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 Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey
 
 THE MAKING 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. CRAWSHAW, A.M. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 IN COLGATE UNIVERSITY 
 
 "Watch what main-currents draw the years." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 > . ' 
 
 D. c. hi:ati( & en., puhlishi:rs 
 
 WJSTUN NtW YORK CHICAGO
 
 / 
 
 Copyright, 1907, 
 By D. C. Heath & Co. 
 
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 * • • • • « •
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The author's main purpose has been to write a compact 
 yet broadly suggestive historical introduction to English 
 literature for use by students and by general readers. The 
 method is somewhat different from that ordinarily pursued. 
 In the first place, direct and separate discussion of general 
 English history has been avoided, in the belief that so 
 brief a book on literature ought not to turn aside for a 
 moment from its proper aim of treating great literary 
 works, personalities, and movements. Yet opportunity 
 has been constantly sought to suggest and imply the his- 
 torical background indirectly through the literary treat- 
 ment, and an outline of historical facts and movements 
 has been furnished in the Appendix. In like spirit, bio- 
 graphical details have been given mainly for the sake of 
 ,*^hcir significant relation to the literature. This principle 
 "^ has been applied with moderation and restraint and with 
 AJ care to avoid forcing its application to unwise extremes. 
 ;^ Unity has been given to the discussion by a reasonable 
 ^ emphasis upon the great life forces which from age to age 
 ^ have determined the general character of English litera- 
 .^f ture, and by a continuous endeavor to illustrate the work- 
 ^f^ing of those forces through a discussion of leading authors 
 and works. The purpose has been to present the spirit 
 of the literature as well as the essential facts, the great 
 movements as well as the individual writers. Here again, 
 the author has kept in mind the danger of extremes, and 
 has sought to avoid urging general principles beyond the 
 clear evidence of historical fact. E.xccptions and indi- 
 
 iii
 
 iv PREFACE 
 
 vidual peculiarities have been duly noted, and the aim has 
 been to make clear the relation of each writer to the gen- 
 eral movement, whatever that relation might be. Within 
 such limits, the discussion of great literary impulses is fully 
 justified, and ought to prove suggestive and stimulating as 
 well as unifying. 
 
 Each chapter marks a chronological advance on the 
 preceding chapter, except in the last book. There, for 
 reasons suggested in the text, the three chapters deal with 
 three separate departments of the literature of a single 
 period — prose, the novel, and poetry. The titles of the 
 various books and chapters are in harmony with the pur- 
 pose to make the volume a discussion of literature and 
 literary movements rather than of general English history. 
 Various helps to more extended study are given in an 
 Appendix, where they may be easily referred to in con- 
 nection with the treatment of each period, but where they 
 will not interfere with the continuous reading of the text. 
 
 W. H. C. 
 
 Hamilton, New York, 
 November 6, 1906.
 
 CONTENTS 
 BOOK I 
 
 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY {449-1066) 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PACE 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Pagan Poetry (449-670) 3 
 
 CHAPTER H 
 Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry (670-871) .... 14 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 The Anglo-Saxon Prose Period (871-1066) ... 25 
 
 BOOK II 
 RELIGION AND ROMANCE {1066-1506) 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1360) . . , •35 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Age of Chaucer (1360-1400) 55 
 
 CHAPTER \'I 
 The Fifteenth Century (1400-1500) 75 
 
 V
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND RE FORM A TION {1^00-1660) 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beginnings of Renaissance and Reformation in England 
 
 (1500-1579) 87 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Age of Shakespeare (i 579-1 625) 99 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Age of Milton (1625-1660) 153 
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 CLASSICISM {1660-1780) 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Age of Dryden (1660-1700) 179 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Age of Pope (1700-1740) 196 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Age of Johnson (i 740-1 780) 221 
 
 BOOK V 
 
 INDIVIDUALISM {1780-1832) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 The Age of Burns (1780- 1 800) 251 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 The Age of Wordsworth (i 800-1 832) . . . .   . 269
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 BOOK VT 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE {iSjj-iSgj) 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PACE 
 
 The Agk of Tennyson — Prose (1832-1S92) . . . 337 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 The Age of Tennyson — The Novel (1832-1892) . . 359 
 
 CHAPTER X\ U 
 The Age ok Tennyson —Poetry (1832-1S92) . . . 382 
 
 APPENDLX 
 
 CHRONOLOfiltAL On LINE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE . 410 
 
 Reading and Study List -417 
 
 Aids to Study 428 
 
 LNDEX 455
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey . . . Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Facsimile of First Page of Beowllf Ma.nlscript . facing 3 
 
 After Zupitza. 
 
 Ebbsfleet, Isle of Thanet 13 
 
 Facsimile of a Page of Judith Manuscript . . facing 14 
 
 Cotton V'itellius A, XV, British Museum. 
 
 Inscription in Runes 24 
 
 Goransson : Bautil — Kyrko-mur, No. 44. 
 
 Facsi.mile of Page of Manuscript of Alfred's Cura 
 
 Pastor ALis facing 25 
 
 After Skeat's " Twelve Old English Manuscripts." 
 
 Reduced Facsimile from Manuscript of Saxon Chronicle 34 
 British Museum. 
 
 Facsimile of Leaf of Layamon's Brut . . . facing 35 
 
 Cottonian Manuscript, British Museum. 
 
 Lady Chapel, Glastonbury 54 
 
 Built 1184-1189. 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer facing 55 
 
 From EUesmere Manuscript of Canterbury Tales. 
 
 The Canterbury Pilgrlms .... . facing 70 
 
 After the painting by William Blake. 
 
 Reduced Facsi.mile Page from Malory's Morte d'Arthur, 
 
 '529 f^^'>'.K 75 
 
 From the edition by Wynkyn de Worde. 
 
 Representation of a Mystery Play 86 
 
 From Sharp's " Coventry Mysteries." 
 
 Sir Thomas Wyatt facing 87 
 
 From a drawing by Hans Holbein (1527-1543). 
 
 ix
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Globe Theater 98 
 
 After a drawing in the British Museum. 
 
 The Chancel of Stratford Church, showing Shake- 
 speare's Bust ' . facing 99 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 Interior of the Swan Theater 
 
 After a sketch made in 1596. 
 
 John Milton .... 
 Christ's College, Cambridge 
 John Dryden .... 
 Elstow Church and Green, 1658 
 
 After an old print. 
 
 Alexander Pope 
 
 Pope's Villa at Twickenham 
 
 From an old print. 
 
 Samuel Johnson 
 Robert Burns .... 
 William Wordsworth . 
 Graves of Keats and Severn 
 
 Old Protestant Cemetery, Rome. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson . 
 Macaulay's House in London 
 Thomas Carlyle 
 
 After the portrait by Whistler. 
 
 The Birthplace of Carlyle, at Ecclefechan 
 
 Charles Dickens 
 
 Thackeray's House in London 
 
 Where " Vanity Fair," " Pendennis," and " Esmond ' 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 facing 
 
 122 
 
 • • 
 
 152 
 
 facing 
 
 153 
 
 • 
 
 178 
 
 facing 
 
 179 
 
 • 
 
 195 
 
 facing 
 
 196 
 
 • 
 
 220 
 
 facing 
 
 221 
 
 facing 
 
 251 
 
 facing 
 
 269 
 
 « 
 
 327 
 
 facing 
 
 328 
 
 •   
 
 336 
 
 facing 342 
 
 . 
 
 358 
 
 facing 359 
 
 • • 
 
 381 
 
 were written. 
 
 
 facing 
 
 382
 
 THE MAKING OF 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE
 
 THE MAIvIXG OF ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 PAGAN/SAf AND CHRISTIANITY {44g-io66) 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Literature is one of the fine arts — it is language used 
 for those ends of emotion, imagination, and beauty which 
 are sought by the painter, by the sculptor, and by the 
 musician. More important still, literature — Literature 
 like all other art — is an outcome and an ex- and Life 
 pression of human life — of human experience in the past, 
 of human activity in the present, and of human aspiration 
 for the future. In any historical study of literature, it 
 is this intimate relation between literature and life that 
 calls for especial emphasis. 
 
 The greater part of literature is directly or indirectly 
 the product of individual men and women. Therefore the 
 most immediate living fact to be regarded is the fact of 
 personality. Behind the book is the man ; and by knowl- 
 edge of the man and his experiences, we may account for 
 the character of the book. Behind all individual life, how- 
 ever, is the life of a whole people; and in the collective 
 character and life of the race, we may discover Literature 
 the larger forces that have gone to llio making and the Race 
 of its literature. A thousand minor influences act and 
 interact toward the i)roduction of the rei)resentative works 
 of a racial literature, l)ut these forces all s|>ring ultimately
 
 2 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 out of the racial life. This racial life is like a great river. 
 It has many tributaries and many currents ; but no tribu- 
 tary, however great, is so important as the main stream, 
 and no cross-currents or counter-currents prevent the on- 
 ward movement of the strong central flood. Nevertheless, 
 the race undergoes many experiences and is affected by 
 many influences ; and if we can observe the forces that 
 have strongly modified its life, we shall see some of the 
 guiding impulses that have determined its literature — not 
 otherwise. In a word, to arrive at the deepest causes of 
 literary creation, we must consider the racial character 
 and the potent influences that from age to age have shaped 
 that character and determined the direction of its activities. 
 It is not to be supposed that a great guiding impulse 
 will serve to account for a whole age and for all that is in 
 Guiding it, for each individual genius and for all that he 
 Impulses j^as achieved. To account for all literary phe- 
 nomena, we should need to understand all the eddies and 
 currents of racial and national life, all the startling and 
 inexplicable facts of literary personality. All that we can 
 assume is that there are great forces which give a certain 
 degree of unity to the multitudinous variety of life and 
 literature, and that these forces do mark for us the central 
 current of the great literary stream. To observe the 
 guiding impulses that have shaped the life of the English 
 race will be to learn much concerning the secret of that 
 long and stupendous process, the making of English 
 literature.
 
 ,-s.a«iMfefcti-l'''Jg^~." tj a g S Jft B»->»tiK.^ 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 .- Wm •^]^a?ioTj huXi ce-j;e'l3n5af ell 
 4?rt@a.dmj TiTone-:^! rTUtvpiruj rnel^)so ferlf 
 I f&L iceojiz: pjn^en lie]><:er pp.op|ie- ^^ei^ 
 
 ^ «^]»pvtc Wju»^ y mi* fix- ren-^n a s 
 j^ui^e- liypui fccl^e Non?Km 
 
 ^ i^ir^Jt caine^ ^ebtJS^ m^tiirL^un; Kn/e ;;;-o^ 
 
 OHJ^l. \'i1c^V> 
 
 Li- 
 
 -— i a:.---..-.,-v,±- ■. 
 
 Facsimile of First Page of Beowulf MS. 
 Zupitza
 
 CIIAPTKR I 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN POETRY (449-670) 
 
 Just how or when or where the literature of the English 
 race began, no man can surely say. The Teutonic ances- 
 tors of the English came originally from the continent of 
 Europe. They belonged to three related tribes — the 
 lutes, the Saxons, and the Angles — and dwelt 
 
 -' , ^ Racial and 
 
 in the Danish peninsula and along the coast of Literary 
 the North Sea to the southward. They began "^'°^ 
 their conquest of Britain about the middle of the fifth cen- 
 tury, and gradually extended their sway over what is now 
 known as England — the land of the Angles. It seems 
 altogether probable that these Teutonic invaders brought 
 literature with them from across the sea, and that they 
 still continued to cultivate it in their new home. 
 
 We know little of the life and history of that early day, 
 but of the general character of the people and of the ideals 
 that guided their life and thought we can be reasonably 
 sure. We find the mind of the race dominated by the 
 conceptions of Teutonic paganism and its heart pagan 
 stirred by the passion for conquest and wild ad- Heroism 
 venture. It was a mighty religious spirit, moving out 
 along the lines of heroic achievement. The jirincipal Teu- 
 tonic deities were Tiw, the god of war ; Woden, the strong 
 and terrible father of the gods ; Thor, the god of thunder; 
 and I'Viga, the great mother. Their names still remain in 
 our Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and l"'riday. The 
 supreme religious virtue was physical bravery. The Val- 
 kyries, daughters of Woden, rode over the battle-field, 
 selected those who wore to die, and conducted tlu- souls ot 
 
 3
 
 4 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 the heroes to Valhalla, the hall of the slain, there to feast 
 with the gods in immortal joy. It was a religion whose 
 dominant note was one of war and heroism. It was, 
 moreover, a gloomy religion. Over both men and gods, 
 hung the boding shadow of Wyrd, or Fate, and the prin- 
 ciple of evil was at last to whelm all in darkness and 
 cold. The conception was a mythological reflection of 
 the northern night and winter overcoming the more genial 
 forces of nature. By such a religion and by such ideals 
 was the race moved ; and the oldest English literature finds 
 here its primary guiding impulse. 
 
 The existing remnant of this pagan literature stands 
 quite by itself in Anglo-Saxon literary history. In bulk, 
 Earliest ^^ ^s almost insignificant. A mere handful of 
 
 Literature poems, only ouc of which is of any considerable 
 length, makes up the extent of its treasures. Yet it bears 
 unmistakable evidence of the spirit which created it. It 
 has been worked over by Christian hands, and the old 
 gods have vanished from it ; but the heroic spirit of Teu- 
 tonic paganism is still there, and Wyrd still hangs like 
 a dark cloud over the life which it depicts. Brief space 
 will suffice to make such a survey of its substance and 
 character as will illustrate its pagan tone and give ad- 
 ditional insight into the conditions under which it was 
 produced. 
 
 Certain portions of the so-called CJiarms represent a 
 form of folk-poetry that may be as old as the Teutonic 
 Th ch race, and some of their lines carry us back to a 
 
 period too remote even for conjecture. They 
 embody the folk superstitions of a remote heathenism, 
 handed down among the common people and so tenacious 
 of life that the church of a later time could not abolish 
 them and was driven to baptize them into Christian service. 
 In their present form they belong to a much later period 
 and contain an unusual amount of Christian interpolation.
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN POETRY (449-670) 5 
 
 They form a group of about a dozen short poems or verse 
 incantations to be recited on various occasions, and they 
 are accompanied by prose directions as to certain cere- 
 monies to be performed in connection with the recital. 
 Among others are charms for bewitched land, for a stitch 
 or sudden pain, for swarming bees, for lost or stolen cattle. 
 In the charm for bewitched land, one line appears to ad- 
 dress some long-forgotten earth-goddess : 
 
 Erce, Erce, Erce, eorhan modor, 
 Erce, Erce, Erce, mother of earth, 
 
 and a little further on is an appeal to the earth itself: 
 
 Hal wes |>u, folde, fira modor, 
 beo I'U growende on godes faebme, 
 fodre gefylled firum to nytte. 
 
 Hail to thee, earth, of all men the mother, 
 Be thou growing in the bosom of god. 
 Filled, for the use of men, -with food. 
 
 The conception of earth as being made fruitful in the em- 
 brace of the god is thoroughly pagan, and illustrates the 
 way in which the Charvis reflect old popular superstitions. 
 Aside from certain portions of the Charms, probably 
 the oldest piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry is that known as 
 Widsi'^ or the Far-Traveler. It purports to ^ 
 
 ' ' Widsiff 
 
 be the song of a scop or poet, who is called 
 WidsiS, and who relates his travels in many lands and the 
 great events which he has heard of or seen. The persons 
 and events referred to give evidence of the antiquity of 
 the poem. Its literary value is small ; but as the earliest 
 complete poem of the literature, and as a description of the 
 life of an Anglo-Saxon scop, it is of priceless worth. It is 
 thus that our first I'^nglish poem begins : 
 
 Widsi.S maMade, wordhord onleac, 
 se I'C monna ma-st m;vg|>a ofcr cor|>an, 
 (oica gcondfcrdc : oft he on flette ge|>ah 
 
 J
 
 6 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 mynelicne maMjum. Him from Myrgingum 
 aej^elo onwocon. 
 
 WidsiS spoke, his word-hoard unlocked, 
 The man who o'er earth the most of nations 
 And people had traversed : oft took he in hall 
 A friendly gift. From the folk of the Myrgings 
 His origin sprang. 
 
 After the recital of his wanderings and experiences, it is 
 thus that the poet concludes : 
 
 Swa scril'ende gesceapum hweorfa^ 
 gleomen gumena geond grunda fela, 
 j^earfe sccga^', j oncword sprecaS, 
 simle su5 oM'C norS sumne gemetaS 
 gydda gleawne, geofum unhneawne, 
 se he fore dugube wile dom arasran, 
 eorlscipe eefnan, oh haet eal scaeceS, 
 leoht and lif somod : lof se gewyrceS, 
 hafaS under heofonum heahfaestne dom. 
 
 Thus wandering on through the wide creation, 
 The minstrels travel through many lands, 
 Tell their need, speak their thank-word, 
 Ever south or north with some one meet 
 Who is skilled in songs, unsparing in gifts. 
 Who before the host his fame would raise, 
 Manfully act until all shall depart. 
 Both light and life : who lives for honor 
 Hath steadfast glory under the stars. 
 
 It is the warrior blood as well as the poet blood that 
 speaks in such words as these. And such is the typi- 
 cal Anglo-Saxon scop — a man with the fierce nature and 
 roving disposition which made his kinsmen the fight- 
 ers and adventurers and conquerors of their time, which 
 made them also the true ancestors of a race that has been 
 without a superior upon the field of battle and has con- 
 quered and colonized to the ends of the earth. Here, also, 
 is the spirit that delights to sing as well as to conquer —
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN TOKTRY (449-670) 7 
 
 the spirit that has niatle luigland even greater in the 
 realm of poetry than in the arena of action. 
 
 In The Lament of Dear we have still another poem deal- 
 ing with the scop and his experiences. Ueor, like WidsiJS, 
 has tasted the joys of the poet's life, but he has The Lament 
 lived to see himself superseded and his rewards o'Deor 
 usurped by a rival more skilled or more fortunate. lie 
 gives utterance to a bitter personal grief ; but he strength- 
 ens his heart with the thought that as the heroes of story 
 have endured great sorrows, so he may endure his. 
 Of the names mentioned, some are found in Widsi'd. 
 Some also appear in the Germanic legend of Gudrnn, thus 
 furnishing one of the rare points of contact between the 
 early poetry of the Anglo-Saxons and that of the Germans 
 and Scandinavians. The poem is remarkable for being in 
 strophic or stanza form. It is doubtless the oldest lyric in 
 the literature. In each of five stanzas the poet mentions the 
 sorrows of some famous person and closes with the refrain : 
 
 J:'aes ofereode, Msses swa masg. 
 That passed over, so also may this. 
 
 In the sixth and last stanza, he discloses the nature of his 
 own personal grief and closes with the same refrain. The 
 poem bears with it the atmosphere of the old pagan hero- 
 ism, and the poet displays the same enduring temper that 
 animated his warrior kinsmen. 
 
 The chief business of the scop was not to enlarge upon 
 his (Avn j(;ys and sorrows, but to celebrate in epic song 
 the deeds of the heroes. This is well illustrated by 
 the three poems yet to be considered. Tlic The Fight at 
 first of these is a mere fragment of about fifty F''"ns''"''K 
 lines known as The lui^ht at luniishmx. It introduces us 
 abrujjtly into the very heart of a fierce and blootly con- 
 flict, and breaks off agaiti in the midst of its spirited de- 
 scription. \Vc have no pictures ol old Tculonic battle that
 
 8 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 are more vivid and intense, and few that are more poetical. 
 We learn more about the general story from the song of a 
 scop in Beoiviilf, but the battle is not there described. 
 
 Waldhere is also a mere fragment of a longer epic poem. 
 There remain but two disconnected leaves, each contain- 
 ing thirty-one lines from different parts of the original 
 work. The story involved is that of Walter of 
 
 Waldhere ... 1 , • • 1 11 ^ r 
 
 Aquitame ; and this is the only known example of 
 
 the transference into the Anglo-Saxon pagan poetry of any 
 
 part of the Norse-German epic cycle. Probably there were 
 
 many cases of the same kind ; and these inconsiderable 
 
 fragments gain much of their interest as revealing to us 
 
 the earlier association of Anglo-Saxon and German heroic 
 
 legends. 
 
 We come now to the greatest poem of the Anglo-Saxon 
 
 literature either pagan or Christian. Beowulf is the oldest 
 
 extant heroic poem in any Germanic tongue. 
 Beowulf T • • M , 
 
 In a conservative estimate, we may attribute the 
 
 conception of the poem to the sixth century, and its com- 
 pleted form to the close of the seventh or the beginning of 
 the eighth. Many parts of the poem are much older and 
 carry us back to the period before the Anglo-Saxon con- 
 quest of Britain in the fifth century. The substance of the 
 narrative relates it to the history and legend of the Teutonic 
 tribes upon the continent. All its heroes, all its scenes, 
 and all its events are continental. 
 
 The poem falls naturally into two main parts, and the 
 first of these falls again into two. The stories involved 
 are first those of Grendel and Grendel's dam, and later 
 that of the fiery dragon. In the first part, we are told 
 how Hrothgar, the Danish king, had built a famous and 
 beautiful mead-hall, called Heorot, or Hart, from the 
 hart's horns that adorned its gable roof. There the old 
 king lived in peace and joy with his warriors. " There 
 was harp's sound, clear song of the scopT Soon all this
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN POETRY (449-670) 9 
 
 joy was disturbed by the nightly attacks of a hideous and 
 powerful monster named Grendel, who came from the fens 
 and fastnesses by the sea. For twelve years the Danes 
 endured the utmost misery. At last a thane of Hygelac, 
 king of the Geats, came to their rescue. This was the 
 hero Beowulf. The description of his voyage with his 
 fourteen followers shows the love of the old Teutons for 
 the sea and its perils. Beowulf was welcomed at a great 
 feast, where mead flowed freely and the warriors were 
 entertained with the song of the scop. Wealhtheow, 
 Hrothgar's queen, passed the cup to each with her own 
 hands and greeted Beowulf with gracious words. At last 
 the Danes departed to their rest, leaving Beowulf and his 
 warriors alone in the hall. " No one of them," says the 
 poet, " thought that hence he should again his dear home 
 ever seek out." Soon Grendel came. He tore Beowuuand 
 the door from its hinges. Fire glared from his ^'^^^^^^ 
 eyes. He laughed a terrible laugh as he looked upon the 
 sleeping warriors. One of them he tore limb from limb 
 and drank his blood. Then he encountered Beowulf. 
 The hall groaned with the conflict, and the mead-benches 
 were overturned. Swords would not bite into Grendel's 
 flesh ; but at last the monster's arm was torn from its 
 socket, and he rushed away hurt to the death. There 
 was great rejoicing at Heorot, with feasting, gifts, and song. 
 The second part of the first main division of the story 
 introduces another monster, Grendel's dam. Coming 
 by night to avenge her son, she was fiercely attacked, 
 but seized Hrothgar's dearest warrior and bore him away 
 to death. Beowulf determined to attack her in her den. 
 Arming himself, he plunged into the sea and „ 
 
 ^ > 1 »-. Beowulf and 
 
 sank to the bottcjni. There the frightful hag Grendei s 
 seized him and bore him away to her sea cave. 
 Finding his sword useless, he cast it away and grasped 
 her with his hands. He fell under her and escaped death
 
 10 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 only because of his trusty corslet. Regaining his feet, he 
 seized an old magical sword that was lying in the cave 
 and struck a despairing blow. The sword cut into her 
 body and felled her dead. He cut off the head of Gren- 
 del, whose body was lying there in the cave, and swam up 
 again to the surface of the sea. The Danes had departed, 
 judging from the bloody sea that he had been slain. Only 
 his own followers waited despairingly for their lord. They 
 were greatly rejoiced at his return, and all departed to 
 Heorot. After feasting and gifts and pledges of friend- 
 ship, Beowulf returned to his own country. There he 
 was welcomed by his king, Hygelac, to whom he related 
 his adventures. With the account of the presents ex- 
 changed between the two, the first main division of the 
 poem closes. 
 
 The second main division deals with events that took 
 place in Beowulf's old age. He had then been king for 
 Beowulf and fifty ycars. A fiery dragon, robbed of the treas- 
 the Dragon ^^^^ ovcr which it kept guard, was ravaging and 
 destroying the country. Beowulf's palace was burnt, 
 and the old warrior went with twelve men to attack the 
 dragon. With a presentiment of his approaching end, he 
 bade farewell to his followers one by one and went alone 
 to the fight. He was unable to wound the monster with 
 his sword, and suffered much distress on account of its 
 fiery breath. His followers fled instead of coming to his 
 assistance — all but Wiglaf, who rebuked the cowards and 
 hastened to his side. Wiglaf's wooden shield was burnt, 
 and the young warrior sought protection under the iron 
 shield of Beowulf. They finally succeeded in slaying the 
 monster ; but Beowulf was poisoned by its breath, and 
 Death of Wiglaf brought the treasures from the dragon's 
 Beowulf hoard that the old king might see them before 
 he died. The body of the dragon was shoved over the 
 edge of the cliff into the sea. The warriors built a funeral
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN POETRY (449-670) n 
 
 pyre on a high promontory and burnt there the body of 
 Beowulf. Then they made a great mound on the steep, 
 high and broad, "for the sea-goers to see from afar." 
 
 Swa begnornodon Geata leode 
 lilafordes hryre, heor.Ngencatas ; 
 cwirdon |<a't lie \v;rre \v\ ruldcvninga, 
 manna mildust and nionhvarust, 
 Icodum lii^ost and lofgeornost. 
 
 Tlius then mourned the men of the Geats 
 
 The fall of their prince, the hearth-companions ; 
 
 Said that he was among worldly kings 
 
 Tlie mildest and most humane of men. 
 
 Most kind to the people and eager for praise. 
 
 Thus ends our greatest Anglo-Sa.von poem, with this 
 picture of the ideal king, vahant, tender, and loving the 
 praises of men. Beowulf is a noble poem, worthy to stand 
 in the forefront of a great literature. The life significance 
 described is essentially that of our Anglo-Saxon o^b^o^^"" 
 forefathers, although neither Sa.xons nor Angles are men- 
 tioned. It is a picture of royal courts, with the king, the 
 wise men, the nobles, the warriors, the women, and the 
 singers of songs. It is a story of adventure by sea and 
 land, of battle, of feasting, of song, of treasure-giving. It 
 is an authentic portrayal of the old Teutonic past ; and 
 here the pagan heroism, the pagan gloom, and the pagan 
 sense of fate find adequate expression. The fight of 
 Beowulf against Grendel, and Grendel's dam, and the 
 fiery dragon, is the fight of the heroic spirit against those 
 evil forces of nature which loomed so large in the religious 
 imagination of our forefathers. 
 
 It has been already implied that the Anglo-Saxon pa- 
 gan poetry has in the Cf)urse of time inidergone important 
 modifications. Handed down from scop to ^r^y* and from 
 scribe to scribe through generations and centinies, ciiange 
 was inevitable, and wc cannot now say how far it has
 
 12 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 departed from its original shape. In thought, in language, 
 
 and in poetic form it has become more or less closely 
 
 assimilated to the Christian poetry. Metrical 
 
 Form of • n 1 rill 
 
 Anglo-Saxon laws are substantially the same tor the whole 
 Poetry body of Anglo-Saxon verse. The metre is based 
 
 chiefly upon accent and alliteration. Each line is divided 
 into two parts, and in the ordinary metre each half line con- 
 tains two accented syllables. The number of unaccented 
 syllables in a foot varies from none to five. The law of 
 alliteration demands that two or more of the accented 
 syllables in any line shall begin with the same consonant 
 sound or with any vowel sound. The number of alliter- 
 ating syllables in a line may be two, three, or four ; but 
 there must be at least one in each half line. The common 
 rule gives two in the first half line and one in the second. 
 This metre has a peculiar effect, and could be greatly 
 varied by increasing or decreasing the number of unac- 
 cented syllables. It is strongly rhythmical and yet singu- 
 larly flexible. The accented syllables probably coincided 
 with rhythmic strokes upon the harp, while the irregular 
 number of unaccented syllables gave the singer great 
 freedom in improvisation. The feature of alliteration 
 seems very artificial; but the professional scop doubtless 
 became so expert in its use as to handle it with little 
 sense of restraint. 
 
 This verse has little claim to sweetness or smoothness 
 of effect. It is rather vigorous and abrupt, suggesting to the 
 ear the clash of sword upon shield or the rhythmic slap 
 of waves against the prow of a swaying ship. It has no 
 time for elaborate ornamentation or for formal similes 
 or for mere play of the fancy. The style is serious and 
 style and intense. Imagination displays itself in concrete 
 Spirit diction and in condensed and forcible metaphor. 
 
 The sea is the " whale-road," the ship is a "foamy-necked 
 floater," the sun is the "candle of heaven," the body is a
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN POETRY (449-670) 
 
 13 
 
 •'bone-house," battle is "war-play," the arrow is a " war- 
 adder," the chief is a "gold-friend." There is litrle cir- 
 cumlocution, but much repetition and parallelism of 
 expression, giving the effect, not of fulness and richness, 
 but rather of emphasis and vehemence. In fine, the best 
 Anglo-Saxon poetry is direct, concrete, vigorous, and in 
 tensely serious. It maybe crude, barbaric, and unrefined; 
 but it is unquestionably the utterance of men who were 
 fighters and poets as well. 
 
 
 1£bbsflf.f.t, Isi.e of Thanet
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN POETRY (670-871) 
 
 In the Anglo-Saxon pagan poetry, and especially in 
 Beozvu/f, there was the promise of a genuine English 
 epos ; but this epos was, as Ten Brink phrases it, " frozen 
 in its development." It was thus arrested, not because the 
 impulses behind it were inadequate or because they were 
 exhausted, but because a new and more powerful influence 
 was suddenly introduced. This new influence — so mighty 
 as to turn the whole tide of the literature forever into new 
 Advent of channels — was the advent of Christianity. No 
 Christianity ^ondcr that the pagan literature lost its vitality 
 and failed of its natural growth. No wonder that a new 
 life and a new literary development began under the force 
 of an impulse so strange and so powerful, under the in- 
 fluence of ideals so different and so exalted. It is pre- 
 cisely the advent of great life forces like this that marks 
 the beginning of new Hterary periods. Yet right here we 
 are met by certain significant and at first sight startUng 
 facts. The old impulse did not immediately die out, nor 
 did the new influence come quickly to supremacy. The 
 spirit of pagan heroism continued to breathe through 
 many a Christian poem ; and no Anglo-Saxon poem 
 written under Christian auspices begins to equal in poetic 
 power the essentially pagan Beowulf. 
 
 What accounts for these facts? Many causes, doubt- 
 less, but among others these. The preaching of Chris- 
 Christianity tianity was necessarily slow, and paganism gave 
 US. Paganism ^^^ ^^^^ g^^^^j^ h&ioxe it. The old poetic im- 
 pulses were strong and had great momentum, and later 
 
 14
 
 jn^5(3) lioU^^ tnfirple 5^iiolTr onlm 
 tmr^e IrliT^ tujv^cv «ibo|v |?olrnf jTo/ 
 
 'i^iiTjW ^Proh^^* '&li^lrcdi Mi5^ pal 
 p(^]vul:^6^ runo^^ unD^ polcna Iitto):^ 
 
 Facsimii.i of a paok of JtrniTH MANUSCKH'I 
 CoUuu Vitclliu* A, XV, Untuli MuMUin
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN POETRY (670-S71) 15 
 
 poets did not readily find new ways even when they felt 
 in full measure the new influence. Most important of all, 
 Christianity was essentially a foreign influence, and no 
 foreign influence becomes greatly effective in the making 
 of literature so long as it really remains foreign. It must 
 first be thoroughly assimilated, must enter into the very 
 life-blood of a people, must become bone of their bone and 
 flesh of their flesh. This is a process of generations, and, 
 under some conditions, of centuries. Even when the 
 process has been fully accomplished, the old nature is 
 likely to reappear in sporadic cases. We must remember 
 that the race remains the same, however powerfully it may 
 have been modified. 
 
 Nevertheless, the literary influence of Christianity is 
 easily and distinctly traceable from the seventh century 
 onward. Augustine, the first Christian missionary to the 
 Anglo-Saxons, had come to England from Rome in 597. 
 From the ecclesiastical centre which he established at 
 Canterbury, Christianity spread throughout the spread of 
 south of England ; and during the first half of Christianity 
 the seventh century it was extended throughout the north 
 by both Roman and Irish missionaries. The new religion 
 henceforth infused into literature a new tone and spirit. 
 It was new in a national as well as in a religious sense. 
 The old pagan poetry contains no allusion to English men 
 or to English scenes, and it remained for Chris- 
 
 •=> _ , . . Christianity 
 
 tian poets to begin the history of English litera- and Litera 
 ture in the stricter sense of the term. The first 
 definite creative period in I^^nglish literary history began 
 in the monasteries of Northumbria toward the close of the 
 seventh century. Its best work was accomplished during 
 the eighth century, and it probably came to a close early in 
 the ninth. During this time, and indeed throughout the 
 remainder of the Anglo-Saxon Period, the great guiding 
 impulse of literature is the impulse of Christianity in
 
 I6 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 struggle with paganism. It is noteworthy that the work 
 of the period now under consideration was ahnost ex- 
 clusively poetical, and that it includes practically all of 
 the Anglo-Saxon Christian poetry. The next period, as 
 we shall see, was mainly productive of prose literature. 
 
 The beginning of Christian poetry in England is marked 
 
 by definite dates and by a definite name. The first English 
 
 poet — the authentic father of English literature 
 
 Ceedmon 
 
 — is Caedmon. He is supposed to have begun his 
 work about 670 and to have died in 680. Later investigation 
 has robbed him of much that tradition once distinguished 
 with his name; but it has not yet denied his right to be re- 
 garded as the first English singer of whom we have any posi- 
 tive record. Our account of him is derived from Bede, the 
 first great English scholar, who was born before Caedmon 
 died, and who had every opportunity to know whereof he 
 wrote. Caedmon was a humble brother in the monastery 
 of Abbess Hilda at Whitby, on the wild northeastern coast 
 of Yorkshire. He was an old man before the gift of song 
 came to him ; and as he was utterly without literary train- 
 ing, his poetry seemed to those about him the direct inspi- 
 ration of God. One night, after he had left the feast, 
 ashamed of his inability to sing like the others as the harp 
 went round, he lay down to sleep in the stable of the cattle 
 Cffidmon's of which he had the charge that night. In a 
 Vision vision, one bade him sing. " I cannot sing," 
 
 said he, "for this reason I left the feast and came hither." 
 " Nevertheless, you must sing for me," said the stranger. 
 "What shall I sing.?" asked Casdmon. " Sing the begin- 
 ning of created things," was the answer. Then he began 
 to sing verses in praise of God the Creator. In the morn- 
 ing he made known his wonderful gift. The Abbess ex- 
 horted him to enter the monastic life and had him taught 
 in the Scriptures. " And all that he might learn by hear- 
 ing, he remembered, and like a clean beast chewing the
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN POETRY (670-871) 17 
 
 cud, turned it into the sweetest poetry." "lie san*;- first 
 of the creation of the world, and of the origin of man, and 
 all the story of Genesis ; and afterward of the cjedmons 
 departure of the people of Israel from Kgypt ^°^^'y 
 and their entrance into the promised land ; then of many 
 other stories from the Holy Scriptures; and of Christ's 
 humanity, and of his suffering, and of his ascension into 
 heaven ; and of the coming of the Holy Ghost ; and of 
 the teaching of the apostles ; and afterward of the day of 
 the coming judgment, and of the fear of the punishment 
 of torture, and of the sw-eetness of the heavehly kingdom, 
 he made many songs ; and also many others concerning 
 the divine mercy and glory." The legend is typically 
 symbolic of the beginnings of Christian influence in the 
 literature. 
 
 A small fragment of nine lines known as Caedmon's 
 Hjmn may contain the substance of his first c«dmon's 
 song. It is in Ccedmon's native Northumbrian "y™° 
 dialect, and the manuscript is supposed to date from 737, 
 little more than half a century after his death. Here, if 
 anywhere, we may feel that we are almost in the very 
 presence of Caedmon, at the fountain head of native Eng- 
 lish song. 
 
 Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard, 
 
 metuda;s maecti end his modgidanc, 
 
 uerc uuldurfadur. .sue he uundra gihuaes, 
 
 eel dryctin. or astclida.-. 
 
 he aerist scop aelda barnum 
 
 heben til lirofe, haleg scepen : 
 
 tha middiingeard moncynna's uard, 
 
 eel dryctin, after tiada* 
 
 firum foldu, fria allnu-ctig. 
 
 Now ouglit \vc to praise the prince of heaven's kingdom, 
 The Maker's might and tlie tliouglil of his mind. 
 The work of the Father, since he of all wonders. 
 Eternal Lord, the beginning established.
 
 1 8 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 First did he shape for the sons of mankind 
 
 Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator ; 
 
 Then the middle-world did the warden of men, 
 
 The eternal prince, after prepare 
 
 As a dwelling for men, the Lord Almighty. 
 
 Then the manuscript adds, Primo cantavit Ccsdmon isttid 
 carmen. 
 
 The so-called Junian Manuscript contains a series of 
 poems once collectively known as Caedmon's ParapJirase. 
 This poetry answers in a general way to Bede's 
 monianPara- description of what Csedmon wrote, but it is 
 ^ "^^^^ uncertain whether any of it can really be traced 
 
 back to Caedmon. The first part of the manuscript con- 
 tains three poems, known as Goiesis, Exodus, and Daniel. 
 The second part contains a series of poems on the Fall 
 of the Angels, the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, 
 the Ascension, Pentecost, the Day of Judgment, and the 
 Temptation. Genesis is a paraphrase of the first book of 
 the Bible up to the sacrifice of Abraham. It treats the 
 Creation freely, but follows closely the remainder of the 
 Scripture narrative. It has been divided into two parts. 
 Some critics assign " Genesis A " to Caedmon, but " Gen- 
 esis B " is commonly attributed to a later hand. Exodus 
 is much freer and more poetical in its treatment of the 
 Bible story. It deals with the departure from Egypt, the 
 flight of the host, and the passage through the Red Sea. 
 This is usually not attributed to Caedmon. Daniel is a 
 close paraphrase of the first five chapters of the Book of 
 Daniel. Its interest centres in the deliverance of the 
 three Hebrews from the fiery furnace, and it closes with 
 the feast of Belshazzar. This is much inferior to the 
 other two poems in poetical merit, and it is probably 
 not the work of Caedmon. The remainder of the manu- 
 script consists of paraphrases from the New Testament 
 and from the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus. The
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN TOETRV (^670-871) 19 
 
 poems seem to show the work of various hands, and some 
 fragmentary portions may possibly belong to Casdmon. 
 
 These so-called Caedmonian poems differ from anything 
 else in the literature. If not produced by Casdmon, they 
 belong to his school and were written by men familiar 
 with his work and inspired by his example. We may 
 therefore form some fair conjecture as to the ^ 
 
 ■' Quality of 
 
 quality of his poetry, even if we possess next caedmoman 
 to nothing of his actual work. It shows many °^ ^ 
 characteristics of the old pagan poetry, especially in the 
 more heroic passages. The accounts of the Deluge and 
 the passage of the Red Sea mingle the old Teutonic spirit 
 with the newer spirit of Christianity. How different Caed- 
 mon was from the pagan scop, we may readily see. He 
 was no wanderer through far lands, no singer at boisterous 
 feasts, no seeker of princely gifts, but simply an humble 
 monk who sang to the glory of God and with a sense of 
 divine inspiration. 
 y We have already had occasion to mention Bede, who is 
 as truly the father of English learning as Caedmon is the 
 father of English song. His voluminous and x^e vener- 
 scholarly works in Latin do not belong strictly *^'® ^^^® 
 to English literature, much less to English poetry. His 
 lost translation of the Gospel of John associates him with 
 Anglo-Saxon prose ; and he even gains a slight connec- 
 tion with poetry by virtue of five lines of verse known as 
 Bede's Death Song. His disciple, Cuthbert, relates that 
 Bede sang many things during his last illness, and among 
 others, this brief song in English. It is a pleasure thus to 
 associate with religious poetry the name of the old scholar 
 who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of tlic English People, 
 and who has there given us our account of the first 
 Finglish poet. 
 
 Bede tells us that the followers of Caedmon were many, 
 and we still possess a number of poems that seem closely
 
 20 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 related to the Caedmonian school. One of the finest of 
 these is JuditJi. It is based upon the apocryphal Book 
 of Judith, and a greater or less portion of it has 
 been lost. Three books and a fragment re- 
 main. These tell of the drunken revelry in the Assyrian 
 camp, the slaying of Holofernes by Judith, her return 
 with the head of the heathen prince, the attack of the 
 Hebrews upon their drunken and leaderless enemies, the 
 defeat and slaughter of the Assyrians, and the rich plunder 
 of their camp. The subject affords opportunity for those 
 descriptions of feasting, battle, and victorious celebration 
 which make the pagan poetry so vivid and poetical. The 
 unknown author oi Judith has been able to mingle with this 
 pagan vigor the loftier charm of the Hebrew story, and his 
 poem must have seemed to him in some sense typical of 
 the conflict waged in his own day between Christianity and 
 Teutonic paganism. He was a genuine poet, with unusual 
 power in description, in narrative, and in characterization. 
 Other poems of the Caedmonian school are inferior to 
 the Judith, but are informed with the same spirit. They 
 oth r Earl ^^^ wholly rcligious in purpose — sometimes with 
 Christian outbursts of Spiritual fervor, as in the Prayer and 
 
 Poems 
 
 the Song of the Three Children in the Fiery 
 Furnace from Azarias and the Caedmonian Daniel ; some- 
 times with flashes of the grim Anglo-Saxon imagination, as 
 in the Address of the Soul to its Body ; sometimes tediously 
 didactic, as in A Father s Teaching. One of the most in- 
 teresting fragments is an inscription from the so-called 
 Ruthwell Cross, still preserved in the parish church at 
 Ruthwell in Scotland. The cross is supposed to speak and 
 vividly depicts its emotions at the hour of the crucifixion. 
 Anglo-Saxon poetry is for the most part epic in charac- 
 ter. In the five so-called elegies, we have the 
 
 The Elegies , , , . , , 
 
 nearest approach that the eighth century can 
 offer to the independent, personal, and really poetical lyric.
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN POETRY (670-871) 2I 
 
 They are to some extent Christian in lone; but they also 
 carry on liio paj^an tradition and remind us in many ways 
 of the older poetry. The Waiuiircr has not a few points 
 of likeness to Widsi'd. It is a lament for dead friends and 
 vanished happiness, for the desolation of the world and the 
 sorrows of men. The speaker has lost his dear lord and 
 kinsmen, and has been forced to wander in far ways seek- 
 ing a happiness which he does not find. The poem is 
 artistically conceived and executed, and has no superior 
 among the shorter Anglo-Saxon poems. The Seafarer is 
 full of the old pagan love for the sea. \'ivid pictures are 
 presented of the dangers and delights of the sailor's life, 
 and there are charming indications of a genuine love for 
 nature. The latter part of the work passes into a tone of 
 didactic moralizing which somewhat mars the effect of an 
 otherwise fine poem. The Ruin is a fragment of excellent 
 poetry. Its subject is a ruined city, identified by some 
 with the ancient Roman city of Bath. The description of 
 the ruined heaps, with hoar frost on the stones and with 
 hot springs welling out among them, is of great interest. 
 The Wife's Comphnint and The Hnsba}ui's Message are 
 almost alone among Anglo-Saxon poems in their expres- 
 sion of the passion of love. In the one, a woman left to 
 sorrow and disgrace tenderly laments her absent lord. In 
 the other, a wandering husband sends a message written 
 on a piece of wood, conveying to his loved one a reminder 
 of their long-continued affection, and bidding her come to 
 him over the sea. 
 
 A new school of religious poetry grew up during the 
 latter half of the eighth century, and its leader was 
 Cynewulf. He was more nearly allied than was Casd- 
 mon to the old scop. The pagan poets sang of 
 
 ' . Cynewulf 
 
 mythical heroes and warriors ; his heroes were 
 
 the saints. They described deeds of adventure by land 
 
 and sea ; he carries his heroes through battles and voy-
 
 22 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 ages and perils for the sake of their faith. The gentler 
 spirit of Christianity has not altogether superseded the 
 fierce and aggressive valor of heathenism. His saints 
 know how to suffer, but they also know how to fight. 
 He seems to have wandered like WidsiS, and to have 
 known the favor of a gracious lord. In his youth, he was 
 gay and wild, a lover of sports and war and poetry, de- 
 lighting in love and beauty, but caring little for religion. 
 In later life came suffering, followed by- seriousness and 
 repentance. He tells us that he had led a sinful life ; but 
 after severe struggle, he appears to have found comfort 
 in religion and in the writing of religious poetry. It is 
 not improbable that both he and Caedmon were heathens 
 in their youth and that they represent in their own indi- 
 vidual lives the great transition from the old religion to 
 the new. 
 
 In four poems have been discovered series of runic let- 
 ters concealing the name of Cynewulf. These, then, may 
 cynewuifs ^c regarded as his authentic works. Elene is 
 Signed Poems ^j^g g^-Qj-y of the finding of the true cross at 
 Jerusalem. The Emperor Constantine, after his conver- 
 sion, sends his mother, Helena, to seek for the cross. 
 She is successful after many hindrances, and builds a 
 church on the spot where the cross is discovered. At 
 the end of his narrative, Cynewulf reflects upon his work, 
 upon the future judgment, and upon his experiences as a 
 man and as a poet. It is into this personal passage 
 that he has woven the runes that conceal his name. In 
 Juliana, Cynewulf has told the story of another female 
 saint. She is a Roman maiden who remains true to her 
 faith in spite of the persecutions of her father and her 
 lover, and in spite also of the wiles of the devil. Her 
 fidelity is sealed by a triumphant death. Crist deals with 
 the Nativity, the Ascension, and the Last Judgment. It 
 lacks artistic completeness and unity, but contains some
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN POETRY (670-871) 23 
 
 of the finest poetical passages to be found in Anglo-Saxon 
 literature. We receive the impression of a series of re- 
 lated poems, gathered about the personality of Christ ; 
 and the work is remarkable as containing features of epic, 
 lyric, descriptive, and even dramatic poetry. The Fates of 
 the Apostles is a brief poem, reciting the fates of the 
 twelve apostles in a not very poetical fashion. 
 
 A number of other interesting poems have been asso- 
 ciated with the name of Cynewulf, and it seems probable 
 that they were written cither by him or by men xheschooiof 
 of his time and school. Gutlilac tells of the cynewuif 
 life and death of an English saint. Audreas, one of the 
 best of Anglo-Sa.xon narrative poems, relates the adven- 
 tures of the Apostle Andrew among the cannibal Merme- 
 donians. T/ie PJiocuix describes the fabled bird that was 
 able to rise from its own ashes, and makes it an allegorical 
 type of the resurrection of Christ and his saints ; it is 
 remarkable among Anglo-Sa.xon poems for its tenderness 
 and beauty, and none is less tinged with pagan ideas. 
 The Descent into Hell deals with Christ's visit to hell 
 between his death and resurrection, in order to rescue the 
 spirits in prison — a theme congenial to the old English 
 mind for centuries. One notable poem, The Dream of the 
 Rood, differs much from these, but reminds us in many 
 places of the earlier verses from the Ruthwell Cross. It 
 is a description of the cross seen in a vision, and voices 
 a passionate adoration. 
 
 It seems probable that most of the poetry thus far 
 considered was written in Northumbria. It has come down 
 to us, however, not in the Northumbrian but in Language of 
 the West-Saxon dialect. This fact is due to the ^^"^ ^'^^^^ 
 incursions of the Danes, whf) devastated Northumbria and 
 practically annihilated her learning and literature. Schol- 
 ars and poets took refuge in Wessex, and the surviving 
 fragment of Northumbrian poetry was translated into
 
 24 
 
 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 West-Saxon. The Northumbrian originals being lost, the 
 poems have been preserved only in their West-Saxon form. 
 How much loss the Danish invasion meant for Anglo- 
 Saxon poetry can never be told. The change from one 
 dialect to another is a matter of minor importance. The 
 real loss is that so much poetry and so much of knowledge 
 about this poetry should have been swept away forever. 
 
 Inscription in Runes 
 
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 CHAPTKR III 
 
 THE ANGLO-SAXON PROSE PERIOD (871-1066) 
 
 During the centuries that intervened between the com- 
 ing of Augustine in 597 and the accession of King Alfred 
 in 871, Christianity had won its battle against the old 
 Anglo-Saxon heathenism and had established its ideals in 
 the minds and hearts of the English people. The church 
 had laid her foundations, had fixed her pillars, and was 
 patiently rearing her great superstructure. Nevertheless, 
 the conflict between Christianity and heathenism ^^ . ^. .^ 
 
 •^ ... Christianity 
 
 was by no means at an end. Up to this time it and Heathen- 
 had been mamly a conflict against heathenism 
 within, an effort to transform a i)agan people into a 
 Christian people. From this forward it was mainly the 
 conflict of Anglo-Saxon Christianity against Danish 
 heathenism coming in upon it like a flood from without. 
 In a very true sense, then, the guiding impulse of litera- 
 ture during the present period is still the impulse of 
 Christianity struggling to maintain its ground and to 
 continue its progress in the face of heathen aggression. 
 The form of the conflict has changed ; the spirit of it 
 remains essentially the same. The religious note is 
 unmistakably dominant in literature throughout the whole 
 period. The educational work of Alfred in the ninth 
 century is moved by the desire for the religious and moral 
 elevation of his jjcople. yKlfric, in his homilies and lives 
 of the saints and Scripture translations, carries on the 
 same spirit into the early jiart of the eleventh century. 
 Wulfstan is stirred by a passion of religious zeal and 
 proi)hetic warning of (jod's punishment for sin. liven the 
 
 25
 
 26 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 Anglo-Saxon CJironicle is touched by the same great im- 
 pulse ; for its interest is largely ecclesiastical, and its most 
 notable passages record the warfare of English Christianity 
 against the terrible assaults of the Danes. To save the 
 people from ignorance and barbarism by reUgious effort, 
 to repel the attacks of heathen foes — these are the domi- 
 nant ideas of the later Anglo-Saxon literature. 
 
 It is to be noted that the conditions are decidedly less 
 favorable for literary production than in the older days. 
 Effect on Lit- To sct up the Christian ideal and strive to give 
 erature j^- -^q mastery in heathen hearts, to see the new 
 
 faith winning its way and diffusing the light of a higher 
 civilization — that is full of inspiration — that can make 
 poets as well as preachers and teachers. To fight an 
 almost despairing struggle against heathen hordes, to 
 labor almost against hope to save a Christian people from 
 falling back into the brute and Christian civilization from 
 sinking beneath a deluge of barbarism — that may awaken 
 religious zeal and heroic courage, but it can hardly inspire 
 poetic enthusiasm. The literature of the present period is 
 therefore almost wholly in prose — the work of preachers 
 and teachers and chroniclers. It is religious, but it is not 
 inspired. 
 
 The earliest prose writings in England were in Latin, 
 and there is no considerable prose literature in the English 
 tongue until the ninth century, after the poetical period 
 had come to a close. Bede, in addition to his voluminous 
 Latin writings, had completed an Anglo-Saxon translation 
 of the Gospel of John ; and if this had been preserved, the 
 history of English prose would begin with the early part 
 Early West- of the eighth century, and in Northumbria. As 
 Saxon Prose jj- jg^ ^.j^g earliest extant prose literature is in 
 the form of West-Saxon legal documents and entries in the 
 Anglo-Saxon CJironicle ; and the first important period of 
 prose writing is in the reign of King Alfred, 871-901.
 
 THE ANGLO-SAXON PROSE PERIOD (871-1066) 27 
 
 This is known as the Early West-Saxon Period. Its Htera- 
 ture is ahnost wholly in prose. It gathered up and pre- 
 ser\'ed the poetry of the past, but it did not add to our 
 poetical treasures. In addition to its important contribu- 
 tions to the A/ij^/o-SiJ.von Clironiclc, its chief works are those 
 which are associated with the name of King Alfred himself. 
 Alfred is the true father of English prose, as Caedmon 
 is of English poetry, and as Bede is of English learning. 
 He is so in a double sense ; for Alfred was not 
 
 1 1 f 1 1 11- King Alfred 
 
 only a royal patron of letters, but was also hnu- 
 self the only important prose-writer of his time. When he 
 began to make headway against the Danes, the strength 
 of England gathered about him as the true preserver of 
 the land against its foes. Poetry came from Northumbria 
 to take on under his protection a West-Sa.xon form, and to 
 be preserved and handed down to posterity. The monas- 
 teries became again the seats of learning and culture and 
 education. A new literature, which was to be hencefor- 
 ward chiefly in prose, grew up around Alfred's court at 
 Winchester. It is, of course, in the West-Saxon dialect, 
 as the great body of Anglo-Saxon literature continued to 
 be until its final extinction after the Norman Conquest. 
 It is with Alfred the writer that we have here chiefly to 
 do, and our thought of the great king must be simply the 
 background to the picture. 
 
 We must acknowledge that Alfred was not a great 
 literary genius or even a great original writer. He pos- 
 sessed, however, a clear, simple, vigorous, and Alfred as a 
 interesting style ; and the literature of the thou- '^"*" 
 sand years which lie between his day and ours reveals no soul 
 more simple, earnest, reverent, and devoted than that of the 
 royal father of our English prose. His literary work con- 
 sists principally of four notable translations from the Latin. 
 
 One of these is the Citra Pastomlis, or Pastoral Care, 
 of Pope Gregory the (ireat. It has for its object to show
 
 28 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 what the mind of a true spiritual pastor ought to be ; 
 and the translation of it was part of Alfred's effort to 
 Alfred's Pas- improve the intellectual and spiritual condition 
 torai Care ^^ ]^jg bishops and lower clergy. The pref- 
 ace, written by Alfred himself, is by far the most in- 
 teresting part of the work, and in some respects the most 
 interesting part of Alfred's writings. It gives a graphic 
 picture of the lamentable condition of religion and learn- 
 ing in England when Alfred came to the throne, and 
 shows clearly the lofty and intelligent purpose that was in 
 the king's mind to bring about a better state of affairs. 
 
 A translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the 
 
 English People has also been commonly attributed to 
 
 Alfred. This was, in fact, the first history of 
 
 Alfred 'sBede ' ' ^ 
 
 England, and its translation may well have been 
 part of Alfred's general scheme for the instruction of 
 his people. Among other things of great interest, the 
 translation contains Bede's famous account of Caedmon, 
 together with a West-Saxon version of Caedmon's North- 
 umbrian Hyvni. 
 
 Still another of Alfred's works was the translation of 
 Boethius' 0)i the Consolation of Philosophy. Alfred adds 
 Alfred's Boe- ^ preface, in which he gives an account of Boe- 
 thius thius, whom Gibbon has called " the last of the 
 Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for 
 their countryman." His work was held in great esteem, 
 not only in Anglo-Saxon times, but throughout the Middle 
 Ages, by the church and in the monastic schools. 
 
 The other notable translation of Alfred was a Universal 
 History from the Creation to the Year of our Lord 416 
 Alfred's oro- written by a Spanish monk named Orosius. 
 sius This translation, hke the others, is made with 
 
 considerable freedom. Alfred introduces a geographical 
 description of Europe north of the Rhine and the Danube, 
 which is the only contemporary account of the Germanic
 
 THE ANGLO-SAXON PROSE PERIOD (871-1066) 29 
 
 nations as early as the ninth century. In particular, he 
 gives the narrative of two travelers, Ohthere and Wulfstan, 
 who, he tells us, had visited his court and related to him 
 the story of their voyages. One of them had sailed 
 around the North Cape and as far as the White Sea. The 
 other had traveled in the Baltic along the northern coast of 
 Germany. 
 
 It seems probable ^ that from a very early time monks in 
 various monasteries had begun to make brief and bare rec- 
 ords of contemporary events. The oldest annals Angiosaxon 
 are both scanty and broken ; but gradually the c'>f°°'<='e 
 years skipped became fewer and the accounts fuller and 
 more connected. An interesting entry for the year 755 
 has been called "the oldest piece of historical prose in any 
 Teutonic tongue." About 855 was undertaken a general 
 revision of the earlier annals. Gaps were filled up, new en- 
 tries were made in existing accounts, and detailed narratives 
 were added of some of the more striking events. The 
 record was also carried back to the landing in Britain of 
 the first Teutonic invaders under Hengist and Horsa in 
 449. The Winchester Chronicle, in its fuller revised form, 
 was existing when Alfred came to the throne in 871. Al- 
 fred's wars with the Danes furnished an inspiring subject 
 for the historian, and for many years the annals are con- 
 tinuous and usually very full. In Alfred's last years a new 
 revision of the C/ironic/c was made, either by Alfred him- 
 self or under his direction. The record from 894 to 924 
 is supposed to be the work of a single writer. His name 
 is unkncnvn, but all historians have united in praising the 
 animation and vigor of his style. As we shall have oc- 
 casion to note later, the Chronicle was continued until 
 after the Norman Conquest. We may further observe here 
 that it remains to us in seven different texts made in 
 different monasteries, that it is the oldest native history 
 
 * Ten Brink's English Literature, \, p. 72.
 
 30 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 in any Teutonic tongue, and that it is an indispensable 
 
 source of information to the modern historian of England. 
 
 Before passing on to consider the prose work of the 
 
 Later West-Saxon Period, we may here briefly notice what 
 
 ^^^s being accomplished in the poetical field. 
 
 IjSiZQx Poetry 
 
 It is small enough in amount, but not altogether 
 negligible. There was poetry of a sort in Alfred's day 
 and later ; but for the most part it lacks the old vitality 
 and power. Once and again, the old heroic note is 
 heard, and there are at least two poems that possess a 
 high order of merit and are not unworthy to rank with the 
 best of the older poetry. One is known as the Battle of 
 BtunaiibiirJi, and is inserted in the Chronicle for the year 
 937. It is a song of triumph for the victory of the 
 West-Saxons under ^Ethelstan and Edmund, grandsons 
 of Alfred, over the North Danes under Anlaf and the 
 Scots under Constantine. The other is called the Battle 
 of Maldon, and is even finer in quality. It is a record 
 of the fight of the East-Anglians agamst the Danes in 
 the year 991, and seems to have been written so soon 
 after the battle that the poet does not even know the 
 name of the Danish leader. It is interesting to observe 
 that the events of actual history can on occasion furnish 
 as true poetic inspiration as heathen myth or Christian 
 legend. One of these poems celebrates a great Christian 
 victory over heathen invaders, and has therefore a theme 
 full of poetic suggestions. The other records a defeat at 
 the hands of heathen foes, and finds its poetry in the 
 splendid valor which despises cowardice as it despises 
 death, and which rejoices to fall in heroic battle about a 
 beloved chief. Both poems reflect in a clear and striking 
 way the age-long struggle of Christianity against heathen 
 barbarism and show the heroic temper of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race whether in victory or in defeat. With this later 
 verse die away the last echoes of the noble poetry of the
 
 THE ANGLO-SAXON PROSE PERIOD (871-1066) 31 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, with its pagan sternness and courage, its 
 Christian faith and devotion, its poetic passion and imagi- 
 nation. Not again does England hear such voices until 
 she has emerged from the long night of mediaeval feudal- 
 ism and ignorance into the dawn of her modern literature. 
 
 After Alfred's death, literature rapidly declined; and 
 for over half a century little or nothing was produced 
 outside of the Chronicle. During the reign of Latewest- 
 Kdgar the Peaceful, however, from 958 10975, saxonProse 
 a new literary period began which continued until after 
 the Norman Conquest. This period is known as the Late 
 West-Saxon, in distinction from the Early West-Sa.xon 
 Period under Alfred. The chief literary product of Ed- 
 gar's reign is the so-called Blickling Homilies, Biickiing 
 written about 971. The homily was the popular homilies 
 form of religious instruction in the tenth and eleventh cen- 
 turies, as it continued to be for centuries later. It was the 
 predecessor of the modern sermon in its function and to 
 some extent in its form. It has the exhorting element of 
 the sermon and something also of the expository element ; 
 but it indulges more freely in religious narrative drawn 
 from the Bible and from the lives of the saints. The 
 Blicklins^ Hoviilies, although they form a notable single 
 collection, do not differ materially from other and greater 
 works of the same class presently to be mentioned. 
 
 About twenty years after the Blickling- Honiilies we 
 come to the greatest of Anglo-Saxon prose-writers. yElfric 
 was born about 955 and died not far from 1025. He was 
 a man of gentle yet decided nature, cultured, learned, 
 and eminently pure in life. As a writer,^ he had 
 not the creative power of a great literary 
 genius, nor had he fallen upon an age that was favorable 
 to literary production of a high order ; but he had the 
 ability to assimilate facts and ideas, to marshal them in 
 ' Tin brink's Entjlish Literature, I, \y\>. 105, 106.
 
 32 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 orderly array, and to express them in clear and effective 
 style. His principal literary work is found in his Homilies. 
 These are in two series of forty each. They are based 
 upon the writings of the church fathers, and include topics 
 for the whole ecclesiastical year. They embody great 
 theological learning, but are admirably adapted to the 
 understanding of the common people. yElfric follows the 
 fashion of his age in interpreting allegorically many things 
 in the Scripture text, yet he does so with comparative 
 intelligence and caution. There is a large admixture of 
 the legendary and the miraculous ; but one feels also the 
 childHke faith and the deep piety. Closely alHed to his 
 Homilies are his Lives of the Saints. These were designed 
 to be publicly read or delivered on the various saints' days. 
 A notable peculiarity, and one which appears to a less 
 extent in other works of ^Ifric, is that they are written in 
 a sort of " rhythmical, alliterative prose," which approaches 
 poetry without really leaving the prose level. In sen- 
 timent and in picturesqueness, also, as well as in form, 
 both the Homilies and the Lives of the Saints have 
 occasional poetical leanings. In addition to his more 
 original work, ^Elfric also takes his place among our great 
 translators of the Bible. He translated ths whole of the 
 Pentateuch, the Book of Job, and several other portions of 
 the Old Testament into clear, graceful, and vigorous Eng- 
 lish. In his preface to the translation of Genesis, we see 
 the lofty sincerity of his purpose and his solicitude for the 
 spiritual welfare of the people. He hesitated to translate 
 the book, because he feared the evil consequences of a 
 popular misunderstanding with reference to the old law 
 concerning polygamy. 
 
 One contemporary of ^Ifric is deserving of personal 
 mention as a writer. This is Wulfstan, Arch- 
 
 Wulfstan 
 
 bishop of York from 1002 until his death in 1023. 
 
 He is the last great English writer before the Norman
 
 THE ANGLO-SAXON PROSE PERIOD (871-1066) 33 
 
 Conquest. Some fifty-three Ihwiilics have been attributed 
 to him, but many of them on uncertain grounds. One 
 work of his has long been generally known. This is com- 
 monly called Wulfstan's Address to the English. It warns 
 the people that the terrors of Danish invasion have come 
 upon them because of their sins, and forebodes the coming 
 of Antichrist and the end of the world. Wulfstan was 
 not gifted with a great creative imagination ; but he evi- 
 dently had a terrible knowledge of the sins of his age 
 and described them with passionate earnestness and with 
 graphic realism of effect. His is almost the last word of 
 the Anglo-Saxon literature ; and it is charged with relig- 
 ious fer\-or and with gloomy foreboding of the triumph of 
 evil in the world. 
 
 Into this intensely religious atmosphere, dark with 
 thoughts of impending judgment and of eternal terrors, 
 breathes the strange odor of eastern romance, oriental ro- 
 anticipating the romantic literature which was ^^'^^^ 
 to make so large a part of the poetry of the Middle Ages. 
 As an illustration of this, we may mention the translation 
 of the late Greek romance of Apollonins of Tyre. It is an 
 interesting popular tale, in strong contrast with anything 
 produced by the Anglo-Saxon genius. Nearly six hun- 
 dred years later, Shakespeare made a part of this same 
 story the basis for his Pericles, Prince of Tyre. 
 
 Once again Danish invasion pours in its tide of war to 
 submerge the Anglo-Saxon literature, and the long prose 
 period comes to an end. It shows some signs of revival 
 toward the middle of the eleventh century ; l)ut tlicn 
 comes the Norman Conquest in 1066 to crush and over- 
 whelm it completely. All save the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
 which continues for nearly a century more. LaterAngio 
 Chronicle writing at Winchester, the old capital saxon chron 
 of King Alfred, came to an end ni looi. Can- 
 terbury, Abingdon, and especially Worcester then became
 
 34 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY (449-1066) 
 
 prominent as centres of historical record. The Worcester 
 CJironiclc continued until 1079, and was the last of the 
 older Chronicles. The Peterborough CJirvnicle, youngest 
 of all, was kept up until the death of King Stephen in 
 1 1 54. It shows marked changes in the language, which 
 was rapidly breaking up under the combined influence of 
 the Latin and the Norman French and of historical con- 
 ditions. With the close of the Peterborough Chronicle die 
 away the last echoes of the Anglo-Saxon literature. 
 
 _^^ ^NTDENWCAPVl?"": 
 
 onmi^nc ytnct^- nvtyc 'bco6cn(xc,cdnn%acon 
 b;^cahaEodfin da^Juelcnd fehacerfheovon Vtccr 
 pctMjA- Sm-^A Tyhart ai^ijtie AcTMKapp/c uji 
 
 Up cymciicfiTic^ei • on^arrP^ban <)<e£e- ur cp ai ^ 
 
 jic-fofima. monayntnc jolc my<xit anua\uuf ^ JtU*'^^>, 
 ^e|JHm hccon) Xtid Iccj cmhc yi]; mhcj^cc^j^ 
 Tutpilrr aticccr ^|i*hcncT-tDuj'C)rni£o]'<cnetpel 
 ^ca i(s^ un eahife.hid'^hcnSvyoYehxo^on 
 "tltyccnbrnf olAin hen- tvylce ctnh ^fcjt yu- 
 caxK y^cc tz t oltnona^^ j^ «> gt'nchxxmn cfa. ^ 
 
 mhaun^jj>a.hu ccccol3o»,go jcl7»«<q»^»t f^ — /t/j» 
 
 rpo\c ^6 rt\ay. co&c <T rUapCy^JtiJ |«*]- crnOC a 
 
 Reduced Facsimile from MS. of Saxon Chronicle 
 
 British Museum
 
 leoueit vcne im itf • i. \»tCtc 
 
 nt^VM ilaic»lnt1'cu«tg'iicf 
 (r bif toftcr' ufifuigt- ^ y*^ ft»^ 
 
 5rctingr. ^r cHm tn ^luf aiJ 
 
 UmfK m\*e''mav \»rtn if o« 
 
 d yioc ai ID iHicn. Vw if v' Ivt^ 
 dtdl^flifl'it mi lx>^Ht:i(mi 
 l)^bm Tolducr^.tniu diirt>4H 
 
 tftjflc tt'fiittii'ia ttttit on Utttf 
 tirf ni^nNMut^iUHi me ilfi 
 ail bttt^^i& null *n>;»n!P bf . 
 
 m«e v<nt%f t)tJrf <uftcj 3ffitbi 
 umiir. frttttntr rwmf^x&nmr 
 
 fDumlnfWrt£rCi)ite»ttC'hw Cozdoiti 
 
 nwir^f rtttne ttt nunc reoJbc- 
 
 bmtr (Ulhtn ih«i J'cti KjnoT * 
 }4oTtihirc Icflf fUhic Ijmcf at 
 
 italic Digt (co^'tlvirbtmicf 
 
 Itf mm- rfl nnfll>ett&f antoiDt- 
 hifif "riiotrtbr tunc a?i6snm 
 cn< ^ »«ib If »nit.*a>imt f»iw* 
 icuc-tto ^^ nwUflf (ill fo mi 
 M^(T''^ ifh i^ Ji 0) ti Wyirr^ 
 liaHr CD K fobfiilte l^elfin «> 
 cbjio^' ortrc ifilfc.tOi>a!cl) 
 tbift: nit'-^rdi \rinc vc fugrwd 
 
 myi$f ff w»ni ycbast 4i^tB 
 
 iniirnifOVint fi>z inri6aiOr-f 
 ^drbC0btu^tt0l^tl^lllifl Otti 
 
 Facsimile of Leaf of Layamon's Brut 
 
 Cottonian Manuscript, British Museum
 
 BOOK II 
 
 RELIGJOX AND ROMANCE {i 066-1 500) 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 
 
 Between the Anglo-Saxon Period, which we have just 
 traversed, and the Middle EngHsh Period, upon which we 
 are about to enter, there is for the student of FromAngio 
 literature a great gulf fixed. The Norman Con- Midd'ieEng 
 quest had intervened, and under the stress of I'^h 
 conditions created by that great historic event, literary 
 utterance in the ICnglish tongue was all but silenced. For 
 about a century and a half there is practically no litera- 
 ture in English except the Anglo-Saxon C/irouicle ; and it 
 is not until near the close of the twelfth century that a 
 new native literature begins to appear. The language, 
 too, under similar influences, has undergone marked 
 changes ; and the Middle English literature almost seems 
 to be written in a new speech. Yet all these changes had 
 been gradual, and the life of the race had been continuous 
 from the close of the one age to the beginning of the 
 other. The race had passed over the gulf and had re- 
 appeared on the other side, ready to take up again the 
 task of expressing through literature its ever moving life. 
 It had passed through great experiences and liad been 
 subjected to new and powerful foreign influences; but it 
 had not been radically changed. Indcetl, it was still essen- 
 tially the same race, with much the same ideals. In a 
 word, the thread of literary development had been broken 
 by the accident of foreign conquest, but the thread of 
 racial life had remained intact. 
 
 35
 
 36 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 By what impulses shall we now find this life and this 
 literature determined? The question is not so easy to 
 answer as in the case of the preceding period ; for the 
 situation is a more complicated one. The Norman Con- 
 quest, of course, powerfully affected the conditions of Eng- 
 lish national and social life ; but it was not in itself a 
 great literary influence, except in the purely negative sense 
 that it helped to bring the old order to a close and to hin- 
 der a native literary revival. Yet the Conquest brought 
 with it conditions which did in time have a positive and 
 very important influence on literary production. In the 
 English and Afst placc, it brought a new race into England 
 Normans — ^ ^^^^ Originally Teutonic, but transformed 
 by the infusion of French blood into the most brilliant and 
 masterful race in Europe. The Normans, moreover, were a 
 romantic, an artistic, and a poetic people ; and their pres- 
 ence could not fail to affect literary conditions and move- 
 
 ents. Furthermore, Normans and English were brought 
 into close contact with each other in almost all depart- 
 ments of life. At first the relation was one of hostility ; 
 but gradually the two races drew together until at last 
 the one was merged in the other. It was not the 
 mingling of two equal streams ; for doubtless the na- 
 tive English element was much the larger and more 
 important. The old race, however, was in time pro- 
 foundly modified, just as the Normans themselves had 
 been modified before by their union with the French. The 
 new union was a most fortunate one ; for it joined the 
 brilliant, emotional, and imaginative Norman temper with 
 the more solid and steadfast qualities of the Anglo-Saxon 
 nature. This contact of races, in all its stages, so profoundly 
 affected the conditions of life and the growth of racial 
 character that it necessarily exerted a dominating influence   
 on literature as well. Indeed, we may fairly say that the 
 literature of the whole Middle English Period, and espe-
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 37 
 
 cially of what we have here called the Anglo-Norman 
 Period, was mainly shaped and controlled — perhaps we 
 may add, to some extent repressed and hindered — by the 
 relations which existed between two races, two languages, 
 two national and literary ideals. 
 
 In order to appreciate still more definitely the impulses 
 now working toward the making of literature, we must ob- 
 serve the direction in which the genius of each race was 
 urging it to literary expression. The English literary 
 temper was still, as it had been throughout the 
 
 . . . English 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Period, chiefly religious. Under Religious 
 the existing conditions, it seems natural to expect ^"^^" 
 the utterance of a national or racial passion, asserting 
 English sentiment against alien conquerors. This English 
 spirit does find voice, to some extent, in songs and ballads ; 
 but the dominant note is a religious one. It is as though 
 the race had accepted its lot and was seeking compensation 
 for its woes in the consolations of its religion. Indeed, 
 there is comparatively little of English literary protest 
 against Norman rule ; and the patriotic note is strongest at 
 a time when Englishmen and Normans were sufficiently 
 united to feel a common pride in a common country. 
 
 As contrasted with English religious feeling, the Norman 
 literary temper was essentially romantic. When William 
 the Conqueror advanced against the English army 
 at the battle of Hastings, the Norman minstrel. Romantic 
 Taillefer, rode in front, tossing his sword in '^^"p" 
 the air and catching it again while he chanted the So;i^i^ 
 of Roland. He was the first to strike and the first to fall. 
 The Norman valor was there, but there also was the Nor- 
 man romantic si)irit. The incident is finely symbolic nf 
 the new element which the Normans were to bring into 
 English literature. 
 
 ■^^ Wc may say, therefore, that the literature of the Middle 
 English Period was guided, not merely by the contact of 
 
 V740O1
 
 38 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 two races in one national life, but by the double impulse of 
 religion and romance. These two forces were not hostile 
 Religion and ^^ ^^^^ Other ; for English religion was in some 
 Romance degree romantic, and became ever more and 
 more so under Norman influences, while Norman romance 
 \^was in large measure religious, and took on a deeper re- 
 ligious tone through its contact with the Enghsh mind. 
 The two Hterary streams tend finally to run in the same 
 channel. No more typical example could be found than 
 the Arthurian legends, which by the addition of the story 
 of the Holy Grail are exalted into great religious romance. 
 The mediaeval cathedral is also a type of this same union. 
 In no creation of man is there a more impressive com- 
 bination of religious solemnity and awe with romantic mys- 
 /tery and beauty. Indeed, are not the Middle Ages the 
 world's treasure house of romance, and do they not at 
 the same time furnish the world's supreme illustration of 
 ^popular religious faith .-* 
 
 We shall get the best clue to a comprehension of the Ht- 
 erary history of this Anglo-Norman Period by conceiving of 
 „ ,. . , literature as moving along two hues which gradu- 
 
 Religious and o e> & 
 
 Romantic Lit- ally tend to merge into each other. On the one 
 side is the religious literature, for the most part 
 purely native in form and in spirit. The line runs from 
 Orm in the early part of the thirteenth century to Lang- 
 land and Wyclif in the latter part of the fourteenth. Over 
 against this purely native work we find the romantic lit- 
 erature which grew up under Norman-French inspiration. 
 The line here runs from Lay anion at the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century to Chaucer at the close of the four- 
 teenth. The religious literature is mainly in poetry, but 
 there is some prose of the same character. Romantic lit- 
 erature, is almost wholly poetical, though there are a few 
 prose tales. Where romance leans toward history, it is 
 likely to be more English ; where it is mainly fanciful, it is
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 39 
 
 more likely to be French. Especially on its more fanciful 
 side, most of the romantic literature is translated from 
 French originals. An important difference between 
 purely native poetry and that which is affected by French 
 influence is seen in the form of the verse. The old Anglo- 
 Saxon alliterative measure, in a modified form, still con- 
 tinued to exert an influence upon the verse of purely English 
 poems. Alongside of this grew up a more strictly metri- 
 cal verse, following Latin and French models. In Anglo- 
 Saxon poetry, rhyme was of very infrequent occurrence ; 
 now it became a recognized feature of poetic expression. 
 Modern English poetry has been affected by both metrical 
 svstems, but it is chiefly based upon the French scheme. 
 
 In a period covering so large an extent of time and 
 having such various lines of literary interest — English 
 and Norman, religious and romantic, prose and Method of 
 poetic — it seems best to keep even pace '^^«*^'°^°* 
 with the steady onward march of literary progress. 
 The following outline of the Anglo-Norman literature 
 will therefore deal with the various representative works 
 so far as possible in a chronological order, indicating the 
 relation of each to the separate but ever converging lines 
 of literary development. It is desirable, however, to keep 
 constantly in mind the two great racial sources — English 
 and French — from which this literature springs, and the 
 two great impulses — religious and romantic — by which 
 its character is determined. 
 
 There is evidence that the making of English literature 
 did not altogether cease during the century or more suc- 
 ceeding the Norman Conquest, but j)ractically nothing of 
 importance has remained to our time. With the exception 
 of the Aiii^/o-Snxoii C///v>;//rA', which continued until 11 54. 
 most of the extant literature of that time is of two kinds, — 
 histories and chronicles in Latin, and romantic stories in 
 French. It is interesting to observe that historical writ-
 
 40 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 ings — including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself — tend 
 to become more and more romantic in character. Toward 
 the close of the twelfth century, English literature proper 
 
 begins to revive. It is chiefly in the form of 
 iousLitera^' Scripture translation and homily, thus remind- 
 *"''® ing us of the latest Anglo-Saxon literature ; and 
 
 its tone is that of religious moralizing. A typical produc- 
 tion is the Poema Morale, or Moral Ode. It is found in a 
 collection of homilies, and is itself a sermon in verse on 
 the inevitable requital hereafter of men's good or evil 
 deeds. It is not without poetic merit, and gains an added 
 
 interest from its somewhat personal tone. A 
 
 Moral Ode . . ^ 
 
 brief specimen will show something of this 
 and will also enable us to observe the decided change 
 that has taken place in the language : 
 
 Ich aem elder ben ich wes a wintre and a lore ; 
 Ic waelde more l^anne ic dude, mi wit ah to ben more. 
 Wei lange ic habbe child ibeon a weorde end ech a dede ; 
 peh ic beo a wintre eald tu jyng i eom a rede. 
 
 I am older than I was in winters and in lore ; 
 I wield more than I did, my wit ought to be more. 
 Full long I have been a child, in word and eke in deed ; 
 Though I be in winters old, too young I am in reed. 
 
 "ixi the metre there is a free but not regular use of the 
 ^Anglo-Saxon principle of alliteration. On the other hand, 
 
 we find rhyme and a more regular rhythm here recognized 
 
 as established features of versification. 
 
 The first important poem of the Middle English Period 
 
 Layamon's ^^ Layamon's Brut. What we know of Laya- 
 
 ^™* mon is contained in the introduction to his 
 
 poem 
 
 An preost wes on leoden : lajamon wes ihoten. 
 he wes leouena^es sone : liSe him beo drihten. 
 he wonede at ernle^e : at ae^elen are chirechen. 
 uppen seuarne staj^e : sel J'ar him J^uhte.
 
 THE AXCLO-NOR.MAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 41 
 
 on fest Radestone : her lie bock radde. 
 
 Hit com him on mode : & on his mern honke. 
 
 J>et he wolde of engle : ]>a. a;<Nel;vn telien. 
 
 wat heo ihoten weoren : & wonene heo comen. 
 
 \>a. englene londe : icrest ahtcn. 
 
 aefter l-an flode: \>e from drihtene com. 
 
 lapmon gon liiNen : wide jond has leode. 
 & biwon la a-Sehi boc : l-a he to bisne nom. 
 he nom l>a englisca boc : ha makede seint Beda. 
 an oher he nom on latin : he makede seinte albin. 
 & l-e feire austin : he flilluht broute hider in. 
 boc he nom he hndde : leide her amidden. 
 ha makede a frenchis clerc : wace wes ihoten. 
 
 lajamon leide heos boc : & ha leaf wende. 
 he heom leofliche biheold : lihe him beo drihten. 
 feheren he nom mid fingren : & fiede on boc felle. 
 & ha sol>e word : sette to gadere. 
 & ha hre boc : hrumde to are. 
 Nu bidde'S lajamon 
 
 alcne allele nion : for hene almiten godd. 
 \>tt I'cos boc rede : & leornia heos runan. 
 t>at he heos so^este word : segge to sumne. 
 for his fader saule : ha hine forS brouhte. 
 & for his modcr saule : ha hine to monne iber. 
 & for his awene saule: h^t hire he selre beo. 
 
 Amen. 
 
 A priest was in the land who Layamon was named. 
 He was Leovenath's son, the Lord be good to him. 
 He lived at Ernley, at a lordly church 
 On the Severn's shore (good there it seemed), 
 Near to Radestone ; there books he read. 
 It came into his mind, and his main thought, 
 That he would of the English the origins tell, 
 What they were called and whence they had come 
 Who English land first had owned. 
 After the Hood which came from the Lord. 
 • *•••**** 
 
 Layamon fared far among the folk. 
 
 And obtained the noble books which he took for a pattern.
 
 42 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 He took the English book which Saint Bede made ; 
 Another he took in Latin which Saint Albin made, 
 And blessed Augustine who brought baptism hither. 
 The third book he took, laid it there in the midst, 
 Which a French clerk made who Wace was called. 
 ********* 
 
 Layamon laid down these books and turned the leaves. 
 He lovingly beheld them, the Lord be good to him. 
 Pen he took with fingers, and wrote on parchment, 
 And the true words set together, 
 And the three books threw into one. 
 Now Layamon asketh each excellent man 
 (For Almighty God's sake) 
 Who reads this book and learns this record, 
 That these sacred words he say together: 
 For his father's soul who brought him forth, 
 And for his mother's soul who bore him a man, 
 And for his own soul, that it be the safer. 
 
 Amen. 
 
 This is the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative metre, and the 
 diction is also thoroughly English. In spite of its close 
 contact with foreign models, the long poem is said to con- 
 tain fewer than fifty French words. EngUsh patriotism 
 and English religious feeling are clearly manifest; and yet 
 the poem is a curious compound of foreign influences. Of 
 Layamon's ^^^ "three books " which he mentions as the 
 Sources basis of his work, Wace was his chief authority ; 
 and Wace's work was based upon Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth's History of the Kings of Britain, written in Latin 
 about the middle of the twelfth century. Geoffrey was a 
 Welsh priest who afterward became Bishop of St. Asaph; 
 and his work purports to be a history of British kings 
 from the time of their mythical ancestor, Brutus, or Brut, 
 the great-grandson of ^Elneas the Trojan. It was, in fact, 
 a very imaginative compilation of Welsh legends ; and its 
 extremely romantic character is well indicated by the fact 
 that it contains the stories of many legendary kings since
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 43 
 
 well known to readers of later poetry. Such are Locrine, 
 Gorboduc, Cynibeline, Lear, and Arthur. Geoffrey's work 
 is the fountain head of the Arthurian legends, than 
 which there arc no greater romantic stories in luiglish 
 literature. On the basis of Geoffrey's history, Wace, a 
 native of the island of Jersey, wrote in French his Brut 
 if Au<^lctcrn\ or Bndus of England. This is the work which 
 Layamon took, about 1205, and expanded to more than 
 twice its original size. He tells us that he traveled far 
 and wide among the people ; and doubtless his nearness 
 to Wales had familiarized him directly with Welsh leg- 
 endary lore. His additions are the best part of the 
 poem. English himself, he enters readily into the ro- 
 mantic mood, tells the story of British kings after a 
 French poet, and betters it in the telling. His work is 
 interesting for its language ; for its assimilation of Welsh 
 and Norman influences; for its romantic character; and 
 not least for the fact that it was the first to naturalize 
 in the English tongue the great story of King Arthur 
 and his Knights. The account of the founding of the 
 Round Table appears for the first time in Layamon's 
 Brut. 
 
 As Layamon is the first notable writer of romance in 
 Middle English, so Orm is the first known writer of re- 
 ligious verse. Orm was a pious monk who ormsOrmu 
 paraphrased in verse the portions of the Gospels •"'" 
 appointed to be read at the church services and interpreted 
 these passages often in a fanciful and allegorical manner. 
 He begins thus : 
 
 Hss boc iss nemmncdd Oirmulum, forrM |att Orrm ill wrolililc. 
 This book is named Ormulum, because Orm wrote it. 
 
 The work has no real jKjctical value, but it gains a certain 
 interest by virtue of its quaintness and its religious ear- 
 nestness. To the student of the language, the work is of
 
 44 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (i 066-1 500) 
 
 unusual value because of Orm's interest in his orthography. 
 His chief peculiarity is the doubling of the consonants 
 after short vowels. The language at this time was broken 
 up into dialects, grouped into three general divisions, — the 
 Northern, the Midland, and the Southern. Orm's dialect 
 is East-Midland, and has an admixture of Scandinavian 
 elements; French influence is very slight. The Moral 
 Ode and Layamon's Brut are both in the Southwestern 
 dialect. We shall have occasion later to observe speci- 
 mens of the Northern. The metre of the Ornmhmi lacks 
 both alliteration and rhyme ; its scheme is that of iambic 
 verse of fifteen syllables to the line. The date of the work 
 is about 121 5. 
 
 During the first half of the thirteenth century, literature 
 written in English continued to be mostly religious. The 
 example of Layamon was not much followed, and ro- 
 mance still remained mostly in French. Religious poetry 
 followed mainly the tradition set by the Moral Ode. A 
 specimen of it at its best is found in the Orison of our Lady. 
 „ ,. . This is a lyrical adoration of the Holy Virgin, 
 
 Religious J J b ■> 
 
 Poetry " Cristcs milde moder, seynte Marie," and at 
 
 times mingles the tone of a chivalrous love song with its 
 tender religious devotion. It is real poetry, and well rep- 
 resents the mediaeval passion of worship for the " Mother 
 of God." The poetic paraphrasing of Scripture is rep- 
 resented by Genesis and Exodus. The type is as old as 
 Caedmon, of whom the title reminds us. A unique sort 
 of work is the Bestiary. The supposed " natures " of 
 various animals are quaintly described and made the basis 
 of fanciful religious allegory, so nai've as to be really amus- 
 ing to a modern reader. The lion, for instance, has three 
 "natures." The first is that when from the top of a hill 
 he discovers the hunters, he hastens down to his den, drag- 
 ging dust after him with his tail to cover his tracks ; the 
 second is that when he is born he sleeps for three days, till
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 45 
 
 his father arouses him with roaring ; the third is that he 
 never shuts his eyes in sleep. The Hon is the type of 
 Christ. The Lord came down from the high hill of heaven 
 and made his den in the womb of ISIary, but not even that 
 clever hunter, the devil, might know how he came ; the 
 Lord lay in the sleep of death for three days, till aroused 
 by the power of the Father ; the Lord is the ever watchful 
 shepherd of his flock. 
 
 There were homilies and lives of the saints both in 
 verse and in prose. Perhaps the most typical prose work 
 of the early half of the thirteenth century is the Religious 
 Aticnn Rizi'lc, or Rule of Nuns. It was written ^^°®® 
 for the direction and religious consolation of three pious 
 women who had retired into a convent in Dorsetshire. 
 The style is simple, tender, devotional, and imaginative, 
 and moreover happily illustrates the union of French and 
 English diction that was gradually enriching the language 
 during the present period. 
 
 English literature up to the middle of the thirteenth 
 century had been comparatively barren in the matter of 
 genuine lyric poetry. The lyric spirit, however, 
 had been gradually developing, and at about 
 this time and somewhat later there is an outburst of real 
 song. It takes the form of nature poems, love songs, 
 patriotic songs, and ballads. There seems here to be a 
 union of PVench influence with popular poetic feeling. 
 Representing the spirit of folk-poetry, is the famous Cuckoo 
 Song: 
 
 Sumer is icumen in, Ihude sing, cuccu ; 
 
 Growel' sed and hlowe)' mud and .spring^ be wude nu ; 
 
 Sing, cuccu. 
 Awe bleteb after lomlj, lhouJ> after calue cu ; 
 Hulluc stertel', l^ucke uerteK murie sing, cuccu. 
 
 Cuccu, cuccu, 
 Well singes )u, cuccu ; ne swik l-u nuuer nu.
 
 46 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 Summer is a-coming in, loudly sing, cuckoo ; 
 
 Groweth seed and bloweth mead and springeth the woodland now ; 
 
 Sing, cuckoo. 
 Ewe bleateth after Iamb, lows after calf the cow ; 
 Bullock starteth, buck darteth, merry sing, cuckoo. 
 
 Cuckoo, cuckoo, 
 Well singest thou, cuckoo ; cease thou never now. 
 
 One of the best of the love songs is Alysoim, of which 
 this is a stanza : 
 
 Bytuene Mershe & Aueril, ' * 
 
 When spray biginnel? to springe, 
 
 pe lutel foul ha)^ hire wyl 
 On hyre lud to synge ; 
 Ich libbe in louelonginge 
 For semlokest of alle I>ynge ; 
 He may me blisse bringe, 
 
 Icham in hire baundoun. 
 An hendy hap ichabbe yhent, 
 Ichot from heuene it is me sent. 
 From alle wymmen mi loue is lent 
 
 & lyht on Alysoun. 
 
 Between March and April, 
 When spray begins to spring, 
 
 The little bird hath its will 
 In its song to sing ; 
 I live in love-longing 
 For the fairest earthly thing; 
 She may me blessing bring, 
 
 I am her very own. 
 A happy chance to me is lent, 
 I wot from heaven to me 'tis sent. 
 From all other women my love is bent 
 
 And lights on Alysoun. 
 
 The love for nature, the hearty human quality, the fresh 
 lyric impulse, of such verse as this, give it an enduring 
 charm. It does not ally itself with the great literary move- 
 ments of the age, but tends to supplement them by an
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 47 
 
 inspiration drawn from the life and sentiment of the com- 
 mon people. A poem of somewhat different character is 
 The Owl and the Nightinij^ale. \n il there is a dialogue 
 between the two birds, in which each claims precedence. 
 They agree to submit the matter to the poet. There is 
 real poetic feeling for nature, and the poem allies itself 
 with the religious literature of the time by virtue of its 
 moralizing tone. 
 
 Men turned from the religious and romantic literature 
 of the age to common life, and found there not only 
 inspiration for popular song, but also abundant Humorous 
 material for verse tales of a comic and often 
 coarse realism. Some were imitated from the Yrtnch fab- 
 liaux ; some were humorous stories of animals, like our negro 
 tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox ; and still others were 
 frankly satirical. It is interesting to see that the two 
 favorite subjects of satire were found in the fields of 
 religion and romance. The corruption of the clergy and 
 the abuses of monastic life were held up to ridicule ; fanci- 
 ful and overstrained romanticism was the subject of good- 
 natured parody. Thus even this lighter and more popular 
 poetry allies itself with the great literary interests of the 
 time. It illustrates in its way the many-sidedness of life 
 and literature in all periods. The most romantic age has 
 its touches of realism, just as the most realistic age has its 
 flashes of romance. Religion goes on its solemn way to 
 the jingling of cap and bells, and the maddest laughter 
 may find itself checked in mid-volley by the feeling of 
 religious awe. 
 
 With the lyric and humorous poetry we are carried 
 along into the second half of the thirteenth century. It is 
 a period rather barren of important literary work ; and its 
 chief interest lies in the fact that French romance was 
 now exerting an ever increasing influence upon Fnglish lit- 
 erature. French originals were translated or imitated, and
 
 48 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500). 
 
 English themes were dealt with in the French manner. 
 A good example of the French romance transferred 
 Growth of into English is Sir Tristrem. It deals with the 
 Romance well-known story of one of Arthur's knights, 
 since handled by such great modern poets as Tenny- 
 son, Arnold, and Swinburne. With the exception of 
 Layamon's Brut, it is the first handhng in EngHsh of 
 any part of the Arthurian legends. Havelok the Dane is 
 an English story ; but it is treated in the French manner 
 and is probably copied after a French original. The 
 legend tells how Havelok, the son of the king of Denmark, 
 was saved from a murderous guardian by the fisherman 
 Grim, who escapes with him to England, where he builds 
 a house on the site of the modern town of Grimsby, at the 
 mouth of the river Humber in Lincolnshire. Another 
 well-known romance is King Horn. It is thought that its 
 legend of love and adventure is Enghsh in origin, but that 
 the poem in its present form is derived from the French. 
 Just before 1300, romance passes over into the field of his- 
 ' torical poetry in Robert of Gloucester's rhymed Chronicle, 
 which is a historical description of England from Brutus 
 to the death of Henry III in 1272. One can not speak 
 highly of its poetical quality ; but it is interesting for its 
 language and metre, for its patriotic spirit, for the histor- 
 ical value of some of its later portions, and because it forms 
 a link between Layamon and later historical poets. It 
 contains the story of King Lear. 
 
 As we pass over into the fourteenth century, French 
 romance is in full flower in English literature. It is im- 
 possible to treat the multitude of romances in detail, but 
 we may note that they fall into four great cycles. The 
 Cycles of Ro- rnost important of these is the Arthurian. We 
 mance ^^yg observed that the story of Arthur and his 
 
 knights was treated in Latin by Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth, in French by Wace, in English by Layamon
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 49 
 
 and in the romance of Sit Instnm. The story had been 
 treated during the thirteenth century by many P>ench 
 writers ; and French genius had added the legend of the 
 Holy Grail, which exalts knightly romance into great relig- 
 ious allegory. During the fourteenth century there were 
 many Arthurian stories written in luiglish. The second 
 romantic cycle was c.ie Carlovingian. Its stories deal 
 with the adventures of Charlemagne and his twelve pala- 
 dins. The Song of Roland, chanted by the Norman min- 
 strel, Taillefer, at the battle of Hastings, was one of the 
 French Carlovingian legends. The cycle in England 
 was much less extensive than the Arthurian. The third 
 cycle was the Alexandrian. The story of Alexander the 
 Great seems to have fascinated the mediaeval imagination, 
 and its ancient wonders took on the garb of true romantic 
 chivalry. The fourth cycle was the Trojan. Its stories 
 are connected in one way or another with the siege of 
 Troy. Brutus, the great-grandson of yEneas, it will be 
 remembered, was regarded as the ancestor of the British 
 kings. In addition to these four cycles there were many 
 separate romances Among the most English of them, 
 are Bcvis of Havip'.on and Guy of Warwick. 
 
 During the first half of the fourteenth century, as the 
 two races began to draw together and as the two great 
 literary streams began to flow freely in the channel of a 
 common language, there was a noteworthy revival of 
 literature. We have already observed it in the field of 
 romance, and it is no less apparent in the field Religious 
 of religious poetry. The earliest writer of the P"^*"^ 
 century was Robert Manning of Brunnc, or Bourn, in 
 Lincolnshire, who wrote in 1 303 a work called Ilandlyugc 
 Synu, . \\. is interesting uS having been adapted from a 
 French original written by an Englishman, and as being 
 much more modern than any English hitherto written. In a 
 mixture of homily and pious talc, it deals with tiie seven
 
 50 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 deadly sins, the seven sacraments, the twelve requisites of 
 a good confession, and the twelve spiritual graces. Verse 
 homilies and lives of the saints are common at this time, 
 but the greatest religious poem is the Cursor Mimdi, a 
 huge work of some thirty thousand lines by an unknown 
 poet. It is a religious history of the world, based chiefly 
 on the Bible story, but intermingUng this with many dis- 
 cursive legends and homilies. The dialect is Northern. 
 One scribe says of it, enthusiastically : 
 
 pis is \>t best boke of alle, 
 
 pe cours of l^e vverlde men dos hit calle. 
 
 Considering its immense size and scope, the following lines 
 seem not inappropriate : 
 
 Cursor o werld men aght it call, 
 For almast it overrennes all. 
 
 Still another religious poet is Richard Rolle of Hampole, 
 in Yorkshire. He was educated at Oxford, but left the 
 University at the age of nineteen, and adopted the life of 
 a hermit. In his solitary cell, he prayed, meditated, and 
 wrote. Sometimes, in a passion of religious zeal, he went 
 out among the people and preached with powerful effect. 
 He seems to have been a holy and an influential man ; 
 and after his death, his cell was revered as a sacred shrine. 
 His chief work is the Pricke of Conscience, a long poem 
 dealing with the uncertainty of human life and the coming 
 of the Last Judgment. His shorter sacred poems to the 
 divine love are the work of a mystic and a poet. Many 
 other works in prose and verse, in Latin and English, have 
 been attributed to him. 
 
 RoUe's work, as we have just implied, ranks him 
 with the prose-writers as well as with the poets of his age. 
 Religious -^^^ prosc writings are all rehgious, but no 
 Prose single work calls for special mention. He 
 
 carries us along to about 1340; and to this same period
 
 THE AN'GLO-XOKMAX PERIOD (1066-1360) 51 
 
 belongs Dan Michel's Ayinbitc of Iiiivit, or Remorse- of 
 Consiicncf. Written in the Kentish dialect, it is of decided 
 interest to the student of the language, but not much can 
 be claimed for it as pure literature. It has been called " a 
 popular handbook of moral theology " ; and as such, it is 
 typical of the religious spirit of the age. Among its subjects 
 are the ten commandments, the creed, the Lord's Prayer, 
 the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and tlic beast of Revelation. 
 Like other works of the period, it is full of allegory. 
 
 Contemporary with the religious literature there is an 
 interesting development of historical poetry, inspired by 
 the ever growing national spirit. Robert of Gloucester's 
 Chronicle, at the close of the thirteenth century, has been 
 already mentioned as opening the way in this direction. 
 This lead was followed early in the fourteenth century by 
 Robert Manning of Brunne, already noted as the author 
 of Handlyngc Syiinc. About 1338, he wrote a Patriotic 
 rhyming History of England. Like his religious ^^^""y 
 work, it is adapted from a P'rench original written by an 
 Englishman, thus illustrating both the importance of 
 French and the growing tendency to turn to English as 
 a literary medium. Manning shows no advance over his 
 predecessors in recognizing the boundary between history 
 and romance ; and his work is more interesting for its 
 patriotic spirit than for its historical fidelity. A writer of 
 a somewhat different type is Lawrence Minot, probably a 
 Northumbrian, who wrote between 1333 and 1352. His 
 work cfjnsists of a series of political songs or ballads on 
 the battles and deeds of Edward HL They show a vigor- 
 ous patriotism, but not much imagination or lyric gift. 
 Minot is a true-born iMiglishman, and religiously hates 
 Frenchmen and .Scots. One of his ballads begins as follows : 
 
 God. I'at scliope both se and sand, 
 Saue Edward, kinjj of Ingland, 
 Both Ixxiy. saul and hfc, 
 And Krantf him ii)\ w ithowtcn strif.
 
 52 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 The most famous single work of the period now under 
 review is Mandeville's Travels. This book purports to 
 have been written by Sir John Mandeville, an English- 
 Mandeviiie's man who was born at St. Albans, traveled 
 Travels abroad for thirty-four years, returned to England 
 
 in 1356, and wrote the account of his wanderings in Latin, 
 French, and English. Modern criticism says that Mande- 
 ville is as fictitious as his Travels. In any case, we have 
 the book ; and it is the first genuinely imaginative prose 
 work in the literature and the first work to have the gift of 
 a real English prose style. That is much ; and no doubts 
 about the author can obscure the fact that the book was 
 immensely popular and that it had a most important influ- 
 ence upon the development of English prose. It seems to 
 be made up partly of real experiences and partly of romantic 
 marvels drawn from many sources. Here are accounts of 
 Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia, Armenia, 
 India, Cathay, the realm of Prester John, and the Terrestrial 
 Paradise. Here are stories of dragons, griffins, hunting 
 leopards, devils, giants, pygmies, Saracens, Amazons, men 
 with one foot so large that they lie down in the shadow of 
 it, men with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads, 
 men with heads beneath their shoulders, men with heads 
 like hounds, men covered with feathers, and many other 
 wonders too numerous to recount. The narrative is accom- 
 panied with quaint and convincing pictures of the objects 
 described, and is written with a naive realism that leaves 
 Httle to be desired. Yet " Sir John " has exercised withal 
 a commendable self-restraint : 
 
 There are many other countreys where I have not yet ben nor sene 
 & therefore I can not speke properly of them. Also in countreys 
 where I have bene are many marvailes that I speke not of, for it were to 
 long a tale and therefore hold you payd at this time yt I haue sayd, 
 for I will say no more of mervailes that are there, so that other men 
 that go thither may fynde ynough for to say that I haue not tolde.
 
 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1360) 53 
 
 Four notable poems have come down to us in the same 
 manuscript, and it is believed by some that they are all the 
 work of a single poet. If this could be finally es- An unknown 
 tablished, we should have a new and important ^°^^ 
 figure in the literature of the fourteenth century. Without 
 accepting it as proved, we may venture to consider the 
 poems together. Sir Gaivaync and the Grcnc KnigJit is an 
 Arthurian story and one of the very best of the 
 
 •' ■' Gawayne and 
 
 old romances. It-represents a group of works in thecrene 
 which there was a revival of the old alliterative °'^ ^ 
 metre. It also unites with its romantic character a true relig- 
 ious spirit. A gigantic Green Knight challenges any of Ar- 
 thur's knights to strike at him with his a.\e and to endure a 
 stroke in return. His head is smitten off by Gawayne, but he 
 calmly picks it up again, challenges Gawayne to meet him 
 at the Green Chapel on the ne.xt New Year's Day, and 
 disappears. Gawayne meets with a variety of adven- 
 tures, is subjected to various temptations, and comes at 
 last to the rendezvous. The Green Knight is unable to 
 do him serious injury because he has been faithful and 
 true; but because he has been weak in one particu- 
 lar, he receives a slight wound. The story is almost in 
 the nature of a religious allegory. For originality, vivid- 
 ness of narrative and description, feeling for nature, and 
 high moral tone, it is far superior to most works of its 
 class. TJic Pearl appears to be a lament of the poet 
 over the loss of his little daughter. lie sees „^ „ , 
 
 " The Pearl 
 
 and talks with her in a strange and wonder- 
 ful land. From the other side of a beautiful river she 
 endeavors to console him with the thought of her life 
 in heaven and of their future reunion there. Trying to 
 cross over the river, he awakes. Not only is the work 
 genuinely poetical, but it also is full f)f pathos and of 
 personal quality. The allegory may be sometimes over- 
 drawn, but in the main it is both beautiful and imagina-
 
 54 
 
 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 tive. Cleanness is the title of a poem whose aim is to 
 exalt the virtue of purity. It enforces the vir- 
 
 Cleanness . 
 
 tue by the use of various Bible stories which 
 it handles in vigorous and poetic fashion. Somewhat simi- 
 lar in manner, but less valuable as poetry, is 
 Patience Patience. It is chiefly occupied with the story 
 of Jonah ; and the storm is treated in a vividly realistic 
 way. 
 
 This group of poems fittingly closes t)ur survey of the 
 Anglo-Norman Period. Here is found the union of the 
 Close of the *^^ streams of religion and romance. Here 
 Period the English and the Norman spirit meet upon 
 
 common ground. Here is really excellent poetry, giving 
 promise of the masterwork soon to appear in English 
 literature for the first time. While there is no marked 
 break in literary history at this point, nevertheless the 
 period that is characterized by two distinct streams of 
 national and literary life is practically at an end ; and we 
 are at the beginning of a generation which is to produce 
 poetic work that will demonstrate the literary possibilities 
 of the union of English and Norman genius. 
 
 Lady Chapel, Glastonbury 
 
 Built 1184-1189
 
 ^^»^E^g^^^^ii^g.^gwg^»^^pgijjj^^^gjitp?>#^ 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer 
 
 EUesmere Manuscript of Canterbury Tales
 
 cn.\rTi:R v 
 
 THE AGE OK CIIALCKR (1360- 1400) 
 
 The Age of Chaucer is like a hi<;h table-land to which 
 we ascend as by a long and gradual slope through the lit- 
 erature of the previous period and from which The Age of 
 we descend again somewhat abruptly to the chaucer 
 literature of the period that follows. It is hardly forcing 
 the figure to say that Chaucer himself rises from the midst 
 of this table-land like a single, lonely peak, unmatched and 
 almost unapproached. This is not to suggest that the age 
 is separated by any gulf from what goes before and after. 
 Quite the contrary is the case. The literary development 
 is continuous, and what we have now reached is not so 
 much different as it is higher and better. 
 
 During the latter part of the fourteenth century, as dur- 
 ing the two centuries preceding, religion and romance 
 are still the guiding impulses of English litera- Religion and 
 ture. Life is growing morecomple.x, and many ^°™*°" 
 minor influences are making themselves felt; the two great 
 impulses are no longer so easily separable as before ; but 
 these two impulses are still operative and still dominant. 
 Indeed, the two literary tendencies which we have traced 
 through the previous period may be said to find here their 
 culmination. The religious literature, which began with 
 the Moral Ode and the Onnuliiut, and which ran through 
 such works as the Orison of our Lady, (icucsis and I'lxodiis, 
 the Bestiary, the Ancnti Ri'wlc, Rf)bert Manning's Iland- 
 lytii^c Synm\ the Cursor Mitudi, Richard of Ilampolc's 
 Pride of Conseieucr, the Ayeubite of /nicif, C/eanness, 
 Patienec, and The Pearl, is now to find a higher cxempli- 
 
 55
 
 56 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 fication in the works of Langland and Wyclif. The 
 romantic literature, which began with Layamon's Brut, 
 and which ran through such works as Sir Tristrem, 
 Havclok the Datie, King Horn, the great Cycles of 
 Romance, and Sir Gazvayne and the Grenc Ktiight, is about 
 to find a natural sequence in Gower and great poetic 
 expression in Chaucer. How far religion and romance 
 remain separate and how far they become united in their 
 literary influence, we shall have occasion to see. 
 
 We shall no longer have to take account of the difference 
 of races, for Englishmen and Normans have now become 
 People and welded into one great English people, stronger 
 Language ^^j. ^ction and better endowed for literary 
 creation because of the mingled blood. The duality of 
 language, too, has passed or is rapidly passing away ; and 
 the newer English, blending the might of two great tongues, 
 is displaying its splendid powers as an instrument of liter- 
 ary expression. It is to be in large measure the task of 
 this generation to rescue English from the chaos of dialects 
 and to create for all time a great standard speech. 
 
 One of the greatest personalities of the age is John 
 
 Wychf. He is famous not alone because of his literary 
 
 work ; for as a matter of fact his name belongs 
 
 Wyclif , ° 
 
 even more to the history of religion and religious 
 thought than to the history of literature. He was first of 
 all a great theologian. At the age of forty or earlier, he 
 was master of BaUiol College at Oxford and one of the 
 recognized theological scholars of his time. After occupy- 
 ing various positions in school and church, he became 
 vicar of Lutterworth and occupied that benefice until his 
 death in 1384. Not merely as a theologian and a church- 
 man, however, does he claim our attention. A man of 
 pure life and lofty character, filled with an intense religious 
 zeal, he became the first great rehgious reformer. All his 
 great learning was devoted to vigorous and at times violent
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 57 
 
 controversv. His enemies abused him for his doctrines, 
 deprived him of his preferments" and once summoned him 
 to appear at St. Paul's in London to answer to a charge 
 of heresy. Many of the greatest men of the time were 
 divided into parties for or against him. One of his strong- 
 est partisans was John of Gaunt, the great Duke of Lan- 
 caster, son of Edward III. Opposition only moved him to a 
 greater activity, and his work became more aggressive and 
 more practical. His " poor priests " went throughout Eng- 
 land, preaching the gospel, inculcating the new doctrines, 
 crying out against formalism and luxury and corruption 
 in the church, and exhorting men to purer life and faith. 
 His followers were known as Lollards. They were the 
 Protestants and Puritans of their day and the forerunners 
 of the great movement which we call the Reformation. 
 
 It is through this religious activity that Wyclif enters 
 into literature. He wrote theological works in Latin and 
 many sermons, tracts, and pamphlets in English. wyciifsLit 
 Most important of all, he planned and in large erarywork 
 measure personally executed a complete translation of the 
 Bible. By virtue of these works, he takes rank as the 
 greatest English prose-writer of his century and as one 
 who either directly or indirectly influenced prose style for 
 some two hundred years. The various translations of the 
 Bible are a most important part of English literature ; and 
 Wyclif's right to rank as one of the great translators is 
 beyond dispute. He was not a great literary artist, but 
 he played a distinguished part in the history of English 
 thought and in the development of English prose as a 
 medium of literary exj)ression. By virtue of the fact that 
 he wrote and translated in order to bring home to the com- 
 mon people the truths of religion, his style is simple, 
 vigorous, and picturesque. His severe theological train- 
 ing served to make it also clear, logical, and accurate. It 
 is the union, therefore, of trained intelligence, intense re-
 
 58 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) ^ 
 
 ligious fervor, and popular purpose that has made his trans- 
 lation of the Bible our first great monument of English prose. 
 Even more unique than the figure of Wyclif is that of 
 William Langland. Of his life and personality, we know 
 very little. Some hints in his poem may possi- 
 
 Langland , , . , , 
 
 bly be interpreted as autobiographic ; and on 
 the basis of these, it has been customary to construct a 
 more or less imaginative picture of the man. According 
 to the traditional view, he seems to have been born at 
 Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire and to have been given 
 a fair degree of education. Perhaps as early as 1362, he 
 wrote the first version of his famous Vision of William 
 co7iceniing Piers the Plowman. Then he went to London, 
 where he lived a precarious and somewhat discontented 
 life, probably holding some minor ofifice in the church. 
 About 1378, he revised his poem and enlarged it to three 
 times its previous size. Later, he returned to the West of 
 England, and again, about 1393, rewrote his poem with 
 many changes. He had much of Wyclif 's religious inten- 
 sity and puritanical spirit, but he was not a theological 
 scholar and probably not a Lollard. There is an element 
 of bitterness and misanthropy in his work which makes 
 it somewhat sombre. The most interesting feature of his 
 character is his sympathy with the poor and oppressed, 
 and his earnest desire to better their condition and to lead 
 them to a truer religious life. He was a religious re- 
 former, but his concern was not so much with doctrine 
 as with practical living. 
 
 The three versions of Langland's poem differ greatly 
 from each other. This variation, together with the fact 
 that Langland, though a real poet, was but a poor literary 
 architect, makes it somewhat difificult to present briefly 
 Piers the ^ clear Statement of the contents of the work. 
 Plowman ^\iQ poem is a vision, or rather a series of 
 visions. The poet imagines himself as falling asleep on
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER {1360-1400) 59 
 
 a May morning in the Malvern Hills, near his home. In 
 his dream, he sees a "fair field full of folk," carrying on 
 the various activities of the world. All are seeking their 
 own selfish ends and courting the favor of Lady Meed, 
 or Reward. She is the daughter of Falsehood and the 
 promised bride of F"lattery. Conscience and Reason arc 
 both hostile to her, and she stands in marked contrast 
 with another fair lady called Holy Church. It was an 
 evil world that Langland saw, a world full of selfishness, 
 of treachery, of dishonesty, and of all manner of wrong. 
 Through a scries of pictures continually dissolving the one 
 into the other, he continues his description. The treat- 
 ment is allegorical, yet the allegorical figures arc mingled 
 with real human personages, and both classes seem to stand 
 upon an even footing. The chief character is Piers the Plow- 
 man. At first he is a simple plowman, type of the humble 
 and laborious poor. Then he is conceived as the faithful 
 and lowly Christian, living a godly life himself and en- 
 deavoring to lead others to the truth. Finally, he is 
 exalted into a type of Christ, opposing the corrupt 
 priesthood of the age and striving to bring men to a true 
 knowledge of the way of salvation. This confusion with 
 reference to the hero of the poem is a fair example of 
 Langland's desultory method and lack of literary art. 
 He simply pours out into his poem, in vigorous and 
 imaginative fashion, whatever he has to say concerning 
 the degraded life and false religion of his time and con- 
 cerning the way in which men may be saved from their 
 sins. Three of his favorite allegorical figures are Do- 
 well, Do-bet, and Do-best, typifying the three stages by 
 which men may ascend to true godliness. They represent 
 the poet's view that faith without works is dead, and that 
 men need to have preached to them the doctrine of an 
 honest, industrious, and godly life as the way to salvation. 
 The poet is, in the main, orthodox in his faith ; and in spite
 
 6o RELIGION AND ROMANCE (106^1500) 
 
 of his gloomy view of the life of his day, he believes in the 
 ultimate triumph of righteousness. One of his finest pas- 
 sages is that in which he describes the victory of Piers the 
 Plowman, now conceived as Christ, over Death and Hell, 
 The Vision is in some sense a work of genius. Its vivid 
 imagination, its note of intense personal feeling, its right- 
 character of ^o^^s indignation against the social and political 
 the Poem ^^^ religious evils of the time, its spirit of lofty 
 aspiration, its graphic and realistic pictures of human life, 
 its occasional outbursts of fine poetry — all help to make 
 it a really remarkable work. What more than anything 
 else it lacks is a definite and orderly plan — that order, 
 proportion, arrangement, unity, which constitute a true 
 literary whole. Its form is scarcely less noteworthy than its 
 matter. It is written in the old alliterative measure which 
 had been characteristic of Anglo-Saxon verse and which 
 had been revived in several poems of the fourteenth century. 
 In this respect, as well as in its religious feeling, it is 
 thoroughly English. French metrical forms, including 
 rhyme, are here ignored. With Langland, the antique 
 measure is heard for the last time. Since his day all Eng- 
 lish poetry has been metrical and not alliterative. A few 
 lines from the latter part of his poem will give a taste of 
 its quality : 
 
 A-rys, and go reuerence godes resurreccioun, 
 
 And creop on kneos to the croys and cusse hit for a luvvel, 
 
 And ryghtfullokest a relyk non riccher on erthe. 
 
 For godes blesside body hit bar for oure bote, 
 
 And hit a-fereth the feonde for such is the myghte, 
 
 May no grysliche gost glyde ther hit shadeweth ! 
 
 A writer in strong contrast with Langland, both in char- 
 acter and in genius, is John Gower. "Moral Gower " 
 Chaucer called him, and the phrase has been 
 current from that day to this. The moralizing 
 tendency of Gower's work is, indeed, one of its most
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 61 
 
 marked qualities. Moralizing poetry is apt to be both 
 prosaic and tedious, and Gower's is no exception to the 
 rule. Few poets are more prosy, and " the old man 
 tedious " is one of his nicknames. His three principal 
 works illustrate the uncertainty of the poet and of his age 
 as to what was finally to be the literary language of Eng- 
 land. The first of these, the Speculum Mcditantis, was 
 written in French. It was for a long time lost, but has 
 recently been found and edited. It is a long moral poem 
 un the vices and virtues. His second work, the Vox 
 Clamantis, was written in Latin. It deals with the polit- 
 ical conditions of the time, including the revolt of the 
 peasants under Wat Tyler. Gower, as an aristocrat and 
 as a landholder in Kent, had suffered from this rising, 
 and wrote in a spirit of contemptuous hostility to the 
 peasants. His third and most important work, the Cou- 
 fissio Aviantis, was written in English. It is professedly 
 the confession of a lover to an allegorical personage named 
 Genius, and consists of a series of tales by way of illustra- 
 tion. Some of these stories, notably that of the Knight 
 Florent — afterward handled by Chaucer in the Wife of 
 Batlis Talc — are well told ; but most of them are charac- 
 terized by tediousness and by what one writer has called 
 "merciless and heart-breaking long-windedness." In spite 
 of all limitations, Gower is for his time a really noteworthy 
 writer. He illustrates both the religious and the romantic 
 tendencies of his age. He was more original than most 
 of his predecessors, and taught his age some important 
 literary lessons. As a professed and industrious man of 
 letters, he brought together a mass of literary material 
 that was full of suggestion to later poets. While less of 
 a genius than Langland, he was more of a literary artist. 
 His chief defects seem to have been a certain nerveless- 
 ness or lack of vigor and a fatal inability t<» understand 
 when he had said enough. His Coufcssio Atnautis is, like
 
 62 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories ; and 
 while Gower is in almost every way vastly inferior to his 
 great contemporary, he at least deserves to be named with 
 Chaucer as a coworker in the same literary field. 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer is the one great landmark of all Eng- 
 lish literature before the beginning of its modern epoch in 
 the later years of the sixteenth century. There 
 
 Chaucer's , •' -' 
 
 Historical is nothing to compare with his work in the long 
 centuries that went before him ; there is nothing 
 to compare with it for nearly two centuries after his death 
 in 1400. His position is singular and unique. With him, 
 the old period closes ; and with him, the great literature 
 of modern England in a sense begins, although it is long 
 before any others appear who are capable of following his 
 leadership and carrying on his work in new and original 
 ways. From his lofty height, he is a herald of the dawn, 
 but it is still many hours to the full break of day. He 
 appears to us at first like a great literary figure standing 
 isolated ; and, indeed, he is so in the sense that he has no 
 near neighbors of anything like his own stature. Yet we 
 do not easily associate the idea of isolation with the name 
 of Chaucer. He was in his own time a man among men, 
 open on many sides to the human influences about him. 
 He was, too, an organic part of the literary development 
 of the whole Middle English Period. In him, the literary 
 tendencies of two centuries culminate and find their su- 
 preme expression. We have already observed, and shall 
 have occasion to see further, that the romantic literature 
 of the Middle Ages was a necessary preparation for 
 Chaucer's infinitely greater achievements in the field of 
 romantic poetry. He took up the work of the old ro- 
 mancers and showed what such literature might be in the 
 hands of a master. Then, gradually learning his art and 
 maturing his genius, he went beyond anything that they 
 had taught him and produced the poetry that still makes
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (i 360-1400) 63 
 
 him a power in the world. Chaucer also has his associa- 
 tions with the religious sentiment of the Middle Ages. 
 He was not distinctively a religious poet, but he was a 
 man of religious nature and sympathies. 1 le directs his 
 genial satire against the religious abuses of his day ; he 
 draws an immortal picture of a good parish priest ; he 
 knows how to tell a religious story with full appreciation 
 of medi:eval feeling and with a poet's delight in all the 
 beauty and pathos of his subject. In many ways, he 
 gathers up the past and enshrines it for all time in his 
 great verse. No other English poet has preserved for 
 us so much of the life and sentiment of the Middle Ages. 
 Still more emphatically is it true that Chaucer's work 
 embodies the many-sided life of his own time. He was 
 in touch with all sorts and conditions of men ; and they 
 reappear in his pages as living types. We know their 
 faces and we know their souls. With the future, too, 
 Chaucer has vital connection. For nearly a century after 
 his death, he was recognized as literary master and model. 
 For us he still has a historical significance because of the 
 permanent gains which his work achieved for the litera- 
 ture and the language. More than any other one man, 
 he helped to determine the modern standard of English 
 speech ; with inevitable changes, it is still Chaucer's dia- 
 lect that we speak to-day. Scarcely less important was 
 his influence in furnishing literary models, in revealing 
 literary possibilities, in establishing a literary tradition, 
 and in affording literary inspiration. Few of our greatest 
 writers have altogether escaped his influence. Dryden 
 calls him "the father of English poetry." Tennyson 
 speaks of him as 
 
 The morning star of song, who made 
 His music heard below; 
 
 Dan Chaucer, tlie first warbler, whose sweet breath 
 Preluded th<jse melodious bursts tliatfill
 
 64 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
 With sounds that echo still. 
 
 Chaucer is great, not only by historical position, but also 
 
 by individual genius. Many men hold a place in the history 
 
 of the literature because they are among the few 
 
 Ch3.ucGr's 
 
 Personal important figures of their time or because they 
 mpor ance ^^^ representative of an interesting stage of liter- 
 ary development. Chaucer is all this, but his fame does 
 not rest upon any such considerations. Regardless of all 
 merely historical estimates, the intrinsic merit of his work 
 gives him a place among the few greatest poets of Eng- 
 land, It is not too much to say that he is one of the great 
 poets of the world ; and if he may not quite stand with the 
 few supreme world poets, it is only of that crowning honor 
 that he falls short. In the Middle Ages, he has no 
 superior save Dante ; and if Dante is more sublime, 
 Chaucer is at least more human. Indeed, in this thor- 
 oughly human quality of his best work, he yields to Shake- 
 speare alone. That this estimate of Chaucer's rank is 
 not exaggerated, may be attested by the universal apprecia- 
 tion which he has received for five centuries. The fifteenth 
 century was filled with his name. In the age of Elizabeth, 
 he was praised or imitated by such men as Spenser, Sidney, 
 Shakespeare, and Fletcher. Milton lauded him ; and even 
 in the age of classicism, he was highly appreciated by 
 Dryden and Pope. The nineteenth century has endorsed 
 this judgment by the mouths of its greatest poets and 
 critics ; and it is safe to say that Chaucer's fame has never 
 stood higher than it does to-day. 
 
 Chaucer was born in London, probably about 1340. 
 His father was a vintner,'or wine-merchant, and the family 
 Chaucer's was, therefore, of the well-to-do middle class. 
 ^^^^ There was sufficient court interest, however, to 
 
 secure for Chaucer a position — - probably that of a page — 
 in the household of Elizabeth, wife of Lionel, Duke of
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 65 
 
 Clarence, the third son of King Edward III. In the retinue 
 of Prince Lionel, he went in 1359 with the English army 
 to France, and doubtless had opportunity to observe the 
 " pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war " as it 
 was waged in the mediceval time. He had the misfortune 
 to be taken prisoner, but was ransomed by the king. After 
 his return to England, he was for a time valet of the king's 
 bedchamber. Chaucer's association with the court was, of 
 course, an important part of his education. As a page he 
 would be carefully trained and taught in the company of 
 other boys of higher rank than his own ; and the life of 
 the court would give unsurpassed opportunity for refine- 
 ment, observation, and wide knowledge of men and things. 
 It need hardly be added that such a life would be full of 
 suggestion to the imagination of a young poet. Chaucer 
 did not receive a university education, but he had the best 
 possible substitute for it and what was for his purpose 
 perhaps superior. That he was a broad and careful 
 scholar is sufficiently shown by his works ; and these reveal 
 also that he was even more deeply versed in human life 
 than in scholastic learning. His further education was no 
 less practical. Between 1370 and 1380, he was sent on 
 various diplomatic missions to the continent. Twice he 
 visited Italy. It is easy and pleasant to indulge the 
 imagination with fancies of Chaucer's delighted apprecia- 
 tion of the beauties of Italian art and his congenial asso- 
 ciation with Petrarch, Boccaccio, and other great men who 
 were then living ; but these are mere fancies. We may 
 be reasonably certain that his visits must have been a joy 
 and an inspiration to such a nature. We know that his 
 genius and his work were powerfully affectetl by Italian 
 literary models. At home he was appointed controller of 
 customs, retaining his office for some twelve years. In 
 1386, he became member of Parliament for Kent, but his 
 political career was brief and rather unfortunate. Later
 
 66 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 we find him acting as clerk of the king's works at West- 
 minster and at Windsor. Toward the close of his life, 
 Chaucer seems to have fallen into poverty. On the acces- 
 sion of Henry IV, in 1399, he wrote a "complaint to his 
 empty purse," which he addressed to the king in these words: 
 
 O conquerour of Brutes Albioun, 
 Which that by lyne and free eleccioun 
 Ben verray king, this song to you I sende ; 
 And ye, that mowen al our harm amende, 
 Have minde upon my supplicacioun. 
 
 The appeal was successful ; and Chaucer's pension was 
 doubled, thus placing him in comfortable circumstances 
 for the few remaining months of his life. He died in 1400, 
 and was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The first period of Chaucer's hterary life was one of 
 imitation and of training in the poetic art. During this 
 time, before his first visit to Italy in 1372, he was essen- 
 chaucer's tially mediaeval in temper, a follower of French 
 French Period ^lodels and methods. He wrote many songs 
 and ballads, and translated or imitated mediaeval allegori- 
 cal romances. Little or nothing of these has been pre- 
 served, but such work gave him his early discipline as a 
 poet. His most important work of this period was his 
 Dethe of BlanncJie the Duchesse, written on the death of 
 the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of 
 Edward III. She died in 1369, and the poem probably 
 belongs to that year. John of Gaunt was Chaucer's patron, 
 and the poem was written to console him in his bereave- 
 ment. It is based on the familiar conception of a dream ; 
 and although it contains some good poetry, it is distinctly 
 imitative in manner. 
 
 Chaucer's second period followed his sojourn in Italy, 
 and is characterized by the prevalence in his work of 
 Italian influences. The French mediaeval spirit does not
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 67 
 
 entirely disappear from his writings, but it is more and 
 more subordinated as iiis genius ripens under the influ- 
 ence of a fresher and finer inspiration. His chaucer-s 
 new models are in their way as romantic as "^'i^n Penod 
 the old, and Chaucer still continues to be a romantic 
 poet ; but the romance is less conventional, less artificial, 
 less strained in its allegory. The best poem of this period 
 is Troilns atid Criscydc, a romance of false love which 
 carries us back to the siege of Troy. It is based upon a 
 long poem of Boccaccio^ and is therefore professedly an 
 imitation. Nevertheless, Chaucer in many ways shows his 
 growing originality. The characters are conceived in his 
 own way, and are really lifelike presentations of human 
 motive and action. The story is well told, although 
 Chaucer has not yet attained his later skill in direct and 
 rapid narration. The Parlcmciit of Fotilcs is an allegorical 
 poem suggested by the betrothal of Richard II and Anne 
 of Bohemia. In it the birds are gathered in assembly to 
 decide which of three lovers shall be the successful suitor 
 for a female eagle. The eagle is, of course, Anne and the 
 successful wooer Richard. It is one of the best of Chau- 
 cer's shorter poems. In the Hons of Favic, Chaucer has 
 a vision in which he is carried by an eagle to the temple of 
 Fame. There are carved on ice the famous names of the 
 world ; and under the rays of the sun, they are gradually 
 melting away. The names of the great ancients are in the 
 shade and therefore have been longest j)reserved. The 
 poem is generally sujjposed to show tlie influence of 
 Dante. Still another poem of this perioil is the Legend 
 of Good Wot)ic)i. It presents a series of stories drawn 
 from classical sources and dealing with famous women 
 who have sacrificed everything in order to prove their 
 faithfulness in love. This poem was written about 1385, 
 and probably marks the period at which Chaucer had 
 finally attained his full poetic pcjwer.
 
 68 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 During his first and second periods, Chaucer was a 
 follower of mediaeval and foreign models. During his 
 third period, including about the last fifteen years of his 
 life, he is, in the main, thoroughly EngHsh and 
 English origmal. He is still a romantic poet, but there 
 is also in his work a large element of reahsm. 
 He exercises to the full his great gift of poetic imagi- 
 nation ; but he has developed also a wonderful power of 
 observation, and he writes with his eye on the object. 
 The crowning work of his life grows out of the life around 
 him and out of his insight into English character. His 
 previous literary experience has taught him the art of the 
 narrator; and his skill as a story-teller becomes now the 
 basis for his wonderful portrayals of men and women. 
 Up to this time he has been merely bettering the example 
 set by other men. Now he is to do something entirely 
 new and original, something which in its kind has never 
 been surpassed. The great work of this period, Chaucer's 
 masterpiece and one of the great masterpieces of the 
 literature, is the Canterbury Tales. For this work, Chau- 
 cer had been preparing through most of his literary life. 
 He had written separate stories which, in revised form, 
 were to be made a part of this great collection of stories. 
 He had been gathering from many sources the materials 
 and the knowledge which he was now to put to use. 
 In the ripeness of his years and in the fulness of his 
 genius, he undertakes a task which he is never to finish, 
 but which, in its present form, gives little sense of in- 
 completeness. The scheme was too large for perfect ac- 
 complishment ; but it was of such a character that perfect 
 accomplishment was not essential to full success. 
 
 The plan of the Canterbury Tales is simple, yet wonder- 
 fully effective and comprehensive. The poet 
 
 Plan of the ^ ^ . ^ 
 
 Canterbury tclls US that in the Springtime of the year, the 
 folk of his day longed to go on pilgrimages, and
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 69 
 
 that from every shire of England they were accustomed 
 to journey to the famous shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, 
 in the cathedral at Canterbury, 
 
 The holy hlisful niartir for to seke, 
 
 That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke. 
 
 Seizing on this custom as admirably adapted to his 
 purpose, he represents himself as meeting a company of 
 such pilgrims gathered by chance on a certain day at the 
 Tabard Inn in Southwark, then a village at the south end 
 of London Bridge, but long since swallowed up in the 
 metropolis. Chaucer is soon in fellowship with the other 
 pilgrims, and a general agreement is formed that they 
 will all make the journey together. At the suggestion of 
 their Host, who offers to accompany them and to act as 
 umpire, it is arranged that each of the pilgrims shall tell 
 two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the 
 return journey, the most successful story-teller to be given 
 a supper at the cost of the others. In addition to a long 
 introduction and to the narrative and conversational pas- 
 sages which serve to make ])roper transition from one story 
 to another, the work is made up of the talcs supposed to 
 have been related by various pilgrims. There are in all 
 twenty-four stories, told by twenty-three different persons. 
 As there were, including the poet, thirty-one pilgrims, the 
 whole scheme would have called for no less than one hun- 
 dred and twenty-four tales. Of course, it made little dif- 
 ference how many or how few stories were told ; and the 
 poet evidently wished to leave himself room enough for 
 all that he might want to gather into the great collection. 
 
 The most important part of the dxtitcrbiiry Talcs, the 
 master-product of Chaucer's genius, is the Prologue. I lere 
 he gathers his pilgrims at the Tabard Inn and 
 
 iL 1 1 r ^1 . .^ !!• The Prologue 
 
 presents the general j)lan for the story-telhng- 
 
 What is more important, he here describes most of his
 
 70 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 characters, setting them forth as living individuals with a 
 skill that no man has ever surpassed. In comparatively 
 few words, each personage is sketched so that we perceive 
 clearly both outward appearance and inward disposition. 
 There are thirty pilgrims besides the poet ; of these, 
 twenty-one are individually described, five are described as 
 a group, and the rest are simply mentioned. The various 
 characters are individual men and women, but they are 
 also significant types, broadly representative of English 
 life in the fourteenth century. The first group consists of 
 a Knight, of a Squire his son, and of a Yeoman his ser- 
 vant. Then there are various representatives of the 
 church — a Prioress, accompanied by a Nun who was her 
 chaplain and by three Priests, a Monk, a Friar, a Sum- 
 moner, a Pardoner, and a poor Parson. A number of 
 professional men are in the company — a Sergeant-at-Law, 
 a Doctor of Physic, a Manciple, a Clerk of Oxford. Still 
 another group represents various departments of trade 
 and commerce — a Merchant, a Shipman, a Cook, a Wife 
 of Bath, a Haberdasher, a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer, 
 and a Maker of Tapestry. The list is completed by sev- 
 eral representatives of agriculture — a Franklin or country 
 landholder, a Plowman, a Miller, and a Reeve or steward. 
 Not only does Chaucer describe most of these characters 
 with a minute realism, but in many cases he gathers 
 up the significance of the individual into some brief 
 and suggestive expression. Thus, of the Knight he 
 says : 
 
 He was a verray parfit gentil knight. 
 
 Of the Squire, 
 
 He was as fresh as is the month of May. 
 Of the Prioress, 
 
 And al was conscience and tendie herte.
 
 > > 
 
 ! 5 
 
 =. n 
 
 = > 
 
 =• z 
 
 n — 
 
 ^r; 
 
 ^■^?i«^
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 71 
 
 Of the Friar, 
 
 He knew the tavernes wel in every toun. 
 Of the Shipman, 
 
 With many a tempest hadde his herd been shake. 
 Of the Doctor of Physic, 
 
 His studie was but litel on the Bible. 
 Of the poor Parson, 
 
 But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, 
 He taughte, but first he folwed it himselve. 
 
 Chaucer's full power in sjraphic description can be appre- 
 ciated only from reading the whole Prologue ; but a single 
 complete sketch will give a fair specimen of his art. The 
 description of the Clerk of Oxford is one of the best of the 
 briefer portraits : 
 
 A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also, 
 
 That unto logik hadde lontje y-go. 
 
 As lene was his hors as is a rake, 
 
 And he nas nat right fat, I undertake ; 
 
 But loked holwe, and thereto soberly. 
 
 Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy ; 
 
 For he had geten him yet no benefyce, 
 
 Ne was so worldly for to have offyce. 
 
 For him was lever have at his bcddes heed 
 
 Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed, 
 
 Of Aristotle and his philosophye. 
 
 Than robes richc, or fithele, or gay sautrye. 
 
 But al be that he was a philosophre, 
 
 Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre ; 
 
 But al that he mighte of his frcendcs hente, 
 
 On bokes and on Icrninge he it spentc, 
 
 And bisily gan for the soules preye 
 
 Of hem that yaf him wherwith to scoleye. 
 
 Of studie took he most cure and most hedc. 
 
 Noght o word spak he more than was nede. 
 
 And that w;ls scyd in forme and reverence. 
 
 And short and (|uik, and fu! uf liy sentence. 
 
 .Souningr in moral verlu was his sjieche. 
 
 And gladly wolde he lernc. and gladly techc.
 
 72 RELIGION AND ROIVIANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 As the pilgrims ride out toward Canterbury in the early 
 morning, Harry Bailly, the Host, reminds them of their 
 agreement, and calls upon them to draw cuts to 
 see who shall tell the first tale. The lot falls to 
 the Knight, who thereupon proceeds to tell the long but 
 interesting story of Palamon and Arcite. This is the most 
 famous of the Canterb?try Tales, and nowhere does Chaucer 
 better display his powers of narrative and description. It 
 is a romance of love and chivalry. The materials were 
 drawn from Boccaccio, but Chaucer handles them with 
 remarkable freedom and originality. If the story seems 
 somewhat long in the reading, we may do well to remem- 
 ber that Chaucer has compressed it into little more than 
 one-fifth of the length of Boccaccio's poem. Not only is 
 the story well told and each personage well portrayed, but 
 Chaucer has adapted the tale thoroughly to the Knight's 
 chivalrous and high-bred character. This same adaptation 
 is found in the other stories and constitutes a large part of 
 their charm. When the Knight is done, the Host calls 
 upon the Monk for the next tale ; but the drunken Miller 
 insists on breaking in with a coarse tale of his own. This 
 angers the Reeve, who takes revenge by telUng a similar 
 story of which a miller is the hero — or victim. This 
 ribaldry is finally broken off by the Host, at whose request 
 the Sergeant-at-Law tells a more dignified story, the ro- 
 mantic narrative of Custance. So the story-telling pro- 
 ceeds, with entertaining interludes of conversation suitable 
 to the characters and to the stories introduced. At the 
 courteous solicitation of the Host, the Prioress tells of 
 little St. Hugh of Lincoln, the site of whose shrine is still 
 shown in Lincoln Cathedral ; this Christian child has been 
 slain in a Jewry, but though his throat is cut. 
 
 He " Alma redeiuptoris " gan to singe 
 So loude, that al the place gan to ringe.
 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1360-1400) 73 
 
 The company is sobered by this miracle, till the Host 
 turns jokingly to Chaucer : 
 
 "What man artow ?" quod he; 
 '' Thou lokest as thou woklcst tinde an hare, 
 For ever upon the ground I see thee stare. 
 Approche neer, and loke up merily. 
 Now war vow. sirs, and h\t this man Iiavc place; 
 He in the waast is shape as wel as I ; 
 This were a popet in an arm fenbrace 
 For any womman, smal and fair of face. 
 He semeth elvish by his contenaunce. 
 For unto no wight dooth he daHaunce. 
 Sey now somwhat. sin other folk han sayd ; 
 Tel us a tale of mirthe, and tliat anoon." 
 
 Thus adjured, Chaucer begins his tale of Sir Thopas, a 
 parody on the romances of chivalry prevalent in his day. 
 When the Most impatiently cuts him off, he offers to 
 " telle a litel thing in prose." The " litel thing " turns out 
 to be a long and tedious *' moral tale vertuous " of Meli- 
 beus and his wife Prudence. One of the best of the tales 
 is the Nun's Priest's story of the cock who has been seized 
 by a fo.x and who escapes by flattering the fo.x into stop- 
 ping to taunt his pursuers. The Wife of Bath, after a long 
 prologue, tells a story already mentioned as occurring in 
 Gower's Confessio Aviantis. The Clerk of O.xford relates 
 the pathetic story of Patient Griselda, which he had 
 
 Lerned at I'adowe of a wortliy clerk. 
   • »   * 
 
 Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete, 
 Highte tliis clerk, whos rethoryke sweete 
 Enlumined al Itaille of poetrye. 
 
 The Talcs conclude with a long and tedious prose sermon 
 by the Parson, lie began near sundown; and by the 
 time he was through, most of his auditors must have been 
 ready for bed. Perhaps Chaucer wished to make amends 
 at the close of the day for any frivolity or ribaldry of whiih
 
 74 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066- 1500) 
 
 he might have allowed his coarser characters to be guilty. 
 We may well forgive him for his prosy ending, in view of 
 the wonderful variety, fitness, narrative interest, and poetic 
 power of his great collection of tales. In prose, he may 
 be tedious and cumbersome; in poetry, and especially in 
 narrative poetry, he is a consummate master. 
 
 Much of what is most characteristic in Chaucer's genius 
 has already been suggested, and few words will serve by 
 Character of ^^y '^^ Summary. He was a strikingly original 
 Chaucer's figure. In him were combined the competent 
 
 Genius 
 
 man of affairs and the genuine poet. His love 
 of nature crops out here and there all through his poetry ; 
 it was not conventional, but true and sincere. No man 
 has shown greater delight in life, and few have had greater 
 power of observation and insight. The Prologue alone 
 would rank him as one of the greatest of humorists — a 
 genial spirit, keenly satirical but with no touch of bitter- 
 ness. He loved beauty like a true poet, and he had that 
 gift of creative imagination which makes a poet great. 
 He was first of all a great narrator, with the power of 
 telling either a romantic or a realistic tale in felicitous 
 verse. Few men have ever approached his skill in vivid 
 and lifelike description. In the ability to create character, 
 he ranks with the great dramatists. His work is objective 
 and sound, the work of a great literary artist and of a 
 thoroughly sane and healthy nature. He was emphatically 
 a man of his age, but he is no less truly a man for all 
 time.
 
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 t\)m f cloU}C0 in p^otDcITe $ noble DcDe$ 
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 certapnip be loueo tbe quene agapne a; 
 boue aUdt^er iaope0 ano oamopfeaeiS 
 ailtljeoapejafrtf ^iie?ipfc/ano fo? ^cr^e 
 
 ill 
 
 Reduced Facsimile Page from Malory's Morte d'Arthur, 1529
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FH-TEENTM CENTURY (1400-1500) 
 
 After the Age of Chaucer, the two streams of litera- 
 ture — rehgious and romantic — are hardly to be distin- 
 guished from each other; and the influences Decline of 
 arising from the relations between the two races literature 
 have largely spent their force. Indeed, if this period 
 stood by itself, it might be difficult to say that the influ- 
 ences of religion and romance were very clearly mani- 
 fested as the guiding impulses of its literature. They 
 are certainly not so in any fresh and vigorous way. Never- 
 theless, no new influences have as yet arisen to take their 
 place; and as a consequence, literature rapidly sinks into 
 that state of exhaustion and decay which marks the fif- 
 teenth century as one of the most barren tracts of all our 
 literary history. Especially in the early part of the cen- 
 tury, and more or less throughout its whole extent, litera- 
 ture is chiefly imitative of what went before ; and so far 
 as any vital forces are at work, they are the same as those 
 which dominated the Age of Chaucer. In default, there- 
 fore, of any new and original impulses, and in view of the 
 fact that the older impulses are still operative in weak and 
 decadent form, we may still continue to speak of literature 
 as growing out oi the religious and the romantic sj)irit. 
 Literary revival could come only with the athent of new 
 and powerful quickening impulses ; and toward the close 
 of the century, we can feel the coming of those newer 
 forces which are to exert so powerful an effect upon the 
 literature of the sixteenth century. 
 
 75
 
 je RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 During a large part of the fifteenth century, imitation 
 of Chaucer was a prevailing fashion. This would be an 
 Chaucer's evidence of excellent literary taste, if it were not 
 English Foi- for the fact that Gower was commonly ranked 
 with him and imitated in only a less degree. 
 It is well to note, too, that Chaucer was imitated least 
 where he was most original and masterful — that he was 
 imitated most where he was chiefly mediaeval, French, alle- 
 gorical, a child of his age. Among his Enghsh followers, 
 two call for special mention. The first of these is Thomas 
 Occleve. His principal work is a poem called 
 Go2ivernail of Princes. It deals with the duties 
 of rulens, and was dedicated to the Prince of Wales, 
 Shakespeare's Prince Hal, afterward Henry V. The best 
 thing about the poem is its revelation of Occleve's love 
 and admiration for his friend and master, Chaucer, Among 
 other praises, he writes : 
 
 O maister dere and fader reverent, 
 
 My maister Chaucer ! floure of eloquence, 
 
 Mirrour of fructuous entendement, 
 
 O universal fadir in science, 
 
 Alias! that thou thyne excellent prudence 
 
 In thy bedde mortel myghtest not bequethe ; 
 
 What eyled Dethe ? alias, why wold he sle thee ? 
 
 A better poet and much more voluminous writer was 
 
 John Lydgate, "the Monk of Bury." His Storie of 
 
 Thebes is represented as a new Canterbury Tale 
 
 Lydgate . -^ 
 
 told by him after joining the pilgrims on their 
 journey. His other chief poems are the Troye Book and 
 the Falles of Pj'inces, both of which titles sufficiently sug- 
 gest the subjects of the poems. He seems to have been 
 able to turn his hand to almost any kind of literary work, 
 and produced more writings than anybody has yet been 
 found willing to publish. One of his best known minor 
 pieces is his ballad of London Lickpenny, which gives vivid 
 and realistic pictures of the London life of his time.
 
 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY (1400-1500) yy 
 
 The best Chaucerian tradition was carried on, not by 
 EngHsh, but by Scotch poets. Theirs is about the onl}i 
 vigorous and inspired poetical work of the fif- q^^^^^ , 
 teenth century. First and personally most inter- scotch 
 
 Followers 
 
 esting of these is James I of Scotland. Captured 
 at the age of eleven, the young prince spent nineteen years 
 as a prisoner in luigland. Poetry became one of the diver- 
 sions of his captivity ; and he wrote among other jamesioi 
 things T/u- King s Quair {'^ook). From the win- scouand 
 dows of his prison — possibly Windsor Castle — the king 
 sees a beautiful lady walking in the garden and falls in 
 love with her. The poem proceeds, in the customary 
 allegorical manner, to tell the story of this love. It is 
 supposed to be based upon the real experience of the 
 prince's love for Lady Jane Beaufort, whom he married 
 at the close of his captivity in 1424. The incident of the 
 lady in the garden reminds us of Emelye seen by the 
 prisoners Palamon and Arcite, in Chaucer's K)iiglifs Tale. 
 Probably later than the middle of the century, Robert 
 Henryson produced a number of excellent 
 poems. He was a follower of Chaucer, but did ^'"^^°° 
 not lack originality. His Testament of Crcscidc undertakes 
 to complete Chaucer's Troilus and Cfiseyde, and is in the 
 old romantic manner. Robync and Makync has been called 
 " the earliest luiglish pastoral." Probably his most vigor- 
 ous and interesting work is \\\\\\'i, Fables, where he is lively, 
 imaginative, and humorous. Not the least of his good 
 qualities is his sincere and direct feeling for nature. 
 
 Two other Scotch jjoets carry us along toward the end 
 of the fifteenth century and over into the sixteenth ; but as 
 they, too, represent the Chaucerian tradition, it is perhaps 
 best to consider thcni here. The first of these, and the 
 best poet of the Scotch group, was VV^illiam Duii- 
 bar. His poems are too numerous for detailed 
 mention, but a few may be cited as typical. 'I'lie Thistle
 
 78 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 and the Rose is an allegory commemorating the marriage 
 of James IV of Scotland with the Princess Margaret of 
 England. TJie Golden Targe is another allegory, full of 
 picturesque description. The Dance of the Seven Deadly 
 Sins is a grotesque ballad, realistic, forcible, and imagina- 
 tive. In the Lament for the Makers (Poets), he utters a 
 moving complaint on the death of the poets, known and 
 unknown, from Chaucer to Maister Walter Kennedy. 
 These poems represent a body of work both forcible and 
 poetical, ranging from pathos to satire, from coarse realism 
 to pure fancy, from allegorical moralizing to fine natural 
 description. The last Scotch poet to be mentioned is 
 Gawain Douglas, son of the Earl of Angus 
 "^ and Bishop of Dunkeld. Poetry belonged to 
 
 his earlier life, and was later abandoned for politics. His 
 Palice of Honour and King Hart (Heart) are moral alle- 
 gories, the latter dealing with the heart of man. His best 
 work is in his translation of Virgil's y^neid. Like the 
 other Scotch poets, he has an eye for the poetical aspects 
 of nature. 
 
 During the fifteenth century many romances were 
 written, both in verse and in prose. Romantic literature 
 was thus carried forward, sometimes with a large infusion of 
 the moral or religious element. Through the prose romances 
 and various other works of more or less importance, prose 
 style was considerably advanced in its development. The 
 greatest romance and the greatest prose of the century 
 , are to be found together in Sir Thomas Malory's 
 Morte Morte d' Arthur, written about 1470. By its ad- 
 
 dition of a moral and religious tone, it becomes 
 perhaps the most typical work of the age. As one of the 
 earliest works to be printed (in 1485) at Caxton's new 
 press, it reminds us that the introduction of printing is 
 bringing about new conditions of immense importance to 
 literature. Malory's work is a great collection of Arthurian
 
 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY (1400-1500) 79 
 
 legends, brought into a fair degree of unity about the 
 central conceptions of King Arthur and the Round Table. 
 It may in a sense be said to gather up into a single book 
 the whole spirit of mediaeval romance. For IVIalory is not 
 a great inventor, but only a moderately skilful compiler. 
 He gathers his materials from the best of the old French 
 romancers, arranges them in rather confusing fashion, and 
 thus reproduces for us the long labor of the Middle Ages 
 on the great subject-matter of Arthurian story. What 
 Malory had above all things was the power of lively and 
 interesting narrative clothed in vivid style. He did not 
 invent his story, but he knew how to tell it. His credit, 
 however, does not end here. To have caught the spirit 
 of Arthurian legend, to have seized and held its features 
 of greatest and most enduring interest, to have embalmed 
 forever the fast-fading charm of the Middle Ages, is to 
 have done much for modern literature and for the modern 
 world ; and this, when all proper deductions have been 
 made, Malory may be justly said to have accomplished. 
 It is to him, rather than to his French or English predeces- 
 sors, that our modern poets of Arthurian legend have gone 
 for their inspiration and their materials. Alongside of 
 their work, his still stands and keeps its attraction. It is 
 one of the great romances of literature, a book that men 
 will not willingly let die. 
 
 It is a little difficult to determine the precise point in 
 literary history at which the Ballads should be taken up for 
 consideration. It seems probable that ballads 
 were made and sung as early as the thirteenth ^ * * s 
 century, and that they continued to prevail throughout the 
 Middle English Period. On the other hand, many ballads 
 of undoubtedly mcdi:rval origin exist to-day in a form of 
 English as late as that of the seventeenth or eighteenth 
 century. While it is impossible to date most of the indi- 
 vidual ballads, and while they i)robabiy belong to widely
 
 8o RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 separated periods, it seems probable that most of the older 
 and more genuine ballads were produced in or before the 
 fifteenth century, and that they took on their present form 
 at about that time. Few, if any, are in a language of earlier 
 date. It has even been asserted with much plausibility 
 that the fifteenth century was the great time of ballad- 
 making in England and that many of the ballads on older 
 subjects were written at that period. So far as the ballads 
 may be associated with fifteenth-century literature, they 
 distinctly help to raise its tone and to better its average 
 quality. Many of them are finely poetical, and mosT of 
 them are quaint and charming in effect. The ballads are 
 the poetry of the common people. Individual authors are 
 unknown; and in a very true sense the poems may be re- 
 garded as the product of popular feeling and imagination. 
 Whoever gave them their first form, they have been resung, 
 retouched, reshaped, until they bear the stamp of the 
 people rather than of any individual poets. English lit- 
 erature is comparatively poor in genuine folk-poetry ; and 
 so far as the ballads are really popular, they are for that 
 reason all the more precious. 
 
 Ballad subjects cover a wide field. Many of them are 
 Character of either historical or romantic or supernatural, 
 the Ballads while the ballads of the Scottish border and 
 those associated with Robin Hood form special groups 
 of great interest. Most true ballads combine narrative 
 substance with a lyric form ; they are stories to be sung. 
 Some are more purely lyric, and they shade off gradually 
 into the strict lyric type. The verse is often crude, the 
 tone is often coarse, but not seldom they have a genuine 
 music and a high degree of poetic beauty. Some of the 
 best and oldest deal with themes common to many lands 
 and to many peoples. This is an evidence of the wide and 
 unaccountable diffusion of popular legends and beliefs, 
 but not at all an evidence of foreign influence or of imita-
 
 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY (1400-15CX3) Si 
 
 tion. Indeeclj no part of our poetry is more genuinely 
 native and original than the ballads. They smack of the 
 soil and bear the unmistakable mark of English and 
 Scottish character. It is the life and thought and feeling 
 of the English peasant that they reflect, even when 
 they are dealing with the most romantic themes or with 
 hiirh-born lords and ladies. Their very crudeness tells of 
 the uncultured sources from which they sprang ; and their 
 poetry is evidence that the English nature is not without 
 the artistic instincts which have made other races rich in 
 popular song. It is impossible in brief space to recount 
 even the best and most typical of English ballads. One of 
 the most famous is Chevy Chase, of which Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney said that his heart was stirred by it more than with a 
 trumpet. Perhaps none is superior in poetic value to the 
 Nut-Browne Mayde. It is in the form of a dialogue be- 
 tween the maid and her lover. In order to test her love, 
 he pretends that he has been outlawed, but she insists on 
 following him into banishment. She says : 
 
 And though that I of auncestry 
 
 A baron''s daughter be, 
 Yet have you proved howe I you loved, 
 A squyer of lowe degre. 
 
 He finally reveals to her the truth, and says : 
 
 I wyll you take, and lady make, 
 
 As shortely as I can : 
 Thus have you won an erlys son, 
 
 And not a banyshed man. 
 
 Sir Patrick Spcns is a fine ballad, typical in substance and 
 metre. Sir Patrick has been sent by the king of Scotland 
 on a rash winter voyage to bring home " the king's daugh- 
 ter of Xoroway." On their return the ship is lost. 
 
 And lang, lang. may the maidens sit, 
 
 \Vi' tlieir j^oud kaims in tlicir hair, 
 A' waitinji for their ain dear loves! 
 I'oi them tliey'll see nu niair
 
 82 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 O forty miles off Aberdeen, 
 'Tis fifty fathoms deep, 
 And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, 
 Wi' the Scots lords at his feet. 
 
 The earliest dramatic literature in England was in the 
 form of Mysteries and Miracle Plays. Mysteries were 
 Mysteries dramatic representations of Bible incidents and 
 and Miracle characters, especially of such as were in any 
 way connected with the life or personality of 
 Christ. They appear to have developed out of the church 
 ritual, to have been encouraged by the church as a means 
 of utilizing strong human instincts in the service of relig- 
 ion, to have been represented at first by ecclesiastics and 
 within the church buildings. Later, they were acted by 
 the trade guilds of various towns ; and from this associa- 
 tion, they were called Mysteries, a name derived from the 
 Old French mester, a trade. Mysteries occur mostly in 
 long series or cycles of plays, dealing with successive 
 steps of the Bible history. Miracle Plays dealt with the 
 lives and deeds of various saints, and occur as separate 
 plays rather than in cycles. Mysteries and Miracles are 
 of essentially the same dramatic type, though it is likely 
 that Mysteries represent the earlier stage of development. 
 They are better discriminated from each other in French 
 literature than in English. In English literature, indeed, 
 the name Miracle is applied to both classes of plays, and 
 there seems never to have been a clear distinction between 
 them. The distinction, however, is a serviceable one and 
 is not without historical justification. Allowing ourselves 
 to make use of it, we may say that English literature is 
 comparatively rich in Mysteries and that it has few, if any, 
 Miracles, strictly so-called, that are written in the native 
 tongue. 
 
 The earliest known dramatic work to be associated with 
 English literature is the Miracle Play of St. KatJierine.
 
 THE FIFTEEx\TH CENTURY (1400-1500) 83 
 
 It was performed early in the twelfth century and was 
 probably written in Latin, though possibly in French. 
 English Mysteries, and probably Miracles also, Mediavai 
 were played as early as the thirteenth century. Drama 
 and were both common and popular in the fourteenth. 
 No extant plays are older than the latter part of the four- 
 teenth century, and probably most, if not all, of them 
 belong to the fifteenth. A French literary historian has 
 called the fifteenth century "the golden age of the Myste- 
 ries," and the expression is probably as applicable to 
 English literature as to French. It seems best, therefore, 
 as in the case of the ballads, to treat at this point a form 
 of literature which had been developing among the people 
 throughout the Middle Ages. It seems worthy of note 
 that Mysteries were in full flower more than a hundred 
 years before the first complete Elizabethan dramas and 
 that they are a product of mediaeval life rather tlian of 
 the Age of the Renaissance. 
 
 Besides a few separate plays, there are in English four 
 great series of Mysteries, known as the York, Towneley, 
 Chester, and Coventry cycles. Many other Mystery 
 cycles formerly existed, such as those of Lon- cycles 
 don, Worcester, Beverley, Dublin, and Newcastle. The 
 York cycle is the most extensive, and in many respects 
 the most interesting and typical. It contains forty-eight 
 plays. The first is on the Creation and the Fall of 
 Lucifer ; eleven are based on the Old Testament ; most 
 of the others have to do with the life, death, and resurrec- 
 tion of Christ; and the last deals with the Judgment Day. 
 Each play was presented by the representatives of some 
 particular trade, and there is sometimes a na'fve fitness in 
 the association of certain trades with certain jilays. Thus, 
 for instance, the .shi])wrights had the lUiilding of the Ark, 
 the fishers and mariners had the play of Noah and the 
 Flood, the bakers had the Last Sujjper, the butchers had
 
 84 RELIGION AND ROMANCE (1066-1500) 
 
 the Death and Burial of Christ. The plays were acted in 
 the open air on movable platforms which could be drawn 
 about the city from one station to another, as from the 
 cathedral to one of the city gates. At these stations the 
 crowds were gathered, and to each station came in proper 
 succession the various wheeled platforms or " pageants." 
 Each play was thus acted as many times as there were 
 stations. It often took several days to complete the act- 
 ing of a long cycle where numerous stations were made 
 necessary by the size of the crowds. The " pageants " 
 were constructed in two stories, the upper serving as the 
 main stage, and the lower serving as a dressing room or, 
 on occasion, to represent hell. The costumes seem often 
 to have been of a striking or elaborate character, and 
 there is evidence of much care in the selection and train- 
 ing of actors. 
 
 The Mysteries, Hke the ballads, are essentially a prod- 
 uct of the popular imagination. Literary finish and artis- 
 tic skill they do not possess, but they have what is better 
 — force, vividness, sincerity. Drawing their material from 
 the Bible, they nevertheless possess much originality of 
 conception, and even show something of boldness in the 
 introduction of comic elements. Withal, they are for the 
 most part reverent and earnest in feeling. Their dramatic 
 Dramatic effect must have been powerful upon the simple 
 Effect b^t vigorous imaginations of their uncultured 
 
 spectators. The famous Passion Play enacted every ten 
 years at Oberammergau gives evidence of the possibilities 
 that are latent in plays of the Mystery type. The secret 
 of their power is largely in the fact that they have a high 
 spiritual theme and know how to treat it in a thoroughly 
 human fashion. They reflect in Bible scenes and heroes 
 the life that was passing under men's very eyes. That 
 life was deeply and genuinely religious, even though it was 
 also coarse, ignorant, and superstitious. The mediaeval
 
 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY (1400-1500) 85 
 
 drama is scarcely less typical than the mediaeval cathe- 
 dral of an age of profound faith and of strong romantic 
 sentiment. 
 
 The so-called Moralities, on the other hand, reflect the 
 mediaeval passion for allegory. Perhaps, too, they grew 
 out of the more intellectual side of the medi- 
 
 Moralities 
 
 aeval temper. The characters are personified 
 abstractions, representing the various virtues and vices. 
 The plays, at least in the earlier examples, deal with the 
 broad problems of man's whole moral nature. Later, 
 they become somewhat more limited in scope, as we shall 
 have occasion to see in the next period. A typical speci- 
 men of the older Moralities is Everyman, in which the 
 hero represents general human nature, and in which some 
 of the characters arc Death, Fellowship, Kindred, Gold, 
 Good Deeds, Knowledge, Confession, Beauty, Strength, 
 Discretion, Five Wits. When Everyman is summoned by 
 Death, all his other former friends forsake him, but Good 
 Deeds alone is willing to accompany him on the dreadful 
 journey. The Moralities represent a second stage of 
 dramatic development, but they are not in all respects an 
 imjjrovement upon the Mysteries. Their plots are in- 
 vented instead of borrowed, and they have attained a freer 
 form, from which it is possible for later drama to grow; 
 but as dramatic figures their moral abstractions are far 
 inferior to the living personages of the Bible story. That 
 they were probably not so dull and tedious, however, as 
 they have sometimes seemed to modern readers, is shown 
 by the recent effective production of Evcryvian upon our 
 contemporary stage.
 
 Representation of a Mystery Play 
 
 Sharp's " Coventry Mysteries"
 
 ThorV/iattKiiurhl!. 
 
 /W? W.^^^7
 
 BOOK III 
 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION {i 500-1666) 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION IN 
 ENGLAND (1500- 15 79) 
 
 The close of the fifteenth century and the beginning 
 of the sixteenth formed a period of transition. The long 
 period of the Middle Ages was rapidly passing away, and 
 a new life was rapidly being shaped by new ideals and 
 new modes of thought. Literature had declined, and its 
 revival could come only with the advent of a new quicken- 
 ing impulse. Such impulse had already appeared and was 
 growing more and more to the exercise of its full power. 
 It was of a twofold nature. On the one hand was that 
 great intellectual awakening which we call the 
 
 T-» • 1 4.U i-u 4-u t 1. Renaissance 
 
 Renaissance ; and on the other was that great and Reforma- 
 spiritual awakening which we call the Refor- ^""' 
 mation. These two great forces worked together to 
 shape the general character of literature for over a 
 century and a half. 'N'ever before or since has the 
 race been so mightily stirred, and never elsewhere 
 have we seen so great literary results. What wonder, 
 when we consider TIie~nature of the influences at work. 
 The Renaissance was in very truth a new intellectual 
 birth. Think for a moment of what it involved or im- 
 plied. First, we have the revival of classic learning, 
 revealing to the modern world the riches of ancient 
 thought. Then came the introduction of printing, spread- 
 
 ^1
 
 88 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 ing broadcast both the old and the new in hterature. 
 Then the discovery of America, reveaHng to men an 
 unknown world. Then the Copernican system of as- 
 tronomy, giving them new heavens as well as a new 
 earth. To all this was added the religious fervor of the 
 Reformation, quickening human life at its very centre. 
 Such an intellectual and moral revolution is almost be- 
 yond conception ; and the race that would not respond to 
 such influences must be incapable of great literary expres- 
 sion. The English race did respond, and in a way that has 
 made English poetry the crowning glory of the world's 
 intellectual history. 
 
 These new impulses, like the earlier introduction of Chris- 
 tianity among the Anglo-Saxons, were foreign in their 
 English Re- origin. They were European rather than Eng- 
 sponse iig]-,_ Yet the English race responded to them 
 
 without any long period of assimilation. How shall we 
 account for this, if it be true that a foreign influence must 
 first enter into the very life-blood of a people before it can 
 vitally affect their literature .-' The answer is not difficult. 
 The new influences in a certain sense came from without ; 
 but they were merely the touch on the spring which let 
 loose the restrained forces of the English mind, the sup- 
 pressed rehgious passion of the English heart. They were 
 the occasion rather than the adequate cause of the new 
 movements. In other words, the true impulses of the new- 
 literature were not the Renaissance and the Reformation 
 as independent forces, but rather the pent-up powers of 
 the English nature which were now brought to a conscious- 
 ness of themselves. The Renaissance and the Refor- 
 mation did not create these powers; they found them already 
 existing. If they had not so found them, the new in- 
 fluences would have worked comparatively in vain. This 
 is not mere theory. Historical fact justifies our view that 
 the intellectual and moral influences that create great
 
 BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND (1500-1579) 89 
 
 literature were already straining on the leash, eager to be 
 let loose. See the race struggling for great poetic utter- 
 ance in Chaucer more than a hundred years before — 
 struggling with splendid success for a moment, and then 
 sinking back stifled in that heavy intellectual atmosphere. 
 See it struggling in Langland and Wyclif and the Lollards 
 for a new religious life, only to find the wings of its aspi- 
 ration boating vainly against the iron bars of a cage. 
 When air and light and freedom came to all western 
 Europe, the repressed energies of England sprang for- 
 ward with a bound toward their magnificent task. Not in 
 a moment, however, were the greatest literary results 
 achieved. Ready and eager as England was, she, like the 
 rest of P2urope, needed time to accommodate herself to the 
 new circumstances, time to try her strength in the new 
 ways, time to find herself in the new tasks. At first, we 
 must content ourselves with Wyatt and Surrey as expo- 
 nents of the Renaissance, with Tyndale as exemplifying the 
 English response to the spirit of the Reformation. It is not 
 until the last quarter of the sixteenth century that we come 
 upon the great works which make the glory of English 
 literature. 
 
 Mediaeval dramatic forms did not at once cease with the 
 advent of the Renaissance. Mysteries continued to be 
 acted throughout the sixteenth century. The continuation 
 type, however, did not develop further, but re- of Drama 
 mained substantially what it had been during the fifteenth 
 century and earlier. Moralities, on the other hand, show 
 some progress. In the first place, they become more 
 limited in the range of their subject-matter. Earlier 
 Moralities had dealt with the full scope of 
 
 , , XT 1 1 • Moralities 
 
 man s moral nature. Now the tendency is to 
 deal with more particular problems, such as the temi:)tations 
 of youth or the arlvantages of sound learning. In the 
 latter case especially, the influence of the Renaissance is
 
 90 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 apparent. Then, the Moralities were tending to become 
 less allegorical and more realistic, to make their characters 
 less abstract and more individual. In particular, a humor- 
 ous element creeps in which is often taken from actual life. 
 A change of somewhat similar nature was the tendency 
 toward greater concreteness. Characters became more 
 solid and vital, incidents had more interest for their own 
 sake and less for the sake of didactic effect. This again 
 is shown chiefly on the humorous side. The Devil, and 
 the Vice especially became something like real flesh-and- 
 blood personages. All this is in the direction of true 
 drama, though it is still a long way from the goal. 
 
 Yet another kind of dramatic work is to be found in the 
 
 Interludes. The name designates a short dramatic piece 
 
 to be acted in the intervals of longer entertain- 
 
 Interludes . n , ^ 
 
 ments. Ihe type is not well denned, and, 
 indeed, is hardly to be separated from other classes. 
 Many Interludes are practically Moralities. Others have 
 a considerable mixture of classical elements, and still 
 others are brief farces. There is, perhaps, a gain in free- 
 dom and realism, but not much advance in other respects. 
 John Heywood, who produced several Interludes as early 
 as 1532, gave this sort of play its most distinct literary 
 form. One of his works is entitled The Four P's, a vierry 
 I liter hide of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potecary, and a 
 Pedlar. Its farcical character is suggested by the title. 
 In a competition as to which can tell the greatest lie, the 
 prize is won by the Palmer, who declares that he never 
 saw a woman out of patience. 
 
 The farcical Interlude passes on into the true Comedy. 
 The first comedy in English literature was acted between 
 First English ^534 ^^^ i54i> and was written by Nicholas 
 Comedy Udall, master of Eton College. It is called 
 Ralph Roister Doister ; and the fact that it was based on 
 a comedy of Plautus shows it to be a product of the
 
 BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND (i 500-1 579) 91 
 
 Renaissance spirit. It is crude and farcical ; but tlie in- 
 cidents are lively, the plot is fairly well constructed, and 
 the characters are realistic. T his play Represents the 
 farthest reach of_ dram atic development durin^^ the first 
 half of^th^^sixteenth century. Before pursuing our way 
 further, we will retrace our steps to consider the growth of 
 other forms of literature during this same period. 
 
 The revival of classsic learning was one of the most 
 important features of the Renaissance. Under its influ- 
 ence, the English universities ceased to be mere schools of 
 analytics and dialectics, and became European centres of 
 light and culture. They now made the so-called TheHuman- 
 " humanities " the basis of liberal education. '®*^ 
 Their reputation abroad is shown by the fact that Erasmus 
 of Rotterdam, perhaps the greatest scholar of his day, was 
 attracted to O.xford by the opportunities for the study of 
 Greek. His own learning and enthusiasm did much to 
 encourage these studies, and his influence on education 
 and indirectly on literature serves to associate him with the 
 English humanists. We are here, of course, concerned 
 with literature rather than with scholarship, and must 
 confine ourselves to such of the humanists as illustrate the 
 influence of the new learning on literary work. 
 
 Most conspicuous of these was Sir Thomas More. 
 Renowned alike as a scholar, a lawyer, a statesman, and a 
 man of wisdom and integrity, he was also a man sir Thomas 
 of letters. His chief work, the Utopia, was *'°f^ 
 written in Latin, and has therefore only an indirect 
 association with I^nglish literature. Nevertheless, as the 
 production of an English thinker and as an illustration 
 of the luiglish Renaissance spirit, it has great signifi- 
 cance. It is an imaginative description of such an ideal 
 commonwealth as only a liberal humanist could then 
 have conceived. It is the work of a |)ractical statesman 
 but also of a poetic idealist. It was not only a protest
 
 92 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 against existing evils but a rational plan for an improved 
 social order. In its views on education, it represented 
 the new learning as contrasted with mediaeval scholas- 
 ticism ; in its advocacy of freedom of individual religious 
 belief, it was in advance both of Catholic and Protestant 
 theologians. The word "Utopian" has since come to 
 describe that which is fanciful or theoretical, but many 
 of More's Utopian ideas are now in practical operation. 
 In his History of Edzvard V and RicJiard III, we have 
 our first good historical work, both in matter and in 
 style. 
 
 Roger Ascham was a notable scholar and at one time 
 the tutor of the Princess Ehzabeth, afterward queen. 
 Roger His first work was a treatise on archery called 
 
 Ascham Tox Op hH u s, wriXXe^n in 1545. His ScJwolmaster 
 
 was written much later in life and was not published until 
 after his death in 1568. It sets forth his decidedly 
 humanistic ideas of education. Ascham believed in 
 healthful sport, in physical culture, in classical training, 
 in sympathy between teacher and pupil, in character as 
 the aim of education. 
 
 The Renaissance and the Reformation were, in the 
 main, working toward the same great end of intellectual 
 The Reform- S-^d Spiritual freedom. At times, however, their 
 ^^^ aims and their spirit seemed to be in con- 
 
 flict ; and humanists and reformers often regarded 
 each other as belonging to hostile camps. The 
 humanists appealed for the most part to the cultured 
 classes. The reformers recognized the necessity of reach- 
 ing the minds and hearts of the common people. This 
 necessity led to a new translation of the Bible, the first 
 since the days of Wyclif. It was in part the work of 
 Tyndaieand William Tyndale and in part the work of Miles 
 coverdaie Coverdale. Tyndale is generally regarded as 
 the finer stylist of the two ; but doubtless to both men the
 
 BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND (1500-1579) 93 
 
 translation owed its qualities of directness, simplicity, vigor, 
 and picturesqueness. This translation, revised more than 
 once during the sixteenth century, became the basis of 
 the great "authorized version" of 161 1, which has lasted 
 down to our own day, and which has had more influence on 
 English prose style than any other single book. Another 
 important prose-writer was Hugh Latimer, 
 
 Latimer 
 
 Bishop of Worcester, a zealous reformer and 
 most powerful preacher. Mis Senuons are written in an 
 English that is homely, idiomatic, humorous, and at times 
 even coarse, but frequently vivid and impressive. During 
 the reign of Edward VI (i 547-1 553), was prepared the 
 English Book of Common Prayer, supposed to English 
 have been edited by Thomas Cranmer, Arch- Prayer book 
 bishop of Canterbury. In spite of some limitations, it shows 
 a remarkable combination of melody and stateliness in style, 
 and has e.xerted a strong and continuous influence from 
 that day to this. One of its peculiarities is the use of 
 both the Anglo-Saxon and Latin synonyms for the same 
 idea, as in " acknowledge and confess." 
 
 The mediaeval type of poetry persisted well into the 
 sixteenth century, but without producing any important 
 results. We have already noted the work of the Transition 
 Scotch poets, Dunbar and Douglas ; and to Po^^'^y 
 these may be added another Scotchman, Sir David 
 Lyndesay, who wrote until as late as 1553 and whose 
 satires associate him with the new reform movement. 
 Among English poets the continuation of the older poetry 
 is illustrated by the names of Stephen Ilawes and John 
 Skelton. Skelton's work gradually changed, and he was 
 one of the earliest luiglish jioets to manifest the influence 
 u{ the newer ideas. By virtue of a Morality with farcical 
 elements, entitled Mu^nyfyccncc, his is one of the earliest 
 definite names to be connected with the development of 
 the drama. He displays at times an interesting lyric gift,
 
 94 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 but his best-known work is satirical. His bitter and 
 rather coarse satire is mostly directed against the religious 
 abuses of the age. This fact associates him in a sense 
 with the reformers ; but his vagabond temper had little in 
 common with their lofty spirit. Through his undoubted 
 learning, he is linked with the humanists. Most of his 
 best-known poems are written in a doggerel metre, called 
 from him Skeltonic. We may not unfairly regard him as 
 a man of some genius who came so early in the course of 
 a great movement that he was unable to find his way. 
 
 The first of the true Renaissance poets were Sir Thomas 
 Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. In the 
 The New humanists, we have seen the Renaissance on the 
 Poetry gidc of learning. In Wyatt and Surrey, we see 
 
 it on the side of poetry. The influences that inspired these 
 men came chiefly from Italy ; but they were both good, 
 sound EngUsh natures, and knew how to give something of 
 a native flavor to their verse. They were both polished 
 gentlemen, men of culture, and men of the world. Most 
 of their work consists of rather artificial love poetry, written 
 after Italian models ; but some of their later poems have 
 a more serious and more genuine tone. That they intro- 
 wyatt and duccd and practised the sonnet is alone suffi- 
 suney cicnt to givc them a name in the literature ; but 
 
 Surrey has the additional credit of having been the first of 
 English poets to use blank verse. Both helped to give to 
 EngHsh poetry more of classical finish and facility of 
 expression, quaUties which were needed to make it a fitting 
 instrument for the great poets of the later sixteenth century. 
 They were really the first of modern English lyric poets, 
 and their lyric gift was no mean one. Wyatt was the 
 older of the two, and probably the master-spirit. His 
 poetry has the greater seriousness and dignity, and he adds 
 to his other abilities that of the satirist. Surrey is more 
 varied, more musical, and more finished than his friend
 
 BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND (i 500-1 579) 95 
 
 and master, though he has less of force and weight. It is 
 worthy of note that his use of blank verse is in translations 
 from Virgil's yEmid. Wyatt and Surrey were the first of 
 the "C ourtly Make rs," the noble begin ners of our really 
 modern English poetry. 
 
 Wyatt died in 1542 and Surrey in 1547 ; but their works 
 were not printed until ten years after the latter date. They 
 were first published in a work called TottcPs xotteis Mis- 
 Misccllany, issued in 1557. The book also con- «iia°y 
 taincd the work of various minor poets. Nothing in it 
 rises to the level of really great poetry ; but the little 
 volume is forever famous as the first poetical publica- 
 tion of the greatest period of our literature — the Age of 
 Klizabeth. 
 
 The first twenty years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
 continue the work which had begun in the early part of 
 the century. There is advance in various lines. 
 
 ^ . ' Early 
 
 but no literary work of the first order. It will Elizabethan 
 serve our purpose to note briefly the work that 
 was accomplished in the three important departments of 
 literature — poetry, drama, and prose. 
 
 The example of Wyatt and Surrey was followed by 
 many poets, none of whom calls for personal mention. 
 The popularity of poetry is shown by the publi- ^^^j 
 cation of many collections of songs and lyrics, Elizabethan 
 some of which were issued again and again. 
 The titles are often quaint and fanciful, as, for instance, 
 the Paradise of Dainty Devices and the Gorgeous Gallery 
 of Gallant Inventions. There were also various transla- 
 tions from the classics and from other modern languages. 
 
 Only one poet of the period produced really notable 
 work and gave indication of the great poetry that was 
 soon to follow. This was Thomas Sackville, Thomas 
 Lord liuckhur.st, and afterward ICarl of Dorset. Sacicviuo 
 A curious and extensive narrative poem, called The Mirror
 
 96 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 for Magistrates, had already been written in part by 
 various poets and was afterward much enlarged by 
 others. Its purpose was to show " with how grievous 
 plagues vices are punished in Great Princes and Magis- 
 trates, and how frail and unstable worldly prosperity is 
 found, where fortune seemeth most highly to favour." 
 Sackville contributed to this work an Induction, or in- 
 troduction, and the Complaint of the Diikc of Bucking- 
 ham. His contribution is the only part of the whole that 
 has poetic value. In the Induction, he imagines himself 
 as guided by Sorrow to the realms of the dead. In the 
 Complaint, he meets the Duke of Buckingham in the 
 underworld, and listens to his lamentation over his tragic 
 fate. Sackville's work is somewhat stiff and ^rude ; but 
 it has a largeness, a stateliness, a grandeur, a musical 
 cadence that give promise of better things. It is a matter 
 of regret that Sackville did not continue his work in this 
 direction ; but the attractions of public life soon drew him 
 away from poetry. 
 
 During the early part of the sixteenth century, drama 
 had already attained, in the case of Udall's Ralph Roister 
 Doister, to the stage of real comedy. Mysteries, Mo- 
 ralities, and Interludes continued to be acted throughout 
 the century, and many new Moralities and Interludes 
 were written ; but, nevertheless, drama continued to de- 
 velop along the new lines. The influences working 
 
 ^j toward the newer drama were in part mediaeval 
 
 Elizabethan and English — influences growing out of the 
 Mystery and the Morality. They were in part 
 also classical, arising from the study of the ancient drama. 
 Many classical dramas were translated and imitated, and 
 there was a decided, though fortunately vain, attempt to 
 conform the English drama to classic models. One of 
 the earliest examples of this is found in the first Eng- 
 lish tragedy, Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex, written by
 
 BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND (1500-1579) 97 
 
 Thomas Sackvillo in collaboration with Thomas Norton. 
 It is modeled after Seneca, and represents a class of 
 English plays known collectively as Senecan dramas. 
 The tragedy tells how Gorboduc, king of Britain, divided 
 his realm between his sons, Ferrex and Porre.x, and of 
 the terrible consequences that followed. It is written in 
 blank verse, and was first acted in 1561. In 1566 was 
 acted for the first time the second English comedy, Ga)n- 
 vier Gurtons Xecdlc. This is a farcical play, almost purely 
 native in tone, reputed to have been written by John 
 Still, afterward Bishop of Wells. Gammer Gurton has 
 various amusing experiences in hunting for her lost needle ; 
 she finds it at last in the seat of her man Hodge's 
 breeches, which she had been mending. The incidents 
 and the language are coarse, and the characters are taken 
 from English low life. Tragedy and comedy are thus 
 seen to be fairly under way. Still another kind of drama 
 to be originated at about this time is the historical or 
 chronicle play. Most of the great Elizabethan dramas 
 belong to these three classes. During the first twenty 
 years of the reign of Elizabeth, therefore, the foundations 
 of the later drama were laid. No work of a very high order 
 was accomplished ; but experiments were made in all 
 directions, and the way was made plain for the great 
 dramatists of the next generation. 
 
 The development of prose went on, but there were no 
 real masters of style or invention. The work of Roger 
 Ascham continued into this period, and his 
 Schoolmaster, already mentioned, was published Elizabethan 
 in 1570, two years after his death. His is the 
 only name of prominence. The Reformation spirit is rep- 
 resented by John Kiiox and by I'\jx's popular Book of 
 Martyrs. Chroniclers, like Holinshcd and Stow, provided 
 historical material for the later dramatists. .Stories of the 
 early voyagers fired the imaginations ol high and low, and
 
 98 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 carried on the influences which had arisen from the discov- 
 ery of new lands beyond the seas. Translations were made 
 from foreign languages, both ancient and modern, and thus 
 the new learning became more and more widely spread. 
 Such translations, moreover, were doing their full part to 
 inspire the coming poets and dramatists and to furnish 
 them with their wealth of materials. England was intellec- 
 tually alive ; and although no great works were being pro- 
 duced either in prose or in verse, we are now able to see 
 that Enghsh literature was rapidly moving on toward the 
 noblest results which it has ever achieved. It was the 
 darkness just before a great dawn. 
 
 Tnv. Cii.oiw. Theater 
 After a drawing in the British Museum
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE AGE OF SIIAKKSPEARE (1579-1625) 
 
 During the lifetime of Shakespeare, the English Re- 
 naissance reached its flood-tide. Its spirit was really 
 the creative literary force of the age ; and its richness, 
 its vigor, its delight, its beauty, its enthusiasm, sought 
 and in large measure found adequate expression. The 
 age was filled with superabundant life, with an jnnuenceof 
 ardent desire for knowledge, with a passion for Renaissance 
 action and adventure, with a boundjess ambition to ac- 
 complish great things, with a childlike wonder at the 
 marvels of the world, with a splendid faith in man's power 
 to conquer the realm of nature and the realm of thought, 
 with an intense appreciation of the charm of all that was 
 beautiful and attractive. The race had been born again ; 
 it felt itself young, and its dominant notes were those of 
 passion and imagination. It was the time of all times for 
 • the poet with his pictures of the ideal world and for the 
 dramatist with his i)resentation upon the mimic stage of 
 the moving pageant of human life. All this and more 
 had come into English literature with the culmination 
 of the Renaissance. 
 
 The spirit of the Reformation was for a time subordi- 
 nated as a literary force ; but it had by no means vanished. 
 If men had for a day almost forgotten spiritual Reformation 
 concerns in seeking after the glory of this world, ^'""* 
 the deep religious instinct of the luiglish nature was still in 
 their hearts, and doubtless such words as those of Philip 
 Sidney came often to their lips : 
 
 99
 
 lOO RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 My mind, aspire to higher things ; 
 Grow rich in that which never taketh rust. 
 
 In the greatest literature of the time, rehgion was pres 
 ent as a steadying and restraining if not as an i-mpelling 
 force. In the period, succeeding this, we shall see it rising 
 to the full measure of its power as a dominant guiding im- 
 pulse. The literature of Shakespeare's age was full, rich, 
 varied, complicated, as well as powerful. It is not easy to 
 present even its essential features in brief space. We 
 shall endeavor, as heretofore, to hold as closely as possible 
 to the chronological order, while at the same time keeping 
 fairly distinct from each other the three main streams of 
 literary development — prose, poetry, and the drama. 
 
 The reign of Elizabeth continued until 1603, and we 
 may conveniently group together the leading prose-writers 
 Later Eliza- '^^o belong to the latter half of her reign, 
 bethan Prose pirst in time of these is John Lyly, one of the 
 minor dramatists and poets of the age, who in 1579 
 and 1580 published the two parts of a unique romance 
 called Euphues. The first part was entitled EiiphiieSy 
 Lyjy.g the Anatomy of Wit ; and the second part, 
 
 Euphues Eiiphues and his England. Euphues is a 
 young Athenian who visits England and is made the 
 mouthpiece for the expression of Lyly's views upon various* 
 phases of the life, thought, and manners of the day. The 
 work displays the Renaissance interest in education and 
 philosophy, but it harmonizes also with the religious 
 feeling of the time in declaring that " vain is all learning 
 without the taste of divine knowledge." It had a decided 
 influence as a guide to polite manners, and perhaps a still 
 greater influence in setting the fashion of an affected and 
 elaborate style of speech. Courtiers talked and authors 
 wrote in the high-flown manner which we still describe as 
 " Euphuism." Lyly was concerned more with expression than 
 with thought, but his work at least shows the exceeding care
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) loi 
 
 that was being devoted to the matter of prose style. He 
 misled prose for a time in the direction of poetry, but his 
 experiment was, after all, one that was worth making. 
 His work is remembered to-day more for its historical 
 influence than for any gift of invention or originality of 
 thought. A single sentence will help to illustrate his 
 characteristic balance of sentence, alliteration, and excessive 
 use of figures and parallels : 
 
 For as the hop, the pole being never so high, groweth to the end, or 
 as the dry beech kindled at the root never leaveth until it come to the 
 top : or as one drop of poison disperseth itself into every vein, so affec- 
 tion having caught hold of my heart, and the sparkles of love kindled 
 my liver, will suddenly, though secretly, flame up into my head, and 
 spread itself into every sinew. 
 
 In the ca.se of Sir Philip Sidney, it is the man that we 
 honor and admire more than anything or all that he has 
 written. There is a magic charm about his name which 
 appeals powerfully to the imagination. High sirPhiiip 
 birth, lofty character, knightly honor, chivalrous Sidney 
 loyalty, romantic spirit, faithful friendship, disappointed 
 love, classic learning, religious zeal, faultless courage, early 
 death — all unite to create a personality that embodies for 
 us all that was greatest and best in a great age. Beside 
 this his literary achievement grows dim. Yet it was 
 by no means insignificant. We shall have occasion 
 later to consider his poetry. In prose his notable works 
 arc two. First is a pastoral romance, entitled Arcadia. 
 Somewhat lengthy, tedious, and affected in stylo it is ; 
 and yet it has much of the charm that fascinates us 
 in the man. This charm is half poetical, and, indeed, 
 some of .Sidney's characteristic verse appears here and 
 there throughout the Arcadia. Ills Defense of Poesy is 
 much better written, and has the distinction of being our 
 first impcjrtant work in the field of literary criticism. Its 
 critical theories are, in the main, sound, though he defended
 
 I02 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 the classical unities in drama and held that verse was not 
 an essential feature of poetry. The concluding sentence 
 of the Defense will give an idea of his manner : 
 
 But if — fie of such a but! — you be born so near the dull-making 
 cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry; 
 if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look 
 to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become 
 such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry; then, though I will not wish 
 you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as 
 Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be rimed to death, as is said to 
 be done in Ireland ; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalf 
 of all poets : — that while you live you live in love, and never get favor 
 for lacking skill of a sonnet ; and when you die, your memory die from 
 the earth for want of an epitaph. 
 
 The theological literature of the time is nowhere better 
 represented than in the writings of Richard Hooker. His 
 Richard great work is The Laivs of Ecclesiastical Polity. 
 
 Hooker This is not an especially favorable subject for 
 
 literature ; but Hooker succeeded in producing a work 
 which not only remains valuable for the theologian but 
 also calls for the recognition of the literary historian. It 
 is one of the landmarks in the development of English 
 prose. The style is dignified, stately, restrained, and not 
 seldom really musical. In spite of its heaviness, its long 
 periodic sentences, and its Latinized character, it is also 
 reasonably clear and forcible. A brief, familiar passage 
 may be profitably compared with the quotations from Lyly 
 and Sidney : 
 
 Of law, there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the 
 bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in 
 heaven and earth do her homage ; the very least as feeling her care, 
 and the greatest as not exempted from her power. Both angels and 
 men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different 
 sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the 
 mother of their peace and joy. 
 
 Hooker's style is probably the best model that his im- 
 mediate time affords ; but contemporary writers show his
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 103 
 
 influence much less than that of Lyly and Sidney. This 
 is not altogether unfortunate ; for English prose was to be 
 used for many and varied purposes, and it was well that 
 it should make its experiments in different directions. 
 While the three names already mentioned will suffice to 
 represent the prose movement, we should not fail to ob- 
 serve that a great mass of prose was written on a great 
 variety of subjects. There were Euphuists, con- Minor Prose 
 cerned chiefly with formal excellence ; there were writings 
 theological writers. Catholic, Anglican, and Puritan ; there 
 were literary critics, representing widely divergent theories; 
 there were writers of travels and voyages, dealing some- 
 times with their own experiences ; there were historians, 
 treating of events English and foreign, ancient and mod- 
 ern ; there were pamphleteers, discussing religion, politics, 
 and other matters ; there were romances, realistic tales, 
 personal reminiscences, sketches of life and manners, ser- 
 mons, and translations. All this does not exhaust the 
 field ; for there was intense ferment and activity, though 
 little of literary art. Sometimes a writer belonged to sev- 
 eral of these classes, and might be poet and dramatist as 
 well. The age was striving, aspiring, experimenting ; but 
 on the side of prose, it can not be said to have found its 
 way to great literary achievement. 
 
 The first great English poet after Chaucer — ranking 
 with Chaucer among the few greatest poets of English 
 literature — was Edmund Spenser. In him, be- „ .... 
 yond all question, Elizabethan poetry h;ul "found 
 its way." The facts of his life that immediately concern 
 us in the consideration of his poetry may be briefly stated. 
 Like Chaucer, he was born in London ; and it seems prob- 
 able that he received there his early education, at the 
 Merchant Taylors' School. We know that lie was a 
 member of I'embroke Hall at Cambridge and that he 
 received bolli his degrees in :irts from that University.
 
 I04 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 A sojourn in the North of England, following his depar 
 ture from the University, is associated with a disappoint- 
 ment in love for a young lady whom he poetically names 
 Rosalind. On his return to London, he enjoyed the pat- 
 ronage of that powerful favorite of the queen. Lord 
 Leicester, and became a member of the brilliant circle 
 in which Sir Philip Sidney was the central figure. About 
 1580 he was appointed secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, 
 Deputy of Ireland, and passed most of the remainder of 
 his life in that country. There Sir Walter Raleigh be- 
 came his friend and patron. Spenser married at the age 
 of forty-two. In 1598 his home was burned by the Irish 
 rebels, and he fled with his family to England. He died 
 in London during the following year, and was buried be- 
 side Chaucer in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. 
 The inscription on his monument declares that he was 
 "the prince of poets in his tyme " ; and the judgment of 
 posterity has not reversed the record. Perhaps the most 
 interesting and important feature of his life, apart from 
 his poetic work, is to be found in his association with some 
 of the most noble and brilliant men of his generation and 
 in his participation with them in the eager and strenuous 
 life of the age. 
 
 Spenser was the first great Elizabethan poet. In him 
 the purely poetical influences of the Renaissance cillmi- 
 spenserin nate, and from him flow streams of poetic in- 
 MsAge fluence that have helped to make fruitful the 
 
 literature of three centuries. He embodied the romantic 
 spirit of his age ; but he embodied its moral spirit as well. 
 He gives us the last great picture of chivalry ; he reflects 
 what was loftiest and most brilliant in his own passing 
 age; he expresses all the purity and elevation of the 
 Reformation temper without its harshness. His influence 
 is thoroughly poetic and artistic. To call him the " poets' 
 poet" is to imply that he is best appreciated and most
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 105 
 
 highly esteemed by those who themselves have most of 
 the poetical nature ; and surely of no English poet can 
 this be more truly said. Of all the men of his time, he 
 belongs most exclusively to poetry, and has little impor- 
 tance aside from that. Judged purely as a poet, without 
 regard to any other qualities or characteristics, he is prob- 
 ably unsurpassed in English literature. 
 
 Spenser, wc have implied, is above all other things a 
 poetic artist. As such, he is richly endowed with the poet's 
 supreme gift, a wonderful love for the beautiful. To this 
 he adds the power of giving a living embodiment to his 
 poetic conceptions. Everything he touches, even spenser's 
 the dryest ethical truth, seems to change into Genius 
 beauty as if by magic. His work reveals him as eminently 
 a poet of the ideal rather than of the real. He moves in 
 an ideal world. He is "of imagination all compact." For 
 him the jiractical world of men and things seems to sink 
 out of sight. He deals in his poetry with the real men and 
 women of his time; but even these, in his world of dreams, 
 seem to lose their reality and to become shadows like the 
 rest. This is not to imply that the characters of his poetry 
 are mere lay figures or dry abstractions. Such an impli- 
 cation would be very far from the truth. The world of his 
 poetry is an ideal world ; but it is not, therefore, a " world 
 not "realized." Spenser has a magic power to make his 
 dream creations almost as distinct as reality. His person- 
 ages live with a life of their own and impress themselves 
 upon the imagination. Nevertheless, they are not real in 
 the ordinary sense of the term ; they are the unsubstantial 
 though vividly beautiful creatures of a most illusive vision. 
 Spenser is a lover of nature ; but nature, too, is made sub- 
 ject to his idealizing process. He does not portray her, as 
 docs Chaucer, frankly and directly ; his dream landscapes 
 have no earthly existence. In fact, he is interested in ideas 
 and images rather than in nature or in men. His work,
 
 106 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 therefore, displays very little dramatic power in the creation 
 of lifelike men and women — the power which Chaucer pos- 
 sessed in such an eminent degree. " Chaucer," it has been 
 said, "painted persons, Spenser qualities." Yet he is ob- 
 jective in his pictures, and can portray scenes and figures 
 that live in the imagination entirely distinct from the per- 
 sonality of the poet himself. It is as though he had the 
 power to transport us also into his ideal realm and make 
 us move as shadows in a world of shadows. Spenser is 
 a great epic poet. Through his wonderful powers of nar- 
 ration and description, he is able to attract, to charm, to 
 fascinate. He has also a fine lyric gift. There are few, if 
 any, sweeter singers in the literature. He has intensity, 
 variety, fluency, music, fervor, high poetical power. His 
 poetry of nature is largely tentative. We find it now some- 
 what conventional and artificial. His real home is not 
 amid the scenery of the actual world but amid the ideal 
 scenes of his marvelous fancy. His style is unique. It 
 is intentionally archaic, and does not quite represent the 
 English either of his own or of any other time. In the 
 mastery of verse he is unsurpassed. No sweeter music 
 than his was ever drawn from English speech. His power 
 as a metrist is admirably displayed in his pure lyrics and 
 in the so-called Spenserian stanza. The latter is one of the 
 most perfect instruments of poetic expression ever devised. 
 It is a stanza of nine lines, eight iambic pentameters and a 
 final iambic hexameter, with rhyme order ababbcbcc. 
 It is the stanza used in Spenser's Faerie Queene, and will 
 be illustrated in our discussion of that poem. Spenser's 
 achievement in varying its music and in linking its varied 
 sweetness through one of the longest poems in the lan- 
 guage is little short of marvelous. In fine, if there are any 
 words which sum up the effect of Spenser's poetry, they 
 are these two — picture and music. 
 
 Spenser's first important work was the Shepherd'' s Cal-
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 107 
 
 endar, published in 1579, just after his return from the 
 North of England and just before his departure for Ireland. 
 It consists of a series of artificial pastorals, spensefs 
 dealing with the months of the year. Some- Minor Poems 
 what imitative in style and thought, it is a beautiful poem 
 but not a great masterpiece. It gave, however, decided 
 evidence of poetic genius, and served to establish his repu- 
 tation. A volume entitled Coviplaints contained poems 
 on such subjects as the Ruins of Tinie, Tears of tlie Muses, 
 I 'irg-iFs GtMt, Mother Hiibbarifs Tale, Ruins of Rome, Mui- 
 potmos, and three Visions. A pastoral poem entitled Coli)i 
 Clout's Conic Home Again celebrated his visit to London 
 in 1 59 1. In this same year were published AstropJiel, a 
 pastoral elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney ; the 
 Amoretti, a series of beautiful love sonnets ; and EpitJiala- 
 viion, his own wedding-hymn. The latter has a high and 
 pure note of personal passion ; and as poetry, it is incom- 
 parable in its kind, except with his own ProtJialamion, 
 published in the following year in honor of the double 
 marriage of Lady Elizabeth and Lady Katherine Somerset, 
 daughters of the Earl of Worcester. Delightful as poetry 
 and typical of Spenser's character and genius are his Four 
 Hymns — to Love, to Beauty, to Heavenly Love, and to 
 Heavenly Beauty. These, together with the last books of 
 his Faerie Queene, bring his poetical work to a close in i 596, 
 three years before his death. 
 
 It has been said that " the Calendar and the Sonnets, the 
 Epithalamiuvi and the Hynnns, are but the chapels and 
 chantries of the cathedral of the Faerie Queene." ' This 
 beautifully expresses the idea that the Faene Queene is the 
 greatest and most typical product of Spenser's The Faerie 
 genius, the work in whicli are summed u]) and Q"eene 
 gathered together all the qualities and characteristics of 
 his poetry. If we confine our thought to ])urely poetical 
 
 * Saint»bury'» Short Iliitory 0/ Engliih Literature, p. 268.
 
 I08 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 merits, it would be difficult to name a greater single poem 
 in the English language. In its own class, as an allegory, it 
 is undoubtedly supreme. Its allegorical significance is two- 
 fold — ethical and historical. On the ethical side, we see 
 in its characters representatives of the moral virtues and of 
 the vices that oppose them ; on the historical side, these 
 same characters become representative of the actual men 
 and women of Spenser's time. 
 
 The plan of the work was an immense and an elaborate 
 one. There were to be twenty-four books — twelve devoted 
 
 to the twelve private virtues and twelve devoted 
 Its Plan ^ 
 
 to the twelve public virtues. Each virtue was to 
 be represented by a knight called upon to oppose himself to 
 certain evils. These knights were to accomplish their several 
 adventures, and be finally successful through the help of 
 Prince Arthur, with whose marriage to Gloriana, the Faerie 
 Queene, the poem was to culminate. Only six books, about 
 one-fourth of this vast scheme, were actually completed. 
 Each book is practically a separate poem. As it stands, then, 
 the Faerie Queene consists of six complete books and the 
 fragment of a seventh. The first book deals with the 
 Legend of the Red Cross Knight, or of Holiness ; the sec- 
 ond, with the Legend of Sir Guyon, or of Temperance ; 
 the third, with the Legend of Britomartis, or of Chastity ; 
 the fourth, with the Legend of Cambel and Triamond, or 
 of Friendship ; the fifth, with the Legend of Artegall, 
 or of Justice ; the sixth, with the Legend of Sir Calidore, 
 or of Courtesie. The fragment, consisting of two cantos 
 and two stanzas, deals with the subject of Mutability, 
 and was probably intended as part of a book on Constancy. 
 Each of the complete books consists of twelve cantos, 
 composed in Spenserian stanzas. In addition to the virtues 
 represented by the several knights, Prince Arthur repre- 
 sents the comprehensive virtue of Magnanimity. 
 
 The poem, even in its uncompleted condition, is one of
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 109 
 
 the longest in the language. The interest of it is threefold. 
 It is, first, a great moral allegory, setting up lofty ideals of 
 virtue. It is, secondly, a great historical allegory, 
 
 r,   . • " • 1 1 1 'ts Interest 
 
 retiectmo: as m a magic mirror the men ana the 
 life of the age. Queen Elizabeth is there, in the person of 
 Gloriana, or Glory, the Faerie Queene ; Mary Queen of 
 Scots is there, in the person of the false Duessa, who rep- 
 resents also the Catholic Church ; Lord Leicester is there, 
 in the person of Prince Arthur ; there, also, in various 
 characters, are Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Grey of Wilton, 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, and many others. Great movements 
 of the time are also represented — the political conflict 
 with Spain, the religious conflict with Rome, the struggle 
 of PZngland for self-mastery and for independence of 
 foreign domination. History is not obtruded upon us as 
 we follow the adventures of knights and ladies ; but the 
 reader familiar with historical persons and events will find 
 himself reminded of them on many a page. The 
 third interest of the work is that of a great master- 
 piece of poetic art, unrolling before us a splendid pano- 
 rama of imaginative pictures to the music of rhythmic 
 speech. 
 
 The poem is typical of Spenser in its largeness and 
 freedom, in its ideality and beauty, in its pictorial and 
 musical power, in its ethical and religious character. 
 His various excellencies are displayed with more or less 
 of fulness in his minor poems; but wc have the complete 
 and adequate revelation of his genius only in the luieric 
 Quecnc. In earlier poems of the age, the spirit its Typical 
 of the Renaissance and the Reformation is re- character 
 fleeted only in a fragmentary and inadequate way. Hut 
 the great intellectual and moral ferment is going on, and 
 at length wc come to Spenser — "sage and serious Spen- 
 ser" — in whom the most exquisite gift of pure poetry is 
 united with a moral clevati(jn as severe as it is beautiful
 
 no RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 There could hardly be any poem more finely typical than 
 the Faerie Qtieene of the blended might of the two great 
 literary forces of the age. One may dip almost at random 
 into the great poem and find fit evidence of Spenser's gen- 
 ius. The following brief passage will illustrate the charac- 
 ter of the Spenserian stanza and its musical capabilities, 
 the poetic quality of Spenser's conceptions, and the spir- 
 itual elevation of his sentiments. It is from the first book, 
 and the Red Cross Knight has just been led by the sage 
 Contemplation " to the highest mount " : 
 
 From thence, far off he unto him did shew 
 A litle path, that was both steepe and long, 
 Which to a goodly citie led his vew ; 
 Whose wals and towres were builded high and strong 
 Of perle and precious stone, that earthly tong 
 Cannot describe, nor wit of man can tell ; 
 Too high a ditty for my simple song : 
 The Citie of the Great King hight ^ it well. 
 Wherein eternall peace and happinesse doth dwell. 
 
 As he thereon stood gazing, he might see 
 The blessed angels to and fro descend 
 From highest heaven in gladsome companee, 
 And with great joy into that citie wend, 
 As commonly as frend does with his frend. 
 Whereat he wondred much, and gan enquere, 
 What stately building durst so high extend 
 Her lofty towres unto the starry sphere. 
 And what unknowen nation there empeopled were. 
 
 " Faire knight," quoth he, " Hierusalem that is, 
 The New Hierusalem, that God has built 
 For those to dwell in, that are chosen his, 
 His chosen people purg'd from sinfull guilt 
 With pretious blood, which cruelly was spilt 
 On cursed tree, of that unspotted Lam, 
 That for the sinnes of al the world was kilt : 
 Now are they saints all in that citie sam,^ 
 More dear unto their God than younglings to their dam." 
 
 1 Was called. 2 Together.
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) in 
 
 ''Till now," said then the knight. " I weened well, 
 That great Cleopolis ^ where I have beene, 
 In which that fairest Faerie Qiicene doth dwell, 
 The fairest citie was, that might he seene ; 
 And that bright towre all built of christall clene, 
 Panthea." seemd the brightest thing that was : 
 But now by proofe all otherwise I weene; 
 For this great citie that does far surpas. 
 And this bright angels towre quite dims that towre of glas." 
 
 If we dwell upon Spenser as the representative poet of 
 his time, it is because of his supreme excellence rather 
 than because there is any dearth of genuine p^gtrycon- 
 poets and poetry. Indeed, there is a decided temporary 
 embarrassment of riches ; and it is not possible "^"^ ^p'°'" 
 to do more than hint at the varied, abundant, and exquisite 
 poetic work of this remarkable generation. 
 
 Outside of the drama and Spenser's Faerie Queene, the 
 best and most characteristic work of the age was in 
 lyric poetry. Its chief theme was love — human 
 love, full of the Renaissance delight in life and ^^tic Poetry 
 beauty — divine love, inspired by the religious fervor 
 of the Reformation. Spenser himself stands first in this 
 field, and next to him is probably Sir Philip Sidney. In 
 the relations of actual life, Spenser was but one of the 
 satellites of his noble and distinguished friend ; but in 
 poetry, he is the central sun, and even Sidney is but one 
 of his humble followers. Nevertheless, Sidney 
 is a lyric poet of excellent quality. If he docs ' °*^ 
 not capture the " fine careless rapture " of some of the 
 best Elizabethan songs, he is capable of a rich and full 
 lyric music; and in his .sonnets, he yields the palm only to 
 Shakespeare and possibly Spenser. His A strophe I attd 
 Stella is a cycle of sonnets, apparently reflecting his un- 
 rewarded, if not unrequited, love for the beautiful I'cnelope 
 
 ' Londun. ' A tower in Londun.
 
 112 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 Devereux. To these, the personal passion, the tone of 
 pathos, the lofty poetic imagination, the high moral serious- 
 ness of a large nature, give a charm hardly to be matched 
 Probably the best purely lyric work of the age is to be 
 found scattered through the various song-books 
 and through the works of the great Elizabethan 
 dramatists. These lyrics were really written to be sung to 
 music, and they have an ease and a sweetness of melody 
 that give them a grace beyond the reach of art. Some 
 poets, like Thomas Campion, are known for a goodly num- 
 ber of such songs ; some keep their fame with posterity 
 chiefly by virtue of a single success, as in the case of Sir 
 Edward Dyer's "My mind to me a kingdom is"; still 
 others are entirely unknown, and we have only their inimi- 
 table work in evidence of the wide diffusion of the lyric 
 gift during the last years of Elizabeth's reign. Among 
 the writers of dramatic songs, Shakespeare stands first, as 
 he does in most other respects ; but he is followed at not 
 too great a distance by Lyly, Peele, Greene, Lodge, Mar- 
 lowe, and other dramatic writers. Sonnet writing was one 
 of the favorite poetic occupations of the age, 
 
 Sonnet Cycles , , , • , r 
 
 and whole series or cycles of sonnets were 
 produced by many poets. We have already mentioned 
 Spenser's Amoretti and Sidney's Astt'ophel and Stella. 
 The most notable example of all is to be found in 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets. Samuel Daniel's Delia and 
 Michael Drayton's Idea may serve as still further illus- 
 trations. 
 
 Daniel and Drayton remind us of the popularity of still 
 another kind of poetry — the historical or patriotic. We 
 Historical have obscrvcd the historical interest in Spenser's 
 Poetry Faerie Queene ; and, indeed, nothing is more 
 
 striking in the age than the enthusiasm — partly patriotic, 
 partly religious, and partly personal — for England and 
 England's queen. The growing number of historical or
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) 113 
 
 chronicle plays in the field of drama illustrates this same 
 interest on another side. The first purely patriotic poem 
 of note is- William Warner's Albioiis Englaitd. 
 The historical type of poetry, however, is best 
 represented by Daniel and Drayton. Daniel's chief his- 
 torical poems are the Coviplaint of Rosamond 
 
 ,. . , . , r Daniel 
 
 and the Civil Wars of \ ork and Lancaster. 
 
 Among other things, Drayton wrote the Barons' Wars, 
 
 Ent^/and's Heroical Epistles, the famous Ballad 
 
 ^ ^ Drayton 
 
 0/ Aginconrt, and somewhat later, the Polj'- 
 olbion, a huge work of nearly 100,000 lines, describing 
 the " tracts, mountains, forests, and other parts of this 
 renowned isle of Britain, with intermixture of the most 
 remarkable stories, antiquities, wonders, pleasures, and 
 commodities of the same, digested into a poem." One 
 may well think that all this needed considerable digestion. 
 Drayton fitly calls it a " strange herculean task." In fact, 
 these historical poems — though interesting as evidences 
 of patriotic spirit — are unfortunate in their subject-matter. 
 Spenser was much better advised by his finer poetic instinct. 
 Nevertheless, it is characteristic of the historical poets 
 and of their age that they were able to write passably good 
 poetry even on the most unjjromising themes. The same 
 may be said of the philosophical and satirical poetry which 
 developed somewhat later. 
 
 Practically contemporary with Spenser were the early 
 dramatists whose work prepared the way for the supreme 
 dramatic art of Shakespeare. Most, if not all, of The univer 
 them were university men, and they were called "^v^its 
 as a groujj the " University Wits." The first of these is 
 John Lvly, the author of Euphucs. lie wrote 
 much in pro.se, but his work is anything but pro- 
 saic. Indeed, it may rather be characterized as classical, 
 fanciful, witty, courtly, romantic, interspersed with charm- 
 ing lyrics. There is little real dramatic |)owcr. His
 
 114 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 Endymion is an allegorical compliment to Queen Elizabeth, 
 Thomas Kvd is best known as the author of 
 a blood-and-thunder drama called the Spanish 
 Tragedy. Thomas Nash wrote with Marlowe a play called 
 Dido and a prose comedy, Will Summer's Testa- 
 ment. Thomas Lodge wrote Mariiis and Sylla 
 and did other dramatic work, but is better known as a 
 charming prose-writer, romancer, and lyrist. 
 Lodge With George Peele, we come to work of much 
 
 better dramatic and poetic quality. His best play, David 
 and Betksabe, is written in blank verse of much 
 grace and sweetness, and is a decidedly interest- 
 ing drama. Robert Greene is inferior to Peele as a poet ; 
 but, at least in his Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 
 he shows considerable skill in the creation of 
 natural character. 
 
 The last and greatest of the "University Wits" is 
 Christopher Marlowe. Born in the same year with Shake- 
 speare (1564), he began his literary career at 
 Marlowe twenty-three years of age, and was dead at 
 twenty-nine, stabbed in the eye in a tavern brawl. Can- 
 terbury was his birthplace, and he received his early edu- 
 cation there at the King's School, under the shadow of 
 Canterbury Cathedral. Later, he went to Cambridge Uni- 
 versity. In London, a wild and brilHant dramatic career 
 was the precursor of an early death. Considering the 
 shortness of his life and the period at which his work was 
 done, Marlowe's achievements are among the most re- 
 markable in EngHsh literature. Four great tragedies 
 stand to his credit — besides other work of less merit — 
 and all of them are productions of singular power. Each 
 of these may be said to represent some dominating idea or 
 ruling passion. 
 
 Tambnrlaine deals with the career of the Scythian 
 shepherd king who was termed "the Scourge of God."
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEAKK (i 579-1625) 115 
 
 It is a tragedy of conquest, and portrays the lust for 
 tyrannical and unrestrained power. In one 
 
 „ , , . • u- u • ^ J Tamburlaine 
 
 scene Tamburlaine appears \n his chariot, drawn 
 
 by captive kings, whom he scourges with his whip, while 
 
 he cries: 
 
 Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Asia! 
 What, can ye drasv but twenty miles a day. 
 And have so proiul a chariot at your heels. 
 And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine? 
 
 « « « « * 
 
 The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven, 
 And blow the morning from their nostrils. 
 Making their fiery gait above the clouds, 
 Are not so honour'd in their governor 
 As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine. 
 
 This is bombast, but it is also poetry. 
 
 Doctor Faustus deals with the mediaeval legend after- 
 ward handled in Goethe's Faiist, and portrays the lust for 
 knowledge and pleasure. The play, in spite of Doctor 
 its exaggeration and comparative formlessness, ^*"^^"s 
 is probably Marlowe's masterpiece. In spirit, it represents 
 the man, with his mingled genius and sensuality ; and it 
 represents the Renaissance, with its passion for knowledge 
 and its delight in the joy of living. Faustus, in order to 
 know and to enjoy, sells his soul to the Devil, When, at 
 last, his hour comes, the tragic situation is one of terrible 
 intensity : 
 
 The stars move still, time nins, the clock will strike, 
 The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd. 
 O, I'll leap up to heaven ! — Who pulls me down? — 
 See, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! 
 One drop of blood will save me : O my Christ! — 
 Kcnd not my heart for naming of my Christ ; 
 Yet will I call on him : O, spare me, Lucifer! 
 
 The J CIV of Malta has for its central figure an avaricious 
 and cruel Jew, and portrays the lust for wealth and for
 
 Il6 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 vengeance. Barabas is a monster whose greed knows no 
 bounds, and whose hate knows no pity. After 
 
 Jew of Malta .^. . ^ 1 -i 1 • 1 
 
 committing the most horrible crimes, he comes to 
 his death by being precipitated into a boihng caldron which 
 he had prepared for his enemies. Such lines as these fitly 
 express the spirit that moves him : 
 
 For so I live, perish may all the world! 
 
 Why, is not this 
 A kingly kind of trade, to purchase towns 
 By treachery and sell 'em by deceit? 
 
 Die, life! fly, soul! tongue, curse thy fill, and die! 
 
 Edward // poYtra.ys the agony of a weak and impotent 
 king. It is perhaps the best of Marlowe's plays in dra- 
 matic construction, but lacks something: of the 
 
 Edward II . , , , , r • • • , , 
 
 vigor and boldness 01 imagination that we have 
 found so characteristic of Marlowe. The other plays here 
 treated deal with various conceptions of power ; Edivard II 
 is rather Marlowe's conception of the tragedy of weakness 
 where power should exist. 
 
 Marlowe deals with great types of human passion rather 
 than with veritable human characters. He did not know, 
 like Shakespeare, how to combine the type and the individual 
 Marlowe's ^*^ °"^ living personality. Indeed, his chief gift 
 Genius and is a poctic rather than a dramatic one. As a 
 poet, he ranks with Spenser and Shakespeare ; 
 in the creation of lifeHke character and in the construction 
 of dramatic plot, he is inferior to many of the later drama- 
 tists. We need to remember, however, that he was a 
 pioneer, and that later playwrights learned much from him 
 as to how they might better his example. He first taught 
 them, for example, the use of the " mighty line " which has 
 been the greatest achievement of English metre. No less 
 true is it that he, more than any other single man, deter- 
 mined that English drama should emancipate itself from
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) 117 
 
 the tyranny of classical rules and models, and should assert 
 the freedom of the modern romantic spirit. Henceforward, 
 its limitations were to be set only by the poetic imagination 
 on the one side and by the multitudinous variety of human 
 life on the other. Marlowe's distinguishing qualities arc 
 boldness, energy, vitality, enthusiasm, rather than delicacy, 
 subtlety, or refinement. His faults and limitations are the 
 defects of his qualities. It has been often asserted that 
 he lacked humor; but although he is undoubtedly far be- 
 hind most of the other great dramatists in this particular, 
 he has a grim and grotesque humor of his own. In addition 
 to the dramas just noted, he wrote the Massacre of Paris, 
 collaborated with Nash in Dido and with Shakespeare in 
 Hcnty J 7. His fine lyric gift is illustrated by his Passion- 
 ate Shepherd to his Love ; and in Hero and Leander, he 
 displays high capabilities as a narrative and descriptive 
 poet. Here as elsewhere he manifests that passionate love 
 of beauty which is the best evidence of his poetic inspira- 
 tion. Marlowe wrote drama chiefly because he had fallen 
 upon a dramatic age and because the field of drama offered 
 the readiest way to literary fame for one who had a high 
 ambitious heart but neither position nor influence. In 
 pure poetry, he might well have rivalled Spenser, as in 
 dramatic poetry he did rival in some respects even Shake- 
 speare himself. His brief prologue to Tavthurlaine, his 
 first drama, sounds like a proud and at least half-con- 
 temptuous challenge to his fellow-dramatists and to the 
 public at large : 
 
 From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits, 
 And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, 
 We'll lead you to the stately tent of war, 
 Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamhurlaine 
 Threatening the world with high astouiuling terms, 
 And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword. 
 View hut his picture in this tragic glass, 
 And then applaud his fortunes as you i)leasc.
 
 Il8 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 As we approach the consideration of Shakespeare, it is 
 important to emphasize anew the fact that he was not an 
 isolated Hterary phenomenon, but that his work comes as 
 the culmination of a long course of literary and dramatic 
 development. As we have seen, the modern drama, like 
 Drama before ^^^ ancient, arises out of religion. From the 
 Shakespeare ritualistic ceremonies and saintly legends of the 
 mediaeval church sprang the Mysteries and the Miracle 
 Plays. This dramatic type was distinctly a product of the 
 Middle Ages and reached its perfection in the fifteenth 
 century, more than a hundred years before Shakespeare 
 was born. These mediaeval plays, however, continued to 
 be acted throughout the sixteenth century ; and there can 
 be no doubt that Shakespeare was familiar with them and 
 that he had opportunity to witness their presentation. It 
 is quite within the range of probability that he had seen 
 enacted in his boyhood the plays of the Coventry cycle ; 
 for Coventry was but twenty miles from his home at 
 Stratford. The Mysteries and Miracles were followed by 
 the Moralities and Interludes; and these, too, were fre- 
 quently presented during Shakespeare's lifetime. Kenil- 
 worth Castle was still nearer to his home than Coventry ; 
 and at Kenilworth, in 1575, when Shakespeare was a 
 boy of eleven, occurred the great revels in honor of Queen 
 Elizabeth, with accompaniment of pageants, plays, and var- 
 ious sorts of dramatic entertainment. About a genera- 
 tion before Shakespeare's birth, was produced the first 
 English comedy; and the iirst tragedy was acted in 1561, 
 only three years before Shakespeare came upon the stage 
 of life. From this time dramatic development was rapid. 
 Classical influences produced the " Senecan drama " ; histor- 
 ical interest gave rise to the chronicle plays ; all sorts of dra- 
 matic experiments were proving, selecting, and perfecting 
 the forms of drama that were fittest to survive. The 
 "University Wits," with their wide learning and with
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 119 
 
 their dramatic skill, demonstrated the literary and acting 
 qualities of the new dramatic types. Marlowe, especially, 
 brought really great genius to bear upon dramatic creation, 
 and even where he failed himself, showed others the road. 
 Shakespeare's instrument was ready to his hands ; it re- 
 mained for him to use it, with a genius that understood all 
 its powers and was splendidly adapted to all its capabilities. 
 Not alone to obscure or famous workmen in the field 
 of dramatic development must the genius of Shakespeare 
 acknowledge a debt. He is in many more senses " the heir 
 of all the ages." During its long and strange preparation 
 history, the English language had been battered forshake- 
 and smelted and forged and filed and polished, ^p*^^"^^ 
 until it was perhaps the most perfect literary instrument 
 ever created. Many poets, with Chaucer and Spenser as 
 their chiefs, had conspired to prove the power of this lan- 
 guage in the realms of the higher imagination, and had 
 set models of poetic expression which even the genius of 
 Shakespeare must exert itself to surpass. Two races had 
 combined their peculiar qualities to make the race out 
 of which the greatest of dramatists sprang ; and we are 
 told that Shakespeare had in his own veins both Saxon 
 and Norman blood. This new race, moreover, had been 
 making centuries of splendid history, to enrich Eliza- 
 bethan England and to make its very soil and air full 
 of poetic inspiration. The Renaissance had opened wide 
 the gates of a new intellectual life, and had fired men's 
 souls with the passion for knowledge, with the passion for 
 achievement, and with the passion for poetry. The Refor- 
 mation had stirred anew the deeper springs of the Eng- 
 lish moral nature and had given to ICnglish life a new 
 seriousness as well as a new significance. By way of 
 more immediate influence upon Shakespeare's art, the 
 stage had become a recognized social institution. The 
 age was dramatic in its life; anil it called for the dramatic
 
 120 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 presentation of that life. Shakespeare felt the power and 
 the impulse to portray human character and to set it in 
 action upon the stage. He found existing all the condi- 
 tions favorable to his great achievement. He found the 
 audience already gathered for the spectacle. 
 
 William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, 
 Warwickshire, in 1564, the sixth year of Queen Elizabeth's 
 Shake- reign. We know comparatively little about his 
 
 speare'sLife jjfg^ ^^^ ^]^^^ jil-j-|g jg ^q^ ^]^g most important. Of 
 
 knowledge that throws real light upon his work, we have 
 next to nothing. In one sense, this is a real loss and dis- 
 appointment ; for men naturally have an eager desire for 
 information concerning the greatest of all poets and drama- 
 tists. From another point of view the loss does not seem 
 so great. We have Shakespeare's work, and that work is 
 so extremely objective and so little personal that it does 
 not stand in much need of interpretation from biographical 
 facts. What manner of man Shakespeare must have been, 
 we can understand from his work ; and that is what we 
 chiefly wish to know. Nevertheless, biographical data have 
 their interest, and it is desirable to note the main points in 
 his career. Not least in importance is the fact that his 
 boyhood years were spent in the beautiful " heart of 
 England." Here he learned to know nature, as his works 
 fully attest. If he had known only that human life of 
 which he was so consummate a master, he would still have 
 been a great dramatist ; but much of its subtlest charm 
 and most poetic suggestion would be missing from his 
 work. In this quiet country life, he doubtless developed 
 his marvelous powers of observation, and probably learned 
 to know men and women under primitive natural condi- 
 tions before he came to study them in the more compli- 
 cated relations of the larger world. There was much, too, 
 in his surroundings to kindle the poetic imagination of the 
 growing boy. Warwickshire was a historic and romantic
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) 12I 
 
 land, great and interesting figures crossed Stratford bridge, 
 strolling players brought to the little country town the 
 crude dramatic productions of the day. We have no 
 actual record of Shakespeare's experiences in such direc- 
 tions as these ; but we can hardly err in assuming that 
 such conditions had their influence upon his character and 
 genius. Tradition tells us that he attended the Stratford 
 Grammar School ; and there he doubtless received the ordi- 
 nary education of the day. In addition to religious train- 
 ing, Latin was the ordinary staple of intellectual discipline. 
 Ben Jonson tells us that Shakespeare had " small Latin 
 and less Greek " ; but Jonson was a classical scholar to 
 whom the ordinary schoolboy's training in these lan- 
 guages would seem of little importance. Small as it was, 
 it doubtless served to give Shakespeare some outlook into 
 the thought and literature of the ancient world, to put him 
 in touch with the intellectual spirit of his age. At the 
 age of eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, 
 a woman several years older than hii.isclf. The children 
 of this marriage were Susanna and the twins Hamnet and 
 Judith. Some few years later, he went up to try his for- 
 tunes in London. Tradition tells us that his going was 
 accelerated on account of a deer-stealing episode in the 
 park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a local magistrate ; and some 
 verses are e.xtant in which Shakespeare is said to have 
 ridiculed the good knight. 
 
 Whether impelled by this local difficulty, by the needs 
 of his growing family, or by the promptings of his own 
 genius, Shakespeare found in London the opportunities for 
 his great career. II is first connection with the theatre is 
 said to have been a very humble one; but he found there 
 his proper atmosj)hcre, and his genius quickly ghake 
 made itself felt. lie became an actor, then a spcare'sDra- 
 
 r 1 1 1 r iL i .^ • matic Career 
 
 reviser of old plays for the stage, next an orig- 
 inal i)laywright, and finally a theatrical manager and
 
 122 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 owner. Before he was thirty, he was well known as a 
 dramatist. There is good evidence of his familiar asso- 
 ciation with eminent dramatists and with other great men 
 of his day, and he attracted the favorable notice of 
 Queen Elizabeth. He grew prosperous and acquired 
 considerable property in his native Stratford. For many 
 years he lived mostly in London, but visited his old home 
 from time to time. At about the age of fifty, he retired 
 to Stratford, gave up his dramatic career, and passed his 
 last years in the quiet life of a country gentleman. He 
 died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, and was buried in the 
 chancel of the Stratford parish church. These bare facts 
 of his life tell us little of his inward experience. The spirit- 
 ual history of the man we must read, if at all, in his works. 
 The whole body of Shakespeare's writings falls natu- 
 rally into three divisions, corresponding to three different 
 Shake- manifestations of his poetic or dramatic power, 
 
 speare's Mis- 'pj^ggg divisions cousist of his miscellaneous 
 
 cellaneous 
 
 Poems poems, his sonnets, and his dramas. His first 
 
 known poem was Vemis and Adonis. He called it "the 
 first heir of my invention," and dedicated it to his noble 
 friend and patron, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southamp- 
 ton. It is above all things a poem of youth, but of youth 
 endowed with genius and filled with poetic passion. Sen- 
 suousness is the word that best expresses its dominating 
 quaUty. We feel that the poet was alive to all the physical 
 beauty of the world about him, that all his senses were 
 avenues of fresh delight. Whatever faults the poem may 
 have are simply the excess of the youthful poetic tempera- 
 ment. Its merits are such as form the proper groundwork 
 for his later poetic and dramatic achievements. The poem 
 is filled with the charm of rural nature, made vital by the 
 sympathetic treatment of passionate love. What an eye 
 for natural detail and what a faculty for concrete imagery 
 are illustrated in the description of the wild boar :
 
 H 
 X 
 
 > 
 -i
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) 123 
 
 On his bow-back he hath a battle set 
 
 Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes ; 
 
 His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret ; 
 
 His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes. 
 
 What power of imaginative suggestion in the words : 
 
 Whereat amazed, as one that unaware 
 Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood. 
 
 Lucrece is a bitterly tragic story, going beyond Venus 
 and Adonis in seriousness and depth, but characterized by 
 many of the same qualities. The reader is here more dis- 
 turbed by the fanciful conceits and puns, such as. 
 
 So I at each sad strain will strain a tear. 
 
 On the other hand there is a growing sententiousness of 
 e.xpression which illustrates Shakespeare's own growth in 
 worldly wisdom. In the following stanza, almost every 
 line is a separate aphorism, all circling around the same 
 general idea : 
 
 Tis double death to drown in ken of shore ; 
 He ten times pines tliat pines beholding food; 
 To see the salve doth make the wound ache more; 
 Great grief grieves most at that would do it good ; 
 Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood, 
 
 Wiio, being stopp'd, tiie bounding banks o'erflows ; 
 
 Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows. 
 
 Minor poems of the same group are A Lovers Covi- 
 plaint, The Passionate Pilgritn, and 'J7ie Plicenix and the 
 Turtle. 
 
 If Venus and Adonis displays the poet's earthly and 
 sensual part, the Sonnets may be said to illustrate his 
 transition to a higher ])lane of life and thought. „. , 
 They are moved by strong passion, but they take speare-s son 
 a vastly wider sweep of thought and of poetic "'''^ 
 invention. Their theme is love — the love of man for man 
 and the love of man for woman ; and that theme is treated 
 with a poetic j)ower matched only by the profuiUKJ knuwl-
 
 124 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 edge of the human heart. The whole number of the 
 Sonnets is one hundred and fifty-four. The first one 
 hundred and twenty-six are addresed to a certain noble 
 and beautiful youth, " a man right fair " ; and the re- 
 mainder are addressed to a certain dark lady, " a woman 
 coloured ill." The young man is praised for his noble 
 qualities of mind and person, is warned against the temp- 
 tations that beset his rank, is urged to marry and to per- 
 petuate himself in his offspring. 
 
 From fairest creatures we desire increase, 
 That thereby beauty's rose might never die. 
 
 He is continually addressed in language of passionate 
 tenderness, language that bespeaks a love *' passing the 
 love of women." Even in the friend's absence and aliena- 
 tion, this love remains constant. It desires to see the 
 loved one redeemed from evil courses and faithful to his 
 own best self. 
 
 O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give. 
 
 The sonnets addressed to the " dark woman " seem to 
 imply on her part an irresistible fascination, but a fickle, 
 selfish, and impure heart. She has been false to the poet, 
 she has come between him and his friend, yet he can not 
 break away from her evil spell. It may well be conceived 
 how many phases of love these situations involved and 
 what opportunities were given to Shakespeare for showing 
 his unparalleled insight into the workings of the human 
 heart. The question remains whether the Sonnets reflect 
 actual personal experiences of Shakespeare's life. Did 
 he here " unlock his heart," or did he not } Some have 
 seen in these poems merely a poet's flattery of a noble 
 and influential patron. Others have regarded them as 
 mere literary exercises, in which the poet studied and ex- 
 pressed those human moods which in his dramas he was v.
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 125 
 
 to portray on a larger scale. The difficulty is one which 
 our limited knowledge of Shakespeare's life does not en- 
 able us to solve. The personal interpretation has been 
 most common and seems most natural ; and there are 
 many passages which appear to carry a personal mean- 
 ing. Whatever view be taken, the tlu)u_>;ht, the feeling, 
 the knowledge of the human heart, and above all the ex- 
 quisite poetry are unquestionably Shakespeare's. If the 
 SonNits be personal, they reveal the stain on Shake- 
 speare's character of an unholy love ; they show him as 
 a man who had both sinned and suffered. On the other 
 hand, they show him as one who had struggled up out of 
 the mire toward a nobler plane of living and a larger 
 sympathy with all human weakness. Something of this 
 is expressed in his own words : 
 
 Alas, "tis true I have gone here and there 
 
 And made myself a motley to the view, 
 
 Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, 
 
 Made old oflfences of affections new ; 
 
 Most true it is that I have look'd on truth 
 
 Askance and strangely : but. by all above, 
 
 These blenches gave my heart another youth. 
 
 One of the most beautiful of the Sonnets, and the one per- 
 haps whose sentiment is most typical of the whole series, 
 is here given in full : 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds. 
 
 Or bends with the remover to remove: 
 
 O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 
 
 It is the star to every wandering bark. 
 
 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 
 
 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
 
 Love alters not witli his brief hours and weeks,
 
 126 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 If this be error and upon me prov'd, 
 I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. 
 
 Shakespeare's crowning work is to be found in his 
 dramas, and it is these that call for fullest considera- 
 tion. The common classification divides them 
 speare's into comcdics, tragedies, and history or chronicle 
 Dramas plays. Significant as these divisions are, it is 
 
 more important for our present purpose that we should 
 group the plays with reference to the several periods of 
 Shakespeare's life which they illustrate. This will enable 
 us to see how the work in some degree reflects the genius, 
 the character, and the experience of the man. Following 
 the suggestive outline of Professor Brandl, we may note 
 five periods of Shakespeare's dramatic career, together 
 with the considerable group of dramas belonging to each. 
 
 The first period probably covers approximately the years 
 from 1588 to 1594. It is known as the period of Shake- 
 First Dra- speare's dramatic apprenticeship — the period 
 matic Period in which he was reshaping old plays, watching 
 the work of other men, learning the requirements and 
 capabilities of the stage, making his first original exper- 
 iments, trying his own powers in various directions. All 
 three classes of dramas are represented. Among com- 
 edies we find Loves Labour s Lost, Comedy of Err'ors, Tzvo 
 Gentlevien of Verona, and A Midsiinimer Night' s Dream ; 
 among tragedies, Tit2is Androniciis and Romeo and Juliet ; 
 among histories, Henry PY (three parts), RicJiard LIL, and 
 Richard II. It so happens that one play in each of these 
 three classes stands out far above the rest — something 
 more than prentice work, filled rather with promise of the 
 supreme masterpieces to come. A Midsummer Night's 
 Dream is pure sport of the fancy. Human life is por- 
 trayed, from noble to clown, but it is human Hfe played 
 upon by the whimsical magic of fairy sprites. Puck
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 127 
 
 misleads and confuses the romantic lovers ; Titania, the 
 fairy queen, is enamored of bully Bottom, the weaver, who 
 has been transformed into an ass ; all sorts of fantastic 
 happenings are possible in the poetic atmosphere of this 
 moonlight wood. The spirit of the drama is suggested by 
 such lines as these : 
 
 Puck. What fools these mortals be. 
 
 Theseus. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
 
 Are of imagination all compact. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet is the extremely beautiful and poetical 
 tragedy of youthful passion. Against the dark back- 
 ground of hatred and feud between the two houses of 
 Montague and Capulet, the fair young lovers stand. They 
 meet, they love, they yield themselves to each other as 
 though love were its own defence and had no need to 
 fear the thunderbolt. They are encompassed, however, by 
 forces which they can not break through ; and the dark 
 fate which holds them in its circle allows only that they 
 should die together. Richard III is one of the best acting 
 dramas among Shakespeare's historical plays. Though 
 somewhat crude as compared with his best work, it is a 
 wonderfully impressive production. Richard is a tremen- 
 dous figure, and the action is guided by the motives of 
 ambition, cruelty, and remorse. In addition to the dramas 
 mentioned, the miscellaneous poems also belong to this 
 period. 
 
 Shakespeare's second period is called by Brandl the 
 Falstaff Period. It is otherwise described as the period 
 of Shakespeare's great comedies, of his rapid second Dra 
 growth in dramatic art, of his broader and richer ™atic Period 
 knowledge of human life. The Sonnets belong to this 
 period, and they indicate that it was a time of transition 
 from youth to mature manhood. The years covered are 
 from about 1595 to about 1600. One notable feature of 
 the period is that it contains no tragedies. Its comedies
 
 128 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 are The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, 
 The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Much Ado About 
 Nothing; its histories are King John, Henry /F (two 
 parts), and Henry V. Again one play in each class is 
 decidedly superior to the others. The MercJiant of Venice 
 is the greatest of Shakespeare's comedies, the greatest 
 comedy of the world. Shylock is the grandest figure that 
 the dramatist has thus far created. The victory of the 
 Christians over the despised but implacable Jew makes 
 him a tragic victim in the midst of the joyous and brilliant 
 life around him. In Portia, Shakespeare has gone beyond 
 Juliet, and has portrayed one of his noblest and most 
 richly endowed women. The comedy is bright with 
 humor, beautiful with romance, rich with poetry ; but it is 
 also deep and serious in its underlying conception of life. 
 Christian contempt breeds Jewish hatred. Revenge 
 through subtlety and cunning is the natural impulse of the 
 oppressed race. The superior race becomes proud, con- 
 temptuous, arrogant, and cruel in its superiority. In the 
 antagonism between the two races, power is on the side of 
 the Christians. They pass over to happiness and light and 
 laughter at Belmont, while the thwarted and beaten Jew 
 slinks away to his kennel in the Ghetto. Such are some of 
 the striking features of this masterly drama. In Hcjiry IV, 
 we have Shakespeare's greatest historical play. Here 
 three notable figures stand in significant relation to each 
 other. In the centre is Prince Hal, spending his youth in 
 wild dissipation, but cherishing high and noble purposes in 
 his heart. On the one side of him is the superb comic 
 figure of Falstaff, associate of his folly and riotous living. 
 On the other side is Hotspur, inciting him by high example 
 to the emulation of noble deeds. Prince Hal sows his 
 wild oats, but at the crisis plays the man and shows him- 
 self in due time to be a wise, valiant, and upright king. 
 One can hardly help comparing his career with Shake-
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) 129 
 
 speare's own. We have some reason to suppose that 
 Shakespeare also sowed his wild oats and had opportunity 
 to see "by means of the Evil that Good is best." He 
 knew well that the sowing of wild oats brings its proper 
 harvest ; but he also knew the possibilities of human 
 redemption from the ways of folly and sin. 
 
 We have seen in Shakespeare's second period the evi- 
 dences of a broadening and deepening conception of hu- 
 man life. It is this more serious view of the Third Dra 
 world that is characteristic of his third period, matic Period 
 extending from 1601 to 1604. It is fittingly designated as 
 the Hamlet Period. The comedies of the period are As 
 You Like It, Ttvf/fth Night, All's Well that Ends Well, 
 and Measure for Measure ; the tragedies arc/ulius CcFsar, 
 Hamlet, and Othello. The first-named comedy is the best 
 of its group. It is a beautiful pastoral romance. Not the 
 least significant thing about it is the way in which, amid 
 all its lightness and gayety, it strikes the deeper note. 
 This is illustrated by the well-known passage beginning, 
 " All the world's a stage." It appears also in the char- 
 acter of the "melancholy Jaques," who is a dim anticipa- 
 tion of Hamlet. Measure for Measure \'S> almost tragic in 
 its bitterness. Julius dcsarx's, the greatest of Shakespeare's 
 Roman dramas. The other two tragedies are the dramas 
 most characteristic of the period. In Hamlet, " the world 
 is out of joint," and the tragedy of human life is deep and 
 incurable. That tragedy lies in Hamlet's own nature. 
 He is brave, he is resolute ; but in him " the native hue of 
 resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
 It is not that he is incapable of vigorous and decisive 
 action ; he can act as swiftly and directly as the best when 
 he is absolutely sure of his grounds. His difTiculty is that 
 he sees too clearly all the consequences and imi)lications 
 of his deed. In him we have a finely organized, intellec- 
 tual, and imaginative temperament hamjjering the j)ower
 
 130 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 of action and of will. He realizes his own defect, and, im- 
 patient at himself, acts at times with a sudden rashness. 
 Caught at last in the toils, he falls a victim to his own 
 most noble temperament. He brings down his enemies 
 with him in his fall ; but he must perforce leave to others 
 the task of setting the world to rights. Othello has com- 
 monly been interpreted as a tragedy of jealousy ; but it is 
 rather a tragedy of conflict between three great forces —   
 jealousy, honor, and wedded love. Othello is not a type 
 of the jealous spirit — a negro savage breaking through 
 the restraints of civilized life. He is not at all by nature 
 a jealous man. The true exemplar of jealousy in the 
 drama is lago. By the most deviUsh ingenuity he per- 
 suades Othello of the infidelity of Desdemona and rouses 
 him to action. The spirit in which Othello kills Desde- 
 mona is well expressed in his own words : 
 
 For naught I did in hate, but all in honour. 
 
 Honor and love struggle for the mastery in his great soul. 
 He would fain avoid the task that he feels to be laid upon 
 him, but his sense of duty and of justice is too strong. 
 When his awful deed is done and he realizes his fatal 
 mistake, it is love that triumphs in his soul. These words 
 should be his vindication : 
 
 When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, 
 Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, 
 Nor set down aught in malice ; then must you speak 
 Of one that loved not wisely but too well ; 
 Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought 
 PerplexM in the extreme ; of one whose hand, 
 Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 
 Richer than all his tribe. 
 
 From 1605 to 1608 extends a fourth period which is in 
 Fourth Dra- many ways a continuation of the third. The 
 matic Period gensc of tragedy in human life grows still 
 deeper. A real bitterness against the world seems to have
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 131 
 
 come into the poet's soul. He is on the verge of pessi- 
 mism and misanthropy. The cheerful and hopeful view 
 of life seems for the time to have passed utterly away. 
 It is the Lear Period. Here are the tragedies, Coriolanus, 
 King Lear, Macbeth, and Aniony and Cleopatra ; here, also, 
 are two dramas, the one a comedy and the other a tragedy, 
 which Brandl characterizes as satirical dramas, Troilus 
 and Cnssida and Timon of Athens. These last two plays, 
 in their bitterness and misanthropy, are in a sense the 
 most characteristic of the period. They show Shake- 
 speare's extreme reach in this direction ; and they show 
 also that even Shakespeare could not create great work in 
 such a spirit. The greatest dramas of the period are the two 
 mighty tragedies. King Lear and JSFacbetJi. In King Lear, 
 Shakespeare has drawn a dark and awful i^icture of the 
 ingratitude of children toward a father. The old king has 
 divided his kingdom between his two eldest daughters, 
 casting off his youngest child, Cordelia, because she will 
 not stoop to flatter him in his folly. The cruelty of his 
 children drives Lear to madness and despair. There is no 
 more terrible and pathetic picture in literature than that 
 of the mad king, bareheaded in the tempest, with no 
 companion save his poor faithful fool. The story of 
 Gloster and his cruel son affords both parallel and con- 
 trast to the main action. The meaning of the drama lies 
 in the words : 
 
 How shaqier than a .serpent's tooth it is 
 
 To have a thankless child. 
 
 Its cruelties suggest the question of Lear, " Is there 
 any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts .-* " 
 Macbeth is a tragedy of ambition, of crime, of remorse, 
 of retribution. The witches upon the barren heath, with 
 their "supernatural soliciting," have lodged in Macbeth's 
 mind the tcmi)ting suggestion that he shall be king. With 
 the eiicoaragement and help of his wife, he [)lans and
 
 132 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 accomplishes the murder of the good King Duncan. One 
 crime necessitates another ; and first he murders Banquo 
 and then annihilates the family of Macduff. The ghost 
 of Banquo, sitting at his table, invisible to all but him, 
 marks the beginning of his terrible punishment. Like 
 Richard III, he has all the courage of a man and a sol- 
 dier, can truly say, " what man dare, I dare " ; but the 
 guilt in his heart makes him afraid of shadows. Lady 
 Macbeth, too, is haunted by the same remorse ; she walks 
 in her sleep, rubbing her hands in agony, and crying, " all 
 the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." 
 When her death is announced to Macbeth, he replies in 
 a tone of despairing pessimism : 
 
 She should have died hereafter ; 
 
 There would have been a time for such a word. 
 
 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. 
 
 Fortunately for Shakespeare and for the world, his 
 mood of bitterness does not last. He does not cease to 
 regard life seriously, he does not entirely escape from the 
 sense of gloom and tragedy ; but he passes on into a 
 serener mood. 
 
 In which the burthen of the mystery. 
 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 
 Of all this unintelligible world, 
 
 Is lightened.^ 
 
 This fifth period lies between the years 1608 and 
 161 3. It has been called the period of the Romances; it 
 
 1 Wordsworth, Lines composed near Tintern Abbey.
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (i 579-1625) 133 
 
 contains three " romance-comedies," — Cymbclinc, The 
 Winter s Tale, and The Tevif^est — and a " romance-his- 
 tory," Henry J HI. Shakespeare had always been piftj, u^a- 
 a romantic poet; but here the word "romantic" matic Period 
 seems to take on a larger and higher meaning. The poet 
 turns away from the heart-breaking realities of the actual 
 world to a realm of pure and serene imagination of which 
 he alone is the creator and the potent lord. The typical 
 play of the period is The Tempest. It is in some sense an 
 epitome of all that he has done. Here is human life, from 
 Prospero the seer to Trinculo the drunken jester, from Fer- 
 dinand the prince to Miranda "so perfect and so peer- 
 less." Here, also, is Ariel the " tricksy spirit," and here 
 Caliban the half-beast. The human life is real, but it is 
 surrounded with an atmosphere of enchantment such as 
 exists only in Prospero's magic isle. The wonders of the 
 play are a type of the wonders which Shakespeare's imagi- 
 nation has conjured up before the world. He has scooped 
 out of nothingness a new realm of dreams which he has 
 peopled with figures almost as real as those of actual life. 
 He has taught us in The Tempest that human life itself is 
 a dream, 
 
 And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
 The cioud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The .solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. 
 Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 With such words as these Shakespeare closes his great 
 career, and goes liome to his quiet life and ciuict death at 
 Stratford. " 'i'hc rest is silence." " Like Prospero, he has 
 broken his staff and cast his book into the sea, into a depth 
 which the plummet will never sound " Put his work remains.
 
 134 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 He is the largest figure in tlie world's literature — preem- 
 inently great as a poet, as a dramatist, as an artist in form, 
 as a seer and interpreter of human life. The 
 
 Shake- , . . 
 
 speares great business of a dramatist is to create living 
 Gemus human characters that shall be at once individual 
 
 and typical, and to bring these characters into such rela- 
 tions with each other as shall produce a true and har- 
 monious picture of human life. Shakespeare's genius was 
 adequate to all the demands of such a task. He had an 
 unequalled knowledge of humanity, a deep and true in- 
 sight into life and character. The subtlety of his analysis 
 was matched only by the force and vividness of his crea- 
 tive power in the portrayal of living men and women. In 
 his almost infinite variety there is truly " God's plenty." 
 No man has ever had such breadth and intensity of artistic 
 sympathy; and no man has ever been more objective and 
 impartial in his treatment of all sorts and conditions of 
 men. The range of his dramatic power is amazing; but 
 his mastery of form seems always commensurate with his 
 powers of conception. His stage is the world, his char- 
 acters are types of universal mankind, his subject is the 
 human soul. In his portrayal, he seems to mingle and 
 fuse apparently contradictory elements. His imagination 
 unites the realistic with the romantic, combines the humor- 
 ous and grotesque with what is most deeply tragic. The 
 development of his art — and doubtless of his character — 
 ■was toward self-confidence, self-mastery, serenity, a gen- 
 erous but profound morality. If any man was ever in har- 
 mony with nature, it was he. Consciously or unconsciously, 
 he understood the world in which he lived, sympathized 
 with it, and had the power to portray it. As a pure 
 poet, he is almost equally great. He was "of imagination 
 all compact." He had the poet's passion for beauty and 
 the poet's gift of music. Without these special powers, 
 he might still have been a great dramatist j but his dra-
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 135 
 
 Tnatic work is immeasurably exalted by his genius as a poet. 
 It is the glorvof his art that he is at once supremely poetic 
 and supremely true. 
 
 Ben Jonson — probably, all things considered, the great- 
 est of Shakespeare's dramatic contemporaries — was a 
 younger man than Shakespeare by nearly ten years, and 
 lived for over twenty years after Shakespeare's 
 
 ,_, , , . 1 r 1 Bd Jonson 
 
 death. The best dramatic work of the two men, 
 however, was substantially contemporary, and their inti- 
 mate personal association naturally links them together. 
 Jonson's genius is in very great contrast with that of 
 Shakespeare and at almost the opposite extreme from 
 that of Marlowe. He was probably not a university 
 man ; but, nevertheless, he was perhaps quite the most 
 learned poet of his age. The foundations of his scholar- 
 ship were well laid by an excellent education at West- 
 minster School, under the walls of Westminster Abbey 
 in London ; and upon this foundation he zealously 
 built by his own lifelong efforts as a student. His 
 learning was chiefly classical, as was natural in that 
 age of the Renaissance ; and it united with the natural 
 bent of Jonson's mind to make him the great classical 
 dramatist in an age of romantic writers. We have ob- 
 served the tendency to conform English drama to clas- 
 sical models — a tendency that was resisted and overcome 
 chiefly by Marlowe and Shakespeare. With this classical 
 tendency Jonson was largely in sympathy ; and if all the 
 Elizabethan dramatists had been of his mind, the character 
 of English drama would have been far different. Jonson, 
 moreover, was less a born genius than u conscious and 
 trained artist. He was not, like Marlowe, swept away by 
 his passion ; rather, he thorough l-y understood his business 
 as a dramatist, and accomj)lished his results with fore- 
 thought and deliberation. The common antithesis has 
 been that Jon.son had art while Shakespeare had nature,
 
 136 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 and it is as true as any such general statement can well 
 be. Still another point of difference between Jonson and 
 most other Elizabethan dramatists lies in the fact that he 
 was very much of a realist. His experience had been 
 such as to give him a wide and accurate knowledge of 
 men and things. He was a keen and shrewd observer, 
 and his mind was stored with such superficial knowledge 
 of life and character as observation can give. In particu- 
 lar, he was well acquainted with the life of London, and 
 had an inclination and an aptitude for the portrayal of 
 its oddities and whimsicalities — what he called its "hu- 
 mours." There is nothing of this in Marlowe ; there is 
 little in Shakespeare, although he — thoroughgoing ro- 
 manticist as he was — knew how in his own way to reach 
 the essential realities of life. It may be further observed 
 that Jonson, like Shakespeare, knew the theatre, and was 
 therefore a practical playwright as well as a theoretical 
 artist. This has given to his best plays an acting quality 
 which is lacking in the dramas of Marlowe and of some 
 later as well as earlier writers. The personal characteris- 
 tics of the man are scarcely less interesting than his genius, 
 and have at least an indirect relation to his literary work. 
 He was a burly figure — direct, honest, and independent. 
 His nature was aggressive and pugnacious, and in the 
 course of his life he had many quarrels on his hands, lit- 
 erary and otherwise. It is reported that he killed two 
 men in duels and that he came near being hanged. He 
 was in every way a commanding personality and came 
 nearer than any other man to dominating the great circle 
 in which he moved. Withal, he was genial and convivial, 
 a central figure in the tavern combats of wit. Speaking 
 of Shakespeare, Thomas Fuller writes : " Many were the 
 wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I 
 behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English 
 man-of-war ; Master Jonson, like the former, was built
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 137 
 
 far higher in learning, soHd, but slow in his perform- 
 ances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser 
 in bulk but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack 
 about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of 
 his wit and invention." In a word, Jonson was a man to 
 be loved, hated, but never ignored. His epitaph, carved 
 in three separate places in Westminster Abbey, is one of 
 the most appropriate and suggestive ever written : " O rare 
 Ben Johnson ! " 
 
 Jonson's first play was a comedy with the characteristic 
 title, Every Man in his Hitvioitr. It deals with certain 
 phases of London life, and illustrates his realism, jonson-s 
 his treatment of " humours," and his observance Dramas 
 of classical rules. This was shortly followed by Every 
 Man out of his Ilumonr. Other plays of the same gen- 
 eral type are Tlie Silent Woman and The AleJieniist. The 
 latter is probably his masterpiece in comedy. Its theme is 
 quacker)', and its central figures are three finely contrasted 
 impostors — Subtle, Face, and Dol Common. They are 
 banded together to du])c " not one or two gulls, but a 
 whole flock of them." The notable figure of the play is 
 the famous Sir Epicure Mammon, a singular compound 
 of lu.xury, lust, credulity, greed, and fertile imagination. 
 The plot becomes very complicated, as the various dupes 
 all flock to the house at the same time and yet must be 
 kept from knowledge of each other. Jonson weaves 
 these various threads of interest into a most masterly 
 plot, and leads up with great skill to the humorous catas- 
 trophe. Volpone, or TJie Fox, is not so much the treat- 
 ment of a "humour" as of a master passion. Its central 
 figure is an avaricious Venetian nobleman^^ There is in it 
 more f)f romantic atmosphere than in most of Jonson's 
 dramas. Representative of his more purely classical work 
 and al.so of his method in tragedy, arc his Sejanns and his 
 Catiline. Nowhere is the contrast between him and Shake-
 
 138 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 speare more striking. Jonson brought to bear all his learn- 
 ing, aimed at scrupulous fidelity to historical fact, sought 
 to portray Romans and Roman life as they actually had 
 been ; he carefully avoided mingling comedy with tragedy. 
 Shakespeare, on the other hand, was very little concerned 
 about historical accuracy, exercised a large freedom in 
 portraying men simply as men, and had no hesitation in 
 mingling the humorous and the tragic as they are mingled 
 in actual life. No plays seem to have been more popu- 
 lar on the stage than Jonson's. This appears somewhat 
 strange considering the romantic tendencies of the age ; 
 but it is due perhaps in part to Jonson's personal popu- 
 larity and possibly in still greater measure to the natural- 
 ness of the characters and the skilful construction of the 
 plots. It is certainly not due to their poetic charm, for in 
 Jonson's best acting plays there is remarkably little poetry. 
 Yet Jonson was a genuine poet. This is shown in some 
 of his minor plays, and it is shown still more emphatically 
 Jonson's ^^ his Masques. The masque was a sort of lyr- 
 Masques JQg^i g^j-j^j mythological dramatic production, usually 
 presented with the accompaniment of gorgeous costume 
 and of elaborate scenery and stage machinery. Jonson 
 wrote many masques of much lyrical beauty ; and his 
 work in this kind is the best in English literature with 
 the single exception of Milton's Comus, written three years 
 before Jonson's death. 
 
 Jonson wrote some noble poetry entirely outside of 
 dramatic lines. The most of this was gathered up in two 
 volumes known as The Forest and Underwoods. The best 
 Jonson's of it is in the form of personal odes and of light 
 Poems and graceful lyric pieces. The former show 
 
 Jonson as a man of fine moral dignity, of religious nature, 
 of humble and reverent spirit, of manly temper. The 
 latter are so surprisingly beautiful and delicate that it 
 seems hard at first thought to believe that they could have
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 139 
 
 been written by the same strong hand that wrote the plays. 
 Perhaps the best known of his lighter lyrics is that begin- 
 ning : 
 
 Drink to me only with thine eyes. 
 
 Jonson was a prose-writer also, his most important work 
 bearing the title of Tiuibcr, or Discoveries made upon 
 Men and Matter. It consists of notes, thoughts, jonson's 
 aphorisms, and short essays, and expresses his ^''°®^ 
 ideas \\\-)on subjects ethical, rhetorical, critical, literary, 
 artistic, educational, political, and historical. His style is 
 more plain and direct than most written in his age, and 
 shows more approach toward the method of modern 
 prose. 
 
 The names of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher are 
 inseparably linked together in literary history. Fifty- 
 two plays are attributed to them, and most of Beaumont 
 these were the result of their joint authorship, and Fletcher 
 It is the common tradition that Fletcher's genius was the 
 more creative and Beaumont's the more critical. However 
 this may be, the work of the two is thoroughly welded to- 
 gether and bears a unique stamp. It is as typically romantic 
 as Jonson's is typically classical. As a whole, it is poet- 
 ical, as romantic drama ought to be. The plays were very 
 popular upon the stage, and this popularity was justified by 
 their admirable construction and excellent acting qualities. 
 On the moral side there is a decided lowering of tone, and 
 some of the plays are extremely coarse. Many of the charac- 
 ters are natural and lifelike, and fill the stage with bright 
 and joyous figures. Sometimes, however, there is exaggera- 
 tion, distortion, and vulgarity in the treatment of character. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher know little or nothing of those 
 deeper laws of life of which Shakespeare was tlie great 
 portrayer and revealer. They have little of that elevation 
 and dignity which marks the best work of Jonson. Some 
 of their finest sentiments are put int(j the mouths of their
 
 I40 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 worst villains, and life seems ordered more by the dictates 
 of romantic fancy than by its own inevitable laws. In 
 spite of all limitations, however, their work has an un- 
 doubted and continuing fascination. It represents drama 
 in its decline from the moral and poetic and artistic height 
 of Shakespeare ; but it still belongs to the great age, before 
 the drama had fallen into decay. 
 
 The best work of Beaumont and Fletcher was in ro- 
 mantic comedy, lying between their tragic work on the 
 one side and their broad farcical comedy on the other. 
 No single play is more representative than PJiil- 
 aster, which might almost be called a tragi- 
 comedy. It deals with the love of Philaster for the Princess 
 Arethusa and his groundless jealousy of the page Bellario. 
 Bellario finally turns out to be the beautiful and noble lady 
 Euphrasia, who, because of her love for Philaster, has long 
 followed him in the disguise of a page. The play ends 
 with the marriage of Philaster and Arethusa and with the 
 elevation of Philaster to the kingship, of which he is the 
 rightful heir. There are some strong scenes and some 
 vigorous characters. The plot is in the main rapid and 
 interesting. The situations are dramatic and varied, rang- 
 ing from the purely romantic to the vividly realistic. The 
 character of Euphrasia is a charming creation — romantic, 
 beautiful, and affecting. Her pathetic situation at the 
 close, after she has been the means of bringing the lovers 
 together, adds the touch of tragedy which deepens the 
 effect of the whole drama. 
 
 The dramatic product of the Age of Shakespeare must 
 have been immense. We know that many plays — prob- 
 MinorDra- ^^^Y ^^^ majority — have been lost ; and yet we 
 maticcon- still retain the names and the works — in some 
 
 temporaries , . . 1 1 • i 
 
 of Shake- cases volummous — of more than thirty drama- 
 speare tists. Many of these are to us mere shadows, 
 
 except for their works ; and in many cases the authorship
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579 1625) 141 
 
 of the plays is a matter of great uncertainty. The briefest 
 possible mention of a few of the most prominent among 
 Shakespeare's dramatic contemporaries must suffice for the 
 present purpose. 
 
 George Chapman is best known to posterity as the 
 translator of Homer. His work in this direction has been 
 highly esteemed down to our own day, and has even been 
 called, by Saintsbury, "the best translation into English 
 verse of any classic, ancient or modern, ex- George 
 cept FitzGerald's Omar K/iayyam." In original Chapman 
 poetry he displays considerable power, but falls under 
 the charge of unnaturalness and obscurity. His dramatic 
 works make the same impression of great though unregu- 
 lated power. Many of them are of the history or chronicle 
 type, and deal with almost contemporary French history. 
 His tragic efforts have something of Marlowe's bombastic 
 rant, without Marlowe's excuse. In comedy he is among 
 the best of the minor dramatists. 
 
 John Marston was a satirical poet, and the strain of 
 bitter and gloomy sarcasm runs through most of his dramas. 
 His most typical work is The Malcontent, a j^jj^ 
 satirical play of the same general type as Marston 
 Moliere's Misant/irof>e. Like Chapman, he seems to imi- 
 tate Marlowe's thunder without Marlowe's power. The 
 practice of collaboration among the Elizabethan dramatists 
 is well illustrated by the fact that Jonson, Chapman, and 
 Marston united in the production of Rastzvard Ho, a play 
 which seems to have given offence to King James because 
 of a slur on the Scots. 
 
 The height of Shakespeare is reached by many ascents, 
 and Thomas Dckker approaches him on the side of liis 
 poetry, his humor, and his tenderness. We Thomas 
 know jjractically nothing of Oekker from any ex- ^^^^^^ 
 tcrnal evidence ; but from his certain work we can shape 
 a fairly distinct concepticju of iiis character and genius.
 
 142 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 His plays are gay, sweet, pathetic, and sometimes touched 
 with charming fancy — as in his Old Fortimatits, dealing 
 with the familiar fairy-tale of the- wishing-Cap and the in- 
 exhaustible purse. His blank. verse is often bealutiful, his 
 dramatic lyrics are worthy to be mentioned with those of 
 \ Shakespeare and of Beaumont and Fletcher, and what is 
 i perhaps his greatest praise, no' minor dramatist of the age 
 , surpasses him in the treatment of women. 
 
 Thomas Heywood was called by Charles Lamb " a prose 
 Shakespeare," by which phrase Lamb seems to have meant, 
 Thomas not that Heywood was a master of poetic and 
 
 Heywood imaginative prose, but that lie was able to treat 
 well in a prosaic fashion those more ordinary and prosaic 
 aspects of life which Shakespeare could clothe with the 
 charm of poetic fancy. Thus understood, the characteriza- 
 tion is just, and constitutes no mean praise. Heywood's 
 most famous and typical work is A Woman Killed with 
 Kindness. That he was an exceedingly voluminous writer 
 is shown by his claim to have had " a whole hand or a 
 main finger in two hundred and twenty plays." He is not 
 to be confounded with John Heywood, the pre-Elizabethan 
 writer of interludes. 
 
 Thomas Middleton was much more poetical and had a 
 wider range of dramatic ability. Most of his plays are 
 comedies of contemporary manners and hold a fair rank 
 Thomas with the many other plays of this type. The 
 
 Middleton Spanish Gypsy is a romantic comedy of much 
 finer quality. In tragedy Middleton was inclined toward 
 the drama of blood and violence. His two masterpieces are 
 Women Beware Women and TJie Cha?igeling, in which 
 gloomy horror is not much relieved by crude and farcical 
 comedy. The Witch is best known because of its interest- 
 ing association with Shakespeare's Macbeth. 
 
 The last and in some respects the greatest of the con- 
 temporaries of Shakespeare who can be dealt with here
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 143 
 
 is John Webster. Shakespeare aside, he is unmatched 
 for pure poetry in drama except by Marlowe. 
 
 ^, , ^ • 1 ... -1 1 ^ John Webster 
 
 No less eminent is his terrible tragic power; 
 and in the creation of splendid types of character that yet 
 are thoroughly human, Shakespeare alone is his superior. 
 Webster's dramas are not pleasant reading — they are too 
 ghastly, too horrible, too full of death and blood ; they 
 have too little of naturalness and of orderly arrangement 
 in the plot. Rut they are vivid, impressive, and tremen- 
 dously forcible ; and they display a poetic imagination that 
 ranges from pathetic to sublime. His two greatest plays 
 are Vittoria Coromboua, or The White Devil, and The 
 Duchess of Malfi. Both deal with Italian themes ; and 
 those who are disposed to criticise Webster too severely for 
 the horrors which he serves up so freely should at least 
 remember that those horrors find large justification in the 
 facts of Italian life and history during the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 Some of the dramatic work just described was written 
 during the last years of Elizabeth's reign, which ended in 
 1603 ; but most of it was produced during the reign of 
 James I, which continued until 1625. The Jacobean 
 poetry written between these two dates has been Poetry 
 already in part anticipated ; for the Elizabethan lyric po- 
 etry still continued with only gradual change of quality, 
 and the later works of the historical poets, Daniel and 
 Drayton, belong to this later period. Reminding our- 
 selves of this overlapping of periods, which is one of the 
 marked features of this crowded age, we may take up the 
 thread of poetic development. Some of the best poetry 
 of the time was written by the dramatists, and has already 
 been mentioned or alluded to. Shakespeare's Sonnets, of 
 course, stand in the first rank. Jonson's lyric poems add 
 much to the poetic total ; and Chapman's original and 
 traiiblatcd work is of real importance. We may also re-
 
 144 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 mind ourselves again of the exquisite songs of such dram- 
 atists as Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Dekker. 
 Perhaps the first name that ought to be mentioned after 
 these is that of Sir Walter Raleigh — a name unmatched 
 Sir Walter ^'^^ romautic charm except by that of Sir PhiHp 
 Raleigh Sidney. Raleigh was a true Elizabethan ; and 
 
 many of his achievements and some of his literary produc- 
 tions belong to the earlier reign. Nevertheless, although 
 he was over fifty years of age when Elizabeth died, and 
 although his name is forever associated with hers, as a 
 literary figure he belongs chiefly to the reign of James. It 
 can hardly be doubted that he had sufficient genius to have 
 given him a place among the greatest poets of the age — 
 to have ranked him even beside his friend Spenser ; but 
 his was a life chiefly devoted to action and adventure, 
 and literature claimed him mainly in those days which he 
 spent in disgrace and imprisonment. The few lyrics that 
 are certainly his show a mingling of lofty and dignified 
 emotion with pure lyric music. Several of these connect 
 themselves pretty clearly with his well-known reverses of 
 fortune, and tradition tells us that some of his verses 
 were written on the night before he was beheaded. 
 The following lines are said to have been found in his 
 Bible : 
 
 Even such is time, that takes in trust 
 Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
 And pays us but with earth and dust ; 
 Who, in the dark and silent grave, 
 When we have wandered all our ways, 
 Shuts up the story of our days ; 
 But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
 My God shall raise me up, I trust ! 
 
 A very different name is that of John Donne, famous 
 preacher, theologian, Dean of St. Paul's, and metaphysical 
 poet. Donne is regarded by most competent authorities
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 145 
 
 as a really great poet; but his poetry can hardly be said 
 to make a very strong appeal to the ordinary reader. It 
 is beyond question, however, that it did exert 
 
 r 1 • ,T 111 c John Donne 
 
 a poweriul intiuence upon the development of 
 English poetry. While as a preacher Donne is associated 
 with the religious spirit of the age, as a poet he is a child 
 of the Renaissance. He is so through his earlier passion- 
 ate love poetry ; he is so, too, in the pathetic meditation on 
 death which grows out of an intense love for life ; he is so 
 to some extent in his poetic form. His later productions 
 were more religious and philosophical. As a whole, his 
 poetry is charged with intense thought and with intense 
 feeling. The description of him as a " metaphysical poet " 
 implies an excessive intellectual ingenuity, which makes 
 his poetic images at times merely fantastic, and which is 
 not conducive to direct, sincere, and simple poetic ex- 
 pression. Largely through his influence, so-called " con- 
 ceits," clever and ingenious tricks of language, became a 
 fashion with later poets. One of the less objectionable of 
 his own appears in the following lines: 
 
 Our two souls therefore, which are one, 
 Though I must go, endure not yet 
 A breacli, but an expansion, 
 Like gold to airy thinness beat. 
 
 This, though fanciful, is not unpuctical. Immediately 
 afterward, however, he compares the two souls to a pair 
 of compasses. What redeems Donne's poetry and what 
 probably makes it most esteemed by his admirers, is the 
 occasional splendid flash of genuine poetic imagination, 
 lighting up the obscurity of his verse as with a sudden 
 glare of lightning. 
 
 One of the most genuine and most charming poets 
 of the early seventeenth century was William wiuiam 
 Browne. His principal work is Brit a fluid's J\is- Browne 
 torali. Besides this, he wrcjte 'lltf S/np/tird's Pif^f, The
 
 146 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 Inner Temple Masque, and a varied collection of minor 
 poems. His poetry has much of the Elizabethan and 
 Renaissance spirit. His conceptions are classical, he is 
 possessed by the love of beauty, and his verse is often 
 finely musical. In all this, he was an acknowledged disci- 
 ple of Spenser, and gives us occasion to note that Spen- 
 ser's influence united with that of Ben Jonson and Donne 
 to determine the character of English poetry during this 
 generation and afterward. What is new and original in 
 Browne is his poetical treatment of nature. He writes of 
 it in the prevailing classical fashion, and his poetry is full 
 of the nymphs and spirits of wood and water ; but he knew 
 nature directly, and his descriptions are often full of fresh- 
 ness and naturalness as well as of poetic charm. He has 
 a true artistic instinct for music and for color. He com- 
 bines in an interesting way the high moral tone of Puri- 
 tanism with Renaissance delight in beauty. 
 
 A poet associated with Browne through intimate per- 
 sonal friendship and through some similarity in poetic work 
 George IS Gcorge ^Wither. They were of nearly equal 
 
 Wither a^ge . ]3ut Withcr's life was the longer by nearly 
 
 a quarter of a century. Although he lived well through 
 the age of Milton, most of his best poetry was written in 
 his early life, the chief exception being a collection of 
 sacred songs entitled Hallelujah. The work that connects 
 him most closely with Browne is his SJiepJierd's Hunting 
 and his collaboration with Browne in the latter's Shepherd's 
 Pipe. His poetical work was doubtless the better for 
 Browne's influence. Wither's nature was the sterner of 
 the two, as is illustrated by his satire entitled Abuses Stript 
 and Whipt and by his reUgious poetry. He became more 
 and more of a Puritan, and in latter life expressed repent- 
 ance for his often beautiful and always innocent earlier 
 poetry. Doubtless his love for beauty, in nature, in 
 woman, in poetry, and in life, seemed to him a frivolous
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 147 
 
 and even sinful indulgence. The names of the two poetic 
 friends are thus linked together in an old couplet : 
 
 And long may England's Thespian springs be known 
 By lovely Wither and by bonny Browne. 
 
 The Scotch poetry of the period is well represented by 
 William Drummond, friend and follower of Ben Jonson. 
 From his beautiful and romantic home on the bank of the 
 river Esk, near Edinburgh, he is always known Drummond of 
 as Drummond of Hawthorndcn. Jonson visited Hawthomden 
 him there in 1619 ; and from the visit arose Drummond's 
 famous Conversations with Ben Jonson, which contained 
 some rather indiscreet passages. His poetry as a whole 
 is that of a skilful writer rather than that of the born poet. 
 Yet it is not altogether without passion and dcjith. His love 
 poetry is inspired by sorrow over the death of his betrothed 
 bride ; and his sacred poetry is the outcome of a serious relig- 
 ious nature. His elegies and pastorals are of less poetic 
 value. Probably his best formal work is in his sonnets, 
 though he had an exxellent gift for pure lyric expression. 
 
 Turning from Jacobean poetry to Jacobean prose, we 
 come at once upon one of the most striking and impor- 
 tant figures of the age. The generation to which Shake- 
 speare belonged produced a variety of splendid types in 
 various departments of literature — types like Sidney, Ra- 
 leigh, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare himself. Its 
 type of pure and cold intelligence is Francis prands 
 Hacon, Lord High Chancellor, Baron Verulam, Ba^on 
 Viscount St. Albans, greatest philosopher and greatest 
 scientist of his age. With the lawyer, the judge, the 
 statesman, the noble, the scholar, and the investigator, we 
 have not here much to do; for these characters of the 
 man have only an indirect association with literature. 
 Nor arc we mcjre concerned with the controversy concern- 
 ing his personal rhnrnrtcr. Pope called him " the wisest,
 
 148 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 brightest, meanest of mankind." The epigram is both ex- 
 aggerated and uncharitable, but it suggests something of 
 the astonishing contrasts to be found in Bacon's nature. 
 He was a son of the Renaissance, in some of his best 
 qualities as in some of his worst. He had its largeness 
 and its eagerness of intelligence, its love of learning, its 
 freedom of spirit, though he perhaps lacked something 
 of its generous enthusiasm. His faults were those of too 
 much intellect and too little heart. 
 
 The larger part of Bacon's life belongs to the reign of 
 Elizabeth ; but his greatest achievements, both literary and 
 other, fall within the reign of James I. His philosophical 
 Bacon's and scientific works — those upon which he ex- 
 
 works pected his fame chiefly to rest — were written in 
 
 Latin, and it is only incidentally that he becomes a writer 
 of English prose. Indeed, the limitations of Bacon's purely 
 literary instinct are well shown by his opinion that English 
 was not a safe medium through which to hand down a 
 great work to posterity. With magnificent intellectual 
 audacity, he declared, " I have taken all knowledge to be 
 my province " ; and his literary plan was commensurate 
 with this declaration. He projected a great work in 
 Latin which was to be called the histauratio Magna 
 Scientiarum, and was to cover the whole field of natural 
 philosophy. Only the second part of this, the Novum Or- 
 ganum, was ever completed. As an introduction to the 
 whole, he wrote in English the famous Advancement of 
 Learning, which he afterward translated into Latin. His 
 other important English works are his Essays, his History 
 of Henry VH, and his New Atlantis, the last an uncom- 
 pleted philosophical romance of the same general type as 
 More's Utopia. It is one of the ironies of literary history 
 that the English language which Bacon despised should 
 be the medium through which he is most generally known 
 to posterity and through which he has a name in litera-
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 149 
 
 ture as a great master of prose style. " These modern 
 languages," he declared, "will at one time or the other 
 play the bankrupt with books." Yet it is by virtue of his 
 English writings, and more especially of his Essays, that 
 he is accounted the central figure in the prose literature 
 of his age. When we consider this fact, we may under- 
 stand that decided limitations must be set to the greatness 
 of his purely literary fame. Take him for all in all, he is 
 one of the greatest figures in history. In English litera- 
 ture, great as he is, he is less great than he has commonly 
 been accounted. 
 
 The Essays, as to their matter, might be called a su- 
 preme product of purely worldly wisdom. They are close- 
 packed with thought, and it is the thought of Bacon's 
 a man who has pondered deeply on men and Assays 
 things and who has had wide experience of human life; 
 but Bacon's words are the words of prudence and sagacity 
 rather than of high principle or of a fine idealism. Little 
 of the loftier, more religious, more poetic side of human 
 nature is to be found in them, but much of keen insight 
 and of shrewd advice. The style fits the substance. It is 
 learned, but it is not abstruse or involved. It lacks music, 
 but it has directness, compactness, and pith. It is intellec- 
 tual and frequently heavy with weight of thought, but it 
 is clear and forcible. Sometimes it is simple and almost 
 plain; sometimes it is ornate and figurative; but even its 
 imaginative quality has a curious air of intellectual inge- 
 nuity, seems born of reason rather than of emotion. Latin 
 quotation is frequent ; it is as though, even here, he hesi- 
 tated to commit himself fully to the use of his mother 
 tongue. Nowhere is it truer that the style is the man ; 
 for Bacon has here exjjrcssed himself with all the natu- 
 ralness and sincerity of which his nature was cajjable. 
 Everywhere we see the wf)rking of his " chemical brain " ; 
 everywhere we feel the lack of any passion but the
 
 150 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 passion of the intellect. It is thus that he writes " Of 
 
 Studies " : 
 
 Studies serve for Delight, for Ornament, and for Ability. Their 
 Chiefe Use for Delight, is in Privatenesse and Retiring ; For Ornament, 
 is in Discourse; And for Ability, is in the Judgement and Disposition of 
 Businesse. . . . To spend too much Time in 6'///(^/>j, is Sloth ; To use 
 them too much for Ornament, is Affectation ; To make Judgement 
 wholly by their Rules is the Humour of a Scholler. . . . Crafty Men 
 Contemne Studies] Simple Men Admire them; And Wise Men Use 
 them. . . . Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed, 
 and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested ; that is, some Bookes are 
 to be read onely in Parts ; Others to be read but not Curiously ; And 
 some Few to be read wholly, and with Diligence and Attention. . . . 
 Reading maketh a Full Man ; Conference a Ready Man ; And Writing 
 an Exact Man. And therefore. If a Man Write little, he had need 
 have a Great memory ; If he Conferre little, he had need have a 
 Present Wit ; And if he Reade little, he had need have much Cun- 
 ning, to seeme to know that he doth not. Histories make Men Wise ; 
 Poets Witty ; The Mathemaiicks Subtill ; Naturall Philosophy deepe ; 
 MorallQx2L\^\ Logick and Rhetorick Able to Contend. Abeunt sttidia 
 in Mores. 
 
 In addition to Bacon there is a considerable group of 
 minor prose-writers, only the most prominent of whom 
 can be here mentioned. Ben Jonson's work in prose has 
 already been considered. Sir Walter Raleigh 
 falls to be mentioned here chiefly by virtue of 
 his History of the World. It is not great history ; it is 
 not great literature ; as a whole, it is not written in a great 
 style ; but it places Raleigh among the notable prose- 
 writers of his time because of occasional brief passages 
 which display the touch of a master. It is these, together 
 with similar happy things in his poetry, which make us 
 regret that Raleigh's life could not have been given to 
 literature. One of his finest bursts of eloquence occurs 
 in the concluding passage of the History. It has not been 
 often surpassed by any writer of English prose. 
 
 O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could advise, 
 thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast done ; and
 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) 151 
 
 whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the 
 world and despised ; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched 
 greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it 
 all over with these two narrow words — Hie jacetl 
 
 An interesting type of prose literature is represented 
 by Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, written, in fact, by 
 several hands. The type was borrowed from „ u , 
 
 ' ' Overbury s 
 
 Greek Hterature, but had a natural association Characters 
 with the portrayal of " humours " in the comedy of Hen 
 Jonson and his contemporaries. The *' Character" is a short 
 sketch of a familiar type of life and manners, and is usu- 
 ally analytic, didactic, and ethical in purpose. It is said 
 that over two hundred publications of the kind were put 
 forth during the seventeenth century. They are an in- 
 teresting anticipation of some aspects of the modern 
 novel. Another typical book is Robert Burton's Anatoviy 
 of Melancholy. It is typical in its vast learn- Burton's 
 ing ; for learning was now the chief remain- Anatomy 
 ing evidence of the Renaissance influence in literature. 
 It is typical also in its serious and exhaustive treatment 
 of " melancholy " ; for this was a melancholy generation. 
 Men saw the high hopes and splendid enthusiasms of 
 the early Renaissance fading away ; learning seemed 
 the chief good still left, and even "much study" was "a 
 weariness of the flesh." 
 
 We must class among the minor prose-writers that re- 
 markable group of men who in 161 1, at tiie order of 
 King James, produced the Authorized Version Authorized 
 of the Bible. Nevertheless, they gave shape Version 
 to the most jjcrfect of all the great monuments of Eng- 
 lish prose. At the basis of their success lay their mag- 
 nificent model, in its various forms of Hebrew, Greek, and 
 Latin. Then they allowed themselves to feel the full in- 
 fluence of the splendid ICngli.sh translations of VVyclif, 
 Tyndale, and later revisers. Lastly, they lived in an age
 
 152 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 of stately and musical prose, remote enough from our time 
 to have something of archaic flavor, near enough to be in 
 all essentials our own modern speech. This wonderful 
 book largely created the conditions out of which Puritan- 
 ism arose in the next generation ; it entered into the life of 
 the English race, to mold their literature as well as their 
 religious thought ; it is still alive after three centuries, more 
 powerful in literary influence than any other book, because 
 nearer to the hearts of the people. 
 
 Interior of Swan Theater 
 
 After a sketch made in 1596
 
 ^Ohyrv c///CU^Cniy
 
 CHAITl-.R IX 
 
 THE AGE OF MILTOX (1625-1660) 
 
 We have observed during the reigu of James I the de- 
 cline of those forces and influences which grew out of the 
 Renaissance, and have seen how the temper of the age was 
 affected by the growing intellectuality and the Decline of 
 growing melancholy. Men felt that they had Renaissance 
 dreamed a glorious dream and had at length seen it " die 
 away, and fade into the light of common day." The 
 power and the glory were not yet quite gone; for they 
 were still to touch the lighter poetry of the coming gener- 
 ation with an afterglow of beauty and to shed their magic 
 charm around the young steps of Milton. The Renais- 
 sance was still a power to be reckoned with in English 
 literature. Nevertheless, its old strength could never be 
 quite renewed, and literature had need of something to 
 sujiplant or to supplement its influence. The time was not 
 yet fully rii)e for an entirely different age with other men 
 and other manners. Such new power as came was due 
 to the quickening and intensifying of a force which had 
 been long in existence — that religious spirit Religious 
 which had entered into I-jiglish life with the influence 
 Reformation and which had never ceased to exert a strong 
 though quiet influence. As we have had already many 
 occasions to see, it had been operative during the whole of 
 the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth; 
 but up to this time it had been subordinate to the Renais- 
 sance as a literary force. It had .served to exalt beauty 
 and to deepen thought and feeling; it had enriched poetry 
 and had restrained the excesses of the drama by a .sense 
 
 153
 
 154 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 of moral law ; but it had never quite ranked as the su- 
 preme guiding impulse to literary creation. Now it was 
 to take the chief place and to be the dominating influence 
 in life and in literature. The Renaissance influence was 
 henceforth to sink into the place of secondary importance 
 until the time should come for its complete extinction. 
 
 The relation between the Renaissance and the Reforma- 
 tion is an interesting one. There had always been more 
 or less of opposition between them. The one 
 
 Renaissance . 
 
 and Refor- was essentially mtellectual, the other essentially 
 mation spiritual ; the one found its dehght in the lust 
 
 of the eye and the pride of life, while the other had set its 
 affections on the things that are above; the one rejoiced 
 in all human powers and dreamed of man's dominion over 
 the empire of this world, while the other counted the na- 
 tions of the earth but as the small dust of the balance 
 and looked for a city which hath foundations. Yet on the 
 whole these two great forces had moved in the same 
 direction. At first they had worked toward the common 
 end of freedom and expansion in thought, the one asserting 
 liberty of intelligence, the other asserting liberty of con- 
 science. Later and within the field of literature, they had 
 attained to a splendid harmony in the best work of Spenser 
 and of Shakespeare. During the reign of James I, they 
 had drawn apart and had more and more emphasized their 
 growing differences. Now, during the Age of Milton, they 
 were to stand in an attitude of open mutual hostility. In 
 the large nature of Milton himself there was a certain 
 reconcilement of their conflicting claims ; but even the 
 genius of Milton found it impossible permanently to main- 
 tain the double allegiance. This hostility is accounted for 
 by the steady decline in influence and aggressiveness of 
 Renaissance forces on the one side, and by the increasing 
 narrowness, severity, and intolerance of religion on the 
 other. The religious type now coming to its full develop-
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 155 
 
 ment was that which we know us Puritanism ; and the 
 very word is a synonym for harshness, austerity, and 
 sternness, as it is also for loftiness of spirit, devotion to 
 duty, and purity of Hfe. The conflict that arose manifested 
 itself in fierce religious controversy, in bloody civil war, 
 and in two widely divergent types of literary production. 
 We call it the Age of Puritanism, but in reality the age was 
 divided between the Puritan and the Cavalier, puritanand 
 In many respects it is a very different age from cavaUer 
 that which immediately preceded it. The guiding im- 
 pulses of literature are still the same ; but they have 
 changed their relation to each other and have in a measure 
 modified their original character. As a consequence, the 
 temper of life and of literature is seriously affected. The 
 Age of Shakespeare had been an age of joyous and abun- 
 dant life modified by serious religious feeling ; the Age of 
 Milton is an age of religious austerity mitigated by a half- 
 defiant gayety. It is " merry England " no longer, but 
 there are still heard some echoes of the old laughter. 
 
 We have already seen the great drama of the Age of 
 Shakespeare verging toward its decline. The Puritan 
 period saw its utter decay. It was chiefly a 
 
 * ■' ■' Later Drama 
 
 product of the Renaissance, and naturally lost 
 its power with the failure of the old forces. In addition 
 to this, however, it had to contend with the active hostility 
 of the Puritan temper. The Puritans hated "stage plays," 
 and did all they could to discourage this " ungodly " form 
 of amusement. A considerable number of dramatists, 
 however, still continued their work, and a considerable body 
 of plays was produced. The two greatest dramatists of 
 this later time arc Philij) Massinger and John Ford 
 Massinger still disj)lays the skill of a good phiiip Mas- 
 dramatic craftsman and has no small ability in ^'""'^ 
 the treatment of character. There is, however, a manifest 
 decrease of poetic power and of those flashes of inspiration
 
 156 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 which characterize so many of the older dramatists, from 
 Marlowe to Webster. Massinger's principal work is a 
 comedy entitled A Nciv Way to Pay Old Debts. In it 
 occurs the famous character of Sir Giles Overreach. 
 This comedy is very much superior to any other of Mas- 
 singer's plays ; but apart from it, his most effective work 
 is in tragedy. Ford is a better poet than Massinger, 
 though an inferior playwright. His Broken 
 
 John Ford ° . . 
 
 Heart is typical of his powers and of his defects. 
 It has an intensity of tragic power that makes it extremely 
 affecting; but it is too horrible, too bloody, and too 
 chaotic. His most powerful situations seem forced and 
 unnatural. There is a certain morbidness in his genius 
 that is itself a symptom of decay. Great as are his powers 
 of terror and pathos, the drama in his hands is visibly 
 approaching the end of its splendid career. It is carried 
 on still by a number of inferior dramatists ; but at last, in 
 1648, the Puritans order the closing of the theatres, and the 
 career of the great romantic drama is run. As a whole, it 
 is probably unequalled by any other single body of work 
 in the world's literature. 
 
 The leading men of this age poured forth a flood of 
 prose writing in many kinds. Much of it was inspired by 
 
 the religious and poUtical conflicts of the time, 
 
 Prosc~writcrs 
 
 but philosophy and history were also well repre- 
 sented. Among such writings we are, of course, chiefly 
 concerned with those that have a literary flavor in the sub- 
 stance or in the style. Apart from Milton, whose prose 
 work will be best considered in connection with his poetry, 
 four leading writers will serve to give us an idea of what 
 was being accomplished, 
 
 Jeremy Taylor was one of the greatest pulpit orators 
 Jeremy ^^^ ^^^ of the greatest prose-writers of the 
 
 Taylor Seventeenth century. Saintsbury characterizes 
 
 him as "in almost all ways the chief of English orators on
 
 THE AGE OF MILTOX (1625-1660) 157 
 
 sacred subjects " ; and Emerson names him " the Shake- 
 speare of divines." Taylor was not so much a great theo- 
 logian, a great thinker, or a great scholar, as he was a great 
 orator and rhetorician. His supreme gift is that of imagi- 
 nation, and his style is rich with imagery and picturesque 
 description. He has also a poet's delight in beautiful 
 things, and answers to our ordinary conception of what is 
 meant by a prose poet. Grace, tenderness, persuasiveness, 
 are also his. Next to his picturesqueness, his style is 
 chiefly remarkable for its music. His faults are those of 
 looseness, discursiveness, lack of simplicity, and lack of 
 logic. Such works as his Holy Living, his Holy Dying, 
 his Liberty of Prophesying, and his volume of sermons en- 
 titled The Golden Grove become literary masterpieces by 
 virtue of his inimitable richness and beauty of expression. 
 The following is one of Taylor's most famous and most 
 characteristic sentences : 
 
 For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring 
 upwards, singing as he rises and hopes to get to heaven, and climb 
 above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud 
 sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and incon- 
 stant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could 
 recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings : till the 
 little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm 
 was over; and then it made a prosperous Hight, and did rise and sing, 
 as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed some- 
 times through the air, about his ministries here below. 
 
 Thomas Fuller was also a divine, but one of very 
 different type from Taylor. Among other works he wrote 
 The Holy State, 'The Profane State, and a Thomas 
 History of the Worthies of lingland. The latter ^""" 
 is his best known and most characteristic production. 
 Fuller was a man entirely serious and reverent in his main 
 purpose; but he had a unique turn of mind, and his style 
 is everywhere characterized by a humorous quaintness. 
 He has been thought frivolous, but he is rather odd and
 
 158 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 naive. All this gives a decided charm to his style for 
 those who are not repelled by his genial eccentricity. How 
 natural and incorrigible a habit of the man his quaintness 
 was, is well illustrated by the epitaph which he wrote for 
 himself, " Here lies Fuller's earth," 
 
 Something of the same quaintness and humor, though 
 quahfied by a deeper and loftier habit of thought, is to 
 Sir Thomas be fouud in Sir Thomas Browne, a Norwich 
 Browne physician. His best known and most admired 
 
 works are entitled Religio Medici and Urn Bttrial. These 
 themes do not seem very promising for literature ; but the 
 books contain passages which no writer of English prose 
 has ever surpassed. Browne was a man of remarkable 
 learning, and his style is often heavy with learned word 
 and phrase ; but he had, like Jeremy Taylor, that combi- 
 nation of poetic imagination and verbal melody of which 
 only the greatest masters of prose style are capable. 
 Taylor's style soars and sings; Browne's moves with the 
 stately and solemn pomp of a dead march. Not often has 
 English prose heard a nobler music than that of this 
 famous sentence from his Urn Burial : 
 
 Now since these dead bones have already out-lasted the living ones of 
 Methusaleh, and, in a yard under ground and thin walls of clay, out- 
 worn all the strong and specious buildings above it ; and quietly rested 
 under the drums and tramplings of three conquests : what prince can 
 promise such diuturnity unto his relicks, or might not gladly say, 
 Sic ego componi versus 171 ossa velim ? 
 
 How different a figure from any of these is the dear old 
 
 fisherman, Izaak Walton. He has all their quaintness, but 
 
 possesses a sweetness and a charm that are 
 
 Izaak Walton 
 
 quite his own. His atmosphere is not the at- 
 mosphere of books, but that of the outdoor world of rural 
 nature. His Complete Atigler is one of the best known 
 books of its century. Walton takes the reader with him 
 on his fishing excursions, and makes him feel his own love
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 159 
 
 for the quiet beauties of nature and the charm of English 
 rural life. The clear brook, the flowering meadow, the 
 wayside sights and sounds, the country inn, all have their 
 delight for him ; and the mere catching of fish is only a 
 pleasant incident to these higher enjoyments. In his 
 quiet pages " the drums and tramplings " of civil war 
 seem very far off, and fierce religious controversies are 
 easily forgotten. How different was his lot from that of 
 John Milton, who was compelled to spend many of his 
 best years in the very thick of the political and religious 
 conflicts of his age, and whose prose writings constantly 
 echo the jarring noises of the great struggle. 
 
 Turning from prose to poetry, our attention is first 
 attracted by the little group of singers known as the 
 Cavalier Lyrists. Their poetic inheritance is cavaiier 
 from the lyric poetry of the Age of Elizabeth, ^y"'*^ 
 although the Elizabethan lyric music takes on in their 
 verse a gayety, a gallantry, a dashing vivacity, that we 
 feel to be new and unique. Their inspiration is mostly 
 love for woman and reckless loyalty to their king. They 
 are genuine poets, although their poetry is distinctly of 
 the lightest and airiest sort. They have no sympathy 
 with the Puritan temper, even if their bright spirits are 
 sometimes touched by its gloom. Their characteristic 
 note is one of careless, brilliant, and audacious gayety. 
 They take from Ben Jonson their lyric ease and grace, 
 from Donne their fantastic "quips and cranks." 
 
 Thomas Carew is the earliest of the numerous and gal- 
 lant band of Cavalier singers who dallied with the beauty 
 of love and poetry amid the horrors of civil war. Thomas 
 Carew was a courtier, a thoroughgoing Royal- ^«"* 
 ist, and at his best an exquisite poet. It is he who makes 
 the transition from I-Ji/abcthan song to the typically Cav- 
 alier poetry. What he is capable of in purely lyric verse, 
 a single stanza from one of his best love poems may serve 
 to show :
 
 l60 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 Ask me no more where Jove bestows, 
 When June is past, the fading rose, 
 For in your beauty's orient deep 
 These flowers, as in their causes, sleep. 
 
 Sir John Suckling and Richard Lovelace are usually 
 coupled together as the most typical of Cavalier poets. 
 Suckling and They were alike in their brilliant and careless 
 Lovelace livcs, in their worship of love and beauty, in 
 their devotion to poetry and to royalty, and in their 
 unhappy fates. Suckling was tortured by the Spanish In- 
 quisition, and probably committed suicide in exile. Love- 
 lace died in poverty and ruin. Both poets live by virtue 
 of a few matchless songs. Similar as they are in many 
 ways, the poetic tone of each is peculiar. Suckling has 
 an air of sprightly impudence clothed in the easy manner 
 of a gentleman. One of his best known songs is the 
 following : 
 
 Why so pale and wan, fond lover? 
 
 Prithee, why so pale ? 
 Will, when looking well can't move her, 
 
 Looking ill prevail ? 
 
 Prithee, why so pale ? 
 
 Why so dull and mute, young sinner? 
 
 Prithee, why so mute? 
 Will, when speaking well can't win her, 
 
 Saying nothing do't? 
 
 Prithee, why so mute? 
 
 Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move : 
 
 This cannot take her. 
 If of herself she will not love. 
 
 Nothing can make her: 
 
 The devil take her! 
 
 Lovelace has an equal air of gallantry and even more 
 carelessness of expression, but he has the greater serious- 
 ness and occasionally strikes a really noble note. Nothing 
 of his is better than the brief song, Going to the Wars :
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (i 625-1 660) 16 1 
 
 Tell me not, sweet, I am uiikind, 
 
 That from the nunnery 
 Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind 
 
 To war and arms I fly. 
 
 True, a new mistress now I chase, 
 
 The tirst foe in the field, 
 And with a stronger faith embrace 
 
 A sword, a horse, a shield. 
 
 Vet this inconstancy is such 
 
 As you too shall adore, — 
 I could not love thee, dear, so much. 
 
 Loved I not honour more. 
 
 It is to Lovelace, too, that we owe the beautiful lines, 
 
 Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage. 
 
 Somewhat apart from these poets — a country parson 
 and not a courtier — was Robert Herrick. Nevertheless, 
 his verse represents essentially the same spirit Robert 
 as theirs — the spirit of more or less conscious Hemck 
 reaction and protest against the severity and gloom of 
 Puritanism. There is no sunnier poetry in English than 
 much of Robert Herrick's. There is no lyric poetry of 
 the lighter kind dealing with common things in sweeter, 
 daintier, and more perfect verse. His range is not wide, 
 his flight is not high; but within his limits, he has a 
 mastery of the music of words that is almost absolute. 
 His acknowledged poetic master is Ben Jonson, for whom 
 he displays a kind of quaint idolatry. A vein of coarse- 
 ness in his character is shown by his epigrams, which are 
 neither clean nor witty. All this, however, he keeps out of 
 his purely lyric work. A simple and almost childlike de- 
 light in the beauty of nature and of common things is his 
 best and most characteristic trait. It is displayed to the 
 full in the multitude of charming little ])()cms which are 
 grou|>ed under the general title of I Itsf^ciid, s. This 
 quality is all the more remarkable in view of the fact
 
 l62 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 that Herrick was after all a very worldly sort of person 
 and rather grumbled at his enforced exile from the world 
 in a little country parsonage. He did not take his religious 
 duties too seriously ; and yet he was in his own way a 
 sincerely if not deeply religious man. This is shown by 
 his poems called Noble Numbers, which deal with religious 
 themes in a genuine and poetical way. This may be 
 illustrated by a few stanzas from TJie Litany : 
 
 In the hour of my distress, 
 When temptations me oppress, 
 And when I my sins confess, 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 
 ^ ^ ^ % ^ 
 
 When the house doth sigh and weep, 
 And the world is drown'd in sleep, 
 Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me! 
 
 When the passing-bell doth toll, 
 And the furies in a shoal 
 Come to fright a parting soul, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 ***** 
 When the Judgment is reveaPd, 
 And that openM which was seal'd ; 
 When to Thee I have appeal'd. 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me! 
 
 His sensuous and somewhat pagan nature must have been 
 rather terrified by the fierce and gloomy rehgion of the 
 Puritans. He was incapable either of their harshness or 
 of their spiritual exaltation. Still there is, even in his 
 lighter and gayer poems, a frequent haunting sense of 
 the transitory nature of all worldly love and beauty. In a 
 charming poem To the Virgins, he says : 
 
 Gather ye rose-buds while ye may : 
 
 Old Time is still a-flying; 
 And this same flower that smiles to-day, 
 
 To-morrow will be dying.
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 163 
 
 Perhaps no single quotation from Herrick could give us a 
 better idea of the man, the poet, and his poetic themes 
 than the introduction to the llcspcridcs : 
 
 I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, 
 
 Of April, Mav, of June, and July-flowers ; 
 
 I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
 
 Of bride-grooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. 
 
 I write of Youth, of Love ; — and have access 
 
 Hv these, to sing of cleanly wantonness; 
 
 I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece, 
 
 Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris. 
 
 I sing of times trans-shifting ; and I write 
 
 How roses first came red, and lilies white. 
 
 I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing 
 
 The court of Mab. and of the Fairy King. 
 
 I write of Hell ; I sing, and ever shall 
 
 Of Heaven, — and hope to have it after all. 
 
 Very different in temper from Herrick are three poets 
 of a distinctively religious character. Their work is indeed 
 at the opposite extreme from that of the Cavalier RgUgious 
 poets. As the latter approach Milton on the p°«'s 
 lighter and more beautiful side of his poetic genius, so these 
 religious poets approach him on the loftier and austerer side. 
 While they were not all Puritans in the stricter sense of the 
 term, they do as a group represent the prevailing Puritan 
 temper. 
 
 A country clergyman of opposite type from Herrick was 
 George I Icrbcrt. I lis deep piety is manifest in his work as 
 in his life, and the man's whole nature seems to George 
 have been set in the direction of holy thought and Herbert 
 action. There is in him no note of religious conflict, 
 except it be the conflict against sin in his own members. 
 Indeed, it is the spirit of religious peace for which ho 
 yearns — a peace which the world of his day was certainly 
 not disposed to give. Herbert is a true poet, very even in 
 quality, but seldom inspired. The main body of his work
 
 l64 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 is included in a single volume called The Temple. The 
 influence of Donne is everywhere apparent in the fantastic 
 conceits with which his poems are filled. This tendency 
 appears in his general arrangement of the poems to cor- 
 respond with the structure of a church — beginning with 
 the porch — and with the succession of church services and 
 festivals. It appears in the titles of individual poems — 
 such as The Collar' and TJie PulUy — and in separate 
 poetic fancies. In spite of this defect, Herbert's poetry is 
 attractive ; and his very conceits not seldom have a quaint 
 charm of their own. The chief value of his poetry lies in 
 its reflection of the deep religious earnestness of the man and 
 of the spiritual and poetic aspiration of a consecrated nature. 
 Likewise much given to conceits was Richard Crashaw, 
 a poetical disciple of Herbert. He represents the passion- 
 Richard ^^^ fervor of the religious nature rather than its 
 
 Crashaw intellectual struggles. His temperament natu- 
 rally carried him over to Catholicism ; and after being 
 expelled from Cambridge in 1644, he went to Italy, and 
 died there as canon of Loretto in 1650. As a poet 
 Crashaw was very unequal. At his worst, he is very bad 
 indeed. At his best — which is all too seldom — he equals 
 almost any poet of his age save Milton, and is not unworthy 
 to be named even with that great master of poetry. His 
 Flammg Heart and Hymn to St. Theresa have passages 
 that are sweetly and nobly musical. Of such lines as these, 
 no poet need be ashamed : 
 
 O thou undaunted daughter of desire ! 
 
 By thy large draughts of intellectual day. 
 
 By the full kingdom of that final kiss. 
 
 He was a skilful Latin poet, and the reputed author of 
 a really poetical conceit on the miracle of Cana which 
 appears thus in English : 
 
 The conscious water saw its God and blushed.
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 165 
 
 Crashaw's poems of divine love form an interesting con- 
 trast with a charming earlier poem entitled Wishes to his 
 Supposed Mistress, 
 
 Whoe'er she be. 
 
 That not impossible she 
 
 That shall command my heart and me. 
 
 All of them taken together illustrate the range of which 
 he was capable. 
 
 Henry Vaughan was another disciple of Herbert, even 
 closer to his master than was Crashaw. Vaughan has 
 been characterized as a religious mystic. As a ug^^y 
 poet, he often falls below Herbert, and as often vaughan 
 rises above him. He feels the mysteries of nature, of the 
 human soul, and of the spiritual world, and sometimes 
 gives to these in his poetry a finely simple and musical 
 expression. When he ceases to be merely meditative and 
 becomes really inspired by religious and poetic feeling, he 
 rises to the level of the best of English sacred poets. He 
 suggests association, too, with the great poets of nature ; 
 for he is able to convey a sense of spiritual communion 
 with the objects of the natural world. Such lines as these 
 are typical of his poetic manner : 
 
 I saw Eternity the other ni<Tht, 
 Like a great ring of pure and endless light, 
 All calm, as it was bright. 
 
 Dear, beauteous Death ! the jewel of the just, 
 Shining no where, but in the dark ; 
 What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, 
 Could man outlook that mark ! 
 
 Before coming to Milton it is necessary to consider two 
 poets who have some natural association with each other, 
 but who do not belong specifically either to the Abraham 
 group of Cavalier Lyrists or to the group of re- Cowiey 
 ligious poets. These arc Cowley and Waller. Abraham 
 Cowley was in his day regarded as the greatest of English
 
 l66 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 poets. Seventy years after his death in 1667, Pope asked, 
 " Who now reads Cowley?" A few there are who read 
 him even yet, for the sake of some really fine poetry, 
 and perhaps still more for the sake of his historical posi- 
 tion. For Cowley is one of the links between the old 
 poetry and the new. He looks backward toward the 
 romantic poetry of the Age of Shakespeare and toward 
 the metaphysical poetry of Donne ; he looks forward to- 
 ward the coming age and anticipates in some measure the 
 peculiarities of the so-called classical school. Like all the 
 other poets thus far mentioned in this period, he was a 
 Royalist ; but this fact does not count for much in his 
 poetry. He sometimes approaches the lyric ease of the 
 Cavalier poets ; but he is often heavy, cumbersome, and in- 
 volved. In such work as his Pitidarique Odes, the style 
 is not seldom musical and often free even to excess and 
 obscurity ; but on the other hand, he seems to have been 
 attracted by the finish and monotony of the classical 
 couplet. He writes of love, but, as Samuel Johnson said, 
 like " a philosophical rhymer who had only heard of an- 
 other sex." He preceded Milton in the production of a 
 Biblical epic, the Davideis, but his imagination was not 
 adequate to the satisfactory achievement of so great a task. 
 Certain things about Cowley are decidedly attractive. One 
 of these is his evidently sincere longing for an honorable 
 and cultured retirement in the companionship of books 
 and of the beauties of nature. This is expressed in a 
 poem called The Wish, which he claimed to have written 
 at thirteen and which his maturer judgment considered 
 worthy of preservation among his works. It is expressed 
 in later poems, notably in his On Soliticde. It is expressed, 
 too, in his prose writings ; for it may be here observed that 
 Cowley was one of the most notable essayists of his day, 
 although his prose belongs to his later life and will call for 
 notice in the next period. Another admirable trait of
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 167 
 
 Cowley is a generous disposition to appreciate and openly 
 to praise the virtues and abilities of other men. Various 
 illustrations might be given, but none better than his poem 
 On the Death of Mr. Crashaic, which begins : 
 
 Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given 
 
 Tlie two most sacred names of eartii and Heaven, 
 
 The hard and rarest union which can be 
 
 Next that of godhead witii liumanity. 
 
 The total effect of Cowley's work is to leave the im- 
 pression that he was a man of remarkable but ineffectual 
 powers. There are few things more pathetic than to be 
 almost a great genius. 
 
 Edmund Waller is generally accounted the earliest 
 writer to anticipate the classical period in its use of the 
 heroic couplet and in its refinement and neatness t^ . , 
 of poetic form. The heroic couplet is as old as waiier 
 Chaucer ; but in the hands of Waller and his successors, 
 it took on such finish, such precision, such regularity, and 
 withal such brilliancy, as to make it practically the instru- 
 ment of new metrical effects. Less uncertain than Cowley, 
 Waller persisted in the new fashion until greater men 
 came to reenforce him and to better his example. His 
 light is now lost in theirs, but he still retains something of 
 the glory that attaches to the harbinger of a new and 
 successful movement. In middle life, he was deemed only 
 second to Cowley ; after Cowley's death, his fame rose still 
 higher; and when he himself died in 1687 at a great age, 
 and in the full tide of the new movement, he was for a 
 brief time regarded as the greatest English poet. He ap- 
 pears to have been somewhat of a time-server ; for he was 
 in favor under Charles I, under Cromwell, and again under 
 Charles n. He kecjjs his interest with posterity chieHy 
 as the first English classical poet before the Age of Classi- 
 cism. This is his most famous couplet: 
 
 The soul's dark cottage, hattered and drcayed, 
 
 Lets in new light thruugh ( hinks tiiat time hath made.
 
 1 68 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 It remains to consider John Milton, one of the very 
 greatest poets of English or any other literature, and the 
 man in whose genius are gathered up and intensified all 
 the literary powers and capabilities manifested in his age. 
 Milton is a typical example of the union of the finest 
 
 poetic genius with great intellectual ability and 
 Genius and with high moral character. The man, the 
 
 thinker, and the poet are alike preeminently 
 great. His intellectual depth and force made him the 
 chosen literary champion of Puritanism, as Oliver Crom- 
 well was its champion in the fields of war and statecraft. 
 In pure poetry, also, he gained a strength, solidity, and 
 breadth of thought which did not, it is true, constitute his 
 poetic genius, but which gave a firm foundation upon 
 which that genius might rest. His intellectual powers, 
 moreover, were trained by the best educational discipline 
 of his age and by his own profound and long-continued 
 study. He was one of the most learned poets of his own 
 or of any other time. His religious nature and his interest 
 in great moral questions had also an incalculable influence 
 upon his work. No poetry is loftier, purer, more serious, 
 than his. No prose writing oftener displays the nobility 
 of a lofty spirit or enthusiasm for a great cause. Milton 
 is austere, harsh, even bigoted in controversy ; but no one 
 can doubt the sincerity of his convictions or his whole- 
 souled fidelity to what he conceived as duty. He had 
 many of the faults, but he had also the noblest virtues, 
 of the Puritan. His intellectual and moral qualities con- 
 cern us here chiefly as they are related to his poetic 
 genius. What that genius itself was able to accomplish, 
 we shall have occasion to see. 
 
 We may here observe that it made him not only the 
 Milton and greatest, but in many ways the most representa- 
 hisAge tiye^ literary figure of his age. There was much 
 
 in him of the EHzabethan past. His genius was most
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 169 
 
 nearly akin to that of Spenser — "sage and serious Spen- 
 ser " — whom he loved and admired. He felt the influence 
 also of Benjonson, but fortunately escaped that of Donne. 
 To a certain extent he was in sympathy with the growing 
 classicism of the age — at least in its general spirit — for 
 he was a superb poetic artist, and his work helped to culti- 
 vate the ever increasing appreciation for perfect literary 
 form. He was a representative prose-writer, and his style 
 has many qualities in common with that of Jeremy Taylor, 
 Sir Thomas Browne, and other leading prose-writers of his 
 day. He had a gift of lyric music as pure and fine as 
 that of any Cavalier poet, though it was dedicated to a 
 higher service. As a religious poet, he is not only the 
 greatest in his age but the greatest in the literature. 
 What other poets could do well, he could in his own way 
 do better ; and if we had only Milton left to us, we should 
 be able to make reasonable conjecture as to all that was 
 accomplished in literature in his age. When all is said, 
 however, Milton is one of the most individual of poets. 
 His work has a quality which that of no other man of his 
 time possesses. It is the product of a larger, a loftier, 
 a more gifted, a more consecrated, nature — it is Miltonic. 
 Milton was born in London in 1608. His home at- 
 mosphere was one of culture and refinement as well 
 as of genuine piety. That his father was a musical 
 composer and that Milton was trained in music, doubt- 
 less meant much to the development of that poetic 
 genius which was to unlock so many harmonics of English 
 speech. Besides his home training, he received Milton's 
 a good preliminary education at St. Paul's Early Life 
 .School in London. T'rom here he went to Christ's College, 
 Cambridge, where his beautiful face, his gentle manners, 
 and his delicate spirit made him known as "the Lady of 
 Christ's." He had already chosen his career, and in the 
 years immediately following his departure from the Uni-
 
 I/O RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 versity, he deliberately set himself to the task of train- 
 ing himself as a poet. Amid the quiet woods of Horton, 
 he gave himself up to study and to meditation, to commun- 
 ion with nature and fellowship with the great dead, in 
 the faith " that he who would not be frustrate of his hope 
 to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself 
 to be a true poem ; that is, a composition and pattern of 
 the best and honourablest things ; not presuming to sing 
 high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he 
 have in himself the experience and the practice of all that 
 which is praiseworthy." Here his poetical career began. 
 From this point we can probably consider Milton to best 
 advantage by observing and comparing the three distinct 
 periods of his literary life. These mark three strongly con- 
 trasted phases of his character, his genius, and his work. 
 
 Milton's early poetic period covers some ten years of 
 poetic production, extending from about his twentieth to 
 about his thirtieth year. His first notable poem, the Hymn 
 Early Poetic OH the Nativity, was written in his twenty-first 
 Period year, in 1629, while he was still at Cambridge. 
 
 It strikes the high and serious note that was to character- 
 ize all his poetry. This period also includes a number of 
 sonnets, one of the finest being written in 1631 and en- 
 titled On his being arrived at the Age of Twenty-three. 
 It is like a consecration and a pledge that his high poetic 
 gifts shall be used 
 
 As ever in my great task-master's eye. 
 
 The period is made illustrious, however, by four great 
 masterpieces, each well-nigh perfect in its kind. 
 
 L" Allegro and // Penseroso are companion poems, the 
 
 one dealing with the cheerful man, the other with the 
 
 melancholy or meditative man. Alike in formal 
 
 egroan ^\^.^^ |-j^gy g^^-g finely Contrasted in tone and 
 
 U Penseroso • r^ 
 
 sentiment. One follows the course of the day 
 from sunrise until evening, painting its rural sights and
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 171 
 
 sounds. The other watches out the night with the 
 lonely and pensive scholar, setting noble thoughts to 
 noble music. They are typical of the two opposed yet 
 harmonious sides of Milton's nature — the one finding joy 
 in all the beauty and sweetness of the world, the other 
 seeking an even higher delight in the glory of lofty 
 thought and spiritual contemplation. Milton knew and 
 experienced the truth that the basis of the poetic nature 
 is sensuousness and passion ; he illustrates also the greater 
 truth that the highest heavens of poetry are open only to 
 the noble mind and the e.xalted spirit. All of Milton, at 
 least in germ, lies in these two matchless poems of his 
 youth. 
 
 A similar mingling of qualities is to be found in Covins, 
 a masque or lyrical drama. The Lady who is the heroine 
 of the piece is lost at night in the forest and 
 
 ^ , r 1 Comus 
 
 falls in with Comus — god of revelry and son 
 of Circe the enchantress — and his bestial crew. He en- 
 deavors, by the power of his enchantments, to transform 
 her also into the likeness of a beast, but is not able to ex- 
 ercise his debasing power upon her stainless purity. This 
 work is thought by some critics to be Milton's masterpiece. 
 It is certainly one of the most delicately beautiful poems 
 in the language, weaving together the charms of blank 
 verse, of exquisite lyric measures, of suggestive imagery, 
 and of large poetic conception. With all this is matched 
 the noblest intellectual and moral spirit. The jwem is a 
 superb exaltation of virtue. 
 
 Lycidas is one of the few supremely great elegies. U 
 is in form a pastoral poem, in which one she|)herd mourns 
 the death of another. Behind this familiar and conven- 
 tional classic disguise, Milton laments the death of l^dward 
 King, a college friend. The poem is beautitui 
 
 , I I I   1 Lycidas 
 
 smiply as a pastoral, but this does not constitute 
 
 its real greatness. Neither docs it lay Iiold of us chiefly
 
 1/2 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 as an expression of intense personal grief; for Milton does 
 
 not seem to have been very intimate with King or to have 
 
 felt any deep sense of personal loss. King was something 
 
 of a poet and also a student for the ministry ; and these 
 
 facts gave Milton occasion to rebuke the degeneracy of 
 
 poetry and especially of the clergy in his age. The poets 
 
 are too light and frivolous ; they love too well merely 
 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
 Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair. 
 
 The shepherds of the people are " blind mouths," ignorant 
 and greedy ; and the poet warns them to beware of the 
 sword of vengeance. It is this high and stern rebuke that 
 makes the poem unique, that intensifies its expression at 
 times to a white heat of passion. Here for the first time 
 in Milton's poetry is the austere tone of the Puritan, a tone 
 severe yet noble, harsh yet truly poetical. 
 
 In most of the poetry of this earlier period, Milton is 
 akin to the Elizabethan age and the spirit of the Renais- 
 sance, and is a pure poet. He has a true delight in 
 beauty ; he shows a wonderful sweetness and variety in 
 his music; he joys in the pleasures of sense, while he is 
 Ouauty of ^^ ^^^ same time interested in higher concerns ; 
 EarUerPoetry he lovcs and portrays nature, but still after the 
 somewhat artificial manner of the EHzabethans ; he shows 
 in Comiis a romantic tendency, which is still further illus- 
 trated by the purpose that he long cherished of writing a 
 poem on the basis of the Arthurian legends ; he even 
 attempts, in Comns, something in dramatic form, though 
 dramatic creation was essentially foreign to his genius. 
 Even in his earlier poetry, however, Milton adds some- 
 thing to these Elizabethan and Renaissance characteristics. 
 His religious feeling is manifest in the Hymn on the 
 Nativity, in the sonnets, in paraphrases of the Psalms, 
 and in many of the minor poems. His learning is mani- 
 fest everywhere, particularly in his Latin poetry, much of
 
 THE AGE OF MILTOX (1625-1660) I 73 
 
 which was written while he was still at Cambridge. In 
 Lycidas, as we have seen, there is a note of seriousness 
 and pathos of a new kind. All of these characteristics, 
 however, are as yet subordinated to his poetical instinct. 
 Soon he is to be called away from poetry to enter the 
 arena of ci\il and religious conflict. 
 
 For about twenty years Milton forsook the ways of 
 poetry and became one of the important figures in a great 
 political and religious movement. A few sonnets make 
 almost the whole extent of his poetical production, though 
 it is certain that he did not cease to meditate on his great 
 poetic designs. The prose writings which made 
 the principal literary occupation of these years p*/„°°pJJ[oj 
 were mainly controversial, and his controversies 
 were for the most part either religious or political. Nearly 
 all of them were directly associated with the party conflicts 
 of the time. In large part, his subject-matter was of 
 interest only to his own age, and possessed but slight lit- 
 erary interest even from that point of view. Occasionally, 
 however, Milton rises to the height of some great argu- 
 ment in a way that gives his prose something of the no- 
 bility and impressiveness of his great poetry. Milton's 
 prose style has many and serious limitations. It is not 
 humorous, it is not even genial; for Milton, in the heat of 
 intellectual battle, was a thoroughgoing Puritan, though 
 he of course represented Puritanism on its loftiest and 
 most beautiful side. It is comparatively unobservant of 
 the great laws of prose, although Milton is in poetry one 
 of the finest of literary artists. Learned diction, periodic 
 structure, long and involved sentences, all unite to make it 
 cumbersome and difTicult. Milton was not unaware of his 
 own limitations in the field of prose controversy. He 
 says : " I should n(jt choose this manner of writing, 
 wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by tlic 
 genial power f)f nature to another task, I have the use, as
 
 174 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (i 500-1660) 
 
 I may account, but of my left hand." Yet the great poet 
 could hardly help, now and again, pouring out into his prose 
 sentences some of the splendid music of his verse ; and 
 when his passion for liberty, for truth, for duty, finds fit- 
 ting utterance, few writers of English prose are capable 
 of such magnificent harmonies of language. Among his 
 noblest prose works, both for matter and style, are his Atco- 
 pagitica, a speech on the liberty of the press, and his 
 Defense of the English People, a justification of the execu- 
 tion of Charles I. In these and other writings, we may 
 study Milton's relation to his age and also the relation of 
 this middle period of his life to the rest of his career. His 
 learning and his intellectual power here found opportunity 
 to manifest themselves, and his great moral earnestness 
 was also called into action. He spoke noble and great 
 words for literature and for the freedom of human thought, 
 but the greatest of all his powers was allowed to slumber 
 or at least to brood in silence. In poetry, Milton is 
 the great artist ; in his prose, he forgets his art in advocat- 
 ing his cause, and it is only in those fortunate moments 
 when some great thought burns within him that he rises 
 to his heights of eloquence. Yet the period was not fruit- 
 less. In it we see the man strongly revealed, and 
 realize how great he was even in spite of such limitations. 
 We see him, too, undergoing a transformation. Not alto- 
 gether a fortunate one for poetry, it must be confessed ; 
 for the ethereal music of Covins is to be heard no more, and 
 the stern note of Lycidas has become stronger and deeper. 
 Yet there is to be compensation ; for the later poetry is to 
 have a depth, a solemnity, a grandeur, a sublimity, which 
 the earlier work promised, indeed, but did not quite pos- 
 sess. 
 
 Milton's public career came to an end with the Restora- 
 tion of Charles II, in 1660. He lived, however, for four- 
 teen years after that, " blind, old, and lonely,." withdrawn
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 175 
 
 from public notice and devoted again to the great tasks of 
 poetry. The change, though in many ways sorrowful for 
 him. was a happy one for literature. The poetry Later Poetic 
 of this period includes his great epic, Panjdisc Period 
 Lost, its companion poem, Paradise Rcgaiiud, and his 
 noble drama, Samson Agotiistes. It is in marked contrast 
 with the poetry of his early life. As we have seen, that 
 earlier poetry was joyous, bright, full of delight in beauty, 
 though full of earnestness and power — in a word, Eliza- 
 bethan. The later poetry is serious, sombre, full of deep 
 moral earnestness, beautiful with the beauty of profound 
 thought and of lofty spiritual conception — in a word, 
 Puritan. The music of the one was light, graceful, 
 varied ; that of the other is the music of deep and solemn 
 organ tones reverberating among the arches of a vast 
 cathedral. The one is of value as pure poetry ; the other, 
 because it adds to poetry the value of philosophical 
 thought and religious emotion. The one is full of the spirit 
 of the Renaissance ; the other is typical of the strong, 
 stern, gloomy English nature, which is yet able to clothe 
 its deep seriousness of thought and feeling in the garment 
 of immortal beauty. With Milton's later verse, the influ- 
 ence of the Renaissance dies away as a controlling force 
 in English literature. The influence of the Reformation, 
 transformed into the extreme religious type of Puritanism, 
 here reaches its culmination. The reign of Puritanism, 
 however, is to be short ; and with Milton, it speaks its 
 greatest, if not quite its latest, word. 
 
 Paradise Lost is generally esteemed to be Milton's 
 master poetic work, contesting the palm with Dante's 
 Divina Commcdia for the honor of being 
 named as the greatest epic of the modern world. ^"'■"'"** ^** 
 It deals professedly with the fall of our first jiarents and 
 their expulsion from the Garden of I-'den; hut, in fact, its 
 scheme is much vaster than that. \Vc have the fall of
 
 176 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500 1660) 
 
 Lucifer and the rebel angels from Heaven and theii 
 
 erection of a rival kingdom in Hell ; the creation of the 
 
 universe and of man ; the temptation and fall of Adam 
 
 and Eve ; the entrance into the world of sin and death ; 
 
 the prophetic vision of human history and of the promised 
 
 redemption of mankind. All Milton's conceptions are in 
 
 harmony with this tremendous plan, and he succeeds in 
 
 giving to it the interest of a mighty cosmic drama. He is 
 
 less vivid and concrete than Dante, but he does not lose 
 
 himself in vagueness. Above all he possesses in a 
 
 supreme degree the power of suggesting by his imagery 
 
 the inconceivable immensity and awful mystery of his 
 
 sublime visions. The form of the poem fitly matches its 
 
 great argument. Milton's blank verse is probably the 
 
 most unique in the language and hardly less than the most 
 
 musical and sonorou s. It is modulated to something of 
 
 his old-time sweetness in the descriptions of Eden, or 
 
 when the legions of Hell move over the burning plains 
 
 In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood 
 Of flutes and soft recorders. 
 
 Again, it is like 
 
 Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds, 
 
 or rings with the noise of 
 
 A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond 
 Frighted the reign of Chaos and old night. 
 
 Most characteristic of all, it rolls and swells and reverber- 
 ates like the pealing^ of p^reat organ mus ic, as in the magnif- 
 icent invocation to light that opens the third book of the 
 poem. This same passage may illustrate Milton's masterly 
 skill in the building of the poetic paragraph. It possesses 
 a symmetry and completeness of its own that make it like 
 a perfect piece of music. The harmonies of rhyme linked 
 together into a perfect stanza could not create a whole 
 more finished and more self-contained. Milton knew and 
 used all the capacities of his great instrument, and added
 
 THE AGE OF MILTOX (1625-1660) 17; 
 
 to the sublimity of his divine conceptions all the power 
 that the music of speech can yield. 
 
 Paradise Regained completes the scheme of Paradise 
 Lost. It tells of the redemption foretold in ICden and 
 foreseen in the prophetic description of the paradise 
 Archangel Michael. The theme of the poem is Regained 
 really the Temptation of Christ and his victory over Satan. 
 Adam's sin had 
 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe. 
 In the later poem, Milton sings 
 
 Recover'd Paradi.se to all mankind. 
 
 By one man's firm obedience fully trv'd 
 
 Tlirougli all temptation, and tiie tempter foil'd. 
 
 The brief gospel narrative of the Temptation is expanded 
 into four books of splendid poetry. The work consists 
 mostly of dialogue, and is therefore much inferior to 
 Paradise Lost in the interest of action and character. It 
 is inferior, too, in music and in richness of language. Its 
 power is more restrained, but the power is there. Some 
 good judges of poetry seem even to have preferred it to 
 Paradise Lost, but this has not been the general esti- 
 mate. 
 
 Savison Agonistes, Milton's last great work, is a drama. 
 His model was not the drama of Shakespeare, but that of 
 the Greeks. The story is that of Samson, " blind ^ 
 
 J ' Samson 
 
 among enemies," seeking his own death in the Agonistes 
 destruction of the Philistine lords. The tragedy is an im- 
 pressive one, and is all the more pathetic because Samson 
 is fitly typical of Milton himself, great in his blindness and 
 in the shadow of approaching death. He, too, had fallen 
 upon evil days ; he, too, was lonely and dishonored amid 
 the triumph of his foes. The bitterness of his soul speaks 
 out in his last great poem. .Ml the old sweetness has gone 
 out of his music, all the old richness has disappeared from 
 his style ; but the majesty, the sublimity, the godlike power,
 
 178 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) 
 
 are still there. It is the noble close of one of the noblest 
 poetic careers in the history of the English literature. 
 
 Milton is undoubtedly one of the very greatest poets of 
 England and of the world. He was a man of truly poeti- 
 cal nature ; but he was also possessed of great intellectual 
 power and of great moral character. These the spirit of 
 Milton's his age was able to use to the detriment of his 
 Greatness poetic work ; but they nevertheless contributed 
 in the end to exalt his poetic fame. He was a revealer of 
 the mingled strength and beauty, sternness and tenderness, 
 gloom and glory, of the English race. He was a poet 
 speaking for the deep rehgious feeUng of mankind. We 
 may safely reject the theory of Taine that he was a great 
 poet in spite of the fact that he was a Puritan, and hold 
 rather with Green that he was a great poet because he 
 was a Puritan. This may be to the Jews a stumbling-block, 
 to the Greeks foolishness, and to the French a riddle ; but 
 if so, it is the riddle of all English poetry — the riddle of 
 Samson, " out of the strong came forth sweetness." Neither 
 Englishmen nor Puritans may strike the world as very 
 poetical ; but after all, the English race has produced the 
 world's greatest poetry, not in spite of the fact that it was 
 English, but because it was English. 
 
 Christs College, Cambridge
 
 Jm^[p^.
 
 BOOK IV 
 CLASSIC/S.\f {1660-T780) 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700) 
 
 There came a day when the intellectual enthusiasm of 
 the Renaissance and the spiritual fervor of the Reforma- 
 tion had spent their force. Men grew tired 
 
 * _ Decline of 
 
 of the " unchartered freedom " of poetic f eeUng ower im- 
 
 • DUlsCS 
 
 and imagination, grew tired also of that religious 
 intensity which made the Puritan desire to worship God in 
 his own way and made him desire also that all other men 
 should worship God in the same way. There came, natu- 
 rally enough, a reaction which was destined to change for a 
 time the whole face of literature. So far, the religious 
 spirit had been a great literary impulse from the very be- 
 ginning of English literature. The spirit of romance had 
 been powerful ever since the Norman Conquest, though 
 greatly modified by the Renaissance. Now, men desired 
 to be neither religious nor romantic. If this had been all, 
 the attitude would have been merely a negative one, and 
 therefore incapable of producing any great literary results. 
 The movement, however, had a positive side as well, and 
 thus became genuinely fruitful. 
 
 The new impulse which now became operative was what 
 we ordinarily call Classicism. Men were no longer genu- 
 inely inspired by the ancient writers, as in the Rise of 
 days of the Renaissance. They sought to follow classicism 
 them in formal fasiiion, and they succeeded in following 
 them only afar off. It has been truly said that the clas-
 
 l8o CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 sical movement was more Latin than Greek, and more 
 French than Latin. On the face of it, it is more dis- 
 tinctly foreign than any other movement that has greatly 
 affected English literature. Looking deeper, we shall see 
 that what power it had was due to the fact that it found 
 something already in the English nature which was in har- 
 mony with its spirit. The early Elizabethan dramatists 
 had endeavored to conform English drama to Senecan 
 models, but had found themselves swept away by the great 
 tide of romanticism. Ben Jonson had stood for classic 
 "art" as opposed to Shakespeare's wild "nature," but had 
 found most of his contemporaries on Shakespeare's side. 
 The followers of Jonson had carried on the classic tradition, 
 but had not made much headway. Milton had cultivated 
 a classic refinement of style, but had found this phase of 
 his genius overshadowed by greater elements. Now, at 
 last, in the exhaustion of powers greater in themselves and 
 more consonant with the English character, the day of the 
 classicist had come, and whatever of classic instinct was 
 latent in the English nature was to have its opportunity. 
 The prevailing French influence strengthened and encour- 
 aged this tendency, but did not create it. What seems at 
 first sight like a movement entirely from without, is seen 
 to be for the most part an attempt on the part of the Eng- 
 lish race to develop powers hitherto repressed and to try 
 its strength in ways hitherto barred. That this is really 
 the weaker side of the racial character accounts for the 
 comparative inferiority of the literature of the classical 
 period ; that the strongest instincts of the race led it in 
 other directions, accounts for the powerful and complete 
 reaction which finally came. 
 
 What is Classicism ? That is a difificult question to 
 Meaning of answcr briefly ; for the terqi is used in many 
 Classicism ways and really means many things. As ap- 
 plied to the literature under consideration. Classicism is
 
 THE AGE OF DRVDKN' ( 1660-1 700) 18 1 
 
 essentially literary conformity. Classicists belong to the 
 established church of literature and are intolerant of lit- 
 erary heresy. Its reverence for authority, its finish of 
 form, its repression of passion and imagination, its exalta- 
 tion of reason, its regularity and restraint, its essentially 
 prosaic temper — these are some of the characteristics of 
 Classicism. During the three generations of its dominance, 
 Classicism set up three great literary autocrats — John 
 Dryden, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson. The lit- 
 erary autocrat is of the essence of the classical spirit. 
 There are no such autocrats elsewhere in the literature. 
 Ben Jonson approaches nearest to the type ; and as we 
 have just noted, Ben Jonson was a prophet of Classicism. 
 On the religious side, it might appear as though the 
 tendency of the age was a revolt against too much restraint 
 rather than a reaction against too much free- Religion ^n,! 
 dom. In a sense it was so; but the opposition Politics 
 to Puritanism was a revolt against its severity, its harsh- 
 ness, its intolerance, its rigid standards of personal con- 
 duct, rather than against its religious authority. Religious 
 authority had the unquestioned, if sometimes too nominal, 
 assent of the age. Puritanism, indeed, in spite of its own 
 tyrannies, really represented freedom of conscience more 
 than did any other phase of religious thought in the seven- 
 teenth century. Men turned from Puritanism to accept 
 the easy-going and conventional authority of the Estab. 
 lished Church. They accepted that as they accepted the 
 same sort of authority in literature. Puritanism was non- 
 conformity ; and the age was returning to the established 
 order of things both in literature and in religion. Much 
 the same is true in politics. After Cromwell and the Com- 
 monwealth, after an interval of republicanism tempered by 
 tyranny, the age rijlurncd to the comfortable doctrine of 
 the divine right of kings. When this in its turn became 
 too oppressive, they dethroned James II, but only to set
 
 182 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 up in his place a more masterful, though more sensible, 
 king. The sum of the whole matter is this — that the age 
 desired the rule of recognized and estabhshed, though not 
 too harsh and unreasonable, authority in church, in state, 
 and in literature. It was this generally prevailing spirit 
 that gave Classicism so easy a victory and made it so 
 widely effective. 
 
 The literary results of Classicism are by no means in- 
 significant. The Restoration drama, the poetry of Dryden 
 Results of ^nd Pope, the prose of Swift, Addison, Steele, 
 Classicism g^^^ Dcfoc, are among its most characteristic 
 products. The movement began in the Age of Dryden, 
 and reached its culmination in the Age of Pope ; but it 
 had so much of genuine vitality that its influence remained 
 powerful through still another generation. The names of 
 Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson will serve to show that the 
 classical spirit was a force to be reckoned with until as late 
 as the fourth quarter of the eighteenth century. The period 
 falls naturally into three divisions, corresponding with the 
 literary lives of Dryden, Pope, and Johnson. It is the lit- 
 erature of the Age of Dryden that we are first to consider. 
 
 We have seen that Classicism had begun to develop in 
 literature long before the date of the Restoration. It is 
 Survival of quitc as apparent that Puritanism did not sud- 
 Puritanism dcnly ccEsc whcu the Restoration had come. 
 The two periods overlap each other ; and although there 
 was a marked change in English life with the year 1660, 
 literature still continued to bear some impress of Puritan 
 influences and ideals. Most noteworthy of all is the case 
 of Milton, who lived and wrote for fourteen years after the 
 return of Charles II. The typical representative, however, 
 of the continuance of Puritan sentiment into the very heart 
 of the Restoration Period is John Bunyan. Dif- 
 
 John Bunyan j- , 
 
 ferent as they were, therefore, in life, in tem- 
 perament, and in genius, it is fitting that Milton and
 
 THE AGE OF DRVDEX (1660- 1700) 183 
 
 Bunyan should be closely associated with each other in 
 literary history. The one was the great poet of Puritan- 
 ism ; the other was like the voice of one crying in the 
 spiritual wilderness of a degenerate age. 
 
 Bunyan was some twenty years younger than Milton, 
 and was over thirty at the date of the Restoration. He 
 had therefore grown to manhood under the Puritan rule. 
 His first literary work of importance, however, his Grace 
 Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, was not produced until 
 1666; and the first part of his masterpiece, 'J he Pilgrinis 
 Progress, appeared some twelve years later. Bunyan's 
 literary career, therefore, belongs distinctly to the Restora- 
 tion Period, although his character and genius were shaped 
 under Puritan auspices and by Puritan ideals. Bunyan's 
 Classicism had little or no influence upon him, framing 
 nor did he learn his marvelous style from French models. 
 His school of literary art was the English Bible, that great 
 Authorized Version which Puritanism had learned by heart. 
 His style, therefore, is more akin to the vigorous and 
 imaginative prose of the previous generation than to the 
 more finished, more intellectual, more modern prose of his 
 immediate contemporaries. 
 
 Still another reason for the unique character of Bun- 
 yan's work lies in the fact that he was quite apart from 
 the main literary currents of his day. He was Bunyan's 
 the son of a poor country tinker, and followed ^''* 
 his father's somewhat vagabond trade. The schooling that 
 fell to his portion was very slight ; and his literary path 
 was lighted only by the Bible and by his own remarkable 
 genius. His early life seemed to him a very sinful one, 
 though his sins would appear tn have been created or at 
 least greatly magnified by his Puritan temper and by his 
 vivid imagination. At any rate, he underwent a spiritual 
 struggle in which the terrors of sin and the fear of dam- 
 nation hung over liis soul like a dark aiul awful cloud.
 
 1 84 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 At last he felt that the grace of God had been extended to 
 him and that his sins had been pardoned. He became a 
 preacher and religious writer ; and his warnings of sin and 
 of God's wrath are mingled with an exalted delight in the 
 divine mercy and in the heavenly beauty of a Christlike 
 life. Arrested for illegal preaching, he suffered imprison- 
 ment for twelve years. Lying in Bedford jail, he had 
 those marvelous visions which grew into his great allegory. 
 The Pilgrim s Progress. 
 
 By some such process, Bunyan's genius grew into con- 
 sciousness of itself. He was a born literary artist. Few 
 Bunyan's men havc had a more vivid imagination. The 
 Genius crcaturcs of his fancy seemed almost more real 
 
 to him than the beings of the actual world. He had, too, 
 the power of graphic portrayal, whereby his ideal visions 
 were embodied and conveyed in language. He was the 
 master of a style unsurpassed for simplicity, directness, 
 force, vividness, and homely beauty. Humble and un- 
 learned as he was, he stands as the greatest writer of 
 English prose in his generation. Other men were more 
 refined, more scholarly, more elegant ; but none is his 
 equal for naturalness, earnestness, sincerity, and power. 
 Moreover, his are the only prose works of his age outside 
 of the drama which are genuine works of literary art, true 
 products of creative imagination. 
 
 Bunyan's unquestioned masterpiece is The Pilgrim's 
 Progress. It is an allegory of the soul's journey from this 
 Pilgrim's sinful world to the safety and joy of the heavenly 
 Progress kingdom. It is the greatest prose allegory of 
 English literature and perhaps of the world. No higher 
 praise could be given it than to say that it deserves to 
 stand beside Spenser's great poetic allegory. The Faerie 
 Qiieene. Like that, it has the added attraction of a fasci- 
 nating story, but its appeal has been even broader. Spen- 
 ser is "the poet's poet"; Bunyan appeals to common
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700) 185 
 
 men and women, old and young, learned and unlearned, 
 literary and unliterary. Perhaps no other book except the 
 Bible has been more widely spread or more generally 
 known. In its vivid pictures, we may see the reflection of 
 Bunyan's own religious experiences and of his attitude 
 toward his age. Christian fleeing from the City of De- 
 struction might well seem a type of Bunyan himself, en- 
 deavoring to escape from the licentiousness, the frivolity, 
 and the wicked folly of his time. In the immortal picture 
 of Vanity Fair, the age might have seen its face as in a 
 mirror. Christian's imprisonment in the Doubting Castle 
 of Giant Despair reminds us of his own weary confinement. 
 Indeed, one may well conceive that the production of 
 such a book needed the conjunction of just such a man 
 and just such an age. 
 
 Bunyan wrote another great allegory, TJic Holy War, 
 but it does not equal The Pilgriuis Progress. Perhaps the 
 work which stands nearest to his masterpiece is Bunyan's 
 his Life and Death of Mr. Badman. The one '^"^^ '^'''^^ 
 is a great romance ; the other is a brief but powerful tran- 
 script from real life. It is interesting, not only for its 
 dramatic effectiveness, but also as containing many of the 
 features that were later to constitute the modern novel. 
 Both in this work and in The Pilgrivi s Progress, Bunyan 
 shows his power to conceive lifelike characters, to invent 
 striking incidents, to create impressive scenes, to construct 
 a well-ordered plot. Afr. Badman is inferior in the latter 
 respect ; but if the distinctive features of the two books 
 could have been united, we should have had something 
 very like a great novel. 
 
 John Dryden was the typical literary figure of his time. 
 Practically all that the Age of the Restoration was may 
 be seen or guessed in him. lie represents its 
 Classicism — its desire tor finished, restrained, 
 orderly expression. He represents its moral — or rather
 
 i86 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 its immoral — temper, while at the same time he repre- 
 sents what it retained of true and manly religious spirit. 
 Its gayety, its brilliance, its wit, together with its more 
 solid intellectual qualities, are to be found in him. The 
 literature of the age may be divided into miscellaneous 
 prose, poetry, and drama ; and in each of these depart- 
 ments, Dryden is the central figure. Nothing is more 
 impressive than the range of his literary work, unless it 
 be its excellence in every kind. 
 
 Dryden's literary career began with the publication, in 
 1659, of his Heroic Stanzas, written on the death of Oliver 
 Early Poetry Cromwell. Only the next year, he wrote his 
 and Prose Astrcza Rediix, or Justice Returned, welcoming 
 the Restoration of Charles II. This desertion of the Puri- 
 tan cause is not really so bad as it seems. Dryden had 
 been a Puritan chiefly through family associations and 
 traditions ; his enthusiasm for the Puritan cause had never 
 been very fervid ; and in becoming a Royalist, he was 
 probably following the natural tendency of his own tem- 
 perament. In 1667 he published his first long poem, 
 Annus Mirabilis, or the Wonderful Year, commemorating 
 the sea victories over the Dutch and the great fire of 
 London in 1666. At the same time, he was making his 
 beginnings in prose, by means of critical prefaces to his 
 dramas, and of his Essay on the Historical Poem, intro- 
 ductory to the Annus Mirabilis. His most famous critical 
 work, the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, was published sepa- 
 rately in 1667. 
 
 Dryden had already written several dramas ; and about 
 this time, he ceased from poetry and turned his energies 
 for a time entirely to dramatic writing. It was in con- 
 nection with the stage that he achieved the successes that 
 Dramatic firmly established his reputation. Drama was 
 Work j-j^g favorite literary form of the Restoration. 
 
 The demand for plays was very great ; and Dryden,
 
 THE AGE OK UKYDEN (1660-1700) 187 
 
 as a professional man of letters rather than a strongly 
 individual genius, was tempted to seek that form of liter- 
 ary expression which was most largely and immediately 
 profitable. Up to 1681 he had written some twenty 
 dramas. His best abilities did not lie in tliis direction ; 
 but his perfection of literary talent gave him a large 
 measure of success, and his strong personality made him 
 a recognized leader. He wrote so-called heroic plays, 
 tragedies, comedies, and tragi-comedies. Among his best- 
 known dramas are The Maiden Onee?i, TynDuiic Love, 
 All for Love, and T/ie Spanish Friar. Dryden's dramatic 
 faults are extravagance and bombast in the style, unnatu- 
 ralness in the characters, and lack of dramatic effective- 
 ness in the plots. Such defects would seem almost fatal 
 to good drama ; but Dryden counterbalanced them in some 
 degree by his literary adroitness and by his genuine poetic 
 talent. It is curious to note that Dryden wrote many of 
 his plays in the favorite heroic couplet. He led the 
 fashion in this respect, and was the leader also in the 
 return to blank verse. 
 
 In 1 68 1 Dryden forsook the drama and did not return 
 to it until late in his life. He was now fifty years of age 
 and had not yet produced a single work that can be called 
 a great masterpiece. He had, however, attained to a fine 
 mastery of all the arts of literary expression, and was now 
 ready for the great works of his life. In 1681 he began 
 the most wonderful series of political verse satires in the 
 English language, by the publication of Absalom 
 
 Satires 
 
 and Achitopliel. In the next year he produced 
 The Medal and Mac Flecknoe. These works place Dry- 
 den among the very first of English satirists. His special 
 gift, a gift in which he has never been excelled, is that of 
 drawing a satirical jjortrait. His sketches in this kind 
 arc all the UKjre effective because of Dryden's disposi- 
 ti(jn to d(j justice to any good (|ualilies wliich he may
 
 l88 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 recognize in his victim. Following the satires, he turned 
 his attention to religious subjects, and wrote, in 1682, his 
 Religious RcUgio Laid, or A Layman s Faith, setting 
 Poetry forth his adherence to the Church of Eng- 
 
 land. Only five years later, after the accession of James 
 II, who was a Roman Catholic, Dryden celebrated his 
 own conversion to Catholicism by writing The Hind and 
 the Panther, a remarkable allegorical poem, in which the 
 hind represents the Roman Catholic Church and the pan- 
 ther the Church of England. In this change of religion, 
 Dryden can not wholly escape the charge of self-interest ; 
 but on the other hand, there is little doubt that it was in 
 harmony with his own character and convictions. It is 
 to be noted to his credit that upon the accession of the 
 Protestant William of Orange in 1688, he remained stead- 
 fastly true to his new faith. 
 
 By the Revolution of 1688, through which James II was 
 driven into exile and William and Mary were seated on 
 Dryden's the English throne, Dryden lost his positions as 
 Old Age poet-laureate and historiographer-royal, together 
 
 with all other aid and countenance from the government. 
 This reverse of fortune compelled him in his later years 
 to the greatest activity of his life. He engaged 
 first in translation from the classics, his chief 
 work in this kind being a translation of all of Virgil. In 
 addition to this, he translated from Theocritus, Lucretius, 
 Horace, Homer, Persius, Juvenal, Ovid, and Plutarch. 
 What was more important, he continued his noble work in 
 lyric poetry, begun before the Revolution, His most not- 
 able lyrics are his Eles:y on Anne Killio-rew, his 
 
 Lyrics ■' ^-^ <b ' 
 
 first Song for St. Cecilia s Day, and his Alex- 
 
 anders Feast, or second song for St. Cecilia's Day. 
 
 Between 1690 and 1694 he wrote five more 
 
 plays, thus closing his dramatic labors. In 1698 
 
 he began his Fables, and in March, 1700, published Fables,
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700) 189 
 
 AiiciiHt and Modcrti, traushxtcd into Verse, frojn Homer, 
 Ovid, Boccace, and Chaucer, with Original Poems by Mr. 
 Drydoi. In a fine preface he gives us his last piece of 
 literary criticism. The Fables was Drydeii's last book ; 
 for on the ist of May, 1700, just as he was approach- 
 ing the limit of his threescore years and ten, he died in 
 London. He was given a splendid public funeral, and was 
 buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Dryden was a man of supreme talent rather than of 
 great spontaneous genius. As we have seen, he was pre- 
 eminently a man of his age. He was, however, something 
 more than the greatest figure in a comparatively Dryden-s Lit- 
 inferior literary period. He is one of the great eraryRank 
 poets of English literature. Though not of supreme 
 stature, he is still one of the race of giants. A not un- 
 worthy successor of Milton, he hands on the tradition of 
 great English poetry to the men who have made illus- 
 trious the literature of the last two hundred years. He 
 possessed many noble qualities which raised him above 
 the level of his age and made him worthy to rank with 
 the great ones of the literature. Strength and solidity of 
 mind, accuracy and comprehensiveness of scholarship, as- 
 tonishing fluency and versatility, masterly skill as a lit- 
 erary workman, brilliant wit, keenness of discrimination 
 and insight, an imagination vivid if not original, a poetic 
 sense real if not profound — these are some of the qualities 
 that made Dryden great. A noble poet, an almost unsur- 
 passed satirist, a skilful dramatist, an accomplished literary 
 critic, a master of English prose — these are some of his 
 titles to honor. 
 
 The prose of the Restoration marks a decline from the 
 fer\'or and imaginative splendor of the early seventeenth- 
 century style ; but it marks a distinct advance in RestoruUon 
 the direction of the more modern prose virtues p^'"* 
 of clearness, order, and precision. Classicism operated
 
 190 CLASSICISM (1 660-1 780) 
 
 to restrain and to deaden poetry, but its influence on 
 prose was in many ways advantageous. Prose before had 
 vainly endeavored to reach the levels of poetry ; now 
 poetry for a time was brought down to the level of prose, 
 and the distinctively prose virtues were cultivated. The 
 final result was that each form of expression better learned 
 its own powers and limitations. Thereafter, each devel- 
 oped in its own proper direction. The typical prose-writer 
 of the age was Dryden, and no other man save Bunyan rises 
 to great distinction in this field. There were, however, sev- 
 eral men who were writing prose of admirable quality. 
 
 One of the earliest of these was Abraham Cowley, 
 whose poetical work, contemporary with that of Milton, has 
 Abraham already been considered. In his Discourse, by 
 Cowley Way of Vision, Concerning the Government of 
 
 Oliver Cromivell, he shows the transition from the old 
 style to the new. His Essays are in the later manner. 
 The subjects of Cowley's interest are shown by some of 
 the titles: Of Greatness, Of Myself, Of Liberty, Of Soli- 
 tude, Of Obscurity, The Garden. Probably no man of the 
 time — not even Dryden — has a more modern air or a 
 more finished and elegant style than Sir WilUam Temple. 
 Sir William Temple was a statesman, a diplomat, a cultured 
 Temple gentleman, a man of retired leisure, and wrote 
 
 on a considerable variety of topics suggested by his public 
 or private interests and ranging from gardening to diplo- 
 macy, from gout to Greek learning. Probably his most 
 famous single sentence is this: 
 
 When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but 
 like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to 
 keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over. 
 
 Other writers there were — in divinity, in philosophy, in 
 history, and in science — whose style illustrated 
 
 Minor Prose . ■' 
 
 in one way or another the tendencies of the 
 age ; but it would carry us too far afield to cite individual
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700) 191 
 
 cases. They were not strictly men of letters, and their 
 service to literature was purely incidental. Perhaps the 
 chief service of them all as a body was in subordinating 
 style to matter and thus bringing it nearer to the modern 
 ideal of the function of good prose, namely, to be the 
 clear and transparent medium for the untrammelled ex- 
 pression of the thought. If, aside from the work of 
 Bunyan, the Age of the Restoration produced no 
 great masterpiece of prose literature, it did much to make 
 prose style an adequate medium for great literary ex- 
 pression. 
 
 In poetry, also, the name of Dryden must be set in the 
 first place. He was, indeed, first without even a near 
 rival. No one was his equal as an original Restoration 
 poet ; no one was his equal as a translator. Poetry 
 Two minor poets will serve to illustrate the rather scant 
 poetical production of the period. 
 
 Andrew Marvell was like John Bunyan in being a be- 
 lated Puritan, living far on into the Restoration Period ; 
 but he was a far different type of man from the Andrew 
 inspired tinker of Bedford. Marvell had been Marveii 
 associated with the Puritan party and had been promi- 
 nent in public life. Among other positions he held under 
 Cromwell that of joint Latin secretary with Milton. After 
 the Restoration he remained in public life, sitting in 
 Parliament an austere and incorruptible patriot among 
 base and venal politicians. His earlier poetry was de- 
 scriptive and lyrical, and contains much that is beautiful 
 and melodious. His later work, following the fashion of 
 the later time, was satirical. His satire is severe and even 
 savage, but he never attained to anything of that finish 
 and brilliancy in satire which characterized the work of 
 Dryden, to anything of that quality which lifts satire above 
 the interest of a mere passing day, and makes it im- 
 mortal.
 
 192 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 Samuel Butler was also a satirist, and one of very dif- 
 ferent fashion. He, too, lacked Dryden's perfect art in 
 Samuel satire, as he also lacked either Dryden's or 
 
 Butler Marvell's poetical gift ; but his work had de- 
 
 cided effectiveness in its own way, and gains added inter- 
 est from its historical relations. No poet better represents 
 the revolt against Puritanism. His masterpiece — for it 
 is a masterpiece of its sort —   is a mock-epic poem called 
 Hiidibras. It is a ridiculous lampoon of the vices and 
 peculiarities of the extreme Puritan. Sir Hudibras and his 
 squire Ralpho were suggested by Don Quixote and Sancho 
 Panza; but their adventures are mainly of Butler's own 
 devising. The first part of the work was published in 
 1663. It became extremely popular with the court party; 
 and under the influence of this popularity, Butler extended 
 it from time to time until as late as 1678. As a whole, it 
 possesses no great literary merit, either in construction of 
 plot or in conception of characters ; but Butler had a keen 
 and bitter wit, and parts of the poem are shrewdly satirical 
 and vividly grotesque. Among other things he says that 
 the Puritans 
 
 Compound for sins they are inclined to 
 By damning those they have no mind to. 
 
 A sort of remote echo of the beautiful lyric poetry of 
 the earlier Cavalier poets is heard in the poems of a num- 
 ber of brilliant but profligate Restoration versifiers. One 
 
 of the most charming is a song of Sir Charles 
 
 Sedley, beginning 
 
 Love still has something of the sea, 
 From whence his Mother rose. 
 
 Sedley 
 
 An EpitapJi on diaries II, by John Wilmot, Earl of 
 Rochester, is exceedingly apt to its subject, and 
 has probably never been surpassed in its kind :
 
 THE AGE OF DRV DEN (1660- 1700) 193 
 
 Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, 
 
 Wliose word no man relies on, 
 Who never said a foolish thing, 
 
 And never did a wise one. 
 
 The theatres, which had been closed during the Puritan 
 domination, were immediately opened at the Restoration. 
 Dramatic spectacles became immensely popular, Restoration 
 and the demand for dramatic work was great. Drama 
 We have already seen that Dryden yielded to this demand 
 almost entirely for about fifteen years. He was by no 
 means alone. Indeed, a large number of writers, of greater 
 or less ability, were attracted to the drama, and an extensive 
 body of dramatic work was produced. Most of it was 
 marked by two striking characteristics — brilliancy of treat- 
 ment and profligacy of manners. The English drama has 
 never displayed greater finish or wit, and it has never de- 
 scended to a lower moral level. Dryden himself was no 
 excej)tion to this general rule, being in this, as in so many 
 other respects, the creature of his age. 
 
 One of the most striking exceptions was Thomas Otway, 
 the most successful writer of tragedy in the period. His 
 two principal works. The Orphan and Venice Pie- Thomas 
 sen'ed, are not unworthy of the Elizabethan °*^^y 
 dramatic tradition. Otway was inferior in genius to most 
 of his great predecessors ; but he still retained something 
 of their quality. He had much of their tragic intensity, 
 much of their romantic spirit, and not a little of their gift 
 of true poetry. He knew how to strike the note of terror 
 and the note nf pathos. His feeling is sincere, his char- 
 acters are natural, his plots are interesting. When he 
 endeavors to introduce a comic clement into his work, he 
 is decidedly unfortunate and not untouched by the prevail- 
 ing coarseness ; but within his own field, he is a true though 
 limited master. 
 
 It is in comedy that the characteristic features of the
 
 1^4 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 age are seen. There were many writers, but four of them 
 William stand out with unusual prominence. The first 
 wycheriey of theso is William Wycherley, who probably rep- 
 resents the fashionable life of the age at its basest if not 
 at its most immoral. Macaulay characterizes Wycherley's 
 Country Wife as " one of the most profligate and heartless 
 of human compositions," and says of his Plain-Dealer that 
 it is " equally immoral and equally well- written." Wycher- 
 ley had wit and dramatic skill, but these do not save his 
 immorality from being somewhat brutal as well as flagrant. 
 
 William Congreve was greater in almost every respect. 
 Probably no more brilliant dialogue or more sparkling wit 
 wiii m than his has been seen in English comedy. His 
 Congreve characters are natural ; his plots are interesting, 
 though sacrificed somewhat to his dialogue. His immoral- 
 ity is less heartless than Wycherley's, but its greater refine- 
 ment does not save his work from being both cynical and 
 corrupt. This immoral element is a part of the very tex- 
 ture of his plays and can not be eradicated ; but if we 
 could imagine them as existing at all without it, such plays 
 as TJie Double-Dealer, Love for Love, and TJie Way of the 
 World would be among the best as well as among the 
 most brilliant of English comedies of manners. 
 
 Sir John Vanbrugh at his best approaches Congreve, 
 but is much more unequal. TJie Relapse, The Provoked 
 Sir John Wife, and The Confederacy are his three note- 
 
 vanbrugh worthy plays. The latter carries us a little way 
 into the eighteenth century. 
 
 The same may be said of the best productions of 
 George Farquhar, such as The Recruiting Officer and Tiie 
 George Beaux' Stratagem. Farquhar is no model of 
 
 Farquhar morality; but the plays just mentioned are a 
 decided improvement over those of his contemporaries, 
 as well as over his own early efforts. He is more frank, 
 more good-natured, characterized by genial humor rather
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700) 
 
 195 
 
 than by biting wit. The Rccniiting Officer contains the 
 character of Captain Plume — said to be drawn from Far- 
 quhar himself — and that of Sergeant Kite — the singer 
 of " Over the hills and far away." Tlic Beaux' Stratagem 
 gives us Boniface, the inn-keeper, and Lady Bountiful. 
 It is probably the very best of Restoration comedies ; and 
 Farquhar's death at twenty-nine probably cut short the 
 promise of still better work in both the artistic sense and 
 the moral. 
 
 ^^■•^. 
 
 Ei_sTo\v Chikch and Gkkk.n, 1658
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 
 
 The Age of Dryden, as we have seen, was character- 
 ized by a reaction against Puritanism and by the develop- 
 ment of Classicism. The former movement tended toward 
 frivolity, licentiousness, and practical if not theoretical 
 irreligion. Looseness of life did not necessarily involve 
 unbelief, but it did involve practical unrighteousness. The 
 classical movement tended toward repression of emotion, 
 of imagination, and of originality — toward undue em- 
 phasis upon the literary value of mere reason, and toward 
 formal excellence and finish of style. With reference 
 to these movements — the religious and the literary 
 Moral — the Age of Pope marked both reaction and 
 
 Reaction advaucc. The reaction appeared chiefly on the 
 religious side, and it was a reaction which meant decided 
 improvement in life and incidentally in the moral tone of 
 literature. The Age of Pope was not a religious age, 
 it did not experience any great revival of morality or of 
 Christian zeal ; but it did perceive that the previous gen- 
 eration had gone too far, that its spirit was destructive of 
 human society and of the highest values in literature, and 
 that effort must be made to bring back a purer moral tone. 
 This effort was consciously and effectively made, and the 
 literature of this age became in consequence vastly cleaner, 
 both in thought and in speech. There was no reversion 
 to Puritanism ; the- men of the time had little taste for that. 
 But there was a reaction against moral lawlessness ; and the 
 age took a middle ground between Puritan strictness and 
 
 196
 
 J^ (A^
 
 THE ACE OF POPK (1700-1740) I97 
 
 Restoration licentiousness. It can not be said that this 
 produced an age of pure living and of high ideals. Cor- 
 ruption and bribery were common in politics. Drunken- 
 ness, brutality, and crime were prevalent to an alarming 
 extent. The reformation was perhaps too much a matter 
 of form, of profession, and of theory, rather than of spirit. 
 Nevertheless, there was a gain, and the reaction against 
 Restoration excess involved a real advance toward a rec- 
 ognition of higher standards. 
 
 This reaction on the moral side was accompanied 
 by an unquestionable advance on the side of Classicism. 
 Conformity to recognized literary authority was still further 
 emphasized, individuality was still further re- Advance in 
 pressed ; and the age doubtless felt that this, Classicism 
 like the effort for greater morality, was in the interest of 
 social order as well as for the advantage of literature. 
 Originality became less and less ; order, regularity, critical 
 authority, became more and more. Imagination and pas- 
 sion were restrained, in order that mere expression might 
 be polished and refined to the last degree. The effort was, 
 not to say something new, but to say something better 
 than it had ever been said before. It might be supposed 
 that this would be utterly fatal to great literary creation, 
 and its tendency unquestionably was in that direction. 
 Nevertheless, the age did great things for literature, and 
 even opened up new literary highways. This is proba- 
 bly due chiefly to the fact that the age possessed a number 
 of men of remarkable literary ability, too great to be alto- 
 gether bound and hindered even by the rules which they 
 had set for themselves. Genius has not seldom found its 
 own instinctive way, in spite of theory and prescription. 
 Moreover, this age was already beginning to be uncon- 
 sciously stirred by certain human forces that were later to 
 overthrow Classicism and to shape the literature of the 
 coming time. Nor must we think of Classicism itself as
 
 198 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 altogether a negative influence. It had positive virtues 
 which helped to give an added efficiency to literature, and 
 which, as we shall see, were to make real contribution 
 toward literary development 
 
 The worst effect of Classicism was felt in poetry. 
 Great poetry lives and moves in the realm of passion and 
 Classicism imagination ; and when these are restrained, its 
 and Poetry wings are clipped. There is no poet of the age, 
 therefore, spreading "ample pinion," and 
 
 Sailing with supreme dominion 
 Thro' the azure deep of air. 
 
 But there is at least one — Alexander Pope — who spreads 
 abroad the ample fan of the peacock's gorgeous feathers 
 and struts with measured stride across the smooth green 
 sward. Prose, on the contrary, drew decided advantage 
 Classicism from thcsc samc conditions. What it needed 
 and Prose Wcis, not the high passion of Milton or the 
 golden imagery of Jeremy Taylor, but just those qualities 
 of regularity, precision, directness, and reason which this 
 age was so well fitted to provide* As a prose period, this 
 is one of the most notable in English literature ; and to its 
 classical influences we owe it in large measure that our 
 modern English prose approaches the admirable clearness 
 and lucidity of the French rather than the comparative 
 formlessness of the German. Our own earlier prose- 
 writers, great as many of them undoubtedly were, were 
 headed in the wrong direction ; and English prose style 
 needed just such discipline and guidance as it was now 
 to receive, in order that it might henceforth take its own 
 proper path and develop its own natural powers. Prose 
 has not altogether ceased to soar, on due occasion ; but in 
 the main, its proper function is pedestrian, and its daily 
 business is to serve as the useful servant of the world's 
 thought. In view of this important mission, it was decid-
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 199 
 
 edly worth while that one period of our literary his- 
 tory should be devoted chiefly to learning the lesson of 
 a serviceable prose style. That lesson the literature has 
 never forgotten.. 
 
 The most unique genius of the age, and beyond doubt 
 its great prose-writer, was Jonathan Swift. He was of 
 English parentage, and of decidedly English character and 
 genius; but the accidents of his life determined that he 
 should be much associated with Ireland, and Jonathan 
 this association was to have inijiortant bearings swift: Life 
 upon his literary work. He was born in Dublin in 1667, 
 and received his education first at Kilkenny School and 
 afterward at Trinity College, Dublin. It will thus appear 
 that he was Irish by place of birth and by education, and 
 that all of his early life was passed in Ireland. After 
 leaving college, however, he went to pngland, where he 
 served for nearly ten years as private secretary to Sir 
 William Temple, whom we have already met as one of the 
 prose-writers of the Restoration Period. Temple was a 
 distant relative of Swift, and was doubtless as willing as 
 he was able to be of service to the young man in the 
 beginnings of his literary career. The association, how- 
 ever, *was not in all respects a happy one; Swift had a 
 terribly proud and imperious nature and could ill brook the 
 relation of a mere underling to any man. Consequently, 
 he entered the church and became the incumbent of a 
 small Irish parish. Little satisfied with his new life, he 
 soon returned to Temple's service ; but on the death of 
 the latter in 1699, he went to Ireland again. A mission 
 for the Archbishop of Dublin finally brought him to 
 London, where his vigorous personality and great literary 
 ability soon made hini an almost indispensable political 
 instrument to some of the Tory leaders. They held out 
 to him the hope <>( a bishopric ; but the opposition of 
 Queen Anne is saitl tu have frustrated this plan. His
 
 200 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 important services were finally rewarded — in a fashion 
 bitterly disappointing to him — with the deanery of St. 
 Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. This took him to Ireland 
 again ; and there he lived for the remaining thirty years 
 or more of his life. What seemed to him hke exile was 
 occasionally broken by visits to his friends in England. 
 After terrible physical suffering and some five years of 
 madness, he died in Dublin in 1745. 
 
 Swift was a man of astonishing genius, and might have 
 
 been eminent in almost any intellectual pursuit. He was 
 
 primarily a man of action, and turned to litera- 
 
 Swift'sGemus ^^^^ mainly as an instrument for advancing his 
 
 and Character -' ° 
 
 practical ends. He found it, too, a medium 
 through which he might pour forth the passion of his 
 intense nature and the vivid experience of his strange 
 career. His literary work, therefore, is closely associated 
 with the events of his life and often needs the illumination 
 which those events throw upon it. On the whole, his was 
 a disappointed life, and the note of bitterness and resent- 
 ment is a familiar one in his writings. Aside from his 
 actual physical ills and personal sorrows, the secret of his 
 pessimism is probably to be found in his proud and imperi- 
 ous temper. He was conscious of immense powers, he felt 
 a half contempt for some of the greatest men of his time 
 even while he was compelled to court their favor ; and it 
 was only natural that such a spirit should scorn a patron- 
 age that often seemed Hke unwilling charity and should 
 bitterly resent an ingratitude that bhghted his ambitious 
 dreams. His pessimism grew into a gigantic contempt for 
 the whole despicable race of men. His personal grievances 
 were magnified until they distorted for him the true pro- 
 portions of human life. His own diseased eye discolored 
 his vision of the world. The literary weapon that he knew 
 so well how to wield became an instrument of fierce and 
 scornful vengeance. He carried satire to the extreme of
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 201 
 
 coarse vituperation, and even penned some of the most 
 disgusting passages in English. His clerical robes seemed 
 to be forgotten as he waded in the mire. Apparently, he 
 had no conscience about wounding the sensibilities of 
 others or about contaminating his own mind. Such de- 
 scription may seem exaggerated, but it is not too strong to 
 present one side of Swift's nature. Yet we must remem- 
 ber that it is only one side — the side on which he was 
 most faulty and most human. There were nobler and 
 more generous phases of his character ; and these, too, 
 find frequent expression in his literary works as well as in 
 the acts of his life. What Swift might have been as a 
 happy, successful, prosperous, courted, and abundantly 
 honored man, the brief period of his political career gives 
 us some opportunity to conjecture. It is just possible that, 
 lacking the spur, he might not have run the race. It 
 seems more probable that his love of applause, his spirit 
 of emulation, his proud consciousness of his own masterful 
 powers, would themselves have been a sufficient stimulus, 
 and that the world would have been the gainer by a liter- 
 ary product not less powerful and much more genial and 
 humane. Such Swift might have been. What he was and 
 did is part of England's literary history, and the nature of 
 that record some consideration of his literary work will 
 give us further opportunity to see. 
 
 His first important production, The Battle of the Books, 
 was written during the time of his service with Sir William 
 Temple; and it connects itself with a famous g^tti^ ^^ j^^ 
 controversy, in which Temple was engaged, ^"•'^ 
 over the comparative merits of ancient and modern liter- 
 ature. Swift, like Temple, was on the side of the ancients. 
 The work portrays, in characteristically vivid and vigorous 
 fashion, an imaginary battle between tiie ancient and the 
 modern books in Si. James's Library. Here Swift dis- 
 plays his wide range of learning and his remarkable
 
 202 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 powers in allegory and in satire. The famous phrase 
 " sweetness and light " is found in this work. 
 
 His Tale of a Tub, written at about the same time, is 
 also an allegorical satire. It deals with religion, repre- 
 A Tale of a senting Romanism by Peter, Lutheranism and 
 Tub Anglicanism by Martin, and Calvinism by Jack. 
 
 These characters were, of course, suggested by St. Peter, 
 Martin Luther, and John Calvin. They are represented 
 as three brothers who quarrelled over their inheritance. 
 The work has an air of irreverence, though Swift probably 
 meant no disrespect to true religion. At any rate, it was 
 this book that is said to have lost him his bishopric. On 
 the literary side. Swift here appears as a supreme master 
 of irony. No wonder that the .politicians of his day both 
 feared and courted a man who could wield so terrible 
 a weapon. They perceived, too, that he commanded the 
 most finished and powerful prose style that had yet been 
 written in English. 
 
 During the years immediately following, Swift dis- 
 played his great abilities in a number of minor papers 
 Papers and ^'^^ pamphlets. His rather cruel humor is well 
 Pamphlets illustrated by a huge practical joke perpetrated 
 upon one Partridge, a professed astrologer and the pub- 
 lisher of a popular almanac. Swift wrote a prediction that 
 Partridge would die on a certain day. After the day had 
 passed, he published a circumstantial account of Par- 
 tridge's death, and solemnly maintained the joke against 
 the vigorous protests of the unhappy victim. In the same 
 jesting spirit he wrote an ironical Argument against 
 Abolishing Christianity, urging with mock seriousness 
 that after all Christianity was not such a bad thing and 
 ought to be retained. His political pamphlets were mas- 
 terly examples of their kind; but they do not quite keep 
 their interest for the present day except as specimens of 
 Swift's style.
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (i 700-1 740) 203 
 
 During this period he wrote his iamous Jounia/ to Stella, 
 a series of letters to Esther Johnson, a young woman whom 
 he had first met in the household of Sir William Temple, 
 and who maintained for him a lifelong attach- journal to 
 ment. His precise relations to her and to an- steiia 
 other woman known as " Vanessa " are little understood. 
 In \.h& Journal Swift " unlocks his heart." It was in effect 
 a private diary, written partly in cipher and never intended 
 for publication ; and its revelations are of the most inti- 
 mate sort. The men and manners of his time, his per- 
 sonal daily experiences in London, are graphically described. 
 His vanity, his imperiousness, his ambition, are here; but 
 here, also, is a playful tenderness in singular contrast 
 with his ordinary fierce and contemptuous attitude toward 
 the world. After Swift's death there was found among 
 his papers a little package with the inscription, "only a 
 woman's hair." 
 
 The more generous side of Swift's nature is also shown 
 by his interest in the Irish people and by his literary labors 
 in their behalf. An excellent illustration is found in The 
 Drapiers Letters. The English government had Tj,e Drapier's 
 licensed a speculator to issue debased half-pence Letters 
 for circulation in Ireland. This seemed to Swift like base 
 and contemptible robbery ; and he poured forth all the 
 resources of his sarcasm in a successful effort to defeat 
 the scheme. His financial wisdom in the matter is doubt- 
 ful enough ; but his generous championship made him a 
 popular hero in Ireland. A later brief work is entitled a 
 Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of Modest 
 Poor People from being a Burden. The " mod- Proposal 
 esty " of the proposal may be judged from the fact 
 that he pretended to advocate the fattening of Irish chil- 
 dren for the English market, that they might be served up 
 as delicacies on the tables of the rich. No work better 
 displays .Swift's almost supernatural gift of irony.
 
 204 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 The most famous result of Swift's literary activity is 
 Gulliver's his GulHvers Travels. It is at once a bitter 
 Travels satire, a parable of human life, and a series of 
 
 fascinating romantic stories. Captain Lemuel Gulliver, a 
 bluff and honest sailor, undertakes four different voyages, 
 on each of which he meets with marvelous adventures. 
 On the first voyage, he is shipwrecked on the coast of the 
 Lilliputians, a people averaging some six inches 
 in height. The story is as interesting as a 
 child's wonder-book ; but when we see ordinary human 
 motives reduced to this diminutive scale and read of the 
 petty Lilliputian conflicts over politics and religion, we 
 become aware of Swift's satirical intention. He makes 
 his kind ridiculous by comparing their pompous activities 
 and ambitions with those of an ant-hill. 
 
 Gulliver's second voyage brings him to Brobdingnag, the 
 land of giants sixty feet in height. The story is still fasci- 
 second nating, but the satire is reversed. Gulliver is 
 
 Voyage j^^^ himsclf the contemptible figure ; and as he 
 
 tells the king of Brobdingnag about his own land and 
 people, we are made to feel the incredulous scorn of a high 
 and generous nature for beings who could be so base and 
 despicable. Actions and motives to which we are accus- 
 tomed in human society are here looked at through other 
 eyes and from a nobler point of view, and human dignity 
 shrinks into a very little thing. 
 
 The third voyage is less interesting as a mere story, 
 while the satire becomes more prominent, more bitter, and 
 more detailed. In Laputa, the flying island, we 
 meet with a race of mathematical philosophers, 
 lost in abstract speculations. At the academy of Lagado, 
 wc are introduced to learned men who spend their lives 
 on all sorts of futile projects, such as trying to extract 
 sunbeams from cucumbers. Glubdubdrib is the island 
 of sorcerers or magicians ; and here Gulliver has an op-
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 205 
 
 portunity to conjure up the spirits of the great dead 
 and to compare them with the degenerate moderns. In 
 Luggnagg, he sees the Struldbrugs, a race of immortals 
 grown horrible and loathsome in their immortality. It is 
 to this, Swift would tell us, that humanity would come if 
 death did not mercifully cut it off. 
 
 The most terrible satire of all is reser\^ed for the last 
 voyage. Here Gulliver tells of the Houyhnhnms, a gentle 
 and intelligent race of horses who look with Fourth 
 loathing contempt upon the Yahoos, an utterly voyage 
 debased type of human beings. Gulliver himself is merely 
 tolerated as an unusually good specimen of these filthy 
 and degraded animals. It is with an almost demoniac 
 laughter that Swift thus heaps scorn and contempt upon 
 the race to which he belongs. This is no longer a child's 
 story. It is the terrible sarcasm of a tremendous genius 
 made mad by his own pride and rage and disappointment. 
 Gulliver s Travels is one of the most powerful and fascinat- 
 ing books in literature. It is also one of the most terribly 
 
 Swift's great genius is strikingly individual ; his work 
 shows the movements of strong passion and vivid imagina- 
 tion. Nevertheless, it is in its own way typical gwift and his 
 of the classical age. It is so in its prose style — ^ge 
 so forcible and so direct, and yet so clear and so finished. 
 It is so in its realism — in that interest in contemporary 
 life and contemporary problems which the classical revolt 
 from romanticism had brought with it. It is so in its 
 intellectuality ; for strong as passion is in Swift's work, 
 passion is dominated by intelligence. It is so in its satire ; 
 for literary history makes very clear the fact that satire 
 and Classicism have many affinities. Swift was too vehe- 
 ment a spirit to be unwillingly bound by any traditions or 
 any conventions. Yet his own literary faith and practice 
 were in essential harmony with those of his generation. 
 
 Jo.scph Addison affords a most striking contrast with
 
 206 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 Swift in all personal and in most literary qualities. The 
 Joseph distinguishing mark of his work is the mark of 
 
 Addison refined elegance, of polite amiability. A little 
 cold he may have been, not altogether genial, perhaps with a 
 slight tinge of well-bred malice, but always the easy and 
 courtly gentleman. Swift's proud and aggressive nature 
 aroused opposition and made enemies ; and he ended in 
 disappointment and despair. Addison's easy, smiling grace 
 made only friends, and carried him very far on the road of 
 political preferment and of literary honor. Swift longed 
 for a bishopric and got only an Irish deanship. Addison 
 rose to be Chief Secretary of State and married a countess. 
 Perhaps no man ever achieved so much in political life by 
 virtue of merely literary abilities. Nor was he undeserv- 
 ing of his honors. His character was pure, finished, 
 refined, noble ; and these qualities have put their stamp 
 upon all his literary work. 
 
 Addison first came into general notice by means of a 
 poem on the battle of Blenheim, entitled TJie Campaign. 
 Poems and ^^ ^^^ "o Special aptitude for work of so mar- 
 Dramas tial a character ; but his literary skill was equal 
 to the task imposed upon it, and he succeeded in producing 
 a poem which became extremely popular. It was, to be 
 sure, written at a time when good poetry was the greatest 
 of rarities, and when any tolerably good poetic performance 
 might expect to be received with admiration. Its pop- 
 ularity was, of course, largely due to the subject ; for 
 England was just then rejoicing over the great victory 
 and extravagantly lauding the great Duke of Marlborough, 
 the general whose military genius had won it. The merit 
 of the poem consists chiefly in one fine passage. Of his 
 other poems, we need mention only his hymns. They con- 
 tain some really beautiful poetry, perhaps a little artificial, 
 but nevertheless sincere and imaginative. Addison was 
 not a great poet, even for his own rather unpoetical day.
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (i 700-1 740) 207 
 
 This and other limitations arc apparent in his dramatic 
 work. He wrote an opera called Rosamund, a comedy 
 called The Dnnnmii; and a classical tragedy called Cato. 
 None of these attained a genuine dramatic success. Cato 
 was vastly admired in its own day ; but it now seems cold, 
 artificial, and lifeless. Whatever of merit the dramas have, 
 is the result of skilful literary workmanship rather than of 
 true dramatic or poetic genius. 
 
 Addison's genius was essentially that of the prose- 
 writer, and more particularly of the periodical essayist. 
 He had above all the gift of prose style. Dr. Addison-s 
 Johnson, in the ne.xt generation, characterized Prose Genius 
 Addison's style as " familiar but not coarse, and elegant but 
 not ostentatious." The characterization is apt and suffi- 
 cient ; for it is just this combination of ease and elegance 
 which still seems to our day the distinctive quality of 
 Addison's manner. His writing is like the intimate but 
 dignified conversation of a cultured gentleman. It makes 
 no effort, but it never fails of its desired effect. Beyond 
 the gift of mere style, Addison had other important qual- 
 ities of a great writer. He had a refined wit and the 
 power of delicate satire. He had keen observation of life 
 and manners and the ability to give interest and charm to 
 the treatment of subjects associated with daily experience. 
 He had a delicate literary taste, and a critical faculty, acute 
 if not profound, just if not strikingly original. Perhaps 
 his highest literary faculty was that of graphic and lightly 
 satirical portraiture of character. All of these qualities 
 appear in his periodical essays, which constitute with 
 posterity his chief claim to literary fame. These essays 
 were written in association with Steele ; and it will be best 
 to reserve the closer consideration of them until we can 
 consider by itself the work which the two men did 
 together. 
 
 In the present connection, however, it is well to note
 
 208 CLASSICISM (1660-17S0) 
 
 Addison's character as a moralist ; for in all his work, and 
 in his periodical essays more especially, he takes the atti- 
 tude of a conscious and professed moral instructor. He 
 was a man of pure life and of religious conviction, and he 
 definitely set before himself the task and the duty of help- 
 ing to improve the morals and the manners of his age. 
 He dealt with manners on the side of morals and with 
 morals on the side of manners. In this attitude, as well as 
 Addison and in his refined and polished style, he was work- 
 hisAge jj^g jj^ conscious or unconscious harmony with 
 
 the classical spirit of his time. His satire, too, less fero- 
 cious and more urbane than that of Swift, distinctly marks 
 his classical temper. Other evidence in the same direction 
 is afforded by his interest in contemporary life and by the 
 realism of his well-known portrayals of contemporary types 
 of character. 
 
 The personality of Richard Steele is more complicated 
 and much less easy to define. He was a scholar, he was 
 a gentleman, he was a literary genius, he was a good and 
 generous soul, but he was also somewhat of a vagabond. 
 The type has not been an uncommon one in the realm of 
 Sir Richard literature and art, and is perhaps best described by 
 Steele the word " Bohemian." Full of faults, fitful and 
 
 erratic, Steele was yet one of the most lovable personal- 
 ities of his age. He left the University without his degree, 
 went into the army, and rose to the rank of captain. 
 Entering politics, he became a member of Parliament, and 
 later was made Sir Richard. He made two wealthy 
 marriages ; but his spendthrift habits greatly reduced his 
 fortune. In a not very bad sense of the term, he was 
 an adventurer, trying many things and failing in most. 
 Among other roles, he adopts in his writings that of the 
 preacher of morals and religion. His life was not 
 altogether consistent with such professions, and he was 
 even sneered at as a hypocrite; but all that we know of
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 209 
 
 the man justifies our faith in his genuine if somewhat 
 faulty sincerity. Even in his inconsistencies there is a 
 thoroughly human quality which adds to his charm. 
 
 Steele made his first literary venture while he was still 
 in the army by writing a book of devotion which he called 
 The Chnstian Hero. From this path, he turned, not very 
 consistently, to the stage, and wrote three comedies, The 
 Funeral, The Lying Lover, 3.\\d The Tender Hus- Steele's lu- 
 baniL This list was added to some twenty years "^''y^'"^'' 
 later by The Conscious Lovers. Steele has an interesting 
 vein of genial comedy ; but there is looseness in his plots 
 as well as in his morals. Tenderness and good humor are 
 his best qualities. In spite of some real success, however, 
 it is not in his plays that Steele attains to literary excel- 
 lence, but rather in his work with Addison in the field of 
 the periodical essay. That was his true forte, and there 
 he displayed real genius. His style is less brilliant than 
 Addison's, but it has at its best a charming air of careless 
 ease which even Addison could not quite match. It is 
 rather genial than elegant, rather natural than precise. 
 Sometimes he becomes dignified, didactic, or argumenta- 
 tive, but this manner does not sit so easily upon him. He 
 shares with Addison the credit for skill in literary portrai- 
 ture, and has perhaps claims to greater originality. What 
 he suggested, Addison elaborated and sustainecU He him- 
 self is very generous in his acknowledgment of indebtedness 
 to Addison ; but Addison probably owes to him something 
 of his greater reputation. It is often difficult to separate 
 the work of the two, and i)erhaps not much worth the 
 while to try. 
 
 It has already been intimated that Addison and Steele 
 worked together in originating and in bringing to its per- 
 fection the literary tyjje known as the periodical jhe Period- 
 cssay. The beginning seems to have been made ''"'^wy 
 by Steele, who in 1709 started a periodical known as The
 
 2IO CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 Tatler. It consisted of a series of papers or essays treat- 
 ing various subjects associated with contemporary life and 
 manners. Addison was a frequent contributor, and in this 
 way he and Steele came to form the sort of literary part- 
 nership which has forever associated their names with each 
 other. TJie Tatler was rather short-lived, but was almost 
 immediately succeeded by TJic Spectator. This 
 
 The Spectator . . - , 
 
 IS the most famous representative or a large 
 number of similar periodicals published in this and the 
 next generation, and may serve as a type of the rest. It 
 was published at first on every week-day and after- 
 ward three times a week. The six hundred and thirty- 
 five papers were by many hands, but the great majority of 
 them Avere written by either Addison or Steele. They 
 are on a great variety of topics, from party patches 
 to pin-money, from Westminster Abbey to the Royal Ex- 
 change, from lovers to lawyers, from impudence to im- 
 mortality, from female flirts to henpecked husbands, from 
 literary criticism to fox-hunting. Many of them deal with 
 the vices and follies of the time, holding them up to mild 
 ridicule and making them appear as violations not only 
 of good morals but of good taste. They endeavor to 
 sweeten morality with wit and to temper wit with morality. 
 The age was in many ways coarse, selfish, and frivolous ; 
 and it was the aim of these men to elevate its ideas, to 
 improve its manners, and to better its moral standards. 
 They were preachers, but surely the most engaging and 
 attractive and persuasive preachers that one can well 
 imagine. They set up no impossible ideals, they uttered 
 no fierce denunciations ; they laughed gayly at the age 
 and made it laugh at itself ; passing " from grave to gay, 
 from lively to severe," they accomplished their purpose by 
 brilliant wit, charming good nature, vividness of fancy, and 
 elegance of style. 
 
 The greatest achievement associated with The Spectator
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 211 
 
 is contained in the so-called Sir Rogrr t/r Covcrlcy Papers. 
 In the introductory paper of the periodical, Addison had 
 sketched the imaginary portrait of the supposed TheDeCover- 
 author of the succeeding essays, whom he called ley Papers 
 " the Spectator," and had alluded to a certain club called 
 the Spectator Club, in which the essays were to be discussed 
 previous to their publication. Steele took up this idea in 
 the second paper, and presented brief but graphic charac- 
 ter-sketches of the several members of the club — the 
 Templar, Sir Andrew Freeport, Captain Sentry, Will 
 Honeycomb, the Clergyman, and most important of all, 
 the good Tory Squire, Sir Roger de Coverley. These 
 members of the club represent respectively the law, trade 
 and commerce, the army, the ladies, the church, and the 
 country interest ; each class of society is to have its 
 spokesman, so that none shall be treated unfairly. In 
 a score of later papers, Steele's genuine creation is still 
 further elaborated. We see Sir Roger at the club, on his 
 country estate, among his servants and friends, at church, 
 in love, on the hunting field, in town, at the theatre, at 
 Westminster Abbey ; and, finally, we have a touching 
 account of his death. Here are almost all the ele- 
 ments of a novel, though the novel is not yet born. 
 Lifelike characters and interesting incidents are here ; 
 further than this, the novel demands only a definite plot 
 and a unified picture of human life. In the power of 
 character-portrayal, Addison and Steele show a skill which 
 is to provide the novel with a most useful lesson. More- 
 over, they have originated a new type in literature, the 
 English periodical essay. To have created one new type 
 and to have partly laid the foundations for another is no 
 mean achievement for an age which we commonly think 
 of as lacking in literary originality. When we add to this 
 the perfecting of i)rose style as an instrument of literary 
 expression, wc shall sec that literature owes much to the
 
 212 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 early eighteenth century, and not least to Addison and 
 Steele. No work of the time is more typical in all of 
 these respects than the series of essays which we call the 
 Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. These sketches have the 
 classical realism, the classical finish of style, the classical 
 conformity to good taste and good judgment, the clas- 
 sical facility in satire, the classical respect for recognized 
 authority. To all this, they add the flavor of something 
 new in literary art. 
 
 Still another great prose-writer of the age is Daniel 
 Defoe. Defoe began his literary career as a political 
 pamphleteer, and in this field he was second only 
 ame e oe ^^ Swift. One of his best productions of this 
 sort is his Shortest Way zvitk the Dissenters. Though a 
 dissenter himself, he wrote in the tone of a High Church 
 Tory, advising the government to use the severest meas- 
 ures against religious nonconformists. The Tories at first 
 took his suggestions seriously ; and when they discovered 
 that he was only laughing at them, they set him in the 
 pillory, where he received a popular ovation. The irony 
 of this work is very near akin to Defoe's marvelous gift 
 of minute realism, of lending to his most extravagant 
 fancies a deceptive air of verisimilitude — a gift in which 
 he is even Swift's superior and in which he has probably 
 never had an equal. This is nowhere better shown than 
 in his Journal of the Plague Year. He describes the great 
 plague of London in 1665 with the careful fidelity of a 
 simple and honest eye-witness. T\\q. Journal ^2iS actually 
 believed to have been written by such a man ; but as a 
 matter of fact, Defoe was only a young child when the 
 events took place. This same gift of realism is still 
 further displayed in a series of unique romances, of which 
 one has proved to be a great masterpiece. Captain Single- 
 ton, Memoirs of a Cavalier, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, 
 Roxana, and other works are interesting and important
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700- 1740) 213 
 
 contributions to our early fiction ; but Robinson Crusoe 
 has eclipsed them all. 
 
 There is probably no romantic fiction in the world that 
 has so much the air of truth. When Robinson Crusoe was 
 written, there was nothing more to learn in this Robinson 
 direction in preparation for the modern novel. Crusoe 
 All the powers displayed in Defoe's other works are here 
 gathered. The conception of a man cast away on a desert 
 island was not in itself a great invention ; but Defoe 
 knew how to devise interesting incidents, to give a natural 
 atmosphere and a local color, to add those apparently 
 trivial touches of realistic detail which make us feel that 
 all this must have happened just as it is told. The style 
 is less polished than that of Addison, less forcible than 
 that of Swift ; but it is wonderfully well adapted to its 
 purpose of telling a simple, straightforward, yet fascinating 
 story. The relation of Robinson Crusoe to the beginnings 
 of the novel gives it an added interest. Addison and 
 Steele had shown the way in the portrayal of natural 
 human characters, and Defoe marks no advance in this 
 direction. His contribution was that of realistic method. 
 He comes nearer also to having a plot and has remarkable 
 gifts as a mere story-teller ; but in this particular he does 
 not go beyond Bunyan and Swift. His work fails of being 
 a novel because the incidents are simply strung on the 
 career of a single character. A little more unity in plot, 
 a little more fulness in the treatment of character-relations, 
 and the novel will exist. The necessary step was a short 
 one, though of vast importance. Defoe was not to take 
 that step; but he, more than any other man, pointed out 
 the way to those who were to take it in the next gener- 
 ation. 
 
 The age was preeminently one of great prose literature ; 
 and Swift, Addison. .Steele, and Defoe are only the great- 
 est in a considerable company of i)rose-writers. Scliolars,
 
 214 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 divines, philosophers, and politicians were all contributing 
 to the development of prose and displaying in one way or 
 another the qualities of style that were characteristic of 
 the time. They do not call, however, for special considera- 
 tion ; for none of them produced any great masterpiece of 
 imaginative literature, and matters of style are sufficiently 
 illustrated by the authors already treated. All of these 
 Prose and authors wrote some poetry as well as much 
 Poetry prosc ; but none of it is of very great merit. 
 
 That of Addison is the best, and Addison's poetry is rather 
 stiff and frigid. Besides these there was a large group 
 of professed poets, nearly all of decidedly minor rank. 
 Matthew Prior was a writer of satirical verse tales and 
 light love songs, and enjoyed in his day a considerable 
 reputation and influence. John Gaj, a good-natured and 
 rather vagabond poet, produced satires, burlesques, and 
 some excellent lyrics. James Thomson and Edward Young 
 continued their work into the next period, and may best 
 be considered in company with the later poets. It re- 
 mains only to dwell upon the work and genius of the one 
 shining poetic figure of the age — Alexander Pope. 
 
 Pope is preeminently the poet of Classicism. His influ- 
 ence distinctly served to exalt authority in literature rather 
 Alexander than Originality. In his poetry, the real is em- 
 Pope phasized rather than the ideal. He valued form 
 more than substance, and followed reason rather than 
 imagination. His style seeks always the classical regu- 
 larity, correctness, and finish in expression. On another 
 side, we see him dealing with nature chiefly as an acces- 
 sory and a background. His subjects are drawn mainly 
 from abstract thought or from contemporary society. He 
 is artificial and stilted in diction, and becomes a genuine 
 poet only by virtue of a remarkable aptitude for his chosen 
 tasks and a superb literary workmanship. That he is a 
 genuine poet — in his own way and within his own range
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 215 
 
 — may be safely maintained, even against much insinua- 
 tion to the contrary. 
 
 The harmony of Pope's genius with the tendencies of 
 his age gives him a unique position in the historical devel- 
 opment of English poetry^ He occupied in his pop^inijis 
 time a position somewhat similar to that which Age 
 Dryden occupied in the Age of the Restoration. He was 
 not so unquestionably the greatest literary genius of his 
 time, for that position belongs rather to Jonathan Swift ; 
 but he at least shared with Swift and Addison the literary 
 primacy, and in the field of poetry his influence was su- 
 preme. He may not unfairly be regarded as the central 
 literary figure of his day, especially in those long periods 
 when Swift was absent in Ireland. He was classical, not 
 alone by native genius and by the influence of the age, but 
 by deliberate training and practice. In his early years, 
 he fell under the influence of eminent literary men who 
 discerned and encouraged his natural gifts. This same 
 influence he in turn exerted upon both the poets and the 
 prose-writers who were his contemporaries. He enjoyed 
 throughout his life the acquaintance and in many cases the 
 friendship of the most prominent men of his time, both liter- 
 ary and non-literary. His interest in all literary movements 
 was continually alert and intense. The peculiarity of his 
 position as almost the only great poet in a generation of 
 great prose-writers probably served to increase his rcjHita- 
 tion and to confirm his influence. It probably modified 
 and limited that influence in some ways; but it also made 
 it more definite and apparent. It certainly served to de- 
 fine more clearly his personal genius and to emphasize his 
 poetical eminence. 
 
 Pope's power was manifested almost exclusively in poet- 
 ical work, and yet his genius had in it a large pope-gLUni- 
 prosaic element. 1 lis limitations were .scarcely tatiom 
 less marked than his unthjubted abilities, lie failed in
 
 2l6 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 appreciation of the higher forms of beauty ; he was deficient 
 in spontaneity and intensity ; he lacked force and passion ; 
 he had Httle dramatic power on the one hand and Httle 
 love for nature on the other ; he was almost incapable of 
 grandeur or sublimity ; he atteiyipted no flights of lofty or 
 splendid imagination; he was decidedly limited in his 
 range of subjects, of ideas, and of poetic methods. Such 
 limitations as these seem almost if not quite fatal to great 
 poetry; but in spite of all limitations that can justly be 
 made, the fact still remains that Pope was a poet of really 
 high rank. He reached this goal by virtue of superb tal- 
 ent and training. For once, at least, a poet was made 
 rather than born. He had, of course, many positive gifts 
 Pope's ^^^^ helped to make good the deficiencies that 
 
 Genius have been noted. Foremost among these was 
 
 his exquisite sense for finish and beauty of expression. 
 His poems display refinement of style, perfection of metre, 
 harmony and proportion of artistic structure. His natural 
 taste and his acquired training enabled him to give to his 
 poetry all the advantages that careful art and well-directed 
 effort could supply. In form, he is characterized by clear- 
 ness and grace and fluency. Beyond the mere matter of 
 form, he has also many positive and admirable qualities. 
 His imagination may be lacking in the highest and noblest 
 attributes, but it at least possesses in no common degree 
 the virtues of lucidity and precision. The vividness and 
 brilliancy of his pictures can hardly be surpassed. The 
 sprightliness and versatility of his fancy Hght up many a 
 fine passage and play over the surface of all his work. 
 He possessed a keen and active mind, and seemed always 
 intellectually alert. His sparkhng and incisive wit made 
 him one of the greatest of satirists. He was less just than 
 Dryden, less powerful than Swift, less amiable than Addi- 
 son — often bitter, often personal, often cruel; but his 
 rapier blade was as swift as lightning and as sharp as a
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 217 
 
 needle. Not seldom it had a drop of venom upon the 
 point. There are in Pope faint glimmerings of a love for 
 nature and even for the romantic. His sensitive tempera- 
 ment felt already the coming of influences that were to 
 shape and change poetry after his death ; but in the main 
 his interests were those of a classical age, and his influ- 
 ence was almost exclusively in classical directions. He is 
 the most striking example in English literature of 
 what can be achieved in poetry by literary skill and 
 adaptability coupled with literary knowledge and dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 Perhaps the most instructive classification of Pope's 
 works is that which is based on their subject-matter. One 
 of the earliest of his great poems was the Essay on Criti- 
 cisvi. It has no great critical originality, and the Literary 
 subject is not an especially fortunate one for Cnticism 
 poetical purposes ; but Pope's literary skill was equal to 
 the production from even such material of a work which 
 really deserves the name of a true poem. As a brilliant 
 statement in pointed and epigrammatic verse of the essen- 
 tial principles of Classicisim in literary art, it comes near 
 to perfection. Better than any other of his works, it illus- 
 trates Pope's interest in the subject of literary criticism and 
 his delight in the discussion of literary questions. 
 
 He is interested also, Hke the great prose-writers, in the 
 life and society of his age. Out of this interest grew The 
 Rape of the Lock. It is one of the most e.xqui- Life and 
 site productions of light satiric fancy that has society 
 ever been penned. The gay belles, the frivolous courtiers, 
 the fairy sylphs who guard the adornments of beauty, the 
 stealing of the lock of hair by the fond swain, the terrible 
 indignation and commotion, the efforts to appease the 
 wrath and dry the tears of the despoiled lady — all make 
 up a picture which charms the fancy, which appeals to the 
 sense of humor, and which reflects as in a magic mirror
 
 2l8 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 the fashionable society that gathered about the court of 
 Queen Anne. 
 
 Pope's shght tendency toward romanticism is seen in 
 Romance and his imitations of Chaucer and in his Eloisa and 
 Nature Abclard. His limited and somewhat conven- 
 
 tional interest in nature appears in his Windsor Forest. 
 These, however, were but subordinate and transient phases 
 of his genius. Much more characteristic both of the man 
 and the age was his interest in the ancient classics. Pope 
 was by no means a good Greek scholar; yet several of his 
 best years near the middle period of his life were devoted 
 to the translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. 
 Classical ^^^ former was the more successful of the two, 
 Translation and has always held its place as one of the not- 
 able poems of the eighteenth century. Though it does 
 not reproduce either the sense or the spirit of Homer, it is 
 in many ways a remarkable achievement. It is the aston- 
 ishingly clever and finished production of a superb literary 
 craftsman rather than the work of a scholar or of a born 
 poet. Perhaps nowhere does Pope display to better advan- 
 tage his consummate mastery of versification and expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Nothing is more characteristic of Pope's peculiar genius 
 than his skill as a satirist. This satirical power is mani- 
 fested almost everywhere in his original work ; but it is 
 especially represented by the Diinciad, or epic 
 of the dunces. • This is an extended satire on 
 the prominent men of the age who had had the misfortune 
 to incur the poet's dislike. Some were mere pedants, but 
 others were genuine scholars ; some were poor scribblers, 
 but others were among the best men and writers of the 
 day. All were alike to Pope, if he had any grudge to pay. 
 It is this personal bitterness that sets the most decided limi- 
 tations to the greatness of the work, and prevents it from ris- 
 ing to that largeness of view and that broadly human quality
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1740) 219 
 
 which exalt keen satire into universal literature. The Duti- 
 ciad is in some respects Pope's masterpiece, his most typical 
 and representative work ; but to the impartial reader of 
 another age, it must yield the palm for perennial interest 
 to The Rape of the Lock. The latter is as light as a bubble 
 floating in the air; but its iridescent beauty is as imper- 
 ishable as the diamond, because its transient and insignificant 
 theme has been Hfted above the interests of a day or a class 
 and has been immortalized by the idealizing power of 
 the poetic imagination. Pope wrote many shorter sat- 
 ires, of which the Epistle to Dr. ArbntJinot perhaps gives 
 the finest e.xample of his concentrated power. It is here 
 that he satirizes and at the same time praises Addison 
 under the name of Atticus. 
 
 Pope's last great interest was that in philosophical 
 speculation. His typical poems in this direction are his 
 Moral Epistles and his Essay on Man. Tlie Moral 
 latter ranks among his masterpieces. It is not Pwiosophy 
 great or original philosophy, nor did Pope have the 
 power of a strong philosophical thinker. It is hardly to 
 be called, as a whole, a great poem ; but as a series of fine 
 passages, as a collection of pointed aphorisms, all connected 
 with the central theme, it is unsurpassed among Pope's 
 writings. Scarcely anything that he has done is more 
 characteristic of the man or of his age. 
 
 Any discussion of Pope as a poet would certain 1)' be 
 incomplete without some mention of his mastery of the 
 heroic couplet. This form — iambic pentameter ^he Heroic 
 lines rhymed in pairs — was the favorite of the Coupiet 
 classical school of j^octs, and for a time seemed to have 
 the field almost to itself. Pope polished and refined the 
 couplet to the last degree, and in his hands it became an 
 almost perfect in.strument for the expression of |)ointed 
 aj>horism and brilliant wit. It was the use of lliis instru- 
 ment that enabled Pope to display to the best advantage
 
 220 CLASSICISM (1660-17S0) 
 
 his naturally fine gift for terse and epigrammatic utterance. 
 No English poet, with the possible exception of Shake- 
 speare, has said more quotable and rememberable things. 
 Such, for instance, are the following : 
 
 Honour and shame from no condition rise; 
 Act well your part, there all the honour lies. 
 
 Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, 
 
 As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. 
 
 A consideration of Pope's poetry helps to confirm and to 
 explain our sense of his almost unlimited influence in his 
 Pope's own day. Perhaps it will also help us to un- 
 
 influence dcrstaud why that influence was so short-lived. 
 His direct influence, at least, was very brief ; for in him 
 Classicism reached its culmination, and reaction set in even 
 before his own death. Yet indirectly his influence has been 
 felt even down to our own time. Later poets, greater 
 in passion and in originality, have learned from him the 
 value of artistic form. This influence has, of course, been 
 greatly modified by later movements ; but properly sub- 
 ordinated to real poetic genius, it has constituted an 
 invaluable legacy to Enghsh literature. 
 
 Pope's Villa at Twickenham 
 
 From an old print
 
 dUJWA\ y(i\>A\Juv\.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-1780) 
 
 From a consicleratioii of the literary achievement of the 
 Age of Dryden and the Age of Pope, it ought to be suffi- 
 ciently clear that Classicism was a living movement, arising 
 naturally by reaction from an exhausted Romanticism, find- 
 ing a proper place in the development of English life and 
 thought, fulfilling a great mission and leaving behind it 
 great results. The hopes and expectations of its promoters 
 were high and sanguine, and they were in fair measure 
 realized, although its literary product has not quite main- 
 tained the right to stand in the highest rank. Dryden and 
 Pope were its great poets, and a company of great prose- 
 writers helped to swell the large sum of its achievements. 
 Yet Classicism ran but a comparatively brief career. 
 Much as it really accomplished for English literature, it 
 was by the very nature of the English character and 
 genius destined to inferiority, sure sooner or later to be 
 challenged and overthrown by other forces. The time for 
 the challenge had now come, but not quite yet the time for 
 the overthrow. Romanticism had prevailed in one form 
 or another from the Norman Conquest to the Age of 
 Dryden ; and after the Age of Pope, it was soon to make 
 itself felt again. Even before the death of Pope, this and 
 other new tendencies had begun to dispute with the old 
 for the literary mastery. Yet the battle was not to be 
 easily won. The influence of Classicism did not continuance 
 cease in a moment; and for at least another °"''''*'"'^'"" 
 generation we must note the continuance of classical 
 
 331
 
 222 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 tendencies. Indeed, it was not until near the close 
 of the eighteenth century that the conflict can be said 
 to have been fully decided. Nowhere in the literature 
 have we better illustration of the fact that literary periods 
 overlap each other, that old influences persist with gradu- 
 ally diminishing force, while newer tendencies are gather- 
 ing the strength and momentum that are finally to make 
 them prevail. In this case, the period of transition was a 
 comparatively long one, and the struggle between the old 
 and the new was unusually severe. In view of the fact that 
 the classical type of literature survived throughout the 
 period now under survey, it seems proper to speak of the 
 period as a classical one and to designate it by the name 
 of Samuel Johnson, the great classical figure of the age. 
 In more precise terms, it was a period of transition and of 
 conflict during which Classicism asserted itself with ever 
 decreasing power against the newer movements. 
 
 It probably did not yet appear to the men of that gen- 
 eration what were really the tendencies by which they 
 were being swept onward. Some things they saw clearly 
 enough ; and still others are apparent to us as we study 
 their work to-day, although it is not yet certain that we 
 have reached a final interpretation of the age. It is clear 
 that there was a definite, emphatic, and con- 
 
 Revolt . . . 
 
 against cias- scious rcvolt against the authority of Classicism 
 — a revolt continually growing in force and 
 effectiveness. This, however, is merely negative ; and it 
 is more important to ask what was the nature of the new 
 impulses which reenforced the revolt against Classicism 
 and which brought a fresh and more original spirit into 
 literature. 
 
 It has been common to call the new movement a revival 
 of Romanticism and to attribute the various phenomena of 
 literature to a romantic reaction struggling to make head- 
 way against classical tradition. That there was a roman-
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740- 1780) 223 
 
 tic movement is beyond question. It was probably more 
 striking and more productive than any other ; and we shall 
 see its influence manifested in many ways. The chief 
 doubt is whether this interpretation is sufficiently deep and 
 comprehensive to account for all the tendencies that litera- 
 ture presents to us in the age. Incidentally, the question 
 may be raised whether the romantic movement is properly 
 to be called a mere " revival." No doubt there was much 
 imitation of Elizabethan poets, much drawing of water 
 from the wells of mediaeval romance. The new Romanti- 
 cism, however, was in spirit something very dif- The New 
 ferent from that of the Age of Shakespeare or ^°^^"^<^^^^ 
 from that of the Middle Ages. The Romanticism of Shake- 
 speare's day, for instance, had its sources in the spirit of 
 wonder and enthusiasm created by the Renaissance. In 
 that great awakening of the human mind, imagination was 
 aroused to a tremendous activity, and men felt that the 
 wildest dreams were justified by the boundless possibilities 
 opening up before the human race. The -eighteenth cen- 
 tury was no such age of divine illusions, and its Romanti- 
 cism is not to be accounted for in any such way. Other 
 and original forces were at work ; and any imitation of the 
 past that may have characterized the writers of this later 
 time was but a temporary expedient until the new spirit 
 should have found its own way and wrought out its own 
 modes of utterance. Moreover, even when the outward 
 form was an imitation, the inward spirit was often some- 
 thing quite new and original. It does not seem sufficient, 
 therefore, simply to say that there was a romantic move- 
 ment, much less a romantic " revival." We must go deeper, 
 and inquire what causes were then existing which had 
 power to create the type of Romanticism peculiar to 
 the eighteenth century, as the Renaissance had created 
 the type of Romanticism peculiar to the sixteenth 
 century.
 
 224 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 Before doing so, we should observe that Romanticism 
 was not the only new movement of the age and therefore 
 not the only new tendency to be accounted for. It is im- 
 portant that we should note the other movements, in order 
 Five Great that we may determine whether any of these 
 Movements fumishes the key to the situation or whether we 
 must look for some underlying cause that serves to account 
 for them all. Next in importance to Romanticism was the 
 growing love for nature and the rise of a school of natural- 
 istic poets. Both of these movements — the romantic and 
 the naturaHstic — the men of the age recognized. They 
 did not, perhaps, so clearly perceive the growing emotion- 
 alism of literature, though we may discover this tendency 
 plainly enough in such works as the novels of Richardson, 
 Sterne's Sentimental Journey, and the writings of the so- 
 called " sentimental poets." Still another tendency clearer 
 to us than to the men of the eighteenth century was a grow- 
 ing recognition of the worth of man as man — a recogni- 
 tion of the valucand importance of ordinary human beings. 
 This tendency we may venture to describe, for lack of a bet- 
 ter expression, as a manifestation of the democratic spirit ; 
 it was not democracy, but it was one of the fruitful germs 
 from which democracy was to grow. In literature, this 
 spirit lies at the basis of the modern novel and appears 
 very distinctly in such poetry as Gray's Elegy and Gold- 
 smith's Deserted Village. To these several movements, 
 we may add the very noteworthy and important religious 
 revival. Its direct influence upon literature was com- 
 paratively small, appearing chiefly in such poetry as 
 the hymns of the Wesleys, Young's Night ThougJits, 
 and the much later works of Cowper ; but its influence 
 on English life was powerful and extensive, and this 
 must have affected literature in many indirect but effec- 
 tive ways. 
 
 These five movements — the romantic, the naturalistic,
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON 0740-17S0) 225 
 
 the emotional, the so-called democratic, and the religious — 
 are curiously intermingled in the literature of Relations ^^ 
 the age; but it does not quite seem as though these uove- 
 
 ° ' ments 
 
 any one of them could be regarded as central 
 and fundamental and as serving to account for the others. 
 Romanticism does not account for naturalism, or natural- 
 ism for Romanticism. Emotionalism is not logically con- 
 nected with either, though it is incidentally associated with 
 both. The so-called democratic spirit has no necessary 
 association with the romantic tendency, and can hardly be 
 said to account for naturalism ; it was, moreover, the least 
 definite and conscious of these movements and the one 
 that seems most undeveloped and incidental. Later, it was 
 to become more important; but as yet it seems to find its 
 best interpretation in something beyond itself. Nor does 
 the religious movement afford a clue to the central literary 
 impulse of the age. Powerful as the religious movement 
 was, the age was not distinctively a religious one, and the 
 influence of religion on literature was decidedly subordi- 
 nate. 
 
 Is there, then, any principle which gives to these several 
 tendencies the unity of a single great literary movement .'' 
 As we consider the question, it becomes reason- 
 
 ' _ Interpretation 
 
 ably clear that the newer Romanticism was at of these 
 
 , . , 1 r 1 Movements 
 
 bottom a passion for personal freedom, an un- 
 conscious striving forward toward that revolutionary spirit 
 which was to make itself so strongly felt during the later 
 years of the century. It was not so much an impulse to 
 be romantic as it was an impulse to burst the bonds of 
 classic restriction, to follow the instinct of individual gen- 
 ius, to be anything and everything that the Age of Pope 
 had not been. Poetry turned to the study of nature under 
 much the same imiJuLse. There was no great passion for 
 nature as such ; but there was a strong desire to get away 
 from the town, to escape the conventions and artificialities
 
 226 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 of life, to breathe free air, to be one's self in the midst of 
 natural surroundings. Emotionalism, likewise, was an as- 
 sertion of freedom for personal feeling. The writers of 
 the age did not feel themselves driven to the inevitable 
 utterance of passion that could not be suppressed ; indeed, 
 the application of the term "sentimental" to some of the 
 leading poets implies a forced and rather self-conscious 
 expression of emotion as a sort of poetic declaration of 
 independence. The sense of the worth of the common 
 man finds in this same spirit of personal freedom its bond 
 of union with the other great tendencies of the time. 
 Personal freedom of feeling and expression for all men in- 
 volved sooner or later the recognition of the personal worth 
 of all men. Closely allied with this same spirit was the 
 religious movement. On the one side, it was a vigorous 
 protest against mere conformity, authority, and formahsm 
 in religion ; on the other, it was a profound sense of the 
 eternal worth of every individual soul, because for that 
 soul Christ had died and God's infinite love had thereby 
 been made manifest. 
 
 In a word, the new force was more than anything else 
 
 the force of Individualism. It was so powerful an enemy 
 
 of Classicism because the two are essentially 
 
 Individualism . . 
 
 opposite in their nature. Classicism leads to 
 the exaltation of authority, of conformity, of obedience to 
 rule; IndividuaHsm asserts the rights of personality against 
 tradition, convention, and established order. If Romanti- 
 cism was so prominent in poetry, it is because Romanticism 
 offered the readiest poetic way for the assertion of In- 
 dividualism. Even imitation of mediaevalism or of the 
 Renaissance was in the nature of a revolt, because it was 
 imitation of that which Classicism had assumed to condemn 
 as being too lawless and too free. In prose, the novel, with 
 its realistic study of ordinary men and women, proved to 
 be the best way of expressing the same individualistic
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-1780) 227 
 
 spirit. Romantic poem and realistic novel would appear 
 to be at opposite literary extremes ; but we have here the 
 interesting and rather curious literary phenomenon of two 
 radically different results proceeding from the same great 
 principle of Individualism. This individualistic impulse is 
 even more emphatically apparent in the historic life of the 
 age than it is in literature ; for literature is after all but an 
 incomplete expression of life, and lays most emphasis upon 
 those phases of life which are best suited to literary utter- 
 ance. Yet even in literature — and in literature outside of 
 the novel — the note of Individualism is clear. As early 
 as the first generation of the century, even Pope felt the 
 coming of the new spirit suflRciently to say : 
 
 An honest man's the noblest work of God. 
 
 At the end of the century there rings out, with the 
 
 strength of full conviction and of poetic fervor, a voice 
 
 crying : 
 
 A man's a man, for a' that. 
 
 Between these two positions lies the Age of Johnson ; 
 and through its poetry and prose we may trace the prog- 
 ress of the individualistic impulse, from the first faint rec- 
 ognition of the classical Pope to the strong assertion of 
 the democratic Burns. The literary history of the period 
 reflects the losing struggle of a confident and dominant 
 Classicism against this revolutionary force of Individual- 
 ism. That new force does not gain its full triumph in 
 the present period ; but it attains such a development 
 as to make it the ruling impulse of the age which 
 follows. 
 
 The first aspect of the new movement to appear prom- 
 inently in literature was the poetic treatment of nature. 
 We have jjreviously noted that Pope, in his ;„„,«» 
 Windsor Forest, had made a faint and rather con- Thomson 
 vcntional beginning in this direction ; and the example
 
 228 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 had not been without its influence on other poets. Long 
 before Pope had ceased to write, James Thomson had 
 pubhshed his Seasons, the poem which better than any 
 other marks the real beginning of the naturahstic ten- 
 dency. It is not without significance that Thomson was 
 a Scotchman. Already, as early as the fifteenth century, 
 we have had occasion to observe the love for nature 
 appearing in Scotch poetry, when that of England was 
 almost devoid of any such inclination ; and we may say 
 further that Scotch influence upon English nature poetry 
 has always been strongly marked and was particularly so 
 during the eighteenth century. The Seasons is divided into 
 four parts, entitled respectively " Spring," " Summer," 
 "Autumn," and "Winter." Thomson treats the various 
 aspects of the year with much poetic feeling, direct observa- 
 tion of nature, and power of natural description. There are 
 a stilted utterance and a tendency to abstract moralizing 
 which betray the classical influences under which Thomson 
 wrote ; but there are also a freshness and an originality 
 which give large promise of what is to come. The blank- 
 verse form of the poem is not the least of its manifestations 
 of a new literary spirit. Blank verse was to be the badge 
 of the younger school of poets as the heroic couplet had 
 been the badge of the poets of the classical school. Another 
 noteworthy poem of Thomson's allies him closely with 
 the beginnings of the romantic movement. This is The 
 Castle of Indolence, a professed and remarkably successful 
 imitation of Spenser's Faerie Queene. He uses the Spen- 
 serian stanza with much metrical skill and catches not 
 a little of Spenser's poetic and romantic quality. In spite 
 of the fact that the poem is an imitation in the matter of 
 form and quality, it is sufficiently original in idea to make 
 it a real contribution to English poetry as well as to the 
 romantic verse of the period. When such a poem had 
 been written, the romantic movement was certainly under
 
 THE AGE OK JOHNSON (i 740-1 7S0) 229 
 
 full headway. It is sij^nificant for the movement also that 
 Thomson's poem was only one of a large number of Spen- 
 serian imitations by many writers. 
 
 Edward Young was rather a disciple of Milton than 
 of Spenser ; but he falls far short of Thomson's genu- 
 ine success in reproducing the tone and spirit Edward 
 of his master. Certain more or less ineffec- Young 
 tual tragedies, satires, and didactic poems constitute the 
 larger number of Young's works ; but his one really 
 famous poem is the yig^it Thoughts. It is a long 
 didactic poem in nine books, in which a spirit of sen- 
 timental melancholy broods over the vanity of human 
 life, the consolations of religion, and the gloom of death. 
 The rather portentous work contains a good deal of solemn 
 rhetoric and not a little noble poetry. Its tone is char- 
 acteristic of the age ; for the romantic spirit was in 
 love with mystery and gloom, and the growing emo- 
 tionalism was inclined to indulge itself in tender and 
 awful sentiments. Such indulgence was one of the 
 accepted modes of revolt against the common sense 
 and the commonplace of the classical period. 
 
 The influence of Milton is also discernible in the work 
 of William Collins, but it is the influence of Milton's lyrics 
 — of L' Allegro and // Pcnscroso — rather than of his great 
 epics. Here, at last, pure poetry is recovered ; for the 
 lyric music of Collins is the sweetest and most wiuiam 
 spontaneous to be found in the whole extent 
 of the classical period — between Milton and Burns. The 
 classic note is still heard, as notably in his Ode to the 
 Passions; but there is also heard something that is 
 new and strange. The Ode to Evening goes beyond 
 the mere natural description of Thomson's Seasons and 
 conveys by most subtle suggestion the feeling of the 
 twilight hour. It is the sentiment of nature that we 
 catch and fix as we read such words as these :
 
 230 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires ; 
 And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all 
 
 Thy dewy fingers draw 
 
 The gradual dusky veil. 
 
 The Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands 
 of Scotland is a remarkable illustration of the romantic 
 love for the mysterious, the supernatural, the legendary, 
 and the fanciful; and it connects Collins with the roman- 
 tic movement as the Ode to Evening connects him with 
 the poetical treatment of nature. The emotional element 
 in his poetry associates him with the poets whom Classi- 
 cism sneered at as " sentimental." By his Ode to Liberty 
 he gains at least an indirect association with the so-called 
 democratic tendency. He is thus seen to be in touch with 
 nearly all the great movements of his age, and he fuses 
 them all together into poetry that has the mark of a pe- 
 culiar individualism. 
 
 Doubtless the greatest poet of the age was Thomas 
 
 Gray. Like Collins, he feels the influence of Milton, 
 
 and more especially of Milton's lyric poetry. 
 
 Thomas Gray ^ .. ^ ... \ .,, / ^ 
 
 Like Colhns, too, he illustrates in one way 
 or another the various influences of his time. The 
 love of nature permeates most of his poetry and per- 
 haps still more his remarkable letters. It is clearly in 
 evidence in his Ode on the Spring and his Ode on a Dis- 
 tant Prospect of Eton College. The romantic movement 
 is perhaps best illustrated by his Pindaric ode, TJie Bard, 
 in which an ancient Welsh minstrel, seated on a crag of 
 the mountains, sings in prophetic vision the doom of King 
 Edward's race. His best-known work is the Elegy writ- 
 ten in a Country Churchyard. Here he displays his love 
 for nature, his depth of sentiment, and that sympathy 
 with common men which we have called democratic. 
 Few poems in the language have been better known or 
 more often read. Gray's other Pindaric ode, The Prog-
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (i 740-1 7S0) 23 I 
 
 ress of Poesy, finely illustrates the union in him of Clas- 
 sicism and Individualism. It has many characteristics 
 of the classical manner ; but it rises to a higher poetic 
 quality by virtue of more spontaneous feeling, more vivid 
 imagination, and greater freedom in conception. Much the 
 same is true of all his poetry. It unites a high degree of 
 classical refinement and art with many of the qualities 
 which spring from the work of spontaneous genius moving 
 with great individual freedom. Gray had the trained skill 
 of a careful literary workman, but he also had the genius of 
 a born poet. His was a really important personality ; but 
 the individualistic qualities in his work did not exactly arise 
 from the vigorous activity of a masterful and uncontrollable 
 nature. Gray, indeed, was far from being a man of that 
 type. In him and in the other poets just discussed, the 
 strong individualistic tone was largely due to the fact that 
 the whole age was in revolt and was encouraging its men 
 of genius to seek and to follow new ways. A generation 
 earlier, probably no one of them would have had the strength 
 to lead the new movement. Their actual originality was 
 due even more to the age than to themselves. This gave 
 to their efforts something of artificiality and self-conscious- 
 ness ; for they were not as men self-impelled by a strong 
 instinct, but rather as men who had heard and deliberately 
 answered a call. 
 
 Such a condition of affairs was not conducive to the best 
 and fullest work, although it was not without its advan- 
 tages to men of limited powers, l^'or Gray, at 
 
 ° ' -" Influence of 
 
 least, the age involved repression as well as en- theAgeon 
 couragement. He has generally been regarded ^"^ 
 as a poet of unusually fine genius fallen \\\Mm a time which 
 tended to check and to deaden his poetic imj)ulses. This 
 conception of the man is probably a true one ; and it is not 
 difficult to see at least two ways in which the age may have 
 produced this effctt upon its greatest jioet. In the first
 
 232 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 place, it was still in very large measure a classical age, 
 while Gray's finest poetic instincts were more imaginative 
 and emotional. Strong as the individualistic tendencies 
 of the age were, they were not strong enough to free him 
 from the sense of restraint which Classicism imposed ; 
 and as we have already suggested, the native force of 
 Gray's personaHty was not quite adequate to such a revolt. 
 Indeed, Gray was by nature too conscientious an artist not 
 to feel the full weight of the critical principles with which 
 Classicism sought to fetter the wings of genius. In the 
 second place, the age, like the two preceding periods, was 
 essentially prosaic in its temper, while Gray's gifts were 
 those of the poet. Feeling the chill discouragement of an 
 alien atmosphere, he withdrew into himself and allowed 
 the world to hear all too little of that exquisite music 
 which he was born to make. He contented himself with 
 a few poems classically perfect in expression and giving 
 evidence of a genius which in its fullest exercise might 
 have placed him among the very greatest of Enghsh poets. 
 As it is, probably no English poet holds so high a place 
 as he by virtue of so small a body of poetic work. 
 
 Certain publications of the time must be considered be- 
 cause of the important influence which they exerted on 
 contemporary literature rather than because they them- 
 selves possessed any great degree of original value. In 
 Percy's ^7^S Thomas Percy published a great number 
 
 ReUques of old ballads which he had collected and edited. 
 The work is known as Percy's Reliqiies of Ancient English 
 Poetry. A few years later, he translated Mallet's Northern 
 Antiquities, a work dealing with the Norse mythology. 
 Both of these appealed very strongly to those who were in 
 sympathy with the anti-classical spirit. They encouraged 
 and justified the new romantic movement, and provided 
 materials and inspiration for the romantic poets. Some- 
 thing the same may be said of James Macpherson's pre-
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-1780) 233 
 
 tended translation of Ossian, a supposed Gaelic poet of the 
 third century. It was probably in large part a forgery; 
 but it contained some real poetry, wild and „ 
 
 . Ossian 
 
 weird in conception, passionate in feeling, and 
 highly figurative in style. The most assured fact about 
 the book is its powerful influence. Gray seems to have 
 been much interested in it, as he was also in the legends 
 of the Norse mythology. These and other books illustrate 
 the growing spirit of Romanticism and show how eager 
 men were for anything that would appeal to romantic 
 sentiment. 
 
 Another name which has certain points of association 
 with those just mentioned, and which, like them, is forever 
 linked with the history of the romantic movement, is that 
 of Thomas Chatterton. This " marvellous boy," jhomas 
 as Wordsworth called him, began his literary Chatterton 
 career at twelve years of age with poems and prose pieces 
 which he pretended to have found in the muniment room 
 of the old church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol. During 
 his brief career, he produced a considerable number of 
 poems displaying much poetic beauty, love of nature, ro- 
 mantic spirit, and lyric feeling. They were written in an 
 imitation of the English of the early fifteenth century, 
 and for a time deceived some good scholars. Though 
 now known to be Chattcrton's own work, they still retain 
 interest by virtue of their inherent merits. Indeed, their 
 importance is heightened by our knowledge of the fact 
 that poems of such excellence were written by one who at 
 the time of his death was little more than a child. Chat- 
 terton may be called, if we are disposed to harshness, a 
 literary forger. Considering his age, it is at least more 
 charitable and probably quite as near the truth to attribute 
 his methods to an inborn poetic and dramatic faculty e.xer- 
 cised by one too young to appreciate the moral bearings of 
 his deceit — a faculty, moreover, so .strong as probably to
 
 234 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 create in the boy's own mind an illusion of the essential 
 reality of his poetic dreams. In any case, no one can 
 deny that he was a true poet and that his achievement 
 was simply astounding for one so young. Chatterton con- 
 tinued his work for several years at his home in Bristol, 
 making various attempts to attract the interest of prom- 
 inent men, and then went to try his literary fortunes in the 
 metropolis. After a proud struggle with bitter poverty 
 and disappointed ambition, he committed suicide in a 
 London garret at the age of seventeen years and nine 
 months. Truly he deserves to rank among those whom 
 Shelley calls 
 
 The inheritors of unfulfilled renown. 
 
 Our review of poetical work has carried us well through 
 the period. Reserving for the present a discussion of the 
 poetry of Johnson and Goldsmith, we must now return to 
 the' beginning of the age to trace the development of a 
 new form of literature — the modern novel. The novel 
 is essentially a combination of a narrative plot with a uni- 
 fied and consistent picture of human life and character. 
 From another point of view, it may be called a combina- 
 Forerunners ^^^^ of prosc romancc and drama ; for the prose 
 of the Novel romance lays chief stress upon pure narrative, 
 while the interest of drama centres in the treatment of 
 humanity. The novel differs from the romance in aiming 
 at a more or less realistic portrayal of life ; it differs from 
 the drama in presenting that life through the medium of 
 a story rather than upon the stage. Both of these proto- 
 types of the novel — romance and drama — were already 
 fully developed. The romance, illustrated by such works 
 as Bunyan's Pilgrim s Progress, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, 
 and Defoe's Robinson Crnsoe, had brought merely narra- 
 tive fiction to its perfection. The great dramatists — 
 whose name is legion — had also fully demonstrated what
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON 0740-1780) 235 
 
 could be done in the portrayal of life and character. It 
 remained only for some one to unite the treatment of real 
 life with the direct narrative method of presentation in 
 order to produce the novel. Addison and Steele, in the 
 Sir Roger dc Covcrlcy Papers, had taken a step in the right 
 direction by presenting admirable character-sketches in 
 prose ; but in their work the plot was still lacking. Rob- 
 inson Crusoe had made another decided contribution by 
 giving the finest illustration of realistic method in story- 
 telling, but without a broad treatment of life and char- 
 acter. All the elements were ready ; and prose style, 
 moreover, had been fully prepared to serve as the fit 
 instrument of expression. Everything awaited the original 
 genius or the happy chance that should bring the ele- 
 ments into combination and so create the second new 
 literary type produced by the eighteenth century. 
 
 The man was already there, and the happy chance 
 soon came. Samuel Richardson was a prosperous [)rinter 
 who had already reached the age of fifty with- samuei 
 out being known to fame when his epoch- R'^^a^'ison 
 making work was produced. His preparation for his 
 great accomplishment was as fortunate as it was unique. 
 In his earlier days, he had associated much with women, 
 for some of whom he had been called upon to employ his 
 literary skill in the writing of love-letters. The knowledge 
 of the feminine heart and the practice in letter-writing 
 thus gained were to stand him in good stead. In attempt- 
 ing to compile a sort of model letter-writer at the request 
 of a London firm of publishers, he hit upon the happy 
 idea of connecting the letters by the thread of a story, 
 and thus almcxst by accident produced in 1740 the first 
 English novel — Pamela. It is the story of a young 
 woman, Pamela Andrews, whose virtue successfully re- 
 sisted the strongest temptation and who was finally 
 rewarded by a happy marriage with her tempter. The
 
 236 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 moral is not altogether agreeable and may perhaps serve 
 as an illustration of the prevailing standards of the age. 
 Eight years later, Richardson published his masterpiece, 
 Clarissa Harlowe. Its theme is somewhat the same as 
 that of Pamela, but Clarissa maintains a higher standard 
 of virtue and persists in her refusal of the villain Lovelace 
 even to her own pathetic death. His third and last work 
 was the Histo7y of Sir Charles Grandisoii — "the character 
 and actions of a man of true honour." All of his stories 
 are told through the medium of a series of letters written 
 by the principal characters. The method has its disad- 
 vantages, but it enables the author to reveal the characters 
 and their motives directly through themselves rather than 
 by description or explanation from without. In spite of 
 all disadvantages, the novels were extremely popular and 
 created a great sensation in their own day. Richardson 
 was a man of great seriousness and simplicity, somewhat 
 sentimental and nervous, moral in ideals and conduct. 
 Naturally enough, he is the novelist of sentiment, of 
 pathos, of professed morality. His insight into female 
 character is accompanied by a power of delicate and 
 subtle analysis and a marvelous command over the gentler 
 emotions. He is classical in his realism ; but his sen- 
 timent and his appreciation of ordinary character ally 
 him also with the individualistic movement. With roman- 
 tic and naturalistic tendencies, he has not much direct 
 connection. 
 
 Henry Fielding began his literary career as a dramatist, 
 but his work in that direction is of slight literary value. 
 Hgnjy It doubtless helped to give him preparation for 
 
 Fielding j^jg ]ater work by broadening his observation 
 of life and training his skill in the portrayal of character. 
 His first novel Wcis Joseph Andreivs, T^nhlhhQd in 1742. 
 It was begun as a parody of Richardson's Pamela. The 
 story represents Pamela's brother Joseph, a virtuous young
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON U74o-i7So) 237 
 
 man, resisting female allurements. Fielding soon came 
 to a realization of his own powers and opportunities, grew 
 interested in his characters for their own sake, dropped 
 the mere parody, and finished the story in his own way. 
 This first attempt was soon followed by Mr. JoiiatJian 
 Wild the Gnat ; and some years later, he wrote his mas- 
 terpiece, Tom Jones, " the history of a foundling." This 
 is the greatest novel of the eighteenth century and one of 
 the greatest in the literature. At times e.xtremely coarse, 
 it is, nevertheless, a most graphic portrayal of human life, 
 full of vivid realism and broad humor. His last novel, 
 Amelia, was published in 1751. In all his works he pur- 
 sues the method of direct narration, but is much given to 
 episodes. Fielding was a strong and manly figure, a man 
 of many faults, but of an essentially sound nature. He 
 was powerful in intellect and energetic in character. In 
 these and other ways he was a strong contrast to Richard- 
 son, and the contrast is naturally extended to the work of 
 the two men. Fielding's best insight was into the char- 
 acters of men, while he had comparatively little success 
 in the treatment of women. In power of vivid and life- 
 like portrayal, few novelists have been his equals. His 
 characters are intensely human, full of his own abound- 
 ing vitality and energy. The life that he portrays is 
 undeniably coarse, and not seldom brutal ; but his works 
 are saved from the lowest depths by their humor and 
 geniality. His realism and his gift for satire show the 
 influence of classical ideals, but he is anything but 
 formal and conventional. He displays the newer spirit 
 chiefly by his sympathy with all sorts and conditions of 
 men. He loves life and he portrays it with an unj)rej- 
 udiced impartiality. Vehement in feeling and full of 
 warm human emotion, he has a ready scorn fur that 
 sentimentalism which seemed to him to verge on hy|)oc- 
 risy. Such work as his is great in itself and gives
 
 238 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 fullest promise of the large achievements that were to 
 be made in the new form of literature which he helped 
 to create. 
 
 The third of the great novelists who began the early- 
 history of the novel was Tobias Smollett. In his hands, 
 Tobias th^ ^^^ ^yP^ ^^^ broadened in range, but did 
 
 SmoUett nQ^ display any increase in artistic skill. He 
 may be briefly described as the novelist of wild adven- 
 ture, of satire, and of cynicism. The experiences of his 
 varied and adventurous life provided him with abundant 
 materials for his novels. He was not a man of great 
 original imagination, and shows the ability to reproduce 
 rather than to invent. Like the other novelists, he was 
 realistic ; but his reahsm is more superficial, and is 
 mingled with very improbable incidents. His characters 
 are exaggerated and violent, and most of his heroes are 
 of the same wild and vulgar type. Five novels stand 
 to his account, and any one will give a fair idea of the 
 rest. Their names are suggestive of their character : 
 Rodet'ick Rmidoni, Peregrine Pickle, Ferdinand Count 
 Fathom, Sir Lanncelot Greaves, and HiimpJirey Clinker. 
 The last is the best, and well illustrates Smollett's humor 
 and vigorous movement. 
 
 The period is notable for a series of separate master- 
 pieces which still further illustrate the early development 
 Laurence °^ ^^ novcl. One of the best of these is 
 Sterne Stcmc's Tristravi Shandy, a work character- 
 
 ized by a most rambling plot, but by extremely lifelike 
 characters. In addition to his singular powers in the 
 matter of character-portrayal, Sterne had a fine gift of 
 delicate humor and an exquisite style. His indulgence in 
 sentimentalism is symbolized by his Sentiniejital Journey, 
 a mixture of travel and fiction. This work, especially, 
 marks his connection with the newer movement and his 
 natural antipathy to the temper of Classicism. Sterne
 
 THE AGE OK JOHNSON (i 740-1780) 239 
 
 was a preacher, and some of his finest passages are to be 
 found in his Smiioiis. A very different sort of man and 
 writer was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who made a contribu- 
 tion to prose fiction in the philosophical and Johnson's 
 didactic story called Rassc/as. It is thoroughly ^a^'as 
 characteristic of the great thinker and moralist and clas- 
 sicist, but is not very interesting, either for its plot or for 
 its characters. The type is rather that of the romance 
 than of the novel. Horace Walpole's Castle of Waipoie's 
 
 ^ . , , -11," Castle of 
 
 utranto is also extremely romantic and has the otranto 
 interest of having anticipated Scott in the field of mediae- 
 val fiction. A number of similar works were written be- 
 fore the close of the century, but they hardly call for 
 notice in a brief sur\'ey. It is at least interesting to note 
 that the novel began in realism, but that it was caught by 
 the new currents and swept in the direction of Romanti- 
 cism. Not the least singular fact about this movement is 
 that Dr. Johnson, the extreme classicist of the age, should 
 have been an unconscious contributor. Rasselas is in 
 the main a classical book, but the element of romanticism 
 is there. The last and in many respects the Goidsmith-s 
 best work that need engage attention here is vicarof 
 
 Wakefield 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. The 
 plot has been often and justly criticised, but the work has 
 many virtues to redeem this chief defect. It may be 
 called a romantic novel of the pastoral type, and deserves 
 its fame as a great and original work of genius. Its 
 crowning excellence is to be found in its simple but mas- 
 terly portrayal of lifelike characters. Goldsmith was one 
 of the gentlest, sweetest, and most natural of men, and he 
 has succeeded in infusing his own delightful personal 
 qualities into his work. For sweet simplicity, charming 
 humor, and graceful style, the eighteenth century has no 
 better book. 
 
 Practically all of the authors thus far discussed felt to a
 
 240 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 greater or less extent the influence of the classical ideas 
 which still continued to assert their authority. In the 
 main, however, most of these authors were in sympathy 
 with the newer spirit and showed in their work the effect 
 of the newer tendencies. Quite the contrary is true of 
 Samuel Samucl Johuson. He was a classicist of the 
 
 Johnson classicists, and his works illustrate the contin- 
 ued vitality of the classical movement. His theories were 
 classical, his practice was classical, the whole weight of 
 his conscious influence was exerted on the classical side. 
 The call for something new, striking, and original met 
 with no response in him. Largely by the force of his 
 authority, the progress of the new movements was hin- 
 dered and delayed, and Classicism was given a new lease 
 Hiscia i- ^^ ^^^^' -^^ preached law rather than freedom, 
 cism conformity rather than encouragement of indi- 
 
 viduality. He stands, therefore, as the typical representa- 
 tive of Classicism in this age, the true successor of Dryden 
 and Pope. Yet Johnson had an indirect and unconscious 
 relation to the individualistic movement. He did so 
 through the very strength of his own character. His 
 was a powerful and imposing personality, a nature too 
 large really to be bound by any merely conventional re- 
 strictions. He believed in literary law, he preached liter- 
 ary law, and practised what he preached ; but over and 
 above any literary authority, he was really a law unto 
 Hisindi- himsclf. His was a great individuality endeav- 
 viduauty oring to find expression through classical chan- 
 nels, and meeting with comparative failure because the 
 channels were inadequate. He was original in spite of 
 himself and of his critical theories. The man was much 
 greater than his work. He lives for us not so much in 
 what he produced as in Boswell's immortal biography. 
 There we see and hear the man ; for he is there preserved 
 to posterity as no other literary man has ever been pre-
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-17S0) 241 
 
 sen'ed. It is said that he talked great literature superbly 
 for thirty years. This and Boswell's picture of the man 
 help us to understand why he exerted so tremendous an 
 inriuence in spite of sucli a meagre literary 
 product. His circle included some of the most ^ ° "'°" 
 able and distinguished men of the age ; but Johnson was 
 the central and the dominant figure. With the public at 
 large, his was the greatest literary reputation and the most 
 potent literary influence of the time. 
 
 It is necessary to speak here of Johnson as a poet ; yet 
 in the history of poetry he fills but a small place. His 
 most characteristic works are two satires in imita- t u 
 
 Johnson's 
 
 tion of Juvenal. In the first, entitled London, his Poetry 
 attitude is that of the rebuker of vice and the censor of 
 manners. In The Vanity of Human Wishes, he is still the 
 moralist ; but his thought is more general and more 
 philosophical. These poems contain noble and dignified 
 passages, in harmony with Johnson's lofty character ; but 
 we can hardly claim for him the genius of a great poet. 
 The style is thoroughly classical, less brilliant than Pope's 
 but more weighty. 
 
 Johnson has already attracted our attention not only as 
 a poet but as a writer of fiction. Rassclas, as we have 
 noted, displays his characteristic qualities as a philosoph- 
 ical moralist and as a classical writer, while at the same 
 time it has a romantic element that illustrates his dispo- 
 sition to leap the bounds of his own tlieories. As a 
 general prose-writer, Johnson holds a much 
 larger place ; U)X it was in this field that he Pmllfwrit- 
 found his best literary expression. W'e have '"'* 
 already imjjlied that this expression was at best inadequate, 
 and that the true greatness of the man never came to full 
 expression at all. He was a great thinker, moralist, and 
 critic ; he was still greater as a man ; but he did not 
 possess in any remarkable degree the gifts of a great
 
 242 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 literary artist. What he accomplished in literature was 
 achieved through competent literary knowledge and the 
 force of an imposing personality rather than through great 
 literary genius. As a poet and a novelist, he is far sur- 
 passed by lesser men. Even as a miscellaneous prose- 
 writer, he does not achieve the highest success. He was 
 far inferior in purely literary genius, and not least in the 
 genius for prose style, to Oliver Goldsmith, whom he 
 petted, patronized, criticised, and bullied. Nevertheless, 
 it is as a prose-writer that Johnson has his chief claim 
 to literary honors. Like Goldsmith, he did much of his 
 work as a hack writer. One of his greatest achievements 
 was his famous Dictionary of the English Language, which, 
 of course, has only an indirect association with pure litera- 
 ture. The Rambler and The Idler were periodicals after 
 the model of TJie Spectator ; but it need hardly be said 
 that Johnson's periodical essays are far different in quaHty 
 from those of Addison and Steele. They dealt in a pon- 
 derous philosophical fashion with questions of morals, man- 
 ners, and literary criticism. Among his later works two 
 may be mentioned. A Journey to the Western Islands of 
 Scotland records a trip to the Highlands and the Hebrides 
 in company with James Boswell, his biographer. It is 
 interesting as displaying Johnson's thoroughly classical 
 temper and his sHght sympathy with the grandeur of 
 nature and with all that was wild, legendary, and romantic. 
 We see here clearly enough that whatever association he 
 had with the individualistic movement was an entirely 
 unconscious one, due, not to his own natural incHnations, 
 but to the fact that he himself was an intensely individual 
 character. He could be more strongly individual in his 
 conservatism than other men in their progressiveness. 
 Probably the best and most characteristic work of his lit- 
 erary career is to be found in his Lives of the English 
 Poets. His style is there at its finest, and he displays in
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-1780) 243 
 
 full measure his powers of philosophical criticism. The 
 narrowness of his poetic sympathy, as well as the essential 
 kindliness and generosity of his nature, is there apparent. 
 Some of the very greatest of English poets find very inad- 
 equate treatment, while his best work is bestowed on 
 some of the poorest. He utters his critical opinions in a 
 dictatorial and sometimes severe manner, but his nature 
 was too honest ever to be consciously unjust. Where he 
 fails, his failure is due to the limitations of his critical 
 insight and to the limitations of the classical temper in 
 dealing with work outside its range. It is to be added to 
 his credit that his good sense and strong natural intelli- 
 gence not seldom break the bonds of his cherished classical 
 theories. 
 
 Johnson's prose style is classic in its formality, in its 
 elaboration, and in its abstract, intellectual quality ; but it 
 is, nevertheless, the characteristic product of a ,^^ , 
 unique individual. Johnson is classical, but he style 
 is classical in his own way. The style of the most typical 
 classical prose-writers is clear, simple, polished, direct ; 
 the style of Johnson is ponderous, periodic. Latinized, 
 stately, sonorous. So individual is this style that its pe- 
 culiar quality has come to be designated by the word 
 "Johnsonese." In his later life, the simpler and more 
 direct manner of his conversational style came to have 
 much influence upon his writings ; and in his Lhcs of the 
 Poets, he becomes a much better model of expression than 
 in his earlier prose works. If he could only have written 
 as he talked, he wr)ukl have been a much greater master 
 of prose style. His two manners have been often illus- 
 trated by a famous example. He once said in conversa- 
 tion, " The Rcluarsal has not wit enough to keep it sweet." 
 That is altogether admirable ; but the ponderous old scholar 
 could not be content with anything so simple, so direct, so 
 terse, and so forcible. His instinct for sounding phrase
 
 244 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 led him to translate it at once into typical "Johnsonese," 
 " It has not sufficient vitality to preserve it from putrefac- 
 tion." The second form sounds almost like a parody of 
 the first, but it is typical of Johnson's method. 
 
 We have already emphasized the fact that Johnson was 
 greater as a man than as a writer, greater in his inspired 
 conversation than in his formal literary expression. The 
 immortal proof of this is contained in Boswell's Life of 
 Bosweii's JoJmsoii. Jamcs Boswell was a Scotchman of 
 Johnson good family and education ; but he made him- 
 self the humble friend and follower of Johnson for a series 
 of years, noting with patience and fidelity his words, his 
 acts, and his peculiarities of character. In this unique 
 fashion he gathered the materials that enabled him to 
 create the greatest biography ever written. The portrait 
 of Johnson is drawn at full length, and with an intimacy 
 of knowledge that would have been impossible to any other 
 than such a combination of toady and hero-worshipper as 
 Boswell seems to have been. His success is so great be- 
 cause he was willing to lose himself in his subject. Here 
 Johnson lives and talks forever for many to whom his 
 written works are little more than a name. 
 
 The conflict between Classicism and Individualism is no- 
 where more marked than in Oliver Goldsmith. From all 
 -,. that we know of him, he seems to have had the 
 
 Oliver ' 
 
 Goldsmith genius and the instincts of a decidedly original 
 poet ; and it is reasonable to suppose that he would have 
 been much more nearly in harmony with the new move- 
 ments if it had not been for external influences. His 
 natural tendency in this direction, however, was restrained 
 by the classical spirit that was still so strong in the age and 
 more particularly by his close personal associa- 
 
 His Poetry . • , t-^ t , .-1-.1 , ^ « • 
 
 tion With Dr. Johnson. The two representative 
 poems of Goldsmith are TJie Traveller and The Deserted 
 Village. The former reflects his experiences as a scholarly
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (i 740-1 7S0) 245 
 
 vagabond on the continent, and mingles beautiful poetic 
 description with the didactic purpose of giving " a prospect 
 of society." The poem well illustrates Goldsmith's roman- 
 tic personality ; but it is, nevertheless, largely classical 
 in style and in general conception. TJic Deserted I lllage 
 bewails the decay of the peasantry, and describes the lovely 
 village now forsaken by its former cheerful inhabitants. 
 The pictures of the village preacher and the village school- 
 master show Goldsmith at his best. He is a true poet, 
 uniting vivid imagination with a fine sense of beauty, deli- 
 cate and tender sentiment with an exquisite gift of humor. 
 Here, as in The Traveller, he is classical in style and 
 didactic in intention ; but he shows romantic feeling, is a 
 genuine lover of nature, and by his unaffected sympathy 
 with the poor and humble connects himself with the dem- 
 ocratic tendency. Of the last, these lines from Tlic De- 
 serted I'illage are typical : 
 
 Princes and lords may flourish or may fade ; 
 A breath cin make them, as a breath has made ; 
 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroyed can never be supphed. 
 
 Goldsmith's charming prose fiction, The Viear of Wake- 
 field, has been already mentioned in connection with our 
 discussion of the development of the novel. It 
 
 /■I r • r 1 • 1- Goldsmith's 
 
 is one of the very finest creations of his literary Prose 
 genius, if not his masterpiece. In addition to " '°*^ 
 this and to his poems, he wrote a great amount of miscel- 
 laneous prose, much of it the work of a hack writer labor- 
 ing for his daily bread, but nearly all of it touched with 
 the charm of his delightful style. For ease, for grace, and 
 for delicate humor, (ioldsmith has no superior among the 
 prose-writers of the century. His style has all the clas- 
 sical virtues, but it has beyond these that inimitable magic 
 which only genius can compass. While he docs not pass
 
 246 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 beyond the legitimate bounds of prose, he conveys the im- 
 pression that his nature was essentially that of a born poet. 
 Among the products of his pen, we have periodical litera- 
 ture, history, biography, natural science, learning, and 
 politics ; but his most characteristic prose work outside 
 of his single novel is to be found in his charming mis- 
 cellaneous Essays. In this field of miscellaneous prose. 
 Goldsmith produced no single work that is noteworthy 
 as a product of artistic imagination. It is the style 
 alone that makes it literature ; but for the sake of the 
 style, it will continue to be read and cherished. As in the 
 case of his novel, Goldsmith has known how to make his 
 style express the personal qualities of one of the most lov- 
 able men in English literature ; and for this reason, if for 
 no other, it would still hold its charm. 
 
 The versatility of Goldsmith's genius is well shown by 
 the fact that he was a great poet, a great novelist, a great 
 master of prose style, and — we may add — a great drama- 
 Goidsmith's ^ist. In drama his work consists of two fa- 
 Dramas mous comedies, The Good-Nat2ived Man and She 
 Stoops to Conquer. The latter was probably the best 
 comedy produced since the Restoration, surpassed in the 
 eighteenth century by no other dramatic work save that of 
 Sheridan. Far cleaner and healthier than any of the 
 Restoration dramas, it is not less witty and far more 
 good-natured. It is as bright, as gay, as humorous, as 
 sweet as Goldsmith himself. 
 
 The development of prose in the Age of Johnson is illus- 
 trated by many names and by many varieties of writing. 
 Especially by service in the fields of philosophy, history, 
 and politics was it decidedly advanced and 
 
 David Hume ■' 
 
 broadened. Among philosophers, David Hume 
 was probably the most eminent, both for style and for mat- 
 ter. His philosophical views do not especially concern us 
 here ; but his use of prose in philosophical discussion
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-17S0) 247 
 
 shows him to have been a man of considerable Hterary 
 ability so far as concerns the mere matter of expression. 
 His style is clear, hard, keen, and comparatively colorless. 
 It was well adapted for his philosophical purpose. His 
 History of England illustrates the use of his literary powers 
 in another field. The greatest historian of the age, how- 
 ever, was Edward Gibbon, author of The History Edward 
 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. ^'*'''°° 
 His historical task was a stupendous one ; his work covered 
 some fourteen hundred years of history, ranging over the 
 whole extent of the Roman Empire and even to the regions 
 beyond. The great labor was accomplished with such 
 patience, industry, and skill that his work has not yet been 
 superseded. In his way Gibbon is a master of style. 
 Classical, cold, and intellectual, he had yet a great histor- 
 ical imagination, and his language moves with the stately 
 pomp of a Roman triumph. Hume and Gibbon must suf- 
 fice as representatives of a large company of miscellaneous 
 writers. Beyond and above these, three men stand out as 
 unquestionably greatest among the prose-writers of the 
 age. Johnson and Goldsmith, we have already considered. 
 The third and in many respects the greatest is Edmund 
 Burke, philosophical thinker, maker if not writer of history, 
 splendid master of political prose. 
 
 Like all the great prose-writers of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, Burke strongly felt the influence of classical ten- 
 dencies. Yet he was not a slave to them. Like Edmund 
 Johnson, he was decidedly individual, and gave ^"^''* 
 to his style the coloring of his own habits of thou<;ht. 
 There seems to have been a more or less conscious effort 
 on the part of both these great writers to heighten and 
 adorn in u mtjre incjdern fashion the style which Clas- 
 sicism had tended to make plain and simple. This was 
 not in any sense a return lo the jjoetic i)rose ol tlic 
 seventeenth century ; for these men heartily desired to
 
 248 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 retain all that Classicism had achieved for prose style. 
 It was rather an effort to broaden the range and in- 
 crease the impressiveness of style, without destroying any 
 measure of its practical efficiency. Burke's method of 
 doing this was far different from that of Johnson. He 
 was a great rhetorician, a man of splendid imagination ; 
 and his style often becomes gorgeous with imagery, rich 
 and massy as cloth of gold. His literary methods were 
 those of the orator ; for most of his productions were 
 written to be spoken, and others felt the influence of his 
 oratorical habits. Yet he was not an effective speaker. 
 Contrary to the general rule in the case of great orators, 
 he repelled his immediate hearers, but charmed those 
 who read his speeches in print. Of all great orators, 
 therefore, he probably holds the largest place in literature. 
 Other men live in traditions as to the effect which their 
 speeches produced, while for the reader of a later day 
 the charm has largely gone out of their words. Burke 
 continues to live in the actual literary vitality which his 
 speeches still retain. It is as though he had talked over 
 the heads of his living auditors and had spoken to pos- 
 terity. All this is probably due in large measure to the 
 fact that his peculiar gifts were in reality not so much 
 those of the orator as those of the superb rhetorician. 
 
 So far as the development of Burke's style is concerned, 
 it seems to have reversed the usual order. Most men 
 Burke's tend to be more emotional and ornate in their 
 ^*^'^ earlier writings, and to become more intellec- 
 
 tual and plain as they become more mature. There is 
 doubtless a steady growth of intellectual power in Burke's 
 work ; but his earlier style is comparatively plain, while 
 his most gorgeous passages occur in his later writings. 
 This contrast is made still more emphatic by a considera- 
 tion of his subject-matter. One of his earliest works was 
 a treatise on the Origin of our Ideas of the Sjiblime and
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1740-1780) 249 
 
 Beautiful ; one of the most typical of his later works was 
 his Letter to a Noble Lord. It is not a Httle surprising to 
 find that the latter theme produced the richer and more 
 imaginative style. Something of this difference is doubt- 
 less due to the purposes of the various writings and the 
 circumstances under which they were produced. A still 
 further probable explanation is that Burke felt the repress- 
 ing influences of Classicism more strongly in his younger 
 days, and gave freer play to his own remarkable individ- 
 uality as he grew older. The conditions of the age were 
 favorable to such a development. The force of Classicism 
 was growing ever less and less, the forces of Individualism 
 were becoming ever more and more ; and Burke's life 
 continued until 1797, into a time when the newer influ- 
 ences had gained their complete triumph. 
 
 Among Burke's most famous productions are those in 
 which he deals with the misgovernment in India under 
 Warren Hastings, with the French Revolution, Burke's 
 and with the affairs of the American colonies. Genius 
 In these and other works, he reveals himself as an orator, 
 a statesman, a political philosopher, and a scholar. He 
 united great literary ability with a powerful mind, an 
 impressive personality, a noble character, and a high devo- 
 tion to truth and duty. His writings are splendid exam- 
 ples of logical argument, exalted by poetic imagination, 
 enriched by vast knowledge, inspired by intense earnest- 
 ness, and clothed in a diction of surpassing power and 
 beauty. Johnson was a great and typical Englishman 
 in every fibre of his being; Burke added to solid intel- 
 lectual and moral qualities the imaginative fervor of his 
 Irish nature. 
 
 The drama of the eighteenth century was extensive, but 
 very little of it has permanent literary or acting value. 
 We have already noted the dramatic work of Addison and 
 Steele in the early jnirt of the century. Within the Age
 
 250 CLASSICISM (1660-1780) 
 
 of Johnson several men already mentioned in other depart- 
 ments of literature tried their hands at dramatic work. 
 Thomson, the poet, wrote dramas which are now 
 
 Eighteenth- ^ 
 
 century • all Dut forgottcn. Young produced a tragedy 
 ^^'^^ called T/ic Revenge. Johnson, who appears in 
 
 all forms of literature, was the author of a cold and stately 
 classical tragedy named Irene. Fielding wrote a number 
 of comedies before he found his true vocation as a novelist, 
 but none of them would have preserved his fame to pos- 
 terity. Of the many minor dramatists there is no occasion 
 to speak. Only two men, Goldsmith and Sheridan, pro- 
 duced work which is of high literary quality and which still 
 retains its interest upon the stage. Goldsmith's two come- 
 dies. The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer, 
 have already received due attention, and it only remains to 
 speak briefly of the dramatic work of Sheridan. 
 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan was, Hke Goldsmith and like 
 
 Burke, an Irishman ; and he had all the Irish brilliancy 
 
 and wit. He was one of the most famous orators 
 
 Richard 
 
 Brinsley of his time, far surpassing Burke in the imme- 
 diate and striking character of his oratorical 
 effects, but as far inferior to him in the permanent literary 
 quality of his work. His literary fame rests almost exclu- 
 sively upon his dramas. His famous comedy, The Rivals, 
 was written in his twenty-fourth year, and The School for 
 Scandal and The Critic within four years thereafter. 
 Sheridan wrote other plays, but none that equal these 
 three. These are sufficient to maintain his reputation as 
 one of the most brilliant of English writers of comedy. 
 Such names as Bob Acres, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Peter and 
 Lady Teazle, and Sir Fretful Plagiary are among the best 
 known in English comic drama. They give evidence of 
 Sheridan's skill in the creation of comic characters and of 
 his masterful ease in witty and sparkling dialogue.
 
 iNdi/^ H<*fmj - piO--.
 
 BOOK V 
 
 IXDIl ID i 'ALISM {_j 780-1 83 2) 
 
 chapti-:r XIII 
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (1780-1800) 
 
 The Age of Johnson was an age of transition. Classi- 
 cism continued to assert its authority and to influence the 
 character of literary work ; but both its prestige and its 
 power gradually declined before the growing strength of 
 other forces. The Age of Burns was also in soqie sense 
 an age of transition. The reign of Classicism, to be sure, 
 was practically over, and only here and there did evidences 
 remain that its rule had once been so exclusive and so 
 potent. The reign of Individualism had clearly begun, 
 with the prestige derived from a generation of character 
 successful struggle. Yet this age was not to "^''"^Age 
 witness the high tide of the individualistic movement, that 
 display of its power which was to create the noblest body 
 of English literature since the days of Shakespeare. This 
 full manifestation of the jwwer of Individualism in litera- 
 ture was to come in the early years of the nineteenth 
 century. In the meantime, the last twenty years of the 
 eighteenth century were to constitute a period during 
 which individualistic tendencies should be clearly domi- 
 nant, and during which there should be a still further 
 gathering up of strength for widespread and splendid 
 literary achievement. It is in j)art such considerations 
 as these that make it desirable to set this period off by 
 itself as a distinct interval lying between the vastly differ- 
 ent ages of Johnscjn and Wordsworth, partaking to some 
 
 251
 
 252 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 extent of the character of each, and serving to bridge the 
 gulf between them. The relation is in many ways analo- 
 gous to that of the Age of Dryden, lying between the Age 
 of Milton on the one hand and the Age of Pope on the 
 other. Nor was the period lacking in a distinct hterary 
 quality of its own. Its note is not quite like that of any 
 other time in our literary history. Its authors were men 
 of distinct individuality, and they produced work that is 
 decidedly unique in character. 
 
 The age, as we have implied, illustrates the growth of 
 Individualism. This growth is mainly along the old hues, 
 Growth of but it is accompanied by a considerable introduc- 
 individuahsm |.jqj^ q£ j^g^ elements. Imagination becomes 
 
 less imitative and more original ; expression becomes less 
 perfunctory and more spontaneous. We have seen that 
 the individualistic movement during the Age of Johnson 
 had manifested itself chiefly in five different directions — 
 in the direction of Romanticism, in the direction of a growing 
 love for nature, in the direction of a freer expression of emo- 
 tion, in the direction of a larger and deeper interest in the 
 common man, and in the direction of religion. The Age 
 of Burns marks advance in all of these ways, and makes it 
 increasingly clear that all of these tendencies find their best 
 explanation as manifestations of the individualistic spirit. 
 Nowhere was progress more marked than in the poetic 
 treatment of nature. The natural description of Thomson 
 Love for cau hardly bear comparison with the fresh, un- 
 Nature affcctcd, closcly obscrvant, and tenderly sympa- 
 
 thetic treatment of Cowper. The sentiment of nature 
 which Collins so charmingly conveys is conveyed by Blake 
 with a subtler and stranger magic. Above all, the poetry 
 of Robert Burns brings us into an intimate and living con- 
 tact with the natural world to which there is no parallel in 
 the hterature of the eighteenth century and perhaps no 
 parallel elsewhere.
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (17S0-1S00) 253 
 
 Romanticism in this period was partly imitative and 
 partly original. The romance which found its inspira- 
 tion in a " Gothic " medicevalism is illustrated in 
 
 1 1 /-. 1 111 11 Romanticism 
 
 the novel. On the other hand, a poem like 
 Burns's Ta))i O' Shantcr suggested the imsuspected world 
 of romance that may lie hidden in the superstitions of a 
 countryside and in the befuddled brain of a drunken 
 peasant. In still another direction, the mystical fancy of 
 Blake revealed romantic realms of which he alone was the 
 creator. 
 
 The emotionalism of the Age of Johnson, as we have 
 seen, deserved to some extent the accusation of " senti- 
 mentalism." The emotionalism of the present Emotional- 
 period is not only stronger but more sincere. '^™ 
 The poets of this age express feeling not merely as a poetic 
 duty but because the passion of their hearts will not be 
 refused utterance. There is no more passionate poet than 
 Robert l^urns, and it is the intensity and sincerity of his 
 feeling that gives to his lyric music such marvelous power 
 over the human heart. 
 
 On the side of religion there was no such marked move- 
 ment as the Wesleyan revival, but the age was on the 
 whole decidedly more religious. There was re- 
 
 ^ . ^ ReUgion 
 
 action from the scepticism so prevalent during 
 the eighteenth century, while Methodism and other move- 
 ments had done much to purify and elevate contemporary 
 life. The religious spirit found expression in literature. 
 No one who reads Cowper's poetry can doubt the sincerity 
 and depth of his religious feeling. Blakc was a religious 
 mystic. Burns's Cotter s Saturday A^ii^/tt and other poems 
 reveal the true religious sentiment that lay beneath the 
 surface of that wild and seemingly irreverent nature. It 
 is typical of the age as well as of the man that Burns 
 poured out his scornful ridicule only upon the religious 
 profession that was false and hypocritical.
 
 254 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 Finally, the age was one which recognized as no other 
 age had ever done the value and importance of the common 
 Democratic ^lan. The French Revolution set up its motto 
 Spirit of " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity " ; and by 
 
 those ideas more than by any others the age was stirred. 
 The standard of modern democracy had been raised ; and 
 if democracy was not yet to triumph, its spirit was in the 
 air presaging future victory. Of these ideas. Burns, of 
 course, was the chief poetic voice. They run through all 
 his poetry. In such words as these, they are gathered up 
 into brief expression : 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may, 
 
 As come it will for a' that ; 
 That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 
 
 May bear the gree, and a' that ; / 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 It's coming yet, for a' that ; 
 < That man to man, the world o'er, 
 Shall brothers be for a' that. 
 
 Not only does Burns illustrate each of these separate 
 tendencies ; he more than any other man illustrates the 
 _ . fact that they find their deepest explanation in 
 
 Dominance -^ _ '■ _ ^ 
 
 of Individual- the intensely individualistic spirit of the age. 
 Burns himself was a strong and vigorous person- 
 ality. He believed in the individual man and in his right 
 to work out his destiny in his own fashion. In his poetry, 
 he voiced the faith that the individual imagination should 
 be free, to seek its own in the realms of romance or in the 
 common ways of the actual world ; that the individual in- 
 stinct should be free, to find its delight in communion with 
 nature or in fellowship with men; that the individual 
 heart should be free, to cherish and to voice its deepest 
 passions ; that the individual conscience should be free, to 
 worship God according to its own dictates ; that the in-
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS ^1780-1800) 255 
 
 dividual man should be free, to find in righteous use of his 
 freedom his own fullest development. His works and the 
 works of the other great men who labored with him in his 
 time afford large illustration of the fact that the dominant 
 guiding impulse of literature in the age was the impulse 
 of Individualism. 
 
 The age was not one of the largest and fullest achieve- 
 ment. Indeed, its literary product was comparatively 
 limited, both in quantity and in range, although 
 some of it was of a high order of excellence. Product of 
 The fountains of great inspiration were not as'***^® 
 yet open to many men, but some few had drunk deep of 
 the " Pierian spring." In only two departments of pure 
 literature was any work accomplished that calls for special 
 mention here. Sheridan was still alive ; but neither he 
 nor any one else was producing important dramatic work. 
 In the field of great prose style, Burke continued to display 
 his masterly powers until his death in 1797; but Burke 
 belonged mainly to the Age of Johnson and has already 
 been considered there. He had no compeer or worthy 
 successor in the present period. In poetry alone was there 
 any work of a really high order. Four poets — Cowper, 
 Crabbe, Blake, and Burns — illustrate the age. They are 
 of rather unequal importance ; but all of them, for one 
 reason or another, will call for definite consideration. The 
 progress of the novel, too, will demand brief notice ; for 
 although no real masterpiece was produced, there was a 
 development of fiction in the hands of many minor writers 
 which forms a not uninteresting passage in the general his- 
 tory of the novel. 
 
 The modern novel began in realism — in the portrayal 
 of contemnorarv life and character. Itsdevelop- 
 
 1 • /a f I u • I • The Novel 
 
 mcnt during the Age ot Jcmnson was mainly in 
 
 the same direction, although there were, as we have seen, 
 
 a few individual e.xceptions. The realistic type of fiction
 
 256 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 has not at any time since altogether ceased. Perhaps its 
 best representative in the present period was Fanny Burney, 
 afterward Madame D'Arblay. She was a sort of female 
 Richardson, and her Evelina and Cecilia remind us not a 
 little of his Clarissa Harlowe. By her faithfulness in tran- 
 scribing ordinary life and character, she affords a faint 
 anticipation of the work of Jane Austen in the next 
 generation. Her novels are stories of love amid the en- 
 vironment of polite society. This period also saw the 
 development of an extremely romantic type of fiction. 
 The prototype of the class was Walpole's Castle of OU'anto, 
 mentioned in the previous chapter. While no really im- 
 portant work was produced, the type itself is of 
 interest. Its chief ingredients were mystery and terror ; 
 and to produce these effects, it made use of ghosts, 
 demons, haunted castles, secret passages, blood, intrigue, 
 and death, together with all sorts of natural and super- 
 natural machinery. The most famous writer of this 
 school was Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, whose Mysteries of 
 Udolpho may be taken as an excellent representative of 
 the type. She indulges freely in the supernatural, but 
 makes an effort to explain it by natural causes. Still more 
 extreme in its " Gothic " character was The Monk, from 
 which its author was known as *' Monk " Lewis. He 
 wrote various other stories of the same general class. 
 William Beckford's Vathek is an Oriental romance, illus- 
 trating the same romantic tendencies but with a somewhat 
 different atmosphere. A third type of novel is represented 
 by William Godwin's Caleb Williams. Its author was a 
 political philosopher, and he used the novel as an instrument 
 of social and political reform. All three types of novel were 
 afterward to receive a much fuller and finer development. 
 They are interesting chiefly for this reason and because of 
 their relation to the general movements of the age. The 
 realistic novel illustrates the ever growing interest in ordi-
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (17S0-1800) 257 
 
 nary men and women, while the political or social novel 
 carries this democratic spirit so far as to become revolution- 
 ary. The '* Gothic " or mediceval novel is, of course, associ- 
 ated with the great romantic movement which has so 
 powerfully affected all branches of literature. 
 
 William Cowper was born in the Age of Pope, lived 
 all through the Age of Johnson without producing any 
 literary work of note, and began his career as wiuiam 
 a poet when he was some fifty years of age, Cowper 
 at about the beginning of the period now under review. 
 His timid, shrinking, and somew^hat morbid nature was 
 seriously affected by an unfortunate love affair and by 
 other experiences of his early life ; and as a consequence, his 
 mind was disordered. The promising and happy career 
 which seemed assured to him through the powerful 
 influence of a distinguished family was bitterly blighted, 
 and Cowper withdrew into a rural retirement on a small 
 allowance. All his life, he was afflicted with an extreme 
 melancholia, passing at times over the verge of insanity. 
 An intensely religious man, he despaired of his own sal- 
 vation and believed that he was doomed to be a castaway. 
 In his own pathetic words, 
 
 1 was a stricken deer that left the herd 
 Long since : witli many an arrow deep infixed 
 My panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant sliades. 
 There was I found by One who had Himself 
 Been liurt by the archers. 
 
 Death was long in coming ; for he lived until the last year 
 of the century, carefully tended for many years by dear 
 friends, the most devoted of whom was Mrs. Unwin. His 
 filial tenderness toward her is expressed in his beautiful 
 |)Ocm 7'o Mary. His poetical work hc^an during his 
 residence at Oliicy, with the Unwins, and covered only 
 about ten or twelve years. During the last ten years of
 
 258 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 his life, he was afflicted with both bodily and mental disease, 
 and drew toward the close of his allotted threescore years 
 and ten in extreme misery. He died in the mood of 
 religious despair so terribly expressed in The Castaivay, 
 where he likens his fate to that of a sailor lost overboard 
 at sea. 
 
 Considering the circumstances of his life and the short- 
 ness of his Hterary career, Cowper's work is remarkable, 
 Cow er's ^^^^ ^"^ quantity and in range. It began with 
 Early Poems the Oliiey Hyfiifis, some of which give utterance 
 to the deepest religious faith and devotion. When we 
 recall that he was the author of such a hymn as that 
 beginning, 
 
 There is a fountain fill'd with blood, 
 
 the pathos of his rehgious despair is vastly deepened by 
 the contrast with his religious fervor. His next attempts 
 were in the direction of poetical essays and satires after 
 the manner of an earlier time. These were not very suc- 
 cessful ; but it was difficult for a man of Cowper's temper- 
 ament to break suddenly or consciously with the received 
 poetic tradition. He was to be a leader in new ways, 
 but he was not by nature a revolutionist. The original 
 quality in his work was the result of his peculiar individ- 
 uality and of his isolation from the world rather than 
 of any conscious revolutionary purpose. Such poems as 
 TJie Progress of Error, T^'iitJi, Hope, Charity, Conversa- 
 tion, Retirement, and Table Talk show him still subject 
 to the classical influences under which he had grown up. 
 The personal element in them is the result of Cowper's 
 devout religious spirit and of his dehcate humor. This 
 humor — so strange when we think of Cowper's terrible 
 mental sufferings — is still further illustrated by The 
 Divertijig History of John Gilpin. The story of John Gil- 
 pin's ride is one of the best-known pieces of humor in 
 English poetry.
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (1780-1800) 259 
 
 Cowper's masterpiece is TJic Task. It was suggested 
 by Lady Austin, who bade him sing of " the Sofa." 
 Cowper did begin with that subject, and it 
 
 '^ "^ ' Cowper's 
 
 aptly illustrates his facility in writing good task and 
 blank verse on almost any theme, as well as the " °*™^ 
 fact that the writing of poetry was to him chiefly an 
 intellectual diversion from his distressing maladies. "The 
 Task " that had been set for him grew on his hands ; and 
 he wrote a long poem dealing with various aspects of the 
 country life that he knew so well. Here he reveals him- 
 self as a genuine and original poet of nature. His treat- 
 ment is simple, unaffected, and sincere ; and it is because 
 he wrote without artifice of what he thoroughly understood 
 that his method in the handling of nature was a revelation 
 to his age. His treatment is not unmixed with didacticism ; 
 but he had the true feeling for nature, and a gift of 
 minute natural description which has left the world richer 
 by some of its most faithful and charming poetic pictures 
 of rural sights and scenes. In addition to Cowper's re- 
 ligious spirit and his contribution to the poetical treat- 
 ment of nature, it is altogether natural that his poetry 
 should associate him with the emotional temper of his age. 
 Emotionalism with him was no matter of theory or of 
 conscious poetic intention. It sprang from the deep life 
 sources of his nature. His religious fervor, his profound 
 melancholy, his strong natural affection, all led him to 
 emotional expression. His lines To Hfnry are deeply 
 affecting. His poem On the Receipt of uiy Mothers 
 Picture out of Norfolk is touched with a melancholy 
 tenderness. Above all. The Castazuay, his most poignant 
 poem, sounds the note of profound and unfeigned despair. 
 The same awful note is heard in the conclusion ot one of 
 his lesser poems : 
 
 I, tempest-tossed, and wrecked at last, 
 Come home to jwrt no more.
 
 260 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 Much inferior to Cowper in poetic gift and also in per- 
 sonal interest is George Crabbe. In form, his poetry 
 George clings to the old classical tradition, but there is 
 
 Crabbe much in its content and historical significance 
 
 that is important. It is this alone that need detain our 
 attention here. Crabbe's reputation was estabhshed by 
 The Village, a poem in which he describes the life and 
 scenery of an obscure fishing hamlet on the coast of 
 Suffolk. He had a remarkable gift for describing nature, 
 especially in its gloomier and fiercer aspects ; but beyond 
 this was his power of depicting the wretched and sordid 
 life of the poor. Crabbe spared no coarse or evil detail 
 in drawing his reahstic pictures ; and they are stern and 
 gloomy even to pessimism. Soon after writing The Village, 
 Crabbe ceased altogether from poetry for over twenty 
 years, and then took up the same themes again in such 
 poems as TJic Borough and Tales of the Hall. He had 
 then fallen upon a new age, but the quality of his work 
 was unchanged, and belonged essentially to the eighteenth 
 century. It will readily be seen that his work connects 
 him, though in a peculiar fashion, with the naturalistic 
 movement and more especially with the poetic treatment 
 of common men and common things. His emotion was 
 grim and stern, and certainly had nothing in it of mere 
 sentimentalism. His realism is at the opposite extreme 
 from much of the prevailing romanticism of his day. 
 These lines from The Village convey the impression of his 
 characteristic attitude : 
 
 No ; cast by fortune on a frowning coast, 
 Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast ; 
 Where other cares than those the Muse relates, 
 And other shepherds dwell with other mates ; 
 By such examples taught, I paint the cot, 
 As Truth will paint it and as bards will not. 
 
 Crabbe is the most reahstic of English poets ; William
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (1780-1S00) 261 
 
 Blake is the most extremely fantastic and idealistic. He 
 was, in very truth, " of imagination all compact." wiiuam 
 There was in him a corresponding weakness — ^^''* 
 not to say failure — of the logical faculty. He thought 
 in pictures and symbols, and these images of his thought 
 had the utmost vividness and distinctness. We can hardly 
 appreciate his poetry without knowing that he was also a 
 painter. Painting was doubtless his natural province, for 
 there imagery and symbolism might be suflficient unto 
 themselves. When he turned to poetry, he endeavored to 
 make language do the work of painting, and became 
 thereby often vague and incoherent. It is hard to say 
 that Blake was mad, but it is quite as hard to say that he 
 was entirely sane. He was a typical visionary, and many 
 of his visions had for him all the reaHty of actual presences. 
 No doubt he was sincere when he claimed to have seen as 
 a child of four God's head at the window, to have talked 
 with Jesus Christ, with Moses and the Prophets, with 
 Homer, Dante, and Milton. Out of such conditions, 
 naturally grew his so-called Prophetic Books, which are 
 vague beyond the limit of comprehension. His literary 
 fame rests rather upon those lighter poems in which now 
 and again a childlike simplicity flashes out into sudden 
 beauty. It is almost as though Blake became a true poet 
 only in his rare and happy moments and by a sort of 
 fortunate accident. It is hard to interpret the character of 
 this mystic and dreamer — so complex and so strange ; but 
 the best of his Songs of Innocence and So)igs of lixperieticc 
 wc may appreciate, and give thanks. Few I^nglish poets 
 have been capable of a rarer union of strength and sweet- 
 ness than Blake jnanifests at his best. Tlie pictorial 
 (luality of these and other poems is suggested by the fact 
 that Blake printed them from copper plates in which text 
 and illustrative designs were interwoven, the sketches 
 being engraved and colored by his own hand. One of
 
 262 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 his best-known poems is TJie Tiger, in which occurs this 
 characteristic stanza : 
 
 When the stars threw down their spears, 
 And watered heaven with their tears, 
 Did He smile His work to see? 
 Did He who made the lamb make thee? 
 
 Blake is a poet of nature, and one of the most exquisite. 
 He is a romantic poet, and one of the most extreme. He 
 is a rehgious poet, and one of the most rapt and mystical. 
 He is an emotional poet, ranging from childish delight 
 to profound religious awe. He is an intensely individual 
 poet — one of the rarest and strangest personalities in the 
 whole range of English poetry. 
 
 Robert Burns was no less distinct an individual, but he 
 
 was much less eccentric and much more in touch with 
 
 ordinary human life. It is difficult for the com- 
 
 Robert Burns r 1 1 • 1 r • 
 
 mon man to feel himself in sympathy with 
 Blake ; but probably no poet has ever appealed more 
 strongly than Burns to the general human heart. His 
 poetry was not essentially better than Blake's at its best, 
 but it was broader, fuller, richer, and more human. It is 
 this human quality in his work that comes first to our 
 thought, and probably nothing comes nearer to accounting 
 for his universal popularity as a poet. He had Crabbe's 
 knowledge of common men and the hard conditions of 
 their life, as he had Crabbe's directness and sincerity of 
 method in portrayal ; but he had more than Crabbe's sym- 
 pathy with the common lot, as he had vastly more than 
 Crabbe's poetic genius. If we set Burns alongside of 
 Cowper for a moment, we shall see that the two men were 
 alike in at least one respect — their isolation. Each was 
 left to his own rural and obscure world, to work out the 
 suggestions of his genius in his own way. Both had some 
 acquaintance with previous literature, and both were some- 
 what affected by the old classical influences ; but neither
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (17S0-1800) 263 
 
 was deeply touched or strongly swerved from his own 
 original way. Both were poets of nature — direct, observ- 
 ant, sincere ; but the methods of the two were as different 
 as their spirit. In most other respects, Burns was in 
 strong contrast with Cowper. The one was calm, medita- 
 tive, serene, though deeply passionate ; the other was 
 impulsive, vigorous, impetuous, moved by passion unre- 
 strained. The one was frail with disease and trembled on 
 the verge of madness ; the other was sound to the core 
 and thoroughly sane. The one rounded out a life of 
 seventy years, nursing all the strength of his delicate being 
 and concentrating practically all of his literary work into his 
 si.xth decade ; the other, likewise, spent less than ten years 
 in poetical work and in his eager pursuit of the joys of 
 living, but flung away his life in the spending. 
 
 As we have already partly suggested. Burns was the 
 central figure of his age, though so much apart from its 
 life. He felt instinctively — perhaps more or Burns and 
 less unconsciously — all the impulses that were WsAge 
 stirring the minds of men in his day, and he was in touch 
 with all the great tendencies that were making the onward 
 current of English life and literature. His nature was 
 open on all sides, and he felt the mighty blowing of all 
 intellectual winds. 
 
 He was a poet of nature, and that, too, in the fullest 
 and largest sense. The natural forms of his native Scot- 
 tish countryside — hills and vales, fields and APoetof 
 streams, trees and flowers and growing crops — Mature 
 he knew by daily contact, and loved them with a poet's 
 joy. The birds and beasts that he touches with his poetic 
 fancy are such as had come under his actual eye. Toward 
 all these creatures, his feeling is that of an elder brother. 
 To the mountain daisy — " wee, modest, crimson-tipp«l:d 
 Howcr " — which he has turned down with his plough, he 
 speaks in accents of sympathetic tenderness. To the
 
 264 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 field-mouse, whose nest has been ruined by that same 
 ploughshare, he says, in words broadly significant of his 
 attitude toward the whole natural creation : 
 
 I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
 Has broken Nature's social union, 
 An' justifies that ill opinion, 
 
 Which makes thee startle 
 At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 
 
 An' fellow-mortal! 
 
 With the common human lives that belong to these natural 
 surroundings, he has a sympathy even deeper and more 
 intense. Indeed, in his poetry, nature is of interest chiefly 
 as it reflects human passion and experience by sympathy 
 or by contrast. Speaking of Jean Armour, whom he after- 
 ward married, he says : 
 
 I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 
 I see her sweet and fair; 
 I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air. 
 
 The forlorn maiden, mourning for her lost love, sings : 
 
 Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 
 How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ! 
 
 How can ye chant, ye little birds, 
 And I sae weary fu' o' care ! 
 
 The human interest of Burns takes an even wider 
 sweep. He has learned from these humble ploughmen and 
 peasants who were of his own blood that there 
 Common is divine quality in the lowliest human lives. As 
 umamty ^ matter of intimate knowledge and of profound 
 conviction, he understands that men are to be judged 
 by their own inherent worth and not by the accidents of 
 wealth, rank, learning, or position. In T/ie CotUrs Sat- 
 urday Night, he has drawn an immortal picture of a 
 Scottish peasant family, like that which gathered around 
 his own father's hearth. The poem is written in the Spen- 
 serian stanza, but how different from the atmosphere of
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (1780-1800) 265 
 
 Spenser's faeryland is that of this Scottish fireside. 
 Nothing could more emphatically mark the gulf that lies 
 between the age of the Renaissance and this age of demo- 
 cratic feeling. In Tcxui O' S/hdUci; we have a glimpse of 
 another side of this same peasant life. Tam, planted by 
 the ale-house fire with " his ancient, trusty, drouthy crony," 
 is a drunken Ayrshire peasant. As he rides home in the 
 stormy night, his head filled with country superstitions — 
 as he sees in " Alloway's auld haunted kirk " the vision 
 of the witches' dance, and is chased by " the hellish legion " 
 over the Brig o' Doon — he becomes in some sort a hero 
 of romance througli the magic of Burns's fancy. Not alone 
 such transcripts from connnon life does Burns present to 
 us. His poetry is filled with human passion, and not least 
 with the exceedingly human passion of his own ardent 
 nature. Most of all with the passion of love, which has 
 poured so much of haunting music into his verse. This 
 love was not always sanctified, but it was certainly fervid, 
 and sometimes as pure as it was passionate. His verses to 
 Jean Armour have been already referred to. There are 
 verses also to many others. Mary Morison, My Nafiic, O, 
 To Mary in If raven, FarcxvcU to Nancy, HigJdand Mary — 
 these are some of the most beautiful of his numerous love- 
 songs. None of his lines go deeper into the heart than 
 these from his Farewell to Xancy : 
 
 Had we never loved sae kindly. 
 Had we never loved sae blindly, 
 Never met — or never parted. 
 We had ne'er been broken-hearted! 
 
 That he can express other feeling than his own, the world 
 knows by such songs as Auld Lani; Syne, John Anderson 
 my Jo, Bannockhnrn, A Man's a Man for a' that, and 
 many songs that portray the passion of other lovers. All 
 his poetry shows the breadth and intensity of his sym- 
 pathy with his " fellow-mortals," as well as with the
 
 266 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 world of nature. That his pity can take an even wider 
 range is illustrated in his Address to the Deil: 
 
 Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, 
 An' let poor damned bodies be ; 
 
 and again, to the Devil himself : 
 
 But, fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben! 
 O wad 3'e tak a thought an' men' I 
 Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — 
 
 Still hae a stake — 
 I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 
 
 Ev'n for your sake! 
 
 Burns's association with the emotional tendency of his 
 age has been already suggested by what has been said of 
 Burns's Emo- ^^^ treatment of human passion. He was him- 
 tionaiism gg^f Q^e of the most passiouatc of all English 
 poets ; he exercised the utmost freedom in the expression 
 of his emotion, from broadest humor to the most heart- 
 breaking sorrow ; and he is the representative singer of an 
 age in which emotion had again come to its rights in Eng- 
 lish poetry. Enough has also been said or implied as to 
 Burns's Ro- the Comparatively Small element of romanticism 
 manticism -j^ Bums's poctry. He was not a typical roman- 
 tic poet, and his work should go far toward convincing 
 us that Romanticism is not the central literary movement 
 of the time. Nevertheless, he was by no means devoid 
 of the romantic spirit. He knew how to discover and to 
 interpret the romance of common life and of the ordinary 
 human heart. His most typical poem in this particular 
 is Tarn O'Skanter, whose romantic significance has already 
 been suggested. 
 
 A consideration of Burns's attitude toward religion in- 
 volves judgment of his life and character as well as of his 
 poetry. We can not touch upon such a subject without a 
 mixture of feelings, and should not except in the mood 
 of tender sympathy and broad charity. His wildness,
 
 THE AGE OF BURNS (1780-1S00) 267 
 
 his passions, his dissipations, his excesses of many kinds, 
 need not be denied and can not be excused. „ 
 
 Burns's 
 
 He himself would be the last to palliate them. Religious 
 Nevertheless, they can be forgiven, and there 
 is no need that they should be unduly emphasized. We 
 can afford to accept his poetry as it is, thanking God 
 for such a genius, and committing to His infinite mercy 
 all that was faulty in the nature of one of the greatest of 
 His poets. If we have any touch of Hurns's own sympa- 
 thetic nature, we shall see that beneath the stormy surface 
 of his life there was a true human heart and a genuinely 
 religious spirit. Religious cant, hypocrisy, and pretence 
 he hated with the fervor of a generous nature and ridiculed 
 with all the power of his humor and his scorn. For true 
 religion he displays nothing but reverence and sympathy. 
 It is in such a spirit that he depicts the scene in The Cotter s 
 Saturday Night, as 
 
 Kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays. 
 
 He knew well, moreover, that 
 
 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs. 
 
 Speaking more directly for himself, he thus sums up the 
 
 matter : 
 
 When ranting round in pleasure's ring, 
 
 Religion may Ije blinded ; 
 Or, if she gie a random sting, 
 
 It may be little minded ; 
 But when on life we're tempest-driv'n — 
 
 A conscience but a canker, 
 A correspondence fix'd wi' Heav'n, 
 
 Is sure a noble anchor ! 
 
 The general tenor of his life and of his poetry allows us 
 to believe that Burns did have that " anchor of the soul, 
 both sure and steadfast." 
 
 Hurns's marked and forceful indiviiluality luulerlying all 
 his actions, his strongly individualistic convictions under-
 
 268 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 lying all his thought, are not difficult to discover or to 
 Bums'sin- appreciate. He preached Individualism, directly 
 dividuausm -^^ ^^^^ poetry as A Man's a Man for a' that and 
 certain passages of The Cotter s Saturday Night, indirectly 
 in the essential tone and spirit of all his poetry. He gave 
 in his own person a splendid example of Individualism. 
 This ploughman and son of a poor Scotch peasant broke 
 through the restrictions of his lowly rank and made his 
 name known to the ends of the earth. He shook off the 
 classical fetters that other men had not been able entirely 
 to break, and spoke his free and fearless word to an age 
 that must needs listen. He left his plough in the furrow 
 and consorted with the greatest men of his time on equal 
 terms, proud and independent as the best, and then went 
 back to his plough again. He made men forget his hum- 
 ble origin as he challenged social rank and privilege, 
 religious formalism and insincerity, political tyranny and 
 oppression. 
 
 More even than all this was the strongly individual 
 character of his poetic genius and work. He was a lyric 
 His Individ- poet, the greatest pure singer that England had 
 uai Genius yet Seen. Hissong was f ull of cxquisitc music,but 
 it was full also of that deeper thing in lyric poetry, warm and 
 genuine human passion. Here were " tears and laughter for 
 all time." Here was that " spark o' Nature's fire " which to 
 him was better than all learning, full compensation for all 
 toil, because it could " touch the heart." His homely Scot- 
 tish dialect has become forever a classic speech because it 
 has been touched by his genius. No EngHsh poet has ever 
 come closer than he to the daily lives of men ; for wherever 
 the English language is spoken, his songs have been sung 
 for a hundred years, and their music does not yet die 
 away. Wordsworth spoke most truly : 
 
 Deep in the general heart of men, 
 His power survives.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 
 
 The eighteenth century was for the most part an age 
 of authority and of classicism. Toward the close of the 
 century had come the triumph of new and directly an- 
 tagonistic principles, preparing the way for a great and 
 original literary period during the earlier years of the 
 nineteenth century. The Age of Wordsworth was to be 
 distinctively and preeminently the age of Indi- 
 vidualism. It was an age of great individual ?^^*^*°' 
 
 ° _ ° Individualism 
 
 geniuses, many of them creating splendid bod- 
 ies of literary work and establishing their places among 
 the foremost writers of the literature. It was an age of 
 great individualistic achievement ; for although its writers 
 were all moved in the main by the same general spirit, the 
 work of each of the great leaders was surprisingly distinct 
 and peculiar. It was an age of great individualistic ideas; 
 for Individualism was in the air, was rapidly permeating 
 the whole mass of society, and was passing on from a mere 
 democratic principle to a concrete realization in actual 
 democracy. The literary expression of this individual- 
 istic spirit was in large measure a further development 
 of tendencies which we have already traced. Roman- 
 tic literature was advanced and broadened by men like 
 Scott, Coleridge, liyron, Shelley, and Keats. The poetic 
 treatment of nature was brought by Wordsworth to 
 its greatest depth and significance. The recognition of 
 the worth, the dignity, and still further the rights, of the 
 common man affected the work of many writers, and de- 
 veloped in some ca.ses into a decidedly revolutionary sen- 
 timent. Kmotion prevailed in literature as it had never 
 
 3C*)
 
 270 INDIVIDUALISM (i 780-1832) 
 
 done since the days of Milton, save in the single case of 
 Burns ; but emotionalism was no longer a distinct ten- 
 dency, but took its place as a commonly accepted matter 
 of fact. Much the same might be said of religion. The 
 moral and religious tone of the age and of its literary 
 work was higher than that of the eighteenth century ; but 
 there was no decided religious movement, and no distinct 
 religious tendency in literature'. Beyond the development 
 of these older tendencies, there was much that was new 
 and original in the individualistic literature of the time, 
 but it is hardly to be defined in general terms* It was 
 due to the decided and peculiar personality of many indi- 
 vidual writers, and is best to be felt and appreciated in 
 connection with the study of their works. 
 
 The high priest of this new literary dispensation was 
 William Wordsworth. He more than any other man was 
 its leader and its great central figure. He was not so in 
 any such sense as Dryden, Pope, and Johnson had been 
 Limits of the ^^ their respective periods. The age of the 
 Age literary dictator had passed away with the de- 
 
 cadence of the principle of classical authority, and the 
 spirit of the present period was too individualistic to bow 
 down to any man, however great, as a literary lawgiver. 
 Indeed, the influence of Wordsworth was of exceedingly 
 slow growth and hardly received full recognition much 
 before his own death. This is illustrated in a minor way 
 by the fact that, in 181 3, when Wordsworth had already 
 written much of his best poetry, Robert Southey, a 
 younger man and a much inferior poet, was appointed 
 poet-laureate. Southey held that office until his death in 
 1843; Wordsworth was then appointed and held it until 
 his own death in 1850. If the age is fittingly designated 
 by the name of Wordsworth, it is because later genera- 
 tions than his own have recognized him as the most rep- 
 resentative literary genius of his day. His long life,
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 271 
 
 covering the years from 1770 to 1850, was much more 
 than coextensive with the proper Hmits of the period. 
 Before the death of Cowper in 1800, his genius had 
 already received wide recognition through the pubHcation 
 of his Lyrical Ballads. He continued to exercise his 
 poetical powers till well toward the end of his life, al- 
 thouglf his literary activity practically ceased as early as 
 1835. Even before the latter date, the age was practically 
 over, and the literature of a new period was well under 
 way. There was naturally much overlapping of literary 
 work; but probably the year 1832 best marks the point 
 at which the old period may be regarded as passing into 
 the new. That was the year of the death of Scott, one of 
 the most popular and influential literary men of the age. 
 It was the year of the death of Goethe, the greatest lit- 
 erary figure of the continent. It was the year of the 
 great Reform Bill, which marks the beginning of the 
 extension of the elective franchise and of the growth of 
 practical democracy in England. In the next year Brown- 
 ing published Pauline, Carlyle published Sartor Rcsartus, 
 and Tennyson published his first collected Poems. These 
 are among the most notable men and works of the next 
 period ; and from this point the newer literature grew rap- 
 idly, while only a few scattered works were published by 
 eminent leaders of the older period. The present chap- 
 ter, therefore, will aim to discuss literary work that lies for 
 the most part between the years 1800 and 1832, although 
 it will to some extent overpass those limits at either end. 
 
 The eighteenth century was distinctively an age of 
 prose. The Age of Wordsworth — like the Age of 
 Shakespeare and unlike the Age of Tennyson 
 
 ' r Character of 
 
 — was decidedly an age of poetry. Its great Literature in 
 men of genius wore mostly eminent in the "^ " 
 poetical field, distinction was more easily achieved in 
 poetry than in prusc, the general taste was decidedly set in
 
 272 INDIVIDUALISM (i 780-1832) 
 
 the poetic direction. This fact has helped to mark it as 
 the second great age in our literary history ; for poetry is the 
 highest form of literary expression, and poetry seems to 
 have been most in harmony with the noblest powers of the 
 English genius. There was also a noteworthy develop- 
 ment of the novel which was already beginning to establish 
 itself as the favorite literary form of the nineteenth 
 century. Miscellaneous prose was by no means without 
 its distinguished representatives, and the age has given to 
 English literature some of its noblest examples of prose 
 style. The drama was the only great literary form that 
 was not adequately represented. Many of the great poets, 
 as well as other writers, tried their hands at dramatic work ; 
 but there is probably not a single great drama in the 
 stricter sense of the term. The best that we can say is 
 that there was some really noble poetry written in nomi- 
 nally dramatic form. During the nineteenth century, the 
 drama seems to have been practically superseded by the 
 novel as a medium for the portrayal of its complex forms 
 of life and character. It remains to be said that the 
 literature of the age was exceedingly rich and varied. 
 There were many excellent writers, and there was a vast 
 body of excellent work. Under these conditions, it be- 
 comes almost an absolute necessity to confine our attention 
 to the greatest writers and to those who best represent the 
 essential spirit of the age. In our consideration of these, 
 we shall see — what more detailed study would only serve 
 to confirm — that the great literary impulse of the age is 
 the impulse of Individualism, manifesting itself — most 
 naturally — in a wonderful variety of forms. 
 
 William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cum- 
 Wiiiiam bcrlaud, and went to school as a boy at Hawks- 
 
 wordsworth j^^^j^ -^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^ieavt of the beautiful Eng- 
 lish Lake District. It was in these early days that he 
 learned to love, and in some measure to understand, those
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 273 
 
 aspects of nature which he was afterward to portray with 
 such marvelous poetic power. At seventeen, he went to 
 Cambridge University, where he became a member of St. 
 John's College. The life here was not altogether con- 
 genial to him ; but, nevertheless, his contemplative and 
 receptive nature drew much from study and from the 
 associations of the historic place. His love for nature was 
 still further developed by his country wanderings ; and 
 among other evidences of his broadening intelligence was 
 a rather curious poetic interest in the higher mathematics. 
 After leaving the University, he spent two years in travel 
 on the continent, feeling with delight the grandeur of the 
 Alps, and coming into somewhat intimate con- 
 
 . , , , ^ , _ , His Life 
 
 tact with the men and events of the trench 
 Revolution. These two interests are symbolic of the two 
 great passions of Wordsworth's life, the passion for nature 
 and the passion for humanity. By the ideals of the 
 Revolution — " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity " — his young 
 soul was stirred to its depths ; and he planned to cast in 
 his lot with the great movement. Just before the frightful 
 " Reign of Terror," he was recalled to England and was 
 probably thus saved from falling a victim to his own 
 enthusiasm. The excesses and final failure of the Revolu- 
 tion brought about a reaction in his mind and made him for 
 the rest of his life a conservative. He remained always a 
 poet of liberty moving within the bounds of law, but he 
 was opposed to violent revolutionary outbreak. This atti- 
 tude was really more in harmony with the serene and steady 
 nature of the man, although the remembrance of his 
 youthful passion of enthusiasm led him to e.xclaim : 
 
 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. 
 But tu he young was very Heaven! 
 
 In 1 797-1 798 he was a neighbor, in .Somersetshire, of 
 Coleridge, who joined with him in the writing and ituhli-
 
 274 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 cation of the Lyrical Ballads. After a year in Germany, 
 he settled down in the early days of the nineteenth century 
 to fifty years of quiet and productive life in the English 
 Lake District where his boyhood had been nourished. 
 Here he found his proper environment, and here his genius 
 steadily grew in ripeness and spiritual power. 
 
 In these surroundings he could be a true poet of nature ; 
 but his earlier experiences and the natural constitution of 
 his own mind prepared him also to be a poet of humanity 
 and a poet of man's intellectual life. He felt himself, 
 like Milton, to be a dedicated spirit, for whom the tasks of 
 poetry were no less than a divine calling. His preparation 
 for these tasks has been roughly indicated by the brief 
 His Poetic outliue of his career. He himself has fully elab- 
 Deveiopment q^^^q^ ^^g course of this preparation in one of 
 the most famous of his works — a long poem in fourteen 
 books, called The Prelude, in which he sets forth the prin- 
 cipal facts of his early life and shows the development of 
 his poetic faculty. The subtitle of the work — "Growth 
 of a Poet's Mind, an Autobiographical Poem " — indicates 
 its peculiar purpose, and shows Wordsworth's superb self- 
 consciousness and self-esteem. He deemed the history of 
 his own personal development worthy to be unfolded in a 
 poem of heroic proportions. It was a splendid egotism ; 
 but Wordsworth was not wrong in considering his own 
 spiritual experiences to be among the great facts of Eng- 
 lish poetry. He delivers to us a secret of his poetic great- 
 ness when he says, " I loved whate'er I saw." He tells 
 us in brief his poetic attitude, after many inward strivings, 
 when he declares that he 
 
 In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand, 
 A sensitive being, a creative soul. 
 
 Wordsworth stands in the thought of the world — and 
 justly — as the greatest of all poets of nature. He was
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 275 
 
 born to that office. From his very earliest years he was 
 alive to the beauty and to the spiritual suggestiveness 
 of the world of nature around him. He had the ThePo«tof 
 seeing eye, the receptive soul, the divine gift of Mature 
 spiritual insight. In his youngest days, he could say of 
 
 himself : 
 
 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 thought supplied, nor any interest 
 Unborrowed from the eye. 
 
 This sufficiently indicates the poetic sensuousness — the 
 exquisite delight in all the joys of the senses — that lay at 
 the foundation of Wordsworth's rather intellectual genius. 
 But this was only the foundation. There soon came into 
 his life and into his poetry the higher " charm, by thought 
 supplied," the deeper significance supplied by his un- 
 paralleled faculty of spiritual vision. It is not merely 
 accurate description of nature that he gives, not merely 
 reproduction of the beauty of her myriad forms. Nor is 
 it the sentiment of nature alone or her reflection of the 
 passions and e.xperiences of the human soul. It is the 
 soul of Nature herself. 
 
 He is, therefore, something more than a greater Thom- 
 son or Collins or Cowper or Burns. He is nature's in- 
 spired seer and interpreter. Nature to him is a 
 
 ' Spiritual 
 
 divine symbol, the uttered word of the eternal interpretation 
 
 »\- I , 1 •. • xi • f 1 • I , of Nature 
 
 thought ; and it is the meaning of this symbol 
 that he attempts, within the range of human powers, to 
 discover and to convey. Suggesting the image of a child, 
 applying to its car a shell and hearing therein 
 
 Murmurinns, wherrby the monitor e.xprcssed 
 Mysterious union with its native sea,
 
 2/6 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 he adds, 
 
 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. 
 
 It is such " authentic tidings of invisible things " that 
 Wordworth's poetry aims to bring to mankind. Beyond 
 all other poetry that has ever been written, it succeeds in 
 suggesting through its treatment of natural appearances 
 that deeper meaning of nature which no human language 
 or symbol can adequately express. 
 
 To this profound interpretation, Wordsworth is able to 
 give the impressive power of artistic utterance. He has 
 not only " the vision and the faculty divine," but he has in 
 Idealization duc measure " the accomphshment of verse." 
 cf Nature gy ^^iq powcr of his imagination, the natural 
 world is idealized and clothed for us in 
 
 The light that never was, on sea or land, 
 The consecration, and the Poet's dream. 
 
 It is made alive, too, by his emotion ; for he was endowed, 
 not only with the power of minute observation, of graphic 
 portrayal, of spiritual interpretation, of imaginative ideal- 
 ization, but with the power also of pouring out his heart in 
 passionate description. It is the soul of nature that we 
 are made to feel, but it is also the soul of Wordsworth. 
 He has an intense love for nature and a profound sympathy 
 with her various forms ; and this love and sympathy is 
 doubtless in large measure the secret of his abiUty to dis- 
 cover the manifold beauties that she has to reveal and to 
 interpret the deeper meanings which she hides from 
 unanointed eyes. 
 
 Perhaps no poetic doctrine is more pecuHar to him than
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 277 
 
 that nature is informed by a living spirit which animates 
 all her multitudinous shapes. In one of his earlier poems, 
 
 he says, 
 
 And 'tis my faith that every flower 
 
 Enjoys the air it breathes. 
 
 The faith here so simply expressed is elsewhere elaborated 
 more fully and with larger sweep of thought. The Life of 
 Especially do we find his poetic creed set forth ""^^^^ 
 in his Lines composed above Tintcrn Abbey, on the Banks 
 of the Wye. The sensuousness of his earlier feeling for 
 nature has already been illustrated by a passage from this 
 same poem, and the lines which almost immediately follow 
 are the finest illustration of his further development in 
 intellectual and spiritual perception : 
 
 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 nor 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 fiir more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit, thatim])els 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 These lines suggest that Wordsworth has not only de- 
 rived from his deeper contemplation of nature " a sense 
 sublime of something far more deeply interfused," but 
 that he has also learned to hear "the still, sad music of 
 humanity." This leads us to observe that in his maturity 
 his interest in man was almost if not quite equal APoetof 
 to his interest in nature. The human interest '^"" 
 was in part aroused in him by his experiences in the
 
 278 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 broader world of men, by his foreign travel, and especially 
 by his brief association with the French Revolution. The 
 latter brought him into contact with forceful individuals 
 and with the broad sweep of great human problems. Not 
 alone in this way, however, was his interest in man devel- 
 oped. He found dwelHng in the midst of his native hills 
 human beings who to him were an organic part of the great 
 whole, so vitally associated with nature that they were hardly 
 to be moved out of their place any more than the hills them- 
 selves. These also were men, with human passions and 
 experiences not really less significant than those of the 
 great leaders of the French Revolution, 
 
 Wordsworth was one of the most thoroughgoing of indi- 
 vidualists. If there was any one thing that was the very 
 ffis Individ- corncr-stonc of his character, his thought, and 
 uahsm j^-^ pQg|-jc crccd, it was faith in the value and in 
 
 the poetic significance of what men ordinarily call the com- 
 monplace. He speaks of Robert Burns, ploughman and 
 poet of common men, as one 
 
 Whose light I hailed when first it shone. 
 
 And showed my youth 
 How Verse may build a princely throne 
 
 On humble truth. 
 
 Such a man was not likely to miss the importance of com- 
 mon men any more^an the importance of common things. 
 Treatment of Indeed, this tendency to find poetic values every- 
 CommonMen -^^gj-e -^^^ sometimcs a snare to Wordsworth. 
 Lacking the sense of humor that would have enabled him 
 to perceive when he was passing the bounds of the ridicu- 
 lous, he wrote such poems as T/ie Idiot Boj and Peter Bell. 
 On the other hand, in poems like The LeecJi-GatJierer and 
 Michael, he has attained the noblest poetic results that 
 were ever reached by such simple means. The latter is the 
 severely plain story of an old shepherd whose heart is 
 broken by the shame of an only and well-beloved son.
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 279 
 
 When the boy went away from home, the father had 
 just begun to build a sheepfold ; and though the old man 
 wrought at the fold for seven years after the boy's dis- 
 grace, he " left the work unfinished when he died." The 
 profound impression of Michael's sorrow is conveyed by 
 the suggestion that " many and many a day " he went to 
 his labor, 
 
 And never lifted up a single stone. 
 
 How bare and prosaic are the mere words ; and yet, charged 
 with its weight of meaning, it is one of the most grandly 
 simple lines in English poetry. In such treatment, Words- 
 worth is dealing with the natural rather than with the 
 artificial man, showing man as vitally related to nature 
 and drawing help and comfort from her. He can hardly 
 be said to have much dramatic power in the portrayal of 
 individual character, and perhaps is disposed rather to 
 deal with human ideas and emotions — with humanity 
 rather than with individual man. 
 
 This suggests still another avenue of approach by which 
 his love for nature has brought him to a large human 
 interest. He feels that these two — nature _ 
 
 Harmony of 
 
 and man — were made by God for each other Nature and 
 and should be in harmony. He makes us feel 
 
 How exquisitely the individual mind 
 
 (And the progressive powers perhaps no less 
 
 Of the whole species) to the e-xternal world 
 
 Is fitted : — and how exquisitely, too — 
 
 Theme this but little heard of among men — 
 
 The external world is fitted to the mind ; 
 
 And the creation (by no lower name 
 
 Can it be called) which they with blended might 
 
 Accomplish. 
 
 This is Wordsworth's " high argument " ; and it is in this 
 spirit that he becomes the jjoet both of nature and of man, 
 in their spiritual communion with each other.
 
 28o INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 Wordsworth said, "Every great poet is a teacher; I 
 wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing." 
 Whatever we may think of the vaUdity of this opinion, 
 it is at least perfectly unequivocal. Wordsworth was — 
 and is — a teacher. He was not only a man endowed with 
 poetic imagination, poetic passion, and poetic feeling for 
 beauty; he was also a great thinker. He is properly to 
 APhiiosoph- be called a philosophical poet. The name of 
 icai Teacher philosopher is not to be applied to him in 
 any strict sense of the word ; for he was not a merely 
 speculative thinker, nor did he have an ordered philo- 
 sophical system. Yet he is philosophical in that he 
 deals, after the poet's fashion, with problems of the uni- 
 verse and of human being. The subjects of his think- 
 ing have already been largely indicated. His doctrine of 
 a universal spirit in nature has been called pantheistic ; 
 but although Wordsworth speaks in the vaguest terms 
 of "a motion and a spirit" in nature, he speaks also 
 of the soul as coming 
 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
 This line is from his Ode on Intimations of Im7nortality, 
 one of the greatest poetic masterpieces of the century. 
 Intimations of This pocm is typical of his philosophical as 
 immortauty -^g]} 3.3 of his poetic Spirit. The soul comes 
 into the world attended by the vision of the glory from 
 which it sprang. 
 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 
 Yet Nature is a most kindly nurse, and "even with some- 
 thing of a Mother's mind," " doth all she can " 
 
 To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 
 
 Forget the glories he hath known, 
 And that imperial palace whence he came.
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 28 1 
 
 Still there are within us instincts and affections, 
 
 Which, be they what they may. 
 Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
 Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; 
 
 Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal Silence. 
 
 Such philosophical teaching as this runs through all of 
 Wordsworth's poetry, so wide in range, so varied in quality. 
 It is the teaching of a great poet, with superb mastery 
 over the resources of his art — able to command the charm 
 of lyric melody, to shape the sonnet into finished perfec- 
 tion, to build the meditative verse where " high and passion- 
 ate thoughts " are " to their own music chanted," to construct 
 great temples of poetry like his Prelude and his 
 
 _ . T • 1 1 • r Ethical Spirit 
 
 hxcursioii. It IS the teachmg 01 a great master 
 
 of life, charged with ethical meaning. His poetry touches 
 
 the highest; it does not despise the lowest. In it. 
 
 The primal duties shine aloft, like stars ; 
 The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 
 Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers. 
 
 A man of extraordinary genius, allied with Wordsworth 
 by close personal friendship and by association in literary 
 work, was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. There are 
 some points of similarity between the two men, fo*r™oUridge 
 but in other respects they arc strikingly unlike 
 in character and in genius. The intellectual powers of 
 Coleridge were little short of marvelous, both in range 
 and in quality. He was a man of broad and varied learn- 
 ing, so much so that it is doubtful if any mind in his age 
 was so richly stored as his. He was a ])rofoimd j)hilo- 
 sophical thinker — acute, subtle, and original. His critical 
 powers were of the very first order ; and in this ,.. ^ . 
 
 ' -' His Genius 
 
 respect he had a gift which Wordsworth almost 
 
 wholly lacked. In [jurely poetic genius, he was probably
 
 282 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 as richly endowed as any man in the nineteenth century. 
 His command of the resources of language, both in poetry 
 and in prose, has seldom been equalled. It is generally 
 agreed that he was one of the greatest conversers that 
 ever lived. Many of the greatest men of his age — Words- 
 worth among the rest — owed much to his stimulus and 
 inspiration ; and from him went out streams of influence 
 that did much to make the literature of his generation so 
 rich and so full. These are some of his titles to fame, and 
 these are suggestive rather than exhaustive. 
 
 Over against these remarkable powers are to be set 
 limitations many and unfortunate. His nature and the 
 HisLimita- Conditions of his life were such that his great 
 tions gifts were in large measure locked up from use 
 
 and never came to adequate expression. Doubtless the 
 extent to which he exercised personal influence upon other 
 men took away in no small degree from his own use of his 
 own powers. Then.he was a dreamer rather than a doer. He 
 planned many things, and in his fortunate moments could 
 achieve with the best; but most of his plans came to nothing, 
 and his life was strewn with unfinished projects. His meth- 
 ods of work were desultory, and only in his happy moods 
 was he capable of his best self-expression. He was constitu- 
 tionally sluggish even to laziness, and accomplished his 
 set task only by painful effort. He spent his great intel- 
 lectual resources and potential energies in talk rather 
 than in productive literary labor. As if all this were not 
 enough, he was a confirmed and excessive opium-eater. 
 All things considered, it is perhaps a wonder that he accom- 
 plished so much rather than that he accomplished so little. 
 
 From what has been said, it will easily be seen that 
 Coleridge was a unique, original, and impressive person- 
 coieridge's ^lity. He was strikingly individual even in that 
 Individualism age of marked individuaHties. His sympathies, 
 his theories, and his literary expression were also marked
 
 THE AGE OK WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 283 
 
 by the prevailing spirit of Individualism. Like Words- 
 worth, he was enthusiastic for the French Revolution, and 
 spoke noble words in behalf of human freedom. In one of 
 his poems, he calls on waves, forests, clouds, sun, and sky : 
 
 Ye, everything that is and will be free ! 
 Be witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, 
 With what deep worship I have still adored 
 The spirit of divinest Liberty. 
 
 Under the influence of this spirit, he planned with Southey 
 to found a so-called " Pantisocracy " — a Utopian com- 
 munity in which all should rule equally — on the banks 
 of the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania. They actually set 
 about the carrying forward of this project, but were forced 
 to abandon it for lack of sufficient money to cross the sea. 
 It was a poet's dream, but it illustrates the dreams that 
 men found possible in that day. In no way, however, did 
 Coleridge display his individualism more than in the unique 
 character of his literary work. Like Words- 
 
 Individualis- 
 
 worth, he struck out his own modes of expres- tic character 
 sion and followed the singular impulses of his 
 own peculiar genius. Those modes and impulses were as 
 different from those of Wordsworth as from those of other 
 men, although the two friends were in intimate literary asso- 
 ciation, Coleridge was as preeminently a romantic as 
 Wordsworth was a naturalistic poet, and his romanticism 
 was different from anything that English literature had 
 yet seen. It was, as we shall see, the romanticism of a 
 dreamer but also the romanticism of a philosopher. As a 
 poet of nature, he was second only to Wordsworth and 
 with a manner quite his own. As a philosoj)hical thinker, 
 he was profoundly interested in the spiritual philosophy 
 of the great German writers, and nothing gives more of 
 continuous jnirpose to his life than his endeavors to in- 
 terpret that philosophy to P.nglish readers. All of these 
 literary activities were in harmony with the ruling spirit
 
 284 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 of his age ; and through them all he becomes one of 
 the leading representatives of the individualistic move- 
 ment. 
 
 Instead of going to America, Coleridge settled down to 
 a happy and quiet life at Nether Stowey, in the Quantock 
 Coleridge's HiUs in Somersetshire. In 1797 Wordsworth 
 Poetry and his sister Dorothy established themselves 
 
 in the neighborhood in order to enjoy Coleridge's society. 
 Under the influence of Wordsworth's strong and vigorous 
 personality, Coleridge was inspired to active and fruitful 
 literary work. In a single "wonderful year," he wrote 
 nearly all of the poems upon which the greatness of his poetic 
 fame really rests. In 1798 the two friends published the 
 famous Lyrical Ballads, containing Coleridge's Rime of the 
 The Ancient Ajicieut Mariner and many of Wordsworth's 
 Mariner bcst-known early poems. The Ancietit Mariner 
 
 is Coleridge's masterpiece, the one perfect and flawless 
 Ywork of a life so full of futile projects. It is in form and 
 general tone an imitation of the old ballads ; but the essen- 
 tial spirit that makes the very heart of it is vastly deeper 
 than that of any mere ballad that ever was written, and 
 the poetic genius that presided over its creation was in- 
 /comparably greater than that of any mere singer of the 
 (^people. One is astounded at the imagination that could 
 take elements so strange, so weird, so fantastic, so super- 
 natural, and could make them like " Presences plain in the 
 place" — so vivid, so concrete, so distinct, so credible. 
 The language matches its great matter. It is doubtfulN 
 whether there is in all literature another work so remark-/ 
 ably illustiSiting the power of word and phrase to convey\ 
 and to suggest "the forms of things unknown" which the; 
 poetic " imagination bodies forth." Here, if anywhere, 
 "the poet's pen" has indeed given "to airy nothing a 
 local- habitation and a name." As for the music of his 
 verse,
 
 THE Ac;E of WOKUSWORTH (1S00-1S32) 285 
 
 And now 'twas like all instruments, 
 Now like a lonely tlute ; 
 And now it is an angel's song. 
 That makes the heavens be mute. 
 
 Nominally, the poem is romantic in the ordinary accepta- 
 tion of the term ; but in reality, its romantic character is 
 "deeper than did ever plummet sound" and at bottom 
 touches essential reahty. The fantastic scenes and hap- 
 penings of the poem are such as could have no objective 
 existence in the actual world; but Coleridge — profound 
 psychologist that he was — knew well that they could 
 have a subjective existence. They could take shape in 
 the imagination of such an inspired dreamer as himself. 
 They could veritably exist in the disordered brain of that 
 " grey-beard loon," the Ancient Mariner. It is he who 
 holds the Wedding-Guest " with his glittering eye " and 
 makes him " listen like a three years' child " to the 
 tale which makes him " a sadder and a wiser man." 
 Every reader of Coleridge's great poem must be sadder 
 to feel that such things have been, and wiser to under- 
 stand that they still can be. Other poets of his age""] 
 taught men that each individual soul has its place and its 
 part in the world ; he taught them that a whole world I 
 exists by itself in each individual soul. J 
 
 In Cliristabcl — unhappily only an exquisite fragment — 
 he has given us still further insight into the mysterious 
 human spirit. It seems to have been intended 
 
 ' Christabel 
 
 to symbolize the conflict between good and evil 
 
 in human nature. Indescribably weird and fascinating is 
 
 the picture of the demon woman who throws her spell over 
 
 The lovely lady, Christabel. 
 
 As she unbinds iicr robe, this evil being, mingled of beauty 
 and horror, is 
 
 A sight to dream of, not to till !
 
 286 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 This same contrast between good and evil is suggested by 
 the picture of the " bright green snake " coiled around the 
 wings and neck of the dove. One of the most famous 
 passages of the poem is that in which Coleridge describes 
 the broken friendship of Sir Leoline and Lord Roland : 
 
 They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
 
 Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 
 
 A dreary sea now flows between. 
 
 But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 
 
 Shall wholly do away, I ween, 
 
 The marks of that which once hath been. 
 
 These two poems illustrate the romantic side of Cole- 
 ridge's genius. His Dejection, an Ode, may serve to rep- 
 Dejection, resent those moods of depression and sadness 
 an Ode which arosc from his afifiictions and which did 
 
 so much to check the flow of his genius. 
 
 But oh ! each visitation 
 Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, 
 My shaping spirit of Imagination. 
 
 The quality of his genius and the influences which re- 
 pressed it could hardly be better suggested. The poem 
 will also serve as well as any to illustrate Cole- 
 
 Poetic Xreflt" 
 
 ment of ridgc's gift as a poet of nature. Though he is 
 
 Nature writing on a personal and emotional theme, we 
 
 become aware that he has an alert and accurate eye for 
 natural form and color. He realizes, however, as he else- 
 where says. 
 
 That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive 
 Their finer influence from the world within. 
 
 And he adds here, 
 
 I may not hope from outward forms to win 
 
 The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. 
 
 Nature is spiritualized, but it is rather his own soul that is 
 poured out into nature :
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 287 
 
 All! from the soul itself must issue forth, 
 A light, a glory, a fair, luminous cloud 
 Enveloping the earth. 
 
 It follows that nature for him is often touched with the 
 weird, romantic quality of his own strange imagination. 
 There is on the one side an imaginative apprehension of 
 what is really in nature, and, on the other, an imaginative 
 projection upon nature of what exists only in his own 
 mind. In this particular poem, his idealizing faculty is 
 perhaps best illustrated by these lines : 
 
 And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, 
 That give away their motion to the stars. 
 
 Finally, we may note that Coleridge's poetic love for na- 
 ture associates itself with his more than poetic love for 
 freedom. Not in the forms of human government is free- 
 dom to be found, not even in the individual human spirit. 
 In nature alone there is perfect liberty, because there is 
 perfect law. 
 
 During the remainder of his life, Coleridge wrote much 
 poetry ; but little of it was equal to his best, and his most 
 characteristic activity was in other fields. His coieridge's 
 creative poetic power seemed in large measure to ^^°^ 
 fail, while his philosophical and critical powers — the more 
 purely intellectual side of his nature — increased in corre- 
 sponding measure. There was, however, still the same 
 general attitude of mind, the same general purpose and 
 method. In poetry, he had endeavored to bring the 
 spiritual and the remote down to the level of the ordinary 
 imagination — whereas Wordsworth, on the contrary, had 
 .sought to e.xalt the commonplace into poetic beauty. In 
 prose, Coleridge aimed to interpret to the ordinary mind 
 the meaning of a spiritual and transcendental philosophy 
 or the significance of a great poet like Shakespeare or 
 Wordsworth. On the side of piiil()soi)hy, his most impor-
 
 288 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 tant work is found in Aids to Reflectioii. In the direction 
 of literary criticism, his best powers are displayed in Bio- 
 graphia Literaria, where he explains and interprets the 
 poetical theories of Wordsworth with a critical judgment 
 and insight which was almost entirely lacking in Words- 
 worth himself. His Lcctiit'es and Notes on SJiakespeare 
 contains some of the most suggestive interpretation of the 
 great dramatist that has ever been written. These and 
 other works place him among the very greatest of Eng- 
 lish critics. As a prose stylist, Coleridge was surpassed 
 by not a few men in his own generation. The command 
 of the resources of language and the sense of verbal 
 music that are so manifest in his poetry did not fail him 
 here ; but in his prose work he is much more intent on 
 matter than on form and the distinctively intellectual pur- 
 pose of his prose writings had its natural effect upon his 
 style. Probably the most remarkable examples of his 
 prose expression are to be found in the singular and half- 
 poetical prose commentary that runs alongside of the 
 stanzas of his Rime of the Ancient Alariner. Here he is 
 quaint, imaginative, and decidedly original. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was of nearly equal age with Words- 
 worth and Coleridge, but he differs very decidedly from 
 Sir Walter ^^th of them, no less in his character and 
 Scott genius than in the circumstances of his life and 
 
 the quahty of his literary work. His preparation for the lit- 
 erary tasks of his mature years would seem to have been an 
 almost ideal one. Born and brought up in a land filled with 
 historic and romantic associations, his youth was nourished 
 on ballad, legend, and historic tale that fed his imagination 
 and kindled his enthusiasm. His delicate boyhood was 
 largely spent on his grandfather's farm of Sandy Knowe, 
 in a region of history and poetic legend. Edinburgh, 
 where he was born and educated, he calls "mine own 
 romantic town." Many years of his youth were partly
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 289 
 
 spent in traversing the country, collecting ballads and tales. 
 Besides all this, his reading made him widely acquainted 
 with the legendary lore of Scotland, England, and Ger- 
 many, and with a wide range of British and continental 
 history, medieval and modern. He began his literary 
 work with translations and imitations from the German, 
 and in 1802 published a collection of native ballads, songs, 
 and tales under the title of Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border. His first great original work was a poem Literary 
 called The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in Career 
 1805; and the years from this date until 18 14 practically 
 mark the limits of his purely poetical career. In 18 14 he 
 published JVaver/ey, his first novel ; and from this time 
 until his death in 1832, appeared the long series of the 
 " Waverley Novels." Hardly a year passed without one 
 or two novels being put forth, and his income during a 
 considerable period ranged from fifteen to twenty thousand 
 pounds a year. Scott bought a large estate, built the 
 magnificent mansion of Abbotsford on the banks of the 
 Tweed, received in 1820 the title of baronet, and cherished 
 as the fond dream of his life a hope of founding the noble 
 family of Scott of Abbotsford. The dream was cruelly 
 shattered in 1826 by the failure of the publish- 
 ing firm of Ballantyne, in which he had secretly 
 become a partner. Refusing bankruptcy, Scott assumed 
 a debt of some p^i 17,000, and set himself to the tremen- 
 dous task of paying it in full by his literary labors. That 
 task he practically achieved, and the remainder of the 
 debt was cleared off by the income from his works after 
 his death. The result for Scott was paralysis and soften- 
 ing of the brain. He was offered a man-of-war in which 
 to make a trip to Italy ; but from his voyage, he returned 
 to die at Abbotsford in his sixty-first year. His life was 
 literally made a sacrifice tt^ his commercial honor, and he 
 thereby left the world an example more precious than
 
 290 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 all his works. So long as the name of Scott is spoken, this 
 thing shall be "told for a memorial " of him. 
 
 Scott's poetry is chiefly in the form of lyric songs, bal- 
 lads, and more especially, long verse-tales. His first 
 notable poem. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, is a 
 
 Scott's Poetry t 1 i • 1 
 
 mediaeval and m large part supernatural story 
 of border feud, associated with the family of Buccleuch, 
 with the wizard Michael Scott, with actual ancestors of Sir 
 Walter, and with such places as Branksome Tower and 
 Melrose Abbey. The " Lay " is supposed to be sung be- 
 fore the Duchess of Buccleuch and her ladies, toward the 
 close of the seventeenth century, by an old minstrel. What 
 is said of him in the introduction to the poem might well 
 be applied to Scott himself : 
 
 The last of all the Bards was he, 
 Who sung of Border chivalry. 
 
 In Marmion there is decided advance. The qualities 
 which had made the Lay so extremely popular were here 
 exhibited in fuller measure and on a larger scale. It is 
 called "a tale of Flodden Field," and the great battle of 
 Flodden is described at the close of the poem with a vigor 
 and animation that convey the very spirit of the fight. 
 The events that lead up to the battle are full of stirring 
 interest and are interwoven with a love story whose happy 
 outcome is in fine contrast with Marmion's violent death. 
 Even more successful was The Lady of the Lake, which is 
 probably Scott's poetic masterpiece. We are here carried 
 to the edge of the Highlands, to the beautiful Loch Kat- 
 "rine and the wild pass of the Trossachs. The " Lady " is 
 Ellen Douglas, who lives with her father, the outlawed 
 noble, upon an island in the lake. Fitz-James, the unknown 
 huntsman who has lost his way amid the mountains, is 
 entertained by the Douglases and guided on his way by 
 Roderick Dhu, the famous Highland chief. He finally
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (iSoo 1S32) 291 
 
 proves to be the king of Scotland, and the poem closes 
 with reconciliation between him and the Douglas. 
 
 These and other poems of Scott were among the most 
 immediately popular poetic works ever written. To them, 
 more than to the early poetry of Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge, is due the rapid triumph of the newer poetic ideals 
 among the great masses of the people. This Quaii,yof 
 poetry is essentially, almost exclusively, roman- Scott-s Poetry 
 tic ; and in it the romantic movement which had been 
 growing during a large part of the eighteenth century 
 may be said to reach its culmination. The subjects of 
 Scott's romantic verse are found in the Middle Ages and 
 in English and Scottish history. It does not follow, how- 
 ever, that he was a mere imitator. He goes to the past for 
 his material, but he uses that material in a way peculiar to 
 himself, shaping it by his imagination and filling it with 
 his own romantic spirit. Ne.xt to the romantic quality of 
 his poetry is to be noted its narrative character. Scott 
 was a master story-teller, in verse as well as in prose. He 
 constructed romantic tales thoroughly fitted for poetic ex- 
 pression, and told them with a vigor, a rapidity of move- 
 ment, an interest of incidents, a brilliancy of description, a 
 swing and resonance of verse, that showed him a master 
 in his art. It can hardly be claimed for Scott that he was 
 the equal of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, or of others of his 
 poetic contemporaries, in the higher qualities of poetry. 
 He was, however, a genuine poet, in the character of his 
 imagination and in his command of the music of language. 
 The extent of his poetry is fairly to be taken into the ac- 
 count, and this is all the more noteworthy when we consider 
 that practically all of his poetic work was confined to a 
 single decade. He had as much poetic genius as was nec- 
 essary to make a great, popular, and voluminous narrative 
 poet. 
 
 Scott's novels are as truly romantic as his poems. They
 
 292 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 are romantic in their subject-matter, which is largely his- 
 torical, though partly legendary. They are 
 romantic in their method of treatment ; for he 
 allows his imagination to play freely with his material 
 and to shape it as he wills. They are romantic even in 
 the sense that they lay chief stress upon the narrative 
 element rather than upon the picture of life and character. 
 Most of the novels are historical, and Scott is the real 
 creator of a type which later writers have so fully devel- 
 Historicai opcd. The history covered is Scottish, Eng- 
 Noveis iigh^ a]-j(j continental. There is an exceedingly 
 
 wide range in time as well as in place. Coimt Robert of 
 Paris, for instance, is located at Constantinople in 1090 ; 
 St. Ronmis Well is practically contemporary with the 
 writing of the story and is laid amid scenes with which 
 Scott is perfectly familiar. The favorite historical field, 
 however, is the Middle Ages. IvanJioe is a picture of 
 English life in the reign of Richard I. TJie Talisrnan is 
 a story of the Crusades. Qiieiitm Durivard is connected 
 with French history in the days of Louis XI and Charles 
 the Bold. Not a few of his best stories, however, deal 
 with a later time. A notable example is KenilwortJi, 
 which gives a brilliant picture of the Age of Elizabeth. 
 Scott had a marvelous power to reproduce the past and 
 to show his readers that it was peopled with real men 
 and women. He took pains to know the period of which 
 he wrote, and sometimes wearies the reader with obtru- 
 sive notes to prove his historical accuracy. He does not, 
 however, give the absolute fact of history. This is only 
 to say that he was a novelist rather than a historian. 
 What he does give, is the spirit of history, which puts life 
 into the bare facts. 
 
 A considerable number of his novels deal with Scottish 
 history or with Scottish social life in a period not very 
 remote from his own day. Here he was on his own
 
 THE ACE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 293 
 
 ground, and in this field he produced some of his most suc- 
 cessful works. They are less romantic in conception and 
 come closer to real life. Scottish character he Scottish 
 thoroughly understood, and no less close was his Novels 
 acquaintance with Scottish history and scenery. All this 
 enabled him to narrate and to describe with vividness, 
 with full conviction, and with unfailing truth. His por- 
 trayal, too, had the advantage of the enthusiasm which 
 came from his strong Scotch patriotism. 
 
 Scott, we have already said in connection with his po- 
 etry, was a great story-teller. He had much skill in the 
 construction of plot and still more in the con- piotand 
 duct of narrative. His stories show rapidity of character 
 movement, interesting details, dramatic situations, effective 
 clima.xes, great variety, and a fair degree of unity. His 
 narrative is wonderfully helped and strengthened by his 
 power of vivid and picturesque description. It is in this 
 connection that the treatment of nature chiefly enters 
 into his work. He had no conception of a spiritual life 
 and meaning in nature, but he loved her outward forms 
 and knew how to portray them as the background of his 
 human pictures. His descriptive gift is also serviceable 
 in the portrayal of character. He had a really remarkable 
 skill in character delineation. The personages of his 
 novels are varied and original, they have both vital- 
 ity and fidelity to nature. Above all, they are thoroughly 
 objective, no mere reflections of the author himself. On 
 the other hand, they are comparatively superficial ; for 
 Scott did not possess insight equal to his power of por- 
 trayal. In general, it may be said that they are individual 
 rather than tyjMcal, and that they are not a little affected 
 by his romantic tendencies. His greatest success was 
 probably achieved in the treatment of historical char- 
 acters. He has given us true, interesting, and valuable, 
 though not profound, pictures of human life.
 
 294 INDIVIDUALISM (i 780-1 832) 
 
 At the basis of Scott's genius lay a broad, active, and 
 comprehensive mind. He was eminently sane and clear 
 Scott's rather than subtle or profound. His sincerity 
 
 Genius ^ud carncstness were among the best qualities 
 
 of the man and among the most noteworthy traits of 
 the writer. He had a wide range of artistic sympathy, 
 and a remarkable power of objective portrayal. His abil- 
 ity to excite and to represent the emotions was not pro- 
 found, but it was intense and energetic. His geniality 
 and humor helped to give a broadly human quaHty to his 
 work. In certain powers of imagination, Scott has had 
 few superiors. His imagination displayed remarkable 
 vividness and lucidity, astonishing breadth and variety, 
 power to construct large and complicated pictures, a mar- 
 velous wealth of materials. The fact that he was a poet 
 has given great beauty to his work as well as great power. 
 He was an instinctive lover of the beautiful, both in nature 
 and in art, but had a special fondness for beauty associ- 
 ated with mystery and romance. Few men have been 
 endowed with a more wonderful fluency and fertility, or 
 with such a tremendous capacity for work. Scott was a 
 very great literary genius ; but what crowns his fame, is 
 that he was also a great character. The man was even 
 broader and nobler than the artist. 
 
 The relation of Scott to his age and to its great moving 
 ideas is somewhat peculiar. He was in no sense a demo- 
 crat, but rather an aristocrat. He had little sympathy with 
 those revolutionary principles which so strongly moved 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge and other great men of the 
 time. It can hardly be said that he had any great enthusi- 
 asm for individual freedom. His temperament was natu- 
 rally conservative. His sympathies inclined to the side of 
 order and of law. It seems at first sight as though he was 
 entirely untouched by the influences that so profoundly 
 affected other men. Yet Scott was too large and too re-
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (^8oo-I832) 295 
 
 ceptive a nature to be wholly apart from his age, too sane 
 and too sympathetic to set himself wholly in an attitude 
 of antagonism. Consciously or unconsciously, he was a 
 part of the general life of the time and moved scott's 
 with its main currents. The age was individu- individuaUsm 
 alistic ; and — in spite of some limitations — so was Scott 
 individualistic. In the first place, he was himself an origi- 
 nal, forceful, and aggressive personality, making his way by 
 sheer power of genius and character to one of the fore- 
 most positions in his time — to one of the foremost posi- 
 tions in all time. Again, conservative though he was, he 
 was by no means a classicist or a reactionary in literature. 
 He exercised the right to work out his own native genius 
 in his own original way, and became a leader in the new 
 romantic movement and in the creation of a new type of 
 fiction. Romanticism itself, as we have seen again and 
 again, was in this age one of the manifestations of Individ- 
 ualism ; and Scott helped on the individualistic movement 
 by helping on that romantic movement which meant at 
 bottom freedom of individual genius. Still further, Scott's 
 was a tender, generous, chivalrous soul, which apart from 
 all theory felt sympathy with the poor and oppressed, and 
 recognized the essential worth of common men. He con- 
 sorted on equal terms with peasant and lord, denied no 
 man his rights, and acknowledged his fellowship with all 
 human kind. His poems and novels prefer the knight, the 
 hero, the fair and noble dame; but they also have a place 
 for even the serf, the beggar, and the outcast ; and no- 
 where in literature have all kinds and conditions of men 
 received more sympathetic treatment. Such a man, whether 
 he willed it or not, was in essential harmony with the 
 great modern princijjlc of Individualism. 
 
 In a very different way, the influence of this same prin- 
 ci|)le was illustrated in the work of another great novelist 
 of the time — Jane Austen. If .Scoll was the prince of
 
 296 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 romanticists in his generation, Jane Austen might not in 
 aptly be called the princess of realists. Born and brought 
 up in a small country parish in the South of Eng- 
 land, she had very little knowledge of life outside 
 of a narrow circle ; but her peculiar genius found even within 
 that limited range opportunity for some of the best work 
 in the English novel. She dealt almost exclusively with 
 characters drawn from the respectable middle class of 
 English society, and portrayed these in the most ordinary 
 relations of Hfe. 
 
 Her first impulse seems to have been received from an 
 inclination to satirize in a mild way the exaggerated ro- 
 mantic type of terror fiction represented by Mrs. Rad- 
 chffe toward the close of the eighteenth century. This 
 appears especially in her first novel, NortJianger 
 Abbey. In Sense and Sensibility, the very title 
 suggests the contrast between her own common-sense 
 view of life and the affected sentimentalism prevalent 
 in the work of her predecessors. Her next novel. Pride 
 and Prejudice, is usually regarded as her masterpiece and 
 is thoroughly typical of her manner. Its characters are 
 people of the most ordinary sort, and only the ordinary 
 aspects of their lives are portrayed. There is not a 
 single exciting incident from beginning to end of the 
 book. The characters, however, are portrayed with a 
 delicate and minute realism that makes them actually ahve 
 to the imagination ; and the picture of life is so true and so 
 just as to create a positive illusion. Nothing of the kind 
 has ever been done better than the delineation of the 
 various members of the Bennet family and the more or 
 less important personages who surround them. The theme 
 of the novel is the conflict between the " prejudice " of 
 Elizabeth Bennet and the " pride " of her lover, whose 
 scorn of her rather commonplace family she very 
 properly resents. Her other novels, Mansfield Park,
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 297 
 
 Emvia, and Persuasion, are of essentially the same 
 type. 
 
 Her plots arc simple and grow naturally out of the 
 characters and their ordinary relations ; but incidents as 
 well as characters are handled with perfect sure- 
 ness of touch and with the perfect mastery of 
 assured knowledge. Nothing is more admirable than this 
 perfect command of her material and of her artistic method. 
 One of the fine points of her art is her skill in the treatment 
 of conversation. The characters are made to reveal them- 
 selves through their own words, and the author seems 
 always able to find the precise expression that accurately 
 fits the character and the occasion. She is possessed 
 withal of a neat humor and of a satirical touch that is 
 half malicious. Her style is an almost perfect instrument 
 for her purpose — simple, clear, quiet, precise, keen, sug- 
 gestive, mildly ironical. 
 
 Jane Austen was no theorist. She had no great principle 
 to demonstrate. She had simply a clearly defined bit of 
 human life to portray. If she connects herself with the 
 great movement of the age, she does so unconsciously 
 and indirectly through the quality of the work which was 
 suggested to her by her own genius. Yet such a con- 
 nection is clear and unmistakable. If we interpret this as 
 mainly a romantic age, she is entirely apart from Herindi- 
 its central current. If we regard it as chiefly the viduaiism 
 age of Individualism, we shall see that the art which 
 could find fit material for great literature in the life to 
 be observed from the windows of a country parsonage 
 was no mean servant and ally of the individualistic spirit. 
 And here is the significant fact — that the mighty impulse 
 of Individualism which could inspire a Wordsworth or a 
 Coleridge to scale the highest heaven of imagination, 
 or a Scott to traverse the far fields of romance, could find 
 quite as natural an expression in inspiring this humble
 
 298 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 woman to portray with her delicate pencil the homely 
 features of common life. 
 
 In the case of George Gordon, Lord Byron, there is 
 
 no need to seek closely or far for his relation to the age 
 
 or his manifestation of the individualistic spirit. 
 
 Lord Byron; . 
 
 hisindi- He carried to the wildness of extreme the 
 vidua sm jnipulses which were driving the age on its for- 
 ward way. He manifested in his character, in his life, 
 in his poetry, and in his governing ideas and passions, 
 the very type of the free human spirit in revolution against 
 the whole order and framework of society. We have 
 suggested that Wordsworth was a sublime egotist in making 
 his own spiritual experience the subject of so much of 
 his poetry. Byron was quite as great an egotist, if some- 
 what less sublime. He wrote about himself, not from any 
 profound conviction that his experience was typical and 
 that he had through himself a great message to convey to 
 mankind, but because his passionate heart felt an impe- 
 rious necessity to utter itself in words and because he 
 wished to fling his own personal bitterness and scorn 
 and pride and defiance in the face of the world. It is 
 this in part that has Umited the extent of his fame. So 
 far as he was simply an individual man calling upon 
 other men to hsten to his own passing griefs or chal- 
 lenging the tyrannous conventions of a society which also 
 must pass and change, so far he was merely " of an age " 
 and not " for all time " — so far he retains interest chiefly 
 for the people of other nations which have yet to accom- 
 plish the struggle for individual freedom which in Eng- 
 land has long been won. This helps to account for the 
 fact that his fame is probably much higher to-day on 
 the continent than in his own land. Only so far as his 
 personality was broadly human and typical, as his poetic 
 genius was rich and powerful, as his ideas were indi- 
 vidualistic in a sense larger than that of mere personal
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 299 
 
 revolt against an uncomfortable system — only so far will 
 he really remain in the first rank of English poets. And 
 this, in spite of many limitations, they actually were. 
 Byron is the representative poet of a revolutionary age ; 
 but he is also in a large sense the poet of the passionate, 
 restless, gladiatorial soul of man. 
 
 To understand Byron's attitude, we must understand 
 something of his life and character. He was born of a 
 noble family whose haughty pride and passion- Byron's Life 
 ateness of temperament came down to him by and character 
 natural inheritance. His father was wild, dissipated, 
 and unprincipled. His mother was a woman of quick 
 and ungoverned passions whose relation to her son was 
 like that of a lioness to her cub — alternately tender 
 and savage. The defiant spirit of the boy was early 
 awakened, never to sleep again until it slept forever. At 
 ten, he became a lord, and the fact naturally worked to 
 increase his arrogance, his self-esteem, and his ambition. 
 At the end of a school career at Harrow and of a university 
 career at Cambridge, he was a brilliant, fearless, athletic, 
 and strikingly handsome youth, with an unmatched per- 
 sonal charm and with extraordinary personal force. A 
 club-foot was the one physical defect that embittered his 
 proud heart. It is in some sense symbolical of the spiritual 
 deficiency that marred his splendid and gifted nature. He 
 l)ublished his youthful poems at nineteen under the title of 
 Hours of Idleness. The sarcastic ridicule with which they 
 were received touched Byron's pride to the quick; and two 
 years later, he took a signal revenge on his critics in 
 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. It is in allusion to 
 this deserved chastisement that Shelley says in Adonais : 
 
 The Pythian of the age one arrow sped. 
 And smiled! The spoilers tempt no second l)Io\v, 
 They fawn on tlic proud feet that spurn them lying low. 
 
 The incident is in many respects tyjiicai of Byron's char-
 
 300 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 acter and literary career. In 1809 he set out for two 
 years of travel in Spain, Italy, Albania, Turkey, Greece, 
 and the ^gean Islands, and returned with the first two 
 Literary cantos of CJiUde Hai'old' s Pilgrimage, a poem 
 
 Work which reflected his romantic experiences. It 
 
 immediately made his reputation. He said, " I awoke 
 one morning and found myself famous." For some three 
 years he was the literary lion of London, winning the 
 public from Scott's poetry by such Oriental romances as 
 TJie Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Lara, The 
 Siege of Cori7ith, and Parisina. In 181 5 Byron separated 
 from his wife after a year of union. The circumstances 
 have never been fully known ; but the public agreed 
 in laying the blame upon him, and he was practically 
 forced to leave England. He did so in 18 16, never to 
 return alive. Taking up his residence in Italy, he con- 
 tinued there his literary work. To this period belongs 
 the great poetry which made him famous throughout 
 Europe. The close of his life is finely characteristic of 
 the man on his nobler side. Throwing himself with gen- 
 erous enthusiasm into the war for the liberation of Greece 
 from Turkish oppression, he was seized with a fever, and 
 died at Missolonghi in 1824, in his thirty-seventh year. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking feature of Byron's poetry is 
 its intense subjectivity. Frankly and freely, he makes 
 Byron's himsclf the subject of his verse, and pours out 
 
 Subjectivity i^^Q \<^ ^jg personal passion and experience. 
 Even where he is dealing — as he very often does — with 
 some imaginary hero, that hero is seldom anything more 
 than a reflection of the poet himself. This is true of his 
 earlier Oriental tales and of the first two cantos of Childe 
 Harold. It is perhaps even more true of the poems 
 Childe written after his final departure from England. 
 
 Harold Childe Harold, ior'm.s,X.2ince., is continued through 
 
 two cantos more, far superior to their predecessors ; and
 
 THE ACE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1S32) 301 
 
 in these later cantos, the thin mask is dropped, and 
 Byron and Childe Harold are practically one and the 
 same. Byron relates poetically the story of his journey- 
 ings to the field of Waterloo, up the Rhine, through 
 Switzerland, and over Italy. He gives utterance to his 
 thought and feeling concerning himself, mankind, and the 
 world of nature. The passionate individualism of his 
 poetic purpose is thus finely expressed : 
 
 'Tis to create, and in creating live 
 A being more intense, that we endow 
 With form our fancy, gaining as we give 
 Tlie life we image, even as I do now. 
 
 It was not merely to enlarge and intensify their own 
 personal being that such poets as Chaucer and Shake- 
 speare created ; but there could be no better description 
 of the moving poetic impulse of Byron. He dealt 
 with himself in order to give expression to all that 
 was seething in his great heart and brain. He dealt 
 with mankind in order to define his relation to other 
 men and to show his own si)lendid isolation. He dealt 
 with nature in order to find his energy and his despair 
 reflected in her fiercer and darker moods. Addressing 
 the elements of the subsiding tempest, he cries : 
 
 The far roll 
 Of your departing voices, is tiie knull 
 Of wiiat in me is sleepless. 
 
 His fierce desire for utterance is voiced in this tre- 
 mendous passage : 
 
 Could I embody and unbosom now 
 That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
 Mv thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
 Soul, heart, niiiid, passions, feelings, strong or weak, 
 All that I would have sought, and all 1 seek. 
 Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into otie word. 
 And that one word were Lightning. I ssould speak;
 
 302 INDIVIDUALISM (i 780-1832) 
 
 But as it is, I live and die unheard. 
 With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 
 
 Bold, strong, and impressive as his utterance was, no powers 
 
 of human language — nothing but the elemental forces 
 
 of nature — were adequate to match that which still lay 
 
 unexpressed in his soul. 
 
 Byron tried to be a dramatist ; but he had no power 
 
 to portray real human Hfe outside of himself. Again 
 
 his heroes are mere reflections of certain as- 
 Dramatic 
 
 Work pects of his own personality. In dramas like 
 
 Manfred and Cain, he embodies his own spirit of defi- 
 ance and his own yearning for complete self-realization. 
 Nothing could be more completely individualistic — could 
 more defiantly challenge the rights of the individual 
 soul as over against human society or any other power 
 in earth or heaven or hell. The guilty Manfred, from 
 his wild fastness in the Alps, defies humanity, and in 
 the hour of death, cries to the evil spirits who come to 
 seize him : 
 
 Back, ye baffled fiends ! 
 The hand of death is on me — but not yours! 
 
 Even death can not tame him ; for when the Abbot calls 
 upon him to utter "yet one prayer," his only answer 
 is: 
 
 Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. 
 
 The guilty Cain, remorseful for the first murder, yet finds 
 it possible to challenge the wisdom of God in allowing 
 evil in the world and to justify his own spirit of hatred. 
 Surely the assertion of individualism could go no further. 
 It is set above social order, above human sympathy, above 
 submission to the divine will. Here is the assertion of 
 Liberty and Equality, but hardly the recognition of Fra- 
 ternity. 
 
 It is natural that so subjective a writer as Byron should
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 303 
 
 have been a lyric poet. In the lyric is the true field for 
 the expression of personal passion. Byron was . 
 a genuine lyrist, although the gift of pure song 
 was not his most characteristic gift. He was capable at 
 times of a sweetness of music that all but matches the 
 finest. Some of his Hebrew Melodies and Stixiizas for 
 Music are really exquisite, although not quite as charac- 
 teristic as the grander roll of his verse in Cliilde Harold. 
 What Byron was most capable of giving to the lyric, how- 
 ever, was not so much sweetness as fire and energy. In 
 this, few poets have been his equals. We shall also ex- 
 pect to find his lyrics charged with the personal quality 
 that so strongly marks all his other poetry. Here he 
 reflected his transient moods and momentary emotions, 
 though not seldom there is gathered up into a single 
 poem much of the larger significance of his life. One of 
 the best-known poems associated with his life experiences 
 is Fare thee well, in which he expresses his grief at parting 
 from his wife : 
 
 Fare thee well ! and if for ever, 
 
 Still for ever, fare thee well : 
 Even thougli unforgiving, never 
 
 'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. 
 
 More intense, more passionate, more filled with the 
 bitterness and the weariness of his disappointed life, is 
 the poem written on his thirty-sixth birthday. Profoundly, 
 even terribly, pathetic are such words : 
 
 My days are in the yellow leaf; 
 
 The flowers and fniifs of love are gone ; 
 The worm, tiic canker, and the grief 
 
 Are mine alone! 
 
 I^yron's death knell seems t(j sound in the last stanza: 
 
 Scik out — less often sought than found — 
 A soldier's grave, for thee the best ;
 
 304 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 Then look around, and choose thy ground, 
 And take thy rest. 
 
 In less than three months he was dead. 
 
 It has sometimes been questioned whether Byron's 
 characteristic attitude toward life was entirely sincere, or 
 Byron's whether it was a mere poetic affectation. The 
 
 Sincerity truth probably lies somewhere between the two 
 extremes. Something there was doubtless of tragic pose ; 
 but in the main it was real expression of real experience. 
 The melancholy is too thoroughly a part of the very tex- 
 ture of his poetry and that poetry itself is too great and 
 vital for us to believe that he was merely playing a part. 
 Whatever else he may have been, the man was not a hypo- 
 crite. Indeed, he was altogether too frank in his self-dis- 
 closure — unlocked his heart to the extent of desecrating 
 its inner sanctities. If he sometimes adds blackness to 
 the gloom, in other places he lets us see the lighter, more 
 frivolous, more cynical side of his nature. 
 
 Of all his poems, the one that represents him best is 
 Don Juan. It is an extremely voluminous work, in sixteen 
 cantos ; but it was not completed and was prob- 
 ably incapable of completion. In that respect, 
 it was like Byron's life, so full and yet so fragmentary. 
 Much of Byron's experience is poured out into the poem, 
 as in Childe Harold. Don Juan is another embodiment of 
 the poet, on his most cynical and least moral side. Again 
 we have a poem of individualism — man riding over all 
 convention, all decency, all better human feeling, to satisfy 
 his own desire. It is as if Byron would show men that 
 their best and holiest feelings are mere dust and ashes. 
 Into this mocking satire are gathered up all the powers 
 of his genius — his passion, his intensity, his lyric music, 
 his marvelous faculty of poetic description, his rhetorical 
 eloquence, his vivid imagination, his pathos, his wit, his 
 sarcasm, his irony, his cynicism, his scorn, his despair.
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1832) 305 
 
 and all else that went to make up that strange but tre- 
 mendous personality. 
 
 With the name of Byron as an eager and enthusiastic 
 son of revolution is associated the name of Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley. The underlying causes of this revolu- pg^cy Bysshe 
 tionary spirit in the two men were, however, Sheiiey 
 very different. Byron was a revolutionist by temperament 
 — because his fierce and imperious nature could brook no 
 control. Shelley was a revolutionist because he was an 
 idealist and a lover of humanity. His revolt sprang from 
 generous impulse rather than from well-reasoned convic- 
 tion, and his theories were as impracticable as they were 
 extreme. They were the theories of a poet and a child ; 
 and what is crude and excessive in them must be forgiven 
 as mere accidents of his peculiar genius. Shelley was, in- 
 deed, in his own words, a spirit " tameless, and swift, and 
 proud " ; but he had the irresponsible wildness of his own 
 spirit of the west wind rather than the tigerhke fierceness 
 of Byron's nature. None the less was Shelley a remark- 
 able and unique personality, a great individual in an age 
 of Individualism. A supreme idealist, a poet of poets, a 
 prince of romance, a lover of nature, a child of dreams, an 
 enthusiast of humanity, to him was applicable in no com- 
 mon measure the description of Tennyson : 
 
 The poet in a golden clime was born, 
 
 With golden stars above ; 
 Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
 
 The love of love. 
 
 They understood him well who wrote his epitaph in the 
 New Protestant Cemetery at Rome, " Cor Coniium " — 
 Heart of Hearts. 
 
 The life of Shelley held much that calls for the world's 
 charity ; but it also affords a rare example of fidelity to an 
 ideal. Born in 1792, he breathed from hi.s- earliest years 
 the atmosphere of a revolutionary linic. When he went
 
 3o6 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 to Eton, his proud and sensitive spirit showed itself in 
 rebellion against the boyish tyrannies and the rough 
 sports of a great public school. At nineteen 
 he was expelled from Oxford for publishing a 
 pamphlet on TJie Necessity of Atheism. His rash mar- 
 riage with Harriet Westbrook grew out of an impulse of 
 generous pity, and was naturally followed by disappoint- 
 ment and separation. Association with William Godwin, 
 the social reformer and novelist, brought him into acquaint- 
 ance with the latter's daughter ; and he soon found in 
 Mary Godwin a congenial life companion. By this time, 
 Shelley had succeeded in shocking public opinion and in 
 setting himself at odds with his own eminently respectable 
 family. He therefore left England with his wife, never 
 to return. The remaining four years of his life were 
 spent mostly in Italy. Here his genius rapidly matured, 
 and here most of his greatest poems were produced. This 
 life — so fervid, so erratic, so unselfish, so exalted — was 
 brought to a sudden and tragic close. In the summer of 
 1822, while saiUng from Leghorn to Spezia in his boat, 
 the Ariel, he was overtaken by a storm and drowned. 
 His body was burned on the beach, and his ashes were 
 buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome. 
 
 If idealism is the explanation of Shelley's revolutionary 
 spirit and the secret of his life, it is even more emphat- 
 Sheiiey's Ically the inspiration of his poetic genius. No 
 Genius poet Hvcd SO much in a world of dreams. None 
 
 was characterized by a poetic fancy so ethereal, so eva- 
 nescent, so elusive, so impalpable. His imaginings are 
 woven of air and fire. They change and vanish and re- 
 shape themselves like a cloud ; they are touched by sudden 
 glories as of the sunset ; they are as delicate as the " girdle 
 of pearl " about the moon. Nothing can describe them 
 but themselves. There is in Shelley no such clear and 
 definite presentation of common fact as we find in Words-
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1S32) 307 
 
 worth, no such concrete realization of poetic dreams as \vc 
 find in Coleridge, no such effective rhetorical eloquence as 
 we find in Byron. His is the pure essence of poetry and 
 appeals to us by no other charm than that of poetic 
 beauty, except it be the charm of his lovable personality. 
 The haunting melody of his verse, the poetic enchantment 
 of his beautiful imagery, seem like some magic caught 
 from other worlds, and yet they seem as natural as nature 
 itself. For there is no apparent artifice — only the un- 
 consciously beautiful expression of a beautiful soul. Yet, 
 in spite of all his wonderful achievement, Shelley seems 
 to be trying to express the inexpressible. The grossness 
 of flesh, the imperfection of language, the inadequacy of 
 any earthly music, hinder and retard the utterance of the 
 
 spirit. ^ o^ 
 
 ( Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, f 
 ) Stains the white radiance of eternity. \ 
 
 Shelley was preeminently a lyric poet. He wrote many 
 poems in narrative and dramatic form, but he was a singer 
 rather than a story-teller or a portrayer of life His Lyric 
 and character. It is not too much to declare Poetry 
 that he was the greatest pure lyrist in English literature. 
 This means in the first place that he had an unsurpassed 
 gift of poetic music. It means further that he had a pas- 
 sionate heart, and knew how to pour out the richness of a 
 great nature in passionate speech. It means still further 
 that his poetry is intensely subjective and brings us into 
 contact with a rare personality. In form, his poetry is 
 finished and exquisite, and yet it has all the careless ease 
 of a singing bird. The poet's delight in his music some- 
 times amounts almost to ecstasy. Almost everywhere in 
 Shelley's poetry this lyric gift is illustrated ; 
 
 ,^,, ,, c ,. ... The Cloud 
 
 but he has left a few supreme lyrics which may 
 
 serve as examples of the rest. 77/i* CA'//^/ is a wonderful 
 
 illustration of Shelley's imaginative, as well as of his
 
 308 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 musical, power. The cloud itself sings and exults in its own 
 glorious, ever changing Hfe. It brings fruitfulness to the 
 earth ; it commands the powers of snow and tempest ; it 
 creates the beauties of sunrise and sunset ; it companions 
 with moon and stars ; it has the rainbow for its triumphal 
 arch. Immortal and indestructible, it rejoices : 
 
 I change, but I cannot die. 
 
 To a Skylark is one of Shelley's finest examples of natural 
 but inimitable music. Like the bird itself, the 
 
 To a Skylark , t,- ur 11 u 4-" 
 
 poet pours his lull heart 
 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 
 Its exultant song suggests contrast with his own imperfect 
 life, and he cries : 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know ; 
 Such harmonious madness 
 From my lips would flow 
 The world should listen then as I am listening now. 
 
 / 
 
 ■& 
 
 Surely the world has listened to his own diviner song, 
 not out of the heart of gladness, but out of the heart of 
 The West sorrow. In the Ode to the West Wind \.\\qxq. X's, 
 ^'"«i this same yearning for something seemingly be- 
 
 yond his grasp. The poem is an amazing piece of musical 
 and imaginative description. Shelley enters into the very 
 spirit of the invisible wind, and longs to share the impulse 
 of its strength. Touched by the anguish of Hfe, he utters 
 the prayer that seems almost like a prophecy : 
 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, 
 Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth ; 
 
 And, by the incantation of this verse, 
 
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
 
 Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
 Re through my lips to unawakened earth 
 
 The trumpet of a prophecy !
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1S32) 309 
 
 There is apparent in these words, not only a personal 
 pain, but also the longing to awaken mankind to a realiza- 
 tion of the poet's dreams for the betterment of 
 the world. Stanzas writtoi In Dejection near ^J*«'»°'» 
 Naf>Ies is one of Shelley's most perfect poems. Nature is 
 described in all her loveliness, and the poet allows no sor- 
 row of his to cast a stain upon her beauty. In her 
 presence, " despair itself is mild," and he sings : 
 
 I could lie down like a tired child, 
 
 * * * * and hear the sea 
 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 
 
 Such music is beyond praise ; it calls only for illustration. 
 It verily seems as though it had been taught to him by the 
 
 Mother of this unfathomable world 
 
 whom he addresses in his Alastor: 
 
 I wait thy breath, Great Parent ; that my strain 
 May modulate with murmurs of the air, 
 And motions of the forests and the sea. 
 And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 
 Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. 
 
 Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, is a narrative poem in 
 blank verse, describing the wanderings of the poet in 
 search of ideal beauty in the person of a lovely 
 dream maiden. It is typical of Shelley's own 
 effort to capture in his poetry a more than earthly beauty. 
 Alastor travels amid sublime and beautiful solitudes of 
 nature, borne up in all dangers and distresses by the in- 
 spiration of his great quest, and after fruitless and despair- 
 ing search, lies down at last to die amid the loneliness of 
 nature. All the gloom and sadness of Shelley's soul 
 were poured out into the poem ; but it splendidly illus- 
 trates his love of nature, his worship of ideal beauty, the 
 power of his creative imagination, and his suj^erb conim.ind
 
 3IO INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 of the resources of expression. His powers are illustrated 
 briefly in these lines from the description of Alastor's 
 death : 
 
 His last sight 
 Was the great moon, which o'er the western line 
 Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, 
 With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed 
 To mingle. 
 
 In Adojiais, Shelley laments the early death of his friend 
 and fellow-poet, John Keats. The poem ranks with 
 Milton's Lycidas as one of the few great elegies 
 of the language ; and considering its poetic 
 quality, the nobility of its sentiment, its genuine personal 
 grief, the interest of its subject, and the poetic friendship 
 which it enshrines, there is no poem of its kind which 
 claims a higher place in the world's regard. Written in 
 the Spenserian stanza, it displays Shelley's mastery over 
 that difficult form and displays still further that magic of 
 music and inexhaustible richness of imagination which 
 were his poetic birthright. He calls upon all things to 
 mourn the great poet, so early dead — Urania the " mighty 
 Mother," " the quick Dreams " born of his extinguished 
 genius, 
 
 Desires and Adorations ; 
 Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies ; 
 Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering incarnations 
 Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Fantasies ; 
 And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs ; 
 And Pleasure, blind with tears. 
 
 All he had loved, and moulded into thought 
 
 From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound, 
 Lamented Adonais. 
 
 So likewise the Morning, "the melancholy Thunder," 
 " pale Ocean," " the wild Winds," " lost Echo," " the young 
 Spring," Albion. At last, as though exhausted by the 
 splendid effort of his own genius, the poet cries :
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 311 
 
 The breath whose niiglit I liave invoked in song 
 
 Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
 Far from the shore, far from the trembhng throng 
 
 Whose sails were never to the tempest given. 
 
 The massy earth and sphert'd skies are riven! 
 I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar! 
 
 Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, 
 The soul of Adonais, like a star. 
 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 
 
 It seems almost like a prophecy ; for in the summer of the 
 following year, Shelley's boat was overturned in a storm on 
 the Mediterranean, and the poet was drowned at the age 
 of thirty. 
 
 All that was finest and noblest in Shelley's genius is 
 gathered up into his great lyrical drama, ProDictJicus Cti- 
 bound. Shelley had attempted dramatic work „ 
 
 •' ^ _ Prometheus 
 
 of a more ordinary kind, and, singularly enough, unbound 
 had in The Cenci come as near as any of his great poetical 
 contemporaries to real dramatic success. The actual world, 
 however, was not his sphere ; and his powers found larger 
 play in the ideal realm of Prometheus. Here his lyric gift 
 is at its very finest — nowhere more subtle, more ethereal, 
 more full of unearthly music. His idealizing power is 
 here carried to the extreme. We are in a world of spirits, 
 where anything is possible that the imagination may choose. 
 And Shelley's imagination has chosen to symbolize here 
 his revolutionary ideals and his dreams for the happiness 
 of man. The Titan Prometheus, representative of human- 
 ity, is chained for ages to the frozen rocks of the Caucasus 
 by the tyrant Zeus. At last, in the fulness of time, the 
 deliverance comes. " Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom," 
 arises from the place where he has awaited the hour of 
 fate, hurls Zeus from his throne, and sets Prometheus free. 
 Then all nature unites with man in the joy of the glorious 
 deliverance. It is an impracticable dream ; but at the very 
 heart of it there is divine truth as well as some ot the
 
 312 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 most marvelous lyric music ever written. When Prome- 
 theus forgives Zeus and calls back his curse, then only 
 does the hour of final deliverance come. When the op- 
 pressed can rise to the height of forgiving his oppressor, 
 then he has conquered indeed. Forgiveness is the secret 
 and crown of Victory. Such is the truth that Shelley 
 teaches, and it is thus he expresses his sublime ideal : 
 
 To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite ; 
 To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; 
 
 To defy power which seems omnipotent ; 
 To love and bear ; to hope till hope creates 
 From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 
 
 Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent ; 
 This, like thy glory. Titan, is to be 
 Good, great, and joyous, beautiful and free ; 
 This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory! 
 
 The name of John Keats is usually associated with the 
 names of Byron and Shelley. Like his great compeers, 
 Keats was a marvelous child of genius, and like them he 
 died an early death in a foreign land. He was, indeed, 
 John Keats the latest bom and the earliest dead of the three 
 — the youngest poet that ever left so great a 
 name among the immortals. The facts of his life are 
 not of much importance ; for his literary work is at an 
 opposite extreme from that of Byron and has compara- 
 tively little dependence upon external events. A first 
 book of Poems was published in 18 17, and the next 
 year saw the appearance of his Endymion. All of this 
 was comparatively immature work, and Keats recognized 
 that fact as well as anybody. The next three years showed 
 a wonderful development and gave evidence of the poet 
 that might have been, could he but have had a longer lease 
 of life. A volume published in 1820 contained the master- 
 work of his life, a group of poems among the most perfect 
 in the English language. Then he hastened to Italy in a 
 vain pursuit of health. He died at Rome in 1821, only
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 313 
 
 twenty-five years of age. He was buried in the Old Prot- 
 estant Cemetery, near where Shelley was so soon to lie. 
 His epitaph — suggested by himself — reads, "Here lies 
 one whose name was writ in water." No name in English 
 literature was written to endure longer. 
 
 As Scott among the older trio of poets was least in 
 harmony with the great tendencies of the age, so among 
 the younger group Keats stands somewhat aloof. More 
 than any other poet of his time, he is independent of the 
 great life currents, though even he cannot help Keats and 
 being borne along on the wave. Perhaps his ^^^^^ 
 comparative isolation was in part due to his extreme youth, 
 to the fact that life had not yet deeply touched and moved 
 his poetic nature. Shelley, to be sure, had been stirred by 
 revolutionary ideas long before he was twenty ; but Shelley 
 was an astonishingly precocious youth, and there were, be- 
 sides, certain circumstances of his life that help to account 
 for his early interest in great movements. The position of 
 Keats, however, was even more due to his peculiar charac- 
 ter and genius. He had no taste for politics, for social 
 questions, for philosophical problems, for purely ab- 
 stract ideas. He was born to be simply a poet. His 
 only great passion was for beauty. That, he desired to 
 find and to express, and he was quite willing to leave the 
 tasks of the world and the problems of the mind to others. 
 It is on the side of his purely poetical genius, therefore, 
 that we must seek any possible association between Keats 
 and the life of his age. 
 
 We have already seen the kind of literature which the 
 individualistic movement was likely to produce ; and if 
 we examine the poetry of Keats, we shall find it in har- 
 mony with that movement on its purely poetical 
 
 •' . His Individ- 
 
 side, though, of course, with many distinctive uaiistic 
 
 marks of his own personal genius. He was """ 
 
 one of the great romantic poets of his linic, seeking
 
 314 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 his finest inspiration, not so much in the mediaevalism 
 of Scott, in the Orientalism of Byron, in the poetic 
 idealism of Shelley, or in the psychological wonder-world 
 of Coleridge, as in the pure and perfect beauty of an- 
 cient Greece. He was touched by something of the same 
 interests as the other poets, but in the main his way 
 was his own. He was likewise one of the great nature 
 poets of his time. It was not his business to find spiritual 
 meanings in nature with Wordsworth, to idealize her in 
 the magic light of his own fancy with Shelley, or to pour 
 out his own soul into her with Byron. He was content to 
 look at her by her own light and to reveal to unseeing 
 eyes her marvelous beauty. It used to be supposed that 
 Keats was a mere weakling, and that he was practically 
 killed by ungenerous criticism of his work — that his soul, 
 in Byron's phrase, was " snuffed out by an article." There 
 is, however, much reason to suppose that quite the con- 
 trary is the case — that he had some decidedly pugnacious 
 elements in his nature, that he accepted even cruel criticism 
 like a man and made his immortal profit of it, that he 
 had within him strong intellectual and moral qualities 
 which might eventually have placed him in the very front 
 rank of English poets. What seems fairly certain is that 
 he had that superb assurance of genius which makes it go 
 its own way regardless of criticism or current fashion or 
 great example. In the form and method of his work, he 
 was decidedly original. In the spirit of it, he was in uncon- 
 scious harmony with the other great poets of his age. 
 It seems probable that in the last analysis beauty is the 
 supreme object of all poetry — simply as poetry. What- 
 The Apostle ^vcr may be true in other cases, it is certainly 
 of Beauty ^-j-^g ^Y\2Lt bcauty is the essential quality in the 
 poetry of John Keats. It could hardly be otherwise. 
 Keats was a passionate lover of the beautiful, in nature, 
 in human life, in the ideal world of imagination. He
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1S32) 315 
 
 began by loving sensuous beauty, and on the side of the 
 
 senses he was marvelously alive and receptive. He cried, 
 
 O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts I 
 
 It is told of him that " he once covered his tongue and 
 throat as far as he could reach with Cayenne pepper, in 
 order to appreciate the delicious coldness of claret in all 
 its glory." He spoke of " bursting the grape of joy 
 against one's palate fine." He said, " I feel the daisies 
 growing over my grave." Vet Keats was not, as some 
 have supposed, merely the poet of the senses. He loved 
 sensuous beauty, but he was going on also to love the 
 beauty that is intellectual and spiritual ; and it is this 
 that gives us the fairest promise that he might have 
 been among the very highest, as he is among the most 
 e.xquisite, of pure poets. His Endymion begins with the 
 words : 
 
 A thing of beauty is a joy forever: 
 
 Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
 
 Pass into nothingness. 
 
 Such, he tells us, are all the lovely forms of nature ; but he 
 
 adds : 
 
 And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
 We have imagined for the mighty dead ; 
 All lovely tales that we have heard or read : 
 An endless fountain of immortal drink. 
 Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 
 
 This already, in one of his earlier and most sensuous 
 poems, is something more than merely sensuous. In 
 Hyperion, he rises to a larger sweep of thought, and 
 
 declares : 
 
 For 'tis the eternal law 
 That tirst in beauty should be first in might. 
 
 In the Odi- on a (incian Urn, he has this word of [pro- 
 found poetic insight :
 
 3l6 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all 
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 
 
 To such a poet, beauty was surely something more than 
 merely a matter of the senses. He had the right to de- 
 clare, " I have loved the principle of beauty in all things.". 
 It is this love of beauty as a great principle of the world 
 that gives to his poetry its largest significance. 
 
 In one way or another, all of Keats's poetry is an illus- 
 tration of this principle. The poems in his volume of 1820 
 Narrative embody it in fullest and richest measure. The 
 Poems ^^g^ q£ these. Lamia, is the story of the beauti- 
 
 ful enchantress whom the philosopher Apollonius discovers 
 in her original nature of a serpent and causes to vanish. 
 The protest of Keats against the pure reason that would 
 banish all poetic illusion is thus finely expressed : 
 
 Do not all charms fly 
 At the mere touch of cold philosophy? 
 There was an awful rainbow once in heaven : 
 We know her woof, her texture ; she is given 
 In the dull catalogue of common things. 
 Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, 
 Conquer all mysteries by rule and line. 
 Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — 
 Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made 
 The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade. 
 
 It is the characteristic attitude of poets like Keats to- 
 ward the spirit of modern science. Isabella, or the Pot 
 of Basil, \?> a romantic and pathetic love story from Boc- 
 caccio. The Eve of St. Agnes is his most perfect piece of 
 r narrative and description. The bitter winter night, the 
 iaged Beadsman saying his prayers in the cold chapel, the 
 palsy-stricken old serving-woman, the boisterous revelry in 
 , the mediaeval castle, the fierceness of " the whole blood-thirsty 
 race " into whose precincts the adventurous lover Porphyro 
 has come, form a marvelously effective background for 
 the beautiful and voluptuous picture of youthful love. The
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1S32) 317 
 
 poem is rich and warm and vivid ; and yet it is a perfectly 
 modeled masterpiece of the most consummate art. 
 
 Following these narrative poems in the 1820 volume are 
 Keats's wonderful odes. Three of these must serve for 
 .brief comment. The Ode to a Nii^Jitiua^-alc is , 
 
 '^ "^ Lyric Poems 
 
 among the most personal of the poet's works. 
 
 The sadness and weariness of his own heart are contrasted 
 
 with the song of the unseen bird: 
 
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird ! 
 
 No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
 The voice I liear this passing night was heard 
 
 In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
 She stood in tears amid the aUen corn ; 
 The same that oft-times hath 
 Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 
 
 To AutHinn is Keats's finest poem of nature. It is full of '' 
 all the rich warmth and " mellow fruitfulness " of the har- 
 vest season, as perfectly unique in its kind as any of his 
 narrative poems. In the Ode on a Gteeicm Uni, he Ifas^" 
 given life to the " leaf-fringed legend " that " haunts about 
 the shape " of this relic from a beautiful past. It has much 
 of the richness of his other work, but it has also caught ' 
 something of the rare and chaste perfection which the 
 classic subject suggests. 
 
 Perhaps the noblest effort of tiie poet's genius is Hy- 
 perion. The poem deals with the Greek myth of the fall 
 of Saturn and the Titans, and was especiaih' 
 
 Hyperion 
 
 to have treated of the triumph of the new sun- 
 god Apollo over his jjredecessor, Hyperion. It was, how- 
 ever, left a splendid fragment. Perhaps Keats fell that he 
 was as yet unequal to a great epic task ; but the grandeur 
 and simplicity of what he did achieve certainly shows that 
 his powers were raj^idly strengthening and broadening.
 
 3l8 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 Shelley said, in his Preface to Adonais, " I consider the 
 fragment of Hyperion, as second to nothing that was ever 
 produced by a writer of the same years." The remark 
 might be applied to all Keats's poetry. Feeling the powers 
 that were still undeveloped within him, he once said, " I , 
 think I'shall be among the English poets after my death." 
 Matthew Arnold adds, " He is ; he is with Shakespeare." 
 So far we have been dealing mainly with the poets, and 
 have touched upon the prose literature of the time only 
 with reference to the prose writings of Coleridge and the 
 novels of Scott and Miss Austen. The age was chiefly a 
 poetical one ; but it had, nevertheless, some notable masters 
 of prose style. One of the most gifted, as well as one of 
 the most lovable, of these was Charles Lamb, 
 haries amb -pj^^ ^^^ -^ which Lamb lived was one of unique 
 
 and not seldom imposing literary personalities. It can 
 hardly be said that Lamb was an imposing figure ; but he 
 certainly was sufficiently unique. Eccentricity is the mark 
 of his thought ; quaintness is the mark of his style. He 
 is one of the most delightful humorists in the literature ; 
 but the effect of his humor is qualified by a tenderness 
 which deepens into pathos and by a sweetness which gives 
 him a most human charm. He was a blue-coat boy with 
 Coleridge at Christ's Hospital in London, and the later 
 friendship of the two doubtless meant much for the 
 development of Lamb's literary interests and powers. 
 Shortly after leaving school, Lamb was appointed to a 
 clerkship in the East India House, and remained in that 
 position until he was fifty, when he was retired on a pen- 
 sion. His life was comparatively uneventful, except for 
 the pathetic fits of insanity of his beloved sister Mary. 
 Lamb's devotion to her was lifelong, and he never mar- 
 ried. 
 
 Lamb's literary career began before the close of the 
 eighteenth century, but his first noteworthy work was the
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1S32) 319 
 
 Talcs frcvi Shakespeare, written in conjunction with his 
 sister. It was a child's book, and Lamb's simple Lamb's 
 and unaffected nature was admirably adapted to ^"""^s 
 a task which in other hands might have proved an unfortu- 
 nate experiment. This venture was soon followed by his 
 Specimens of English Draviatic Poets. He ranged the 
 whole field of Elizabethan drama outside of Shakespeare, 
 and presented some extracts from later dramatists. His 
 selections are admirable, and his critical comments are 
 sympathetic, subtle, and acute. Lamb was an enthusiast 
 for the old dramatists, and succeeded in communicating 
 his enthusiasm to others. His book did much to quicken 
 interest in many half-forgotten writers and to revive their 
 fame. Such work as this, of course, allied itself with the 
 romantic movement and helped to extend its influence. 
 Lamb was also much interested in the early seventeenth- 
 century prose-writers, such as Burton, Fuller, Sir Thomas 
 Browne, and Jeremy Taylor ; and their style had much 
 influence upon his own. This influence, however, was 
 thoroughly assimilated, and Lamb's style is quite indi- 
 vidual and unique. Nowhere are the qualities of this style 
 better displayed than in the so-called Essays of Elia, his 
 most original and distinguished work. In these Essays of 
 altogether delightful productions, his mind and ^^* 
 heart are reflected as in a clear mirror. The subjects, ex- 
 ceedingly varied, show the scope of Lamb's interests out- 
 side of the literary field. They range from " Mrs. Battle's 
 Opinions on Whist" to "The Praise of Chimney-Svveepers," 
 from " Witches and other Night Fears " to " A Bachelor's 
 Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People," from 
 " Poor Relations " to " The Tombs in the Abbey," from 
 " Modern Gallantry " to " Old China." In " Dream-Chil- 
 dren : a Reverie," his imagination conjures up two children 
 that might have been his ; but as they vanish, they seem 
 to say : " Wc are not f)f Alice, nor of thee, nor are we chii- 
 
 •^
 
 320 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 dren at all. The children of AHce call Bartrum 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." Perhaps the finest of his essays is the 
 famous " Dissertation upon Roast Pig." It is filled with 
 all Lamb's quaintness and with all his humor. Through- 
 out the whole series of essays, his manner is most personal 
 and intimate ; and it is largely because he comes so close 
 to the heart of his reader that Lamb is the most charm- 
 ing and attractive of all English essayists. He is a unique 
 personality uniquely expressed. 
 
 No less unique, though in a vastly different way, was 
 Thomas De Quincey. " In general," he declares, "a man 
 has reason to think himself well off in the great lottery of 
 this life if he draws the prize of a healthy stomach without 
 Thomas De a mind, or the prize of a fine intellect with a 
 Quincey crazy stomach ; but that any man should draw 
 
 both is truly astonishing, and, I suppose, happens only 
 once in a century." De Quincey himself drew the fine 
 intellect and the crazy stomach ; and this combination is 
 in large measure the clue to an understanding of his life 
 and work. His intellect, indeed, was almost abnormally 
 active and acute, and was, moreover, of a quality so subtle, 
 so refined, so unpractical, so purely contemplative, as to 
 seem almost quite exceptional in the history of the English 
 mind. His life was almost entirely a life of mental activ- 
 ity ; and his hold upon the realities of the actual world was 
 as slight as may well be conceived. He was in a certain 
 sense of the word a voluptuary, but he was a voluptuary of 
 the intellect and not of the senses. His pleasures were 
 those of the imagination and of the analytic mind. He de- 
 lighted in marvelous dreams of the fancy, and he delighted 
 quite as much in the speculative processes of the pure rea- 
 son. Such peculiarities as these at least hint at a character
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (i 800-1832) 32 1 
 
 most singular and most strange ; and we may safely say 
 that his age did not produce a more remarkable or a more 
 strikingly individual personality. 
 
 De Ouincey's peculiarities were in large part inborn, but 
 in some measure the result of his life experience. Even 
 on such a specimen of pure intellect as he, the realities of 
 the world must needs show some reaction. As DeQuincey's 
 a child, he was remarkably precocious, and some ^'^* 
 of the spiritual experiences that he records of his earliest 
 childhood are credible only of such a nature as his. In his 
 seventeenth year, he ran away from Manchester Grammar- 
 School, made a pedestrian tour in Wales during which he 
 suffered considerable exposure, and then went to London. 
 His hardships and poverty brought him to the verge of 
 starvation, and he was probably saved from death by a 
 poor outcast whom he knew only as Anne. During this 
 period, he contracted the opium habit which pursued him 
 all his life. His London experiences constantly recurred 
 in his later opium dreams. At last he was discovered by 
 his family and soon after sent to Oxford. He received 
 little from the University, and yet he was one of the most 
 learned men of the age. Even as a boy, he could converse 
 fluently in Greek, and later he had a remarkably wide 
 knowledge of English literature. Indeed, his works are a 
 standing evidence of the wonderful fulness as well as of 
 the wonderful activity and power of his mind. After leav- 
 ing the University, he took up his residence in the Lake 
 District, and came to know intimately Wordsworth, Cole- 
 ridge, and others of the great men of his time. He lived 
 in the Lake District for some twenty years, and afterward 
 near Edinburgh, where he died in 1859. The period of 
 his mature life was comparatively uneventful, except for 
 intellectual experiences and for the vicissitudes of his 
 ojjium habit. 
 
 De Quincey's first and greatest work was The Confessions
 
 ^2i INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 0/ an EnglisJi Opium-Eater. In it he tells the story of his 
 De Quincey's early life, as leading up to the formation of the 
 Opium-Eater Qpjm^ habit. This occupies the larger part of 
 the work, the rest of it being taken up by "The Pleasures 
 of Opium " and "The Pains of Opium." De Quincey is very 
 discursive, and, in fact, gives comparatively little description 
 of his actual dreams. What he does give is extremely im- 
 pressive. The dreams themselves were tremendous, and to 
 convey an impression of them calls forth all the powers of 
 his magnificent style. To suggest their vastness, he says : 
 
 Thousands of years I lived and was buried in stone coffins, with mum- 
 mies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. 
 I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and was laid, con- 
 founded with all unutterable abortions, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud. 
 
 The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than 
 all the rest. ... 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 chil- 
 dren were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside, come to show me 
 their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed for 
 going out. No experience was so awful to me, and at the same time 
 so pathetic, as this abrupt translation from the darkness of the infinite 
 to the gaudy summer air of highest noon, and from the unutterable 
 abortions of miscreated gigantic vermin to the sight of infancy and 
 innocent hiu/ia/i natures. 
 
 Nothing could be more effective for his purpose than such 
 a contrast. A single further quotation must suffice : 
 
 The sound was reverberated — everlasting farewells! and again, and 
 yet again reverberated — everlasting farewells ! And I awoke in strug- 
 gles, and cried aloud, " I will sleep no more." 
 
 The other works of De Quincey fill many volumes 
 
 and cover an astonishingly wide range of subject-matter. 
 
 Some of them are associated with his opium 
 
 Other Auto- . „ ..,„.,.... 
 
 biographical dream s. Suspiria de Frofiindis is, m tact, a se- 
 
 ^^ ^ quel to the Confessions, and consists largely of 
 
 sketches in " that vein of dream-phantasy " which charac-
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1S3J) 323 
 
 terizes the earlier work. The most famous of these is 
 entitled " Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow." In it he 
 images forth the profound grief of the heart through 
 three mighty personifications — Our Lady of Tears, Our 
 Lady of Sighs, and Our Lady of Darkness. The English 
 Mail-Coach affords an admirable illustration of the way 
 in which his dream world associates itself with reality. 
 The first part, entitled "The Glory of Motion," is a highly 
 imaginative description of real experience. " The Vision 
 of Sudden Death " is an intensely vivid account of an 
 accident in which the mail-coach had run down a small 
 gig. This incident was taken up into Dc Ouincey's 
 dreams, and became the basis for the wonderful " Dream- 
 Fugue : founded on the preceding Theme of Sudden 
 Death." Beyond such works as these, he wrote much 
 else of an autobiographical character, covering his early 
 life, his studies, and the period of his residence in the 
 Lake District. Here he easily passed over into literary 
 reminiscence and criticism, dealing with Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge, Southey, and others. He was a defender of 
 the so-called Lake School of poetry represented by these 
 men and one of its most sympathetic and suggestive 
 critics. In this way among others, he was allied with 
 the new literary movements. 
 
 It would be very far from the truth to suppose that De 
 Quincey's writings were confined to himself or to his own 
 personal circle. Indeed, no man's mind took a General 
 wider range. In the field of literary criticism, ^°^'^^ 
 he deals with broad cjuestions of literary theory — with 
 language, with rhetoric, with style. He discusses Greek 
 poets, prose-writers, orators, and dramatists. He treats 
 great German poets and philosophers. He ranges the 
 wide field of ICnglish literature, from Shakespeare to 
 Wordsworth, from Milton to Pope — always catholic in 
 his sympathies, always subtle in his insight. History and
 
 324 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 historical biography also attract his attention. His finest 
 biographical essay, Joan of Arc, is a wonderful piece of 
 imaginative writing. His most ambitious historical work 
 is TJie CcBsars, but this is surpassed in fascinating interest 
 by many of his briefer historical essays. The astonishing 
 range of his interests and the equally amazing minuteness 
 of his knowledge are suggested by such titles as The Cas- 
 uistry of Roman Meals, Homer and the Homeridce, Toilette 
 of the Hebrew Lady, The Essenes, and The Flight of a 
 Tartar Tribe. In the best of such works, the vividness 
 of his imagination fully matches his gifts as a thinker and 
 a scholar. This imaginative quahty is still further dis- 
 played in his tales, romances, and fantasies. His roman- 
 tic stories do not rank very high, except from the point of 
 view of style ; but at least one of them. The Spanish Mil- 
 itary Niui, is a most charming combination of fancy, 
 humor, and pathos. Nothing of De Quincey's is more 
 characteristic than the extravaganza On Mnrder consid- 
 ered as one of the Fine Arts. Its original humor is a 
 little gruesome to some people; but it is certainly a mas- 
 terpiece of fantastic irony. The description of " three 
 memorable cases of murder " in a " postscript " matches 
 in its vivid horror the ghastly humor of the supposed 
 "lecture." It is to be noted finally that De Quincey la- 
 bored much in a more purely intellectual field, pro,ducing 
 essays philosophical and theological and a considerable 
 volume on politics and political economy. These, how- 
 ever, are rather beyond the range of pure literature. 
 
 It is evident that this man of subtle intellect and mar- 
 velously exact learning was also in some sense a poet —   
 a man of imagination, living in a world of his own crea- 
 De Quincey's tion. He was a poet by virtue of his grand 
 Gemus ^j^^j bcautiful conccptions ; he was almost a 
 
 poet by virtue of his matchless style. This style is 
 unique in the literature. It is not the poetic prose of the
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1S00-1S32) 325 
 
 seventeenth century, although that perhaps is its nearest 
 kin. It is at the opposite extreme from the clear, polished, 
 and direct style of the eighteenth-century writers. It 
 does not transgress the proper limits of prose, but ap- 
 proaches poetry without ever attempting to ape the 
 methods of poetry. It stands, so to say, on poetic 
 heights and breathes poetic air; but it has climbed to 
 those loftier levels instead of soared. In the first place, 
 De Ouincey — in writings where this peculiar style is 
 fully exercised — has a theme full of imagination and 
 charged with emotion. His problem, therefore, was to 
 convey in prose language whiat is essentially poetic ma- 
 terial. The style through which this was accompHshed 
 is a marvelous display of all the resources of the rhetor- 
 ician. It is not only great rhetoric, but it is great oratory 
 as well ; for De Quincey knew how to pour forth his 
 heart with all the fervor of a moving eloquence. It is 
 almost poetically imaginative and ornate, and is impas- 
 sioned at times almost to ecstasy. The discriminating 
 critic will tell us of De Quincey's literary faults — his 
 tedious digressions, his teasing eccentricities, his often 
 strained humor, his incongruous mingling of solemn and 
 grotesque, his whimsical extravagances, his lack of in- 
 tellectual order and balance. But when all is justly said, 
 we must still recognize a rare intellect, a magnificent im- 
 agination, and an ahnost unmatched splendor of style. 
 
 The literary wealth of the age is admirably illustrated 
 by the authors already discussed, but it is by no Lesser Prose 
 means exhausted. In all departments of liter- «"'^P°«"'y 
 ature there were other writers, eminent in their own day 
 and by no means forgotten by posterity. A few of the 
 best known of these may be briefly mentioned by way 
 of example. In the field of literary criticism, wiiiiam 
 one of the most brilliant critical essayists and ""^''" 
 most helpful allies of the romantic movement was W'il-
 
 326 INDIVIDUALISM (1780-1832) 
 
 liam Hazlitt, best known by his lectures on Shakespeare, 
 on the dramatic Hterature of the EHzabethan Period, on 
 English poets, and on English comic writers. The name 
 of Robert Southey was in his own day associated on equal 
 terms with the names of Wordsworth and Coleridge in the 
 Robert hst of the Lake School of poets. His poetic 
 
 Southey g^^j. |^^g j^q^ declined, but no man represents 
 
 better than he the romantic and individualistic spirit of 
 his age. Perhaps his best and most typical poem is his 
 romantic Curse of KeJiama. Although he was poet-laure- 
 ate for thirty years, Southey was probably better as a 
 prose-writer than as a poet. His Life of Nelson is a 
 classic. Southey's position may be best defined as that 
 of a typical man of letters. Thomas Campbell began 
 Thomas with a pocm of the classical type on The Pleas- 
 
 Campbei ^^^^^ ^ Hope, but soon caught the newer spirit 
 of poetry. His best work is to be found in such poems as 
 his three splendid war-songs — HoJienlinden, Ye Mariners 
 of England, and the Battle of the Baltic. Campbell was a 
 Scotchman, but the sentiment of his patriotic poetry is 
 rather British than Scotch. Thomas Moore, however, 
 Thomas was not ouly a typical Irishman, but was also 
 ^^^^ the singer of Ireland's woes and departed 
 
 glories. His Irish Melodies do not reach the highest 
 poetic levels, but it is praise enough to say that at their 
 best they are almost perfect in their kind. Moore rep- 
 resents the spirit of the age, not only by his patriotic 
 enthusiasm, but also by his rather florid Oriental ro- 
 mances, of which the best is Lalla Rookh. The life 
 Walter sav- ^f Walter Savagc Landor was an extremely 
 age Lander Jong One, extending from 1775 to 1864; and 
 his literary career affords some interesting illustrations 
 of literary movements. He began as a romantic poet 
 even before the close of the eighteenth century, and by 
 later works illustrated the progress of the romantic
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1800-1832) 327 
 
 movement. His fine classical culture brought, however, 
 a more finished and restrained quality into much of his 
 poetry and also into the chaste and classic prose which 
 marked his later life. His work, therefore, taken as 
 a whole, unites romantic suggestiveness with classic ele- 
 gance. While this union and change are in sonic re- 
 spects personal to Landor, his tendency was nevertheless 
 in harmony with the tendency of the age. change of 
 When Romanticism had spent its greatest fer- *^^^^ 
 vor, when Individualism had passed the period of its 
 greatest intensity, there came something of a movement 
 toward that restraint and recognition of literary law 
 which Classicism had formerly represented. It was an 
 old spirit recurring under the stress of very new impulses; 
 and Landor, living far on into the later age, had oppor- 
 tunity to feel the effect of influences which gave a classic 
 finish to the work of Arnold and Tennyson. 
 
 Graves ok Kkais am> Sevkrn, Dim Fkutkstant Ckmkikky 
 kumk. sutlley's grave is near, in new cemetery
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE {1832-1892) 
 
 The Individualism which characterized the Age of Burns 
 and the Age of Wordsworth was not Democracy. It was 
 , . . ,. rather the spirit of which democracy is born. 
 
 Individualism ^ _ -^ 
 
 andDemoc- Democracy is organized government — "of the 
 ""^^ people, by the people, and for the people." 
 
 It is individuahstic theory and passion crystallized into 
 actual fact. An age of individualism must precede an 
 age of democracy, and sometimes the period of prepa- 
 ration is a very long one. The history of the development 
 of free institutions in England has not, of course, been a 
 history of sudden revolution, but rather a history 
 
 Where Freedom slowly broadens down 
 From precedent to precedent. 
 
 It is therefore difficult to specify the exact points where 
 movements for freedom have begun or have culminated. 
 Nevertheless, we have been able to see in literature the 
 development of the individualistic spirit progressing for 
 something like a hundred years, gradually gathering force 
 and gradually coming to ever clearer and stronger literary 
 expression. At about the close of the first third of the 
 nineteenth century, moreover, it may be fairly said that 
 democracy in England has begun. It began earlier in 
 America ; but there it had freer way, and did not have 
 to make that long and severe struggle against established 
 order and prescriptive right which we have seen to be the 
 special characteristic of the ages of Burns and Words- 
 worth. It was not until the battle for individualism had 
 
 328
 
 /i 
 
 47"
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 329 
 
 been fought and won on many fields that victory for de- 
 mocracy was possible. If there is any one event that 
 marks the actual beginning of democratic conditions in 
 England, it is the great Reform Bill of 1832. From that 
 as a point of departure, the movement went gradually for- 
 ward throughout the rest of the century, until England 
 became in literal fact a " crowned republic." 
 
 Not only must the spirit of individualism precede the 
 growth of democracy ; it must also accompany and inform 
 that growth. It is the very breath of life in the individualism 
 nostrils of the democratic organism. Yet this '" Democracy 
 union of spirit and fact brings new conditions. In- 
 dividualism is no longer a disembodied spirit, free to 
 wander at its own sweet will, to turn and overturn at its 
 own pleasure. It has accepted responsibilities and has put 
 itself under bonds. It is now the master and ^uide of 
 social conditions, and no longer the mere iconoclast. It 
 can not indulge in revolution, for it must preserve and 
 develop the new order which it has created. In a word, 
 its work is no longer destructive but constructive. All this 
 makes a vast difference. Men still believe in the worth of 
 the common maru They still maintain the rights of the 
 individual. They still proclaim the blessings of liberty. 
 But now the ideal is liberty within the bounds of law. The 
 individual is part of a great organization, and has his 
 duties as well as his rights. The common man must make 
 himself uncommon, if he is really to prove his worth 
 where opportunity is open to all. 
 
 Some such suggestions as these will serve to indicate 
 roughly the new conditions that are created for literature 
 bv the passing of the democratic ideal into the ^ 
 
 y I o Democracy 
 
 democratic reality. Literary genius must now and Litera- 
 
 .... ture 
 
 seek to represent the appearances and conditions 
 
 of life under a democratic social order. It must reflect the 
 
 thoughts, the feelings, and the aspirations of average men
 
 330 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 and women. It must recognize a duty to uphold such 
 ideals as will make the individual a better citizen and mem- 
 ber of society. It must feel the influence of popular taste 
 and judgment, and yield in greater or less measure to the 
 sway of the popular will. Even poetry must become to 
 some extent " popular," and must recognize the right of 
 the people to find poetic expression for the spiritual and 
 the ideal that is within common breasts. Literature is 
 likely to return from the study of nature to the study of 
 man, Romance will still exist, for the common people are 
 always romantic ; but it will tend to be such romance as 
 common people can understand. On the other hand, there 
 will be encouragement to realism, for men will desire to 
 see the portrayal and to be told the meaning of ordinary 
 life. To some sensitive souls, this democratization of litera- 
 ture will seem a lamentable and a vulgar thing; but democ- 
 racy will be likely to have faith in itself and in the way 
 along which it is impelled by its own genius. Nor will those 
 who know the history of English literature find that faith 
 unjustified by the past. They will recall that there have 
 been fears before lest literary genius should be degraded 
 by stooping to common themes — lest King Cophetua 
 should lower his dignity by stepping down to wed the 
 beggar maid. Then they will remember — and the remem- 
 brance will be sufficient — that Robert Burns taught 
 William Wordsworth 
 
 How Verse may build a princely throne 
 On humble truth. 
 
 It is not too much even to believe that the Hterature of 
 democracy may eventually become the greatest of all liter- 
 ature, because more than any other it is the literature of 
 humanity. 
 
 The conditions of democracy, whose natural influence 
 upon literature we have thus tried briefly to indicate,
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 331 
 
 prevailed throughout the period whose literary history we 
 are now to consider. If those conditions did 
 
 Democratic 
 
 not produce in the fullest measure the effects influences on 
 
 1.1 1 1 . • , Literature 
 
 suggested, the reasons arc to be sought ni two 
 directions. In the first place, the conditions themselves 
 were not complete. England was becoming a democracy ; 
 but the growth was slow, and its perfect results were in 
 some degree hindered by the coexistence of aristocratic 
 and monarchical institutions. Democracy in America was 
 more thoroughgoing, and its effects on literature have been 
 consequently more typical. In the second place, the in- 
 fluence of democracy has been to a large extent modified 
 by the simultaneous action of another great and powerful 
 force — that of modern science. Nevertheless, in spite 
 of all necessary limitations, the literary influence of demo- 
 cratic ideas and of democratic conditions of life may be dis- 
 cerned with sufficient clearness and fulness to justify the 
 recognition of democracy as one of the great guiding im- 
 pulses of the literature of the age. The wonderful growth 
 of the novel in its manifold forms offers large illustration of 
 the presentation of life and character as they exist in a demo- 
 cratic state of society. Miscellaneous prose has dealt largely 
 with the themes and problems suggested by a democratic 
 age, and not the less so when the writers have been hostile 
 or critical in their attitude toward democratic theories and 
 aspirations. Even in the case of poetry, the ideals of the 
 average man and the sentiments of a democratic society 
 have had their influence and have found their expression. 
 
 Another controlling influence in t'hc age, as we have 
 already intimated, has been that of Science. The growth 
 of natural science has been one of the great 
 
 " Growth of 
 
 facts of the nineteenth century. It has exerted Natural 
 a profound influence upon human thought in all 
 its departments — religious, philosophical, j)()litical, social, 
 historical, educational, literary, as well as purely scientific.
 
 332 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 It has had a far-reaching and almost incalculable effect 
 likewise upon the conditions of practical life. Within two 
 generations, the world has been almost revolutionized in 
 the matters of commerce, trade, travel, intercommunica- 
 tion, and every-day living. The facts in the case are too 
 clear and too familiar to be in need of specific illustration. 
 Under such conditions, it could hardly be otherwise than 
 that science should have had a profound influence upon 
 literature. 
 
 This influence has been partly direct and partly indirect, 
 partly negative and partly positive. Science has in- 
 fluenced literature directly by suggesting new 
 enceof literary themes, by opening up new realms to 
 
 Cr^ 1 1^ n f* o 
 
 the imagination, by increasing the range of im- 
 agery and illustration, by giving new conceptions of the 
 universe and of man, by emphasizing the reign of all- 
 embracing and unalterable law, by teaching new methods 
 of analysis and research, by laying stress upon the idea 
 of organic growth, by stimulating anew man's deep-seated 
 passion for truth and reality. Its most immediate in- 
 fluence has been upon such writings as those of Darwin 
 and Huxley and Tyndall and Spencer — writings scientific 
 in subject and purpose, yet possessed of no small degree 
 of literary quahty. Scarcely less immediate has been its 
 influence upon realistic fiction. The close and accurate 
 study of real life, the analysis of character and motive, 
 the insistence upon the inexorable laws of human being, the 
 conception of evolutionary growth, are but some of the 
 ways in which the novelists have manifested the scientific 
 spirit. Much of this will be found in Thackeray, still 
 more in George Eliot. How far these and like influences 
 are manifested in other great writers, we shall have later 
 occasion to ask. 
 
 The indirect influence of science upon literature has 
 been quite as powerful and important. Science, as we
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1S92) 333 
 
 have implied, has affected all classes, from the highest to 
 the lowest. The improvement in the conditions 
 
 Indirect 
 
 of living, the increase of prosperity, the advance influence of 
 in material civilization, the mastery over the 
 resources of nature, the growth of industrialism and com- 
 mercialism, the freedom of intercourse among civilized 
 nations, the revelation as to natural law, the impetus 
 to philosophical thinking, the transformation of method in 
 nearly all departments of research, the disturbance of relig- 
 ious faith and opinion, the change of attitude toward all 
 the great problems of existence — all these have affected 
 literature no less profoundly because their influence was 
 indirect. Literature, as we have already pointed out, 
 never e.xpresses the life of an age completely. Least of 
 all could it do so in an age like this, so many of whose 
 ideas and ideals were anything but literary Neverthe- 
 less, literature has been one product of the life in which 
 these forces were moving, and it therefore manifests at 
 least indirectly the influence of the scientific impulse. In 
 no single direction has this indirect influence of science 
 been more strongly felt than in the direction of its effect 
 on religious thought. Carlyle, for instance, feels the 
 scientific impulse more than he knows, but is chiefly 
 moved by it in an indirect way to the insistence upon the 
 reality of spirit behind the material garment. On the 
 great poets, also, the scientific influence has been chiefly 
 indirect and mainly through the same religious channel. 
 They have for the mi^st part accepted the conclusions of 
 science with loyal devotion to truth ; but they have not 
 found in science much direct poetic inspiration. Science 
 has affected them rather by affecting their attitude toward 
 great spiritual questions — questions of religion and of 
 life. No poem of the age is more typical than Tennyson's 
 /// Metnoriam. It reveals the struggle of a great soul with 
 the doubts and fears which science has induced, the
 
 334 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 vindication of " the larger hope " against an aggressive 
 materiahsm. The struggle of Arnold is more futile ; his 
 mood is sadder. A sorrowful resignation breathes through 
 Dover Beach, a sad assurance of powers that make for 
 righteousness through such poems as Palladmm and 
 Rugby CJiapel. Morris seems to himself but "the idle 
 singer of an empty* day." Swinburne finds consolation 
 only in the fact 
 
 That no life lives forever ; 
 That dead men rise up never ; 
 That even the weariest river 
 Winds somewhere safe to sea. 
 
 To him the end of all things is 
 
 Only the sleep eternal 
 In an eternal night. 
 
 Only one voice of assured faith and optimism has rung 
 clear like a trumpet across all this tumult. Robert Brown- 
 ing — looking science fearlessly in the face, accepting with- 
 out a murmur or a protest all that she has proved, hiding 
 his head in the sands of no blindly orthodox creed — is yet 
 confidently certain that 
 
 God's in his heaven — 
 AlPs right with the world! 
 
 The influence of science on literature has been both 
 positive and negative. On the positive side, many men 
 „ . . ^ have accepted its conclusions, have availed them- 
 
 Positive and '- 
 
 Negative sclvcs of its stimulus and its resources, have 
 
 Influences c ^ ^ iii c • • n i-- 
 
 frankly made the best of its influence on religious 
 faith, on spiritual conceptions, and on all the other great 
 problems of life and thought. Others have been thrown 
 into an attitude of opposition and revolt, and have either 
 challenged the new movement in hopeless conflict or have 
 sought relief from its oppressive weight in sad resignation 
 or in the old escape from the trouble of the world into the
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIExNCE (1S32-1892) 335 
 
 serene realm of the romantic imagination. To some such 
 and to many men of science, it has seemed that science is 
 necessarily hostile to poetry. Probably in one sense it is ; 
 for by extending the field of definite knowledge, it tends to 
 limit the realm of mystery v/hich is the true domain of the 
 poet. Yet thus far, science has suggested more mysteries 
 than it has solved. When science has done its perfect 
 work, poetry may be swallowed up in knowledge, as faith 
 will be lost in sight. When knowledge is so complete that 
 there is no more room for the e.xcrcise of imagination, then 
 it will be time to say that science has been fatal to poetry. 
 For the present, we may think of scientist and poet as com- 
 plementary to each other, and may content ourselves with 
 the saying of Wordsworth that " poetry is the im- 
 passioned expression which is in the countenance of all 
 science." 
 
 Such brief allusion is, of course, utterly inadequate to do 
 anything more than barely suggest the influence of de- 
 mocracy and science upon literature during the Victorian 
 Period. Our further discussion must show the application 
 of these general statements to particular cases. In the 
 meantime, two things at least are clear. One is that 
 science has not in our time proved destructive of literature. 
 The other is that the earlier materialistic tendencies of 
 science have not silenced in our poets that instinctive belief 
 in spiritual verities which even science itself is coming more 
 and more to justify. As we turn to a considera- 
 
 • Vflrictv of 
 
 tion of the literary work of the age, nothing is Literature in 
 more striking than its wonderful variety and com- *^* '^*'' 
 plexity. The two great forces of Democracy and Science, 
 working sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict, 
 operating directly and indirectly in all departments of lit- 
 erature, have created a literary situation more than usually 
 confusing. It is impracticable to divide the age chrono- 
 logically, for the work of many of its greatest men runs
 
 336 
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 clear through the whole period. The best solution of the 
 difficulty seems to be a division of the literature into mis- 
 cellaneous prose, the novel, and poetry, and a consideration 
 of each of these branches of literary work in a separate 
 chapter. 
 
 MACAULAY's House in London
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1892) 
 
 Thomas Habington Macaulav was one of those rare men 
 who, in the phrase of De Ouincey, drew in the lottery of 
 life the double prize of a fine intellect and a Lo^d 
 healthy stomach. He was, on the one side, a fine Macauiay 
 animal, and on tiie other, a man of brilliant political and 
 literary genius. The note of his character was the note of 
 buoyant and cheerful optimism. The world in which he 
 lived seemed to him a good world, and he had a confident 
 faith in human progress and in the ultimate triumph of 
 right principles. There was in him nothing of the temper 
 of the revolutionist ; yet he saw with clear vision some of 
 the more striking evils of his day and set about righting 
 them. He had still less of the temper of the visionary and 
 the idealist. He dreamed no divine dreams which were 
 impossible of realization in a practical world. He voiced 
 no passionate cry of human longing or aspiration. A 
 temper like Shelley's, for instance, could probably have 
 awakened in him neither sympathy nor understanding. 
 His nature was eminently practical. What he saw was the 
 plain fact of life in the clear light of every day. What he 
 sought was such betterment in the conditions of life as 
 were within the scope of reason and possibility. Such a 
 man seemed born to grapple with the actual realities of the 
 world rather than to lead men in the ])ath of infinite 
 spiritual devel()|)ment. The world needs ail sorts of 
 leaders, and could no more do without its Macaulays than 
 without its Shclleys. Indeed, the former are the more 
 absolute necessity. Man must live, in order to aspire. 
 
 3J7
 
 33S DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 He must first live by bread, in order that he may come to 
 know that he " shall not live by bread alone." Macaulay 
 spoke to the great masses of men. He spoke to move 
 them to practical action or to definite comprehension. He 
 accomplished his task ; and we may well be thankful for 
 what he did and look to other men for the great spiritual 
 message. It would seem as though just such men as he 
 were necessary in a democratic state of society, and per- 
 haps the natural product of democratic conditions. Ma- 
 caulay, at any rate, served well his day and generation. He 
 had grown up in an age when individualism was growing 
 in the minds and hearts of men, he came into public life 
 at the time when conditions were ripe for practical demo- 
 cratic action, and he took his effective part with other great 
 leaders of the age in bringing about the beginnings of 
 democratic development. In order to see this practical 
 relation of the man to his age, it will be desirable to glance 
 briefly at some of the most salient points of his Hfe 
 before turning to the consideration of his hterary work. 
 Macaulay's father was a prominent member of the 
 Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and edited an 
 Macaulay's abolitiouist newspaper. We may fancy from 
 ^**^ this fact the sort of political school in which 
 
 Macaulay grew up. His university training was received 
 at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a fine classical 
 and historical scholar, obtained a considerable reputation 
 as an orator and debater, and twice won the Chan- 
 cellor's medal for English verse. His earlier literary 
 work gave evidence of a deliberate purpose to broaden his 
 mind, to increase his knowledge, and to train himself 
 as a writer. At twenty-five, he made his first important 
 bid for literary fame by his Essay on Milton, a most 
 brilliant piece of work. His literary efforts soon brought 
 him into notice ; and five years later, at the age of thirty, 
 he was in the House of Commons. In the debates leading
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSOiN —PROSE (1832-1892) 339 
 
 up to the passage of the great Reform Bill in 1832, he 
 was one of the most prominent speakers and leaders, and 
 the success of that most important measure for the ex- 
 tension of the elective franchise was due in no small 
 degree to his efforts. In the Reformed Parliament, he 
 continued to be a most active and useful member. In 
 1834 he was made president of a new law commission 
 for India, and a member of the Supreme Council of 
 Calcutta. In connection with these important duties, he 
 spent two years and a half in India, returning to Eng- 
 land in 1838. During all this time, he had continued 
 his literary labors, and now desired to devote himself 
 exclusively to literature. He was, however, again elected 
 to Parliament in 1839. During the next few years, 
 he held such important ofifices as Secretary for War, 
 Paymaster-General, and member of the Cabinet. He 
 was a strong partisan, and was consequently often on 
 the wrong side of important questions. In other cases, 
 however, he was the vigorous champion of liberty and 
 of progress. On the whole, his political career was of 
 decided benefit to his country and mankind. The chief 
 opposition and criticism which he aroused was because 
 of his liberal and advanced views. His literary work 
 had at no time ceased, and in 1849 he published the 
 first two volumes of his History of England. Later 
 volumes were published in 1855. No work since the 
 Waverley Novels had created such general enthusiasm 
 or been bought with such eagerness. The close of his 
 life was rich in public honors. He was successively 
 made Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, Fellow 
 of the Royal Society, Foreign Member of the French 
 Academy, High Steward of Cambridge, and Baron Ma- 
 caulay of Rothley. He died in 1859, in his sixtieth year. 
 It was a short life for a man of such robust constitution 
 and regular habits. The fact is that Macaulay had spent
 
 340 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 too lavishly his splendid vitality and energy, both in the 
 service of the commonweal and in the more enduring 
 service of literature. 
 
 Macaulay's literary genius was preeminently that of a 
 great essayist. In his chosen field and in his chosen 
 Macaulay's manner, he has probably had no equal. What 
 Essays ^.j^jg |^^j^ ^^^ ^.j^jg manner were, we must briefly 
 
 illustrate. Macaulay's first notable work, the Essay on 
 Milton, is typical of his excursions in the iield of English 
 literature. Among others of less note there are essays on 
 Bacon, Drydcn, Bunyan, Sir William Temple, Addison, 
 Johnson, Goldsmith, and Byron. Macaulay also invaded the 
 field of foreign hterature, both ancient and modern, writing 
 on such themes as The Athenian Orators, Dante, Petrarch, 
 and Machiavelli. He was not a great literary critic ; and 
 his limitations were particularly apparent where an ade- 
 quate appreciation of his subject called for spiritual 
 insight or for delicate feeling. He was strong, however, 
 in the very useful critical virtue of common sense. It is 
 rather in the iield of historical biography than in the field 
 of literary criticism that Macaulay is most distinguished. 
 In English history, he began with Hampden, and treated 
 such great characters as Williajn Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 
 and the younger William Pitt. His residence in India 
 had given him a special acquaintance with Indian 
 affairs, and led to such famous works as the Essay on 
 Warren Hastings and the Essay on Lord Clive. His in- 
 terest in general European history is well represented by 
 his essays on Mirabeaii and Frederick the Great. It will 
 readily appear that his favorite subject of- treatment was 
 biography, and especially biography associated with his- 
 tory. In dealing with such themes, he displayed a style 
 clear, concrete, and brilliant to the last degree. He 
 lacked subtlety, suggestiveness, spirituality, pathos ; but 
 he could make his readers understand, and he could stimu-
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1S92) 341 
 
 late their attention and secure their unwearied interest 
 by his swift, breezy, and energetic manner. Few passages 
 display his vigor, his self-confidence, his hicid and tren- 
 chant expression, better than the conclusion of his essay on 
 Barerc : 
 
 Something more we had to say about him. But let him go. We did 
 not seek him out and will not keep him longer. If those who call them- 
 selves his friends liad not forced liim on our notice we should never 
 have vouchsafed to him more than a passing word of scorn and abhor- 
 rence. . . . We have no pleasure in seeing human nature thus de- 
 graded. We turn with disgust from the filthy and spiteful Yahoos of 
 the fiction ; and the filthiest and most spiteful Yahoo of the fiction was 
 a noble creature when compared with the Bar^re of history. But what 
 is no pleasure .M. Hippolyte Carnot has made a duty. It is no light 
 thing that a man in high and honourable public trust . . . should come 
 forward to demand approbation for a life black with every sort of wicked- 
 ness, and unredeemed by a single virtue. This M. Hippolyte Carnot 
 has done. By attempting to enshrine this Jacobin carrion, he has 
 forced us to gibbet it ; and we venture to say that, from the eminence 
 of infamy on which we have placed it, he will not easily take it down. 
 
 Macaulay's History of llnglaiid is characterized by most 
 of the qualities that mark his Essays. He believed that his- 
 tory should combine careful research, accurate History of 
 statement of facts, and a vivid and concrete pres- England 
 entation — that it should unite the descriptive and narrative 
 interest of a novel with the true historical record. Putting 
 this theory into brilliant practice, he wrote history as it had 
 never been written before. He says, "The perfect his- 
 torian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an 
 age is exhibited in miniature." It was this that he aimed 
 at and in ]ar<,^c measure attained. As mere history, it is 
 open to the charge of partisanship, of superficiality, of lack 
 of proportion, and of sacrificing historical truth to dramatic 
 effect. As a jjiece of brilliant imaginative writing, it com- 
 mandsalmost unqualified j)raise. The characters of history 
 live, the events of hi.story are realized by the imagination, 
 the past becomes vital with human meaning.
 
 342 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 The essential characteristics of Macaulay's literary gen- 
 ius have been already implied. He was a man of mar- 
 Macauiay's velous industry, sparing no labor in acquiring 
 Genius knowledge, in expressing his thought, or in 
 
 serving the public welfare. He was a man of most re- 
 markable memory. The story that he coujd repeat the 
 whole of Paradise Lost is only one of many wonders re- 
 lated of him. He was a man of clear vision, of vivid 
 imagination, and of remarkable powers of expression. 
 He was even, in his own way, a poet — not merely in 
 the imaginative power of his graphic descriptions, but in 
 the actual writing of verse. Such poems as 
 Horatius, from his Lays of Ancietit Rome, and 
 the Battle of Ivry and the Battle of Naseby, from his 
 Miscellaneous Poems, do not rise to the higher poetical 
 levels ; but they are nevertheless genuine poetry. Popular 
 taste has certainly endorsed them, and popular taste will 
 be justified by a fair and catholic criticism. 
 
 In almost all possible respects, Thomas Carlyle was in 
 marked contrast with Macaulay. Indeed, it would be dif- 
 Thomas ficult to find anywhere his parallel or his ana- 
 
 Cariyie logue. When we recall that he was born in 
 
 1795, it will not seem strange that he possessed much of 
 that intensely individualistic spirit which characterized the 
 earlier generation. But even this was with a difference 
 and in his own peculiar way. He was certainly himself a 
 unique individuality — even to the extent of oddity, whim- 
 sicality, perversity, and violent prejudice. He was, more- 
 over, a believer in strongly individual personaUty. This 
 does not mean that he was a believer in the common man. 
 What Carlyle believed in was the uncommon man. Ty- 
 rants, autocrats, aristocrats, men of rank and privilege, 
 were his abhorrence. He set his faith on the strong indi- 
 r>t vidual soul, and believed that such a soul had not merely 
 the right to be equal with other men, but the right to be
 
 *^. GxvCv<^
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1S92) 343 
 
 superior to other men. The business of government -in 
 the world, properly understood, was to find the able and 
 righteous man and to put him in the place of power. The 
 business of the great mass of men was to obey and to fol- 
 low such heaven-sent leaders — not to rule themselves. 
 
 This was individualism in an extreme form ; but it cer- 
 tainly was not the spirit of democracy. It was the rec- 
 ognition of great character, wherever found ; 
 
 1 • 1 , , . Attitude 
 
 but It was by no means the democratic assump- toward 
 tion that all men are equal or that the voice of ■°°"^'=y 
 the people is the voice of God. Coming upon a deiuo- 
 cratic age, Carlyle found himself in harmony with it so 
 far as it insisted upon the recognition of individual worth, 
 on freedom from tyranny and oppression, on equal oppor- 
 tunity for all men according to their powers ; beyond this, 
 his attitude was one of criticism and of protest. The world 
 that seemed to Macaulay about the best of all possible . 
 worlds seemed to Carlyle about the worst. He wanted 
 men to think of obedience and of duty rather than of free- 
 dom and equality. The effect of democracy on him was 
 therefore peculiar. Instead of carrying him along with it, 
 it made him a great critic and censor of contemporary life. 
 His influence was in one sense depressing and discourag- 
 ing ; but in another, it was wholesome and uplifting. He 
 helped to keep men from forgetting some things which 
 they seemed likely to ignore. He taught them that free- V. 
 dom and equality are not all of life, but that love, work, 
 and obedience have also their place. In a way, therefore, 
 his genius felt the influence of the age, though in some 
 respects he was driven to reaction rather than to advance 
 or to sympathy. 
 
 Carlyle's relation to science was somewhat similar. He 
 was in sympathy with the scientific doctrine of law as 
 against the dem(jcratic doctrine of liberty. No man was 
 more eager than he to preach the necessity ol recogniz-
 
 344 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 ing and obeying law. He was in sympathy with science, 
 likewise, in its inflexible devotion to truth and reality. 
 . . , No man was a more intense lover of truth ; 
 
 Attitude ' 
 
 toward no man a more scornful hater of all falsity and 
 
 sham and pretense and unreality. The one 
 feature of the scientific movement that most aroused Car- 
 lyle's antagonism was its tendency toward materialism. 
 There is no doubt that Carlyle — like many other men of 
 yi the age — was profoundly disturbed in his reHgious beliefs. 
 How far this was the direct result of science may be ques- 
 tioned ; but it was the result of the general unrest and 
 unfaith which science tended to induce. In spite, how- 
 ever, of all religious disturbance in his soul, Carlyle clung 
 to the profound conviction that this is essentially a world 
 of spirit — that materiahsm would make it a "dog-ken- 
 nel" of a world, instead of an antechamber to heaven. 
 Feeling that the tendency of sciencewas mat erialisti c, his 
 conscious attitude toward it was, one ofThostiTityT He was 
 affected by it more than he knew, he was in sympathy 
 with it at its best more than he realized ; but he felt called 
 upon to oppose many of its pretensions and to preach the 
 doctrine of the spirituality of existence. Here again he 
 became a critic and a censor of the age. He became also 
 a great prophet — crying, as it seemed to him, in a spir- 
 itual wilderness. Carlyle was a great literary genius, a 
 strong, original, philosophical thinker ; but more than all 
 else, he was a great preacher — a preacher of duty and 
 labor and obedience, a preacher of spiritual faith and 
 practical righteousness. He was of his age, and felt the 
 great impulses that were moving its life and thought, even 
 though his character and convictions led him to cry out 
 against it with all the strength of his prophetic soul and 
 of his splendid genius. 
 
 There is comparatively little in Carlyle's life that calls 
 for particular mention. He was born at Ecclefechan in
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1S92) 345 
 
 the Scotch Lowlands, of a sturdy and God-fearing peasant 
 stock. Educated at the grammar-school of Annan and 
 afterward at the University of Edinburgh, he 
 
 . , , •, Carlyle's Life 
 
 was at first destined for the mmistry, but delib- 
 erately forsook that calling for the walks of literature. 
 Against terrible odds of poverty, loneliness, dyspepsia, 
 hostile criticism, and religious doubt, he fought his hard 
 battle. For six years, after his marriage with Jane Welsh, 
 he lived and toiled at the lonely farmhouse of Craigenput- 
 toch, slowly building up his literary fame. His studies 
 in German literature and philosophy were coloring his 
 thought and affording material for his pen. He was put- 
 ting his deep life experience into Sartor Rcsartus. In 
 1834 he removed to London, where he spent the remain- 
 der of his long life. Here his fame steadily grew as he 
 poured forth his powerful and voluminous body of literary 
 work. For a generation he was a venerated teacher and 
 an accepted prophet of his time. In 1 866 he was made Lord 
 Rector of the University of Edinburgh ; but this mark of 
 his triumph was embittered by the death of his wife. He 
 died in 1881, full of years and honors, and was buried 
 among his own kindred in his native village of Ecclefechan. 
 Carlyle began his literary work as early as 1823, and 
 continued it until his death. His first publication was a 
 translation of Goethe's W'ilhchn Mcistcr. His Early Liter- 
 next was a Life of S chilli' r, 2iX\d this was soon ^^^^^^^^ 
 followed by numerous translations from the German. 
 These works are especially important as indicating the in- 
 fluence exerted ujion his earlier development by German 
 ideas and German literary tendencies. More than any 
 other one man, Goethe was his ideal and his master. 
 Carlyle was a man of very different temper from the great 
 German. The latter was a large, broad, serene nature, 
 while the inspired .Scotchman was narrow, bigoted, intense, 
 but tremendously forceful. Nevertheless, there seems to
 
 346 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 have been something of natural affinity between the two, 
 as there was also between Carlyle and the general temper 
 of the German mind. This illustrates in its way the grow- 
 ing cosmopolitanism of literature which finds so many il- 
 lustrations during the nineteenth century. Carlyle's own 
 later work has many reminders of this modern condition of 
 affairs. . Especially does his first great masterpiece, Sartor 
 Rcsartus, show the influence of German ideas. Carlyle's 
 work is exceedingly voluminous, and can not here be consid- 
 ered in detail. There are, however, certain representative 
 works which serve to display his characteristic genius and 
 his typical modes of thought, and these may receive brief 
 individual notice as specimens of the whole. 
 
 Sartor Resartiis'i^ one of the most astonishing and unique 
 books of the century. The title means "the tailor retail- 
 Sartor ored," and suggests symbolically Carlyle's main 
 
 Resartus idea. The book humorously pretends to be the 
 confused and fragmentary collection of the outpourings of 
 a half-crazy German philosopher named Diogenes Teufels- 
 drockh, of Weissnichtwo. It is a so-called "philosophy of 
 clothes," and mingles Carlyle's theory of the universe and of 
 man with a good deal of autobiographical matter setting 
 forth his spiritual experiences. The work is grotesque, both 
 in conception and in style. It is terrible, in its revelation 
 of Carlyle's spiritual struggles. It is profound, in its deep 
 and far-reaching philosophy. It is tremendously power- 
 ful, in its emotional intensity and in its imaginative vigor. 
 The singular book is too confused, too complicated, too rich 
 in suggestion, too profound in thought, to allow of brief ex- 
 position. It must suffice, therefore, to indicate its main pur- 
 pose. By " clothes" Carlyle meant the outward vesture and 
 wrappings of the essential reality. The forms of nature, the 
 human body, even man's thoughts, deeds, and expressions 
 — all are "clothes." In the deepest interpretation, these 
 are only the outward symbols of the spiritual facts which
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1S32-1S92) 347 
 
 they enshrine. The universe, at the heart of it, is not ma- 
 terial but spiritual. The book is the symbol of Carlyle's 
 spiritual philosophy ; and it sets forth the bitter agony of 
 his own struggle out of the depths into the light. 
 
 Carlyle's next great work was The French Revolution. 
 It is more like a great epic poem than like a sober history. 
 Carlyle believed with Macaulay that bistory ^j^^ p^^^^j^ 
 should be made alive to the imagination ; but Revolution 
 how vastly different from Macaulay's are his methods and 
 results. Of the gift of clear and orderly narrative, he dis- 
 plays little ; but his power of vivid and picturesque descrip- 
 tion and his genius for the dramatic realization of historic 
 characters have never been surpassed since Shakespeare. 
 His faculty of pouring out his own passionate emotion into 
 his descriptions, of making himself as it were an actor in 
 his dramatic scenes, is quite his own. The blood-curdling 
 horrors of the " Reign of Terror," the tremendous and almost 
 superhuman actors in the great tragedy of the Revolution, 
 find in him their master and their inspired delineator. He 
 seemed, indeed, the man born for such a task. He could 
 ride that whirlwind undismayed. He could select from all 
 its weltering confusions the men and the events that were 
 most dramatic, most significant, most symbolic, and could 
 make them stand forth in all their living colors and in all 
 their historic meaning. It is unlike any other book that 
 has ever been written, it is unlike any book that ever will 
 be written, on the same theme. Others may give us the 
 facts of the hist(jry in more orderly array. Carlyle has 
 given us a picture that moves and breathes with his own 
 intense life. 
 
 Heroes and Hero- Worship is one of Carlyle's most char- 
 acteristic productions. It sets forth his distinctive 
 
 ... Heroes 
 
 theory that "universal history, the history of and Hero- 
 what man has accomplished in this world, is at "'" '' 
 bottom the history of the great men who have worked here."
 
 348 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 Such men are the world's "real kings," the men who have the 
 right to rule, and whom other men have the duty to obey 
 and to follow. The work is in form a series of six lectures 
 on "the heroic in history." The titles of the several lec- 
 tures will convey the best idea of their scope : " The Hero 
 as Divinity. — Odin. — Paganism: Scandinavian Mythol- 
 ogy " ; "The Hero as Prophet. — Mahomet : Islam " ; " The 
 Hero as Poet. — Dante: Shakespeare"; "The Hero as 
 Priest. — Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism"; "The 
 Hero as Man of Letters. — Johnson, Rousseau, Burns"; 
 "The Hero as King. — Cromwell, Napoleon : Modern Rev- 
 olutionism." Nothing save the actual reading of them can 
 convey an idea of their singular character and of their 
 marvelous style. They embody much of Carlyle's charac- 
 teristic attitude toward modern democracy. They show 
 that he found his historic ideal, not in the people, but in 
 the world's men of supreme genius and character. Hero- 
 worship seemed to him a lesson that democracy needed to 
 learn. 
 
 Carlyle's attitude toward great men is still further illus- 
 trated by his series of biographies. We have already 
 Biographical mentioned his Life of Schiller. There are vari- 
 Wntings Q^jg essays that have more or less of a biographical 
 character. Carlyle loved to seize on a striking or heroic 
 figure and give it illustration on a larger or smaller scale. 
 One of his favorite heroes was Oliver Cromwell ; and his 
 Cromzvell's Letters and Speeches is one of his most sympa- 
 thetic as well as scholarly pieces of work. As might 
 be expected, Carlyle does not allow Cromwell to speak 
 altogether for himself. The letters and speeches are 
 given "with elucidations," and Carlyle "elucidates" in his 
 own characteristic fashion. Sometimes he flings his own 
 dramatic word into the very midst of one of Cromwell's 
 speeches in a way that reminds us of his habit of making 
 himself an actor in the scenes of his Frencli Revolution.
 
 THE ACE OF TEXNYSOX — PROSE (1S32-1S92) 349 
 
 The Life of Joint Sterlitig is a more quiet and restrained 
 but not less deeply sympathetic biography of his personal 
 friend. More heroic in proportions is his History^ of 
 Frederick the Great, a magnificent historical panorama in 
 twenty-one books. The great builder of the Prussian 
 kingdom and layer of foundations for the German Empire 
 is portrayed in living colors against the background of the 
 history of his age. Frederick — Carlyle recognizes — was 
 no demigod, rather a very " questionable hero " ; but he 
 was after all " a reality," a genuine " king." 
 
 Carlyle's distaste for the democracy and the materialism 
 of his day led him to glorify the past as an age of obedi- 
 ence and of faith. In Past atld Present, \\Q.\\,X.S Past and 
 
 drawn a strikingly effective contrast. Book II P"^*^"' 
 of this work, entitled " The Ancient Monk," gives a pic- 
 ture of life in the Middle Ages which has never been 
 surpassed for imaginative vividness and which has also 
 the merit of historical fidelity. Book III, entitled "The 
 Modern Worker," expresses his vigorous disapproval of 
 modern conditions and methods. Two of his chapters 
 are entitled "Gospel of Manmionism " and " Democracy." 
 These titles indicate some of the targets at which his 
 shafts were aimed. Carlyle's own "Gospel," whose main 
 features have already been suggested in one way or an- 
 other, is largely contained in this book ; but it is still 
 further emphasized and expanded in works like Chartism, 
 Latter-Day Paviphlets, The Nis^ger Question, and 
 
 ■^ ^ , , !- Later Works 
 
 Shooting Niagara : ami After. The first of 
 these deals, in an exceedingly undemocratic spirit, with 
 the labor questi(jn. The second discusses various modern 
 topics. The third is a sarcastic fling at the sentimentalism 
 of the abolitionists. The last suggests that the demo- 
 cratic, industrial, materialistic age is approaching the 
 brink of a trL-inendous cataract, and Carlyle's prophetic 
 spirit f<»rebodcs only disaster and ruin.
 
 350 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 It will have already become apparent that behind Car- 
 lyle's literary genius there was the potent strength of a 
 Cariyie's great character, an original personality, and a 
 Genius profound life experience. That genius itself is 
 
 not easy to analyze or to describe, and brief suggestion 
 must suffice. It is probable that the greatest force in his 
 literary work is its vehement, deep, and lofty pas- 
 sion. Cariyie's heart was like a volcano, making lurid 
 wL the heavens with its flames and carrying devastation in 
 the path of its consuming streams. Carlyle was also 
 possessed of a great creative imagination. His power 
 of vision was almost supernatural. He worked in the 
 realm of fact ; but he possessed an immense capability of 
 "realizing" fact in vivid shapes, and of clothing fact in 
 ideal garments. His imaginative faculty is chiefly dis- 
 played in the dramatic portrayal of historical characters. 
 He had the instinctive feeling for beauty which is an 
 element of the poetic nature, but he had little regard for 
 the claims of beauty as compared with the claims of truth. 
 Truth was the ruling passion of his nature, and all his 
 books impress one with their craving for reality. The 
 style in which he expressed himself is strongly 
 
 His style ,1, ,.,. • r,- 
 
 marked by the idiosyncrasies of his own nature. 
 It is passionate ; it is vivid ; it is grotesque ; it is pathetic ; 
 it is rich with imagery ; it is weighty with meaning and with 
 power. Carlyle cares little for the rules of rhetoric and 
 has not a slavish regard even for those of grammar. He 
 is loose, fragmentary, interjectional, bold to excess. He 
 cares only to express his meaning and to make his desired 
 impression. If he startles, astounds, sometimes disgusts, 
 all this is a part of his purpose. He will keep his reader 
 awake at all hazards, and he will make him feel as with 
 the tingling of electric shocks. It is certainly one of the 
 least "classical," one of the most individual, styles ever 
 written. He may be accused, as De Ouincey on far
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1892) 351 
 
 different grounds accused Keats, of " trampling upon his 
 mother-tongue as with the hoofs of a buffalo." Never- 
 theless, his style is powerful, imaginative, rhythmic, 
 massive — touched at times with poetic beauty or poetic 
 splendor — sounding all the notes of emotion, from sub- 
 limity to violent energy, from the broadest humor to the 
 tenderest pathos. It is the fitting and adequate expression 
 of a great soul. 
 
 John Ruskin w^as a disciple of Carlyle, and had many 
 of the peculiarities of his master with reference to his 
 modes of thought and with reference to his atti- ^ ^ „ ,. 
 
 "^ _ John Ruskin 
 
 tude toward the age. Yet Ruskin was a man of 
 far different genius, and in some respects of far different 
 character. The moral effect of the work of the two men 
 is not so very far apart ; the purely literary effect is de- 
 cidedly different. Ruskin was almost, if not quite, as dog- 
 matic as Carlyle, and hardly less self-willed. Moreover, 
 he had the like combination of an erratic manner and 
 mode of expression with a spiritual tone and purpose that 
 was at bottom ever one and the same. Both men were 
 " wandering barks," sailing to all appearance under the 
 direction of a capricious master, but guided in all their 
 wanderings by the clear sight of the polar star. It is per- 
 haps not unworthy of note that, while Carlyle was a thor- 
 ough and typical Scotchman, Ruskin was born of Scotch 
 parentage. The combination in them of an arbitrary will 
 with a strongly religious temperament seems peculiarly 
 Scotch. 
 
 Ruskin had comparatively little sympathy with democ- 
 racy in the stricter sense of the term ; but he had a deep 
 and ever growing sympathy with the poor and Ruskin and 
 the oppressed, a sympathy with the essential ^'*^*' 
 spirit of democratic ideals especially on the sociological 
 side. In order to be helpful to his fellow men, hi- wrote, 
 he labored, he spent practically the whole of his large
 
 352 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 fortune. Ruskin had quite as little sympathy as Carlyle 
 with the materialistic tendencies of science ; but with its 
 larger spirit, he was in substantial harmony. He had the 
 passionate love of truth which was even more than the 
 intellectual ardor of the scientist. He had a love for na- 
 ture which combined the spirit of the scientific investi- 
 gator, the poet, and the artist. He had an eye for natural 
 fact which no student of science could surpass. His tem- 
 perament was perhaps more than anything else that of the 
 artist. He was in his generation an apostle of beauty — 
 beauty of form and color, but likewise the beauty of right- 
 eousness, in thought, in feehng, and in living. He pos- 
 sessed the practical gifts of the artist ; but he chose to 
 set them aside in order that he might call attention to the 
 beauty in the works of other men. He possessed also the 
 gifts of literary genius ; but these, too, he chose to sacrifice 
 to his task as a preacher of the gospel of beauty. If he 
 attained literary fame, it was because his genius could not 
 be suppressed, because his preaching necessarily took on 
 those great qualities of substance and form that made it 
 literature. For all this Ruskin was rather scoffed at by 
 many as being chimerical and quixotic. Nothing could 
 better illustrate this attitude or his own nobility of spirit 
 than a passage from his Fors Clavigera, an autobiographic 
 work written toward the latter part of his career : 
 
 Because I have passed my life in almsgiving, not in fortune-hunting ; 
 because I have laboured always for the honour of others, not for my own, 
 and have chosen rather to make men look at Turner and Luini, than to 
 form or exhibit the skill of my own hands ; because I have lowered my 
 rents, and assured the comfortable lives of my poor tenants, instead of 
 taking from them all I could force for the roofs they needed ; because I 
 love a wood walk better than a London street ; and would rather watch 
 a sea gull fly than shoot it, and rather hear a thrush sing than eat it ; 
 finally, because I never disobeyed my mother, because I have honoured 
 all women with solemn worship, and havf been kind even to the un- 
 thankful and evil ; therefore, the hacks of English art and literature wag 
 their heads at me.
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1892) 353 
 
 A large part of Ruskin's work, and especially of his 
 earlier work, was in the form of art criticism. His hrst 
 notable work was a book entitled Modern Paint- work as an 
 irs, which he afterward modified and expanded ^*C"'''= 
 through a series of years. It was not, as its title might 
 suggest, a history of modern painting, but rather a glori- 
 fication of Turner as the first and greatest of genuine 
 landscape painters. The book, especially in its enlarged 
 form, goes much further ; for Ruskin enters into elaborate 
 discussion of art theories, of the characteristics of various 
 schools, of the true and the false in art, and especially of 
 the relation of art to nature. This interest in landscape 
 and the recognition of its place in art associates itself with 
 the naturalistic movement in poetry, already discussed. 
 It associates itself, however, quite as much with modern 
 scientific study of nature ; for Ruskin was concerned even 
 more with natural truth than with natural beauty. Other 
 art works of importance are his Scvai Lamps of Architec- 
 ture and his Stones of Venice. The former of these aptly 
 illustrates the very important fact that Ruskin believed the 
 inspiration of all true art to lie in the moral nature of the 
 artist and of his age, and also the further and greater fact 
 that all Ruskin's work — of whatever name or nature — is 
 at bottom dealing with moral questions. The " Seven 
 Lamps" are these: Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, 
 Memory, Obedience. They suggest much as to Ruskin's 
 spirit and method. The Stones of Venice is a work of 
 larger scope, but it is informed by the same general pur- 
 pose. The effect of the three works taken together is to 
 show Ruskin's conception tiiat the natural world is the 
 expression of the divine mind and filled therefore with 
 spiritual suggestion, and that all human art must find its 
 highest power in fidelity to nature and in humble obedi- 
 ence t(j moral law. Such doctrine as this, Ruskin j)reached 
 to his generation ; and he preached it with a pr()i)hetic
 
 354 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 fervor, not merely because he wished to see modern life 
 made more beautiful, but because he believed that beauty 
 is at bottom a matter of righteousness. 
 
 This same zeal of the prophet inspired also his later 
 writings. About i860, when Ruskin was just past forty 
 Social years of age, he practically brought to an end 
 
 Questions j^-^ (.^j-ggj- g^g g^j^ ^y.^ critic by the completion of 
 
 his Modern Painters. He had labored nearly twenty years 
 in the service of art, and was still to be her enthusiast ; 
 but from this time forward, he was to give himself more 
 especially to a higher and a nobler service. For nearly forty 
 years more his life was to continue, closing only with the 
 last year but one of the century ; and during this period, his 
 literary work was to be that of a great ethical teacher and 
 social reformer. He dealt with all sorts of subjects, there 
 was in his writings an ever recurring allusion to art and to 
 beauty ; but still more, there was the prevalent tone of a 
 deep moral earnestness, the voice of a man whose supreme 
 desire was to better the condition of his fellows and to 
 teach them that righteousness is the great law of life. It 
 is no more within our present scope to consider his various 
 efforts outside of the literary field for the betterment of 
 humanity than to consider the specific value of his work 
 as a technical critic of art. These matters are, of course, 
 important to an understanding of the man and of his total 
 achievement ; but our present purpose is more exclusively 
 literary, and, moreover, his work in literature was in 
 essentially the same spirit as his work in other fields. 
 
 Most of the works of this later period bear fanciful 
 titles which only remotely suggest or symbolize their real 
 Later subjcct-matter. [/nto tliis Last and Mtmera 
 
 Wntings Pnlveris are two books written against the 
 narrowness and utilitarianism of the current politiciil 
 economy. Ruskin would have men consider that ther-^ are 
 higher values than those which mere commercialism takes
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1892) 355 
 
 into account. The Crown of Wild Olives consists of three 
 lectures on "Work, Traffic, and War." Ethics of the Dust 
 is a series of ten lectures " to Little Housewives on the 
 Elements of Crystallisation." Fors Clavigera is a series of 
 letters "to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain," 
 and contains much autobiographical matter. Pnctcrita is 
 also autobiographical. Probably his best-known work is 
 Sesame and Lilies. It is brief, and contains some of 
 the best illustrations of his style. One of the divisions, 
 " Kings' Treasuries," contrasts worldly and spiritual wealth, 
 and treats especially of the spiritual value of books. An- 
 other division, " Queens' Gardens," deals with the place, 
 power, and education of women. 
 
 Ruskin was a man who possessed a fine imagination and 
 an almost poetic appreciation of beauty. These were per- 
 haps the basis of his purely literary genius, al- His Genius 
 though, of course, his noble character and his and style 
 high ethical spirit largely determined the quality of his 
 literary work. It is with his style, however, that the lit- 
 erary student must be chiefly impressed. This is highly 
 ornate and musical, reminding us somewhat of De 
 Quincey's imaginative and impassioned prose. It has re- 
 minders, too, of the early seventeenth-century prose- 
 writers ; but more than to any other scource, it owes its 
 distinguishing qualities to the English Bible. He had been 
 deeply familiar with the Book from his earliest years, and 
 its sublime strains had become a part of his intellectual in- 
 heritance. Magnificent as it is, this style can not justly be 
 charged with affectation or artificiality. He ri.ses to his 
 heights of inspired eloquence or imjiassioned descrijition 
 only under the stress of his own genuine emotion and kin- 
 dling imagination ; and the style is the natural and almost 
 inevitable e.xprcssion of the man. 
 
 As we come to the consideration of Matthew Arnold, we 
 arc struck by the fact that, of the four great prose-writers
 
 356 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (i 832-1892) 
 
 who best represent the present period, only one was in 
 full harmony with its spirit. Macaulay was a typical man 
 Matthew °^ ^^^ time, accepting its ideals and voicing its 
 Arnold characteristic ideas. Carlyle and Ruskin, as 
 
 we have just seen, were in many respects in an attitude of 
 antagonism to the spirit of the age, and felt called upon to 
 be its censors and critics, although they too were, of course, 
 unconsciously affected by its power. Matthew Arnold 
 was also a censor, a critic, and in some sense a prophet, of 
 his time. Carlyle preached the doctrine of duty and work 
 and obedience. Ruskin preached the gospel of beauty, 
 in form and in spirit. Arnold was preeminently the apostle 
 of culture. " Sweetness and light " was the phrase that 
 he borrowed from Swift and made practically his own. By 
 it he referred to gentility of manners and to intellectual 
 refinement. His conception of culture is acquaintance 
 with " the best that has been known and thought in the 
 world." As compared with the " Hebraism " of Carlyle 
 and to some extent of Ruskin, Arnold's ideal was found 
 rather in " Hellenism." It was the ideal of ideas as com- 
 pared with the ideal of conduct and duty. Arnold believed 
 in the potency of ideas, and sought to aid their triumph 
 over the narrow-minded, complacent, insular, and puritan- 
 ical spirit of "Philistinism." With democracy, he had 
 comparatively little to do, one way or the other. His own 
 personal temper was that of an intellectual aristocrat. 
 With science, he had to do in two ways. Directly, it helps 
 to account for the keen, analytical, observant temper of 
 his mind. Indirectly, it unsettled his religious faith. 
 With the sadness, the melancholy, and the resignation 
 which this induced, we shall have to do in a later consid- 
 eration of his poetry. In prose, his attitude was intellec- 
 tual and logical. It was that of the stoic, who will put 
 away all outworn illusions, will face the situation as it is, 
 will " see life steadily and see it whole," and will take ref-
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — PROSE (1832-1892) 357 
 
 uge in ideas. It was that of the cultured man of the world 
 — urbane, polished, intellectual, and withal " a friend and 
 helper of those who would live in the spirit." 
 
 Arnold's most important work in prose was that of a 
 literary critic. Here he was classical, comparative, sane, 
 impartial, and acute. He brought literature to the test of 
 the highest ideals, and applied those ideals with rare judg- 
 ment and insight, if with something more than a tinge of 
 dogmatism. From 1S57 to 1867, he was Pro- Arnold's 
 fessor of Poetry at Oxford, and his lectures in P'^oseWork 
 that position exerted a wide influence upon current criti- 
 cism and ideas of literature. The most important fruits of 
 this work were two famous productions. On Translating 
 Homer and On the Study of Celtic Literature. In 1865 he 
 published Essays in Criticism, and twenty-three years 
 later, in the year of his death, added to this a second series 
 under the same title. Other volumes largely of a literary 
 character were his Mixed Essays ( 1 879), /ris/i Essays ( 1 882), 
 and Discourses in America (1885). In these various books, 
 his criticism took a wide range and displayed a taste cath- 
 olic as well as just. He dealt with Greek, French, German, 
 as well as British, authors, and brought to bear a compara- 
 tive criticism that was both suggestive and stimulating. 
 His ideals were classical rather than romantic, his method 
 was perhaps rather judicial than sympathetic ; but every- 
 where there is the evidence of a cultivated intelligence and 
 of keen critical insight. Arnold's true province as a prose- 
 writer was that of literary criticism ; but he did not always 
 confine himself to that field. Mis Schools and Universities 
 on the Continent shows his interest in education ; and as an 
 expert in educational matters, he had a right to speak with 
 authority. His writings are permeated with thought on 
 social and ethical questions, and it is in this sphere that 
 he best displays his relation to the age. He even made 
 an excursion into the field of theological controversy in
 
 358 
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 V 
 
 such works as Culture and Anarchy (1869), St. Paul and 
 Protestantism (1870), Literature and Dogma {\%'j'>^\2cs\di God 
 ajid the Bible (1875). Here, perhaps, his venture was less 
 fortunate ; but these works help to define for us Arnold's 
 character and intellectual attitude, to make clearer the in- 
 fluence upon him of the great movements of the age, and 
 to emphasize his peculiar relation to his own time. 
 
 Arnold's genius on the prose side was, as we have inti- 
 mated, that of a great literary critic and apostle of culture. 
 He was also one of the great poets of his age, and will call 
 for prominent treatment in our later consideration of the 
 poetry of the time. It remains here to observe 
 that he was also a great master of prose style. 
 In this particular, he affords a remarkable contrast with 
 both Ruskin and Carlyle. He had next to nothing of 
 their vehemence, their richness, their music, or their imag- 
 inative splendor. His qualities are those of the intellect 
 rather than those of passion or imagination. His character- 
 istic virtues are those of lucidity, serenity, simplicity, purity, 
 suavity, terseness, precision. To all this he added the 
 Attic salt of a spicy humor and of a delicate irony. He is 
 great with the greatness of a calm and pure intelligence. 
 
 Arnold's 
 style 
 
 The Birthplace of Carlyle 
 
 Ecclefechan
 
 m ayi^^i^ylJ^Le^^^^LC-^i-Q^
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — THE NOVEL (i 832-1 892) 
 
 In our consideration of the history of the modern 
 novel, we have seen that it began in reaUsm, under 
 the classical influences of the eighteenth century. Later, 
 under the influence of a growing romanticism, the novel 
 also became romantic. Scott was the great jyie Modem 
 romancer, and under his auspices the roman- ^^"^^ 
 tic novel came to the place of first importance in the 
 field of prose fiction. Nevertheless, such work as that 
 of Jane Austen had more than preserved the realistic 
 tradition ; and the Victorian Period found itself in pos- 
 session of a broad and many-sided inheritance from the 
 past development of the novel. On the whole, the 
 history of the novel during this period is a history of 
 change from romanticism back to realism, with certain 
 marked tendencies toward romantic reaction. This seems 
 altogether natural. The spirit of individualism that pre- 
 vailed in the age of Scott tended mainly toward the 
 freedom of romance, although, as we have seen, there 
 was a side on which it tended toward the encourage- 
 ment of realism. Individualism under the more con- 
 crete form of democracy was likely to emphasize the 
 realistic view of life by emphasizing the place and im- 
 portance of the ordinary man. This tendency toward 
 realism was reenforced by the influence of science. 
 Science had given men a new insight into psycholog- 
 ical as well as into j)hysical facts, it had taught methods 
 of intellectual analysis that supplemented the imaginative 
 insight of genius, it had brought new conceptions of man's 
 
 35y
 
 360 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 relations to society and of his place in the universe. All 
 this gave to real life a new and different interest, and nov- 
 elists were encouraged to a fresh zeal in the study of its 
 actual phenomena. The romantic fiction of the age was 
 largely written in a spirit of protest or of escape. Its 
 writers struggled against the coldness and bareness of 
 the scientific aspect of things, or else they tried to escape 
 from it into the world of dreams. Some, however, took 
 a better view. They found new marvels in the revelations 
 of science which they displayed as more romantic than Gul- 
 liver or the "Gothic" romance of terror. This points to 
 still another fact ; namely, that the boundaries between 
 romance and realism were to some extent obscured. 
 Each used in a measure the materials and the methods 
 of the other, and thereby enlarged the boundaries of its 
 own province. The amount of work produced in the 
 various departments of the novel was immense. The 
 necessary limitations of a brief discussion will therefore 
 compel us to a more than usually rigid selection and ex- 
 clusion. Three novelists of the age stand out from the 
 crowd — Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot. They 
 were undoubtedly the greatest in genius. They were also 
 typical, in a sense that makes them illustrative of the 
 principal facts and movements of their age. To these 
 three, then, we may devote our attention with the assur- 
 ance that they will be found largely representative of the 
 history of fiction in their time. 
 
 Charles Dickens was in many ways in harmony with 
 the spirit of his generation, but with striking personal 
 peculiarities. No author of the period save Robert 
 
 Browning better illustrates the necessity of 
 Dickens: taking iuto account the personal equation in 
 
 literary work. At the basis of his genius lies 
 his broad and intimate familiarity with men and things. 
 He was by nature a shrewd and accurate observer of
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON— THE NOVEL (1832-1892) 361 
 
 life ; and his own practical experiences had brought him 
 to a close knowledge of its realities and even of its 
 hardships. Born in Portsmouth in 18 12, he was early 
 removed to London with his family, and learned there 
 to know the privations and sordid cares of humble life 
 in the great city. At ten years of age, he was working 
 in a blacking factory, while his father was confined for 
 debt in the Marshalsea Prison, Mis literary apprentice- 
 ship was served as a newspaper reporter and later as 
 a magazine and newspaper editor. E.xpcrience as an 
 amateur actor also contributed to the training which was 
 to take the place of a university education in preparing 
 him for his life work. Literary work began early and 
 was almost immediately successful. Few writers have 
 been so popular as Dickens or have lived to reap such 
 abundant literary honors. His life was prematurely short- 
 ened in 1870, by the excitement and the physical strain 
 of his public readings before vast and enthusiastic audi- 
 ences in England and America. 
 
 Dickens had certain points of contact with the realistic 
 school, although he is by no means to be called a realist. 
 His personal experiences gave him opportunity 
 for wide and varied knowledge of English life. 
 Within this field, he best knew the middle and lower 
 classes, and nothing was more familiar to him than the 
 life of London streets and homes. One of the most in- 
 teresting minor features of his novels lies in his particular 
 acquaintance with certain favorite localities, in and out of 
 London. Readers of Dickens will recall many illustra- 
 tions of this from works like Our Mutual Friend, Bleak 
 House, The Old Curiosity Shop, and David Copperfield. 
 The last of these is in effect an idealization of actual 
 experiences from his own life. His subjects are drawn al- 
 most entirely from the life of the English common people. 
 Even in a novel like A Tale of Tiuo Cities,\x\ which he deals
 
 362 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 with events of the French Revokition, a very large propor- 
 tion of the book is taken up with description of EngUsh 
 hfe and especially the life of London. 
 
 If Dickens is a realist in knowledge of actual life and in 
 
 choice of subjects, he is anything but a realist in his 
 
 methods of treatment. He handles his real 
 
 His Methods • , , 
 
 subject-matter with the greatest freedom. We 
 can hardly call him a romantic novelist, for his field lies 
 rather between the territories of realism and romance. 
 For lack of a better term, he might be designated an ideal- 
 ist in fiction. This means to imply that his novels, while 
 keeping within the limits of ordinary life for their materi- 
 als, are an extreme idealization of the actual and the 
 familiar. He takes liberties with the literal facts of life in 
 the portrayal of character and perhaps still more in the 
 construction of plot. What he seeks is not primarily a 
 faithful picture of Hfe as it is. He displays that Hfe 
 rather in the light which his singular fancy has shed 
 around it. Often he is concerned with the attack or de- 
 fence of some moral principle, and portrays life in a way 
 to suit his immediate purpose. Illustrations of this are to 
 be found in such books as Donibey and Son, Little Dorrit, 
 and Nicholas Nickleby. In all his works, we may see his 
 marked disposition toward partisanship for or against his 
 various characters. He applauds and rewards the good, 
 he condemns and arbitrarily punishes the bad. In a word, 
 there is lack of that artistic impartiality which character- 
 izes a great master like Shakespeare. What we shall have 
 occasion to see is that Dickens supplies this lack by other 
 remarkable powers and that he is great in spite of all faults 
 and limitations. 
 
 We must probably seek the deepest secret of Dickens's 
 „. „ genius in his emotional nature. He had intense 
 
 His Emo- » 
 
 tionai Power power of feeling, and his feeHng was easily 
 aroused. His emotions were not inspired primarily by litera-
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — THE NOVEL (i 832-1 892) 363 
 
 ture, by the ideals of his art, or even by the strong impulse 
 to personal expression. Their inspiration was rather in 
 the human spectacle which he saw around him. He was 
 profoundly interested in the joys and sorrows and manifold 
 experiences of men and women, and he was profoundly 
 moved by them. His deep and strong sympathies were 
 always on the side of truth, morality, and religion. The 
 two most characteristic emotions of his nature were pathos 
 and humor. These seemingly opposite feelings have not 
 seldom been found in harmony with each other in great 
 men of genius ; and in Dickens, they met in a rare and 
 happy union. 
 
 On the one side, we feel the deep tenderness of his 
 nature, and are witness of his power over the softer emo- 
 tions of the human heart. His pathos permeates 
 all his work. Every reader of Dickens will re- 
 call such examples as the death of Little Nell, of Little Jo, 
 and of Paul Dombey ; and these are only extreme illustra- 
 tions of what is to be found in greater or less degree in 
 all his novels. He has been charged with sentimentalism, 
 with exaggeration, with " pumping for tears," and there is 
 something of justice in the charge ; but nevertheless, his 
 pathos is an element of undoubted power in his work and 
 helps in large measure to account for its popularity. 
 
 Over against his pathos is his humor — not delicate, 
 subtle, and half melancholy, as we might expect, but 
 rather of the broad and boisterous kind. Hearty 
 
 , , , r 1   • T 1 His Humor 
 
 laughter, playful irony, potent ridicule, a sin- 
 gular love of the grotesque — these are some of the char- 
 acteristics of Dickens's humor. We may declare without 
 qualification that he is one of the world's great humorists. 
 Whatever other limitations upon his art may be allowed, 
 there surely can not be much room for cavil here. 
 
 This is one of the secrets of his literary greatness, while 
 at the same time it accounts for much that is strange, dis
 
 364 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 torted, and exaggerated in his work as a novelist. The 
 Effect on relation of Dickens to the art of novel-writing 
 ^^^^ is a somewhat peculiar one. He is a caricaturist 
 
 of life and character rather than a painter of portraits. 
 Yet let us recognize that the caricaturist has also a genu- 
 ine and deep, as well as a keen, insight into life, and that 
 he is in his way just as truly a revealer of its meanings. 
 Dickens is not really to be understood by those who fail to 
 comprehend his singular union of humor and pathos and 
 the effect of this on his work. They judge him by the 
 standards of other men and expect from him similar re- 
 sults. He must be judged by his own standard, and his 
 results must be appreciated as the outcome of his own 
 very peculiar genius. 
 
 Next to the emotional power of Dickens, we must note 
 the power of his imagination. Great emotional power 
 Hisimag- tcnds to quicken the imagination; and as we 
 ination might cxpcct, the imaginative activity of Dick- 
 
 ens is easily aroused. And when it is aroused, how aston- 
 ishing are its creations. We are struck by its variety and 
 its fertility ; its resources seem inexhaustible and its pos- 
 sible shapes almost infinite. We are impressed by its 
 clearness and its minuteness ; there seems to be a perfect 
 conception of objects even to their slightest details. There 
 is comparatively little penetration into essential realities ; 
 but there is a wonderful power of effective combination. 
 Dickens is less a revealer of life's mystery than a portrayer 
 of its visible fact. The remarkable peculiarities of his 
 pictures are largely accounted for by the marvelous in- 
 tensity and vividness of his imagination. He sees the 
 ideal almost as vividly as the actual. Objects stand forth 
 with a distinctness comparable to that of a landscape re- 
 vealed in a sudden glare of lightning. Inanimate things 
 even seem to be endowed with life and sensibility. This 
 activity of his imagination is undoubtedly largely affected
 
 THE AGE OF TExNNYSOX — THE NOVEL (1832-1892) 365 
 
 by his pathos and his humor. These help to account for 
 its distortions, its exaggerations, its whimsicaHtv, and its 
 grotesquencss ; but apart from other influences, much is 
 due to its own sportive and fantastic nature. 
 
 Dickens's technical art as a novelist is not quite equal 
 to the real force of his genius. On the side of his style, 
 he can not be called a great master. This may His Art as a 
 in part be accounted for on general grounds. NoveUst 
 Masters of style among the great novelists are the excep- 
 tion rather than the rule ; and the explanation probably is 
 that in most cases the writer's energy and attention are en- 
 gaged with the processes of invention to the comparative 
 neglect of the matter of expression. Dickens is inclined 
 to a decided carelessness in style, and at times even to 
 coarseness. While his style is undoubtedly effective foi 
 its purpose, it lacks those minute perfections or those 
 magic splendors which characterize the very greatest work 
 in prose expression. When we come to the more impor- 
 tant matters of his art, Dickens's real mastery begins to 
 appear. He is a great story-teller. His plots are large, 
 varied, and complicated ; but he displays great skill in the 
 handling of the broad and intricate construction. What is 
 still more api)arent, he is a wonderful inventor of incident, 
 and is able by this means alone to hold the unflagging 
 interest of the reader. There is some tendency to loose- 
 ness and digression in his stories ; but this is hardly more 
 than might be expected, and is lost sight of in the interest 
 of the whole and in the fascination of the details. An 
 incalculable aid to his narrative is the clearness and vivid- 
 ness of his description. It is often highly idealized, but it 
 never fails of distinctness or of life. It is j)robably in the 
 creation of character that his greatest genius is dis|)layed. 
 His characters arc in a sense representative of the author's 
 theories and purposes rather than of innnan life. It may 
 also be said that they are typical of \irtucs and vices
 
 366 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 rather than of men and women. It may be still further 
 added that they are frequently exaggerated and fanciful. 
 All this is true, but it does not serve to shake a single leaf 
 from the laurel of his fame. In spite of all the limitations 
 that have been justly urged, but urged perhaps too much, 
 Dickens is still to be regarded as a great creator of charac- 
 ter. The imagination is the court of last resort for judging 
 the works of the imagination — not any supposed standard 
 of observation or experience ; and to the imagination, the 
 characters of Dickens declare themselves aUve — thoroughly 
 English, thoroughly human, thoroughly lifelike, in spite 
 of all limitation. They are alive with the superabundant 
 vitality of their creator. It is not the least of his peculiari- 
 ties that Dickens identifies himself with his work, becoming 
 as it were the companion of his characters as well as their 
 maker. The effect of this on his work is not altogether 
 happy, any more than is the effect of his constant intro- 
 duction of a practical purpose into his stories of life ; but 
 none of these things vitally affect the real power and 
 impressiveness of his novels. 
 
 When all is said, it remains true that Dickens is one of 
 the most popular and influential of EngHsh novehsts. He 
 General ^^^ been scriously criticised, and he is fairly 
 
 Estimate opcu to scrious criticism, on more than merely 
 technical grounds. His exaggeration, his sensationalism, 
 his sentimentality, his coarseness, his didacticism, are all 
 fair objects of attack. If he is great in spite of these 
 faults, it is because he opposes to them much greater vir- 
 tues. He teaches the essential truth of life, even if he 
 does distort the outward fact. He is not only a great 
 preacher and moralist, but he is a truly great artist as well. 
 Notwithstanding his seeming affectations, he is at bottom 
 sincere, simple, tender, genial, manly, and true. His great- 
 ness is due to a high development of certain remarkable 
 powers. His limitations are due to the comparative failure
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON— THE NOVEL (1832-1892) 367 
 
 of certain other powers and to a lack of proportion and 
 harmony between his various artistic qualities. His abid- 
 ing reputation will be that of a great humorist, a great 
 novelist, and a great master of the human heart. 
 
 There are some points of resemblance between Dickens 
 and Thackeray, but in the main their paths diverge. The 
 difference appears first of all in their lives. Thackeray 
 was born in Calcutta in 181 1, but was early sent to Eng- 
 land for education at the famous Charterhouse School in 
 London. From here he went to Trinity College, 
 
 / t. ' William 
 
 Cambridge, but did not remain long at the Uni- Makepeace 
 versity. After spending some time in travel 
 and in study of art on the continent, he returned to London 
 and began his literary career. His fame grew slowly but 
 surely until his death in 1863. The insanity of his wife 
 brought an element of deep pathos into his life, but his 
 last days were comparatively happy and serene. Thack- 
 eray may be called a novelist of life and manners. This 
 implies that he was the painter of an age and of a particu- 
 lar state of society rather than of essential humanity. Such 
 an implication would be in the main just, although we must 
 guard ourselves from the error of supposing that he was 
 entirely limited to a narrow field or that his work has no 
 large human significance. In many ways his portrayals 
 are true, and will always be true, to the characteristics of 
 general humanity. It may be said that he was a student 
 of life rather than of the individual soul. 
 
 The actual field of life which he chose for that study 
 was a comparatively limited one. It was the life of Eng- 
 lish high society, a life of artificial and conven- character of 
 tional manners. It was a less fruitful field than h'sWork 
 that of Dickens, who had more opportunity to observe 
 the natural workings of the human heart. Neverthe- 
 less, if one could see beneath the surface, humanity was 
 there, however falsified and concealed. Within his limits,
 
 368 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 Thackeray finds a considerable variety of character, al- 
 though the natural tendency of an artificial society is to 
 restrict individuality and to reduce all characters to a few 
 well-known types. To a certain extent this tendency is 
 observable in Thackeray's portrayal. Indeed, he occa- 
 sionally has almost repetitions of character. An interest- 
 ing case is that of William Dobbin, in Vanity Fair, who 
 seems like a preliminary study for Thackeray's superb 
 masterpiece of character portrayal, old Colonel Newcome, 
 of The Newcomes. Thackeray shows in all his novels a 
 real knowledge of the human heart, and is a past master 
 in his acquaintance with the social conditions that he por- 
 trays. His method of treatment is decidedly realistic. He 
 has no disposition to idealize life or to seize only on its 
 romantic elements. On the contrary, his chief impulse is 
 toward a graphic portrayal of actual facts and conditions. 
 This portrayal is not to be called either superficial or pro- 
 found. Thackeray certainly does go beneath the mere 
 surface of life ; but just as certainly he does not fathom 
 the depths. In the construction of his novels, life and 
 character are much more important than plot. He intro- 
 duces a moral purpose, but in his own way. It is not as 
 with Dickens the purpose to reform institutions or to advo- 
 cate a particular cause ; it is rather to attack human weak- 
 ness and folly and to rebuke a system of life. 
 
 On the surface, Thackeray was a man of the world, 
 acquainted with all its ways. He thoroughly understood 
 Character of ^^^ ^^^^ ^^*^ meanncss and hollowness of polite 
 the Man socicty; and his knowledge results in disillusion, 
 both for himself and for his reader. We are led behind 
 the scenes, and shown the tinsel and the sham which 
 make up the fine-appearing spectacle. The result is that 
 Thackeray is apparently a cynic and a pessimist. Such a 
 conclusion, however, would not be justified by a deeper 
 knowledge of the facts. He was, indeed, a spirit quick to
 
 THE AGE OF TENNVSOX— THE NOVEL (1832-189::) ^6^ 
 
 scorn and despise, a good hater of all sham and pretence, 
 of all vileness and meanness. Ever ready he was with 
 his mocking laughter and his potent ridicule. On any 
 due occasion, he was capable of the most scathing irony 
 and of the most bitter sarcasm. Vet, rightly understood, 
 this was only the surface of the man. l^eneath that sur- 
 face was a most genuine and manly and noble spirit. 
 Thackeray was a believer in the essential goodness of 
 humanity, although he understood so much of its little- 
 ness and its badness. He was a man of kindly and ge- 
 nial nature, in spite of his keen and bitter words. Beneath 
 his satirical manner, he hid a tender and compassionate 
 heart. Moreover, Thackeray was a man of faith and 
 hope. If he saw things as they were, with the scientific 
 clearness and frankness of his age, if he put away all illu- 
 sion, he nevertheless found it possible to discover the 
 spiritual element in life and to have faith in what men 
 might be and in what already they largely were. All his 
 scorn and bitterness grew, not out of a petty or churlish 
 spirit, but out of the real nobility of his nature. It grew 
 out of his intense indignation against the vile and the 
 false, and his no less intense love for the true and the 
 pure. His work is marked by a customary restraint of 
 emotion, in sharp contrast with the rather excessive dis- 
 play of feeling in the work of Dickens. Nevertheless, 
 Thackeray was a man of strong and deep feeling. Be- 
 yond the evidence of his work there is the evidence of 
 the patience and loving-kindness of his life. 
 
 Thackeray's genius as a literary artist was very unlike 
 that of Dickens, but the two men were at least alike in 
 being keen observers of life. This, of course. Genius a»«n 
 was of especial importance to a realistic novel- ^^'** 
 ist like Thackeray. His knowledge of life was accurate, 
 and his purpose was to be equally accurate in tlie j)or- 
 trayal. I''or such a purpose, observation is much, insight
 
 370 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 is more. If Thackeray's insight was not profound, it was 
 at least genuine and just, and fitted him for the portrayal 
 of life in more than a merely superficial sense. Such 
 knowledge of life as came to him in these ways, he had 
 the gift to use as a fine artist in the realm of fiction. Per- 
 haps his most remarkable power is his ability in character- 
 ization. He is subtle in his analysis of human feeling and 
 motive. He is for the most part truly original in his con- 
 ceptions. His characters are his own, and yet are created 
 with fidelity to the great copy which he found in real life. 
 The characters thus analyzed and conceived, he is able to 
 realize in hving beings that appeal to the imagination. 
 Beyond the ability to portray individual characters is the 
 ability to portray a large and faithful picture of life- 
 Here, also, Thackeray's fine imagination is equal to its 
 task. It is clear, penetrating, vivid, fertile, genuinely 
 creative. Less vigorous than that of Dickens, it is more 
 restrained and better balanced. Its results are symmet- 
 rical, orderly, precise. The pictures which his imagina- 
 tion creates are given depth and solidity by the fact that 
 Thackeray was a really serious thinker. His reflections 
 on human life have a value largely independent of the 
 particular forms through which they are presented. On 
 this side of his work, he appeals more to mature minds. 
 Dickens is the novelist of the young, the vigorous, the 
 hopeful, the sanguine. Thackeray is rather the novelist 
 of the experienced, the thoughtful, and the reflective, and 
 to appreciate him fully requires a certain degree of men- 
 tal growth. Thackeray's emotional power is quiet, regu- 
 lated, restrained, but none the less strong. Pathos in his 
 work is comparatively rare, but he shows himself capable 
 on occasion of touching the heart's tenderer emotions. 
 There is hardly a finer illustration of quiet and restrained 
 pathos in all English fiction than his brief account of the 
 death of old Colonel Newcome. As a humorist, his power
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — THE NOVEL (1832-1892) 371 
 
 is freely displayed. He ranges from broad and almost 
 farcical humor to the keenest sarcasm and the most deli- 
 cate irony. As a rule, however, his humor is not the 
 hearty and boisterous humor of Dickens, but is more 
 subtle, keen, refined, bitter, an exceedingly effective 
 weapon of satire and ridicule. It can hardly be called al- 
 together amiable. Thackeray laughs at the world rather 
 than with it, and uses his powers of wit not so much to 
 delight as to sting. Another characteristic emotion is his 
 moral indignation. Often veiled, seldom expressed in di- 
 rect and formal terms, it is none the less powerfully felt 
 in his portrayal of life and in his characteristic comment 
 upon the doings of men and women. Beneath this indig- 
 nation, giving it fineness as well as strength, is an intense 
 love of moral beauty. If Thackeray portrays for the most 
 part those phases of life that deserve his satire, if he rep- 
 resents the wickedness and the weakness of the world, he 
 has nevertheless a noble appreciation of all that is pure 
 and sweet and genuine in character. His pictures of life 
 exalt beauty by contrast and suggestion rather than by 
 direct presentation ; but he makes us feel that in spite of 
 all the evil and the littleness of the world there is yet 
 much in it of the savor of true goodness. Thackeray is 
 not a great narrator. His plots are comparatively unin- 
 teresting, and he is largely lacking in the skill of the 
 great literary architect. What he does possess is the 
 power to present such a graphic and fascinating picture 
 of men and women that the interest of the mere story is 
 hardly missed. To this end contributes not a little his 
 skill in graphic and suggestive description. Still further, 
 he is one of the most finished masters of prose style 
 among English novelists. His qualities are those of 
 clearness, finish, ease, incisiveness, and vivacity. 
 
 The interest of Thackeray's novels, as we have imi)lictl, 
 is primarily an interest in men and women vividly jiortraycd.
 
 372 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 His characters are well defined, individual, and lifelike. 
 Work as a He portrays male characters better than fe- 
 male, and mature persons better than children. 
 The characters in any one of his novels are comparatively 
 few in number, whereas Dickens crowds his stories with 
 a great number of personages. These characters are so 
 related to each other as to form a natural, consistent, and 
 faithful picture of life, and to suggest the movements of 
 the larger world outside their narrow circle. The narrative 
 is subordinate in interest, but the thread of the story is suffi- 
 cient to give unity to the whole. It is easy and graceful, 
 but comparatively lacking in movement, in complication, 
 in climax, and in dramatic effect. His descriptions, always 
 admirable, are mostly of persons, situations, and conditions. 
 There is little description of nature, and it is characteristic 
 of him that he deliberately avoids, in Vanity Fair, an ex- 
 cellent opportunity to describe the battle of Waterloo. 
 The proper business of conducting the story and portraying 
 the characters is almost always accompanied in his novels 
 with a running comment of satire on human follies and of 
 moral reflections on life. These are exceedingly interest- 
 ing for their own sake, independently of the story. To 
 use his own figure, they are like the comments of the 
 showman displaying his puppets. The effect of this on 
 his art as a novelist is not altogether happy. Satire in art, 
 if carried too far, tends to force the author upon us and 
 tends also both to distract our attention from the characters 
 and to distort them in the interests of the satirical purpose. 
 Moralizing in art interrupts the story for the sake of the 
 sermon and mars the proper unity, proportion, and con- 
 tinuity. If the moral purpose be less broad and human 
 than Thackeray's, it tends to destroy the work of art 
 altogether. Taken as they are, his novels are full of 
 fascination to the mature mind. The reader may well 
 forget all cavil in genuine gratitude and admiration.
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — THE NOVEL (1S32-1S92) 373 
 
 What the novel could be, however, in such hands and 
 without these objectionable features, Thackeray himself has 
 shown us. In Henry Esmond, he has presented one of the 
 most perfect historical pictures ever drawn — a transcript 
 from the life of the early part of the eighteenth century. 
 The narrator of the story is Henry Esmond himself, and 
 all satirical and moralizing comment on the part of the 
 author is necessarily eliminated. As a result, we have an 
 example of the art of prose fiction pure and simple. All 
 Thackeray's genius is there without its hindrances. It is 
 his masterpiece, and in it his true greatness as a novelist is 
 fully revealed. 
 
 George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, 
 hardly less than the greatest woman of genius in English 
 literature. Her career is an illustration of the 
 production of great art out of comparatively ^°^^^ 
 narrow conditions and out of comparatively humble ma- 
 terials. Like Jane Austen, she was born in a rural com- 
 munity and matured her genius within a narrow life circle. 
 Her native county was Warwickshire — the county of 
 Shakespeare — but like Shakespeare, she transcends in 
 spirit the bounds of Warwickshire and of England. For 
 over thirty years, she lived in this quiet midland country, 
 on the farm or in the quaint provincial town of Coventry. 
 Her earliest acquaintance was with a life natural and 
 unsophisticated — a life where humanity was visible in its 
 simplest and most typical forms. By insight into such 
 life, she learned to know what life was in its depths quite 
 as well as Dickens learned to know it by his wide acquaint- 
 ance with English types of character or as Thackeray 
 learned to know it by his study of London society. She 
 was destined, hcjwever, to a far wider knowledge of the 
 world and to a far larger intellectual development than 
 these early years seemed to promise. In 1S51 she settled 
 in London as assistant editor of the IWstniinsfrr Review,
 
 374 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 and was there brought into association with the most 
 prominent Uberal thinkers of the day. Her union with 
 George Henry Lewes, which followed soon after, was 
 of the utmost importance to her literary career ; for under 
 his influence she came to a realization of her genius as a 
 novelist. After his death, in 1878, she was married to 
 Mr. Cross, a London banker. She died in 1880, at the 
 age of sixty-one. In spite of her broad experience of life 
 and of her large intellectual culture, her temper remained 
 thoroughly English. Through her provincial origin and 
 sympathies, she had the roots of her genius deep in the 
 soil of English life. Hers was the largest life from 
 the narrowest circumstances, the broadest art through 
 the most limited subject. 
 
 At the basis of George Eliot's character was her intense 
 emotional nature. She had a heart full of tenderness and 
 The Woman P^^Y" Her lovcs and friendships make up much 
 and the Artist gf the story of her life. Her experiences were 
 such as to subject her emotional temper to an unusual 
 development. The sorrows of her Hfe, her deep heart 
 experiences, her physical sufferings, her religious struggles, 
 all tended to develop a profoundly sad yet serene nature. 
 The wide range of her emotional powers and experiences 
 had an important influence upon her work ; for she 
 learned how to portray in others the feeling that she had 
 known herself. Hardly less important was her large in- 
 tellectuality and her broad culture. Her mind seems in 
 many ways masculine rather than feminine ; and all her 
 work is evidence of her force and breadth, as well as of 
 her subtlety, of intellect. Her life was largely spent in 
 extensive reading and study ; and as a result, she had a 
 wide knowledge of literature, history, and art. The condi- 
 tions of the age brought this large heart and this large 
 mind into conflict with one another. She was a woman of 
 deep religious instinct, and her early religious experiences
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON —THE NOVEL (1832-1S92) 375 
 
 were largely determined by her emotional nature. As she 
 grew in mental power and in philosophical and scientific 
 knowledge, her intellectuality radically affected her relig- 
 ious views. She passed through a time of doubt and 
 struggle, but did not gain the spiritual victory of Carlyle. 
 Her later attitude toward religion was agnostic. Religious 
 by nature, she yet found it impossible to believe, and 
 accepted the conditions of the age and of her own mind 
 with a sad sincerity. Her reverence of spirit remained the 
 same. Her conscientiousness in life and in work are an 
 inspiring example. Above all, the altruism which she 
 believed in and preached reveals the tenderness, the 
 unselfishness, the real devotion of her nature. Her great- 
 ness of spirit as well as her limitations of faith may be 
 clearly seen in her poem beginning, 
 
 O may I join the choir invisible 
 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 
 In minds made better by their presence : live 
 
 In pulses stirred to generosity. 
 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 
 For miserable aims that end with self. 
 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
 
 And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
 
 To vaster issues. 
 
 " So to live," she says," is heaven "; and this was the only 
 heaven, the only immortality, in which she found it possible 
 to believe. It was a noble faith, if not the highest. There 
 was, at least, no pretence in her nature, either in religious 
 or in other matters. Her character was, indeed, strikingly 
 simple and sincere. While she was not a great poet, the 
 passage just quoted is illustrative of the fact that she did 
 produce a small body of pure and lofty verse. Doubtless 
 this poetic element in her genius serves to touch her work 
 as a novcli.st to finer issues. That work gains a unique 
 quality also from the singular combination of masculine 
 and feminine traits in her character.
 
 3/6 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 Speaking more specifically of her genius as a novelist, 
 we must first note her wonderful breadth of sympathy. 
 Probably no Enghsh novelist has had a more profound or 
 Her Genius as ^ Hiorc cathoUc interest in human life, and the 
 a NoveUst same spirit is shown in her love for nature and 
 for domestic animals. Such sympathy is the first condition 
 of understanding, and it is clear that George Eliot did un- 
 derstand. The depth of her insight was matched by its 
 delicacy ; for she had all the penetrating vigor of a man 
 matched with the refined subtlety of a woman. These 
 giftsfor the comprehension of human life were supplemented 
 by equal gifts for presenting it in concrete forms. She 
 had a great creative imagination. By its power she could 
 conceive original, definite, and individual characters, and 
 could body them forth in vivid reality. Nothing is more 
 remarkable than her marvelous power of endowing her 
 creatures with life. Seemingly without effort, she breathes 
 into them her own living spirit, and makes them live and 
 move, not as mere puppets, but as actual men and women. 
 She is essentially a delineator of the soul, presenting man's 
 spiritual nature through his outward form and conduct. 
 Yet, as we have implied, there is no lack of soHd flesh 
 and blood in her characters. Hers is not a presenta- 
 tion of the spirit instead of the flesh ; it is a presenta- 
 tion of the spirit through the flesh. Akin to this is 
 her power to reach the universal through the local. In 
 many of her novels, the life portrayed is very narrow and 
 restricted ; yet her presentation is broadly human and 
 typical of man's life under any conditions. She knows 
 that if one will but go deep enough anywhere, he may 
 reach essential human nature, that which makes the whole 
 world kin. This contrast between the narrow life and the 
 larger meaning is finely illustrated in Adam Bede, which 
 is probably her masterpiece, and even more emphatically 
 in Silas Marner. She began by being a great observer.
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — THE NOVEL (1S32-1892) 377 
 
 viewing life accurately and endeavoring to portray it faith- 
 fully. She added to her fineness of observation a depth 
 of insight and a sense of spiritual values whicii enabled 
 her to portray the inward as well as the outward life. 
 Moreover, she had power to discern the poetry and the 
 beauty which lie beneath the surface of life and which 
 sometimes transfigure the lowliest characters. She was, 
 indeed, a lover of the beautiful in art, in nature, and in the 
 human soul, and could discover the beauty of common 
 things as well as of common men and women. Her emo- 
 tional power is also a most important element in her crea- 
 tions. Her pathos is the simple and unforced pathos of 
 human life and destiny. There is, on the one hand, no un- 
 due restraint, and on the other, no striving for mere effect. 
 She is a great humorist, not loud and boisterous like Dick- 
 ens, not keenly satirical like Thackeray, but with a breadth, 
 a healthiness, and a geniality quite in harmony with her 
 sane and realistic view of life. 
 
 George Eliot's realism is of the highest and best type. 
 Like both Dickens and Thackeray, she goes to the actual 
 world for her subjects. She deals for the most part with 
 English rural and provincial life, and especially 
 with the lower and middle classes. This was ^^' Subjects 
 the life she knew best and the life on which most of her 
 greatest novels are based. She began her work in fiction 
 with Scenes frovi Clerical Life, containing three separate 
 stories associated with the general theme. The success of 
 this work encouraged her to the writing of her first great 
 novel, Adavi Bede. It is a vivid and most human jiicture 
 of life in just such a rural community as that in which she 
 grew up ; but it becomes even more than that by virtue of 
 the profound passions by which its characters are moved. 
 The Mill on the Floss and Silas Manicr are novels of much 
 the same general type. The former probably reflects in 
 an indirect way much of her own personal feeling and
 
 3/8 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 experience. The latter is the most restricted in its subject- 
 matter of all her great works, and at the same time the 
 most objective and most free from intrusion of the author's 
 personality. MiddleniarcJi deals with life in a small pro- 
 vincial town, but its range and variety of character is some- 
 what greater. In Roniola and in Daniel Deronda, she took 
 a much wider sweep. The latter has been most criticised 
 of all her novels, and is probably the least successful of 
 her larger works. Romola has also found its critics, but 
 it contains some of her most masterly work. It is a his- 
 torical novel, deahng with Florentine life in the days of 
 Savonarola ; and its fine contrast between the fervid asceti- 
 cism of the great Italian reformer and the beauty-loving 
 self-indulgence of the Greek Tito Melema calls forth some 
 of her greatest powers. Everywhere George Eliot knows 
 her subject. In the novels of English life, she knows it 
 because she has been a living part of it. In such a work 
 as RsMola, she knows it by wide learning and by care- 
 ful study. If she is less successful in work of the latter 
 sort, it is because she could not possibly feel with her 
 more remote characters quite the same vital sympathy that 
 she feels with her own Warwickshire blood. This is a nec- 
 essary limitation on all artists, and is not to be helped except 
 by such intimate and profound knowledge of the general 
 human heart as she undoubtedly possessed. 
 
 Her manner of conception and her method of treatment 
 
 make her works a study of life rather than a study of mere 
 
 manners. She is concerned, not with the acci- 
 
 Her Methods , ,, .,, .itti n- 
 
 dental, but with the essential. Her handling of 
 life is truthful, but at the same time really imaginative and 
 poetic. Her chief interest lies in the study of individual 
 character ; and that study is made significant by the depth 
 of her insight and by the subtlety of her analysis. These 
 individual characters she is able to combine into a large 
 and impressive picture of life. While her plots are always
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — THE NOVEL (1S32-1S92) 379 
 
 subordinate, they are never uninteresting ; and if she has 
 not quite the fascination of a great story-teller, like Scott 
 or Dickens, she does possess a fair degree of skill in con- 
 struction. The chief limitation on the general effect of 
 many of her novels lies in her strong tendency to infuse 
 into them a subjective element by means of her moral and 
 philosophical reflections on the hfe that she is portraying. 
 This same habit has been already noted in Thackeray, 
 though in somewhat different form. In George Eliot, this 
 tendency toward abstract thought instead of concrete por- 
 trayal is in peculiar contrast with her really great dramatic 
 power. She portrays her characters without any infusion 
 into them of her own personality, and then delivers her 
 philosophical sermon as a thing almost apart. She was at 
 the same time a great thinker and a great creator of 
 character, and she was not quite able to keep her abstract 
 thinking separate from her portrayal. In the main, her 
 criticism of human life is both serious and conscientious, 
 and falls short of the very greatest work only because she 
 felt impelled to preach as well as to portray. Her novels 
 are at least not marred by prejudice or by any satiric or 
 merely didactic purpose ; and even her occasional moral 
 dissertations are in harmony with her portrayal. She has 
 of late been unduly depreciated ; but it is safe to say that 
 her fame will eventually recover its own. Nothing can 
 permanently obscure the fact that her novels are great 
 works of art — true, beautiful, and profound pictures of 
 human life. In the creation of lifelike character, she has 
 hardly had any superior since Shakespeare. 
 
 With these three great novelists as chief examples of 
 the voluminous fiction of the age, we must be here con- 
 tent. The briefest possible glance at the rest yi^^^^ 
 of the field will serve the simple purpose of Novelists 
 illustrating the range and variety of work that was pro- 
 duced. Kdward Hulwer-Lytton (1S03 1873) was a ver-
 
 38o DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 satile novelist, sensitive to changes of literary fashion. 
 He began as early as 1827 with novels of the "dandy" 
 type. His taste was for romantic sentiment and for ef- 
 fects of criminal and supernatural terror. The influence of 
 Scott turned him toward the historical novel, and here 
 he produced some of his best works, like TJie Last Days 
 of Pompeii and Harold. Still later, Thackeray turned him 
 in the direction of realism. His last phase was again 
 romantic, but in the fashion of the new age. Benjamin 
 Disraeli (i 804-1 881) has some affinities with Bulwer- 
 Lytton, especially in his cleverness, versatility, brilliancy, 
 and superficiality. His most effective novels are pictures 
 of political and fashionable life in his own day. They are 
 romantic, cynical, witty, imaginative — the work of a bril- 
 liant man of the world rather than of a really great novel- 
 ist. Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was a sort of lesser 
 Thackeray. He dealt in realistic fashion with a wide 
 range of English life — clerical, political, commercial, and 
 rural. His work is that of an industrious and competent 
 literary craftsman, never rising very high and never falling 
 very low. Charles Reade (18 14-1884) reminds us rather 
 of Dickens. Led by the age to the choice of realistic 
 subjects, his personal impulse was to deal with them in a 
 romantic manner. His best work, TJie Cloister and the 
 Hearth, is a historical novel. Charlotte Bronte (1816- 
 1855) suggests comparison with George Eliot, but the com- 
 parison is one of contrast. In a way quite her own, she 
 presented real life in its romantic aspects. Charles Kings- 
 ley (1819-1875) wrote some effective novels of purpose, 
 with democratic leanings, and some still better historical 
 novels. Robert Louis Stevenson (i 845-1 894) brought 
 back the atmosphere of true romance into English fiction. 
 Sometimes it is the romance of pure adventure, as in 
 Treasure Island, sometimes the deeper romance of the 
 human spirit, as in Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It represents
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON— THE NOVEL (1832 1S92) 381 
 
 a reaction from the realistic and scientific temper of the 
 age. These are by no means all of the really important 
 novelists of the time. They are simply the best or the 
 most typical. These among the dead, together with George 
 Meredith and others still among the living, are convincing 
 illustrations of the fulness, richness, and power of the novel 
 during the Victorian Period. 
 
 Thackeray's House in Lunuon, where "Vanity Fair," " Fen- 
 
 UENNIS," AND "HENRY ES.MOND" WERE WRUTEN
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (1832-1892) 
 
 Of the four poets who must be selected from the larger 
 company to represent the poetry of the present age, 
 Matthew Matthew Arnold was much the youngest and 
 ^"°''* began his poetical career at considerably the 
 
 latest date. That career, however, was almost entirely 
 confined to the earlier part of his life, and was practically 
 ended nearly a quarter of a century before the latest of 
 the others had ceased to write. Arnold was born in 1822, 
 and was a son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, the famous head 
 master of P<ugby. After finishing his preliminary educa- 
 tion at Rugby, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, and 
 later became a fellow of Oriel College. The reHgious 
 controversies which were stirring the University in his 
 time united with the general tendencies of the age to unsettle 
 Arnold's faith ; and the note of spiritual conflict is heard 
 through much of his poetry as well as through his later 
 prose. During the greater part of his life, he held the 
 responsible position of an inspector of schools ; and from 
 1857 to 1867 he was professor of poetry at Oxford. His 
 first volume of poems was published in 1848, and his 
 poetical period continued to the time of his Oxford pro- 
 fessorship. After that time, he was almost exclusively a 
 writer of prose until his death in 1888. It will thus 
 appear that his prose work was the product of his later 
 life, while his poetry was the outcome of his younger 
 manhood, before the chilling influences of the age had 
 entirely silenced his poetic voice. The quality of his prose 
 and its indication of the character of the man, we have 
 
 382
 
 /Ih^{A 
 
 l{TT^r?iA^
 
 THE AGE OF TENNVSOX — POETRY (1S32-1S92) 3S3 
 
 already sufficiently considered. It remains here to speak 
 of his poetry and to observe the light which it also throws 
 upon his personality. 
 
 Between Arnold's poetry and his prose there is singu- 
 lar difference. He seems to have reserved for poetical 
 expression those moods of sadness, of world- His spirit of 
 weariness, of anguished doubt, and of stoical ^°"^^ 
 resignation and renunciation which probably represented 
 what lay most deeply hidden in his nature. We hear the 
 voice of one who has been disturbed to the very centre of 
 his spiritual life by the doubt so prevalent during the 
 middle years of the nineteenth century. The faith in 
 which he had been reared failed him utterly, and seemed 
 to be passing away also out of the world. He says in 
 Dover Beach : 
 
 The Sea of Faith 
 
 Was once, too. at the full, and round earth's shore 
 
 Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd! 
 
 But now I only hear 
 
 Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 
 
 Retreating, to the breath 
 
 Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 
 
 And naked shingles of the world. 
 
 There could hardly be a more pathetic expression of the 
 deep melancholy of doubt. There could hardly be a more 
 beautiful one. He seems, as he says in his Sta)izas from 
 the Grande Chartreuse, like one 
 
 Wandering between two worlds, one dead. 
 The other powerless to be born. 
 
 Through most of his poetry this same spirit runs, this 
 painful sense of 
 
 The something that infects the world. 
 
 To all this pain and emptiness, Arnold opposes first 
 resignation, then duty. In the poem entitled Morality, he 
 declares :
 
 384 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 We cannot kindle when we will 
 
 The fire which in the heart resides ; 
 
 The spirit bloweth and is still, 
 
 In mystery our soul abides. 
 
 But tasks in hours of insight willed 
 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. 
 
 In a poem like Palladhwi, as more or less in man)> 
 others, it is made clear to us that Arnold has a still further 
 HisConsoia- consolation. Doubt has not made him a materi- 
 tions ^jjg^ . j^g g^jjj believes in the soul as something 
 
 above the flesh. 
 
 Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, ' 
 Upon our life a ruling effluence send ; 
 And when it fails, fight as we will, we die ; 
 And, while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. 
 
 In Rugby Chapel, we see him standing by the grave of his 
 father, a man of "radiant vigor" and of splendid faith. 
 The contrast between father and son is as pathetic as 
 it is significant. From thought of what the father was, 
 the son draws inspiration and courage and even some- 
 thing of faith. Yet after all, he knows full well that he 
 must be sufficient unto himself. The sense of isolation is 
 upon him, as well as the sense of lost faith. He cries in 
 Marguerite : 
 
 Yes ! in the sea of Hfe enisled. 
 With echoing straits between us thrown, 
 Dotting the shoreless watery wild. 
 We mortal millions live alone. 
 
 The few lines that have been quoted would alone be 
 sufficient to show the classical perfection of Arnold's poetic 
 Character of stylc. He is a poet of limited range and product, 
 his Poetry ^^t almost all that he has written is worthy to 
 live. He lacked the passion and the music that make a 
 great lyric poet, although his exquisite art sometimes 
 achieved most beautiful effects. Of his narrative poems, 
 only one is a genuine success. In SoJirab and Riistiim,
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (1832-1892) 385 
 
 however, his classic style is combined with a romantic story 
 to fine poetic results. His true field is that of meditation 
 and reflection rather than that of passionate heart utter- 
 ance or of objective portrayal. There is passion in Arnold's 
 poetry, but it is rather a passion of the brain. Beyond the 
 poems already mentioned, some of his finest work is to be 
 found in The Strayed Reveller, in that beautiful piece of 
 pure poetic fancy, The Forsaken Merman, and in his elegiac 
 poems. Thyrsis, a monody on the death of his friend and 
 fellow-poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, is one of the most beauti- 
 ful elegies in the language ; and scarcely less noteworthy is 
 its companion poem, The Scholar-Gypsy. 
 
 Ehzabeth Barrett Browning was a woman of fine intelli- 
 gence and of broad culture ; but in almost all other re- 
 spects she was in strong contrast with Matthew j-jj^^^^jj^ 
 Arnold. In his poetry, it is the intellect that Barrett 
 
 , . , .... X 11 1 1 Browning 
 
 speaks ; m hers, it is the heart. In all that he 
 wrote, there is the classical refinement and finish that marks 
 the presence of a fine critical faculty ; Mrs. Browning had 
 the fire and the inspiration, but lacked more than anything 
 else the power of self-criticism. In still more important 
 matters there is the same ai)parent divergence. So far as 
 we can see, Mrs. Browning was almost untouched by the 
 scientific spirit of the age or by its religious struggle and 
 doubt. Unlike George Eliot, she was thoroughly feminine 
 in nature ; and her woman's intuition found the spiritual 
 where it could not be found by much intellectual searching. 
 In an analytic and inquiring age, she was a creature of 
 passion and impulse, a lover of romance and of the beauty 
 of Italy and Greece. She was touched, however, by the 
 democratic spirit, or rather by something that is or should 
 be the fine flower of democracy — the sjiirit of sweet hu- 
 man charity for all God's creatures. None of her poems 
 affords better illustration of this than The Cry of the Chii 
 ilrcn, a jjoetic |)rotest against the sacrifice of child life 

 
 386 DEMOCRACY AND SCIKNCI-: (1832-1892) 
 
 tHe modern spirit of iiulustrialistn. That she loved liberty, 
 is written large in Cnsa Guidi Wuuiows and in many other 
 poems. 
 
 Two main fanlts are eharged against Mrs. l^rowning's 
 poetry. In the first place, it is said that she lacked definite- 
 ness in her conceptions and a clear and well-ordered arrange- 
 ment of her material — in other words, that she 
 
 Her Poetry 1 , • rr t 1 i 
 
 was somewhat vague and dilruse. I n the second 
 place, it is said that she was extremely careless in details 
 of style and metre. These are important matters, and it is 
 probable that in both cases the full justice of the criticism 
 must be allowed. It can only be pleaded against them 
 that they should not be given undue weight to the detri- 
 ment of her ]K)etic fame, and that they are more than offset 
 by certain other qualities which she possessed in an eminent 
 degree. In the first place, the whole tone and character of 
 her thought was poetic. Her ideas were such as naturally 
 sought expression in poetry rather than in prose. It might 
 even be said, more broadly, that her whole character and 
 temper were poetic. She carried about her, so to say, a 
 poetic atmosj^here. This being true, poetry was to her a 
 thoroughly natural mode of utterance — less an art than an 
 instinct ; and this may in some measure account for an 
 ease which often amounted to carelessness. Suchanatine 
 would least feel the need of a discipline like that which 
 made Pope and Tennyson such perfect poetic artists ; and 
 that discipline was precisely what her spontaneous genius 
 most needed. l'ciha[)s her preeminent gift was poetic 
 passion. It was poured out richly into such brief lyrics as 
 The Cry of the J/i/iikjh, The House of Clouds, Cowpcrs 
 Grave, CUaniia to Cdtfioe/is, and A Musical I iistruiiuiit ; it 
 informed many a fine passage even in her long verse noxel, 
 Aurora Leigh ; it rang with a high and resonant note in 
 her poems on Italian freedom and in (\rsa Guidi Windows ; 
 it is nowhere more aj-)parent than in her SoNUcts from the
 
 THK AGK (^K TKNNVSON TOKTRV (1832 1892) 3S7 
 
 /^or/tt!^/irsr. Such pjiems as ninny of tlicsc illuslrato, top, 
 her fine gift of lyrio iniisio. She was a splendid singer, 
 even if she was sometimes guiUv of a falsi> note. Wo 
 must grant her also the larger endowment ol poetir im- 
 agination. She eould see, clearly and vividh. and slie was 
 ahle in large measure to "realize" her vision in outward 
 forms. Among other ptu-ms that strikingly illustrate hei 
 imaginative power, may be n.inud ///<• Rhyme of 1 he Puthtss 
 May and . I / txioti of Ports. These and all lui poems illus- 
 trate the charm of poetic beauty that is t-veiy where in Ium 
 work and that exalts it above all detraction. 
 
 Mrs. Browning's masterpiece, the work lli.il best illus- 
 trates all her poetii- powers, is her Sonnrts fiom the /\>ifii 
 jrutsr. It is a sotuiet cvcle, enshrining to a poetic ^, 
 jmmortalitv her love for Robert I^rowning. The ii..m(hr 
 title is a mere vcM or lanntul disguise; tor tin- 
 poems are all origin. U, personal, and intini.itr. The whole 
 number of sonnets is forty-four, and the series illustrates 
 dilferent phases in the progress of herjiassion. She records 
 how love came lo lui- as slu- stood expecting death, how 
 she feared to look so high oi' to aci-e|)l such bliss, how her 
 love hade her rather jirepare for nuiunciation, bow .she fo\ni(l 
 her supreme joy at last in acceptance and in selt-sui lender. 
 This is the next to the last of the sonnets: 
 
 How (111 1 lovi" tlu'c? l.ri inc count llicw.ivs. 
 
 I lovo tlitc to llictlcpth ami l)iciuilli and liciLjIU 
 
 My soul c.u) iT.ich, when fi'rlinjj out of .sij;lu 
 
 For the cikIs of bring and ido.il |;racc. 
 
 I love thcr lo the irvcl of every day'.s 
 
 Most (luiet need, by .sun am\ candie-Ii^lit. 
 
 I love tliee freely, as men strive for ri;;lu. 
 
 I love thee purely, a.H they tiirnlium pi.iisc. 
 
 I love thee with the passion put lo use 
 
 In niv old (.griefs, and with my ehildhood's l.iith. 
 
 I love lhe«- with a loVc I seemed to lose 
 
 With my lost ».iint». I lovc thee with tlie bre.ith,
 
 388 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 Smiles, tears, of all my life ; and, if God choose, 
 I shall but love thee better after death. 
 
 Of all the great men of literary genius in his time, 
 Robert Browning was the strongest, the sanest, and the 
 Robert healthiest in body and in spirit. The man was 
 
 Browning alive in every fibre, and all his work is per- 
 meated with the vigor of his intense personality. His long 
 and happy life was comparatively uneventful. Born 
 in London, in 1812, he was educated under the direc- 
 tion of his father and found later in foreign travel his 
 substitute for a university training. There is ample evi- 
 dence in his work that he was a man of rich learning and of 
 broad culture. Aside from his literary achievements, the 
 most interesting event of Browning's life was his marriage 
 with Elizabeth Barrett. Theirs is one of the most beautiful 
 love stories in all literature, and it was crowned by a 
 happy wedded life of fifteen years, in Florence. The death 
 of Mrs. Browning in 1861 was the great sorrow of his 
 life. After that time, he spent most of his life in Eng- 
 land, but died in Venice in 1889. 
 
 Browning seems to have been comparatively unaffected 
 by the great impulses of his age, either in the way of accept- 
 Reiationto ance or of antagonism. It was not that he did 
 his Age not f gg^ these influences — at least in general 
 
 and unconscious ways ; it was rather that he received 
 them as a strong and steady and self-assured personality, 
 not to be easily moved by any forces from his own 
 place or direction. Science did not disturb his soul, and 
 he was perfectly willing to accept all of its established 
 conclusions ; but he was also perfectly aware of the 
 questions that it was raising, and met them with an 
 assured faith and optimism. His analytical habit was in 
 entire harmony with the spirit of science, and so was his 
 unhesitating willingness to look all truth in the face. But 
 he received its message as a poet and as a man of faith,
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (1832-1892; 389 
 
 and was unshaken either in his poetic ideals or in his relig- 
 ious assurance. While he was not a democrat in any 
 ordinary sense of the term — while he did not speak for 
 human freedom or make himself the mouthpiece of "the 
 people "- he was nevertheless democratic in the broadest 
 sense. Nothing human was alien to him, all men were his 
 spiritual brothers, all personalities appealed to his catholic 
 interest and sympathy. He cared little for actual political 
 conditions, as he cared little for general laws or principles. 
 What he cared for above all was the individual human 
 soul, and in that field his interest was as broad as it was 
 profound. There was probably the real basis of his un- 
 shaken faith. If science found in its study of the natural 
 world no evidence of spirit, and felt itself driven toward 
 materialism, Browning, on the other hand, found in his study 
 of human personality full reason to believe in the soul, in 
 God, and in immortalitv. What others could not find in 
 the physical facts or laws of the universe, he found in the 
 essential nature of man. His faith and optimism, there- 
 fore, were the result of no purblind orthodoxy but rather 
 of a reasoned and well-grounded conviction. In this spirit, 
 he spoke with assurance, with earnestness, with exultation, 
 but in no temper of controversy or antagonism. In Rabbi 
 Ben Ezra, he expresses himself thus : 
 
 Fool ! AH that is, at all, 
 Lasts ever, past recall ; 
 Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure. 
 
 It is one of the peculiar glories of Browning that he seems, 
 almost from the first, to have caught as by a sort of intui- 
 tion the spirit and teaching of his own generation, to have 
 accepted its permanent gains, and then to have passed on 
 beyond its doubts and fears to be the projihct of a new day 
 when men shcaild .see with vision unclouded by the smoke 
 and dust of conflict. 
 
 Browning was, of course, a poet with a message. While
 
 390 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 he was primarily a great student and portrayer of life 
 rather than a teacher, he understood well that life teaches 
 and endeavored to interpret its meaning. We may prop- 
 erly speak of his teaching as in some sense a philosophy 
 HisPhiioso- of life. To touch on all the points involved in 
 phy of Life ^^^^ philosophy would be to discuss most of his 
 poetry. We can only attempt to blaze a way through the 
 forest — or, as the dramatic and human quality of Brown- 
 ing's poetry might rather suggest, to push a way through 
 the crowd — indicating some of the main points of his 
 thinking, leaving much to be inferred or imagined. 
 
 Beginning on the lower levels of his thought. Browning 
 
 was emphatically a poet who dealt with the physical life of 
 
 man, who felt " the value and sisrnificance of 
 
 The Flesh n , ,, tt   , n 1 • 
 
 flesh. He was a man with all his senses keenly 
 alive. His appreciation of the physical life, however, was 
 something more than mere sensuousness of temperament. 
 It was reasoned doctrine. It was not a physical life of 
 luxurious enjoyment that Browning exalted, but one of 
 strenuous endeavor. In Rabbi Ben Ezra, he urges : 
 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
 Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe ! 
 
 Strive, learn, dare — these three words indicate much of 
 Browning's philosophy of life. 
 
 Browning was, of course, something vastly more than the 
 poet of the merely physical life, even in its highest and 
 best manifestations. He was also, as Alfred Domett 
 called him, the " Subtlest Assertor of the Soul 
 in Song." He taught that soul and body may be 
 mutually helpful in their union, that the body may serve 
 to "project the soul on its lone way." He taught, on the 
 other hand, that the soul has its own aims and powers, and 
 may, in the development of its higher functions, sometimes 
 find the body a hindrance as well as a help. This and
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (.1832-1892) 391 
 
 much more is finely expressed in a notable passage from 
 
 Paracelsus: 
 
 Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 
 From outward things, whate'er you may believe. 
 There is an inmost centre in us all, 
 Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, 
 Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
 This perfect, clear perception — which is truth. 
 A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
 Hinds it, and makes all error: and to K..\o\v 
 Rather consists in opening out a way 
 Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, 
 Than in eflecting entry for a light 
 Supposed to be without. 
 
 This is not exactly the doctrine of modern realism in art 
 and literature, any more than it is exactly the teaching of 
 modern science. It is at least a splendid poetic conception 
 of man as the possessor of a living soul, out of which are 
 the issues of life. One of Browning's favorite doctrines 
 was that the unloosing of this "imprisoned splendour" 
 is achieved mainly through the contact of the soul with 
 higher personalities, and ultimately with the divine per- 
 sonality. God may influence the soul through nature as 
 well as through human personalities. Sometimes the soul 
 may feel the direct and immediate touch of the divine per- 
 sonality, without any intervention of nature or of other 
 human souls. In any case, here is the soul, with its innate 
 powers, to be elicited by whatever means — not a blank 
 sheet, to be written uj^on by hands human or divine, but an 
 " imprisoned splendour," to be let loose for a light to men. 
 To Browning, the great fact of our merely human life 
 was the fact of man and woman — on the physical side, 
 
 the fact of sex on the soul side, the fact of Love: Human 
 
 spiritual difference and correspondence. There- """^ '^^'"* 
 fore he magnified and glorified human love. lie makes 
 the CJypsy Queen in The T'/it^/tt of the Ducluss sing 
 How love is the only good in the world.
 
 392 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 Even to the unrequited lover, love is good, as he has shown 
 in that magnificent love-song, TJie Last Ride Together. 
 Every reader of Browning knows what passionate intensity 
 he has put into his portrayal of love. Pippa Passes, In a 
 Balcony, In a Gondola, these but afford some of the finest 
 among many illustrations. Not out of his imagination 
 alone did Browning write such love poetry as this. His 
 own being had throbbed with the love that he describes ; 
 and dramatic poet as he is, we can hear once and again 
 the lyric voice of his own heart. How exalted was his 
 personal affection, how infinitely more than merely sen- 
 suous was his poetic treatment of human love, we 
 may learn from all his poetry. We may learn also 
 that his conception of love has a more than human 
 range. As on the lower levels he saw the great fact 
 of man and woman and exalted human love, so to 
 him the great fact of the spiritual life was God and 
 man, and he exalted spiritual love. God's love to us, 
 our love to Him — this is the foundation and the ulti- 
 mate reward of all faith. This is especially the great 
 teaching of Saul and A Death in the Desert, as well as 
 of other poems. 
 
 Browning was first of all the poet of man — of man 
 physical and man spiritual. He was also a poet vitally 
 Man and interested in man's relation to the world around 
 Nature ^ma — primarily, of course, in his relation to the 
 
 visible world. Here Browning was met by the problems 
 that modern science had raised, and like a true poet, he 
 felt the weight and pressure of those problems. There 
 was no revolt against science, but rather a frank and 
 cordial acceptance of its demonstrated conclusions, with 
 due recognition, however, of scientific limitations and 
 with due protest against its unwarranted assumptions. 
 He perceived the difficulties which science had placed 
 in the way of faith, but here, again, he had no contro-
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (1S32-1892) 393 
 
 versy with true science. In BisJiop Blougrains Apology, 
 he makes the Bishop speak of 
 
 Cosmogony, 
 Geology, ethnology, what not 
 (Greek endings, e,ich the little passing-hell 
 That signifies some faith's about to die). 
 
 Not for him, however, was science the passing-bell of 
 faith. He was probably uttering somewhat of his own 
 thought when he made Bishop Blougram say further : 
 
 With me faith means perpetual unbelief 
 
 Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot. 
 
 Who stands firm just because he feels him writhe. 
 
 Against all doubt, Browning preserved the full assurance 
 that there is a world invisible as well as a world visible — 
 a world supernatural as well as a world natu- The Spiritual 
 ral — and that man is living always in vital ^°^''* 
 relation to both. That God is, and that he is all-benefi- 
 cent — in this supreme assurance, despite all temptation 
 to believe otherwise. Browning lived and wrote. God is 
 not altogether such as we are, though different minds 
 will shadow- forth conceptions of him determined by 
 their own natures and capacities. In Caliban upon Sete- 
 bos, the half beast Caliban sprawls " flat on his belly in 
 the pit's much mire," " kicks both feet in the cool slush," 
 and meditates upon " that other, whom his dam called 
 God." How "heaven-high removed" from his conception 
 is that of David as he sings before the stricken king 
 in Saul, or that of the dying apostle in A Death in the 
 Desert : 
 
 If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men 
 
 Mere man, the first and best but nothing more, — 
 
 Account Him, for reward of what He was. 
 
 Now and forever, wretchedcst of all . . . 
 
 Call Christ, then, the illimitable God, 
 
 Or lost!
 
 394 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 It is the test of death that puts all human theories to the 
 proof. Neither Browning nor we can look beyond it to 
 The Test of know what it shall bring; but it is at least sig- 
 Death nificaut to know how the great poet contem- 
 
 plated for himself the supreme change. He taught that 
 man is spirit and immortal, that God is and loves, that 
 death is but the doorway to an infinite progress of life 
 beyond. Was his doctrine an actual stay to his own soul .-* 
 Did he himself face the thought of death "fearless and 
 unperplexed " ? Two of his briefer poems help to give 
 us the answer. The first is Prospice, written in the noon- 
 tide of his own life, but just after the death of his 
 wife. The other is the Epilogue to Asolando. It is the 
 last poem of his last volume. As he read it over in its 
 first printed form just before his departure, he said : " It 
 almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to 
 cancel it ; but it's the simple truth ; and as it's true it shall 
 stand." He looked on the face of death with the same 
 bold and confident spirit that had made him one of the 
 great masters of life. 
 
 Here was a great man, strong and subtle in mind, 
 steadfast and confident in soul. Here was also a great 
 A Dramatic poct, able to bring the resources of the poet's 
 ^"^^ art into the service of a splendid intelligence. 
 
 To him, more than to most men, poetry was an instru- 
 ment of truth. As he himself says, in The Ring and the 
 
 Book, 
 
 Art remains the one way possible 
 Of spealcing truth, to mouths like mine at least. 
 
 This truth he expresses through an objective and dramatic 
 portrayal of life. He describes his own work as "poetry 
 always dramatic in principle, the utterances of so many 
 imaginary personages, not mine." We seldom hear his 
 own direct voice, but ever the voices of the men and 
 women whom his imagination has created. He portrays
 
 THE AGE OP^ TENNYSON— POETRY (1S32-1S92) 395 
 
 these men and women as they exist here and now. They 
 are bodies, with all the powers and passions and weak- 
 nesses of the flesh; they are souls, with all their infinite 
 possibilities of joy or sorrow, of purity or degradation. 
 They are living and acting in the midst of a real and 
 visible world, but they are surrounded by a world invisible 
 and spiritual. To illustrate Browning's portrayal of real 
 men and women in the midst of their actual environment, 
 we have only to open his volume at random and read ; for 
 this is the task of all his poetry. 
 
 Browning's favorite art form — a form that he made 
 peculiarly his own — is the dramatic monologue. In prin- 
 ciple, it is a type of poem in which the words arc dramatic 
 uttered by an imaginary speaker, who reveals Monologue 
 his character, his attitude, his situation, and perhaps throws 
 some light upon other persons of whom or to whom he 
 speaks. His marvelous insight into the human soul and 
 his no less marvelous power of imaginative conception 
 enable Browning to realize his dramatic purpose with 
 equal subtlety and vividness. There are in reality several 
 different types of dramatic monologue, the distinction be- 
 tween which is important. There are first " Dramatic 
 Lyrics" — like Old Pictures in Florence, Saul, Abt Vogler, 
 and Rabbi Ben Ezra — in which the chief stress is laid 
 upon an emotional state, and in which Browning displays 
 a wonderful gift of pure lyric music. Then there are 
 "Dramatic Romances" — like T/ie Flight of tJic Duchess, 
 In a Gondola, 2iX\i\ Childe Roland — in which character is 
 associated with a romantic story. Again, there are " Dra- 
 matic Idyls " — like Plieidippides,Ned Bratts, and Clive — 
 in which character is thrown out against tlie background 
 of a vivid picture. Browning does not always clearly dis- 
 criminate all these from the dramatic monologue proper — 
 illustrated by Andrea del Sarto, Fra Lippo I.ipf^i, and 
 Cleon — but he seems to have had the i>everal types in
 
 396 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 mind. In the lyric and the monologue proper, the speaker 
 is more likely to be unfolding himself — his emotional 
 mood or his fuller personality. In the romance and the 
 idyl, he is more likely to be unfolding the character of 
 another. 
 
 Browning's great masterpiece is T]ie Ring and the Book. 
 It is an immense work, and practically consists of a series 
 The Ring and ^^ extended dramatic monologues. In the first 
 the Book ^^^ jg^g|- Qf |-]^g twclvc books, he sets forth the 
 pathetic story of Pompilia, a Roman girl murdered by her 
 brutal husband. Count Guido. In each of the other ten, 
 the case is reviewed by some more or less interested per- 
 son, and we are led to see how the same simple facts 
 make their varied impression upon different types of mind. 
 The characters of Guido, Pompilia, Caponsacchi the noble 
 priest, and the good Pope are magnificent creations ; and 
 the whole work is a splendid exhibition of imaginative and 
 poetic power. 
 
 It remains to be observed that Browning attempted 
 some work in the formal drama. In spite of his great 
 dramatic genius, he was comparatively unsuc- 
 cessful. His power lay rather in illustrating 
 critical moments in the history of an individual soul than 
 in setting a picture of active life upon the stage. He was 
 psychological and inward in his dealings with character, 
 and showed too little the effective deeds of men. The 
 abstruseness of his thought and the difficulties of his style 
 were not favorable to stage presentation. In spite of 
 these and other drawbacks, however, some of his dramas 
 are in their way most striking productions. There, as 
 always, he is the profound revealer of man's inner life. 
 Probably his most effective play on the stage is A Blot in 
 the ' Scntcheo7t, but Strafford has also been fairly successful. 
 One of his finest masterpieces, Pippa Passes, is hardly to 
 be called a drama at all. It lies rather between the true
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (1832-1S92) 397 
 
 drama and the monologue. One of his earliest works, it 
 still remains one of the most beautiful and perfect. Not 
 even in portraying the little silk-winding girl, whose simple 
 life unconsciously touches those of the four greatest and 
 supposedly happiest souls in her native Asolo, can Brown- 
 ing hold himself quite aloof from his creation ; but if he is 
 not quite the perfect dramatist, forgetting himself in the 
 beings he has made, he is at least the subtle interpreter of 
 life and the soul. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, the son of a cultured country clergy- 
 man, was born in 1809, at Somersby, in Lincolnshire. All 
 his surroundings tended to develop in iiim the ^j^^^^ 
 love for nature, the spirit of conservatism, and Tennyson 
 the refined culture which were so strongly marked in his 
 character. His poetical career began while he was a mem- 
 ber of Trinity College, Cambridge, and here, too, he formed 
 some of the great friendships of his life. Closest of all 
 to his heart was Arthur Henry Hallam, with whom he 
 was a member of a famous group known as " the twelve 
 apostles." Hallam's death in 1833 plunged him into pro- 
 found sorrow, and led to the writing of his great master- 
 piece, /;/ Mcmoriavi. This poem was published in 1850, 
 and the same year is marked by his marriage and by his 
 appointment as poet-laureate. Tennyson's long life was 
 lived in poetic seclusion. This was due partly to his tem- 
 perament and partly to his conviction that the poet should 
 watch the spectacle of life from his calm height with sym- 
 pathetic interest, but should not engage in its activities. 
 Until his death in 1892, he wrought out calmly and strongly 
 his self-appointed tasks, unswerved by praise or blame. 
 Fame came to him in ample measure, but better than fame 
 was his ever widening influence for good in literature and 
 in life. His elevation to the peerage, in 1884, with the title 
 of Baron of Aldworth and Farringford, was a rec()gnitit)n 
 of his unique place among the poets of his generation.
 
 398 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 Tennyson, if not absolutely the greatest, was at least 
 the most representative poet of his age. He was sensitive 
 Tennyson ^^ all its influences, reflected all its movements, 
 and his Age and felt a poet's sympathy with the various 
 phases of its life. He may be said to have walked shoulder 
 to shoulder with his time, in the first rank, but hardly a 
 step before or a step behind. His art recognized and ac- 
 cepted the scientific method, and not a little of his noblest 
 imagery and of his deepest thought was drawn from scien- 
 tific sources. Above all, he accepted the scientific doc- 
 trine of evolution, and helped to reconcile that doctrine 
 with spiritual faith. He felt and voiced the prevailing 
 doubt and sadness of his generation. The struggle in his 
 soul was long and bitter. His nature would not allow him 
 the easy victory and the confident faith of Browning, but 
 neither was he left to the cold and stoical resignation of 
 Arnold. He was able at last to say : 
 
 Not in vain, 
 Like Paul with beasts, I fought with death. 
 
 The problems most interesting to him were those which 
 concern the development and destiny of mankind. His 
 poetry expresses the abiding faith of man, unconquerable 
 by temporary doubts and fears. Tennyson was also in 
 sympathy with what is best in modern democracy, al- 
 though he felt its dangers and shrank from its excesses. 
 His artistic sympathy is displayed in his various portrayals 
 of lowly characters and humble life, from EnocJi Arden 
 to The Northern Farmer. The democratic sympathy of the 
 man is equally apparent. He loved England because it is 
 
 The land, where girt with friends or foes 
 A man may speak the thing he will ; . . . 
 
 Where Freedom slowly broadens down 
 From precedent to precedent. 
 
 "The red fool-fury of the Seine," "the blind hysterics of
 
 THE AGE OF TENxNYSON — POETRY (1S32-1S92) 399 
 
 the Celt," was repellent to his nature. The freedom that 
 he loved was a democratic freedom ; but it was " freedom 
 in her regal seat of England," freedom regulated by law. 
 In still other ways, he was thoroughly representative both 
 of his age and his country. He was typical of the culture, 
 the refinement, and the intellectual freedom of his time. 
 His patriotism, his conservatism, his love of liberty, were 
 in harmony with the underlying sentiment of the England 
 of Victoria. More than any other English poet, he had 
 an instinctive j^erception of the essential character of the 
 age. More than any other, he was fitted to express its 
 manifold life and thought. 
 
 Tennyson's poetic genius may best be defined and illus- 
 trated by comparison with that of Browning. They stand 
 at opposite poles of poetry and of life. If we 
 should attempt to condense this contrast into and Brown- 
 briefest terms, we might characterize the two as 
 respectively artist and thinker. These words do not tell 
 us everything ; but they suggest what is central in each. 
 Browning has much of the artist's temperament and skill ; 
 but above all other things, he is a thinker expressing truth 
 in imaginative forms. Tennyson is gifted with a master's 
 strength and fineness of thought; but he is preeminently 
 an artist in language. This fundamental difference be- 
 tween the two men appears at every point and manifests 
 itself in a great variety of ways. 
 
 Tennyson was essentially a poetic artist. This means, 
 first of all, that he was endowed with that exquisite sense 
 of beauty which lies at the very heart of the sense ot 
 poet's nature. With his own Lotos-Eaters, he beauty 
 can feel the seductive charm of that enchanted land 
 
 In which it .seemiid always afternoon. 
 He confesses to us that he is one 
 
 Wliose spirits falter in the mist, 
 And languish for the jjiiiple scaa.
 
 400 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (i 832-1 892) 
 
 Yet this sense of beauty in him is exalted by the spirit of 
 an intense and lofty ideality. He is thrilled by the beauty 
 of that immortal courage which sent the Light Brigade 
 "into the mouth of Hell " at Balaklava. He feels through 
 all his soul the beauty of Arthur's royal manhood and of 
 Galahad's stainless chivalry. He adds a whiteness to the 
 virgin snow in his picture of St. Agnes, the bride of 
 Christ, who cries : 
 
 Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, 
 
 Thro' all yon starlight keen, 
 Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, 
 
 In raiment white and clean. 
 
 Tennyson possessed also in fulness of measure that 
 other essential gift of the poet — imagination. The clear- 
 ness and picturesqueness of his conceptions is 
 
 Imagination , , . ry,, i • i .1 
 
 beyond praise. They are as lucid as the morn- 
 ing, as distinct and vivid as noonday shadows. Yet withal, 
 this imagination can carry us out into the realms of spirit- 
 ual suggestion which lie beyond all earthly images. What 
 could be at once more powerful, more vivid, and more 
 suggestive than such words as these : 
 
 A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand ; 
 
 Left on the shore ; that hears all night 
 The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
 
 Their moon-led waters white. 
 
 He possessed also that breadth of imagination which some 
 have been inclined to deny him. Surely there is range 
 between The Miller s Daughter and TJie Lady of Shalott, 
 between Enoch Ardefi and Tfie Idylls of the Khig. 
 
 It has been sometimes said that he is lacking in the 
 poet's passion. Yet surely this, too, is a mistake. He 
 has not the vehement emotion of a Byron or a 
 Emotion Bums ; his is rather the full, deep stream of 
 
 Wordsworth which flows with none the less power because 
 it is broad and still. That he is a master of pathos, who
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — POETRY (1832-1892) 401 
 
 can doubt that has read Guinevere or Enoch Ardcn or /;/ 
 Memoriam f That he is full of manly vigor and of patri- 
 otic fervor, we may feel in his war-songs, in the Ode on 
 the Death of the Duke of Wellington, and in his ballad of 
 The Revenge. That he can portray the passion of love, is 
 manifest beyond all question in The Princess and Maud. 
 The latter rises even to that vehement intensity so im- 
 pressive to the common mind. Its opening line strikes 
 the passion note of the poem : 
 
 I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood 
 
 Still other and stranger notes are struck in such poems as 
 The Tiuo J "oices and RizpaJt. Ves, he is a poet whose pas- 
 sion has fulness, depth, range, and at times intensity. What 
 to some critics seems like a limitation, but what to the 
 great sound heart of humanity will always seem a part of 
 his highest glory, is the fact that the whole strength of his 
 emotion is directed toward the good and true and against the 
 false and base. Poetry to him was no mere toy or lu.xury, 
 but one of the great forces of life. It has its immortal de- 
 light, but it has also its eternal duty. Both sides of his 
 conception appear in his own description of the poet's 
 character and mission : 
 
 The poet in a golden clime was born, 
 
 With golden stars above ; 
 Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
 
 The love of love. 
 
 It is difficult to speak in measured terms of Tennyson as 
 a master of form. In nearly all his work there is a most 
 exquisite perception of the harmony between thought and 
 language. He had a wonderful ear for the 
 music of verse, a wonderful eye for artistic 
 effects of form and color. Hardly any j)oet is his supe- 
 rior in ease and versatility of style. Not alone in details 
 was he a perfect master of his art ; he possessed also that
 
 402 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (i 832-1 892) 
 
 fine sense of unity and proportion which can build up 
 great and elaborate masterpieces. Tennyson was a poet 
 born ; but he was also a poet made. No man ever set him- 
 self more deliberately and persistently to self-culture in the 
 technique of poetic art. He made himself so perfect a 
 craftsman that, when his passion began to grow and his 
 experience of life to deepen, he uttered his thought and 
 his emotion with the voice of a trained singer. So flawless 
 is his work, even when he is most profoundly stirred, that 
 in any other man such perfection would have savored of 
 affectation and insincerity. The evidences of this perfect 
 art are everywhere in his poetry — almost in every line 
 that he has written. Who can forget the enchanted music 
 of The Lady of SJialott or the luxurious cadences of TJie 
 Lotos-Eaters ? The songs of The Princess ring in our ears 
 with echoes as from 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing. 
 Now it is the song of TJie Brook : 
 
 I sHp, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
 
 Among my skimming swallows ; 
 I make the netted svmbeam dance 
 
 Against my sandy shallows. 
 
 I murmur under moon and stars 
 
 In brambly wildernesses ; 
 I linger by my shingly bars ; 
 
 I loiter round my cresses. 
 
 Now it is the sublime lamentation for Wellington : 
 
 Bury the Great Duke 
 
 With an empire's lamentation, 
 Let us bury the Great Duke 
 
 To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation. 
 
 Now it is the melodious cry of In Memoriam ; and now 
 
 the description of that " last weird battle in the west " 
 
 where Arthur falls with all his chivalry : 
 
 So all day long the noise of battle rolled 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea.
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSOxN — POETRY (1832-1892) 403 
 
 The Idylls of the King remind us that Tennyson was a 
 romantic poet ; but he was not forgetful of real life, as we 
 may see in Dora and The Miller s Daughter and Range of 
 in many another poem. We are reminded also *^*"'"^ 
 that his genius was largely idyllic — that it delighted in 
 the purely picturesque. His lyric poetry is not less perfect; 
 and it is perhaps in some of his shorter lyrics that we find the 
 distilled essence of his poetic genius. In the drama he dis- 
 plays great powers and great limitations. We may be sure 
 that his best work does not lie there ; for neither he nor his 
 age possessed in large measure the dramatic spirit. If he had 
 given us only his dramas, we might cherish them as among 
 our dearest treasures ; but he has elsewhere given us what 
 is better still. Tennyson's poetic interest was divided be- 
 tween nature and humanity. He was not exclusively the 
 poet of one or the other. What is more typical of him is 
 that he was everywhere the poet of culture and morality. 
 No poetry is more truly refined ; no poetry makes more 
 for essential righteousness. And what a devotion to his 
 art and to all that it implies. He takes himself seriously as 
 a poet, if ever a man did ; he lives the part to perfection. 
 We shall not easily discover hini "without his singing 
 robes and garland on." He dies with his finger between 
 the pages of Shakespeare's Cymbelinc at the song ending 
 with words that might have been his own epitaph : 
 
 Quiet consummation have ; 
 And renowned be thy grave ! 
 
 Much of Tennyson's poetry stands simply for his en- 
 thusiastic interest in his poetic art and illustrates his con- 
 ception of the significance of that art. Many His Art 
 of his earliest poems are simi)ly exquisitely ^"'"^ 
 beautiful poetical exercises, without other significance than 
 their melody and sensuous charm. Others, like The Poet 
 and The Poet's Mind, show his sense of the poet's place
 
 404 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 and mission. TJie Lady of Ska lot t symbolizes allegorically 
 the artist's aloofness from the world, taking no part in its 
 activities, but reflecting it with loving sympathy in the 
 magic mirror of the imagination and weaving the vision 
 into the magic web of poetry. The Palace of Art shoves 
 the curse that falls on the beauty-loving soul that cuts 
 itself off utterly from its kind and shuts itself up to its 
 own selfish enjoyment. Such poems are symbolical of 
 one side of Tennyson's nature. Their spirit does not die 
 out of his poetry, even to the end, but his genius becomes 
 ever deeper and broader. 
 
 Somewhat akin to such works as these, at least in their 
 inspiration, are his poems on classical themes — finely 
 Broadening conccivcd and wonderfully executed specimens 
 Range of poctic workmanship. CEnone, The Lotos- 
 
 Eaters ^ Lucretius, Tithonus, are all admirable in their 
 diverse ways ; but his masterpiece in this kind is Ulysses. 
 Chaste in style, felicitous in expression, noble in concep- 
 tion, it takes rank among his most perfect works. Strongly 
 contrasted with this classical taste, and serving to illustrate 
 the poet's increasing breadth, are his poems dealing with 
 common English life. Among the earliest of these are 
 The Miller s Daughter and Dora. The finest example of 
 all is his famous and popular Enoch Arden. Later came 
 his interesting dialect studies, like TJie Northern Farmer 
 and TJie Northern Cobbler. These indicate an interest in 
 common life and also a patriotic spirit which is still further 
 illustrated by specifically patriotic poems like The Charge 
 of the Light Brigade, The Revenge, and the Ode on the 
 Death of the Duke of Wellington. Other phases of his 
 genius must be illustrated by some of his longer poems 
 and by the poems written toward the close of his life. 
 
 The Princess is a fanciful poem which Tennyson properly 
 called a medley. It deals with the modern woman ques- 
 tion under the guise of a fantastic story about the found-
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON — TOETRV (1S32-1892) 405 
 
 ing of a woman's college and the breaking up of the scheme 
 through certain love intrigues. The poem is not The Princess 
 altogether a successful achievement, although """^ **""<* 
 it is filled with beautiful music and imagery and inter- 
 spersed with some of his most exquisite lyrics. It is 
 interesting as showing Tennyson's growing disposition 
 to consider the serious problems of his time. Somewhat 
 the same may be said of Maud, one of the most peculiar 
 of his poems. It is a poem of passionate love, madness, 
 and despair, gloomy but splendid. Its finer quality is 
 marred by a tone of almost pessimistic satire against the 
 baser spirit of the age. 
 
 In Mevioriavi is a great elegy, inspired by the early 
 death of Tennyson's intimate and beloved friend Arthur 
 Hallam. Simply in its character as an elegy, 
 it is a marvelous poem, passionate with a heart- ^" Memonam 
 breaking sorrow, and rich with all the powers of expression 
 of a great poet. It is vastly more, however, than a simple 
 elegy ; it is the great poetic record of Tennyson's spiritual 
 struggle with the demons of doubt and despair. Through a 
 long series of lyrics bound together by their association 
 with the one central theme, we may trace the various phases 
 of the poet's personal grief and witness his grapple with 
 the sternest problems of human existence. The real 
 theme of the poem is the immortality of the soul ; and the 
 poet's final victory is based on the passionate conviction 
 that such a love as his is and must be immortal. If the 
 pure reason can give him no satisfaction, he hears at least 
 the answer of the heart. 
 
 If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
 
 I heard a voice " believe no more " 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 
 That tumbled in tlic (lodle.ss deep ; 
 
 A warmth within the breast would melt 
 The freezing reason's colder i)art.
 
 406 DEMOCRACY AND SCIENCE (1832-1892) 
 
 And like a man in wrath the heart 
 Stood up and answer'd " I have felt." 
 
 He concludes his " high argument " with an expression of 
 faith in 
 
 That God, which ever hves and loves, 
 One. God, one law, one element, 
 And one far-off divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves. 
 
 In the Idylls of the King, Tennyson deals as a true ro- 
 mantic poet with the great matter of the Arthurian legends, 
 Idylls of the ^° often handled in English literature, but 
 King never more beautifully than here. The " Idylls " 
 
 are a series of twelve picturesque narratives, written in- 
 dependently at different times in Tennyson's career and 
 later combined into a single great work. In his hands, the 
 old mediaeval legends are modernized into a great spiritual 
 parable. We see Arthur, the noble guide and leader of 
 men, coming to his kingdom ; we see that kingdom grow- 
 ing in beauty and power under his mild and wise sway ; we 
 see everything brought to moral ruin by the sin of Lance- 
 lot and Guinevere ; we see Arthur finally overthrown in his 
 " last weird battle in the west " and passing to his place 
 among the dead. It is the failure of spiritual dominion in 
 a world too gross for such high ideals. The meaning of 
 the great and beautiful poem cannot be better expressed 
 than in Tennyson's own words, when he calls it 
 
 This old imperfect tale, 
 New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul. 
 
 In his later life, Tennyson, while never ceasing to be the 
 
 true and finished artist, showed a disposition to draw still 
 
 closer to real life and to its profounder problems. 
 
 La,test W^ork 
 
 He wrote his great dramas, beginning with 
 Queen Mary, and including such noble works as Harold 
 and Becket. While they were not altogether successful as 
 acting plays, they are finely poetical and show genuine
 
 THE AGE OF TEXXYSON — POETRY (1S32-1892) 407 
 
 insight into life and character. Some of his later poems 
 are nither gloomy in tone, impressing us with a sense of 
 failure and disillusion concerning the great movements of 
 the age and concerning human progress. Yet toward the 
 last comes a high and serene mood of faith in that supreme 
 power which is guiding " the whole creation " toward the 
 "one far-off divine event," and which holds all individual 
 souls in the hollow of his hand. In TJic Making of Ma)i, 
 he says : 
 
 Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages, 
 Shall not zeon after aon pass and touch him into shape ? 
 
 In FaitJi, he cries : 
 
 Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best. 
 
 In The Silent Voices, he sings : 
 
 Call me rather, silent voices, 
 Fonvard to the starry track 
 Glimmering up the heights beyond nie 
 On, and always on ! 
 
 Crossing the Bar, one of the most beautiful poems that 
 he ever wrote, closes with this splendid expression of 
 personal faith and courage : 
 
 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crost the bar. 
 
 Such words are fitting close to the brief record of a 
 great career, of a great century, and of a great literature.
 
 APPENDIX
 
 4IO 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF 
 
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 SO 
 
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 I 
 as 
 
 Q 
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 w 
 
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 X 
 
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 X 
 
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 w 
 
 Translations of Gregory, Bede, 
 
 Boethius, and Orosius 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. See text, 
 
 pp. 29, 30 and 33, 34 
 Blickling Homilies (c. 971) 
 Homilies, Lives of the Saints, etc. 
 Homilies 
 
 ApoUonius of Tyre 
 Later Chronicle (to 1154) 
 
 Pi 
 
 o 
 
 Ph 
 
 Charms (portions) 
 
 WidsiS 
 
 Lament of Deor 
 
 Fight at Finnsburg 
 
 Waldhere 
 
 Beowulf 
 
 Hymn, etc. See text, pp. 16-19 
 
 Ctedmonian Paraphrase 
 
 Death Song 
 
 Judith, etc. 
 
 Ruthwell Cross inscription 
 
 Elegies. See text, p. 21 
 
 Elene, etc. See text, pp. 22, 23 
 
 Andreas, The Phoenix, Dream of the 
 
 Rood, etc. 
 Other poems in Exeter and Vercelli 
 
 Books 
 
 Battle of Brunanburh (937) 
 Battle of Maldon (991) 
 
 CO 
 
 O 
 X 
 H 
 
 < 
 
 
 Caedmon c 670-680 
 Bede 672-735 
 
 Cynewulf c. 7S0-C.800 
 
 Alfred 848-901 
 
 JEliric c. 955-c. 1025 
 Wulfstan d. 1023 
 
 
 A-axaod Kvovd 
 
 \L9-0L9 
 
 A-axaod NVIXSIHH3   
 
 990I-Ii8 
 
 aomad asoid
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 411 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 
 Zj 
 -J 
 
 u 
 
 en 
 
 
 06 
 
 Later A. .S. Chronicle (ends 1 154) 
 
 Homilies and Lives of the Saints 
 Ancren Riwle (c. 1225; 
 
 Religious writings 
 Ayenbite of Inwit 
 
 Mandeville's Travels 
 
 J 
 
 u 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 V 
 
 3 
 
 e 
 .2 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 3 
 < 
 
 > 
 
 1 
 
 Pdima Morale (before 1200) 
 
 Hrul (c. 1205) 
 
 Ormulum (c. 1215) 
 
 Cicnesis and Kxodus Bestiary 
 
 Owl and Nightingale Lyric Poems 
 
 Sir Tristrem, llavclok the L)ane, King 
 
 Horn, etc. 
 Chronicle (c. 1298) 
 Cycles of Romance 
 
 Bevis of llampti)n, Guy of Warwick, etc. 
 Handlynge Synne (1303) 
 Cursor Nlundi (c. 1325) 
 Pricke of Conscience (c. 1335) 
 
 Political Lyrics (1333-1352) 
 
 Sir Gawayne and the Grcne Knight 
 
 The Pearl, Cleanness, Patience 
 
 Vision of Piers the Plowman 
 Confessio Amantis, etc. 
 Canterbury Tales, etc. 
 
 Gouvernail of Princes, etc. 
 
 Falles of Princes, etc. 
 
 The King's Quair 
 
 Fables, etc. 
 
 Thistle and the Rose, etc. 
 
 Palice of Honour, ..^neid, etc. 
 
 Ballads 
 
 Mysteries, Miracle Plays, Moralities 
 
 U3 
 
 
 
 S 
 H 
 
 < 
 
 Layamon 
 Orm 
 
 Robert of Gloucester 
 
 Robert Manning 
 
 Richard Rolle 
 Dan Michel 
 Laurence Minot 
 
 John Wyclif 1324-13S4 
 Wm. Langland c. 1332-c. 1400 
 John Gower c. 1 330-1408 
 Geoffrey Chaucer c. 1340-1400 
 
 Thomas Occleve c. 1365-c. 1454 
 
 JohnLydgate c. 1370-c. 1440 
 
 James I of Scotland 1394-1437 
 
 Robert Henryson 
 
 William Dunbar 
 
 Gawain Douglas c. 1474-c. 1522 
 
 Sir Thomas Malory 
 
 
 09EI 9901 
 
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 OOSI 00»l 
 
 AHilXNO UXNaajJIJ
 
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 CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF 
 
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 All for Love, etc. 
 Venice Preserved, etc. 
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 The Confederacy, etc. 
 Love for Love, etc. 
 The Beaux' Stratagem, etc. 
 
 Cato, etc. 
 
 The Conscious Lovers, etc. 
 
 Pamela, etc. 
 Tom Jones, etc. 
 
 Tristram Shandy 
 Humphrey Clinker, etc. 
 Vicar of Wakefield 
 Rasselas 
 
 School for Scandal, etc. 
 
 w 
 
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 Pilgrim's Progress, etc. 
 
 Essays 
 Essays 
 
 Gulliver's Travels, etc. 
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 Periodical Essays 
 Robinson Crusoe, etc. 
 
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 Essays, etc. 
 
 Lives of the Poets, etc. 
 History of England, etc. 
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 Night Thoughts 
 
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 Jonathan Swift 
 Joseph Addison i 
 Richard Steele 
 Daniel Defoe i 
 Matthew Prior 
 John Gay 
 Alexander Pope 
 
 James Thomson 
 Edward Young 
 Sam. Richardson i 
 Henry Fielding 
 Wm. Collins 
 Thomas Gray 
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 Laurence Sterne 
 Tobias Smollett 
 Oliver Goldsmith 
 Samuel Johnson 
 David Hume 
 Edward Gibbon 
 Edmund Burke 
 R. B. Sheridan 
 
 
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 415 
 
 
 
 
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 4i6 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE 
 
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 READING AND STUDY LIST 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 Gardiner's Student's History of England. 
 
 Terry's History of England. 
 
 Cireen's Short History of the English People. 
 
 Green's History of the English People (four volumes). 
 
 Traill's Social England. 
 
 Lord's Beacon Lights of History. 
 
 Green's Making of England. 
 
 Green's Conquest of England. 
 
 Rhys's Celtic Britain. 
 
 Grant Allen's Anglo-Saxon Britain. 
 
 York-Powell's Early England to the Norman Conquest. 
 
 Freeman's Old English History. 
 
 Freeman's Norman Conquest. 
 
 Jewett's Story of the Normans. 
 
 Stubbs's Early Plantagenets. 
 
 Hutton's King and Baronage. 
 
 Warburton's Edward the Third. 
 
 Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 Gairdner's Houses of Lancaster and York. 
 
 Moberly's Early Tudors. 
 
 Creighton's Tudors and the Reformation. 
 
 Creighton's Age of Elizabeth. 
 
 Gardiner's The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution. 
 
 Seebohm's Era of the Protestant Revolution. 
 
 Airy's English Restoration and Louis XIV. 
 
 Hale's Fall of the Stuarts. 
 
 Macaulay's History of England (from accession of James H to death o( 
 William HI). 
 
 I-ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 Morris's Age of Anne. 
 
 Morris's Early Hanoverians. 
 
 Wright's England umler the House of Hanover. 
 
 Thackeray's The Four Georges. 
 
 I'aul's History of .Modern England. 
 
 McCarthy's History of the People of England in the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 4'7
 
 4l8 READING AND STUDY LIST 
 
 McCarthy's Epoch of Reform (1830-1850). 
 McCarthy's History of Our Own Times. 
 
 LANGUAGE 
 
 Lounsbury's English Language. 
 
 Emerson's Brief History of the English Language. 
 
 Greenough and Kittredge's Words and Their Ways in English Speech. 
 
 Bradley's Making of English. 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 General. 
 
 Saintsbury's Short History of English Literature. 
 
 Garnett and Gosse's English Literature: An Illustrated Record (four 
 
 volumes). 
 Taine's History of English Literature. 
 Welsh's Development of English Literature. 
 Phillips's History of English Literature. 
 Mitchell's English Lands, Letters, and Kings. 
 Ryland's Chronological Outlines of English Literature. 
 MacLean's Chart of English Literature. 
 Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature. 
 Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism. 
 Brewer's Reader's Handbook. 
 
 Periods and Departments. 
 
 Brooke's History of Early English Literature. 
 
 Brooke's English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest. 
 Schofield's English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer. 
 Ten Brink's History of English Literature (to the death of Surrey). 
 Jusserand's Literary History of the English People from the Origins to 
 
 the Renaissance. 
 Morley's English Writers (eleven volumes — to seventeenth century). 
 Courthope's History of English Poetry. 
 Gummere's Old English Ballads. 
 Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen 
 
 Anne (new edition, 1899). 
 Brander Matthews's Development of the Drama. 
 Snell's The Fourteenth Century (Periods of European Literature). 
 Snell's Age of Chaucer. 
 
 Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature. 
 Minto's Characteristics of English Poets. 
 Beers's From Chaucer to Tennyson. 
 Millar's Literary History of Scotland. 
 Snell's Age of Transition (1400-1580).
 
 READING AxNU STUDY LIST 419 
 
 Periods and Departments — Continued. 
 
 Smith's The Transition Period (Periods of European Literature). 
 
 Bates's English Religious Drama. 
 
 Einstein's Italian Renaissance in England. 
 
 Ilannay's Later Renaissance (Periods of European Literature). 
 
 Sidney Lee's Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century. 
 
 Saintsbury's Elizabethan Literature (i 560-1660). 
 
 Hazlitt's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. 
 
 Whipple's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. 
 
 Cunliffe's Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy. 
 
 Schelling's English Chronicle I'lay. 
 
 Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics. 
 
 Symonds's Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama. 
 
 Boas's Shakspere and His Predecessors. 
 
 Seccombe and Allen's Age of .Shakespeare. 
 
 Lowell's Old English Dramatists. 
 
 Fleay's Chronicle History of the London Stage. 
 
 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets. 
 
 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Comic Writers. 
 
 Warren's The Novel Previous to the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 Jusserand's English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare. 
 
 Gosse's From Shakespeare to Pope. 
 
 Gosse's Jacobean Poets. 
 
 Gosse's .Seventeenth Century Studies. 
 
 Wendell's The Temper of Seventeenth Century Literature. 
 
 Masterman's .\ge of Milton. 
 
 Dowden's Puritan and Anglican. 
 
 Garnett's Age of Dryden. 
 
 Chase's The English Heroic Play. 
 
 Macaulay's E.ssay on the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration. 
 
 Gosse's F^ighteenth Century Literature (1660-1780). 
 
 Perr)'s English Literature in the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 Dennis's .\gc of Pope. 
 
 Thackeray's English Humorists. 
 
 Dunlop's History of Fiction. 
 
 Tuckerman's History of Prose Fiction. 
 
 Simonds's Introfluction to Prose Fiction. 
 
 Stoddard's Evolution of the English Novel. 
 
 Cross's Development of the English Novel. 
 
 I^nicr'sThe English Novel. 
 
 Raleigh's The I!nglish Novel. 
 
 Masson's British Novelists an<l Their Styles. 
 
 Fornyth's Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 Minto's Literature of the Georgian F!ra.
 
 420 READING AND STUDY LIST 
 
 Periods and Departments — Continued. 
 Seccombe's Age of Johnson. 
 
 Phelps's Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement. 
 Beers's English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century. 
 Beers's English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century. 
 Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth 
 
 and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 
 Saintsbury's Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895). 
 Dowden's French Revolution and English Literature. 
 Dowden's Studies in Literature, 1 789-1887. 
 Woodberry's Makers of Literature. 
 Shairp's Poetic Interpretation of Nature. 
 Shairp's Aspects of Poetry. 
 Herford's Age of Wordsworth. 
 Dawson's Makers of Modern English. 
 
 Jack's Essays on the Novel as Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen. 
 Forster's Great Teachers. 
 Harrison's Early Victorian Literature. 
 Morley's Literature in the Age of Victoria. 
 Mrs. Oliphant's Victorian Age of English Literature. 
 Walker's Age of Tennyson. 
 Walker's Greater Victorian Poets. 
 Stedman's Victorian Poets. 
 Sharp's Victorian Poets. ' 
 
 Brownell's Victorian Prose Masters. 
 
 Bayne's Lessons from My Masters (Carlyle, Tennyson, Ruskin). 
 Cooke's Poets and Problems (Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning). 
 Hutton's Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith (Carlyle, 
 
 Arnold, George Eliot), 
 Forman's Our Living Poets. 
 Brooke's Theology in the English Poets. 
 Scudder's Life of the Spirit in the Modern Enghsh Poets. 
 Scudder's Social Ideals in English Letters. 
 
 Individual Authors and Works. 
 Dictionary of National Biography. 
 
 Enghsh Men of Letters Series — contains lives of Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, 
 Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Bunyan, Marvell, Hobbes, Locke, Dryden, 
 Bentley, Swift, Addison, Defoe, Pope, Richardson, Fielding, Gray, 
 Sterne, Goldsmith, Johnson, Hume, Gibbon, Burke, Sheridan, Fanny 
 Burney, Cowper, Crabbe, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Southey, 
 Lamb, Byron, Moore, Shelley, Keats, Landor, De Quincey, Sydney 
 Smith, Hazlitt, Macaulay, Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, 
 Browning, Tennyson, Fitzgerald, Arnold, Ruskin, Rossetti.
 
 READING AND STLDY LIST 42 1 
 
 iNDniDUAi. Authors axd Works — Continued. 
 
 Great Writers Series — contains lives of Milton, Bunyan. Congreve, Smol- 
 lett, Cloldsmith, Johnson, Adam Smith, Sheridan, Crabbe, Burns, Cole- 
 ridge, Scott, Jane Austen, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Leigh Hunt, Charlotte 
 Bronte, Marryat, Mill, Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, Darwin, George 
 Eliot, Browning, Rossetti. 
 
 De Quincey has essays on Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Goldsmith, Coleridge, 
 Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, etc. (Literary and Lake Reminiscences, 
 Biographies, etc.) • 
 
 Macaulay has essays on Bacon, Milton, Bunyan, Drj-dcn, Temple, Addison, 
 Goldsmith, Johnson, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Byron, Leigh Hunt, etc. 
 ( Essaj-s). 
 
 Carlyle has essays on Shakespeare, Johnson, Burns, and Scott (Heroes and 
 Hero-Worship, Elssays). 
 
 Lowell has essays on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Walton, 
 Dryden, Pope, Gray, Fielding, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Carlyle, 
 Swinburne, etc. (My Study Windows, Among My Books, Literary 
 Essays). 
 
 Leslie Stephen has essays on Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope, Defoe, 
 Richardson, Johnson, Gibbon, Godwin, Wordsworth, Scott, Southey, De 
 Quincey, Trollope, Browning, Tennyson, Ruskin, Arnold, Stevenson, etc. 
 (Hours in a Library, Studies of a Biographer). 
 
 Swinburne has essays on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Webster, Wither, Ford, Merrick, Milton, Congreve, William 
 Collins, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Lamb, Byron, Shelley, Keats, 
 Lanflor, Emily Bronte, Charles Reade, Tennyson, Arnold, Wilkie Collins, 
 Rossetti, Morris, etc. (Miscellanies, Essays and Studies, Studies in 
 Prose and Poetry). 
 
 Bagehot's Literary .Studies (Shakespeare, Milton, Sterne, Gibbon, Cowper, 
 Wordsworth, Scott, .Shelley, Macaulay, Dickens, Thackeray, Clough, 
 Browning, Tennyson). 
 
 Dowden's Transcripts and Studies (Marlowe, .Spenser, .Shakespeare, Milton, 
 Wordsworth, Shelley, Carlyle, Browning, N'ictorian Literature). 
 
 Pater's Appreciations (Shakespeare, Thomas Browne, Wordsworth, Cole- 
 ridge, Lamb, Rossetti). 
 
 Plummer's Life and Times of King .\lfreil the Great. 
 
 Bcsant's Story of King Alfreil. 
 
 Le Bas'« Life of John Wyclif. 
 
 5>crgeanl's John Wyclif. 
 
 Jus.serand's Piers Plowman. 
 
 Loun.sbury'» Studies in Chaucer. 
 
 Saunders's Chaucer's Canterbury Talcs. 
 
 Hcmpl's Chaucer's Pronunciation. 
 
 Jusserand's Romance of a King's Life (James I of Scotland).
 
 422 READING AND STUDY LIST 
 
 Individual Authors and Works — Continued. 
 Lovett's Demaus's Life of Tindale. 
 Davis's Life and Times of Sir Philip Sydney. 
 Bourne's Life of Sidney, 
 
 Carpenter's Outline Guide to the Study of Spenser. 
 Childs's John Lyiy and Euphuism. 
 Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare. 
 Brandes's William Shakespeare. 
 Victor Hugo's William Shakespeare. 
 
 Wendell's William Shakspere, a Study in Elizabethan Literature 
 Goldvvin Smith's Shakespeare the Man. 
 Mabie's William Shakespeare : Poet, Dramatist, and Man. 
 Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy. 
 
 Emerson's Shakespeare, or the Poet (Representative Men). 
 Dovvden's Shakspere : His Mind and Art. 
 Swinburne's A Study of Shakespeare. 
 Lounsbury's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. 
 Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. 
 Moulton's Moral System of Shakespeare. 
 Ulrici's Shakespeare's Dramatic Art. 
 Gervinus's Shakespeare Commentaries. 
 Hudson's Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare. 
 Coleridge's Notes and Lectures on the Plays of Shakespeare. 
 White's Studies in Shakespeare. 
 Collins's Studies in Shakespeare. 
 Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy. 
 Brooke's On Ten Plays of Shakespeare. 
 Ten Brink's Five Lectures on Shakespeare. 
 Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. 
 Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of Women. 
 Mary Covi'den Clarke's Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines. 
 Corson's Introduction to Shakespeare. 
 Dowden's Introduction to Shakspere. 
 Gollancz's Shakespearean Primer. 
 Stone's Shakespeare's Holinshed. 
 Dowden's Shakspere's Sonnets. 
 Beeching's Sonnets of Shakespeare. 
 Brown's Shakespeare's Versification. 
 Bartlett's Shakespeare Concordance. 
 Clarke's Concordance to Shakespear 
 Abbott's Shakespearean Grammar. 
 Swinburne's Study of Ben Jonson. 
 Symonds's Ben Jonson. 
 Schelling's Ben Jonson and the Classical School.
 
 READING AND STUDY LIST 423 
 
 IxDn'iDUAL Authors and Works — Continued. 
 Swinburne's Chapman : A Critical Study. 
 Gosse's Life of Raleigh. 
 Edwards's Life of R.^leigh. 
 Gosse's Life and Letters of John Donne. 
 Spedding's Francis Bacon and His Times. 
 Nichol's I-rancis Bacon: His Life ami Philosophy. 
 Craik's Bacon: His Writings and His rhilosophy. 
 Abbott's Francis Bacon. 
 
 Palmer's Life and Works of George Herbert. 
 Heber's Life of Jeremy Taylor. 
 Gosse's Life of Jeremy Taylor. 
 Masson's Life and Times of Milton. 
 Stopford Brooke's Milton. 
 Raleigh's Life of Milton. 
 
 Corson's Introduction to the Works of Milton. 
 Brown's John Hunyan : His Life, Times, and Work. 
 Whyte's Banyan's Characters. 
 Craik's Life of Swift. 
 CoUins's Life of .Swift. 
 Aitken's Life of Steele. 
 Dolwon's Life of Steele. 
 Whittcn's Life of Defoe. 
 Wright's Life of Defoe. 
 Courthope's Life of Pope. 
 Baync's Life of Thomson. 
 Thomson's Life of Richardson. 
 Wilson's Life of Chatterton. 
 
 Masson's Essay on Chatterton (Essays, Biographical and Critical). 
 Fitzgerald's Life of Sterne. 
 Smeaton's Life of Smollett. 
 Irving's Life of Goldsmith. 
 Forster's Life of Goldsmith. 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson. 
 Waller's Boswell and Johnson. 
 Gibbon's .\utobiography. 
 kac's Life of Sheridan. 
 Southcy's Life of Cowper. 
 Wright's Life of Cowper. 
 Gilchrist's Life cf I'.lake. 
 Story's Life of I'.lake. 
 
 Kouctti'i Memoir of Blake (in Aldine Edition of his poems). 
 Swinburne*! William Blake : .\ Critical Study. 
 Henley's Life of Burns.
 
 424 READING AND STUDY LIST 
 
 Individual Authors and Works — Continued. 
 Setoun's Life of Burns. 
 
 Stevenson's Essay on Burns (Familiar Studies of Men and Books). 
 Knight's Life of William Wordsworth. 
 Arnold's Introduction to Selections from Wordsworth. 
 
 Shairp's Studies in Poetry and Philosophy (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keble). 
 Masson's Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other Essays. 
 Hutton's Essays in Literary Criticism (Wordsworth, Clough, George Eliot, 
 
 Arnold). 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott. 
 Saintsbury's Life of Scott. 
 Hudson's Life of Scott. 
 
 Irving's Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey (Scott and Byron). 
 Brandl's Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School. 
 Adams's Life of Jane Austen. 
 Pollock's Jane Austen. 
 Pellew's Jane Austen's Novels. 
 Bonnell's Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Jane Austen : Studies in 
 
 Their Works. 
 Dennis's Life of Southey. 
 Lucas's Life of Lamb. 
 
 Fitzgerald's Life, Letters, and Writings of Charles Lamb. 
 Moore's Life of Byron. 
 
 Arnold's Introduction to Selections from Byron. 
 Hadden's Life of Campbell. 
 Symington's Life and Works of Moore. 
 Dowden's Life of Shelley. 
 
 Brooke's Introduction to Selections from Shelley. 
 Browning's Essay on Shelley. 
 Scudder's Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. 
 Ellis's Shelley Concordance. 
 De Quincey's Autobiography. 
 
 DeQuincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater (autobiographical). 
 Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Macaulay. 
 Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte. 
 
 Gates's Essay on Charlotte Bronte (Studies and Appreciations). 
 Life of Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, by his Son. 
 Froude's Thomas Carlyle. 
 Mead's Philosophy of Carlyle. 
 
 Zapp's Three Great Teachers of Our Time (Carlyle, Tennyson, Ruskin). 
 Ingram's Life of Mrs. Browning. 
 Whiting's Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 Gorst's Earl of Beaconsfield (B. Disraeli). 
 Brandes's Lord Beaconsfield : A Study.
 
 READLNG AND STUDY LIST 425 
 
 IxDn'iDUAL Authors and Works — Continued. 
 Hutton's Cardinal Newman. 
 
 Jennings's Cardinal Newman : The Story of His Life, 
 Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua (autobiographical). 
 Gates's Three Studies in Literature (Jeffrey, Newman, Arnold). 
 Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. 
 Gissing's Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. 
 Melville's Life of Thackeray. 
 Kaufman's Life of Kingsley. 
 
 Charles Kingsley : His Letters, and Memories of His Life, by his Wife. 
 Anthony Trollope's Autobiography. 
 
 James's Partial Portraits (George Kliot, Trollopc, Stevenson). 
 Cross's Life of George Eliot. 
 Blind's George Eliot. 
 
 Cooke's George Eliot: A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings, and Phi- 
 losophy. 
 Brown's Ethics of George Eliot's Works. 
 Myers's Essays, Modern (George Eliot, Rossetti). 
 Orr's Life and Letters of Browning. 
 Waugh's Life of Browning. 
 Dowden's Robert Browning. 
 Herford's Robert Browning. 
 Brooke's Poetry of Robert Browning. 
 Berdoe's Browning's Message to His Times. 
 Revell's Browning's Criticism of Life. 
 
 Jones's Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher. 
 Berdoe's Browning and the Christian Faith. 
 Corson's Introduction to Browning. 
 Symons's Introduction to Browning. 
 Alexander's Introduction to Browning. 
 Orr's Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning. 
 Cooke's Browning Guide-Book. 
 Berdoe's Browning Cyclopaedia. 
 
 Anne Thackeray Ritchie's Records of Tennyson, Ruskin. and Browning. 
 Hutton's Essays, Theological and Literary (Browning, Tennyson, Arnold). 
 Alfred Tennyson : A Memoir, by his Son. 
 Jennings's Life f)f Tennyson. 
 Wacc's Life of Tennyson. 
 Horton's Life of Tennyson. 
 Lang's Life of Tennyson. 
 
 Waugh's Alfred, Lord Tennyson : A Study of His Life and Work. 
 Rawnslcy's Memories of the Tcnnysons. 
 Brooke'* Tennyson : His Art and Relation to Modern Life. 
 Van Dykc'i Poetry of Tennyson.
 
 426 READING AND STUDY LIST 
 
 Individual Authors and Works — Continued. 
 Tainsh's A Study of Tennyson. 
 Masterman's Tennyson as a Religious Teacher. 
 Luce's Handbook to the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 
 Dixon's Primer of Tennyson. 
 
 Tennyson's In Memoriam, annotated by the author. 
 Robertson's Analysis of Tennyson's In Memoriam. 
 Genung's Tennyson's In Memoriam: Its Purpose and Structure. 
 Littledale's Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 
 
 Maccalum's Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story. 
 Dawson's Study of Tennyson's Princess. 
 Dawson's Matthew Arnold. 
 Saintsbury's Matthew Arnold. 
 Russell's Life of Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Harrison's Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates. 
 Ruskin's Pr^eterita : Scenes of My Past Life. 
 Collingwood's Life and Works of John Ruskin. 
 Mrs. Meynell's John Ruskin. 
 Mather's John Ruskin : His Life and Teachings. 
 Waldstein's Work of John Ruskin : Its Influence upon Modern Thought 
 
 and Life. 
 Hobson's John Ruskin, Social Reformer. 
 Scudder's Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin. 
 W. M. Rossetti's Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 Sharp's D. G. Rossetti : A Record and Study. 
 Gary's The Rossettis, Dante Gabriel and Christina. 
 Gary's William Morris. 
 Mackail's Life of Morris. 
 
 Valance's William Morris : His Art, Writings, and Public Life. 
 Balfour's Life of Stevenson. 
 Black's Life of Stevenson. 
 Japp's Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 Cornford's Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 Le Gallienne's George Meredith : Some Characteristics. 
 Lynch's George Meredith; A Study. 
 Wratislaw's A. C. Swinburne; A Study. 
 
 ; 
 
 Collections of Poetry and Prose. 
 
 Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature. 
 
 Morley's Library of English Literature (five volumes). 
 
 Ward's English Poets (four volumes — with critical introductions — from 
 
 Chaucer to Tennyson). 
 Craik's English Prose (five volumes — with critical introductions — from 
 
 Mandeville to Stevenson).
 
 READING AND STUDY LIST 427 
 
 Collections of Poetry and Prose — Continued. 
 Arber's British Anthologies (ten volumes of poetical selections — fifteenth 
 
 to eighteenth century). 
 Palgrave's Golden Treasury (lyric poetry). 
 Whiteford's Anthology of English roetry, Beowulf to Kipling. 
 George's Chaucer to Arnold : Types of Literary Art (poetry and prose). 
 Garnett's English Prose from Elizabeth to N'ictoria. 
 Hales's Longer English Poems (from Spenser to Shelley). 
 Pancoast's Standard English Poems, Spenser to Tennyson. 
 Pancoast's Standard English Prose, Bacon to Stevenson. 
 Syle's From Milton to Tennyson (pt)etry). 
 Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth Century (full selections from fifteen 
 
 chief poets). 
 Stedman's Victorian .\ntbology (poetry). 
 
 Admirable single-volume editions of the principal poets are to be found in 
 the Globe Edition (The Macmillan Co.), the Cambridge Edition (Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Co.), and the Oxford Poets (Clarendon Press). 
 
 Critical annotated texts of a great variety of works are provided by many 
 publishers. Among the most important series are the Belles Lettres Series 
 (Heath & Co.), the Athenaeum Press Series (Ginn & Co.), and the Temple 
 Editions (Dent).
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 The student should make it perfectly clear to himself that the 
 great matter of importance in the study of Uterature is a first-hand 
 knowledge of the literary works themselves. These he should 
 read, and make his own judgments upon them. Afterward he 
 should seek to enlarge and correct those judgments by comparing 
 them with the opinions of competent critics. This book does not 
 aim to take the place of either the Hterature or the criticism, but 
 rather to serve as the student's guide to both. 
 
 English literature is vitally associated with English history. Nei- 
 ther can be properly understood without the other. The literary 
 student should therefore obtain at least a general knowledge of 
 historical events and conditions in each period from such works 
 as those mentioned in the Reading and Study List. 
 
 Chapter I. — Anglo-Saxon Pagan Poetry (449-670). 
 
 The most important poem is Beowulf. At least the most strik- 
 ing passages should be read, and the whole poem will be found 
 interesting. Good translations are those of Earle, of Morris and 
 Wyatt, of Child, and of Tinker, in prose, and those of Garnett and 
 .of Hall, in verse. Garnett's and Hall's editions also contain a 
 translation of the Fight at Finnsburg. Widsi'8 is translated in 
 full in Morley's English Writers and in Gollancz's Exeter Book. 
 The Lament of Deor is given in Brooke's Early English Litera- 
 ture. For further selections, including passages from the Charms, 
 see Brooke and Morley. 
 
 Practically all of the poems mentioned in this and the next two 
 sections are translated in Cook and Tinker's Translations from Old 
 English Poetry. It is the best single volume for the student, and 
 contains nearly all that he is likely to need. 
 
 Originals of practically the whole body of Anglo-Saxon poetry 
 are to be found in the ^Vulcker-Grein Bibliothek der Angelsach- 
 sischen Poesie. There are also various separate editions of the 
 more important poems. A knowledge of the language may be 
 
 428
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 429 
 
 obtained from such works as Bright's and Sweet's An^/o-Sii.xon 
 Reai/c-rs and Cook's First Book in Old English ; these also con- 
 tain interesting texts. 
 
 The history of this period is mainly concerned with the Anglo- 
 Saxon invasion of Britain ; the j^radual conquest of the larger por- 
 tion of the island ; the extermination of the Britons or their retreat 
 into Scotland, the Lake Region, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland ; the 
 settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in tlieir new home ; the establish- 
 ment of a number of petty kingdoms ; the advent of Christianity 
 and the struggle of paganism against the new religion. The char- 
 acter and significance of these events should be learned from some 
 standard history, together with the main facts concerning the pagan 
 religious beliefs and the social life of the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 In what ways is this poetry affected by the religious conceptions 
 and feelings of the race? What traits of character and what ideals 
 of life does this poetry reveal? What light does this poetry throw 
 on the position of the scop and the conditions under which poetry 
 was created? Give an outline of the narrative of Beowulf. What 
 qualities of substance or of style make Beowulf superior as litera- 
 ture to all other Anglo-Saxon poems? Explain the principles of 
 alliteration and accent on which Anglo-Saxon metre is based, and 
 note how Anglo-Saxon differs from modern English verse. 
 
 Chapter II. — Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry (670-871). 
 
 Caedmon's Hymn is given in King Alfred's West-Saxon version 
 in MacLean's Old and Afidille English Reader a.v\i\ Bright's Anglo- 
 Saxon Reader. This version may be interestingly compared with 
 the original Northumbrian form and the modern translation given 
 in this book. Many of the best passages from the Caedmonian 
 Paraphrase, from Cynewulf, and from the other poetry of this 
 period, are translated in Morley and Brooke. Cook's /udilh gives 
 the complete original and translation of that interesting i)oem. 
 The IVanderer, the Seafarer, and the Dream of the Rood are 
 translated in Brooke, and the first two also in Morley. Cynewulfs 
 Elene, together with Judith and the later Battle of Brtdnanburh 
 and Battle of Afaldon, are translated in a single volume by Clar- 
 nett. Whitman's Cynewulfs Crist is a good prose translation. 
 Crist, Phoenix, and Andreas are translated, with other poems, in 
 Gollancz's Exeter Book. Judith, the Wanderer, the Seafarer^ the 
 Dream of the Rood, Elene, and Phoenix are to be especially
 
 430 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 recommended for reading. The student should not neglect to 
 get a conception of the Caedmonian Paraphrase through selected 
 passages. 
 
 See Cook and Tinker, as above. 
 
 The history of this period is one of fierce struggles, but of 
 gradual development in two important directions. Historical 
 authorities should be consulted for the growth of Christianity and 
 the establishment of an English church, for the terrible invasions 
 of the Danes, and for the consolidation of the scattered kingdoms 
 into something Hke an English nationality. A united church and 
 a united nation were largely due to the stress of conflict against a 
 common foe. 
 
 In what respects does the Christian poetry resemble the pagan 
 poetry, and in what respects does it differ? To what extent does 
 the poetry of this period show the direct influence of Christianity? 
 Why was not the literary triumph of Christianity more complete 
 and speedy? What is the character of the Caedmonian Para- 
 phrase, and what is its probable relation to C^dmon? What was 
 the range and character of Cynewulf's work? Give an outline of 
 Cynewulf 's Ekne. In what dialect were most of the poems of 
 this period written, in what dialect have they been preserved, and 
 to what causes is this state of affairs due ? 
 
 Chapter III. — Anglo-Saxon Prose Period (871-1066). 
 
 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Alfred's Boethiiis and Orosius, 
 and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are translated in Bohn's Antiqua- 
 rian Library. Bede's account of Csedmon may be found in 
 Chapter XXIV. An interesting passage of the Orosius is Alfred's 
 original narrative of the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan. This 
 passage is given by Morley ; and both in Morley and in Brooke's 
 English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest 
 may be found Alfred's most interesting preface to his translation 
 of Gregory's Pastoral Care. Important passages from the 
 Chronicle are the entries for the years 871, 878, 893-897, 958, 
 975, and 1 137. The Battle of Brunanhurh and the Battle of 
 Maldon are translated by Garnett — the former also by Tennyson. 
 For these poems, see Cook and Tinker, as above. 
 
 The struggle with the invading Danes continued, but Enghsh 
 nationality and Christianity were saved and strengthened by 
 Alfred. Under his successors, the kingdom was extended until,
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 43 1 
 
 after the defeat of the heathen forces at the battle of Brunanburh 
 in 937, .-f^thelstan "became immediate king of all the Teutonic 
 races in Britain, and superior lord of all the Celtic principalities " 
 (Freeman). T»*vard the close of the tenth century, Danish in- 
 roads began anew, and continued with such success that, from 
 1016 to 1042, Danish kings sat on the throne of England. After 
 a quarter of a century of native rule came the Norman Conquest 
 in 1 066. These events brought with them social and religious 
 changes which it is important for the student of literature to 
 understand. The Norman Conquest is one of the great turning 
 points of Knglish history, and marks the close of the Anglo-Saxon 
 l)eriod. 
 
 In what ways was literature affecteil by historical movements 
 during the prose period? What was the relative position of 
 prose and poetry in this period? Why is the prose inferior as 
 literature? What was the character and extent of King Alfred's 
 contributions to literature? What is there in the Ans^/o-Saxon 
 Chronicle that is valuable as literature or as history? Give a 
 brief account of the contents of the Battle of Brunanburh, and 
 show its relation to historical movements. What sort of literature 
 did ..-Elfric write, and what are the merits of his prose style? 
 
 Chapter IV. — The Anglo-Norman Period (i 066-1 360). 
 
 Layamon's Brut has been edited and translated by Madden. 
 The romantic literature may be studied in Ellis's Spccimem of 
 Early English Metrical Romances and in Morley's Early En^^lish 
 Prose Romances. Morley's English Writers gives an outline of 
 the Brut and of Havelok the Dane. Many prose and verse texts 
 may be found in Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English. 
 An interesting edition of Mamleville's Travels, with facsimiles of 
 the curious original illustrations, is that of John Ashton. Brief 
 selections may be found in Craik's English Prose The text 
 q{ Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight has been edited for the 
 Early English Text Society. Collancz has edited The Pearl with 
 a translation. A good idea of the changes in the language may 
 be obtained from Lomsbury or Emerson. 
 
 The historical in(n'emcnts of the period are too many and too 
 complicated for brief and comprehensive statement. Some of 
 the most important matters that call for consideration arc the 
 growth of feudalism, the rise of chivalry and the prosecution of
 
 432 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 the Crusades, the strife between king and baronage, the founda- 
 tion of universities, the struggle between ecclesiastical and civil 
 power, the spread of the monastic orders, the development of 
 ParHament and constitution, the civil and foreign wars, the 
 growth of towns and industries. The important historical results 
 are the union of the two races, the mingling of the two tongues, 
 and the development of a new English nationality. At the close 
 of the period, England is at last ready for the beginnings of a 
 great national literature. 
 
 What writers and works illustrate the native Enghsh and relig- 
 ious spirit? What writers and works represent the Norman and 
 romantic spirit? What is the character of Layamon's Brut? 
 What were the great " cycles of romance " ? What is the 
 character of Mandeville's Travels? What preparation was 
 made by this period for the further development of Enghsh 
 literature? 
 
 Chapter V. — The Age of Chaucer (1360-1400). 
 
 Selections from Wyclif may be found in Craik, in Morley's 
 Library of English Literature, in Old South Leaflets, in Maynard, 
 Merrill and Go's. English Classics, in Arnold's Select English Works 
 of Wyclif, and in Morris and Skeat's Specimens. Bosworth and 
 Waring's Gospels gives in parallel columns the Gothic, Anglo- 
 Saxon, Wyclif, and Tyndale versions. Selections from Langland 
 and Gower may be found in Ward, Morley, and Morris and Skeat. 
 The complete works of both poets are published by the Clarendon 
 Press. The standard edition of Chaucer is that of Skeat, in six 
 volumes. Other good editions are Skeat's Student's Chaucer and 
 Pollard's Globe Chaucer. Corson's Chaucer''s Canterbury Tales 
 contains the best parts of that poem, and is an excellent book for 
 the student. Of the many essays on Chaucer, none is better than 
 that of Lowell. The student should read the Prologue entire and 
 at least one of the tales — preferably the Knightes Tale or the 
 Nonne Preestes Tale. Effort should be made to appreciate Chau- 
 cer's masterly skill in the portrayal of character and in the telling 
 of a story. Some of his descriptions should also be noted. Some 
 knowledge of his pronunciation and metre is essential to an 
 appreciation of the real beauty of his verse. 
 
 The Hundred Years' War continues through the whole of this 
 period. The real historical interest of the age, however, lies in
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 433 
 
 certain movements of a less dramatic character. English nation- 
 ality is developed in a marked (iegree. The power of Parliament 
 is still further extended. Great social changes are taking place, 
 certain phases of which are marked by the peasant revolt. The 
 English church becomes more indepentlent, and the great " Lol- 
 lard " movement, headed by W'yclif, anticipates the Reformation. 
 The century closes with the dethronement of Richard II by Henry 
 of Lancaster. Literature throws much light on these movements, 
 and is in turn illuminated by them. In addition to the ordinary 
 historical authorities, a book like Jusserand's English IVay/aring 
 Life in the Fouriec-nth Century will be helpful in illustrating social 
 conditions. 
 
 How do Chaucer and Gower illustrate the romantic temper of 
 the age? How do Chaucer, Wyclif, and Langland illustrate social 
 and religious conditions? Give a careful description of some one 
 or more of Chaucer's pilgrims. What is the plan of the Prologue? 
 \\"hat is the plan of the Canterbuty Talcs ? How does the Prologue 
 illustrate Chaucer's humor and his skill in character description ? 
 Give an outline of the narrative of some one of the Canterbury 
 Tales and specify Chaucer's chief excellences as a narrator. What 
 classes of society are dealt with in the Prologue, and what is 
 Chaucer's attitude toward each? Is his satire bitter or genial? 
 Illustrate. Compare Chaucer with Langland, as a poet and as a 
 man. 
 
 Chapter VI. — The Fifteenth Century (1400-1500). 
 
 Sufficient examples of Occleve and Lydgate may be found in 
 Ward, Arber, Morley, and Morris and Skeat. The same authori- 
 ties provide material illustrating the Scotch poets. The King's 
 Quair has been edited by Skeat. Good editions of Malory's 
 Morte cV Arthur are those of Strachey, Gollancz (Temple Clas- 
 sics), and Rhys (Camelot Series, selected portions). Lanier's 
 Boy's King Arthur is an abriilgment, with an introductory essay. 
 The standard collection of ballads is Child's English ami Scottish 
 Popular Ballads (five volumes). A condensation of this work is 
 published in a single volume. Other important works are Percy's 
 Reliques of Ancient Poetry, Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor- 
 der, and Gummcre's Old English Ballads. ICxcellent selections 
 may be found in Ward, Arber, and Morley. l"or the Mysteries, 
 ^Miracle Plays, and .Moralities, the best volumes of selections are
 
 434 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes and 
 Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama. Selections 
 may also be found in Morley's English Writers and Library of 
 English Literature. The mystery or miracle type is well repre- 
 sented by the Chester Play of Noah and the Tovvneley Play of the 
 Shepherds ; the morality type by Everyman and Hyckescorner. 
 
 The Hundred Years' War continued throughout the first half of 
 the fifteenth century, resulting finally in the loss of the English 
 dominions in France. The accession of Henry of Lancaster to 
 the throne had established the right of Parliament to fix the royal 
 succession ; and under the rule of the Lancastrian kings, parlia- 
 mentary power naturally grew broader and firmer. Under Henry VI 
 the weakness of the king led almost to anarchy. Jack Cade's 
 rebellion is an index of the prevailing disorder. This state of 
 affairs was still further intensified by the civil wars between the 
 Houses of Lancaster and York, known as the Wars of the Roses. 
 By the overthrow and death of Richard HI and the accession of 
 Henry VII, the era of the Plantagenet kings came to an end, and 
 the reign of the Tudors began. The last years of the century were 
 years of peace. The century as a whole was one of war and tur- 
 moil ; but it was marked also by industrial and commercial pros- 
 perity, by the introduction of the art of printing, and by the 
 beginnings of the Renaissance. The history of the period largely 
 accounts for the stagnation of literature after the splendid promise 
 of Chaucer in the fourteenth century. 
 
 How is the influence of Chaucer manifested in Occleve, Lyd- 
 gate, and the Scotch poets? What new attitude toward nature is 
 displayed in the Scotch poets? What service did Malory perform 
 for literature in collecting the Arthurian legends, and in what ways 
 are modern poets indebted to his work ? Give an account of the 
 incidents and an estimate of the poetic quality of some of the 
 more famous ballads. Give an outline of a Miracle Play and an 
 account of the way in which it was acted (see Bates's English 
 Religious Drama'). Give an outline of a Morality, and compare 
 it with the Miracle Plays for dramatic interest. 
 
 Chapter VII. — Beginnings of Renaissance and Reformation in 
 England (i 500-1579). 
 
 For the prose of this period, see Morley's Library of English 
 Literature and Craik's English Prose. For the poetry, see
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 435 
 
 Ward's English Poefs and Morley. For the drama, see Pollard's 
 English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes, Manly's Speci- 
 mens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama, and Morley. An P^nglish 
 translation of More's Utopia may be found in Morley's Universal 
 Library, in the Camelot Series, in the Temple Classics, and in 
 Arber's Reprints. Ascham's chief works may be found in .Arber's 
 Reprints. Bosworth and Waring's Gospels contains the (lothic, 
 Anglo-Saxon, Wyclif, and Tyndale versions. The poems of Wyatt 
 and Surrey may be found in the Riverside Edition, in the Aldine 
 Edition, in Arber's TottcTs Miscellany, and in Arber's British 
 Anthologies. The poetry of Sackville may be found in Scribner's 
 Library of Old Authors ; his Gorhoduc, in Manly's Specimens. 
 
 The earlier part of the sixteenth century witnessed the spread 
 of the new learning in England, and the growth of the universities 
 under Renaissance influences. The influence of the Reformation 
 is also to be noted. The conflict of Henry VIII with the papacy 
 led to the reconstitution of the English church, the dissolution of 
 the monasteries, etc. During the reign of Mary came Catholic 
 reaction and severe persecution. With the accession of Elizabeth, 
 Protestant influences revived and Puritanism began to grow. The 
 reign of Elizabeth is characterized by a spirit of daring adventure 
 and of intense patriotism. England rapidly grew into one of the 
 first-rate powers of Europe. The history of the whole century is 
 of great interest, and these are only a few of the movements which 
 demand the attention of the student of literature. 
 
 What steps mark the development of the drama during this 
 period? Give some account of the character of the first English 
 comedy and the first P^nglish tragedy. What new spirit in poetry 
 is illustrated by the work of Wyatt and Surrey ? Who were the 
 " humanists," and why are they so called ? What writers are 
 especially associated with the Reformation, and what sort of liter- 
 ary work did they produce? Who were the leading i)rose-writers 
 of the period, and in what ways was prose style improved? 
 
 Chapter VIII. — The Age of Shakespeare (1579-1625). 
 
 Prose- writers. — Oaik and Clamctt maybe consulted for the 
 prose-writers of this and all succeeding jjcriods. Sidney's Z)<y<'//.K' 
 of Poesy is edited by Cook, the Arcadia by Summer. Lyly's 
 Euphues may be found in Arber's Rei)rints. Hacon's Essays 
 may be obtained in the Temple Classics and in various other
 
 436 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 handy editions. Some of the best of these should certainly be 
 read, as, for instance, Of Truth, Of Death, Of Love, Of Great 
 Place, Of Ambition, Of Beauty, Of Studies. For other prose-writers 
 of the period, brief selections will suffice. Some passages from 
 the " Authorized Version " of the Bible should be read at this 
 point. 
 
 Poets. — Good editions of Spenser and of the Faerie Queene 
 in whole or in part are easily obtained. Book I of the Faerie 
 Queene should be read by every student. Also some good essay 
 on Spenser, like Lowell's or Dowden's. For other poets of the 
 period, the selections in Ward and in Arber's Anthologies will be 
 found adequate. These works may also be consulted for later 
 periods. The selections from the sonnets of Sidney and Shake- 
 speare in Ward should be read. 
 
 Dramatists. — Several good earlier dramas are given in 
 Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama. A large 
 variety of excellent selections may be found in Morley's Library 
 and in Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Many 
 single plays are edited, as in the Temple Dramatists. Thayer's 
 Best Elizabethan Plays contains Marlowe's y*?^' of Malta, Jonson's 
 Alchetnist, Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, Fletcher and Shake- 
 speare's Two Noble Kinsmen, and Webster's Duchess of Malfi. 
 These five plays would alone suffice to give a good idea of the 
 Ehzabethan drama aside from Shakespeare. For students who have 
 time to read more extensively, the Mermaid Series of the drama- 
 tists may be recommended. 
 
 Shakespeare. — Furness's Variorum Shakespeare, so far as pub- 
 lished, is the authoritative edition for reference or for critical 
 study. Good school editions are the Temple, the Arden, and the 
 Rolfe. A wide range of reading on Shakespeare's life and work is 
 suggested in the Reading and Study List. Some one play or more 
 should certainly be read. For the beginner, The Merchant of 
 Venice, Julius CcBsar, and Macbeth may be recommended. The 
 first thing to be done with Shakespeare is to read him, for pure 
 delight in his fascinating plots and his wonderful pictures of life 
 and character. Beyond this, his work will bear the most careful 
 and critical study ; but such study should be vital and distinctively 
 literary rather than linguistic or textual. Minute criticism is well
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 437 
 
 for the scholar ; but the living interest of Shakespeare should not 
 be spoiled for the younger student by too close attention to details. 
 
 During the reign of Elizabeth, England rose to the first rank 
 among European powers. This was due in no small measure to 
 the able and vigorous personality of the queen herself and to the 
 labors and counsels of the great men by whom she was sur- 
 rounded. The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, destroyed a 
 powerful rival. The war with Spain and the shattering of the 
 Armada humbled the power and priile of the dominant state of 
 Europe. The achievements of great explorers, adventurers, 
 statesmen, and men of business tentled to enrich the nation and 
 to raise the importance of the solid middle classes. Unsurpassed 
 literar}' achievement added the crown to F^ngland's greatness. 
 The reign of James I (1603-1625) is chiefly memorable for the 
 struggle between the growing power of the people through Parlia- 
 ment and the Stuart doctrine of the " divine right of kings." 
 
 What is the "Spenserian stanza" ? Give an outline of the 
 narrative of Book I of the Faerie Qi/ccne, and explain its allegory. 
 Select examples of Spenser's music, picturesqueness, imaginative 
 power, and nobility of spirit. What story of Sidney's life is re- 
 vealed in the sonnets oi Astrophel and Stella ? Give an outline 
 of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus ox Jeio of Ma/fa, and seek to make a 
 judgment of its poetical and dramatic power. Describe the 
 general picture of life in one of Shakespeare's dramas, bringing out 
 the relations of the characters by showing the groups into which 
 they naturally fall. Study some one of Shakespeare's characters 
 (Shylock, Portia, Brutus, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, etc.), illus- 
 trating each characteristic by reference to the drama. Analyze 
 one of Shakespeare's dramatic plots, showing the connected series 
 of events presented in each scene and in each act. Eind illus- 
 trations of Shakespeare's power to represent human passions. Show 
 the range of Shakespeare's symi)athy with a great variety of human 
 beings. Find illustrations of Shakespeare's poetic power. Give 
 examples of Shakespeare's vivid imagination. Which docs Shake- 
 speare portray best - men or women ? Illustrate. Show how 
 the plot of Ben jonson's Alchemist illustrates the classical unities. 
 
 Chapter IX The Age of Milton (1625-1660). 
 
 Prose- writers. — The miscellaneous prose literature will be 
 sufficiently illustrated for the ordinary student l)y selections in
 
 438 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 Craik, in Garnett^ and in Morley's Library. Most students would 
 be interested in reading Walton's Complete Atigkr entire. The 
 rich and stately prose style of the time may be profitably com- 
 pared with the prose of the previous period and with the clearer 
 and more modern prose of the Age of Dryden. 
 
 Poets. — Herrick's poetry may be satisfactorily studied in the 
 selections of the Golden Treasury Series or of Hale's Poems of 
 Herrick. Excellent selections from Herrick and other poets in 
 Ward ; at least as much of Herrick's poetry as is there given 
 should be read. Also a few of the best songs of Suckling and 
 Lovelace. 
 
 Milton. — I^ Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, and Book I 
 of Paradise Lost should be read carefully. There are many anno- 
 tated editions. Areopagitica or selections from Craik and Gar- 
 nett will illustrate his prose. Macaulay's Essay on Miltoji is a 
 brilliant and interesting work. Corson's Introduction to Milton 
 will be of great assistance. 
 
 The conflict between " divine right" and civil liberty led to 
 the famous Petition of Right. The dramatic struggle between 
 Charles I and the Long Parliament is full of interest because of 
 the great men and the great principles involved. When all else 
 failed, the differences between king and people came to the deci- 
 sion of civil war. Charles was defeated and beheaded. Then 
 follows the era of the Commonwealth under Cromwell. The age 
 was one of civil and religious conflict. The great issues were civil 
 and religious liberty. The result was the temporary triumph of 
 the Puritan party. Literature was strongly influenced, in both 
 positive and negative ways, by the historical situation. Gardiner's 
 First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution and Dowden's 
 Puritan and Anglican will be found instructive and illuminating, 
 in addition to the ordinary histories. 
 
 Compare the Cavalier Poets with Milton as to the spirit and 
 quality of their poetry. Compare Milton's Areopagitica and Tay- 
 lor's Liberty of Prophesying, as to style and sentiment. Make a 
 careful comparison of D Allegro and // Penseroso as to the plan 
 of treatment and the mood expressed. In what ways do Comus 
 and Lycidas illustrate or contrast with the Puritan temper? Study 
 the series of great descriptions in Book I of Paradise Lost and 
 note what poetical qualities they illustrate. Is Samson Agonistes
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 439 
 
 a great drama? How does its method compare with that of 
 Shakespeare? Of the (ireek dramatists? 
 
 Chapter X. — The Age of Dryden (1660-1700). 
 
 Prose-writers. — The great prose masterpiece of the age is 
 Bunyan's /'i/xn/zi's Proi^nss. .\\. least the first part should be 
 read. The selections in Craik and Garnett will give a good idea 
 of the style of Temple, Dryden, and other prose-writers. 
 
 Poets. — In poetry Dryden is the great figure. Ills Song /or 
 S/. Cecilia's Day and Alexander's Feast should be read as repre- 
 sentative of his lyric poetry, and Absalom and Achitophel as 
 representative of his satires. The two lyrics and the best parts 
 of the satire may be found in Ward. .An instructive comparison 
 between Dryden and Chaucer may be matle by reading Palatnon 
 and Arcite, which is a free translation of Chaucer's Knightcs Tale. 
 Ward's selections from Butler will give the student an idea of the 
 anti- Puritan spirit of the time. 
 
 Dramatists. — Most of the Restoration drama is entirely unfitted 
 for the young reader. Dryden's All for Love, Otway's Venice 
 Preserved, and Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem are among the best 
 and cleanest of these plays, though not altogether untinged by 
 the prevailing looseness. 
 
 Less than two years after Cromwell's death, the house of Stuart 
 was restored to the throne (1660) in the person of Charles II. 
 The reign of Charles, in harmony with his character, was one of 
 intrigue and licentiousness. The foreign power of Kngland not- 
 ably declined. Charles was a man of comparatively easy disi)osi- 
 tion, but toward the close of his reign, the old Stuart tyranny was 
 in large measure revived. This state of affairs was made still 
 worse under James II. In 16S8 James fled from Kngland. and 
 the throne was declared vacant. Parliament elected to the throne 
 :is joint monarchs Mary, the daughter of James, and her husband, 
 William of Orange. Under their reign began a new era, of con- 
 stitutional monarchy, of comparative civil and religious freedom, 
 of revived national power, of greater decency in social life. These 
 historical conditions are strikingly reflected in literature. 
 
 What is the nature of the allegory in Bunyaii's Pilgrim's /'ng- 
 ress? What are the reasons for its great jM)])ularity and influ- 
 ence? Compare Hunyan's style with Dryden's, and note some
 
 440 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 reasons for the difference. How does Butler's Hudibras reflect 
 the spirit of the age ? What are the characteristic merits of Dry- 
 den as a lyric poet? Illustrate by examples Dryden's gift of 
 satiric portraiture. What was the nature .of Dryden's work as a 
 dramatist? What marked changes in the drama were produced 
 by the Restoration Period? 
 
 Chapter XI. — The Age of Pope (1700-1740). 
 
 Prose-writers. — In Swift's Gulliver'' s Travels, the first and 
 second voyages should be read. The Battle of the Books may be 
 found in Garnett. Addison and Steele are best represented by 
 the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. An admirable edition, contain- 
 ing also other papers from the Spectator and Macaulay's Essay on 
 Addison, is Thurber's Select Essays of Addison. Every student 
 should read Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and his Journal of the 
 Plague Year is also extremely interesting and characteristic. 
 Good selections from all of these writers may be found in Craik, 
 Garnett, and Morley. 
 
 Poets. — Good selections from all the poets in Ward and Arber. 
 The Rape of the Lock should be read entire, and also some selec- 
 tions from the translation of the Iliad. The Epistle to Dr. Ar- 
 buthnot will illustrate Pope's skill as a satirist, and selections from 
 the Essay on Criticism and Essay on Man his didactic verse. 
 These last are given in Ward. 
 
 The most interesting historical events of the reign of Queen 
 Anne have to do with foreign wars and domestic politics. Both 
 have left their mark on literature ; but more important than either 
 is the study of social and industrial conditions. At the death of 
 Anne, the throne fell to George I, the first of the Hanoverian 
 kings. For a quarter of a century the history of England is 
 largely the history of Whig politics and of English trade. PoHti- 
 cal life was corrupt and cynical, and social life was extremely 
 materialistic. The " practical " seemed to have completely super- 
 seded the ideal. 
 
 What characteristics of a good story are to be found in Swift's 
 Gulliver'' s Travels ? What is the nature of its satirical purpose ? 
 For what qualities is Swift's style noteworthy? Compare Addi- 
 son's style with Swift's. Illustrate from the De Coverley Papers 
 the portrayal of characters from real hfe. How does the method
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 441 
 
 of portrayal compare with that of Chaucer in the Proloi^tie? What 
 personal qualities of Addison and Steele are revealed in the Spec- 
 tator t%%z.\%l By what means does Defoe succeed in producing 
 realistic effect? Compare Pope with Dryden as to the method 
 and spirit of his satire. Illustrate from I'ope the spirit and the 
 manner of Classicism. Why is the Rape of the Lock Pope's most 
 perfect work? Why is Pope's poetry especially fitted for quo- 
 tation ? 
 
 Chapter XII. — The Age of Johnson (1740-1780). 
 
 Poets. — The selections in Ward, .Xrber, and Morley will suffice 
 to give an idea of the poetry of Thomson, Young, Collins, Chatter- 
 ton, Johnson, and the lesser poets. The best of Gray and good 
 selections from Goklsmith will be found in the same works ; but 
 these two writers deserve to be read more fully. Gray's Ele^\ 
 Progress of Poesy, and The Bard should certainly be read care- 
 fully, and at least Goldsmith's Deserted Village entire. All of 
 these poets should be compared with Spenser, Milton, and Pope, 
 in order that the student may judge whether romantic or classical 
 influences were most felt by them. 
 
 Novelists. — Good selections from Richardson's Pamela, Field- 
 ing's Tom Jones, and Sterne's Tristram Shatiily — as well as from 
 earlier prose romance — are given in Simonds's Introductioti to 
 English Fiction ; and from various novels of these and other 
 writers, in Craik and Morley. The one novel of the period that 
 should certainly be read entire is Goldsmith's Vicar of WakefiehL 
 This and Johnson's Rasselas are printed in many good editions. 
 It is desirable that the student should read at this point some 
 brief work on the history of the novel. Any of the works men- 
 tioned in the Reading and Study List will be found interesting and 
 instructive. 
 
 Prose -writers. — GoUlsmith is one of the most exquisite prose- 
 writers of the literature, and some of his charming essays should 
 be read. Johnson's Liz'es of the Poets will represent him at his 
 best. If possible, parts of Poswell's Life of Johnson should be 
 read. Hurke is not to be neglected. His speech on Conciliation 
 with America should be known to every student, both for its 
 matter and fur its style. These and other prose-writers arc
 
 442 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 admirably represented by the selections in Craik, Garnett, and 
 Morley. 
 
 Dramatists. — Goldsmith's Good-Natured Man and She Stoops 
 to Conquer are published in one volume in the Belles Lettres 
 Series. Sheridan's Rivals and School for Scandal 2,\q. published 
 separately in the Temple Dramatists. The second drama in each 
 case will represent the author at his best. 
 
 Foreign wars and domestic politics still continue to play a 
 prominent part in history. The condition of politics is vastly 
 improved. Patriotism becomes something more than an empty 
 word or a cloak for corruption, and higher political and social 
 ideals prevail. The great Methodist revival under the Wesleys 
 marks a quickened moral and religious sense among the people. 
 England's modern industrial system is growing, and bringing with 
 it great ecomomic changes. The winning of the Indian empire is 
 balanced by the loss of the American colonies as a result of the 
 American Revolution. There is a notable struggle for the free- 
 dom of the press. The names of Chatham and Burke indicate 
 the high level of British statesmanship. 
 
 What poets of the age represent the growing interest in nature 
 and the tendency toward romanticism? To what extent are these 
 same movements represented in the non-poetic literature of the 
 time ? What writers are conservative or reactionary ? What phases 
 in the development of the novel are marked by this period ? What 
 is the difference between a novel and a romance? Characterize 
 the style of each of the great prose-writers of the age, and com- 
 pare them with earher masters of prose style. What writers rep- 
 resent in their works the growing spirit of individualism ? What 
 writers reflect in their works the historical movements or conditions 
 of the age ? 
 
 Chapter XIII. — The Age of Burns (1780-1800). 
 
 The poets of the period are fairly represented in Ward, Arber, 
 and Morley. Some of the charming lyrics of Blake should be read, 
 and the quality of Cowper should be studied in such works as John 
 Gilpin'' s Ride, On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture, The Casta- 
 way, and portions of The Task. Burns is, of course, the great 
 poetic figure of the age, and every one should be familiar with his 
 best poems. The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tarn O'Shanter, To a
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 443 
 
 Mouse, Au/ii Lang Syne, To Man in llcavc-n. The Banks o' Doon, 
 Fare^icell to Xancy, Ilii^hlanJ Mary, Bannockbtirn, A Ret/, Retf 
 Rose, A Man's a Man for a' that, are all indispensable ; ami the 
 student may go much farther with both interest and profit. 
 
 In this period the history of the eighteenth century culminates. 
 For all Europe, as well as for England, the French Revolution is 
 the great central fiict of the age. What France achievetl through 
 a tremendous convulsion, England was achieving through slow but 
 steady progress. The spirit of individualism was asserting itself 
 with irresistible power. For the time being, England found her- 
 self compelled to war with France in defence of order and law, 
 yet the two nations were moving in the same direction. During 
 most of the perioil the younger Pitt was prime minister, and he 
 proved a worthy pilot through the great storm. Other important 
 movements of the time were those for prison reform and for the 
 abolition of the slave trade. 
 
 In what ways is the development of the novel continued during 
 this perioii? How are the four leading poets of the period related 
 to the principle of individualism ? What are some of the evidences 
 of Cowper's importance as a poet of nature? What are the pecu- 
 liarities of Crabbe as to subject-matter and method of treatment? 
 What are the distinguishing qualities of Blake's poetry? What 
 qualities in Burns's poetry account for its great popularity? How 
 are man and nature associated with each other in Burns's poetry? 
 Illustrate from his poems Burns's lyric gift, his humor, his breadth 
 of sympathy, his poetic imagination, his passionate feeling, his 
 independence of spirit. 
 
 Chapter XIV. — The Age of Wordsworth (1800 1832). 
 
 Poets. — The various poets of the age are well rejjresented by 
 the selections in ^\'ard. Each of the six poets discussed in the 
 text should be carefully studied through at least a few typical 
 selections. The best of Wordsworth's poetry is gathered in .Ar- 
 nold's volume of selections in the Golden Treasury Series. The 
 introductory essay in this volume is one of the best on Words- 
 worth. Lowell's essay is also to be recommended. Excellent 
 annotated volumes are (leorge's edition of the /'re/iu/e and Se/ee- 
 tions from IVor./iWorth. The student will need a guide amid the 
 mazes of Wordsworth's rather une<iual poetry ; and either Ward, 
 Arnold, or George will guide him safely and wisely to the very
 
 444 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 best. Ward or George's Select Poems of Coleridge should be used 
 in the study of Coleridge's poetry. Coleridge's masterpiece is 
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariiier. This, the beautiful fragment 
 of Christabel, and Dejection : An Ode, should be known to every 
 reader. Scott's poetry is best represented by his longer narrative 
 works. Either Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, or The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel should be read entire. For Byron, Arnold's Golden 
 Treasury edition will be found a helpful guide. The third canto 
 of Childe Harold and the Prisoner of Chillon may be profitably 
 read. The selections in Ward are good, but somewhat fragmentary. 
 For Shelley nothing is better than the selections in Ward. Stanzas 
 written in Dejection near Naples, Ode to the West Wind, The 
 Cloud, To a Skylark, and Adonais should certainly be read. Stu- 
 dents who have opportunity to read Prometheus Unbound vi'"^ find 
 Scudder's edition an admirable guide to a rather difficult poem. 
 Keats's Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian 
 Urn, To Autumn, and La Belle Dame sans Merci, together with 
 the selections from Hype?-ion and from the sonnets given in Ward, 
 should be read. Voluminous selections from these six poets — 
 including most of the poems mentioned — are given in Page's 
 British Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 Novelists. — Scott and Jane Austen are represented by good 
 selections in Craik ; but if possible, at least a single novel of each 
 should be read entire. Selection may be made from Scott's 
 Lvanhoe, The Talisman, Kenilworth, The Fortunes of Nigel, Old 
 Mortality, Guy Manneritig, and The Heart of Midlothian, and 
 from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and 
 Enuna. 
 
 Prose-writers. — The selections in Craik will give a good 
 conception of the prose Uterature of the time. De Quincey and 
 Lamb should receive fuller consideration. De Quincey's Confes- 
 sions of an Opiu?n-Eater is extremely interesting. Other fasci- 
 nating works are Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow, The English 
 Mail Coach, Joan of Arc, Flight of a Tartar Tribe, The Spanish 
 Nun. Lamb's Dissertation on Roast Pig is one of the most 
 charming of the Essays of Elia ; but the student who has leisure 
 can not do better than to take the Essays of Elia and browse 
 among them to suit his fancy. 
 
 Much of the historical interest of the early years of the nine-
 
 AIDS TO STL'DV 445 
 
 teenth century gathers around the wars with Napoleon. The 
 battle of Trafalgar in 1S05 saved England from threatenetl inva- 
 sion. The battle of U'aterloo in 1S15 brought the wars to an end 
 by the overthrow of Napoleon. In the meantime had occurred 
 the War of 181 2 with the Uniteil States. The succeeding period 
 of peace witnessed a decided revival of liberalism. Economic 
 distress and labor troubles favored the growing demanil for par- 
 liamentary reform. After a bitter struggle, extending over several 
 years, the great Reform Rill was ])assed in 1S32. While it did not 
 secure ideal conditions, it greatly extended the elective fran( hise, 
 transferred political power to the great middle class, and markeil 
 the beginning of democratic conditions in England. One of the 
 earliest acts of the reformed Parliament was the abolition of slavery 
 in the British dominions, and this was shortly followed by factory 
 and pauper legislation which relieved the worst wrongs of the 
 white slaves of the modern industrial system. 
 
 What poems or passages from Wordsworth illustrate his spirit- 
 ual insight into the significance of common things and common 
 men? Illustrate from Colendge's A neienf Mariner Vind Christaln-l 
 the peculiar character of his imagination, dive an outline of the 
 story of Scott's Marmion or Lady of the Lake. Show how 
 Byron's poetry reflects his own personality and experience. 
 Compare Shelley's Adonais as an elegy with Milton's Lycidas. 
 Illustrate from Keats's poetry his love for sensuous beauty. Char- 
 acterize Scott and Jane Austen as novelists, and comi)are them 
 with each other. Cive a brief statement of Coleridge's critical 
 views on Wordsworth and on romantic literature (see Beers's .Slr^r- 
 tiotis from the Prose Writings of CoUridge) . What elements of 
 great literary genius are revealed in the writings of I)e Quincey? 
 What qualities give such a peculiar charm to Lamb's prose style? 
 
 Chapters XV XVII. — The Age of Tennyson (1832 1892). 
 
 Prose-writers. — Craik's selections will be found invaluable 
 for the many excellent prose-writers of the period. I-'rom 
 .Macaulay should be read at least one of the iiistorical essays 
 (/.ord Clive, Warren J/astings, Karl of Chatham. William Pitt, 
 etc.), one of the literary essays {Milton, Jhinyan, Addison, Gold- 
 smith, Johnson, et< .), an<l the famous third chapter of his lliitory 
 of England. ( arlylc's Essay on Hums will jKrhaiJS best serve 
 the purposes of the average student. Heroes and Hero- Worship
 
 446 AIDS TO STUDV" 
 
 is among his most important and characteristic works. One of 
 the finest passages of his masterpiece, Sartor Resartus, is the 
 chapter on "The Everlasting Yea" (Book II, Ch. VII). From 
 The French Revolution, Chapter VI of Book V and Chapter X 
 of Book VII may be read. Ruskin is best represented by a 
 volume of selections, hke that of Vida D. Scudder. Sesame and 
 Lilies should be read entire. From Modern Painters read " Of 
 the Open Sky " (Part II, Sec. Ill, Ch. I, first few pages), 
 "Of Water, as painted by Turner" (Part II, Sec. V, Ch. Ill, 
 last three paragraphs), " The Mountain Gloom " and " The Moun- 
 tain Glory" (Part V, Chaps. XIX and XX). From Stones of 
 Venice read " St. Mark's " (Vol. II, Ch. IV). For Arnold's prose, 
 Gates's volume of selections is to be recommended ; it has an 
 admirable introductory essay. Arnold's Introduction to Ward's 
 English Poets should be read, and also his essays on Gray and 
 Keats in Ward and his essay introductory to his edition of 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Novelists. — There are good selections in Craik from the 
 novelists of the period, but these can not take the place of the 
 reading of complete novels. Dickens is well represented by Pick- 
 wick Papers, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two 
 Cities, Oliver Twist, or The Old Curiosity Shop. From Thackeray 
 should be read Vanity Fair, Henry Esmond, or The Newcoines. 
 For George Eliot, choice should be made of Silas Marner, Adam 
 Bede, or The Mill on the Floss. Representative works of the 
 minor novelists are suggested after their names in the Chrono- 
 logical Outline. 
 
 Poets. — Voluminous selections from the eight leading poets 
 of the period (Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Robert Browning, 
 Clough, Arnold, Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne) are given in Page's 
 British Poets of the Nineteenth Century. Good selections from 
 these and other poets in Ward. The selections from Arnold in 
 Ward are especially full and judicious. Poems of Arnold to be 
 particularly recommended are Dover Beach, The Forsaken Mer- 
 man, The Strayed Reveller, Sohrab and Rustum, The Scholar- 
 Gypsy, Thyrsis, Palladium, and Rugby Chapel. The selections in 
 Ward from Mrs. Browning — as also those from Robert Browning 
 — are very unsatisfactory. The Sonnets from the Portuguese are 
 given in full by Page. These and Cowper's Grave should be read.
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 447 
 
 For Browning, one needs a guide ; and Corson's Introduction to 
 Broicnin^ or George's Select Poems of Broicnini^ may be recom- 
 mended. A few of the best poems are My Lost Duchess, The 
 Flight of the Duchess, The Last Ricte Together, Prospice, Home 
 Thoughts from Abroad, Old Pictures in Florence, Andrea del 
 Sarto, Fra Lippo Lippi, The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. 
 Praxctfs Church, Abt Vogler, Rabbi Ben Ezra, A Grammarian's 
 Funeral, An Epistle of Karshish, Saul, Childe Roland to the Dark 
 Ttm>er Came, Cleon, A Death in the Desert, Epilogue to Asolando, 
 In a Gondola, In a Balcony, Pippa Passes. \'an Dyke's Poems 
 by Tennyson is a good introductory volume, and the selections 
 in Ward are reasonably satisfactory. Among poems that should 
 be read are The Poet, The Lady of Shalott, The 7'wo Voices, The 
 Miller s Daughter, The Palace of Art, The Lotos-Eaters, " You ask 
 me, why, though ill at ease," Morte d^ Arthur, Dora, Ulysses, Locks- 
 lev Hall, Godi'i-a, St. Agnes' Eve, Sir Galahad, "Break, Break, 
 Break," The Brook, Ode on the Death of the Duke of UWlington, 
 Northern Farmer, the songs from The Princess, Maud, Guinevere 
 from Idylls of the King, Enoch Arden, The Revenge, Merlin and the 
 Gleam, The Making of Man, The Silent Voices, Crossing the Bar, 
 and from /// Memoriam, the Prehnle and Lyrics IX-XIX, LIV- 
 LVII, LXXXV, CVI, CIX, CXIV, CXX, CXXVl, CXXXI. 
 
 The history of the Victorian Period has been more complicated, 
 though less dramatic, than that of previous eras. The student 
 will be called upon to consider movements which develop slowly 
 and quietly, but which are vastly important in their results. \'ic- 
 toria came to the throne in 1837. Her reign falls naturally into 
 two parts. Some of tiic important events and movements of the 
 first era are the progress of parliamentary reform, the effect of 
 new inventi(jns, the Chartist movement, postal reform, the Irish 
 agitation, the Tractarian movement, the repeal of the corn laws, 
 factory legislation, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, During 
 this era, the old Whig and Tory parties passed away with the 
 passing of old jxjlitical issues. The second era is marked by the 
 struggle of the new Liberal and Conservative parties on new 
 ground and witli new aims. This era is characterized by the 
 growth of liberalism and by the further extension of the elective 
 franchise. The whole reign is noteworthy for the advance toward 
 democratic conditions and for the progress of nuterial civilization.
 
 448 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 It is marked also by the development of science, with its influ- 
 ence on rehgious thought and on practical life. The influence 
 of these conditions on literature is discussed in the text, and may 
 be profitably studied in the works of literary historians and critics. 
 What are the characteristics of Macaulay's style or method of 
 presentation that make his works so attractive ? What is Carlyle's 
 attitude toward the great movements of his age ? What are his 
 special powers as a literary craftsman ? Indicate the range of 
 Ruskin's subject-matter and the peculiarities of his style. What 
 are some of the characteristics of Arnold as a literary critic ? 
 How does Dickens's humor affect his portrayal of Hfe and char- 
 acter ? Analyze one of Dickens's plots, and give an opinion as to 
 his skill in the handling of a story. How are Thackeray's novels 
 affected by his satirical purpose ? What aspects of human life 
 does Thackeray chiefly portray, and how far is he successful in 
 the creation of lifelike characters ? In what ways are the novels 
 of George Eliot influenced by democratic and scientific tenden- 
 cies? Show by illustration whether George Eliot's skill as a 
 novehst lies chiefly in the handling of plot or in the delineation 
 of character. What poems of Arnold illustrate his attitude toward 
 religious faith? Characterize that attitude. What is revealed in 
 Mrs. Browning's So7inets from the Portuguese as to the quality of 
 her poetical genius and as to her love for Robert Browning ? 
 What does Robert Browning mean by describing his own work 
 as " poetry always dramatic in principle "? Describe Browning's 
 method in the use of the dramatic monologue. What is Brown- 
 ing's attitude toward science and religion ? What characteristics 
 of a great poet are to be discovered in Browning's work ? What 
 does Tennyson's poetry reveal as to his conception of the poetic 
 art ? Illustrate from his poetry the range of subject-matter with 
 which Tennyson deals. Compare Tennyson with Arnold and 
 Browning in the matter of religious faith. For what poetical 
 qualities is Tennyson's work most noteworthy? Show to what 
 extent the democratic and scientific tendencies of the age are 
 manifested in prose literature — in the novel — in poetry. 
 
 Additional Suggestions for Literary Study. 
 
 The following suggestions are condensed from Crawshaw's 
 Interpretation of Literature and Literary Interpretation of Life 
 (The Macmillan Co.).
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 449 
 
 Style. — Any good rhetoric will give the stiulcnt an idea of the 
 qualities of style to be noted in a great writer ; but the following 
 outline will perhaps be found more serviceable for purposes of 
 literar)' study and criticism. 
 
 There are four great elements in the substance of all literature 
 — Thought, Emotion, Imagination, and Beauty; and from these 
 naturally flow tour great classes of style qualities — the IntrlUctual, 
 the Emotional, the Imaginative, and the ^-Est/u-tii-. By intflkctual 
 qualities of style are meant such (jualities as are determined by 
 the character of the thinking. They are of all kinds and degrees, 
 good, bad, and indifferent, according as the thought itself is of 
 one sort or another. For purposes of study we may, however, 
 note three great intellectual virtues of style — Correctness (rhe- 
 torical as well as grammatical), Clearness (including both per- 
 spicuity and precision), and Simplicity (as distinguished from 
 abstruseness, ornateness, etc.). It may be noted that clearness 
 an<.l simplicity are not absolute virtues of style, but only relative 
 to the subject, the writer, the occasion, etc. Perhaps a safe prin- 
 ciple would be that the style should be as clear and simple as the 
 thought and the circumstances will allow. By emotional qualities of 
 style are meant such qualities as are determined by the character 
 of the feeling. These qualities vary with every shade and degree 
 of emotion ; but we may note three groups or classes — Streni^lh 
 (of all degrees, from animation to vehemence, from brilliancy to 
 sublimity). Pathos (expressing the tender or passive emotions), 
 and the Ludicrous (wit, humor, etc.). I/nai^i native qualities of 
 style are such as are determined by the images or conceptions to 
 be expressed. Two may be noted — Concreteness (indicating the 
 power of language actually to convey images or conceptions) and 
 Suggestiveness (indicating the power of language to hint or suggest 
 what no words can directly convey). Esthetic qualities are such 
 as are determined by the beauty of the substance. Three such 
 qualities are Melody (the pleasing succession of soumis), J/armony 
 (the pleasing concord of sound with sound and of sound with 
 sense), and Propriety (the beautiful appropriateness of style to the 
 subject, the pur|)ose, the occasion, the writer, etc.). By ajiplying 
 these tests to style, the student may make an adc(iuate juiigment 
 as to its merits and limitations. 
 
 Plot. — The student will often have occasion to analyze the 
 plot of a narrative poem, a drama, or a novel. He should ob&crve
 
 450 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 that a satisfactory analysis does not consist of a mere running 
 account of the events of a story. That is mere child's play, and 
 does not involve any powers of insight or discrimination. It is 
 hoped that the following directions will be found simple yet 
 effective : 
 
 First, make a definite statement of the outcome of the plot, in 
 order that you may see whither the author is directing his effort. 
 Secondly, make an outline of the development of the plot, along 
 the three following lines : (i) The stages of the plot. Show here 
 the main divisions of the plot, indicating the important events 
 that begin and end each stage and the important events included 
 within each stage. (2) Various threads of interest. Sometimes 
 a plot is perfectly simple, moving along one direct line. More 
 often, however, there are several lines of movement or threads of 
 story. These should be separated from each other and carefully 
 stated. Then it should be shown how they are bound together 
 into the unity of the whole plot. Sometimes these different 
 threads of interest are so distinct and important as to constitute 
 what are called interwoven plots. A good example of this is 
 found in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, where the Bond plot 
 and the Casket plot are each very strongly marked. (3) Effective 
 means of developniejit. Here the student will be called upon to 
 observe the means (a character, an event, a situation, sometimes 
 arising within the story and sometimes affecting it from without) 
 by which the author gets his story under way, gives it a new 
 impulse when it would otherwise come to a stop, turns it in some 
 new direction, and brings it to a close. Such " effective means " 
 are found in the temptation of the witches in Macbeth and in the 
 loss of Antonio's ships in The Merchant of Venice. Finally, the 
 student may observe any striking details of the plot that may 
 serve to illustrate the author's method or his skill as a narrator. 
 
 Character. — Here there are two main objects of consideration : 
 (i) Character portrayal. The endeavor should be to understand 
 and to define what manner of man or woman the author has 
 created. For this there is no evidence except the words, acts, 
 and relations of the character itself, the opinions of other charac- 
 ters in the story as shown by their words and their attitude, or the 
 direct descriptions and explanations of the author. The student 
 should endeavor to avoid reading into a work his own opinions or 
 the opinions of anybody else. The work must speak for itself.
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 45 I 
 
 As most characters are merely portrayed, study may usually stop 
 with this point. (2) Characti-r darlopment. Some characters 
 undergo a process of growth. They remain the same persons, 
 but they are in some degree modified. Relying as before solely 
 on the evidence of the work itself, this development should be 
 traced through its various stages to the final result, with observa- 
 tion of the way in which the modifications have been brought 
 about. The only safe way to study any character is to trace it 
 through the work from beginning to end, weighing in its proper 
 order every piece of evidence that the work aflbrds. Then let 
 the imagination endeavor to conceive the character, thus studied, 
 as a living whole. This is not so easy a method as to form one's 
 conception by reading the opinions of the great critics, but it is 
 a method that will help to make the student an independent critic 
 for himself. .After his own judgments have been made, it need 
 hardly be said that there is the very greatest value in testing his 
 views by the opinions of more competent judges. Criticism 
 ought not to take the place of independent judgment, but it 
 should be used to balance and correct independent judgment. 
 
 The General Picture of Life. — Every great drama or novel 
 involves something more than the delineation of individual char- 
 acters. It involves also those associations or relations of charac- 
 ters which make up a complex yet unified picture of human life. 
 This may be studied under two heads : (i) The particular section 
 cf life par trayciL The purpose here should be to make clear just 
 what part of the great field of human life the author has chosen to 
 deal with in a particular work — in a word, what are the boundaries 
 of the little plot that he has undertaken to till. Such a section of 
 life may be flefined with reference to historical time, geographical 
 location, social rank, tragic or comic point of view, realistic or 
 romantic method of conception, and in various other ways that 
 will be suggested by individual works. For instance, Thackeray, 
 in Henry Esmond, has given us a realistic portrayal, in a comic 
 rather than in a tragic spirit, of certain phases of the life of the 
 English nobility during the reign of (^ueen .Anne, and has involved 
 the story of the futile efforts of the Stuart Pretender to regain the 
 throne of England. This statement is necessarily very brief, and 
 definition mi^ht be carried into further detail. (2) Character 
 relations — as shown by character f^rou pin f^. (Miaracter grouping 
 is an interesting study, but should not be regarded as an cmi in
 
 452 AIDS TO STUDY 
 
 itself. It IS important only as it serves to bring out the significant 
 relations existing among the various characters. Each work will 
 suggest its own principles of grouping. The various groups should 
 be indicated, with the characters belonging to each. Then the 
 relations that are indicated by this grouping should be pointed 
 out. It should also be noted what changes in grouping take 
 place as the work proceeds and how these changes are caused by 
 changing relations. 
 
 Imagination and Reality. — Every literary work is a creation 
 of the imagination ; but imagination is always based upon a greater 
 or less degree of reality. Observation should be made as to the 
 real personages, incidents, scenes, objects, etc., involved in any 
 work ; and then the question should be raised as to how far these 
 realities have been modified or idealized by the author's imagina- 
 tion. This study will often lead to the consideration of such prob- 
 lems as real local setting, historical setting, sources of the plot, 
 etc. In some works this real element is so large that observation 
 rather than imagination seems to have been the author's chief 
 business ; in others imagination has been exercised so freely that 
 the real element is to be defined only in the most general terms. 
 
 Emotion. — The emotional element in great literary work is so 
 large and so important that no student should ignore it. There 
 is not much that can be done in the way of formal analysis ; but 
 one can at least observe the emotion and respond to it. It is 
 important to note the emotion that dominates a whole work, that 
 is jnanifested in some great character, that gives power to some 
 striking scene. Minor emotions may receive attention according 
 to their interest or significance. Just as one should be mentally 
 alert in the reading of a great author, so one should also be emo- 
 tionally alert, ready to give quick and adequate emotional response 
 to every thrill of passion. An important distinction is that between 
 the emotion of the author and the emotion of his characters. 
 
 Thought. — In some works — mainly intellectual in character, 
 like the essay — it is possible to make an accurate statement of 
 the theme and then to make a definite outline showing all the 
 divisions and phases of the thought. In a great imaginative work, 
 like a drama, a novel, or a poem, this is not likely to be possible, 
 because the thought is hidden behind plot, characters, pictures,
 
 AIDS TO STUDY 453 
 
 oi otner imaginative symbols. Nevertheless, these symbols have 
 meaning and are to be interpreted. Even in a story or a drama, 
 it is worth while to attempt a statement of the author's central 
 thought, and, so far as possible, of his whole course of thought in 
 the work. In an allegory or a satire such interpretation of the 
 thought is indispensable. &itisfactory judgment as to the central 
 thought in a great imaginative work is to be reached mainly by 
 considering the chief characters and their relations, the general 
 effect of the picture of life, and the result of the plot. Statement 
 of the thought should be in abstract terms, in order to distinguish 
 it sharply from the concrete imaginative forms in which it is 
 embodied. 
 
 Literature and Life. — This book endeavors to emphasize the 
 fact that literature is an outgrowth of life. Because it is an out- 
 growth of life, it becomes in turn a revelation of life. This revela- 
 tion — this literary interpretation of life — it is a large part of the 
 business of the literary student to understand. Specific directions 
 to this end can hardly be given in brief space ; but it may serve a 
 useful purpose to call the attention of the student to certain broad 
 aspects of the matter. Literature is first of all a revelation of 
 personality ; the man is revealed in his work. Literature is a 
 revelation of the age ; the whole body of literary work in a given 
 time affords a comprehensive view of the character of the period. 
 Literature is a revelation of the race ; enduring racial character- 
 istics and the ever varying modifications of these are mirrored 
 from age to age in what the race has written. Literature is a 
 revelation of tiationality ; institutions and governmental forms — 
 monarchical, oligarchical, aristocratic, democratic, etc. — find ex- 
 pression in literary creation. Literature is a revelation oi humanity; 
 through the world's literature we may understand something of 
 those fundamental human qualities that are deeper than all acci- 
 dents of nationality, of race, of age, or of any single personality.
 
 ( Wordsworii 
 
 Derwejt T}'&terh 
 .-. la hi 
 
 Conisto7i^!JVater/i 
 
 IRISH ^ 
 
 I Horec 
 
 BORN IN IRELAND 
 Dulilin - S\iift,Steele,Burke, 
 
 Sheridan, Moore. 
 Lissof - Goldsmith. 
 Kllcolman Castle - Spenser. 
 
 SEA
 
 A Literary Map 
 of 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 Scale of MHe* 
 
 10 JO 
 
 BOHN IN LONDON 
 
 Bacon. Blake, Browning, Byron, 
 Chaucer, Cowley, Crwhaw, Defot-, 
 Donne, Grey, Ilemck, Jonaon, 
 Keats, Lainb, Milton, More, Pope, 
 Rnakin, Spenser, Swinburne. 
 
 R T n 
 
 ao 
 
 80 
 
 SEA 
 
 ; 1.1 'lflc4 >-< 
 
 
 
 {Fmne»» Uumtyy^^ Norwich^ 
 
 ,-t s: t>i 
 
 NORTH 
 AKt^ON 
 
 01 
 
 
 lAU-7 ...i , 
 
 
 tun fit 
 
 ^ ; f I .|,t f Hull 
 
 fifck. IVjcril 
 
 I-^l 
 
 ,»: /SUHRIV 
 
 c 
 
 II 
 
 > 
 
 W»H »' 
 
 tfnm Oremwl<'h
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbotsford, 289, 424. 
 /^hsalorn and Athitophel, 1S7, 439. 
 AM Vogler, 395, 447. 
 Al>mes Stript and W'hipi, 1 46. 
 Acres, Bob, 250. 
 Adam Bede, 376, 377, 416, 446. 
 Addison, Essay on, 340, 440, 445. 
 Addison, Joseph, 1S2, 205-212 ff., 
 219, 2J5. 242, 249. 414, 420, 421, 
 440, 441. 
 Address of the Soul to its Body, 20. 
 Address to the Deil, 266. 
 Address to the English, 33. 
 A dona is, 299, 310, 311, 318, 444, 445. 
 Advancement of Learning, 148. 
 .-Elfric, 25. 31, 32, 410, 431. 
 ^■P.neid, Virj^il's, 78, 95, 41 1. 
 Agincourt, Ballad of, 113. 
 Aglaura, 413. 
 Aids to Kefieclion, 288. 
 Alastor, 309, 310. 
 Albion's England, 1 13. 
 Alchemist, The, 137, 412, 436, 437. 
 Alexander s /-east, 1 88, 439. 
 Alexander the Great, 49. 
 Alexandrian Romances, 49. 
 
 Alfred, King, 25, 26, 27-29 ff., 410, 
 421, 429 ff. 
 
 Allegory, 23, 32, 43 ff., 49. 53. 59. 61, 
 <>6, 67, 76 ff., 85, 90, loS, 109, 114, 
 184, 185, 188, 202, 404. 
 
 All for I.ove, 187, 414, 439. 
 
 Airs Well that Ends IVell, 129. 
 
 Alps. The, 273, 302. 
 
 Alysoun, 46. 
 
 Amelia, 237. 
 
 Amcrua, 88, 249, 284, 328,331,361, 
 442. 
 
 Amoretti, 107, 1 12. 
 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, 151, 413. 
 
 Ancient Manner, The, 2S4, 2S5, 
 
 288, 415, 444, 445. 
 Ancren A'iwle, 45, 55, 411. 
 Andrea del Sarto, 395, 447. 
 Andreas, 23, 410, 429. 
 .\n.i,des, The, 3, II. 
 .\nglicanism, 103, 202, 419. 
 Anglo-Saxon, 5,6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 17, 
 
 93- 
 Anglo-Saxun Christian Poetry, 12, 14- 
 
 24, 27, 30. 31, 410, 429, 430. 
 Anglo-Saxon Conquest, 3, 8, 29, 417, 
 
 429. 
 Anglo-Saxon Pagan Poetry, 3-13, 14, 
 
 15, 19 ff., 27, 30, 31, 410, 428, 429. 
 Anglo-Saxon Prose, 16, 19, 25-34, 
 
 410, 430, 431. 
 Anglo-Saxons, The, 3, 4, 11, 88, 119, 
 
 429. 
 .Anglo-Saxon Verse, 5, 6, 7. 11, 12, 13, 
 
 17,40, 42, 53, 60. 
 Anne, Queen, 199, 21S, 417, 41S, 440, 
 
 451. 
 Annus Mirahilis, 186. 
 .Witony and Cleopatra, 13I. 
 Apollo ni us of Tyre, 33, 410. 
 Apologia pro Vita Sua, 416, 425. 
 Appreciations, 4 1 6. 
 Arhuthnot, Epistle to Dr., 219, 440. 
 Arcadia, lOl, 412, 435. 
 Areopngitica, 174. 413, 438. 
 Argument against Abolishing Christi- 
 anity, 202. 
 Ariel, 61. 
 Aristotle, 71. 
 Armour, Jean, 264, 2f)5. 
 
 455
 
 456 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Arnold, Edwin, 416. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 48, 318, 327, 334, 
 
 355-^58, 382^85, 398, 416, 420, 
 
 421, 424JL,-443, 444, 446, 448. 
 Arnold, Thomas, 382. 
 Artegall, 108. 
 Arthurian Legends, 38, 43, 48, 49, 53, 
 
 79, 172, 406, 426, 434. 
 Arthur, King, 43, 48, 79, 108, 109,400, 
 
 402, 406. 
 Ascham, Roger, 92, 97, 412, 435. 
 "Ask me no more where Jove bestows," 
 
 160. 
 Asolo, 397. 
 Aslrcsa Redux ^ 186. 
 Astrophel, 107. 
 Astrophel and Stella, in, 112, 412, 
 
 437- 
 As You Like It, 129. 
 Atalanta in Calydon, 416. 
 Athenian Orators, The, 340. 
 Atticus, 219. 
 
 Augustine, 15, 25, 41, 42. 
 Auld Lang Syne, 265, 443. 
 Aurora Leigh, 386. 
 Austen, Jane, 256, 295-298, 318, 359, 
 
 373. 415. 420, 421, 424. 444. 445- 
 Austin, Lady, 259. 
 Autumn, To, 317, 444. 
 Ayenbite of Inwit, 51, 55, 411. 
 Ayrshire, 265. 
 Azarias, 20. 
 
 Bacon, Essay on, 340. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 147-150,413,420,421, 
 
 423, 427, 435. 
 Ballads, 37, 45, 51, 66, 78-84, 113, 
 
 232, 284, 288 ff., 401, 411, 418, 433, 
 
 434- 
 Banks d' Doon, The, 443. 
 Bannockburn, 265, 443. 
 Banquo, 132. 
 Barabas, 1 16. 
 Bar Chester Towers, 416. 
 Bard, The, 230, 441. 
 Bar ere. Essay on, 341. 
 Barons' Wars, 113. 
 
 Battle of the Baltic, 326. 
 
 Battle of the Books, The, 20 r, 202, 440, 
 
 Beaumont, Francis, 139, 140, 142, 144, 
 
 412, 421, 436. 
 Beaux' Stratagem, 7'he, 194, 195,414, 
 
 439- 
 Becket, 406. 
 Becket, Thomas k, 69. 
 Beckford, William, 256, 415. 
 Bede, 16, 19, 26 ff., 41, 42, 410, 430. 
 Bedford, 184, 191. 
 Bennet Family, 296. 
 Beorvulf, 8-1 1, 14, 410, 427 ff. 
 Bestiary, 44, 45, 55,4"- 
 Bevis of ILanipton, 49, 41 1. 
 Bible, The, 16 ff., 25, 26, 31, 32, 40, 
 
 43, 44, 49, 50, 54, 57, 58, 71, 82 ff., 
 
 92, 93, 151, 152, 166, 172, 183, 185, 
 
 355,411 ff.,432, 435.436. 
 Biographia Liter aria, 288, 415. 
 Bishop Blougrafii' s Apology, 393. 
 Bishop Orders his Tomb, The, 447. 
 Blackmore, Richard D., 416. 
 Blake, William, 252, 253, 255, 260-262, 
 
 415. 423. 442, 443- 
 Blank Verse, 94, 95, 97, 1 14 ff., 130 ff., 
 
 142, 171, 176, 187, 228, 259, 309. 
 Bleak House, 361. 
 Blessed Damozel, The, 416. 
 Blickling Homilies, 31, 410. 
 Blot in the ''Scutcheon, A, 396. 
 Boccaccio, 65, 67, 72, 189. 
 Boethius, 28, 410, 430. 
 Boniface, 195. 
 Book of Martyrs, 97. 
 Book of Snobs, 416. 
 Borough, The, 260. 
 Boswell, James, 240 ff., 244, 421, 423, 
 
 441- 
 Bottom, 127. 
 Bowge of Cotirt, 412. 
 "Break, Break, Break," 447. 
 Bride of Abydos, 300. 
 Bristol, 233, 234. 
 
 Britain, 3, 8, 29, 42, 97, 113, 417, 429. 
 Britannia^s Pastorals, 145, 413. 
 British, 43, 49, 289, 326, 357,442,445.
 
 INDEX 
 
 457 
 
 Britomartis, loS. 
 
 Brobdmgnag, 204. 
 
 Broken Heart, J'he, 156,413. 
 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 3S0, 416, 421, 4J4. 
 
 Hrook, Thi, 402, 447. 
 
 Browne, Sir 1 hoinas. 15S, 169, 310, 
 
 413,421. 
 Browne, William, 145-147, 413. 
 Browning, bliizabeth Harrett, 3S5-3SS, 
 
 394, 416, 424, 446, 448. 
 Browning, Robert, 271, 334, 31)0, 3.S7- 
 
 397 ff., 416, 420, 421, 424, 425, 
 
 446 ff. 
 BruiianbHrh, Battle of, 30, 410, 429 ff. 
 Brut, 40-43, 44, 48, 56, 411, 431, 432. 
 Bruf d^Angleterre, 43. 
 Brutus, 42, 43, 48, 49, 66. 
 Buhvcr-I.ytton, Lid ward, 379, 380, 416, 
 
 424. 
 Buuyan, Essay on, 340, 445. 
 Lunyan, John, 182-185, 190, 191, 213, 
 
 234,414, 420,421,423,439. 
 Burke, Edmund, 247-250, 255, 414, 
 
 420, 441, 442. 
 Burncy, lanny, 256, 415, 420. 
 Burns, Essay on, 445. 
 Burns, Robert, 227, 229, 251 ff., 262- 
 
 268, 270, 275, 278, 328, 330, 348, 
 
 400,415,420,421,423,424,442,443. 
 Burton, Robert, 151, 319, 413. 
 Bussy, d'Amhois, 413. 
 Butler, Samuel, 192, 414, 439, 440. 
 Byron, Essay on, 340. 
 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 269, 
 
 298-305, 307, 312, 314, 400, 415, 
 
 420, 421, 424, 444. 445. 
 Byron, Life of, 415. 
 
 Gcdmon, 16-21, 22, 27, 28, 44, 410, 
 
 429. 430- 
 C-^monian Poetry, 18-20, 410, 429, 
 
 430- 
 CiTsars, The, 324. 
 Cain, 302. 
 Calcutta, 339, 367. 
 Caleh IVilliann, 256,415. 
 Caliijan, 133. 
 
 Caiiban upon Setebos, 393. 
 
 Calidore, Sir, 108. 
 
 Cailislii, 410. 
 
 Calvin, John, 202. 
 
 Cambcl, 108. 
 
 Cambritlge, 103, 114, 164, 169, 170, 
 
 »73. 273. 299. 3i'&, 339. 367. 397- 
 Cawfaign, The, 206, 414. 
 Campbell, Thomas, 32O, 415, 424. 
 Campion, Thomas, 1 1 2. 
 Canterbury, 15, 33. 69, 72, 93, 114. 
 Canterbury Tales, 02, 68-74, 41 1, 
 
 432, 433- 
 Caponsacclii, 396. 
 Caf'tain Singleton, 212. 
 Capulet, 127. 
 
 Carcw, Thomas, 159, 160, 413. 
 Carlovingian Romances, 49. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 271, 333, 342-351, 
 
 352. 356. 358, 375. 4«6, 420,421, 
 
 424, 445, 446, 448. 
 Casa Guidi VVindo^vs, 386. 
 Castaway, The, 25S, 259, 442. 
 Castle of Indolence, 'The, 228. 
 Castle of Otranto, 239, 256. 
 Casuistry of Kama n Meals, 324. 
 Catarina to Camceus, 386. 
 Catholicism, 92, 103, 109, 104, iSS, 
 
 202, 435. 
 Catiline, 137. 
 Cato, 207, 414. 
 Cavalier Poetry, 159-163, 165, 166, 
 
 169, 192, 438. 
 Cavaliers, 155, 159-163, 165, 166, 169, 
 
 192. 
 Caxton, William, 78. 
 Cecilia, 256, 415. 
 Celtic Titer at ure. On the Study of, 
 
 357- 
 Cenii, The, 311. 
 Changeling, '/'he, 142,413. 
 Chapman, George, 141, 143, 413. 
 
 423- 
 Characters, ( )verbury's, 151. 
 Charity, 25S. 
 Charlemagne, 49. 
 Charles 1, 107, 174, 438.
 
 458 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Charles II, 167, 174, 182, 186, 439. 
 
 Charles the Bold, 292. 
 
 Charms, The, 4, 5, 410, 428. 
 
 Charterhouse School, 367. 
 
 Cha?-tism, 349. 
 
 Chatterton, Thomas, 233, 234, 414, 
 
 423, 441. 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 38, 55, 56, 60, 61, 
 
 62-74 ff., 89, 103 ff., 119, 167, 189, 
 
 218, 301, 411, 418, 420, 421, 426, 
 
 427, 432 ff., 439. 
 Chester, 83, 434. 
 Chevy Chase, 81. 
 
 Childe Harold, 300-302 fT., 415, 444. 
 Childe Roland, 395, 447. 
 Christ, 17, 23, 44, 45, 59, 60, 82 ff., 
 
 115, 177, 184, 226, 261, 393, 400. 
 Christabel, 285, 286, 444, 445. 
 Christian Hero, The, 209. 
 Christianity, i, 4, 14-17, 20, 22, 25, 
 
 26, 30. 31, 59. 88, 196, 429, 430, 
 Christian Year, The, 416. 
 Christ's Hospital, 318. 
 Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon, 26, 27, 29 ff., 
 
 33 ff-. 39. 40, 4'o, 411, 430, 431. 
 Chronicle Plays, 97, 113, 116 ff., 126 ff., 
 
 m^ 141. 419- 
 
 Church of England, 181, 188, 212. 
 
 Civil War, 155, 159, 173, 434, 438. 
 
 Civil Wars of York and Lancaster, 
 113, 412. 
 
 Clarissa Harlowe, 236, 256. 
 
 Classicism, 64, 96, 97, 102, 117, 118, 
 135. 137. 139, 146. 166, 167, 169, 
 171, 179-182, 183, 185, 189, 190, 
 196-199, 205, 207, 208, 212, 214 ff., 
 225 ff., 236 ff., 247 ff., 258, 260, 
 262, 268 ff., 326, 327, 357, 359, 384, 
 385, 414, 422, 441. 
 
 Classics, The, 90 ff., 95, 96, 121, 135, 
 141, 188, 218. 
 
 Cleanness, 54, 55, 411. 
 
 Cleon, 395, 447. 
 
 Clive, Browning's, 395. 
 
 Clive, Lord, Macaulay's, 340, 445. 
 
 Cloister and the Hearth, 380, 416. 
 
 Cloud, The, 307, 308, 444. 
 
 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 385, 416, 421, 
 424, 446. 
 
 Cockermouth, 272. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 269, 273, 
 281-288, 291, 294, 297, 307, 314, 
 318, 321, 323, 326, 415, 420 ff., 424, 
 
 444, 445- 
 
 Colin Cloiifs Come LLome Again, 107. 
 
 Collar, The, 164. 
 
 Collins, "Wilkie, 416, 421. 
 
 Collins, William, 229, 230, 252, 275, 
 414,421,441. 
 
 Colonel Jack, 212. 
 
 Comedy, 84, 90, 91, 93, 96, 97, 114, 
 118, 126 ff., 131, 133, 137, 138, 
 140 ff., 156, 187, 193-195, 207, 209, 
 246,250,419,435. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, 126. 
 
 Commonwealth, 181, 438. 
 
 Complaint of Rosamo7id, 113. 
 
 Cotnplaint of the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, 96. 
 
 Complaints, 107. 
 
 Complete Angler, The, 158, 159, 413, 
 438. 
 
 Comns, 138, 171, 172, 174, 413, 438. 
 
 Conceits, 145, 164. 
 
 Conciliation withAtnerica, 441. 
 
 Confederacy, The, 194, 414. 
 
 Confessio Amantis, 61, 73, 411. 
 
 Confessions of an English Opium- 
 Eater, 321, 322, 415, 424, 444. 
 
 Congreve, William, 194, 414, 421. 
 
 Coningsby, 416. 
 
 Conscious Lovers, The, 209, 414. 
 
 Consolation of Philosophy, 28. 
 
 Cotiversatiojt, 258. 
 
 Conversations with Ben Jonson, 147. 
 Cordelia, 131. 
 
 Coriolanus, 131. 
 
 Corsair, The, 300. 
 
 Cotte7-''s Saturday Night, 253, 264, 267, 
 
 268, 442. 
 Count Robert of Paris, 292. 
 Country Wife, The, 1 94. 
 Courtly Makers, 95. 
 Coventry, 83, 118, 373.
 
 INDKX 
 
 459 
 
 Coverdale, Miles, 92, 412. 
 
 Cowley, Abraham, 165-167, 190, 413. 
 
 C'o:c/'irr's Grirte, 3S6, 446. 
 
 Cowper, William, 224, 252, 253, 255, 
 
 257-260, 262, 263, 271, 275, 415, 
 
 420. 421,423,442,443. 
 Crabbe, George, 255, 260, 262, 415, 
 
 420, 421, 443. 
 Craigenputtoch, 345. 
 Cranmer, Thomas, 93. 
 Criisha-v, On thf D(alh of Mr., 167. 
 Crashaw, Richard, 164, 165, 413. 
 Crist, Cynewulfs, 22, 23, 429. 
 Criticism, loi ff., 139, 1S6, 1S9, 207, 
 
 210, 217, 242, 243. 2S1, 2SS, 314. 
 
 3'9. 323. 325. 340, 353. 354. 357. 
 
 358- 
 Critii, The, 250. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 167, 168, 181, 186, 
 
 190, 191, 348, 43S, 439. 
 Crom-MeU'i Letters anJ Speeches, 348. 
 Crossing the Bar, 407, 447. 
 Cross, John Walter, 374. 
 Crown of WtlJ Olives, 355. 
 Crusades, 292. 
 
 Cry of the Children, The, 385. 
 Cry of the Human, The, 386. 
 Cuckoo Song, 45. 
 Culture and Anarchy, 358. 
 Cur a Fastoralis, 27, 28. 
 Curse of Kehatna, 326. 
 Cursor Mundi, 50, 55, 41 1. 
 Cycles of Romance, 48, 49, 56, 411, 
 
 432- 
 Cymbeline, 43, 1 33, 403. 
 Cynewulf, 21-23, 410, 429, 430. 
 
 Dance of the Sexen Deadly Sins, 78. 
 Danes, The, 8 «., 23 ff., 29, 30, 11, 
 
 430. 43«- 
 Daniel, Cardmonian, 18, 20. 
 iJaniel Deronda, 378. 
 I>anicl, Samuel, 112, 113, 143,412. 
 Dante, 64, 67, 175, 176, 261, 348. 
 Dante, Essay on, 340. 
 I'aruiii, ("harle* Robert, 332, 421. 
 David ami Bethiabe, 1 1 4, 412. 
 
 David Copperfield, 36 1, 4 1 6, 446. 
 
 Daz-ideis, The, 166. 
 
 Death in the Desert, A, 392, 393. 447. 
 
 Death Song, Bede's, 19, 410. 
 
 De Cover ley Papers, 211, 212, 235, 
 440. 
 
 Defense of Poesy, loi, 102, 412, 435. 
 
 Defense of the English People, 174. 
 
 Defoe, Daniel, 182, 212, 213, 231, 
 414, 420, 421, 423, 440, 441. 
 
 Dejection, 286, 444. 
 
 Dejection near Xaples, Stanzas writ- 
 ten in, 309, 444. 
 
 Dekker, Thomas, 141, 144, 413. 
 
 Delia, 1 12. 
 
 Democracy, 224, 225, 227, 230, 245, 
 254, 257, 265, 269, 271, 32S-331, 
 335. yo^^ 343. 348, 349. 35'. 35^ 
 359. 380, 385. 389. 398, 399, 445. 
 447, 448. 
 
 Deor, Lament of, 7, 410, 428. 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, 320-325, 337, 
 
 35°. 355. 4'5' 420, 421, 424, 444, 
 
 445- 
 Descent into Hell, 23. 
 
 Desdemona, 130. 
 
 Deserted Village, The, 224, 244, 245, 
 
 414,441. 
 Dcthe of Bid mil he (he Diichesse, 66. 
 Devil, The, in Moralities, 90. 
 Dialects, 17, 24, 26 ff., 30, 31, 40, 41. 
 
 43, 44, 50, 51, 56, 63, 26S, 430. 
 Dickens, Charles, 360-367 ff., 377, 379, 
 
 380, 416, 420. 421, 425, 446, 448. 
 Dictionary, Johnson's, 242. 
 Dido, U4, 117. 
 Discourses in America, 357. 
 Disraeli, Bcnjannn, 380, 416, 424. 
 Dissenters, 181, 212. 
 " Dissertation upon Roast Pig," 320, 
 
 444- 
 Divina Comincdia, 175. 
 
 D(ibhin, William. 308. 
 
 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 380, 4 1 6. 
 
 Dombey and Son, 362. 
 
 Domett, .\lfrc<l, 3«yo. 
 
 Don Juan, 304, 305.
 
 460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Donne, John, 144, 145, 146, 159, 164, 
 166, 169, 413, 421, 422. 
 
 Dora, 403, 404, 447. 
 
 Donble-Dealer, The, 194. 
 
 Douglases, 290, 291. 
 
 Douglas, Gawain, 78, 93, 411. 
 
 Dover Beach, 334, 383, 446. 
 
 Drama, 82-85, 89-91, 93, 96, 97, 102, 
 113-143, 155, 156, 172, 175, 177, 
 182, 186 ff., 193-195. 207, 209, 234, 
 246, 249, 250, 302, 311, 319, 394- 
 397, 403, 406, 411 ff., 418, 419, 
 
 434 ff- 439. 442. 
 Dramatic Idyls, 395. 
 Dramatic Lyrics, 395. 
 Dramatic Monologues, 395-397, 448. 
 Dramatic Romances, 395. 
 Drapier''^ Letters, The, 203. 
 Drayton, Michael, 112, 113, 143, 412. 
 " Dream-Children," 319, 320. 
 "Dream- Fugue," 323. 
 Dream of the Rood, The, 23, 410, 429. 
 Dre)ne, The, 412. 
 " Drink to me only with thine eyes," 
 
 139- 
 Drurnnier, The, 207. 
 Drummond, William, 147, 413. 
 Dryden, Essay on, 340. 
 Dryden, John, 63, 64, 179, 181, 182, 
 
 185-189 ff., 196, 215, 216, 221, 240, 
 
 252, 270,414, 4i9ff., 438ff. 
 Dublin, 83, 199, 200. 
 Duchess of Malfi, The, 143,413,436. 
 Duessa, 109. 
 Duke of Wellington, Ode on the Death 
 
 of the, 401, 402, 404, 447. 
 Dunbar, William, 77, 93, 411. 
 Dunciad, The, 218, 219, 
 Dyer, Sir Edward, 112. 
 
 Earthly Paradise, The, 416. 
 Eastward Ho ! 141. 
 Ecclefechan, 344, 345. 
 Ecclesiastical History, Bede's, 19, 28, 
 
 410, 430. 
 Ecclesiastical Polity, 102, 412. 
 Edinburgh, 147, 288, 321, 345. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, 415. 
 
 Edward I, 230. 
 
 Edward II, 116. 
 
 Edward III, 57, 65, 66, 417. 
 
 Edward VI, 93. 
 
 Egoist, The, 416. 
 
 Elegies, 20, 21, 107, 147, 167, 171, 
 
 172, 188, 224, 230, 310, 385, 405, 
 
 410, 414, 441. 
 Elegy, Gray's, 224, 230, 414, 441. 
 Elene, 22, 410, 429, 430, 
 Eli a. Essays ^y; 319, 415, 444. 
 Eliot, George, 332, 360, 373-380, 385, 
 
 416, 420, 421, 424, 425, 446, 448. 
 Elizabethan Age and Literature, 64, 
 
 83, 95 ff., 100, 103, 104, III, 112, 
 
 119, 120, 135, 136, 141, 143, 144, 
 
 146, 148, 159, 168, 172, 175, 180, 
 
 193, 223, 292, 319, 326, 417.419. 
 
 436. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 64, 92, 95, 97, 100, 
 
 104, 109, 112, 114, 118, 120, 122, 
 
 143, 144, 148, 435, 437. 
 Eloisa to Abelard, 218. 
 Emerson, 157, 422. 
 Emma, 297, 444. 
 Emotionalism, 224 ff., 229, 230, 252, 
 
 253, 259, 260, 262, 266, 269, 270. 
 Endymion, Keats's, 312, 315. 
 Endymion, Lyly's, 113, 114, 412. 
 England^ s Heroical Epistles, 113. 
 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 
 
 299. 
 English Mail-Coach, The, 323, 444. 
 Enoch Arden, 398, 400, 401, 404, 447. 
 Epic Poetry, 7-1 1, 14, 19 ff., 30, 40- 
 
 43, 48, 49, 53, 61, 72 ff., 76 fl., 96, 
 
 108-111, 166, 175-177, 192, 217, 
 
 218, 290, 291, 317, 406. 
 Epilogue to Asolando, 394, 447. 
 Epistle of Karshish, 447. 
 Epitaph on Charles II, 192, 193. 
 Epithalamion, 107. 
 Erasmus, 91. 
 
 Essay of Dramatig: Poesy, 186. 
 Essay on Criticism, 2.11, 440. 
 Essay on Man, 219, 440.
 
 INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 Essays, Bacon's, 14S-150, 413, 435. 
 
 Essays, Cowley's, 190, 413. 
 
 Essays, Goldsmith's, 246, 414. 
 
 Essays in Criticism, 357, 416. 
 
 Essays, Macaulay's, 338, 340, 341, 416, 
 421. 
 
 Essenes, The, 324. 
 
 Elhiis of the Dust, 355. 
 
 Eton, 90, 306. 
 
 Eton College, Ode on a Distant I'r as- 
 pect of, 230. 
 
 Euphues, 100, 1 13, 412, 435. 
 
 Euphuism, 100, 103, 422. 
 
 Evans, Mary Ann. See Eliot, George. 
 
 Evelina, 256. 
 
 Evening, Ode to, 229, 230. 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes, 316. 415, 444. 
 
 Everyman, 85, 434. 
 
 Every Man in his Humour, 137. 
 
 Ei'ery Man out of his Humour, 137. 
 
 Excursion, The, 281. 
 
 Exodus, Civdmonian, iS. 
 
 EabUs, Dryden's, 1S8. 
 
 Fables, Ilcnryson's, 77, 411. 
 
 Faerie Queene, The, 106, 107- 1 II, 112, 
 
 184, 228, 412, 436, 437. 
 FaitJi, 407. 
 
 Falles of Princes, 76, 41 1. 
 FalstafT, 127, 128. 
 Fare thee xvell, 303. 
 Farewell to Nancy, 265, 443. 
 Farquhar, George, 194, 195, 414, 439. 
 Fates of the Apostles, 23. 
 Father's Teaching, A, 20. 
 Faust, Goethe's, 115. 
 Faustus, Dottor, 1 15, 412, 437. 
 Ferdinand, Count Fathom, 238. 
 Fiction, I'rose, 33, 73, 78, 79, too, 
 
 101, 184, 185, 201, 202, 204, 205, 
 
 212, 213, 234, 235, 419. See also 
 
 Novel, The. 
 Fielding, Henry, 236-238, 250, 414, 
 
 420, 421, 441. 
 Finmbiirg, /-n^lit ,it, 7, S, 410, 428. 
 Fitz(icrald, Edward, I4I, 42U. 
 Flaming Heart, The, 164, 
 
 Fletcher, John, 64, 139, 140, 142, 144, 
 
 412, 421, 436. 
 Flight of a 'Tartar Tribe, 324, 444. 
 Flight of the Duchess, I he, 391, 395, 
 
 447- 
 Flodden Field, 290. 
 Florence, 378, 388. 
 Folk- Poetry, 4, 5, 45 ff., 80, 81. 
 Ford, John, 155, 156, 413, 421. 
 Forest, The, 1 38. 
 
 Forsaken Merman, The, 385, 446. 
 Fors Clavigera, 352, 355. 
 /•or tunes of Nigel, 444. 
 Four P's, The, 90, 412. 
 Fox, John, 97. 
 Era I.ippo I.ippi, 395, 447. 
 Frederick the Great, Essay on, 340. 
 Frederick the Great, History of, 341). 
 French, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41 ff., 47H-. 5'. 
 
 52, 60, 61,66, 76, 79,82, 83, 141, 
 178, 180, 183, 198, 292, 357. 
 
 French Revolution, 249, 254, 273, 
 
 276, 283, 362, 420, 443. 
 French Revolution, The, 347, 348, 446. 
 Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 114, 
 
 412. 
 Fuller, Thomas, 136, 157, 15S, 319, 
 
 4'3- 
 Funeral, The, 209. 
 
 Galahad, Sir, 4CXD, 447. 
 
 Gammer Gur ton's Needle, 97, 412. 
 
 Gascoigne, George, 412. 
 
 Gawayne and the Gr^ne Knight, Sir, 
 
 53, 55,411,431. 
 Gay, John, 214, 414. 
 
 Genesis and T.xoditi, 44, 55, 41 I. 
 Genesis, Cifdmimian, 18. 
 Geoffrey of Monninuth, 42, 43, 48. 
 (ierman, 198, 2S3, 2S9, 323. 345, 346, 
 
 357- 
 (iermany, 274, 2S1), 349. 
 
 Giaour, The, 300. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 28, 247, 414, 420, 
 
 421, 423. 
 
 (iloriana, 108, 109. 
 
 Glubdubdrib, 204.
 
 462 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Goblin Market, 416. 
 
 God and the Bible, 358. 
 
 Godiva, 447. 
 
 Godwin, Mary, 306. 
 
 Godwin, William, 256, 306, 415, 421. 
 
 Goethe, 115, 271,345. 
 
 Going to the Wars, 160, 161. 
 
 Golden Grove, The, 157. 
 
 Golden Targe, The, 78. 
 
 Goldsmith, Essay on, 340, 445. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 182, 224, 234, 239, 
 242, 244-246, 247, 250, 414, 420, 
 421, 423, 441, 442. 
 
 Good-Natured Man, The, 246, 250, 
 442. 
 
 Gorboduc, 43, 96, 97, 412, 435. 
 
 Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inven- 
 tions, 95. 
 
 "Gothic" Romance, 253, 256, 257, 
 360. 
 
 Gotivernail of Princes, 76, 411. 
 
 Gower, John, 56, 60-62, 73, 76, 411, 
 
 432. 433- 
 Grace Abounding, 183. 
 Grammarian's Funeral, A, 447. 
 Grande Chartreuse, Stanzas from the, 
 
 383- 
 Gray, Thomas, 224, 230-232, 233,414, 
 
 420, 421, 441, 446. 
 Grecian Urn, Ode on a, 315, 317, 
 
 444. 
 Greece, 300, 314, 385. 
 Greek, 91, 121, 151, 177, 178, 180, 
 
 190, 218, 317, 321, 323, 357, 378, 
 
 439- 
 
 Greene, Robert, 112, 114, 412. 
 
 Grey of Wilton, Lord, 104, 109. 
 
 Guiding Impulses of English Litera- 
 ture, 2, 4, 14 ff., 25, 26, 30, 36-38, 
 39. 55. 75. S7 ff-. 99, 100, 104, 109 f{., 
 "5. "9. 135. 145. 146, 148, 151. 
 153 ff., 163, 172, 175, 179-182, 196- 
 199, 205, 214, 221-227, 251-255, 
 263, 268, 269, 283, 294, 295, 298, 
 
 313, 329-335. 343. 344. 356. 359. 
 39S. 
 Guido, Count, 396. 
 
 Guinevere, 401, 406, 447. 
 
 Gzilliver's Travels, 204, 205, 234, 360, 
 
 414, 440. 
 Guthlac, 23. 
 Guy Manlier ing, 444. 
 Guy of Wariuick, 49, 411. 
 Guyon, Sir, 108. 
 
 Hallam, Arthur Henry, 397, 405. 
 
 Hallelujah, 146. 
 
 Ha7nlet, 129. 
 
 Hampden, Essay on, 340, 
 
 Handlynge Synne, 49, 51, 55, 41 1. 
 
 Harold, Bulwer-Lytton's, 380. 
 
 Harold, Tennyson's, 406. 
 
 Harrow, 299. 
 
 Hastings, 37, 49. 
 
 Hastings, Essay on Warren, 340,445. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, 249. 
 
 Hathaway, Anne, 121. 
 
 Havelok the Dane, 48, 56, 41 1, 431. 
 
 Hawes, Stephen, 93. 
 
 Hawkshead, 272. 
 
 Hawthornden, 147. 
 
 Ilazlilt, William, 325, 326, 415, 420, 
 
 422. 
 Heart of Midlothian, 444. 
 Hebraism, 356. 
 Hebrew Melodies, 303. 
 Hellenics, 415. 
 Hellenism, 356. 
 Hengist, 29. 
 Henry HI, 48. 
 Henry IV, 66, 433, 434. 
 Henry IV, 128. 
 Henry V, 76. 
 Henry V, 128. 
 Henry VI, 434. 
 Henry VI, 117, 126. 
 Henry VII, 434. 
 Henry VIII, 435. 
 Henry VIII, 133. 
 Henry Esmond, 373, 416, 446, 451. 
 Henryson, Robert, 77, 411. 
 Herbert, George, 163, 164, 165, 413, 
 
 423- 
 Hero and Leander, 1 1 7, 412.
 
 INDEX 
 
 463 
 
 Heroes and Hero- Worship, 347, 348, 
 
 421.445- 
 Heroic Couplet, 167, 187, 219, 220, 
 
 22S. 
 Heroic Stanzas, 186, 
 Herrick, Robert, 161-163, 413, 421, 
 
 43^- 
 
 Hesperides, 161-163, 413. 
 
 He\-Avooci, John, (X), 142, 412. 
 
 HcywoocI, Thomas, 142, 413. 
 
 Highland Afary, 265, 443. 
 
 Highlands, 242, 290. 
 
 Hind and the Panther, The, iSS. 
 
 Hbtorical Poetry, ii_\ 115, 145, 1S6, 
 206. 
 
 History, English, 3, 14, 15, 24 ff., 33 IT., 
 47,48, 51, 56, 57, 60, 61, 65 ff., 76 ff., 
 87, 88, 91.93,95. 104, 100, 112, 113, 
 iiSff., 141, 143, 144, 147, 14S, 151, 
 lS4ff., 159, 167, 168, I72ff., 181 ff., 
 185, 186, 1S8, 192, 196, 197, 199, 206, 
 212, 249, 254, 271, 273, 2S3, 329, 339, 
 417, 418, 428 ff., 437 ff., 442 ff., 447, 
 44S. 
 
 History of Edward V and Niehard III, 
 92. 
 
 History of England, Hume's, 247, 414. 
 
 History of England, Macaulay's, 339, 
 
 34J.445- 
 
 History of Englan,/, Robert Man- 
 ning's, 51. 
 
 History of Henry MI, 148. 
 
 History of the Kings of Britain, 42, 
 
 43- 
 History of the World, 150, 413, 
 Hogg, James, 415. 
 Holinshed, Raphael, 97. 
 Holy Dying, 1 59. 
 Holy (Jrail, 3S, 49. 
 Holy Living, 157, 4 » 3- 
 Holy State, 'J he, 157. 
 Holy War, The, 1S5. 
 Homer, 141, 18S, 189, 21S, 261, 413. 
 Homer and the Homeridir, 324. 
 Home Jhoughls from Abroad, 447. 
 Homilies, 25, 31 (f., 40, 45, 49, 50,410, 
 
 411. 
 
 Hood, Thomas, 416. 
 
 Hooker, Richard, 102, 412. 
 
 Hope, 25S. 
 
 Horace, iSS. 
 
 Horatius, 342. 
 
 Horsa, 29. 
 
 Horton, 170. 
 
 Hotspur, 128. 
 
 Hours of Idleness, 299. 
 
 House of Clouds, J he, 386. 
 
 House of the Wo/fings, The, 416. 
 
 I/ous of Fame, 1 he, 67. 
 
 Hnuyhnhnms, 205. 
 
 Howard, Henry. See Surrey. 
 
 Hudibras, 192, 4 1 4, 440. 
 
 Humanists, 91, 92, 94, 435. 
 
 Hume, David, 246, 247, 414, 420. 
 
 Humphrey Clinker, 238,414. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, 415, 421. 
 
 Husband's Message, The, 21. . 
 
 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 332. 
 
 Hymn, Gednion's, 17, iS, 28,410,429, 
 
 Hymn on the A'ativity, 170, 172. 
 
 Hymns, Spenser's, 107. 
 
 Hymn to St. Theresa, 164. 
 
 Hyperion, 3i5' i'7. 3'^. 444- 
 
 lago, 130. 
 
 Idea, 1 1 2. 
 
 Idiot Hoy, The, 278. 
 
 Idler, I he, 242. 
 
 Idylls of the A'in^, 4<X), 403, 406, 426, 
 
 447- 
 
 Iliad, 218, 440. 
 
 // Tenseroso, 1 70, 229, 438. 
 
 Imaginary Conversations, 415. 
 
 In a liaUony, 392, 447. 
 
 In a Gondola, 392, 395, 447. 
 
 In.lia, 249, 339, 340, 442, 447. 
 
 Individualism, 225 ff., 230 ff., 236, 
 240, 242, 244, 249, 251, 252, 254, 
 255, 262, 267 ff., 272, 278, 282 ff., 
 295, 297 ff.. 301, 302, 304, 305, 313, 
 314, 326 ff., 33S. 342, 343, 35<), 415, 
 
 442, 443- 
 In Mimoriam, },\T„ 397, 401, 402, 
 405, 40O, 4K., 420, 447.
 
 464 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Intter Temple Masque, The, 146, 
 Instauratio Magna Scientiarum, 148. 
 Interludes, 90, 96, 1 18, 142, 412, 434, 
 
 435- 
 Intimations of Itnmortality, 280, 281, 
 
 415- 
 Ireland, 102, 104, 107, 199, 200, 203, 
 
 215, 326, 429. 
 Irene, 250. 
 Irish, 15, 104, 199, 203, 206, 249, 250, 
 
 326, 447- 
 Irish Essays, 357. 
 Irish Melodies, 326, 415. 
 Isabella, 316. 
 
 Italian Literature, 65, 66, 67, 94. 
 Italy, 65, 66, 73, 94, 143, 164, 289, 
 
 300, 301, 306, 312, 385. 
 Ivanhoe, 292, 444. 
 Ivry, Battle of, 342. 
 
 Jacobean Literature, 143-152, 419, 
 James I, 141, 143, 144, 148, 151, 153, 
 
 154.437- 
 James I of Scotland, 77, 411, 421. 
 
 James II, 181, 188, 417, 439. 
 
 Jane Eyre, 416. 
 
 Jaques, 129. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 415, 425. 
 
 Jew of Malta, The, 115, 116,412,436, 
 
 437- 
 
 Joan of Arc, 324, 444. 
 
 John Anderson my Jo, 265. 
 
 John Gilpin, 258, 442. 
 
 John of Gaunt, 57, 66. ' 
 
 " Johnsonese," 243, 244. 
 
 Johnson, Essay on, 340, 445. 
 
 Johnson, Esther, 203. 
 
 Johnson, Life of, 244, 421, 423, 441. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 166, 181, 182, 207, 
 221, 222, 227, 234, 239-244, 246 ff., 
 252, 253, 255, 257, 270, 348, 414, 
 420, 421, 423, 441. 
 
 Jo7iathan Wild, 237. 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 121, 135:^1.39, Hi, I43, 
 146, 147, 150, 151, 159, 161, 169, 
 180, 181, 412, 422,436, 437 
 
 Joseph Andrews, 236 
 
 Journal of the Plague Year, 212, 440. 
 fournal to Stella, 203. 
 Journey to the Western Islands of Scot- 
 land, 242. 
 Judith, 20, 410, 429. 
 Juliana, 22. 
 Juliet, 127, 128. 
 fulitts Ca:sar, 129, 436. 
 Jungle Books, 416. 
 Junian Manuscript, 18. 
 Jutes, The, 3. 
 Juvenal, 188, 241. 
 
 Keats, John, 269, 310, 312-318, 351, 
 
 415, 420, 421,424, 444 ff- 
 Keble, John, 416, 424. 
 Kenilworth, 118. 
 Kenilworth, 292, 444. 
 Kent, 51, 61, 65. 
 Killigrew, Elegy on Anne, 188. 
 Kim, 416. 
 
 King, Edward, 171, 172. 
 King Hart, 78. 
 King Horn, 48, 56, 41 1. 
 King John, 128. 
 A7;/^ /.£'./ r, 43, 48, 1 31. 
 Kingsley, Charles, 380, 416, 425. 
 King\ Quair, The, 77, 411,433. 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 416, 427. 
 Knightes Tale, The, 72, 77, 432, 439. 
 Knowles, James Sheridan, 415. 
 Knox, John, 97, 348. 
 Kyd, Thomas, 114. 
 
 La Belle Dame sans Merci, 444. 
 Lady of Shalott, The, 400, 402, 404, 
 
 447- 
 Lady of the Lake, 290,291,444,445. 
 Lagado, 204. 
 
 Lake District, 272, 274, 321, 323, 429. 
 Lake Poets, 326. 
 Lalla Rookh, 326. 
 n Allegro, 170, 229, 438. 
 Lamb, Charles, 142, 318-320, 415, 
 
 420, 421, 424, 436, 444, 445. 
 Lamb, Mary, 318, 319. 
 Lament for the Makers, 78.
 
 INDEX 
 
 465 
 
 lamia, 316. 
 
 I^ncelot, 406. 
 
 I-andor, Walter Savage, 326,327, 415, 
 
 420, 421. 
 I England, William, 38, 56, 58-60, 61, 
 
 89, 411, 432, 433. 
 language, Knglish, 5 ff., ll ff., 17, 24, 
 
 26 ff., 30, 31, 34, 35, 4off., 49ff., 
 
 56, 60, 6t, 63, 66, 69 ff., 76, 106, 
 
 119, 41S. 
 I^puta, 204. 
 Lara, 300. 
 
 I. a it Days 0/ Pompeii, 380, 416. 
 Last Ride Together, The, 392, 447. 
 Latimer, Hugh, 93, 412. 
 Ijitin, 19, 26, 27, 34, 39, 41, 42, 48, 
 
 50, 52, 57, 61, 83, 91, 93, 102, 121, 
 
 148, 149, 151, 164, 172. iSo, 191, 
 
 243- 
 Latter-Day Pamphlets, 349. 
 I^yamcin, 38, 40-43, 44, 48, 56, 41 1, 
 
 43'. 432. 
 L.ay of the Last Minstrel, 289, 290, 
 
 444. 
 L.ays of Ancient Rome, 342, 416. 
 Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare, 
 
 288. 
 Leech-Gatherer, The, 278. 
 Legend of Good IVomen, 67. 
 Leicester, Earl of, 104, 109. 
 Letter to a A'oble Lord, 249. 
 *• Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow," 
 
 323. 444- 
 Lewes, (ieurge Henry, 374. 
 Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 256, 415. 
 Liberty, Ode to, 230. 
 L.iberty of Prophesying, 1 5 7, 438. 
 Life and Death of Mr. Badman, 185. 
 Light Brigade, Charge of the, 400, 404. 
 Light of Asia, The, 416. 
 Lilli])utian.s, 204. 
 Lincolnshire, 49. 397. 
 Litany, 'The, 162. 
 Literature and Dogma, 358. 
 Little Dorrit, y>2. 
 Little Jo, 363. 
 Little Nell, 363. 
 
 Aires of the English Poets, 242, 243, 
 
 414. 44«- 
 
 Lives of the Saints, 32, 45, 410, 411. 
 
 Li>ch Katrine, 290. 
 
 Lockhart, John (iihson, 415, 424. 
 
 Loiksley Hall, 447. 
 
 l^dge, Thomas, 112, 1 14, 41 1. 
 
 Lollards, 57, 58, 89, 433. 
 
 London, 57, 5S, 64, 69, 76, S3, 103, 
 104. 107, III, 114, 121, 122, 135 «., 
 169, 186, 189, 199, 203, 212, 234, 
 235. 300. 3«S, 321. 345. 352. 3^". 
 3''2, 3<'7. 373. 374. 3^!^- 
 
 I.om/on, Johnson's, 241. 
 
 London Lickpenuv, 76. 
 
 I.orna Doone, 41(1. 
 
 Lotos-Eaters, The, 399, 402, 404, 
 
 447- 
 Louis XI, 292. 
 L.ore for Lo7'e, 194, 414. 
 Lovelace, Richard, 160, 161, 413, 
 
 435^- 
 
 Love Poetry, 21, 44 ff., 61, 67, 72, 73, 
 77, 81, 94, 107, in, 112, 122-126, 
 127, 130, 140, 145, 147, 159-163, 
 165, 166, 192, 214, 264, 265, 387, 
 391, 392,405- 
 
 Lover's Complaint, A, 123. 
 
 Love's L.ahour's Lost, 1 26. 
 
 " Love still has something of the sea," 
 192. 
 
 Lucifer, 176. 
 
 Lucrece, 123. 
 
 Lucretius, 404. 
 
 I.uggnagg, 205. 
 
 Luther, 202, 34S. 
 
 l.ycidas, 171 ff., 310, 43S, 445. 
 
 Lydgate, John, 76, 41 1, 433, 434. 
 
 lying /.over. The, 209. 
 
 Lyly, John, 100, 102, 103, 112 ff, 412, 
 422, 435. 
 
 Lyndcsay, Sir David, 93, 412. 
 
 Lyrical Ballads, 271, 274, 284. 
 
 Lyric I'oetry, 7, 20, 21,45-47, 51, 80, 
 93 ff., lod, 107, Ml ff., 117, 123- 
 126, 138, 139, 142 ff., 159-163, 166, 
 169 ff., 188, 191 ff., 214, 229, 230,
 
 466 
 
 INDEX 
 
 233, 253, 258, 261, 268, 281, 290, 
 
 303. 307-312, 317. 384, 386 ff., 395, 
 396, 403, 405, 411, 412, 419, 427, 
 
 439- 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 194, 
 337-342, 343, 347, 356, 416, 420, 
 421, 424, 438, 440, 445, 448. 
 
 Macbeth, 131, 132, 142, 436, 437, 450. 
 
 Macbeth, Lady, 132, 437. 
 
 Macduff, 132. 
 
 MacFlecknoe, 187. 
 
 Machiavelli, Essay on, 340. 
 
 Macpherson, James, 232. 
 
 Magnyfycence, 93, 412. 
 
 Mahomet, 348. 
 
 Maiden Queen, The, 187. 
 
 Making of Man, 77^^,407,447. 
 
 Malaprop, Mrs., 250. 
 
 Malcontent, The, 141, 413. 
 
 Maldon, Battle of, 30, 410, 429, 430. 
 
 Malory, Sir Thomas, 78, 79, 411, 433, 
 
 434- 
 Mammon, Sir Epicure, 137. 
 Mandeville's Travels, 52, 411, 431, 
 
 432. 
 Manfred, 302. 
 
 Manning, Robert, 49, 51, 55, 411. 
 Man's a man for a' that, A, 227, 254, 
 
 265, 268, 443. 
 Mansfield Park, 296. 
 Marguerite, 384. 
 Marius and Sylla, 114, 412. 
 Marlowe, Christopher, 112, 11 4- 117, 
 
 "9. I35» 136, 141, 143, 147. 156, 
 
 412,421, 436, 437. 
 Alarmion, 290, 415, 444, 445. 
 Marshalsea Prison, 361. 
 Marston, John, 141, 413. 
 Marvell, Andrew, 191, 192, 414, 420. 
 Mary in Heaven, To, 265, 443. 
 Alary Morison, 265. 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 109, 437. 
 Mary, To, 257, 259. 
 Mary, Virgin, 44, 45. 
 Masques, 138, 146, 171, 412. 
 Massacre of Paris, 117. 
 
 Massinger, Philip, 155, 156, 413, 
 Maud, 401, 405, 447. 
 Measure for Measure, 129. 
 Medal, The, 187. 
 Mediterranean, 311. 
 Melrose Abbey, 290. 
 Memoirs of a Cavalier, 212. 
 Merchant of Venice, 128, 436, 437, 
 
 450- 
 
 Meredith, George, 381, 416, 426. 
 
 A/erliti and the Gleam, 447. 
 
 Merry Wives of IVindsor, 128. 
 
 Metaphysical Poetry, 144, 145, 166. 
 
 Methodism, 253, 442. 
 
 Michael, 278, 279. 
 
 Michel, Dan, 51, 411. 
 
 Middle Ages, 38, 44, 49, 62 ff., 66, 68, 
 76, 79, 83 ff ., 87, 89, 92, 93, 96, 1 1 5, 
 118, 223, 226, 239, 253, 257, 289 ff., 
 314, 349, 406. 
 
 Middle English, 35 ff., 40, 41, 43 ff., 
 62, 65, 79. 
 
 Middlemarch, 378. 
 
 Middleton, Thomas, 142, 413. 
 
 Alidsnmmer Nighfs Dream, 126, 127. 
 
 Miller''s Daughter, The, 400, 403, 
 404, 447. ' 
 
 Mill on the Floss, The, 377, 446. 
 
 Milton, Essay on, 338, 340, 438, 445. 
 
 Milton, John, 64, 138, 146, 153 ff., 
 
 159, i63ff., 168-178, 180, 182, 183, 
 
 189 ff., 198, 229, 230, 252, 261, 270, 
 
 274, 310. 323, 413. 419 ff-, 423, 427, 
 
 437. 438, 441, 445- 
 Minot, Lawrence, 51, 411. 
 
 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 2S9, 
 
 433- 
 Mirabeau, Essay en, 340. 
 
 Miracle Plays, 82, 83, 118, 411, 433 ff. 
 
 Miranda, 133. 
 
 Mirror for Magistrates, 95, 96, 412, 
 
 Misanthrope, Le, 141. 
 
 Mixed Essays, 35 7. 
 
 Modern Painters, 353, 354, 416, 446. 
 
 Modest Proposal, 203. 
 
 Moliere, 141. 
 
 Moll Flanders, 212.
 
 INDEX 
 
 467 
 
 Monk, The, 256, 415. 
 
 Montague, 127. 
 
 Moonstone, The, 416. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 326, 415, 420,424. 
 
 Moral Epistles, 219. 
 
 Moralities, S5, 89, 90, 93, 96, iiS, 
 
 411,412, 433 ff. 
 Morality, 383. 
 Moral OJe, 40, 44, 55. 
 More, Sir Thomas, 91, 92, 14S, 412. 
 Morris, William, 334, 416, 421, 426, 
 
 446. 
 Morte iV Arthur, Malory's, 7S, 79, 41 1, 
 
 433- 
 Morte iV Arthur, Tennyson's, 447. 
 Mother Iluhbard's Tale, 107. 
 Mother's Picture, On the Receipt of my, 
 
 259, 442. 
 Mouse, Jo n, 443. 
 .Much Ado About Nothing, 128. 
 Muipotmof, 107. 
 Munera /'uhrris, 354. 
 Murder considered as one of the Fine 
 
 Arts, 324. 
 Musical Instrument, A, 3S6. 
 My Last Duchess, 447. 
 " My mind to mc a kingdom is," 112. 
 My Xanie, O, 265. 
 Mysteries, 82-85, 89> 9^' "^' 4"' 
 
 433 «• 
 Mysteries of Udolpho, 256, 415. 
 
 Napoleon, 34S, 415, 445. 
 
 Napoleon, Life of, 415. 
 
 Nasehy, Hattle of, 342. 
 
 Nash, Thomas, 114, 117. 
 
 Nature in English Literature, 4, 5, 11, 
 21, 45 ff., 53, 74, 77, 78, 105, 106, 
 120, 122, 146, 157 ff., 161 ff., 165, 170, 
 214, 217, 218, 224 ff., 233, 245, 252, 
 259, 260, 262 ff., 269, 273-277, 279, 
 280, 283, 286, 287, 293, 301, 302, 
 305, 308-311, 314, 317, 352, 353, 
 392. 397. 402, 403. 420, 442, 443. 
 
 Necessity of Atheism, 306. 
 
 Ned Bratti, 395. 
 
 Nelson, Life of, 326, 4 1 5. 
 
 Nether Stowey, 284. 
 New Atlantis, 148. 
 Newcome, Colonel, 368, 370. 
 Nraicomes, The, 308, 446. 
 Newman, John Henry, 416, 425. 
 Nnv Way to Pay Old Debts, 156,413. 
 A'icholas Nicklcly, 362, 446. 
 Nigger Question, The, 349. 
 Nightingale, Ode to a, 317, 444. 
 Night Thoughts, 224, 229, 414. 
 Noble Numbers, 162. 
 Nodes Ambrosian,r, 4 15. 
 Norman Con(iucst, 27, 29, 31 ff., 35, 
 
 36, 39. >79. 221. 4«7. 4«S. 43'- 
 Norman French, 34, 37 ff , 41 ff., 47 
 
 ff., 51, 56. 
 Normans, 35 ff., 43, 49, 54,56, 119, 
 
 432- 
 Norse Mytholog)', 232, 233. 
 Northanger Abbey, 296. 
 Northern Antiquities, 232. 
 Northern Cobbler, 7 he, 404. 
 Northern Farmer, The, 39S, 404, 
 
 447- 
 Norlhumhria, 15, 17, 23, 24, 2() ff., 51, 
 
 429. 
 
 Norton, Thomas, 97. 
 
 Novel, The, 1S5, 21 1, 213, 224, 226, 
 227, 234-239, 245, 246, 253, 255- 
 257, 272, 291-293, 295-29S, 31S, 
 
 Zl^y 332. 359-3^'.4i4ff-. 4>9. 44" 
 ff., 446, 448. Sec also Fiction, Prose, 
 
 No-'uni Organuni, 148. 
 
 Nut- Browne Mai I, Thr, 81. 
 
 Occleve, Thomas, 76, 41 1, 433, 434. 
 
 Odyssey, 21S. 
 
 GLnone, 404. 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop, 361, 446. 
 
 Old Fortunatus, 142, 413. 
 
 Old Mortality, 444. 
 
 Old Piclum in Florence, 395, 447. 
 
 Oliver Iwisf, 446. 
 
 Olney, 257, 258. 
 
 On his bcin^- arrived at the Age of 
 
 7wenfy-three, 170. 
 Oratory, 156, 157, 248, 250, 325.
 
 468 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Oriental Romance, ^^, 256, 300, 314, 
 
 326. 
 Orison of Our Lady, 44, 55. 
 Orm, 38, 43, 44, 411. 
 Ormulum, 43, 44, 55, 411. 
 Orosius, 28, 29, 410, 430. 
 Orphan, The, 193. 
 Ossian, 233. 
 Othello, 129, 130. 
 Otway, Thomas, 193,414, 439. 
 Our Mutual Friend, Tfii. 
 Overbury, Sir Thomas, 151. 
 Overreach, Sir Giles, 156. 
 Ovid, 188, 189. 
 Oivl and the Nightingale, The, 47, 
 
 411. 
 Oxford, 50, 56, 91, 306, 321, 357, 382. 
 
 Paganism, i, 3 ff., 11, 14, 20, 22, 25, 
 
 26, 30, 31, 348, 429. 
 Pageants, 84, 118. 
 Palace of Art, The, 404, 447. 
 Palamon and Arcite, 439. 
 Pa lice of Honour, 78, 411. 
 Palladium, 334, 384, 446. 
 Pamela, 235, 236, 414.441- 
 Pantisocracy, 283. 
 Paracelsus, 391. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 175-177, 342, 413, 438. 
 Paradise of Dainty Devices, 95. 
 Paradise Regained, 175, 177. 
 Paraphrase, Csedmonian, 18. 
 Parisina, 300. 
 Parlement of Foules, 67. 
 Parliament, 65, 191, 208, 338, 339, 
 
 432 ff., 437 ff-, 445- 
 Passionate Pilgrim, The, 123. 
 Passionate Shepherd to his Love, The, 
 
 117. 
 Passion Play, 84. 
 Passions, Ode to the, 229. 
 Past and Present, 349. 
 Pastoral Care, 27, 28, 430. 
 Pastorals, 77, 101, 107, 129, I47, 1 71. 
 Pater, Walter, 416. 
 Patience, 54, 55, 411. 
 Paul Dombey, 363. 
 
 Pauline, 271. -, 
 
 Pearl, The, $2, 55.411,431- 
 
 Peele, George, 112, 114, 412. 
 
 Pennsylvania, 283. 
 
 Percy, Thomas, 232. 
 
 Peregrine Pickle, 238. 
 
 Pericles, 33. 
 
 Periodical Essay, 207-212, 242, 246, 
 
 414. 
 Persuasion, 297. 
 Peter Bell, 278. 
 Peterborough, 34. 
 Petrarch, 65, 73. 
 Petrarch, Essay on, 340. 
 Pheidippides, 395. 
 Philaster, 140, 412, 436. 
 Philistinism, 356. 
 Phi His, 412. 
 Philosophical Poetry, 113, 144, 145, 
 
 175, 219, 241, 280, 281, 390-393, 
 
 405 ff. 
 Philosophy, 147, 148, 156, 175, 190, 
 
 214, 246, 249, 256, 281, 283, 287, 
 
 316,324, 333,345 ff., 390. 
 Phw nix and the Turtle, The, 123. 
 Phcenix, The, 23, 410, 429, 
 Pickwick Papers, 446. 
 Piers Ploivman, 58-60, 411, 421. 
 Pilgrim^s Progress, 183-185, 234, 414, 
 
 439- 
 
 Pindaric Odes, Gray's, 230. 
 
 Pindarique Odes, Cowley's, 166. 
 
 Pippa Passes, 392, 396, 397, 447. 
 
 Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, Es- 
 say on, 340, 445 (442). 
 
 Pitt, William, Essay on, 340, 445, 
 
 (443)- 
 Plain-Dealer, The, 194, 414. 
 
 Plautus, 90. 
 
 Pleasures of Hope, The, 326, 415. 
 
 Plutarch, 188. 
 
 Poem a Alorale, 40, 41 1. 
 
 Poet-Laureate, 188, 270, 326, 397. 
 
 Poets' Corner, 66, 104, 189. 
 
 Poefs Mind, The, 403. 
 
 Poet, The, 403, 447. 
 
 Political Justice, 414.
 
 INDEX 
 
 469 
 
 Polyolhion, 1 1 j, 412. 
 
 Pompilia, 396. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 64, 147, 166, 181, 
 1S2, 196, 19S, 214-220. 221, 225, 
 227, 240, 241, 252. 257, 270, 323, 
 386, 414, 419 ff., 423, 440, 441. 
 
 Popular Suptrstitioiti of the Hit^h- 
 lauds of Scotland, 230. 
 
 Portia, 1 28, 437. 
 
 Prattnta, 355. 
 
 Prayer Book, Knj;lish, 93. 
 
 Prelude, The, 274, 28 1, 443. 
 
 Priike of Conscience, 50, 55, 41 1. 
 
 fh-ide and Prejudice, 296, 415, 444. 
 
 Prince Hal, 76, 12S. "^ 
 
 Princess, The, 401, 402, 404, 405, 426, 
 
 447- 
 Printing. 78, 87, 434. 
 Prior, Matthew, 214, 414. 
 Prisoner of Chillou, 444. 
 Procter, Bryan Waller, 415. 
 Profane State, The, 157. 
 Progress of Error, The, 258. 
 Progress of Poesy, The, 231, 441. 
 Prometheus Unbound, 31 1, 312, 415, 
 
 424, 444. 
 Prophetic fioois, 261. 
 Prose, English, 19, 25-34, 45, 50 ff., 
 
 57. 58. 78. 79. 92, 93. 97» 100-I03. 
 139, 148-152, 156-159. 169, 173, 
 174, 183, 1S4, 186, 189-191, 19S, 
 199, 202, 205, 207, 209, 211, 213, 
 214, 235, 241 fT., 255, 288, 297, 318, 
 319, 322, 324, 325, 327, 340, 341, 
 350 fT., 355, 358. 3^'5. 37'. 4 '8. 
 
 Prosper*), 133. 
 
 Prospice, 394, 447. 
 
 Protestant Cemetery at Rome, 305, 
 306, 313. 
 
 Protestantism. 57. 92, 435. 
 
 Prothalaniion, 107. 
 
 Provoked IVife, The, 1 94. 
 
 Puck, 126, 127. 
 
 Pulley. The, 1 64. 
 
 Puritans and Puritanism, 57, 58, 103, 
 14A, 152, 155. 156. 159, ifii fT.. 16S, 
 172. 173. 175. 178. 179, 181 ff., 186, 
 
 191 fT., 196, 348. 417, 419, 435, 438, 
 
 439- 
 Purpose in Fiction, 366, 368, 372, 379, 
 3S0. 
 
 Quaiitock Hills, 284. 
 Queen Mary, 406. 
 Que n tin Durward, 292. 
 
 Rabbi lien Ezra, 3S9, 390, 395, 447. 
 Race, Literature an<l, i, 35 ff., 49, 56, 
 
 75. 119, 178, I So, 429, 453. 
 Raikliflc, Ann, 256, 29O, 415. 
 Raleigh, Sir Waller, 104, 109, 144, 
 
 •47. '5°. •5'.4i3. 423- 
 Ralph Roister Doister, 90, 96. 
 
 Rambler, The, 242. 
 
 Rape of the Lock, 217, 219, 440, 441. 
 
 Rasselas, 239, 241, 414, 441. 
 
 Reade, Charles, 3S0, 416, 421. 
 
 Realism, 47, 60, 63, 68, 70, 74, 78, 90, 
 
 91, 103, 134, 136, 137, 140, 1S5, 
 
 205, 208, 212 ff., 226, 227, 235 ff , 
 255, 256, 260, 296-29S, 330, 332, 
 
 359 fT., 368 ff., 377, 3S0, 381, 391. 
 
 Recessional, 416. 
 
 Recruiting Officer, The, 194, 195. 
 
 Rcil Cross Knight, 108. no. 
 
 Reformation, 57, 87 fT., 92 fT., 97, 99, 
 104, 109 ff., 119, 153, 154, 175, 179, 
 348, 411, 412, 417, 433 ff. 
 
 Reform Bill of 1832, 271, 329, 339, 
 
 445- 
 Reign of Terror, 273, 347. 
 
 Relapse, The, 194. 
 
 Religio I. aid, 188. 
 
 Religio Medici, I 58, 413. 
 
 Religion, 3 (T., II. 14-16, 22, 24 ff., 28. 
 
 33. 35. 37 «•. 42 «.. 47. 49 T-. 53 «•. 
 63. 75. 78. 82, S4, 85, 87 fT., 92, 94, 
 99, 100, 109, 111, 112, 118, 145 ff.. 
 '53«-. «59. 162 ff., 169, 172. 173. 
 175, 178, 179, 181, 183, 184, 186, 
 188, 196, 224 ff., 229, 252, 253. 23S. 
 259, 262, 266. 267, 270, 333, 334, 
 
 344. 356. 375. 382, 385. 389. 429. 
 44S.
 
 470 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 
 232. 
 
 Renaissance, 83, 87 ff., 91, 92, 94, 99, 
 100, 104, 109 ff., 115, 119, 135, 145' 
 146, 148, 151, 153 ff., 172, 175. 179, 
 223, 226, 265, 411, 412, 418, 419, 
 
 434. 435- 
 Restoration, 174, 182, 183, 185, 186, 
 
 189, 191 ff., 195, 197, 199, 215, 246, 
 
 417.439.440. 
 Retirement, 258. 
 Revenge, The, Tennyson's, 401, 404, 
 
 447- 
 Revenge, The, Young's, 250. 
 
 Revival of Learning, 87, 91, 92, 
 
 435- 
 Revolutionary Spirit, 225, 231, 257, 
 
 269, 273, 298, 299, 305, 306, 311, 
 
 3 '3. 329. 348- 
 Revolution of 1688, 188. 
 Rhyme of the DucJiess May, 387. 
 Richard I, 292. 
 Richard II, 67, 126, 433. 
 Richard III, 126, 127, 132. 
 Richardson, Samuel, 224, 235 ff., 256, 
 
 414, 420, 421, 423, 441. 
 Richelieu, 416. 
 Ring and the Book, The, 394, 396, 
 
 416, 
 Rivals, The, 250, 442. 
 Rizpah, 401. 
 Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, 48, 
 
 51,411. 
 Robin Hood, 80. 
 Robinson Crusoe, 213, 234, 235, 414, 
 
 440. 
 Robyne and Makyne, 77. 
 Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 192, 
 
 193- 
 Roderick Dhu, 290. 
 
 Roderick Random, 238. 
 
 Rolle, Richard, 50, 55, 41 1. 
 
 Romance, t^t,, 35, 37 ff., 42 ff., 47 ff., 
 51 ff., 61, 62, 66 ff., 72 ff., 77 ff., 85, 
 100, loi, 103, 114, 120, 126 ff., 
 132 ff., 137, 142, 148, 179, 185, 204, 
 212, 213, 223, 234, 239, 288, 330, 
 
 395. 396, 431 ff. See also Roman- 
 ticism. 
 
 Roman Empire, Decline and Fall of 
 the, 247, 414. 
 
 Romanticism, 104, 113, 117, 135, 136, 
 138 ff., 166, 172, 179, 180, 193, 205, 
 217, 218, 221 ff., 232, 233, 236, 239, 
 242, 245, 252, 253, 256, 257, 260, 
 262, 265, 266, 269, 283, 285 ff., 
 291 ff., 305, 313, 314, 319, 324, 326, 
 
 327. 334. 359. 360, 362, 380, 385. 
 
 403, 406, 420, 424, 441, 442. See 
 
 also Romance. 
 Rome, 15, 21, 22, 28, 109, 129, 138, 
 
 305, 306,312. 
 Romeo ajid Juliet, 1 26, 1 27. 
 Romola, 378. 
 Rosalifid, 412. 
 Rosamond, 207. 
 Rossetti, Christina, 416, 426. 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 416,420, 421, 
 
 423,425.426,446. 
 Round Table, 43, 79. 
 Rousseau, 348, 
 Roxana, 212. 
 
 Royalists, 159-161, 166, 186. 
 Royal Society, 339. 
 Riibaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 141. 
 Rugby, 382. 
 
 Rugby Chapel, 334, 384, 446. 
 Ruins of Rome, 107. 
 Ruins of Time, 107. 
 Ruin, The, 21. 
 Runes, 22, 24. 
 Ruskin, John, 351-355, 356, 358, 416, 
 
 420, 421, 424 ff., 446, 448. 
 Ruthwell, Cross, 20, 23, 410. 
 
 Sackville, Thomas, 95 ff., 412, 435. 
 
 St. Agnes' Eve, 400, 447. 
 
 St. Albans, 52, 147. 
 
 St. Cecilia^ s Day, Song for, 188, 439. 
 
 St. Katherine, 82, 83. 
 
 St. Mary Redcliffe, 233. 
 
 St. Patrick's, Dublin, 200. 
 
 St. Paul and Protestantism, 358. 
 
 St. Paul's, 57, 144, 169.
 
 INDEX 
 
 471 
 
 St. Peter, 202. 
 
 5/. Konan's ir^i/, 292. 
 
 Samson .-Igonisles, 175, 177, 178,413, 
 
 43S, 439- 
 
 Sartor f^esiirtus, 2 7 1 , 345 fT. , 41 6, 446. 
 
 Satan, 177. 
 
 Satire. 47, 63. 73, 74, 7S, 93, 94, 113, 
 131, 137, 141, 146, 187 ff., 191, 
 192, 200 fl'., 207, 20S, 210-212, 214, 
 
 216 ff., 229. 237, 238, 241, 25S, 29(), 
 
 297. 299, 304, 369, 371, 372, 377, 
 405, 439 IT., 450. 
 
 Satire of the Three Estates, 4 1 2. 
 
 Saturn, 317. 
 
 Saiii, 392. 393, 395, 447. 
 
 Savonarola, 37S. 
 
 Saxons, The, 3, II. 
 
 Scandinavian Mythology', 348. 
 
 Scenes from Clerical Life, yji. 
 
 Schiller, Life of 345, 348. 
 
 Scholar-Gypsy, The, 385, 446. 
 
 Scholasticism, 65, 92. 
 
 School for Scaiiilal, The, 250, 414, 
 442. 
 
 Schoolmaster, The, 92, 97, 412. 
 
 Schools and Universities on the Con- 
 tinent, 357. 
 
 Science, 147, 148, 190, 316, 328, 331- 
 
 335. 343. 344. 352. 353. 35^. 359. 
 
 360, 375. 38', 385. 388, 389, 391 ff., 
 
 398, 44S. 
 Scop, 5 ff., II, 12, 19, 21, 429. 
 Scotch, The, 51, 77, 78, 80 ff ., 93, 141, 
 
 147, 22S, 244, 264, 265, 2()S, 292, 
 
 293. 326, 345. 35'. 433.434- 
 Scotland, 20, 77, 78, 80, 81, 263, 289, 
 
 291, 345,418,429. 
 Scott, Life of, 415, 424. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 239, 269, 271, 288- 
 
 295. 297. 300. 3' 3. 3'4. 3«8, 359; 
 
 379. 380. 4«5. 420, 421, 424, 433, 
 
 444.445- 
 Seafarer, The, 21, 429. 
 
 Seasons, 'J'he, 22.H, 229, 414. 
 Sedley, Sir Charlc*, 192. 
 Sejanus, 137. 
 Scnccan iJrama, 97, 118, 180. 
 
 Sense ami Sensibility, 296, 444. 
 
 Sentimentalism, 224, 226, 229, 230, 
 236 ff., 253, 260, 296. 363, 300. 
 
 Sentimental Journey, 224, 23S, 414. 
 
 Sesame ami Lilies, 355, 446. 
 
 Sezen Lamps of Architecture, 353. 
 
 Sliakespcare, W illiani, 1,1, 64, 76, 99, 
 100, III ff., IK). 117, 1 18-135 l^-. 
 147, 154, 155, 157, 166, 177, 180, 
 220, 223, 251, 271, 287, 301, 318, 
 3'9. 323. 326. 347. 348. 3(^2, 373. 
 379. 403, 4'-. 4 "9. 421.422, 435 ff., 
 
 439. 450- 
 Shelley, Percy Hysshe, 234, 269, 299, 
 
 305-312 ff., 31S, 337, 415, 420, 421, 
 
 424, 427, 444, 445. 
 ShepheriVs Calendar, 106, 107. 
 Shepherd's Uuutini^, 146. 413. 
 Shepherd's Pipe, 145, 146. 
 Sheridan, Richard llrinsley, 246, 250, 
 
 255. 414. 420, 421, 423. 442. 
 She Stoops to Conquer, 246, 250. 442. 
 Shooting Niagara : and After, 349. 
 Shortest IVay u<ith the Dissenters, 212. 
 Shylock, 128, 437. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 64, 81, 99, 101 ff., 
 
 107, 109, III. 112, 144, 147, 412, 
 
 420, 422, 435 ff. 
 Siege of Corinth, 300. 
 Silas Marner, ^yb, 377, 446. 
 Silent Voices, The, 407. 447. 
 Silent ll'oman. The, 137. 
 Sir Charles Grandison, 236. 
 Sir Launcelot Greaves, 238. 
 Sir Patriik Spens, 81, 82. 
 Sir Tristrem, 48. 49, 56. 41 1. 
 Skclton, John, 93, 94, 412. 
 Skylark, 'To a, 30S, 444. 
 Smith, Sydney, 415, 420. 
 Smollett, Tobias, 23S, 414. 421, 423. 
 Sohrab and Kustuin, 3S4, 3S5, 44O. 
 Solitude, On, l()<). 
 Somershy. 397. 
 Somersetshire, 273, 284. 
 Song of Roland, 37, 49. 
 Song of the Shirt, 4 1 ft. 
 Songs of T.xpertence, 2ii\.
 
 472 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Songs of Innocence, 261. 
 
 Sonnets, 94, 107, iii, 112, 122, 123- 
 
 126, 147, 170, 172, 173, 281, 387. 
 Sonnets from the Portuguese, 386-388, 
 
 416, 446, 448. 
 Sonnets, Shakespeare's, 112, 123-126, 
 
 127, 143, 412,422. 
 
 Southey, Robert, 270, 2S3, 323, 326, 
 
 415, 420, 421, 423.424- 
 Southwark, 69. 
 Spain, 109, 160, 300, 437. 
 Spanish Friar, The, 187. 
 Spanish Gypsy, George Eliot's, 416. 
 Spanish Gypsy, Middleton's, 142. 
 Spanish Nun, The, 324, 444. 
 Spanish Tragedy, 114. 
 Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, 
 
 3 '9, 436- 
 Spectator, The, 210-21 2, 242, 440, 441. 
 Speculum Meditantis, 61. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 332. 
 Spenser, Edmund, 64, 103-iiiff., 
 
 116, 117, 119, 144, 146, 147, 154, 
 
 169, 184, 228, 229, 265, 412, 420 ff., 
 
 427, 436, 437, 441. 
 Spenserian Stanza, 106, 108, no, in, 
 
 228, 264, 310, 437. 
 Spring, Ode on the, 230. 
 Stanzas for Music, 303. 
 Steele Glas, The, 412. 
 Steele, Sir Richard, 182, 207-212, 213, 
 
 235, 242, 249, 414, 423, 440, 441. 
 Sterling, John, Life of, 349. 
 Sterne, Lawrence, 224, 238, 239, 414, 
 
 420, 421, 423, 441. 
 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 380, 416, 
 
 421, 424 ff. 
 Still, John, 97. 
 
 Stones of Venice, 353, 446. 
 Storie of Thebes, 76. 
 Stow, John, 97. 
 Strafford, 396. 
 Stratford, 118, 120 ff., 133. 
 Strayed Reveller, The, 385, 446. 
 Struldbrugs, 205. 
 
 Sublime and Beautiful, Origin of our 
 Ideas of the, 248, 249. 
 
 SuckHng, Sir John, 160, 413, 438. 
 Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 89, 
 
 94. 95.412,418, 435- 
 Suspiria de Profundis, 322. 
 Susquehanna, 283. 
 Swift, Jonathan, 182, 199-206, 208, 
 
 212, 213, 215, 216, 234, 356, 414, 
 
 420, 423, 440. 
 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 48, 334, 
 
 416, 421 ff., 426, 446, 
 
 Tabard Inn, 69. 
 Table Talk, 258, 
 Taillefer, 37, 49. 
 Tale of a Tub, 202. 
 Tale of Two Cities, 361, 446. 
 Tales from Shakespeare, 319. 
 Tales of the Hall, 260. 
 TalisiJian, The, 292, 444. 
 Tamburlaine, 114, 115, 117. 
 Taming of the Shrew, 128. 
 Tatti O^Shanter, 253, 265, 266, 442. 
 Task, The, 259, 415, 442. 
 Tatler, The, 210. 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 156 ff., 169, 198, 319, 
 
 413, 420, 423, 438. 
 Tears of the Muses, 107. 
 Teazle, Sir Peter and Lady, 250. 
 Tempest, The, 133. 
 Temple, Essay on, 340. 
 Temple, Sir William, 190, 199, 201, 
 
 203, 414, 421, 439. 
 Temple, The, 164, 413. 
 Tender Htisband, The, 209. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 48, 63, 271, 305, 
 
 327. m^ 337. 359. 386, 397-407. 
 416, 418, 420, 421, 424 ff., 430, 
 
 445 ff- 
 Testament of Creseide, 77. 
 
 Teufelsdrockh, Diogenes, 346. 
 
 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 332, 
 
 360, 367-373. 377. 379. 380, 416, 
 420, 421, 425, 446, 448, 451. 
 
 Thalaha, 415. 
 
 Thistle and the Rose, The, 77, 78,411. 
 
 Thomson, James, 214, 227-229, 250, 
 252, 275,414, 423.441-
 
 INDEX 
 
 473 
 
 Thyrsis, 385, 4 1 6, 446. 
 
 Tiger, The, 262. 
 
 Timber, 139,412. 
 
 Timon of Athens, 1 31. 
 
 Tintern Abbey, Liius lompcsed above, 
 
 >32, 277. 
 Titania, 127. 
 Titans, 311, 317. 
 
 Tilhonus, 404. 
 Tito Melenia, 37S. 
 
 Titus AuJronuus, 1 26. 
 
 Toilette 0/ the llebrexo l.aJy, 324. 
 
 Tom Jones, 237,414, 441. 
 
 Totter s Miscellany, 95,412, 435. 
 Towneley, 83, 434. 
 
 Toxophilus, 92. 
 
 Tragedy, 96, 97, 114-117, 118, 126. 
 127, 129 ff., 134. 137, 138, 140, 142, 
 143. 156, 177, 187, 193, 207, 229, 
 250,419,435. 
 
 Translating Homer, On, 357. 
 
 Traveller, The, 244, 245. 
 
 Treasure Island, 380. 
 Triamond, 108. 
 Trinity College, Dublin, 199. 
 
 'Tristram ShanJy, 238, 414, 441. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, 131. 
 
 Troilus and Criseyde, 67, 77. 
 Trojan Romances, 42, 49. 
 Trollope, Anthony, 380, 416, 421, 425. 
 Trossachs, The, 290. 
 Troy, 49, 67. 
 
 Troye Book, 76. 
 
 Truth, 258. 
 Turner, J. M. W., 352. 353. 
 
 Twelfth Xight, 129. 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, 126. 
 
 Two Voices, The, 401, 447. 
 Tyndale, William, 89, 92, 151, 412, 
 
 422, 432, 435. 
 Tyndall, John, 332. 
 
 'Tyrannic I. ore, 1S7. 
 
 Udall, Nicholas, 90, 96, 412. 
 C'lysies, 404, 447. 
 Underwoods, i \H. 
 Univcriity Wits, 113, 114, i iS 
 
 Unto this Last, 354. 
 
 Unwins, The, 257. 
 
 Urn Burial, 158. 
 
 Utofia, 91, 92, 148, 283, 412, 435. 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 194, 414. 
 
 Vanessa, 203. 
 
 Vanity Fair, 36S, 372, 446. 
 
 Vanity of Human Wishes, 241, 414. 
 
 Vathek, 256, 415. 
 
 Vaughan, Henry, 165, 413. 
 
 Venice, 128, 137, 388. 
 
 Venice Preserved, 193, 414, 439. 
 
 Venus and Adonis, 122, 123. 
 
 Versification, 5 ff., 1 1, 12, 17, 18, 39 ff., 
 50, 51, 53, 60, 71 ff., 80 fT., 94, 95, 
 97, 106, no, Ii4ff., 142, 146, 166, 
 167, 171, 176, 187, 192, 216 ff., 228, 
 259, 265, 276, 281, 284, 291, 307, 
 310, 3S4, 386, 401, 429. 
 
 Vicar of Wakefield, 239, 245, 414, 441. 
 
 Vice, The, in Moralities, 90. 
 
 Victorian Period, 335, 359, 381, 399, 
 420, 421, 427, 447. 
 
 Victoria, t,)ueen, 399, 447. 
 
 Village, The, 260, 415. 
 
 Virgil, 78,95, 188,412. 
 
 VirgiPs Gnat, 107. 
 
 Virginius, 415. 
 
 Virgins, To the, 162. 
 
 Vision of Poets, 387. 
 
 Vittoria Corombona, 143. 
 
 Volpone, 137. 
 
 Vox Clamantis, 61. 
 
 Wace, 41 ff., 48. 
 
 Waldhere, 8, 410. 
 
 Wales, 321, 429. 
 
 Waller, Kdmuml, 165, 167, 413. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 239, 25O. 
 
 Walton, 1/aak, 158, 159, 4IJ. 421 
 
 438- 
 IVanderer, The, 21, 429. 
 
 Warner, William, 113. 
 Warwickshire, 120, 373, 378. 
 Waterloo, 301, 372, 444. 
 Waverley, 289.
 
 474 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Waverley Novels, 289, 339, 415. 
 Way of the World, The, 194. 
 Webster, John, 143, 156, 413, 421, 
 
 436. 
 Weissnichtwo, 346. 
 Welsh, 42, 43, 230. 
 Welsh, Jane, 345. 
 Wesleys, The, 224, 253, 442. 
 Westbrook, Harriet, 306. 
 Westminster Abbey, 66, 104, 135, 137, 
 189, 210, 211. 
 
 Westminster Review, 373. 
 Westminster School, 135. 
 West-Saxon, 23, 24, 26 ff., 30, 31,429. 
 Westward Ho ! 416. 
 
 West Wind, Ode to the, 308, 309, 444. 
 
 Whims and Oddities, 416. 
 
 White Devil, The, 143. 
 " Why so pale and wan, fond lover ? " 
 160. 
 
 Widsith, 5-7, 21, 22, 410, 428. 
 
 Wife of Bath's Tale, 61. 
 
 Wife's Complaint, The, 21. 
 
 Wilhelm Meister, 345. 
 
 William HI, 188,417, 439. 
 
 William the Conqueror, 37. 
 
 Will Summer's Testament, 1 14, 
 
 Wilson, John, 415. 
 
 Winchester, 27, 29, 33. 
 
 Windsor, 66, 77. 
 
 Windsor Forest, 218, 227. 
 
 Winter's Tale, 133. 
 
 Wishes to his Supposed Mistress, 165. 
 
 Wish, The, 166. 
 
 Witch, The, 142. 
 
 Wither, George, 146, 147, 413, 421. 
 
 Woman Killed with Kindness, A, 
 142, 413. 
 
 Wo7nen Beware Women, I42. 
 
 Worcester, 33, 34, 83, 93. 
 
 Wordsworth, Dorothy, 284. 
 
 Wordsworth, WiUiam, 132, 233, 251, 
 268, 269, 270-281 ff., 287, 2S8, 291, 
 294, 297, 298, 306, 307, 314, 321, 
 323, 326, 328, 330, 334, 400, 415, 
 420, 421, 424, 443, 445, 446. 
 
 Worthies of England, 157, 413. 
 
 Wulfstan, 25, 32, 33, 410. 
 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 89, 94, 95, 412, 
 
 435- 
 Wycherley, William, 194, 414. 
 
 Wyclif, John, 38, 56-58, 89, 92, 151, 
 411, 421, 432,433.435- 
 
 Yahoos, 205, 341. 
 Ye Mariners of Ettgland, 326. 
 York, 32, 83. 
 Yorkshire, 16, 50. 
 " You ask me, why, though ill at ease," 
 
 447- 
 Young, Edward, 214, 224, 229, 250, 
 
 414, 441. 
 Zeus, 311, 312. 

 
 
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