark shade About my brows, enough describe her loss ! Earine ! O my Earine's loss ! No, no, no, no ; this heart will break first. George. How will this sad disaster strike the ears Of bounteous Robin Hood, our gentle master! Much. How will it mar his mirth, abate his feast ; And strike a horror into every guest! [Exeunt. Aeg. If I could knit whole clouds about my brows, And weep like Swithen, or those watery signs, The Kids, that rise then, and drown all the flocks Of those rich shepherds dwelling in this vale; Those careless shepherds that did let her drown! Then I did something: or could make old Trent Drunk with my sorrow, to start out in breaches, To drown their herds, their cattle, and their, corn; Break down their mills, their dams, o'erturn their weirs, And see their houses and whole livelihood Wrought into water with her, all were good : I 'd kiss the torrent, and those whirls of Trent, That suck'd her in, my sweet Earine ! When they have cast her body on the shore, And it comes up as tainted as themselves, All pale and bloodless, I will love it still, For all that they can do, and make them mad, To see how I will hug it in mine arms! And hang upon her looks, dwell on her eyes, Feed round about her lips, and eat her kisses, Suck off her drowned flesh! and where's their malice! Not all their envious sousing can change that. But I will still study some revenge past this [Music of all sorts is heard, I pray you give me leave, for I will study, Though all the bells, pipers, tabors, timburines ring, That you can plant about me; I will study. * * * # -H- * Enter ROBIN HOOD, CLARION, KAROLIN, and others. Kar. Sure he's here about. Cla. See where he sits. (Points to Aeglamour upon a bank. Aeg. It will be rare, rare, rare ! An exquisite revenge ! but peace, no words ! JONSON. o67 Not for the fairest fleece of all the flock : If it be known afore, 'tis all worth nothing! I '11 carve it on the trees, and in the turf, On every green sward, and in every path, Just to the margin of the cruel Trent. There will I knock the story in the ground, In smooth great pebble, and moss fill it round, Till the whole country read how she was drown'd; And with the plenty of salt tears there shed, Quite alter the complexion of the spring. Or I will get some old, old grandam thither, Whose rigid foot but dipp'd into the water, Shall strike that sharp and sudden cold throughout, As it shall lose all virtue; and those nymphs, Those treacherous nymphs pull'd in Earine, Shall stand curl'd up like images of ice, And never thaw! mark, never! a sharp justice! Or stay, a better ! when the year 's at hottest, And that the dog-star foams, and the stream boils, And curls, and works, and swells ready to sparkle, To fling a fellow with a fever in, To set it all on fire, till it burn Blue as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy, When Vulcan leap'd into him to consume him. Rob. A deep hurt phantasie! Aeg. Do you not approve it? Rob. Yes, gentle Aeglamour, we all approve, And come to gratulate your just revenge : Which, since it is so perfect, we now hope You '11 leave all care thereof, and mix with us, In all the proffer'd solace of the spring. Aeg. A spring, now she is dead ! of what ? of thorns, Briars, and brambles ? thistles, burs and docks ? Cold hemlock, yew? the mandrake or the box? These may grow still ; but what can spring beside ? Did not the whole earth sicken when she died? As if there since did fall one drop of dew, But what was wept for her! or any stalk Did bear a flower, or any branch a bloom, After her wreath was made ! In faith, in faith, Ye do not fair to put these things upon me. Which can in no sort be : Earine, Who had her very being, and her name, With the first knots or buddings of the spring, Born with the primrose, or the violet, Or earliest roses blown ; when Cupid smiled ; And Venus led the Graces out to dance, 568 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. And all the flowers and sweets in nature's lap Leap'd out, and made their solemn conjuration, To last but while she lived! Do not I know How the vale wither'd the same day ? how Dove, Dean, Eye, and Erwash, Idel, Snite and Soare, Each broke his urn, and twenty waters more, That swell'd proud Trent, shrunk themselves dry? that since No sun or moon, or other cheerful star, Look'd out of heaven, but all the cope was dark, As it were hung so for her exequies! And not a voice or sound to ring her knell ; But of that dismal pair, the screeching-owl, And buzzing hornet! Hark! hark! hark! the foul Bird! how she flutters with her wicker wings! Peace! you shall hear her screech. Cla. Good Karolin, sing, Help to divert this phant'sie. Kar. All I can. [Sings. Jonson's familiarity with and admiration for classical literature imparted to the entire body of his dramatic writings a certain defi- nite form and an artistic regularity, which were singularly foreign to the works of all his brother dramatists. His plots, which were his own, were elaborated with the nicest attention to consecutive- ness and to a gradual climax of effect. His phrases, too, were symmetrical, his antitheses skilfully balanced, and his whole style classically correct. Jonson's genius was of the analytic and logical order; and, ac- cordingly, his men and women appear before us as incarnations of special phases of experience, as personifications of particular virtues, vices, or follies. A satirist by nature, he sought out the unsound, the odious, and the weak spots of our humanity, and contented himself with rubbing the sore, instead of applying the plaster. Jonson's partiality for antique models did not, however, prevent his employing most vigorously the unpolished, plain, strong, frank diction current in his day; nor did he hesitate to portray the free manners and the liberal social practices of the times. But this, be it owned, with a view to some noble moral intent; for he cor- dially hated and lampooned the false and vicious in literature as well as in life. It is in the Masques and Court Entertainments that the classical austerity of form and phrase, so inseparable from his dramatic writings, is quite lost sight of; and the truer, sweeter-souled poet appears in rich and delicate creations, clad in graceful and melo- dious verse. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Tharaea That did so take Eliza and our James! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there ! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light ! BEN JONSON. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE was born on the 23d of April (probably), 1564, at Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire. His birthplace was a small and venerable town, of plaster-walled and thatch-roofed cottages, washed by the gently-flowing Avon, over whose insignificant waters there was built an imposing stone bridge. A goodly-sized church, embellished with pictures, monuments, and sculpture ; a finely-proportioned chapel of the early Tudor style of architecture, and rich in paintings of sacred and historical subjects; the "Great House," a grand mansion one hundred years old ; a college, a fine monastic structure ; the old manorial Clopton House ; the grand and hoary feudal pile of Warwick Castle ; Kenilworth, the Earl of Leicester's splendid residence ; these, with a surrounding and undulatory expanse of meadow, garden, and wood lands, dotted, not the most agree- ably, with stables, cow-yards, and sheep-cotes, made up the picture-book which Nature and Art jointly held open to the eager eyes of the boy William. From his eighth until his sixteenth year, Shakespeare attended the Free Grammar-School of Stratford, where he acquired a tolerable knowledge of Latin and Greek, and such meager acquaintance with English as it was then the custom to aspire to. His father's business affairs became sadly involved about this time, and William was obliged to provide for his own future 48 * 569 570 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. support. His first independent steps were not wise ones ; for, at twenty-one, we find him the husband of a wife eight years his senior, and the father of three children. He fell into bad company, too ; stole deer from the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, as is currently reported, and, to avoid the extremity of that gentle- man's ire, fled to London. If we follow Shakespeare to the metropolis, whither Sir Thomas' wrath did not, we shall presently discover him per- forming the parts of an actor and a mender of plays ; the first of which offices he held to for the next twenty years. " Within six or seven years of his departure from Stratford a fugitive adventurer, he had won admiration from the public, respect from his superiors, and the consequent hate of some, and, what is so much harder of attainment, the regard of others, among those who were his equals, except in his surpassing genius." * Prominent among the playwrights whom he thus early rivaled were Greene, Marlowe, and Peele. Up to this time Shakespeare had produced, as his earliest original works, The Comedy of Errors, Loves Labor Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. In 1593, he published Venus and Adonis, dedicating it to Henry Wriothesly, Earl of South- ampton ; and the next year, appeared the Rape of Lucrece, also dedicated to the Earl. The latter proved singularly appreciative of these honors, and munificently rewarded Shakespeare, by which good fortune he became a large owner in the Globe Theatre, built about -this time (1594). The years from 1592 to 1596, inclusive, were fruitful of King Richard the Third, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, King Richard the Second, several Sonnets, and, in all probability, Romeo and Juliet, and All 's Well that Ends Well. Shakespeare's real and commanding genius had now won the confessions not only of his discomfited fellow play-writers and of aristocratic dilettantes, among them Queen Elizabeth herself, but also of the great public. The next four years (1596-1600) witnessed the production of King John, King Henry IV., The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, Twelfth Night, King Henry V., As You Like It, and Hamlet. ' Life and Genius of Shakexpearc, by .Richard Grant White. SHAKESPEARE. 571 "The man who could put those plays upon the stage at a time when play-going w*vs the favorite amusement of all the better and brighter part of the London public, gentle and simple, was sure to grow rich, if he were but prudent; and Shakespeare was prudent, and even thrifty. He knew the full worth of money. And he snw that pecuniary independence is absolutely necessary to him who is seeking, as he sought, a social position higher than that to which he was born. Therefore he looked after his material interests much more carefully than after his literary reputation. The whole tenor of his life shows that he labored as a playwright solely that he might obtain the means of going back to Stratford to live the life of an independent gentleman. His income now began to be considerable ; and there are yet remaining records of the care with which he invested his money, and his willingness to take legal measures to protect himself against small losses."* One of the first uses to which he put his earnings was the relief of his father's financial distresses. And not only did he prove equal to this filial service, but, in 1597, he was enabled to purchase for himself the " Great House " of his native town. "The year 1598 was one of -great professional triumph to Shake- speare. We may safely accept the tradition first mentioned by John Dennis a century later, that in that year he was honored with a command from Queen Elizabeth to let her see his FalstafY in love, which he obeyed by producing, in a fortnight, The Merry Wives of Windsor in its earliest form. In that year, too, the great- ness and universality of his genius received formal recognition at the hands of literary criticism. Francis Meres published in 1598 a book called Palladia Tomia, Wit's Treasury, which was a collection of sententious comparisons, chiefly upon morals, manners, and religion. In this book Shakespeare is awarded the highest place in English poetical and dramatic literature, and is ranked with the great authors of the brightest days of Greece and Home."* Indeed, so enviable had Shakespeare's fame become at this time, that in 1599, and again the next year, attempts were made to vital- ize and popularize certain publications of small merit by placing the great poet's name upon their title-pages. His name did, how- ever, legitimately appear during the first decade of the seventeenth century, as author of Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, Julius Csesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, All 's Well that Ends Wellrf Measure for Measure, Pericles, and The Taming of the Shrew. * Life and Genius of Shakespeare, by Richard Grant White, f In an amended form. 572 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. About the year 1604 Shakespeare withdrew from the stage, where he had been an unwilling and humble actor, and thereafter devoted his energies to his favorite pursuit of writing plays. Within the same year, too, it is surmised that our poet became a member the "sweet" and "gentle" member of a club founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and which met at the " Mermaid " a favorite tavern in Bread street. Here he joined in social converse and con- vivial enjoyments with such rare spirits as Raleigh, Jonson, Beau- mont, Fletcher, Selden, Colton, Carew, Donne, and others of like parts. In 1611, it is thought, Shakespeare, having disposed of his the- atrical property, returned from London to Stratford, where he passed in ease and elegance the remainder of his days. Only three of his plays were produced after his retirement, namely, 77*6 Tem- pest, The Winter's Tale, and Henry VIII. He died on the fifty-sec- ond anniversary of his birthday April 23, 1616. The second day after, his remains were interred in Stratford Church. Upon the flagstone which covers his grave were inscribed the following lines : Good Frend for lesvs sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones. As a specimen of Shakespeare's ability in the line of comedy, and that exhibited in one of his earlier plays, we cite MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. A CT /.SCENE II. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING. Quin. Is all our company here ? Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, accord- ing to the scrip. Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess, on his wedding-day at night. Sot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on ; then read the names of the actors ; and so grow to a point. Quin. Marry, our play is The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll; masters, spread yourselves. Quin. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. SHAKESPEARE. Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Sot. What is Pyramus ? a lover, or a tyrant ? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love* Sot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes ; I will move storms ; I will condole in some measure. To the rest : Yet my chief humor is for a tyrant : I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks, With shivering shocks, Shall break the locks Of prison gates: And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far, And make and mar The foolish fates." This was lofty ! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein ; a lover is more condoling. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Flu. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You must take Thisby on you. Flu. What is Thisby ? a wandering knight? Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flu. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman ; I have a beard coming. Quin. That 's all one ; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. Bot. An' I may hide my face? let me play Thisby, too; I'll speak in a monstrous little voice; Thisne, Thisne, ah, Pyramus, my lover dear ; thy Thisby dear ! and lady dear ! Quin. No, no ; you must play Pyramus, and, Flute, you Thisby. Bot. Well, proceed. Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. Star. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby 's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. Snout. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You, Pyramus' father ; myself, Thisby's father ; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part : and, I hope, here is a play fitted. Snug. Have you the lion's part written ? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. 574 MANUAL OF ENGLTSH LITERATURE. Bot. Let me play the lion, too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me ; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again, Let him roar again ! Quin. An' you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all. All. That would hang us every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us : but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove ; I will roar you an 't were any nightingale. Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus : for Pyramus is a s\veet- faced man ; a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day ; a most lovely, gentleman-like man ; therefore you must needs play Pyramus. Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? Quin. Why, what you will. Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colored beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French- crown-color beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. But, masters ; here are your parts : and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to- morrow night ; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight ; there will we rehearse : for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the meantime, I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not. Bot. We will meet ; and there we may rehearse more obscenely, and courageously. Take pains ; be perfect ; adieu ! Quin. At the duke's oak we meet. Bot. Enough ; Hold, or cut bow-strings. \_Exeunt. ACT III. SCENE I. A Wood. Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. Bot. Are we all met ? Quin. Pat, pat ; and here 's a marvelous convenient place for our rehearsal : this green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tyring-house ; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke. Bot. Peter Quince, Quin. What say'st thou, bully Bottom ? Bot. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that SHA KESPEARE. 57o will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that ? Snout. By 'rlakin,* a parlous fear. Star. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done. Bot. Not a whit ; I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue : and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords : and that Pyramus is not killed indeed : and, for the more better assurance tell them, that I Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver : this will put them out of fear. Quin. Well, we will have such a prologue ; and it shall be written in eight and six. Bot. No, make it two more ; let it be written in eight and eight. Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion ? Star. I fear it, I promise you. Bot. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves : to bring in, God shield us ! a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing : for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion, living ; and we ought to look to it. Snout. Therefore, another prologue must tell he is not a lion. Bot. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck ; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect, Ladies, or fair ladies, I would wish you, or, I would request you, or, I would entreat you,. not to fear, not to tremble ; my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life : no, I am no such thing ; I am a man as other men are : and there, indeed, let him name his ixarne ; and tell them plainly, he is Snug the joiner. Quin. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things ; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber : for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight. Snug. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play ? Bot. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moon- shine, find out moon-shine. Quin. Yes, it doth shine that night. Bot. Why, then, you may leave a casement of the great chamber- window, where we play, open ; and the moon may shine in at the casement. Quin. Ay ; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say, he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moon-shine. Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber ; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall. * By our ladykin, or little lady. 576 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Snug. You never can bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom ? Bot. Some man or other must present wall : and let him have some plaster, or some lome, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall ; or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyra- mus and Thisby whisper. Quin. If that may be, then. all is well. Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin : when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake ; and so every one according to his cue. Enter PUCK behind. Puck. What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here, So near the cradle of the fairy queen? What, a play toward ? I '11 be an auditor ; An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause. Quin. Speak, Pyramus : Thisby, stand forth. Pyr. Thisby, the flowers of odious savors sweet, Quin. Odors, odors. Pyr. odors savors sweet : So doth thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear. But, hark, a voice! stay thou but here a while, And by and by I will to thee appear. [Exit. Puck. A stranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here ! [Exit. This. Must I speak now ? Quin. Ay, marry, must you : for you must understand, he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again. This. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily white of hue, Of color like the red rose on triumphant briar, Most brisky Juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew, As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire, I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb. Quin. Ninus' tomb, man : why you must not speak that yet ; that you answer to Pyramus : you speak all your part at once, cues and all. Pyramus enter ; your cue is past ; it is, never tire. Re-enter PUCK and BOTTOM with an ass's head. This. 0, As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire. Pyr. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine: Quin. monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters ! fly, masters ! help. [Exeunt players. Puck. I '11 follow you, I '11 lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier ; Sometime a horse I '11 be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire ; SHAKESPEARE. 577 And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. [Exit. Bot. Why do they run away ? this is a knavery of them, to make me afeard. Re-enter SNOUT. Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed ! what do I see on thee ! Bot. What do you see? you see an ass's head of your own, do you? [Exit. Re-enter QUJNCE. Quln. Bless thee, Bottom ! bless thee ! thou art translated. [Exit. Bot. I see their knavery : this is to make an ass of me ; to frighten me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can : I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear that I am not afraid. [Sings. Our remaining extracts will illustrate Shakespeare's dramatic power in its introspective aspects, and in its more intense mani- festations. KING RICHARD III. ACT /.-SCENE IV. A Room in theTower. Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY. Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day ? Clar. 0, 1 have pass'd a miserable night, So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happier days; So full of dismal terror was the time. Brak. What was your dream, my lord ? I pray you tell me. Clar. Methought,. that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Gloster Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England, And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloster stumbled ; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard, Into the tumbling billows of the main. O Lord ! methought, what pain it was to drown ! What dreadful noise of water in mine ears! What sights of ugly death within mine eyes! Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ; A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon ; 49 2M 578 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept (As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems, That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by. Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death, To gaze upon the secrets of the deep? Clar. Methought, I had ; and often did I strive To yield the ghost ; but still the envious flood Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air ; But smother'd it within my panting bulk, Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. Brdk. Awak'd you not from this sore agony? Clar. O, no ; my dream was lengthen'd after life ; 0, then began the tempest to my soul ! I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood, With that grim ferryman, which poets write of, Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. The first that there did greet my stranger soul, Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick ; Who cry'd aloud, What scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ? And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood ; and he shriek'd out aloud, Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence - Tliat stabUd me in the field at Tewksbury ; Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments ! With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, and howled in mine e'ars Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise, I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after, Could not believe but that I was in hell ; Such terrible impression made my dream. Brak. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you ; I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it. Clar. O, Brakenbury, I have done these things, That now give evidence against my soul, For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites me! O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds, SHAKESPEARE. 579 Yet execute thy wrath on me alone : 0, spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children ! I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me ; My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. Brak. I will, my lord ; God give your grace good rest ! [Clarence reposes himself on a chair. Sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noontide night. Princes have but their titles for their glories, An outward honor for an inward toil ; And, for unfelt imaginations, They often feel a world of restless cares; So that, between their titles, and low name, There 's nothing differs but the outward fame. Enter two Murderers. 1 Nurd. Ho ! who 's here ? Brak. What would'st thou, fellow? and how cam'st thou hither? 1 Murd. I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs. Brak. What, so brief? 2 Murd. O, sir, 't is better to be brief than tedious : Let him see our commission; talk no more. [A paper is delivered to Brakenbury, who reads it. Brak. I am, in this, commanded to deliver The noble duke of Clarence to your hands: I will not reason what is meant hereby, Because I will be guiltless of the meaning. Here are the keys; there sits the duke asleep: I '11 to the king ; and signify to him, That thus I have resign'd to you 'my charge. 1 Murd You may, sir ; 't is a point of wisdom : Fare you well. [Exit Brakenbury. 2 Murd. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps? 1 Murd. No ; he '11 say, 't was done cowardly, when he wakes. 2 Murd. When he wakes ! why, fool, he shall never wake until the great judgment day. 1 Murd. Why, then he '11 say, we stabb'd him sleeping. 2 Murd. The urging of that word judgment, hath bred a kind of remorse in me. 1 Murd. What! art thou afraid? 2 Murd. Not to kill him, having a warrant for it ; but to be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me. 1 Murd. I thought, thou hadst been resolute. 580 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 2 Murd. So I am, to let him live. 1 Murd. I '11 back to the duke of Gloster, and tell him so. 2 Murd. Nay, I pr'ythee, stay a little : I hope this holy humor of mine will change ; it was wont to hold me but while one would tell twenty. 1 Murd. How dost thou feel thyself now ? 2 Murd. 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me. 1 Murd. Eemember our reward, when the deed 's done. 2 Murd. Come, he dies ; I had forgot the reward. 1 Murd. Where 's thy conscience now ? 2 Murd. In the duke of Gloster's purse. 1 Murd. So, when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out. 2 Murd. 'T is no matter ; let it go ; there 's few, or none, will enter- tain it. 1 Murd. What if it come to thee again ? 2 Murd. I '11 not meddle with it, it is a dangerous thing, it makes a man a coward ; a man cannot swear, but it checks him. 'T is a blush- ing shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom ; it fills one full of obstacles : it made me once restore a purse of gold, that by chance I found ; it beggars any man that keeps it : it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing ; and every man, that means to live well, endeavors to trust to himself, and live without it. 1 Murd. Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke. 2 Murd. Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him not : he would insinuate with thee, but to make thee sigh. 1 Murd. I am strong-fram'd, he cannot prevail with me. 2 Murd. Spoke like a tall fellow, that respects his reputation. Come, shall we fall to work ? 1 Murd. Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey-butt, in the next room. 2 Murd. 0, excellent device ! and make a sop of him. 1 Murd. Soft ! he wakes. 2 Murd. Strike. 1 Murd. No, we '11 reason with him. Clar. Where art thou, keeper ? give me a cup of wine. 1 Murd. You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon. Clar. In God's name, what art thou ? 1 Murd. A man, as you are. Clar. But not, as I am, royal. 1 Murd. Nor you, as we are, loyal. SHAKESPEARE. 581 Clar. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble. 1 Murd. My voice is now the king's, my looks mine own. Clar. How darkly, and how deadly dost thou speak ! Your eyes do menace me : Why look you pale ? Who sent you hither ? wherefore do you come ? Both Murd. To, to, to, Clar. To murder me ? Both Murd. Ay, ay. Clar. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so, And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it. Wherein, my friends, have I offended you ? 1 Murd. Offended us you have not, but the king. Clar. I shall be reconcil'd to him again. 2 Murd. Never, my lord ; therefore prepare to die. Clar. Are you call'd forth from out a world of men To slay the innocent ? What is my offense ? Where is the evidence that doth accuse me ? What lawful quest hath given their verdict up Unto the frowning judge ? or who pronounc'd The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death ? Before I be convict by course of law, To threaten me with death is most unlawful. I charge you, as you hope to have redemption, By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins, That you depart, and lay no hands on me ; The deed you undertake is damnable. 1 Murd. What we will do, we do upon command. 2 Murd. And he that hath commanded, is our king. Clar. Erroneous vassal ! the great King of kings Hath in the table of his law commanded, That thou shalt do no murder. Wilt thou then Spurn at his edict, and fulfil a man's? Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand, To hurl upon their heads that break his law. 2 Murd. And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee, For false forswearing, and for murder too : Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight In quarrel of the house of Lancaster. 1 Murd. And, like a traitor to the name of God, Didst break that vow ; and, with thy treacherous blade, Unrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son. 2 Murd. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend. 1 Murd. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us, When thou hast broke it in such dear decree? 49* 582 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Clar. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed? For Edward, for my brother, for his sake : He sends you not to murder me for this: For in that sin he. is as deep as I. If God will be avenged for the deed, O, know you, that he doth it publicly ; Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm; He needs no indirect nor lawless course, To cut off those that have offended him. 1 Murd. Who made thee then a bloody minister, When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet, That princely novice, was struck dead by thee ? Clar. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage. 1 Murd. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy fault, Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee. Clar. If you do love my brother, hate not me ; I am his brother, and I love him well. If you are hir'd for meed, go back again, And I will send you to my brother Gloster ; Who shall reward you better for my life, Than Edward will for tidings of my death. 2 Murd. You are deceiv'd, your brother Gloster hates you. Clar. O,"no; he loves me, and he holds me dear. Go you to him for me. Both Murd. Ay, so we will. Clar. Tell him, when that our princely father York Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm, And charg'd us from his soul to love each other, He little thought of this divided friendship: Bid Gloster think on this, and he will weep. 1 Murd. Ay, mill-stones ; as he lesson'd us to weep. Clar. O, do not slander him, for he is kind. 1 Murd. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you deceive yourself: 'T is he that sends us to destroy you here. Clar. It cannot be ; for he bewept my fortune, And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs, That he would labor my delivery. 1 Murd. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven. 2 Murd. Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord. Clar. Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul, To counsel me to make my peace with God, And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind, That thou wilt war with God, by murdering me? SHAKESPEARE. 583 Ah, sirs, consider, he that set you on To do this deed, will hate you for the deed. 2 Murd. What shall we do ? Clar. Relent, and save your souls. 1 Murd. Relent ! 't is cowardly and womanish. Clar. Not to relent, is beastly, savage, devilish. Which of you, if you were a prince's son, Being pent from liberty, as I am now, If two such murderers as yourselves came to you, Would not entreat for life? My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks ; O, if thine eye be not a flatterer, Come thou on my side, and entreat for me, As you would beg, were you in my distress. A begging prince, what beggar pities not? 2 Murd. Look behind you, my lord. 1 Murd. Take that, and that ; if all this will not do, [Stabs him. I '11 drown you in the malmsey-butt within. [Exit, with body. 2 Murd. A bloody deed, and desperately despatch'd ! How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands Of this most grievous guilty murder done ! MACBETH. ACT T 7 . SCENE V. Dunsinane.- Within the Castle. Enter, with drums and colors, MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers. Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls ; The cry is still, They come : Our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie, Till famine, and the ague, eat them up ; Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. What is that noise? [A cry within, of women. Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord. Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek ; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir As life were in 't : I have supp'd full with horrors, Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once start me. Wherefor was that cry ? Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead. Macb. She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. 584 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! Life 's but a walking shadow ; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. [Enter a Messenger. Thou com'st to use thy tongue : thy story quickly. Mess. Gracious, my lord, I shall report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it. Macb. Well, say, sir. Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move. Macb. Liar, and slave ! [Striking him. Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so ; Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving grove. Macb. If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much. I pull in resolution; and begin To doubt the equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth : Fear not, till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane ; and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out ! If this, which he avouches, does appear, There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here. I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. Ring the alarum bell : Blow wind ! come, wrack ! At least we '11 die with harness on our back. [Exeunt. SCENE VII. A Plain before the Castle. Enter MACBETH. Macb. They have tied me to a stake ; I cannot fly, But, bear like, I must fight the course. What 's he, That was not born of woman ? Such a one Am I to fear, or none. SHAKESPEARE. 585 Enter young SIWARD. Siw. What is thy name ? Macb. Thou 'It be afraid to hear it. Siw. No ; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell. Macb. My name 's Macbeth. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear. Macb. No, nor more fearful. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword I'll prove the lie thou speak'st. [They fight, and young SIWARD is slain. Macb. Thou wast born of woman. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, Brandish'd by man that 's of a woman born. [Exit. Alarums. Enttr MACDUFF. Macd. That way the noise is : Tyrant, show thy face : If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine, My wife and childrens' ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose arms Are hir'd to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth, Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge, I sheathe again undeeded.. There thou should'st be : By this great clatter, one of greatest note Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune ! And more I beg not. [Ex-it. Alarum. Re-enter MACBETH. Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them. Re-enter MACDUFF. Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn. Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already. Macd. I have no words, My voice is in my sword ; thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out! [They fight. Macb. Thou losest labor : As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed : Let fall thv blade on vulnerable Crests : 586 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. I bear a charmed life which must not yield To one of woman born. Macd. Despair thy charm ; And let the angel, whom, thou still hast serv'd, Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd. Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,' For it hath cow'd my better part of man ! And be these juggling fiends no more belie v'd, That palter with us in a double sense ; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope. I '11 not fight with thee. Macd. Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o' the time. We '11 have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole; and underwrit, Here may you see the tyrant. Macb. I '11 not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, And to be baited with the rabble's curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last : Before my body I throw my warlike shield : lay on, Macduff ; And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough. [Exeunt, fighting. MACBETH is slain and beheaded. There are several respects in which Shakespeare transcends all other dramatists and poets. He is more comprehensive. It is quite unsatisfactory to attempt to classify his plays, as the plays of most writers may be classified, into the formal groups of dramas, tragedies, and comedies ; for almost every one embodies the essen- tial elements of all three or at least two of these different types of composition. And what is true of his plays is equally true of their different characters, particularly their leading characters. His men and women are as we find them in actual life whole, complex creatures. True, some one trait of each is always seized upon and wrought into startling prominence ; but the individual is not therefore distorted into a mere personification of that trait. The other lesser attributes are kept constantly in view, and afforded fair play. Shakespeare is more intense. His creations do not talk about themselves, but they themselves speak. In them we, like as did their author, live and move and have our being. They transport SHAKESPEARE. 587 us with frenzy, or melt us with pity ; they provoke our extremest abhorrence, or compel our tenderest love. Shakespeare is more introspective. For us he has not only exhibited the world as a stage and on it all men as actors, but he shows us the spectacle from behind the scenes and in the privacy of the green-room. We are taken into the very minds and hearts of his characters, and experience with them the qualms of con- science, the struggles of conflicting interests, and the pricks of inexorable duty, that precede all weighty actions. Shakespeare is at once real as unblushingly so as Chaucer and ideal as airily and fantastically so as Spenser. And whether it be the delineation of a Richard III. or an Oberon, of a murderer or a witch, of a Falstaff or a Puck, he is sternly loyal to the demands of the realest art, the Titanic strength of his imagina- tion sufficing for the production of his fictitious creations quite as completely as did his open-eyed observation and generous expe- rience for the composition of his real ones. His style, compared even with that of his contemporaries, is involved and complex. This comes of his ungovernable passion for metaphor. At his touch the ghostly abstract assumes the fleshly concrete, and the vaguely general the tangible particular. Ideas become materialized and fancies embodied ; and the pro- cession of fervid, lusty figures is so constant, so rapid, so tumultu- ous, so varied, that we often fail readily and surely to recognize the main, the royal idea, in the midst of this carnival of imagery. FRANCIS BACON. FRANCIS BACON, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Keeper of the Great Seal during the first twenty years of Eliz- abeth's reign, was born at York House, London, January 22, 1561. His health was delicate, and partly, at least, on this account he was led to substitute for the customary pastimes of a boy the sedentary occupations of the mature student and thinker. His precocity and the natural but uncommon dignity of his demeanor readily attracted the attention of the Queen, who playfully styled him her young Lord Keeper. At thirteen, young Bacon entered Trinity College, Cambridge, which he left three years later, not a little disgusted with the stale and unprofitable system of academic education then pur- sued. Immediately he was sent to France, in care of Sir Amias Paulet, the English ambassador. Whilst here, for several years, in the midst of the blandishments and seductions of the French capital, he heroically gave himself up to the study of statistics and diplomacy, and was habitually found in the society of statesmen, philosophers, and men of letters. But these con- genial employments were suddenly terminated in 1579 by the death of his father, which rendered it necessary for him to return home, and, to use his own words, " to think how to live, instead of living only to think." As a step to this end, he adopted the profession of the law, and for the next six years turned his extraordinary abilities to its mastery. This much by way of self-help having been done, he hoped, through the influence of Lord Burleigh, the Prime Minister, who was his uncle, joined to the remembrance of his father's long and eminent services, and favored by the Queen's good opinion of his abilities, to obtain a provision such as would enable him to turn his attention exclusively to the prosecution of his favorite philosophical and literary schemes. But in this he was destined to repeated disappointments. He was, how- 588 BACON. 589 ever, elected to the House of Commons in 1585, and returned to that body in 1592 ; and during these terms he achieved a splendid reputation for statesmanship and oratory. Twelve years of almost servile patience having satisfied Bacon that he might expect no favors from the patronage of Burleigh, he turned drawn by his generous instincts to that Lord's great rival, the young Earl of Essex. This royal favorite at once exerted himself to his utmost to procure for Bacon, first, the office of Attorney-General, and then that of Solicitor-Gen- eral; and when he failed in both, determined, as it would seem, to render his influence of some material account, he pre- sented Bacon with an estate worth about 1800. These services, however, may not appear to be either so con- siderable or so disinterested, when we remember that in return for them Bacon proved, for ten years, the truest and wisest counsellor the Earl had, and that more than once he had inter- posed himself as a peacemaker between the impetuous hero at Essex House and the haughty sovereign at Whitehall. But thesa intimate relations were cut off by the Earl's conspiracy against the Queen in 1601. Bacon has been both immoderately censured and commended for his conduct in appearing against Essex, his recent friend and benefactor, at the trial for treason which ensued. The facts are, however, that Bacon, as the Queen's Council Learned in the Law, to which preferment he had succeeded in 1595, and as one summoned by the Privy Council, was bound in duty to appear in the defense of his sovereign and for the prosecution of her enemies, whoever they might be, and as a patriot he was also bound to raise his hand against every enemy of the realm, however intimate his former relations with such might have been. Upon the accession of James I. to the throne, Bacon, by hard work and not a little sycophancy, gradually procured the recog- nitions of his ability, which had been denied him under Eliza- beth ; for we find him, in 1607, Solicitor-General; in 1613, Attorney-General; in 1616, Privy Counsellor; in 1617, Lord Keeper ; in 1618, Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam ; and in 1621, Viscount St. Albans. Rapid and splendid as was his rise after it had fairly begun, 50 590 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. his fall was much more rapid and striking. Following the cor- rupt but very general practice of the times, Bacon, during his Chancellorship, received presents from suitors in his court, presents from both parties, and then decided their claims upon their legal merits. For this conduct he was arraigned, in 1621, by Parliament, impeached for corruption in his high office, sen- tenced to pay a fine of 40,000, to be imprisoned in the Tower during the royal pleasure, declared incapable of ever holding any public office, and forbidden to sit in Parliament or corne within the verge of the Court. The sentence was hardly pro- nounced before it was mitigated. His imprisonment lasted for only two days ; his fine was remitted ; and he was restored to the privilege of appearing at Court and sitting in Parliament. Of these two latter privileges, however, he took no advantage, but devoted the remaining five years of his life exclusively to literary and scientific labors. He died on the 9th of April, 1626. Such was the superficial, the bread-and-rneat, so to speak, life of Lord Bacon. His real life is met with only at intervals and in fragments as we see him, temporarily escaped from the sor- did and vexatious concerns of the Temple, Parliament, and the Court, and seated in the midst of his books and apparatuses in the lovely solitudes of Twickenham and Gorhambury. At such intervals it was that Bacon, the scholar, the thinker, the romancer, the philosopher, and the moralist, discovered his genuine self; a genius, in whose transcendant presence the Lord Chancellor and Viscount St. Albans must be wholly for- gotten. The achievements of this, Bacon's real and noble life, were his Essays, first published in 1597, but enlarged in 1598, 1612, and 1625 ; the Treatise on the Advancement of Learning, which was afterwards (in 1623) expanded into the De Augmentis Scientiarium, published in 1605 ; the Wisdom of the Ancients, in 1609, and the Novum Organum, in 1620 ; together with the uncompleted works of the last two or three years of his life, A Digest of the Laws of England, A History of England under the Princes of the House of Tudor, a Natural History, a Philo- sophical Romance The New Atlantis, and a History of Life and Death. BACON. 591 We invite the student's attention first to a description of " Solomon's House," excerpted from New Atlantis. In it Bacon would describe a model college, instituted for the interpreta- tion of natural phenomena, and for the production of great benefits for mankind. The preparations and instruments are there. We have large and deep caves of several depths ; the deepest are sunk six hundred i'athoms ; and some of them are digged and made under great hills and mountains ; so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill, and the depth of the cave, they are, some of them, above three miles deep. These caves we call the lower regions. And we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. "We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines : and the producing also of new artificial metals, by composition and materials which we use and lay there for many years. We use them also sometimes, which may seem strange, for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life, in some hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things necessary, and indeed live very long ; by whom also we learn many things. . . . We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height ; and some of them likewise set upon high mountains ; so that the vantage of the hill with the tower, is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these places we call the upper region : accounting the air between the high places and the low as a middle region. We use these towers accord- ing to their several heights and situations, for isolation, refrigeration, con- servation, and for the view of divers meteors ; as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the fiery meteors also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe. . . . We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imita- tion of the natural sources and baths : as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre and other minerals. And again, we have little wells for infusions of many things, where the waters take the virtue quicker and better than in vessels or basins. And amongst them we have a water which we call water of paradise, being, by that we do to it, made very sovereign for health and prolongation of life. . . . We have also large and various orchards and gardens, wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs : and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set, whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, besides the vineyards. In these we practice likewise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating, as well of wild trees as fruit trees, which produceth many effects. And we make by art, in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flow r ers to come earlier or later than their seasons ; and to come up and bear more speedily than by their natural course they do. We make them also by art greater much than their nature ; and their fruit greater, and sweeter, and of differing taste, smell, color, and figure from their nature. And many of them we so order, as they become of medicinal use. We have also means to make divers plants rise by mixture of earths without seeds ; and likewise to make divers new plants, differing from the vulgar ; and to make one tree or plant turn into another. . . . 592 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. We have also perspective houses, where we make demonstrations of lights and radiations ; and of all colors ; and out of things uncolored and trans- parent, we can represent unto you all several colors ; not in rainbows as it is in gems and prisms, but of themselves single. We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance ; and make so sharp, as to discern small points and lines ; also all colorations of light ; all delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, col- ors; all demonstrations of shadows. We iind also divers means yet un- known to you, of producing of light originally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing objects afar off'; as in the heaven and remote places ; and represent things near as far off; and things afar off as near ; making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use. We have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes and colors of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen ; observations in blood, not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rainbows, halos, and circles about light. We represent also all manner of reflections, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty, to you unknown ; crystals likewise ; and glasses of divers kinds ; and amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other materials, besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils, and imperfect minerals, which you have not. Likewise loadstones of prodigious virtue ; and other rare stones, both natural and artificial. We have also sound-houses, where we practice and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have ; together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep ; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp ; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voice and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps, which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting tiie voice many times, and as it were tossing it : and some that give back the voice louder than it came ; some shriller, and some deeper ; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sound in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances. We have also perfume-houses ; wherewith we join all practices of taste. We multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all smells to breathe out of other mixtures than those that give them. We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a coinfiture-house, where we make all sweetmeats, dry and moist, and divers pleasant wines, milks, broths, and salads, in far greater variety than you have. We have also engine-houses, where we prepare engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practice to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets, or any engine that you have ; and to make them, and multiply them more easily, and with email force by wheels and other means : and to make tiieia stronger and SAC ON. 593 more violent than yours are ; exceeding your greatest cannons and basi- lisks. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water, and unquenchable. Also fireworks of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flight of birds : we have some degree of flying in the air ; we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas ; also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have divers curious clocks and other like motions of return, and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures by images of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents ; we have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality, fineness, and subtilty. . . . We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and illusions ; and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that we that have so many things truly natural, which induce admiration, could in a world of particulars deceive the senses if we would disguise those things, and labor to make them seem more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures and lies: insomuch as we have severally forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not show any natural work or thing, adorned or swelling ; but only pure as it is, and without all affec- tation of strangeness. Of the Essays, we select first the one that formed the first of the earliest series (1597). OF STUDIES. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business ; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars one by one ; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth ; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation ; to make judgment wholly by their rules,, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience ; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study ; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men con- temn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them ; for they teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and atten- tion. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them others ; but that would be only in the less important arguments and e meaner sort of books ; else distilled books are, like common distilled aters, flashy* things. Reading maketh a full man ; conference a ready ,an ; and writing an exact man ; and, therefore, if a man write little, he * Vapid. 50* 2N 594 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. had need have a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, subtile ; natural philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to contend : "Abeunt studio, in mores ; " * nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies. Like as diseases of the body may have appro- priate exercises, bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head and the like ; so, if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics ; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find difference, let him study the schoolmen, for they are " Cymini secfort's."f If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases ; so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. Lastly, we produce one of the latest (1625) written of the Essays. OF ADVERSITY. It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics) that " the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired." Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other ( much too high for a heathen), " It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a God." This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed, and the poets, indeed, have been busy with it ; for it is, in effect, the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery ; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian, " that Hercules, when he went to unbind Pro- metheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher," lively describing Christian reso- lution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer reve- lation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes ; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see, in needlework and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground : judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed ; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. * " Studies become habits." f " Splitters of cummin-seeds." SAC ON. 595 "It is by the Essays," says Lord Macaulay, "that Bacon is best known to the multitude. The Novum Organum and the De Auy- mcntis are much talked of but little read. They have -produced indeed a vast effect on the opinions of mankind; but they have produced it through the operations of intermediate agents. They have moved the intellects which have moved the world. It is in the Essays alone that the mind of Bacon is brought into immediate contact with the minds of ordinary readers. There he opens an exoteric school, and he talks to plain men in language which every- body understands, about things in which everybody is interested." Speaking of his philosophy, the same authority above quoted remarks: "What Bacon did for the inductive philosophy may, we think, be fairly stated thus. The objects of preceding speculators were objects which could be obtained without careful induction. Those speculators, therefore, did not perform the inductive process carefully. Bacon stirred up men to pursue an object which could be attained only by induction, and by induction carefully per- formed ; and consequently induction was more carefully per- formed. It was not by furnishing philosophers with rules for per- forming the inductive process well, but by furnishing them with a motive for performing it well, that he conferred so vast a benefit on society." The same authority sums up Bacon's mental characteristics as follows : " With great minuteness of observation he had an ampli- tude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human being. The Essays contain abundant proofs that 110 nice feature of character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden, or a court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable of taking in the whole world of knowl- edge. His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Pari- banon gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady. Spread it, and the armies of powerful sultans might repose beneath its shade. " In keenness of observation he has been equalled, though per- haps never surpassed. But the largeness of his mind was all his own. The glance with which he surveyed the intellectual universe resembled that with which the archangel, from the golden thresh- old of heaven, darted down into the new creation. There have been thousands of better mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, physicians, botanists, mineralogists, than Bacon. No man would go to Bacon's works to learn any particular science or art; any more than he would go to a twelve-inch globe in order to find his way from Kennington Turnpike to Clapham Common. The art which Bacon taught was the art of inventing arts. The knowl- 596 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. edge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of the mutual relations of all departments of knowledge. " Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic, he adorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of rhetoric. His eloquence, though not untainted with the vicious taste of his age, would alone have entitled him to a high rank in literature. He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it portable. In wit, if by wit be meant- the power of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have noth- ing in common, he never had an equal not even Cowley not even the author of Hudibras. " The poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind ; but not, like his wit, so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason, and to tyrannize over the whole man. No imagination was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly subjugated. It never stirred but at a signal from good sense. Yet, though disciplined to such obedience, it gave noble proofs of its vigor. " One of the most remarkable circumstances in the history of Bacon's mind is the order in which its powers expanded themselves. With him the fruit came first and remained till the last : the blos- soms did not appear till late. It rarely happens that the fancy and the judgment grow together. It happens still more rarely that the judgment grows faster than the fancy. This seems, however, to have been the case with Bacon. His boyhood and youth seem to have been singularly sedate. His gigantic scheme of philosophical reform is said by some writers to have been planned before he was fifteen ; and was undoubtedly planned while he was still young. He observed as vigilantly, meditated as deeply, and judged as tem- perately when he gave his first work to the world as at the close of his long career. But in eloquence, in sweetness and variety of expression, and in richness of illustration his later writings are far superior to those of his youth." EDMUND SPENSER. EDMUND SPENSER was born in London, probably in the year 1552. His parents, though of gentle birth, were poor, as we learn from the fact that our poet, when seventeen, was admitted to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizar, or charity student. After seven years of university life, Spenser took his degree, and went to reside for a short time with some friends or relatives in the north of England. A recommendation from Sir Philip (then Mr.) Sidney whose acquaintance he had shortly before made to his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, brought Spenser, in 1579, back to London. In December of the same year he published his Shepherd's Calen- dar a series of twelve eclogues inscribed to the twelve months of the year. These pastorals, not restricting themselves to a description of rural scenery and rustic manners and occupations, most unnaturally put into the mouths of shepherds learned ecclesiastical and philosophical sentiments and ideas. More- over, in his solicitude to avoid over refinement of style and dic- tion, Spenser fell into the opposite fault of employing a profusion of obsolete and uncouth words and phrases! In 1580, Spenser went to Ireland, as secretary to Lord Grey. Six years later, as a reward for faithful and valuable services, he received from government a grant of 3028 acres of the con- fiscated lands of the Earl of Desmond and here, in the castle of Kilcolman, environed with the most lovely scenery, he passed the major part of the rest of his days. Here, in 1589, he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, to whom he read the first three books of The Faery Queene a poem on which he had long been meditating, and whose progress the tranquillity and loveliness of his present abode greatly facilitated. Raleigh, enraptured of the poem, persuaded its author to return with him to Eng- land, where he presented him to Queen Elizabeth, by whom he was graciously received. 597 598 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The poem the first three books was published in 1590, but about a year elapsed before Spenser received the royal recogni- tion of its merits that he had expected much sooner a pension from the Queen. The splendors and the vanities of the court life he had witnessed at London were, on his return to Ireland, set forth in the poem, Colin Clout 's come Home Againe, published in 1595. Astrophel, a Pastorall Elegie upon the Death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney, appeared in the same year. Amoretti, or /Sonnets, and Fowre Hymnes were pub- lished in the two years following. Again, in 1595, Spenser visited England, where, the next year, he gave to the world three more books the last of his Faery Queene. During this visit also he presented to the Queen a prose tract View of the /State of Ireland "displaying the sagacity of an English statesman, but a spirit towards the poor native Irish as ruthless as Cromwell's." Hardly had he returned to Ireland, where, as Sheriff of Cork, his worldly prospects promised fair, when, by the Insurrection of Munster, he was driven from the country ; his house was pil- laged and burned, one of his children so says Ben Jonson perishing in the flames. Escaping to London, he soon after- wards, on January 16, 1599, died there, poor and broken- hearted. He was buried, at the expense of the Earl of Essex, in Westminster Abbey, next to Chaucer, and " his hearse was attended by poets; and mournful elegies and poems, with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb." As explanatory of the original scope and design of the Faery Queene, we extract a few passages from the author's letter ad- dressed " To the Right Noble and Valorous Sir Walter Raleigh, knight." "Sir, knowing how doubtfully all Allegories may be construed, and this Booke of mine, which I have entitled ' The Faery Queene,' being a continued Allegory, or darke Conceit, I have thought good as well for avoyding of gealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so by you com- manded,) to discover unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned, without expressing of any particular purpose, or by- accidents, therein oc- casioned. SPXXSKR. 599 " The general end therefore of all the Booke is to fashion a gentle- man or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline : which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being col- oured with an historical fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter than for profite of the ensample, I chose the Historye of King Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspition of present time. In which I have followed all the antique poets historicall. ... By ensample of which excellente poets, I labour to ponrtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave Knight, perfected in the twelve private Morall Vertues, as Aristotle hath devised ; the which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes : which if I finde to be well accepted, I may be per- haps encoraged to frame the other part of Polliticke Vertues in his person, after that hee came to be king. . . . " So have I laboured to do in the person of Arthure : whom I conceive, after his long education by Timon, to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be brought up, so soone as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne, to have seene in a dream or vision the Faery Queene, with whose excellent beauty ravished, he awaking resolved to seeke her out ; and so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon thoroughly instructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faerye land. In that Faery Queene I meane Glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdom in Faery Land. . . . " So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth Magnificence (or Magnanimity) in particular ; which Vertue, for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deeds of Arthure applyable to that Vertue, which I write of in that Booke. But of the xii other Vertues, I make xii other Knights the patrones, for the more variety of the history. . . . The begin- ning therefore of my History, if it were to be told by an histori- ographer, should be the twelfth Booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faery Queene kept her annual feaste xii days; uppon which xii severall dayes, the occasions of the xii severall Adventures hapned, which, being undertaken by xii severall Knights, are in these xii Bookes severally handled and discoursed." Of this vast undertaking for each of the projected twelve books was to consist of twelve cantos our poet lived to complete only six books. But these six constitute one of the longest poems ever written. The virtues personified are in Book I., Holiness, in the 600 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Knight of the Red Cross ; Book II., Temperance, in Sir Guyon ; Book III., Chastity, in Britomartis, a Lady Knight; Book IV., Friendship, in Cambel and Triamond; Book V., Justice, in Arte- gall; Book VI., Courtesy, in Sir Calidore. Besides these, our poet left two cantos on Mutability. From Canto XI. of Book I., we extract the description of the Dragon, which the Knight of the Red Cross fought with through two days : By this, the dreadful Beast drew nigh to hand, Halfe flying and halfe footing in his haste, That with his largenesse measured much land, And made wide shadow under his huge waste ; As mountaine doth the valley overcaste. Approching nigh, he reared high afore His body monstrous, horrible, and vaste ; Which, to increase his wondrous greatnes more ; Was swoln with wrath and poyson, and with bloody gore ; And over all with brasen scales was armd, Like plated cote of steele, so couched neare That nought mote perce ; ne might his corse be harmd With dint of swerd, nor push of pointed speare : Which, as an eagle, seeing pray appeare, His aery plumes doth rouze full rudely dight ; So shaked he, that horror was to heare : For, as the clashing of an armor bright, Such noyse his rouzed scales did send unto the Knight. His flaggy winges, when forth he did display, Were like two sayles, in which the hollow wynd Is gathered full, and worketh speedy way : And eke the pennes,* that did his pineons bynd, Were like mayne-yardes with flying canvas lynd ; With which whenas him list the ayre to beat, And there by force unwonted passage fynd, The cloudes before him fledd for terror great, And all the hevens stood still amazed with his threat. His huge long tayle, wound up in hundred foldes, Does overspred his long bras-scaly back, Whose wreathed bough test when ever, he unfoldes, And thick-entangled knots adown does slack, Bespotted as with shieldes of red and blacke, * Feathers. f Folds. SPENSEE. 601 It sweepeth all the land behind him farre, And of three furlongs does but little lacke ; And at the point two stinges infixed arre, Both deadly sharp, that sharpest steele exceeden farre. But stinges and sharpest steele did far exceed The sharpenesse of his cruel rending clawes: Dead was it sure, as sure as death indeed, What ever thing does touch his ravenous pawes, Or what within his reach he ever drawes. But his most hideous head my tongue to tell Does tremble ; for his deepe devouring iawes Wyde gaped, like the griesly mouth of hell, Through which into his darke abysse all ravin * fell. And, that more wondrous was, in either iaw Three ranckes of yron teeth enraunged were, In which yett trickling blood, and gobbets raw, Of late devoured bodies did appeare ; That sight thereof bredd cold congealed feare: Which to increase, and all at once to kill, A cloud of smoothering smoke, and sulphure seare,f Out of his stinking gorge t forth steemed still, That all the ayre about with smoke and stench did fill. His blazing eyes, like two bright shining shieldes, Did burne with wrath, and sparkled living fyre : As two broad beacons, sett in open fieldes, Send forth their flames far off to every shyre, And warning give, that enemies conspyre With fire and sword the region to invade ; So flam'd his eyne with rage and rancorous yre : But far within, as in a hollow glade, Those glaring lampes were sett, that made a dreadfull shade. So dreadfully towardes him did pas, Forelifting up aloft his speckled brest, And often bounding on the brused gras, As for great ioyance of his new come guest. Eftsoones || he pin advance his haughty crest ; As chauffed bore his bristles doth upreare ; And shake his scales to battaile ready drest, (That made the Redcrosse Knight nigh quake for feare,) As bidding bold defyaunce to his foeman neare. * Pre. f Burning. * Throat. \ Region. 8 Immediately. 51 602 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The Knight gan fayrely couch his steady speare, And fiersely ran at him with rigorous might : The pointed steele, arriving rudely theare, His harder hyde would nether perce nor bight, But, glauncing by, foorth passed forward right : Yet, sore amoved with so puissant push, The wrathful Beast about him turned light, And him so rudely, passing by, did brush With his long tayle, that horse and man to ground did rush. Both horse and man up lightly rose againe, And fresh encounter towardes him addrest: But th' ydle stroke yet backe recoyled in vaine, And found no place his deadly point to rest. Exceeding rage enflam'd the furious Beast, To be avenged of so great despight; For never felt his impercfeable brest So wondrous force from hand of living wight ; Yet had he prov'd the powre of many a puissant Knight. Then, with his waving wings displayed wyde, Himselfe up high he lifted from the ground, And with strong flight did forcibly divyde The yielding ay re, which nigh too feeble found Her flitting* parts, and element unsound, To beare so great a weight : He, cutting way With his broad sayles, about him soared round ; At last, low stouping with unweldy sway, Snatcht up both horse and man, to beare them quite away. Long he them bore above the subject plaine, So far as ewghenf bow a shaft may send; Till struggling strong did him at last constraine To let them downe before his flightes end : As hagardj hanke, presuming to contend With hardy fowle above his liable $ might, His wearie pounces || all in vaine doth spend To trusse^ the pray too heavy for his flight; Which, comming down to ground, does free itselfe by fight. He so disseized of his gryping grosse, The Knight his thrillant** speare again assayd In his bras-plated body to embosse,ff And three mens strength unto the stroake he layd ; * Fleeting or light. t Made of yew. J Wild. Proper might. || Claws. 1f Bear aloft. ** Piercing. ft Enclose. SPENSER. 603 Wherewith the stiffe beame quaked, as affrayd, And glauncing from his scaly necke did glyde Close under his left wing, then broad displayd : The percing steele there wrought a wound full wyde, That with the uncouth ;: ' smart the Monster lowdly cryde. He cryde, as raging seas are wont to rore, When wintry storme his wrathful wreck does threat ; The rolling billowes beate the ragged shore, As they the earth would- shoulder from her seat; And greedy gulfe does gape, as he would eat His neighbour element in his revenge : Then gin the blustring brethren boldly threat To move the world from off his stedfast henge, And boystrous battaile make, each other to avenge. The steely head stuck fast still in his flesh, Till with his cruell clawes he snatcht the wood, And quite asunder broke : Forth flowed fresh A gushing river of blacke gory blood, That drowned all the land, whereon he stood ; The streame thereof would drive a water-mill: Trebly augmented was his furious mood With bitter sence of his deepe rooted ill, That flames of fire he threw forth from his large nosethrill. His hideous tayle then hurled he about, And therewith all enwrapt the nimble thyes Of his froth-fomy steed, whose courage stout Striving to loose the knott that fast him tyes, Himselfe in streighter bandes too rash implyes,f That to the ground he is perforce constraynd To throw his ryder : who can quickly ryse . From off the earth, with durty blood distaynd, For that reprochfull fall right fowly he disdaynd ; And fercely tooke his trenchand blade in hand, With which he stroke so furious and so fell, That nothing seemd the puissance could withstand-. Upon his crest the hardned yron fell ; But his more hardned crest was armd so well, That deeper dint therein it would not make ; Yet so extremely did the buffe him quell, That from thenceforth he shund the like to take, But, when he saw them come, he did them still forsake.J * Strange. t Entangles. J Avoid. 604 MAX UAL OF ENGLISH LITEIIATURE. The Knight was wroth to see his stroke beguyld, And smot againe with more outrageous might ; But backe againe the sparcling steele recoyld, And left not any marke where it did light, As if in adamant rocke it had been pight.* The Beast, impatient of his smarting wound And of so fierce and forcible despight, Thought with his winges to styef above the ground; But his late wounded wing unserviceable found. Then, full of grief and anguish vehement, He lowdly brayd, that like was never heard ; And from his wide devouring oven sent A flake of fire, that, flashing in his beard, Him all amazd, and almost made afeard : The scorching flame sore swinged J all his face, And through his armour all his body seard, That he could not endure so cruell cace, But thought his armes to leave, and helmet to ulace. Not that great champion of the antique world, Whom famous poetes verse so much doth vaunt, And hath for twelve huge labours high extold, So many furies and sharpe fits did haunt, When him the poysoned garment did enchaunt, With Centaures blood and bloody verses charmd ; As did this Knight twelve thousand dolours daunt, Whom fyrie steele now burnt, that erst him armd ; That erst $ him goodly armd, now most of all him harmd. Faynt, wearie, sore, emboyled,|| grieved, brent,^[ With heat, toyle, wounds, armes, smart, and inward That never man such mischiefes did torment; Death better were ; death did he oft desire ; But death will never come, when needes require. Whom so dismayd when that his foe beheld, He cast** to suffer him no more respire, But gan his sturdy sterne about to weld, And him so strongly stroke, that to the ground him feld. In Book II., Canto XII., we find the following description of the Bowre of Blisse : Tl/ence passing forth, they ff shortly do arrgue Whereas the Bowre of Blisse was situate ; * Thrust. f Mount. $ Singed. g Before. || Scorched. If Burned. ** Determined. ff Sir Guyon and Palmer. SPENSER. 605 A place pickt out by choyce of best alyve, That natures worke by art can imitate: In which whatever in this worldly state Is sweete and pleasing unto living sense, Or that may dayntest fantasy aggrate,* Was poured forth with plentiful! dispence.f And made there to abound with lavish affluence. Goodly it was enclosed rownd about, As well their entred guestes to keep within, As those unruly beasts to hold without; Yet was the fence thereof but weake and thin ; Nought feard their force that fortilagej to win, But Wisedomes$ powre, and Temperaunces$ might, By which the mightiest things efforced bin : || And eke the gate was wrought of substaunce light, Rather for pleasure then for battery or fight. Yt framed was of precious yvory, That seemd a worke of admirable witt ; And therein all the famous history Of lason and Medaea was ywritt ; Her mighty charmes, her furious loving fitt ; His goodly conquest of the golden fleece, His falsed fayth, and love too lightly flitt ;fl The wondred Argo, which in venturous peece First through the Euxine seas bore all the flowr of Greece. Ye might have scene the frothy billowes fry ** Under the ship as through them she went, That seemed the waves were into yvory, Or yvory into the waves were sent ; And otherwhere the snowy substaunce sprentf* With vermeil,!]: like the boyes blood therein shed, A piteous spectacle did represent ; And otherwhiles with gold besprinkeled Yt seemed th' enchaunted flame, which did Creusa wed. All this and more might in that goodly gate Be red, that ever open stood to all Which thether came: but in the. porch there sate A comely personage of stature tali, And semblaunce pleasing, more than naturall, * Delight. f Expense. t Fortress. 8 Sir Guyon and Palmer. II Are fi Departed. ** Foam. tf Sprinkled. JJ Vermilion. 51* 606 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. That travellers to him seemd to enlize; His looser garment to the ground did fall, And flew about his heeles in wanton wize, Not fitt for speedy pace or manly exercise. They in that place him Genius did call : Not that celestiall Powre, to whom the care Of life, and generation of all That lives, perteines in charge particulare, Who wondrous things concerning our welfare, And straunge phantomes, doth lett us ofte foresee, And ofte of secret ills bids us beware: That is our selfe, whom though we do not see, Yet each doth in himselfe it well perceive to bee : Therefore a god him sage Antiquity Did wisely make, and good Agdistes call : But this same was to that quite contrary, The foe of life, that good envyes to all, That secretly doth us procure to fall Through guilefull semblants, which he makes us see : He of this Gardin had the governall,* And Pleasures Porter was devized to bee, Holding a staffe in hand for mere formalitee. With diverse flowres he daintily was deckt, And strowed round about ; and by his side A mighty mazer t bowle of wine was sett, As if it had to him bene sacrifide ; Wherewith all new-come guests he gratyfide : So did he eke Sir Guyon passing by; But he his ydle curtesie defide, And overthrew his bowle disdainfully, And broke his staffe, with which he charmed semblants sly. Thus being entred, they behold arownd A large and spacious plaine, on every side Strowed with pleasauns ; whose fayre grassy grownd 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. * Government. I Maple. A SPENSER. 607 Thereto the heavens alwayes joviall Lookte 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 milde ayre with season moderate Gently attempred, and disposed so well, That still it breathed forth sweet spirit and holesom smell More sweet and holesome then the pleasaunt hill Of Rhodope, on which the nimphe, that bore A gyaunt babe, herselfe for griefe did kill; Or the Thessalian Tempe, when of yore Fayre Daphne Phoebus hart with love did gore ; Or Ida, where the gods lov'd to repayre, Whenever they their heavenly bowres forlore;* Or sweet Parnasse, the haunt of Muses fayre ; Or Eden selfe, if ought with Eden mote compayre. Much wondred Guy on at the fayre 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, Brydling his will and maysteringf his might: Till that he came unto another gate : No gate, but like one, being goodly dight With bowes and braunches, which did broad dilate Their clasping armes in \variton wreathings intricate. So fashioned a porch with rare device, Aroht over head with an embracing vine, Whose bounches hanging downe seemd to entice All passers-by to taste their lushious wine, And did themselves into their hands incline, As freely offering to be gathered ; Some deepe empurpled as the hyacine, Some as the rubine laughing sweetely red, Some like faire emerandes,J not yet well ripened: And them amongst some were of burnisht gold, So made by art to beautify the rest, Which did themselves emongst the leaves enfold, As lurking from the vew of covetous guest, That the weake boughes with so rich load opprest * Forsook. t Mastering. "< Emeralds. 608 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Did bow adowne as overburdened. Under that porch a comely Dame did rest Clad in fayre weedes* but fowle disordered, And garments loose that seemd unmeet for womanhood: In her left hand a cup of gold she held, And with her right the riper fruit did reach, Whose sappy liquor, that with fulnesse sweld, Into her cup she scruzdf with daintie breach Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,^ That so faire winepresse made the wine more sweet: Thereof she usd to give to drinke to each, Whom, passing by she happened to meet: It was her guise all straungers goodly so to greet. So she to Guy on offred it to tast; Who, taking it out of her tender hond, The cup to ground did violently cast, That all in peeces it was broken fond,|| And with the liquor stained all the lond:1[ Whereat Excesse exceedinly was wroth, Yet no' te** the same amend, ne yet withstond, But suffered him to passe, all were she loth ; Who, nought regarding her displeasure, forward goth. There the most daintie paradise on ground Itseife 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 Miles for breathing space ; The trembling groves; the christall running by; And, that which all faire workes doth most aggrace, The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place. 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 ymageree Was overwrought, and shapes of naked boyes, Of which some seemd with lively iollitee To fly about playing their wanton toyes,ff Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes. * Clothes. f Squeezed. J Injury. g Hand. || Found. fl Land or ground. ** Could not. ft Sports. SPENSER. 609 All 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, 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 fearefully did steepe, Which drops of christall seemd for wantones to weep. Infinit streames continually did well Out of the fountaine, sweet and faire to see, The which into an ample laver 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 jaspar shining bright, That seemd the fountaine in that sea did sayle upright. Eftsoones* they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a daintie eare, Such as attonee might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere : Right hard it was for wight which did it heare, To read f 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 ioyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade, Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet; Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made To th' instruments divine respondence meet ; The silver-sounding instruments did meet With the base murmure of the waters fall; The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all. The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay; Ah ! see, whoso fayre, thing doest faine to see, In springing flowre the image of thy day ! Ah ! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she Doth first pefpe foorth with bashfull modestee, * Immediately t Explain. 2O 610 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. That fairer seemes the lesse ye see her may ! Lo ! see soone after how more bold and free Her bared bosome she doth broad display; Lo ! see soone after how she fades and falls away! So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre; Ne more doth florish after first decay, That earst was sought to deck both bed and bowre Of many a lady, and many a paramowre ! Gather therefore the rose whilest yet is prime, For soone comes age that will her pride deflowre: Gather the rose of love whilest yet is time, Whilest loving thou mayst loved be with equall crime* Lastly we present a portrait of Diana, from Book II., Canto III. Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not, But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew, Cleare as the skye, withouten blame or blot, Through goodly mixture of complexions dew; And in her cheekes the vermeill red did shew Like roses in a bed of lillies shed, The which ambrosiall odours from them threw, And gazers sence with double pleasure fed, Hable to heale the sicke and to revive the ded. In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame, Kindled above at th' Hevenly Makers light, And darted fyrie beames out of the same, So passing persant,f and so wondrous bright, That quite bereav'd the rash beholders sight: In them the blinded god his lustfull fyre To kindle oft assayd, but had no might ; For, with dredd maiestie and awfull yre, She broke his wanton darts, and quenched bace desyre. Her yvorie forhead, full of bountie brave, Like a broad table did itselfe dispred, For Love his loftie triumphes to engrave, And write the battailes of his great godhed: All good and honour might therein be red; For there their dwelling was. And, when she spake, Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed ; And twixt the perles and rubins softly brake A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemd to make. * To an equal degree. t Piercing SPENSER. 611 Upon her eyelids many Graces sate, Under the shadow of her even browes, Working belgardes* and amorous retrate;f And everie one her with a grace endowes, And everie one with meekenesse to her bowes: So glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace, And soveraine moniment of mortall vowes, How shall frayle pen descrive her heavenly face, For feare, through want of skill, her beauty to disgrace ! So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire, She seemed, when she presented was to sight ; And was yclad, for heat of scorching aire, All in a silken camusj lilly whight, Purfled$ upon with many a folded plight,|| Which all above besprinckled was throughout With golden aygulets,^ that glistred bright Like twinckling starres; and all the skirt about Was hemd with golden fringe. Below her ham her weed** did somewhat trayne, And her streight legs most bravely were embay Id ft In gilden buskins of costly cordwayne,tt All bard with golden bendes, which were entayld^ With curious antickes, and full fayre aurnayld:|||| Before, they fastned were under her knee In a rich iewell, and therein entrayldflfl The ends of all the knots, that none might see How they within their fouldings close enwrapped bee : Like two faire marble pillours they were scene, Which doe the temple of the gods support, Whom all the people decke with girlands greene, And honour in their festivall resort; Those same with stately grace and princely port She taught to tread, when she herselfe would grace ; But with the woody nymphes when she did play. Or when the flying libbard*** she did chace, She could them nimbly move, and after fly apace. And in her hand a sharp bore-speare she held, And at her backe a bow and quiver gay, Stuft with steel-headed dartes wherewith she queld The salvage beastes in her victorious play, * Sweet looks. f Picture. J Thin dress. Embroidered. 1 Plait. 1[ Tagged Points. ** Dress. ft Bound up. Jt Spanish leather. \l Carved. |||| Enamelled. ffl Twisted. *** Leopard. 612 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Knit with a golden bauldricke which forelay Athwart her snowy brest, and did divide Her daintie paps; which, like young fruit in May, Now little gan to swell, and being tide Through her thin weed their places only signifide. Her yellow lockes, crisped like golden wyre, About her shoulders weren loosely shed, And, when the winde emongst them did inspyre,* They waved like a penon wyde dispred, And low behinde her backe were scattered: And, whether art it were or heedlesse hap, As through the flouring forrest rash she fled, In her rude heares sweet flowres themselves did lap, And flourishing fresh leaves and blossomes did enwrap. What Joseph was contemptuously regarded by his brethren, that Spenser must be proudly esteemed among his brothers of English poetry the dreamer. His nature instinctively and habitually recoiled from contact with the hard actual, the sordid present, but lived and revelled within the fairy precincts of the ideal, or among the fascinating spectres of the past. His genius found its proper aliment in the fields of classic fable and mediaeval chivalry. Into the latter the great Italian poets, Ariosto and Tasso, had preceded him, and had used much of the same materials which he after- wards employed; but Spenser's handling of these materials was characterized by a heartiness and sincerity peculiarly his own. In the principles and sentiments with which he inspires his gallant knights and lovely ladies, and in their virtuous achievements and conduct, we recognize him as a thoroughly Christian poet a Bun- yan in verse; but, on the other hand, in the sensibility to and lust for the sensuous which equally characterize his heroes and heroines, in the frequent references had to the old Greek deities in the introduction of nymphs, dryads, fauns, and satyrs, and in the employment of giants, monsters, witches, and enchanted castles, we quite as readily recognize a thoroughly pagan poet a very Hesiod of ancient myth. In Spenser, however, the two do not conflict, but, through his most masterly skill at picturesque inven- tion, are made sweetly to coalesce, and so to heighten the general effect. Spenser is preeminent, too, for the beauty, the harmony, and the pathos of his language, and for the exhaustless command and rare fitness of his imagery. As a word-painter he has been most aptly styled the Kubens of English poetry. * Breathe. GEOFFREY CHAUCER. He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song ; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, 1 hear the note, Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead. LONGFELLOW. GEOFFREY CHAUCER was born in London, probably in the year 1328, of respectable, though not of noble parents. The first thirty years of his life are involved in almost total obscurity the rumor that he was educated at Cambridge, its opposing one that Oxford is entitled to that honor, and the gracious compro- mise that each university in turn shared the distinction, being the only matter of interest assigned to this interval. Not until the year 1359 do we encounter the first tolerably- well authenticated act of Chaucer's life his military service under Edward III., during that monarch's celebrated invasion of France. Our poet was taken prisoner in the expedition, and, whether as captive or fugitive, it is uncertain how he passed the next few years. In 1366, however, we find him returned to England, and connected by marriage with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. From this time forward, with slight inter- ruptions, royal confidences and pensions were bestowed upon him in no small measure. Chaucer was several times dispatched abroad on embassies of great political moment, during one of which, in 1373, our poet being, during the summer of that year, at Florence, he is pre- sumed to have seen and to have conversed with the eminent Italian poet, Petrarch. However this may be, that Chaucer was intimately acquainted with the poet Gower is certain, both from the fact of his having made the latter trustee of his private affairs during an embassy to Lombardy, and from their well- known interchanges of poetical compliments. 52 Cli 614 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Not to mention divers grants and pensions bestowed during the eight years preceding, Chaucer was, in 1382, appointed Comptroller of Petty Customs in the Port of London. But four years later, in consequence of the absence from England of his powerful friend and relative, the Duke of Lancaster, and the presence at the head of government of the latter's enemy, the Duke of Gloucester, Chaucer was stripped, during the next three years, of his office. Still he did not, as has been asserted, fly the country, neither was he imprisoned in the Tower ; but remained during the whole period of his disgrace in London, not only unmolested by rivals, but even in the enjoyment of his usual pension. Indeed, it was in the very year of his depo- sition from office that he was elected a knight of the shire for Kent. A change in government affairs in 1389 again brought Chau- cer into court favor, and he was made successively Clerk of the King's Works at Westminster, and at Windsor. After a year's service in each of these offices he was, for some unknown cause, superseded, and for the remainder of his life had to rely for support upon the revenue of his various grants and pensions. But this proved wholly inadequate not only for meeting the demands of one of his elevated position, but even for providing the comforts of a modest privacy. Only a short time before his death, this veteran courtier, this able ambassador, this life-long and favorite poet, was compelled to apply at the Exchequer in person for the petty loan of 6s. 8c?.,.and to seek of the King letters of protection from arrest. This misery, however, was mitigated in 1399, by a liberal pension from Henry IV., son of his deceased friend, the Duke of Lancaster. It came none too soon ; for on October 25, 1400, Chaucer died in London. Three days later he was buried in Westminster Abbey " the first of that illustrious series of poets who were subsequently to repose beside him, and were not ashamed to call him ' Father.' ' Wherever pursued, Chaucer's education was as good a one as the times afforded, embracing an acquaintance with the classics of Rome and Palestine, and the current crudities of science. Then, by nature, his tastes were of the most catholic sort, and they were ministered to, as we have seen, by a life of cosmo- politan span. CHAUCER. 615 He began to write at an early age, and zealously cherished the employ even to the end of his long life. His first efforts were doubtless imitative, The Eomaunt of the Ease, for exam- ple, being a literal translation into English of an early French poem. More original, but still largely borrowed in incident and sentiment, were the allegorical poems, The Court of Love, The Assembly of Foules, The Cuckow and the Nightingale, The Ftoure and the Leaf, and The Complaint of Pile. These produc- tions, and Troilus and Creseide, if they did not all engage his earlier efforts, certainly reflect Chaucer's earlier taste his love for the fantasies of classical and Provencal bards, while The BooJce of the Duchesse, The Legende of Good Women, The House of Fame, and The Canterbury Tales, are the fruits of his maturer and more original genius. " During the fourteenth century, language, like thought, was in a state of transition. After a long and bitter struggle between the Norman-French and the Saxon, the obstinate vigor of the native tongue began to prevail, and to assert its supremacy over the pol- ished but less vigorous French. In so great a state of confusion was the language, that 'moral' Gower, Chaucer's friend, uncertain which dialect would ultimately triumph and be the language of future England, solved the difficulty by writing in French, Latin, and Saxon. Chaucer, with a happier instinct, chose the last exclusively, and helped by his writings to bring about the realiza- tion of his hopes. He wrote in the common dialect of the upper middle classes, which was not pure Saxon, but a combination of three-fifths Saxon and two-fifths French and Latin. " Chaucer's compositions, therefore, are marked by a large admixture of foreign words and phrases, and especially by the influence of accentuation. The Tales seem much more difficult to read than they really are. We shall give our readers one golden rule, by attending to which they will have little difficulty in read- ing Chaucer, viz. : Pronounce the final e whenever the metre demands it, and the final syllable in all words of French origin, as e. g. in corage, visage, honour, clamour, manie'r. Bear in mind, also, that the strangeness of three fourths of the words results from the antiquated way in which they are spelled, and that when deprived of an e or an n, or otherwise slightly altered, they become familiar."* As exhibiting his peculiarities of style, and his felicities of con- * Westminster Review, Oct., 1871. 616 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ception in their highest perfection, we invite the student to Chau- cer's master work, the Canterbury Tales a work begun and com- pleted when our poet was old, and for the most part poor and desolate. The plot of the poem is thought to have been taken from the "Decameron" of Boccaccio. Our poet relates in "The Prologue" how that In Southwerk at the Tabard* as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with devoute corage, At night was come into that hostelrie Wei nine and twenty in a compagnie Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle f In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. It was proposed that each of the " compagnie " should relate two tales while going on the pilgrimage, and two while returning, and that, in the end, he who should be declared as having related the most satisfactory one, should sup at the common cost. This first design, however, was not carried out. The pilgrims do not arrive at the shrine, and only twenty-five of the proposed number of tales remain to us. But these sufficiently reveal the varied composition of the company, being related severally by the Knight, the Miller, the Keve, the Coke, the Man of Lawe, the Wif of Bath, the Frere, the Sompnour, the Clerk, the Marchant, the Squier, the Franke- lein, the Doctour, the Pardoner, the Shipman, the Prioresse, the Monk, the Normes Preest, the Chanones Yeman, the Manciple, and the Person. " Each tale is suited to the teller : the young squire relates a fantastic and Oriental history; the tipsy miller a loose and comi- cal story ; the honest clerk the touching legend of Griselda. All these tales are bound together, and that much better than by Boc- caccio, by little veritable incidents, which spring from the charac- ters of the personages, and such as we light upon in our travels. The horsemen ride on in good humor in the sunshine, in the open country; they converse. The miller has drunk too much ale, and will speak, 'arid for no man forbere.' The cook goes to sleep on his beast, and they play practical jokes on him. The monk and the summoner get up a dispute about their respective lines of business. The host [the landlord of the Inn, who accompanied the pilgrims] restores peace, makes them speak or be silent, like a man who has long presided in the inn parlor, and who has often had to check brawlers. * The Tabard Inn. t Fallen. CHAUCER. 01 "They pass judgment on the stories they listen to: declaring that there are few Griseldas in the world ; laughing at the misad- ventures of the tricked carpenter; drawing a lesson from the moral tale. The poem is no longer, as in contemporary litera- ture, a mere procession, but a painting in which the contrasts are arranged, the attitudes chosen, the general effect calculated, so that life is invigorated; we forget ourselves at the sight, as in the case of every life-like work ; and we conceive the desire to get on horseback on a fine sunny morning, and canter along green meadows with the pilgrims to the shrine of the good saint uf Canterbury."* Let us first listen to a portion of the " Knightes Tale" the pass- age wherein is described the contest between Palamon and Arcite, with their hundred knights each, in the presence of king Theseus, for the hand of Emelie, the queen's "yonge sister shene." Whan set was Theseus ml rich and hie, Ipolita the quene, and Emelie, And other ladies in degrees aboute, Unto the setes preseth all the route. And westward, thurgh the gates under Mart, Arcite, and eke the hundred of his part, With baner red, is entred right anon ; And in the selve moment Palamon Is, under Venus, estward in the place, With baner white, and hardy chere and face. In all the world, to seken up and down, So even without variatioun Ther n'ere swiche compagnies never twey. For ther was non so wise that coude sey, That any hadde of other avantage Of worthinesse, ne of estat, ne age, So even were they chosen for to gesse. And in two renges fay re they hem dresse. Whan that hirf names red were everichj on, That in hirf nombre gileg were ther non, Tho were the gates shette, and cried was loude ; Do now your devoir, yonge knightes proude. The heraudes|| left hirf prikingfi up and doun. Now ringen trompes loud and clarioun. Ther is no more to say, but est and In gon the speres sadly in the rest ; * Taine's English Literature. 1 1 heir. J Every. Error. I Heralds. Riding, 52* 618 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. In goth the sharpe spore* into the side. Ther see men who can juste, f and who can ride. Ther shiveren shaftes upon sheldes J thicke ; He feleth thurgh the herte-sponeg the pricke Up springen speres twenty foot on highte ; Out gon the swerdes as the silver brighte. The helmes they to-heweii and to-shrede ; Out brest the blod, with sterne || stremes rede. With mighty maces the bones they to-breste. fl He thurgh the thickest of the throng gan threste. Ther stomblen stedes strong, and doun goth all. He rolleth under foot as doth a ball. He foineth on his foo with a tronchoun, And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun ; He thurgh the body is hurt, and sith ** ytake Maugre his lied, and brought unto the stake, As forword was, right ther he must abide. Another lad is on that other side. And sometime doth hemff Theseus to rest, Hem ff to refresh, and drinken if hem ff lest. Ful oft a day han thilke Thebanes two Togeder met, and wrought eche other wo : Unhorsed hath eche other of hem twey. Ther n'as no tigre in the vale of Galaphey, Whan that hire whelpe is stole, whan is it lite,J| So cruel on the hunt, as is Arcite For jaious hertegg upon this Palamon: Ne in Belmarie ther n' is so fell leon, That hunted is, or for his hunger wood,[||| Ne of his prey desireth so the blood, As Palamon to sleen^ his foo Arcite. The jaious strokes on his helmes bite ; Gut*** renneth blood on both his sides rede. Somtime an ende ther is of every dede. For er the sonne unto the reste went, The stronge king Emetrius gan hentftf This Palamon, as he fought with Arcite, And made his swerd depe in his flesh to bite. And by the force of twenty is he take Unyolden,];+J and ydrawen to the stake. And in the rescous$| of this Palamon * Spur. t Joust. J Shields. Concave part of the breast. I! Cruel. If Burst. ** Therefore taken. ft Them. 8 Little. Heart. III! Mud. 1TO Slay. *** Out. tft Caught hold of. g Unyielding. ft$ Rescue. CHAUCER. 619 The stronge king Licurge is borne adoun: And king Emetrius for all his strengthe Is borne out of his sadel a swerdes lengthe, So hitte him Palamon or * he were take : But all for nought, he was brought to the stake : His hardy herte might him helpen naught, He moste f abiden, whan that he was caught, By force, and eke by composition. J Who sorweth now but woful Palamon ? That moste f no more gon again to fight. And whan that Theseus had seen that fight, Unto the folk that foughten thus eche on,g He cried, ho ! no more, for it is don. I wol be trewe juge, and not partie. Arcite of Thebes shal have Emelie, That by his fortune hath hire fay re ywonne.fj Anon ther is a noise of peple begonne^f For joye of this, so loud and high withall, It semed that the'listes shulden fall. The Miller shall next discover to us his modern prophet one " hendy Nicholas," a " poure scoler," or clerk, and his modern Noah, one John, a carpenter, as they discuss the prep- arations for a second deluge. Now, John (quod Nicholas) I wol not lie, I have yfounde in min astrologie, As I have loked in the moone bright, That now on Monday next, at quarter night, Shal fall a rain, and that so wild and wood** That half so gret was never Noes flood. This world (he said) in less than in an houre Shal al be dreint,ff so hidous is the shoure: Thus shall mankinde drenche, and leseJ hir lif. This carpenter answerd; Alas my wif! And shal she drenche ? alas min Alisoun ! For sorwe of this he fell almost adoun, And said, Is ther no remedy in this cas? Why yes, for God, quod hendy %$ Nicholas, If thou wolt werken after lore|||| and rede; Thou maist not werken after thin owen hede. * E'er. t Must. t Agreement. t Each other. | Won. |[ Begun. ** Raging. ft Drenched. #Lose. II Courteous. !i Advice. 620 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. For thus saith Salomon, that was ful trewe ; Werke all by conseil, and thou shalt not rewe. And if thou werken wolt by good conseil, I undertake, withouten mast or seyl,* Yet shal I saven hire, and thee and me. Hast thou not herd how saved was Noe, Whan that our Lord had warned him beforne, That al the world with water should be lorne? Yes, (quod this carpenter) ful yore ago. Hast thou not herd (quod Nicholas) also The sorwe of Noe with his felawship, Or that he might get his wif to ship? Him had he lever, I dare wel undertake, At thilke time, than all his wethers blake,f That she had had a ship hireself alone. And therefore wost thou what is best to done? This axeth hast,J and of an hastif thing Men may not preche and maken tarying. Anon go get us fast into this in A kneding trough or elles a kemelyn, For eche of us; but loke that they ben large, In which we mowen swimme as in a barge : And have therin vitaille suffisant|| But for a day ; fie on the remenant ; The water shall aslake and gon away Abouten prime upon the nexte day. But Robin may not wete of this, thy knave, Ne eke thy may den Gille I may not save : Axe not why : for though thou axe me, I wol not tellen Goddes privatee. Sufficeth thee, but if thy wittes madde, To have as gret a grace as Noe hadde. Thy wif shal I wel saven out of doute. Go now thy way, and spede thee hereaboute. But whan thou hast for hire, and thee, and me Ygeten us these kneding tubbes thre, Than shalt thou hang hem in the roofe ful hie, That no man of our purveyance espie: And whan thou hast done thus as I have said, And hast our vitaille faire in hem ylaid, And eke an axe to smite the cord a-two Whan that the water cometh, that we may go, And breke an hole on high upon the gable Unto the gardin ward, over the stable, * Sail. f Black. J Requireth haste. g Tub. ! : Victuals sufficient. CHAUCER. 621 That we may frely passen forth our way, Whan that the grete shoure is gon away. Than shal thou swim as mery, I undertake, As doth the white doke* after hire drake: Than wol I clepe,f How Alison, how John, Be mery : for the flood wol passe anon. And thou wolt sain, Haile maister Nicholay, Good morwe, I see thee wel, for it is day. And than shal we be lordes all our lif Of all the world, as Noe and his wif. But of o thing I warne thee ful right, Be wel avised on that ilke night, That we ben entred into shippes bord, That non of us ne speke not o word, Ne clepe f ne crie, but be in his praiere,t For it is Goddes owen hesteg dere. This ordinance is said : go, God thee spede. To-morwe at night, whan men ben all aslepe, Into our kneding tubbes wol we crepe, And sitten ther, abiding Goddes grace. Go now thy way, I have no lenger space To make of this no lenger sermoning: Men sain thus : send the wise, and say nothing : Thou art so wise, it nedeth thee nought teche. Go, save our lives, and that I thee beseche, " Sire Clerk of Oxenforde " shall next introduce us to the hero and heroine of his most touching tale Walter, a noble marquis, and Grisilde, a peasant maid, in the earliest and cheeriest episode of their wonderful career. Nought fer fro thilke paleis honourable, Wher as this markis shope|| his mariage, Ther stood a thorpe,1[ of sighte delitable, In which that poure folk of that village Hadden hir bestes and hir herbergage,** And of hir labour take hir sustenance, After that the erthe yave hem habundance. Among this poure folk ther dwelt a man, Which that was holden pourest of hem all ; But highe God sometime senden can *Duck. f Shout. J Prayer. Precious command. II Prepared. r Village. ** Dwelling. 622 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. His grace unto a litel oxes stall : Janicola men of that thorpe* him call. A doughter had he, faire ynough to sight, And Grisildis this yonge maiden hight. But for to speke of vertuous beautee, Than was she on the fairest under sonne: Ful pourely yfostred up was she: No likerousf lust was in hire herte yronne;J Well ofter of the well than of the tonne She dranke, and for she wolde vertue plese, She knew wel labour, but non idel ese. But though this mayden tendre were of age, Yet in the brest of hire virginitee Ther was enclosed sad and ripe corage: And in gret reverence and charitee Hire olde poure fader fostred she: A few sheep spinning on the feld she kept, She wolde not ben idel til she slept. And whan she homward came, she wolde bring Wortes|| and other herbes times oft, The which she shred and sethe for hire living, And made hire bed ful hard, and nothing soft : And ay she kept hire fadres lif on loftf With every obeisance and diligence, That child may don to fadres reverence. Upon Grisilde, this poure creature, Ful often si the this Markis sette his eye, As he on hunting rode paraventure: And whan it fell that he might hire espie, He not with wanton loking of folie His eyen cast on hire, but in sad wise Upon hire chere he wold him oft avise, Commending in his herte hire w T omanhede, N And eke hire vertue, passing any wight Of so yong age, as wel in chere** as dede. For though the peple have no gret insight In vertue, he considered ful right Hire bountee,ff and disposed that he wold Wedde hire only, if ever he wedden shold. The day of wedding came, but no wight can Tellen what woman that it shulde be, For which mervailleJJ wondred many a man, * Village. t Gluttonous. | Grown. A vessel for liquor. || Cabbages. ^ Kept up her father's life. ** Countenance. ft Goodness, ft Marvel. CH A UCER. 623 And saiden, whan they were in privetee, Wol not our lord yet leve his vanitee? Wol he not wedde? alas, alas the while! Why wol he thus himself and us begile ? But natheles* this Markis hath do makef Of gemmes, sette in gold and in asure, Broches and ringes, for Grisildes sake, And of hire clothing toke he the mesure Of a maiden like unto hire stature, And eke of other ornamentes all, That unto swiche a wedding shulde fall. The time of undernet of the same day Approcheth, that this wedding shulde be, And all the paleis put was in array, Both halle and chambres, eche in his degree, Houses of office stuffed with plentee Ther mayst thou see of deinteous vitaille, That may be found, as fer as lasteth Itaille. This real j| Markis richely arraide, Lordes and ladies in his compagnie, The which unto the feste weren praide,^ And of his retenue the bachelerie, With many a soun of sondry melodie, Unto the village, of the which I told, In this array the righte way they hold. Grisilde of this (God wot) ful innocent, That for hire shapen was all this array, To fetchen water at a welle is went, And cometh home as sone as ever she may. For wel she had herd say, that thilke day The Markis shulde wedde, and, if she might, She wolde fayn han seen som of that sight. She thought, I wol with other maidens stond,** That ben my felawes,ff in our dore, and see The markisesse, and therto wol I fond H To don at home, as sone as it may be, The labour which that longeth unto me, And than I may at leiser hire behold, If she this way unto the castel hold. And as she wolde over the threswoldgg gon, The Markis came and gan hire for to call, And she set doun hire water-pot anon * Nevertheless. f Caused to be made. J Nine o'clock. Dainty victuals. || Royal. f Invited. ** Stand, ft Companions. ft Contrive. j$ Threshold. 624 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Beside the threswold* in an oxes stall, And doun upon hire knees she gan to fall, And with sad countenance kneleth still, Til she had herd what was the lordes will. This thoughtful Markis spake unto this maid Ful soberly, and said in this manere : Wher is your fader, Grisildis? he said. And she with reverence in humble chere Answered, lord, he is al redy here. And in she goth withouten lenger lette,f And to the Markis she hire fader fette.J He by the hond.than toke this poure man, And saide thus, whan he him had aside : Janicola, I neither may ne can Lenger the plesance of min herte hide, If that thou vouchesauf, what so betide, Thy doughter wol I take, or that I wend, As for my wif, unto hire lives end. Thou lovest me, that wot I wel certain, And art my faithful liegeman ybore, And all that liketh me, I dare wel sain It liketh thee, and specially therfore ' Tell me that point, that I have said before, If that thou wolt unto this purpos drawe, To taken me as for thy son in lawe. This soden casg this man astoned so, That red he wex, abaist, || and al quaking He stood, unnethes^[ said he wordes mo, But only thus : Lord, quod he, my willing Is as ye wol, ne ap-eins your liking I wol no thing, min owen lord so dere, Right as you list, governeth this matere. Than wol I, quod this Markis softely, That in thy chambre, I, and thou, and she, Have a collation, and wost thou why? For I wol ask hire, if it hire wille be To be my wif, and reule hire after me: And all this shal be don in thy presence, I wol not speke out of thin audience. And in the chambre, while they were aboute The tretee, which as ye shul after here, The peple came into the hous withoute, * Threshold. f Longer delay. % Fetched. Sudden case. || Abashed. \ Scarcely. CHAUCER. 625 And wondred hem, in how honest manere Ententifly* she kept hire fader dere: But utterly Grisildis wonder might, For never erst ne saw she swiche a sight. No wonder is though that she be astoned, To see so gret a gest come in that place, She never was to non swiche gestes woned,t For which she loked with ful pale face. But shortly forth this matere for to chace, Thise arn the wordes that the Markis said To this benigne, veray, J faithful maid. Grisilde, he said, ye shuln wel understond, It liketh to your fader and to me, That I you wedde, and eke it may so stond As I suppose, ye wol that it so be : But thise demaundes aske I first (quod he) That sin it shal be don in hasty wise, Wol ye assent, or elles g you avise ? I say, this, be ye redy with good herte To all my lustj and that I freely may As me best thinketh do^" you laugh or smerte, And never ye to grutchen, night ne day, And eke whan I say ya, ye say not nay, Neither by word, ne frouning countenance ? Swere this, and here I swere our alliance. Wondring upon this thing, quaking for drede, She saide ; Lord, indigne and unworthy Am I, to thilke honour, that ye me bede,** But as ye wol yourself, right so wol I : And here I swere, that never willingly In werk, ne thought, I n' ill you disobeie For to be ded, though me were loth to deie. This is ynough, Grisilde min, quod he. And forth he goth with a ful sobre chere, Out at the dore, and after than came she, And to the peple he said in this manere: This is my wif, quod he, that stondeth here. Honoureth hire, and loveth hire, I pray, Who so me loveth, ther n' is no more to say. And for ff that nothing of hire olde gere She shulde bring into his hous, he bad * Intentively. t Accustomed. JTrue. 3 Else will you consider it. II Pleasure. tf Cause. ** Offer. ft In order that. 53 2P 626 MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. That women shuld despoilen hire right there; Of which thise ladies weren nothing glad To handle hire clothes wherein she was clad: But natheles this maiden bright of hew Fro foot to hed they clothed han all new. Hire heres han they kempt,* that lay untressed Ful rudely, and with hir fingres smal A coroune on hire hed they han ydressed, And sette hire ful of nouchesf gret and smal: Of hire array what shuld I make a tale? Unnetht the peple hire knew for hire fairnesse, Whan she transmewed$ was in swiche richesse. This Markis hath hire spoused with a ring Brought for the same cause, and than hire sette Upon an hors snow-white, and wel ambling, And to his paleis, or he lenger lette, || (With joyful peple, that hire lad and metteff) Conveyed hire, and thus the day they spende In revel, til the sonne gan descende. And shortly forth this tale for to chace, I say, that to this newe markisesse God hath swiche favour sent hire of his grace, That it ne semeth not by likelinesse That she was borne and fed in rudenesse, As in a cote, or in an oxes stall, But nourished in an emperoures hall. To every wight she waxen is so dere, And worshipful, that folk ther** she was bore, And fro hire birthe knew hire yere by yere, UnnethesJ trowed ft they, but dorst han swore, That to Janicle, of which I spake before, She doughter n'as,|J for as by conjecture Hem thoughte she was another creature. For though that ever vertuous was she, She was encresed in swiche excellence Of thewes^g good, yset in high bountee, And so discrete, and faire of eloquence, So benigne, and so digne of reverence, And coude so the peples herte embrace, That eche hire loveth that loketh on hire face. * Combed. f Ornaments of dress. J Scarcely. \ Changed. || Ere he longer delayed. f Led and met her. ** Where. tt Believed. ft Was not. gg Manners or qualities. CHAUCER. 62' Not only this Grisildis thurgh hire wit Coude all the fete of wifly homlinesse, f But eke whan that the cas required it, The comune profit coude she redresse: Ther n' as discord, rancour, ne hevinesse In all the lond, that she ne coude appese, And wisely bring hem all in hertes ese. Though that hire husbond absent were or no, If gentilmen, or other of that contree Were wroth, she wolde bringen hem at on,* So wise and ripe wordes hadde she, And jugement of so gret exquitee, That she from heven sent was, as men wend,f Peple to save, and every wrong to amend. Chaucer's genius was one of most comprehensive mold, Shake- speare's alone surpassing it in this respect. And like the latter's, too, it was admirably balanced. Humor, pathos, and sound sense entered into his every creation, and these blended their various colors with singularly harmonious effects. He was emphatically a poet of Nature a poetical Antaeos, whose safety and strength lay in keeping close to the bosom of his mother Earth. The dewy freshness of the grass, the multiplex dyes of flowers and their fra- grant breaths, the melodious warblings of birds, the pleasing tur- moil of running waters, and the play and chase of sky-tints salute us anew, and most charmingly, as we turn his pages. And through all what a vigorous, agile, lusty spirit do we espy, pursuing every beautiful thing, and yearning to embrace within its generous arms the physical universe and every sentient creature ! * Would bring them at one, i. e. reconcile them. f Ween'd or supposed. INDEX OF AUTHORS. ADDISON, JOSEPH, 44, 45, 497-508. AINSWOKTH, W. H., 55. AKENSIDE, MARK, 47. ALCUIN, 20. ALDHELM, 20. ALFORD, DEAN, 65. ALFRED, KINO, 21. ALFRIC, 21. ALISON, SIR ARCHIBALD, 62, 63. ANDREW OF WYNTON, 27. ANDREWES, BISHOP, 34. ANEURIN, 18. ANSELM, 22. ARBUTHNOT, DR. JOHN, 44. ARNOLD, MATTHEW, 51, 52, 66. THOMAS, 60, 62. ASCHAM, ROGER, 30. ATTERBURY, BISHOP, 45. AUSTEN, Miss, 54, 55. AYTOUN, W. E., 63. BACON, LORD, 34, 588-596. ROGER, 22. BAGS, ROBERT, 53. BAILLIE, JOANNA, 51, 52. BALE, BISHOP, 85, 86. BANIM, JOHN, 55. BARBOUR, 27. BARROW, ISAAC, 43. BAXTER, RICHARD, 40. BAYLY, THOMAS H., 51. BEAUMONT, THOMAS, 37. 53* BECKFORD, WILLIAM, 55. BEDE, 20. BEHN, MRS., 42. BERKELEY, BISHOP, 45. BERNERS, LORD, 29. BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM, 46. BLESSINGTON, LADY, 55. BOLINGBROKE, VlSCOUNT, 45. BOSWELL, JAMES, 46. BOWLES, W. L., 51. BREWSTER, SIR DAVID, 65. j BRIGHT, JOHN, 65. ' BRONTE, CHARLOTTE, 55, 58. i BROOKE, LORD, 33. BROOKS, C. S., 55. BROUGHAM, HENRY, 63, 65. BROWN, THOMAS, 65. BROWNE, SIR THOMAS, 39. BROWNING, MRS. E. B., 61, 52, 95- 107. BROWNING, ROBERT, 51, 52, 83-94. BRUNTON, MRS., 54. BUCHANAN, ROBERT, 51. 52. BUCKLE, H. T., 62. BUDGELL, EUSTACE, 45. BULWER-LYTTON, SIR E. G., 65, 63, 217-220. BULWER-LYTTON, HENRY, 51. BUNYAN, JOHN, 40, 523-528. BURKE, EDMUND, 46, 467-476. BURNEY, Miss, 54. BURNS, ROBERT, 49, 51. 853-867. BURTON. ROBERT, 34. 629 680 INDEX OF AUTHORS. BURNET, GILBERT, 43. BUTLER, SAMUEL, 41, 529-537. BISHOP, 46. BYRON, LORD, 50, 61, 187-197. O. CAEDMON, 20, 21. CAMDEN, WILLIAM, 33. CAMPBELL. THOMAS, 50, 51. CANNING, GEORGE, 65. CAREW, THOMAS, 38. CARLETON, WILLIAM, 55. CARLYLE, THOMAS, 62, 63, 305-313. CAXTON, WILLIAM, 27. CHALMERS, THOMAS, 65. CHAMIER, CAPTAIN, 55. CHAPMAN,. GEORGE, 33, 37. CHATTERTON, THOMAS, 47. CHAUCER, GEOFFREY, 23, 25,613-627. CHEKE, JOHN, 30. CHILLINGWORTH, WILLIAM, 40. CHURCHYARD, THOMAS, 33. CLARENDON, EARL OF, 42. CLEVELAND, JOHN, 38. COBDEN, RICHARD, 65. COLEMANS, GEORGE (senior and ju- nior), 47. COLENSO, BISHOP, 65. COLERIDGE, HARTLEY, 51 ; SARA, 51 ; SAMUEL T., 50, 51, 63, 177-186. COLLINS, WILKIE, 55 ; WILLIAM, 47. CONGREVE, WILLIAM, 42. COOK, ELIZA, 51, 52. COWLEY, ABRAHAM, 38, 39. COWPER, WILLIAM, 49, 51, 340-352. CRABBE, GEORGE, 47, 50, 51. CRANMER, 30. CRASHAW, RICHARD, 38. CROKER, CROFTON, 55; J. W., 63. CROLY, GEORGE, 51. CROWE, MRS., 55. j CROWNE, JOHN, 42. CUDWORTH, RALPH, 43. CUMBERLAND, RICHARD, 47. GUMMING, JOHN, 65. CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN. 51. CUPPLES, MR., 55. CYNEWULF, 21. ID. DANIEL, SAMUEL, 33. DARWIN. CHARLES, 65. DAVENANT, SIR WILLIAM, 38. DAVIES, SIR JOHN, 33. DE FOE, DANIEL, 46, 434-442. DEKKER, THOMAS, 37. DENHAM, SIR JOHN, 38. DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 63, 273-278. DICKENS, CHARLES, 55, 58, 230-244. DISRAELI, BENJAMIN, 55, 65. ISAAC, 65. DONNE, JOHN, 33. DOUGLAS, GAVIN, 27. DRAKE, NATHAN, 65. DRAPER, W., 62. DRAYTON, MICHAEL, 33. DRUMMOND, WILLIAM, 33. DRYDEN, JOHN, 42, 509-522. DUNBAR, WILLIAM, 27, 28. IE. EASTLAKE, C. L., 65. EDGEWORTH, Miss, 54, 55. EDWARDS, RICHARD, 33. "ELIOT, GEORGE," 55, 210-216. ETHEREGE, SIR GEORGE, 42. EVELYN, JOHN, 42. Z". FABER, G. S., 65. FAIRBAIRN, PROFESSOR, 65. FAIRFAX, EDWARD, 33. FARADAY, MICHAEL, 65, INDEX OF AUTHORS. 631 FARQUHAB, GEORGE, 42. FARRAR, F. W., 65. FIELDING, HENRY, 46, 427-433. FLETCHERS, THE, 33, 37. FOOTE, SAMUEL, 47. FORD, JOHN, 33. Fox, W. J., 46. FOXE, JOHN, 33. FRASER, J. B., 55. FREEMAN, E. A., 62. FROUDE, JAMES A., 62, 300-804. FULLER, THOMAS, 40. Gr. GALT, JOHN, 55. GARRICK, DAVID, 47. GASCOIGNE, GEORGE, 33. GASKELL, MRS., 55, 58. GAY, THOMAS, 44. GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, 22. OF VINSAUF, 22. GIBBON, EDWARD, 46, 443-449. GIBSON, T. M., 65. GIFFORD, WILLIAM, 63. GIRALDUS, C., 22. GLADSTONE, W. E., 65. GLASSCOCK, CAPTAIN, 55. GODWIN, WILLIAM, 53, 55. GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, 46, 368-379. GORE, MRS., 55. GOWER, JOHN, 24, 25. GRAHAM E, JAMES, 51. GRAY, THOMAS, 47, 380-385. GREENE, ROBERT, 36. GREY, EARL, 65. GRIFFIN, GERALD, 55. GROTE, GEORGE, 60, 314-321. HALES, ALEXANDER, 22 ; JOHN, 40. HALL, JOSEPH, 33; MRS., 55; ROB ERT, 65. HALLAMS, HENRY, 62, 334-339. HAMILTON, MRS., 54; SIR WILLIAM, 65. HANNAY, 55. HAWES, STEPHEN, 30, 31. HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 63, 292-299. HEBER, DR. R., 51. HEMANS, MRS., 51, 52, 166-176. HENRY OF HUNTINGDON, 22. "BLIND HARRY," 27, 28. HENRYSON, ROBERT, 27, 28. HERBERT, GEORGE, 38; LORD, 34; WILLIAM, 51. HERRICK, ROBERT, 38. HERSCHEL, SIR JOHN, 65. HEYWOOD, JOHN, 29, 35 ; THOMAS, 37. HIGDEN, RALPH, 22. HILARIUS, 22, 23. HOBBES, THOMAS, 34. HOGG, JAMES, 51, 55, 63. HOLCROFT, THOMAS, 53. HOLLINSHED, RAPHAEL, 33. HOOD, THOMAS, 51, 143-154. HOOK, THEODORE, 55. HOOKER, RICHARD, 33. HOPE, THOMAS, 55. HORNER, FRANCIS, 63. HOWARD, 55. HUGHES, THOMAS, 55. HUME, DAVID, 46, 450-457. HUNT, LEIGH, 50, 51. HUXLEY, THOMAS, 65. X. INCHBALD, MRS., 54. INGELOW, JEAN, 51, 52. JAMES, I., 27 ; G. P. R. JAMESON, MRS., 65. JEFFREY, FRANCIS, 63. J, 56, 632 INDEX OF AUTHORS. JERROLD, DOUGLAS, 55, 63. JEWEL, BISHOP, 33. JOHN OF SALISBURY, 22. JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL, 45, 46, 477 486. JONSON, BEN, 37, 555-568. JOSEPH OF EXETER, 22. "JuNius," 46. KEATS, JOHN, 50, 51. KINGSLEY, CHARLES, 55, 58. KNOWLES, J. S., 51. KYD, THOMAS, 36. LAMB, CAROLINE, 55 ; CHARLES, 63, 287-291. LANDON, Miss, 51. LANDOR, WALTER S., 50, 51, 63, 108- 118. LANFRANC, 22. LANGLANDE, ROBERT, 24, 25. LATIMER, 30. LAYAMON, 22. LEE, NATHANIEL, 42 ; Miss, 54. L'ESTRANGE, SIR ROGER, 42. LEVER, CHARLES J., 55. LEWES, SIR GEORGE, 60; G. H., 55, 65. LEWIS, MATTHEW G., 53. LIGHTFOOT, J. B., 65. LINDSAY, A. W., 65. LLYWARCH, 18. LOCKE, JOHN, 43. LOCKER, FREDERICK, 52. LOCKHART, JOHN G., 55, 63. LOVELACE, SIR RICHARD, 38. LOVER, SAMUEL, 55. LYDGATE, JOHN, 27. LYELL, SIR CHARLES, 65. LYLY, JOHN, 36. LYNDHURST, LORD, 65. LYNDSAY, SIR DAVID, 30, 31. 3VX. MACAULAY, LORD, 62,63,65,322-333. MACDONALD, GEORGE. 51, 52, 55. MACKAY, CHARLES, 52. MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 62, 63, 65. MACPHERSON, JAMES, 47. MANDEVILLE, BERNARD, 45. SIR JOHN, 24. MANNING, ARCHBISHOP, 65. MANSEL, H. L., 65. MAP (or MAPES), WALTER, 22. MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, 37. MARRYAT, CAPTAIN, 55. MARSH, MRS., 55. MARTINEAU, JAMES, 65 ; Miss, 55. MASSEY, GERALD, 51. MASSINGER, PHILIP, 37. MASSON, DAVID, 65. MATURIN, CHARLES R., 53. MAXWELL, W. H., 55. McNEiLE, REV. H., 65. MERLIN, 18. MIDDLETON, THOMAS, 37. MILL, JAMES, 65 ; JOHN S., 65. MILLER, THOMAS, 55 ; HUGH, 65. MILLMAN, H. H., 62. MILTON, JOHN, 39, 538-554. MINOT, LAWRENCE, 24. MITFORD, Miss, 54, 55. MOIR, DR., 63. MONTAGU, LADY, 45. MONTGOMERY, JAMES, 51 ; ROBERT, 51. MOORE, THOMAS, 50, 51, 119-128. MORE, HANNAH, 54; SIR THOMAS, 29, 30. MORELL, J. D. ; 65. MORGAN LADY, 54. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 633 MORIEE, JAMES, 55. MORRIS, WILLIAM, 51, 52. MOTHERWELL, WlLLIAM, 51. MULLER, MAX, 65. MOLOCH, Miss, 55. 3NT. NASH, THOMAS, 36. NECKAM, ALEXANDER, 22. NEWMAN, F. W., 65 ; J. H., 65. NEWTON, SIR ISAAC, 43, 44. NICHOLAS OF GUILDFORD, 22. NORTON, MRS., 51, 52; THOMAS, 36. OCCLEVE, THOMAS, 27. O'CoNNELL, DANIEL, 65. OLIPHANT, MRS., 55. OPIE, MRS., 64. ORDERICUS, VITALUS, 22. ORMIN, 22. OTWAY, THOMAS, 42. OWEN, RICHARD, 65. PALEY, WILLIAM, 46. PALGRAVE, SIR FRANCIS, 62. PALMERSTON, LORD, 65. PARIS, MATTHEW, 22. PARNELL, THOMAS, 44, 45. PECOCK, BISHOP, 28. PEELE, GEORGE, 36 ; SIR ROBERT, 65. PEPYS, SAMUEL, 42. , PERCY, BISHOP, 47. PETER OF BLOIS, 22. PHILIPS, AMBROSE, 44. PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM, 46. POLLOCK, ROBERT, 61. POPE, ALEXANDER, 44, 398-410. PRAED, W. M., 51. PRIOR, MATTHEW, 44. PROCTOR ("BARRY CORNWALL"), 51, 52. PCSEY, DR., 65. <* QUALES, FRANCIS, 38. RADCLIFFE, ANN, 63. RALEIGH, SIR WALTER, 33. RAWLINSON, GEORGE, 62. READE, CHARLES, 55. REEVE, CLARA, 53. RICHARDSON, SAMUEL, 46, 419-426. RIDLEY, 30. ROBERTSON, WILLIAM, 46; F. W., 65. ROEBUCK, MR., 65. ROGERS, SAMUEL, 51. ROLLE, RICHARD, 24. ROWE, NICHOLAS, 42. RUSKIN, JOHN, 65, 266-272. RUSSELL, LORD JOHN, 65. SACKVILLE, THOMAS, 33, 36. SAVILE, GEORGE, 42. SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 50, 51, 55, 63, .255-265. SCOTUS, JOHN, 20, 22. SEELEY, PROFESSOR, 65. SHADWELL, THOMAS, 42. SHAFTESBURY, LORD, 45. SHAIRP, J. C., 65. SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM, 37, 569-587. SHEIL, RICHARD L., 65. SHELLEY, MRS., 63, 55 ; PERCY B., 50, 51, 198-209. SHENSTONE, WILLIAM, 47. SHERIDAN, RICHARD B., 46, 47, 468- 466. SHERLOCK, WILLIAM, 43. SHIRLEY, JAMES, 37. 634 INDEX OF AUTHORS. SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP, 32. SKELTON, JOHN, 30, 31. SMITH, ADAM, 46, 62 ; ALEXANDER, 52 ; GOLDWIN, 62 ; HORACE, 51, 55 ; MRS., 54 ; SYDNEY, 63. SMOLLETT, TOBIAS, 46, 411-418. SOTHEBY, WILLIAM, 51. SOUTH, ROBERT, 43. SOUTHERNE, THOMAS, 42. SOUTHEY, MRS. (Miss BOWLES), 51 ; ROBERT, 50, 51, 155-165. SOUTHWELL, ROBERT, 33. SPEED, JOHN, 33. SPENCER, HERBERT, 65. SPENSER, EDMUND, 32, 597-612. SPRAT, THOMAS, 43. SPURGEON, C. H., 65 STANLEY, DEAN, 65; LORD, 65. STEELE, SIR RICHARD, 45. STERNE, LAURENCE, 46. STEWART, DUGALD, 65. STILLINGFLEET, EDWARD, 43. STIRLING, EARL OF, 33 ; J. H., 65. SUCKLING, SIR JOHN, 38. SURREY, EARL OF, 30, 31. SWIFT, JONATHAN, 44, 45, 487-496. SWINBURNE, ALGERNON, 51. T. TALFOURD, T. N., 63. TAYLOR, HENRY, 51 ; JEREMY, 39. TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, 45. TENNYSON, ALFRED, 51, 52, 66-82. THACKERAY, W. M., 55, 57, 245-254. THIRLWALL, BISHOP, 60. THOMSON, JAMES, 47, 386-397. WILLIAM, 65. TICKELL, THOMAS, 44. TILLOTSON, JOHN, 43. TRELAWNEY, CAPTAIN E. J., 65. TRENCH, DEAN, 65. TROLLOPE, ANTHONY, 55; MRS., 64, 55. TUBERVILLE, GEORGE, 33. TYNDALE, WILLIAM, 30. TYNDALL, JOHN, 65. TJ. UDALL, NICHOLAS, 29, 36. XT'. VANBRUGH, SIR JOHN, 42. VAUGHAN, ROBERT, 62, 65. WALLER, EDMUND, 38. WALPOLE, HORACE, 46, 53. WALTON, IZAAK, 42. WARD, R. P., 55. WARNER, WILLIAM, 33. WEBSTER, JOHN, 37, 38. WHATELY, ARCHBISHOP, 65. WHEWELL, WILLIAM, 65. WHITE, H. K., 51. WILFRED, 20. WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY, 22; OF OCCAM, 22 ; OF POICTIERS, 22. WILLIAMS, ROWLAND, 65. WILSON, JOHN, 55, 63, 279-286. WINDHAM, RT. HON. WILLIAM, 46. WISEMAN, CARDINAL, 65. WITHER, GEORGE, 38. WORDE, WUNKEN DE, 25. WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, 50, 51, 63, 129-142. WYATT, SIR THOMAS, 30, 31. WYCHERLEY, WILLIAM, 42. WYCLIFFE, JOHN DE, 25. YOUNG, EDWARD, 46. IETURN 1 2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^ i i 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS CCfJTn w DUE AS STAMPED BE "-OW OENT ON ILL - 1998 U. C. BERKELEY : ORM NO. DD 19 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 YB 11768 M114688 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY