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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outlines of English and American Literature
+by William J. Long
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Outlines of English and American Literature
+       An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America,
+       to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived
+
+Author: William J. Long
+
+Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7800]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 18, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LIT. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Bill Keir
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+OUTLINES OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CHIEF WRITERS OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA,
+TO THE BOOKS THEY WROTE,
+AND TO THE TIMES IN WHICH THEY LIVED
+
+BY
+
+WILLIAM J. LONG
+
+
+This is the wey to al good aventure.--CHAUCER
+
+
+TO MY SISTER "MILLIE" IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF A LIFELONG SYMPATHY
+
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
+
+After the Chandos Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which
+is attributed to Richard Burbage or John Taylor. In the catalogue of the
+National Portrait Gallery the following description is given:
+
+      "The Chandos Shakespeare was the property of John Taylor,
+      the player, by whom or by Richard Burbage it was painted.
+      The picture was left by the former in his will to Sir
+      William Davenant. After his death it was bought by
+      Betterton, the actor, upon whose decease Mr. Keck of the
+      Temple purchased it for 40 guineas, from whom it was
+      inherited by Mr. Nicoll of Michenden House, Southgate,
+      Middlesex, whose only daughter married James, Marquess of
+      Caernarvon, afterwards Duke of Chandos, father to Ann
+      Eliza, Duchess of Buckingham."
+
+    The above is written on paper attached to the back of the canvas.
+    Its authenticity, however, has been doubted in some quarters.
+
+    Purchased at the Stowe Sale, September 1848, by the Earl of
+    Ellesmere, and presented by him to the nation, March 1856.
+
+    Dimensions: 22 in. by 16-3/4 in.
+
+This reproduction of the portrait was made from a miniature copy on ivory
+by Caroline King Phillips.]
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+The last thing we find in making a book is to know what to put
+first.--Pascal
+
+When an author has finished his history, after months or years of happy
+work, there comes a dismal hour when he must explain its purpose and
+apologize for its shortcomings.
+
+The explanation in this case is very simple and goes back to a personal
+experience. When the author first studied the history of our literature
+there was put into his hands as a textbook a most dreary catalogue of dead
+authors, dead masterpieces, dead criticisms, dead ages; and a boy who knew
+chiefly that he was alive was supposed to become interested in this
+literary sepulchre or else have it said that there was something hopeless
+about him. Later he learned that the great writers of England and America
+were concerned with life alone, as the most familiar, the most mysterious,
+the most fascinating thing in the world, and that the only valuable or
+interesting feature of any work of literature is its vitality.
+
+To introduce these writers not as dead worthies but as companionable men
+and women, and to present their living subject as a living thing, winsome
+as a smile on a human face,--such was the author's purpose in writing this
+book.
+
+The apology is harder to frame, as anyone knows who has attempted to gather
+the writers of a thousand years into a single volume that shall have the
+three virtues of brevity, readableness and accuracy. That this record is
+brief in view of the immensity of the subject is plainly apparent. That it
+may prove pleasantly readable is a hope inspired chiefly by the fact that
+it was a pleasure to write it, and that pleasure is contagious. As for
+accuracy, every historian who fears God or regards man strives hard enough
+for that virtue; but after all his striving, remembering the difficulty of
+criticism and the perversity of names and dates that tend to error as the
+sparks fly upward, he must still trust heaven and send forth his work with
+something of Chaucer's feeling when he wrote:
+
+  O littel bookë, thou art so unconning,
+  How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?
+
+Which _may_ mean, to one who appreciates Chaucer's wisdom and humor,
+that having written a little book in what seemed to him an unskilled or
+"unconning" way, he hesitated to give it to the world for dread of the
+"prees" or crowd of critics who, even in that early day, were wont to look
+upon each new book as a camel that must be put through the needle's eye of
+their tender mercies.
+
+In the selection and arrangement of his material the author has aimed to
+make a usable book that may appeal to pupils and teachers alike. Because
+history and literature are closely related (one being the record of man's
+deed, the other of his thought and feeling) there is a brief historical
+introduction to every literary period. There is also a review of the
+general literary tendencies of each age, of the fashions, humors and ideals
+that influenced writers in forming their style or selecting their subject.
+Then there is a biography of every important author, written not to offer
+another subject for hero-worship but to present the man exactly as he was;
+a review of his chief works, which is intended chiefly as a guide to the
+best reading; and a critical estimate or appreciation of his writings based
+partly upon first-hand impressions, partly upon the assumption that an
+author must deal honestly with life as he finds it and that the business of
+criticism is, as Emerson said, "not to legislate but to raise the dead."
+This detailed study of the greater writers of a period is followed by an
+examination of some of the minor writers and their memorable works.
+Finally, each chapter concludes with a concise summary of the period under
+consideration, a list of selections for reading and a bibliography of works
+that will be found most useful in acquiring a larger knowledge of the
+subject.
+
+In its general plan this little volume is modeled on the author's more
+advanced _English Literature_ and _American Literature_; but the
+material, the viewpoint, the presentation of individual writers,--all the
+details of the work are entirely new. Such a book is like a second journey
+through ample and beautiful regions filled with historic associations, a
+journey that one undertakes with new companions, with renewed pleasure and,
+it is to be hoped, with increased wisdom. It is hardly necessary to add
+that our subject has still its unvoiced charms, that it cannot be exhausted
+or even adequately presented in any number of histories. For literature
+deals with life; and life, with its endlessly surprising variety in unity,
+has happily some suggestion of infinity.
+
+WILLIAM J. LONG
+
+STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE
+
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: AN ESSAY OF LITERATURE
+
+What is Literature? The Tree and the Book. Books of Knowledge and Books of
+Power. The Art of Literature. A Definition and Some Objections.
+
+
+CHAPTER II. BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
+
+Tributaries of Early Literature. The Anglo-Saxon or Old-English Period.
+Specimens of the Language. The Epic of Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon Songs. Types of
+Earliest Poetry. Christian Literature of the Anglo-Saxon Period. The
+Northumbrian School. Bede. Cædmon. Cynewulf. The West-Saxon School. Alfred
+the Great. _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle._
+
+The Anglo-Norman or Early Middle-English Period. Specimens of the Language.
+The Norman Conquest. Typical Norman Literature. Geoffrey of Monmouth. First
+Appearance of the Legends of Arthur. Types of Middle-English Literature.
+Metrical Romances. Some Old Songs. Summary of the Period. Selections for
+Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE AGE OF CHAUCER AND THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING
+
+Specimens of the Language. History of the Period. Geoffrey Chaucer.
+Contemporaries and Successors of Chaucer. Langland and his _Piers
+Plowman_. Malory and his _Morte d' Arthur_. Caxton and the First
+Printing Press. The King's English as the Language of England. Popular
+Ballads. Summary of the Period. Selections for Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
+
+Historical Background. Literary Characteristics of the Period. Foreign
+Influence. Outburst of Lyric Poetry. Lyrics of Love. Music and Poetry.
+Edmund Spenser. The Rise of the Drama. The Religious Drama. Miracle Plays,
+Moralities and Interludes. The Secular Drama. Pageants and Masques. Popular
+Comedies. Classical and English Drama. Predecessors of Shakespeare.
+Marlowe. Shakespeare. Elizabethan Dramatists after Shakespeare. Ben Jonson.
+The Prose Writers. The Fashion of Euphuism. The Authorized Version of the
+Scriptures. Francis Bacon. Summary of the Period. Selections for Reading.
+Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE PURITAN AGE AND THE RESTORATION
+
+Historical Outline. Three Typical Writers. Milton. Bunyan. Dryden. Puritan
+and Cavalier Poets. George Herbert. Butler's _Hudibras_. The Prose
+Writers. Thomas Browne. Isaac Walton. Summary of the Period. Selections for
+Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
+
+History of the Period. Eighteenth-Century Classicism. The Meaning of
+Classicism in Literature. Alexander Pope. Swift. Addison. Steele. Johnson.
+Boswell. Burke. Historical Writing in the Eighteenth Century. Gibbon.
+
+The Revival of Romantic Poetry. Collins and Gray. Goldsmith. Burns. Minor
+Poets of Romanticism. Cowper. Macpherson and the Ossian Poems. Chatterton.
+Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. William Blake.
+
+The Early English Novel. The Old Romance and the New Novel. Defoe.
+Richardson. Fielding. Influence of the Early Novelists. Summary of the
+Period. Selections for Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+Historical Outline. The French Revolution and English Literature.
+Wordsworth. Coleridge. Southey. The Revolutionary Poets. Byron and Shelley.
+Keats. The Minor Poets. Campbell, Moore, Keble, Hood, Felicia Hemans, Leigh
+Hunt and Thomas Beddoes. The Fiction Writers. Walter Scott. Jane Austen.
+The Critics and Essayists. Charles Lamb. De Quincey. Summary of the Period.
+Selections for Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+Historical Outline. The Victorian Poets. Tennyson. Browning. Elizabeth
+Barrett Browning. Matthew Arnold. The Pre-Raphaelites. Rossetti. Morris.
+Swinburne. Minor Poets and Songs in Many Keys.
+
+The Greater Victorian Novelists. Dickens. Thackeray. George Eliot. Other
+Writers of Notable Novels. The Brontë Sisters. Mrs. Gaskell. Charles Reade.
+Anthony Trollope. Blackmore. Kingsley. Later Victorian Novelists. Meredith.
+Hardy. Stevenson.
+
+Victorian Essayists and Historians. Typical Writers. Macaulay. Carlyle.
+Ruskin. Variety of Victorian Literature. Summary of the Period. Selections
+for Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+AMERICAN LITERATURE
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE PIONEERS AND NATION-BUILDERS
+
+Unique Quality of Early American Literature. Two Views of the Pioneers. The
+Colonial Period. Annalists and Historians. Bradford and Byrd. Puritan and
+Cavalier Influences. Colonial Poetry. Wiggles-worth. Anne Bradstreet.
+Godfrey. Nature and Human Nature in Colonial Records. The Indian in
+Literature. Religious Writers. Cotton Mather and Edwards.
+
+The Revolutionary Period. Party Literature. Benjamin Franklin.
+Revolutionary Poetry. The Hartford Wits. Trumbull's _M'Fingal_.
+Freneau. Orators and Statesmen of the Revolution. Citizen Literature. James
+Otis and Patrick Henry. Hamilton and Jefferson. Miscellaneous Writers.
+Thomas Paine. Crèvecoeur. Woolman. Beginning of American Fiction. Charles
+Brockden Brown. Summary of the Period. Selections for Reading.
+Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER II. LITERATURE OF THE NEW NATION
+
+Historical Background. Literary Environment. The National Spirit in Prose
+and Verse. The Knickerbocker School. Halleck, Drake, Willis and Paulding.
+Southern Writers. Simms, Kennedy, Wilde and Wirt. Various New England
+Writers. First Literature of the West. Major Writers of the Period. Irving.
+Bryant. Cooper. Poe. Summary of the Period. Selections for Reading.
+Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE PERIOD OF CONFLICT
+
+Political History. Social and Intellectual Changes. Brook Farm and Other
+Reform Societies. The Transcendental Movement. Literary Characteristics of
+the Period. The Elder Poets. Longfellow. Whittier. Lowell. Holmes, Lanier.
+Whitman. The Greater Prose Writers. Emerson. Hawthorne. Some Minor Poets.
+Timrod, Hayne, Ryan, Stoddard and Bayard Taylor. Secondary Writers of
+Fiction. Mrs. Stowe, Dana, Herman Melville, Cooke, Eggleston and Winthrop.
+Juvenile Literature. Louisa M. Alcott. Trowbridge. Miscellaneous Prose.
+Thoreau. The Historians. Motley, Prescott and Parkman. Summary of the
+Period. Selections for Reading. Bibliography.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE ALL-AMERICA PERIOD
+
+The New Spirit of Nationality. Contemporary History. The Short Story and
+its Development. Bret Harte. The Local-Color Story and Some Typical
+Writers. The Novel since 1876. Realism in Recent Fiction. Howells. Mark
+Twain. Various Types of Realism. Dialect Stories. Joel Chandler Harris.
+Recent Romances. Historical Novels. Poetry since 1876. Stedman and Aldrich.
+The New Spirit in Poetry. Joaquin Miller. Dialect Poems. The Poetry of
+Common Life. Carleton and Riley. Other Typical Poets. Miscellaneous Prose.
+The Nature Writers. History and Biography. John Fiske. Literary History and
+Reminiscence. Bibliography.
+
+
+GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+William Shakespeare
+
+Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain
+
+Cædmon Cross at Whitby Abbey
+
+Domesday Book
+
+The Norman Stair, Canterbury Cathedral
+
+Chaucer
+
+Pilgrims setting out from the "Tabard"
+
+A Street in Caerleon on Usk
+
+The Almonry, Westminster
+
+Michael Drayton
+
+Edmund Spenser
+
+Raleigh's Birthplace, Budleigh Salterton
+
+The Library, Stratford Grammar School, attended by Shakespeare
+
+Anne Hathaway's Cottage
+
+The Main Room, Anne Hathaway's Cottage
+
+Cawdor Castle, Scotland, associated with Macbeth
+
+Francis Beaumont
+
+John Fletcher
+
+Ben Jonson
+
+Sir Philip Sidney
+
+Francis Bacon
+
+John Milton
+
+Cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire
+
+Ludlow Castle
+
+John Bunyan
+
+Bunyan Meetinghouse, Southwark
+
+John Dryden
+
+George Herbert
+
+Sir Thomas Browne
+
+Isaac Walton
+
+Old Fishing House, on River Dove, used by Walton
+
+Alexander Pope
+
+Twickenham Parish Church, where Pope was buried
+
+Jonathan Swift
+
+Trinity College, Dublin
+
+Joseph Addison
+
+Magdalen College, Oxford
+
+Sir Richard Steele
+
+Dr. Samuel Johnson
+
+Dr. Johnson's House (Bolt Court, Fleet St.)
+
+James Boswell
+
+Edmund Burke
+
+Edward Gibbon
+
+Thomas Gray
+
+Stoke Poges Churchyard, showing Part of the Church and Gray's Tomb
+
+Oliver Goldsmith
+
+"The Cheshire Cheese," London, showing Dr. Johnson's Favorite Seat
+
+Canonbury Tower (London)
+
+Robert Burns
+
+"Ellisland," the Burns Farm, Dumfries
+
+The Village of Tarbolton, near which Burns Lived
+
+Auld Alloway Kirk
+
+Burns's Mausoleum
+
+William Cowper
+
+Daniel Defoe
+
+Cupola House
+
+William Wordsworth
+
+Wordsworth's Desk in Hawkshead School
+
+St. Oswald's Church, Grasmere
+
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge
+
+The Coleridge Cottage, Nether Stowey, Somersetshire
+
+Robert Southey
+
+Greta Hall, in the Lake Region
+
+Lord Byron
+
+Newstead Abbey and Byron Oak
+
+The Castle of Chillon
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley
+
+John Keats
+
+Leigh Hunt
+
+Walter Scott
+
+Abbotsford
+
+The Great Window, Melrose Abbey
+
+Scott's Tomb in Dryburgh Abbey
+
+Mrs. Hannah More
+
+Charles Lamb
+
+East India House, London
+
+Mary Lamb
+
+The Lamb Building, Inner Temple, London
+
+Thomas De Quincey
+
+Dove Cottage, Grasmere
+
+Tennyson's Birthplace, Somersby Rectory, Lincolnshire
+
+Alfred Tennyson
+
+Summerhouse at Farringford
+
+Robert Browning
+
+Mrs. Browning's Tomb, at Florence
+
+The Palazzo Rezzonico, Browning's Home in Venice
+
+Piazza of San Lorenzo, Florence
+
+Elizabeth Barrett Browning
+
+Matthew Arnold
+
+The Manor House of William Morris
+
+William Morris
+
+Charles Dickens
+
+Gadshill Place, near Rochester
+
+Dickens's Birthplace, Landport, Portsea
+
+Yard of Reindeer Inn, Danbury
+
+The Gatehouse at Rochester, near Dickens's Home
+
+William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+Charterhouse School
+
+George Eliot
+
+Griff House, George Eliot's Early Home in Warwickshire
+
+Charlotte Brontë
+
+Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell
+
+Richard Doddridge Blackmore
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Thomas Babington Macaulay
+
+Thomas Carlyle
+
+Carlyle's House, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London
+
+Arch Home, Ecclefechan
+
+John Ruskin
+
+Entrance to "Westover," Home of William Byrd
+
+Plymouth in 1662. Bradford's House on Right
+
+William Byrd
+
+New Amsterdam (New York) in 1663
+
+Cotton Mather
+
+Jonathan Edwards
+
+Benjamin Franklin
+
+Franklin's Shop
+
+Philip Freneau
+
+Thomas Jefferson
+
+Alexander Hamilton
+
+Monticello, the Home of Jefferson in Virginia
+
+Charles Brockden Brown
+
+William Gilmore Simms
+
+John Pendleton Kennedy
+
+Washington Irving
+
+"Sunnyside," Home of Irving
+
+Rip Van Winkle
+
+Old Dutch Church, Sleepy Hollow
+
+William Cullen Bryant
+
+Bryant's Home, at Cummington
+
+James Fenimore Cooper
+
+Otsego Hall, Home of Cooper
+
+Cooper's Cave
+
+Edgar Allan Poe
+
+West Range, University of Virginia
+
+The Building of the _Southern Literary Messenger_
+
+"The Man" (Abraham Lincoln)
+
+Birthplace of Longfellow at Falmouth (now Portland) Maine
+
+Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
+
+The Taproom, Wayside Inn, Sudbury
+
+Longfellow's Library in Craigie House, Cambridge
+
+John Greenleaf Whittier
+
+Oak Knoll, Whittier's Home, Danvers, Massachusetts
+
+Street in Old Marblehead
+
+James Russell Lowell
+
+Lowell's House, Cambridge, in Winter
+
+Oliver Wendell Holmes
+
+Old Colonial Doorway
+
+Sidney Lanier
+
+The Village of McGaheysville, Virginia
+
+Whitman's Birthplace, West Hills, Long Island
+
+Ralph Waldo Emerson
+
+Emerson's Home, Concord
+
+Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+Old Customhouse, Boston
+
+"The House of the Seven Gables," Salem (built in 1669)
+
+Hawthorne's Birthplace, Salem, Massachusetts
+
+Henry Timrod
+
+Paul Hamilton Hayne
+
+Harriet Beecher Stowe
+
+John Esten Cooke
+
+Louisa M Alcott
+
+Henry D Thoreau
+
+Francis Parkman
+
+Bret Harte
+
+George W. Cable
+
+Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
+
+William Dean Howells
+
+Mark Twain
+
+Joel Chandler Harris
+
+Edmund Clarence Stedman
+
+Thomas Bailey Aldrich
+
+Joaquin Miller
+
+John Fiske
+
+Edward Everett Hale
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION: AN ESSAY OF LITERATURE
+
+  (_Not a Lesson, but an Invitation_)
+
+  I sleep, yet I love to be wakened, and love to see
+  The fresh young faces bending over me;
+  And the faces of them that are old, I love them too,
+  For these, as well, in the days of their youth I knew.
+
+                                        "Song of the Well"
+
+
+WHAT IS LITERATURE? In an old English book, written before Columbus dreamed
+of a westward journey to find the East, is the story of a traveler who set
+out to search the world for wisdom. Through Palestine and India he passed,
+traveling by sea or land through many seasons, till he came to a wonderful
+island where he saw a man plowing in the fields. And the wonder was, that
+the man was calling familiar words to his oxen, "such wordes as men speken
+to bestes in his owne lond." Startled by the sound of his mother tongue he
+turned back on his course "in gret mervayle, for he knewe not how it myghte
+be." But if he had passed on a little, says the old record, "he would have
+founden his contree and his owne knouleche."
+
+Facing a new study of literature our impulse is to search in strange places
+for a definition; but though we compass a world of books, we must return at
+last, like the worthy man of _Mandeville's Travels_, to our own
+knowledge. Since childhood we have been familiar with this noble subject of
+literature. We have entered into the heritage of the ancient Greeks, who
+thought that Homer was a good teacher for the nursery; we have made
+acquaintance with Psalm and Prophecy and Parable, with the knightly tales
+of Malory, with the fairy stories of Grimm or Andersen, with the poetry of
+Shakespeare, with the novels of Scott or Dickens,--in short, with some of
+the best books that the world has ever produced. We know, therefore, what
+literature is, and that it is an excellent thing which ministers to the joy
+of living; but when we are asked to define the subject, we are in the
+position of St. Augustine, who said of time, "If you ask me what time is, I
+know not; but if you ask me not, then I know." For literature is like
+happiness, or love, or life itself, in that it can be understood or
+appreciated but can never be exactly described. It has certain describable
+qualities, however, and the best place to discover these is our own
+bookcase.
+
+[Sidenote: THE TREE AND THE BOOK]
+
+Here on a shelf are a Dictionary, a History of America, a text on
+Chemistry, which we read or study for information; on a higher shelf are
+_As You Like It_, _Hiawatha_, _Lorna Doone_, _The Oregon
+Trail_, and other works to which we go for pleasure when the day's work
+is done. In one sense all these and all other books are literature; for the
+root meaning of the word is "letters," and a letter means a character
+inscribed or rubbed upon a prepared surface. A series of letters
+intelligently arranged forms a book, and for the root meaning of "book" you
+must go to a tree; because the Latin word for book, _liber_, means the
+inner layer of bark that covers a tree bole, and "book" or "boc" is the old
+English name for the beech, on whose silvery surface our ancestors carved
+their first runic letters.
+
+So also when we turn the "leaves" of a book, our mind goes back over a long
+trail: through rattling printing-shop, and peaceful monk's cell, and gloomy
+cave with walls covered with picture writing, till the trail ends beside a
+shadowy forest, where primitive man takes a smooth leaf and inscribes his
+thought upon it by means of a pointed stick. A tree is the Adam of all
+books, and everything that the hand of man has written upon the tree or its
+products or its substitutes is literature. But that is too broad a
+definition; we must limit it by excluding what does not here concern us.
+
+[Sidenote: BOOKS OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF POWER]
+
+Our first exclusion is of that immense class of writings--books of science,
+history, philosophy, and the rest--to which we go for information. These
+aim to preserve or to systematize the discoveries of men; they appeal
+chiefly to the intellect and they are known as the literature of knowledge.
+There remains another large class of writings, sometimes called the
+literature of power, consisting of poems, plays, essays, stories of every
+kind, to which we go treasure-hunting for happiness or counsel, for noble
+thoughts or fine feelings, for rest of body or exercise of spirit,--for
+almost everything, in fine, except information. As Chaucer said, long ago,
+such writings are:
+
+  For pleasaunce high, and for noon other end.
+
+They aim to give us pleasure; they appeal chiefly to our imagination and
+our emotions; they awaken in us a feeling of sympathy or admiration for
+whatever is beautiful in nature or society or the soul of man.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ART OF LITERATURE]
+
+The author who would attempt books of such high purpose must be careful of
+both the matter and the manner of his writing, must give one thought to
+what he shall say and another thought to how he shall say it. He selects
+the best or most melodious words, the finest figures, and aims to make his
+story or poem beautiful in itself, as a painter strives to reflect a face
+or a landscape in a beautiful way. Any photographer can in a few minutes
+reproduce a human face, but only an artist can by care and labor bring
+forth a beautiful portrait. So any historian can write the facts of the
+Battle of Gettysburg; but only a Lincoln can in noble words reveal the
+beauty and immortal meaning of that mighty conflict.
+
+To all such written works, which quicken our sense of the beautiful, and
+which are as a Jacob's ladder on which we mount for higher views of nature
+or humanity, we confidently give the name "literature," meaning the art of
+literature in distinction from the mere craft of writing.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PASSING AND THE PERMANENT]
+
+Such a definition, though it cuts out the greater part of human records, is
+still too broad for our purpose, and again we must limit it by a process of
+exclusion. For to study almost any period of English letters is to discover
+that it produced hundreds of books which served the purpose of literature,
+if only for a season, by affording pleasure to readers. No sooner were they
+written than Time began to winnow them over and over, giving them to all
+the winds of opinion, one generation after another, till the hosts of
+ephemeral works were swept aside, and only a remnant was left in the hands
+of the winnower. To this remnant, books of abiding interest, on which the
+years have no effect save to mellow or flavor them, we give the name of
+great or enduring literature; and with these chiefly we deal in our present
+study.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUALITY OF GREATNESS]
+
+To the inevitable question, What are the marks of great literature? no
+positive answer can be returned. As a tree is judged by its fruits, so is
+literature judged not by theory but by the effect which it produces on
+human life; and the judgment is first personal, then general. If a book has
+power to awaken in you a lively sense of pleasure or a profound emotion of
+sympathy; if it quickens your love of beauty or truth or goodness; if it
+moves you to generous thought or noble action, then that book is, for you
+and for the time, a great book. If after ten or fifty years it still has
+power to quicken you, then for you at least it is a great book forever. And
+if it affects many other men and women as it affects you, and if it lives
+with power from one generation to another, gladdening the children as it
+gladdened the fathers, then surely it is great literature, without further
+qualification or need of definition. From this viewpoint the greatest poem
+in the world--greatest in that it abides in most human hearts as a loved
+and honored guest--is not a mighty _Iliad_ or _Paradise Lost_ or
+_Divine Comedy_; it is a familiar little poem of a dozen lines,
+beginning "The Lord is my Shepherd."
+
+It is obvious that great literature, which appeals to all classes of men
+and to all times, cannot go far afield for rare subjects, or follow new
+inventions, or concern itself with fashions that are here to-day and gone
+to-morrow. Its only subjects are nature and human nature; it deals with
+common experiences of joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure, that all men
+understand; it cherishes the unchanging ideals of love, faith, duty,
+freedom, reverence, courtesy, which were old to the men who kept their
+flocks on the plains of Shinar, and which will be young as the morning to
+our children's children.
+
+Such ideals tend to ennoble a writer, and therefore are great books
+characterized by lofty thought, by fine feeling and, as a rule, by a
+beautiful simplicity of expression. They have another quality, hard to
+define but easy to understand, a quality which leaves upon us the
+impression of eternal youth, as if they had been dipped in the fountain
+which Ponce de Leon sought for in vain through the New World. If a great
+book could speak, it would use the words of the Cobzar (poet) in his "Last
+Song":
+
+  The merry Spring, he is my brother,
+    And when he comes this way
+  Each year again, he always asks me:
+    "Art thou not yet grown gray?"
+  But I. I keep my youth forever,
+    Even as the Spring his May.
+
+A DEFINITION. Literature, then, if one must formulate a definition, is the
+written record of man's best thought and feeling, and English literature is
+the part of that record which belongs to the English people. In its
+broadest sense literature includes all writing, but as we commonly define
+the term it excludes works which aim at instruction, and includes only the
+works which aim to give pleasure, and which are artistic in that they
+reflect nature or human life in a way to arouse our sense of beauty. In a
+still narrower sense, when we study the history of literature we deal
+chiefly with the great, the enduring books, which may have been written in
+an elder or a latter day, but which have in them the magic of all time.
+
+One may easily challenge such a definition, which, like most others, is far
+from faultless. It is difficult, for example, to draw the line sharply
+between instructive and pleasure-giving works; for many an instructive book
+of history gives us pleasure, and there may be more instruction on
+important matters in a pleasurable poem than in a treatise on ethics.
+Again, there are historians who allege that English literature must include
+not simply the works of Britain but everything written in the English
+language. There are other objections; but to straighten them all out is to
+be long in starting, and there is a pleasant journey ahead of us. Chaucer
+had literature in mind when he wrote:
+
+  Through me men goon into that blisful place
+       Of hertës hele and dedly woundës cure;
+  Through me men goon unto the wells of grace,
+       Ther grene and lusty May shal ever endure:
+       This is the wey to al good aventure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
+
+  Then the warrior, battle-tried, touched the sounding glee-wood:
+  Straight awoke the harp's sweet note; straight a song uprose,
+  Sooth and sad its music. Then from hero's lips there fell
+  A wonder-tale, well told.
+
+                    _Beowulf_, line 2017 (a free rendering)
+
+
+In its beginnings English literature is like a river, which proceeds not
+from a single wellhead but from many springs, each sending forth its
+rivulet of sweet or bitter water. As there is a place where the river
+assumes a character of its own, distinct from all its tributaries, so in
+English literature there is a time when it becomes national rather than
+tribal, and English rather than Saxon or Celtic or Norman. That time was in
+the fifteenth century, when the poems of Chaucer and the printing press of
+Caxton exalted the Midland above all other dialects and established it as
+the literary language of England.
+
+[Sidenote: TRIBUTARIES OF LITERATURE]
+
+Before that time, if you study the records of Britain, you meet several
+different tribes and races of men: the native Celt, the law-giving Roman,
+the colonizing Saxon, the sea-roving Dane, the feudal baron of Normandy,
+each with his own language and literature reflecting the traditions of his
+own people. Here in these old records is a strange medley of folk heroes,
+Arthur and Beowulf, Cnut and Brutus, Finn and Cuchulain, Roland and Robin
+Hood. Older than the tales of such folk-heroes are ancient riddles, charms,
+invocations to earth and sky:
+
+  Hal wes thu, Folde, fira moder!
+  Hail to thee, Earth, thou mother of men!
+
+With these pagan spells are found the historical writings of the Venerable
+Bede, the devout hymns of Cædmon, Welsh legends, Irish and Scottish fairy
+stories, Scandinavian myths, Hebrew and Christian traditions, romances from
+distant Italy which had traveled far before the Italians welcomed them. All
+these and more, whether originating on British soil or brought in by
+missionaries or invaders, held each to its own course for a time, then met
+and mingled in the swelling stream which became English literature.
+
+[Illustration: STONEHENGE, ON SALISBURY PLAIN
+Probably the ruins of a temple of the native Britons]
+
+To trace all these tributaries to their obscure and lonely sources would
+require the labor of a lifetime. We shall here examine only the two main
+branches of our early literature, to the end that we may better appreciate
+the vigor and variety of modern English. The first is the Anglo-Saxon,
+which came into England in the middle of the fifth century with the
+colonizing Angles, Jutes and Saxons from the shores of the North Sea and
+the Baltic; the second is the Norman-French, which arrived six centuries
+later at the time of the Norman invasion. Except in their emphasis on
+personal courage, there is a marked contrast between these two branches,
+the former being stern and somber, the latter gay and fanciful. In
+Anglo-Saxon poetry we meet a strong man who cherishes his own ideals of
+honor, in Norman-French poetry a youth eagerly interested in romantic tales
+gathered from all the world. One represents life as a profound mystery, the
+other as a happy adventure.
+
+       *       *        *       *        *
+
+ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050)
+
+SPECIMENS OF THE LANGUAGE. Our English speech has changed so much in the
+course of centuries that it is now impossible to read our earliest records
+without special study; but that Anglo-Saxon is our own and not a foreign
+tongue may appear from the following examples. The first is a stanza from
+"Widsith," the chant of a wandering gleeman or minstrel; and for comparison
+we place beside it Andrew Lang's modern version. Nobody knows how old
+"Widsith" is; it may have been sung to the accompaniment of a harp that was
+broken fourteen hundred years ago. The second, much easier to read, is from
+the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was prepared by King Alfred from an older
+record in the ninth century:
+
+  Swa scrithende
+      gesceapum hweorfath,
+  Gleomen gumena
+      geond grunda fela;
+  Thearfe secgath,
+      thonc-word sprecath,
+  Simle, suth oththe north
+      sumne gemetath,
+  Gydda gleawne
+      geofam unhneawne.
+
+  So wandering on
+      the world about,
+  Gleemen do roam
+      through many lands;
+  They say their needs,
+      they speak their thanks,
+  Sure, south or north
+      someone to meet,
+  Of songs to judge
+      and gifts not grudge.
+
+    Her Hengest and Aesc, his sunu, gefuhton wid Bryttas on thaere
+    stowe the is gecweden Creccanford, and thaer ofslogon feower
+    thusenda wera. And tha Bryttas tha forleton Cent-lond, and mid
+    myclum ege flugon to Lundenbyrig.
+
+    At this time Hengist and Esk, his son, fought with the Britons at
+    the place that is called Crayford, and there slew four thousand
+    men. And the Britons then forsook Kentland, and with much fear fled
+    to London town.
+
+BEOWULF. The old epic poem, called after its hero Beowulf, is more than
+myth or legend, more even than history; it is a picture of a life and a
+world that once had real existence. Of that vanished life, that world of
+ancient Englishmen, only a few material fragments remain: a bit of linked
+armor, a rusted sword with runic inscriptions, the oaken ribs of a war
+galley buried with the Viking who had sailed it on stormy seas, and who was
+entombed in it because he loved it. All these are silent witnesses; they
+have no speech or language. But this old poem is a living voice, speaking
+with truth and sincerity of the daily habit of the fathers of modern
+England, of their adventures by sea or land, their stern courage and grave
+courtesy, their ideals of manly honor, their thoughts of life and death.
+
+Let us hear, then, the story of _Beowulf_, picturing in our
+imagination the story-teller and his audience. The scene opens in a great
+hall, where a fire blazes on the hearth and flashes upon polished shields
+against the timbered walls. Down the long room stretches a table where men
+are feasting or passing a beaker from hand to hand, and anon crying _Hal!
+hal!_ in answer to song or in greeting to a guest. At the head of the
+hall sits the chief with his chosen ealdormen. At a sign from the chief a
+gleeman rises and strikes a single clear note from his harp. Silence falls
+on the benches; the story begins:
+
+  Hail! we of the Spear Danes in days of old
+  Have heard the glory of warriors sung;
+  Have cheered the deeds that our chieftains wrought,
+  And the brave Scyld's triumph o'er his foes.
+
+    Then because there are Scyldings present, and because brave men
+    revere their ancestors, the gleeman tells a beautiful legend of how
+    King Scyld came and went: how he arrived as a little child, in a
+    war-galley that no man sailed, asleep amid jewels and weapons; and
+    how, when his life ended at the call of Wyrd or Fate, they placed
+    him against the mast of a ship, with treasures heaped around him
+    and a golden banner above his head, gave ship and cargo to the
+    winds, and sent their chief nobly back to the deep whence he came.
+
+    So with picturesque words the gleeman thrills his hearers with a
+    vivid picture of a Viking's sea-burial. It thrills us now, when the
+    Vikings are no more, and when no other picture can be drawn by an
+    eyewitness of that splendid pagan rite.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE STORY OF HEOROT]
+
+    One of Scyld's descendants was King Hrothgar (Roger) who built the
+    hall Heorot, where the king and his men used to gather nightly to
+    feast, and to listen to the songs of scop or gleeman. [Footnote:
+    Like Agamemnon and the Greek chieftains, every Saxon leader had his
+    gleeman or minstrel, and had also his own poet, his scop or
+    "shaper," whose duty it was to shape a glorious deed into more
+    glorious verse. So did our pagan ancestors build their monuments
+    out of songs that should live in the hearts of men when granite or
+    earth mound had crumbled away.] "There was joy of heroes," but in
+    one night the joy was changed to mourning. Out on the lonely fens
+    dwelt the jotun (giant or monster) Grendel, who heard the sound of
+    men's mirth and quickly made an end of it. One night, as the thanes
+    slept in the hall, he burst in the door and carried off thirty
+    warriors to devour them in his lair under the sea. Another and
+    another horrible raid followed, till Heorot was deserted and the
+    fear of Grendel reigned among the Spear Danes. There were brave men
+    among them, but of what use was courage when their weapons were
+    powerless against the monster? "Their swords would not bite on his
+    body."
+
+    For twelve years this terror continued; then the rumor of Grendel
+    reached the land of the Geats, where Beowulf lived at the court of
+    his uncle, King Hygelac. No sooner did Beowulf hear of a dragon to
+    be slain, of a friendly king "in need of a man," than he selected
+    fourteen companions and launched his war-galley in search of
+    adventure.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE SAILING OF BEOWULF]
+
+    At this point the old epic becomes a remarkable portrayal of daily
+    life. In its picturesque lines we see the galley set sail, foam
+    flying from her prow; we catch the first sight of the southern
+    headlands, approach land, hear the challenge of the "warder of the
+    cliffs" and Beowulf's courteous answer. We follow the march to
+    Heorot in war-gear, spears flashing, swords and byrnies clanking,
+    and witness the exchange of greetings between Hrothgar and the
+    young hero. Again is the feast spread in Heorot; once more is heard
+    the song of gleemen, the joyous sound of warriors in comradeship.
+    There is also a significant picture of Hrothgar's wife, "mindful of
+    courtesies," honoring her guests by passing the mead-cup with her
+    own hands. She is received by these stern men with profound
+    respect.
+
+    When the feast draws to an end the fear of Grendel returns.
+    Hrothgar warns his guests that no weapon can harm the monster, that
+    it is death to sleep in the hall; then the Spear Danes retire,
+    leaving Beowulf and his companions to keep watch and ward. With the
+    careless confidence of brave men, forthwith they all fall asleep:
+
+      Forth from the fens, from the misty moorlands,
+      Grendel came gliding--God's wrath he bore--
+      Came under clouds until he saw clearly,
+      Glittering with gold plates, the mead-hall of men.
+      Down fell the door, though hardened with fire-bands,
+      Open it sprang at the stroke of his paw.
+      Swollen with rage burst in the bale-bringer,
+      Flamed in his eyes a fierce light, likest fire.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE FIGHT WITH GRENDEL]
+
+    Throwing himself upon the nearest sleeper Grendel crushes and
+    swallows him; then he stretches out a paw towards Beowulf, only to
+    find it "seized in such a grip as the fiend had never felt before."
+    A desperate conflict begins, and a mighty uproar,--crashing of
+    benches, shoutings of men, the "war-song" of Grendel, who is trying
+    to break the grip of his foe. As the monster struggles toward the
+    door, dragging the hero with him, a wide wound opens on his
+    shoulder; the sinews snap, and with a mighty wrench Beowulf tears
+    off the whole limb. While Grendel rushes howling across the fens,
+    Beowulf hangs the grisly arm with its iron claws, "the whole
+    grapple of Grendel," over the door where all may see it.
+
+    Once more there is joy in Heorot, songs, speeches, the liberal
+    giving of gifts. Thinking all danger past, the Danes sleep in the
+    hall; but at midnight comes the mother of Grendel, raging to avenge
+    her son. Seizing the king's bravest companion she carries him away,
+    and he is never seen again.
+
+    Here is another adventure for Beowulf. To old Hrothgar, lamenting
+    his lost earl, the hero says simply:
+
+      Wise chief, sorrow not. For a man it is meet
+      His friend to avenge, not to mourn for his loss;
+      For death comes to all, but honor endures:
+      Let him win it who will, ere Wyrd to him calls,
+      And fame be the fee of a warrior dead!
+
+    Following the trail of the _Brimwylf_ or _Merewif_
+    (sea-wolf or sea-woman) Beowulf and his companions pass through
+    desolate regions to a wild cliff on the shore. There a friend
+    offers his good sword Hrunting for the combat, and Beowulf accepts
+    the weapon, saying:
+
+                   ic me mid Hruntinge
+      Dom gewyrce, oththe mec death nimeth.
+                         I with Hrunting
+      Honor will win, or death shall me take.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE DRAGON'S CAVE]
+
+    Then he plunges into the black water, is attacked on all sides by
+    the _Grundwrygen_ or bottom monsters, and as he stops to fight
+    them is seized by the _Merewif_ and dragged into a cave, a
+    mighty "sea-hall" free from water and filled with a strange light.
+    On its floor are vast treasures; its walls are adorned with
+    weapons; in a corner huddles the wounded Grendel. All this Beowulf
+    sees in a glance as he turns to fight his new foe.
+
+    Follows then another terrific combat, in which the brand Hrunting
+    proves useless. Though it rings out its "clanging war-song" on the
+    monster's scales, it will not "bite" on the charmed body. Beowulf
+    is down, and at the point of death, when his eye lights on a huge
+    sword forged by the jotuns of old. Struggling to his feet he seizes
+    the weapon, whirls it around his head for a mighty blow, and the
+    fight is won. Another blow cuts off the head of Grendel, but at the
+    touch of the poisonous blood the steel blade melts like ice before
+    the fire.
+
+    Leaving all the treasures, Beowulf takes only the golden hilt of
+    the magic sword and the head of Grendel, reënters the sea and
+    mounts up to his companions. They welcome him as one returned from
+    the dead. They relieve him of helmet and byrnie, and swing away in
+    a triumphal procession to Heorot. The hero towers among them, a
+    conspicuous figure, and next to him comes the enormous head of
+    Grendel carried on a spear-shaft by four of the stoutest thanes.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE FIREDRAKE]
+
+    More feasting, gifts, noble speeches follow before the hero returns
+    to his own land, laden with treasures. So ends the first part of
+    the epic. In the second part Beowulf succeeds Hygelac as chief of
+    the Geats, and rules them well for fifty years. Then a "firedrake,"
+    guarding an immense hoard of treasure (as in most of the old dragon
+    stories), begins to ravage the land. Once more the aged Beowulf
+    goes forth to champion his people; but he feels that "Wyrd is close
+    to hand," and the fatalism which pervades all the poem is finely
+    expressed in his speech to his companions. In his last fight he
+    kills the dragon, winning the dragon's treasure for his people; but
+    as he battles amid flame and smoke the fire enters his lungs, and
+    he dies "as dies a man," paying for victory with his life. Among
+    his last words is a command which reminds us again of the old
+    Greeks, and of the word of Elpenor to Odysseus:
+
+        "Bid my brave men raise a barrow for me on the headland,
+        broad, high, to be seen far out at sea: that hereafter
+        sea-farers, driving their foamy keels through ocean's mist,
+        may behold and say, ''Tis Beowulf's mound!'"
+
+    The hero's last words and the closing scenes of the epic, including
+    the funeral pyre, the "bale-fire" and another Viking burial to the
+    chant of armed men riding their war steeds, are among the noblest
+    that have come down to us from beyond the dawn of history.
+
+Such, in brief outline, is the story of _Beowulf_. It is recorded on a
+fire-marked manuscript, preserved as by a miracle from the torch of the
+Danes, which is now one of the priceless treasures of the British Museum.
+The handwriting indicates that the manuscript was copied about the year
+1100, but the language points to the eighth or ninth century, when the poem
+in its present form was probably composed on English soil. [Footnote:
+Materials used in _Beowulf_ are very old, and may have been brought to
+England during the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Parts of the material, such as the
+dragon-fights, are purely mythical. They relate to Beowa, a superman, of
+whom many legends were told by Scandinavian minstrels. The Grendel legend,
+for example, appears in the Icelandic saga of Gretti, who slays the dragon
+Glam. Other parts of _Beowulf_ are old battle songs; and still others,
+relating to King Hygelac and his nephew, have some historical foundation.
+So little is known about the epic that one cannot safely make any positive
+statement as to its origin. It was written in crude, uneven lines; but a
+rhythmic, martial effect, as of marching men, was produced by strong accent
+and alliteration, and the effect was strengthened by the harp with which
+the gleeman always accompanied his recital.]
+
+ANGLO-SAXON SONGS. Beside the epic of _Beowulf_ a few mutilated poems
+have been preserved, and these are as fragments of a plate or film upon
+which the life of long ago left its impression. One of the oldest of these
+poems is "Widsith," the "wide-goer," which describes the wanderings and
+rewards of the ancient gleeman. It begins:
+
+  Widsith spake, his word-hoard unlocked,
+  He who farthest had fared among earth-folk and tribe-folk.
+
+Then follows a recital of the places he had visited, and the gifts he had
+received for his singing. Some of the personages named are real, others
+mythical; and as the list covers half a world and several centuries of
+time, it is certain that Widsith's recital cannot be taken literally.
+
+[Sidenote: MEANING OF WIDSITH]
+
+Two explanations offer themselves: the first, that the poem contains the
+work of many scops, each of whom added his travels to those of his
+predecessor; the second, that Widsith, like other gleemen, was both
+historian and poet, a keeper of tribal legends as well as a shaper of
+songs, and that he was ever ready to entertain his audience with things new
+or old. Thus, he mentioned Hrothgar as one whom he had visited; and if a
+hearer called for a tale at this point, the scop would recite that part of
+_Beowulf_ which tells of the monster Grendel. Again, he named Sigard
+the Volsung (the Siegfrid of the _Niebelungenlied_ and of Wagner's
+opera), and this would recall the slaying of the dragon Fafnir, or some
+other  story of the old Norse saga. So every name or place which Widsith
+mentioned was an invitation. When he came to a hall and "unlocked his
+word-hoard," he offered his hearers a variety of poems and legends from
+which they made their own selection. Looked at in this way, the old poem
+becomes an epitome of Anglo-Saxon literature.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPES OF SAXON POETRY]
+
+Other fragments of the period are valuable as indicating that the
+Anglo-Saxons were familiar with various types of poetry. "Deor's Lament,"
+describing the sorrows of a scop who had lost his place beside his chief,
+is a true lyric; that is, a poem which reflects the author's feeling rather
+than the deed of another man. In his grief the scop comforts himself by
+recalling the afflictions of various heroes, and he ends each stanza with
+the refrain:
+
+  That sorrow he endured; this also may I.
+
+Among the best of the early poems are: "The Ruined City," reflecting the
+feeling of one who looks on crumbling walls that were once the abode of
+human ambition; "The Seafarer," a chantey of the deep, which ends with an
+allegory comparing life to a sea voyage; "The Wanderer," which is the
+plaint of one who has lost home, patron, ambition, and as the easiest way
+out of his difficulty turns _eardstappa_, an "earth-hitter" or tramp;
+"The Husband's Message," which is the oldest love song in our literature;
+and a few ballads and battle songs, such as "The Battle of Brunanburh"
+(familiar to us in Tennyson's translation) and "The Fight at Finnsburgh,"
+which was mentioned by the gleemen in _Beowulf_, and which was then
+probably as well known as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is to modern
+Englishmen.
+
+Another early war song, "The Battle of Maldon" or "Byrhtnoth's Death," has
+seldom been rivaled in savage vigor or in the expression of deathless
+loyalty to a chosen leader. The climax of the poem is reached when the few
+survivors of an uneven battle make a ring of spears about their fallen
+chief, shake their weapons in the face of an overwhelming horde of Danes,
+while Byrhtwold, "the old comrade," chants their defiance:
+
+  The sterner shall thought be, the bolder our hearts,
+  The greater the mood as lessens our might.
+
+We know not when or by whom this stirring battle cry was written. It was
+copied under date of 991 in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, and is
+commonly called the swan song of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The lion song would be
+a better name for it.
+
+LATER PROSE AND POETRY. The works we have just considered were wholly pagan
+in spirit, but all reference to Thor or other gods was excluded by the
+monks who first wrote down the scop's poetry.
+
+With the coming of these monks a reform swept over pagan England, and
+literature reflected the change in a variety of ways. For example, early
+Anglo-Saxon poetry was mostly warlike, for the reason that the various
+earldoms were in constant strife; but now the peace of good will was
+preached, and moral courage, the triumph of self-control, was exalted above
+mere physical hardihood. In the new literature the adventures of Columb or
+Aidan or Brendan were quite as thrilling as any legends of Beowulf or
+Sigard, but the climax of the adventure was spiritual, and the emphasis was
+always on moral heroism.
+
+Another result of the changed condition was that the unlettered scop, who
+carried his whole stock of poetry in his head, was replaced by the literary
+monk, who had behind him the immense culture of the Latin language, and who
+was interested in world history or Christian doctrine rather than in tribal
+fights or pagan mythology. These monks were capable men; they understood
+the appeal of pagan poetry, and their motto was, "Let nothing good be
+wasted." So they made careful copy of the scop's best songs (else had not a
+shred of early poetry survived), and so the pagan's respect for womanhood,
+his courage, his loyalty to a chief,--all his virtues were recognized and
+turned to religious account in the new literature. Even the beautiful pagan
+scrolls, or "dragon knots," once etched on a warrior's sword, were
+reproduced in glowing colors in the initial letters of the monk's
+illuminated Gospel.
+
+A third result of the peaceful conquest of the missionaries was that many
+monasteries were established in Britain, each a center of learning and of
+writing. So arose the famous Northumbrian School of literature, to which we
+owe the writings of Bede, Cædmon, Cynewulf and others associated with
+certain old monasteries, such as Peterborough, Jarrow, York and Whitby, all
+north of the river Humber.
+
+BEDE. The good work of the monks is finely exemplified in the life of the
+Venerable Bede, or Bæda (_cir_. 673-735), who is well called the
+father of English learning. As a boy he entered the Benedictine monastery
+at Jarrow; the temper of his manhood may be judged from a single sentence
+of his own record:
+
+    "While attentive to the discipline of mine order and the daily care
+    of singing in the church, my constant delight was in learning or
+    teaching or writing."
+
+It is hardly too much to say that this gentle scholar was for half a
+century the teacher of Europe. He collected a large library of manuscripts;
+he was the author of some forty works, covering the whole field of human
+knowledge in his day; and to his school at Jarrow came hundreds of pupils
+from all parts of the British Isles, and hundreds more from the Continent.
+Of all his works the most notable is the so-called "Ecclesiastical History"
+(_Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum_) which should be named the
+"History of the Race of Angles." This book marks the beginning of our
+literature of knowledge, and to it we are largely indebted for what we know
+of English history from the time of Cæsar's invasion to the early part of
+the eighth century.
+
+All the extant works of Bede are in Latin, but we are told by his pupil
+Cuthbert that he was "skilled in our English songs," that he made poems and
+translated the Gospel of John into English. These works, which would now be
+of priceless value, were all destroyed by the plundering Danes.
+
+As an example of Bede's style, we translate a typical passage from his
+History. The scene is the Saxon _Witenagemôt_, or council of wise men,
+called by King Edward (625) to consider the doctrine of Paulinus, who had
+been sent from Rome by Pope Gregory. The first speaker is Coifi, a priest
+of the old religion:
+
+    "Consider well, O king, this new doctrine which is preached to us;
+    for I now declare, what I have learned for certain, that the old
+    religion has no virtue in it. For none of your people has been more
+    diligent than I in the worship of our gods; yet many receive more
+    favors from you, and are preferred above me, and are more
+    prosperous in their affairs. If the old gods had any discernment,
+    they would surely favor me, since I have been most diligent in
+    their service. It is expedient, therefore, if this new faith that
+    is preached is any more profitable than the old, that we accept it
+    without delay."
+
+Whereupon Coifi, who as a priest has hitherto been obliged to ride upon an
+ass with wagging ears, calls loudly for a horse, a prancing horse, a
+stallion, and cavorts off, a crowd running at his heels, to hurl a spear
+into the shrine where he lately worshiped. He is a good type of the
+political demagogue, who clamors for progress when he wants an office, and
+whose spear is more likely to be hurled at the back of a friend than at the
+breast of an enemy.
+
+Then a pagan chief rises to speak, and we bow to a nobler motive. His
+allegory of the mystery of life is like a strain of Anglo-Saxon poetry; it
+moves us deeply, as it moved his hearers ten centuries ago:
+
+    "This present life of man, O king, in comparison with the time that
+    is hidden from us, is as the flight of a sparrow through the room
+    where you sit at supper, with companions around you and a good fire
+    on the hearth. Outside are the storms of wintry rain and snow. The
+    sparrow flies in at one opening, and instantly out at another:
+    whilst he is within he is sheltered from the winter storms, but
+    after a moment of pleasant weather he speeds from winter back to
+    winter again, and vanishes from your sight into the darkness whence
+    he came. Even so the life of man appears for a little time; but of
+    what went before and of what comes after we are wholly ignorant. If
+    this new religion can teach us anything of greater certainty, it
+    surely deserves to be followed." [Footnote: Bede, _Historia_,
+    Book II, chap xiii, a free translation]
+
+CÆDMON (SEVENTH CENTURY). In a beautiful chapter of Bede's History we may
+read how Cædmon (d. 680) discovered his gift of poetry. He was, says the
+record, a poor unlettered servant of the Abbess Hilda, in her monastery at
+Whitby. At that time (and here is an interesting commentary on monastic
+culture) singing and poetry were so familiar that, whenever a feast was
+given, a harp would be brought in, and each monk or guest would in turn
+entertain the company with a song or poem to his own musical accompaniment.
+But Cædmon could not sing, and when he saw the harp coming down the table
+he would slip away ashamed, to perform his humble duties in the monastery:
+
+    "Now it happened once that he did this thing at a certain
+    festivity, and went out to the stable to care for the horses, this
+    duty being assigned him for that night. As he slept at the usual
+    time one stood by him, saying, 'Cædmon, sing me something.' He
+    answered, 'I cannot sing, and that is why I came hither from the
+    feast.' But he who spake unto him said again, 'Cædmon, sing to me.'
+    And he said, 'What shall I sing?' And that one said, 'Sing the
+    beginning of created things.' Thereupon Cædmon began to sing verses
+    that he had never heard before, of this import:
+
+      Nu scylun hergan hefaenriches ward ...
+      Now shall we hallow the warden of heaven,
+      He the Creator, he the Allfather,
+      Deeds of his might and thoughts of his mind...."
+
+[Illustration: CÆDMON CROSS AT WHITBY ABBEY]
+
+In the morning he remembered the words, and came humbly to the monks to
+recite the first recorded Christian hymn in our language. And a very noble
+hymn it is. The monks heard him in wonder, and took him to the Abbess
+Hilda, who gave order that Cædmon should receive instruction and enter the
+monastery as one of the brethren. Then the monks expounded to him the
+Scriptures. He in turn, reflecting on what he had heard, echoed it back to
+the monks "in such melodious words that his teachers became his pupils."
+So, says the record, the whole course of Bible history was turned into
+excellent poetry.
+
+About a thousand years later, in the days of Milton, an Anglo-Saxon
+manuscript was discovered containing a metrical paraphrase of the books of
+Genesis, Exodus and Daniel, and these were supposed to be some of the poems
+mentioned in Bede's narrative. A study of the poems (now known as the
+Cædmonian Cycle) leads to the conclusion that they were probably the work
+of two or three writers, and it has not been determined what part Cædmon
+had in their composition. The nobility of style in the Genesis poem and the
+picturesque account of the fallen angels (which reappears in _Paradise
+Lost_) have won for Cædmon his designation as the Milton of the
+Anglo-Saxon period. [Footnote: A friend of Milton, calling himself
+Franciscus Junius, first printed the Cædmon poems in Antwerp (_cir_.
+1655) during Milton's lifetime. The Puritan poet was blind at the time, and
+it is not certain that he ever saw or heard the poems; yet there are many
+parallelisms in the earlier and later works which warrant the conclusion
+that Milton was influenced by Cædmon's work.]
+
+CYNEWULF (EIGHTH CENTURY). There is a variety of poems belonging to the
+Cynewulf Cycle, and of some of these Cynewulf (born _cir_. 750) was
+certainly the author, since he wove his name into the verses in the manner
+of an acrostic. Of Cynewulf's life we know nothing with certainty; but from
+various poems which are attributed to him, and which undoubtedly reflect
+some personal experience, scholars have constructed the following
+biography,--which may or may not be true.
+
+In his early life Cynewulf was probably a wandering scop of the old pagan
+kind, delighting in wild nature, in adventure, in the clamor of fighting
+men. To this period belong his "Riddles" [Footnote: These riddles are
+ancient conundrums, in which some familiar object, such as a bow, a ship, a
+storm lashing the shore, the moon riding the clouds like a Viking's boat,
+is described in poetic language, and the last line usually calls on the
+hearer to name the object described. See Cook and Tinker, _Translations
+from Old English Poetry_.] and his vigorous descriptions of the sea and
+of battle, which show hardly a trace of Christian influence. Then came
+trouble to Cynewulf, perhaps in the ravages of the Danes, and some deep
+spiritual experience of which he writes in a way to remind us of the
+Puritan age:
+
+    "In the prison of the night I pondered with myself. I was stained
+    with my own deeds, bound fast in my sins, hard smitten with
+    sorrows, walled in by miseries."
+
+A wondrous vision of the cross, "brightest of beacons," shone suddenly
+through his darkness, and led him forth into light and joy. Then he wrote
+his "Vision of the Rood" and probably also _Juliana_ and _The
+Christ_. In the last period of his life, a time of great serenity, he
+wrote _Andreas_, a story of St. Andrew combining religious instruction
+with extraordinary adventure; _Elene_, which describes the search for
+the cross on which Christ died, and which is a prototype of the search for
+the Holy Grail; and other poems of the same general kind. [Footnote: There
+is little agreement among scholars as to who wrote most of these poems. The
+only works to which Cynewulf signs his name are _The Christ_,
+_Elene_, _Juliana_ and _Fates of the Apostles_. All others
+are doubtful, and our biography of Cynewulf is largely a matter of pleasant
+speculation.] Aside from the value of these works as a reflection of
+Anglo-Saxon ideals, they are our best picture of Christianity as it
+appeared in England during the eighth and ninth centuries.
+
+ALFRED THE GREAT (848-901). We shall understand the importance of Alfred's
+work if we remember how his country fared when he became king of the West
+Saxons, in 871. At that time England lay at the mercy of the Danish
+sea-rovers. Soon after Bede's death they fell upon Northumbria, hewed out
+with their swords a place of settlement, and were soon lords of the whole
+north country. Being pagans ("Thor's men" they called themselves) they
+sacked the monasteries, burned the libraries, made a lurid end of the
+civilization which men like Columb and Bede had built up in
+North-Humberland. Then they pushed southward, and were in process of
+paganizing all England when they were turned back by the heroism of Alfred.
+How he accomplished his task, and how from his capital at Winchester he
+established law and order in England, is recorded in the histories. We are
+dealing here with literature, and in this field Alfred is distinguished in
+two ways: first, by his preservation of early English poetry; and second,
+by his own writing, which earned for him the title of father of English
+prose. Finding that some fragments of poetry had escaped the fire of the
+Danes, he caused search to be made for old manuscripts, and had copies made
+of all that were legible. [Footnote: These copies were made in Alfred's
+dialect (West Saxon) not in the Northumbrian dialect in which they were
+first written.] But what gave Alfred deepest concern was that in all his
+kingdom there were few priests and no laymen who could read or write their
+own language. As he wrote sadly:
+
+    "King Alfred sends greeting to Bishop Werfrith in words of love and
+    friendship. Let it be known to thee that it often comes to my mind
+    what wise men and what happy times were formerly in England, ... I
+    remember what I saw before England had been ravaged and burned, how
+    churches throughout the whole land were filled with treasures of
+    books. And there was also a multitude of God's servants, but these
+    had no knowledge of the books: they could not understand them
+    because they were not written in their own language. It was as if
+    the books said, 'Our fathers who once occupied these places loved
+    wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and left it to us. We
+    see here their footprints, but we cannot follow them, and therefore
+    have we lost both their wealth and their wisdom, because we would
+    not incline our hearts to their example.' When I remember this, I
+    marvel that good and wise men who were formerly in England, and who
+    had learned these books, did not translate them into their own
+    language. Then I answered myself and said, 'They never thought that
+    their children would be so careless, or that learning would so
+    decay.'" [Footnote: A free version of part of Alfred's preface to
+    his translation of Pope Gregory's _Cura Pastoralis_, which
+    appeared in English as the Hirdeboc or Shepherd's Book.]
+
+To remedy the evil, Alfred ordered that every freeborn Englishman should
+learn to read and write his own language; but before he announced the order
+he followed it himself. Rather late in his boyhood he had learned to spell
+out an English book; now with immense difficulty he took up Latin, and
+translated the best works for the benefit of his people. His last notable
+work was the famous _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_.
+
+[Sidenote: ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE]
+
+At that time it was customary in monasteries to keep a record of events
+which seemed to the monks of special importance, such as the coming of a
+bishop, the death of a king, an eclipse of the moon, a battle with the
+Danes. Alfred found such a record at Winchester, rewrote it (or else caused
+it to be rewritten) with numerous additions from Bede's History and other
+sources, and so made a fairly complete chronicle of England. This was sent
+to other monasteries, where it was copied and enlarged, so that several
+different versions have come down to us. The work thus begun was continued
+after Alfred's death, until 1154, and is the oldest contemporary history
+possessed by any modern nation in its own language.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANGLO-NORMAN OR MIDDLE-ENGLISH PERIOD (1066-1350)
+
+SPECIMENS OF THE LANGUAGE. A glance at the following selections will show
+how Anglo-Saxon was slowly approaching our English speech of to-day. The
+first is from a religious book called _Ancren Riwle_ (Rule of the
+Anchoresses, _cir_. 1225). The second, written about a century later,
+is from the riming chronicle, or verse history, of Robert Manning or Robert
+of Brunne. In it we note the appearance of rime, a new thing in English
+poetry, borrowed from the French, and also a few words, such as "solace,"
+which are of foreign origin:
+
+    "Hwoso hevide iseid to Eve, theo heo werp hire eien therone, 'A!
+    wend te awei; thu worpest eien o thi death!' hwat heved heo
+    ionswered? 'Me leove sire, ther havest wouh. Hwarof kalenges tu me?
+    The eppel that ich loke on is forbode me to etene, and nout forto
+    biholden.'"
+
+    "Whoso had said (or, if anyone had said) to Eve when she cast her
+    eye theron (i.e. on the apple) 'Ah! turn thou away; thou castest
+    eyes on thy death!' what would she have answered? 'My dear sir,
+    thou art wrong. Of what blamest thou me? The apple which I look
+    upon is forbidden me to eat, not to behold.'"
+
+  Lordynges that be now here,
+  If ye wille listene and lere [1]
+  All the story of Inglande,
+  Als Robert Mannyng wryten it fand,
+  And on Inglysch has it schewed,
+  Not for the lered [2] but for the lewed, [3]
+  For tho that on this land wonn [4]
+  That ne Latin ne Frankys conn, [5]
+  For to hauf solace and gamen
+  In felauschip when they sitt samen; [6]
+  And it is wisdom for to wytten [7]
+  The state of the land, and haf it wryten.
+
+  [Footnote 1: learn]
+  [Footnote 2: learned]
+  [Footnote 3: simple or ignorant]
+  [Footnote 4: those that dwell]
+  [Footnote 5: That neither Latin nor French know]
+  [Footnote 6: together]
+  [Footnote 7: know]
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST. For a century after the Norman conquest native poetry
+disappeared from England, as a river may sink into the earth to reappear
+elsewhere with added volume and new characteristics. During all this time
+French was the language not only of literature but of society and business;
+and if anyone had declared at the beginning of the twelfth century, when
+Norman institutions were firmly established in England, that the time was
+approaching when the conquerors would forget their fatherland and their
+mother tongue, he would surely have been called dreamer or madman. Yet the
+unexpected was precisely what happened, and the Norman conquest is
+remarkable alike for what it did and for what it failed to do.
+
+[Illustration: DOMESDAY BOOK
+From a facsimile edition published in 1862.
+The volumes, two in number, were kept in the chest here shown]
+
+It accomplished, first, the nationalization of England, uniting the petty
+Saxon earldoms into one powerful kingdom; and second, it brought into
+English life, grown sad and stern, like a man without hope, the spirit of
+youth, of enthusiasm, of eager adventure after the unknown,--in a word, the
+spirit of romance, which is but another name for that quest of some Holy
+Grail in which youth is forever engaged.
+
+NORMAN LITERATURE. One who reads the literature that the conquerors brought
+to England must be struck by the contrast between the Anglo-Saxon and the
+Norman-French spirit. For example, here is the death of a national hero as
+portrayed in _The Song of Roland_, an old French epic, which the
+Normans first put into polished verse:
+
+  Li quens Rollans se jut desuz un pin,
+  Envers Espaigne en ad turnet son vis,
+  De plusurs choscs a remembrer le prist....
+
+    "Then Roland placed himself beneath a pine tree. Towards Spain he
+    turned his face. Of many things took he remembrance: of various
+    lands where he had made conquests; of sweet France and his kindred;
+    of Charlemagne, his feudal lord, who had nurtured him. He could not
+    refrain from sighs and tears; neither could he forget himself in
+    need. He confessed his sins and besought the Lord's mercy. He
+    raised his right glove and offered it to God; Saint Gabriel from
+    his hand received the offering. Then upon his breast he bowed his
+    head; he joined his hands and went to his end. God sent down his
+    cherubim, and Saint Michael who delivers from peril. Together with
+    Saint Gabriel they departed, bearing the Count's soul to Paradise."
+
+We have not put Roland's ceremonious exit into rime and meter; neither do
+we offer any criticism of a scene in which the death of a national hero
+stirs no interest or emotion, not even with the help of Gabriel and the
+cherubim. One is reminded by contrast of Scyld, who fares forth alone in
+his Viking ship to meet the mystery of death; or of that last scene of
+human grief and grandeur in _Beowulf_ where a few thanes bury their
+dead chief on a headland by the gray sea, riding their war steeds around
+the memorial mound with a chant of sorrow and victory.
+
+The contrast is even more marked in the mass of Norman literature: in
+romances of the maidens that sink underground in autumn, to reappear as
+flowers in spring; of Alexander's journey to the bottom of the sea in a
+crystal barrel, to view the mermaids and monsters; of Guy of Warwick, who
+slew the giant Colbrant and overthrew all the knights of Europe, just to
+win a smile from his Felice; of that other hero who had offended his lady
+by forgetting one of the commandments of love, and who vowed to fill a
+barrel with his tears, and did it. The Saxons were as serious in speech as
+in action, and their poetry is a true reflection of their daily life; but
+the Normans, brave and resourceful as they were in war and statesmanship,
+turned to literature for amusement, and indulged their lively fancy in
+fables, satires, garrulous romances, like children reveling in the lore of
+elves and fairies. As the prattle of a child was the power that awakened
+Silas Marner from his stupor of despair, so this Norman element of gayety,
+of exuberant romanticism, was precisely what was needed to rouse the
+sterner Saxon mind from its gloom and lethargy.
+
+[Illustration: THE NORMAN STAIR, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL]
+
+THE NEW NATION. So much, then, the Normans accomplished: they brought
+nationality into English life, and romance into English literature. Without
+essentially changing the Saxon spirit they enlarged its thought, aroused
+its hope, gave it wider horizons. They bound England with their laws,
+covered it with their feudal institutions, filled it with their ideas and
+their language; then, as an anticlimax, they disappeared from English
+history, and their institutions were modified to suit the Saxon
+temperament. The race conquered in war became in peace the conquerors. The
+Normans speedily forgot France, and even warred against it. They began to
+speak English, dropping its cumbersome Teutonic inflections, and adding to
+it the wealth of their own fine language. They ended by adopting England as
+their country, and glorifying it above all others. "There is no land in the
+world," writes a poet of the thirteenth century, "where so many good kings
+and saints have lived as in the isle of the English. Some were holy martyrs
+who died cheerfully for God; others had strength or courage like to that of
+Arthur, Edmund and Cnut."
+
+This poet, who was a Norman monk at Westminster Abbey, wrote about the
+glories of England in the French language, and celebrated as the national
+heroes a Celt, a Saxon and a Dane. [Footnote: The significance of this old
+poem was pointed out by Jusserand, _Literary History of the English
+People_, Vol. I, p. 112.]
+
+So in the space of two centuries a new nation had arisen, combining the
+best elements of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French people, with a
+considerable mixture of Celtic and Danish elements. Out of the union of
+these races and tongues came modern English life and letters.
+
+GEOFFREY AND THE LEGENDS OF ARTHUR. Geoffrey of Monmouth was a Welshman,
+familiar from his youth with Celtic legends; also he was a monk who knew
+how to write Latin; and the combination was a fortunate one, as we shall
+see.
+
+Long before Geoffrey produced his celebrated History (_cir._ 1150),
+many stories of the Welsh hero Arthur [Footnote: Who Arthur was has never
+been determined. There was probably a chieftain of that name who was active
+in opposing the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain, about the year 500; but
+Gildas, who wrote a Chronicle of Britain only half a century later, does
+not mention him; neither does Bede, who made study of all available records
+before writing his History. William of Malmesbury, a chronicler of the
+twelfth century, refers to "the warlike Arthur of whom the Britons tell so
+many extravagant fables, a man to be celebrated not in idle tales but in
+true history." He adds that there were two Arthurs, one a Welsh war-chief
+(not a king), and the other a myth or fairy creation. This, then, may be
+the truth of the matter, that a real Arthur, who made a deep impression on
+the Celtic imagination, was soon hidden in a mass of spurious legends. That
+Bede had heard these legends is almost certain; that he did not mention
+them is probably due to the fact that he considered Arthur to be wholly
+mythical.] were current in Britain and on the Continent; but they were
+never written because of a custom of the Middle Ages which required that,
+before a legend could be recorded, it must have the authority of some Latin
+manuscript. Geoffrey undertook to supply such authority in his _Historia
+regum britanniae_, or History of the Kings of Britain, in which he
+proved Arthur's descent from Roman ancestors. [Footnote: After the landing
+of the Romans in Britain a curious mingling of traditions took place, and
+in Geoffrey's time native Britons considered themselves as children of
+Brutus of Rome, and therefore as grandchildren of Æneas of Troy.] He quoted
+liberally from an ancient manuscript which, he alleged, established
+Arthur's lineage, but which he did not show to others. A storm instantly
+arose among the writers of that day, most of whom denounced Geoffrey's
+Latin manuscript as a myth, and his History as a shameless invention. But
+he had shrewdly anticipated such criticism, and issued this warning to the
+historians, which is solemn or humorous according to your point of view:
+
+    "I forbid William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon to speak of
+    the kings of Britain, since they have not seen the book which
+    Walter Archdeacon of Oxford [who was dead, of course] brought out
+    of Brittany."
+
+It is commonly believed that Geoffrey was an impostor, but in such matters
+one should be wary of passing judgment. Many records of men, cities,
+empires, have suddenly arisen from the tombs to put to shame the scientists
+who had denied their existence; and it is possible that Geoffrey had seen
+one of the legion of lost manuscripts. The one thing certain is, that if he
+had any authority for his History he embellished the same freely from
+popular legends or from his own imagination, as was customary at that time.
+
+[Sidenote: ARTHURIAN ROMANCES]
+
+His work made a sensation. A score of French poets seized upon his
+Arthurian legends and wove them into romances, each adding freely to
+Geoffrey's narrative. The poet Wace added the tale of the Round Table, and
+another poet (Walter Map, perhaps) began a cycle of stories concerning
+Galahad and the quest of the Holy Grail. [Footnote: The Holy Grail, or San
+Graal, or Sancgreal, was represented as the cup from which Christ drank
+with his disciples at the Last Supper. Legend said that the sacred cup had
+been brought to England, and Arthur's knights undertook, as the most
+compelling of all duties, to search until they found it.]
+
+The origin of these Arthurian romances, which reappear so often in English
+poetry, is forever shrouded in mystery. The point to remember is, that we
+owe them all to the genius of the native Celts; that it was Geoffrey of
+Monmouth who first wrote them in Latin prose, and so preserved a treasure
+which else had been lost; and that it was the French _trouvères,_ or
+poets, who completed the various cycles of romances which were later
+collected in Malory's _Morte d' Arthur._
+
+TYPES OF MIDDLE-ENGLISH LITERATURE. It has long been customary to begin the
+study of English literature with Chaucer; but that does not mean that he
+invented any new form of poetry or prose. To examine any collection of our
+early literature, such as Cook's _Middle-English Reader_, is to
+discover that many literary types were flourishing in Chaucer's day, and
+that some of these had grown old-fashioned before he began to use them.
+
+[Sidenote: METRICAL ROMANCES]
+
+In the thirteenth century, for example, the favorite type of literature in
+England was the metrical romance, which was introduced by the French poets,
+and written at first in the French language. The typical romance was a
+rambling story dealing with the three subjects of love, chivalry and
+religion; it was filled with adventures among giants, dragons, enchanted
+castles; and in that day romance was not romance unless liberally supplied
+with magic and miracle. There were hundreds of such wonder-stories,
+arranged loosely in three main groups: the so-called "matter of Rome" dealt
+with the fall of Troy in one part, and with the marvelous adventures of
+Alexander in the other; the "matter of France" celebrated the heroism of
+Charlemagne and his Paladins; and the "matter of Britain" wove the magic
+web of romance around Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
+
+One of the best of the metrical romances is "Sir Gawain and the Green
+Knight," which may be read as a measure of all the rest. If, as is commonly
+believed, the unknown author of "Sir Gawain" wrote also "The Pearl" (a
+beautiful old elegy, or poem of grief, which immortalizes a father's love
+for his little girl), he was the greatest poet of the early Middle-English
+period. Unfortunately for us, he wrote not in the king's English or speech
+of London (which became modern English) but in a different dialect, and his
+poems should be read in a present-day version; else will the beauty of his
+work be lost in our effort to understand his language.
+
+Other types of early literature are the riming chronicles or verse
+histories (such as Layamon's _Brut_, a famous poem, in which the
+Arthurian legends appear as part of English history), stories of travel,
+translations, religious poems, books of devotion, miracle plays, fables,
+satires, ballads, hymns, lullabies, lyrics of love and nature,--an
+astonishing collection for so ancient a time, indicative at once of our
+changing standards of poetry and of our unchanging human nature. For the
+feelings which inspired or gave welcome to these poems, some five or six
+hundred years ago, are precisely the same feelings which warm the heart of
+a poet and his readers to-day. There is nothing ancient but the spelling in
+this exquisite Lullaby, for instance, which was sung on Christmas eve:
+
+  He cam also stylle
+    Ther his moder was
+  As dew in Aprylle
+    That fallyt on the gras;
+  He cam also stylle
+    To his moderes bowr
+  As dew in Aprylle
+    That fallyt on the flour;
+  He cam also stylle
+    Ther his moder lay
+  As dew in Aprylle
+    That fallyt on the spray.
+
+[Footnote: In reading this beautiful old lullaby the _e_ in "stylle"
+and "Aprylle" should be lightly sounded, like _a_ in "China."]
+
+Or witness this other fragment from an old love song, which reflects the
+feeling of one who "would fain make some mirth" but who finds his heart sad
+within him:
+
+  Now wold I fayne som myrthis make
+  All oneli for my ladys sake,
+    When I hir se;
+  But now I am so ferre from hir
+    Hit will nat be.
+
+  Thogh I be long out of hir sight,
+  I am hir man both day and night,
+    And so will be;
+  Wherfor, wold God as I love hir
+    That she lovd me!
+
+  When she is mery, then I am glad;
+  When she is sory, then am I sad,
+    And causë whi:
+  For he livith nat that lovith hir
+    So well as I.
+
+  She sayth that she hath seen hit wreten
+  That 'seldyn seen is soon foryeten.'
+    Hit is nat so;
+  For in good feith, save oneli hir,
+    I love no moo.
+
+  Wherfor I pray, both night and day,
+  That she may cast al care away,
+    And leve in rest
+  That evermo, where'er she be,
+    I love hir best;
+
+  And I to hir for to be trew,
+  And never chaunge her for noon new
+    Unto myne ende;
+  And that I may in hir servise
+    For evyr amend.
+
+[Footnote: The two poems quoted above hardly belong to the Norman-French
+period proper, but rather to a time when the Anglo-Saxon had assimilated
+the French element, with its language and verse forms. They were written,
+probably, in the age of Chaucer, or in what is now called the Late
+Middle-English period.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY OF BEGINNINGS. The two main branches of our literature are
+    the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French, both of which received some
+    additions from Celtic, Danish and Roman sources. The Anglo-Saxon
+    literature came to England with the invasion of Teutonic tribes,
+    the Angles, Saxons and Jutes (_cir._ 449). The Norman-French
+    literature appeared after the Norman conquest of England, which
+    began with the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
+
+    The Anglo-Saxon literature is classified under two heads, pagan and
+    Christian. The extant fragments of pagan literature include one
+    epic or heroic poem, _Beowulf_, and several lyrics and battle
+    songs, such as "Widsith," "Deor's Lament," "The Seafarer," "The
+    Battle of Brunanburh" and "The Battle of Maldon." All these were
+    written at an unknown date, and by unknown poets.
+
+    The best Christian literature of the period was written in the
+    Northumbrian and the West-Saxon schools. The greatest names of the
+    Northumbrian school are Bede, Cædmon and Cynewulf. The most famous
+    of the Wessex writers is Alfred the Great, who is called "the
+    father of English prose."
+
+    The Normans were originally Northmen, or sea rovers from
+    Scandinavia, who settled in northern France and adopted the
+    Franco-Latin language and civilization. With their conquest of
+    England, in the eleventh century, they brought nationality into
+    English life, and the spirit of romance into English literature.
+    Their stories in prose or verse were extremely fanciful, in marked
+    contrast with the stern, somber poetry of the Anglo-Saxons.
+
+    The most notable works of the Norman-French period are: Geoffrey's
+    _History of the Kings of Britain_, which preserved in Latin
+    prose the native legends of King Arthur; Layamon's _Brut_, a
+    riming chronicle or verse history in the native tongue; many
+    metrical romances, or stories of love, chivalry, magic and
+    religion; and various popular songs and ballads. The greatest poet
+    of the period is the unknown author of "Sir Gawain and the Green
+    Knight" (a metrical romance) and probably also of "The Pearl," a
+    beautiful elegy, which is our earliest _In Memoriam_.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Without special study of Old English it is
+    impossible to read our earliest literature. The beginner may,
+    however, enter into the spirit of that literature by means of
+    various modern versions, such as the following:
+
+    _Beowulf_. Garnett's Beowulf (Ginn and Company), a literal
+    translation, is useful to those who study Anglo-Saxon, but is not
+    very readable. The same may be said of Gummere's The Oldest English
+    Epic, which follows the verse form of the original. Two of the best
+    versions for the beginner are Child's Beowulf, in Riverside
+    Literature Series (Houghton), and Earle's The Deeds of Beowulf
+    (Clarendon Press).
+
+    _Anglo-Saxon Poetry_. The Seafarer, The Wanderer, The
+    Husband's Message (or Love Letter), Deor's Lament, Riddles, Battle
+    of Brunanburh, selections from The Christ, Andreas, Elene, Vision
+    of the Rood, and The Phoenix,--all these are found in an excellent
+    little volume, Cook and Tinker, Translations from Old English
+    Poetry (Ginn and Company).
+
+    _Anglo-Saxon Prose_. Good selections in Cook and Tinker,
+    Translations from Old English Prose (Ginn and Company). Bede's
+    History, translated in Everyman's Library (Dutton) and in the Bohn
+    Library (Macmillan). In the same volume of the Bohn Library is a
+    translation of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Alfred's Orosius (with
+    stories of early exploration) translated in Pauli's Life of Alfred.
+
+    _Norman-French Period_. Selections in Manly, English Poetry,
+    and English Prose (Ginn and Company); also in Morris and Skeat,
+    Specimens of Early English (Clarendon Press). The Song of Roland in
+    Riverside Literature Series, and in King's Classics. Selected
+    metrical romances in Ellis, Specimens of Early English Metrical
+    Romances (Bohn Library); also in Morley, Early English Prose
+    Romances, and in Carisbrooke Library Series. Sir Gawain and the
+    Green Knight, modernized by Weston, in Arthurian Romances Series.
+    Andrew Lang, Aucassin and Nicolette (Crowell). The Pearl,
+    translated by Jewett (Crowell), and by Weir Mitchell (Century).
+    Selections from Layamon's Brut in Morley, English Writers, Vol.
+    III. Geoffrey's History in Everyman's Library, and in King's
+    Classics. The Arthurian legends in The Mabinogion (Everyman's
+    Library); also in Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur and The
+    Boy's Mabinogion (Scribner). A good single volume containing the
+    best of Middle-English literature, with notes, is Cook, A Literary
+    Middle-English Reader (Ginn and Company).
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. For extended works covering the entire field of
+    English history and literature, and for a list of the best
+    anthologies, school texts, etc., see the General Bibliography. The
+    following works are of special interest in studying early English
+    literature.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Allen, Anglo-Saxon Britain; Turner, History of the
+    Anglo-Saxons; Ramsay, The Foundations of England; Freeman, Old
+    English History; Cook, Life of Alfred; Freeman, Short History of
+    the Norman Conquest; Jewett, Story of the Normans, in Stories of
+    the Nations.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Brooke, History of Early English Literature;
+    Jusserand, Literary History of the English People, Vol. I; Ten
+    Brink, English Literature, Vol. I; Lewis, Beginnings of English
+    Literature; Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest
+    to Chaucer; Brother Azarias, Development of Old-English Thought;
+    Mitchell, From Celt to Tudor; Newell, King Arthur and the Round
+    Table. A more advanced work on Arthur is Rhys, Studies in the
+    Arthurian Legends.
+
+    _FICTION AND POETRY_. Kingsley, Hereward the Wake; Lytton,
+    Harold Last of the Saxon Kings; Scott, Ivanhoe; Kipling, Puck of
+    Pook's Hill; Jane Porter, Scottish Chiefs; Shakespeare, King John;
+    Tennyson, Becket, and The Idylls of the King; Gray, The Bard; Bates
+    and Coman, English History Told by English Poets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE AGE OF CHAUCER AND THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING (1350-1550)
+
+
+  For out of oldë feldës, as men seith,
+    Cometh al this newë corn fro yeer te yere;
+  And out of oldë bokës, in good feith,
+    Cometh all this newë science that men lere.
+
+                Chaucer, "Parliament of Foules"
+
+SPECIMENS OF THE LANGUAGE. Our first selection, from _Piers Plowman_
+(_cir._ 1362), is the satire of Belling the Cat. The language is that
+of the common people, and the verse is in the old Saxon manner, with accent
+and alliteration. The scene is a council of rats and mice (common people)
+called to consider how best to deal with the cat (court), and it satirizes
+the popular agitators who declaim against the government. The speaker is a
+rat, "a raton of renon, most renable of tonge":
+
+  "I have y-seen segges," quod he,
+    "in the cite of London
+  Beren beighes ful brighte
+    abouten here nekkes....
+  Were there a belle on here beighe,
+    certes, as me thynketh,
+  Men myghte wite where thei went,
+    and awei renne!
+  And right so," quod this raton,
+    "reson me sheweth
+  To bugge a belle of brasse
+    or of brighte sylver,
+  And knitten on a colere
+    for owre comune profit,
+  And hangen it upon the cattes hals;
+    than hear we mowen
+  Where he ritt or rest
+    or renneth to playe." ...
+  Alle this route of ratones
+    to this reson thei assented;
+  Ac tho the belle was y-bought
+    and on the beighe hanged,
+  Ther ne was ratoun in alle the route,
+    for alle the rewme of Fraunce,
+  That dorst have y-bounden the belle
+    aboute the cattis nekke.
+
+
+  "I have seen creatures" (dogs), quoth he,
+    "in the city of London
+  Bearing collars full bright
+    around their necks....
+  Were there a bell on those collars,
+    assuredly, in my opinion,
+  One might know where the dogs go,
+    and run away from them!
+  And right so," quoth this rat,
+    "reason suggests to me
+  To buy a bell of brass
+    or of bright silver,
+  And tie it on a collar
+    for our common profit,
+  And hang it on the cat's neck;
+    in order that we may hear
+  Where he rides or rests
+    or runneth to play." ...
+  All this rout (crowd) of rats
+    to this reasoning assented;
+  But when the bell was bought
+    and hanged on the collar,
+  There was not a rat in the crowd
+    that, for all the realm of France
+  Would have dared to bind the bell
+    about the cat's neck.
+
+The second selection is from Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" (_cir_.
+1375). It was written "in the French manner" with rime and meter, for the
+upper classes, and shows the difference between literary English and the
+speech of the common people:
+
+  In th' olde dayës of the Kyng Arthour,
+  Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
+  Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.
+  The elf-queene with hir joly companye
+  Dauncëd ful ofte in many a grene mede;
+  This was the olde opinion, as I rede.
+  I speke of manye hundred yeres ago;
+  But now kan no man see none elves mo.
+
+The next two selections (written _cir_. 1450) show how rapidly the
+language was approaching modern English. The prose, from Malory's _Morte
+d' Arthur_, is the selection that Tennyson closely followed in his
+"Passing of Arthur." The poetry, from the ballad of "Robin Hood and the
+Monk," is probably a fifteenth-century version of a much older English
+song:
+
+    "'Therefore,' sayd Arthur unto Syr Bedwere, 'take thou Excalybur my
+    good swerde, and goo with it, to yonder water syde, and whan thou
+    comest there I charge the throwe my swerde in that water, and come
+    ageyn and telle me what thou there seest.'
+
+    "'My lord,' sayd Bedwere, 'your commaundement shal be doon, and
+    lyghtly brynge you worde ageyn.'
+
+    "So Syr Bedwere departed; and by the waye he behelde that noble
+    swerde, that the pomel and the hafte was al of precyous stones; and
+    thenne he sayd to hym self, 'Yf I throwe this ryche swerde in the
+    water, thereof shal never come good, but harme and losse.' And
+    thenne Syr Bedwere hydde Excalybur under a tree."
+
+  In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,
+    And leves be large and long,
+  Hit is full mery in feyr foreste
+    To here the foulys song:
+
+  To se the dere draw to the dale,
+    And leve the hillës hee,
+  And shadow hem in the levës grene,
+    Under the grene-wode tre.
+
+    HISTORICAL OUTLINE. The history of England during this period is
+    largely a record of strife and confusion. The struggle of the House
+    of Commons against the despotism of kings; the Hundred Years War
+    with France, in which those whose fathers had been Celts, Danes,
+    Saxons, Normans, were now fighting shoulder to shoulder as
+    Englishmen all; the suffering of the common people, resulting in
+    the Peasant Rebellion; the barbarity of the nobles, who were
+    destroying one another in the Wars of the Roses; the beginning of
+    commerce and manufacturing, following the lead of Holland, and the
+    rise of a powerful middle class; the belated appearance of the
+    Renaissance, welcomed by a few scholars but unnoticed by the masses
+    of people, who remained in dense ignorance,--even such a brief
+    catalogue suggests that many books must be read before we can enter
+    into the spirit of fourteenth-century England. We shall note here
+    only two circumstances, which may help us to understand Chaucer and
+    the age in which he lived.
+
+    [Sidenote: MODERN PROBLEMS]
+
+    The first is that the age of Chaucer, if examined carefully, shows
+    many striking resemblances to our own. It was, for example, an age
+    of warfare; and, as in our own age of hideous inventions, military
+    methods were all upset by the discovery that the foot soldier with
+    his blunderbuss was more potent than the panoplied knight on
+    horseback. While war raged abroad, there was no end of labor
+    troubles at home, strikes, "lockouts," assaults on imported workmen
+    (the Flemish weavers brought in by Edward III), and no end of
+    experimental laws to remedy the evil. The Turk came into Europe,
+    introducing the Eastern and the Balkan questions, which have ever
+    since troubled us. Imperialism was rampant, in Edward's claim to
+    France, for example, or in John of Gaunt's attempt to annex
+    Castile. Even "feminism" was in the air, and its merits were
+    shrewdly debated by Chaucer's Wife of Bath and his Clerk of
+    Oxenford. A dozen other "modern" examples might be given, but the
+    sum of the matter is this: that there is hardly a social or
+    political or economic problem of the past fifty years that was not
+    violently agitated in the latter half of the fourteenth century.
+    [Footnote: See Kittredge, _Chaucer and his Poetry_ (1915), pp.
+    2-5.]
+
+    [Sidenote: REALISTIC POETRY]
+
+    A second interesting circumstance is that this medieval age
+    produced two poets, Langland and Chaucer, who were more realistic
+    even than present-day writers in their portrayal of life, and who
+    together gave us such a picture of English society as no other
+    poets have ever equaled. Langland wrote his _Piers Plowman_ in
+    the familiar Anglo-Saxon style for the common people, and pictured
+    their life to the letter; while Chaucer wrote his _Canterbury
+    Tales_, a poem shaped after Italian and French models,
+    portraying the holiday side of the middle and upper classes.
+    Langland drew a terrible picture of a degraded land, desperately in
+    need of justice, of education, of reform in church and state;
+    Chaucer showed a gay company of pilgrims riding through a
+    prosperous country which he called his "Merrie England." Perhaps
+    the one thing in common with these two poets, the early types of
+    Puritan and Cavalier, was their attitude towards democracy.
+    Langland preached the gospel of labor, far more powerfully than
+    Carlyle ever preached it, and exalted honest work as the patent of
+    nobility. Chaucer, writing for the court, mingled his characters in
+    the most democratic kind of fellowship and, though a knight rode at
+    the head of his procession, put into the mouth of the Wife of Bath
+    his definition of a gentleman:
+
+      Loke who that is most vertuous alway,
+      Privee and apert, [1] and most entendeth aye
+      To do the gentle dedes that he can,
+      And take him for the grettest gentilman.
+
+    [Footnote [1]: Secretly and openly.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GEOFFREY CHAUCER (_cir_. 1340-1400)
+
+  "Of Chaucer truly I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in
+  that misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age walk
+  so stumblingly after him."
+                                    (Philip Sidney, _cir_. 1581)
+
+It was the habit of Old-English chieftains to take their scops with them
+into battle, to the end that the scop's poem might be true to the outer
+world of fact as well as to the inner world of ideals. The search for
+"local color" is, therefore, not the newest thing in fiction but the oldest
+thing in poetry. Chaucer, the first in time of our great English poets, was
+true to this old tradition. He was page, squire, soldier, statesman,
+diplomat, traveler; and then he was a poet, who portrayed in verse the
+many-colored life which he knew intimately at first hand.
+
+[Illustration: CHAUCER]
+
+For example, Chaucer had to describe a tournament, in the Knight's Tale;
+but instead of using his imagination, as other romancers had always done,
+he drew a vivid picture of one of those gorgeous pageants of decaying
+chivalry with which London diverted the French king, who had been brought
+prisoner to the city after the victory of the Black Prince at Poitiers. So
+with his Tabard Inn, which is a real English inn, and with his Pilgrims,
+who are real pilgrims; and so with every other scene or character he
+described. His specialty was human nature, his strong point observation,
+his method essentially modern. And by "modern" we mean that he portrayed
+the men and women of his own day so well, with such sympathy and humor and
+wisdom, that we recognize and welcome them as friends or neighbors, who are
+the same in all ages. From this viewpoint Chaucer is more modern than
+Tennyson or Longfellow.
+
+    LIFE. Chaucer's boyhood was spent in London, near Westminster,
+    where the brilliant court of Edward was visible to the favored
+    ones; and near the Thames, where the world's commerce, then
+    beginning to ebb and flow with the tides, might be seen of every
+    man. His father was a vintner, or wine merchant, who had enough
+    influence at court to obtain for his son a place in the house of
+    the Princess Elizabeth. Behold then our future poet beginning his
+    knightly training as page to a highborn lady. Presently he
+    accompanied the Black Prince to the French wars, was taken prisoner
+    and ransomed, and on his return entered the second stage of
+    knighthood as esquire or personal attendant to the king. He married
+    a maid of honor related to John of Gaunt, the famous Duke of
+    Lancaster, and at thirty had passed from the rank of merchant into
+    official and aristocratic circles.
+
+    [Sidenote: PERIODS OF WORK]
+
+    The literary work of Chaucer is conveniently, but not accurately,
+    arranged in three different periods. While attached to the court,
+    one of his duties was to entertain the king and his visitors in
+    their leisure. French poems of love and chivalry were then in
+    demand, and of these Chaucer had great store; but English had
+    recently replaced French even at court, and King Edward and Queen
+    Philippa, both patrons of art and letters, encouraged Chaucer to
+    write in his native language. So he made translations of favorite
+    poems into English, and wrote others in imitation of French models.
+    These early works, the least interesting of all, belong to what is
+    called the period of French influence.
+
+    Then Chaucer, who had learned the art of silence as well as of
+    speech, was sent abroad on a series of diplomatic missions. In
+    Italy he probably met the poet Petrarch (as we infer from the
+    Prologue to the Clerk's Tale) and became familiar with the works of
+    Dante and Boccaccio. His subsequent poetry shows a decided advance
+    in range and originality, partly because of his own growth, no
+    doubt, and partly because of his better models. This second period,
+    of about fifteen years, is called the time of Italian influence.
+
+    In the third or English period Chaucer returned to London and was a
+    busy man of affairs; for at the English court, unlike those of
+    France and Italy, a poet was expected to earn his pension by some
+    useful work, literature being regarded as a recreation. He was in
+    turn comptroller of customs and superintendent of public works;
+    also he was at times well supplied with money, and again, as the
+    political fortunes of his patron John of Gaunt waned, in sore need
+    of the comforts of life. Witness his "Complaint to His Empty
+    Purse," the humor of which evidently touched the king and brought
+    Chaucer another pension.
+
+    Two poems of this period are supposed to contain autobiographical
+    material. In the _Legend of Good Women_ he says:
+
+      And as for me, though that my wit be lytë,
+      On bokës for to rede I me delytë.
+
+    Again, in _The House of Fame_ he speaks of finding his real
+    life in books after his daily work in the customhouse is ended.
+    Some of the "rekeninges" (itemized accounts of goods and duties) to
+    which he refers are still preserved in Chaucer's handwriting:
+
+      For whan thy labour doon al is,
+      And hast y-maad thy rekeninges,
+      In stede of reste and newë thinges
+      Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
+      And, also domb as any stoon,
+      Thou sittest at another boke
+      Til fully dawsëd is thy loke,
+      And livest thus as an hermytë,
+      Although thine abstinence is lytë.
+
+    Such are the scanty facts concerning England's first great poet,
+    the more elaborate biographies being made up chiefly of guesses or
+    doubtful inferences. He died in the year 1400, and was buried in
+    St. Benet's chapel in Westminster Abbey, a place now revered by all
+    lovers of literature as the Poets' Corner.
+
+    ON READING CHAUCER. Said Caxton, who was the first to print
+    Chaucer's poetry, "He writeth no void words, but all his matter is
+    full of high and quick sentence." Caxton was right, and the modern
+    reader's first aim should be to get the sense of Chaucer rather
+    than his pronunciation. To understand him is not so difficult as
+    appears at first sight, for most of the words that look strange
+    because of their spelling will reveal their meaning to the ear if
+    spoken aloud. Thus the word "leefful" becomes "leveful" or
+    "leaveful" or "permissible."
+
+    Next, the reader should remember that Chaucer was a master of
+    versification, and that every stanza of his is musical. At the
+    beginning of a poem, therefore, read a few lines aloud, emphasizing
+    the accented syllables until the rhythm is fixed; then make every
+    line conform to it, and every word keep step to the music. To do
+    this it is necessary to slur certain words and run others together;
+    also, since the mistakes of Chaucer's copyists are repeated in
+    modern editions, it is often necessary to add a helpful word or
+    syllable to a line, or to omit others that are plainly superfluous.
+
+    This way of reading Chaucer musically, as one would read any other
+    poet, has three advantages: it is easy, it is pleasant, and it is
+    far more effective than the learning of a hundred specifications
+    laid down by the grammarians.
+
+    [Sidenote: RULES FOR READING]
+
+    As for Chaucer's pronunciation, you will not get that accurately
+    without much study, which were better spent on more important
+    matters; so be content with a few rules, which aim simply to help
+    you enjoy the reading. As a general principle, the root vowel of a
+    word was broadly sounded, and the rest slurred over. The
+    characteristic sound of _a_ was as in "far"; _e_ was
+    sounded like _a_, _i_ like _e_, and all diphthongs
+    as broadly as possible,--in "floures" (flowers), for example, which
+    should be pronounced "floorës."
+
+    Another rule relates to final syllables, and these will appear more
+    interesting if we remember that they represent the dying
+    inflections of nouns and adjectives, which were then declined as in
+    modern German. Final _ed_ and _es_ are variable, but the
+    rhythm will always tell us whether they should be given an extra
+    syllable or not. So also with final _e_, which is often
+    sounded, but not if the following word begins with a vowel or with
+    _h_. In the latter case the two words may be run together, as
+    in reading Virgil. If a final _e_ occurs at the end of a line,
+    it may be lightly pronounced, like _a_ in "China," to give
+    added melody to the verse.
+
+    Applying these rules, and using our liberty as freely as Chaucer
+    used his, [Footnote: The language was changing rapidly in Chaucer's
+    day, and there were no printed books to fix a standard. Sometimes
+    Chaucer's grammar and spelling are according to rule, and again as
+    heaven pleases.] the opening lines of _The Canterbury Tales_
+    would read something like this:
+
+      Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
+        _Whan that Apreelë with 'is shoorës sohtë_
+
+      The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
+        _The drooth of March hath paarcëd to the rohtë_
+
+      And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
+        _And bahthëd ev'ree vyne in swech lecoor,_
+
+      Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
+        _Of whech varetu engendred is the floor;_
+
+      Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
+        _Whan Zephirus aik with 'is swaite braith_
+
+      Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
+        _Inspeerëd hath in ev'ree holt and haith_
+
+      The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
+        _The tendre croopës, and th' yoongë sonnë_
+
+      Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
+        _Hath in the Ram 'is hawfë coors ironnë,_
+
+      And smale fowles maken melodye,
+        _And smawlë foolës mahken malyodieë,_
+
+      That slepen al the night with open ye
+        _That slaipen awl the nicht with open eë_
+
+      (So priketh hem nature in hir corages)
+        _(So priketh 'eem nahtur in hir coorahgës)_
+
+      Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.
+        _Than longen folk to goon on peelgrimahgës._
+
+EARLY WORKS OF CHAUCER. In his first period, which was dominated by French
+influence, Chaucer probably translated parts of the _Roman de la
+Rose_, a dreary allegorical poem in which love is represented as a
+queen-rose in a garden, surrounded by her court and ministers. In
+endeavoring to pluck this rose the lover learns the "commandments" and
+"sacraments" of love, and meets with various adventures at the hands of
+Virtue, Constancy, and other shadowy personages of less repute. Such
+allegories were the delight of the Middle Ages; now they are as dust and
+ashes. Other and better works of this period are _The Book of the
+Duchess_, an elegy written on the death of Blanche, wife of Chaucer's
+patron, and various minor poems, such as "Compleynte unto Pitee," the
+dainty love song "To Rosemunde," and "Truth" or the "Ballad of Good
+Counsel."
+
+Characteristic works of the second or Italian period are _The House of
+Fame_, _The Legend of Good Women_, and especially _Troilus and
+Criseyde_. The last-named, though little known to modern readers, is one
+of the most remarkable narrative poems in our literature. It began as a
+retelling of a familiar romance; it ended in an original poem, which might
+easily be made into a drama or a "modern" novel.
+
+[Sidenote: STORY OF TROILUS]
+
+    The scene opens in Troy, during the siege of the city by the
+    Greeks. The hero Troilus is a son of Priam, and is second only to
+    the mighty Hector in warlike deeds. Devoted as he is to glory, he
+    scoffs at lovers until the moment when his eye lights on Cressida.
+    She is a beautiful young widow, and is free to do as she pleases
+    for the moment, her father Calchas having gone over to the Greeks
+    to escape the doom which he sees impending on Troy. Troilus falls
+    desperately in love with Cressida, but she does not know or care,
+    and he is ashamed to speak his mind after scoffing so long at love.
+    Then appears Pandarus, friend of Troilus and uncle to Cressida, who
+    soon learns the secret and brings the young people together. After
+    a long courtship with interminable speeches (as in the old
+    romances) Troilus wins the lady, and all goes happily until Calchas
+    arranges to have his daughter brought to him in exchange for a
+    captured Trojan warrior. The lovers are separated with many tears,
+    but Cressida comforts the despairing Troilus by promising to
+    hoodwink her doting father and return in a few days. Calchas,
+    however, loves his daughter too well to trust her in a city that
+    must soon be given over to plunder, and keeps her safe in the Greek
+    camp. There the handsome young Diomede wins her, and presently
+    Troilus is killed in battle by Achilles.
+
+Such is the old romance of feminine fickleness, which had been written a
+hundred times before Chaucer took it bodily from Boccaccio. Moreover he
+humored the old romantic delusion which required that a lover should fall
+sick in the absence of his mistress, and turn pale or swoon at the sight of
+her; but he added to the tale many elements not found in the old romances,
+such as real men and women, humor, pathos, analysis of human motives, and a
+sense of impending tragedy which comes not from the loss of wealth or
+happiness but of character. Cressida's final thought of her first lover is
+intensely pathetic, and a whole chapter of psychology is summed up in the
+line in which she promises herself to be true to Diomede at the very moment
+when she is false to Troilus:
+
+  "Allas! of me unto the worldës ende
+  Shal neyther ben ywríten nor y-songë
+  No good word; for these bookës wol me shende.
+  O, rollëd shal I ben on many a tongë!
+  Thurghout the world my bellë shal be rongë,
+  And wommen moste wol haten me of allë.
+  Allas, that swich a cas me sholdë fallë!
+  They wol seyn, in-as-much as in me is,
+  I have hem doon dishonour, weylawey!
+  Al be I not the firste that dide amis,
+  What helpeth that to doon my blame awey?
+  But since I see ther is no betre wey,
+  And that too late is now for me to rewé,
+  To Diomede, algate, I wol be trewé."
+
+THE CANTERBURY TALES. The plan of gathering a company of people and letting
+each tell his favorite story has been used by so many poets, ancient and
+modern, that it is idle to seek the origin of it. Like Topsy, it wasn't
+born; it just grew up. Chaucer's plan, however, is more comprehensive than
+any other in that it includes all classes of society; it is also more
+original in that it does not invent heroic characters but takes such men
+and women as one might meet in any assembly, and shows how typical they are
+of humanity in all ages. As Lowell says, Chaucer made use in his
+_Canterbury Tales_ of two things that are everywhere regarded as
+symbols of human life; namely, the short journey and the inn. We might add,
+as an indication of Chaucer's philosophy, that his inn is a comfortable
+one, and that the journey is made in pleasant company and in fair weather.
+
+    An outline of Chaucer's great work is as follows. On an evening in
+    springtime the poet comes to Tabard Inn, in Southwark, and finds it
+    filled with a merry company of men and women bent on a pilgrimage
+    to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury.
+
+    After supper appears the jovial host, Harry Bailey, who finds the
+    company so attractive that he must join it on its pilgrimage. He
+    proposes that, as they shall be long on the way, they shall furnish
+    their own entertainment by telling stories, the best tale to be
+    rewarded by the best of suppers when the pilgrims return from
+    Canterbury. They assent joyfully, and on the morrow begin their
+    journey, cheered by the Knight's Tale as they ride forth under the
+    sunrise. The light of morning and of springtime is upon this work,
+    which is commonly placed at the beginning of modern English
+    literature.
+
+As the journey proceeds we note two distinct parts to Chaucer's record. One
+part, made up of prologues and interludes, portrays the characters and
+action of the present comedy; the other part, consisting of stories,
+reflects the comedies and tragedies of long ago. The one shows the
+perishable side of the men and women of Chaucer's day, their habits, dress,
+conversation; the other reveals an imperishable world of thought, feeling,
+ideals, in which these same men and women discover their kinship to
+humanity. It is possible, since some of the stories are related to each
+other, that Chaucer meant to arrange the _Canterbury Tales_ in
+dramatic unity, so as to make a huge comedy of human society; but the work
+as it comes down to us is fragmentary, and no one has discovered the order
+in which the fragments should be fitted together.
+
+[Illustration: PILGRIMS SETTING OUT FROM THE "TABARD"]
+
+[Sidenote: THE PROLOGUE]
+
+The Prologue is perhaps the best single fragment of the _Canterbury
+Tales_. In it Chaucer introduces us to the characters of his drama: to
+the grave Knight and the gay Squire, the one a model of Chivalry at its
+best, "a verray parfit gentil knight," the other a young man so full of
+life and love that "he slept namore than dooth a nightingale"; to the
+modest Prioress, also, with her pretty clothes, her exquisite manners, her
+boarding-school accomplishments:
+
+  And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
+  After the scole of Stratford attë Bowë,
+  For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowë.
+
+In contrast to this dainty figure is the coarse Wife of Bath, as garrulous
+as the nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_. So one character stands to another
+as shade to light, as they appear in a typical novel of Dickens. The
+Church, the greatest factor in medieval life, is misrepresented by the
+hunting Monk and the begging Friar, and is well represented by the Parson,
+who practiced true religion before he preached it:
+
+  But Christës lore and his apostles twelvë
+  He taughte, and first he folwëd it himselvë.
+
+Trade is represented by the Merchant, scholarship by the poor Clerk of
+Oxenford, the professions by the Doctor and the Man-of-law, common folk by
+the Yeoman, Frankelyn (farmer), Miller and many others of low degree.
+Prominent among the latter was the Shipman:
+
+  Hardy he was, and wys to undertakë;
+  With many a tempest hadde his berd been shakë.
+
+From this character, whom Stevenson might have borrowed for his _Treasure
+Island_, we infer the barbarity that prevailed when commerce was new,
+when the English sailor was by turns smuggler or pirate, equally ready to
+sail or scuttle a ship, and to silence any tongue that might tell tales by
+making its wretched owner "walk the plank." Chaucer's description of the
+latter process is a masterpiece of piratical humor:
+
+  If that he faught and hadde the hyer hond,
+  By water he sente hem hoom to every lond.
+
+[Sidenote: VARIETY OF TALES]
+
+Some thirty pilgrims appear in the famous Prologue, and as each was to tell
+two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two more on the return, it is
+probable that Chaucer contemplated a work of more than a hundred tales.
+Only four-and-twenty were completed, but these are enough to cover the
+field of light literature in that day, from the romance of love to the
+humorous animal fable. Between these are wonder-stories of giants and
+fairies, satires on the monks, parodies on literature, and some examples of
+coarse horseplay for which Chaucer offers an apology, saying that he must
+let each pilgrim tell his tale in his own way.
+
+A round dozen of these tales may still be read with pleasure; but, as a
+suggestion of Chaucer's variety, we name only three: the Knight's romance
+of "Palamon and Arcite," the Nun's Priest's fable of "Chanticleer," and the
+Clerk's old ballad of "Patient Griselda." The last-named will be more
+interesting if we remember that the subject of woman's rights had been
+hurled at the heads of the pilgrims by the Wife of Bath, and that the Clerk
+told his story to illustrate his different ideal of womanhood.
+
+THE CHARM OF CHAUCER. The first of Chaucer's qualities is that he is an
+excellent story-teller; which means that he has a tale to tell, a good
+method of telling it, and a philosophy of life which gives us something to
+think about aside from the narrative. He had a profound insight of human
+nature, and in telling the simplest story was sure to slip in some nugget
+of wisdom or humor: "What wol nat be mote need be left," "For three may
+keep counsel if twain be away," "The lyf so short, the craft so long to
+lerne," "Ful wys is he that can himselven knowe,"
+
+  The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere,
+  Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge.
+
+There are literally hundreds of such "good things" which make Chaucer a
+constant delight to those who, by a very little practice, can understand
+him almost as easily as Shakespeare. Moreover he was a careful artist; he
+knew the principles of poetry and of story-telling, and before he wrote a
+song or a tale he considered both his subject and his audience, repeating
+to himself his own rule:
+
+  Ther nis no werkman, whatsoever he be,
+  That may bothe werkë wel and hastily:
+  This wol be doon at leysur, parfitly.
+
+A second quality of Chaucer is his power of observation, a power so
+extraordinary that, unlike other poets, he did not need to invent scenes or
+characters but only to describe what he had seen and heard in this
+wonderful world. As he makes one of his characters say:
+
+  For certeynly, he that me made
+  To comen hider seydë me:
+  I shouldë bothë hear et see
+  In this place wonder thingës.
+
+In the _Canterbury Tales_ alone he employs more than a score of
+characters, and hardly a romantic hero among them; rather does he delight
+in plain men and women, who reveal their quality not so much in their
+action as in their dress, manner, or tricks of speech. For Chaucer has the
+glance of an Indian, which passes over all obvious matters to light upon
+one significant detail; and that detail furnishes the name or the adjective
+of the object. Sometimes his descriptions of men or nature are microscopic
+in their accuracy, and again in a single line he awakens the reader's
+imagination,--as when Pandarus (in _Troilus_), in order to make
+himself unobtrusive in a room where he is not wanted, picks up a manuscript
+and "makes a face," that is, he pretends to be absorbed in a story,
+
+            and fand his countenance
+  As for to loke upon an old romance.
+
+A dozen striking examples might be given, but we shall note only one. In
+the _Book of the Duchess_ the poet is in a forest, when a chase sweeps
+by with whoop of huntsman and clamor of hounds. After the hunt, when the
+woods are all still, comes a little lost dog:
+
+  Hit com and creep to me as lowë
+  Right as hit haddë me y-knowë,
+  Hild down his heed and jiyned his eres,
+  And leyde al smouthë doun his heres.
+  I wolde han caught hit, and anoon
+  Hit fleddë and was fro me goon.
+
+[Sidenote: CHAUCER'S HUMOR]
+
+Next to his power of description, Chaucer's best quality is his humor, a
+humor which is hard to phrase, since it runs from the keenest wit to the
+broadest farce, yet is always kindly and human. A mendicant friar comes in
+out of the cold, glances about the snug kitchen for the best seat:
+
+  And fro the bench he droof awey the cat.
+
+Sometimes his humor is delicate, as in touching up the foibles of the
+Doctor or the Man-of-law, or in the Priest's translation of Chanticleer's
+evil remark about women:
+
+                  _In principio_
+  _Mulier est hominis confusio._
+  Madame, the sentence of this Latin is:
+  Woman is mannes joye and al his blis.
+
+The humor broadens in the Wife of Bath, who tells how she managed several
+husbands by making their lives miserable; and occasionally it grows a
+little grim, as when the Maunciple tells the difference between a big and a
+little rascal. The former does evil on a large scale, and,
+
+  Lo! therfor is he cleped a Capitain;
+  But for the outlawe hath but small meynee,
+  And may not doon so gret an harm as he,
+  Ne bring a countree to so gret mischeef,
+  Men clepen him an outlawe or a theef.
+
+[Sidenote: FREEDOM FROM BIAS]
+
+A fourth quality of Chaucer is his broad tolerance, his absolute
+disinterestedness. He leaves reforms to Wyclif and Langland, and can laugh
+with the Shipman who turns smuggler, or with the worldly Monk whose
+"jingling" bridle keeps others as well as himself from hearing the chapel
+bell. He will not even criticize the fickle Cressida for deserting Troilus,
+saying that men tell tales about her, which is punishment enough for any
+woman. In fine, Chaucer is content to picture a world in which the rain
+falleth alike upon the just and the unjust, and in which the latter seem to
+have a liberal share of the umbrellas. He enjoys it all, and describes its
+inhabitants as they are, not as he thinks they ought to be. The reader may
+think that this or that character deserves to come to a bad end; but not so
+Chaucer, who regards them all as kindly, as impersonally as Nature herself.
+
+So the Canterbury pilgrims are not simply fourteenth-century Englishmen;
+they are human types whom Chaucer met at the Tabard Inn, and whom later
+English writers discover on all of earth's highways. One appears unchanged
+in Shakespeare's drama, another in a novel of Jane Austen, a third lives
+over the way or down the street. From century to century they change not,
+save in name or dress. The poet who described or created such enduring
+characters stands among the few who are called universal writers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAUCER'S CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS
+
+Someone has compared a literary period to a wood in which a few giant oaks
+lift head and shoulders above many other trees, all nourished by the same
+soil and air. If we follow this figure, Langland and Wyclif are the only
+growths that tower beside Chaucer, and Wyclif was a reformer who belongs to
+English history rather than to literature.
+
+LANGLAND. William Langland (_cir_. 1332--1400) is a great figure in
+obscurity. We are not certain even of his name, and we must search his work
+to discover that he was, probably, a poor lay-priest whose life was
+governed by two motives: a passion for the poor, which led him to plead
+their cause in poetry, and a longing for all knowledge:
+
+  All the sciences under sonnë, and all the sotyle craftës,
+  I wolde I knew and couthë, kyndely in mynë hertë.
+
+His chief poem, _Piers Plowman_ (_cir_. 1362), is a series of
+visions in which are portrayed the shams and impostures of the age and the
+misery of the common people. The poem is, therefore, as the heavy shadow
+which throws into relief the bright picture of the _Canterbury Tales_.
+
+For example, while Chaucer portrays the Tabard Inn with its good cheer and
+merry company, Langland goes to another inn on the next street; there he
+looks with pure eyes upon sad or evil-faced men and women, drinking,
+gaming, quarreling, and pictures a scene of physical and moral degradation.
+One must look on both pictures to know what an English inn was like in the
+fourteenth century.
+
+Because of its crude form and dialect _Piers Plowman_ is hard to
+follow; but to the few who have read it and entered into Langland's
+vision--shared his passion for the poor, his hatred of shams, his belief in
+the gospel of honest work, his humor and satire and philosophy--it is one
+of the most powerful and original poems in English literature. [Footnote:
+The working classes were beginning to assert themselves in this age, and to
+proclaim "the rights of man." Witness the followers of John Ball, and his
+influence over the crowd when he chanted the lines:
+
+  When Adam delved and Eve span,
+  Who was then the gentleman?
+
+Langland's poem, written in the midst of the labor agitation, was the first
+glorification of labor to appear in English literature. Those who read it
+may make an interesting comparison between "Piers Plowman" and a modern
+labor poem, such as Hood's "Song of the Shirt" or Markham's "The Man with
+the Hoe."]
+
+MALORY. Judged by its influence, the greatest prose work of the fifteenth
+century was the _Morte d'Arthur_ of Thomas Malory (d. 1471). Of the
+English knight who compiled this work very little is known beyond this,
+that he sought to preserve in literature the spirit of medieval knighthood
+and religion. He tells us nothing of this purpose; but Caxton, who received
+the only known copy of Malory's manuscript and published it in 1485, seems
+to have reflected the author's spirit in these words:
+
+    "I according to my copy have set it in imprint, to the intent that
+    noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle
+    and virtuous deeds that some knyghts used in those days, by which
+    they came to honour, and how they that were vicious were punished
+    and put oft to shame and rebuke.... For herein may be seen noble
+    chivalry, courtesy, humanity, hardness, love, friendship,
+    cowardice, murder, hate, virtue and sin. Do after the good, and
+    leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renommee."
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN CAERLEON ON USK
+The traditional home of King Arthur]
+
+Malory's spirit is further indicated by the fact that he passed over all
+extravagant tales of foreign heroes and used only the best of the Arthurian
+romances. [Footnote: For the origin of the Arthurian stories see above,
+"Geoffrey and the Legends of Arthur" in Chapter II. An example of the way
+these stories were enlarged is given by Lewis, _Beginnings of English
+Literature_, pp 73-76, who records the story of Arthur's death as told,
+first, by Geoffrey, then by Layamon, and finally by Malory, who copied the
+tale from French sources. If we add Tennyson's "Passing of Arthur," we
+shall have the story as told from the twelfth to the nineteenth century.]
+These had been left in a chaotic state by poets, and Malory brought order
+out of the chaos by omitting tedious fables and arranging his material in
+something like dramatic unity under three heads: the Coming of Arthur with
+its glorious promise, the Round Table, and the Search for the Holy Grail:
+
+    "And thenne the kynge and al estates wente home unto Camelot, and
+    soo wente to evensonge to the grete mynster, and soo after upon
+    that to souper; and every knyght sette in his owne place as they
+    were to forehand. Thenne anone they herd crakynge and cryenge of
+    thonder, that hem thought the place shold alle to dryve. In the
+    myddes of this blast entred a sonne beaume more clerer by seven
+    tymes than ever they sawe daye, and al they were alyghted of the
+    grace of the Holy Ghoost. Then beganne every knyghte to behold
+    other, and eyther sawe other by theire semynge fayrer than ever
+    they sawe afore. Not for thenne there was no knyght myghte speke
+    one word a grete whyle, and soo they loked every man on other, as
+    they had ben domb. Thenne ther entred into the halle the Holy
+    Graile, covered with whyte samyte, but ther was none myghte see
+    hit, nor who bare hit. And there was al the halle fulfylled with
+    good odoures, and every knyght had suche metes and drynkes as he
+    best loved in this world. And when the Holy Grayle had be borne
+    thurgh the halle, thenne the holy vessel departed sodenly, that
+    they wyste not where hit becam....
+
+    "'Now,' said Sir Gawayne, 'we have ben served this daye of what
+    metes and drynkes we thoughte on, but one thynge begyled us; we
+    myght not see the Holy Grayle, it was soo precyously coverd.
+    Therfor I wil mak here avowe, that to morne, withoute lenger
+    abydyng, I shall laboure in the quest of the Sancgreal; that I
+    shalle hold me oute a twelve moneth and a day, or more yf nede be,
+    and never shalle I retorne ageyne unto the courte tyl I have sene
+    hit more openly than hit hath ben sene here.'... Whan they of the
+    Table Round herde Syr Gawayne saye so, they arose up the most party
+    and maade suche avowes as Sire Gawayne had made."
+
+Into this holy quest sin enters like a serpent; then in quick succession
+tragedy, rebellion, the passing of Arthur, the penitence of guilty
+Launcelot and Guinevere. The figures fade away at last, as Shelley says of
+the figures of the Iliad, "in tenderness and inexpiable sorrow."
+
+As the best of Malory's work is now easily accessible, we forbear further
+quotation. These old Arthurian legends, the common inheritance of all
+English-speaking people, should be known to every reader. As they appear in
+_Morte d'Arthur_ they are notable as an example of fine old English
+prose, as a reflection of the enduring ideals of chivalry, and finally as a
+storehouse in which Spenser, Tennyson and many others have found material
+for some of their noblest poems.
+
+CAXTON. William Caxton (d. 1491) is famous for having brought the printing
+press to England, but he has other claims to literary renown. He was editor
+as well as printer; he translated more than a score of the books which came
+from his press; and, finally, it was he who did more than any other man to
+fix a standard of English speech.
+
+In Caxton's day several dialects were in use, and, as we infer from one of
+his prefaces, he was doubtful which was most suitable for literature or
+most likely to become the common speech of England. His doubt was dissolved
+by the time he had printed the _Canterbury Tales_ and the _Morte
+d'Arthur_. Many other works followed in the same "King's English"; his
+successor at the printing press, Wynkyn de Worde, continued in the same
+line; and when, less than sixty years after the first English book was
+printed, Tyndale's translation of the New Testament had found its way to
+every shire in England, there was no longer room for doubt that the
+East-Midland dialect had become the standard of the English nation. We have
+been speaking and writing that dialect ever since.
+
+[Illustration: THE ALMONRY, WESTMINSTER
+Caxton's printing office From an old print]
+
+[Sidenote: STORY OF THE PRINTING PRESS]
+
+The story of how printing came to England, not as a literary but as a
+business venture, is a very interesting one. Caxton was an English merchant
+who had established himself at Bruges, then one of the trading centers of
+Europe. There his business prospered, and he became governor of the
+_Domus Angliae_, or House of the English Guild of Merchant
+Adventurers. There is romance in the very name. With moderate wealth came
+leisure to Caxton, and he indulged his literary taste by writing his own
+version of some popular romances concerning the siege of Troy, being
+encouraged by the English princess Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, into
+whose service he had entered.
+
+Copies of his work being in demand, Caxton consulted the professional
+copyists, whose beautiful work we read about in a remarkable novel called
+_The Cloister and the Hearth_. Then suddenly came to Bruges the rumor
+of Gutenberg's discovery of printing from movable types, and Caxton
+hastened to Germany to investigate the matter, led by the desire to get
+copies of his own work as cheaply as possible. The discovery fascinated
+him; instead of a few copies of his manuscript he brought back to Bruges a
+press, from which he issued his _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy_
+(1474), which was probably the first book to appear in English print. Quick
+to see the commercial advantages of the new invention, Caxton moved his
+printing press to London, near Westminster Abbey, where he brought out in
+1477 his _Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers_, the first book
+ever printed on English soil. [Footnote: Another book of Caxton's, _The
+Game and Playe of the Chesse_ (1475) was long accorded this honor, but
+it is fairly certain that the book on chess-playing was printed in Bruges.]
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIRST PRINTED BOOKS]
+
+From the very outset Caxton's venture was successful, and he was soon busy
+in supplying books that were most in demand. He has been criticized for not
+printing the classics and other books of the New Learning; but he evidently
+knew his business and his audience, and aimed to give people what they
+wanted, not what he thought they ought to have. Chaucer's _Canterbury
+Tales_, Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, Mandeville's _Travels_,
+Æsop's _Fables_, parts of the _Æneid_, translations of French
+romances, lives of the saints (The Golden Legend), cookbooks, prayer books,
+books of etiquette,--the list of Caxton's eighty-odd publications becomes
+significant when we remember that he printed only popular books, and that
+the titles indicate the taste of the age which first looked upon the marvel
+of printing.
+
+POPULAR BALLADS. If it be asked, "What is a ballad?" any positive answer
+will lead to disputation. Originally the ballad was probably a chant to
+accompany a dance, and so it represents the earliest form of poetry. In
+theory, as various definitions indicate, it is a short poem telling a story
+of some exploit, usually of a valorous kind. In common practice, from
+Chaucer to Tennyson, the ballad is almost any kind of short poem treating
+of any event, grave or gay, in any descriptive or dramatic way that appeals
+to the poet.
+
+For the origin of the ballad one must search far back among the social
+customs of primitive times. That the Anglo-Saxons were familiar with it
+appears from the record of Tacitus, who speaks of their _carmina_ or
+narrative songs; but, with the exception of "The Fight at Finnsburgh" and a
+few other fragments, all these have disappeared.
+
+During the Middle Ages ballads were constantly appearing among the common
+people, [Footnote: Thus, when Sidney says, "I never heard the old song of
+Percy and Douglass that I found not my heart moved more than with a
+trumpet," and when Shakespeare shows Autolycus at a country fair offering
+"songs for men and women of all sizes," both poets are referring to popular
+ballads. Even later, as late as the American Revolution, history was first
+written for the people in the form of ballads.] but they were seldom
+written, and found no standing in polite literature. In the eighteenth
+century, however, certain men who had grown weary of the formal poetry of
+Pope and his school turned for relief to the old vigorous ballads of the
+people, and rescued them from oblivion. The one book to which, more than
+any other, we owe the revival of interest in balladry is _Percy's
+Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ (1765).
+
+[Sidenote: THE MARKS OF A BALLAD]
+
+The best of our ballads date in their present form from the fifteenth or
+sixteenth century; but the originals were much older, and had been
+transmitted orally for years before they were recorded on manuscript. As we
+study them we note, as their first characteristic, that they spring from
+the unlettered common people, that they are by unknown authors, and that
+they appear in different versions because they were changed by each
+minstrel to suit his own taste or that of his audience.
+
+A second characteristic is the objective quality of the ballad, which deals
+not with a poet's thought or feeling (such subjective emotions give rise to
+the lyric) but with a man or a deed. See in the ballad of "Sir Patrick
+Spence" (or Spens) how the unknown author goes straight to his story:
+
+  The king sits in Dumferling towne,
+    Drinking the blude-red wine:
+  "O whar will I get guid sailor
+    To sail this schip of mine?"
+
+  Up and spak an eldern knicht,
+    Sat at the king's richt kne:
+  "Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
+    That sails upon the se."
+
+There is a brief pause to tell us of Sir Patrick's dismay when word comes
+that the king expects him to take out a ship at a time when she should be
+riding to anchor, then on goes the narrative:
+
+  "Mak hast, mak haste, my mirry men all,
+    Our guid schip sails the morne."
+  "O say na sae, my master deir,
+    For I feir a deadlie storme:
+
+  "Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
+    Wi the auld moone in hir arme,
+  And I feir, I feir, my deir master,
+    That we will cum to harme."
+
+At the end there is no wailing, no moral, no display of the poet's feeling,
+but just a picture:
+
+  O lang, lang may the ladies stand,
+    Wi thair gold kems in their hair,
+  Waiting for thair ain deir lords,
+    For they'll se thame na mair.
+
+  Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,
+    It's fiftie fadom deip,
+  And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,
+    Wi the Scots lords at his feit.
+
+Directness, vigor, dramatic action, an ending that appeals to the
+imagination,--most of the good qualities of story-telling are found in this
+old Scottish ballad. If we compare it with Longfellow's "Wreck of the
+Hesperus," we may discover that the two poets, though far apart in time and
+space, have followed almost identical methods.
+
+Other good ballads, which take us out under the open sky among vigorous
+men, are certain parts of "The Gest of Robin Hood," "Mary Hamilton," "The
+Wife of Usher's Well," "The Wee Wee Man," "Fair Helen," "Hind Horn,"
+"Bonnie George Campbell," "Johnnie O'Cockley's Well," "Catharine Jaffray"
+(from which Scott borrowed his "Lochinvar"), and especially "The Nutbrown
+Mayde," sweetest and most artistic of all the ballads, which gives a
+popular and happy version of the tale that Chaucer told in his "Patient
+Griselda."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The period included in the Age of Chaucer and the Revival
+    of Learning covers two centuries, from 1350 to 1550. The chief
+    literary figure of the period, and one of the greatest of English
+    poets, is Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in the year 1400. He was
+    greatly influenced by French and Italian models; he wrote for the
+    middle and upper classes; his greatest work was _The Canterbury
+    Tales_.
+
+    Langland, another poet contemporary with Chaucer, is famous for his
+    _Piers Plowman_, a powerful poem aiming at social reform, and
+    vividly portraying the life of the common people. It is written in
+    the old Saxon manner, with accent and alliteration, and is
+    difficult to read in its original form.
+
+    After the death of Chaucer a century and a half passed before
+    another great writer appeared in England. The time was one of
+    general decline in literature, and the most obvious causes were:
+    the Wars of the Roses, which destroyed many of the patrons of
+    literature; the Reformation, which occupied the nation with
+    religious controversy; and the Renaissance or Revival of Learning,
+    which turned scholars to the literature of Greece and Rome rather
+    than to English works.
+
+    In our study of the latter part of the period we reviewed: (1) the
+    rise of the popular ballad, which was almost the only type of
+    literature known to the common people. (2) The work of Malory, who
+    arranged the best of the Arthurian legends in his _Morte
+    d'Arthur._ (3) The work of Caxton, who brought the first
+    printing press to London, and who was instrumental in establishing
+    the East-Midland dialect as the literary language of England.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections from all authors of the
+    period are given in Manly, English Poetry, and English Prose;
+    Newcomer and Andrews, Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose;
+    Ward, English Poets; Morris and Skeat, Specimens of Early English.
+
+    Chaucer's Prologue, Knight's Tale, and other selections in
+    Riverside Literature, King's Classics, and several other school
+    series. A good single-volume edition of Chaucer's poetry is Skeat,
+    The Student's Chaucer (Clarendon Press). A good, but expensive,
+    modernized version is Tatlock and MacKaye, Modern Reader's Chaucer
+    (Macmillan).
+
+    Metrical version of Piers Plowman, by Skeat, in King's Classics;
+    modernized prose version by Kate Warren, in Treasury of English
+    Literature (Dodge).
+
+    Selections from Malory's Morte d'Arthur in Athenæum Press Series
+    (Ginn and Company); also in Camelot Series. An elaborate edition of
+    Malory with introduction by Sommer and an essay by Andrew Lang (3
+    vols., London, 1889); another with modernized text, introduction by
+    Rhys, illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley (London, 1893).
+
+    The best of the old ballads are published in Pocket Classics, and
+    in Maynard's English Classics; a volume of ancient and modern
+    English ballads in Ginn and Company's Classics for Children;
+    Percy's Reliques, in Everyman's Library. Allingham, The Ballad
+    Book; Hazlitt, Popular Poetry of England; Gummere, Old English
+    Ballads; Gayley and Flaherty, Poetry of the People; Child, English
+    and Scottish Popular Poetry (5 vols.); the last-named work, edited
+    and abridged by Kittredge, in one volume.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. The following works have been sifted from a much
+    larger number dealing with the age of Chaucer and the Revival of
+    Learning. More extended works, covering the entire field of English
+    history and literature, are listed in the General Bibliography.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Snell, the Age of Chaucer; Jusserand, Wayfaring
+    Life in the Fourteenth Century; Jenks, In the Days of Chaucer;
+    Trevelyan, In the Age of Wyclif; Coulton, Chaucer and His England;
+    Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century; Green, Town Life in the
+    Fifteenth Century; Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England;
+    Froissart, Chronicles; Lanier, The Boy's Froissart.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Ward, Life of Chaucer (English Men of Letters
+    Series); Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry (Harvard University
+    Press); Pollard, Chaucer Primer; Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer;
+    Lowell's essay in My Study Windows; essay by Hazlitt, in Lectures
+    on the English Poets; Jusserand, Piers Plowman; Roper, Life of Sir
+    Thomas More.
+
+    _FICTION AND POETRY_. Lytton, Last of the Barons; Yonge,
+    Lances of Lynwood; Scott, Marmion; Shakespeare, Richard II, Henry
+    IV, Richard III; Bates and Coman, English History Told by English
+    Poets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ELIZABETHAN AGE (1550-1620)
+
+
+  This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
+  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
+  This other Eden, demi-paradise,
+  This fortress built by Nature for herself
+  Against infection and the hand of war,
+  This happy breed of men, this little world,
+  This precious stone set in the silver sea, ...
+  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England!
+
+                        Shakespeare, _King Richard II_
+
+
+    HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. In such triumphant lines, falling from the
+    lips of that old imperialist John of Gaunt, did Shakespeare
+    reflect, not the rebellious spirit of the age of Richard II, but
+    the boundless enthusiasm of his own times, when the defeat of
+    Spain's mighty Armada had left England "in splendid isolation,"
+    unchallenged mistress of her own realm and of the encircling sea.
+    For it was in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign that England
+    found herself as a nation, and became conscious of her destiny as a
+    world empire.
+
+    There is another and darker side to the political shield, but the
+    student of literature is not concerned with it. We are to remember
+    the patriotic enthusiasm of the age, overlooking the frequent
+    despotism of "good Queen Bess" and entering into the spirit of
+    national pride and power that thrilled all classes of Englishmen
+    during her reign, if we are to understand the outburst of
+    Elizabethan literature. Nearly two centuries of trouble and danger
+    had passed since Chaucer died, and no national poet had appeared in
+    England. The Renaissance came, and the Reformation, but they
+    brought no great writers with them. During the first thirty years
+    of Elizabeth's reign not a single important literary work was
+    produced; then suddenly appeared the poetry of Spenser and Chapman,
+    the prose of Hooker, Sidney and Bacon, the dramas of Marlowe,
+    Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and a score of others,--all voicing the
+    national feeling after the defeat of the Armada, and growing silent
+    as soon as the enthusiasm began to wane.
+
+LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. Next to the patriotic spirit of Elizabethan
+literature, its most notable qualities are its youthful freshness and
+vigor, its romantic spirit, its absorption in the theme of love, its
+extravagance of speech, its lively sense of the wonder of heaven and earth.
+The ideal beauty of Spenser's poetry, the bombast of Marlowe, the boundless
+zest of Shakespeare's historical plays, the romantic love celebrated in
+unnumbered lyrics,--all these speak of youth, of springtime, of the joy and
+the heroic adventure of human living.
+
+This romantic enthusiasm of Elizabethan poetry and prose may be explained
+by the fact that, besides the national impulse, three other inspiring
+influences were at work. The first in point of time was the rediscovery of
+the classics of Greece and Rome,--beautiful old poems, which were as new to
+the Elizabethans as to Keats when he wrote his immortal sonnet, beginning:
+
+  Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold.
+
+The second awakening factor was the widespread interest in nature and the
+physical sciences, which spurred many another Elizabethan besides Bacon to
+"take all knowledge for his province." This new interest was generally
+romantic rather than scientific, was more concerned with marvels, like the
+philosopher's stone that would transmute all things to gold, than with the
+simple facts of nature. Bacon's chemical changes, which follow the
+"instincts" of metals, are almost on a par with those other changes
+described in Shakespeare's song of Ariel:
+
+  Full fathom five thy father lies;
+       Of his bones are coral made;
+  Those are pearls that were his eyes:
+       Nothing of him that doth fade
+  But doth suffer a sea-change
+  Into something rich and strange.
+
+The third factor which stimulated the Elizabethan imagination was the
+discovery of the world beyond the Atlantic, a world of wealth, of beauty,
+of unmeasured opportunity for brave spirits, in regions long supposed to be
+possessed of demons, monsters, Othello's impossible
+
+          cannibals that each other eat,
+  The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
+  Do grow beneath their shoulders.
+
+[Sidenote: THE NEW WORLD]
+
+When Drake returned from his voyage around the world he brought to England
+two things: a tale of vast regions just over the world's rim that awaited
+English explorers, and a ship loaded to the hatches with gold and jewels.
+That the latter treasure was little better than a pirate's booty; that it
+was stolen from the Spaniards, who had taken it from poor savages at the
+price of blood and torture,--all this was not mentioned. The queen and her
+favorites shared the treasure with Drake's buccaneers, and the New World
+seemed to them a place of barbaric splendor, where the savage's wattled hut
+was roofed with silver, his garments beaded with all precious jewels. As a
+popular play of the period declares:
+
+    "Why, man, all their dripping pans are pure gold! The prisoners
+    they take are fettered in gold; and as for rubies and diamonds,
+    they goe forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by the seashore to hang
+    on their children's coates."
+
+Before the American settlements opened England's eyes to the stern reality
+of things, it was the romance of the New World that appealed most
+powerfully to the imagination, and that influenced Elizabethan literature
+to an extent which we have not yet begun to measure.
+
+FOREIGN INFLUENCE. We shall understand the imitative quality of early
+Elizabethan poetry if we read it in the light of these facts: that in the
+sixteenth century England was far behind other European nations in culture;
+that the Renaissance had influenced Italy and Holland for a century before
+it crossed the Channel; that, at a time when every Dutch peasant read his
+Bible, the masses of English people remained in dense ignorance, and the
+majority of the official classes were like Shakespeare's father and
+daughter in that they could neither read nor write. So, when the new
+national spirit began to express itself in literature, Englishmen turned to
+the more cultured nations and began to imitate them in poetry, as in dress
+and manners. Shakespeare gives us a hint of the matter when he makes Portia
+ridicule the apishness of the English. In _The Merchant of Venice_
+(Act I, scene 2) the maid Nerissa is speaking of various princely suitors
+for Portia's hand. She names them over, Frenchman, Italian, Scotsman,
+German; but Portia makes fun of them all. The maid tries again:
+
+  _Nerissa_. What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of
+        England?
+
+  _Portia_.  You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me,
+        nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will
+        come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the
+        English. He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who can converse
+        with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his
+        doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany
+        and his behaviour every where.
+
+When Wyatt and Surrey brought the sonnet to England, they brought also the
+habit of imitating the Italian poets; and this habit influenced Spenser and
+other Elizabethans even more than Chaucer had been influenced by Dante and
+Petrarch. It was the fashion at that time for Italian gentlemen to write
+poetry; they practiced the art as they practiced riding or fencing; and
+presently scores of Englishmen followed Sidney's example in taking up this
+phase of foreign education. It was also an Italian custom to publish the
+works of amateur poets in the form of anthologies, and soon there appeared
+in England _The Paradise of Dainty Devices, A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant
+Inventions_ and other such collections, the best of which was
+_England's Helicon_ (1600). Still another foreign fashion was that of
+writing a series of sonnets to some real or imaginary mistress; and that
+the fashion was followed in England is evident from Spenser's
+_Amoretti_, Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_, Shakespeare's
+_Sonnets_, and other less-famous effusions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPENSER AND THE LYRIC POETS
+
+[Illustration: MICHAEL DRAYTON]
+
+LYRICS OF LOVE. Love was the subject of a very large part of the minor
+poems of the period, the monotony being relieved by an occasional ballad,
+such as Drayton's "Battle of Agincourt" and his "Ode to the Virginian
+Voyage," the latter being one of the first poems inspired by the New World.
+Since love was still subject to literary rules, as in the metrical
+romances, it is not strange that most Elizabethan lyrics seem to the modern
+reader artificial. They deal largely with goddesses and airy shepherd folk;
+they contain many references to classic characters and scenes, to Venus,
+Olympus and the rest; they are nearly all characterized by extravagance of
+language. A single selection, "Apelles' Song" by Lyly, may serve as typical
+of the more fantastic love lyrics:
+
+  Cupid and my Campaspe played
+  At cards for kisses; Cupid paid.
+  He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
+  His mother's doves and team of sparrows:
+  Loses them too; then down he throws
+  The coral of his lip, the rose
+  Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);
+  With these the crystal of his brow,
+  And then the dimple of his chin.
+  All these did my Campaspe win.
+  At last he set her both his eyes;
+  She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
+  O Love, has she done this to thee?
+  What shall, alas! become of me?
+
+MUSIC AND POETRY. Another reason for the outburst of lyric poetry in
+Elizabethan times was that choral music began to be studied, and there was
+great demand for new songs. Then appeared a theory of the close relation
+between poetry and music, which was followed by the American poet Lanier
+more than two centuries later. [Footnote: Much of Lanier's verse seems more
+like a musical improvisation than like an ordinary poem. His theory that
+music and poetry are subject to the same laws is developed in his
+_Science of English Verse._ It is interesting to note that Lanier's
+ancestors were musical directors at the courts of Elizabeth and of James
+I.] This interesting theory is foreshadowed in several minor works of the
+period; for example, in Barnfield's sonnet "To R. L.," beginning:
+
+  If music and sweet poetry agree,
+  As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
+  Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
+  Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other.
+
+The stage caught up the new fashion, and hundreds of lyrics appeared in the
+Elizabethan drama, such as Dekker's "Content" (from the play of _Patient
+Grissell), which almost sets itself to music as we read it:
+
+  Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
+         O sweet content!
+  Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
+         O punishment!
+  Dost laugh to see how fools are vexed
+  To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
+    O sweet content, O sweet, O sweet content!
+
+  _Work apace, apace, apace, apace!
+  Honest labour bears a lovely face.
+  Then hey noney, noney; hey noney, noney!_
+
+  Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
+         O sweet content!
+  Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
+         O punishment!
+  Then he that patiently want's burden bears
+  No burden bears, but is a king, a king.
+    O sweet content, O sweet, O sweet content!
+
+So many lyric poets appeared during this period that we cannot here
+classify them; and it would be idle to list their names. The best place to
+make acquaintance with theo is not in a dry history of literature, but in
+such a pleasant little book as Palgrave's _Golden Treasury_, where
+their best work is accessible to every reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)
+
+Spenser was the second of the great English poets, and it is but natural to
+compare him with Chaucer, who was the first. In respect of time nearly two
+centuries separate these elder poets; in all other respects, in aims,
+ideals, methods, they are as far apart as two men of the same race can well
+be.
+
+    LIFE. Very little is known of Spenser; he appears in the light,
+    then vanishes into the shadow, like his Arthur of _The Faery
+    Queen_. We see him for a moment in the midst of rebellion in
+    Ireland, or engaged in the scramble for preferment among the
+    queen's favorites; he disappears, and from his obscurity comes a
+    poem that is like the distant ringing of a chapel bell, faintly
+    heard in the clatter of the city streets. We shall try here to
+    understand this poet by dissolving some of the mystery that
+    envelops him.
+
+    He was born in London, and spent his youth amid the political and
+    religious dissensions of the times of Mary and Elizabeth. For all
+    this turmoil Spenser had no stomach; he was a man of peace, of
+    books, of romantic dreams. He was of noble family, but poor; his
+    only talent was to write poetry, and as poetry would not buy much
+    bread in those days, his pride of birth was humbled in seeking the
+    patronage of nobles:
+
+      Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
+      What hell it is in suing long to bide: ...
+      To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
+      To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
+
+    To the liberality of a patron he owed his education at Cambridge.
+    It was then the heyday of Renaissance studies, and Spenser steeped
+    himself in Greek, Latin and Italian literatures. Everything that
+    was antique was then in favor at the universities; there was a
+    revival of interest in Old-English poetry, which accounts largely
+    for Spenser's use of obsolete words and his imitation of Chaucer's
+    spelling.
+
+    After graduation he spent some time in the north of England,
+    probably as a tutor, and had an unhappy love affair, which he
+    celebrated in his poems to Rosalind. Then he returned to London,
+    lived by favor in the houses of Sidney and Leicester, and through
+    these powerful patrons was appointed secretary to Lord Grey de
+    Wilton, the queen's deputy in Ireland.
+
+    [Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER]
+
+    [Sidenote: SPENSER'S EXILE]
+
+    From this time on our poet is represented as a melancholy Spenser's
+    "exile," but that is a poetic fiction. At that time Ireland, having
+    refused to follow the Reformation, was engaged in a desperate
+    struggle for civil and religious liberty. Every English army that
+    sailed to crush this rebellion was accompanied by a swarm of
+    parasites, each inspired by the hope of getting one of the rich
+    estates that were confiscated from Irish owners. Spenser seems to
+    have been one of these expectant adventurers who accompanied Lord
+    Grey in his campaign of brutality. To the horrors of that campaign
+    the poet was blind; [Footnote: The barbarism of Spenser's view, a
+    common one at that time, is reflected in his _View of the Present
+    State of Ireland._ Honorable warfare on land or sea was unknown
+    in Elizabeth's day. Scores of pirate ships of all nations were then
+    openly preying on commerce. Drake, Frobisher and many other
+    Elizabethan "heroes" were at times mere buccaneers who shared their
+    plunder with the queen. In putting down the Irish rebellion Lords
+    Grey and Essex used some of the same horrible methods employed by
+    the notorious Duke of Alva in the Netherlands.] his sympathies were
+    all for his patron Grey, who appears in The Faery Queen as Sir
+    Artegall, "the model of true justice."
+
+    For his services Spenser was awarded the castle of Kilcolman and
+    3000 acres of land, which had been taken from the Earl of Desmond.
+    In the same way Raleigh became an Irish landlord, with 40,000 acres
+    to his credit; and so these two famous Elizabethans were thrown
+    together in exile, as they termed it. Both longed to return to
+    England, to enjoy London society and the revenues of Irish land at
+    the same time, but unfortunately one condition of their immense
+    grants was that they should occupy the land and keep the rightful
+    owners from possessing it.
+
+    [Sidenote: WORK IN IRELAND]
+
+    In Ireland Spenser began to write his masterpiece _The Faery
+    Queen_. Raleigh, to whom the first three books were read, was so
+    impressed by the beauty of the work that he hurried the poet off to
+    London, and gained for him the royal favor. In the poem "Colin
+    Clout's Come Home Again" we may read Spenser's account of how the
+    court impressed him after his sojourn in Ireland.
+
+      [Illustration: RALEIGH'S BIRTHPLACE, BUDLEIGH SALTERTON.
+      Hayes, Devonshire]
+
+    The publication of the first parts of _The Faery Queen_ (1590)
+    raised Spenser to the foremost place in English letters. He was
+    made poet-laureate, and used every influence of patrons and of
+    literary success to the end that he be allowed to remain in London,
+    but the queen was flint-hearted, insisting that he must give up his
+    estate or occupy it. So he returned sorrowfully to "exile," and
+    wrote three more books of _The Faery Queen_. To his other
+    offices was added that of sheriff of County Cork, an adventurous
+    office for any man even in times of peace, and for a poet, in a
+    time of turmoil, an invitation to disaster. Presently another
+    rebellion broke out, Kilcolman castle was burned, and the poet's
+    family barely escaped with their lives. It was said by Ben Jonson
+    that one of Spenser's children and some parts of _The Faery
+    Queen_ perished in the fire, but the truth of the saying has not
+    been established.
+
+    Soon after this experience, which crushed the poet's spirit, he was
+    ordered on official business to London, and died on the journey in
+    1599. As he was buried beside Chaucer, in Westminster Abbey, poets
+    were seen casting memorial verses and the pens that had written
+    them into his tomb.
+
+    [Sidenote: CHARACTER]
+
+    In character Spenser was unfitted either for the intrigues among
+    Elizabeth's favorites or for the more desperate scenes amid which
+    his Lot was cast. Unlike his friend Raleigh, who was a man of
+    action, Spenser was essentially a dreamer, and except in Cambridge
+    he seems never to have felt at home. His criticism of the age as
+    barren and hopeless, and the melancholy of the greater part of his
+    work, indicate that for him, at least, the great Elizabethan times
+    were "out of joint." The world, which thinks of Spenser as a great
+    poet, has forgotten that he thought of himself as a disappointed
+    man.
+
+WORKS OF SPENSER. The poems of Spenser may be conveniently grouped in three
+classes. In the first are the pastorals of _The Shepherd's Calendar_,
+in which he reflects some of the poetical fashions of his age. In the
+second are the allegories of _The Faery Queen_, in which he pictures
+the state of England as a struggle between good and evil. In the third
+class are his occasional poems of friendship and love, such as the
+_Amoretti_. All his works are alike musical, and all remote from
+ordinary life, like the eerie music of a wind harp.
+
+[Sidenote: SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR]
+
+_The Shepherd's Calendar_ (1579) is famous as the poem which announced
+that a successor to Chaucer had at last appeared in England. It is an
+amateurish work in which Spenser tried various meters; and to analyze it is
+to discover two discordant elements, which we may call fashionable poetry
+and puritanic preaching. Let us understand these elements clearly, for
+apart from them the _Calendar_ is a meaningless work.
+
+It was a fashion among Italian poets to make eclogues or pastoral poems
+about shepherds, their dancing, piping, love-making,--everything except a
+shepherd's proper business. Spenser followed this artificial fashion in his
+_Calendar_ by making twelve pastorals, one for each month of the year.
+These all take the form of conversations, accompanied by music and dancing,
+and the personages are Cuddie, Diggon, Hobbinoll, and other fantastic
+shepherds. According to poetic custom these should sing only of love; but
+in Spenser's day religious controversy was rampant, and flattery might not
+be overlooked by a poet who aspired to royal favor. So while the January
+pastoral tells of the unhappy love of Colin Clout (Spenser) for Rosalind,
+the springtime of April calls for a song in praise of Elizabeth:
+
+  Lo, how finely the Graces can it foot
+    To the instrument!
+  They dancen deffly and singen soote,
+    In their merriment.
+  Wants not a fourth Grace to make the dance even?
+  Let that room to my Lady be yeven.
+    She shall be a Grace,
+    To fill the fourth place,
+  And reign with the rest in heaven.
+
+In May the shepherds are rival pastors of the Reformation, who end their
+sermons with an animal fable; in summer they discourse of Puritan theology;
+October brings them to contemplate the trials and disappointments of a
+poet, and the series ends with a parable comparing life to the four seasons
+of the year.
+
+The moralizing of _The Shepherd's Calendar_ and the uncouth spelling
+which Spenser affected detract from the interest of the poem; but one who
+has patience to read it finds on almost every page some fine poetic line,
+and occasionally a good song, like the following (from the August pastoral)
+in which two shepherds alternately supply the lines of a roundelay:
+
+  Sitting upon a hill so high,
+      Hey, ho, the high hill!
+  The while my flock did feed thereby,
+      The while the shepherd's self did spill,
+  I saw the bouncing Bellibone,
+      Hey, ho, Bonnibell!
+  Tripping over the dale alone;
+      She can trip it very well.
+  Well deckéd in a frock of gray,
+      Hey, ho, gray is greet!
+  And in a kirtle of green say;
+      The green is for maidens meet.
+  A chaplet on her head she wore,
+      Hey, ho, chapelet!
+  Of sweet violets therein was store,
+      She sweeter than the violet.
+
+THE FAERY QUEEN. Let us hear one of the stories of this celebrated poem,
+and after the tale is told we may discover Spenser's purpose in writing all
+the others.
+
+    [Sidenote: SIR GUYON]
+
+    From the court of Gloriana, Queen of Faery, the gallant Sir Guyon
+    sets out on adventure bent, and with him is a holy Palmer, or
+    pilgrim, to protect him from the evil that lurks by every wayside.
+    Hardly have the two entered the first wood when they fall into the
+    hands of the wicked Archimago, who spends his time in devising
+    spells or enchantments for the purpose of leading honest folk
+    astray.
+
+      For all he did was to deceive good knights,
+      And draw them from pursuit of praise and fame.
+
+    Escaping from the snare, Guyon hears a lamentation, and turns aside
+    to find a beautiful woman dying beside a dead knight. Her story is,
+    that her man has been led astray by the Lady Acrasia, who leads
+    many knights to her Bower of Bliss, and there makes them forget
+    honor and knightly duty. Guyon vows to right this wrong, and
+    proceeds on the adventure.
+
+    With the Palmer and a boatman he embarks in a skiff and crosses the
+    Gulf of Greediness, deadly whirlpools on one side, and on the other
+    the Magnet Mountain with wrecks of ships strewed about its foot.
+    Sighting the fair Wandering Isles, he attempts to land, attracted
+    here by a beautiful damsel, there by a woman in distress; but the
+    Palmer tells him that these seeming women are evil shadows placed
+    there to lead men astray. Next he meets the monsters of the deep,
+    "sea-shouldering whales," "scolopendras," "grisly wassermans,"
+    "mighty monoceroses with unmeasured tails." Escaping these, he
+    meets a greater peril in the mermaids, who sing to him alluringly:
+
+      This is port of rest from troublous toil,
+      The world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil.
+
+    Many other sea-dangers are passed before Guyon comes to land, where
+    he is immediately charged by a bellowing herd of savage beasts.
+    Only the power of the Palmer's holy staff saves the knight from
+    annihilation.
+
+    This is the last physical danger which Guyon encounters. As he goes
+    forward the country becomes an earthly paradise, where pleasures
+    call to him from every side. It is his soul, not his body, which is
+    now in peril. Here is the Palace of Pleasure, its wondrous gates
+    carved with images representing Jason's search for the Golden
+    Fleece. Beyond it are parks, gardens, fountains, and the beautiful
+    Lady Excess, who squeezes grapes into a golden cup and offers it to
+    Guyon as an invitation to linger. The scene grows ever more
+    entrancing as he rejects the cup of Excess and pushes onward:
+
+      Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound
+      Of all that mote delight a dainty ear,
+      Such as at once might not on living ground,
+      Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:
+      Right hard it was for wight which did it hear
+      To read what manner music that mote be;
+      For all that pleasing is to living ear
+      Was there consorted in one harmony;
+      Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree.
+
+    Amid such allurements Guyon comes at last to where beautiful
+    Acrasia lives, with knights who forget their knighthood. From the
+    open portal comes a melody, the voice of an unseen singer lifting
+    up the old song of Epicurus and of Omar:
+
+      Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.
+
+    The following scenes in the Bower of Bliss were plainly suggested
+    by the Palace of Circe, in the _Odyssey_; but where Homer is
+    direct, simple, forceful, Spenser revels in luxuriant details. He
+    charms all Guyon's senses with color, perfume, beauty, harmony;
+    then he remembers that he is writing a moral poem, and suddenly his
+    delighted knight turns reformer. He catches Acrasia in a net woven
+    by the Palmer, and proceeds to smash her exquisite abode with
+    puritanic thoroughness:
+
+      But all those pleasaunt bowers and palace brave
+      Guyon brake down with rigour pitilesse.
+
+    As they fare forth after the destruction, the herd of horrible
+    beasts is again encountered, and lo! all these creatures are men
+    whom Acrasia has transformed into brutal shapes. The Palmer
+    "strooks" them all with his holy staff, and they resume their human
+    semblance. Some are glad, others wroth at the change; and one named
+    Grylle, who had been a hog, reviles his rescuers for disturbing
+    him; which gives the Palmer a final chance to moralize:
+
+      Let Grylle be Grylle and have his hoggish mind;
+      But let us hence depart while weather serves and wind.
+
+[Sidenote: OTHER STORIES]
+
+Such is Spenser's story of Sir Guyon, or Temperance. It is a long story,
+drifting through eighty-seven stanzas, but it is only a final chapter or
+canto of the second book of _The Faery Queen_. Preceding it are eleven
+other cantos which serve as an introduction. So leisurely is Spenser in
+telling a tale! One canto deals with the wiles of Archimago and of the
+"false witch" Duessa; in another the varlet Braggadocchio steals Guyon's
+horse and impersonates a knight, until he is put to shame by the fair
+huntress Belphoebe, who is Queen Elizabeth in disguise. Now Elizabeth had a
+hawk face which was far from comely, but behold how it appeared to a poet:
+
+  Her face so fair, as flesh it seemëd not,
+  But heavenly portrait of bright angel's hue,
+  Clear as the sky, withouten blame or blot,
+  Through goodly mixture of complexions due;
+  And in her cheek the vermeil red did shew
+  Like roses in a bed of lilies shed,
+  The which ambrosial odours from them threw
+  And gazers' sense with double pleasure fed,
+  Able to heal the sick and to revive the dead.
+
+There are a dozen more stanzas devoted to her voice, her eyes, her hair,
+her more than mortal beauty. Other cantos of the same book are devoted to
+Guyon's temptations; to his victories over Furor and Mammon; to his rescue
+of the Lady Alma, besieged by a horde of villains in her fair Castle of
+Temperance. In this castle was an aged man, blind but forever doting over
+old records; and this gives Spenser the inspiration for another long canto
+devoted to the ancient kings of Britain. So all is fish that comes to this
+poet's net; but as one who is angling for trout is vexed by the nibbling of
+chubs, the reader grows weary of Spenser's story before his story really
+begins.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIRST BOOK]
+
+Other books of _The Faery Queen_ are so similar in character to the
+one just described that a canto from any one of them may be placed without
+change in any other. In the first book, for example, the Redcross Knight
+(Holiness) fares forth accompanied by the Lady Una (Religion). Straightway
+they meet the enchanter Archimago, who separates them by fraud and magic.
+The Redcross Knight, led to believe that his Una is false, comes, after
+many adventures, to Queen Lucifera in the House of Pride; meanwhile Una
+wanders alone amidst perils, and by her beauty subdues the lion and the
+satyrs of the wood. The rest of the book recounts their adventures with
+paynims, giants and monsters, with Error, Avarice, Falsehood and other
+allegorical figures.
+
+It is impossible to outline such a poem, for the simple reason that it has
+no outlines. It is a phantasmagoria of beautiful and grotesque shapes, of
+romance, morality and magic. Reading it is like watching cloud masses,
+aloft and remote, in which the imagination pictures men, monsters,
+landscapes, which change as we view them without cause or consequence.
+Though _The Faery Queen_ is overfilled with adventure, it has no
+action, as we ordinarily understand the term. Its continual motion is
+without force or direction, like the vague motions of a dream.
+
+[Sidenote: PLAN OF THE FAERY QUEEN]
+
+What, then, was Spenser's object in writing _The Faery Queen_? His
+professed object was to use poetry in the service of morality by portraying
+the political and religious affairs of England as emblematic of a worldwide
+conflict between good and evil. According to his philosophy (which, he
+tells us, he borrowed from Aristotle) there were twelve chief virtues, and
+he planned twelve books to celebrate them. [Footnote: Only six of these
+books are extant, treating of the Redcross Knight or Holiness, Sir Guyon or
+Temperance, Britomartis or Chastity, Cambel and Triamond or Friendship, Sir
+Artegall or Justice, and Sir Calidore or Courtesy. The rest of the
+allegory, if written, may have been destroyed in the fire of Kilcolman.] In
+each book a knight or a lady representing a single virtue goes forth into
+the world to conquer evil. In all the books Arthur, or Magnificence (the
+sum of all virtue), is apt to appear in any crisis; Lady Una represents
+religion; Archimago is another name for heresy, and Duessa for falsehood;
+and in order to give point to Spenser's allegory the courtiers and
+statesmen of the age are all flattered as glorious virtues or condemned as
+ugly vices.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ALLEGORY]
+
+Those who are fond of puzzles may delight in giving names and dates to
+these allegorical personages, in recognizing Elizabeth in Belphoebe or
+Britomart or Marcella, Sidney in the Redcross Knight, Leicester in Arthur,
+Raleigh in Timias, Mary Stuart in Duessa, and so on through the list of
+characters good or evil. The beginner will wisely ignore all such
+interpretation, and for two reasons: first, because Spenser's allegories
+are too shadowy to be taken seriously; and second, because as a chronicler
+of the times he is outrageously partisan and untrustworthy. In short, to
+search for any reality in _The Faery Queen_ is to spoil the poem as a
+work of the imagination. "If you do not meddle with the allegory," said
+Hazlitt, "the allegory will not meddle with you."
+
+MINOR POEMS. The minor poems of Spenser are more interesting, because more
+human, than the famous work which we have just considered. Prominent among
+these poems are the _Amoretti_, a collection of sonnets written in
+honor of the Irish girl Elizabeth, who became the poet's wife. They are
+artificial, to be sure, but no more so than other love poems of the period.
+In connection with a few of these sonnets may be read Spenser's four
+"Hymns" (in honor of Love, Beauty, Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty) and
+especially his "Epithalamium," a marriage hymn which Brooke calls, with
+pardonable enthusiasm, "the most glorious love song in the English
+language."
+
+A CRITICISM OF SPENSER. In reading _The Faery Queen_ one must note the
+contrast between Spenser's matter and his manner. His matter is: religion,
+chivalry, mythology, Italian romance, Arthurian legends, the struggles of
+Spain and England on the Continent, the Reformation, the turmoil of
+political parties, the appeal of the New World,--a summary of all stirring
+matters that interested his own tumultuous age. His manner is the reverse
+of what one might expect under the circumstances. He writes no stirring
+epic of victory or defeat, and never a downright word of a downright man,
+but a dreamy, shadowy narrative as soothing as the abode of Morpheus:
+
+  And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
+  A trickling stream from high rock tumbling downe,
+  And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft,
+  Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
+  Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
+  No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes,
+  As still are wont t' annoy the wallëd towne,
+  Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lyes
+  Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemyes.
+
+Such stanzas (and they abound in every book of _The Faery Queen_) are
+poems in themselves; but unfortunately they distract attention from the
+story, which soon loses all progression and becomes as the rocking of an
+idle boat on the swell of a placid sea. The invention of this melodious
+stanza, ever since called "Spenserian," was in itself a notable achievement
+which influenced all subsequent English poetry. [Footnote: The Spenserian
+was an improvement on the _ottava-rima_, or eight-line stanza, of the
+Italians. It has been used by Burns in "The Cotter's Saturday Night," by
+Shelley in "The Revolt of Islam," by Byron in "Childe Harold," by Keats in
+"The Eve of St. Agnes," and by many other poets.]
+
+[Sidenote: SPENSER'S FAULTS]
+
+As Spenser's faults cannot be ignored, let us be rid of them as quickly as
+possible. We record, then: the unreality of his great work; its lack of
+human interest, which causes most of us to drop the poem after a single
+canto; its affected antique spelling; its use of _fone_ (foes),
+_dan_ (master), _teene_ (trouble), _swink_ (labor), and of
+many more obsolete words; its frequent torturing of the king's English to
+make a rime; its utter lack of humor, appearing in such absurd lines as,
+
+  Astond he stood, and up his hair did hove.
+
+[Sidenote: MORAL IDEAL]
+
+Such defects are more than offset by Spenser's poetic virtues. We note,
+first, the moral purpose which allies him with the medieval poets in aim,
+but not in method. By most medieval romancers virtue was regarded as a
+means to an end, as in the _Morte d' Arthur_, where a knight made a
+vow of purity in order to obtain a sight of the Holy Grail. With Spenser
+virtue is not a means but an end, beautiful and desirable for its own sake;
+while sin is so pictured that men avoid it because of its intrinsic
+ugliness. This is the moral secret of _The Faery Queen_, in which
+virtues are personified as noble knights or winsome women, while the vices
+appear in the repulsive guise of hags, monsters and "loathy beasts."
+
+[Sidenote: SENSE OF BEAUTY]
+
+Spenser's sense of ideal beauty or, as Lanier expressed it, "the beauty of
+holiness and the holiness of beauty," is perhaps his greatest poetic
+quality. He is the poet-painter of the Renaissance; he fills his pages with
+descriptions of airy loveliness, as Italian artists covered the high
+ceilings of Venice with the reflected splendor of earth and heaven.
+Moreover, his sense of beauty found expression in such harmonious lines
+that one critic describes him as having set beautiful figures moving to
+exquisite music.
+
+In consequence of this beauty and melody, Spenser has been the inspiration
+of nearly all later English singers. Milton was one of the first to call
+him master, and then in a long succession such diverse poets as Dryden,
+Burns, Wordsworth, Scott, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Tennyson and Swinburne.
+The poet of "Faery" has influenced all these and more so deeply that he has
+won the distinctive title of "the poets' poet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE DRAMATISTS
+
+"Few events in our literary history are so startling as this sudden rise of
+the Elizabethan drama," says Green in his _History of the English
+People_, and his judgment is echoed by other writers who speak of the
+"marvelous efflorescence" of the English drama as a matter beyond
+explanation. Startling it may be, with its frank expression of a nation's
+life, the glory and the shame of it; but there is nothing sudden or
+inexplicable about it, as we may see by reviewing the history of
+playwriting in England.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS DRAMA. In its simplicity the drama is a familiar story retold
+to the eye by actors who "make believe" that they are the heroes of the
+action. In this elemental form the play is almost as old as humanity.
+Indeed, it seems to be a natural impulse of children to act a story which
+has given them pleasure; of primitive men also, who from time immemorial
+have kept alive the memory of tribal heroes by representing their deeds in
+play or pantomime. Thus, certain parts of _Hiawatha_ are survivals of
+dramatic myths that were once acted at the spring assembly of the Algonquin
+Indians. An interesting fact concerning these primitive dramas, whether in
+India or Greece or Persia, is that they were invariably associated with
+some religious belief or festival.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIRST MIRACLES]
+
+A later example of this is found in the Church, which at an early age began
+to make its holy-day services more impressive by means of Miracle plays and
+Mysteries. [Footnote: In France any play representing the life of a saint
+was called _miracle_, and a play dealing with the life of Christ was
+called _mystère_. In England no such distinction was made, the name
+"Miracle" being given to any drama dealing with Bible history or with the
+lives of the saints.] At Christmas time, for example, the beautiful story
+of Bethlehem would be made more vivid by placing in a corner of the parish
+church an image of a babe in a manger, with shepherds and the Magi at hand,
+and the choir in white garments chanting the _Gloria in excelsis_.
+Other festivals were celebrated in a similar way until a cycle of simple
+dramas had been prepared, clustering around four cardinal points of
+Christian teaching; namely, Creation, the Fall, Redemption, and Doomsday or
+the Last Judgment.
+
+[Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE MIRACLES]
+
+At first such plays were given in the church, and were deeply religious in
+spirit. They made a profound impression in England especially, where people
+flocked in such numbers to see them that presently they overflowed to the
+churchyard, and from there to the city squares or the town common. Once
+outside the church, they were taken up by the guilds or trades-unions, in
+whose hands they lost much of their religious character. Actors were
+trained for the stage rather than for the church, and to please the crowds
+elements of comedy and buffoonery were introduced, [Footnote: In the
+"Shepherd's Play" or "Play of the Nativity," for example, the adoration of
+the Magi is interrupted by Mak, who steals a sheep and carries it to his
+wife. She hides the carcass in a cradle, and sings a lullaby to it while
+the indignant shepherds are searching the house.] until the sacred drama
+degenerated into a farce. Here and there, however, a true Miracle survived
+and kept its character unspotted even to our own day, as in the famous
+Passion Play at Oberammergau.
+
+[Sidenote: CYCLES OF PLAYS]
+
+When and how these plays came to England is unknown. By the year 1300 they
+were extremely popular, and continued so until they were replaced by the
+Elizabethan drama. Most of the important towns of England had each its own
+cycle of plays [Footnote: At present only four good cycles of Miracles are
+known to exist; namely, the Chester, York, Townley (or Wakefield) and
+Coventry plays. The number of plays varies, from twenty-five in the Chester
+to forty-eight in the York cycle.] which were given once a year, the
+performance lasting from three to eight days in a prolonged festival. Every
+guild responsible for a play had its own stage, which was set on wheels and
+drawn about the town to appointed open places, where a crowd was waiting
+for it. When it passed on, to repeat the play to a different audience,
+another stage took its place. The play of "Creation" would be succeeded by
+the "Temptation of Adam and Eve," and so on until the whole cycle of
+Miracles from "Creation" to "Doomsday" had been performed. It was the play
+not the audience that moved, and in this trundling about of the stage van
+we are reminded of Thespis, the alleged founder of Greek tragedy, who went
+about with his cart and his play from one festival to another.
+
+[Sidenote: MORALITIES]
+
+Two other dramatic types, the Morality and the Interlude, probably grew out
+of the religious drama. In one of the old Miracles we find two characters
+named Truth and Righteousness, who are severe in their denunciation of
+Adam, while Mercy and Peace plead for his life. Other virtues appear in
+other Miracles, then Death and the Seven Deadly Sins, until we have a play
+in which all the characters are personified virtues or vices. Such a play
+was called a Morality, and it aimed to teach right conduct, as the Miracles
+had at first aimed to teach right doctrine.
+
+[Sidenote: INTERLUDES]
+
+The Interlude was at first a crude sketch, a kind of ancient side show,
+introduced into the Miracle plays after the latter had been taken up by the
+guilds. A boy with a trained pig, a quarrel between husband and wife,--any
+farce was welcome so long as it amused the crowd or enlivened the Miracle.
+In time, however, the writing of Interludes became a profession; they
+improved rapidly in character, were separated from the Miracles, and were
+performed at entertainments or "revels" by trade guilds, by choir boys and
+by companies of strolling actors or "minstrels." At the close of such
+entertainments the minstrels would add a prayer for the king (an
+inheritance from the religious drama), and this impressive English custom
+still survives in the singing of "God Save the King" at the end of a public
+assembly.
+
+THE SECULAR DRAMA. When the Normans came to England they brought with them
+a love of pageants, or spectacles, that was destined to have an important
+influence on the drama. These pageants, representing scenes from history or
+mythology (such as the bout between Richard and Saladin, or the combat
+between St. George and the Dragon), were staged to celebrate feasts, royal
+weddings, treaties or any other event that seemed of special importance.
+From Norman times they increased steadily in favor until Elizabeth began
+her "progresses" through England, when every castle or town must prepare a
+play or pageant to entertain the royal visitor.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MASQUE]
+
+From simple pantomime the pageant developed into a masque; that is, a
+dramatic entertainment accompanied by poetry and music. Hundreds of such
+masques were written and acted before Shakespeare's day; the taste for them
+survived long after the Elizabethan drama had decayed; and a few of them,
+such as _The Sad Shepherd_ of Ben Jonson and the _Comus_ of
+Milton, may still be read with pleasure.
+
+[Sidenote: POPULAR COMEDY]
+
+While the nobles were thus occupied with pageants and masques, the common
+people were developing a crude drama in which comedy predominated. Such
+were the Christmas plays or "mummings," introducing the characters of Merry
+Andrew and Old King Cole, which began in England before the Conquest, and
+which survived in country places down to our own times. [Footnote: In
+Hardy's novel _The Return of the Native_ may be found a description of
+these mummings (from "mum," a mask) in the nineteenth century. In Scott's
+novel _The Abbot_ we have a glimpse of other mummings, such as were
+given to celebrate feast days of the Church.] More widespread than the
+mummings were crude spectacles prepared in celebration of secular
+holidays,--the May Day plays, for example, which represented the adventures
+of Robin Hood and his merry men. To these popular comedies the Church
+contributed liberally, though unwillingly; its holy days became holidays to
+the crowd, and its solemn fasts were given over to merriment, to the
+_festa fatuorum_, or play of fools, in which such characters as Boy
+Bishop, Lord of Misrule and various clowns or jesters made a scandalous
+caricature of things ecclesiastical. Such plays, prepared largely by clerks
+and choir boys, were repeatedly denounced by priest or bishop, but they
+increased rapidly from the twelfth to the sixteenth century.
+
+[Sidenote: SPREAD OF THE DRAMA]
+
+By the latter date England seemed in danger of going spectacle-mad; and we
+may understand the symptoms if we remember that the play was then almost
+the only form of popular amusement; that it took the place of the modern
+newspaper, novel, political election and ball game, all combined. The trade
+guilds, having trained actors for the springtime Miracles, continued to
+give other plays throughout the year. The servants of a nobleman, having
+given a pageant to welcome the queen, went out through the country in
+search of money or adventure, and presented the same spectacle wherever
+they could find an audience. When the Renaissance came, reviving interest
+in the classics, Latin plays were taken up eagerly and presented in
+modified form by every important school or university in England. In this
+way our first regular comedy, _Ralph Royster Doyster_ (written by
+Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton, and acted by his schoolboys _cir_.
+1552), was adapted from an old Latin comedy, the _Miles Gloriosus_ of
+Plautus.
+
+[Sidenote: BOY ACTORS]
+
+The awakened interest in music had also its influences on the English
+drama. The choir boys of a church were frequently called upon to furnish
+music at a play, and from this it was but a step to furnish both the play
+and the music. So great was the demand to hear these boys that certain
+choir masters (those of St. Paul's and the Chapel Royal) obtained the right
+to take any poor boy with a good voice and train him, ostensibly for the
+service of the Church, but in reality to make a profitable actor out of
+him. This dangerous practice was stimulated by the fact that the feminine
+parts in all plays had to be taken by boys, the stage being then deemed an
+unfit place for a woman. And it certainly was. If a boy "took to his
+lines," his services were sold from one company to another, much as the
+popular ball player is now sold, but with this difference, that the poor
+boy had no voice or profit in the transaction. Some of these lads were
+cruelly treated; all were in danger of moral degradation. The abuse was
+finally suppressed by Parliament, but not until the choir-boy players were
+rivals of the regular companies, in which Shakespeare and Ben Jonson played
+their parts.
+
+CLASSICAL AND ENGLISH DRAMA. At the time of Shakespeare's birth two types
+of plays were represented in England. The classic drama, modeled upon Greek
+or Roman plays, was constructed according to the dramatic "unities," which
+Aristotle foreshadowed in his _Treatise on Poetry_. According to this
+authority, every play must be concerned with a "single, important and
+complete event"; in other words, it must have "unity of action." A second
+rule, relating to "unity of time," required that the events represented in
+a play must all occur within a single day. A third provided that the action
+should take place in the same locality, and this was known as the "unity of
+place." [Footnote: The Roman philosopher and dramatist Seneca (d. 65 A.D.)
+is supposed to have established this rule. The influence of Aristotle on
+the "unities" is a matter of dispute.] Other rules of classic drama
+required that tragedy and comedy should not occur in the same play, and
+that battles, murders and all such violent affairs should never be
+represented on the stage but be announced at the proper time by a
+messenger.
+
+[Sidenote: THE NATIVE DRAMA]
+
+The native plays ignored these classic unities. The public demanded
+chronicle plays, for example, in which the action must cover years of time,
+and jump from court to battlefield in following the hero. Tragedy and
+comedy, instead of being separated, were represented as meeting at every
+crossroad or entering the church door side by side. So the most solemn
+Miracles were scandalized by humorous Interludes, and into the most tragic
+of Shakespeare's scenes entered the fool and the jester. A Greek playwright
+might object to brutalizing scenes before a cultured audience, but the
+crowds who came to an Elizabethan play were of a temper to enjoy a Mohawk
+scalp dance. They were accustomed to violent scenes and sensations; they
+had witnessed the rack and gibbet in constant operation; they were familiar
+with the sight of human heads decorating the posts of London Bridge or
+carried about on the pikes of soldiers. After witnessing such horrors free
+of cost, they would follow their queen and pay their money to see a chained
+bear torn to pieces by ferocious bulldogs. Then they would go to a play,
+and throw stones or dead cats at the actors if their tastes were not
+gratified.
+
+To please such crowds no stage action could possibly be too rough; hence
+the riotousness of the early theaters, which for safety were placed outside
+the city limits; hence also the blood and thunder of Shakespeare's
+_Adronicus_ and the atrocities represented in the plays of Kyd and
+Marlowe.
+
+[Sidenote: THE TWO SCHOOLS]
+
+Following such different ideals, two schools of playwrights appeared in
+England. One school, the University Wits, to whom we owe our first real
+tragedy, _Gorboduc_, [Footnote: This play, called also _Ferrex and
+Porrex_, was written by Sackville and Norton, and played in 1562, only
+two years before Shakespeare's birth. It related how Gorboduc divided his
+British kingdom between his two sons, who quarreled and threw the whole
+country into rebellion--a story much like that used by Shakespeare in
+_King Lear_. The violent parts of this first tragedy were not
+represented on the stage but were announced by a messenger. At the end of
+each act a "chorus" summed up the situation, as in classic tragedy.
+_Gorboduc_ differed from all earlier plays in that it was divided into
+acts and scenes, and was written in blank verse. It is generally regarded
+as the first in time of the Elizabethan dramas. A few comedies divided into
+acts and scenes were written before _Gorboduc_, but not in the blank
+verse with which we associate an Elizabethan play.] aimed to make the
+English drama like that of Greece and Rome. The other, or native, school
+aimed at a play which should represent life, or please the crowd, without
+regard to any rules ancient or modern. The best Elizabethan drama was a
+combination of classic and native elements, with the latter predominating.
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S PREDECESSORS. In a general way, all unknown men who for three
+centuries had been producing miracle plays, moralities, interludes, masques
+and pageants were Shakespeare's predecessors; but we refer here to a small
+group of playwrights who rapidly developed what is now called the
+Elizabethan drama. The time was the last quarter of the sixteenth century.
+
+By that time England was as excited over the stage as a modern community
+over the "movies." Plays were given on every important occasion by choir
+boys, by noblemen's servants, by court players governed by the Master of
+Revels, by grammar schools and universities, by trade guilds in every shire
+of England. Actors were everywhere in training, and audiences gathered as
+to a bull-baiting whenever a new spectacle was presented. Then came the
+awakening of the national consciousness, the sense of English pride and
+power after the defeat of the Armada, and this new national spirit found
+expression in hundreds of chronicle plays representing the past glories of
+Britain. [Footnote: Over two hundred chronicle plays, representing almost
+every important character in English history, appeared within a few years.
+Shakespeare wrote thirteen plays founded on English history, and three on
+the history of other countries.]
+
+It was at this "psychological moment," when English patriotism was aroused
+and London was as the heart of England, that a group of young
+actors--Greene, Lyly, Peele, Dekker, Nash, Kyd, Marlowe, and others of less
+degree--seized upon the crude popular drama, enlarged it to meet the needs
+of the time, and within a single generation made it such a brilliant
+reflection of national thought and feeling as no other age has thus far
+produced.
+
+MARLOWE. The best of these early playwrights, each of whom contributed some
+element of value, was Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), who is sometimes
+called the father of the Elizabethan drama. He appeared in London sometime
+before 1587, when his first drama _Tamburlaine_ took the city by
+storm. The prologue of this drama is at once a criticism and a promise:
+
+  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 Tamburlaine
+  Threatening the world with high-astounding terms,
+  And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword.
+
+The "jigging" refers to the doggerel verse of the earlier drama, and
+"clownage" to the crude horseplay intended to amuse the crowd. For the
+doggerel is substituted blank verse, "Marlowe's mighty line" as it has ever
+since been called, since he was the first to use it with power; and for the
+"clownage" he promises a play of human interest revolving around a man
+whose sole ambition is for world power,--such ambition as stirred the
+English nation when it called halt to the encroachments of Spain, and
+announced that henceforth it must be reckoned with in the councils of the
+Continent. Though _Tamburlaine_ is largely rant and bombast, there is
+something in it which fascinates us like the sight of a wild bull on a
+rampage; for such was Timur, the hero of the first play to which we
+confidently give the name Elizabethan. In the latter part of the play the
+action grows more intense; there is a sense of tragedy, of impending doom,
+in the vain attempt of the hero to oppose fate. He can conquer a world but
+not his own griefs; he ends his triumphant career with a pathetic admission
+of failure: "And Tamburlaine, the Scourge of God, must die."
+
+[Sidenote: MARLOWE'S DRAMAS]
+
+The succeeding plays of Marlowe are all built on the same model; that is,
+they are one-man plays, and the man is dominated by a passion for power.
+_Doctor Faustus_, the most poetical of Marlowe's works, is a play
+representing a scholar who hungers for more knowledge, especially the
+knowledge of magic. In order to obtain it he makes a bargain with the
+devil, selling his soul for twenty-four years of unlimited power and
+pleasure. [Footnote: The story is the same as that of Goethe's
+_Faust_. It was a favorite story, or rather collection of stories, of
+the Middle Ages, and was first printed as the _History of Johann
+Faust_ in Frankfort, in 1587. Marlowe's play was written, probably, in
+the same year.] _The Jew of Malta_ deals with the lust for such power
+as wealth gives, and the hero is the money-lender Barabas, a monster of
+avarice and hate, who probably suggested to Shakespeare the character of
+Shylock in _The Merchant of Venice_. The last play written by Marlowe
+was _Edward II_, which dealt with a man who might have been powerful,
+since he was a king, but who furnished a terrible example of weakness and
+petty tyranny that ended miserably in a dungeon.
+
+After writing these four plays with their extraordinary promise, Marlowe,
+who led a wretched life, was stabbed in a tavern brawl. The splendid work
+which he only began (for he died under thirty years of age) was immediately
+taken up by the greatest of all dramatists, Shakespeare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)
+
+    "The name of Shakespeare is the greatest in all literature. No man
+    ever came near to him in the creative power of the mind; no man
+    ever had such strength and such variety of imagination." (Hallam)
+
+    "Shakespeare's mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do
+    not see." (Emerson)
+
+    "I do not believe that any book or person or event in my life ever
+    made so great an impression on me as the plays of Shakespeare. They
+    appear to be the work of some heavenly genius." (Goethe)
+
+Shakespeare's name has become a signal for enthusiasm. The tributes quoted
+above are doubtless extravagant, but they were written by men of mark in
+three different countries, and they serve to indicate the tremendous
+impression which Shakespeare has left upon the world. He wrote in his day
+some thirty-seven plays and a few poems; since then as many hundred volumes
+have been written in praise of his accomplishment. He died three centuries
+ago, without caring enough for his own work to print it. At the present
+time unnumbered critics, historians, scholars, are still explaining the
+mind and the art displayed in that same neglected work. Most of these
+eulogists begin or end their volumes with the remark that Shakespeare is so
+great as to be above praise or criticism. As Taine writes, before plunging
+into his own analysis, "Lofty words, eulogies are all used in vain;
+Shakespeare needs not praise but comprehension merely."
+
+    LIFE. It is probably because so very little is known about
+    Shakespeare that so many bulky biographies have been written of
+    him. Not a solitary letter of his is known to exist; not a play
+    comes down to us as he wrote it. A few documents written by other
+    men, and sometimes ending in a sprawling signature by Shakespeare,
+    which looks as if made by a hand accustomed to almost any labor
+    except that of the pen,--these are all we have to build upon. One
+    record, in dribbling Latin, relates to the christening of
+    "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere"; a second, unreliable as a
+    village gossip, tells an anecdote of the same person's boyhood; a
+    third refers to Shakespeare as "one of his Majesty's poor players";
+    a fourth records the burial of the poet's son Hamnet; a fifth
+    speaks of "Willi. Shakspere, gentleman"; a sixth is a bit of
+    wretched doggerel inscribed on the poet's tombstone; a seventh
+    tells us that in 1622, only six years after the poet's death, the
+    public had so little regard for his art that the council of his
+    native Stratford bribed his old company of players to go away from
+    the town without giving a performance.
+
+    It is from such dry and doubtful records that we must construct a
+    biography, supplementing the meager facts by liberal use of our
+    imagination.
+
+    [Sidenote: EARLY DAYS]
+
+    In the beautiful Warwickshire village of Stratford our poet was
+    born, probably in the month of April, in 1564. His mother, Mary
+    Arden, was a farmer's daughter; his father was a butcher and small
+    tradesman, who at one time held the office of high bailiff of the
+    village. There was a small grammar school in Stratford, and
+    Shakespeare may have attended it for a few years. When he was about
+    fourteen years old his father, who was often in lawsuits, was
+    imprisoned for debt, and the boy probably left school and went to
+    work. At eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, a peasant's daughter
+    eight years older than himself; at twenty-three, with his father
+    still in debt and his own family of three children to provide for,
+    Shakespeare took the footpath that led to the world beyond his
+    native village. [Footnote: Such is the prevalent opinion of
+    Shakespeare's early days; but we are dealing here with surmises,
+    not with established facts. There are scholars who allege that
+    Shakespeare's poverty is a myth; that his father was prosperous to
+    the end of his days; that he probably took the full course in Latin
+    and Greek at the Stratford school. Almost everything connected with
+    the poet's youth is still a matter of dispute.]
+
+    [Sidenote: IN LONDON]
+
+    From Stratford he went to London, from solitude to crowds, from
+    beautiful rural scenes to dirty streets, from natural country
+    people to seekers after the bubble of fame or fortune. Why he went
+    is largely a matter of speculation. That he was looking for work;
+    that he followed a company of actors, as a boy follows a circus;
+    that he was driven out of Stratford after poaching on the game
+    preserves of Sir Thomas Lucy, whom he ridiculed in the plays of
+    _Henry VI_ and _Merry Wives_,--these and other theories
+    are still debated. The most probable explanation of his departure
+    is that the stage lured him away, as the printing press called the
+    young Franklin from whatever else he undertook; for he seems to
+    have headed straight for the theater, and to have found his place
+    not by chance or calculation but by unerring instinct. England was
+    then, as we have noted, in danger of going stage mad, and
+    Shakespeare appeared to put method into the madness.
+
+    [Sidenote: ACTOR AND PLAYWRIGHT]
+
+    Beginning, undoubtedly, as an actor of small parts, he soon learned
+    the tricks of the stage and the humors of his audience. His first
+    dramatic work was to revise old plays, giving them some new twist
+    or setting to please the fickle public. Then he worked with other
+    playwrights, with Lyly and Peele perhaps, and the horrors of his
+    _Titus Andronicus_ are sufficient evidence of his
+    collaboration with Marlowe. Finally he walked alone, having learned
+    his steps, and _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Midsummer Nights
+    Dream_ announced that a great poet and dramatist had suddenly
+    appeared in England.
+
+    [Illustration: THE LIBRARY, STRATFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL ATTENDED BY
+    SHAKESPEARE]
+
+    [Sidenote: PERIOD OF GLOOM]
+
+    This experimental period of Shakespeare's life in London was
+    apparently a time of health, of joyousness, of enthusiasm which
+    comes with the successful use of one's powers. It was followed by a
+    period of gloom and sorrow, to which something of bitterness was
+    added. What occasioned the change is again a matter of speculation.
+    The first conjecture is that Shakespeare was a man to whom the low
+    ideals of the Elizabethan stage were intolerable, and this opinion
+    is strengthened after reading certain of Shakespeare's sonnets,
+    which reflect a loathing for the theaters and the mannerless crowds
+    that filled them. Another conjectural cause of his gloom was the
+    fate of certain noblemen with whom he was apparently on terms of
+    friendship, to whom he dedicated his poems, and from whom he
+    received substantial gifts of money. Of these powerful friends, the
+    Earl of Essex was beheaded for treason, Pembroke was banished, and
+    Southampton had gone to that grave of so many high hopes, the Tower
+    of London. Shakespeare may have shared the sorrow of these men, as
+    once he had shared their joy, and there are critics who assume that
+    he was personally implicated in the crazy attempt of Essex at
+    rebellion.
+
+    Whatever the cause of his grief, Shakespeare shows in his works
+    that he no longer looks on the world with the clear eyes of youth.
+    The great tragedies of this period, _Lear_, _Macbeth_,
+    _Hamlet_, _Othello_ and _Cæsar_, all portray man not
+    as a being of purpose and high destiny, but as the sport of chance,
+    the helpless victim who cries out, as in _Henry IV_, for a
+    sight of the Book of Fate, wherein is shown
+
+                           how chances mock,
+      And changes fill the cup of alteration
+      With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
+      The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
+      What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
+      Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
+
+    [Sidenote: RETURN TO STRATFORD]
+
+    For such a terrible mood London offered no remedy. For a time
+    Shakespeare seems to have gloried in the city; then he wearied of
+    it, grew disgusted with the stage, and finally, after some
+    twenty-four years (_cir_. 1587-1611), sold his interest in the
+    theaters, shook the dust of London from his feet, and followed his
+    heart back to Stratford. There he adopted the ways of a country
+    gentleman, and there peace and serenity returned to him. He wrote
+    comparatively little after his retirement; but the few plays of
+    this last period, such as _Cymbeline_, _Winter's Tale_
+    and _The Tempest_, are the mellowest of all his works.
+
+    [Sidenote: SHAKESPEARE THE MAN]
+
+    After a brief period of leisure, Shakespeare died at his prime in
+    1616, and was buried in the parish church of Stratford. Of his
+    great works, now the admiration of the world, he thought so little
+    that he never collected or printed them. From these works many
+    attempts are made to determine the poet's character, beliefs,
+    philosophy,--a difficult matter, since the works portray many types
+    of character and philosophy equally well. The testimony of a few
+    contemporaries is more to the point, and from these we hear that
+    our poet was "very good company," "of such civil demeanor," "of
+    such happy industry," "of such excellent fancy and brave notions,"
+    that he won in a somewhat brutal age the characteristic title of
+    "the gentle Shakespeare."
+
+THE DRAMAS OF SHAKESPEARE. In Shakespeare's day playwrights were producing
+various types of drama: the chronicle play, representing the glories of
+English history; the domestic drama, portraying homely scenes and common
+people; the court comedy (called also Lylian comedy, after the dramatist
+who developed it), abounding in wit and repartee for the delight of the
+upper classes; the melodrama, made up of sensational elements thrown
+together without much plot; the tragedy of blood, centering in one
+character who struggles amidst woes and horrors; romantic comedy and
+romantic tragedy, in which men and women were more or less idealized, and
+in which the elements of love, poetry, romance, youthful imagination and
+enthusiasm predominated.
+
+[Illustration: ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE]
+
+It is interesting to note that Shakespeare essayed all these types--the
+chronicle play in _Henry IV_, the domestic drama in _Merry
+Wives_, the court comedy in _Loves Labor's Lost_, the melodrama in
+_Richard III_, the tragedy of blood in _King Lear_, romantic
+tragedy in _Romeo and Juliet_, romantic comedy in _As You Like
+It_--and that in each he showed such a mastery as to raise him far above
+all his contemporaries.
+
+[Sidenote: EARLY DRAMAS]
+
+In his experimental period of work (_cir_. 1590-1595) Shakespeare
+began by revising old plays in conjunction with other actors. _Henry
+VI_ is supposed to be an example of such tinkering work. The first part
+of this play (performed by Shakespeare's company in 1592) was in all
+probability an older work made over by Shakespeare and some unknown
+dramatist. From the fact that Joan of Arc appears in the play in two
+entirely different characters, and is even made to do battle at Rouen
+several years after her death, it is almost certain that _Henry VI_ in
+its present form was composed at different times and by different authors.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAIN ROOM, ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE]
+
+_Love's Labor's Lost_ is an example of the poet's first independent
+work. In this play such characters as Holofernes the schoolmaster, Costard
+the clown and Adriano the fantastic Spaniard are all plainly of the "stock"
+variety; various rimes and meters are used experimentally; blank verse is
+not mastered; and some of the songs, such as "On a Day," are more or less
+artificial. Other plays of this early experimental period are _Two
+Gentlemen of Verona_ and _Richard III_, the latter of which shows
+the influence and, possibly, the collaboration of Marlowe.
+
+[Sidenote: SECOND PERIOD]
+
+In the second period (_cir_. 1595-1600) Shakespeare constructed his
+plots with better skill, showed a greater mastery of blank verse, created
+some original characters, and especially did he give free rein to his
+romantic imagination. All doubt and experiment vanished in the confident
+enthusiasm of this period, as if Shakespeare felt within himself the coming
+of the sunrise in _Romeo and Juliet_:
+
+  Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
+  Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
+
+Though some of his later plays are more carefully finished, in none of them
+are we so completely under the sway of poetry and romance as in these early
+works, written when Shakespeare first felt the thrill of mastery in his
+art.
+
+In _Midsummer Nights Dream_, for example, the practical affairs of
+life seem to smother its poetic dreams; but note how the dream abides with
+us after the play is over. The spell of the enchanted forest is broken when
+the crowd invades its solitude; the witchery of moonlight fades into the
+light of common day; and then comes Theseus with his dogs to drive not the
+foxes but the fairies out of the landscape. As Chesterton points out, this
+masterful man, who has seen no fairies, proceeds to arrange matters in a
+practical way, with a wedding, a feast and a pantomime, as if these were
+the chief things of life. So, he thinks, the drama is ended; but after he
+and his noisy followers have departed to slumber, lo! enter once more Puck,
+Oberon, Titania and the whole train of fairies, to repeople the ancient
+world and dance to the music of Mendelssohn:
+
+  Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
+  While we sing, and bless this place.
+
+So in _The Merchant of Venice_ with its tragic figure of Shylock, who
+is hurried off the stage to make place for a final scene of love, moonlight
+and music; so in every other play of this period, the poetic dream of life
+triumphs over its practical realities.
+
+[Sidenote: THIRD PERIOD]
+
+During the third period, of maturity of power (_cir._ 1600-1610),
+Shakespeare was overshadowed by some personal grief or disappointment. He
+wrote his "farewell to mirth" in _Twelfth Night_, and seems to have
+reflected his own perturbed state in the lines which he attributes to
+Achilles in _Troilus and Cressida_:
+
+  My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd,
+  And I myself see not the bottom of it.
+
+His great tragedies belong to this period, tragedies which reveal increased
+dramatic power in Shakespeare, but also his loss of hope, his horrible
+conviction that man is not a free being but a puppet blown about by every
+wind of fate or circumstance. In _Hamlet_ great purposes wait upon a
+feeble will, and the strongest purpose may be either wrecked or consummated
+by a trifle. The whole conception of humanity in this play suggests a
+clock, of which, if but one small wheel is touched, all the rest are thrown
+into confusion. In _Macbeth_ a man of courage and vaulting ambition
+turns coward or traitor at the appearance of a ghost, at the gibber of
+witches, at the whisper of conscience, at the taunts of his wife. In
+_King Lear_ a monarch of high disposition drags himself and others
+down to destruction, not at the stern command of fate, but at the mere
+suggestion of foolishness. In _Othello_ love, faith, duty, the
+fidelity of a brave man, the loyalty of a pure woman,--all are blasted,
+wrecked, dishonored by a mere breath of suspicion blown by a villain.
+
+[Sidenote: LAST DRAMAS]
+
+In his final period, of leisurely experiment (_cir._ 1610-1616),
+Shakespeare seems to have recovered in Stratford the cheerfulness that he
+had lost in London. He did little work during this period, but that little
+is of rare charm and sweetness. He no longer portrayed human life as a
+comedy of errors or a tragedy of weakness but as a glowing romance, as if
+the mellow autumn of his own life had tinged all the world with its own
+golden hues. With the exception of _As You Like It_ (written in the
+second period), in which brotherhood is pictured as the end of life, and
+love as its unfailing guide, it is doubtful if any of the earlier plays
+leaves such a wholesome impression as _The Winter's Tale_ or _The
+Tempest_, which were probably the last of the poet's works.
+
+Following is a list of Shakespeare's thirty-four plays (or thirty-seven,
+counting the different parts of _Henry IV_ and _Henry VI_)
+arranged according to the periods in which they were probably written. The
+dates are approximate, not exact, and the chronological order is open to
+question:
+
+FIRST PERIOD, EARLY EXPERIMENT (1590-1595). _Titus Andronicus_,
+_Henry VI_, _Love's Labor's Lost_, _Comedy of Errors_,
+_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _Richard III_, _Richard II_,
+_King John._
+
+SECOND PERIOD, DEVELOPMENT (1595-1600). _Romeo and Juliet_,
+_Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Merchant of Venice_, _Henry IV_,
+_Henry V_, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, _Much Ado About
+Nothing_, _As You Like It._
+
+THIRD PERIOD, MATURITY AND TROUBLE (1600-1610). _Twelfth Night_,
+_Taming of the Shrew_, _Julius Caesar_, _Hamlet_, _Troilus
+and Cressida_, _All's Well that Ends Well_, _Measure for
+Measure_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_, _Antony
+and Cleopatra_, _Timon of Athens._
+
+FOURTH PERIOD, LATER EXPERIMENT (1610-1616). _Coriolanus_,
+_Pericles_, _Cymbeline_, _The Winter's Tale_, _The
+Tempest_, _Henry VIII_ (left unfinished, completed probably by
+Fletcher).
+
+[Sidenote: TRAGEDY AND COMEDY]
+
+The most convenient arrangement of these plays appears in the First Folio
+(1623) [Footnote: This was the first edition of Shakespeare's plays. It was
+prepared seven years after the poet's death by two of his fellow actors,
+Heminge and Condell. It contained all the plays now attributed to
+Shakespeare with the exception of _Pericles_.] where they are grouped
+in three classes called tragedies, comedies and historical plays. The
+tragedy is a drama in which the characters are the victims of unhappy
+passions, or are involved in desperate circumstances. The style is grave
+and dignified, the movement stately; the ending is disastrous to
+individuals, but illustrates the triumph of a moral principle. These rules
+of true tragedy are repeatedly set aside by Shakespeare, who introduces
+elements of buffoonery, and who contrives an ending that may stand for the
+triumph of a principle but that is quite likely to be the result of
+accident or madness. His best tragedies are _Macbeth_, _Romeo and
+Juliet_, _Hamlet_, _King Lear_ and _Othello_.
+
+Comedy is a type of drama in which the elements of fun and humor
+predominate. The style is gay; the action abounds in unexpected incidents;
+the ending brings ridicule or punishment to the villains in the plot, and
+satisfaction to all worthy characters. Among the best of Shakespeare's
+comedies, in which he is apt to introduce serious or tragic elements, are
+_As You Like It_, _Merchant of Venice_, _Midsummer Night's
+Dream_, _The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_.
+
+[Illustration: CAWDOR CASTLE, SCOTLAND, ASSOCIATED WITH MACBETH]
+
+Strictly speaking there are only two dramatic types, all others, such as
+farce, melodrama, tragi-comedy, lyric drama, or opera, and chronicle play,
+being modifications of comedy or tragedy. The historical play, to which
+Elizabethans were devoted, aimed to present great scenes or characters from
+a past age, and were generally made up of both tragic and comic elements.
+The best of Shakespeare's historical plays are _Julius Cæsar_,
+_Henry IV_, _Henry V_, _Richard III_ and _Coriolanus_.
+
+[Sidenote: WHAT TO READ]
+
+There is no better way to feel the power of Shakespeare than to read in
+succession three different types of plays, such as the comedy of _As You
+Like It_, the tragedy of _Macbeth_ and the historical play of
+_Julius Cæsar_. Another excellent trio is _The Merchant of
+Venice_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Henry IV_; and the reading of
+these typical plays might well be concluded with _The Tempest_, which
+was probably Shakespeare's last word to his Elizabethan audience.
+
+THE QUALITY OF SHAKESPEARE. As the thousand details of a Gothic cathedral
+receive character and meaning from its towering spire, so all the works of
+Shakespeare are dominated by his imagination. That imagination of his was
+both sympathetic and creative. It was sympathetic in that it understood
+without conscious effort all kinds of men, from clowns to kings, and all
+human emotions that lie between the extremes of joy and sorrow; it was
+creative in that, from any given emotion or motive, it could form a human
+character who should be completely governed by that motive. Ambition in
+Macbeth, pride in Coriolanus, wit in Mercutio, broad humor in Falstaff,
+indecision in Hamlet, pure fancy in Ariel, brutality in Richard, a
+passionate love in Juliet, a merry love in Rosalind, an ideal love in
+Perdita,--such characters reveal Shakespeare's power to create living men
+and women from a single motive or emotion.
+
+Or take a single play, _Othello_, and disregarding all minor
+characters, fix attention on the pure devotion of Desdemona, the jealousy
+of Othello, the villainy of Iago. The genius that in a single hour can make
+us understand these contrasting characters as if we had met them in the
+flesh, and make our hearts ache as we enter into their joy, their anguish,
+their dishonor, is beyond all ordinary standards of measurement. And
+_Othello_ must be multiplied many times before we reach the limit of
+Shakespeare's creative imagination. He is like the genii of the _Arabian
+Nights_, who produce new marvels while we wonder at the old.
+
+Such an overpowering imagination must have created wildly, fancifully, had
+it not been guided by other qualities: by an observation almost as keen as
+that of Chaucer, and by the saving grace of humor. We need only mention the
+latter qualities, for if the reader will examine any great play of
+Shakespeare, he will surely find them in evidence: the observation keeping
+the characters of the poet's imagination true to the world of men and
+women, and the humor preventing some scene of terror or despair from
+overwhelming us by its terrible reality.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS FAULTS]
+
+In view of these and other qualities it has become almost a fashion to
+speak of the "perfection" of Shakespeare's art; but in truth no word could
+be more out of place in such a connection. As Ben Jonson wrote in his
+_Timber_:
+
+    "I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to
+    Shakespeare that in his writing, whatever he penned, he never
+    blotted out a line. My answer hath been, 'Would he had blotted a
+    thousand.'"
+
+Even in his best work Shakespeare has more faults than any other poet of
+England. He is in turn careless, extravagant, profuse, tedious,
+sensational; his wit grows stale or coarse; his patriotism turns to
+bombast; he mars even such pathetic scenes as the burial of Ophelia by
+buffoonery and brawling; and all to please a public that was given to
+bull-baiting.
+
+These certainly are imperfections; yet the astonishing thing is that they
+pass almost unnoticed in Shakespeare. He reflected his age, the evil and
+the good of it, just as it appeared to him; and the splendor of his
+representation is such that even his faults have their proper place, like
+shadows in a sunlit landscape.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS VIEW OF LIFE]
+
+Of Shakespeare's philosophy we may say that it reflected equally well the
+views of his hearers and of the hundred characters whom he created for
+their pleasure. Of his personal views it is impossible to say more than
+this, with truth: that he seems to have been in full sympathy with the
+older writers whose stories he used as the sources of his drama. [Footnote:
+The chief sources of Shakespeare's plays are: (1) Older plays, from which
+he made half of his dramas, such as _Richard III_, _Hamlet_,
+_King John_. (2) Holinshed's _Chronicles_, from which he obtained
+material for his English historical plays. (3) Plutarch's _Lives_,
+translated by North, which furnished him material for _Caesar_,
+_Coriolanus_, _Antony and Cleopatra_. (4) French, Italian and
+Spanish romances, in translations, from which he obtained the stories of
+_The Merchant of Venice_, _Othello_, _Twelfth Night_ and
+_As You Like It_.] Now these stories commonly reflected three things
+besides the main narrative: a problem, its solution, and the consequent
+moral or lesson. The problem was a form of evil; its solution depended on
+goodness in some form; the moral was that goodness triumphs finally and
+inevitably over evil.
+
+Many such stories were cherished by the Elizabethans, the old tale of
+"Gammelyn" for example (from which came _As You Like It_); and just as
+in our own day popular novels are dramatized, so three centuries ago
+audiences demanded to see familiar stories in vigorous action. That is why
+Shakespeare held to the old tales, and pleased his audience, instead of
+inventing new plots. But however much he changed the characters or the
+action of the story, he remained always true to the old moral:
+
+  That goodness is the rule of life,
+  And its glory and its triumph.
+
+Shakespeare's women are his finest characters, and he often portrays the
+love of a noble woman as triumphing over the sin or weakness of men. He has
+little regard for abnormal or degenerate types, such as appear in the later
+Elizabethan drama; he prefers vigorous men and pure women, precisely as the
+old story-tellers did; and if Richard or some other villain overruns his
+stage for an hour, such men are finally overwhelmed by the very evil which
+they had planned for others. If they drag the innocent down to a common
+destruction, these pure characters never seem to us to perish; they live
+forever in our thought as the true emblems of humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: MORAL EMPHASIS]
+
+It was Charles Lamb who referred to a copy of Shakespeare's plays as "this
+manly book." The expression is a good one, and epitomizes the judgment of a
+world which has found that, though Shakespeare introduces evil or vulgar
+elements into his plays, his emphasis is always upon the right man and the
+right action. This may seem a trite thing to say in praise of a great
+genius; but when you reflect that Shakespeare is read throughout the
+civilized world, the simple fact that the splendor of his poetry is
+balanced by the rightness of his message becomes significant and
+impressive. It speaks not only for Shakespeare but for the moral quality of
+the multitudes who acknowledge his mastery. Wherever his plays are read, on
+land or sea, in the crowded cities of men or the far silent places of the
+earth, there the solitary man finds himself face to face with the
+unchanging ideals of his race, with honor, duty, courtesy, and the moral
+imperative,
+
+  This above all: to thine own self be true,
+  And it must follow, as the night the day,
+  Thou canst not then be false to any man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AFTER SHAKESPEARE
+
+The drama began to decline during Shakespeare's lifetime. Even before his
+retirement to Stratford other popular dramatists appeared who catered to a
+vulgar taste by introducing more sensational elements into the stage
+spectacle. In consequence the drama degenerated so rapidly that in 1642,
+only twenty-six years after the master dramatist had passed away,
+Parliament closed the theaters as evil and degrading places. This closing
+is charged to the zeal of the Puritans, who were rapidly rising into power,
+and the charge is probably well founded. So also was the Puritan zeal. One
+who was compelled to read the plays of the period, to say nothing of
+witnessing them, must thank these stern old Roundheads for their insistence
+on public decency and morality. In the drama of all ages there seems to be
+a terrible fatality which turns the stage first to levity, then to
+wickedness, and which sooner or later calls for reformation.
+
+[Illustration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT]
+
+Among those who played their parts in the rise and fall of the drama, the
+chief names are Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Middleton, Webster, Heywood,
+Dekker, Massinger, Ford and Shirley. Concerning the work of these
+dramatists there is wide diversity of opinion. Lamb regards them, Beaumont
+and Fletcher especially, as "an inferior sort of Sidneys and Shakespeares."
+Landor writes of them poetically:
+
+                              They stood around
+  The throne of Shakespeare, sturdy but unclean.
+
+Lowell finds some small things to praise in a large collection of their
+plays. Hazlitt regards them as "a race of giants, a common and noble brood,
+of whom Shakespeare was simply the tallest." Dyce, who had an extraordinary
+knowledge of all these dramatists, regards such praise as absurd, saying
+that "Shakespeare is not only immeasurably superior to the dramatists of
+his time, but is utterly unlike them in almost every respect."
+
+[Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER
+From the engraving by Philip Oudinet published 1811]
+
+We shall not attempt to decide where such doctors disagree. It may not be
+amiss, however, to record this personal opinion: that these playwrights
+added little to the drama and still less to literature, and that it is
+hardly worth while to search out their good passages amid a welter of
+repulsive details. If they are to be read at all, the student will find
+enough of their work for comparison with the Shakespearean drama in a book
+of selections, such as Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poetry_
+or Thayer's _The Best Elizabethan Plays_.
+
+BEN JONSON (1573?-1637). The greatest figure among these dramatists was
+Jonson,--"O rare Ben Jonson" as his epitaph describes him, "O rough Ben
+Jonson" as he was known to the playwrights with whom he waged literary
+warfare. His first notable play, _Every Man in His Humour_, satirizing
+the fads or humors of London, was acted by Shakespeare's company, and
+Shakespeare played one of the parts. Then Jonson fell out with his fellow
+actors, and wrote _The Poetaster_ (acted by a rival company) to
+ridicule them and their work. Shakespeare was silent, but the cudgels were
+taken up by Marston and Dekker, the latter of whom wrote, among other and
+better plays, _Satiromastix_, which was played by Shakespeare's
+company as a counter attack on Jonson.
+
+[Illustration: BEN JONSON]
+
+The value of Jonson's plays is that they give us vivid pictures of
+Elizabethan society, its speech, fashions, amusements, such as no other
+dramatist has drawn. Shakespeare pictures men and women as they might be in
+any age; but Jonson is content to picture the men and women of London as
+they appeared superficially in the year 1600. His chief comedies, which
+satirize the shams of his age, are: _Volpone, or the Fox_, a merciless
+exposure of greed and avarice; _The Alchemist_, a study of quackery as
+it was practiced in Elizabethan days; _Bartholomew Fair_, a riot of
+folly; and _Epicoene, or the Silent Woman_, which would now be called
+a roaring farce. His chief tragedies are _Sejanus_ and
+_Catiline_.
+
+In later life Jonson was appointed poet laureate, and wrote many masques,
+such as the _Masque of Beauty_ and the unfinished _Sad Shepherd_.
+These and a few lyrics, such as the "Triumph of Charis" and the song
+beginning, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," are the pleasantest of
+Jonson's works. At the end he abandoned the drama, as Shakespeare had done,
+and lashed it as severely as any Puritan in the ode beginning, "Come leave
+the loathëd stage."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PROSE WRITERS
+
+Unless one have antiquarian tastes, there is little in Elizabethan prose to
+reward the reader. Strange to say, the most tedious part of it was written
+by literary men in what was supposed to be a very fine style; while the
+small part that still attracts us (such as Bacon's _Essays_ or
+Hakluyt's _Voyages_) was mostly written by practical men with no
+thought for literary effect.
+
+This curious result came about in the following way. In the sixteenth
+century poetry was old, but English prose was new; for in the two centuries
+that had elapsed since Mandeville wrote his _Travels_, Malory's
+_Morte d' Arthur_ (1475) and Ascham's _Scholemaster_ (1563) are
+about the only two books that can be said to have a prose style. Then, just
+as the Elizabethans were turning to literature, John Lyly appeared with his
+_Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit_ (1578), an alleged novel made up of
+rambling conversations upon love, education, fashion,--everything that came
+into the author's head. The style was involved, artificial, tortured; it
+was loaded with conceits, antitheses and decorations:
+
+    "I perceive, Camilla, that be your cloth never so bad it will take
+    some colour, and your cause never so false it will bear some show
+    of probability; wherein you manifest the right nature of a woman,
+    who, having no way to win, thinketh to overcome with words.... Take
+    heed, Camilla, that seeking all the wood for a straight stick you
+    choose not at the last a crooked staff, or prescribing a good
+    counsel to others thou thyself follow the worst much like to Chius,
+    who selling the best wine to others drank himself of the lees."
+
+[Sidenote: THE FAD OF EUPHUISM]
+
+This "high fantastical" style, ever since called euphuistic, created a
+sensation. The age was given over to extravagance and the artificial
+elegance of _Euphues_ seemed to match the other fashions. Just as
+Elizabethan men and women began to wear grotesque ruffs about their necks
+as soon as they learned the art of starching from the Dutch, so now they
+began to decorate their writing with the conceits of Lyly. [Footnote: Lyly
+did not invent the fashion; he carried to an extreme a tendency towards
+artificial writing which was prevalent in England and on the Continent. As
+is often the case, it was the extreme of fashion that became fashionable.]
+Only a year after _Euphues_ appeared, Spenser published _The
+Shepherd's Calendar_, and his prose notes show how quickly the style,
+like a bad habit, had taken possession of the literary world. Shakespeare
+ridicules the fashion in the character of Holofernes, in _Love's Labor's
+Lost_, yet he follows it as slavishly as the rest. He could write good
+prose when he would, as is shown by a part of Hamlet's speech; but as a
+rule he makes his characters speak as if the art of prose were like walking
+a tight rope, which must be done with a balancing pole and some
+contortions. The scholars who produced the translation of the Scriptures
+known as the Authorized Version could certainly write well; yet if you
+examine their Dedication, in which, uninfluenced by the noble sincerity of
+the Bible's style, they were free to follow the fashion, you may find there
+the two faults of Elizabethan prose; namely, the habit of servile flattery
+and the sham of euphuism.
+
+Among prose writers of the period the name that appears most frequently is
+that of Philip Sidney (1554-1586). He wrote one of our first critical
+essays, _An Apologie for Poetrie_ (cir. 1581), the spirit of which may
+be judged from the following:
+
+    "Nowe therein of all sciences ... is our poet the monarch. For he
+    dooth not only show the way but giveth so sweete a prospect into
+    the way as will intice any man to enter into it. Nay, he dooth, as
+    if your journey should be through a faire vineyard, at the first
+    give you a  cluster of grapes, that, full of that taste, you may
+    long to passe further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions,
+    which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the
+    memory with doubtfulnesse; but hee cometh to you with words set in
+    delightfull proportion, either accompanied with or prepared for the
+    well enchaunting skill of musicke; and with a tale, forsooth, he
+    cometh unto you,--with a tale which holdeth children from play and
+    old men from the chimney corner."
+
+[Illustration: SIR PHILIP SIDNEY]
+
+Sidney wrote also the pastoral romance _Arcadia_ which was famous in
+its day, and in which the curious reader may find an occasional good
+passage, such as the prayer to a heathen god, "O All-seeing Light,"--a
+prayer that became historic and deeply pathetic when King Charles repeated
+it, facing death on the scaffold. That was in 1649, more than half a
+century after _Arcadia_ was written:
+
+    "O all-seeing Light, and eternal Life of all things, to whom
+    nothing is either so great that it may resist or so small that it
+    is contemned, look upon my miserie with thine eye of mercie, and
+    let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of
+    deliverance unto me, as to thee shall seem most convenient. Let not
+    injurie, O Lord, triumphe over me, and let my faults by thy hands
+    be corrected, and make not mine unjuste enemie the minister of thy
+    justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest
+    chastisement for my inexcusable follie; if this low bondage be
+    fittest for my over-hie desires; if the pride of my not-inough
+    humble hearte be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yeeld unto thy will,
+    and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer."
+
+[Sidenote: THE KING JAMES BIBLE]
+
+The finest example of the prose of the period is the King James or
+Authorized Version of the Bible, which appeared in 1611. This translation
+was so much influenced by the earlier work of Wyclif, Tyndale, and many
+others, that its style cannot properly be called Elizabethan or Jacobean;
+it is rather an epitome of English at its best in the two centuries between
+Chaucer and Shakespeare. The forty-seven scholars who prepared this
+translation aimed at a faithful rendering of the Book which, aside from its
+spiritual teaching, contains some of the noblest examples of style in the
+whole range of human literature: the elemental simplicity of the Books of
+Moses, the glowing poetry of Job and the Psalms, the sublime imagery of
+Isaiah, the exquisite tenderness of the Parables, the forged and tempered
+argument of the Epistles, the gorgeous coloring of the Apocalypse. All
+these elements entered in some degree into the translation of 1611, and the
+result was a work of such beauty, strength and simplicity that it remained
+a standard of English prose for more than three centuries. It has not only
+been a model for our best writers; it has pervaded all the minor literature
+of the nation, and profoundly influenced the thought and the expression of
+the whole English-speaking world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
+
+"My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own country
+_after some time is passed over_," said Bacon in his will. That
+reference to the future meant, not that England might learn to forget and
+forgive (for Bacon was not greatly troubled by his disgrace), but that she
+might learn to appreciate his _Instauratio Magna_. In the same
+document the philosopher left magnificent bequests for various purposes,
+but when these were claimed by the beneficiaries it was learned that the
+debts of the estate were three times the assets. This high-sounding will is
+an epitome of Bacon's life and work.
+
+    LIFE. Bacon belongs with Sidney and Raleigh in that group of
+    Elizabethans who aimed to be men of affairs, politicians,
+    reformers, explorers, rather than writers of prose or poetry. He
+    was of noble birth, and from an early age was attached to
+    Elizabeth's court. There he expected rapid advancement, but the
+    queen and his uncle (Lord Burghley) were both a little suspicious
+    of the young man who, as he said, had "taken all knowledge for his
+    province."
+
+    Failing to advance by favor, Bacon studied law and entered
+    Parliament, where he rose rapidly to leadership. Ben Jonson writes
+    of him, in that not very reliable collection of opinions called
+    _Timber_:
+
+        "There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full
+        of gravity in his speaking.... No man ever spake more
+        neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less
+        emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered.... The fear
+        of every man that heard him was lest he should make an
+        end."
+
+    [Illustration: FRANCIS BACON]
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS TRIUMPH]
+
+    When Elizabeth died, Bacon saw his way open. He offered his
+    services to the royal favorite, Buckingham, and was soon in the
+    good graces of King James. He was made Baron Verulam and Viscount
+    St. Albans; he married a rich wife; he rose rapidly from one
+    political honor to another, until at sixty he was Lord High
+    Chancellor of England. So his threefold ambition for position,
+    wealth and power was realized. It was while he held the highest
+    state office that he published his _Novum Organum_, which
+    established his reputation as "the first philosopher in Europe."
+    That was in 1620, the year when a handful of Pilgrims sailed away
+    unnoticed on one of the world's momentous voyages.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS DISGRACE]
+
+    After four years of power Bacon, who had been engaged with
+    Buckingham in selling monopolies, and in other schemes to be rich
+    at the public expense, was brought to task by Parliament. He was
+    accused of receiving bribes, confessed his guilt (it is said to
+    shield the king and Buckingham, who had shared the booty), was
+    fined, imprisoned, banished from court, and forbidden to hold
+    public office again. All these punishments except the last were
+    remitted by King James, to whom Bacon had been a useful tool. His
+    last few years were spent in scientific study at Gorhambury, where
+    he lived proudly, keeping up the appearance of his former grandeur,
+    until his death in 1626.
+
+    Such a sketch seems a cold thing, but there is little of divine
+    fire or human warmth in Bacon to kindle one's enthusiasm. His
+    obituary might well be the final word of his essay "Of Wisdom for a
+    Man's Self":
+
+        "Whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves,
+        they become in the end sacrifices to the inconstancy of
+        fortune, whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to
+        have pinioned."
+
+    Ben Jonson had a different and, possibly, a more just opinion. In
+    the work from which we have quoted he says:
+
+        "My conceit of his person was never increased towards him
+        by his place or honours; but I have and do reverence him
+        for his greatness that was only proper to himself, in that
+        he seemed to me ever by his work one of the greatest men,
+        and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages.
+        In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him
+        strength; for greatness he could not want."
+
+WORKS OF BACON. The _Essays_ of Bacon are so highly esteemed that the
+critic Hallam declares it would be "derogatory to a man of the slightest
+claim to polite letters" to be unacquainted with them. His first venture
+was a tiny volume called _Essays, Religious Meditations, Places of
+Persuasion and Dissuasion_ (1597). This was modeled upon a French work
+by Montaigne (_Essais_, 1580) and was considered of small consequence
+by the author. As time went on, and his ambitious works were overlooked in
+favor of his sketches, he paid more attention to the latter, revising and
+enlarging his work until the final edition of fifty-eight essays appeared
+in 1625. Then it was that Bacon wrote, "I do now publish my Essays, which
+of all my works have been most current; for that, as it seems, they come
+home to men's business and bosoms."
+
+[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE ESSAYS]
+
+The spirit of these works may be judged by the essay "Of Friendship." This
+promises well, for near the beginning we read, "A crowd is not company, and
+faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talking is but a tinkling cymbal
+where there is no love." Excellent! As we read on, however, we find nothing
+of the love that beareth all things for a friend's sake. We are not even
+encouraged to be friendly, but rather to cultivate the friendship of other
+men for the following advantages: that a friend is useful in saving us from
+solitude; that he may increase our joy or diminish our trouble; that he
+gives us good counsel; that he can finish our work or take care of our
+children, if need be; and finally, that he can spare our modesty while
+trumpeting our virtues:
+
+    "How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or
+    comeliness, say or do himself! A man can scarce allege his own
+    merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes
+    brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these
+    things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a
+    man's own."
+
+In old Arabic manuscripts one frequently finds a record having the
+appearance of truth; but at the very end, in parenthesis, one reads, "This
+is all a lie," or "This was my thought when I was sick," or some other
+enlightening climax. Bacon's essay "Of Friendship" might be more in accord
+with the verities if it had a final note to the effect that the man who
+cultivates friendship in the Baconian way will never have or deserve a
+friend in the world.
+
+So with many other Baconian essays: with "Love" for example, in which we
+are told that it is impossible for a man to love and be wise; or with
+"Negotiations," which informs us that, unless a man intends to use his
+letter to justify himself (lo! the politician), it is better to deal by
+speech than by writing; for a man can "disavow or expound" his speech, but
+his written word may be used against him.
+
+[Sidenote: BACON'S VIEW OF LIFE]
+
+To some men, to most men, life offers a problem to be solved by standards
+that are eternally right; to others life is a game, the object is to win,
+and the rules may be manipulated to one's own advantage. Bacon's moral
+philosophy was that of the gamester; his leading motive was self-interest;
+so when he wrote of love or friendship or any other noble sentiment he was
+dealing with matters of which he had no knowledge. The best he could offer
+was a "counsel of prudence," and many will sympathize with John Wesley, who
+declared that worldly prudence is a quality from which an honest man should
+pray God to be delivered.
+
+[Sidenote: WHAT TO READ]
+
+It is only when Bacon deals with practical matters, leaving the high places
+of life, where he is a stranger, to write of "Discourse" or "Gardens" or
+"Seeming Wise" that his essays begin to strike home by their vigor and
+vitality. Though seldom profound or sympathetic, they are notable for their
+keen observation and shrewd judgment of the ambitious world in which the
+author himself lived. Among those that are best worth reading are
+"Studies," "Wisdom for a Man's Self," "Riches," "Great Place," "Atheism,"
+and "Travel."
+
+The style of these essays is in refreshing contrast to most Elizabethan
+prose, to the sonorous periods of Hooker, to the ramblings of Sidney, to
+the conceits of Lyly and Shakespeare. The sentences are mostly short,
+clear, simple; and so much meaning is crystallized in them that they
+overshadow even the "Poor Richard" maxims of Franklin, the man who had a
+genius for packing worldly wisdom into a convenient nutshell.
+
+[Sidenote: AMBITIOUS WORKS]
+
+Other works of Bacon are seldom read, and may be passed over lightly. We
+mention only, as indicative of his wide range, his _History of Henry
+VII_, his Utopian romance _The New Atlantis_, his Advancement of
+Learning and his _Novum Organum_. The last two works, one in English,
+the other in Latin, were parts of the _Instauratio Magna_, or _The
+Great Institution of True Philosophy_, a colossal work which Bacon did
+not finish, which he never even outlined very clearly.
+
+The aim of the _Instauratio_ was, first, to sweep away ancient
+philosophy and the classic education of the universities; and second, to
+substitute a scheme of scientific study to the end of discovering and
+utilizing the powers of nature. It gave Bacon his reputation (in Germany
+especially) of a great philosopher and scientist, and it is true that his
+vision of vast discoveries has influenced the thought of the world; but to
+read any part of his great work is to meet a mind that seems ingenious
+rather than philosophical, and fanciful rather than scientific. He had what
+his learned contemporary Peter Heylyn termed "a chymical brain," a brain
+that was forever busy with new theories; and the leading theory was that
+some lucky man would discover a key or philosopher's stone or magic
+_sesame_ that must straightway unlock all the secrets of nature.
+
+Meanwhile the real scientists of his age were discovering secrets in the
+only sure way, of hard, self-denying work. Gilbert was studying magnetism,
+Harvey discovering the circulation of the blood, Kepler determining the
+laws that govern the planets' motions, Napier inventing logarithms, and
+Galileo standing in ecstasy beneath the first telescope ever pointed at the
+stars of heaven.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS VAST PLANS]
+
+Of the work of these scientific heroes Bacon had little knowledge, and for
+their plodding methods he had no sympathy. He was Viscount, Lord
+Chancellor, "high-browed Verulam," and his heaven-scaling
+_Instauratio_ which, as he said, was "for the glory of the Creator and
+for the relief of man's estate" must have something stupendous,
+Elizabethan, about it, like the victory over the Armada. In his plans there
+was always an impression of vastness; his miscellaneous works were like the
+strange maps that geographers made when the wonders of a new world opened
+upon their vision. Though he never made an important discovery, his
+conviction that knowledge is power and that there are no metes or bounds to
+knowledge, his belief that the mighty forces of nature are waiting to do
+man's bidding, his thought of ships that navigate the air as easily as the
+sea,--all this Baconian dream of mental empire inspired the scientific
+world for three centuries. It was as thoroughly Elizabethan in its way as
+the voyage of Drake or the plays of Shakespeare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The most remarkable feature of the Elizabethan age was its
+    patriotic enthusiasm. This enthusiasm found its best expression on
+    the stage, in the portrayal of life in vigorous action; and dramas
+    were produced in such number and of such quality that the whole
+    period is sometimes called the age of the play. It was a time of
+    poetry rather than of prose, and nearly all of the poetry is
+    characterized by its emotional quality, by youthful freshness of
+    feeling, by quickened imagination, and by an extravagance of
+    language which overflows, even in Shakespeare, in a kind of
+    glorious bombast.
+
+    Our study of the literature of the age includes: (1) The outburst
+    of lyric poetry. (2) The life and works of Spenser, second in time
+    of the great English poets. (3) A review of the long history of the
+    drama, from the earliest church spectacle, through miracle,
+    morality, interlude, pageant and masque to the Elizabethan drama.
+    (4) The immediate forerunners of Shakespeare, of whom the most
+    notable was Marlowe. (5) The life and work of Shakespeare. (6) Ben
+    Jonson, the successors of Shakespeare, and the rapid decline of the
+    drama. (7) Elizabethan prose; the appearance of euphuism; Sidney's
+    _Apologie for Poetrie_; the Authorized Version of the
+    Scriptures; and the life and work of Francis Bacon.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Selected lyrics in Manly, English Poetry;
+    Newcomer, Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose; Palgrave,
+    Golden Treasury; Schilling, Elizabethan Lyrics; Ward, English
+    Poets.
+
+    _Spenser_. Selected poems in Temple Classics, Cambridge Poets
+    Series. Selections from The Faery Queen in Standard English
+    Classics and other school editions. (See Texts, in General
+    Bibliography.)
+
+    _Early Drama_. A miracle play, such as Noah, may be read in
+    Manly, Specimens of Pre-Shakespearean Drama (Ginn and Company).
+    Marlowe's plays in Everyman's Library; his Edward II in Holt's
+    English Readings; his Faustus in Temple Dramatists, and in Mermaid
+    Series.
+
+    _Shakespeare_. Several editions of Shakespeare's plays, such
+    as the revised Hudson (Ginn and Company) and the Neilson (Scott)
+    are available. Single plays, such as Julius Caesar, Merchant of
+    Venice, Macbeth, As You Like It, are edited for class use in
+    Standard English Classics, Lake Classics, and various other school
+    series. The Sonnets in Athenæum Press Series.
+
+    _Ben Jonson_. The Alchemist in Cambridge Poets Series; also in
+    Thayer, Best Elizabethan Plays (Ginn and Company), which includes
+    in one volume plays by Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and
+    Fletcher.
+
+    _Prose Writers_. Selections from Bacon's Essays in Riverside
+    Literature, or Maynard's English Classkcs. The Essays complete in
+    Everyman's Library. Selections from Hooker, Sidney and Lyly in
+    Manly, English Prose, or Craik, English Prose. Ampler selections in
+    Garnett, English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria (Ginn and
+    Company), which contains in one volume typical works of 33 prose
+    writers from Lyly to Carlyle. Hakluyt's Voyages in Everyman's
+    Library.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Creighton, The Age of Elizabeth; Winter,
+    Shakespeare's England; Goadby, The England of Shakespeare;
+    Harrison, Elizabethan England; Spedding, Francis Bacon and his
+    Times; Lee, Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century; Payne,
+    Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Saintsbury, Short History of Elizabethan
+    Literature; Seccombe and Allen, The Age of Shakespeare; Whipple,
+    Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; Schilling, Elizabethan Lyrics;
+    Lee, Elizabethan Sonnets; Sheavyn, Literary Profession in the
+    Elizabethan Age.
+
+    _Spenser_. Life, by Church (English Men of Letters Series).
+    Carpenter, Outline Guide to the Study of Spenser; Craik, Spenser
+    and his Times. Essays, by Lowell, in Among My Books; by Dowden, in
+    Transcripts and Studies; by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English
+    Poets; by Leigh Hunt, in Imagination and Fancy.
+
+    _The Drama_. Gayley, Plays of Our Forefathers (a study of the
+    early drama); Evans, English Masques; Bates, The English Religious
+    Drama; Schilling, The Elizabethan Drama; Symonds, Shakespeare's
+    Predecessors in the English Drama; Boas, Shakespeare and his
+    Predecessors; Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry; Ward,
+    English Dramatic Literature; Chambers, The Medieval Stage; Pollard,
+    English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes.
+
+    _Shakespeare_. Life, by Raleigh (E. M. of L.), by Lee, by
+    Halliwell-Phillipps, by Brandes. Dowden, A Shakespeare Primer;
+    Dowden, Shakespeare: a Critical Study of his Mind and Art; Baker,
+    Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist.
+
+    _Other Dramatists_. Lowell, Old English Dramatists; Lamb,
+    Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Fleay, Biographical Chronicle
+    of the English Drama; Ingram, Christopher Marlowe.
+
+    _Prose Writers_. Church, Life of Bacon (E. M. of L.); Nicol,
+    Bacon's Life and Philosophy; Macaulay, Essay on Bacon. Symonds,
+    Life of Sidney (E. M. of L.); Bourne, Life of Sidney (Heroes of the
+    Nations Series). Stebbing, Life of Raleigh.
+
+    _FICTION AND POETRY_. Kingsley, Westward Ho; Black, Judith
+    Shakespeare; Scott, Kenilworth; Schiller, Maria Stuart; Alfred
+    Noyes, Drake; Bates and Coman, English History Told by English
+    Poets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE PURITAN AGE AND THE RESTORATION (1625-1700)
+
+  Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour.
+     England hath need of thee: she is a fen
+     Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,
+  Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
+  Have forfeited their ancient English dower
+    Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
+    Oh! raise us up, return to us again,
+  And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
+
+                   Wordsworth, "Sonnet on Milton"
+
+
+    HISTORICAL OUTLINE. The period from the accession of Charles I in
+    1625 to the Revolution of 1688 was filled with a mighty struggle
+    over the question whether king or Commons should be supreme in
+    England. On this question the English people were divided into two
+    main parties. On one side were the Royalists, or Cavaliers, who
+    upheld the monarch with his theory of the divine right of kings; on
+    the other were the Puritans, or Independents, who stood for the
+    rights of the individual man and for the liberties of Parliament
+    and people. The latter party was at first very small; it had
+    appeared in the days of Langland and Wyclif, and had been
+    persecuted by Elizabeth; but persecution served only to increase
+    its numbers and determination. Though the Puritans were never a
+    majority in England, they soon ruled the land with a firmness it
+    had not known since the days of William the Conqueror. They were
+    primarily men of conscience, and no institution can stand before
+    strong men whose conscience says the institution is wrong. That is
+    why the degenerate theaters were not reformed but abolished; that
+    is why the theory of the divine right of kings was shattered as by
+    a thunderbolt when King Charles was sent to the block for treason
+    against his country.
+
+    The struggle reached a climax in the Civil War of 1642, which ended
+    in a Puritan victory. As a result of that war, England was for a
+    brief period a commonwealth, disciplined at home and respected
+    abroad, through the genius and vigor and tyranny of Oliver
+    Cromwell. When Cromwell died (1658) there was no man in England
+    strong enough to take his place, and two years later "Prince
+    Charlie," who had long been an exile, was recalled to the throne as
+    Charles II of England. He had learned nothing from his father's
+    fate or his own experience, and proceeded by all evil ways to
+    warrant this "Epitaph," which his favorite, Wilmot, Earl of
+    Rochester, pinned on the door of his bedchamber:
+
+      Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
+        Whose word no man relies on,
+      Who never said a foolish thing,
+        Nor ever did a wise one.
+
+    The next twenty years are of such disgrace and national weakness
+    that the historian hesitates to write about them. It was called the
+    period of the Restoration, which meant, in effect, the restoration
+    of all that was objectionable in monarchy. Another crisis came in
+    the Revolution of 1688, when the country, aroused by the attempt of
+    James II to establish another despotism in Church and state,
+    invited Prince William of Orange (husband of the king's daughter
+    Mary) to the English throne. That revolution meant three things:
+    the supremacy of Parliament, the beginning of modern England, and
+    the final triumph of the principle of political liberty for which
+    the Puritan had fought and suffered hardship for a hundred years.
+
+TYPICAL WRITERS. Among the writers of the period three men stand out
+prominently, and such was the confusion of the times that in the whole
+range of our literature it would be difficult to find three others who
+differ more widely in spirit or method. Milton represents the scholarship,
+the culture of the Renaissance, combined with the moral earnestness of the
+Puritan. Bunyan, a poor tinker and lay preacher, reflects the tremendous
+spiritual ferment among the common people. And Dryden, the cool,
+calculating author who made a business of writing, regards the Renaissance
+and Puritanism as both things of the past. He lives in the present, aims to
+give readers what they like, follows the French critics of the period who
+advocate writing by rule, and popularizes that cold, formal, precise style
+which, under the assumed name of classicism, is to dominate English poetry
+during the following century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)
+
+  Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
+  To lay their just hands on that golden key
+  That opes the palace of eternity:
+  To such my errand is.
+
+In these words of the Attendant Spirit in _Comus_ we seem to hear
+Milton speaking to his readers. To such as regard poetry as the means of an
+hour's pleasant recreation he brings no message; his "errand" is to those
+who, like Sidney, regard poetry as the handmaiden of virtue, or, like
+Aristotle, as the highest form of human history.
+
+    LIFE. Milton was born in London (1608) at a time when Shakespeare
+    and his fellow dramatists were in their glory. He grew up in a home
+    where the delights of poetry and music were added to the moral
+    discipline of the Puritan. Before he was twelve years old he had
+    formed the habit of studying far into the night; and his field
+    included not only Greek, Latin, Hebrew and modern European
+    literatures, but mathematics also, and science and theology and
+    music. His parents had devoted him in infancy to noble ends, and he
+    joyously accepted their dedication, saying, "He who would not be
+    frustrate of his hope to write well ... ought himself to be a true
+    poem, that is, a composition and pattern of the best and
+    honorablest things."
+
+    [Sidenote: MILTON AT HORTON]
+
+    From St. Paul's school Milton went to Christ's College, Cambridge,
+    took his master's degree, wrote a few poems in Latin, Italian and
+    English, and formed a plan for a great epic, "a poem that England
+    would not willingly let die." Then he retired to his father's
+    country-place at Horton, and for six years gave himself up to
+    music, to untutored study, and to that formal pleasure in nature
+    which is reflected in his work. Five short poems were the only
+    literary result of this retirement, but these were the most perfect
+    of their kind that England had thus far produced.
+
+    Milton's next step, intended like all others to cultivate his
+    talent, took him to the Continent. For fifteen months he traveled
+    through France and Italy, and was about to visit Greece when,
+    hearing of the struggle between king and Parliament, he set his
+    face towards England again. "For I thought it base," he said, "to
+    be traveling at my ease for culture when my countrymen at home were
+    fighting for liberty."
+
+    [Sidenote: HOME LIFE]
+
+    To find himself, or to find the service to which he could devote
+    his great learning, seems to have been Milton's object after his
+    return to London (1639). While he waited he began to educate his
+    nephews, and enlarged this work until he had a small private
+    school, in which he tested some of the theories that appeared later
+    in his _Tractate on Education_. Also he married, in haste it
+    seems, and with deplorable consequences. His wife, Mary Powell, the
+    daughter of a Cavalier, was a pleasure-loving young woman, and
+    after a brief experience of Puritan discipline she wearied of it
+    and went home. She has been amply criticized for her desertion, but
+    Milton's house must have been rather chilly for any ordinary human
+    being to find comfort in. To him woman seemed to have been made for
+    obedience, and man for rebellion; his toplofty doctrine of
+    masculine superiority found expression in a line regarding Adam and
+    Eve, "He for God only, she for God in him,"--an old delusion, which
+    had been seriously disturbed by the first woman.
+
+    [Illustration: JOHN MILTON]
+
+    [Sidenote: PERIOD OF CONTROVERSY]
+
+    For a period of near twenty years Milton wrote but little poetry,
+    his time being occupied with controversies that were then waged
+    even more fiercely in the press than in the field. It was after the
+    execution of King Charles (1649), when England was stunned and all
+    Europe aghast at the Puritans' daring, that he published his
+    _Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_, the argument of which was,
+    that magistrates and people are equally subject to the law, and
+    that the divine right of kings to rule is as nothing beside the
+    divine right of the people to defend their liberties. That argument
+    established Milton's position as the literary champion of
+    democracy. He was chosen Secretary of the Commonwealth, his duties
+    being to prepare the Latin correspondence with foreign countries,
+    and to confound all arguments of the Royalists. During the next
+    decade Milton's pen and Cromwell's sword were the two outward
+    bulwarks of Puritanism, and one was quite as ready and almost as
+    potent as the other.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS BLINDNESS]
+
+    It was while Milton was thus occupied that he lost his eyesight,
+    "his last sacrifice on the altar of English liberty." His famous
+    "Sonnet on his Blindness" is a lament not for his lost sight but
+    for his lost talent; for while serving the Commonwealth he must
+    abandon the dream of a great poem that he had cherished all his
+    life:
+
+      When I consider how my light is spent
+      Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
+      And that one talent, which is death to hide,
+      Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
+      To serve therewith my Maker, and present
+      My true account, lest he returning chide;
+      "Doth God exact day labour, light denied?"
+      I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent
+      That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
+      Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
+      Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
+      Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
+      And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
+      They also serve who only stand and wait."
+
+    With the Restoration (1660) came disaster to the blind Puritan
+    poet, who had written too harshly against Charles I to be forgiven
+    by Charles II. He was forced to hide; his property was confiscated;
+    his works were burned in public by the hangman; had not his fame as
+    a writer raised up powerful friends, he would have gone to the
+    scaffold when Cromwell's bones were taken from the grave and hanged
+    in impotent revenge. He was finally allowed to settle in a modest
+    house, and to be in peace so long as he remained in obscurity. So
+    the pen was silenced that had long been a scourge to the enemies of
+    England.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS LONELINESS]
+
+    His home life for the remainder of his years impresses us by its
+    loneliness and grandeur. He who had delighted as a poet in the
+    English country, and more delighted as a Puritan in the fierce
+    struggle for liberty, was now confined to a small house, going from
+    study to porch, and finding both in equal darkness. He who had
+    roamed as a master through the wide fields of literature was now
+    dependent on a chance reader. His soul also was afflicted by the
+    apparent loss of all that Puritanism had so hardly won, by the
+    degradation of his country, by family troubles; for his daughters
+    often rebelled at the task of taking his dictation, and left him
+    helpless. Saddest of all, there was no love in the house, for with
+    all his genius Milton could not inspire affection in his own
+    people; nor does he ever reach the heart of his readers.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS MASTERPIECE]
+
+    In the midst of such scenes, denied the pleasure of hope, Milton
+    seems to have lived largely in his memories. He took up his early
+    dream of an immortal epic, lived with it seven years in seclusion,
+    and the result was _Paradise Lost_. This epic is generally
+    considered the finest fruit of Milton's genius, but there are two
+    other poems that have a more personal and human significance. In
+    the morning of his life he had written _Comus_, and the poem
+    is a reflection of a noble youth whose way lies open and smiling
+    before him. Almost forty years later, or just before his death in
+    1674, he wrote _Samson Agonistes_, and in this tragedy of a
+    blind giant, bound, captive, but unconquerable, we have a picture
+    of the agony and moral grandeur of the poet who takes leave of
+    life:
+
+      I feel my genial spirits droop, ...
+      My race of glory run, and race of shame;
+      And I shall shortly be with them that rest. [1]
+
+    [Footnote [1]: From Milton's _Samson_. For the comparison we
+    are indebted to Henry Reed, _Lectures on English Literature_
+    (1863), p. 223.]
+
+      [Illustration: COTTAGE AT CHALFONT, ST. GILES, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
+      Where Milton lived during the Plague, and where _Paradise Lost_ was
+      written]
+
+THE EARLY POEMS. Milton's first notable poem, written in college days, was
+the "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity," a chant of victory and
+praise such as Pindar might have written had he known the meaning of
+Christmas. In this boyish work one may find the dominant characteristic of
+all Milton's poetry; namely, a blending of learning with piety, a devotion
+of all the treasures of classic culture to the service of religion.
+
+Among the earliest of the Horton poems (so-called because they were written
+in the country-place of that name) are "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," two
+of the most widely quoted works in our literature. They should be read in
+order to understand what people have admired for nearly three hundred
+years, if not for their own beauty. "L'Allegro" (from the Italian, meaning
+"the cheerful man") is the poetic expression of a happy state of mind, and
+"Il Penseroso" [Footnote: The name is generally translated into
+"melancholy," but the latter term is now commonly associated with sorrow or
+disease. To Milton "melancholy" meant "pensiveness." In writing "Il
+Penseroso" he was probably influenced by a famous book, Burton's _Anatomy
+of Melancholy_, which appeared in 1621 and was very widely read.] of a
+quiet, thoughtful mood that verges upon sadness, like the mood that follows
+good music. Both poems are largely inspired by nature, and seem to have
+been composed out of doors, one in the morning and the other in the evening
+twilight.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MASQUE OF COMUS]
+
+_Comus_ (1634), another of the Horton poems, is to many readers the
+most interesting of Milton's works. In form it is a masque, that is, a
+dramatic poem intended to be staged to the accompaniment of music; in
+execution it is the most perfect of all such poems inspired by the
+Elizabethan love of pageants. We may regard it, therefore, as a late echo
+of the Elizabethan drama, which, like many another echo, is sweeter though
+fainter than the original. It was performed at Ludlow Castle, before the
+Earl of Bridgewater, and was suggested by an accident to the Earl's
+children, a simple accident, in which Milton saw the possibility of
+"turning the common dust of opportunity to gold."
+
+    The story is that of a girl who becomes separated from her brothers
+    in a wood, and is soon lost. The magician Comus [Footnote: In
+    mythology Comus, the god of revelry, was represented as the son of
+    Dionysus (Bacchus, god of wine), and the witch Circe. In Greek
+    poetry Comus is the leader of any gay band of satyrs or dancers.
+    Milton's masque of _Comus_ was influenced by a similar story
+    in Peele's _Old Wives' Tale_, by Spenser's "Palace of
+    Pleasure" in _The Faery Queen_ (see above "Sir Guyon" in
+    Chapter IV), and by Homer's story of the witch Circe in the
+    _Odyssey_.] appears with his band of revelers, and tries to
+    bewitch the girl, to make her like one of his own brutish
+    followers. She is protected by her own purity, is watched over by
+    the Attendant Spirit, and finally rescued by her brothers. The
+    story is somewhat like that of the old ballad of "The Children in
+    the Wood," but it is here transformed into a kind of morality play.
+
+[Sidenote: COMUS AND THE TEMPEST]
+
+In this masque may everywhere be seen the influence of Milton's
+predecessors and the stamp of his own independence; his Puritan spirit
+also, which must add a moral to the old pagan tales. Thus, Miranda
+wandering about the enchanted isle (in Shakespeare's _The Tempest_)
+hears strange, harmonious echoes, to which Caliban gives expression:
+
+                             The isle is full of noises,
+  Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
+  Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
+  Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
+  That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
+  Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
+  The clouds methought would open and show riches
+  Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
+  I cried to dream again.
+
+The bewildered girl in _Comus_ also hears mysterious voices, and has
+glimpses of a world not her own; but, like Sir Guyon of _The Faery
+Queen_, she is on moral guard against all such deceptions:
+
+            A thousand phantasies
+  Begin to throng into my memory,
+  Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
+  And airy tongues that syllable men's names
+  On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
+  These thoughts may startle well but not astound
+  The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
+  By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.
+
+Again, in _The Tempest_ we meet "the frisky spirit" Ariel, who sings
+of his coming freedom from Prospero's service:
+
+  Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
+  In a cowslip's bell I lie;
+  There I couch when owls do cry.
+  On a bat's back I do fly
+  After summer merrily:
+  Merrily, merrily shall I live now
+  Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
+
+[Illustration: LUDLOW CASTLE]
+
+The Attendant Spirit in _Comus_ has something of Ariel's gayety, but
+his joy is deeper-seated; he serves not the magician Prospero but the
+Almighty, and comes gladly to earth in fulfilment of the divine promise,
+"He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."
+When his work is done he vanishes, like Ariel, but with a song which shows
+the difference between the Elizabethan, or Renaissance, conception of
+sensuous beauty (that is, beauty which appeals to the physical senses) and
+the Puritan's idea of moral beauty, which appeals to the soul:
+
+  Now my task is smoothly done,
+  I can fly or I can run
+  Quickly to the green earth's end,
+  Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,
+  And from thence can soar as soon
+  To the corners of the moon.
+  Mortals, that would follow me,
+  Love Virtue; she alone is free:
+  She can teach ye how to climb
+  Higher than the sphery chime;
+  Or if Virtue feeble were,
+  Heaven itself would stoop to her.
+
+[Sidenote: LYCIDAS]
+
+_Lycidas_ (1637), last of the Horton poems, is an elegy occasioned by
+the death of one who had been Milton's fellow student at Cambridge. It was
+an old college custom to celebrate important events by publishing a
+collection of Latin or English poems, and _Lycidas_ may be regarded as
+Milton's wreath, which he offered to the memory of his classmate and to his
+university. The poem is beautifully fashioned, and is greatly admired for
+its classic form; but it is cold as any monument, without a touch of human
+grief or sympathy. Probably few modern readers will care for it as they
+care for Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, a less perfect elegy, but one into
+which love enters as well as art. Other notable English elegies are the
+_Thyrsis_ of Matthew Arnold and the _Adonais_ of Shelley.
+
+MILTON'S LEFT HAND. This expression was used by Milton to designate certain
+prose works written in the middle period of his life, at a time of turmoil
+and danger. These works have magnificent passages which show the power and
+the harmony of our English speech, but they are marred by other passages of
+bitter raillery and invective. The most famous of all these works is the
+noble plea called _Areopagitica:_ [Footnote: From the Areopagus or
+forum of Athens, the place of public appeal. This was the "Mars Hill" from
+which St. Paul addressed the Athenians, as recorded in the Book of Acts.]
+_a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_ (1644).
+
+There was a law in Milton's day forbidding the printing of any work until
+it had been approved by the official Licenser of Books. Such a law may have
+been beneficial at times, but during the seventeenth century it was another
+instrument of tyranny, since no Licenser would allow anything to be printed
+against his particular church or government. When _Areopagitica_ was
+written the Puritans of the Long Parliament were virtually rulers of
+England, and Milton pleaded with his own party for the free expression of
+every honest opinion, for liberty in all wholesome pleasures, and for
+tolerance in religious matters. His stern confidence in truth, that she
+will not be weakened but strengthened by attack, is summarized in the
+famous sentence, "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue."
+
+Two interesting matters concerning _Areopagitica_ are: first, that
+this eloquent plea for the freedom of printing had to be issued in defiance
+of law, without a license; and second, that Milton was himself, a few years
+later, under Cromwell's iron government, a censor of the press.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SONNETS]
+
+Milton's rare sonnets seem to belong to this middle period of strife,
+though some of them were written earlier. Since Wyatt and Surrey had
+brought the Italian sonnet to England this form of verse had been employed
+to sing of love; but with Milton it became a heroic utterance, a trumpet
+Wordsworth calls it, summoning men to virtue, to patriotism, to stern
+action. The most personal of these sonnets are "On Having Arrived at the
+Age of Twenty-three," "On his Blindness" and "To Cyriack Skinner"; the most
+romantic is "To the Nightingale"; others that are especially noteworthy are
+"On the Late Massacre," "On his Deceased Wife" [Footnote: This beautiful
+sonnet was written to his second wife, not to Mary Powell.] and "To
+Cromwell." The spirit of these sonnets, in contrast with those of
+Elizabethan times, is finely expressed by Landor in the lines:
+
+  Few his words, but strong,
+  And sounding through all ages and all climes;
+  He caught the sonnet from the dainty hand
+  Of Love, who cried to lose it, and he gave the notes
+  To Glory.
+
+MILTON'S LATER POETRY. [Footnote: The three poems of Milton's later life
+are _Paradise Lost_, _Paradise Regained_ and _Samson
+Agonistes_. The last-named has been referred to above under "His
+Masterpiece". _Paradise Regained_ contains some noble passages, but is
+inferior to _Paradise Lost_, on which the poet's fame chiefly rests.]
+It was in 1658, the year of Cromwell's death, when the political power of
+Puritanism was tottering, that Milton in his blindness began to write
+_Paradise Lost_. After stating his theme he begins his epic, as Virgil
+began the _Æneid_, in the midst of the action; so that in reading his
+first book it is well to have in mind an outline of the whole story, which
+is as follows:
+
+    [Sidenote: PLAN OF PARADISE LOST]
+
+    The scene opens in Heaven, and the time is before the creation of
+    the world. The archangel Lucifer rebels against the Almighty, and
+    gathers to his banner an immense company of the heavenly hosts, of
+    angels and flaming cherubim. A stupendous three days' battle
+    follows between rebel and loyal legions, the issue being in doubt
+    until the Son goes forth in his chariot of victory. Lucifer and his
+    rebels are defeated, and are hurled over the ramparts of Heaven.
+    Down, down through Chaos they fall "nine times the space that
+    measures day and night," until they reach the hollow vaults of
+    Hell.
+
+    In the second act (for _Paradise Lost_ has some dramatic as
+    well as epic construction) we follow the creation of the earth in
+    the midst of the universe; and herein we have an echo of the old
+    belief that the earth was the center of the solar system. Adam and
+    Eve are formed to take in the Almighty's affection the place of the
+    fallen angels. They live happily in Paradise, watched over by
+    celestial guardians. Meanwhile Lucifer and his followers are
+    plotting revenge in Hell. They first boast valiantly, and talk of
+    mighty war; but the revenge finally degenerates into a base plan to
+    tempt Adam and Eve and win them over to the fallen hosts.
+
+    The third act shows Lucifer, now called Satan or the Adversary,
+    with his infernal peers in Pandemonium, plotting the ruin of the
+    world. He makes an astounding journey through Chaos, disguises
+    himself in various forms of bird or beast in order to watch Adam
+    and Eve, is detected by Ithuriel and the guardian angels, and is
+    driven away. Thereupon he haunts vast space, hiding in the shadow
+    of the earth until his chance comes, when he creeps back into Eden
+    by means of an underground river. Disguising himself as a serpent,
+    he meets Eve and tempts her with the fruit of a certain "tree of
+    knowledge," which she has been forbidden to touch. She eats the
+    fruit and shares it with Adam; then the pair are discovered in
+    their disobedience, and are banished from Paradise. [Footnote: In
+    the above outline we have arranged the events in the order in which
+    they are supposed to have occurred. Milton tells the story in a
+    somewhat confused way. The order of the twelve books of _Paradise
+    Lost_ is not the natural or dramatic order of the story.]
+
+[Sidenote: MILTON'S MATERIALS]
+
+It is evident from this outline that Milton uses material from two
+different sources, one an ancient legend which Cædmon employed in his
+Paraphrase, the other the Bible narrative of Creation. Though the latter is
+but a small part of the epic, it is as a fixed center about which all other
+interests are supposed to revolve. In reading _Paradise Lost_,
+therefore, with its vast scenes and colossal figures, one should keep in
+mind that every detail was planned by Milton to be closely related to his
+central theme, which is the fall of man.
+
+In using such diverse materials Milton met with difficulties, some of which
+(the character of Lucifer, for example) were too great for his limited
+dramatic powers. In Books I and II Lucifer is a magnificent figure, the
+proudest in all literature, a rebel with something of celestial grandeur
+about him:
+
+  "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
+  Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
+  That we must change for Heaven? this mournful gloom
+  For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
+  Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
+  What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
+  Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
+  Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
+  Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
+  Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
+  Receive thy new possessor, one who brings
+  A mind not to be changed by place or time.
+  The mind is its own place, and in itself
+  Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+  What matter where, if I be still the same,
+  And what I should be, all but less than he
+  Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
+  We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
+  Here for his envy, will not drive us hence;
+  Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
+  To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
+  Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
+
+In other books of _Paradise Lost_ the same character appears not as
+the heroic rebel but as the sneaking "father of lies," all his grandeur
+gone, creeping as a snake into Paradise or sitting in the form of an ugly
+toad "squat at Eve's ear," whispering petty deceits to a woman while she
+sleeps. It is probable that Milton meant to show here the moral results of
+rebellion, but there is little in his poem to explain the sudden degeneracy
+from Lucifer to Satan.
+
+[Sidenote: MATTER AND MANNER]
+
+The reader will note, also, the strong contrast between Milton's matter and
+his manner. His matter is largely mythical, and the myth is not beautiful
+or even interesting, but childish for the most part and frequently
+grotesque, as when cannon are used in the battle of the angels, or when the
+Almighty makes plans,
+
+                         Lest unawares we lose
+  This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill.
+
+Indeed, all Milton's celestial figures, with the exception of the original
+Lucifer, are as banal as those of the old miracle plays; and his Adam and
+Eve are dull, wooden figures that serve merely to voice the poet's theology
+or moral sentiments.
+
+In contrast with this unattractive matter, Milton's manner is always and
+unmistakably "the grand manner." His imagination is lofty, his diction
+noble, and the epic of _Paradise Lost_ is so filled with memorable
+lines, with gorgeous descriptions, with passages of unexampled majesty or
+harmony or eloquence, that the crude material which he injects into the
+Bible narrative is lost sight of in our wonder at his superb style.
+
+THE QUALITY OF MILTON. If it be asked, What is Milton's adjective? the word
+"sublime" rises to the lips as the best expression of his style. This word
+(from the Latin _sublimis_, meaning "exalted above the ordinary") is
+hard to define, but may be illustrated from one's familiar experience.
+
+    You stand on a hilltop overlooking a mighty landscape on which the
+    new snow has just fallen: the forest bending beneath its soft
+    burden, the fields all white and still, the air scintillating with
+    light and color, the whole world so clean and pure that it seems as
+    if God had blotted out its imperfections and adorned it for his own
+    pleasure. That is a sublime spectacle, and the soul of man is
+    exalted as he looks upon it. Or here in your own village you see a
+    woman who enters a room where a child is stricken with a deadly and
+    contagious disease. She immolates herself for the suffering one,
+    cares for him and saves him, then lays down her own life. That is a
+    sublime act. Or you hear of a young patriot captured and hanged by
+    the enemy, and as they lead him forth to death he says, "I regret
+    that I have but one life to give to my country." That is a sublime
+    expression, and the feeling in your heart as you hear it is one of
+    moral sublimity.
+
+[Sidenote: SUBLIMITY]
+
+The writer who lifts our thought and feeling above their ordinary level,
+who gives us an impression of outward grandeur or of moral exaltation, is a
+sublime writer, has a sublime style; and Milton more than any other poet
+deserves the adjective. His scenes are immeasurable; mountain, sea and
+forest are but his playthings; his imagination hesitates not to paint
+Chaos, Heaven, Hell, the widespread Universe in which our world hangs like
+a pendant star and across which stretches the Milky Way:
+
+  A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
+  And pavement stars.
+
+No other poet could find suitable words for such vast themes, but Milton
+never falters. Read the assembly of the fallen hosts before Lucifer in Book
+I of _Paradise Lost_, or the opening of Hellgates in Book II, or the
+invocation to light in Book III, or Satan's invocation to the sun in Book
+IV, or the morning hymn of Adam and Eve in Book V; or open _Paradise
+Lost_ anywhere, and you shall soon find some passage which, by the
+grandeur of its scene or by the exalted feeling of the poet as he describes
+it, awakens in you the feeling of sublimity.
+
+[Sidenote: HARMONY]
+
+The harmony of Milton's verse is its second notable quality. Many of our
+poets use blank verse, as many other people walk, as if they had no sense
+of rhythm within them; but Milton, by reason of his long study and practice
+of music, seems to be always writing to melody. In consequence it is easy
+to read his most prolix passages, as it is easy to walk over almost any
+kind of ground if one but keeps step to outward or inward music. Not only
+is Milton's verse stately and melodious, but he is a perfect master of
+words, choosing them for their sound as well as for their sense, as a
+musician chooses different instruments to express different emotions. Note
+these contrasting descriptions of so simple a matter as the opening of
+gates:
+
+                       Heaven opened wide
+  Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,
+  On golden hinges moving. On a sudden open fly
+  With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
+  Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
+  Harsh thunder.
+
+In dealing with a poet of such magnificent qualities one should be wary of
+criticism. That Milton's poetry has little human interest, no humor, and
+plenty of faults, may be granted. His _Paradise Lost_ especially is
+overcrowded with mere learning or pedantry in one place and with pompous
+commonplaces in another. But such faults appear trivial, unworthy of
+mention in the presence of a poem that is as a storehouse from which the
+authors and statesmen of three hundred years have drawn their choicest
+images and expressions. It stands forever as our supreme example of
+sublimity and harmony,--that sublimity which reflects the human spirit
+standing awed and reverent before the grandeur of the universe; that
+harmony of expression at which every great poet aims and which Milton
+attained in such measure that he is called the organ-voice of England.
+
+       *        *        *       *       *
+
+JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688)
+
+There is a striking contrast between the poet and the prose writer of the
+Puritan age. Milton the poet is a man of culture, familiar with the best
+literature of all ages; Bunyan the prose writer is a poor, self-taught
+laborer who reads his Bible with difficulty, stumbling over the hard
+passages. Milton writes for the cultivated classes, in harmonious verse
+adorned with classic figures; Bunyan speaks for common men in sinewy prose,
+and makes his meaning clear by homely illustrations drawn from daily life.
+Milton is a solitary and austere figure, admirable but not lovable; Bunyan
+is like a familiar acquaintance, ruddy-faced, clear-eyed, who wins us by
+his sympathy, his friendliness, his good sense and good humor. He is known
+as the author of one book, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, but that book has
+probably had more readers than any other that England has ever produced.
+
+    LIFE. During Bunyan's lifetime England was in a state of religious
+    ferment or revival, and his experience of it is vividly portrayed
+    in a remarkable autobiography called _Grace Abounding to the
+    Chief of inners_. In reading this book we find that his life is
+    naturally separated into two periods. His youth was a time of
+    struggle with doubts and temptations; his later years were
+    characterized by inward peace and tireless labor. His peace meant
+    that he was saved, his labor that he must save others. Here, in a
+    word, is the secret of all his works.
+
+    [Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN]
+
+    He was born (1628) in the village of Elstow, Bedfordshire, and was
+    the son of a poor tinker. He was sent to school long enough to
+    learn elementary reading and writing; then he followed the tinker's
+    trade; but at the age of sixteen, being offended at his father's
+    second marriage, he ran away and joined the army.
+
+    As a boy Bunyan had a vivid but morbid imagination, which led him
+    to terrible doubts, fears, fits of despondency, hallucinations. On
+    such a nature the emotional religious revivals of the age made a
+    tremendous impression. He followed them for years, living in a
+    state of torment, until he felt himself converted; whereupon he
+    turned preacher and began to call other sinners to repentance. Such
+    were his native power and rude eloquence that, wherever he went,
+    the common people thronged to hear him.
+
+    [Sidenote: IN BEDFORD JAIL]
+
+    After the Restoration all this was changed. Public meetings were
+    forbidden unless authorized by bishops of the Established Church,
+    and Bunyan was one of the first to be called to account. When
+    ordered to hold no more meetings he refused to obey, saying that
+    when the Lord called him to preach salvation he would listen only
+    to the Lord's voice. Then he was thrown into Bedford jail. During
+    his imprisonment he supported his family by making shoe laces, and
+    wrote _Grace Abounding_ and _The Pilgrim's Progress_.
+
+    After his release Bunyan became the most popular writer and
+    preacher in England. He wrote a large number of works, and went
+    cheerfully up and down the land, preaching the gospel to the poor,
+    helping the afflicted, doing an immense amount of good. He died
+    (1688) as the result of exposure while on an errand of mercy. His
+    works were then known only to humble readers, and not until long
+    years had passed did critics awaken to the fact that one of
+    England's most powerful and original writers had passed away with
+    the poor tinker of Elstow.
+
+WORKS OF BUNYAN. From the pen of this uneducated preacher came nearly sixty
+works, great and small, the most notable of which are: _Grace
+Abounding_ (1666), a kind of spiritual autobiography; _The Holy
+War_ (1665), a prose allegory with a theme similar to that of Milton's
+epic; and _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_ (1682), a character study
+which was a forerunner of the English novel. These works are seldom read,
+and Bunyan is known to most readers as the author of _The Pilgrim's
+Progress_ (1678). This is the famous allegory [Footnote: Allegory is
+figurative writing, in which some outward object or event is described in
+such a way that we apply the description to humanity, to our mental or
+spiritual experiences. The object of allegory, as a rule, is to teach moral
+lessons, and in this it is like a drawn-out fable and like a parable. The
+two greatest allegories in our literature are Spenser's _Faery Queen_
+and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_.] in which, under guise of telling
+the story of a pilgrim in search of a city, Bunyan portrays the experiences
+of humanity in its journey from this world to the next. Here is an outline
+of the story:
+
+    [Sidenote: STORY OF PILGRIM'S PROGRESS]
+
+    In the City of Destruction lives a poor sinner called Christian.
+    When he learns that the city is doomed, he is terrified and flees
+    out of it, carrying a great burden on his back. He is followed by
+    the jeers of his neighbors, who have no fear. He seeks a safe and
+    abiding city to dwell in, but is ignorant how to find it until
+    Evangelist shows him the road.
+
+    As he goes on his journey Mr. Worldly Wiseman meets him and urges
+    him to return; but he hastens on, only to plunge into the Slough of
+    Despond. His companion Pliable is here discouraged and turns back.
+    Christian struggles on through the mud and reaches the Wicket Gate,
+    where Interpreter shows him the way to the Celestial City. As he
+    passes a cross beside the path, the heavy burden which he carries
+    (his load of sins) falls off of itself. Then with many adventures
+    he climbs the steep hill Difficulty, where his eyes behold the
+    Castle Beautiful. To reach this he must pass some fearful lions in
+    the way, but he adventures on, finds that the lions are chained, is
+    welcomed by the porter Watchful, and is entertained in the castle
+    overnight.
+
+    Dangers thicken and difficulties multiply as he resumes his
+    journey. His road is barred by the demon Apollyon, whom he fights
+    to the death. The way now dips downward into the awful Valley of
+    the Shadow. Passing through this, he enters the town of Vanity,
+    goes to Vanity Fair, where he is abused and beaten, and where his
+    companion Faithful is condemned to death. As he escapes from
+    Vanity, the giant Despair seizes him and hurls him into the gloomy
+    dungeon of Doubt. Again he escapes, struggles onward, and reaches
+    the Delectable Mountains. There for the first time he sees the
+    Celestial City, but between him and his refuge is a river, deep and
+    terrible, without bridge or ford. He crosses it, and the journey
+    ends as angels come singing down the streets to welcome Christian
+    into the city. [Footnote: This is the story of the first part of
+    _Pilgrim's Progress_, which was written in Bedford jail, but
+    not published till some years later. In 1684 Bunyan published the
+    second part of his story, describing the adventures of Christiana
+    and her children on their journey to the Celestial City. This
+    sequel, like most others, is of minor importance.]
+
+[Illustration: BUNYAN MEETINGHOUSE, SOUTHWARK]
+
+Such an outline gives but a faint idea of Bunyan's great work, of its
+realistic figures, its living and speaking characters, its knowledge of
+humanity, its portrayal of the temptations and doubts that beset the
+ordinary man, its picturesque style, which of itself would make the book
+stand out above ten thousand ordinary stories. _Pilgrim's Progress_ is
+still one of our best examples of clear, forceful, idiomatic English; and
+our wonder increases when we remember that it was written by a man ignorant
+of literary models. But he had read his Bible daily until its style and
+imagery had taken possession of him; also he had a vivid imagination, a
+sincere purpose to help his fellows, and his simple rule of rhetoric was to
+forget himself and deliver his message. In one of his poems he gives us his
+rule of expression, which is an excellent one for writers and speakers:
+
+                         Thine only way,
+  Before them all, is to say out thy say
+  In thine own native language.
+
+       *       *       *      *       *
+
+JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)
+
+For fifty years Dryden lived in the city of Milton, in the country of John
+Bunyan; but his works might indicate that he inhabited a different planet.
+Unlike his two great contemporaries, his first object was to win favor; he
+sold his talent to the highest bidder, won the leading place among
+second-rate Restoration writers, and was content to reflect a generation
+which had neither the hearty enthusiasm of Elizabethan times nor the moral
+earnestness of Puritanism.
+
+    LIFE. Knowledge of Dryden's life is rather meager, and as his
+    motives are open to question we shall state here only a few facts.
+    He was born of a Puritan and aristocratic family, at Aldwinkle, in
+    1631. After an excellent education, which included seven years at
+    Trinity College, Cambridge, he turned to literature as a means of
+    earning a livelihood, taking a worldly view of his profession and
+    holding his pen ready to serve the winning side. Thus, he wrote his
+    "Heroic Stanzas," which have a hearty Puritan ring, on the death of
+    Cromwell; but he turned Royalist and wrote the more flattering
+    "Astræa Redux" to welcome Charles II back to power.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS VERSATILITY]
+
+    In literature Dryden proved himself a man of remarkable
+    versatility. Because plays were in demand, he produced many that
+    catered to the evil tastes of the Restoration stage,--plays that he
+    afterwards condemned unsparingly. He was equally ready to write
+    prose or verse, songs, criticisms, political satires. In 1670 he
+    was made poet laureate under Charles II; his affairs prospered; he
+    became a literary dictator in London, holding forth nightly in
+    Will's Coffeehouse to an admiring circle of listeners. After the
+    Revolution of 1688 he lost his offices, and with them most of his
+    income.
+
+    [Illustration: JOHN DRYDEN
+    From a picture by Hudson in the Hall of Trinity College, Cambridge]
+
+    In his old age, being reduced to hackwork, he wrote obituaries,
+    epitaphs, paraphrases of the tales of Chaucer, translations of
+    Latin poets,--anything to earn an honest living. He died in 1700,
+    and was buried beside Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.
+
+    Such facts are not interesting; nor do they give us a true idea of
+    the man Dryden. To understand him we should have to read his works
+    (no easy or pleasant task) and compare his prose prefaces, in which
+    he is at his best, with the comedies in which he is abominable.
+    When not engaged with the degenerate stage, or with political or
+    literary or religious controversies, he appears sane,
+    well-balanced, good-tempered, manly; but the impression is not a
+    lasting one. He seems to have catered to the vicious element of his
+    own age, to have regretted the misuse of his talent, and to have
+    recorded his own judgment in two lines from his ode "To the Memory
+    of Mrs. Killigrew":
+
+      O gracious God, how far have we
+      Profaned thy heavenly grace of poesy!
+
+WORKS OF DRYDEN. The occasional poems written by Dryden may be left in the
+obscurity into which they fell after they had been applauded. The same may
+be said of his typical poem "Annus Mirabilis," which describes the
+wonderful events of the year 1666, a year which witnessed the taking of New
+Amsterdam from the Dutch and the great fire of London. Both events were
+celebrated in a way to contribute to the glory of King Charles and to
+Dryden's political fortune. Of all his poetical works, only the odes
+written in honor of St. Cecilia are now remembered. The second ode,
+"Alexander's Feast," is one of our best poems on the power of music.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS PLAYS]
+
+Dryden's numerous plays show considerable dramatic power, and every one of
+them contains some memorable line or passage; but they are spoiled by the
+author's insincerity in trying to satisfy the depraved taste of the
+Restoration stage. He wrote one play, _All for Love_, to please
+himself, he said, and it is noticeable that this play is written in blank
+verse and shows the influence of Shakespeare, who was then out of fashion.
+If any of the plays are to be read, _All for Love_ should be selected,
+though it is exceptional, not typical, and gives but a faint idea of
+Dryden's ordinary dramatic methods.
+
+[Sidenote: SATIRES]
+
+In the field of political satire Dryden was a master, and his work here is
+interesting as showing that unfortunate alliance between literature and
+politics which led many of the best English writers of the next century to
+sell their services to the Whigs or Tories. Dryden sided with the later
+party and, in a kind of allegory of the Bible story of Absalom's revolt
+against David, wrote "Absalom and Achitophel" to glorify the Tories and to
+castigate the Whigs. This powerful political satire was followed by others
+in the same vein, and by "MacFlecknoe," which satirized certain poets with
+whom Dryden was at loggerheads. As a rule, such works are for a day, having
+no enduring interest because they have no human kindness, but occasionally
+Dryden portrays a man of his own time so well that his picture applies to
+the vulgar politician of all ages, as in this characterization of Burnet:
+
+  Prompt to assail and careless of defence,
+  Invulnerable in his impudence,
+  He dares the world, and eager of a name
+  He thrusts about and justles into fame;
+  So fond of loud report that, not to miss.
+  Of being known (his last and utmost bliss),
+  He rather would be known for what he is.
+
+These satires of Dryden were largely influential in establishing the heroic
+couplet, [Footnote: The heroic couplet consists of two iambic pentameter
+lines that rime. By "pentameter" is meant that the line has five feet or
+measures; by "iambic," that each foot contains two syllables, the first
+short or unaccented, the second long or accented.] which dominated the
+fashion of English poetry for the next century. The couplet had been used
+by earlier poets, Chaucer for example; but in his hands it was musical and
+unobtrusive, a minor part of a complete work. With Dryden, and with his
+contemporary Waller, the making of couplets was the main thing; in their
+hands the couplet became "closed," that is, it often contained a complete
+thought, a criticism, a nugget of common sense, a poem in itself, as in
+this aphorism from "MacFlecknoe":
+
+  All human things are subject to decay,
+  And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.
+
+[Sidenote: PROSE WORKS]
+
+In his prose works Dryden proved himself the ablest critic of his time, and
+the inventor of a neat, serviceable style which, with flattery to
+ourselves, we are wont to call modern. Among his numerous critical works we
+note especially "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," "Of Heroic Plays," "Discourse
+on Satire," and the Preface to his _Fables_. These have not the vigor
+or picturesqueness of Bunyan's prose, but they are written clearly, in
+short sentences, with the chief aim of being understood. If we compare them
+with the sonorous periods of Milton, or with the pretty involutions of
+Sidney, we shall see why Dryden is called "the father of modern prose." His
+sensible style appears in this criticism of Chaucer:
+
+    "He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature,
+    because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into
+    the compass of his _Canterbury Tales_ the various manners and
+    humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his
+    age. Not a single character has escaped him.... We have our fathers
+    and great-grand-dames all before us as they were in Chaucer's days:
+    their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even
+    in England, though they are called by other names than those of
+    monks and friars and canons and lady abbesses and nuns; for mankind
+    is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature though everything
+    is altered."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECONDARY WRITERS
+
+PURITAN AND CAVALIER VERSE. The numerous minor poets of this period are
+often arranged in groups, but any true classification is impossible since
+there was no unity among them. Each was a law unto himself, and the result
+was to emphasize personal oddity or eccentricity. It would seem that in
+writing of love, the common theme of poets, Puritan and Cavalier must alike
+speak the common language of the heart; but that is precisely what they did
+not do. With them love was no longer a passion, or even a fashion, but any
+fantastic conceit that might decorate a rime. Thus, Suckling habitually
+made love a joke:
+
+  Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
+    Prithee why so pale?
+  Will, when looking well wont move her,
+    Looking ill prevail?
+    Prithee why so pale?
+
+Crashaw turned from his religious poems to sing of love in a way to appeal
+to the Transcendentalists, of a later age:
+
+  Whoe'er she be,
+  That not impossible she
+  That shall command my heart and me.
+
+And Donne must search out some odd notion from natural (or unnatural)
+history, making love a spider that turns the wine of life into poison; or
+from mechanics, comparing lovers to a pair of dividers:
+
+  If they be two, they are two so
+    As stiff twin compasses are two:
+  Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
+    To move, but doth if the other do.
+
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE HERBERT
+From a rare print by White, prefixed to his poems]
+
+Several of these poets, commonly grouped in a class which includes Donne,
+Herbert, Cowley, Crashaw, and others famous in their day, received the name
+of metaphysical poets, not because of their profound thought, but because
+of their eccentric style and queer figures of speech. Of all this group
+George Herbert (1593-1633) is the sanest and the sweetest. His chief work,
+_The Temple_, is a collection of poems celebrating the beauty of
+holiness, the sacraments, the Church, the experiences of the Christian
+life. Some of these poems are ingenious conceits, and deserve the derisive
+name of "metaphysical" which Dr. Johnson flung at them; but others, such as
+"Virtue," "The Pulley," "Love" and "The Collar," are the expression of a
+beautiful and saintly soul, speaking of the deep things of God; and
+speaking so quietly withal that one is apt to miss the intensity that lurks
+even in his calmest verses. Note in these opening and closing stanzas of
+"Virtue" the restraint of the one, the hidden glow of the other:
+
+  Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
+    The bridal of the earth and sky!
+  The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
+    For thou must die.
+
+  Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
+    Like seasoned timber, never gives;
+  But, though the whole world turn to coal,
+    Then chiefly lives.
+
+[Sidenote: CAVALIER POETS]
+
+In contrast with the disciplined Puritan spirit of Herbert is the gayety of
+another group, called the Cavalier poets, among whom are Carew, Suckling
+and Lovelace. They reflect clearly the spirit of the Royalists who followed
+King Charles with a devotion worthy of a better master. Robert Herrick
+(1591-1674) is the best known of this group, and his only book,
+_Hesperides and Noble Numbers_ (1648), reflects the two elements found
+in most of the minor poetry of the age; namely, Cavalier gayety and Puritan
+seriousness. In the first part of the book are some graceful verses
+celebrating the light loves of the Cavaliers and the fleeting joys of
+country life:
+
+  I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
+  Of April, May, of June and July flowers;
+  I sing of Maypoles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
+  Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
+
+In _Noble Numbers_ such poems as "Thanksgiving," "A True Lent,"
+"Litany," and the child's "Ode on the Birth of Our Saviour" reflect the
+better side of the Cavalier, who can be serious without pulling a long
+face, who goes to his devotions cheerfully, and who retains even in his
+religion what Andrew Lang calls a spirit of unregenerate happiness.
+
+[Sidenote: BUTLER'S HUDIBRAS]
+
+Samuel Butler (1612-1680) may also be classed with the Cavalier poets,
+though in truth he stands alone in this age, a master of doggerel rime and
+of ferocious satire. His chief work, _Hudibras_, a grotesque
+caricature of Puritanism, appeared in 1663, when the restored king and his
+favorites were shamelessly plundering the government. The poem (probably
+suggested by _Don Quixote_) relates a rambling story of the adventures
+of Sir Hudibras, a sniveling Puritan knight, and his squire Ralpho. Its
+doggerel style may be inferred from the following:
+
+  Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek
+  As naturally as pigs squeak;
+  That Latin was no more difficle
+  Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:
+  Being rich in both, he never scanted
+  His bounty unto such as wanted.
+
+Such was the stuff that the Royalists quoted to each other as wit; and the
+wit was so dear to king and courtiers that they carried copies of
+_Hudibras_ around in their pockets. The poem was enormously popular in
+its day, and some of its best lines are still quoted; but the selections we
+now meet give but a faint idea of the general scurrility of a work which
+amused England in the days when the Puritan's fanaticism was keenly
+remembered, his struggle for liberty quite forgotten.
+
+PROSE WRITERS. Of the hundreds of prose works that appeared in Puritan
+times very few are now known even by name. Their controversial fires are
+sunk to ashes; even the causes that produced or fanned them are forgotten.
+Meanwhile we cherish a few books that speak not of strife but of peace and
+charity.
+
+[Illustration: SIR THOMAS BROWNE]
+
+Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was a physician, vastly learned in a day when he
+and other doctors gravely prescribed herbs or bloodsuckers for witchcraft;
+but he was less interested in his profession than in what was then called
+modern science. His most famous work is _Religio Medici_ (Religion of
+a Physician, 1642), a beautiful book, cherished by those who know it as one
+of the greatest prose works in the language. His _Urn Burial_ is even
+more remarkable for its subtle thought and condensed expression; but its
+charm, like that of the Silent Places, is for the few who can discover and
+appreciate it.
+
+[Illustration: ISAAC WALTON]
+
+Isaac Walton (1593-1683), or Isaak, as he always wrote it, was a modest
+linen merchant who, in the midst of troublous times, kept his serenity of
+spirit by attending strictly to his own affairs, by reading good books, and
+by going fishing. His taste for literature is reflected with rare
+simplicity in his _Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, George Herbert and
+Bishop Sanderson_, a series of biographies which are among the earliest
+and sweetest in our language. Their charm lies partly in their refined
+style, but more largely in their revelation of character; for Walton chose
+men of gentle spirit for his subjects, men who were like himself in
+cherishing the still depths of life rather than its noisy shallows, and
+wrote of them with the understanding of perfect sympathy. Wordsworth
+expressed his appreciation of the work in a noble sonnet beginning:
+
+  There are no colours in the fairest sky
+  So fair as these. The feather whence the pen
+  Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men
+  Dropped from an angel's wing.
+
+Walton's love of fishing, and of all the lore of trout brooks and spring
+meadows that fishing implies, found expression in _The Compleat Angler,
+or Contemplative Man's Recreation_ (1653). This is a series of
+conversations in which an angler convinces his friends that fishing is not
+merely the sport of catching fish, but an art that men are born to, like
+the art of poetry. Even such a hard-hearted matter as impaling a minnow for
+bait becomes poetical, for this is the fashion of it: "Put your hook in at
+his mouth, and out at his gills, and do it as if you loved him." It is
+enough to say of this old work, the classic of its kind, that it deserves
+all the honor which the tribe of anglers have given it, and that you could
+hardly find a better book to fall asleep over after a day's fishing.
+
+[Sidenote: EVELYN AND PEPYS]
+
+No such gentle, human, lovable books were produced in Restoration times.
+The most famous prose works of the period are the diaries of John Evelyn
+and Samuel Pepys. The former was a gentleman, and his _Diary_ is an
+interesting chronicle of matters large and small from 1641 to 1697. Pepys,
+though he became Secretary of the Admiralty and President of the Royal
+Society, was a gossip, a chatterbox, with an eye that loved to peek into
+closets and a tongue that ran to slander. His _Diary_, covering the
+period from 1660 to 1669, is a keen but malicious exposition of private and
+public life during the Restoration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The literary period just studied covers the last three
+    quarters of the seventeenth century. Its limits are very
+    indefinite, merging into Elizabethan romance on the one side, and
+    into eighteenth century formalism on the other. Historically, the
+    period was one of bitter conflict between two main political and
+    religious parties, the Royalists, or Cavaliers, and the Puritans.
+    The literature of the age is extremely diverse in character, and is
+    sadly lacking in the unity, the joyousness, the splendid enthusiasm
+    of Elizabethan prose and poetry.
+
+    The greatest writer of the period was John Milton. He is famous in
+    literature for his early or Horton poems, which are Elizabethan in
+    spirit; for his controversial prose works, which reflect the strife
+    of the age; for his epic of _Paradise Lost_, and for his
+    tragedy of _Samson_.
+
+    Another notable Puritan, or rather Independent, writer was John
+    Bunyan, whose works reflect the religious ferment of the
+    seventeenth century. His chief works are _Grace Abounding_, a
+    kind of spiritual biography, and _The Pilgrim's Progress_, an
+    allegory of the Christian life which has been more widely read than
+    any other English book.
+
+    The chief writer of the Restoration period was John Dryden, a
+    professional author, who often catered to the coarser tastes of the
+    age. There is no single work by which he is gratefully remembered.
+    He is noted for his political satires, for his vigorous use of the
+    heroic couplet, for his modern prose style, and for his literary
+    criticisms.
+
+    Among the numerous minor poets of the period, Robert Herrick and
+    George Herbert are especially noteworthy. A few miscellaneous prose
+    works are the _Religio Medici_ of Thomas Browne, _The
+    Compleat Angler_ of Isaac Walton, and the diaries of Pepys and
+    Evelyn.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Minor poems of Milton, and parts of
+    Paradise Lost, in Standard English Classics, Riverside Literature,
+    and other school series (see Texts, in General Bibliography).
+    Selections from Cavalier and Puritan poets in Maynard's English
+    Classics, Golden Treasury Series, Manly's English Poetry, Century
+    Readings, Ward's English Poets. Prose selections in Manly's English
+    Prose, Craik's English Prose Selections, Garnett's English Prose
+    from Elizabeth to Victoria. Pilgrim's Progress and Grace Abounding
+    in Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics, Student's Classics.
+    Religio Medici and Complete Angler in Temple Classics and
+    Everyman's Library. Selections from Dryden in Manly's English Prose
+    and Manly's English Poetry. Dryden's version of Palamon and Arcite
+    (the Knight's Tale of Chaucer) in Standard English Classics,
+    Riverside Literature, Lake Classics.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. For texts and manuals dealing with the whole field of
+    English history and literature see the General Bibliography. The
+    following works deal chiefly with the Puritan and Restoration
+    periods.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Wakeling, King and Parliament (Oxford Manuals of
+    English History); Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan
+    Revolution (Great Epochs Series); Tulloch, English Puritanism;
+    Harrison, Oliver Cromwell; Hale, The Fall of the Stuarts; Airy, The
+    English Restoration and Louis XIV.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Masterman, The Age of Milton; Dowden, Puritan
+    and Anglican; Wendell, Temper of the Seventeenth Century in
+    Literature; Gosse, Seventeenth-Century Studies; Schilling,
+    Seventeenth-Century Lyrics (Athenæum Press Series); Isaac Walton,
+    Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert and Sanderson.
+
+    _Milton_. Life, by Garnett (Great Writers Series); by Pattison
+    (English Men of Letters). Corson, Introduction to Milton; Raleigh,
+    Milton; Stopford Brooke, Milton. Essays, by Macaulay; by Lowell, in
+    Among My Books; by M. Arnold, in Essays in Criticism.
+
+    _Bunyan_. Life, by Venables (Great Writers); by Froude (E. M.
+    of L.). Brown, John Bunyan; Woodberry's essay, in Makers of
+    Literature.
+
+    _Dryden_. Life by Saintsbury (E. M. of L.). Gosse, From
+    Shakespeare to Pope.
+
+    _Thomas Browne_. Life, by Gosse (E. M. of L.). Essays, by L.
+    Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Pater, in Appreciations.
+
+    _FICTION AND POETRY_. Shorthouse, John Inglesant; Scott, Old
+    Mortality, Peveril of the Peak, Woodstock; Blackmore, Lorna Doone.
+    Milton, Sonnet on Cromwell; Scott, Rokeby; Bates and Coman, English
+    History Told by English Poets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
+
+
+  In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold:
+  Alike fantastic if too new or old.
+  Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
+  Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
+
+                  Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"
+
+
+    HISTORY OF THE PERIOD. The most striking political feature of the
+    times was the rise of constitutional and party government. The
+    Revolution of 1688, which banished the Stuarts, had settled the
+    king question by making Parliament supreme in England, but not all
+    Englishmen were content with the settlement. No sooner were the
+    people in control of the government than they divided into hostile
+    parties: the liberal Whigs, who were determined to safeguard
+    popular liberty, and the conservative Tories, with tender memories
+    of kingcraft, who would leave as much authority as possible in the
+    royal hands. On the extreme of Toryism was a third party of
+    zealots, called the Jacobites, who aimed to bring the Stuarts back
+    to the throne, and who for fifty years filled Britain with plots
+    and rebellion. The literature of the age was at times dominated by
+    the interests of these contending factions.
+
+    The two main parties were so well balanced that power shifted
+    easily from one to the other. To overturn a Tory or a Whig cabinet
+    only a few votes were necessary, and to influence such votes London
+    was flooded with pamphlets. Even before the great newspapers
+    appeared, the press had become a mighty power in England, and any
+    writer with a talent for argument or satire was almost certain to
+    be hired by party leaders. Addison, Steele, Defoe, Swift,--most of
+    the great writers of the age were, on occasion, the willing
+    servants of the Whigs or Tories. So the new politician replaced the
+    old nobleman as a patron of letters.
+
+    [Sidenote: SOCIAL LIFE]
+
+    Another feature of the age was the rapid development of social
+    life. In earlier ages the typical Englishman had lived much by
+    himself; his home was his castle, and in it he developed his
+    intense individualism;  but in the first half of the eighteenth
+    century some three thousand public coffeehouses and a large number
+    of private clubs appeared in London alone; and the sociability of
+    which these clubs were an expression was typical of all English
+    cities. Meanwhile country life was in sore need of refinement.
+
+    The influence of this social life on literature was inevitable.
+    Nearly all writers frequented the coffeehouses, and matters
+    discussed there became subjects of literature; hence the enormous
+    amount of eighteenth-century writing devoted to transient affairs,
+    to politics, fashions, gossip. Moreover, as the club leaders set
+    the fashion in manners or dress, in the correct way of taking snuff
+    or of wearing wigs and ruffles, so the literary leaders emphasized
+    formality or correctness of style, and to write prose like Addison,
+    or verse like Pope, became the ambition of aspiring young authors.
+
+    There are certain books of the period (seldom studied amongst its
+    masterpieces) which are the best possible expression of its thought
+    and manners. The Letters of Lord Chesterfield, for example,
+    especially those written to his son, are more significant, and more
+    readable, than anything produced by Johnson. Even better are the
+    Memoirs of Horace Walpole, and his gossipy Letters, of which
+    Thackeray wrote:
+
+        "Fiddles sing all through them; wax lights, fine dresses,
+        fine jokes, fine plate, fine equipages glitter and sparkle;
+        never was such a brilliant, smirking Vanity Fair as that
+        through which he leads us."
+
+    [Sidenote: SPREAD OF EMPIRE]
+
+    Two other significant features of the age were the large part
+    played by England in Continental wars, and the rapid expansion of
+    the British empire. These Continental wars, which have ever since
+    influenced British policy, seem to have originated (aside from the
+    important matter of self-interest) in a double motive: to prevent
+    any one nation from gaining overwhelming superiority by force of
+    arms, and to save the smaller "buffer" states from being absorbed
+    by their powerful neighbors. Thus the War of the Spanish Succession
+    (1711) prevented the union of the French and Spanish monarchies,
+    and preserved the smaller states of Holland and Germany. As Addison
+    then wrote, at least half truthfully:
+
+      'T is Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate,
+      And hold in balance each contending state:
+      To threaten bold, presumptuous kings with war,
+      And answer her afflicted neighbors' prayer. [1]
+
+    [Footnote [1]: From Addison's Address to Liberty, in his poetical
+    "Letter to Lord Halifax."]
+
+    The expansion of the empire, on the whole the most marvelous
+    feature of English history, received a tremendous impetus in this
+    age when India, Australia and the greater part of North America
+    were added to the British dominions, and when Captain Cook opened
+    the way for a belt of colonies around the whole world.
+
+    The influence of the last-named movement hardly appears in the
+    books which we ordinarily read as typical of the age. There are
+    other books, however, which one may well read for his own
+    unhampered enjoyment: such expansive books as Hawkesworth's
+    _Voyages_ (1773), corresponding to Hakluyt's famous record of
+    Elizabethan exploration, and especially the _Voyages of Captain
+    Cook_, [Footnote: The first of Cook's fateful voyages appears in
+    Hawkesworth's collection. The second was recorded by Cook himself
+    (1777), and the third by Cook and Captain King (1784). See Synge,
+    _Captain Cook's Voyages Around the World_ (London, 1897).]
+    which take us from the drawing-room chatter of politics or fashion
+    or criticism into a world of adventure and great achievement. In
+    such works, which make no profession of literary style, we feel the
+    lure of the sea and of lands beyond the horizon, which is as the
+    mighty background of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to
+    the present day.
+
+It is difficult to summarize the literature of this age, or to group such
+antagonistic writers as Swift and Addison, Pope and Burns, Defoe and
+Johnson, Goldsmith and Fielding, with any fine discrimination. It is simply
+for convenience, therefore, that we study eighteenth-century writings in
+three main divisions: the reign of so-called classicism, the revival of
+romantic poetry, and the beginnings of the modern novel. As a whole, it is
+an age of prose rather than of poetry, and in this respect it differs from
+all preceding ages of English literature.
+
+       *       *       *       *      *
+
+EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CLASSICISM
+
+The above title is an unfortunate one, but since it is widely used we must
+try to understand it as best we can. Yet when one begins to define
+"classicism" one is reminded of that old bore Polonius, who tells how
+Hamlet is affected:
+
+                      Your noble son is mad:
+  Mad, call I it; for to define true madness,
+  What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
+
+In our literature the word "classic" was probably first used in connection
+with the writers of Greece and Rome, and any English work which showed the
+influence of such writers was said to have a classic style. If we seek to
+the root of the word, we shall find that it refers to the _classici_,
+that is, to the highest of the classes into which the census divided the
+Roman people; hence the proper use of "classic" to designate the writings
+that have won first rank in any nation. As Goethe said, "Everything that is
+good in literature is classical."
+
+[Sidenote: CLASSIC AND PSEUDO-CLASSIC]
+
+Gradually, however, the word "classic" came to have a different meaning, a
+meaning now expressed by the word "formal." In the Elizabethan age, as we
+have seen, critics insisted that English plays should conform to the rules
+or "unities" of the Greek drama, and plays written according to such rules
+were called classic. Again, in the eighteenth century, English poets took
+to studying ancient authors, especially Horace, to find out how poetry
+should be written. Having discovered, as they thought, the rules of
+composition, they insisted on following such rules rather than individual
+genius or inspiration. It is largely because of this adherence to rules,
+this slavery to a fashion of the time, that so much of eighteenth-century
+verse seems cold and artificial, a thing made to order rather than the
+natural expression of human feeling. The writers themselves were well
+satisfied with their formality, however, and called their own the Classic
+or Augustan age of English letters. [Footnote: Though the eighteenth
+century was dominated by this formal spirit, it had, like every other age,
+its classic and romantic movements. The work of Gray, Burns and other
+romantic poets will be considered later.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)
+
+It was in 1819 that a controversy arose over the question, Was Pope a poet?
+To have asked that in 1719 would have indicated that the questioner was
+ignorant; to have asked it  a half century later might have raised a doubt
+as to his sanity, for by that time Pope was acclaimed as a master by the
+great majority of poets in England and America. We judge now, looking at
+him in perspective and comparing him with Chaucer or Burns, that he was not
+a great poet but simply the kind of poet that the age demanded. He belongs
+to eighteenth-century London exclusively, and herein he differs from the
+master poets who are at home in all places and expressive of all time.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE]
+
+    LIFE. Pope is an interesting but not a lovable figure. Against the
+    petty details of his life we should place, as a background, these
+    amazing achievements: that this poor cripple, weak of body and
+    spiteful of mind, was the supreme literary figure of his age; that
+    he demonstrated how an English poet could live by his pen, instead
+    of depending on patrons; that he won greater fame and fortune than
+    Shakespeare or Milton received from their contemporaries; that he
+    dominated the fashion of English poetry during his lifetime, and
+    for many years after his death.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE WRITER]
+
+    Such are the important facts of Pope's career. For the rest: he was
+    born in London, in the year of the Revolution (1688). Soon after
+    that date his father, having gained a modest fortune in the linen
+    business, retired to Binfield, on the fringe of Windsor Forest.
+    There Pope passed his boyhood, studying a little under private
+    tutors, forming a pleasurable acquaintance with Latin and Greek
+    poets. From fourteen to twenty, he tells us, he read for amusement;
+    but from twenty to twenty-seven he read for "improvement and
+    instruction." The most significant traits of these early years were
+    his determination to be a poet and his talent for imitating any
+    writer who pleased him. Dryden was his first master, from whom he
+    inherited the couplet, then he imitated the French critic Boileau
+    and the Roman poet Horace. By the time he was twenty four the
+    publication of his _Essay on Criticism_ and _The Rape of the
+    Lock_ had made him the foremost poet of England. By his
+    translation of Homer he made a fortune, with which he bought a
+    villa at Twickenham. There he lived in the pale sunshine of
+    literary success, and there he quarreled with every writer who
+    failed to appreciate his verses, his jealousy overflowing at last
+    in _The Dunciad_ (Iliad of Dunces), a witty but venomous
+    lampoon, in which he took revenge on all who had angered him.
+
+    [Illustration: TWICKENHAM PARISH CHURCH, WHERE POPE WAS BURIED
+    Pope lived at Twickenham for nearly thirty years]
+
+    [Sidenote: THE MAN]
+
+    Next to his desire for glory and revenge, Pope loved to be
+    considered a man of high character, a teacher of moral philosophy.
+    His ethical teaching appears in his _Moral Epistles_, his
+    desire for a good reputation is written large in his Letters, which
+    he secretly printed, and then alleged that they had been made
+    public against his wish. These Letters might impress us as the
+    utterances of a man of noble ideals, magnanimous with his friends,
+    patient with his enemies, until we reflect that they were published
+    by the author for the purpose of giving precisely that impression.
+
+    Another side of Pope's nature is revealed in this: that to some of
+    his friends, to Swift and Bolingbroke for example, he showed
+    gratitude, and that to his parents he was ever a dutiful son. He
+    came perhaps as near as he could to a real rather than an
+    artificial sentiment when he wrote of his old mother:
+
+      Me let the tender office long engage,
+      To rock the cradle of reposing age.
+
+WORKS OF POPE. Pope's first important work, _An Essay on Criticism_
+(1711), is an echo of the rules which Horace had formulated in his _Ars
+Poetica_, more than seventeen centuries before Pope was born. The French
+critic Boileau made an alleged improvement of Horace in his _L'Art
+Poétique_, and Pope imitated both writers with his rimed _Essay_,
+in which he attempted to sum up the rules by which poetry should be judged.
+And he did it, while still under the age of twenty-five, so brilliantly
+that his characterization of the critic is unmatched in our literature. A
+few selections will serve to show the character of the work:
+
+  First follow nature, and your judgment frame
+  By her just standard, which is still the same:
+  Unerring nature, still divinely bright,
+  One clear, unchanged and universal light,
+  Life, force and beauty must to all impart,
+  At once the source and end and test of Art.
+
+  Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace
+  The naked nature and the living grace,
+  With gold and jewels cover every part,
+  And hide with ornaments their want of art.
+  True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
+  What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
+
+  Expression is the dress of thought, and still
+  Appears more decent, as more suitable.
+
+[Sidenote: RAPE OF THE LOCK]
+
+Pope's next important poem, _The Rape of the Lock_ (1712), is his most
+original and readable work. The occasion of the poem was that a fop stole a
+lock of hair from a young lady, and the theft plunged two families into a
+quarrel which was taken up by the fashionable set of London. Pope made a
+mock-heroic poem on the subject, in which he satirized the fads and
+fashions of Queen Anne's age. Ordinarily Pope's fancy is of small range,
+and proceeds jerkily, like the flight of a woodpecker, from couplet to
+couplet; but here he attempts to soar like the eagle. He introduces dainty
+aerial creatures, gnomes, sprites, sylphs, to combat for the belles and
+fops in their trivial concerns; and herein we see a clever burlesque of the
+old epic poems, in which gods or goddesses entered into the serious affairs
+of mortals. The craftsmanship of the poem is above praise; it is not only a
+neatly pointed satire on eighteenth-century fashions but is one of the most
+graceful works in English verse.
+
+[Sidenote: ESSAY OF MAN]
+
+An excellent supplement to _The Rape of the Lock_, which pictures the
+superficial elegance of the age, is _An Essay on Man_, which reflects
+its philosophy. That philosophy under the general name of Deism, had
+fancied to abolish the Church and all revealed religion, and had set up a
+new-old standard of natural faith and morals. Of this philosophy Pope had
+small knowledge; but he was well acquainted with the discredited
+Bolingbroke, his "guide, philosopher and friend," who was a fluent exponent
+of the new doctrine, and from Bolingbroke came the general scheme of the
+_Essay on Man_.
+
+The poem appears in the form of four epistles, dealing with man's place in
+the universe, with his moral nature, with social and political ethics, and
+with the problem of happiness. These were discussed from a common-sense
+viewpoint, and with feet always on solid earth. As Pope declares:
+
+  Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
+  The proper study of mankind is man....
+  Created half to rise, and half to fall;
+  Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
+  Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
+  The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
+
+Throughout the poem these two doctrines of Deism are kept in sight: that
+there is a God, a Mystery, who dwells apart from the world; and that man
+ought to be contented, even happy, in his ignorance of matters beyond his
+horizon:
+
+  All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
+  All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
+  All discord, harmony not understood;
+  All partial evil, universal good;
+  And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
+  One truth is clear: whatever is, is right.
+
+The result is rubbish, so far as philosophy is concerned, but in the heap
+of incongruous statements which Pope brings together are a large number of
+quotable lines, such as:
+
+  Honor and shame from no condition rise;
+  Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
+
+It is because of such lines, the care with which the whole poem is
+polished, and the occasional appearance of real beauty (such as the passage
+beginning, "Lo, the poor Indian") that the _Essay on Man_ occupies
+such a high place in eighteenth-century literature.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUALITY OF POPE]
+
+It is hardly necessary to examine other works of Pope, since the poems
+already named give us the full measure of his strength and weakness. His
+talent is to formulate rules of poetry, to satirize fashionable society, to
+make brilliant epigrams in faultless couplets. His failure to move or even
+to interest us greatly is due to his second-hand philosophy, his inability
+to feel or express emotion, his artificial life apart from nature and
+humanity. When we read Chaucer or Shakespeare, we have the impression that
+they would have been at home in any age or place, since they deal with
+human interests that are the same yesterday, to-day and forever; but we can
+hardly imagine Pope feeling at ease anywhere save in his own set and in his
+own generation. He is the poet of one period, which set great store by
+formality, and in that period alone he is supreme.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)
+
+In the history of literature Swift occupies a large place as the most
+powerful of English satirists; that is, writers who search out the faults
+of society in order to hold them up to ridicule. To most readers, however,
+he is known as the author of _Gulliver's Travels_, a book which young
+people still read with pleasure, as they read _Robinson Crusoe_ or any
+other story of adventure. In the fate of that book, which was intended to
+scourge humanity but which has become a source of innocent entertainment,
+is a commentary on the colossal failure of Swift's ambition.
+
+[Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT]
+
+    LIFE. Little need be recorded of Swift's life beyond the few facts
+    which help us to understand his satires. He was born in Dublin, of
+    English parents, and was so "bantered by fortune" that he was
+    compelled to spend the greater part of his life in Ireland, a
+    country which he detested. He was very poor, very proud; and even
+    in youth he railed at a mocking fate which compelled him to accept
+    aid from others. For his education he was dependent on a relative,
+    who helped him grudgingly. After leaving Trinity College, Dublin,
+    the only employment he could find was with another relative, Sir
+    William Temple, a retired statesman, who hired Swift as a secretary
+    and treated him as a servant. Galled by his position and by his
+    feeling of superiority (for he was a man of physical and mental
+    power, who longed to be a master of great affairs) he took orders
+    in the Anglican Church; but the only appointment he could obtain
+    was in a village buried, as he said, in a forsaken district of
+    Ireland. There his bitterness overflowed in _A Tale of a Tub_
+    and a few pamphlets of such satiric power that certain political
+    leaders recognized Swift's value and summoned him to their
+    assistance.
+
+    [Illustration: TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN]
+
+    [Sidenote: SWIFT IN LONDON]
+
+    To understand his success in London one must remember the times.
+    Politics were rampant; the city was the battleground of Whigs and
+    Tories, whose best weapon was the printed pamphlet that justified
+    one party by heaping abuse or ridicule on the other. Swift was a
+    master of satire, and he was soon the most feared author in
+    England. He seems to have had no fixed principles, for he was ready
+    to join the Tories when that party came into power and to turn his
+    literary cannon on the Whigs, whom he had recently supported. In
+    truth, he despised both parties; his chief object was to win for
+    himself the masterful position in Church or state for which, he
+    believed, his talents had fitted him.
+
+    For several years Swift was the literary champion of the victorious
+    Tories; then, when his keen eye detected signs of tottering in the
+    party, he asked for his reward. He obtained, not the great
+    bishopric which he expected, but an appointment as Dean of St.
+    Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. Small and bitter fruit this seemed
+    to Swift, after his years of service, but even so, it was given
+    grudgingly. [Footnote: Swift's pride and arrogance with his
+    official superiors worked against him. Also he had published _A
+    Tale of a Tub_, a coarse satire against the churches, which
+    scandalized the queen and her ministers, who could have given him
+    preferment. Thackeray says, "I think the Bishops who advised Queen
+    Anne not to appoint the author of the _Tale of a Tub_ to a
+    Bishopric gave perfectly good advice."]
+
+    [Sidenote: LIFE IN IRELAND]
+
+    When the Tories went out of power Swift's political occupation was
+    gone. The last thirty years of his life were spent largely in
+    Dublin. There in a living grave, as he regarded it, the scorn which
+    he had hitherto felt for individuals or institutions widened until
+    it included humanity. Such is the meaning of his _Gulliver's
+    Travels_. His only pleasure during these years was to expose the
+    gullibility of men, and a hundred good stories are current of his
+    practical jokes,--such as his getting rid of a crowd which had
+    gathered to watch an eclipse by sending a solemn messenger to
+    announce that, by the Dean's orders, the eclipse was postponed till
+    the next day. A brain disease fastened upon him gradually, and his
+    last years were passed in a state of alternate stupor or madness
+    from which death was a blessed deliverance.
+
+WORKS OF SWIFT. The poems of Swift, though they show undoubted power (every
+smallest thing he wrote bears that stamp), may be passed over with the
+comment of his relative Dryden, who wrote: "Cousin Swift, you will never be
+a poet." The criticism was right, but thereafter Swift jeered at Dryden's
+poetry. We may pass over also the _Battle of the Books_, the
+_Drapier's Letters_ and a score more of satires and lampoons. Of all
+these minor works the _Bickerstaff Papers_, which record Swift's
+practical joke on the astrologers, are most amusing. [Footnote: Almanacs
+were at that time published by pretender astrologers, who read fortunes or
+made predictions from the stars. Against the most famous of these quacks,
+Partridge by name, Swift leveled his "Predictions for the year 1708, by
+Isaac Bickerstaff." Among the predictions of coming events was this trifle:
+that Partridge was doomed to die on March 29 following, about eleven
+o'clock at night, of a raging fever. On March 30 appeared, in the
+newspapers, a letter giving the details of Partridge's death, and then a
+pamphlet called "An Elegy of Mr. Partridge." Presently Partridge, who could
+not see the joke, made London laugh by his frantic attempts to prove that
+he was alive. Then appeared an elaborate "Vindication of Isaac
+Bickerstaff," which proved by the infallible stars that Partridge was dead,
+and that the astrologer now in his place was an impostor. This joke was
+copied twenty-five years later by Franklin in his _Poor Richard's
+Almanac._]
+
+[Sidenote: GULLIVER'S TRAVELS]
+
+Swift's fame now rests largely upon his _Gulliver's Travels_, which
+appeared in 1726 under the title, "Travels into Several Remote Nations of
+the World, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a Surgeon and then a Captain of
+Several Ships." In the first voyage we are taken to Lilliput, a country
+inhabited by human beings about six inches tall, with minds in proportion.
+The capers of these midgets are a satire on human society, as seen through
+Swift's scornful eyes. In the second voyage we go to Brobdingnag, where the
+people are of gigantic stature, and by contrast we are reminded of the
+petty "human insects" whom Gulliver represents. The third voyage, to the
+Island of Laputa, is a burlesque of the scientists and philosophers of
+Swift's day. The fourth leads to the land of the Houyhnhnms, where
+intelligent horses are the ruling creatures, and humanity is represented by
+the Yahoos, a horribly degraded race, having the forms of men and the
+bestial habits of monkeys.
+
+Such is the ferocious satire on the elegant society of Queen Anne's day.
+Fortunately for our peace of mind we can read the book for its grim humor
+and adventurous action, as we read any other good story. Indeed, it
+surprises most readers of _Gulliver_ to be told that the work was
+intended to wreck our faith in humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: QUALITY OF SWIFT]
+
+In all his satires Swift's power lies in his prose style--a convincing
+style, clear, graphic, straightforward--and in his marvelous ability to
+make every scene, however distant or grotesque, as natural as life itself.
+As Emerson said, he describes his characters as if for the police. His
+weakness is twofold: he has a fondness for coarse or malodorous references,
+and he is so beclouded in his own soul that he cannot see his fellows in a
+true light. In one of his early works he announced the purpose of all his
+writing:
+
+  My hate, whose lash just Heaven has long decreed,
+  Shall on a day make Sin and Folly bleed.
+
+That was written at twenty-six, before he took orders in the Church. As a
+theological student it was certainly impressed upon the young man that
+Heaven keeps its own prerogatives, and that sin and folly have never been
+effectually reformed by lashing. But Swift had a scorn of all judgment
+except his own. As the eyes of fishes are so arranged that they see only
+their prey and their enemies, so Swift had eyes only for the vices of men
+and for the lash that scourges them. When he wrote, therefore, he was not
+an observer, or even a judge; he was a criminal lawyer prosecuting humanity
+on the charge of being a sham. A tendency to insanity may possibly account
+both for his spleen against others and for the self-tortures which made
+him, as Archbishop King said, "the most unhappy man on earth."
+
+[Sidenote: JOURNAL TO STELLA]
+
+There is one oasis in the bitter desert of Swift's writings, namely, his
+_Journal to Stella_. While in the employ of Temple he was the daily
+companion of a young girl, Esther Johnson, who was an inmate of the same
+household. Her love for Swift was pure and constant; wherever he went she
+followed and lived near him, bringing a ray of sunshine into his life, in a
+spirit which reminds us of the sublime expression of another woman: "For
+whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy
+people shall be my people, and thy God my God." She was probably married to
+Swift, but his pride kept him from openly acknowledging the union. While he
+was at London he wrote a private journal for Esther (Stella) in which he
+recorded his impressions of the men and women he met, and of the political
+battles in which he took part. That journal, filled with strange
+abbreviations to which only he and Stella had the key, can hardly be called
+literature, but it is of profound interest. It gives us glimpses of a woman
+who chose to live in the shadow; it shows the better side of Swift's
+nature, in contrast with his arrogance toward men and his brutal treatment
+of women; and finally, it often takes us behind the scenes of a stage on
+which was played a mixed comedy of politics and society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719)
+
+In Addison we have a pleasant reflection of the new social life of England.
+Select almost any feature of that life, and you shall find some account of
+it in the papers of Addison: its party politics in his _Whig
+Examiner_; its "grand tour," as part of a gentleman's education, in his
+_Remarks on Italy_; its adventure on foreign soil in such poems as
+"The Campaign"; its new drama of decency in his _Cato_; its classic
+delusions in his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_; its frills,
+fashions and similar matters in his _Spectator_ essays. He tried
+almost every type of literature, from hymns to librettos, and in each he
+succeeded well enough to be loudly applauded. In his own day he was
+accounted a master poet, but now he is remembered as a writer of prose
+essays.
+
+[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON]
+
+    LIFE. Addison's career offers an interesting contrast to that of
+    Swift, who lived in the same age. He was the son of an English
+    clergyman, settled in the deanery of Lichfield, and his early
+    training left upon him the stamp of good taste and good breeding.
+    In school he was always the model boy; in Oxford he wrote Latin
+    verses on safe subjects, in the approved fashion; in politics he
+    was content to "oil the machine" as he found it; in society he was
+    shy and silent (though naturally a brilliant talker) because he
+    feared to make some slip which might mar his prospects or the
+    dignity of his position.
+
+    A very discreet man was Addison, and the only failure he made of
+    discretion was when he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick,
+    went to live in her elegant Holland House, and lived unhappily ever
+    afterwards. The last is a mere formal expression. Addison had not
+    depth enough to be really unhappy. From the cold comfort of the
+    Dowager's palace he would slip off to his club or to Will's Coffee
+    house. There, with a pipe and a bottle, he would loosen his
+    eloquent tongue and proceed to "make discreetly merry with a few
+    old friends."
+
+    [Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE OXFORD]
+
+    His characteristic quality appears in the literary work which
+    followed his Latin verses. He began with a flattering "Address to
+    Dryden," which pleased the old poet and brought Addison to the
+    attention of literary celebrities. His next effort was "The Peace
+    of Ryswick," which flattered King William's statesmen and brought
+    the author a chance to serve the Whig party. Also it brought a
+    pension, with a suggestion that Addison should travel abroad and
+    learn French and diplomacy, which he did, to his great content, for
+    the space of three years.
+
+    The death of the king brought Addison back to England. His pension
+    stopped, and for a time he lived poorly "in a garret," as one may
+    read in Thackeray's _Henry Esmond_. Then came news of an
+    English victory on the Continent (Marlborough's victory at
+    Blenheim), and the Whigs wanted to make political capital out of
+    the event. Addison was hunted up and engaged to write a poem. He
+    responded with "The Campaign," which made him famous. Patriots and
+    politicians ascribed to the poem undying glory, and their judgment
+    was accepted by fashionable folk of London. To read it now is to
+    meet a formal, uninspired production, containing a few stock
+    quotations and, incidentally, a sad commentary on the union of
+    Whiggery and poetry.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS PATH OF ROSES]
+
+    From that moment Addison's success was assured. He was given
+    various offices of increasing importance; he entered Parliament; he
+    wrote a classic tragedy, _Cato_, which took London by storm
+    (his friend Steele had carefully "packed the house" for the first
+    performance); his essays in _The Spectator_ were discussed in
+    every fashionable club or drawing-room; he married a rich countess;
+    he was appointed Secretary of State. The path of politics, which
+    others find so narrow and slippery, was for Addison a broad road
+    through pleasant gardens. Meanwhile Swift, who could not follow the
+    Addisonian way of kindness and courtesy, was eating bitter bread
+    and railing at humanity.
+
+    After a brief experience as Secretary of State, finding that he
+    could not make the speeches expected of him, Addison retired on a
+    pension. His unwavering allegiance to good form in all matters
+    appears even in his last remark, "See how a Christian can die."
+    That was in 1719. He had sought the easiest, pleasantest way
+    through life, and had found it. Thackeray, who was in sympathy with
+    such a career, summed it up in a glowing panegyric:
+
+        "A life prosperous and beautiful, a calm death; an immense
+        fame and affection afterwards for his happy and spotless
+        name."
+
+WORKS OF ADDISON. Addison's great reputation was won chiefly by his poetry;
+but with the exception of a few hymns, simple and devout, his poetical
+works no longer appeal to us. He was not a poet but a verse-maker. His
+classic tragedy _Cato_, for example (which met with such amazing
+success in London that it was taken over to the Continent, where it was
+acclaimed "a masterpiece of regularity and elegance"), has some good
+passages, but one who reads the context is apt to find the elegant lines
+running together somewhat drowsily. Nor need that reflect on our taste or
+intelligence. Even the cultured Greeks, as if in anticipation of classic
+poems, built two adjoining temples, one dedicated to the Muses and the
+other to Sleep.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ESSAYS]
+
+The _Essays_ of Addison give us the full measure of his literary
+talent. In his verse, as in his political works, he seems to be speaking to
+strangers; he is on guard over his dignity as a poet, as Secretary of
+State, as husband of a countess; but in his _Essays_ we meet the man
+at his ease, fluent, witty, light-hearted but not frivolous,--just as he
+talked to his friends in Will's Coffeehouse. The conversational quality of
+these _Essays_ has influenced all subsequent works of the same
+type,--a type hard to define, but which leaves the impression of pleasant
+talk about a subject, as distinct from any learned discussion.
+
+The _Essays_ cover a wide range: fashions, dress, manners, character
+sketches, letters of travel, ghost stories, satires on common vices,
+week-end sermons on moral subjects. They are never profound, but they are
+always pleasant, and their graceful style made such a lasting impression
+that, half a century later, Dr. Johnson summed up a general judgment when
+he said:
+
+    "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not
+    coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and
+    nights to the volumes of Addison."
+
+ADDISON AND STEELE. Of these two associates Richard Steele (1672-1729) had
+the more original mind, and his writings reveal a warm, human sympathy that
+is lacking in the work of his more famous contemporary. But while Addison
+cultivated his one talent of writing, Steele was like Defoe in that he
+always had some new project in his head, and some old debt urging him to
+put the project into immediate execution. He was in turn poet, political
+pamphleteer, soldier, dramatist, member of Parliament, publisher, manager
+of a theater, following each occupation eagerly for a brief season, then
+abandoning it cheerfully for another,--much like a boy picking blueberries
+in a good place, who moves on and on to find a better bush, eats his
+berries on the way, and comes home at last with an empty pail.
+
+[Illustration: SIR RICHARD STEELE
+From the engraving by Freeman after original by J. Richardson]
+
+[Sidenote: THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR]
+
+While holding the political office of "gazetteer" (one who had a monopoly
+of official news) the idea came to Steele of publishing a literary
+magazine. The inventive Defoe had already issued _The Review_ (1704),
+but that had a political origin. With the first number of _The Tatler_
+(1709) the modern magazine made its bow to the public. This little sheet,
+published thrice a week and sold at a penny a copy, contained more or less
+politics, to be sure, but the fact that it reflected the gossip of
+coffeehouses made it instantly popular. After less than two years of
+triumph Steele lost his official position, and _The Tatler_ was
+discontinued. The idea remained, however, and a few months later appeared
+_The Spectator_ (1711), a daily magazine which eschewed politics and
+devoted itself to essays, reviews, letters, criticisms,--in short, to
+"polite" literature. Addison, who had been a contributor to _The
+Tatler_ entered heartily into the new venture, which had a brief but
+glorious career. He became known as "Mr. Spectator," and the famous
+Spectator Essays are still commonly attributed to him, though in truth
+Steele furnished a large part of them. [Footnote: Of the _Tatler_
+essays Addison contributed 42, Steele about 180, and some 36 were the work
+of the two authors in collaboration. Of the _Spectator_ essays Addison
+furnished 274, Steele 236, and about 45 were the work of other writers. In
+some of the best essays ("Sir Roger de Coverley," for example) the two men
+worked together. Steele is supposed to have furnished the original ideas,
+the humor and overflowing kindness of such essays, while the work of
+polishing and perfecting the style fell to the more skillful Addison.]
+
+[Sidenote: ADDISONIAN STYLE]
+
+Because of their cultivated prose style, Steele and Addison were long
+regarded as models, and we are still influenced by them in the direction of
+clearness and grace of expression. How wide their influence extended may be
+seen in American literature. Hardly had _The Spectator_ appeared when
+it crossed the Atlantic and began to dominate our English style on both
+sides of the ocean. Franklin, in Boston, studied it by night in order to
+imitate it in the essay which he slipped under the printing-house door next
+morning; and Boyd, in Virginia, reflects its influence in his charming
+Journal of exploration. Half a century later, the Hartford Wits were
+writing clever sketches that seemed like the work of a new "Spectator";
+another half century, and Irving, the greatest master of English prose in
+his day, was still writing in the Addisonian manner, and regretting as he
+wrote that the leisurely style showed signs, in a bustling age, "of
+becoming a little old-fashioned."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE
+
+Since Caxton established the king's English as a literary language our
+prose style has often followed the changing fashion of London. Thus, Lyly
+made it fantastic, Dryden simplified it, Addison gave it grace; and each
+leader set a fashion which was followed by a host of young writers. Hardly
+had the Addisonian style crossed the Atlantic, to be the model for American
+writers for a century, when London acclaimed a new prose fashion--a
+ponderous, grandiloquent fashion, characterized by mouth-filling words,
+antithetical sentences, rounded periods, sonorous commonplaces--which was
+eagerly adopted by orators and historians especially. The man who did more
+than any other to set this new oratorical fashion in motion was the same
+Dr. Samuel Johnson who advised young writers to study Addison as a model.
+And that was only one of his amusing inconsistencies.
+
+Johnson was a man of power, who won a commanding place in English letters
+by his hard work and his downright sincerity. He won his name of "the great
+lexicographer" by his _Dictionary_, which we no longer consult, but
+which we remember as the first attempt at a complete English lexicon. If
+one asks what else he wrote, with the idea of going to the library and
+getting a book for pleasure, the answer must be that Johnson's voluminous
+works are now as dead as his dictionary. One student of literature may be
+interested in such a melancholy poem as "The Vanity of Human Wishes";
+another will be entertained by the anecdotes or blunt criticisms of the
+_Lives of the Poets_; a third may be uplifted by the _Rambler
+Essays_, which are well called "majestically moral productions"; but we
+shall content ourselves here by recording Johnson's own refreshing
+criticism of certain ancient authors, that "it is idle to criticize what
+nobody reads." Perhaps the best thing he wrote was a minor work, which he
+did not know would ever be published. This was his manly Letter to Lord
+Chesterfield, a nobleman who had treated Johnson with discourtesy when the
+poor author was making a heroic struggle, but who offered his patronage
+when the Dictionary was announced as an epoch-making work. In his noble
+refusal of all extraneous help Johnson unconsciously voiced Literature's
+declaration of independence: that henceforth a book must stand or fall on
+its own merits, and that the day of the literary patron was gone forever.
+
+[Illustration: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON
+From the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds]
+
+    LIFE. The story of Johnson's life (1709-1784) has been so well told
+    that one is loath to attempt a summary of it. We note, therefore, a
+    few plain facts: that he was the son of a poor bookseller; that
+    despite poverty and disease he obtained his classic education; that
+    at twenty-six he came to London, and, after an experience with
+    patrons, rebelled against them; that he did every kind of hackwork
+    to earn his bread honestly, living in the very cellar of Grub
+    Street, where he was often cold and more often hungry; that after
+    nearly thirty years of labor his services to literature were
+    rewarded by a pension, which he shared with the poor; that he then
+    formed the Literary Club (including Reynolds, Pitt, Gibbon,
+    Goldsmith, Burke, and almost every other prominent man in London)
+    and indulged nightly in his famous "conversations," which were
+    either monologues or knockdown arguments; and that in his old age
+    he was regarded as the king of letters, the oracle of literary
+    taste in England.
+
+      [Illustration: DR. JOHNSON'S HOUSE (BOLT COURT, FLEET ST.)
+      From the print by Charles J. Smith]
+
+    Such is the bare outline of Johnson's career. To his character, his
+    rough exterior and his kind heart, his vast learning and his Tory
+    prejudices, his piety, his melancholy, his virtues, his frailty,
+    his "mass of genuine manhood," only a volume could do justice.
+    Happily that volume is at hand. It is Boswell's _Life of
+    Johnson_, a famous book that deserves its fame.
+
+BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. Boswell was an inquisitive barrister who came from
+Edinburgh to London and thrust himself into the company of great men. To
+Johnson, then at the summit of his fame, "Bozzy" was devotion itself,
+following his master about by day or night, refusing to be rebuffed,
+jotting down notes of what he saw and heard. After Johnson's death he
+gathered these notes together and, after seven years of labor, produced his
+incomparable _Life of Johnson_ (1791).
+
+The greatness of Boswell's work may be traced to two causes. First, he had
+a great subject. The story of any human life is interesting, if truthfully
+told, and Johnson's heroic life of labor and pain and reward was passed in
+a capital city, among famous men, at a time which witnessed the rapid
+expansion of a mighty empire. Second, Boswell was as faithful as a man
+could be to his subject, for whom he had such admiration that even the
+dictator's frailties seemed more impressive than the virtues of ordinary
+humanity. So Boswell concealed nothing, and felt no necessity to distribute
+either praise or blame. He portrayed a man just as that man was, recorded
+the word just as the word was spoken; and facing the man we may see his
+enraptured audience,--at a distance, indeed, but marvelously clear, as when
+we look through the larger end of a field glass at a landscape dominated by
+a mountain. One who reads this matchless biography will know Johnson better
+than he knows his own neighbor; he will gain, moreover, a better
+understanding of humanity, to reflect which clearly and truthfully is the
+prime object of all good literature.
+
+[Illustration: James Boswell]
+
+EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797). This brilliant Irishman came up to London as a
+young man of twenty-one. Within a few years--such was his character, his
+education, his genius--he had won a reputation among old statesmen as a
+political philosopher. Then he entered Parliament, where for twenty years
+the House listened with growing amazement to his rhythmic periods, and he
+was acclaimed the most eloquent of orators.
+
+Among Burke's numerous works those on America, India and France are
+deservedly the most famous. Of his orations on American subjects a student
+of literature or history may profitably read "On Taxation" (1774) and "On
+Conciliation" (1775), in which Burke presents the Whig argument in favor of
+a liberal colonial policy. The Tory view of the same question was bluntly
+presented by Johnson in his essay "Taxation No Tyranny"; while like a
+reverberation from America, powerful enough to carry across the Atlantic,
+came Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," which was a ringing plea for colonial
+independence.
+
+[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE
+From the print by John Jones, after Romney]
+
+Of Burke's works pertaining to India "The Nabob of Arcot's Debts" (1785)
+and the "Impeachment of Warren Hastings" (1786) are interesting to those who
+can enjoy a long flight of sustained eloquence. Here again Burke presents
+the liberal, the humane view of what was then largely a political question;
+but in his _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790) he goes over
+to the Tories, thunders against the revolutionists or their English
+sympathizers, and exalts the undying glories of the British constitution.
+The _Reflections_ is the most brilliant of all Burke's works, and is
+admired for its superb rhetorical style.
+
+[Sidenote: BURKE'S METHOD]
+
+To examine any of these works is to discover the author's characteristic
+method: first, his framework or argument is carefully constructed so as to
+appeal to reason; then this framework is buried out of sight and memory by
+a mass of description, digression, emotional appeal, allusions,
+illustrative matter from the author's wide reading or from his prolific
+imagination. Note this passage from the _French Revolution_:
+
+    "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of
+    France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never
+    lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more
+    delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and
+    cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in,
+    glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and
+    joy. Oh, what a revolution! And what a heart must I have to
+    contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little
+    did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of
+    distant, enthusiastic, respectful love, that she should ever be
+    obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in
+    that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such
+    disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation
+    of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords
+    must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that
+    threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That
+    of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the
+    glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall
+    we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud
+    submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the
+    heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an
+    exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of
+    nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is
+    gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of
+    honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage
+    whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched,
+    and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its
+    grossness."
+
+That is finely expressed, but it has no bearing on the political matter in
+question; namely, whether the sympathy of England should be extended to the
+French revolutionists in their struggle for liberty. This irrelevancy of
+Burke suggests our first criticism: that he is always eloquent, and usually
+right; but he is seldom convincing, and his eloquence is a hindrance rather
+than a help to his main purpose. So we are not surprised to hear that his
+eloquent speech on Conciliation emptied the benches; or that after his
+supreme effort in the impeachment of Hastings--an effort so tremendously
+dramatic that spectators sobbed, screamed, were carried out in fits--the
+object of all this invective was acquitted by his judges. Reading the works
+now, they seem to us praiseworthy not for their sustained eloquence, which
+is wearisome, but for the brilliancy of certain detached passages which
+catch the eye like sparkling raindrops after a drenching shower. It was the
+splendor of such passages, their vivid imagery and harmonious rhythm, which
+led Matthew Arnold to assert that Burke was the greatest master of prose
+style in our literature. Anybody can make such an assertion; nobody can
+prove or disprove it.
+
+THE HISTORIANS. Perhaps it was the rapid expansion of the empire in the
+latter, part of the eighteenth century which aroused such interest in
+historical subjects that works of history were then more eagerly welcomed
+than poetry or fiction. Gibbon says in his _Memoirs_ that in his day
+"history was the most popular species of composition." It was also the best
+rewarded; for while Johnson, the most renowned author of his time, wrote a
+romance (_Rasselas_) hoping to sell it for enough to pay for his
+mother's funeral, Robertson easily disposed of his _History of the
+Emperor Charles V_ for £4500; and there were others who were even better
+paid for popular histories, the very titles of which are now forgotten.
+
+[Sidenote: GIBBON]
+
+Of all the historical works of the age, and their name was legion, only one
+survives with something of its original vitality, standing the double test
+of time and scholarship. This is _The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_ (1776), a work which remained famous for a century, and which
+still has its admiring readers. It was written by Edward Gibbon
+(1737-1794), who belonged to the Literary Club that gathered about Johnson,
+and who cultivated his style, he tells us, first by adopting the dictator's
+rounded periods, and then practicing them "till they moved to flutes and
+hautboys."
+
+The scope of Gibbon's work is enormous. It begins with the Emperor Trajan
+(A.D. 98) and carries us through the convulsions of a dying civilization,
+the descent of the Barbarians on Rome, the spread of Christianity, the
+Crusades, the rise of Mohammedanism,--through all the confused history of
+thirteen centuries, ending with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks,
+in 1453. The mind that could grasp such vast and chaotic materials, arrange
+them in orderly sequence and resent them as in a gorgeous panorama, moves
+us to wonder. To be sure, there are many things to criticize in Gibbon's
+masterpiece,--the author's love of mere pageants; his materialism; his
+inability to understand religious movements, or even religious motives; his
+lifeless figures, which move as if by mechanical springs,--but one who
+reads the _Decline and Fall_ may be too much impressed by the
+evidences of scholarship, of vast labor, of genius even, to linger over
+faults. It is a "monumental" work, most interesting to those who admire
+monuments; and its style is the perfection of that oratorical, Johnsonese
+style which was popular in England in 1776, and which, half a century
+later, found its best American mouthpiece in Daniel Webster. The influence
+of Gibbon may still be seen in the orators and historians who, lacking the
+charm of simplicity, clothe even their platitudes in high-sounding phrases.
+
+[Illustration: EDWARD GIBBON
+From an enamel by H Bone, R.A.; after Sir Joshua Reynolds]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REVIVAL OF ROMANTIC POETRY
+
+Every age has had its romantic poets--that is, poets who sing the dreams
+and ideals of life, and whose songs seem to be written naturally,
+spontaneously, as from a full heart [Footnote: For specific examples of
+formal and romantic poetry see the comparison between Addison and
+Wordsworth below, under "Natural vs Formal Poetry", Chapter VII]--but in
+the eighteenth century they were completely overshadowed by formal
+versifiers who made poetry by rule. At that time the imaginative verse
+which had delighted an earlier age was regarded much as we now regard an
+old beaver hat; Shakespeare and Milton were neglected, Spenser was but a
+name, Chaucer was clean forgotten. If a poet aspired to fame, he imitated
+the couplets of Dryden or Pope, who, as Cowper said,
+
+  Made poetry a mere mechanic art,
+  And every warbler has his tune by heart.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS GRAY
+from a portrait by Benjamin Wilson, in the possession of John Murray]
+
+Among those who made vigorous protest against the precise and dreary
+formalism of the age were Collins and Gray, whose names are commonly
+associated in poetry, as are the names of Addison and Steele in prose. They
+had the same tastes, the same gentle melancholy, the same freedom from the
+bondage of literary fashion. Of the two, William Collins (1721-1759) was
+perhaps the more gifted poet. His exquisite "Ode to Evening" is without a
+rival in its own field, and his brief elegy beginning, "How sleep the
+brave," is a worthy commemoration of a soldier's death and a nation's
+gratitude. It has, says Andrew Lang, the magic of an elder day and of all
+time.
+
+Thomas Gray (1716-1771) is more widely known than his fellow poet, largely
+because of one fortunate poem which "returned to men's bosoms" as if sure
+of its place and welcome. This is the "Elegy Written in a Country
+Churchyard" (1750), which has been translated into all civilized tongues,
+and which is known, loved, quoted wherever English is spoken.
+
+[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCHYARD, SHOWING PART OF THE CHURCH AND
+GRAY'S TOMB]
+
+[Sidenote: GRAY'S ELEGY]
+
+To criticize this favorite of a million readers seems almost ruthless, as
+if one were pulling a flower to pieces for the sake of giving it a
+botanical name. A pleasanter task is to explain, if one can, the immense
+popularity of the "Elegy." The theme is of profound interest to every man
+who reveres the last resting place of his parents, to the nation which
+cherishes every monument of its founders, and even to primitive peoples,
+like the Indians, who refuse to leave the place where their fathers are
+buried, and who make the grave a symbol of patriotism. With this great
+theme our poet is in perfect sympathy. His attitude is simple and reverent;
+he treads softly, as if on holy ground. The natural setting or atmosphere
+of his poem, the peace of evening falling on the old churchyard at Stoke
+Poges, the curfew bell, the cessation of daily toil, the hush which falls
+upon the twilight landscape like a summons to prayer,--all this is exactly
+as it should be. Finally, Gray's craftsmanship, his choice of words, his
+simple figures, his careful fitting of every line to its place and context,
+is as near perfection as human skill could make it.
+
+Other poems of Gray, which make his little book precious, are the four
+odes: "To Spring," "On a Distant Prospect of Eton College," "The Progress
+of Poesy" and "The Bard," the last named being a description of the
+dramatic end of an old Welsh minstrel, who chants a wild prophecy as he
+goes to his death. These romantic odes, together with certain translations
+which Gray made from Norse mythology, mark the end of "classic" domination
+in English poetry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774)
+
+Most versatile of eighteenth-century writers was "poor Noll," a most
+improvident kind of man in all worldly ways, but so skillful with his pen
+that Johnson wrote a sincere epitaph to the effect that Goldsmith attempted
+every form of literature, and adorned everything which he attempted. The
+form of his verse suggests the formal school, and his polished couplets
+rival those of Pope; but there the resemblance ceases. In his tenderness
+and humor, in his homely subjects and the warm human sympathy with which he
+describes them, Goldsmith belongs to the new romantic school of poetry.
+
+    LIFE. The life of Goldsmith has inspired many pens; but the
+    subject, far from being exhausted, is still awaiting the right
+    biographer. The poet's youthful escapades in the Irish country, his
+    classical education at Trinity College, Dublin, and his vagabond
+    studies among gypsies and peddlers, his childish attempts at
+    various professions, his wanderings over Europe, his shifts and
+    makeshifts to earn a living in London, his tilts with Johnson at
+    the Literary Club, his love of gorgeous raiment, his indiscriminate
+    charity, his poverty, his simplicity, his success in the art of
+    writing and his total failure in the art of living,--such
+    kaleidoscopic elements make a brief biography impossible. The
+    character of the man appears in a single incident.
+
+    Landing one day on the Continent with a flute, a spare shirt and a
+    guinea as his sole outward possessions, the guinea went for a feast
+    and a game of cards at the nearest inn, and the shirt to the first
+    beggar that asked for it. There remained only the flute, and with
+    that Goldsmith fared forth confidently, like the gleeman of old
+    with his harp, delighted at seeing the world, utterly forgetful of
+    the fact that he had crossed the Channel in search of a medical
+    education.
+
+    That aimless, happy-go-lucky journey was typical of Goldsmith's
+    whole life of forty-odd years. Those who knew him loved but
+    despaired of him. When he passed away (1774) Johnson summed up the
+    feeling of the English literary world in the sentence, "He was a
+    very great man, let not his frailties be remembered."
+
+[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH
+After the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds]
+
+GOLDSMITH'S PROSE AND VERSE. Among the forgotten works of Goldsmith we note
+with interest several that he wrote for children: a fanciful _History of
+England_, an entertaining but most unreliable _Animated Nature_,
+and probably also the tale of "Little Goody Twoshoes." These were written
+(as were all his other works) to satisfy the demands of his landlady, or to
+pay an old debt, or to buy a new cloak,--a plum-colored velvet cloak,
+wherewith to appear at the opera or to dazzle the Literary Club. From among
+his works we select four, as illustrative of Goldsmith's versatility.
+
+_The Citizen of the World_, a series of letters from an alleged
+Chinese visitor, invites comparison with the essays of Addison or Steele.
+All three writers are satirical, all have a high moral purpose, all are
+masters of a graceful style, but where the "Spectator" touches the surface
+of life, Goldsmith often goes deeper and probes the very spirit of the
+eighteenth century. Here is a paragraph from the first letter, in which the
+alleged visitor, who has heard much of the wealth and culture of London,
+sets down his first impressions:
+
+    "From these circumstances in their buildings, and from the dismal
+    looks of the inhabitants, I am induced to conclude that the nation
+    is actually poor, and that, like the Persians, they make a splendid
+    figure everywhere but at home. The proverb of Xixofou is, that a
+    man's riches may be seen in his eyes if we judge of the English by
+    this rule, there is not a poorer nation under the sun."
+
+[Illustration: THE "CHESHIRE CHEESE," LONDON, SHOWING DR. JOHNSON'S FAVORITE
+SEAT The tavern, which still stands, was the favorite haunt of both Johnson
+and Goldsmith]
+
+[Sidenote: THE DESERTED VILLAGE]
+
+_The Deserted Village_ (1770) is the best remembered of Goldsmith's
+poems, or perhaps one should say "verses" in deference to critics like
+Matthew Arnold who classify the work with Pope's _Essay on Man_, as a
+rimed dissertation rather than a true poem.
+
+To compare the two works just mentioned is to discover how far Goldsmith is
+from his formal model. In Pope's "Essay" we find common sense, moral maxims
+and some alleged philosophy, but no emotion, no romance, no men or women.
+The "Village," on the other hand, is romantic even in desolation; it
+awakens our interest, our sympathy; and it gives us two characters, the
+Parson and the Schoolmaster, who live in our memories with the best of
+Chaucer's creations. Moreover, it makes the commonplace life of man ideal
+and beautiful, and so appeals to readers of widely different tastes or
+nationalities. Of the many ambitious poems written in the eighteenth
+century, the two most widely read (aside from the songs of Burns) are
+Goldsmith's "Village," which portrays the life of simple country people,
+and Gray's "Elegy," which laments their death.
+
+[Illustration: CANONBURY TOWER (LONDON)
+Goldsmith lived here when he wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield"]
+
+[Sidenote: VICAR OF WAKEFIELD]
+
+Goldsmith's one novel, _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (1766), has been well
+called "the Prince Charming" of our early works of fiction. This work has a
+threefold distinction: its style alone is enough to make it pleasant
+reading; as a story it retains much of its original charm, after a century
+and a half of proving; by its moral purity it offered the best kind of
+rebuke to the vulgar tendency of the early English novel, and influenced
+subsequent fiction in the direction of cleanness and decency.
+
+The story is that of a certain vicar, or clergyman, Dr. Primrose and his
+family, who pass through heavy trials and misfortunes. These might crush or
+embitter an ordinary man, but they only serve to make the Vicar's love for
+his children, his trust in God, his tenderness for humanity, shine out more
+clearly, like star's after a tempest. Mingled with these affecting trials
+are many droll situations which probably reflect something of the author's
+personal escapades; for Goldsmith was the son of a clergyman, and brought
+himself and his father into his tale. As a novel, that is, a reflection of
+human life in the form of a story, it contains many weaknesses; but despite
+its faults of moralizing and sentimentality, the impression which the story
+leaves is one of "sweetness and light." Swinburne says that, of all novels
+he had seen rise and fall in three generations, _The Vicar of
+Wakefield_ alone had retained the same high level in the opinion of its
+readers.
+
+[Sidenote: SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER]
+
+Another notable work is Goldsmith's comedy _She Stoops to Conquer_. The
+date of that comedy (1773) recalls the fact that, though it has been played
+for nearly a century and a half, during which a thousand popular plays have
+been forgotten, it is still a prime favorite on the amateur stage. Perhaps
+the only other comedies of which the same can be said with approximate
+truth are _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for Scandal_ (1777)
+of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
+
+The plot of _She Stoops to Conquer_ is said to have been suggested by
+one of Goldsmith's queer adventures. He arrived one day at a village,
+riding a borrowed nag, and with the air of a lordly traveler asked a
+stranger to direct him "to the best house in the place." The stranger
+misunderstood, or else was a rare wag, for he showed the way to the abode
+of a wealthy gentleman. There Goldsmith made himself at home, ordered the
+servants about, invited his host to share a bottle of wine,--in short, made
+a great fool of himself. Evidently the host was also a wag, for he let the
+joke run on till the victim was ready to ride away. [Footnote: There is
+some doubt as to the source of Goldsmith's plot. It may have been suggested
+by an earlier French comedy by Marivaux.]
+
+From some such crazy escapade Goldsmith made his comedy of manners, a
+lively, rollicking comedy of topsy-turvy scenes, all hinging upon the
+incident of mistaking a private house for a public inn. We have called
+_She Stoops to Conquer_ a comedy of eighteenth-century manners, but
+our continued interest in its absurdities would seem to indicate that it is
+a comedy of human nature in all ages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)
+
+Burns is everywhere acclaimed the poet of Scotland, and for two good
+reasons: because he reflects better than any other the emotions of the
+Scottish people, and because his book is a summary of the best verse of his
+native land. Practically all his songs, such as "Bonnie Boon" and "Auld
+Lang Syne," are late echoes of much older verses; his more ambitious poems
+borrow their ideas, their satire or sentiment, their form even, from
+Ferguson, Allan Ramsay and other poets, all of whom aimed (as Scott aimed
+in "Lochinvar") to preserve the work of unnamed minstrels whose lines had
+been repeated in Highlands or Lowlands for two centuries. Burns may be
+regarded, therefore, as a treasury of all that is best in Scottish song.
+His genius was to take this old material, dear to the heart of the native,
+and give it final expression.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT BURNS
+After Alexander Nasmyth]
+
+    LIFE. The life of Burns is one to discourage a biographer who does
+    not relish the alternative of either concealing the facts or
+    apologizing for his subject. We shall record here only a few
+    personal matters which may help us to understand Burns's poetry.
+
+    Perhaps the most potent influence in his life was that which came
+    from his labor in the field. He was born in a clay biggin, or
+    cottage, in the parish of Alloway, near the little town of Ayr.
+
+      Auld Ayr, wham neer a town surpasses
+      For honest men and bonnie lasses.
+
+    His father was a poor crofter, a hard working, God fearing man of
+    the Covenanter type, who labored unceasingly to earn a living from
+    the soil of a rented farm. The children went barefoot in all
+    seasons, almost from the time they could walk they were expected to
+    labor and at thirteen Bobbie was doing a man's work at the plow or
+    the reaping. The toil was severe, the reward, at best, was to
+    escape dire poverty or disgraceful debt, but there was yet a
+    nobility in the life which is finely reflected in "The Cotter's
+    Saturday Night," a poem which ranks with Whittier's "Snow Bound"
+    among the best that labor has ever inspired.
+
+    [Illustration: "ELLISLAND"
+    The hundred acre farm near Dumfries where Burns worked as a farmer.
+    The happiest days of his life were spent here, 1787-1791]
+
+    [Sidenote: THE ELEMENT OF NATURE]
+
+    As a farmer's boy Burns worked in the open, in close contact with
+    nature, and the result is evident in all his verse. Sunshine or
+    storm, bird song or winter wind, the flowers, the stars, the dew of
+    the morning,--open Burns where you will, and you are face to face
+    with these elemental realities. Sometimes his reflection of nature
+    is exquisitely tender, as in "To a Mouse" or "To a Mountain Daisy";
+    but for the most part he regards nature not sentimentally, like
+    Gray, or religiously, like Wordsworth and Bryant, but in a breezy,
+    companionable way which suggests the song of "Under the Greenwood
+    Tree" in _As You Like It_.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS EDUCATION]
+
+    Another influence in Burns's life came from his elementary
+    education. There were no ancient classics studied in the school
+    which he attended,--fortunately, perhaps, for his best work is free
+    from the outworn classical allusions which decorate the bulk of
+    eighteenth-century verse. In the evening he listened to tales from
+    Scottish history, which stirred him deeply and made him live in a
+    present world rather than in the misty region of Greek mythology.
+    One result of this education was the downright honesty of Burns's
+    poems. Here is no echo from a vanished world of gods and goddesses,
+    but the voice of a man, living, working, feeling joy or sorrow in
+    the presence of everyday nature and humanity.
+
+    For another formative influence Burns was indebted to Betty
+    Davidson, a relative and an inmate of the household, who carried
+    such a stock of old wives' tales as would scare any child into fits
+    on a dark night. Hear Burns speak of her:
+
+        "She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country
+        of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
+        brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies,
+        elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips,
+        giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This
+        cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, but had so strong an
+        effect upon my imagination that to this hour, in my
+        nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in
+        suspicious places."
+
+    Reflections of these grotesque superstitions appear in such poems
+    as the "Address to the Deil" and "Tam o' Shanter." The latter is
+    commonly named as one of the few original works of Burns, but it is
+    probably a retelling of some old witch-tale of Betty Davidson.
+
+    [Sidenote: EVIL ELEMENTS]
+
+    The evil influence in Burns's life may be only suggested. It leads
+    first to the tavern, to roistering and dissipation, to
+    entanglements in vulgar love affairs; then swiftly to the loss of a
+    splendid poetic gift, to hopeless debts, to degrading poverty, to
+    an untimely death. Burns had his chance, if ever poet had it, after
+    the publication of his first book (the famous Kilmarnock edition of
+    1786) when he was called in triumph to Edinburgh. There he sold
+    another edition of his poems for a sum that seemed fabulous to a
+    poor crofter; whereupon he bought a farm and married his Jean
+    Armour. He was acclaimed throughout the length and breadth of his
+    native land, his poems were read by the wise and by the ignorant,
+    he was the poet of Scotland, and the nation, proud of its gifted
+    son, stood ready to honor and follow him. But the old habits were
+    too strong, and Burns took the downhill road. To this element of
+    dissipation we owe his occasional bitterness, railing and
+    coarseness, which make an expurgated edition of his poems essential
+    to one who would enjoy the reading.
+
+    [Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF TARBOLTON, NEAR WHICH BURNS LIVED
+    WHEN ABOUT NINETEEN YEARS OLD]
+
+    There is another element, often emphasized for its alleged
+    influence on Burns's poetry. During his lifetime the political
+    world was shaken by the American and French revolutions, democracy
+    was in the air, and the watchwords "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
+    inspired many a song besides the _Marseillaise_ and many a
+    document besides the Declaration of Independence. That Burns was
+    aware of this political commotion is true, but he was not much
+    influenced by it. He was at home only in his own Scottish field,
+    and even there his interests were limited,--not to be compared with
+    those of Walter Scott, for example. When the Bastille was stormed,
+    and the world stood aghast, Burns was too much engrossed in
+    personal matters to be greatly moved by distant affairs in France.
+    Not to the Revolution, therefore, but to his Scottish blood do we
+    owe the thrilling "Scots Wha Hae," one of the world's best battle
+    songs, not to the new spirit of democracy abroad but to the old
+    Covenanter spirit at home do we owe "A Man's a Man for a' That"
+    with its assertion of elemental manhood.
+
+THE SONGS OF BURNS. From such an analysis of Burns's life one may forecast
+his subject and his method. Living intensely in a small field, he must
+discover that there are just two poetic subjects of abiding interest. These
+are Nature and Humanity, and of these Burns must write from first-hand
+knowledge, simply, straightforwardly, and with sincerity. Moreover, as
+Burns lives in an intense way, reading himself rather than books, he must
+discover that the ordinary man is more swayed by strong feeling than by
+logical reasons. He will write, therefore, of the common emotions that lie
+between the extremes of laughter and tears, and his appeal will be to the
+heart rather than to the head of his reader.
+
+[Illustration: AULD ALLOWAY KIRK
+Made famous by the poem of "Tam o'Shanter"]
+
+This emotional power of Burns, his masterful touch upon human heartstrings,
+is the first of his poetic qualities; and he has others which fairly force
+themselves upon the attention. For example, many of his lyrics ("Auld Lang
+Syne," "Banks o' Doon," "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," "O Wert Thou in the
+Cauld Blast") have been repeatedly set to music; and the reason is that
+they were written to music, that in such poems Burns was refashioning some
+old material to the tune of a Scottish song. There is a singing quality in
+his poetry which not only makes it pleasant reading but which is apt to set
+the words tripping to melody. For a specific example take this stanza from
+"Of a' the Airts," a lyric which one can hardly read without making a tune
+to match it:
+
+  I see her in the dewy flow'rs,
+    I see her sweet and fair;
+  I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
+    I hear her charm the air:
+  There's not a bonie flow'r that springs
+    By fountain, shaw or green,
+  There's not a bonie bird that sings,
+    But minds me o' my Jean.
+
+Sympathy is another marked characteristic of Burns, a wide, all-embracing
+sympathy that knows no limit save for hypocrites, at whom he pointed his
+keenest satire. His feeling for nature is reflected in "To a Mouse" and "To
+a Daisy"; his comradeship with noble men appears in "The Cotter's Saturday
+Night," with riotous and bibulous men in "The Jolly Beggars," with
+smugglers and their ilk in "The Deil's Awa' with the Exciseman," [Footnote:
+Burns was himself an exciseman; that is, a collector of taxes on alcoholic
+liquors. He wrote this song while watching a smuggler's craft, and waiting
+in the storm for officers to come and make an arrest.] with patriots in
+"Bannockburn," with men who mourn in "To Mary in Heaven," and with all
+lovers in a score of famous lyrics. Side by side with Burns's sympathy (for
+Smiles live next door to Tears) appears his keen sense of humor, a humor
+that is sometimes rollicking, as in "Contented wi' Little," and again too
+broad for decency. For the most part, however, Burns contents himself with
+dry, quiet sarcasm delivered with an air of great seriousness:
+
+  Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet
+  To think how mony counsels sweet,
+  How mony lengthened sage advices
+  The husband frae the wife despises!
+
+WHY BURNS IS READ. Such qualities, appearing on almost every page of
+Burns's little book of poetry, show how widely he differs from the formal
+school of Pope and Dryden. They labor to compose poetry, while Burns gives
+the impression of singing, as naturally as a child sings from a full heart.
+Again, most eighteenth-century poets wrote for the favored few, but Burns
+wrote for all his neighbors. His first book was bought farmers, plowboys,
+milkmaids,--by every Lowlander who could scrape together three shillings to
+buy a treasure. Then scholars got hold of it, taking it from humble hands,
+and Burns was called to Edinburgh to prepare a larger edition of his songs.
+For a half century Scotland kept him to herself, [Footnote: Up to 1850
+Burns was rarely mentioned in treatises on English literature. One reason
+for his late recognition was that the Lowland vocabulary employed in most
+of his poems was only half intelligible to the ordinary English reader]
+then his work went wide in the world, to be read again by plain men and
+women, by sailors on the sea, by soldiers round the campfire, by farmers,
+mechanics, tradesmen, who in their new homes in Australia or America warmed
+themselves at the divine fire which was kindled, long ago, in the little
+clay biggin at Alloway.
+
+[Illustration: BURNS'S MAUSOLEUM]
+
+[Sidenote: THE GENIUS OF BURNS]
+
+If one should ask, Why this world wide welcome to Burns, the while Pope
+remains a mark for literary criticism? the answer is that Burns has a most
+extraordinary power of touching the hearts of common men. He is one of the
+most democratic of poets, he takes for his subject a simple experience--a
+family gathering at eventide, a fair, a merrymaking, a joy, a grief, the
+finding of a flower, the love of a lad for a lass--and with rare simplicity
+reflects the emotion that such an experience awakens. Seen through the
+poet's eyes, this simple emotion becomes radiant and lovely, a thing not of
+earth but of heaven. That is the genius of Burns, to ennoble human feeling,
+to reveal some hidden beauty in a commonplace experience. The luminous
+world of fine thought and fine emotion which we associate with the name of
+poetry he opened not to scholars alone but to all humble folk who toil and
+endure. As a shoemaker critic once said, "Burns confirms my former
+suspicion that the world was made for me as well as for Cæsar."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MINOR POETS OF ROMANTICISM
+
+There were other poets who aided in the romantic revival, and among them
+William Cowper (1731-1800) is one of the most notable. His most ambitious
+works, such as _The Task_ and the translation of Homer into blank
+verse, have fallen into neglect, and he is known to modern readers chiefly
+by a few familiar hymns and by the ballad of "John Gilpin."
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM COWPER
+From the rare engraving by W Blake (1802) After the painting by T
+Lawrence, R A (1793)]
+
+Less gifted but more popular than Cowper was James Macpherson (1736-1796),
+who made a sensation that spread rapidly over Europe and America with his
+_Fingal_ (1762) and other works of the same kind,--wildly heroic poems
+which, he alleged, were translations from Celtic manuscripts written by an
+ancient bard named Ossian. Another and better literary forgery appeared in
+a series of ballads called _The Rowley Papers_, dealing with medieval
+themes. These were written by "the marvelous boy" Thomas Chatterton
+(1752-1770), who professed to have found the poems in a chest of old
+manuscripts. The success of these forgeries, especially of the "Ossian"
+poems, is an indication of the awakened interest in medieval poetry and
+legend which characterized the whole romantic movement.
+
+In this connection, Thomas Percy (1729-1811) did a notable work when he
+published, after years of research, his _Reliques of Ancient English
+Poetry_ (1765). This was a collection of old ballads, which profoundly
+influenced Walter Scott, and which established a foundation for all later
+works of balladry.
+
+Another interesting figure in the romantic revival is William Blake
+(1757-1827), a strange, mystic child, a veritable John o' Dreams, whom some
+call madman because of his huge, chaotic, unintelligible poems, but whom
+others regard as the supreme poetical genius of the eighteenth century. His
+only readable works are the boyish _Poetical Sketches_ (1783) and two
+later volumes called _Songs of Innocence_ and _Songs of
+Experience_ (1794). Even these contain much to make us question Blake's
+sanity; but they contain also a few lyrics that might have been written by
+an elf rather than a man,--beautiful, elusive lyrics that haunt us like a
+strain of gypsy music, a memory of childhood, a bird song in the night:
+
+  Can the eagle see what is in the pit,
+    Or wilt thou go ask the mole?
+  Can wisdom be put in a silver rod,
+    Or love in a golden bowl?
+
+In the witchery of these lyrics eighteenth-century poetry appears
+commonplace; but they attracted no attention, even "Holy Thursday," the
+sweetest song of poor children ever written, passing unnoticed. That did
+not trouble Blake, however, who cared nothing for rewards. He was a
+childlike soul, well content
+
+  To see the world in a grain of sand,
+    And a heaven in a wild flower;
+  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
+    And eternity in an hour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE EARLY ENGLISH NOVEL
+
+An important literary event of the eighteenth century was the appearance of
+the modern novel. This invention, generally credited to the English,
+differs radically from the old romance, which was known to all civilized
+peoples. Walter Scott made the following distinction between the two types
+of fiction: the romance is a story in which our interest centers in
+marvelous incidents, brought to pass by extraordinary or superhuman
+characters; the novel is a story which is more natural, more in harmony
+with our experience of life. Such a definition, though faulty, is valuable
+in that it points to the element of imagination as the distinguishing mark
+between the romance and the true novel.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ROMANCE]
+
+Take, for example, the romances of Arthur or Sindbad or the Green Knight.
+Here are heroes of more than human endurance, ladies of surpassing
+loveliness, giants, dragons, enchanters, marvelous adventures in the land
+of imagination. Such fanciful stories, valuable as a reflection of the
+ideals of different races, reached their highest point in the Middle Ages,
+when they were used to convey the ideals of chivalry and knightly duty.
+They grew more fantastic as they ran to seed, till in the Elizabethan age
+they had degenerated into picaresque stories (from _picaro_, "a
+rogue") which recounted the adventures not of a noble knight but of some
+scoundrel or outcast. They were finally laughed out of literature in
+numerous burlesques, of which the most famous is _Don Quixote_ (1605).
+In the humor of this story, in the hero's fighting windmills and meeting so
+many adventures that he had no time to breathe, we have an excellent
+criticism not of chivalry, as is sometimes alleged, but of extravagant
+popular romances on the subject. [Footnote: _Don Quixote_ is commonly
+named as a type of extravagant humor, but from another viewpoint it is a
+sad book, intensely sad. For it recounts the experience of a man who had a
+knightly heart and who believed the world to be governed by knightly
+ideals, but who went forth to find a world filled with vulgarity and
+villainy.]
+
+[Sidenote: THE NOVEL]
+
+Compare now these old romances with _Ivanhoe_ or _Robinson
+Crusoe_ or _Lorna Doone_ or _A Tale of Two Cities_. In each of
+the last-named novels one may find three elements: a story, a study, and an
+exercise of the creative imagination. A modern work of fiction must still
+have a good story, if anybody is to read it; must contain also a study or
+observation of humanity, not of superhuman heroes but of men and women who
+work or play or worship in close relationship to their fellows. Finally,
+the story and the study must be fused by the imagination, which selects or
+creates various scenes, characters, incidents, and which orders or arranges
+its materials so as to make a harmonious work that appeals to our sense of
+truth and beauty; in other words, a work of art.
+
+Such is the real novel, a well-told story in tune with human experience,
+holding true to life, exercising fancy but keeping it under control,
+arousing thought as well as feeling, and appealing to our intellect as well
+as to our imagination. [Footnote: This convenient division of prose fiction
+into romances and novels is open to challenge. Some critics use the name
+"novel" for any work of prose fiction. They divide novels into two classes,
+stories (or short stories) and romances. The story relates simple or
+detached incidents; the romance deals with life in complex relations,
+dominated by strong emotions, especially by the emotion of love.
+
+Other critics arrange prose fiction in the following classes: novels of
+adventure (Robinson Crusoe, The Last of the Mohicans), historical novels
+(Ivanhoe, The Spy), romantic novels (Lorna Doone, The Heart of Midlothian),
+novels of manners (Cranford, Pride and Prejudice), novels of personality
+(Silas Marner, The Scarlet Letter), novels of purpose (Oliver Twist, Uncle
+Tom's Cabin).
+
+Still another classification arranges fiction under two heads, romance and
+realism. In the romance, which portrays unusual incidents or characters, we
+see the ideal, the poetic side of humanity; in the realistic novel, dealing
+with ordinary men and women, the prosaic element of life is emphasized.]
+
+DEFOE (1661-1731). Among the forerunners of the modern novel is Daniel Foe,
+author of _Robinson Crusoe_, who began to call himself "Defoe" after
+he attained fame. He produced an amazing variety of wares: newspapers,
+magazines, ghost stories, biographies, journals, memoirs, satires,
+picaresque romances, essays on religion, reform, trade, projects,--in all
+more than two hundred works. These were written in a picturesque style and
+with such a wealth of detail that, though barefaced inventions for the most
+part, they passed for veracious chronicles. One critic, thinking of the
+vividly realistic _Journal of the Plague Year_ and _Memoirs of a
+Cavalier_, says that "Defoe wrote history, but invented the facts";
+another declares that "the one little art of which Defoe was past master
+was the art of forging a story and imposing it on the world as truth." The
+long list of his works ends with a _History of the Devil_, in 1726.
+
+[Illustration: DANIEL DEFOE]
+
+    Foe's career was an extraordinary one. By nature and training he
+    seems to have preferred devious ways to straight, and to have
+    concealed his chief motive whether he appeared as reformer or
+    politician, tradesman or writer, police-spy or friend of outcasts.
+    His education, which he picked up from men and circumstance, was
+    more varied than any university could have given him. Perhaps the
+    chief factor in this practical education was his ability to turn
+    every experience to profitable account. As a journalist he invented
+    the modern magazine (his _Review_ appeared in 1704, five years
+    before Steele's _Tatler_); also he projected the interview,
+    the editorial, the "scoop," and other features which still figure
+    in our newspapers. As a hired pamphleteer, writing satires against
+    Whigs or Tories, he learned so many political secrets that when one
+    party fell he was the best possible man to be employed by the
+    other. While sitting in the stocks (in punishment for writing a
+    satirical pamphlet that set Tories and Churchmen by the ears) he
+    made such a hit with his doggerel verses against the authorities
+    that crowds came to the pillory to cheer him and to buy his poem.
+    While in durance vile, in the old Newgate Prison, he mingled freely
+    with all sorts of criminals (there were no separate cells in those
+    days), won their secrets, and used them to advantage in his
+    picaresque romances. He learned also so much of the shady side of
+    London life that no sooner was he released than he was employed as
+    a secret service agent, or spy, by the government which had jailed
+    him.
+
+    [Illustration: CUPOLA HOUSE Defoe's residence at Bury]
+
+    It is as difficult to find the real Foe amidst such devious trails
+    as to determine where a caribou is from the maze of footprints
+    which he leaves behind him. He seems to have been untiring in his
+    effort to secure better treatment of outcast folk, he speaks of
+    himself with apparent sincerity, as having received his message
+    from the Divine Spirit, but the impression which he made upon the
+    upper classes was reflected by Swift, who called him "a grave,
+    dogmatical rogue". For many years he was a popular hero, trusted
+    not only by the poor but by the criminal classes (ordinarily keen
+    judges of honesty in other men), until his secret connection with
+    the government became known. Then suspicion fell upon him, his
+    popularity was destroyed and he fled from London. The last few
+    years of his life were spent in hiding from real or imaginary
+    enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: ROBINSON CRUSOE]
+
+Defoe was approaching his sixtieth year when he wrote _Robinson
+Crusoe_ (1719), a story which has been read through out the civilized
+world, and which, after two centuries of life, is still young and vigorous.
+The first charm of the book is in its moving adventures, which are
+surprising enough to carry us through the moralizing passages. These also
+have their value; for who ever read them without asking, What would I have
+done or thought or felt under such circumstances? The work of society is
+now so comfortably divided that one seldom dreams of being his own
+mechanic, farmer, hunter, herdsman, cook and tailor, as Crusoe was.
+Thinking of his experience we are brought face to face with our dependence
+on others, with our debt to the countless, unnamed men whose labor made
+civilization possible. We understand also the pioneers, who in the far,
+lonely places of the earth have won a home and country from the wilderness.
+
+When the adventures are duly appreciated we discover another charm of
+_Robinson Crusoe_, namely, its intense reality. Defoe had that
+experience of many projects, and that vivid imagination, which enabled him
+to put himself in the place of his hero, [Footnote: The basis of
+_Robinson Crusoe_ was the experience of an English sailor, Alexander
+Selkirk, or Selcraig, who was marooned on the lonely island of Juan
+Fernandez, off the coast of Chile. There he lived in solitude for the space
+of five years before he was rescued. When Selkirk returned to England
+(1709) an account of his adventures appeared in the public press.] to
+anticipate his needs, his feelings, his labors and triumph. That Crusoe was
+heroic none will deny; yet his heroism was of a different kind from that
+which we meet in the old romances. Here was no knight "without fear and
+without reproach," but a plain man with his strength and weakness. He
+despaired like other men; but instead of giving way to despair he drew up a
+list of his blessings and afflictions, "like debtor and creditor," found a
+reasonable balance in his favor, and straightway conquered himself,--which
+is the first task of all real heroes. Again, he had horrible fears; he beat
+his breast, cried out as one in mortal terror; then "I thought that would
+do little good, so I began to make a raft." So he overcame his fears, as he
+overcame the difficulties of the place, by setting himself to do alone what
+a whole race of men had done before him. _Robinson Crusoe_ is
+therefore history as well as fiction; its subject is not Alexander Selkirk
+but Homo Sapiens; its lesson is the everlasting triumph of will and work.
+
+RICHARDSON. One morning in 1740 the readers of London found a new work for
+sale in the bookshops. It was made up of alleged letters from a girl to her
+parents, a sentimental girl who opened her heart freely, explaining its
+hopes, fears, griefs, temptations, and especially its moral sensibilities.
+Such a work of fiction was unique at that time. Delighted readers waited
+for another and yet another volume of the same story, till more than a year
+had passed and _Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded_ reached its happy ending.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIRST NOVEL]
+
+The book made a sensation in England; it was speedily translated, and
+repeated its triumph on the other side of the Channel. Comparatively few
+people could read it now without being bored, but it is famous in the
+history of literature as the first English novel; that is, a story of a
+human life under stress of emotion, told by one who understood the tastes
+of his own age, and who strove to keep his work true to human nature in all
+ages.
+
+The author of _Pamela_, Samuel Richardson (1689--1761), was a very
+proper person, well satisfied with himself, who conducted a modest business
+as printer and bookseller. For years he had practiced writing, and had
+often been employed by sentimental young women who came to him for model
+love letters. Hence the extraordinary knowledge of feminine feelings which
+Richardson displayed; hence also the epistolary form in which his novels
+were written. His aim in all his work was to teach morality and correct
+deportment. His strength was in his power to analyze and portray emotions.
+His weakness lay in his vanity, which led him to shun masculine society and
+to foregather at tea tables with women who flattered him.
+
+Led by the success of _Pamela_, which portrayed the feelings of a
+servant girl, the author began another series of letters which ended in the
+eight-volume novel _Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady_ (1748).
+The story appeared in installments, which were awaited with feverish
+impatience till the agony drew to an end, and the heroine died amid the
+sobs of ten thousand readers. Yet the story had power, and the central
+figure of Clarissa was impressive in its pathos and tragedy. The novel
+would still be readable if it were stripped of the stilted conversations
+and sentimental gush in which Richardson delighted; but that would leave
+precious little of the story.
+
+FIELDING. In vigorous contrast with the prim and priggish Richardson is
+Henry Fielding (1707-1754), a big, jovial, reckless man, full of animal
+spirits, who was ready to mitigate any man's troubles or forget his own by
+means of a punch bowl or a venison potpie. He was noble born, but seems to
+have been thrown on the world to shift for himself. After an excellent
+education he studied law, and was for some years a police magistrate, in
+which position he increased his large knowledge of the seamy side of life.
+He had a pen for vigorous writing, and after squandering two modest
+fortunes (his own and his wife's) he proceeded to earn his living by
+writing buffooneries for the stage. Then appeared Richardson's _Pamela,
+or Virtue Rewarded_, and in ridiculing its sentimental heroine Fielding
+found his vocation as a novelist.
+
+[Sidenote: BURLESQUE OF RICHARDSON]
+
+He began _Joseph Andrews_ (1742) as a joke, by taking for his hero an
+alleged brother of Pamela, who was also virtuous but whose reward was to be
+kicked out of doors. Then the story took to the open road, among the inns
+and highways of an age when traveling in rural England was almost as
+adventurous as campaigning in Flanders. In the joy of his story Fielding
+soon forgot his burlesque of Richardson, and attempted what he called a
+realistic novel; that is, a story of real life. The morality and decorum
+which Richardson exalted appeared to Fielding as hypocrisy; so he devoted
+himself to a portrayal of men and manners as he found them.
+
+Undoubtedly there were plenty of good men and manners at that time, but
+Fielding had a vagabond taste that delighted in rough scenes, and of these
+also eighteenth-century England could furnish an abundance. Hence his
+_Joseph_ Andrews is a picture not of English society, as is often
+alleged, but only of the least significant part of society. The same is
+true of _Tom Jones_ (1749), which is the author's most vigorous work,
+and of _Amelia_ (1751), in which, though he portrays one good woman,
+he repeats many of the questionable incidents of his earlier works.
+
+There is power in all these novels, the power of keen observation, of rough
+humor, of downright sincerity; but unhappily the power often runs to waste
+in long speeches to the reader, in descriptions of brutal or degrading
+scenes, and in a wholly unnecessary coarseness of expression.
+
+INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY NOVELS. The idea of the modern novel seems to have
+been developed by several English authors, each of whom, like pioneers in a
+new country, left his stamp on subsequent works in the same field.
+Richardson's governing motive may be summed up in the word "sensibility,"
+which means "delicacy of feeling," and which was a fashion, almost a
+fetish, in eighteenth-century society. Because it was deemed essential to
+display proper or decorous feeling on all occasions, Richardson's heroines
+were always analyzing their emotions; they talked like a book of etiquette;
+they indulged in tears, fainting, transports of joy, paroxysms of grief,
+apparently striving to make themselves as unlike a real woman as possible.
+It is astonishing how far and wide this fad of sensibility spread through
+the literary world, and how many gushing heroines of English and American
+fiction during the next seventy-five years were modeled on Pamela or
+Clarissa.
+
+In view of this artificial fashion, the influence of Fielding was like the
+rush of crisp air into a hot house. His aim was realistic, that is, to
+portray real people in their accustomed ways. Unfortunately his aim was
+spoiled by the idea that to be realistic one must go to the gutter for
+material. And then appeared Goldsmith, too much influenced by the fad of
+sensibility, but aiming to depict human life as governed by high ideals,
+and helping to cleanse the English novel from brutality and indecency.
+
+[Sidenote: THREEFOLD INFLUENCE]
+
+There were other early novelists, a host of them, but in Richardson,
+Fielding and Goldsmith we have enough. Richardson emphasized the analysis
+of human feeling or motive, and that of itself was excellent; but his
+exaggerated sentimentality set a bad fashion which our novelists were
+almost a century in overcoming. Fielding laid stress on realism, and that
+his influence was effective is shown in the work of his disciple Thackeray,
+who could be realistic without being coarse. And Goldsmith made all
+subsequent novelists his debtors by exalting that purity of domestic life
+to which every home worthy of the name forever strives or aspires.
+
+If it be asked, What novels of the early type ought one to read? the answer
+is simple. Unless you want to curdle your blood by a tale of mystery and
+horror (in which case Mrs. Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_ will
+serve the purpose) there are only two that young readers will find
+satisfactory: the realistic _Robinson Crusoe_ by Defoe, and the
+romantic _Vicar of Wakefield_ by Goldsmith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. What we call eighteenth-century literature appeared
+    between two great political upheavals, the English Revolution of
+    1688 and the French Revolution of 1789. Some of the chief
+    characteristics of that literature--such as the emphasis on form,
+    the union of poetry with politics, the prevalence of satire, the
+    interest in historical subjects--have been accounted for, in part
+    at least, in our summary of the history of the period.
+
+    The writings of the century are here arranged in three main
+    divisions: the reign of formalism (miscalled classicism), the
+    revival of romantic poetry, and the development of the modern
+    novel. Our study of the so-called classic period includes: (1) The
+    meaning of classicism in literature. (2) The life and works of
+    Pope, the leading poet of the age; of Swift, a master of satire; of
+    Addison and Steele, the graceful essayists who originated the
+    modern literary magazine. (3) The work of Dr. Johnson and his
+    school; in which we have included, for convenience, Edmund Burke,
+    most eloquent of English orators, and Gibbon the historian, famous
+    for his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.
+
+    Our review of the romantic writers of the age covers: (1) The work
+    of Collins and Gray, whose imaginative poems are in refreshing
+    contrast to the formalism of Pope and his school. (2) The life and
+    works of Goldsmith, poet, playwright, novelist; and of Burns, the
+    greatest of Scottish song writers. (3) A glance at other poets,
+    such as Cowper and Blake, who aided in the romantic revival. (4)
+    The renewed interest in ballads and legends, which showed itself in
+    Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, and in two
+    famous forgeries, the _Ossian_ poems of Macpherson and _The
+    Rowley Papers_ of the boy Chatterton.
+
+    Our study of the novel includes: (1) The meaning of the modern
+    novel, as distinct from the ancient romance. (2) A study of Defoe,
+    author of _Robinson Crusoe_, who was a forerunner of the
+    modern realistic novelist. (3) The works of Richardson and of
+    Fielding, contrasting types of eighteenth-century story-tellers.
+    (4) The influence of Richardson's sentimentality, of Fielding's
+    realism, and of Goldsmith's moral purity on subsequent English
+    fiction.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections are given in Manly,
+    English Poetry and English Prose, Century Readings, and other
+    miscellaneous collections. Important works of major writers are
+    published in inexpensive editions for school use, a few of which
+    are named below.
+
+    Pope's poems, selected, in Standard English Classics, Pocket
+    Classics, Riverside Literature, and other series. (See Texts, in
+    General Bibliography.)
+
+    Selections from Swift's works, in Athenæum Press, Holt's English
+    Readings, Clarendon Press. Gulliver's Travels, in Standard English
+    Classics, in Ginn and Company's Classics for Children, in
+    Carisbrooke Library, in Temple Classics.
+
+    Selections from Addison and Steele, in Athenæum Press, Golden
+    Treasury, Maynard's English Classics. Sir Roger de Coverley Papers,
+    in Standard English Classics, Riverside Literature, Academy
+    Classics.
+
+    Chesterfield's Letters to his son, selected, in Ginn and Company's
+    Classics for Children, and in Maynard's English Classics.
+
+    Boswell's Life of Johnson, in Clarendon Press, Temple Classics,
+    Everyman's Library.
+
+    Burke's Speeches, selected, in Standard English Classics, Pocket
+    Classics, English Readings.
+
+    Selections from Gray, in Athenæum Press, Canterbury Poets,
+    Riverside Literature.
+
+    Goldsmith's Deserted Village and Vicar of Wakefield, in Standard
+    English Classics, King's Classics; She Stoops to Conquer, in Pocket
+    Classics, Belles Lettres Series, Cassell's National Library.
+
+    Sheridan's The Rivals, in Athenæum Press, Camelot Series, Riverside
+    Literature, Everyman's Library.
+
+    Poems of Burns, selected, in Standard English Classics, Riverside
+    Literature, Silver Classics.
+
+    Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, school edition by Ginn and Company; the
+    same in Everyman's Library, Pocket Classics.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. For extensive manuals and texts see the General
+    Bibliography. The following works deal chiefly with the eighteenth
+    century.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Morris, Age of Queen Anne and the Early Hanoverians
+    (Epochs of Modern History Series); Sydney, England and the English
+    in the Eighteenth Century; Susan Hale, Men and Manners in the
+    Eighteenth Century; Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne;
+    Thackeray, The Four Georges.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. L. Stephen, English Literature in the Eighteenth
+    Century; Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century;
+    Seccombe, The Age of Johnson; Dennis, The Age of Pope; Gosse,
+    History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Whitwell,
+    Some Eighteenth-Century Men of Letters; Phelps, Beginnings of the
+    English Romantic Movement; Beers, English Romanticism in the
+    Eighteenth Century; Thackeray, English Humorists.
+
+    _Pope_. Life, by Courthope; by L. Stephen (English Men of
+    Letters Series). Essays, by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by L.
+    Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Lowell, in My Study Windows.
+
+    _Swift_. Life, by Forster; by L. Stephen (E. M. of L.).
+    Essays, by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by Dobson, in
+    Eighteenth Century Vignettes.
+
+    _Addison and Steele_. Life of Addison, by Courthope (E. M. of
+    L.). Life of Steele, by Dobson. Essays by Macaulay, by Thackeray,
+    by Dobson.
+
+    _Johnson_. Life, by Boswell (for personal details); by L.
+    Stephen (E. M. of L.). Hill, Dr. Johnson: his Friends and his
+    Critics. Essays by Macaulay, by Thackeray, by L. Stephen.
+
+    _Burke_. Life, by Morley (E. M. of L.), by Prior. Macknight,
+    Life and Times of Burke.
+
+    _Gibbon_. Life, by Morrison (E. M. of L.). Essays, by Birrell,
+    in Collected Essays; by L. Stephen, in Studies of a Biographer; by
+    Harrison, in Ruskin and Other Literary Estimates; by Sainte-Beuve,
+    in English Portraits.
+
+    _Gray_. Life, by Gosse. Essays by Lowell, M. Arnold, L.
+    Stephen, Dobson.
+
+    _Goldsmith_. Life, by Washington Irving, by Dobson (Great
+    Writers Series), by Black (E. M. of L.), by Forster. Essays, by
+    Macaulay; by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by Dobson, in
+    Miscellanies.
+
+    _Burns_. Life, by Shairp (E. M. of L.), by Blackie (Great
+    Writers). Carlyle's Essay on Burns, in Standard English Classics
+    and other school editions. Essays, by Stevenson, in Familiar
+    Studies of Men and Books; by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English
+    Poets; by Henley, in Introduction to the Cambridge Edition of
+    Burns.
+
+    _The Novel. Raleigh, The English Novel; Cross, Development of the
+    English Novel; Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Symonds,
+    Introduction to the Study of English Fiction; Dawson, Makers of
+    English Fiction.
+
+    _Defoe_. Life, by Minto (E. M. of L.), by William Lee. Essay
+    by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library.
+
+    _Richardson_. Life, by Thomson, by Dobson. Essays, by L.
+    Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Dobson, in Eighteenth Century
+    Vignettes.
+
+    _Fielding_. Life, by Dobson (E. M. of L.). Lawrence, Life and
+    Times of Fielding. Essays by Lowell, L. Stephen, Dobson; Thackeray,
+    in English Humorists; G. B. Smith, in Poets and Novelists.
+
+    _FICTION_. Thackeray, Henry Esmond, and The Virginians; Scott,
+    Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian, Redgauntlet; Reade,
+    Peg Woffington.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+  Two voices are there; one is of the sea,
+  One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:
+  In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
+  They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
+
+             Wordsworth, "Sonnet to Switzerland"
+
+
+The many changes recorded in the political and literary history of
+nineteenth-century England may be grouped under two heads: the progress of
+democracy in government, and the triumph of romanticism in literature. By
+democracy we mean the assumption by common men of the responsibilities of
+government, with a consequent enlargement of human liberty. Romanticism, as
+we use the term here, means simply that literature, like politics, has
+become liberalized; that it is concerned with the common life of men, and
+that the delights of literature, like the powers of government, are no
+longer the possession of the few but of the many.
+
+    HISTORICAL OUTLINE. To study either democracy or romanticism, the
+    Whig party or the poetry of Wordsworth, is to discover how greatly
+    England was influenced by matters that appeared beyond her borders.
+    The famous Reform Bill (1832) which established manhood suffrage,
+    the emancipation of the slaves in all British colonies, the
+    hard-won freedom of the press, the plan of popular
+    education,--these and numberless other reforms of the age may be
+    regarded as part of a general movement, as the attempt to fulfill
+    in England a promise made to the world by two events which occurred
+    earlier and on foreign soil. These two events, which profoundly
+    influenced English politics and literature, were the Declaration of
+    Independence and the French Revolution.
+
+    [Sidenote: TWO REVOLUTIONS]
+
+    In the Declaration we read, "We hold these truths to be
+    self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed
+    by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
+    are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Glorious words!
+    But they were not new; they were old and familiar when Jefferson
+    wrote them. The American Revolution, which led up to the
+    Declaration, is especially significant in this: that it began as a
+    struggle not for new privileges but for old rights. So the
+    constructive character of that Revolution, which ended with a
+    democracy and a noble constitution, was due largely to the fact
+    that brave men stood ready to defend the old freedom, the old
+    manhood, the old charters, "the good old cause" for which other
+    brave men had lived or died through a thousand years.
+
+    A little later, and influenced by the American triumph, came
+    another uprising of a different kind. In France the unalienable
+    rights of man had been forgotten during ages of tyranny and class
+    privilege; so the French Revolution, shouting its watchwords of
+    Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, had no conception of that liberty
+    and equality which were as ancient as the hills. Leaders and
+    followers of the Revolution were clamoring for new privileges, new
+    rights, new morals, new creeds. They acclaimed an "Age of Reason"
+    as a modern and marvelous discovery; they dreamed not simply of a
+    new society, but of a new man. A multitude of clubs or parties,
+    some political, some literary or educational, some with a pretense
+    of philosophy, sprang up as if by magic, all believing that they
+    must soon enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but nearly all forgetful of
+    the fact that to enter the Kingdom one must accept the old
+    conditions, and pay the same old price. Partly because of this
+    strange conception of liberty, as a new thing to be established by
+    fiat, the terrible struggle in France ended in the ignoble military
+    despotism of Napoleon.
+
+    [Sidenote: EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTIONS]
+
+    These two revolutions, one establishing and the other clamoring for
+    the dignity of manhood, created a mighty stir throughout the
+    civilized world. Following the French Revolution, most European
+    nations were thrown into political ferment, and the object of all
+    their agitation, rebellion, upheaval, was to obtain a greater
+    measure of democracy by overturning every form of class or caste
+    government. Thrones seemed to be tottering, and in terror of their
+    houses Continental sovereigns entered into their Holy Alliance
+    (1815) with the unholy object of joining forces to crush democracy
+    wherever it appeared.
+
+THE REVOLUTION AND LITERATURE. The young writers of liberty-loving England
+felt the stir, the _sursum_ of the age. Wordsworth, most sedate of
+men, saw in the French Revolution a glorious prophecy, and wrote with
+unwonted enthusiasm:
+
+  Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+  But to be young was very Heaven.
+
+Coleridge and Southey formed their grand scheme of a Pantisocracy, a
+government of perfect equality, on the banks of the Susquehanna. Scott
+(always a Tory, and therefore distrustful of change) reflected the
+democratic enthusiasm in a score of romances, the chief point of which was
+this: that almost every character was at heart a king, and spake right
+kingly fashion. Byron won his popularity largely because he was an
+uncompromising rebel, and appealed to young rebels who were proclaiming the
+necessity of a new human society. And Shelley, after himself rebelling at
+almost every social law of his day, wrote his _Prometheus Unbound_,
+which is a vague but beautiful vision of humanity redeemed in some magical
+way from all oppression and sorrow.
+
+All these and other writers of the age give the impression, as we read them
+now, that they were gloriously expectant of a new day of liberty that was
+about to dawn on the world. Their romantic enthusiasm, so different from
+the cold formality of the age preceding, is a reflection, like a rosy
+sunset glow, of the stirring scenes of revolution through which the world
+had just passed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
+
+There is but one way to know Wordsworth, and that way leads to his nature
+poems. Though he lived in a revolutionary age, his life was singularly
+uneventful. His letters are terribly prosaic; and his _Excursion_, in
+which he attempted an autobiography, has so many dull lines that few have
+patience to read it. Though he asserted, finely, that there is but one
+great society on earth, "the noble living and the noble dead," he held no
+communion with the great minds of the past or of the present. He lived in
+his own solitary world, and his only real companion was nature. To know
+nature at first hand, and to reflect human thought or feeling in nature's
+pure presence,--this was his chief object. His field, therefore, is a small
+one, but in that field he is the greatest master that England has thus far
+produced.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]
+
+    LIFE. Wordsworth is as inseparably connected with the English Lake
+    District as Burns with the Lowlands or Scott with the Border. A
+    large part of the formative period of his life was spent out of
+    doors amid beautiful scenery, where he felt the abounding life of
+    nature streaming upon him in the sunshine, or booming in his ears
+    with the steady roar of the March winds. He felt also (what
+    sensitive spirits still feel) a living presence that met him in the
+    loneliest wood, or spoke to him in the flowers, or preceded him
+    over the wind-swept hills. He was one of those favored mortals who
+    are surest of the Unseen. From school he would hurry away to his
+    skating or bird-nesting or aimless roaming, and every new day
+    afield was to him "One of those heavenly days that cannot die."
+
+    [Sidenote: WORDSWORTH AND THE REVOLUTION]
+
+    From the Lake Region he went to Cambridge, but found little in
+    college life to attract or hold him. Then, stirred by the promise
+    of the Revolution, he went to France, where his help was eagerly
+    sought by rival parties; for in that day every traveler from
+    America or England, whether an astute Jefferson or a lamblike
+    Wordsworth, was supposed to be, by virtue of his country, a master
+    politician Wordsworth threw himself rather blindly into the
+    Revolution, joined the Girondists (the ruling faction in 1792) and
+    might have gone to the guillotine with the leaders of that party
+    had not his friends brought him home by the simple expedient of
+    cutting off his supply of money. Thus ended ingloriously the only
+    adventure that ever quickened his placid life.
+
+    For a time Wordsworth mourned over the failure of his plans, but
+    his grief turned to bitterness when the Revolution passed over into
+    the Reign of Terror and ended in the despotism of Napoleon. His
+    country was now at war with France, and he followed his country,
+    giving mild support to Burke and the Tory party. After a few
+    uncertain years, during which he debated his calling in life, he
+    resolved on two things: to be a poet, and to bring back to English
+    poetry the romantic spirit and the naturalness of expression which
+    had been displaced by the formal elegance of the age of Pope and
+    Johnson.
+
+    [Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S DESK IN HAWKSHEAD SCHOOL]
+
+    For that resolution we are indebted partly to Coleridge, who had
+    been attracted by some of Wordsworth's early poems, and who
+    encouraged him to write more. From the association of these two men
+    came the famous _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), a book which marks
+    the beginning of a new era in English poetry.
+
+    To Wordsworth's sister Dorothy we are even more indebted. It was
+    she who soothed Wordsworth's disappointment, reminded him of the
+    world of nature in which alone he was at home, and quietly showed
+    him where his power lay. As he says, in _The Prelude_
+
+      She whispered still that brightness would return,
+      She, in the midst of all preserved me still
+      A poet, made me seek beneath that name,
+      And that alone, my office upon earth
+
+    [Sidenote: PERSONAL TRAITS]
+
+    The latter half of Wordsworth's life was passed in the Lake Region,
+    at Grasmere and Rydal Mount for the most part, the continuity being
+    broken by walking trips in Britain or on the Continent. A very
+    quiet, uneventful life it was, but it revealed two qualities which
+    are of interest to Wordsworth's readers. The first was his devotion
+    to his art; the second was his granite steadfastness. His work was
+    at first neglected, while the poems of Scott, Byron and Tennyson in
+    succession attained immense popularity. The critics were nearly all
+    against him; misunderstanding his best work and ridiculing the
+    rest. The ground of their opposition was, that his theory of the
+    utmost simplicity in poetry was wrong; their ridicule was made
+    easier by the fact that Wordsworth produced as much bad work as
+    good. Moreover, he took himself very seriously, had no humor, and,
+    as visitors like Emerson found to their disappointment, was
+    interested chiefly in himself and his own work. For was he not
+    engaged in the greatest of all projects, an immense poem (_The
+    Recluse_) which should reflect the universe in the life of one
+    man, and that man William Wordsworth? Such self-satisfaction
+    invited attack; even Lamb, the gentlest of critics, could hardly
+    refrain from poking fun at it:
+
+        "Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town; he is to
+        have apartments in the Mansion House. He says he does not
+        see much difficulty in writing like Shakespeare, if he had
+        a mind to try it. It is clear that nothing is wanting but
+        the mind."
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS TRIUMPH]
+
+    Slowly but surely Wordsworth won recognition, not simply in being
+    made Laureate, but in having his ideal of poetry vindicated. Poets
+    in England and America began to follow him; the critics were
+    silenced, if not convinced. While the popularity of Scott and Byron
+    waned, the readers of Wordsworth increased steadily, finding him a
+    poet not of the hour but of all time. "If a single man plant
+    himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide," says
+    Emerson, "the huge world will come around to him." If the reading
+    world has not yet come around to Wordsworth, that is perhaps not
+    the poet's fault.
+
+WORDSWORTH: HIS THEME AND THEORY. The theory which Wordsworth and Coleridge
+formulated was simply this: that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
+powerful human feeling. Its only subjects are nature and human nature; its
+only object is to reflect the emotions awakened by our contemplation of the
+world or of humanity; its language must be as direct and simple as
+possible, such language as rises unbidden to the lips whenever the heart is
+touched. Though some of the world's best poets have taken a different view,
+Wordsworth maintained steadily that poetry must deal with common subjects
+in the plainest language; that it must not attempt to describe, in elegant
+phrases, what a poet is supposed to feel about art or some other subject
+selected for its poetic possibilities.
+
+[Sidenote: NATURAL VS. FORMAL POETRY]
+
+In the last contention Wordsworth was aiming at the formal school of
+poetry, and we may better understand him by a comparison. Read, for
+example, his exquisite "Early Spring" ("I heard a thousand blended notes").
+Here in twenty-four lines are more naturalness, more real feeling finely
+expressed, than you can find in the poems of Dryden, Johnson and Addison
+combined. Or take the best part of "The Campaign," which made Addison's
+fortune, and which was acclaimed the finest thing ever written:
+
+  So when an angel by divine command
+  With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
+  (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past)
+  Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
+  And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
+  Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
+
+To know how artificial that famous simile is, read a few lines from
+Wordsworth's "On the Sea-Shore," which lingers in our mind like a strain of
+Handel's music:
+
+  It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
+    The holy time is quiet as a Nun
+    Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
+  Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
+  The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
+    Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
+    And doth with his eternal motion make
+  A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
+
+If such comparisons interest the student, let him read Addison's "Letter to
+Lord Halifax," with its Apostrophe to Liberty, which was considered sublime
+in its day:
+
+  O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
+  Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
+  Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
+  And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train;
+  Eased of her load, Subjection grows more light,
+  And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
+  Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
+  Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.
+
+Place beside that the first four lines of Wordsworth's sonnet "To
+Switzerland" (quoted at the head of this chapter), or a stanza from his
+"Ode to Duty":
+
+  Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
+    The Godhead's most benignant grace;
+  Nor know we anything so fair
+    As is the smile upon thy face:
+  Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
+  And fragrance in thy footing treads;
+    Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
+    And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.
+
+To follow such a comparison is to understand Wordsworth by sympathy; it is
+to understand also the difference between poetry and formal verse.
+
+THE POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. As the reading of literature is the main thing,
+the only word of criticism which remains is to direct the beginner; and
+direction is especially necessary in dealing with Wordsworth, who wrote
+voluminously, and who lacked both the critical judgment and the sense of
+humor to tell him what parts of his work were inferior or ridiculous:
+
+  There's something in a flying horse,
+  There's something in a huge balloon!
+
+To be sure; springs in the one, gas in the other; but if there were
+anything more poetic in horse or balloon, Wordsworth did not discover it.
+There is something also in a cuckoo clock, or even in
+
+  A household tub, one such as those
+  Which women use to wash their clothes.
+
+Such banalities are to be found in the work of a poet who could produce the
+exquisite sonnet "On Westminster Bridge," the finely simple "I Wandered
+Lonely as a Cloud," the stirring "Ode to Duty," the tenderly reflective
+"Tintern Abbey," and the magnificent "Intimations of Immortality," which
+Emerson (who was not a very safe judge) called "the high water mark of
+poetry in the nineteenth century." These five poems may serve as the first
+measure of Wordsworth's genius.
+
+[Sidenote: POEMS OF NATURE]
+
+A few of Wordsworth's best nature poems are: "Early Spring," "Three Years
+She Grew," "The Fountain," "My Heart Leaps Up," "The Tables Turned," "To a
+Cuckoo," "To a Skylark" (the second poem, beginning, "Ethereal minstrel")
+and "Yarrow Revisited." The spirit of all his nature poems is reflected in
+"Tintern Abbey," which gives us two complementary views of nature,
+corresponding to Wordsworth's earlier and later experience. The first is
+that of the boy, roaming foot-loose over the face of nature, finding, as
+Coleridge said, "Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere." The second
+is that of the man who returns to the scenes of his boyhood, finds them as
+beautiful as ever, but pervaded now by a spiritual quality,--"something
+which defies analysis, undefined and ineffable, which must be felt and
+perceived by the soul."
+
+It was this spiritual view of nature, as a reflection of the Divine, which
+profoundly influenced Bryant, Emerson and other American writers. The
+essence of Wordsworth's teaching, in his nature poems, appears in the last
+two lines of his "Skylark," a bird that soars the more gladly to heaven
+because he must soon return with joy to his own nest:
+
+  Type of the wise, who soar but never roam:
+  True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
+
+[Sidenote: POEMS OF HUMBLE LIFE]
+
+Of the poems more closely associated with human life, a few the best are:
+"Michael," "The Highland Reaper," "The Leech Gatherers," "Margaret" (in
+_The Excursion_), "Brougham Castle," "The Happy Warrior," "Peel Castle
+in a Storm," "Three Years She Grew," "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways"
+and "She was a Phantom of Delight." In such poems we note two significant
+characteristics: that Wordsworth does not seek extraordinary characters,
+but is content to show the hidden beauty in the lives of plain men and
+women; and that his heroes and heroines dwell, as he said, where "labor
+still preserves his rosy face." They are natural men and women, and are
+therefore simple and strong; the quiet light in their faces is reflected
+from the face of the fields. In his emphasis on natural simplicity, virtue,
+beauty, Wordsworth has again been, as he desired, a teacher of multitudes.
+His moral teaching may be summed up in three lines from _The
+Excursion_:
+
+  The primal duties shine aloft like stars;
+  The charities that soothe and heal and bless
+  Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SONNETS]
+
+In the number and fine quality of his sonnets Wordsworth has no superior in
+English poetry. Simplicity, strength, deep thought, fine feeling, careful
+workmanship,--these qualities are present in measure more abundant than can
+be found elsewhere in the poet's work:
+
+        Bees that soar for bloom,
+  High as the highest peak of Furness-fells,
+  Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.
+
+In these three lines from "On the Sonnet" (which should be read entire) is
+the explanation why Wordsworth, who was often diffuse, found joy in
+compressing his whole poem into fourteen lines. A few other sonnets which
+can be heartily recommended are: "Westminster Bridge," "The Seashore," "The
+World," "Venetian Republic," "To Sleep," "Toussaint L'Ouverture,"
+"Afterthoughts," "To Milton" (sometimes called "London, 1802") and the
+farewell to Scott when he sailed in search of health, beginning, "A trouble
+not of clouds or weeping rain."
+
+Not until one has learned to appreciate Wordsworth at his best will it be
+safe to attempt _The Prelude, or the Growth of a Poet's Mind_. Most
+people grow weary of this poem, which is too long; but a few read it with
+pleasure for its portrayal of Wordsworth's education at the hand of Nature,
+or for occasional good lines which lure us on like miners in search of
+gold. _The Prelude_, though written at thirty-five, was not published
+till after Wordsworth's death, and for this reason: he had planned an
+immense poem, dealing with Nature, Man and Society, which he called _The
+Recluse_, and which he likened to a Gothic cathedral. His _Prelude_
+was the "ante-chapel" of this work; his miscellaneous odes, sonnets and
+narrative poems were to be as so many "cells and oratories"; other parts of
+the structure were _The Home at Grasmere_ and _The Excursion_,
+which he may have intended as transepts, or as chapels.
+
+[Illustration: ST. OSWALD'S CHURCH, GRASMERE
+Wordsworth's body was buried in the churchyard See _The Excursion_, Book V]
+
+This great work was left unfinished, and one may say of it, as of Spenser's
+_Faery Queen_, that it is better so. Like other poets of venerable
+years Wordsworth wrote many verses that were better left in the inkpot; and
+it is a pity, in dealing with so beautiful and necessary a thing as poetry,
+that one should ever reach the point of saying, sadly but truthfully,
+"Enough is too much."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY
+
+The story of these two men is a commentary on the uncertainties of literary
+fortune. Both won greater reward and reputation than fell to the lot of
+Wordsworth; but while the fame of the latter poet mounts steadily with the
+years, the former have become, as it were, footnotes to the great
+contemporary with whom they were associated, under the name of "Lake
+Poets," for half a glorious century.
+
+[Illustration: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE]
+
+SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). The tragedy _Remorse_, which
+Coleridge wrote, is as nothing compared with the tragedy of his own life.
+He was a man of superb natural gifts, of vast literary culture, to whose
+genius the writers of that age--Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey,
+Shelley, Landor, Southey--nearly all bear witness. He might well have been
+a great poet, or critic, or philosopher, or teacher; but he lacked the will
+power to direct his gifts to any definite end. His irresolution became
+pitiful weakness when he began to indulge in the drug habit, which soon
+made a slave of him. Thereafter he impressed all who met him with a sense
+of loss and inexpressible sorrow.
+
+    [Sidenote: LIFE OF COLERIDGE]
+
+    Coleridge began to read at three years of age; at five he had gone
+    through the Bible and the Arabian Nights; at thirty he was perhaps
+    the most widely read man of his generation in the fields of
+    literature and philosophy. He was a student in a famous charity
+    school in London when he met Charles Lamb, who records his memories
+    of the boy and the place in his charming essay of "Christ's
+    Hospital." At college he was one of a band of enthusiasts inspired
+    by the French Revolution, and with Southey he formed a plan to
+    establish in America a world-reforming Pantisocracy, or communistic
+    settlement, where all should be brothers and equals, and where a
+    little manual work was to be tempered by much play, poetry and
+    culture. Europeans had queer ideas of America in those days. This
+    beautiful plan failed, because the reformers did not have money
+    enough to cross the ocean and stake out their Paradise.
+
+    [Illustration: THE COLERIDGE COTTAGE, NETHER STOWEY, IN
+    SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+    The next important association of Coleridge was with Wordsworth and
+    his sister Dorothy, in Somerset, where the three friends planned
+    and published the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. In this work
+    Wordsworth attempted to portray the charm of common things, and
+    Coleridge to give reality to a world of dreams and fantasies.
+    Witness the two most original poems in the book, "Tintern Abbey"
+    and "The Ancient Mariner."
+
+    During the latter part of his life Coleridge won fame by his
+    lectures on English poetry and German philosophy, and still greater
+    fame by his conversations,--brilliant, heaven-scaling monologues,
+    which brought together a company of young enthusiasts. And
+    presently these disciples of Coleridge were spreading abroad a new
+    idealistic philosophy, which crossed the ocean, was welcomed by
+    Emerson and a host of young writers or reformers, and appeared in
+    American literature as Transcendentalism.
+
+
+        [Sidenote: STORIES OF COLERIDGE]
+
+        Others who heard the conversations were impressed in a
+        somewhat different way. Keats met Coleridge on the road,
+        one day, and listened dumbfounded to an ecstatic discourse
+        on poetry, nightingales, the origin of sensation, dreams
+        (four kinds), consciousness, creeds, ghost stories,--"he
+        broached a thousand matters" while the poets were walking a
+        space of two miles.
+
+        Walter Scott, meeting Coleridge at a dinner, listened with
+        his head in a whirl to a monologue on fairies, the
+        classics, ancient mysteries, visions, ecstasies, the
+        psychology of poetry, the poetry of metaphysics. "Zounds!"
+        says Scott, "I was never so bethumped with words."
+
+        Charles Lamb, hurrying to his work, encountered Coleridge
+        and was drawn aside to a quiet garden. There the poet took
+        Lamb by a button of his coat, closed his eyes, and began to
+        discourse, his right hand waving to the rhythm of the
+        flowing words. No sooner was Coleridge well started than
+        Lamb slyly took out his penknife, cut off the button, and
+        escaped unobserved. Some hours later, as he passed the
+        garden on his return, Lamb heard a voice speaking most
+        musically; he turned aside in wonder, and there stood
+        Coleridge, his eyes closed, his left hand holding the
+        button, his right hand waving, "still talking like an
+        angel."
+
+    Such are the stories, true or apocryphal, of Coleridge's
+    conversations. Their bewildering quality appears, somewhat dimmed,
+    in his prose works, which have been finely compared with the flight
+    of an eagle on set wings, sweeping in wide circles, balancing,
+    soaring, mounting on the winds. But we must note this difference:
+    that the eagle keeps his keen eye on the distant earth, and always
+    knows just where he is; while Coleridge sees only the wonders of
+    Cloudland, and appears to be hopelessly lost.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS PROSE AND POETRY]
+
+The chief prose works of Coleridge are his _Biographia Literaria_ (a
+brilliant patchwork of poetry and metaphysics), _Aids to Reflection_,
+_Letters and Table Talk_ (the most readable of his works), and
+_Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare_. These all contain fine gold, but
+the treasure is for those doughty miners the critics rather than for
+readers who go to literature for recreation. Among the best of his
+miscellaneous poems (and Coleridge at his best has few superiors) are
+"Youth and Age," "Love Poems," "Hymn before Sunrise," "Ode to the Departing
+Year," and the pathetic "Ode to Dejection," which is a reflection of the
+poet's saddened but ever hopeful life.
+
+Two other poems, highly recommended by most critics, are the fragments
+"Kubla Khan" and "Christabel"; but in dealing with these the reader may do
+well to form his own judgment. Both fragments contain beautiful lines, but
+as a whole they are wandering, disjointed, inconsequent,--mere sketches,
+they seem, of some weird dream of mystery or terror which Coleridge is
+trying in vain to remember.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ANCIENT MARINER]
+
+The most popular of Coleridge's works is his imperishable "Rime of the
+Ancient Mariner," a wildly improbable poem of icebound or tropic seas, of
+thirst-killed sailors, of a phantom ship sailed by a crew of ghosts,--all
+portrayed in the vivid, picturesque style of the old ballad. When the
+"Mariner" first appeared it was dismissed as a cock-and-bull story; yet
+somehow readers went back to it, again and again, as if fascinated. It was
+passed on to the next generation; and still we read it, and pass it on. For
+this grotesque tale differs from all others of its kind in that its lines
+have been quoted for over a hundred years as a reflection of some profound
+human experience. That is the genius of the work: it takes the most
+fantastic illusions and makes them appear as real as any sober journey
+recorded in a sailor's log book. [Footnote: In connection with the "Ancient
+Mariner" one should read the legends of "The Flying Dutchman" and "The
+Wandering Jew." Poe's story "A Manuscript Found in a Bottle" is based on
+these legends and on Coleridge's poem.]
+
+At the present time our enjoyment of the "Mariner" is somewhat hampered by
+the critical commentaries which have fastened upon the poem, like barnacles
+on an old ship. It has been studied as a type of the romantic ballad, as a
+moral lesson, as a tract against cruelty to animals, as a model of college
+English. But that is no way to abuse a poet's fancy! To appreciate the
+"Mariner" as the author intended, one should carry it off to the hammock or
+orchard; there to have freedom of soul to enjoy a well-spun yarn, a
+gorgeous flight of imagination, a poem which illustrates Coleridge's
+definition of poetry as "the bloom and the fragrance of all human
+knowledge, thoughts, emotions, language." It broadens one's sympathy, as
+well as one's horizon, to accompany this ancient sailor through scenes of
+terror and desolation:
+
+  O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
+  Alone on a wide, wide sea:
+  So lonely 't was, that God himself
+  Scarce seemed there to be.
+
+In the midst of such scenes come blessed memories of a real world, of the
+beauty of unappreciated things, such as the "sweet jargoning" of birds:
+
+  And now 'twas like all instruments,
+  Now like a lonely flute;
+  And now it is an angel's song,
+  That makes the heavens be mute.
+
+  It ceased; yet still the sails made on
+  A pleasant noise till noon,
+  A noise like of a hidden brook
+  In the leafy month of June,
+  That to the sleeping woods all night
+  Singeth a quiet tune.
+
+Whoever is not satisfied with that for its own sake, without moral or
+analysis, has missed the chief interest of all good poetry.
+
+ROBERT SOUTHEY. In contrast with the irresolution of Coleridge is the
+steadfastness of Southey (1774-1843), a man of strong character, of
+enormous industry. For fifty years he worked steadily, day and half the
+night, turning out lyrics, ballads, epics, histories, biographies,
+translations, reviews,--an immense amount of stuff, filling endless
+volumes. Kind nature made up for Southey's small talent by giving him a
+great opinion of it, and he believed firmly that his work was as immortal
+as the _Iliad_.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT SOUTHEY]
+
+With the exception of a few short poems, such as the "Battle of Blenheim,"
+"Lodore," "The Inchcape Rock" and "Father William" (parodied in the
+nonsense of _Alice in Wonderland_), the mass of Southey's work is
+already forgotten. Deserving of mention, however, are his _Peninsular
+War_ and his _Life of Nelson_, both written in a straightforward
+style, portraying patriotism without the usual sham, and a first-class
+fighting man without brag or bluster. Curious readers may also be attracted
+by the epics of Southey (such as _Madoc_, the story of a Welsh prince
+who anticipated Columbus), which contain plenty of the marvelous adventures
+that give interest to the romances of Jules Verne and the yarns of Rider
+Haggard.
+
+It as Southey's habit to work by the clock, turning out chapters as another
+man might dig potatoes. One day, as he plodded along, a fairy must have
+whispered in his car; for he suddenly produced a little story, a gem, a
+treasure of a story, and hid it away in a jungle of chapters in a book
+called _The Doctor_. Somebody soon discovered the treasure; indeed,
+one might as well try to conceal a lighted candle as to hide a good story;
+and now it is the most famous work to be found in Southey's hundred volumes
+of prose and verse. Few professors could give you any information
+concerning _The Doctor_, but almost any child will tell you all about
+"The Three Bears." The happy fate of this little nursery tale might
+indicate that the final judges of literature are not always or often the
+learned critics.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REVOLUTIONARY POETS
+
+The above title is often applied to Byron and Shelley, and for two reasons,
+because they were themselves rebellious of heart, and because they voiced
+the rebellion of numerous other young enthusiasts who, disappointed by the
+failure of the French Revolution to bring in the promised age of happiness,
+were ready to cry out against the existing humdrum order of society. Both
+poets were sadly lacking in mental or moral balance, and finding no chance
+in England to wage heroic Warfare against political tyranny, as the French
+had done, they proceeded in rather head long fashion to an attack on well
+established customs in society, and especially did they strike out wildly
+against "the monster Public Opinion." Because the "monster" was stronger
+than they were, and more nearly right, their rebellion ended in tragedy.
+
+[Illustration: GRETA HALL (IN THE LAKE REGION)
+Where Southey lived, 1803-1839]
+
+    LIFE OF BYRON. In the life of George Gordon, Lord Byron
+    (1788-1824), is so much that call for apology or silence that one
+    is glad to review his career in briefest outline.
+
+    Of his family, noble in name but in nothing else, the least said
+    the better. He was born in London, but spent his childhood in
+    Aberdeen, under the alternate care or negligence of his erratic
+    mother. At ten he fell heir to a title, to the family seat of
+    Newstead Abbey, and to estates yielding an income of some £1400 per
+    year,--a large income for a poet, but as nothing to a lord
+    accustomed to make ducks and drakes of his money. In school and
+    college his conduct was rather wild, and his taste fantastic For
+    example, he kept a bulldog and a bear in his rooms, and read
+    romances instead of books recommended by the faculty. He tells us
+    that he detested poetry; yet he wrote numerous poems which show
+    plainly that he not only read but copied some of the poets.
+    [Footnote: These poems (revised and published as _Hours of
+    Idleness_) were savagely criticized in the _Edinburgh
+    Review_. Byron answered with his satiric _English Bards and
+    Scotch Reviewers_, which ridiculed not only his Scottish critics
+    but also Wordsworth, Scott,--in fact, most of the English poets,
+    with the exception of Pope, whom he praised as the only poet
+    ancient or modern who was not a barbarian.]
+
+    [Sidenote: A LITERARY LION]
+
+    At twenty-one Byron entered the House of Lords, and almost
+    immediately thereafter set sail for Lisbon and the Levant. On his
+    return he published the first two cantos of _Childe Harold's
+    Pilgrimage_, which made him famous. Though he affected to
+    despise his triumph, he followed it up shrewdly by publishing
+    _The Giaour_, _The Corsair_ and _Lara_, in which the
+    same mysterious hero of his first work reappears, under different
+    disguises, amid romantic surroundings. The vigor of these poems
+    attracted many readers, and when it was whispered about that the
+    author was recounting his own adventures, Byron became the center
+    of literary interest. At home he was a social lion; abroad he was
+    acclaimed the greatest of British poets. But his life tended more
+    and more to shock the English sense of decency; and when his wife
+    (whom he had married for her money) abruptly left him, public
+    opinion made its power felt. Byron's popularity waned; his vanity
+    was wounded; he left his country, vowing never to return. Also he
+    railed against what he called British hypocrisy.
+
+    [Illustration: LORD BYRON After the portrait by T. Phillips]
+
+    In Geneva he first met Shelley, admired him, was greatly helped by
+    him, and then grossly abused his hospitality. After a scandalous
+    career in Italy he went to help the Greeks in their fight for
+    independence, but died of fever before he reached the battle line.
+
+THE POETRY OF BYRON. There is one little song of Byron which serves well as
+the measure of his poetic talent. It is found in _Don Juan_, and it
+begins as follows:
+
+  'T is sweet to hear
+    At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep
+  The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
+    By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
+  'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;
+    'T is sweet to listen, as the night-winds creep
+  From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high
+  The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.
+
+  'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
+    Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
+  'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
+    Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
+  'T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,
+    Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum
+  Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
+  The lisp of children, and their earliest words.
+
+That is not great poetry, and may not be compared with a sonnet of
+Wordsworth; but it is good, honest sentiment expressed in such a melodious
+way that we like to read it, and feel better after the reading. In the next
+stanza, however, Byron grows commonplace and ends with:
+
+  Sweet is revenge, especially to women,
+  Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.
+
+And that is bad sentiment and worse rime, without any resemblance to
+poetry. The remaining stanzas are mere drivel, unworthy of the poet's
+talent or of the reader's patience.
+
+It is so with a large part of Byron's work; it often begins well, and
+usually has some vivid description of nature, or some gallant passage in
+swinging verse, which stirs us like martial music; then the poem falls to
+earth like a stone, and presently appears some wretched pun or jest or
+scurrility. Our present remedy lies in a book of selections, in which we
+can enjoy the poetry without being unpleasantly reminded of the author's
+besetting sins of flippancy and bad taste.
+
+[Sidenote: MANFRED]
+
+Of the longer poems of Byron, which took all Europe by storm, only three or
+four are memorable. _Manfred_ (1817) is a dramatic poem, in which the
+author's pride, his theatric posing, his talent for rhythmic expression,
+are all seen at their worst or best. The mysterious hero of the poem lives
+in a gloomy castle under the high Alps, but he is seldom found under roof.
+Instead he wanders amidst storms and glaciers, holding communion with
+powers of darkness, forever voicing his rebellion, his boundless pride, his
+bottomless remorse. Nobody knows what the rebellion and the remorse are all
+about. Some readers may tire of the shadowy hero's egoism, but few will
+fail to be impressed by the vigor of the verse, or by the splendid
+reflection of picturesque scenes. And here and there is a lyric that seems
+to set itself to music.
+
+  Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains,
+    They crowned him long ago
+  On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
+    With a diadem of snow
+
+[Illustration: NEWSTEAD ABBEY AND BYRON OAK]
+
+_Cain_ (1821) is another dramatic poem, reflecting the rebellion of
+another hero, or rather the same hero, who appears this time as the elder
+son of Adam. After murdering his brother, the hero takes guidance of
+Lucifer and explores hell; where, instead of repentance, he finds occasion
+to hate almost everything that is dear to God or man. The drama is a kind
+of gloomy parody of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, as _Manfred_ is a
+parody of Goethe's _Faust_. Both dramas are interesting, aside from
+their poetic passages, as examples of the so-called Titan literature, to
+which we shall presently refer in our study of Shelley's _Prometheus_.
+
+[Sidenote: CHILDE HAROLD]
+
+The most readable work of Byron is _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, a
+brilliant narrative poem, which reflects the impressions of another
+misanthropic hero in presence of the romantic scenery of the Continent. It
+was the publication of the first two cantos of this poem in 1812, that made
+Byron the leading figure in English poetry, and these cantos are still
+widely read as a kind of poetic guidebook. To many readers, however, the
+third and fourth cantos are more sincere and more pleasurable. The most
+memorable parts of _Childe Harold_ are the "Farewell" in the first
+canto, "Waterloo" in the third, and "Lake Leman," "Venice," "Rome," "The
+Coliseum", "The Dying Gladiator" and "The Ocean" in the fourth. When one
+has read these magnificent passages he has the best of which Byron was
+capable. We have called _Childe Harold_ the most readable of Byron's
+works, but those who like a story will probably be more interested in
+_Mazeppa_ and _The Prisoner of Chillon_.
+
+[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON]
+
+[Sidenote: THE BYRONIC HERO]
+
+One significant quality of these long poems is that they are intensely
+personal, voicing one man's remorse or rebellion, and perpetually repeating
+his "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" They are concerned with the same
+hero (who is Byron under various disguises) and they picture him as a
+proud, mysterious stranger, carelessly generous, fiendishly wicked,
+profoundly melancholy, irresistibly fascinating to women. Byron is credited
+with the invention of this hero, ever since called Byronic; but in truth
+the melodramatic outcast was a popular character in fiction long before
+Byron adopted him, gave him a new dress and called him Manfred or Don Juan.
+A score of romances (such as Mrs. Radcliffe's _The Italian_ in
+England, and Charles Brockden Brown's _Wieland_ in America) had used
+the same hero to add horror to a grotesque tale; Scott modified him
+somewhat, as the Templar in _Ivanhoe_, for example; and Byron made him
+more real by giving him the revolutionary spirit, by employing him to voice
+the rebellion against social customs which many young enthusiasts felt so
+strongly in the early part of the nineteenth century.
+
+[Sidenote: TWO VIEWS OF BYRON]
+
+The vigor of this stage hero, his rebellious spirit, his picturesque
+adventures, the gaudy tinsel (mistaken for gold) in which he was
+dressed,--all this made a tremendous impression in that romantic age.
+Goethe called Byron "the prince of modern poetry, the most talented and
+impressive figure which the literary world has ever produced"; and this
+unbalanced judgment was shared by other critics on the Continent, where
+Byron is still regarded as one of the greatest of English poets.
+
+Swinburne, on the other hand, can hardly find words strong enough to
+express his contempt for the "blare and brassiness" of Byron; but that also
+is an exaggeration. Though Byron is no longer a popular hero, and though
+his work is more rhetorical than poetical, we may still gladly acknowledge
+the swinging rhythm, the martial dash and vigor of his best verse. Also,
+remembering the Revolution, we may understand the dazzling impression which
+he made upon the poets of his day. When the news came from Greece that his
+meteoric career was ended, the young Tennyson wept passionately and went
+out to carve on a stone, "Byron is dead," as if poetry had perished with
+him. Even the coldly critical Matthew Arnold was deeply moved to write:
+
+  When Byron's eyes were closed in death
+     We bowed our head, and held our breath.
+  He taught us little, but our soul
+     Had _felt_ him like the thunder roll.
+
+    LIFE OF SHELLEY. The career of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is,
+    in comparison with that of Byron, as a will-o'-the-wisp to a
+    meteor. Byron was of the earth earthy; he fed upon coarse food,
+    shady adventures, scandal, the limelight; but Shelley
+
+      Seemed nourished upon starbeams, and the stuff
+      Of rainbows and the tempest and the foam.
+
+    He was a delicate child, shy, sensitive, elflike, who wandered
+    through the woods near his home, in Sussex, on the lookout for
+    sprites and hobgoblins. His reading was of the wildest kind; and
+    when he began the study of chemistry he was forever putting
+    together things that made horrible smells or explosions, in
+    expectation that the genii of the _Arabian Nights_ would rise
+    from the smoke of his test tube.
+
+    [Sidenote: A YOUNG REBEL]
+
+    At Eton the boy promptly rebelled against the brutal fagging
+    system, then tolerated in all English schools. He was presently in
+    hot water, and the name "Mad Shelley," which the boys gave him,
+    followed him through life. He had been in the university (Oxford)
+    hardly two years when his head was turned by some book of shallow
+    philosophy, and he printed a rattle-brained tract called "The
+    Necessity of Atheism." This got him into such trouble with the Dons
+    that he was expelled for insubordination.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND]
+
+    Forthwith Shelley published more tracts of a more rebellious kind.
+    His sister Helen put them into the hands of her girl friend,
+    Harriet Westbrook, who showed her belief in revolutionary theories
+    by running away from school and parental discipline and coming to
+    Shelley for "protection." These two social rebels, both in the
+    green-apple stage (their combined age was thirty-five), were
+    presently married; not that either of them believed in marriage,
+    but because they were compelled by "Anarch Custom."
+
+    After some two years of a wandering, will-o'-the-wisp life, Shelley
+    and his wife were estranged and separated. The young poet then met
+    a certain William Godwin, known at that time as a novelist and
+    evolutionary philosopher, and showed his appreciation of Godwin's
+    radical teaching by running away with his daughter Mary, aged
+    seventeen. The first wife, tired of liberalism, drowned herself,
+    and Shelley was plunged into remorse at the tragedy. The right to
+    care for his children was denied him, as an improper person, and he
+    was practically driven out of England by force of that public
+    opinion which he had so frequently outraged or defied.
+
+    [Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY]
+
+    Life is a good teacher, though stern in its reckoning, and in Italy
+    life taught Shelley that the rights and beliefs of other men were
+    no less sacred than his own. He was a strange combination of hot
+    head and kind heart, the one filled with wild social theories, the
+    other with compassion for humanity. He was immensely generous with
+    his friends, and tender to the point of tears at the thought of
+    suffering men,--not real men, such as he met in the streets (even
+    the beggars in Italy are cheerful), but idealized men, with
+    mysterious sorrows, whom he met in the clouds. While in England his
+    weak head had its foolish way, and his early poems, such as
+    _Queen Mab_, are violent declamations. In Italy his heart had
+    its day, and his later poems, such as _Adonais_ and
+    _Prometheus Unbound_, are rhapsodies ennobled by Shelley's
+    love of beauty and by his unquenchable hope that a bright day of
+    justice must soon dawn upon the world. He was drowned (1822) while
+    sailing his boat off the Italian coast, before he had reached the
+    age of thirty years.
+
+THE POETRY OF SHELLEY. In the longer poems of Shelley there are two
+prominent elements, and two others less conspicuous but more important. The
+first element is revolt. The poet was violently opposed to the existing
+order of society, and lost no opportunity to express his hatred of Tyranny,
+which was Shelley's name for what sober men called law and order. Feeding
+his spirit of revolution were numerous anarchistic theories, called the new
+philosophy, which had this curious quality: that they hotly denied the old
+faith, law, morality, as other men formulated such matters, and fervently
+believed any quack who appeared with a new nostrum warranted to cure all
+social disorders.
+
+The second obvious element in Shelley's poetry is his love of beauty, not
+the common beauty of nature or humanity which Wordsworth celebrated, but a
+strange "supernal" beauty with no "earthly" quality or reality. His best
+lines leave a vague impression of something beautiful and lovely, but we
+know not what it is.
+
+Less conspicuous in Shelley's poems are the sense of personal loss or grief
+which pervades them, and the exquisite melody of certain words which he
+used for their emotional effect rather than to convey any definite meaning.
+Like Byron he sang chiefly of his own feelings, his rage or despair, his
+sorrow or loneliness. He reflected his idea of the origin and motive of
+lyric poesy in the lines:
+
+                 Most wretched men
+  Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
+  They learn in suffering what they teach in song,--
+
+an idea which Poe adopted in its entirety, and which Heine expressed in a
+sentimental lyric, telling how from his great grief he made his little
+songs:
+
+  Aus meinen groszen Schmerzen
+  Mach' ich die kleinen Lieder.
+
+Hardly another English poet uses words so musically as Shelley (witness
+"The Cloud" and "The Skylark"), and here again his idea of verbal melody
+was carried to an extreme by Poe, in whose poetry words are used not so
+much to express ideas as to awaken vague emotions.
+
+[Sidenote: ALASTOR]
+
+All the above-named qualities appear in _Alastor_ (the Spirit of
+Solitude), which is less interesting as a poem than as a study of Shelley.
+In this poem we may skip the revolt, which is of no consequence, and follow
+the poet in his search for a supernally lovely maiden who shall satisfy his
+love for ideal beauty. To find her he goes, not among human habitations,
+but to gloomy forests, dizzy cliffs, raging torrents, tempest-blown
+seashore,--to every place where a maiden in her senses would not be. Such
+places, terrible or picturesque, are but symbols of the poet's soul in its
+suffering and loneliness. He does not find his maiden (and herein we read
+the poet's first confession that he has failed in life, that the world is
+too strong for him); but he sees the setting moon, and somehow that pale
+comforter brings him peace with death.
+
+[Sidenote: PROMETHEUS]
+
+In _Prometheus Unbound_ Shelley uses the old myth of the Titan who
+rebelled against the tyranny of the gods, and who was punished by being
+chained to a rock. [Footnote: The original tragedy of _Prometheus
+Bound_ was written by Æschylus, a famous old Greek dramatist. The same
+poet wrote also _Prometheus Unbound_, but the latter drama has been
+lost. Shelley borrowed the idea of his poem from this lost drama.] In this
+poem Prometheus (man) is represented as being tortured by Jove (law or
+custom) until he is released by Demogorgon (progress or necessity);
+whereupon he marries Asia (love or goodness), and stars and moon break out
+into a happy song of redemption.
+
+Obviously there is no reality or human interest in such a fantasy. The only
+pleasurable parts of the poem are its detached passages of great melody or
+beauty; and the chief value of the work is as a modern example of Titan
+literature. Many poets have at various times represented mankind in the
+person of a Titan, that is, a man written large, colossal in his courage or
+power or suffering: Æschylus in _Prometheus_, Marlowe in
+_Tamburlaine_, Milton in Lucifer, of _Paradise Lost_, Goethe in
+_Faust_, Byron in _Manfred_, Shelley in _Prometheus
+Unbound_. The Greek Titan is resigned, uncomplaining, knowing himself to
+be a victim of Fate, which may not be opposed; Marlowe's Titan is bombastic
+and violent; Milton's is ambitious, proud, revengeful; Goethe's is cultured
+and philosophical; Byron's is gloomy, rebellious, theatrical. So all these
+poets portray each his own bent of mind, and something also of the temper
+of the age, in the character of his Titan. The significance of Shelley's
+poem is in this: that his Titan is patient and hopeful, trusting in the
+spirit of Love to redeem mankind from all evil. Herein Shelley is far
+removed from the caviling temper of his fellow rebel Byron. He celebrates a
+golden age not of the past but of the future, when the dream of justice
+inspired by the French Revolution shall have become a glorious reality.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]
+
+These longer poems of Shelley are read by the few; they are too vague, with
+too little meaning or message, for ordinary readers who like to understand
+as well as to enjoy poetry. To such readers the only interesting works of
+Shelley are a few shorter poems: "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," "Ode to the
+West Wind," "Indian Serenade," "A Lament," "When the Lamp is Lighted" and
+some parts of _Adonais_ (a beautiful elegy in memory of Keats), such
+as the passage beginning, "Go thou to Rome." For splendor of imagination
+and for melody of expression these poems have few peers and no superiors in
+English literature. To read them is to discover that Shelley was at times
+so sensitive, so responsive to every harmony of nature, that he seemed like
+the poet of Alastor,
+
+  A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
+  The breath of Heaven did wander.
+
+The breath of heaven is constant, but lutes and strings are variable
+matters of human arrangement. When Shelley's lute was tuned to nature it
+brought forth aerial melody; when he strained its strings to voice some
+social rebellion or anarchistic theory it produced wild discord.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
+
+  A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
+  Its loveliness increases; it will never
+  Pass into nothingness, but still will keep
+  A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+  Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.
+
+The above lines, from _Endymion_, reflect the ideal of the young
+singer whom we rank with the best poets of the nineteenth century. Unlike
+other romanticists of that day, he seems to have lived for poetry alone and
+to have loved it for its own sake, as we love the first spring flowers. His
+work was shamefully treated by reviewers; it was neglected by the public;
+but still he wrote, trying to make each line perfect, in the spirit of
+those medieval workmen who put their hearts into a carving that would rest
+on some lofty spire far above the eyes of men. To reverence beauty wherever
+he found it, and then in gratitude to produce a new work of beauty which
+should live forever,--that was Keats's only aim. It is the more wonderful
+in view of his humble origin, his painful experience, his tragic end.
+
+    LIFE. Only twenty-five years of life, which included seven years of
+    uncongenial tasks, and three of writing, and three of wandering in
+    search of health,--that sums up the story of Keats. He was born in
+    London; he was the son of a hostler; his home was over the stable;
+    his playground was the dirty street. The family prospered, moved to
+    a better locality, and the children were sent to a good school.
+    Then the parents died, and at fifteen Keats was bound out to a
+    surgeon and apothecary. For four years he worked as an apprentice,
+    and for three years more in a hospital; then, for his heart was
+    never in the work, he laid aside his surgeon's kit, resolving never
+    to touch it again.
+
+    [Sidenote: TWO POETIC IDEALS]
+
+    Since childhood he had been a reader, a dreamer, but not till a
+    volume of Spenser's _Faery Queen_ was put into his hands did
+    he turn with intense eagerness to poetry. The influence of that
+    volume is seen in the somewhat monotonous sweetness of his early
+    work. Next he explored the classics (he had read Virgil in the
+    original, but he knew no Greek), and the joy he found in Chapman's
+    translation of Homer is reflected in a noble sonnet. From that time
+    on he was influenced by two ideals which he found in Greek and
+    medieval literature, the one with its emphasis on form, the other
+    with its rich and varied coloring.
+
+    [Illustration: JOHN KEATS]
+
+    During the next three years Keats published three small volumes,
+    his entire life's work. These were brutally criticized by literary
+    magazines; they met with ridicule at the hands of Byron, with
+    indifference on the part of Scott and Wordsworth. The pathetic
+    legend that the poet's life was shortened by this abuse is still
+    repeated, but there is little truth in it. Keats held manfully to
+    his course, having more weighty things than criticism to think
+    about. He was conscious that his time was short; he was in love
+    with his Fannie Brawne, but separated from her by illness and
+    poverty; and, like the American poet Lanier, he faced death across
+    the table as he wrote. To throw off the consumption which had
+    fastened upon him he tried to live in the open, making walking
+    trips in the Lake Region; but he met with rough fare and returned
+    from each trip weaker than before. He turned at last to Italy,
+    dreading the voyage and what lay beyond. Night fell as the ship put
+    to sea; the evening star shone clear through the storm clouds, and
+    Keats sent his farewell to life and love and poetry in the sonnet
+    beginning:
+
+      Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art.
+
+    He died soon after his arrival in Rome, in 1821. Shelley, who had
+    hailed Keats as a genius, and who had sent a generous invitation to
+    come and share his home, commemorated the poet's death and the
+    world's loss in _Adonais_, which ranks with Milton's
+    _Lycidas_, Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ and Emerson's
+    _Threnody_ among the great elegiac poems of our literature.
+
+THE WORK OF KEATS. The first small volume of Keats (_Poems_, 1817)
+seems now like an experiment. The part of that experiment which we cherish
+above all others is the sonnet "On Chapman's Homer," which should be read
+entire for its note of joy and for its fine expression of the influence of
+classic poetry. The second volume, _Endymion_, may be regarded as a
+promise. There is little reality in the rambling poem which gives title to
+the volume (the story of a shepherd beloved of a moon-goddess), but the
+bold imagery of the work, its Spenserian melody, its passages of rare
+beauty,--all these speak of a true poet who has not yet quite found himself
+or his subject. A third volume, _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes
+and Other Poems_ (1820), is in every sense a fulfillment, for it
+contains a large proportion of excellent poetry, fresh, vital, melodious,
+which improves with years, and which carries on its face the stamp of
+permanency.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]
+
+The contents of this little volume may be arranged, not very accurately, in
+three classes, In the first are certain poems that by their perfection of
+form show the Greek or classic spirit. Best known of these poems are the
+fragment "Hyperion," with its Milton-like nobility of style, and "Lamia,"
+which is the story of an enchantress whom love transforms into a beautiful
+woman, but who quickly vanishes because of her lover's too great
+curiosity,--a parable, perhaps, of the futility of science and philosophy,
+as Keats regarded them.
+
+Of the poems of the second class, which reflect old medieval legends, "The
+Pot of Basil," "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" are
+praised by poets and critics alike. "St. Agnes," which reflects a vague
+longing rather than a story, is the best known; but "La Belle Dame" may
+appeal to some readers as the most moving of Keats's poems. The essence of
+all old metrical romances is preserved in a few lines, which have an added
+personal interest from the fact that they may reveal something of the
+poet's sad love story.
+
+In the third class are a few sonnets and miscellaneous poems, all permeated
+by the sense of beauty, showing in every line the genius of Keats and his
+exquisite workmanship. The sonnets "On the Sea," "When I have Fears," "On
+the Grasshopper and Cricket" and "To Sleep"; the fragment beginning "In a
+drear-nighted December"; the marvelous odes "On a Grecian Urn," "To a
+Nightingale" and "To Autumn," in which he combines the simplicity of the
+old classics with the romance and magic of medieval writers,--there are no
+works in English of a similar kind that make stronger appeal to our ideal
+of poetry and of verbal melody. Into the three stanzas of "Autumn," for
+example, Keats has compressed the vague feelings of beauty, of melancholy,
+of immortal aspiration, which come to sensitive souls in the "season of
+mists and mellow fruitfulness." It may be compared, or rather contrasted,
+with another poem on the same subject which voices the despair in the heart
+of the French poet Verlaine, who hears "the sobbing of the violins of
+autumn":
+
+  Les sanglots longs
+  Des violons
+      De l'automne
+  Blessent mon coeur
+  D'une langueur
+      Monotone.
+
+KEATS: AN ESSAY OF CRITICISM. Beyond recommending a few of his poems for
+their beauty, there is really so little to be said of Keats that critics
+are at their wit's end to express their appreciation. So we read of Keats's
+"pure aestheticism," his "copious perfection," his "idyllic visualization,"
+his "haunting poignancy of feeling," his "subtle felicities of diction,"
+his "tone color," and more to the same effect. Such criticisms are
+doubtless well meant, but they are harder to follow than Keats's
+"Endymion"; and that is no short or easy road of poesy. Perhaps by trying
+more familiar ways we may better understand Keats, why he appeals so
+strongly to poets, and why he is so seldom read by other people.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SENSE OF BEAUTY]
+
+The first characteristic of the man was his love for every beautiful thing
+he saw or heard. Sometimes the object which fascinated him was the
+widespread sea or a solitary star; sometimes it was the work of man, the
+product of his heart and brain attuned, such as a passage from Homer, a
+legend of the Middle Ages, a vase of pure lines amid the rubbish of a
+museum, like a bird call or the scent of violets in a city street. Whatever
+the object that aroused his sense of beauty, he turned aside to stay with
+it a while, as on the byways of Europe you will sometimes see a man lay
+down his burden and bare his head before a shrine that beckons him to pray.
+With this reverence for beauty Keats had other and rarer qualities: the
+power to express what he felt, the imagination which gave him beautiful
+figures, and the taste which enabled him to choose the finest words, the
+most melodious phrases, wherewith to reflect his thought or mood or
+emotion.
+
+Such was the power of Keats, to be simple and reverent in the presence of
+beauty, and to give his feeling poetic or imaginative expression. In
+respect of such power he probably had no peer in English literature. His
+limitations were twofold: he looked too exclusively on the physical side of
+beauty, and he lived too far removed from the common, wholesome life of
+men.
+
+[Sidenote: SENSE AND SOUL]
+
+To illustrate our criticism: that man whom we saw by the wayside shrine
+acknowledged the presence of some spiritual beauty and truth, the beauty of
+holiness, the ineffable loveliness of God. So the man who trains a child,
+or gives thanks for a friend, or remembers his mother, is always at heart a
+lover of beauty,--the moral beauty of character, of comradeship, of
+self-sacrifice. But the poetry of Keats deals largely with outward matters,
+with form, color, melody, odors, with what is called "sensuous" beauty
+because it delights our human senses. Such beauty is good, but it is not
+supreme. Moreover, the artist who would appeal widely to men must by
+sympathy understand their whole life, their mirth as well as their sorrow,
+their days of labor, their hours of play, their moments of worship. But
+Keats, living apart with his ideal of beauty, like a hermit in his cell,
+was able to understand and to voice only one of the profound interests of
+humanity. For this reason, and because of the deep note of sadness which
+sounds through all his work like the monotone of the sea, his exquisite
+poems have never had any general appreciation. Like Spenser, who was his
+first master, he is a poet's poet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MINOR POETS OF ROMANTICISM
+
+In the early nineteenth century the Literary Annuals appeared, took root
+and flourished mightily in England and America. These annuals (such a
+vigorous crop should have been called hardy annuals) were collections of
+contemporary prose or verse that appeared once a year under such
+sentimental names as "Friendship's Offering," "The Token" and "The
+Garland." That they were sold in large numbers on both sides of the
+Atlantic speaks of the growing popular interest in literature. Moreover,
+they served an excellent purpose at a time when books and libraries were
+less accessible than they are now. They satisfied the need of ordinary
+readers for poetry and romance; they often made known to the world a
+talented author, who found in public approval that sweet encouragement
+which critics denied him; they made it unlikely that henceforth "some mute,
+inglorious Milton" should remain either mute or inglorious; and they not
+only preserved the best work of minor poets but, what is much better, they
+gave it a wide reading.
+
+Thanks to such collections, from which every newspaper filled its Poet's
+Corner, good poems which else might have hid their little light under a
+bushel--Campbell's "Hohenlinden," Mrs. Hemans' "Landing of the Pilgrim
+Fathers," Hunt's "Abou ben Adhem," Hood's "The Song of the Shirt," and many
+others--are now as widely known as are the best works of Wordsworth or
+Byron.
+
+[Illustration: LEIGH HUNT]
+
+We can name only a few poets of the age, leaving the reader to form
+acquaintance with their songs in an anthology. Especially worthy of
+remembrance are: Thomas Campbell, who greatly influenced the American poets
+Halleck and Drake; Thomas Moore, whose _Irish Melodies_ have an
+attractive singing quality; James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd); John Keble,
+author of _The Christian Year_; Thomas Hood; Felicia Hemans; and Leigh
+Hunt, whose encouragement of Keats is as memorable as his "Abou ben Adhem"
+or "The Glove and the Lions." There are other poets of equal rank with
+those we have ventured to name, and their melodious quality is such that a
+modern critic has spoken of them, in terms commonly applied to the
+Elizabethans, as "a nest of singing birds"; which would be an excellent
+figure if we could forget the fact that birds in a nest never sing. Their
+work is perhaps less imaginative (and certainly less fantastic) than that
+of Elizabethan singers, but it comes nearer to present life and reality.
+
+One of the least known of these minor poets, Thomas Beddoes, was gifted in
+a way to remind us of the strange genius of Blake. He wrote not much, his
+life being too broken and disappointed; but running through his scanty
+verse is a thread of the pure gold of poetry. In a single stanza of his
+"Dream Pedlary" he has reflected the spirit of the whole romantic movement:
+
+  If there were dreams to sell,
+       What would you buy?
+  Some cost a passing bell,
+       Some a light sigh
+  That shakes from Life's fresh crown
+  Only a rose leaf down.
+  If there were dreams to sell,
+  Merry and sad to tell,
+  And the crier rang the bell,
+      What would you buy?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WORK OF WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)
+
+To read Scott is to read Scotland. Of no other modern author can it so
+freely be said that he gave to literature a whole country, its scenery, its
+people, its history and traditions, its ideals of faith and courage and
+loyalty.
+
+That is a large achievement, but that is not all. It was Scott, more than
+any other author, who brought poetry and romance home to ordinary readers;
+and with romance came pleasure, wholesome and refreshing as a drink from a
+living spring. When he began to write, the novel was in a sad
+state,--sentimental, sensational, fantastic, devoted to what Charles Lamb
+described as wildly improbable events and to characters that belong neither
+to this world nor to any other conceivable one. When his work was done, the
+novel had been raised to its present position as the most powerful literary
+influence that bears upon the human mind. Among novelists, therefore, Scott
+deserves his title of "the first of the modern race of giants."
+
+    LIFE. To his family, descendants of the old Borderers, Scott owed
+    that intensely patriotic quality which glows in all his work. He is
+    said to have borne strong resemblance to his grandfather, "Old
+    Bardie Scott," an unbending clansman who vowed never to cut his
+    beard till a Stuart prince came back to the throne. The clansmen
+    were now citizens of the Empire, but their loyalty to hereditary
+    chiefs is reflected in Scott's reverence for everything pertaining
+    to rank or royalty.
+
+    [Sidenote: FIRST IMPRESSIONS]
+
+    He was born (1771) in Edinburgh, but his early associations were
+    all of the open country. Some illness had left him lame of foot,
+    and with the hope of a cure he was sent to relatives at Sandy
+    Knowe. There in the heart of the Border he spent his days on the
+    hills with the shepherds, listening to Scottish legends. At bedtime
+    his grandmother told him tales of the clans; and when he could read
+    for himself he learned by heart Percy's _Reliques of Ancient
+    Poetry_. So the scenes which he loved because of their wild
+    beauty became sacred because of their historical association. Even
+    in that early day his heart had framed the sentiment which found
+    expression in his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_:
+
+      Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
+      Who never to himself hath said:
+            This is my own, my native land?
+
+    [Sidenote: WORK AND PLAY]
+
+    At school, and at college at Edinburgh, the boy's heart was never
+    in his books, unless perchance they contained something of the
+    tradition of Scotland. After college he worked in his father's law
+    office, became an advocate, and for twenty years followed the law.
+    His vacations were spent "making raids," as he said, into the
+    Highlands, adding to his enormous store of old tales and ballads. A
+    companion on one of these trips gives us a picture of the man:
+
+        "Eh me, sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he
+        had wi' him! Never ten yards but we were either laughing or
+        roaring and singing. Whenever we stopped, how brawlie he
+        suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave did;
+        never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the
+        company."
+
+    This boyish delight in roaming, in new scenes, in new people met
+    frankly under the open sky, is characteristic of Scott's poems and
+    novels, which never move freely until they are out of doors. The
+    vigor of these works may be partially accounted for by the fact
+    that Scott was a hard worker and a hearty player,--a capital
+    combination.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS POEMS]
+
+    He was past thirty when he began to write. [Footnote: This refers
+    to original composition. In 1796 Scott published some translations
+    of German romantic ballads, and in 1802 his _Minstrelsy of the
+    Scottish Border_. The latter was a collection of old ballads, to
+    some of which Scott gave a more modern form.] By that time he had
+    been appointed Clerk of Sessions, and also Sheriff of Selkirkshire
+    (he took that hangman's job, and kept it even after he had won
+    fame, just for the money there was in it); and these offices,
+    together with his wife's dowry, provided a comfortable income. When
+    his first poem, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805), met
+    with immense success he gladly gave up the law, and wrote
+    _Marmion_ (1808) and _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810). These
+    increased his good fortune; but his later poems were of inferior
+    quality, and met with a cool reception. Meanwhile Byron had
+    appeared to dazzle the reading public. Scott recognized the greater
+    poetic genius of the author of _Childe Harold_, and sought
+    another field where he was safe from all rivals.
+
+    [Illustration: WALTER SCOTT]
+
+    [Sidenote: FIRST ROMANCES]
+
+    Rummaging in a cabinet one day after some fishing tackle, he found
+    a manuscript long neglected and forgotten. Instead of going fishing
+    Scott read his manuscript, was fascinated by it, and presently
+    began to write in headlong fashion. In three weeks he added
+    sixty-five chapters to his old romance, and published it as
+    _Waverley_ (1814) without signing his name. Then he went away
+    on another "raid" to the Highlands. When he returned, at the end of
+    the summer, he learned that his book had made a tremendous
+    sensation, and that Fame, hat in hand, had been waiting at his door
+    for some weeks.
+
+    In the next ten years Scott won his name of "the Wizard of the
+    North," for it seemed that only magic could produce stories of such
+    quality in such numbers: _Guy Mannering_, _Rob Roy_,
+    _Old Mortality_, _Redgauntlet_, _Heart of
+    Midlothian_, portraying the deathless romance of Scotland; and
+    _Ivanhoe_, _Kenilworth_, _The Talisman_ and other
+    novels which changed dull history to a drama of fascinating
+    characters. Not only England but the Continent hailed this
+    magnificent work with delight. Money and fame poured in upon the
+    author. Fortune appeared for once "with both hands full." Then the
+    crash came.
+
+    To understand the calamity one must remember that Scott regarded
+    literature not as an art but as a profitable business; that he
+    aimed to be not a great writer but a lord of high degree. He had
+    been made a baronet, and was childishly proud of the title; his
+    work and his vast earnings were devoted to the dream of a feudal
+    house which should endure through the centuries and look back to
+    Sir Walter as its noble founder. While living modestly on his
+    income at Ashestiel he had used the earnings of his poems to buy a
+    rough farm at Clarty Hole, on the Tweed, and had changed its
+    unromantic name to Abbotsford. More land was rapidly added and
+    "improved" to make a lordly estate; then came the building of a
+    castle, where Scott entertained lavishly, as lavishly as any laird
+    or chieftain of the olden time, offering to all visitors "the
+    honors of Scotland."
+
+    [Illustration: ABBOTSFORD]
+
+    Enormous sums were spent on this bubble, and still more money was
+    needed. To increase his income Scott went into secret partnership
+    with his publishers, indulged in speculative ventures, ran the firm
+    upon the shoals, drew large sums in advance of his earnings.
+    Suddenly came a business panic; the publishing firm failed
+    miserably, and at fifty five Scott, having too much honest pride to
+    take advantage of the bankruptcy laws, found himself facing a debt
+    of more than a hundred thousand pounds.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS LAST YEARS]
+
+    His last years were spent in an heroic struggle to retrieve his
+    lost fortunes. He wrote more novels, but without much zest or
+    inspiration; he undertook other works, such as the voluminous
+    _Life of Napoleon_, for which he was hardly fitted, but which
+    brought him money in large measure. In four years he had repaid the
+    greater part of his debt, but mind and body were breaking under the
+    strain. When the end came, in 1832, he had literally worked himself
+    to death. The murmur of the Tweed over its shallows, music that he
+    had loved since childhood, was the last earthly sound of which he
+    was conscious. The house of Abbotsford, for which he had planned
+    and toiled, went into strange hands, and the noble family which he
+    had hoped to found died out within a few years. Only his work
+    remains, and that endures the wear of time and the tooth of
+    criticism.
+
+THE POEMS OF SCOTT. Three good poems of Scott are _Marmion_, _The
+Lay of the Last Minstrel_ and _The Lady of the Lake_; three others,
+not so good, are _Rokeby_, _Vision of Don Roderick_ and _Lord
+of the Isles_. Among these _The Lady of the Lake_ is such a
+favorite that, if one were to question the tourists who annually visit the
+Trossachs, a surprisingly large number of them would probably confess that
+they were led not so much by love of natural beauty as by desire to visit
+"Fair Ellen's Isle" and other scenes which Scott has immortalized in verse.
+
+We may as well admit frankly that even the best of these poems is not
+first-class; that it shows careless workmanship, and is lacking in the
+finer elements of beauty and imagination. But Scott did not aim to create a
+work of beauty; his purpose was to tell a good story, and in that he
+succeeded. His _Lady of the Lake_, for example, has at least two
+virtues: it holds the reader's attention; and it fulfills the first law of
+poetry, which is to give pleasure.
+
+[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE POEMS]
+
+Another charm of the poems, for young readers especially, is that they are
+simple, vigorous, easily understood. Their rapid action and flying verse
+show hardly a trace of conscious effort. Reading them is like sweeping
+downstream with a good current, no labor required save for steering, and
+attention free for what awaits us around the next bend. When the bend is
+passed, Scott has always something new and interesting: charming scenery,
+heroic adventure, picturesque incidents (such as the flight of the Fiery
+Cross to summon the clans), interesting fragments of folklore, and
+occasionally a ballad like "Lochinvar," or a song like "Bonnie Dundee,"
+which stays with us as a happy memory long after the poem is forgotten.
+
+A secondary reason for the success of these poems was that they satisfied a
+fashion, very popular in Scott's day, which we have not yet outgrown. That
+fashion was to attribute chivalrous virtues to outlaws and other merry men,
+who in their own day and generation were imprisoned or hanged, and who
+deserved their fate. Robin Hood's gang, for example, or the Raiders of the
+Border, were in fact a tough lot of thieves and cutthroats; but when they
+appeared in romantic literature they must of course appeal to ladies; so
+Scott made them fine, dashing, manly fellows, sacrificing to the fashion of
+the hour the truth of history and humanity. As Andrew Lang says:
+
+    "In their own days the Border Riders were regarded as public
+    nuisances by statesmen, who attempted to educate them by means of
+    the gibbet. But now they were the delight of fine ladies,
+    contending who should be most extravagant in encomium. A blessing
+    on such fine ladies, who know what is good when they see it!"
+    [Footnote: Quoted in Nicoll and Seccombe, _A History of English
+    Literature_, Vol. Ill, p. 957.]
+
+SCOTT'S NOVELS. To appreciate the value of Scott's work one should read
+some of the novels that were fashionable in his day,--silly, sentimental
+novels, portraying the "sensibilities" of imaginary ladies. [Footnote: In
+America, Cooper's first romance, _Precaution_ (1820), was of this
+artificial type. After Scott's outdoor romances appeared, Cooper discovered
+his talent, and wrote _The Spy_ and the Leather-Stocking tales. Maria
+Edgeworth and Jane Austen began to improve or naturalize the English novel
+before Scott attempted it.] That Scott was influenced by this inane fashion
+appears plainly in some of his characters, his fine ladies especially, who
+pose and sentimentalize till we are mortally weary of them; but this
+influence passed when he discovered his real power, which was to portray
+men and women in vigorous action. _Waverley_, _Rob Roy_,
+_Ivanhoe_, _Redgauntlet_,--such stories of brave adventure were
+like the winds of the North, bringing to novel-readers the tang of the sea
+and the earth and the heather. They braced their readers for life, made
+them feel their kinship with nature and humanity. Incidentally, they
+announced that two new types of fiction, the outdoor romance and the
+historical novel, had appeared with power to influence the work of Cooper,
+Thackeray, Dickens and a host of minor novelists.
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT WINDOW (MELROSE ABBEY)]
+
+    [Sidenote: GROUPS OF STORIES]
+
+    The most convenient way of dealing with Scott's works is to arrange
+    them in three groups. In the first are the novels of Scotland:
+    _Waverley_, dealing with the loyalty of the clans to the
+    Pretender; _Old Mortality_, with the faith and struggles of
+    the Covenanters; _Redgauntlet_, with the plots of the
+    Jacobites; _The Abbot_ and _The Monastery_, with the
+    traditions concerning Mary Queen of Scots; _Guy Mannering, The
+    Antiquary_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_, with private life
+    and humble Scottish characters.
+
+    In the second group are the novels which reveal the romance of
+    English history: _Ivanhoe_, dealing with Saxon and Norman in
+    the stormy days when Richard Lionheart returned to his kingdom;
+    _Kenilworth_, with the intrigues of Elizabeth's Court; _The
+    Fortunes of Nigel_, with London life in the days of Charles
+    First; _Woodstock_, with Cromwell's iron age; _Peveril of
+    the Peak_, with the conflict between Puritan and Cavalier during
+    the Restoration period.
+
+    In the third group are the novels which take us to foreign lands:
+    _Quentin Durward_, showing us the French court as dominated by
+    the cunning of Louis Eleventh, and _The Talisman_, dealing
+    with the Third Crusade.
+
+    In the above list we have named not all but only the best of
+    Scott's novels. They differ superficially, in scenes or incidents;
+    they are all alike in motive, which is to tell a tale of adventure
+    that shall be true to human nature, no matter what liberties it may
+    take with the facts of history.
+
+[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE NOVELS]
+
+In all these novels the faults are almost as numerous as the virtues; but
+while the faults appear small, having little influence on the final result,
+the virtues are big, manly, wholesome,--such virtues as only the greatest
+writers of fiction possess. Probably all Scott's faults spring from one
+fundamental weakness: he never had a high ideal of his own art. He wrote to
+make money, and was inclined to regard his day's labor as "so much
+scribbling." Hence his style is frequently slovenly, lacking vigor and
+concentration; his characters talk too much, apparently to fill space; he
+caters to the romantic fashion (and at the same time indulges his Tory
+prejudice) by enlarging on the somewhat imaginary virtues of knights,
+nobles, feudal or royal institutions, and so presents a one-sided view of
+history.
+
+On the other hand, Scott strove to be true to the great movements of
+history, and to the moral forces which, in the end, prevail in all human
+activity. His sympathies were broad; he mingled in comradeship with all
+classes of society, saw the best in each; and from his observation and
+sympathy came an enormous number of characters, high or low, good or bad,
+grave or ridiculous, but nearly all natural and human, because drawn from
+life and experience.
+
+[Sidenote: SCENE AND INCIDENT]
+
+Another of Scott's literary virtues is his love of wild nature, which led
+him to depict many grand or gloomy scenes, partly for their own sake, but
+largely because they formed a fitting background for human action. Thus,
+_The Talisman_ opens with a pen picture of a solitary Crusader moving
+across a sun-scorched desert towards a distant island of green. Every line
+in that description points to action, to the rush of a horseman from the
+oasis, to the fierce trial of arms before the enemies speak truce and drink
+together from the same spring. Many another of Scott's descriptions of wild
+nature is followed by some gallant adventure, which we enjoy the more
+because we imagine that adventures ought to occur (though they seldom do)
+amid romantic surroundings.
+
+[Illustration: SCOTT'S TOMB IN DRYBURGH ABBEY]
+
+WHAT TO READ. At least one novel in each group should be read; but if it be
+asked, Which one? the answer is as much a matter of taste as of judgment.
+Of the novels dealing with Scottish life, _Waverley_, which was
+Scott's first attempt, is still an excellent measure of his story-telling
+genius; but there is more adventurous interest in _Old Mortality_ or
+_Rob Roy_; and in _The Heart of Midlothian_ (regarded by many as
+the finest of Scott's works) one feels closer to nature and human nature,
+and especially to the heart of Scotland. _Ivanhoe_ is perhaps the best
+of the romances of English history; and of stories dealing with adventure
+in strange lands, _The Talisman_ will probably appeal strongest to
+young readers, and _Quentin Durward_ to their elders. To these may be
+added _The Antiquary_, which is a good story, and which has an element
+of personal interest in that it gives us glimpses of Scott himself,
+surrounded by old armor, old legends, old costumes,--mute testimonies to
+the dreams and deeds of yesterday's men and women.
+
+Such novels should be read once for the story, as Scott intended; and then,
+if one should grow weary of modern-problem novels, they may be read again
+for their wholesome, bracing atmosphere, for their tenderness and wisdom,
+for their wide horizons, for their joy of climbing to heights where we look
+out upon a glorious Present, and a yet more glorious Past that is not dead
+but living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OTHER FICTION WRITERS
+
+Of the work of Walter Scott we have already spoken. When such a genius
+appears, dominating his age, we think of him as a great inventor, and so he
+was; but like most other inventors his trail had been blazed, his way
+prepared by others who had gone before him. His first romance,
+_Waverley_, shows the influence of earlier historical romances, such
+as Jane Porter's _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ and _Scottish Chiefs_; in
+his later work he acknowledged his indebtedness to Maria Edgeworth, whose
+_Castle Rackrent_ had aroused enthusiasm at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century. In brief, the romantic movement greatly encouraged
+fiction writing, and Scott did excellently what many others were doing
+well.
+
+Two things are noticeable as we review the fiction of this period: the
+first, that nearly all the successful writers were women; [Footnote: The
+list includes: Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Porter, Maria Edgeworth,
+Susan Ferrier, Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan), Mary Brunton, Hannah More,
+Mary Russell Mitford,--all of whom were famous in their day, and each of
+whom produced at least one "best seller"] the second, that of these writers
+only one, the most neglected by her own generation, holds a secure place in
+the hearts of present-day readers. If it be asked why Jane Austen's works
+endure while others are forgotten, the answer is that almost any trained
+writer can produce a modern romance, but it takes a genius to write a
+novel. [Footnote: The difference between the modern romance and the novel
+is evident in the works of Scott and Miss Austen. Scott takes an unusual
+subject, he calls up kings, nobles, chieftains, clansmen, robber barons,--a
+host of picturesque characters; he uses his imagination freely, and makes a
+story for the story's sake. Miss Austen takes an ordinary country village,
+observes its people as through a microscope, and portrays them to the life.
+She is not interested in making a thrilling story, but in showing us men
+and women as they are; and our interest is held by the verity of her
+portrayal. (For a different distinction between romance and novel, see "THE
+EARLY ENGLISH NOVEL" above, Chapter VI.)]
+
+[Illustration: MRS. HANNAH MORE]
+
+JANE AUSTEN. The rare genius of Miss Austen (1775-1817) was as a forest
+flower during her lifetime. While Fanny Burney, Jane Porter and Maria
+Edgeworth were widely acclaimed, this little woman remained almost unknown,
+following no school of fiction, writing for her own pleasure, and
+destroying whatever did not satisfy her own sense of fitness. If she had
+any theory of fiction, it was simply this: to use no incident but such as
+had occurred before her eyes, to describe no scene that was not familiar,
+and to portray only such characters as she knew intimately, their speech,
+dress, manner, and the motives that governed their action. If unconsciously
+she followed any rule of expression, it was that of Cowper, who said that
+to touch and retouch is the secret of almost all good writing. To her
+theory and rule she added personal charm, intelligence, wit, genius of a
+high order. Neglected by her own generation, she has now an ever-widening
+circle of readers, and is ranked by critics among the five or six greatest
+writers of English fiction.
+
+    [Sidenote: HER LIFE]
+
+    Jane Austen's life was short and extremely placid. She was born
+    (1775) in a little Hampshire village; she spent her entire life in
+    one country parish or another, varying the scene by an occasional
+    summer at the watering-place of Bath, which was not very exciting.
+    Her father was an easy-going clergyman who read Pope, avoided
+    politics, and left preaching to his curate. She was one of a large
+    family of children, who were brought up to regard elegance of
+    manner as a cardinal virtue, and vulgarity of any kind as the
+    epitome of the seven deadly sins. Her two brothers entered the
+    navy; hence the flutter in her books whenever a naval officer comes
+    on a furlough to his native village. She spent her life in homely,
+    pleasant duties, and did her writing while the chatter of family
+    life went on around her. Her only characters were visitors who came
+    to the rectory, or who gathered around the tea-table in a
+    neighbor's house. They were absolutely unconscious of the keen
+    scrutiny to which they were subjected; no one whispered to them, "A
+    chiel's amang ye, takin' notes"; and so they had no suspicion that
+    they were being transferred into books.
+
+    The first three of Miss Austen's novels were written at Steventon,
+    among her innocent subjects, but her precious manuscripts went
+    begging in vain for a publisher. [Footnote: _Northanger
+    Abbey_, _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Sense and
+    Sensibility_ were written between 1796 and 1799, when Jane
+    Austen had just passed her twenty-first year. Her first novel was
+    bought by a publisher who neglected to print it. The second could
+    not be sold till after the third was published, in 1811.] The last
+    three, reflecting as in a glass the manners of another parish, were
+    written at Chawton, near Winchester. Then the good work suddenly
+    began to flag. The same disease that, a little later, was to call
+    halt to Keats's poetry of beauty now made an end of Miss Austen's
+    portrayal of everyday life. When she died (1817) she was only
+    forty-two years old, and her heart was still that of a young girl.
+    A stained-glass window in beautiful old Winchester Cathedral speaks
+    eloquently of her life and work.
+
+[Sidenote: NOVELS AND CHARACTERS]
+
+If we must recommend one of Miss Austen's novels, perhaps _Pride and
+Prejudice_ is the most typical; but there is very little to justify this
+choice when the alternative is _Northanger Abbey_, or _Emma_, or
+_Sense and Sensibility_, or _Persuasion_, or _Mansfield
+Park_. All are good; the most definite stricture that one can safely
+make is that _Mansfield Park_ is not so good as the others. Four of
+the novels are confined to country parishes; but in _Northanger Abbey_
+and _Persuasion_ the horizon is broadened to include a watering place,
+whither genteel folk went "to take the air."
+
+The characters of all these novels are: first, the members of five or six
+families, with their relatives, who try to escape individual boredom by
+gregariousness; and second, more of the same kind assembled at a local fair
+or sociable. Here you meet a dull country squire or two, a feeble-minded
+baronet, a curate laboriously upholding the burden of his dignity, a doctor
+trying to hide his emptiness of mind by looking occupied, an uncomfortable
+male person in tow of his wife, maiden aunts, fond mammas with their
+awkward daughters, chatterboxes, poor relations, spoiled children,--a
+characteristic gathering. All these, except the spoiled children, talk with
+perfect propriety about the weather. If in the course of a long day
+anything witty is said, it is an accident, a phenomenon; conversation
+halts, and everybody looks at the speaker as if he must have had "a rush of
+brains to the head."
+
+[Sidenote: HER SMALL FIELD]
+
+Such is Jane Austen's little field, an eddy of life revolving endlessly
+around small parish interests. Her subjects are not even the whole parish,
+but only "the quality," whom the favored ones may meet at Mrs. B's
+afternoon at home. They read proper novels, knit wristlets, discuss fevers
+and their remedies, raise their eyebrows at gossip, connive at matrimony,
+and take tea. The workers of the world enter not here; neither do men of
+ideas, nor social rebels, nor the wicked, nor the happily unworthy poor;
+and the parish is blessed in having no reformers.
+
+In this barren field, hopeless to romancers like Scott, there never was
+such another explorer as Jane Austen. Her demure observation is marvelously
+keen; sometimes it is mischievous, or even a bit malicious, but always
+sparkling with wit or running over with good humor. Almost alone in that
+romantic age she had no story to tell, and needed none. She had never met
+any heroes or heroines. Plots, adventures, villains, persecuted innocence,
+skeletons in closets,--all the ordinary machinery of fiction seemed to her
+absurd and unnecessary. She was content to portray the life that she knew
+best, and found it so interesting that, a century later, we share her
+enthusiasm. And that is the genius of Miss Austen, to interest us not by a
+romantic story but by the truth of her observation and by the fidelity of
+her portrayal of human nature, especially of feminine nature.
+
+[Sidenote: INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH FICTION]
+
+There is one more thing to note in connection with Miss Austen's work;
+namely, her wholesome influence on the English novel. In _Northanger
+Abbey_ and in _Sense and Sensibility_ she satirizes the popular
+romances of the period, with their Byronic heroes, melodramatic horrors and
+perpetual harping on some pale heroine's sensibilities. Her satire is
+perhaps the best that has been written on the subject, so delicate, so
+flashing, so keen, that a critic compares it to the exploit of Saladin (in
+_The Talisman_) who could not with his sword hack through an iron
+mace, as Richard did, but who accomplished the more difficult feat of
+slicing a gossamer veil as it floated in the air.
+
+Such satire was not lost; yet it was Miss Austen's example rather than her
+precept which put to shame the sentimental romances of her day, and which
+influenced subsequent English fiction in the direction of truth and
+naturalness. Young people still prefer romance and adventure as portrayed
+by Scott and his followers, and that is as it should be; but an
+increasingly large number of mature readers (especially those who are
+interested in human nature) find a greater charm in the novel of characters
+and manners, as exemplified by Jane Austen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CRITICS AND ESSAYISTS
+
+From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century (or from Shakespeare to
+Wordsworth) England was preparing a great literature; and then appeared
+writers whose business or pleasure it was to appreciate that literature, to
+point out its virtues or its defects, to explain by what principle this or
+that work was permanent, and to share their enjoyment of good prose and
+poetry with others,--in a word, the critics.
+
+In the list of such writers, who give us literature at second hand, the
+names of Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, Walter Savage Landor, Charles Lamb
+and Thomas De Quincey are written large. The two last-named are selected
+for special study, not because of their superior critical ability (for
+Hazlitt was probably a better critic than either), but because of a few
+essays in which these men left us an appreciation of life, as they saw it
+for themselves at first hand.
+
+CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834). There is a little book called _Essays of
+Elia_ which stands out from all other prose works of the age. If we
+examine this book to discover the source of its charm, we find it pervaded
+by a winsome "human" quality which makes us want to know the man who wrote
+it. In this respect Charles Lamb differs from certain of his
+contemporaries. Wordsworth was too solitary, Coleridge and De Quincey too
+unbalanced, Shelley too visionary and Keats too aloof to awaken a feeling
+of personal allegiance; but the essays of Lamb reveal two qualities which,
+like fine gold, are current among readers of all ages. These are sympathy
+and humor. By the one we enter understandingly into life, while the other
+keeps us from taking life too tragically.
+
+[Illustration: CHARLES LAMB.
+From the engraving by S. Aslent Edwards]
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS LIFE]
+
+    Lamb was born (1775) in the midst of London, and never felt at home
+    anywhere else. London is a world in itself, and of all its corners
+    there were only three that Lamb found comfortable. The first was
+    the modest little home where he lived with his gifted sister Mary,
+    reading with her through the long evenings, or tenderly caring for
+    her during a period of insanity; the second was the commercial
+    house where he toiled as a clerk; the third was the busy street
+    which lay between home and work,--a street forever ebbing and
+    flowing with a great tide of human life that affected Lamb
+    profoundly, mysteriously, as Wordsworth was affected by the hills
+    or the sea.
+
+    The boy's education began at Christ's Hospital, where he met
+    Coleridge and entered with him into a lifelong friendship. At
+    fifteen he left school to help support his family; and for the next
+    thirty-three years he was a clerk, first in the South Sea House,
+    then in the East India Company. Rather late in life he began to
+    write, his prime object being to earn a little extra money, which
+    he sadly needed. Then the Company, influenced partly by his
+    faithful service and partly by his growing reputation, retired him
+    on a pension. Most eagerly, like a boy out of school, he welcomed
+    his release, intending to do great things with his pen; but
+    curiously enough he wrote less, and less excellently, than before.
+    His decline began with his hour of liberty. For a time, in order
+    that his invalid sister might have quiet, he lived outside the
+    city, at Islington and Enfield; but he missed the work, the street,
+    the crowd, and especially did he miss his old habits. He had no
+    feeling for nature, nor for any art except that which he found in
+    old books. "I hate the country," he wrote; and the cause of his
+    dislike was that, not knowing what to do with himself, he grew
+    weary of a day that was "all day long."
+
+[Illustration: EAST INDIA HOUSE, LONDON
+Where Charles Lamb worked for many years. From an engraving by
+M. Tombleson, after a drawing made by Thomas H Shepherd in 1829]
+
+The earlier works of Lamb (some poems, a romance and a drama) are of little
+interest except to critics. The first book that brought him any
+considerable recognition was the _Tales from Shakespeare_. This was a
+summary of the stories used by Shakespeare in his plays, and was largely
+the work of Mary Lamb, who had a talent for writing children's books. The
+charm of the _Tales_ lies in the fact that the Lambs were so familiar
+with old literature that they reproduced the stories in a style which might
+have done credit to a writer in the days of Elizabeth. The book is still
+widely read, and is as good as any other if one wants that kind of book.
+But the chief thing in _Macbeth_ or _The Tempest_ is the poetry,
+not the tale or the plot; and even if one wants only the story, why not get
+it from Shakespeare himself? Another and better book by Lamb of the same
+general kind is _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with
+Shakespeare_. In this book he saves us a deal of unprofitable reading by
+gathering together the best of the Elizabethan dramas, to which he adds
+some admirable notes of criticism or interpretation.
+
+[Illustration: MARY LAMB
+After the portrait by F. S. Cary]
+
+[Sidenote: ESSAYS OF ELIA]
+
+Most memorable of Lamb's works are the essays which he contributed for many
+years to the London magazines, and which he collected under the titles
+_Essays of Elia_ (1823) and _Last Essays of Elia_ (1830).
+[Footnote: The name "Elia" (pronounced ee'-li-ä) was a pseudonym, taken
+from an old Italian clerk (Ellia) in the South Sea House. When "Elia"
+appears in the _Essays_ he is Charles Lamb himself; "Cousin Bridget"
+is sister Mary, and "John Elia" is a brother. The last-named was a selfish
+kind of person, who seems to have lived for himself, letting Charles take
+all the care of the family.] To the question, Which of these essays should
+be read? the answer given must depend largely upon personal taste. They are
+all good; they all contain both a reflection and a criticism of life, as
+Lamb viewed it by light of his personal experience. A good way to read the
+essays, therefore, is to consider them as somewhat autobiographical, and to
+use them for making acquaintance with the author at various periods of his
+life.
+
+For example, "My Relations" and "Mackery End" acquaint us with Lamb's
+family and descent; "Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" with his early
+surroundings; "Witches and Other Night-fears" with his sensitive childhood;
+"Recollections of Christ's Hospital" and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-thirty
+Years Ago" with his school days and comradeship with Coleridge; "The South
+Sea House" with his daily work; "Old China" with his home life; "The
+Superannuated Man" with his feelings when he was retired on a pension; and
+finally, "Character of the Late Elia," in which Lamb whimsically writes his
+own obituary.
+
+If these call for too much reading at first, then one may select three or
+four typical essays: "Dream Children," notable for its exquisite pathos;
+"Dissertation on Roast Pig," famous for its peculiar humor; and "Praise of
+Chimney Sweepers," of which it is enough to say that it is just like
+Charles Lamb. To these one other should be added, "Imperfect Sympathies,"
+or "A Chapter on Ears," or "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist," in order to
+appreciate how pleasantly Lamb could write on small matters of no
+consequence. Still another good way of reading (which need not be
+emphasized, since everybody favors it) is to open the _Essays_ here or
+there till we find something that interests us,--a method which allows
+every reader the explorer's joy of discovery.
+
+To read such essays is to understand the spell they have cast on successive
+generations of readers. They are, first of all, very personal; they begin,
+as a rule, with some pleasant trifle that interests the author; then,
+almost before we are aware, they broaden into an essay of life itself, an
+essay illuminated by the steady light of Lamb's sympathy or by the flashes
+of his whimsical humor. Next, we note in the _Essays_ their air of
+literary culture, which is due to Lamb's wide reading, and to the excellent
+taste with which he selected his old authors,--Sidney, Brown, Burton,
+Fuller, Walton and Jeremy Taylor. Often it was the quaintness of these
+authors, their conceits or oddities, that charmed him. These oddities
+reappear in his own style to such an extent that even when he speaks a
+large truth, as he often does, he is apt to give the impression of being a
+little harebrained. Yet if you examine his queer idea or his merry jest,
+you may find that it contains more cardinal virtue than many a sober moral
+treatise.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAMB BUILDING, INNER TEMPLE, LONDON]
+
+On the whole _Elia_ is the quintessence of modern essay-writing from
+Addison to Stevenson. There are probably no better works of the same kind
+in our literature. Some critics aver that there are none others so good.
+
+THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). It used to be said in a college classroom
+that what De Quincey wrote was seldom important and always doubtful, but
+that we ought to read him for his style; which means, as you might say,
+that caviar is a stomach-upsetting food, but we ought to eat a little of it
+because it comes in a pretty box.
+
+To this criticism, which reflects a prevalent opinion, we may take some
+exceptions. For example, what De Quincey has to say of Style, though it
+were written in style-defying German, is of value to everyone who would
+teach that impossible subject. What he says or implies in "Levana" (the
+goddess who performed "the earliest office of ennobling kindness" for a
+newborn child, lifting him from the ground, where he was first laid, and
+presenting his forehead to the stars of heaven) has potency to awaken two
+of the great faculties of humanity, the power to think and the power to
+imagine. Again, many people are fascinated by dreams, those mysterious
+fantasies which carry us away on swift wings to meet strange experiences;
+and what De Quincey has to say of dreams, though doubtful as a dream
+itself, has never been rivaled. To a few mature minds, therefore, De
+Quincey is interesting entirely apart from his dazzling style and
+inimitable rhetoric.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS DE QUINCEY From an engraving by C. H. Jeens]
+
+    To do justice to De Quincey's erratic, storm-tossed life; to record
+    his precocious youth, his marvelous achievements in school or
+    college, his wanderings amid lonely mountains or more lonely city
+    streets, his drug habits with their gorgeous dreams and terrible
+    depressions, his timidity, his courtesy, his soul-solitude, his
+    uncanny genius,--all that is impossible in a brief summary. Let it
+    suffice, then, to record: that he resembled his friend Coleridge,
+    both in his character and in his vast learning; that he studied in
+    profound seclusion for twenty years; then for forty years more,
+    during which time his brain was more or less beclouded by opium, he
+    poured out a flood of magazine articles, which he collected later
+    in fourteen chaotic volumes. These deal with an astonishing variety
+    of subjects, and cover almost every phase of mental activity from
+    portraying a nightmare to building a philosophical system. If he
+    had any dominating interest in his strange life, it was the study
+    of literature.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL WORKS]
+
+The historian can but name a few characteristic works of De Quincey,
+without recommending any of them to readers. To those interested in De
+Quincey's personality his _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ will
+be illuminating. This book astonished Londoners in 1821, and may well
+astonish a Bushman in the year 2000. It records his wandering life, and the
+alternate transport or suffering which resulted from his drug habits. This
+may be followed by his _Suspiria de Profundis_ (Sighs from the
+Depths), which describes, as well as such a thing could be done, the
+phantoms born of opium dreams. There are too many of the latter, and the
+reader may well be satisfied with the wonderful "Dream Fugue" in _The
+English Mail Coach_.
+
+[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE
+Here both Wordsworth and De Quincey resided]
+
+As an illustration of De Quincey's review of history, one should try
+_Joan of Arc_ or _The Revolt of the Tartars_, which are not
+historical studies but romantic dreams inspired by reading history. In the
+critical field, "The Knocking at the Gate in _Macbeth_," "Wordsworth's
+Poetry" and the "Essay on Style" are immensely suggestive. As an example of
+ingenious humor "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" is often
+recommended; but it has this serious fault, that it is not humorous. For a
+concrete example of De Quincey's matter and manner there is nothing better
+than "Levana or Our Ladies of Sorrow" (from the _Suspiria_), with its
+_mater lachrymarum_ Our Lady of Tears, _mater suspiriorum_ Our
+Lady of Sighs, and that strange phantom, forbidding and terrible, _mater
+tenebrarum_ Our Lady of Darkness.
+
+[Sidenote: DE QUINCEY'S STYLE]
+
+The style of all these works is indescribable. One may exhaust the whole
+list of adjectives--chanting, rhythmic, cadenced, harmonious,
+impassioned--that have been applied to it, and yet leave much to say.
+Therefore we note only these prosaic elements: that the style reflects De
+Quincey's powers of logical analysis and of brilliant imagination; that it
+is pervaded by a tremendous mental excitement, though one does not know
+what the stir is all about; and that the impression produced by this
+nervous, impassioned style is usually spoiled by digressions, by
+hairsplitting, and by something elusive, intangible, to which we can give
+no name, but which blurs the author's vision as a drifting fog obscures a
+familiar landscape.
+
+Notwithstanding such strictures, De Quincey's style is still, as when it
+first appeared, a thing to marvel at, revealing as it does the grace, the
+harmony, the wide range and the minute precision of our English speech.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The early nineteenth century is notable for the rapid
+    progress of democracy in English government, and for the triumph of
+    romanticism in English literature. The most influential factor of
+    the age was the French Revolution, with its watchwords of Liberty,
+    Equality, Fraternity. English writers felt the stir of the times,
+    and were inspired by the dream of a new human society ruled by
+    justice and love. In their writing they revolted from the formal
+    standards of the age of Pope, followed their own genius rather than
+    set rules, and wrote with feeling and imagination of the two great
+    subjects of nature and humanity. Such was the contrast in politics
+    and literature with the preceding century that the whole period is
+    sometimes called the age of revolution.
+
+    Our study of the literature of the period includes: (1) The poets
+    Wordsworth and Coleridge, who did not so much originate as give
+    direction to the romantic revival. (2) Byron and Shelley, often
+    called revolutionary poets. (3) The poet Keats, whose works are
+    famous for their sense of beauty and for their almost perfect
+    workmanship. (4) A review of the minor poets of romanticism,
+    Campbell, Moore, Hood, Beddoes, Hunt, and Felicia Hemans. (5) The
+    life and works of Walter Scott, romantic poet and novelist. (6) A
+    glance at the fiction writers of the period, and a study of the
+    works of Jane Austen. (7) The critics and essayists, of whom we
+    selected these two as the most typical: Charles Lamb, famous for
+    his _Essays of Elia_; and De Quincey, notable for his
+    brilliant style, his analysis of dreams, and his endeavor to make a
+    science of literary criticism.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. For general reference such anthologies as
+    Manly's English Poetry and English Prose are useful. The works of
+    major authors are available in various school editions, prepared
+    especially for class use. A few of these handy editions are named
+    below; others are listed in the General Bibliography.
+
+    Best poems of Wordsworth and of Coleridge in Athenæum Press Series.
+    Briefer selections from Wordsworth in Golden Treasury, Cassell's
+    National Library, Maynard's English Classics. Coleridge's Ancient
+    Mariner in Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics. Selections
+    from Coleridge and Campbell in one volume of Riverside Literature.
+
+    Scott's Lady of the Lake and Ivanhoe in Standard English Classics;
+    Marmion and The Talisman in Pocket Classics; Lay of the Last
+    Minstrel and Quentin Durward in Lake English Classics; the same and
+    other works of Scott in various other school editions.
+
+    Selected poems of Byron in Standard English Classics, English
+    Readings. Best poems of Shelley in Athenæum Press; briefer
+    selections in Belles Lettres, Golden Treasury, English Classics.
+
+    Selections from Keats in Athenæum Press, Muses Library, Riverside
+    Literature.
+
+    Lamb's Essays of Elia in Lake English Classics; selected essays in
+    Standard English Classics, Temple Classics, Camelot Series. Tales
+    from Shakespeare in Ginn and Company's Classics for Children.
+
+    Selections from De Quincey, a representative collection, in
+    Athenæum Press; English Mail Coach and Joan of Arc in Standard
+    English Classics, English Readings; Confessions of an Opium Eater
+    in Temple Classics, Everyman's Library; Revolt of the Tartars in
+    Lake Classics, Silver Classics.
+
+    Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in Pocket Classics; the same and
+    other novels in Everyman's Library.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. Extended works in English history and literature are
+    listed in the General Bibliography. The following works are
+    valuable in a study of the early nineteenth century and the
+    romantic movement.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Morris, Age of Queen Anne and the Early
+    Hanoverians; McCarthy, The Epoch of Reform (Epochs of Modern
+    History Series); Cheyne, Industrial and Social History of England;
+    Hassall, Making of the British Empire; Trevelyan, Early Life of
+    Charles James Fox.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Saintsbury, History of Nineteenth Century
+    Literature, Beers, English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century;
+    Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry; Dowden, French
+    Revolution and English Literature; Hancock, French Revolution and
+    The English Poets; Masson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other
+    Essays; De Quincey, Literary Reminiscences.
+
+    _Wordsworth_. Life, by Myers (English Men of Letters Series),
+    by Raleigh. Herford, The Age of Wordsworth; Rannie, Wordsworth and
+    his Circle; Sneath, Wordsworth, Poet of Nature and Poet of Man.
+    Essays, by Lowell, in Among My Books; by M. Arnold, in Essays in
+    Criticism; by Pater, in Appreciations; by L. Stephen, in Hours in a
+    Library; by Hutton, in Literary Essays; by Bagehot, in Literary
+    Studies.
+
+    _Coleridge_. Life, by Traill (E. M. of L.), by Hall Caine
+    (Great Writers Series). Brandl, Coleridge and the English Romantic
+    Movement. Essays, by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Shairp,
+    in Studies in Poetry and Philosophy; by Forster, in Great Teachers;
+    by Dowden, in New Studies.
+
+    _Scott_. Life, by Hutton (E. M. of L.), by Lockhart (5 vols.),
+    by Yonge (Great Writers), by Saintsbury, by Hudson, by Andrew Lang.
+    Jack, Essay on the Novel as Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen.
+    Essays, by Stevenson, in Memories and Portraits; by Swinburne, in
+    Studies in Prose and Poetry; by Hazlitt, in The Spirit of the Age;
+    by Saintsbury, in Essays in English Literature.
+
+    _Byron_. Life, by Noel (Great Writers), by Nicol (E. M. of
+    L.). Hunt, Lord Byron and his Contemporaries. Essays by Macaulay,
+    M. Arnold, Hazlitt, Swinburne.
+
+    _Shelley_. Life, by Symonds (E. M. of L.), by Shairp, by
+    Dowden, by W. M. Rossetti. Salt, A Shelley Primer. Essays by
+    Dowden, Woodberry, M. Arnold, Bagehot, Forster, Hutton, L. Stephen.
+
+    _Keats_. Life, by Colvin (E. M. of L.), by Rossetti, by
+    Hancock. H. C. Shelley, Keats and his Circle; Masson, Wordsworth
+    and Other Essays. Essays by De Quincey, Lowell, M. Arnold,
+    Swinburne.
+
+    _Charles Lamb_. Life, by Ainger (E. M. of L.), by Lucas.
+    Fitzgerald, Charles Lamb; Talfourd, Memoirs of Charles Lamb. Essays
+    by Woodberry, Pater, De Quincey.
+
+    _De Quincey_. Life, by Masson (E. M. of L.), by Page. Hogg, De
+    Quincey and his Friends; Findlay, Personal Recollections of De
+    Quincey. Essays by Saintsbury, Masson, L. Stephen.
+
+    _Jane Austen_. Life, by Malden, by Goldwin Smith, by Adams.
+    Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen; Mitton, Jane Austen and her
+    Times; Hill, Jane Austen, her Home and her Friends; Jack, Essay on
+    the Novel as Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen. Essay by
+    Howells, in Heroines of Fiction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE VICTORIAN AGE (1837-1901)
+
+
+  The current sweeps the Old World,
+  The current sweeps the New;
+  The wind will blow, the dawn will glow,
+  Ere thou hast sailed them through.
+
+                       Kingsley, "A Myth"
+
+
+    HISTORICAL OUTLINE. Amid the many changes which make the reign of
+    Victoria the most progressive in English history, one may discover
+    three tendencies which have profoundly affected our present life
+    and literature. The first is political and democratic: it may be
+    said to have begun with the Reform Bill of 1832; it is still in
+    progress, and its evident end is to deliver the government of
+    England into the hands of the common people. In earlier ages we
+    witnessed a government which laid stress on royalty and class
+    privilege, the spirit of which was clarioned by Shakespeare in the
+    lines:
+
+      Not all the water in the rough rude sea
+      Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
+
+    In the Victorian or modern age the divine right of kings is as
+    obsolete as a suit of armor; the privileges of royalty and nobility
+    are either curbed or abolished, and ordinary men by their
+    representatives in the House of Commons are the real rulers of
+    England.
+
+    With a change in government comes a corresponding change in
+    literature. In former ages literature was almost as exclusive as
+    politics; it was largely in the hands of the few; it was supported
+    by princely patrons; it reflected the taste of the upper classes.
+    Now the masses of men begin to be educated, begin to think for
+    themselves, and a host of periodicals appear in answer to their
+    demand for reading matter. Poets, novelists, essayists,
+    historians,--all serious writers feel the inspiration of a great
+    audience, and their works have a thousand readers where formerly
+    they had but one. In a word, English government, society and
+    literature have all become more democratic. This is the most
+    significant feature of modern history.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT]
+
+    The second tendency may be summed up in the word "scientific." At
+    the basis of this tendency is man's desire to know the truth, if
+    possible the whole truth of life; and it sets no limits to the
+    exploring spirit, whether in the heavens above or the earth beneath
+    or the waters under the earth. From star-dust in infinite space
+    (which we hope to measure) to fossils on the bed of an ocean which
+    is no longer unfathomed, nothing is too great or too small to
+    attract man, to fascinate him, to influence his thought, his life,
+    his literature. Darwin's _Origin of Species_ (1859), which
+    laid the foundation for a general theory of evolution, is one of
+    the most famous books of the age, and of the world. Associated with
+    Darwin were Wallace, Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall and many others, whose
+    essays are, in their own way, quite as significant as the poems of
+    Tennyson or the novels of Dickens.
+
+    It would be quite as erroneous to allege that modern science began
+    with these men as to assume that it began with the Chinese or with
+    Roger Bacon; the most that can be said truthfully is, that the
+    scientific spirit which they reflected began to dominate our
+    thought, to influence even our poetry and fiction, even as the
+    voyages of Drake and Magellan furnished a mighty and mysterious
+    background for the play of human life on the Elizabethan stage. The
+    Elizabethans looked upon an enlarging visible world, and the wonder
+    of it is reflected in their prose and poetry; the Victorians
+    overran that world almost from pole to pole, then turned their
+    attention to an unexplored world of invisible forces, and their
+    best literature thrills again with the grandeur of the universe in
+    which men live.
+
+    [Sidenote: IMPERIALISM]
+
+    A third tendency of the Victorian age in England is expressed by
+    the word "imperialism." In earlier ages the work of planting
+    English colonies had been well done; in the Victorian age the
+    scattered colonies increased mightily in wealth and power, and were
+    closely federated into a world-wide Empire of people speaking the
+    same noble speech, following the same high ideals of justice and
+    liberty.
+
+    The literature of the period reflects the wide horizons of the
+    Empire. Among historical writers, Parkman the American was one of
+    the first and best to reflect the imperial spirit. In such works as
+    _A Half-Century of Conflict_ and _Montcalm and Wolfe_ he
+    portrayed the conflict not of one nation against another but rather
+    of two antagonistic types of civilization: the military and feudal
+    system of France against the democratic institutions of the
+    Anglo-Saxons. Among the explorers, Mungo Park had anticipated the
+    Victorians in his _Travels in the Interior of Africa_ (1799),
+    a wonderful book which set England to dreaming great dreams; but
+    not until the heroic Livingstone's _Missionary Travels and
+    Research in South Africa, The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ and
+    _Last Journals_ [Footnote: In connection with Livingstone's
+    works, Stanley's _How I Found Livingstone_ (1872) should also
+    be read. Livingstone died in Africa in 1873, and his
+    _Journals_ were edited by another hand. For a summary of his
+    work and its continuation see _Livingstone and the Exploration of
+    Central Africa_ (London, 1897).] appeared was the veil lifted
+    from the Dark Continent. Beside such works should be placed
+    numerous stirring journals of exploration in Canada, in India, in
+    Australia, in tropical or frozen seas,--wherever in the round world
+    the colonizing genius of England saw opportunity to extend the
+    boundaries and institutions of the Empire. Macaulay's _Warren
+    Hastings_, Edwin Arnold's _Indian Idylls_, Kipling's
+    _Soldiers Three_,--a few such works must be read if we are to
+    appreciate the imperial spirit of modern English history and
+    literature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I. POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-1892)
+
+Though the Victorian age is notable for the quality and variety of its
+prose works, its dominant figure for years was the poet Tennyson. He alone,
+of all that brilliant group of Victorian writers, seemed to speak not for
+himself but for his age and nation; and the nation, grown weary of Byronic
+rebellion, and finding its joy or sorrow expressed with almost faultless
+taste by one whose life was noble, gave to Tennyson a whole-souled
+allegiance such as few poets have ever won. In 1850 he was made Laureate to
+succeed Wordsworth, receiving, as he said,
+
+  This laurel, greener from the brow
+  Of him that uttered nothing base;
+
+and from that time on he steadily adhered to his purpose, which was to know
+his people and to be their spokesman. Of all the poets who have been called
+to the Laureateship, he is probably the only one of whom it can truthfully
+be said that he understood his high office and was worthy of it.
+
+    LIFE. When we attempt a biography of a person we assume
+    unconsciously that he was a public man; but that is precisely what
+    Tennyson refused to be. He lived a retired life of thoughtfulness,
+    of communion with nature, of friendships too sacred for the world's
+    gaze, a life blameless in conduct, unswerving in its loyalty to
+    noble ideals. From boyhood to old age he wrote poetry, and in that
+    poetry alone, not in biography or letters or essays of criticism,
+    do we ever touch the real man.
+
+    [Illustration: TENNYSON'S BIRTHPLACE, SOMERSBY RECTORY,
+    LINCOLNSHIRE]
+
+    Tennyson was the son of a cultured clergyman, and was born in the
+    rectory of Somersby, Lincolnshire, in 1809, the same year that saw
+    the birth of Lincoln and Darwin. Like Milton he devoted himself to
+    poetry at an early age; in his resolve he was strengthened by his
+    mother; and from it he never departed. The influences of his early
+    life, the quiet beauty of the English landscape, the surge and
+    mystery of the surrounding sea, the emphasis on domestic virtues,
+    the pride and love of an Englishman for his country and his
+    country's history,--these are everywhere reflected in the poet's
+    work.
+
+    His education was largely a matter of reading under his father's
+    direction. He had a short experience of the grammar school at
+    Louth, which he hated forever after. He entered Cambridge, and
+    formed a circle of rare friends ("apostles" they called themselves)
+    who afterwards became famous; but he left college without taking a
+    degree, probably because he was too poor to continue his course.
+    Not till 1850 did he earn enough by his work to establish a home of
+    his own. Then he leased a house at Farringford, Isle of Wight,
+    which we have ever since associated with Tennyson's name. But his
+    real place is the Heart of England.
+
+    [Sidenote: A POET AND HIS CRITICS]
+
+    His first book (a boyish piece of work, undertaken with his brother
+    Charles) appeared under the title _Poems by Two Brothers_
+    (1827). In 1830, and again in 1832, he published a small volume
+    containing such poems as "The Palace of Art," "The Lotos-Eaters,"
+    "The Lady of Shalott" and "The Miller's Daughter"; but the critics
+    of the age, overlooking the poet's youth and its promise, treated
+    the volumes unmercifully. Tennyson, always sensitive to criticism,
+    was sensible enough to see that the critics had ground for their
+    opinions, if not for their harshness; and for ten long years, while
+    he labored to perfect his art, his name did not again appear in
+    print.
+
+    There was another reason for his silence. In 1833 his dearest
+    friend, Arthur Hallam, died suddenly in Vienna, and it was years
+    before Tennyson began to recover from the blow. His first
+    expression of grief is seen in the lyric beginning, "Break, break,
+    break," which contains the memorable stanza:
+
+      And the stately ships go on
+        To their haven under the hill;
+      But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
+       And the sound of a voice that is still!
+
+    Then he began that series of elegies for his friend which appeared,
+    seventeen years later, as _In Memoriam_.
+
+    [Sidenote: HE WINS AND HOLDS HIS PLACE]
+
+    Influenced by his friends, Tennyson broke his long silence with a
+    volume containing "Morte d'Arthur," "Locksley Hall," "Sir Galahad,"
+    "Lady Clare" and a few more poems which have never lost their power
+    over readers; but it must have commanded attention had it contained
+    only "Ulysses," that magnificent appeal to manhood, reflecting the
+    indomitable spirit of all those restless explorers who dared
+    unknown lands or seas to make wide the foundations of imperial
+    England. It was a wonderful volume, and almost its first effect was
+    to raise the hidden Tennyson to the foremost place in English
+    letters.
+
+    Whatever he wrote thereafter was sure of a wide reading. Critics,
+    workingmen, scientists, reformers, theologians,--all recognized the
+    power of the poet to give melodious expression to their thought or
+    feeling. Yet he remained averse to everything that savored of
+    popularity, devoting himself as in earlier days to poetry alone. As
+    a critic writes, "Tennyson never forgot that the poet's work was to
+    convince the world of love and beauty; that he was born to do that
+    work, and do it worthily."
+
+    There are two poems which are especially significant in view of
+    this steadfast purpose. The first is "Merlin and the Gleam," which
+    reflects Tennyson's lifelong devotion to his art; the other is
+    "Crossing the Bar," which was his farewell and hail to life when
+    the end came in 1892.
+
+WORKS OF TENNYSON. There is a wide variety in Tennyson's work: legend,
+romance, battle song, nature, classic and medieval heroes, problems of
+society, questions of science, the answer of faith,--almost everything that
+could interest an alert Victorian mind found some expression in his poetry.
+It ranges in subject from a thrush song to a religious philosophy, in form
+from the simplest love lyric to the labored historical drama.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL SHORT POEMS]
+
+Of the shorter poems of Tennyson there are a few which should be known to
+every student: first, because they are typical of the man who stands for
+modern English poetry; and second, because one is constantly meeting
+references to these poems in books or magazines or even newspapers. Among
+such representative poems are: "The Lotos-Eaters," a dream picture
+characterized by a beauty and verbal melody that recall Spenser's work;
+"Locksley Hall" and "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," the one a romance
+throbbing with youth and hope, the other representing the same hero grown
+old, despondent and a little carping, but still holding fast to his ideals;
+"Sir Galahad," a medieval romance of purity; "Ulysses," an epitome of
+exploration in all ages; "The Revenge," a stirring war song; "Rizpah," a
+dramatic portrayal of a mother's grief for a wayward son; "Romney's
+Remorse," a character study of Tennyson's later years; and a few shorter
+poems, such as "The Higher Pantheism," "Flower in the Crannied Wall,"
+"Wages" and "The Making of Man," which reflect the poet's mood before the
+problems of science and of faith.
+
+[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON]
+
+To these should be added a few typical patriotic pieces, which show
+Tennyson speaking as Poet Laureate for his country: "Ode on the Death of
+Wellington," "Charge of the Light Brigade," "Defense of Lucknow," "Hands
+all Round," and the imperial appeal of "Britons, Hold Your Own" or, as it
+is tamely called, "Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exposition." The
+beginner may also be reminded of certain famous little melodies, such as
+the "Bugle Song," "Sweet and Low," "Tears," "The Brook," "Far, Far, Away"
+and "Crossing the Bar," which are among the most perfect that England has
+produced. And, as showing Tennyson's extraordinary power of youthful
+feeling, at least one lyric of his old age should be read, such as "The
+Throstle" (a song that will appeal especially to all bird lovers),
+beginning:
+
+  "Summer is coming, summer is coming,
+     I know it, I know it, I know it;
+  Light again, leaf again, life again, love again"--
+     Yes, my wild little poet!
+
+Here Tennyson is so merged in his subject as to produce the impression that
+the lyric must have been written not by an aged poet but by the bird
+himself. Reading the poem one seems to hear the brown thrasher on a twig of
+the wild-apple tree, pouring his heart out over the thicket which his mate
+has just chosen for a nesting place.
+
+[Sidenote: IDYLLS OF THE KING]
+
+Of the longer works of Tennyson the most notable is the _Idylls of the
+King_, a series of twelve poems retelling part of the story of Arthur
+and his knights. Tennyson seems to have worked at this poem in haphazard
+fashion, writing the end first, then a fragment here or there, at intervals
+during half a century. Finally he welded his material into its present
+form, making it a kind of allegory of human life, in which man's animal
+nature fights with his spiritual aspirations. As Tennyson wrote, in his
+"Finale" to Queen Victoria:
+
+        Accept this old, imperfect tale,
+  New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul.
+
+The beginner will do well to forget the allegory and read the poem for its
+sustained beauty of expression and for its reflection of the modern ideal
+of honor. For, though Malory and Tennyson tell the same story, there is
+this significant difference between the _Morte d' Arthur_ and the
+_Idylls of the King_: one is thoroughly medieval, and the other almost
+as thoroughly modern. Malory in simple prose makes his story the expression
+of chivalry in the Middle Ages; his heroes are true to their own time and
+place. Tennyson in melodious blank verse changes his material freely so as
+to make it a reflection of a nineteenth-century gentleman disguised in a
+suit of armor and some old knightly raiment.
+
+One may add that some readers cleave to Tennyson, while others greatly
+prefer Malory. There is little or no comparison between the two, and
+selections from both should be read, if only to understand how this old
+romance of Arthur has appealed to writers of different times. In making a
+selection from the _Idylls_ (the length of the poem is rather
+forbidding) it is well to begin with the twelfth book, "The Passing of
+Arthur," which was first to be written, and which reflects the noble spirit
+of the entire work.
+
+In _The Princess: a Medley_ the poet attempts the difficult task of
+combining an old romantic story with a modern social problem; and he does
+not succeed very well in harmonizing his incongruous materials.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE PRINCESS]
+
+    The story is, briefly, of a princess who in youth is betrothed to a
+    prince. When she reaches what is called the age of discretion
+    (doubtless because that age is so frequently marked by
+    indiscretions) she rebels against the idea of marriage, and founds
+    a college, herself the principal, devoted to the higher education
+    of women. The prince, a gallant blade, and a few of his followers
+    disguise themselves as girls and enter the school. When an unruly
+    masculine tongue betrays him he is cast out with maledictions on
+    his head. His father comes with an army, and makes war against the
+    father of the princess. The prince joins blithely in the fight, is
+    sore wounded, and is carried to the woman's college as to a
+    hospital. The princess nurses him, listens to his love tale, and
+    the story ends in the good old-fashioned way.
+
+There are many beautiful passages in _The Princess_, and had Tennyson
+been content to tell the romantic story his work would have had some
+pleasant suggestion of Shakespeare's _As You Like It_; but the social
+problem spoils the work, as a moralizing intruder spoils a bit of innocent
+fun. Tennyson is either too serious or not serious enough; he does not know
+the answer to his own problem, and is not quite sincere in dealing with it
+or in coming to his lame and impotent conclusion. Few readers now attempt
+the three thousand lines of _The Princess_, but content themselves
+with a few lyrics, such as "Ask Me No More," "O Swallow Flying South,"
+"Tears," "Bugle Song" and "Sweet and Low," which are familiar songs in many
+households that remember not whence they came. [Footnote: The above
+criticism of _The Princess_ applies, in some measure, to Tennyson's
+_Maud: a Monodrama_, a story of passionate love and loss and sorrow.
+Tennyson wrote also several dramatic works, such as _Harold_,
+_Becket_ and _Queen Mary_, in which he attempted to fill some of
+the gaps in Shakespeare's list of chronicle plays.]
+
+[Sidenote: ENGLISH IDYLS]
+
+More consistent than _The Princess_ is a group of poems reflecting the
+life and ideals of simple people, to which Tennyson gave the general name
+of _English Idyls_. The longest and in some respects the best of these
+is "Enoch Arden," a romance which was once very popular, but which is now
+in danger of being shelved because the modern reader prefers his romance in
+prose form. Certain of the famous poems which we have already named are
+classed among these English idyls; but more typical of Tennyson's purpose
+in writing them are "Dora," "The Gardener's Daughter" and "Aylmer's Field,"
+in which he turns from ancient heroes to sing the romance of present-day
+life.
+
+[Illustration: SUMMERHOUSE AT FARRINGFORD
+Here Tennyson wrote "Enoch Arden"]
+
+Among mature readers, who have met the sorrows of life or pondered its
+problems, the most admired of Tennyson's work is _In Memoriam_ (1850),
+an elegy inspired by the death of Arthur Hallam. As a memorial poem it
+invites comparison with others, with Milton's "Lycidas," or Shelley's
+"Adonais," or Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." Without going deeply
+into the comparison we may note this difference: that Tennyson's work is
+more personal and sympathetic than any of the others. Milton had only a
+slight acquaintance with his human subject (Edward King) and wrote his poem
+as a memorial for the college rather than for the man; Shelley had never
+met Keats, whose early death he commemorates; Gray voiced an impersonal
+melancholy in the presence of the unknown dead; but Tennyson had lost his
+dearest friend, and wrote to solace his own grief and to keep alive a
+beautiful memory. Then, as he wrote, came the thought of other men and
+women mourning their dead; his view broadened with his sympathy, and he
+wrote other lyrics in the same strain to reflect the doubt or fear of
+humanity and its deathless faith even in the shadow of death.
+
+It is this combination of personal and universal elements which makes _In
+Memoriam_ remarkable. The only other elegy to which we may liken it is
+Emerson's "Threnody," written after the death of his little boy. But where
+Tennyson offers an elaborate wreath and a polished monument, Emerson is
+content with a rugged block of granite and a spray of nature's evergreen.
+
+    [Sidenote: PLAN OF THE POEM]
+
+    _In Memoriam_ occupied Tennyson at intervals for many years,
+    and though he attempted to give it unity before its publication in
+    1850, it is still rather fragmentary. Moreover, it is too long; for
+    the poet never lived who could write a hundred and thirty-one
+    lyrics upon the same subject, in the same manner, without growing
+    monotonous.
+
+    There are three more or less distinct parts of the work, [Footnote:
+    Tennyson divided _In Memoriam_ into nine sections. Various
+    attempts have recently been made to organize the poem and to make a
+    philosophy of it, but these are ingenious rather than convincing.]
+    corresponding to three successive Christmas seasons. The first part
+    (extending to poem 30) is concerned with grief and doubt; the
+    second (to poem 78) exhibits a calm, serious questioning of the
+    problem of faith; the third introduces a great hope amid tender
+    memories or regrets, and ends (poem 106) with that splendid outlook
+    on a new year and a new life, "Ring Out Wild Bells." This was
+    followed by a few more lyrics of mounting faith, inspired by the
+    thought that divine love rules the world and that our human love is
+    immortal and cannot die. The work ends, rather incongruously, with
+    a marriage hymn for Tennyson's sister.
+
+    The spirit of _In Memoriam_ is well reflected in the "Proem"
+    or introductory hymn, "Strong Son of God, Immortal Love"; its
+    message is epitomized in the last three lines:
+
+        One God, one law, one element,
+        And one far-off divine event
+      To which the whole creation moves.
+
+THE QUALITY OF TENNYSON. The charm of Tennyson is twofold. As the voice of
+the Victorian Age, reflecting its thought or feeling or culture, its
+intellectual quest, its moral endeavor, its passion for social justice, he
+represents to us the spirit of modern poetry; that is, poetry which comes
+close to our own life, to the aims, hopes, endeavors of the men and women
+of to-day. With this modern quality Tennyson has the secret of all old
+poetry, which is to be eternally young. He looked out upon a world from
+which the first wonder of creation had not vanished, where the sunrise was
+still "a glorious birth," and where love, truth, beauty, all inspiring
+realities, were still waiting with divine patience to reveal themselves to
+human eyes.
+
+There are other charms in Tennyson: his romantic spirit, his love of
+nature, his sense of verbal melody, his almost perfect workmanship; but
+these the reader must find and appreciate for himself. The sum of our
+criticism is that Tennyson is a poet to have handy on the table for the
+pleasure of an idle hour. He is also (and this is a better test) an
+excellent poet to put in your pocket when you go on a journey. So shall you
+be sure of traveling in good company.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)
+
+In their lifelong devotion to a single purpose the two chief poets of the
+Victorian Age are much alike; in most other respects they are men of
+contrasts. Tennyson looked like a poet, Browning like a business man.
+Tennyson was a solitary singer, never in better company than when alone;
+Browning was a city man, who must have the excitement of society.
+Tennyson's field was the nation, its traditions, heroes, problems, ideals;
+but Browning seldom went beyond the individual man, and his purpose was to
+play Columbus to some obscure human soul. Tennyson was at times rather
+narrowly British; Browning was a cosmopolitan who dealt broadly with
+humanity. Tennyson was the poet of youth, and will always be read by the
+young in heart; Browning was the philosopher, the psychologist, the poet of
+mature years and of a few cultivated readers.
+
+    LIFE. Browning portrays so many different human types as to make us
+    marvel, but we may partly understand his wide range of
+    character-studies by remembering he was an Englishman with some
+    Celtic and German ancestors, and with a trace of Creole
+    (Spanish-Negro) blood. He was born and grew up at Camberwell, a
+    suburb of London, and the early home of Ruskin. His father was a
+    Bank-of-England clerk, a prosperous man and fond of books, who
+    encouraged his boy to read and to let education follow the lead of
+    fancy. Before Browning was twenty years old, father and son had a
+    serious talk which ended in a kind of bargain: the boy was to live
+    a life of culture, and the father was to take care of all financial
+    matters,--an arrangement which suited them both very well.
+
+    [Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING]
+
+    Since boyhood Browning had been writing romantic verses, influenced
+    first by Byron, then by Shelley, then by Keats. His first published
+    works, _Pauline_ and _Paracelsus_, were what he called
+    soul-studies, the one of a visionary, "a star-treader" (its hero
+    was Shelley), the other of a medieval astrologer somewhat like
+    Faust. These two works, if one had the patience of a puzzle-worker
+    to read them, would be found typical of all the longer poems that
+    Browning produced in his sixty years of writing.
+
+    These early works were not read, were not even criticized; and it
+    was not till 1846 that Browning became famous, not because of his
+    books but because he eloped with Elizabeth Barrett, who was then
+    the most popular poet in England. [Footnote: The fame of Miss
+    Barrett in mid century was above that of Tennyson or Browning. She
+    had been for a long time an invalid. Her father, a tyrannical kind
+    of person, insisted on her keeping her room, and expected her to
+    die properly there. He had no personal objection to Browning, but
+    flouted the idea of his famous daughter marrying with anybody.] The
+    two went to Florence, discovered that they were "made for each
+    other," and in mutual helpfulness did their best work. They lived
+    at "Casa Guidi," a house made famous by the fact that Browning's
+    _Men and Women_ and Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the
+    Portuguese_ were written there.
+
+    [Illustration: MRS. BROWNING'S TOMB IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY AT
+    FLORENCE]
+
+    [Sidenote: THE BROWNING CULT]
+
+    This happy period of work was broken by Mrs. Browning's death in
+    1861. Browning returned to England with his son, and to forget his
+    loss he labored with unusual care on _The Ring and the Book_
+    (1868), his bulkiest work. The rest of his life was spent largely
+    in London and in Venice. Fame came to him tardily, and with some
+    unfortunate results. He became known as a poet to be likened unto
+    Shakespeare, but more analytical, calling for a superior
+    intelligence on the part of his readers, and presently a multitude
+    of Browning clubs sprang up in England and America. Delighted with
+    his popularity among the elect, Browning seems to have cultivated
+    his talent for obscurity, or it may be that his natural
+    eccentricity of style increased with age, as did Wordsworth's
+    prosiness. Whatever the cause, his work grew steadily worse until a
+    succession of grammar defying volumes threatened to separate all
+    but a few devotees from their love of Browning. He died in Venice
+    in 1889. On the day of his death appeared in London his last book,
+    _Asolando_. The "Epilogue" to that volume is a splendid finale
+    to a robust life.
+
+      One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
+      Never doubted clouds would break,
+      Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
+      Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
+      Sleep to wake
+
+    Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" is a beautiful swan song; but
+    Browning's last poem is a bugle call, and it sounds not "taps" but
+    the "reveille."
+
+BROWNING'S DRAMATIC QUALITY. Nearly all the works of Browning are dramatic
+in spirit, and are commonly dramatic also in form. Sometimes he writes a
+drama for the stage, such as _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Colombe's
+Birthday_ and _In a Balcony_,--dramas without much action, but
+packed with thought in a way that would have delighted the Schoolmen. More
+often his work takes the form of a dramatic monologue, such as "My Last
+Duchess" and "The Bishop Orders his Tomb," in which one person speaks and,
+like Peter, his speech bewrayeth him; for he reveals very plainly the kind
+of man he is. Occasionally Browning tries to sing like another poet, but
+even here his dramatic instinct is strong. He takes some crisis, some
+unexpected meeting or parting of the ways of life, and proceeds to show the
+hero's character by the way he faces the situation, or talks about it. So
+when he attempts even a love song, such as "The Last Ride Together," or a
+ballad, such as "The Pied Piper," he regards his subject from an unusual
+viewpoint and produces what he calls a dramatic lyric.
+
+[Sidenote: ACTION VS. THOUGHT]
+
+There are at least two ways in which Browning's work differs from that of
+other dramatists. When a trained playwright produces a drama his rule is,
+"Action, more action, and still more action." Moreover, he stands aside in
+order to permit his characters to reveal their quality by their own speech
+or action. For example, Shakespeare's plays are filled with movement, and
+he never tells you what he thinks of Portia or Rosalind or Macbeth, or what
+ought to become of them. He does not need to tell. But Browning often halts
+his story to inform you how this or that situation should be met, or what
+must come out of it. His theory is that it is not action but thought which
+determines human character; for a man may be doing what appears to be a
+brave or generous deed, yet be craven or selfish at heart; or he may be
+engaged in some apparently sinful proceeding in obedience to a motive that
+we would acclaim as noble if the whole truth were known "It is the soul and
+its thoughts that make the man," says Browning, "little else is worthy of
+study." So he calls most of his works soul studies. If we label them now
+dramas, or dramatic monologues, or dramatic lyrics (the three
+classifications of his works), we are to remember that Browning is the one
+dramatist who deals with thoughts or motives rather than with action.
+
+[Illustration: THE PALAZZO REZZONICO BROWNING'S HOME IN VENICE]
+
+WHAT TO READ. One should begin with the simplest of Browning's works, and
+preferably with those in which he shows some regard for verbal melody. As
+romantic love is his favorite theme, it is perhaps well to begin with a few
+of the love lyrics "My Star," "By the Fireside," "Evelyn Hope," and
+especially "The Last Ride Together". To these may be added some of the
+songs that brighten the obscurity of his longer pieces, such as "I Send my
+Heart," "Oh Love--No Love" and "There's a Woman Like a Dewdrop". Next in
+order are the ballads, "The Pied Piper," "Hervé Riel" and "How they Brought
+the Good News"; and then a few miscellaneous short poems, such as "Home
+Thoughts from Abroad," "Prospice," "The Boy and the Angel" and "Up at a
+Villa--Down in the City."
+
+[Sidenote: DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES]
+
+The above poems are named not because they are particularly fine examples
+of their kind, but by way of introduction to a poet who is rather hard to
+read. When these are known, and are found not so obscure as we feared, then
+will be the time to attempt some of Browning's dramatic monologues. Of
+these there is a large variety, portraying many different types of
+character, but we shall name only a few. "Andrea del Sarto" is a study of
+the great Italian painter, "the perfect painter," whose love for a pretty
+but shallow woman was as a millstone about his neck. "My Last Duchess" is a
+powerfully drawn outline of a vain and selfish nobleman. "Abt Vogler" is a
+study of the soul of a musician. "Rabbi ben Ezra," one of the most typical
+of Browning's works, is the word of an old man who faces death, as he had
+faced life, with magnificent courage. "An Epistle" relates the strange
+experience of Karshish, an Arab physician, as recorded in a letter to his
+master Abib. Karshish meets Lazarus (him who was raised from the dead) and,
+regarding him as a patient, describes his symptoms,--such symptoms as a man
+might have who must live on earth after having looked on heaven. The
+physician's half-scoffing words show how his habitual skepticism is shaken
+by a glimpse of the unseen world. He concludes, but his doubt is stronger
+than his conclusion, that Lazarus must be a madman:
+
+  "And thou must love me who have died for thee."
+  The madman saith He said so: it is strange!
+
+[Sidenote: SAUL]
+
+Another poem belonging to the same group (published under the general title
+of _Men and Women_) is "Saul," which finely illustrates the method
+that makes Browning different from other poets. He would select some
+familiar event, the brief record of which is preserved in history, and say,
+"Here we see merely the deed, the outward act or circumstance of life: now
+let us get acquainted with these men or women by showing that they thought
+and felt precisely as we do under similar conditions." In "Saul" he
+reproduces the scene recorded in the sixteenth chapter of the first Book of
+Samuel, where the king is "troubled by an evil spirit" and the young David
+comes to play the harp before him. Saul is represented as the
+disillusioned, the despairing man who has lost all interest in life, and
+David as the embodiment of youthful enthusiasm. The poem is a remarkable
+portrayal of the ancient scene and characters; but it is something greater
+than that; it is a splendid song of the fullness and joy of a brave,
+forward-looking life inspired by noble ideals. It is also one of the best
+answers ever given to the question, Is life worth living? The length of the
+poem, however, and its many difficult or digressive passages are apt to
+repel the beginner unless he have the advantage of an abridged version.
+
+[Sidenote: PIPPA PASSES]
+
+Of the longer works of Browning, only _Pippa Passes_ can be
+recommended with any confidence that it will give pleasure to the reader.
+Other works, such as _The Ring and the Book_, [Footnote: _The Ring
+and the Book_ is remarkable for other things than its inordinate length.
+In it Browning tells how he found an old book containing the record of a
+murder trial in Rome,--a horrible story of a certain Count Guido, who in a
+jealous rage killed his beautiful young wife. That is the only story
+element of the poem, and it is told, with many irritating digressions, at
+the beginning. The rest of the work is devoted to "soul studies," the
+subjects being nine different characters who rehearse the same story, each
+for his own justification. Thus, Guido gives his view of the matter, and
+Pompilia the wife gives hers. "Half Rome," siding with Guido, is
+personified to tell one tale, and then "The Other Half" has its say. Final
+judgment rests with the Pope, an impressive figure, who upholds the
+decision of the civil judges. Altogether it is a remarkable piece of work;
+but it would have been more remarkable, better in every way, if fifteen
+thousand of its twenty thousand lines had been left in the inkpot.] are
+doubtless more famous; but reading them is like solving a puzzle: a few
+enjoy the matter, and therefore count it pleasure, but to the majority it
+is a task to be undertaken as mental discipline.
+
+    _Pippa_ is the story of a working girl, a silk weaver of
+    Asolo, who has a precious holiday and goes forth to enjoy it,
+    wishing she could share her happiness with others, especially with
+    the great people of her town. But the great live in another world,
+    she thinks, a world far removed from that of the poor little
+    working girl; so she puts the wish out of her head, and goes on her
+    way singing:
+
+      The year's at the spring,
+      And day's at the morn;
+      Morning's at seven;
+      The hillside's dew-pearled;
+      The lark's on the wing;
+      The snail's on the thorn:
+      God's in his heaven--
+      All's right with the world!
+
+    It happens that her songs come, in succession, to the ears of the
+    four greatest people in Asolo at moments when they are facing a
+    terrible crisis, when a straw may turn them one way or the other,
+    to do evil or to do good. In each case the song and the pure heart
+    of the singer turn the scale in the right direction; but Pippa
+    knows nothing of her influence. She enjoys her holiday and goes to
+    bed still happy, still singing, quite ignorant of the wonder she
+    has accomplished.
+
+[Illustration: PIAZZA OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
+Where Browning bought the book in which he found the story of
+"The Ring and the Book"]
+
+A mere story-teller would have brought Pippa and the rescued ones together,
+making an affecting scene with rewards, in the romantic manner; but
+Browning is content to depict a bit of ordinary human life, which is daily
+filled with deeds worthy to be written in a book of gold, but of which only
+the Recording Angel takes any notice.
+
+A CRITICISM OF BROWNING. Comparatively few people appreciate the force, the
+daring, the vitality of Browning, and those who know him best are least
+inclined to formulate a favorable criticism. They know too well the faults
+of their hero, his whims, crotchets, digressions, garrulity; his disjointed
+ideas, like rich plums in a poor pudding; his ejaculatory style, as of a
+man of second thoughts; his wing-bound fancy, which hops around his subject
+like a grasshopper instead of soaring steadily over it like an eagle. Many
+of his lines are rather gritty:
+
+  Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
+
+and half his blank verse is neither prose nor poetry:
+
+  What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
+  Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
+  This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
+  I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
+  Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
+  Lorenzo in Lucina,--here's a church!
+
+Instead of criticism, therefore, his admirers offer this word of advice:
+Try to like Browning; in other words, try to understand him. He is not
+"easy"; he is not to be read for relaxation after dinner, but in the
+morning and in a straight-backed chair, with eyes clear and intellect at
+attention. If you so read him, you must soon discover that he has something
+of courage and cheer which no other poet can give you in such full measure.
+If you read nothing else, try at least "Rabbi ben Ezra," and after the
+reading reflect that the optimism of this poem colors everything that the
+author wrote. For Browning differs from all other poets in this: that they
+have their moods of doubt or despondency, but he has no weary days or
+melancholy hours. They sing at times in the twilight, but Browning is the
+herald of the sunrise. Always and everywhere he represents "the will to
+live," to live bravely, confidently here; then forward still with cheerful
+hearts to immortality:
+
+  Grow old along with me!
+  The best is yet to be,
+  The last of life, for which the first was made:
+  Our times are in his hand
+  Who saith, "A whole I planned,
+  Youth shows but half: trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OTHER VICTORIAN POETS
+
+ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806-1861). Among the lesser poets of the age
+the most famous was Elizabeth Barrett, who eloped in romantic fashion with
+Browning in 1846. Her early volumes, written while she was an invalid, seem
+now a little feverish, but a few of her poems of childhood, such as
+"Hector" and "Little Ellie," have still their admirers. Later she became
+interested in social problems, and reflected the passion of the age for
+reform in such poems as "The Cry of the Children," a protest against child
+labor which once vied in interest with Hood's famous "Song of the Shirt."
+Also she wrote _Aurora Leigh_, a popular novel in verse, having for
+its subject a hero who was a social reformer. Then Miss Barrett married
+Robert Browning after a rather emotional and sentimental courtship, as
+reflected in certain extravagant pages of the Browning _Letters_.
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING]
+
+[Sidenote: SONNETS]
+
+In her new-found happiness she produced her most enduring work, the
+_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (1850). This is a collection of love
+songs, so personal and intimate that the author thought perhaps to disguise
+them by calling them "From the Portuguese." In reality their source was no
+further distant than her own heart, and their hero was seen across the
+breakfast table every morning. They reflect Mrs. Browning's love for her
+husband, and those who read them should read also Browning's answer in "One
+Word More." Some of the sonnets ("I Thought How Once" and "How Do I Love
+Thee," for example) are very fine, and deserve their high place among love
+poems; but others, being too intimate, raise a question of taste in showing
+one's heart throbs to the public. Some readers may question whether many of
+the _Sonnets_ and most of the _Letters_ had not better been left
+exclusively to those for whom they were intended.
+
+MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888). The work of this poet (a son of Dr. Arnold of
+Rugby, made famous by _Tom Brown's Schooldays_) is in strong contrast
+to that of the Brownings, to the robust optimism of the one and to the
+emotionalism of the other. He was a man of two distinct moods: in his
+poetry he reflected the doubt or despair of those whose faith had been
+shaken by the alleged discoveries of science; in prose he became almost
+light-hearted as he bantered middle-class Englishmen for their old-fogy
+prejudices, or tried to awaken them to the joys of culture. In both moods
+he was coldly intellectual, appealing to the head rather than to the heart
+of his readers; and it is still a question whether his poetry or his
+criticism will be longest remembered.
+
+[Sidenote: THE POET OF OXFORD]
+
+Arnold is called the poet of Oxford, as Holmes is of Harvard, and those who
+know the beautiful old college town will best appreciate certain verses in
+which he reflects the quiet loveliness of a scene that has impressed so
+many students, century after century. To general readers one may safely
+recommend Arnold's elegies written in memory of the poet Clough, such as
+"Thyrsis" and "The Scholar Gypsy"; certain poems reflecting the religious
+doubts of the age, such as "Dover Beach," "Morality" and "The Future"; the
+love lyrics entitled "Switzerland"; and a few miscellaneous poems, such as
+"Resignation," "The Forsaken Merman," "The Last Word," and "Geist's Grave."
+
+To these some critics would add the long narrative poem "Sohrab and
+Rustum," which is one of the models set before students of "college
+English." The reasons for the choice are not quite obvious; for the story,
+which is taken from the Persian _Shah Namah_, or Book of Kings, is
+rather coldly told, and the blank verse is far from melodious.
+
+In reading these poems of Arnold his own motives should be borne in mind.
+He tried to write on classic lines, repressing the emotions, holding to a
+severe, unimpassioned style; and he proceeded on the assumption that poetry
+is "a criticism of life." It is not quite clear what he meant by his
+definition, but he was certainly on the wrong trail. Poetry is the natural
+language of man in moments of strong or deep feeling; it is the expression
+of life, of life at high tide or low tide; when it turns to criticism it
+loses its chief charm, as a flower loses its beauty and fragrance in the
+hands of a botanist. Some poets, however (Lucretius among the ancients,
+Pope among the moderns, for example), have taken a different view of the
+matter.
+
+[Illustration: MATTHEW ARNOLD]
+
+[Sidenote: THE LITERARY CRITIC]
+
+Arnold's chief prose works were written, curiously enough, after he was
+appointed professor of poetry at Oxford. There he proceeded, in a sincere
+but somewhat toplofty way to enlighten the British public on the subject of
+culture. For years he was a kind of dictator of literary taste, and he is
+still known as a master of criticism; but to examine his prose is to
+discover that it is notable for its even style and occasional good
+expressions, such as "sweetness and light," rather than for its
+illuminating ideas.
+
+For example, in _Literature and Dogma_ and other books in which Arnold
+attempted to solve the problems of the age, he was apt to make large
+theories from a small knowledge of his subject. So in his _Study of
+Celtic Literature_ (an interesting book, by the way) he wrote with
+surprising confidence for one who had no first-hand acquaintance with his
+material, and led his readers pleasantly astray in the flowery fields of
+Celtic poetry. Moreover, he had one favorite method of criticism, which was
+to take the bad lines of one poet and compare them with the good lines of
+another,--a method which would make Shakespeare a sorry figure if he
+happened to be on the wrong side of the comparison.
+
+[Sidenote: WHAT TO READ]
+
+In brief, Arnold is always a stimulating and at times a provoking critic;
+he stirs our thought, disturbs our pet prejudices, challenges our
+opposition; but he is not a very reliable guide in any field. What one
+should read of his prose depends largely on one's personal taste. The essay
+_On Translating Homer_ is perhaps his most famous work, but few
+readers are really interested in the question of hexameters. _Culture and
+Anarchy_ is his best plea for a combination of the moral and
+intellectual or, as he calls them, the Hebrew and Greek elements in our
+human education. Among the best of the shorter works are "Emerson" in
+_Discourses in America_, and "Wordsworth," "Byron" and "The Study of
+Poetry" in _Essays in Criticism_.
+
+THE PRE-RAPHAELITES. In the middle of the nineteenth century, or in 1848 to
+be specific, a number of English poets and painters banded themselves
+together as a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. [Footnote: The name was used
+earlier by some German artists, who worked together in Rome with the
+purpose of restoring art to the medieval simplicity and purity which, as
+was alleged, it possessed before the time of the Italian painter Raphael.
+The most famous artists of the English brotherhood were John Everett
+Millais and William Holman Hunt.] They aimed to make all art more simple,
+sincere, religious, and to restore "the sense of wonder, reverence and awe"
+which, they believed, had been lost since medieval times. Their sincerity
+was unquestioned; their influence, though small, was almost wholly good;
+but unfortunately they were, as Morris said, like men born out of due
+season. They lived too much apart from their own age and from the great
+stream of common life out of which superior art proceeds. For there was
+never a great book or a great picture that was not in the best sense
+representative, that did not draw its greatness from the common ideals of
+the age in which it was produced.
+
+[Illustration: THE MANOR HOUSE OF WILLIAM MORRIS]
+
+[Sidenote: ROSSETTI]
+
+The first poet among the Pre-Raphaelites was Dante Gabriel Rossetti
+(1828-1882), the son of an exiled Italian writer. Like others of the group
+he was both painter and poet, and seemed to be always trying to put into
+his verse the rich coloring which belonged on canvas. Perhaps the most
+romantic episode of his life was, that upon the death of his wife (the
+beautiful model, Lizzie Siddal, who appears in Millais' picture "Ophelia")
+he buried his poetry with her. After some years his friends persuaded him
+that his poems belonged to the living, and he exhumed and published them
+(_Poems_, 1870). His most notable volume, _Ballads and Sonnets_,
+appeared eleven years later. The ballads are nearly all weird, uncanny, but
+with something in them of the witchery of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."
+The sonnets under the general title of "The House of Life" are devoted to
+the poet's lost love, and rank with Mrs. Browning's _From the
+Portuguese_.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS
+From a photograph by Walker and Cockerell]
+
+William Morris (1834-1896) has been called by his admirers the most Homeric
+of English poets. The phrase was probably applied to him because of his
+_Sigurd the Volsung_, in which he uses the material of an old
+Icelandic saga. There is a captivating vigor and swing in this poem, but it
+lacks the poetic imagination of an earlier work, _The Defence of
+Guenevere,_ in which Morris retells in a new way some of the fading
+medieval romances. His best-known work in poetry [Footnote: Some readers
+will be more interested in Morris's prose romances, _The House of the
+Wolfings_, _The Roots of the Mountains_ and _The Story of the
+Glittering Plain_] is _The Earthly Paradise_, a collection of
+twenty-four stories strung together on a plan somewhat resembling that of
+the _Canterbury Tales_. A band of mariners are cast away on an island
+inhabited by a superior race of men, and to while away the time the seamen
+and their hosts exchange stories. Some of these are from classic sources,
+others from Norse legends or hero tales. The stories are gracefully told,
+in very good verse; but in reading them one has the impression that
+something essential is lacking, some touch, it may be, of present life and
+reality. For the island is but another Cloudland, and the characters are
+shadowy creatures having souls but no bodies; or else, as some may find,
+having the appearance of bodies and no souls whatever. Indeed, in reading
+the greater part of Pre-Raphaelite literature, one is reminded of Morris's
+estimate of himself, in the Prelude to _The Earthly Paradise_:
+
+  Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
+  Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
+  Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
+  Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
+  Telling a tale not too importunate
+  To those who in the sleepy region stay,
+  Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
+
+ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837-1909). This voluminous writer, born in the
+year of Victoria's accession, is yet so close to our own day that it is
+difficult to think of him as part of an age that is gone. As a poet he was
+a master of verbal melody, and had such a command of verse forms that he
+won his title of "inventor of harmonies." As a critic he showed a wide
+knowledge of English and French literature, a discriminating taste, and an
+enthusiasm which bubbled over in eulogy of those whom he liked, and which
+emptied vials of wrath upon Byron, Carlyle and others who fell under his
+displeasure. His criticisms are written in an extravagant, almost a
+torrential, style; at times his prose falls into a chanting rhythm so
+attractive in itself as to make us overlook the fact that the praise and
+censure which he dispenses with prodigal liberality are too personal to be
+quite trustworthy.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS POETRY]
+
+We are still too near Swinburne to judge him accurately, and his place in
+the long history of English poetry is yet to be determined. We note here
+only two characteristics which may or may not be evident to other readers.
+In the first place, with his marvelous command of meter and melody,
+Swinburne has a fatal fluency of speech which tends to bury his thought in
+a mass of jingling verbiage. As we read we seem to hear the question, "What
+readest thou, Hamlet?" and again the Dane makes answer, "Words, words,
+words." Again, like the Pre-Raphaelites with whom he was at one time
+associated, Swinburne lived too much apart from the tide of common life. He
+wrote for the chosen few, and in the mass of his verse one must search long
+for a passage of which one may say, This goes home to the hearts of men,
+and abides there in the treasure-house of all good poetry.
+
+Among the longer works of Swinburne his masterpiece is the lyrical drama
+_Atalanta in Calydon_. If one would merely sample the flavor of the
+poet, such minor works as "Itylus" and the fine sea pieces, "Off Shore,"
+"By the North Sea" and "A Forsaken Garden" may be recommended. Nor should
+we overlook what, to many, is Swinburne's best quality; namely, his love of
+children, as reflected in such poems as "The Salt of the Earth" and "A
+Child's Laughter." Among the best of his prose works are his _William
+Blake_, _Essays and Studies_, _Miscellanies_ and _Studies in
+Prose and Verse_.
+
+SONGS IN MANY KEYS. In calling attention to the above-named poets, we have
+merely indicated a few who seem to be chief; but the judgment is a personal
+one, and subject to challenge. The American critic Stedman, in his
+_Victorian Anthology_, recognizes two hundred and fifty singers; of
+these eighty are represented by five or more poems; and of the eighty a few
+are given higher places than those we have selected as typical. There are
+many readers who prefer the _Goblin Market_ of Christina Rossetti to
+anything produced by her gifted brother, who place Jean Ingelow above
+Elizabeth Barrett, who find more pleasure in Edwin Arnold's _Light of
+Asia_ than in all the poems of Matthew Arnold, and who cannot be
+interested in even the best of Pre-Raphaelite verse because of its
+unreality. Many men, many minds! Time has not yet recorded its verdict on
+the Victorians, and until there is some settled criticism which shall
+express the judgment of several generations of men, the best plan for the
+beginner is to make acquaintance with all the minor poets in an anthology
+or book of selections. It may even be a mistake to call any of these poets
+minor; for he who has written one song that lives in the hearts of men has
+produced a work more enduring than the pyramids.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+II. THE VICTORIAN NOVELISTS
+
+CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)
+
+[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS]
+
+Among the Victorian novelists were two men who were frequent rivals in the
+race for fame and fortune. Thackeray, well born and well bred, with
+artistic tastes and literary culture, looked doubtfully at the bustling
+life around him, found his inspiration in a past age, and tried to uphold
+the best traditions of English literature. Dickens, with little education
+and less interest in literary culture, looked with joy upon the struggle
+for democracy, and with an observation that was almost microscopic saw all
+its picturesque details of speech and character and incident. He was the
+eye of the mighty Victorian age, as Tennyson was its ear, and Browning its
+psychologist, and Carlyle its chronic grumbler.
+
+    LIFE. In the childhood of Dickens one may see a forecast of his
+    entire career. His father, a good-natured but shiftless man
+    (caricatured as Mr. Micawber in _David Copperfield_), was a
+    clerk in the Navy Pay Office, at Portsmouth. There Dickens was born
+    in 1812. The father's salary was £80 per year, enough at that time
+    to warrant living in middle-class comfort rather than in the
+    poverty of the lower classes, with whom Dickens is commonly
+    associated. The mother was a sentimental woman, whom Dickens, with
+    questionable taste, has caricatured as Mrs. Micawber and again as
+    Mrs. Nickleby. Both parents were somewhat neglectful of their
+    children, and uncommonly fond of creature comforts, especially of
+    good dinners and a bowl of punch. Though there is nothing in such a
+    family to explain Dickens's character, there is much to throw light
+    on the characters that appear in his novels.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE STAGE]
+
+    The boy himself was far from robust. Having no taste for sports, he
+    amused himself by reading romances or by listening to his nurse's
+    tales,--beautiful tales, he thought, which "almost scared him into
+    fits." His elfish fancy in childhood is probably reflected in Pip,
+    of _Great Expectations_. He had a strong dramatic instinct to
+    act a story, or sing a song, or imitate a neighbor's speech, and
+    the father used to amuse his friends by putting little Charles on a
+    chair and encouraging him to mimicry,--a dangerous proceeding,
+    though it happened to turn out well in the case of Dickens.
+
+    This stagey tendency increased as the boy grew older. He had a
+    passion for private theatricals, and when he wrote a good story was
+    not satisfied till he had read it in public. When _Pickwick_
+    appeared (1837) the young man, till then an unknown reporter, was
+    brought before an immense audience which included a large part of
+    England and America. Thereafter he was never satisfied unless he
+    was in the public eye; his career was a succession of theatrical
+    incidents, of big successes, big lecture tours, big
+    audiences,--always the footlights, till he lay at last between the
+    pale wax tapers. But we are far ahead of our story.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE LONDON STREETS]
+
+    When Dickens was nine years old his family moved to London. There
+    the father fell into debt, and by the brutal laws of the period was
+    thrown into prison. The boy went to work in the cellar of a
+    blacking factory, and there began that intimate acquaintance with
+    lowly characters which he used later to such advantage. He has
+    described his bitter experience so often (in _David
+    Copperfield_ for instance) that the biographer may well pass
+    over it. We note only this significant fact: that wherever Dickens
+    went he had an instinct for exploration like that of a farm dog,
+    which will not rest in a place till he has first examined all the
+    neighborhood, putting his nose into every likely or unlikely spot
+    that may shelter friend or enemy. So Dickens used his spare hours
+    in roaming the byways of London by night, so he gained his
+    marvelous knowledge of that foreign land called The Street, with
+    its flitting life of gamins and nondescripts, through which we pass
+    daily as through an unknown country.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE]
+
+    A small inheritance brought the father from prison, the family was
+    again united, and for two years the boy attended the academy which
+    he has held up to the laughter and scorn of two continents. There
+    the genius of Dickens seemed suddenly to awaken. He studied little,
+    being given to pranks and theatricals, but he discovered within him
+    an immense ambition, an imperious will to win a place and a name in
+    the great world, and a hopeful temper that must carry him over or
+    under all obstacles.
+
+    [Illustration: GADSHILL PLACE, NEAR ROCHESTER
+    The last residence of Dickens]
+
+    No sooner was his discovery made than he left school and entered a
+    law office, where he picked up enough knowledge to make court
+    practices forever ridiculous, in _Bleak House_ and other
+    stories. He studied shorthand and quickly mastered it; then
+    undertook to report parliamentary speeches (a good training in
+    oratory) and presently began a prosperous career as a reporter.
+    This had two advantages; it developed his natural taste for odd
+    people and picturesque incidents, and it brought him close to the
+    great reading public. To please that public, to humor its whims and
+    prejudices, its love for fun and tears and sentimentality, was
+    thereafter the ruling motive in Dickens's life.
+
+    [Sidenote: LITERARY VENTURES]
+
+    His first literary success came with some short stories contributed
+    to the magazines, which appeared in book form as _Sketches by
+    Boz_ (1835). A publisher marked these sketches, engaged Dickens
+    to write the text or letterpress for some comic pictures, and the
+    result was _Pickwick_, which took England and America by
+    storm. Then followed _Oliver Twist_, _Nicholas Nickleby_,
+    _Old Curiosity Shop_,--a flood of works that made readers rub
+    their eyes, wondering if such a fountain of laughter and tears were
+    inexhaustible.
+
+    There is little else to record except this: that from the time of
+    his first triumph Dickens held his place as the most popular writer
+    in English. With his novels he was not satisfied, but wrote a
+    history of England, and edited various popular magazines, such as
+    _Household Words_. Also he gave public readings, reveling in
+    the applause, the lionizing, which greeted him wherever he went. He
+    earned much money; he bought the place "Gadshill," near Rochester,
+    which he had coveted since childhood; but he was a free spender,
+    and his great income was less than his fancied need. To increase
+    his revenue he "toured" the States in a series of readings from his
+    own works, and capitalized his experience in _American Notes_
+    and parts of _Martin Chuzzlewit_.
+
+    A question of taste must arise even now in connection with these
+    works. Dickens had gone to a foreign country for just two things,
+    money and applause; he received both in full measure; then he bit
+    the friendly hand which had given him what he wanted. [Footnote:
+    The chief source of Dickens's irritation was the money loss
+    resulting from the "pirating" of his stories. There was no
+    international copyright in those days; the works of any popular
+    writer were freely appropriated by foreign publishers. This custom
+    was wrong, undoubtedly, but it had been in use for centuries.
+    Scott's novels had been pirated the same way; and until Cooper got
+    to windward of the pirates (by arranging for foreign copyrights)
+    his work was stolen freely in England and on the Continent. But
+    Dickens saw only his own grievance, and even at public dinners was
+    apt to make his hosts uncomfortable by proclaiming his rights or
+    denouncing their moral standards. Moreover, he had a vast conceit
+    of himself, and, like most visitors of a week, thought he knew
+    America like a book. It was as if he looked once at the welter cast
+    ashore by mighty Lake Superior in a storm, and said, "What a dirty
+    sea!"] Thackeray, who followed him to America, had a finer sense of
+    the laws of hospitality and good breeding.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE PRICE OF POPULARITY]
+
+    In 1844 Dickens resolved to make both ends meet, and carried out
+    his resolve with promptness and precision. To decrease expenses he
+    went to the Continent, and lived there, hungry for the footlights,
+    till a series of stories ending with _Dombey and Son_ put his
+    finances on a secure basis. Then he returned to London, wrote more
+    novels, and saved a fortune for his descendants, who promptly spent
+    it. Evidently it was a family trait. More and more he lived on his
+    nerves, grew imperious, exacting, till he separated from his wife
+    and made wreck of domestic happiness. The self-esteem of which he
+    made comedy in his novels was for him a tragedy. Also he resumed
+    the public readings, with their false glory and nervous wear and
+    tear, which finally brought him to the grave.
+
+    [Illustration: DICKEN'S BIRTHPLACE, LANDPORT, PORTSEA]
+
+    He died, worn out by his own exertions, in 1870. He had steadily
+    refused titles and decorations, but a grateful nation laid his body
+    to rest in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. It is doubtful
+    whether he would have accepted this honor, which was forced upon
+    him, for he had declared proudly that by his works alone he would
+    live in the memory of his countrymen.
+
+WORKS OF DICKENS. In the early stories of Dickens is a promise of all the
+rest. His first work was called _Sketches by Boz_, and "Boz" was
+invented by some little girl (was it in _The Vicar of Wakefield?_) who
+could not say "Moses"; also it was a pet name for a small brother of
+Dickens. There was, therefore, something childlike in this first title, and
+childhood was to enter very largely into the novelist's work. He could
+hardly finish a story without bringing a child into it; not an ordinary
+child, to make us smile,  but a wistful or pathetic child whose sorrows,
+since we cannot help them, are apt to make our hearts ache.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PATHETIC ELEMENT]
+
+Dickens is charged with exaggerating the woes of his children, and the
+charge is true; but he had a very human reason for his method. In the first
+place, the pathetic quality of his children is due to this simple fact,
+that they bear the burden and the care of age. And burdens which men or
+women accept for themselves without complaint seem all wrong, and are
+wrong, when laid upon a child's innocent shoulders. Again, Dickens sought
+to show us our error in thinking, as most grown-ups do, that childish
+troubles are of small account. So they are, to us; but to the child they
+are desperately real. Later in life we learn that troubles are not
+permanent, and so give them their proper place; but in childhood a trouble
+is the whole world; and a very hopeless world it is while it lasts. Dickens
+knew and loved children, as he knew the public whom he made to cry with his
+Little Nell and Tiny Tim; and he had discovered that tears are the key to
+many a heart at which reason knocks in vain.
+
+[Sidenote: PICKWICKIAN HUMOR]
+
+The second work, _Pickwick,_ written in a harum-scarum way, is even
+more typical of Dickens in its spirit of fun and laughter. He had been
+engaged, as we have noted, to furnish a text for some comic drawings, thus
+reversing the usual order of illustration. The pictures were intended to
+poke fun at a club of sportsmen; and Dickens, who knew nothing of sport,
+bravely set out with Mr. Winkle on his rook-shooting. Then, while the story
+was appearing in monthly numbers, the illustrator committed suicide;
+Dickens was left with Mr. Pickwick on his hands, and that innocent old
+gentleman promptly ran away with the author. Not being in the least
+adventurous, Mr. Pickwick was precisely the person for whom adventures were
+lying in wait; but with his chivalrous heart within him, and Sam Weller on
+guard outside, he was not to be trifled with by cabman or constable. So
+these two took to the open road, and to the inns where punch, good cheer
+and the unexpected were awaiting them. Never was such another book! It is
+not a novel; it is a medley of fun and drollery resulting from high animal
+spirits.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MOTIVE OF HORROR]
+
+In his next novel, _Oliver Twist_, the author makes a new departure by
+using the motive of horror. One of his heroes is an unfortunate child, but
+when our sympathies for the little fellow are stretched to the point of
+tears, Dickens turns over a page and relieves us by Pickwickian laughter.
+Also he has his usual medley of picturesque characters and incidents, but
+the shadow of Fagin is over them all. One cannot go into any house in the
+book, and lock the door and draw the shades, without feeling that somewhere
+in the outer darkness this horrible creature is prowling. The horror which
+Fagin inspires is never morbid; for Dickens with his healthy spirit could
+not err in this direction. It is a boyish, melodramatic horror, such as
+immature minds seek in "movies," dime novels, secret societies, detective
+stories and "thrillers" at the circus.
+
+In the fourth work, _Nicholas Nickleby_, Dickens shows that he is
+nearing the limit of his invention so far as plot is concerned. In this
+novel he seems to rest a bit by writing an old-fashioned romance, with its
+hero and villain and moral ending. But if you study this or any subsequent
+work of Dickens, you are apt to find the four elements already noted;
+namely, an unfortunate child, humorous interludes, a grotesque or horrible
+creature who serves as a foil to virtue or innocence, and a medley of
+characters good or bad that might be transferred without change to any
+other story. The most interesting thing about Dickens's men and women is
+that they are human enough to make themselves at home anywhere.
+
+WHAT TO READ. Whether one wants to study the method of Dickens or to enjoy
+his works, there is hardly a better plan for the beginner than to read in
+succession _Pickwick_, _Oliver Twist_ and _Nicholas
+Nickleby_, which are as the seed plot out of which grow all his stories.
+For the rest, the reader must follow his own fancy. If one must choose a
+single work, perhaps _Copperfield_ is the most typical. "Of all my
+books," said Dickens, "I like this the best; like many parents I have my
+favorite child, and his name is David Copperfield." Some of the heroines of
+this book are rather stagey, but the Peggotys, Betsy Trotwood, Mrs.
+Gummidge, the Micawbers,--all these are unrivaled. "There is no writing
+against such power," said Thackeray, who was himself writing
+_Pendennis_ while Dickens was at work on his masterpiece.
+
+[Illustration: YARD OF REINDEER INN, DANBURY
+The scene of the races, in _Old Curiosity Shop_]
+
+[Sidenote: TALE OF TWO CITIES]
+
+Opinion is divided on the matter of _A Tale of Two Cities_. Some
+critics regard it as the finest of Dickens's work, revealing as it does his
+powers of description and of character-drawing without his usual
+exaggeration. Other critics, who regard the exaggeration of Dickens as his
+most characteristic quality, see in _Two Cities_ only an evidence of
+his weakening power. It has perhaps this advantage over other works of the
+author, that of them we remember only the extraordinary scenes or
+characters, while the entire story of _Two Cities_ remains with us as
+a finished and impressive thing. But there is also this disadvantage, that
+the story ends and is done with, while _Pickwick_ goes on forever. We
+may lose sight of the heroes, but we have the conviction, as Chesterton
+says, that they are still on the road of adventure, that Mr. Pickwick is
+somewhere drinking punch or making a speech, and that Sam Weller may step
+out from behind the next stable and ask with a droll wink what we are up to
+now.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that our reading of Dickens must not end
+until we are familiar with some of his Yuletide stories, in which he gladly
+followed the lead of Washington Irving. The best of all his short stories
+is _A Christmas Carol_, which one must read but not criticize. At best
+it is a farce, but a glorious, care-lifting, heart-warming farce. Would
+there were more of the same kind!
+
+A CRITICISM OF DICKENS. The first quality of Dickens is his extravagant
+humor. This was due to the fact that he was alive, so thoroughly,
+consciously alive that his vitality overflowed like a spring. Here, in a
+word, is the secret of that bubbling spirit of prodigality which occasions
+the criticism that Dickens produced not characters but caricatures.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS EXAGGERATION]
+
+The criticism is true; but it proclaims the strength of the novelist rather
+than his weakness. Indeed, it is in the very exaggeration of Dickens that
+his astonishing creative power is most clearly manifest. There is something
+primal, stupendous, in his grotesque characters which reminds us of the
+uncouth monsters that nature created in her sportive moods. Some readers,
+meeting with Bunsby, are reminded of a walrus; and who ever saw a walrus
+without thinking of the creature as nature's Bunsby? So with Quilp, Toots,
+Squeers, Pumblechook; so with giraffes, baboons, dodoes, dromedaries,--all
+are freaks from the æsthetic viewpoint, but think of the overflowing energy
+implied in creating them!
+
+The same sense of prodigality characterized Dickens even in his sober
+moods, when he portrayed hundreds of human characters, and not a dead or
+dull person among them. To be sure they are all exaggerated; they weep too
+copiously, eat or drink too intemperately, laugh too uproariously for
+normal men; but to criticize their superabundant vitality is to criticize
+Beowulf or Ulysses or Hiawatha; nay, it is to criticize life itself, which
+at high tide is wont to overflow in heroics or absurdity. The exuberance of
+Pickwick, Micawber, Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp, Sam Weller and a host of others
+is perhaps the most normal thing about them; it is as the rattling of a
+safety valve, which speaks not of stagnant water but of a full head of
+steam. For Dickens deals with life, and you can exaggerate life as much as
+you please, since there is no end to either its wisdom or foolishness.
+Nothing but a question can be added to the silent simplicity of death.
+
+[Illustration: THE GATEHOUSE AT ROCHESTER, NEAR DICKENS'S HOME]
+
+[Sidenote: HIS MOTIVE AND METHOD]
+
+Aside from his purpose of portraying life as he saw it, in all its strange
+complexity, Dickens had a twofold object in writing. He was a radical
+democrat, and he aimed to show the immense hopefulness and compassion of
+Democracy on its upward way to liberty. He was also a reformer, with a
+profound respect for the poor, but no respect whatever for ancient laws or
+institutions that stood in the way of justice. The influence of his novels
+in establishing better schools, prisons, workhouses, is beyond measure; but
+we are not so much interested in his reforms as in his method, which was
+unique. He aimed to make men understand the oppressed, and to make a
+laughing stock of the oppressors; and he succeeded as no other had ever
+done in making literature a power in the land. Thus, the man or the law
+that stands defiantly against public opinion is beaten the moment you make
+that man or that law look like a joke; and Dickens made a huge joke of the
+parish beadle (as Mr. Bumble) and of many another meddlesome British
+institution. Moreover, he was master of this paradox: that to cure misery
+you must meet it with a merry heart,--this is on the principle that what
+the poor need is not charity but comradeship. By showing that humble folk
+might be as poor as the Cratchits and yet have the medicine of mirth, the
+divine gift of laughter, he made men rejoice with the poor even while they
+relieved the poverty.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS FAULTS]
+
+As for the shortcomings of Dickens, they are so apparent that he who runs
+may read. We may say of him, as of Shakespeare, that his taste is
+questionable, that he is too fond of a mere show, that his style is often
+melodramatic, that there is hardly a fault in the whole critical category
+of which he is not habitually guilty. But we may say of him also that he is
+never petty or mean or morbid or unclean; and he could not be dull if he
+tried. His faults, if you analyze them, spring from precisely the same
+source as his virtues; that is, from his abundant vitality, from his excess
+of life and animal spirits. So we pardon, nay, we rejoice over him as over
+a boy who must throw a handspring or raise a _whillilew_ when he
+breaks loose from school. For Dickens, when he started his triumphal
+progress with _Pickwick_, had a glorious sense of taking his cue from
+life and of breaking loose from literary traditions. In comparison with
+Ruskin or Thackeray he is not a good writer, but something more--a
+splendidly great writer. If you would limit or define his greatness, try
+first to marshal his array of characters, characters so vital and human
+that we can hardly think of them as fictitious or imaginary creatures; then
+remember the millions of men and women to whom he has given pure and
+lasting pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
+From a drawing by Samuel Laurence]
+
+In fiction Thackeray stands to Dickens as Hamilton to Jefferson in the
+field of politics. The radical difference between the novelists is
+exemplified in their attitude toward the public. Thackeray, who lived among
+the privileged classes, spoke of "this great stupid public," and thought
+that the only way to get a hearing from the common people was to "take them
+by the ears." He was a true Hamiltonian. Dickens had an immense sympathy
+for the common people, a profound respect for their elemental virtues; and
+in writing for them he was, as it were, the Jefferson, the triumphant
+democrat of English letters. Thackeray was intellectual; he looked at men
+with critical eyes, and was a realist and a pessimist. Dickens was
+emotional; he looked at men with kindled imagination, judged them by the
+dreams they cherished in their hearts, and was a romanticist and an
+optimist. Both men were humorists; but where Thackeray was delicately
+satirical, causing us a momentary smile, Dickens was broadly comic or
+farcical, winning us by hearty laughter.
+
+    LIFE. To one who has been trained, like Dickens, in the school of
+    hardship it seems the most natural thing in the world to pass over
+    into a state of affluence. It is another matter to fare sumptuously
+    every day till luxurious habits are formed, and then be cast
+    suddenly on one's own resources, face to face with the unexpected
+    monster of bread and butter. This was Thackeray's experience, and
+    it colored all his work.
+
+    A second important matter is that Thackeray had a great tenderness
+    for children, a longing for home and homely comforts; but as a
+    child he was sent far from his home in India, and was thrown among
+    young barbarians in various schools, one of which, the
+    "Charterhouse," was called the "Slaughterhouse" in the boy's
+    letters to his mother. "There are three hundred and seventy boys in
+    this school," wrote; "I wish there were only three hundred and
+    sixty-nine!" He married for love, and with great joy began
+    housekeeping; then a terrible accident happened, his wife was taken
+    to an insane asylum, and for the rest of his life Thackeray was a
+    wanderer amid the empty splendors of clubs and hotels.
+
+    These two experiences did not break Thackeray, but they bowed him.
+    They help to explain the languor, the melancholy, the gentle
+    pessimism, as if life had no more sunrises, of which we are vaguely
+    conscious in reading _The Virginians_ or _The Newcomes_.
+
+    [Sidenote: EARLY YEARS]
+
+    Thackeray was born (1811) in Calcutta, of a family of English
+    "nabobs" who had accumulated wealth and influence as factors or
+    civil officers. At the death of his father, who was a judge in
+    Bengal, the child was sent to England to be educated. Here is a
+    significant incident of the journey:
+
+        "Our ship touched at an island, where my black servant took
+        me a walk over rocks and hills till we passed a garden,
+        where we saw a man walking. 'That is Bonaparte,' said the
+        black; 'he eats three sheep every day, and all the children
+        he can lay hands on.'"
+
+    Napoleon was then safely imprisoned at St. Helena; but his shadow,
+    as of a terrible ogre, was still dark over Europe.
+
+    Thackeray's education, at the Charterhouse School and at Cambridge,
+    was neither a happy nor a profitable experience, as we judge from
+    his unflattering picture of English school life in
+    _Pendennis_. He had a strongly artistic bent, and after
+    leaving college studied art in Germany and France. Presently he
+    lost his fortune by gambling and bad investments, and was
+    confronted by the necessity of earning his living. He tried the
+    law, but gave it up because, as he said, it had no soul. He tried
+    illustrating, having a small talent for comic drawings, and sought
+    various civil appointments in vain. As a last resource he turned to
+    the magazines, wrote satires, sketches of travel, burlesques of
+    popular novelists, and, fighting all the time against his habit of
+    idleness, slowly but surely won his way.
+
+    [Sidenote: LITERARY LABOR]
+
+    His first notable work, _Vanity Fair_ (1847), won a few
+    readers' and the critics' judgment that it was "a book written by a
+    gentleman for gentlemen" was the foundation of Thackeray's
+    reputation as a writer for the upper classes. Other notable novels
+    followed, _Henry Esmond_, _Pendennis_, _The
+    Newcomes_, _The Virginians_, and two series of literary and
+    historical essays called _English Humorists_ and _The Four
+    Georges_. The latter were delivered as lectures in a successful
+    tour of England and America. Needless to say, Thackeray hated
+    lecturing and publicity; he was driven to his "dollar-hunting" by
+    necessity.
+
+    In 1860 his fame was firmly established, and he won his first
+    financial success by taking charge of the _Cornhill Magazine_,
+    which prospered greatly in his hands. He did not long enjoy his
+    new-found comfort, for he died in 1863. His early sketches had been
+    satirical in spirit, his first novels largely so; but his last
+    novels and his Cornhill essays were written in a different
+    spirit,--not kinder, for Thackeray's heart was always right, but
+    broader, wiser, more patient of human nature, and more hopeful.
+
+    In view of these later works some critics declare that Thackeray's
+    best novel was never written. His stories were produced not
+    joyously but laboriously, to earn his living; and when leisure came
+    at last, then came death also, and the work was over.
+
+WORKS OF THACKERAY. It would be flying in the face of all the critics to
+suggest that the beginner might do well to postpone the famous novels of
+Thackeray, and to meet the author at his best, or cheerfulest, in such
+forgotten works as the _Book of Ballads_ and _The Rose and the
+Ring_. The latter is a kind of fairy story, with a poor little good
+princess, a rich little bad princess, a witch of a godmother, and such
+villainous characters as Hedzoff and Gruffanuff. It was written for some
+children whom Thackeray loved, and is almost the only book of his which
+leaves the impression that the author found any real pleasure in writing
+it.
+
+[Sidenote: HENRY ESMOND]
+
+If one must begin with a novel, then _Henry Esmond_ (1852) is the
+book. This is an historical novel; the scene is laid in the eighteenth
+century, during the reign of Queen Anne; and it differs from most other
+historical novels in this important respect: the author knows his ground
+thoroughly, is familiar not only with political events but with the
+thoughts, ideals, books, even the literary style of the age which he
+describes. The hero of the novel, Colonel Esmond, is represented as telling
+his own story; he speaks as a gentleman spoke in those days, telling us
+about the politicians, soldiers, ladies and literary men of his time, with
+frank exposure of their manners or morals. As a realistic portrayal of an
+age gone by, not only of its thoughts but of the very language in which
+those thoughts were expressed, _Esmond_ is the most remarkable novel
+of its kind in our language. It is a prodigy of realism, and it is written
+in a charming prose style.
+
+One must add frankly that _Esmond_ is not an inspiring work, that the
+atmosphere is gloomy, and the plot a disappointment. The hero, after ten
+years of devotion to a woman, ends his romance by happily marrying with her
+mother. Any reader could have told him that this is what he ought to have
+done, or tried to do, in the beginning; but Thackeray's heroes will never
+take the reader's good advice. In this respect they are quite human.
+
+[Sidenote: VANITY FAIR]
+
+The two social satires of Thackeray are _Vanity Fair_ (1847) and
+_The History of Arthur Pendennis_ (1849). The former takes its title
+from that fair described in _Pilgrim's Progress_, where all sorts of
+cheats are exposed for sale; and Thackeray makes his novel a moralizing
+exposition of the shams of society. The slight action of the story revolves
+about two unlovely heroines, the unprincipled Becky Sharp and the spineless
+Amelia. We call them both unlovely, though Thackeray tries hard to make us
+admire his tearful Amelia and to detest his more interesting Becky. Meeting
+these two contrasting characters is a variety of fools and snobs, mostly
+well-drawn, all carefully analyzed to show the weakness or villainy that is
+in them.
+
+One interesting but unnoticed thing about these minor characters is that
+they all have their life-size prototypes in the novels of Dickens.
+Thackeray's characters, as he explains in his preface, are "mere puppets,"
+who must move when he pulls the strings. Dickens does not have to explain
+that his characters are men and women who do very much as they please. That
+is, perhaps, the chief difference between the two novelists.
+
+[Sidenote: PENDENNIS]
+
+_Pendennis_ is a more readable novel than _Vanity Fair_ in this
+respect, that its interest centers in one character rather than in a
+variety of knaves or fools. Thackeray takes a youthful hero, follows him
+through school and later life, and shows the steady degeneration of a man
+who is governed not by vicious but by selfish impulses. From beginning to
+end _Pendennis_ is a penetrating ethical study (like George Eliot's
+_Romola_), and the story is often interrupted while we listen to the
+author's moralizing. To some readers this is an offense; to others it is a
+pleasure, since it makes them better acquainted with the mind and heart of
+Thackeray, the gentlest of Victorian moralists.
+
+[Sidenote: AFTERTHOUGHTS]
+
+The last notable works of Thackeray are like afterthoughts. _The
+Virginians_ continues the story of Colonel Esmond, and _The
+Newcomes_ recounts the later fortunes of Arthur Pendennis. _The
+Virginians_ has two or three splendid scenes, and some critics regard
+_The Newcomes_ as the finest expression of the author's genius; but
+both works, which appeared in the leisurely form of monthly instalments,
+are too languid in action for sustained interest. We grow acquainted with
+certain characters, and are heartily glad when they make their exit;
+perhaps someone else will come, some adventurer from the road or the inn,
+to relieve the dullness. The door opens, and in comes the bore again to
+take another leave. That is realism, undoubtedly; and Laura Pendennis is as
+realistic as the mumps, which one may catch a second time. The atmosphere
+of both novels--indeed, of all Thackeray's greater works, with the
+exception of _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_--is
+rather depressing. One gets the impression that life among "the quality" is
+a dreary experience, hardly worth the effort of living.
+
+  [Illustration: CHARTERHOUSE SCHOOL
+  After a rare engraving by J. Rogers from the drawing made by Thomas H.
+  Shepherd at the time Thackeray was a student there]
+
+THACKERAY: A CRITICISM. It is significant that Thackeray's first work
+appeared in a college leaflet called "The Snob," and that it showed a
+talent for satire. In his earlier stories he plainly followed his natural
+bent, for his _Vanity Fair_, _Barry Lyndon_ (a story of a
+scoundrelly adventurer) and several minor works are all satires on the
+general snobbery of society. This tendency of the author reached a climax
+in 1848, when he wrote _The Book of Snobs._ It is still an
+entertaining book, witty, and with a kind of merciless fairness about its
+cruel passages; yet some readers will remember what the author himself said
+later, that he was something of a snob himself to write such a book. The
+chief trouble with the half of his work is that he was so obsessed with the
+idea of snobbery that he did injustice to humanity, or rather to his
+countrymen; for Thackeray was very English, and interest in his characters
+depends largely on familiarity with the life he describes. His pictures of
+English servants, for instance, are wonderfully deft, though one might wish
+that he had drawn them with a more sympathetic pencil.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PERSONAL ELEMENT]
+
+In the later part of his life the essential kindness of the man came to the
+surface, but still was he hampered by his experience and his philosophy.
+His experience was that life is too big to be grasped, too mysterious to be
+understood; therefore he faced life doubtfully, with a mixture of timidity
+and respect, as in _Henry Esmond_. His philosophy was that every
+person is at heart an egoist, is selfish in spite of himself; therefore is
+every man or woman unhappy, because selfishness is the eternal enemy of
+happiness. This is the lesson written large in _Pendennis_. He lived
+in the small world of his own class, while the great world of Dickens--the
+world of the common people, with their sympathy, their eternal hopefulness,
+their enjoyment of whatever good they find in life--passed unnoticed
+outside his club windows. He conceived it to be the business of a novelist
+to view the world with his own eyes, to describe it as he saw it; and it
+was not his fault that his world was a small one. Fate was answerable for
+that. So far as he went, Thackeray did his work admirably, portraying the
+few virtues and the many shams of his set with candor and sincerity. Though
+he used satire freely (and satire is a two-edged weapon), his object was
+never malicious or vindictive but corrective; he aimed to win or drive men
+to virtue by exposing the native ugliness of vice.
+
+The result of his effort may be summed up as follows: Thackeray is a
+novelist for the few who can enjoy his accurate but petty views of society,
+and his cultivated prose style. He is not very cheerful; he does not seek
+the blue flower that grows in every field, or the gold that is at every
+rainbow's end, or the romance that hides in every human heart whether of
+rich or poor. Therefore are the young not conspicuous among his followers.
+
+       *       *      *       *        *
+
+MARY ANN EVANS, "GEORGE ELIOT" (1819-1880)
+
+More than other Victorian story-tellers George Eliot regarded her work with
+great seriousness as a means of public instruction. Her purpose was to show
+that human life is effective only as it follows its sense of duty, and that
+society is as much in need of the moral law as of daily bread. Other
+novelists moralized more or less, Thackeray especially; but George Eliot
+made the teaching of morality her chief business.
+
+    LIFE. In the work as in the face of George Eliot there is a certain
+    masculine quality which is apt to mislead one who reads _Adam
+    Bede_ or studies a portrait of the author. Even those who knew
+    her well, and who tried to express the charm of her personality,
+    seem to have overlooked the fact that they were describing a woman.
+    For example, a friend wrote:
+
+        "Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with
+        the bent of her soul. The deeply lined face, the too marked
+        and massive features, were united with an air of delicate
+        refinement, which in one way was the more impressive,
+        because it seemed to proceed so entirely from within. Nay,
+        the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the
+        outward harshness; there would be moments when the thin
+        hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the
+        earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the
+        deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave
+        appeal,--all these seemed the transparent symbols that
+        showed the presence of a wise, benignant soul."
+
+    [Sidenote: A CLINGING VINE]
+
+    That is very good, but somehow it is not feminine. So the
+    impression has gone forth that George Eliot was a "strong-minded"
+    woman; but that is far from the truth. One might emphasize her
+    affectionate nature, her timidity, her lack of confidence in her
+    own judgment; but the essence of the matter is this, that so
+    dependent was she on masculine support that she was always
+    idealizing some man, and looking up to him as a superior being. In
+    short, she was one of "the clinging kind." Though some may regard
+    this as traditional nonsense, it was nevertheless the most
+    characteristic quality of the woman with whom we are dealing.
+
+    [Sidenote: HER GIRLHOOD]
+
+    Mary Ann Evans, or Marian as she was called, was born (1819) and
+    spent her childhood in Shakespeare's county of Warwickshire. Her
+    father (whose portrait she has faintly drawn in the characters of
+    Adam Bede and Caleb Garth) was a strong, quiet man, a farmer and
+    land agent, who made a companion of his daughter rather than of his
+    son, the two being described more or less faithfully in the
+    characters of Maggie and Tom Tulliver in _The Mill on the
+    Floss_. At twelve years of age she was sent to a boarding
+    school; at fifteen her mother died, and she was brought home to
+    manage her father's house. The rest of her education--which
+    included music and a reading knowledge of German, Italian and
+    Greek--was obtained by solitary study at intervals of rest from
+    domestic work. That the intervals were neither long nor frequent
+    may be inferred from the fact that her work included not only her
+    father's accounts and the thousand duties of housekeeping but also
+    the managing of a poultry yard, the making of butter, and other
+    farm or dairy matters which at that time were left wholly to women.
+
+    [Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT
+    From a portrait painted in Rome by M. d'Albert Durade, and now in
+    Geneva]
+
+    The first marked change in her life came at the age of twenty-two,
+    when the household removed to Coventry, and Miss Evans was there
+    brought in contact with the family of a wealthy ribbon-maker named
+    Bray. He was a man of some culture, and the atmosphere of his
+    house, with its numerous guests, was decidedly skeptical. To Miss
+    Evans, brought up in a home ruled by early Methodist ideals of
+    piety, the change was a little startling. Soon she was listening to
+    glib evolutionary theories that settled everything from an
+    earthworm to a cosmos; next she was eagerly reading such unbaked
+    works as Bray's _Philosophy of Necessity_ and the essays of
+    certain young scientists who, without knowledge of either
+    philosophy or religion, were cocksure of their ability to provide
+    "modern" substitutes for both at an hour's notice.
+
+    Miss Evans went over rather impulsively to the crude skepticism of
+    her friends; then, finding no soul or comfort in their theories,
+    she invented for herself a creed of duty and morality, without
+    however tracing either to its origin. She was naturally a religious
+    woman, and there is no evidence that she found her new creed very
+    satisfactory. Indeed, her melancholy and the gloom of her novels
+    are both traceable to the loss of her early religious ideals.
+
+    [Sidenote: HER UNION WITH LEWES]
+
+    A trip abroad (1849) was followed by some editorial work on _The
+    Westminster Review_, then the organ of the freethinkers. This in
+    turn led to her association with Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill
+    and other liberals, and to her union with George Henry Lewes in
+    1854. Of that union little need be said except this: though it
+    lacked the law and the sacrament, it seems to have been in other
+    respects a fair covenant which was honestly kept by both parties.
+    [Footnote: Lewes was separated from his first wife, from whom he
+    was unable to obtain a legal divorce. This was the only obstacle to
+    a regular marriage, and after facing the obstacle for a time the
+    couple decided to ignore it. The moral element in George Eliot's
+    works is due largely, no doubt, to her own moral sense; but it was
+    greatly influenced by the fact that, in her union with Lewes, she
+    had placed herself in a false position and was morally on the
+    defensive against society.]
+
+    Encouraged by Lewes she began to write fiction. Her first attempt,
+    "Amos Barton," was an excellent short story, and in 1859 she
+    produced her first novel, _Adam Bede_, being then about forty
+    years old. The great success of this work had the unusual effect of
+    discouraging the author. She despaired of her ability, and began to
+    agonize, as she said, over her work; but her material was not yet
+    exhausted, and in _The Mill on the Floss_ and _Silas
+    Marner_ she repeated her triumph.
+
+    [Sidenote: ON A PEDESTAL]
+
+    The rest of her life seems a matter of growth or of atrophy,
+    according to your point of view. She grew more scientific, as she
+    fancied, but she lost the freshness and inspiration of her earlier
+    novels. The reason seems to be that her head was turned by her fame
+    as a moralist and exponent of culture; so she forgot that she "was
+    born to please," and attempted something else for which she had no
+    particular ability: an historical novel in _Romola_, a drama
+    in _The Spanish Gypsy_, a theory of social reform in _Felix
+    Holt_, a study of the Hebrew race in _Daniel Deronda_, a
+    book of elephantine gambols in _The Opinions of Theophrastus
+    Such_. More and more she "agonized" over these works, and though
+    each of them contained some scene or passage of rare power, it was
+    evident even to her admirers that the pleasing novelist of the
+    earlier days had been sacrificed to the moral philosopher.
+
+    [Sidenote: SHE RENEWS HER YOUTH]
+
+    The death of Lewes (1878) made an end, as she believed, of all
+    earthly happiness. For twenty-four years he had been husband,
+    friend and literary adviser, encouraging her talent, shielding her
+    from every hostile criticism. Left suddenly alone in the world, she
+    felt like an abandoned child; her writing stopped, and her letters
+    echoed the old gleeman's song, "All is gone, both life and light."
+    Then she surprised everybody by marrying an American banker, many
+    years her junior, who had been an intimate friend of the Lewes
+    household. Once more she found the world "intensely interesting,"
+    for at sixty she was the same clinging vine, the same
+    hero-worshiper, as at sixteen. The marriage occurred in 1880, and
+    her death the same year. An elaborate biography, interesting but
+    too fulsome, was written by her husband, John Walter Cross.
+
+WORKS. George Eliot's first works in fiction were the magazine stories
+which she published later as _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858). These
+were produced comparatively late in life, and they indicate both
+originality and maturity, as if the author had a message of her own, and
+had pondered it well before writing it. That message, as reflected in "Amos
+Barton" and "Janet's Repentance," may be summarized in four cardinal
+principles: that duty is the supreme law of life; that the humblest life is
+as interesting as the most exalted, since both are subject to the same law;
+that our daily choices have deep moral significance, since they all react
+on character and their total result is either happiness or misery; and that
+there is no possible escape from the reward or punishment that is due to
+one's individual action.
+
+Such is the message of the author's first work. In its stern insistence on
+the moral quality of life and of every human action, it distinguishes
+George Eliot from all other fiction writers of the period.
+
+[Sidenote: HER BEST NOVELS]
+
+In her first three novels she repeats the same message with more detail,
+and with a gleam of humor here and there to light up the gloomy places.
+_Adam Bede_ (1859) has been called a story of early Methodism, but in
+reality it is a story of moral principles which work their inevitable ends
+among simple country people. The same may be said of _The Mill on the
+Floss_ (1860) and of _Silas Marner_ (1861). The former is as
+interesting to readers of George Eliot as _Copperfield_ is to readers
+of Dickens, because much of it is a reflection of a personal experience;
+but the latter work, having more unity, more story interest and more
+cheerfulness, is a better novel with which to begin our acquaintance with
+the author.
+
+[Illustration: GRIFF HOUSE, GEORGE ELIOT'S EARLY HOME IN WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+The scene of all these novels is laid in the country; the characters are
+true to life, and move naturally in an almost perfect setting. One secret
+of their success is that they deal with people whom the author knew well,
+and with scenes in which she was as much at home as Dickens was in the
+London streets. Each of the novels, notwithstanding its faulty or
+melancholy conclusion, leaves an impression so powerful that we gladly, and
+perhaps uncritically, place it among the great literary works of the
+Victorian era.
+
+[Sidenote: LATER WORKS]
+
+Of the later novels one cannot speak so confidently. They move some critics
+to enthusiasm, and put others to sleep. Thus, _Daniel Deronda_ has
+some excellent passages, and Gwendolen is perhaps the best-drawn of all
+George Eliot's characters; but for many readers the novel is spoiled by
+scientific jargon, by essay writing on the Jews and other matters of which
+the author knew little or nothing at first hand. In _Middlemarch_ she
+returned to the scenes with which she was familiar and produced a novel
+which some critics rank very high, while others point to its superfluous
+essays and its proneness to moralizing instead of telling a story.
+
+[Sidenote: ROMOLA]
+
+_Romola_ is another labored novel, a study of Italy during the
+Renaissance, and a profound ethical lesson. If you can read this work
+without criticizing its Italian views, you may find in the characters of
+Tito and Romola, one selfish and the other generous, the best example of
+George Eliot's moral method, which is to show the cumulative effect on
+character of everyday choices or actions. You will find also a good story,
+one of the best that the author told. But if you read _Romola_ as an
+historical novel, with some knowledge of Italy and the Renaissance, you may
+decide that George Eliot--though she slaved at this novel until, as she
+said, it made an old woman of her--did not understand the people or the
+country which she tried to describe. She portrayed life not as she had seen
+and known and loved it, but as she found it reflected at second hand in the
+works of other writers.
+
+THE QUALITY OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of the moral quality of George Eliot we have
+already said enough. To our summary of her method this should be added,
+that she tried to make each of her characters not individual but typical.
+In other words, if Tito came finally to grief, and Adam arrived at a state
+of gloomy satisfaction (there is no real happiness in George Eliot's
+world), it was not because Tito and Adam lived in different times or
+circumstances, but because both were subject to the same eternal laws. Each
+must have gone to his own place whether he lived in wealth or poverty, in
+Florence or England, in the fifteenth or the nineteenth century. The moral
+law is universal and unchanging; it has no favorites, and makes no
+exceptions. It is more like the old Greek conception of Nemesis, or the
+Anglo-Saxon conception of Wyrd, or Fate, than anything else you will find
+in modern fiction.
+
+[Sidenote: FATE AND SELF-SACRIFICE]
+
+In this last respect George Eliot again differs radically from her
+contemporaries. In her gloomy view of life as an unanswerable puzzle she is
+like Thackeray; but where Thackeray offers a cultured resignation, a
+gentlemanly making the best of a bad case, George Eliot advocates
+self-sacrifice for the good of others. In her portrayal of weak or sinful
+characters she is quite as compassionate as Dickens, and more thoughtfully
+charitable; for where Dickens sometimes makes light of misery, and relieves
+it by the easy expedient of good dinners and all-around comfort for saints
+and sinners, George Eliot remembers the broken moral law and the suffering
+of the innocent for the guilty. Behind every one of her characters that
+does wrong follows an avenging fate, waiting the moment to exact the full
+penalty; and before every character that does right hovers a vision of
+sacrifice and redemption.
+
+Her real philosophy, therefore, was quite different from that which her
+scientific friends formulated for her, and was not modern but ancient as
+the hills. On the one hand, she never quite freed herself from the old
+pagan conception of Nemesis, or Fate; on the other, her early Methodist
+training entered deep into her soul and made her mindful of the Cross that
+forever towers above humanity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OTHER VICTORIAN NOVELISTS
+
+We have followed literary custom rather than individual judgment in
+studying Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot as the typical Victorian
+novelists. On Dickens, as the most original genius of the age, most people
+are agreed; but the rank of the other two is open to question. There are
+critics besides Swinburne who regard Charlotte Brontë as a greater genius
+than George Eliot; and many uncritical readers find more pleasure or profit
+in the Barchester novels of Anthony Trollope than in anything written by
+Thackeray. It may even be that the three or four leading novels of the age
+were none of them written by the novelists in question; but it is still
+essential to know their works if only for these reasons: that they greatly
+influenced other story-tellers of the period, and that they furnish us a
+standard by which to judge all modern fiction.
+
+To treat the many Victorian novelists adequately would in itself require a
+volume. We shall note here only a few leading figures, naming in each case
+a novel or two which may serve as an invitation to a better acquaintance
+with their authors.
+
+[Illustration: CHARLOTTE BRONTË]
+
+The Brontë sisters, Charlotte and Emily, made a tremendous sensation in
+England when, from their retirement, they sent out certain works of such
+passionate intensity that readers who had long been familiar with novels
+were startled into renewed attention. Reading these works now we recognize
+the genius of the writers, but we recognize also a morbid, unwholesome
+quality, which is a reflection not of English life but of the personal and
+unhappy temperament of two girls who looked on life first as a gorgeous
+romance and then as a gloomy tragedy.
+
+Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) was perhaps the more gifted of the two
+sisters, and her best-known works are _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette_.
+The date of the latter novel (1853) was made noteworthy by the masterpiece
+of another woman novelist, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), who was the
+exact opposite of the Brontë sisters,--serene, well-balanced, and with a
+fund of delicious humor. All these qualities and more appeared in
+_Cranford_ (1853), a series of sketches of country life (first
+contributed to Dickens's _Household Words_) which together form one of
+the most charming stories produced during the Victorian era. The same
+author wrote a few other novels and an admirable _Life of Charlotte
+Brontë_.
+
+[Sidenote: CHARLES READE]
+
+Charles Reade (1814-1884) was a follower of Dickens in his earlier novels,
+such as _Peg Woffington_; but he made one notable departure when he
+wrote _The Cloister and the Hearth_ (1861). This is a story of student
+life and vagabond life in Europe, in the stirring times that followed the
+invention of printing. The action moves rapidly; many different characters
+appear; the scene shifts from Holland across Europe to Italy, and back
+again; adventures of a startling kind meet the hero at every stage of his
+foot journey. It is a stirring tale, remarkably well told; so much will
+every uncritical reader gladly acknowledge. Moreover, there are critics
+who, after studying _The Cloister and the Hearth_, rank it with the
+best historical novels in all literature.
+
+[Illustration: MRS. ELIZABETH GASKELL
+From the portrait by George Richmond, R.A.]
+
+[Sidenote: TROLLOPE]
+
+Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) began as a follower of Thackeray, but in the
+immense range of his characters and incidents he soon outstripped his
+master. Perhaps his best work is _Barchester Towers_ (1857), one of a
+series of novels which picture with marvelous fidelity the life of a
+cathedral town in England.
+
+Another novelist who followed Thackeray, and then changed his allegiance to
+Dickens, was Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873). He was essentially an imitator, a
+follower of the market, and before Thackeray and Dickens were famous he had
+followed almost every important English novelist from Mrs. Radcliffe to
+Walter Scott. Two of his historical novels, _Rienzi_ and _The Last
+Days of Pompeii_, may be mildly recommended. The rest are of the popular
+and somewhat trashy kind; critics jeer at them, and the public buys them in
+large numbers.
+
+One of the most charming books of the Victorian age was produced by Richard
+Blackmore (1825-1900). He wrote several novels, some of them of excellent
+quality, but they were all overshadowed by his beautiful old romance of
+_Lorna Doone_ (1869). It is hard to overpraise such a story, wholesome
+and sweet as a breath from the moors, and the critic's praise will be
+unnecessary if the reader only opens the book. It should be read, with
+_Cranford_, if one reads nothing else of Victorian fiction.
+
+[Illustration: RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE]
+
+Two other notable romances of a vanished age came from the hand of Charles
+Kingsley (1819-1875). He produced many works in poetry and prose, but his
+fame now rests upon _Hypatia_, _Westward Ho!_ and a few stories
+for children. _Hypatia_ (1853) is an interesting novel dealing with
+the conflict of pagan and Christian ideals in the early centuries.
+_Westward Ho!_ (1855) is a stirring narrative of seafaring and
+adventure in the days of Elizabeth. It has been described as a "stunning"
+boys' book, and it would prove an absorbing story for any reader who likes
+adventure were it not marred by one serious fault. The author's personal
+beliefs and his desire to glorify certain Elizabethan adventurers lead him
+to pronounce judgment of a somewhat wholesale kind. He treats one religious
+party of the period to a golden halo, and the other to a lash of scorpions;
+and this is apt to alienate many readers who else would gladly follow Sir
+Amyas Leigh on his gallant ventures in the New World or on the Spanish
+Main. Kingsley had a rare talent for writing for children (his heart never
+grew old), and his _Heroes_ and _Water Babies_ are still widely
+read as bedtime stories.
+
+Of the later Victorian novelists, chief among them being Meredith, Hardy
+and Stevenson, little may be said here, as they are much too near us to
+judge of their true place in the long perspective of English literature.
+Meredith, with the analytical temper and the disconnected style of
+Browning, is for mature readers, not for young people. Hardy has decided
+power, but is too hopelessly pessimistic for anybody's comfort,--except in
+his earlier works, which have a romantic charm that brightens the obscurity
+of his later philosophy.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+From a photograph]
+
+[Sidenote: STEVENSON]
+
+In Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) we have the spirit of romance
+personified. His novels, such as _Kidnapped_ and _David Balfour_,
+are stories of adventure written in a very attractive style; but he is more
+widely known, among young people at least, by his charming _Child's
+Garden of Verses_ and his _Treasure Island_ (1883). This last is a
+kind of dime-novel of pirates and buried treasure. If one is to read
+stories of that kind, there is no better place to begin than with this
+masterpiece of Stevenson. Other works by the same versatile author are the
+novels, _Master of Ballantrae_, _Weir of Hermiston_ and _Dr.
+Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_; various collections of essays, such as
+_Virginibus Puerisque_ and _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_;
+and some rather thin sketches of journeying called _An Inland Voyage_
+and _Travels with a Donkey_.
+
+The cheery spirit of Stevenson, who bravely fought a losing battle with
+disease, is evident in everything he wrote; and it was the author's spirit,
+quite as much as his romantic tales or fine prose style, that won for him a
+large and enthusiastic following. Of all the later Victorians he seems, at
+the present time, to have the widest circle of cultivated readers and to
+exercise the strongest influence on our writers of fiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+III. VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS AND HISTORIANS
+
+There is rich reading in Victorian essays, which reflect not only the
+practical affairs of the age but also the ideals that inspire every great
+movement whether in history or literature. For example, the intense
+religious interests of the period, the growth of the Nonconformists or
+Independents, the Oxford movement, which aimed to define the historic
+position of the English Church, the chill of doubt and the glow of renewed
+faith in face of the apparent conflict between the old religion and the new
+science,--all these were brilliantly reflected by excellent writers, among
+whom Martineau, Newman and Maurice stand out prominently. The deep thought,
+the serene spirit and the fine style of these men are unsurpassed in
+Victorian prose.
+
+Somewhat apart from their age stood a remarkable group of
+historians--Hallam, Freeman, Green, Gardiner, Symonds and others no less
+praiseworthy--who changed the whole conception of history from a record of
+political or military events to a profound study of human society in all
+its activities. In another typical group were the critics, Pater, Bagehot,
+Hutton, Leslie Stephen, who have given deeper meaning and enlarged pleasure
+to the study of literature. In a fourth group were the scientists--Darwin,
+Wallace, Lyell, Mivart, Tyndall, Mill, Spencer, Huxley, and their
+followers--some of whom aimed not simply to increase our knowledge but to
+use the essay, as others used the novel, to portray some new scene in the
+old comedy of human life. Darwin was a great and, therefore, a modest man;
+but some of his disciples were sadly lacking in humor. Spencer and Mill
+especially wrote with colossal self-confidence, as if the world no longer
+wore its veil of mystery. They remind us, curiously, that while poetry
+endures forever, nothing on earth is more subject to change and error than
+so-called scientific truth.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL WRITERS]
+
+It is impossible in a small volume to do justice to so many writers,
+reflecting nature or humanity from various angles, and sometimes insisting
+that a particular angle was the only one from which a true view could be
+obtained. Some rigorous selection is necessary; and we name here for
+special study Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, who are commonly regarded as the
+typical Victorian essayists. This selection does not mean, however, that
+some other group might not be quite as representative of their age and
+nation. Our chosen authors stand not for Victorian thought but only for
+certain interesting phases thereof. Macaulay, the busy man of affairs,
+voiced the pride of his generation in British traditions. Carlyle lived
+aloof, grumbling at democracy, denouncing its shams, calling it to
+repentance. Ruskin, a child of fortune, was absorbed in art till the burden
+of the world oppressed him; whereupon he gave his money to the cause of
+social reform and went himself among the poor to share with them whatever
+wealth of spirit he possessed. These three men, utterly unlike in
+character, were as one in their endeavor to make modern literature a power
+wherewith to uplift humanity. They illustrate, better even than poets or
+novelists, the characteristic moral earnestness of the Victorian era.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859)
+
+To many readers the life of Macaulay is more interesting than any of his
+books. For the details of that brilliantly successful life, which fairly
+won and richly deserved its success, the student is referred to Trevelyan's
+fine biography. We record here only such personal matters as may help to
+explain the exuberant spirit of Macaulay's literary work.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY]
+
+    LIFE. One notes first of all the man's inheritance. The Norse
+    element predominated in him, for the name Macaulay (son of Aulay)
+    is a late form of the Scandinavian _Olafson_. His mother was a
+    brilliant woman of Quaker descent; his father, at one time governor
+    of the Sierra Leone Colony in Africa, was a business man who gained
+    a fortune in trade, and who spent the whole of it in helping to
+    free the slaves. In consequence, when Macaulay left college he
+    faced the immediate problem of supporting himself and his family, a
+    hard matter, which he handled not only with his customary success
+    but also with characteristic enthusiasm.
+
+    Next we note Macaulay's personal endowment, his gift of rapid
+    reading, his marvelous memory which suggests Coleridge and Cotton
+    Mather. He read everything from Plato to the trashiest novel, and
+    after reading a book could recall practically the whole of it after
+    a lapse of twenty years. To this photographic memory we are
+    indebted for the wealth of quotation, allusion and anecdote which
+    brightens almost every page of his writings.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS BRILLIANT CAREER]
+
+    After a brilliant career at college Macaulay began the study of
+    law. At twenty-five he jumped into prominence by a magazine essay
+    on Milton, and after that his progress was uninterrupted. He was
+    repeatedly elected to Parliament; he was appointed legal adviser to
+    the Supreme Council of India, in which position he acquired the
+    knowledge that appears in his essays on Clive and Hastings; he
+    became Secretary for War, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron
+    Macaulay of Rothley. It was said of him at that time that he was
+    "the only man whom England ever made a lord for the power of his
+    pen."
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS RECREATION]
+
+    The last thing we note, because it was to Macaulay of least moment,
+    is his literary work. With the exception of the _History of
+    England_ his writing was done at spare moments, as a relaxation
+    from what he considered more important labors. In this respect, of
+    writing for pleasure in the midst of practical affairs, he
+    resembles the Elizabethan rather than the Victorian authors.
+
+    While at work on his masterpiece Macaulay suddenly faltered, worn
+    out by too much work. He died on Christmas Day (1859) and was
+    buried in the place which he liked best to visit, the Poets' Corner
+    of Westminster Abbey. From the day on which he attracted notice by
+    his Milton essay he had never once lost his hold on the attention
+    of England. Gladstone summed up the matter in oratorical fashion
+    when he said, "Full-orbed Macaulay was seen above the horizon; and
+    full-orbed, after thirty-five years of constantly emitted splendor,
+    he sank below it." But Macaulay's final comment, "Well, I have had
+    a happy life," is more suggestive of the man and his work.
+
+WORKS OF MACAULAY. Macaulay's poems, which he regarded as of no
+consequence, are practically all in the ballad style. Among them are
+various narratives from French or English history, such as "The Battle of
+Ivry" and "The Armada," and a few others which made a popular little book
+when they were published as _Lays of Ancient Rome_ (1842). The prime
+favorite not only of the _Lays_ but of all Macaulay's works is
+"Horatius Cocles," or "Horatius at the Bridge." Those who read its stirring
+lines should know that Macaulay intended it not as a modern ballad but as
+an example of ancient methods of teaching history. According to Niebuhr the
+early history of Rome was written in the form of popular ballads; and
+Macaulay attempted to reproduce a few of these historical documents in the
+heroic style that roused a Roman audience of long ago to pride and love of
+country.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ESSAYS]
+
+The essays of Macaulay appeared in the magazines of that day; but though
+official England acclaimed their brilliancy and flooded their author with
+invitations to dine, nobody seemed to think of them as food for ordinary
+readers till a Philadelphia publisher collected a few of them into a book,
+which sold in America like a good novel. That was in 1841, and not till two
+years had passed did a London publisher gain courage to issue the
+_Critical and Historical Essays_, a book which vindicated the taste of
+readers of that day by becoming immensely popular.
+
+The charm of such a book is evident in the very first essay, on Milton.
+Here is no critic, airing his rules or making his dry talk palatable by a
+few quotations; here is a live man pleading for another man whom he
+considers one of the greatest figures in history. Macaulay may be mistaken,
+possibly, but he is going to make you doff your hat to a hero before he is
+done; so he speaks eloquently not only of Milton but of the classics on
+which Milton fed, of the ideals and struggles of his age, of the
+Commonwealth and the Restoration,--of everything which may catch your
+attention and then focus it on one Titanic figure battling like Samson
+among the Philistines. It may be that your sympathies are with the
+Philistines rather than with Samson; but presently you stop objecting and
+are carried along by the author's eloquence as by a torrent. His style is
+the combined style of novelist and public speaker, the one striving to make
+his characters real, the other bound to make his subject interesting.
+
+That is Macaulay's way in all his essays. They are seldom wholly right in
+their judgments; they are so often one-sided that the author declared in
+later life he would burn them all if he could; but they are all splendid,
+all worth reading, not simply for their matter but for their style and for
+the wealth of allusion with which Macaulay makes his subject vital and
+interesting. Among the best of the literary essays are those on Bunyan,
+Addison, Bacon, Johnson, Goldsmith and Byron; among the historical essays
+one may sample Macaulay's variety in Lord Clive, Frederick the Great,
+Machiavelli and Mirabeau.
+
+Careful readers may note a difference between these literary and historical
+essays. Those on Bunyan, Johnson and Goldsmith, for example (written
+originally for the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_), are more finished and
+more careful of statement than others in which the author talks freely,
+sharing without measure or restraint "the heaped-up treasures of his
+memory."
+
+[Sidenote: HISTORY OF ENGLAND]
+
+Macaulay began to write his _History of England_ with the declaration
+that he would cover the century and a half following the accession of James
+II (1685), and that he would make his story as interesting as any novel.
+Only the latter promise was fulfilled. His five volumes, the labor of more
+than a decade, cover only sixteen years of English history; but these are
+pictured with such minuteness and such splendor that we can hardly imagine
+anyone brave enough to attempt to finish the record in a single lifetime.
+
+Of this masterpiece of Macaulay we may confidently say three things: that
+for many years it was the most popular historical work in our language;
+that by its brilliant style and absorbing interest it deserved its
+popularity, as literature if not as history; and that, though it contains
+its share of error and more than its share of Whig partisanship, it has
+probably as few serious faults as any other history which attempts to cover
+the immense field of the political, social and intellectual life of a
+nation. Read, for example, one of the introductory chapters (the third is
+excellent) which draws such a picture of England in the days of the Stuarts
+as no other historian has ever attempted. When you have finished that
+chapter, with its wealth of picturesque detail, you may be content to read
+Macaulay simply for the pleasure he gives you, and go to some other
+historian for accurate information.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881)
+
+There is little harmony of opinion concerning Carlyle, criticism of the man
+being divided between praise and disparagement. If you are to read only one
+of his works, it is perhaps advisable to avoid all biographies at first and
+to let the _Essay on Burns_ or _Heroes and Hero Worship_ make its
+own impression. But if you intend to read more widely, some knowledge of
+Carlyle's personal history is essential in order to furnish the grain of
+salt with which most of his opinions must be taken.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE
+From engraving by Sartain from a daguerrotype]
+
+    LIFE. In the village of Ecclefechan Carlyle was born in 1795, the
+    year before Burns's death. His father was a stone-mason, an honest
+    man of caustic tongue; his mother, judged by her son's account, was
+    one of nature's noblewomen. The love of his mother and a proud
+    respect for his father were the two sentiments in Carlyle that went
+    with him unchanged through a troubled and oft-complaining life.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS WRESTLINGS]
+
+    Of his tearful school days in Annandale and of his wretched years
+    at Edinburgh University we have glimpses in _Sartor Resartus_.
+    In the chapters of the same book entitled "The Everlasting Nay" and
+    "The Everlasting Yea" is a picture of the conflict between doubt
+    and faith in the stormy years when Carlyle was finding himself. He
+    taught school, and hated it; he abandoned the ministry, for which
+    his parents had intended him; he resolved on a literary life, and
+    did hack work to earn his bread. All the while he wrestled with his
+    gloomy temper or with the petty demons of dyspepsia, which he was
+    wont to magnify into giant doubts and despairs.
+
+    [Sidenote: CARLYLE AND EMERSON]
+
+    In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, and went to live in a house she had
+    inherited at Craigenputtock, or Hill of the Hawks. There on a
+    lonely moorland farm he spent six or seven years, writing books
+    which few cared to read; and there Emerson appeared one day ("He
+    came and went like an angel," said the Carlyles) with the
+    heartening news that the neglected writings were winning a great
+    audience in America. The letters of Carlyle and Emerson, as edited
+    by Charles Eliot Norton, are among the pleasantest results of
+    Carlyle's whole career.
+
+    [Sidenote: MRS. CARLYLE]
+
+    Carlyle's wife was a brilliant but nervous woman with literary
+    gifts of her own. She had always received attention; she expected
+    and probably deserved admiration; but so did Carlyle, who expected
+    also to be made the center of all solicitude when he called heaven
+    and earth to witness against democracy, crowing roosters, weak tea
+    and other grievous afflictions. After her death (in London, 1866)
+    he was plunged into deepest grief. In his _Reminiscences_ and
+    _Letters_ he fairly deifies his wife, calling her his queen,
+    his star, his light and joy of life, and portrays a companionship
+    as of two mortals in a Paradise without a serpent. All that is
+    doubtless as it should be, in a romance; but the unfortunate
+    publication of Mrs. Carlyle's letters and journals introduced a
+    jarring note of reality. A jungle of controversial writings has
+    since grown up around the domestic relations of the
+    Carlyles,--impertinent, deplorable writings, which serve no purpose
+    but to make us cry, "Enough, let them rest in peace!" Both had
+    sharp tongues, and probably both were often sorry.
+
+    [Sidenote: WORK IN LONDON]
+
+    From the moors the Carlyles went to London and settled for the
+    remainder of their lives in a house in Cheyne Row, in the suburb of
+    Chelsea. There Carlyle slowly won recognition, his success being
+    founded on his _French Revolution_. Invitations began to pour
+    in upon him; great men visited and praised him, and his fame spread
+    as "the sage of Chelsea." Then followed his _Cromwell_ and
+    _Frederick the Great_, the latter completed after years of
+    complaining labor which made wreck of home happiness. And then came
+    a period of unusual irritation, to which we owe, in part at least,
+    Carlyle's railings against progress and his deplorable criticism of
+    England's great men and women,--poor little Browning, animalcular
+    De Quincey, rabbit-brained Newman, sawdustish Mill, chattering
+    George Eliot, ghastly-shrieky Shelley, once-enough Lamb,
+    stinted-scanty Wordsworth, poor thin fool Darwin and his book
+    (_The Origin of Species_, of which Carlyle confessed he never
+    read a page) which was wonderful as an example of the stupidity of
+    mankind.
+
+    Such criticisms were reserved for Carlyle's private memoirs. The
+    world knew him only by his books, and revered him as a great and
+    good man. He died in 1881, and of the thousand notices which
+    appeared in English or American periodicals of that year there is
+    hardly one that does not overflow with praise.
+
+    [Illustration: CARLYLE'S HOUSE, CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA, LONDON]
+
+    In the home at Chelsea were numerous letters and journals which
+    Carlyle committed to his friend Froude the historian. The
+    publication of these private papers raised a storm of protest.
+    Admirers of Carlyle, shocked at the revelation of another side to
+    their hero, denounced Froude for his disloyalty and malice;
+    whereupon the literary world divided into two camps, the Jane
+    Carlyleists and the Thomas Carlyleists, as they are still called.
+    That Froude showed poor taste is evident; but we must acquit him of
+    all malice. Private papers had been given him with the charge to
+    publish them if he saw fit; and from them he attempted to draw not
+    a flattering but a truthful portrait of Carlyle, who had always
+    preached the doctrine that a man must speak truth as he sees it.
+    Nor will Carlyle suffer in the long run from being deprived of a
+    halo which he never deserved. Already the crustiness of the man
+    begins to grow dim in the distance; it is his rugged earnestness
+    that will be longest remembered.
+
+WORKS OF CARLYLE. The beginner will do well to make acquaintance with
+Carlyle in some of the minor essays, which are less original but more
+pleasing than his labored works. Among the best essays are those on Goethe
+(who was Carlyle's first master), Signs of the Times, Novalis, and
+especially Scott and Burns. With Scott he was not in sympathy, and though
+he tried as a Scotsman to be "loyal to kith and clan," a strong touch of
+prejudice mars his work. With Burns he succeeded better, and his picture of
+the plowboy genius in misfortune is one of the best we have on the subject.
+This _Essay on Burns_ is also notable as the best example of Carlyle's
+early style, before he compounded the strange mixture which appeared in his
+later books.
+
+[Sidenote: HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP]
+
+The most readable of Carlyle's longer works is _Heroes and Hero
+Worship_ (1840), which deals with certain leaders in the fields of
+religion, poetry, war and politics. It is an interesting study to compare
+this work with the _Representative Men_ of Emerson. The latter looks
+upon the world as governed by ideals, which belong not to individuals but
+to humanity. When some man appears in whom the common ideal is written
+large, other men follow him because they see in him a truth which they
+revere in their own souls. So the leader is always in the highest sense a
+representative of his race. But Carlyle will have nothing of such
+democracy; to him common men are stupid or helpless and must be governed
+from without. Occasionally, when humanity is in the Slough of Despond,
+appears a hero, a superman, and proceeds by his own force to drag or drive
+his subjects to a higher level. When the hero dies, humanity must halt and
+pray heaven to send another master.
+
+It is evident before one has read much of _Heroes_ that Carlyle is at
+heart a force-worshiper. To him history means the biography of a few
+heroes, and heroism is a matter of power, not of physical or moral courage.
+The hero may have the rugged courage of a Cromwell, or he may be an
+easy-living poet like Shakespeare, or a ruthless despot like Napoleon, or
+an epitome of all meanness like Rousseau; but if he shows superior force of
+any kind, that is the hallmark of his heroism, and before such an one
+humanity should bow down. Of real history, therefore, you will learn
+nothing from _Heroes_; neither will you get any trustworthy
+information concerning Odin, Mahomet and the rest of Carlyle's oddly
+consorted characters. One does not read the book for facts but for a new
+view of old matters. With hero-worshipers especially it ranks very high
+among the thought-provoking books of the past century.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION]
+
+Of the historical works [Footnote: These include _Oliver Cromwell's
+Letters and Speeches_ (1850) and _History of Frederick the Great_
+(1858).] of Carlyle the most famous is _The French Revolution_ (1837).
+On this work Carlyle spent much heart-breaking labor, and the story of the
+first volume shows that the author, who made himself miserable over petty
+matters, could be patient in face of a real misfortune. [Footnote: The
+manuscript of the first volume was submitted to Carlyle's friend Mill (him
+of the "sawdustish" mind) for criticism. Mill lent it to a lady, who lost
+it. When he appeared "white as a ghost" to confess his carelessness, the
+Carlyles did their best to make light of it. Yet it was a terrible blow to
+them; for aside from the wearisome labor of doing the work over again, they
+were counting on the sale of the book to pay for their daily bread.]
+Moreover, it furnishes a striking example of Carlyle's method, which was
+not historical in the modern sense, but essentially pictorial or dramatic.
+He selected a few dramatic scenes, such as the storming of the Bastille,
+and painted them in flaming colors. Also he was strong in drawing
+portraits, and his portrayal of Robespierre, Danton and other actors in the
+terrible drama is astonishingly vigorous, though seldom accurate. His chief
+purpose in drawing all these pictures and portraits was to prove that order
+can never come out of chaos save by the iron grip of a governing hand.
+Hence, if you want to learn the real history of the French Revolution, you
+must seek elsewhere; but if you want an impression of it, an impression
+that burns its way into the mind, you will hardly find the equal of
+Carlyle's book in any language.
+
+Of Carlyle's miscellaneous works one must speak with some hesitation. As an
+expression of what some call his prophetic mood, and others his ranting,
+one who has patience might try _Shooting Niagara_ or the _Latter Day
+Pamphlets_. A reflection of his doctrine of honest work as the cure for
+social ills is found in _Past and Present_; and for a summary of his
+philosophy there is nothing quite so good as his early _Sartor
+Resartus_ (1834).
+
+[Sidenote: SARTOR RESARTUS]
+
+The last-named work is called philosophy only by courtesy. The title means
+"the tailor retailored," or "the patcher repatched," and the book professed
+to be "a complete Resartus philosophy of clothes." Since everything wears
+clothes of some kind (the soul wears a body, and the body garments; earth
+puts forth grass, and the firmament stars; ideas clothe themselves in
+words; society puts on fashions and habits), it can be seen that Carlyle
+felt free to bring in any subject he pleased; and so he did. Moreover, in
+order to have liberty of style, he represented himself to be the editor not
+the author of _Sartor_. The alleged author was a German professor,
+Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, an odd stick, half genius, half madman, whose
+chaotic notes Carlyle professed to arrange with a running commentary of his
+own.
+
+In consequence of this overlabored plan _Sartor_ has no plan at all.
+It is a jumble of thoughts, notions, attacks on shams, scraps of German
+philosophy,--everything that Carlyle wrote about during his seven-years
+sojourn on his moorland farm. The only valuable things in _Sartor_ are
+a few autobiographical chapters, such as "The Everlasting Yea," and certain
+passages dealing with night, the stars, the yearnings of humanity, the
+splendors of earth and heaven. Note this picture of Teufelsdroeckh standing
+alone at the North Cape, "looking like a little belfry":
+
+    "Silence as of death, for Midnight, even in the Arctic latitudes,
+    has its character: nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the
+    peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in
+    the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if he too
+    were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and
+    cloth-of-gold; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters,
+    like a tremulous fire-pillar shooting downwards to the abyss, and
+    hide itself under my feet. In such moments Solitude also is
+    invaluable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him
+    lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and
+    before him the silent Immensity and Palace of the Eternal, whereof
+    our Sun is but a porch-lamp?"
+
+The book has several such passages, written in a psalmodic style, appealing
+to elemental feeling, to our sense of wonder or reverence before the
+mystery of life and death. It is a pity that we have no edition of
+_Sartor_ which does justice to its golden nuggets by the simple
+expedient of sifting out the mass of rubbish in which the gold is hidden.
+The central doctrines of the book are the suppression of self, or
+selfishness, and the value of honest work in contrast with the evil of
+mammon-worship.
+
+A CRITICISM OF CARLYLE. Except in his literary essays Carlyle's
+"rumfustianish growlery of style," as he called it, is so uneven that no
+description will apply to it. In moments of emotion he uses a chanting
+prose that is like primitive poetry. Sometimes he forgets Thomas Carlyle,
+keeps his eye on his subject, and describes it in vivid, picturesque words;
+then, when he has nothing to say, he thinks of himself and tries to hold
+you by his manner, by his ranting or dogmatism. In one mood he is a poet,
+in another a painter, in a third a stump speaker. In all moods he must have
+your ear, but he succeeds better in getting than in holding it. It has been
+said that his prose is on a level with Browning's verse, but a better
+comparison may be drawn between Carlyle and Walt Whitman. Of each of these
+writers the best that can be said is that his style was his own, that it
+served his purpose, and that it is not to be imitated.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS TWO SIDES]
+
+In formulating any summary of Carlyle the critic must remember that he is
+dealing with a man of two sides, one prejudiced, dogmatic, jealous of
+rivals, the other roughly sincere. On either side Carlyle is a man of
+contradictions. For an odious dead despot like Frederick, who happens to
+please him, he turns criticism into eulogy; and for a living poet like
+Wordsworth he tempers praise by spiteful criticism. [Footnote: Carlyle's
+praise of Wordsworth's "fine, wholesome rusticity" is often quoted, but
+only in part. If you read the whole passage (in _Reminiscences_) you
+will find the effect of Carlyle's praise wholly spoiled by a heartless
+dissection of a poet, with whom, as Carlyle confessed, he had very slight
+acquaintance.] He writes a score of letters to show that his grief is too
+deep for words. He is voluble on "the infinite virtue of silence." He
+proclaims to-day that he "will write no word on any subject till he has
+studied it to the bottom," and to-morrow will pronounce judgment on America
+or science or some other matter of which he knows nothing. In all this
+Carlyle sees no inconsistency; he is sincere in either role, of prophet or
+stump speaker, and even thinks that humor is one of his prime qualities.
+
+[Illustration: ARCH HOME, ECCLEFECHAN
+The birthplace of Carlyle]
+
+Another matter to remember is Carlyle's constant motive rather than his
+constant mistakes. He had the gloomy conviction that he was ordained to cry
+out against the shams of society; and as most modern things appeared to him
+as shams, he had to be very busy. Moreover, he had an eye like a hawk for
+the small failings of men, especially of living men, but was almost blind
+to their large virtues. This hawklike vision, which ignores all large
+matters in a swoop on some petty object, accounts for two things: for the
+marvelous detail of Carlyle's portraits, and for his merciless criticism of
+the faults of society in general, and of the Victorian age in particular.
+
+Such a writer invites both applause and opposition, and in Carlyle's case
+the one is as hearty as the other. The only point on which critics are
+fairly well agreed is that his rugged independence of mind and his
+picturesque style appealed powerfully to a small circle of readers in
+England and to a large circle in America. It is doubtful whether any other
+essayist, with the possible exception of the serene and hopeful Emerson,
+had a more stimulating influence on the thought of the latter half of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)
+
+The prose of Ruskin is a treasure house. Nature portrayed as everyman's
+Holy Land; descriptions of mountain or landscape, and more beautiful
+descriptions of leaf or lichen or the glint of light on a breaking wave;
+appreciations of literature, and finer appreciations of life itself;
+startling views of art, and more revolutionary views of that frightful
+waste of human life and labor which we call political economy,--all these
+and many more impressions of nature, art and human society are eloquently
+recorded in the ten thousand pages which are the work of Ruskin's hand.
+
+If you would know the secret that binds all his work together, it may be
+expressed in two words, sensitiveness and sincerity. From childhood Ruskin
+was extremely sensitive to both beauty and ugliness. The beauty of the
+world and of all noble things that ever were accomplished in the world
+affected him like music; but he shrank, as if from a blow, from all
+sordidness and evil, from the mammon-worship of trade, from the cloud of
+smoke that hung over a factory district as if trying to shield from the eye
+of heaven so much needless poverty and aimless toil below. So Ruskin was a
+man halting between two opinions: the artist in him was forever troubled by
+the reformer seeking to make the crooked places of life straight and its
+rough places plain. He made as many mistakes as another man; in his pages
+you may light upon error or vagary; but you will find nothing to make you
+doubt his entire sincerity, his desire to speak truth, his passion for
+helping his fellow men.
+
+    LIFE. The early training of Ruskin may explain both the strength
+    and the weakness of his work. His father was a wealthy wine
+    merchant, his mother a devout woman with puritanic ideas of duty.
+    Both parents were of Scottish and, as Ruskin boasted, of plebeian
+    descent. They had but one child, and in training him they used a
+    strange mixture of severity and coddling, of wisdom and nonsense.
+
+    The young Ruskin was kept apart from other boys and from the sports
+    which breed a modesty of one's own opinion; his time, work and
+    lonely play were minutely regulated; the slightest infringement of
+    rules brought the stern discipline of rod or reproof. On the other
+    hand he was given the best pictures and the best books; he was
+    taken on luxurious journeys through England and the Continent; he
+    was furnished with tutors for any study to which he turned his
+    mind. When he went up to Oxford, at seventeen, he knew many things
+    which are Greek to the ordinary boy, but was ignorant of almost
+    everything that a boy knows, and that a man finds useful in dealing
+    with the world.
+
+    [Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN
+    From a photograph by Elliott and Fry]
+
+    [Sidenote: TRAINING AND ITS RESULTS]
+
+    There were several results of this early discipline. One was
+    Ruskin's devotion to art, which came from his familiarity with
+    pictures and galleries; another was his minute study of natural
+    objects, which were to him in place of toys; a third was his habit
+    of "speaking his mind" on every subject; a fourth was his rhythmic
+    prose style, which came largely from his daily habit of memorizing
+    the Bible. Still another result of his lonely magnificence, in
+    which he was deprived of boys' society, was that his affection went
+    out on a flood tide of romance to the first attractive girl he met.
+    So he loved, and was laughed at, and was desperately unhappy. Then
+    he married, not the woman of his choice, but one whom his parents
+    picked out for him. The tastes of the couple were hopelessly
+    different; the end was estrangement, with humiliation and sorrow
+    for Ruskin.
+
+    [Sidenote: TWENTY YEARS OF ART]
+
+    At twenty-four he produced his first important work, _Modern
+    Painters_ (1843), which he began as a defense of the neglected
+    artist Turner. This controversial book led Ruskin to a deeper study
+    of his subject, which resulted in four more volumes on modern
+    painting. Before these were completed he had "fairly created a new
+    literature of art" by his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ and
+    _Stones of Venice_. He was appointed professor of fine arts at
+    Oxford; he gave several series of lectures which appeared later as
+    _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, _Michael Angelo and
+    Tintoret_, _Val d'Arno_ and _The Art of England_.
+
+    By this time he was renowned as an art critic; but his theories
+    were strongly opposed and he was continually in hot water. In his
+    zeal to defend Turner or Millais or Burne-Jones he was rather
+    slashing in his criticism of other artists. The libel suit brought
+    against him by Whistler, whom he described as a coxcomb who flung a
+    pot of paint in the face of the public, is still talked about in
+    England. The jury (fancy a jury wrestling with a question of art!)
+    found Ruskin guilty, and decided that he should pay for the
+    artist's damaged reputation the sum of one farthing. Whistler ever
+    afterwards wore the coin on his watch chain.
+
+    [Sidenote: RUSKIN THE REFORMER]
+
+    It was about the year 1860 that Ruskin came under the influence of
+    Carlyle, and then began the effort at social reform which made
+    wreck of fame and hope and peace of mind. Carlyle had merely
+    preached of manual work; but Ruskin, wholehearted in whatever he
+    did, went out to mend roads and do other useful tasks to show his
+    belief in the doctrine. Carlyle railed against the industrial
+    system of England; but Ruskin devoted his fortune to remedying its
+    evils. He established model tenements; he founded libraries and
+    centers of recreation for workingmen; he took women and children
+    out of factories and set them to spinning or weaving in their own
+    homes; he founded St. George's Guild, a well-housed community which
+    combined work with education, and which shared profits fairly among
+    the workers.
+
+    England at first rubbed its eyes at these reforms, then shrugged
+    its shoulders as at a harmless kind of madman. But Ruskin had the
+    temper of a crusader; his sword was out against what was even then
+    called "vested interests," and presently his theories aroused a
+    tempest of opposition. Thackeray, who as editor of the _Cornhill
+    Magazine_ had gladly published Ruskin's first economic essays,
+    was forced by the clamor of readers to discontinue the series.
+    [Footnote: While these essays were appearing, there was published
+    (1864) a textbook of English literature. It spoke well of Ruskin's
+    books of art, but added, "Of late he has lost his way and has
+    written things--papers in the _Cornhill_ chiefly--which are
+    not likely to add to his fame as a writer or to his character as a
+    man of common sense" (Collier, _History of English
+    Literature_, p. 512).] To this reform period belong _Unto This
+    Last_ and other books dealing with political economy, and also
+    _Sesame and Lilies_, _Crown of Wild Olive_ and _Ethics
+    of the Dust_, which were written chiefly for young people.
+
+    [Sidenote: END OF THE CRUSADE]
+
+    For twenty years this crusade continued; then, worn out and
+    misunderstood by both capitalists and workingmen, Ruskin retired
+    (1879) to a small estate called "Brantwood" in the Lake District,
+    His fortune had been spent in his attempt to improve labor
+    conditions, and he lived now upon the modest income from his books.
+    Before he died, in 1900, his friend Charles Eliot Norton persuaded
+    him to write the story of his early life in _Præterita_. The
+    title is strange, but the book itself is, with one exception, the
+    most interesting of Ruskin's works.
+
+WORKS OF RUSKIN. The works of Ruskin fall naturally into three classes,
+which are called criticisms of art, industry and life, but which are, in
+fact, profound studies of the origin and meaning of art on the one hand,
+and of the infinite value of human life on the other.
+
+The most popular of his art criticisms are _St. Mark's Rest_ and
+_Mornings in Florence_, which are widely used as guidebooks, and which
+may be postponed until the happy time when, in Venice or Florence, one may
+read them to best advantage. Meanwhile, in _Seven Lamps of
+Architecture_ or _Stones of Venice_ or the first two volumes of
+_Modern Painters_, one may grow acquainted with Ruskin's theory of
+art.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS THEORY OF ART]
+
+His fundamental principle was summarized by Pope in the line, "All nature
+is but art unknown to thee." That nature is the artist's source of
+inspiration, that art at its best can but copy some natural beauty, and
+that the copy should be preceded by careful and loving study of the
+original,--this was the sum of his early teaching. Next, Ruskin looked
+within the soul of the artist and announced that true art has a spiritual
+motive, that it springs from the noblest ideals of life, that the moral
+value of any people may be read in the pictures or buildings which they
+produced. A third principle was that the best works of art, reflecting as
+they do the ideals of a community, should belong to the people, not to a
+few collectors; and a fourth exalted the usefulness of art in increasing
+not only the pleasure but the power of life. So Ruskin urged that art be
+taught in all schools and workshops, and that every man be encouraged to
+put the stamp of beauty as well as of utility upon the work of his hands;
+so also he formulated a plan to abolish factories, and by a system of hand
+labor to give every worker the chance and the joy of self-expression.
+
+[Sidenote: THEORY OF ECONOMICS]
+
+In his theory of economics Ruskin was even more revolutionary. He wrote
+several works on the subject, but the sum of his teaching may be found in
+_Unto This Last_; and the sum is that political economy is merely
+commercial economy; that it aims to increase trade and wealth at the
+expense of men and morals. "There is no wealth but life," announced Ruskin,
+"life including all its power of love, of joy and of admiration." And with
+minute exactness he outlined a plan for making the nation wealthy, not by
+more factories and ships, but by increasing the health and happiness of
+human beings.
+
+Three quarters of a century earlier Thomas Jefferson, in America, had
+pleaded for the same ideal of national wealth, and had characterized the
+race of the nations for commercial supremacy as a contagion of insanity.
+Jefferson was called a demagogue, Ruskin a madman; but both men were
+profoundly right in estimating the wealth of a nation by its store of
+happiness for home consumption rather than by its store of goods for
+export. They were misunderstood because they were too far in advance of
+their age to speak its trade language. They belong not to the past or
+present, but to the future.
+
+[Sidenote: FOR YOUNG READERS]
+
+If but one work of Ruskin is to be read, let it be _Sesame and Lilies_
+(1865), which is one of the books that no intelligent reader can afford to
+neglect. The first chapter, "Of Kings' Treasuries," is a noble essay on the
+subject of reading. The second, "Of Queens' Gardens," is a study of woman's
+life and education, a study which may appear old-fashioned now, but which
+has so much of truth and beauty that it must again, like Colonial
+furniture, become our best fashion. These two essays [Footnote: A third
+essay, "The Mystery of Life," was added to _Sesame and Lilies_. It is
+a sad, despairing monologue, and the book might be better off without it.]
+contain Ruskin's best thought on books and womanly character, and also an
+outline of his teaching on nature, art and society. If we read _Sesame
+and Lilies_ in connection with two other little books, _Crown of Wild
+Olive_, which treats of work, trade and war, and _Ethics of the
+Dust_, which deals with housekeeping, we shall have the best that Ruskin
+produced for his younger disciples.
+
+THE QUALITY OF RUSKIN. To the sensitiveness and sincerity of Ruskin we have
+already called attention. There is a third quality which appears
+frequently, and which we call pedagogical insistence, because the author
+seems to labor under the impression that he must drive something into one's
+head.
+
+This insistent note is apt to offend readers until they learn of Ruskin's
+motive and experience. He lived in a commercial age, an age that seemed to
+him blind to the beauty of the world; and the purpose of his whole life
+was, as he said, to help those who, having eyes, see not. His aim was high,
+his effort heroic; but for all his pains he was called a visionary, a man
+with a dream book. Yet he was always exact and specific. He would say, "Go
+to a certain spot at a certain hour, look in a certain direction, and such
+and such beauties shall ye see." And people would go, and wag their heads,
+and declare that no such prospect as Ruskin described was visible to mortal
+eyes. [Footnote: For example, Ruskin gave in _Fors Clavigera_ a
+description of a beautiful view from a bridge over the Ettrick, in
+Scotland. Some people have sought that view in vain, and a recent critic
+insists that it is invisible (Andrew Lang, _History of English
+Literature_, p. 592). In Venice or Florence you may still meet travelers
+with one of Ruskin's books in hand, peering about for the beauty which he
+says is apparent from such and such a spot and which every traveler ought
+to see.]
+
+Naturally Ruskin, with his dogmatic temper, grew impatient of such
+blindness; hence the increasing note of insistence, of scolding even, to
+which critics have called attention. But we can forgive much in a writer
+who, with marvelously clear vision, sought only to point out the beauty of
+nature and the moral dignity of humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: Ruskin's Style]
+
+The beauty of Ruskin's style, its musical rhythm or cadence, its wealth of
+figure and allusion, its brilliant coloring, like a landscape of his
+favorite artist Turner,--all this is a source of pleasure to the reader,
+entirely aside from the subject matter. Read, for example, the description
+of St. Mark's Cathedral in _Stones of Venice_, or the reflected
+glories of nature in _Præterita_, or the contrast between Salisbury
+towers and Giotto's campanile in _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and
+see there descriptive eloquence at its best. That this superb eloquence was
+devoted not to personal or party ends, but to winning men to the love of
+beauty and truth and right living, is the secret of Ruskin's high place in
+English letters and of his enduring influence on English life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The age of Victoria (1837-1901) approaches our own so
+    closely that it is still difficult to form an accurate judgment of
+    its history or literature. In a review of the history of the age we
+    noted three factors, democracy, science, imperialism, which have
+    profoundly influenced English letters from 1850 to the present
+    time.
+
+    Our study of Victorian literature includes (1) The life and works
+    of the two greater poets of the age, Tennyson and Browning. (2) The
+    work of Elizabeth Barrett, Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, Morris and
+    Swinburne, who were selected from the two hundred representive
+    poets of the period. (3) The life and the chief works of the major
+    novelists, Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot. (4) A review of
+    some other novelists of the age, the Brontë Sisters, Mrs. Gaskell,
+    Anthony Trollope, Blackmore, Kingsley, Meredith, Hardy and
+    Stevenson. (5) The typical essayists and historians, Macaulay,
+    Carlyle, Ruskin, with a review of other typical groups of writers
+    in the fields of religion, history and science.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections from all authors named
+    in the text are found in Manly, English Poetry, English Prose;
+    Pancoast, Standard English Poems, Standard English Prose; and
+    several other collections, which are especially useful in a study
+    of the minor writers. The works of the major authors may be read to
+    much better advantage in various inexpensive editions prepared for
+    school use. Only a few such editions are named below for each
+    author, but a fairly complete list is given under Texts in the
+    General Bibliography.
+
+    Tennyson's selected minor poems, Idylls of the King, The Princess
+    and In Memoriam, in Standard English Classics, Riverside
+    Literature, Pocket Classics, Silver Classics. A good volume
+    containing the best of Tennyson's poems in Athenæum Press Series.
+
+    Browning and Mrs. Browning, selected poems in Standard English
+    Classics, Lake Classics, English Readings, Belles Lettres Series.
+
+    Matthew Arnold, selected poems in Golden Treasury Series, Maynard's
+    English Classics; Sohrab and Rustum in Standard English Classics;
+    prose selections in English Readings, Academy Classics.
+
+    Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Christmas Carol in
+    Standard English Classics, Lake Classics; other novels in
+    Everyman's Library.
+
+    Thackeray, Henry Esmond in Standard English Classics, Pocket
+    Classics; English Humorists in Lake Classics, English Readings;
+    other works in Everyman's Library.
+
+    George Eliot, Silas Marner, in Standard English Classics, Riverside
+    Literature; Mill on the Floss and other novels in Everyman's
+    Library.
+
+    Blackmore's Lorna Doone and Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford in Standard
+    English Classics. Reade's Cloister and the Hearth, Kingsley's
+    Westward Ho and Hypatia in Everyman's Library.
+
+    Macaulay, selected essays in Standard English Classics, Riverside
+    Literature, Lake Classics.
+
+    Carlyle, Essay on Burns in Standard English Classics, Academy
+    Classics; Heroes and Hero Worship in Athenæum Press, Pocket
+    Classics; French Revolution in Everyman's Library.
+
+    Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies and selected essays and letters in
+    Standard English Classics; selections from Ruskin's art books in
+    Riverside Literature; other works in Everyman's Library.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. The works named below are selected from a large list
+    dealing with the Victorian age chiefly. For more extended works see
+    the General Bibliography.
+
+    _HISTORY_. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times and The Epoch of
+    Reform. Oman, England in the Nineteenth Century; Lee, Queen
+    Victoria; Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Saintsbury, History of Nineteenth Century
+    Literature; Harrison, Studies in Early Victorian Literature; Mrs.
+    Oliphant, Literary History of England in the Nineteenth Century;
+    Walker, The Age of Tennyson; Morley, Literature of the Age of
+    Victoria; Stedman, Victorian Poets; Brownell, Victorian Prose
+    Masters.
+
+    _Tennyson_. Life, by Lyall (English Men of Letters Series), by
+    Horton; Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his Son. Napier, Homes
+    and Haunts of Tennyson; Andrew Lang, Alfred Tennyson; Dixon, A
+    Tennyson Primer; Sneath, The Mind of Tennyson; Van Dyke, The Poetry
+    of Tennyson. Essays by Harrison, in Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill and
+    Other Literary Estimates; by Stedman, in Victorian Poets; by
+    Hutton, in Literary Essays; by Dowden, in Studies in Literature; by
+    Forster, in Great Teachers; by Gates, in Studies and Appreciations.
+
+    _Browning_. Life, by Sharp (Great Writers Series), by
+    Chesterton (E. M. of L.). Alexander, Introduction to Browning (Ginn
+    and Company); Corson, Introduction to the Study of Browning;
+    Phelps, Browning: How to Know Him; Symonds, Introduction to the
+    Study of Browning; Brooke, Poetry of Robert Browning; Harrington,
+    Browning Studies. Essays by Stedman, Dowden, Hutton, Forster.
+
+    _Dickens_. Life, by Forster, by Ward (E. M. of L.), by
+    Marzials. Gissing, Charles Dickens; Chesterton, Charles Dickens;
+    Kitton, Novels of Dickens. Essays by Harrison, Bagehot; A. Lang, in
+    Gadshill edition of Dickens's works.
+
+    _Thackeray_. Life, by Merivale and Marzials, by Trollope (E.
+    M. of L.). Crowe, Homes and Haunts of Thackeray. Essays, by
+    Brownell, in English Prose Masters; by Lilly, in Four English
+    Humorists; by Harrison, in Studies in Early Victorian Literature;
+    by Scudder, in Social Ideals in English Letters.
+
+    _George Eliot_. Life, by L. Stephen (E. M. of L.), by O.
+    Browning, by Cross. Cooke, George Eliot: a Critical Study of her
+    Life and Writings. Essays by Brownell, Harrison, Dowden, Hutton.
+
+    _Macaulay_. Life, by Trevelyan, by Morrison (E. M. of L.).
+    Essays by L. Stephen, Bagehot, Saintsbury, Harrison, M. Arnold.
+
+    _Carlyle_. Life, by Garnett, by Nichol (E. M. of L.), by
+    Froude. Carlyle's Letters and Reminiscences, edited by Norton.
+    Craig, The Making of Carlyle. Essays by Lowell, Brownell, Hutton,
+    Harrison.
+
+    _Ruskin_. Life, by Harrison (E. M. of L.), by Collingwood.
+    Ruskin's Præterita (autobiography). Mather, Ruskin, his Life and
+    Teaching; Cooke, Studies in Ruskin; Waldstein, The Work of John
+    Ruskin; W. M. Rossetti, Ruskin, Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelitism.
+    Essays by Brownell, Saintsbury, Forster, Harrison.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+    Books dealing with individual authors and with special periods of
+    English literature are listed in the various chapter endings of
+    this history. Following are some of the best works for general
+    reference, for extended study and for supplementary reading.
+
+    _HISTORY_. A brief, trustworthy textbook of history, such as
+    Cheyney's Short History of England (Ginn and Company) or Gardiner's
+    Student's History (Longmans), should always be at hand in studying
+    English literature. More detailed works are Traill, Social England,
+    6 vols. (Putnam); Bright, History of England, 5 vols. (Longmans);
+    Green, History of the English People, 4 vols. (Harper); Green,
+    Short History of the English People, revised edition, 1 vol.
+    (American Book Co.); latest revision of Green's Short History, with
+    appendix of recent events to 1900, in Everyman's Library (Putnam);
+    Kendall, Source Book of English History (Macmillan); Colby,
+    Selections from the Sources of English History (Longmans); Lingard,
+    History of England, to 1688, 10 vols. (a standard Catholic
+    history). Mitchell, English Lands, Letters and Kings, 5 vols.
+    (Scribner), a series of pleasant essays of history and literature.
+
+    _LITERARY HISTORY_. Cambridge History of English Literature,
+    to be completed in 14 vols. (Putnam), by different authors, not
+    always in harmony; Channels of English Literature (Button) treats
+    of epic, drama, history, essay, novel and other types, each in a
+    separate volume; Jusserand, Literary History of the English People,
+    to 1650, 2 vols. (Putnam), a fascinating record; Ten Brink, English
+    Literature, to 1550, 3 vols. (Holt), good material, clumsy style;
+    Taine, English Literature, 2 vols. (Holt), brilliant but not
+    trustworthy; Handbooks of English Literature, 9 vols. (Macmillan);
+    Garnett and Gosse, Illustrated History of English Literature, 4
+    bulky volumes (Macmillan), good for pictures; Nicoll and Seccombe,
+    History of English Literature, from Chaucer to end of Victorian
+    era, 3 vols. (Dodd); Morley, English Writers, to 1650, 11 vols.
+    (Cassell); Chambers, Cyclopedia of English Literature, 3 vols.
+    (Lippincott).
+
+    _BIOGRAPHY_. Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols.
+    (Macmillan). English Men of Letters, a volume to each author
+    (Macmillan); briefer series of the same kind are Great Writers
+    (Scribner), Beacon Biographies (Houghton), Westminster Biographies
+    (Small). Allibone, Dictionary of Authors, 5 vols. (Lippincott).
+    Hinchman and Gummere, Lives of Great English Writers (Houghton),
+    offers thirty-eight biographies in a single volume.
+
+    _LITERARY TYPES_. Courthope, History of English Poetry, 4
+    vols. (Macmillan); Gummere, Handbook of Poetics (Ginn and Company);
+    Stedman, Nature and Elements of Poetry (Houghton); Saintsbury,
+    History of English Prosody (Macmillan); Alden, Specimens of English
+    Verse (Holt).
+
+    Steenstrup, The Mediæval Popular Ballad, translated from the Danish
+    by Edward Cox (Ginn and Company); Gummere, The Popular Ballad
+    (Houghton). Ward, History of Dramatic Literature, to 1714, 3 vols.
+    (Macmillan); Caffin, Appreciation of the Drama (Baker).
+
+    Raleigh, The English Novel (Scribner); Hamilton, Materials and
+    Methods of Fiction (Baker); Cross, Development of the English Novel
+    (Macmillan); Perry, Study of Prose Fiction (Houghton).
+
+    Saintsbury, History of Criticism, 3 vols. (Dodd); Gayley and Scott,
+    Introduction to Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism (Ginn
+    and Company); Winchester, Principles of Criticism (Macmillan);
+    Worsfold, Principles of Criticism (Longmans); Moulton, Library of
+    Literary Criticism, 8 vols. (Malkan).
+
+    _ESSAYS OF LITERATURE_. Bagehot, Literary Studies; Hazlitt,
+    Lectures on the English poets; Lowell, Literary Essays; Mackail,
+    Springs of Helicon (English poets from Chaucer to Milton); Minto,
+    Characteristics of English Poets (Chaucer to Elizabethan
+    dramatists); Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism; Leslie Stephen,
+    Hours in a Library; Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books;
+    Birrell, Obiter Dicta; Hales, Folia Litteraria; Walter Pater,
+    Appreciations; Woodberry, Makers of Literature; Dowden, Studies in
+    Literature and Transcripts and Studies; Gates, Studies in
+    Appreciation; Harrison, The Choice of Books; Bates, Talks on the
+    Study of Literature.
+
+    _COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE_. Manly, English Poetry,
+    English Prose, 2 vols., containing selections from all important
+    English authors (Ginn and Company); Newcomer and Andrews, Twelve
+    Centuries of English Poetry and Prose (Scott); Century Readings in
+    English Literature (Century Co.); Pancoast, Standard English
+    Poetry, Standard English Prose, 2 vols. (Holt); Leading English
+    Poets from Chaucer to Browning (Houghton); Oxford Book of English
+    Verse. Oxford Treasury of English Literature, 3 vols. (Clarendon
+    Press); Ward, English Poets, 4 vols., and Craik, English Prose
+    Selections, 5 vols. (Macmillan); Morley, Library of English
+    Literature, 5 vols. (Cassell).
+
+    _LANGUAGE_. Lounsbury, History of the English Language (Holt);
+    Emerson, Brief History of the English Language (Macmillan); Welsh,
+    Development of English Language and Literature (Scott); Bradley,
+    Making of English (Macmillan); Greenough and Kittredge, Words and
+    their Ways in English Speech (Macmillan); Anderson, Study of
+    English Words (American Book Co.).
+
+    _MISCELLANEOUS_. Classic Myths in English Literature (Ginn and
+    Company); Ryland, Chronological Outlines of English Literature,
+    names and dates only (Macmillan); Raleigh, Style (Longmans);
+    Brewer, Reader's Handbook (Lippincott); Hutton, Literary Landmarks
+    of London (Harper); Boynton, London in English Literature
+    (University of Chicago Press); Dalbiac, Dictionary of English
+    Quotations (Macmillan); Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (Little);
+    Walsh, International Encyclopedia of Quotations (Winston).
+
+    _SCHOOL TEXTS_. [Footnote: The chief works of English and
+    American literature are now widely published in inexpensive
+    editions prepared especially for classroom use. Descriptive
+    catalogues of these handy little editions are issued by the various
+    educational publishers.] Standard English Classics and Athenæum
+    Press Series (Ginn and Company); Riverside Literature (Houghton);
+    Pocket Classics, Golden Treasury Series (Macmillan); Lake Classics
+    (Scott); Silver Classics (Silver); Longmans' English Classics
+    (Longmans); English Readings (Holt); Maynard's English Classics
+    (Merrill); Caxton Classics (Scribner); Belles Lettres Series
+    (Heath); King's Classics (Luce); Canterbury Classics (Rand);
+    Academy Classics (Allyn); Cambridge Literature (Sanborn); Student's
+    Series (Sibley); Camelot Series (Simmons); Carisbrooke Library
+    (Routledge); World's Classics (Clarendon Press); Lakeside Classics
+    (Ainsworth); Standard Literature (University Publishing Company);
+    Eclectic English Classics (American Book Co.); Cassell's National
+    Library (Cassell); Everyman's Library (Button); Morley's Universal
+    Library (Routledge); Bohn Library (Macmillan); Little Masterpieces
+    (Doubleday); Handy Volume Classics (Crowell); Arthurian Romances
+    (Nutt); New Mediæval Library (Duffield); Arber's English Reprints
+    (Macmillan); Mermaid Dramatists (Scribner); Temple Dramatists
+    (Macmillan); Home and School Library, a series of texts prepared
+    for young readers (Ginn and Company).
+
+
+
+
+       *        *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUTLINES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PIONEERS AND NATION-BUILDERS
+
+
+  'Twas glory once to be a Roman:
+  She makes it glory now to be a man.
+
+             Bayard Taylor, "America"
+
+
+We have this double interest in early American literature, that it is our
+own and unlike any other. The literatures of Europe began with wonder tales
+of a golden age, with stories of fairy ships, of kings akin to gods, of
+heroes who ventured into enchanted regions and there waged battle with
+dragons or the powers of darkness. American literature began with
+historical records, with letters of love and friendship, with diaries or
+journals of exploration, with elegiac poems lamenting the death of beloved
+leaders or hearth companions,--in a word, with the chronicles of human
+experience. In this respect, of recording the facts and the truth of life
+as men and women fronted life bravely in the New World, our early
+literature differs radically from that of any other great nation: it brings
+us face to face not with myths or shadows but with our ancestors.
+
+TWO VIEWS OF THE PIONEERS. It has become almost a habit among historians to
+disparage early American literature, and nearly all our textbooks apologize
+for it on the ground that the forefathers had no artistic feeling, their
+souls being oppressed by the gloom and rigor of Puritanism.
+
+Even as we read this apology our eyes rest contentedly upon a beautiful old
+piece of Colonial furniture, fashioned most artistically by the very men
+who are pitied for their want of art. We remember also that the Puritans
+furnished only one of several strong elements in early American life, and
+that wherever the Puritan influence was strongest there books and literary
+culture did most abound: their private libraries, for example, make our own
+appear rather small and trashy by comparison. [Footnote: When Plymouth
+consisted of a score of cabins and a meetinghouse it had at least two
+excellent libraries. Bradford had over three hundred books, and Brewster
+four hundred, consisting of works of poetry, philosophy, science, devotion,
+and miscellanies covering the entire field of human knowledge. In view of
+the scarcity of books in 1620, one of these collections, which were common
+in all the New England settlements, was equivalent to a modern library of
+thirty or forty thousand volumes.] Cotton Mather, disciplined in the
+strictest of Puritan homes, wrote his poems in Greek, conducted a large
+foreign correspondence in Latin, read enormously, published four hundred
+works, and in thousands of citations proved himself intimate with the
+world's books of poetry and history, science and religion. That the leaders
+of the colonies, south and north, were masters of an excellent prose style
+is evident from their own records; that their style was influenced by their
+familiarity with the best literature appears in many ways,--in the immense
+collection of books in Byrd's mansion in Virginia, for instance, or in the
+abundant quotations that are found in nearly all Colonial writings. Before
+entering college (and there was never another land with so few people and
+so many colleges as Colonial America) boys of fourteen passed a classical
+examination which few graduates would now care to face; and the men of our
+early legislatures produced state papers which for force of reasoning and
+lucidity of expression have never been surpassed.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUESTION OF ART]
+
+Again, our whole conception of American art may be modified by these
+considerations: that it requires more genius to build a free state than to
+make a sonnet, and the Colonists were mighty state-builders; that a ship is
+a beautiful object, and American ships with their graceful lines and
+towering clouds of canvas were once famous the world over; that
+architecture is a noble art, and Colonial architecture still charms us by
+its beauty and utility after three hundred years of experimental building.
+"Art" is a great word, and we use it too narrowly when we apply it to an
+ode of Shelley or a mutilated statue of Praxiteles, but are silent before a
+Colonial church or a free commonwealth or the Constitution of the United
+States.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "WESTOVER," HOME OF WILLIAM BYRD]
+
+Instead of an apology for our early literature, therefore, we offer this
+possible explanation: that our forefathers, who set their faces to one of
+the most heroic tasks ever undertaken by man, were too busy with great
+deeds inspired by the ideal of liberty to find leisure for the epic or
+drama in which the deeds and the ideal should be worthily reflected. They
+left that work of commemoration to others, and they are still waiting
+patiently for their poet. Meanwhile we read the straightforward record
+which they left as their only literary memorial, not as we read the
+imaginative story of Beowulf or Ulysses, but for the clear light of truth
+which it sheds upon the fathers and mothers of a great nation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE COLONIAL PERIOD (1607-1765)
+
+The Colonial period extends from the first English settlement at Jamestown
+to the Stamp Act and other measures of "taxation without representation"
+which tended to unite the colonies and arouse the sleeping spirit of
+nationality. During this century and a half the Elizabethan dramatists
+produced their best work; Milton, Bunyan, Dryden and a score of lesser
+writers were adding to the wealth of English literature; but not a single
+noteworthy volume crossed the Atlantic to reflect in Europe the lyric of
+the wilderness, the drama of the commonwealth, the epic of democracy. Such
+books as were written here dealt largely with matters of religion,
+government and exploration; and we shall hardly read these books with
+sympathy, and therefore with understanding, unless we remember two facts:
+that the Colonists, grown weary of ancient tyranny, were determined to
+write a new page in the world's history; and that they reverently believed
+God had called them to make that new page record the triumph of freedom and
+manhood. Hence the historical impulse and the moral or religious bent of
+nearly all our early writers.
+
+[Illustration: PLYMOUTH IN 1662. BRADFORD'S HOUSE ON RIGHT]
+
+ANNALISTS AND HISTORIANS. Of the fifty or more annalists of the period we
+select two as typical of the rest. The first is William Bradford
+(_cir_. 1590-1657), a noble and learned man, at one time governor of
+the Plymouth Colony. In collaboration with Winslow he wrote a Journal of
+the _Mayflower's_ voyage (long known as _Mourt's Relation_), and
+he continued this work independently by writing _Of Plimouth
+Plantation_, a ruggedly sincere history of the trials and triumph of the
+Pilgrim Fathers. The second annalist is William Byrd (1674-1744), who, a
+century after Bradford, wrote his _History of the Dividing Line_ and
+two other breezy Journals that depict with equal ease and gayety the
+southern society of the early days and the march or campfire scenes of an
+exploring party in the wilderness.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM BYRD]
+
+These two writers unconsciously reflected two distinct influences in
+Colonial literature, which are epitomized in the words "Puritan" and
+"Cavalier." Bradford, though a Pilgrim (not a Puritan), was profoundly
+influenced by the puritanic spirit of his age, with its militant
+independence, its zeal for liberty and righteousness, its confidence in the
+divine guidance of human affairs. When he wrote his history, therefore, he
+was in the mood of one to whom the Lord had said, as to Abraham, "Get thee
+out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house; and
+I will make of thee a great nation." Byrd, though born and bred in
+democratic Virginia, had in him something of the aristocrat. He reminds us
+of the gay Cavaliers who left England to escape the stern discipline of
+Cromwell and the triumphant Puritans. When he looked forth upon his goodly
+plantation, or upon the wilderness with its teeming game, he saw them not
+with the eyes of prophet or evangelist, but as one who remembered that it
+was written, "And God saw everything that he had made; and behold it was
+very good." So he wrote his Journal in an entertaining way, making the best
+of misfortune, cracking a joke at difficulty or danger, and was well
+content to reflect this pleasant world without taking it upon his
+conscience to criticize or reform it.
+
+The same two types of Cavalier and Puritan appear constantly in our own and
+other literatures as representative of two world-views, two philosophies.
+Chaucer and Langland were early examples in English poetry, the one with
+his _Canterbury Tales_, the other with his _Piers Plowman_; and
+ever since then the same two classes of writers have been reflecting the
+same life from two different angles. They are not English or American but
+human types; they appear in every age and in every free nation.
+
+COLONIAL POETRY. There were several recognized poets in Colonial days, and
+even the annalists and theologians had a rhyming fancy which often broke
+loose from the bounds of prose. The quantity of Colonial verse is therefore
+respectable, but the quality of it suffered from two causes: first, the
+writers overlooked the feeling of their own hearts (the true source of
+lyric poetry) and wrote of Indian wars, theology and other unpoetic
+matters; second, they wrote poetry not for its own sake but to teach moral
+or religious lessons. [Footnote: The above criticism applies only to poetry
+written in English for ordinary readers. At that time many college men
+wrote poetry in Greek and Latin, and the quality of it compares favorably
+with similar poetry written in England during the same period. Several
+specimens of this "scholars' poetry" are preserved in Mather's
+_Magnalia_; and there is one remarkable poem, in Greek, which was
+written in Harvard College by an Indian (one of Eliot's "boys") who a few
+years earlier had been a whooping savage.] Thus, the most widely read poem
+of the period was _The Day of Doom_, which aimed frankly to recall
+sinners from their evil ways by holding before their eyes the terrors of
+the last judgment. It was written by Michael Wigglesworth in 1662. This
+man, who lived a heroic but melancholy life, had a vein of true poetry in
+him, as when he wrote his "Dear New England, Dearest Land to Me," and from
+his bed of suffering sent out the call to his people:
+
+  Cheer on, brave souls, my heart is with you all.
+
+But he was too much absorbed in stern theological dogmas to find the beauty
+of life or the gold of poesie; and his masterpiece, once prized by an
+immense circle of readers, seems now a grotesque affair, which might appear
+even horrible were it not rendered harmless by its jigging, Yankee-Doodle
+versification.
+
+The most extravagantly praised versifier of the age, and the first to win a
+reputation in England as well as in America, was Anne Bradstreet
+(1612-1672), who wrote a book of poems that a London publisher proudly
+issued under the title of _The Tenth Muse_ (1650). The best of
+Colonial poets was Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia (1736-1763), whose
+_Juvenile Poems, with the Prince of Parthia, a Tragedy_ contained a
+few lyrics, odes and pastorals that were different in form and spirit from
+anything hitherto attempted on this side of the Atlantic. This slender
+volume was published in 1765, soon after Godfrey's untimely death. With its
+evident love of beauty and its carefulness of poetic form, it marks the
+beginning here of artistic literature; that is, literature which was
+written to please readers rather than to teach history or moral lessons.
+
+NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE. In the literature of the world the two subjects of
+abiding poetic interest are nature and human nature; but as these subjects
+appear in Colonial records they are uniformly prosaic, and the reason is
+very simple. Before nature can be the theme of poets she must assume her
+winsome mood, must "soothe and heal and bless" the human heart after the
+clamor of politics, the weariness of trade, the cruel strife of society. To
+read Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" or Bryant's "To a Waterfowl" is to
+understand the above criticism. But the nature which the Colonists first
+looked upon seemed wild and strange and often terrible. Their somber
+forests were vast, mysterious, forbidding; and they knew not what perils
+lurked in them or beyond them. The new climate might give them sunshine or
+healing rain, but was quite as likely to strike their houses with
+thunderbolts or harrow their harvests with a cyclone. Meanwhile marauding
+crows pulled up their precious corn; fierce owls with tufted heads preyed
+upon their poultry; bears and eagles harried their flocks; the winter wail
+of the wolf pack or the scream of a hungry panther, sounding through icy,
+echoless woods, made them shiver in their cabins and draw nearer the
+blazing fire of pine knots on the hearth.
+
+[Illustration: NEW AMSTERDAM (NEW YORK) IN 1663]
+
+We can understand, therefore, why there was little poetry of nature in
+Colonial literature, and why, instead of sonnets to moonbeams or
+nightingales, we meet quaint and fascinating studies of natural or
+unnatural history. Such are Josselyn's _New England's Rarities
+Discovered_ and the first part of William Wood's _New England's
+Prospect_; and such are many chapters of Byrd's _Dividing Line_ and
+other annals that deal with plant or animal life,--books that we now read
+with pleasure, since the nature that was once wild and strange has become
+in our eyes familiar and dear.
+
+As for the second subject of poetic interest, human nature, the Colonists
+had as much of that as any other people; but human nature as it revealed
+itself in religious controversy, or became a burden in the immigrants that
+were unloaded on our shores for the relief of Europe or the enrichment of
+the early transportation companies, as Bradford and Beverley both tell
+us,--this furnished a vital subject not for poetry but for prose and
+protest.
+
+[Sidenote: THE INDIANS]
+
+The Indians especially, "the wild men" as they were called, slipping out of
+the shadows or vanishing into mysterious distances, were a source of
+anxiety and endless speculation to the early settlers. European writers
+like Rousseau, who had never seen an Indian or heard a war-whoop, had been
+industrious in idealizing the savages, attributing to them all manner of
+noble virtues; and the sentimental attitude of these foreign writers was
+reflected here, after the eastern Indians had well-nigh vanished, in such
+stories as Mrs. Morton's _Quabi, or The Virtues of Nature_, a romance
+in verse which was published in 1790. In the same romantic strain are
+Cooper's _Last of the Mohicans_, Helen Hunt's _Ramona_ and some
+of the early poems of Freneau and Whittier.
+
+The Colonists, on the other hand, had no poetic illusions about the
+savages. Their enjoyment of this phase of human nature was hardly possible
+so long as they had to proceed warily on a forest trail, their eyes keen
+for the first glimpse of a hideously painted face, their ears alert for the
+twang of a bowstring or the hiss of a feathered arrow. Their deep but
+practical interest in the Indians found expression in scores of books,
+which fall roughly into three groups. In the first are the scholarly works
+of the heroic John Eliot, "the apostle to the Indians"; of Daniel Gookin
+also, and of a few others who made careful studies of the language and
+customs of the various Indian tribes. In the second group are the startling
+experiences of men and women who were carried away by the savages, leaving
+slaughtered children and burning homes behind them. Such are Mary
+Rowlandson's _The Sovereignty and Goodness of God_ and John Williams's
+_The Redeemed Captive_, both famous in their day, and still of lively
+interest. In the third group are the fighting stories, such as John Mason's
+_History of the Pequot War_. The adventures and hairbreadth escapes
+recorded as sober facts in these narratives were an excellent substitute
+for fiction during the Colonial period. Moreover, they furnished a motive
+and method for the Indian tales and Wild West stories which have since
+appeared as the sands of the sea for multitude.
+
+RELIGIOUS WRITERS. A very large part of our early writings is devoted to
+religious subjects, and for an excellent reason; namely, that large numbers
+of the Colonists came to America to escape religious strife or persecution
+at home. In the New World they sought religious peace as well as freedom of
+worship, and were determined to secure it not only for themselves but for
+their children's children. Hence in nearly all their writings the religious
+motive was uppermost. Hardly were they settled here, however, when they
+were rudely disturbed by agitators who fomented discord by preaching each
+his own pet doctrine or heresy. Presently arose a score of controversial
+writers; and then Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams and the early Quakers
+were disciplined or banished, not because of their faith (for the fact is
+that all the colonies contained men of widely different beliefs who lived
+peaceably together), but because these unbalanced reformers were
+obstinately bent upon stirring up strife in a community which had crossed
+three thousand miles of ocean in search of peace.
+
+Of the theological writers we again select two, not because they were
+typical,--for it is hard to determine who, among the hundred writers that
+fronted the burning question of religious tolerance, were representative of
+their age,--but simply because they towered head and shoulders above their
+contemporaries. These are Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards; the one the
+most busy man of his age in politics, religion, education and all
+philanthropic endeavor; the other a profound thinker, who was in the world
+but not of it, and who devoted the great powers of his mind to such
+problems as the freedom of the human will and the origin of the religious
+impulse in humanity.
+
+[Illustration: COTTON MATHER]
+
+[Sidenote: COTTON MATHER]
+
+Cotton Mather (1663-1728) is commonly known by his _Wonders of the
+Invisible World_, which dealt with the matter of demons and witchcraft;
+but that is one of the least of his four hundred works, and it has given a
+wrong impression of the author and of the age in which he lived. His chief
+work is the _Magnalia Christi Americana, or the Ecclesiastical History of
+New England_ (1702), which is a strange jumble of patriotism and
+pedantry, of wisdom and foolishness, written in the fantastic style of
+Robert Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. The most interesting and
+valuable parts of this chaotic work are the second and third books, which
+give us the life stories of Bradford, Winthrop, Eliot, Phipps and many
+other heroic worthies who helped mightily in laying the foundation of the
+American republic.
+
+[Illustration: JONATHAN EDWARDS]
+
+The most famous works of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) are the so-called
+_Freedom of the Will_ and the _Treatise Concerning the Religious
+Affections_; but these are hard reading, not to be lightly undertaken.
+It is from the author's minor and neglected works that one receives the
+impression that he was a very great and noble man, shackled by a terrible
+theology. By his scholarship, his rare sincerity, his love of truth, his
+original mind and his transparent style of writing he exercised probably a
+greater influence at home and abroad than any other writer of the colonial
+era. In Whittier's poem "The Preacher" there is a tribute to the tender
+humanity of Edwards, following this picture of his stern thinking:
+
+  In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought,
+  Shaping his creed at the forge of thought;
+  And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent
+  The iron links of his argument,
+  Which strove to grasp in its mighty span
+  The purpose of God and the fate of man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD (1765-1800)
+
+The literary period included in the above term is, in general, the latter
+half of the eighteenth century; more particularly it extends from the Stamp
+Act (1765), which united the colonies in opposition to Britain's policy of
+taxation, to the adoption of the Constitution (1787) and the inauguration
+of Washington as first president of the new nation.
+
+[Sidenote: PARTY LITERATURE]
+
+The writings of this stormy period reflect the temper of two very different
+classes who were engaged in constant literary Party warfare. In the tense
+years which preceded the Literature Revolution the American people
+separated into two hostile parties: the Tories, or Loyalists, who supported
+the mother country; and the Whigs, or Patriots, who insisted on the right
+of the colonies to manage their own affairs, and who furnished the armies
+that followed Washington in the War of Independence. Then, when America had
+won a place among the free nations of the world, her people were again
+divided on the question of the Constitution. On the one side were the
+Federalists, who aimed at union in the strictest sense; that is, at a
+strongly centralized government with immense powers over all its parts. On
+the other side were the Anti-Federalists, or Antis, who distrusted the
+monarchical tendency of every centralized government since time began, and
+who aimed to safeguard democracy by leaving the governing power as largely
+as possible in the hands of the several states. It is necessary to have
+these distinctions clearly in mind in reading Revolutionary literature, for
+a very large part of its prose and poetry reflects the antagonistic aims or
+ideals of two parties which stood in constant and most bitter opposition.
+
+In general, the literature of the Revolution is dominated by political and
+practical interests; it deals frankly with this present world, aims to find
+the best way through its difficulties, and so appears in marked contrast
+with the theological bent and pervasive "other worldliness" of Colonial
+writings.
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Standing between the two eras, and marking the
+transition from spiritual to practical interests, is Benjamin Franklin
+(1706-1790), a "self-made" man, who seems well content with his handiwork.
+During the latter part of his life and for a century after his death he was
+held up to young Americans as a striking example of practical wisdom and
+worldly success.
+
+[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]
+
+The narrative of Franklin's patriotic service belongs to political rather
+than to literary history; for though his pen was busy for almost seventy
+years, during which time he produced an immense amount of writing, his end
+was always very practical rather than aesthetic; that is, he aimed to
+instruct rather than to please his readers. Only one of his works is now
+widely known, the incomplete _Autobiography_, which is in the form of
+a letter telling a straightforward story of Franklin's early life, of the
+disadvantages under which he labored and the industry by which he overcame
+them. For some reason the book has become a "classic" in our literature,
+and young Americans are urged to read it; though they often show an
+independent taste by regarding it askance. As an example of what may be
+accomplished by perseverance, and as a stimulus to industry in the prosaic
+matter of getting a living, it doubtless has its value; but one will learn
+nothing of love or courtesy or reverence or loyalty to high ideals by
+reading it; neither will one find in its self-satisfied pages any
+conception of the moral dignity of humanity or of the infinite value of the
+human soul. The chief trouble with the _Autobiography_ and most other
+works of Franklin is that in them mind and matter, character and
+reputation, virtue and prosperity, are for the most part hopelessly
+confounded.
+
+On the other hand, there is a sincerity, a plain directness of style in the
+writings of Franklin which makes them pleasantly readable. Unlike some
+other apostles of "common sense" he is always courteous and of a friendly
+spirit; he seems to respect the reader as well as himself and, even in his
+argumentative or humorous passages, is almost invariably dignified in
+expression.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S SHOP]
+
+Other works of Franklin which were once popular are the maxims of his
+_Poor Richard's Almanac_, which appeared annually from 1732 to 1757.
+These maxims--such as "Light purse, heavy heart," "Diligence is the mother
+of good luck," "He who waits upon Fortune is never sure of a dinner," "God
+helps them who help themselves," "Honesty is the best policy," and many
+others in a similar vein--were widely copied in Colonial and European
+publications; and to this day they give to Americans abroad a reputation
+for "Yankee" shrewdness. The best of them were finally strung together in
+the form of a discourse (the alleged speech of an old man at an auction,
+where people were complaining of the taxes), which under various titles,
+such as "The Way to Wealth" and "Father Abraham's Speech," has been
+translated into every civilized language. Following is a brief selection
+from which one may judge the spirit of the entire address:
+
+    "It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people
+    one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service; but
+    idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on
+    diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes
+    faster than labor wears, while 'The used key is always bright,' as
+    Poor Richard says. 'But dost thou love life? Then do not squander
+    time, for that is the stuff life is made of,' as Poor Richard says.
+    How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting
+    that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be
+    sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says. If time be of
+    all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor Richard
+    says, the greatest prodigality; since, as he elsewhere tells us,
+    'Lost time is never found again,' and what we call time enough
+    always proves little enough. Let us, then, be up and be doing, and
+    doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less
+    perplexity. 'Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all
+    easy'; and, 'He that riseth late must trot all day and shall scarce
+    overtake his business at night'; while 'Laziness travels so slowly
+    that Poverty soon overtakes him.' 'Drive thy business, let not that
+    drive thee'; and, 'Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man
+    healthy, wealthy and wise,' as Poor Richard says."
+
+REVOLUTIONARY POETRY. The poetry of the Revolution, an abundant but weedy
+crop, was badly influenced by two factors: by the political strife between
+Patriots and Loyalists, and by the slavish imitation of Pope and other
+formalists who were then the models for nearly all versifiers on both sides
+of the Atlantic. The former influence appears in numerous ballads or
+narrative poems, which were as popular in the days of Washington as ever
+they were in the time of Robin Hood. Every important event of the
+Revolution was promptly celebrated in verse; but as the country was then
+sharply divided, almost every ballad had a Whig or a Tory twist to it. In
+consequence we must read two different collections, such as Moore's
+_Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution_ and Sargent's
+_Loyalist Poetry of the Revolution_, for supplementary views of the
+same great struggle.
+
+[Sidenote: THE HARTFORD WITS]
+
+The influence of Pope and his school is especially noticeable in the work
+of a group of men called the Hartford Wits, who at the beginning of our
+national life had the worthy ambition to create a national literature.
+Prominent among these so-called wits were Joel Barlow (1754-1812) and
+Timothy Dwight (1752-1817). In such ponderous works as Barlow's
+_Columbiad_ and Dwight's _Conquest of Canaan_, both written in
+mechanical rhymed couplets, we have a reflection not of the glories of
+American history, as the authors intended, but of two aspiring men who,
+without genius or humor, hoped by industry to produce poems that in size at
+least should be worthy of a country that stretched between two oceans.
+
+More gifted than either of his fellow "wits" was John Trumbull (1750-1831),
+who had the instinct of a poet but who was led aside by the strife of Whigs
+and Tories into the barren field of political satire. His best-known work
+is _M'Fingal_ (1775), a burlesque poem in the doggerel style of
+Butler's _Hudibras_, which ridiculed a Tory squire and described his
+barbarous punishment at the hands of a riotous mob of Whigs. It was the
+most widely quoted poem of the entire Revolutionary period, and is still
+interesting as an example of rough humor and as a reflection of the
+militant age in which it was produced.
+
+[Sidenote: FRENEAU]
+
+By far the best poet of the Revolution was Philip Freneau (1752-1832). In
+his early years he took Milton instead of Pope for his poetic master; then,
+as his independence increased, he sought the ancient source of all poetry
+in the feeling of the human heart in presence of nature or human nature. In
+such poems as "The House of Night," "Indian Burying Ground," "Wild
+Honeysuckle," "Eutaw Springs," "Ruins of a Country Inn" and a few others in
+which he speaks from his own heart, he anticipated the work of Wordsworth,
+Coleridge and other leaders of what is now commonly known as the romantic
+revival in English poetry.
+
+When the Revolution drew on apace Freneau abandoned his poetic dream and
+exercised a ferocious talent for satiric verse in lashing English generals,
+native Tories, royal proclamations and other matters far removed from
+poetry. In later years he wrote much prose also, and being a radical and
+outspoken democrat he became a thorn in the side of Washington and the
+Federal party. The bulk of his work, both prose and verse, is a red-peppery
+kind of commentary on the political history of the age in which he lived.
+
+[Illustration: PHILIP FRENEAU]
+
+ORATORS AND STATESMEN. For a full century, or from the Stamp Act to the
+Civil War, oratory was a potent influence in molding our national life; and
+unlike other influences, which grow by slow degrees, it sprang into
+vigorous life in the period of intense agitation that preceded the
+Revolution. Never before or since has the power of the spoken word been
+more manifest than during the years when questions of state were debated,
+not by kings or counselors behind closed doors, but by representative men
+in open assembly, by farmers and artisans in town halls fronting a village
+green, by scholarly ministers in the pulpits of churches whose white
+steeples with their golden vanes spoke silently, ceaselessly, of God and
+Freedom as the two motives which had inspired the fathers to brave the
+perils of a savage wilderness.
+
+Among the most famous addresses of the age were the speech of James Otis in
+the town hall at Boston (1761) and the "Liberty or Death" speech of Patrick
+Henry to the Virginia burgesses assembled in St. John's church in Richmond
+(1775). To compare these stirring appeals to patriotism with the
+parliamentary addresses of a brilliant contemporary, Edmund Burke, is to
+note a striking difference between English and American oratory of the
+period, the one charming the ear by its eloquence, the other rousing the
+will to action like a bugle call.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON]
+
+The statesmen of the Revolution, that glorious band whom Washington led,
+were also voluminous writers and masters of a clear, forceful style; but it
+would probably surprise them now to find themselves included in a history
+of literature. In truth, they hardly belong there; for they wrote not with
+any artistic impulse to create a work of beauty that should please their
+readers; their practical aim was to inculcate sound political principles or
+to move their readers to the right action. If we contrast them with certain
+of their British contemporaries, with Goldsmith and Burns for example, the
+truth of the above criticism will be evident. Nevertheless, these statesmen
+produced a body of so-called citizen literature, devoted to the principles
+and duties of free government, which has never been rivaled in its own
+field and which is quite as remarkable in its own way as the nature poetry
+of Bryant or the romances of Cooper or any other purely literary work
+produced in America.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON]
+
+HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON. These two statesmen, who became bitter antagonists
+during the struggle over the Constitution, may be selected as typical of
+all the rest. The story of their splendid services in the cause of liberty
+cannot be told here; such men belong to history rather than to literature;
+but we may at least note that they deserve more careful and unprejudiced
+study than rival political parties have thus far given them. Their work has
+a broad human interest which extends far beyond the borders of America,
+since they stand for two radically different conceptions of life, one
+aristocratic, the other democratic, which appear in every age and explain
+the political and social divisions among free peoples. Hamilton (the
+Federalist) denied the right and the ability of common men to govern
+themselves; he was the champion of aristocracy, of class privilege, of
+centralized power in the hands of the few whom he deemed worthy by birth or
+talent to govern a nation. The most significant trait of Jefferson (the
+Anti-Federalist) was his lifelong devotion to democracy. He believed in
+common men, in their ability to choose the right and their purpose to
+follow it, and he mightily opposed every tendency to aristocracy or class
+privilege in America. In the struggle over the Constitution he was fearful
+that the United States government would become monarchical if given too
+much authority, and aimed to safeguard democracy by leaving the governing
+power as largely as possible in the hands of the several states. To readers
+who are not politicians the most interesting thing concerning these two
+leaders is that Hamilton, the champion of aristocracy, was obscurely born
+and appeared here as a stranger to make his own way by his own efforts;
+while Jefferson, the uncompromising democrat, came from an excellent
+Virginia family and was familiar from his youth with aristocratic society.
+
+[Illustration: MONTICELLO, THE HOME OF JEFFERSON IN VIRGINIA
+The westward front]
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL WRITINGS]
+
+The best-known work of Hamilton (to which Madison and Jay contributed
+liberally) is _The Federalist_ (1787). This is a remarkable series of
+essays supporting the Constitution and illuminating the principles of union
+and federation. The one work of Jefferson which will make his name
+remembered to all ages is the _Declaration of Independence_. Besides
+this document, which is less a state paper than a prose chant of freedom,
+he wrote a multitude of works, a part of which are now collected in ten
+large volumes. These are known only to historians; but the casual reader
+will find many things of interest in Jefferson's _Letters_, in his
+_Autobiography_ and in his _Summary View of the Rights of
+America_ (1774). The last-named work gave Burke some information and
+inspiration for his famous oration "On Conciliation with America" and was a
+potent influence in uniting the colonies in their struggle for
+independence.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. In the miscellaneous works of the period may be found
+more pleasurable reading than in the portly volumes that contain the epics
+of the Hartford Wits or the arguments of Revolutionary statesmen. As a type
+of the forceful political pamphlet, a weapon widely used in England and
+America in the eighteenth century, there is nothing equal to Thomas Paine's
+_Common Sense_ (1776) and _The Crisis_ (1776-1783). The former
+hastened on the Declaration of Independence; the latter cheered the young
+Patriots in their struggle to make that Declaration valid in the sight of
+all nations. Jonathan Carver's _Travels through the Interior Parts of
+North America_ (1778) is an excellent outdoor book dealing with
+picturesque incidents of exploration in unknown wilds. The letters of
+Abigail Adams, Eliza Wilkinson and Dolly Madison portray quiet scenes of
+domestic life and something of the brave, helpful spirit of the mothers of
+the Revolution. Crèvecoeur's _Letters from an American Farmer_ (1782)
+draws charming, almost idyllic, pictures of American life during the
+Revolutionary period, and incidentally calls attention to the "melting
+pot," in which people of various races are here fused into a common stock.
+This mongrel, melting-pot idea (a crazy notion) is supposed to be modern,
+and has lately occasioned some flighty dramas and novels; but that it is as
+old as unrestricted immigration appears plainly in one of Crèvecoeur's
+fanciful sketches:
+
+    "What then is the American, this new man? He is either a European
+    or a descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood,
+    which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a
+    family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch,
+    whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have
+    now four wives of different nations. _He_ is an American who,
+    leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives
+    new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new
+    government he obeys, the new rank he holds. He becomes an American
+    by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater.
+
+    "Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men
+    whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the
+    world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along
+    with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour and industry
+    which began long since in the East; they will finish the great
+    circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here
+    they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population
+    which has ever appeared, and which hereafter will become distinct
+    by the power of the different climate they inhabit. The American is
+    a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore
+    entertain new ideas and form new opinions. From involuntary
+    idleness, servile dependence, penury and useless labour he has
+    passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample
+    subsistence. This is an American."
+
+Finally, there is the _Journal of John Woolman_ (1774), written by a
+gentle member of the society of Friends, which records a spiritual rather
+than a worldly experience, and which in contrast with the general tumult of
+Revolutionary literature is as a thrush song in the woods at twilight. It
+is a book for those who can appreciate its charm of simplicity and
+sincerity; but the few who know it are inclined to prize it far above the
+similar work of Franklin, and to unite with Channing in calling it "the
+sweetest and purest autobiography in the English language."
+
+BEGINNING OF AMERICAN FICTION. Those who imagine that American fiction
+began with Irving or Cooper or Poe, as is sometimes alleged, will be
+interested to learn of Susanna Rowson (daughter of an English father and an
+American mother), whose later stories, at least, belong to our literature.
+In 1790 she published _Charlotte Temple_, a romance that was immensely
+popular in its own day and that has proved far more enduring than any
+modern "best seller." During the next century the book ran through more
+than one hundred editions, the last appearing in 1905; and from first to
+last it has had probably more readers than any novel of Scott or Cooper or
+Dickens. The reception of this work indicates the widespread interest in
+fiction here in the late eighteenth century. Moreover, as there were then
+two types of fiction in England, the sentimentalism of Richardson and the
+realism of Fielding, so in America the gushing romances of Mrs. Rowson were
+opposed by the _Female Quixotism_ and other alleged realistic stories
+of Tabitha Tenney. Both schools of fiction had here their authors and their
+multitudinous readers while Irving and Cooper were learning their alphabet
+and Poe was yet unborn.
+
+[Illustration: CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN]
+
+Into the crude but hopeful beginnings of American fiction we shall not
+enter, for the simple reason that our earliest romances are hardly worth
+the time or patience of any but historical students. At the close of the
+Revolutionary period, however, appeared a writer whom we may call with some
+justice the first American novelist. This was Charles Brockden Brown
+(1771-1810), who is worthy to be remembered on three counts: he was the
+first in this country to follow literature as a profession; he chose
+American rather than foreign heroes, and pictured them against an American
+background; and finally, his use of horrible or grotesque incidents was
+copied by Poe, his Indian adventures suggested a fruitful theme to Cooper,
+and his minute analysis of motives and emotions was carried out in a more
+artistic way by Hawthorne. Hence we may find in Brown's neglected works
+something of the material and the method of our three greatest writers of
+fiction.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MOTIVE OF HORROR]
+
+The six romances of Brown are all dominated by the motive of horror, and
+are modeled on the so-called Gothic novel with its sentimental heroine, its
+diabolical villain, its ghastly mystery, its passages of prolonged agony.
+If we ask why an American writer should choose this bizarre type, the
+answer is that agonizing stories were precisely what readers then wanted,
+and Brown depended upon his stories for his daily bread. At the present
+time a different kind of fiction is momentarily popular; yet if we begin
+one of Brown's bloodcurdling romances, the chances are that we shall finish
+it, since it appeals to that strange interest in morbid themes which leads
+so many to read Poe or some other purveyor of horrors and mysteries.
+_Wieland_ (1798) is commonly regarded as the best of Brown's works,
+but is too grotesque and horrible to be recommended. _Edgar Huntley_
+(1801), with its Indian adventures depicted against a background of wild
+nature, is a little more wholesome, and may serve very well as a type of
+the romances that interested readers a century or more ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The Colonial period covers the century and a half from the
+    settlement of Jamestown, in 1607, to the Stamp Act of 1765. The
+    literature of this early age shows two general characteristics, one
+    historical, the other theological. The Colonists believed that they
+    were chosen by God to establish a new nation of freemen; hence
+    their tendency to write annals and to preserve every document that
+    might be of use to the future republic. Moreover, they were for the
+    most part religious men and women; they aimed to give their
+    children sound education and godly character; hence their
+    insistence on schools and universities (seven colleges were quickly
+    founded in the wilderness) for the training of leaders of the
+    people; hence also the religious note which sounds through nearly
+    all their writing.
+
+    In our review of the Colonial period we noted four classes of
+    writers: (i) The annalists and historians, of whom Bradford and
+    Byrd were selected as typical of two classes of writers who appear
+    constantly in our own and other literatures. (2) The poets, of whom
+    Wigglesworth, Anne Bradstreet and Godfrey are the most notable. (3)
+    A few characteristic books dealing with nature and the Indians,
+    which served readers of those days in the place of fiction. (4)
+    Theological writers, among whom Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards
+    are the most conspicuous.
+
+    The Revolutionary period extends from 1765 to the close of the
+    century. A large part of the literature of this period deals, in
+    the early years, with the strife of Loyalists and Patriots or, in
+    the later years, with the word wars of Federalists and
+    Anti-Federalists. These are the political parties into which
+    America was divided by the Revolution and by the question of the
+    Constitution. In general, Revolutionary writing has a practical
+    bent in marked contrast with the theological spirit of Colonial
+    writing.
+
+    Our study of Revolutionary literature includes: (1) Benjamin
+    Franklin who marks the transition from Colonial to Revolutionary
+    times, from spiritual to worldly interests. (2) Revolutionary
+    poetry, with its numerous ballads and political satires; the effort
+    of the Hartford Wits to establish a national literature; and the
+    work of Philip Freneau, who was a romantic poet at heart, but who
+    was led aside by the strife of the age into political and satiric
+    writing. (3) Orators and statesmen, of whom Otis and Henry,
+    Hamilton and Jefferson were selected as typical. (4) Miscellaneous
+    writers such as Paine, Crevecoeur, Carver, Abigail Adams and John
+    Woolman who reflected the life of the times from various angles.
+    (5) Charles Brockden Brown, and the beginning of American fiction.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections in Cairns, Selections
+    from Early American Writers; Trent and Wells, Colonial Prose and
+    Poetry; Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature, and
+    other anthologies (see "Selections" in the General Bibliography). A
+    convenient volume containing a few selections from every important
+    American author is Calhoun and MacAlarney, Readings from American
+    Literature (Ginn and Company).
+
+    Bradford's Of Plimoth Plantation and John Smith's Settlement of
+    Virginia, in Maynard's Historical Readings. Chronicles of the
+    Pilgrims, in Everyman's Library. Various records of early American
+    history and literature, in Old South Leaflets (Old South Meeting
+    House, Boston). Franklin's Autobiography, in Standard English
+    Classics, Holt's English Readings and several other school editions
+    (see "Texts" in General Bibliography). Poor Richard's Almanac, in
+    Riverside Literature. The Federalist and Letters from an American
+    Farmer, in Everyman's Library. Woolman's Journal, in Macmillan's
+    Pocket Classics.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. For reference works covering the entire field of
+    American history and literature see the General Bibliography. The
+    following works deal with the Colonial and Revolutionary periods.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Fisher, The Colonial Era; Thwaite, The Colonies;
+    Fiske, Old Virginia and her Neighbors, Beginnings of New England,
+    Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America.
+
+    Winsor, Handbook of the Revolution; Sloane, French War and the
+    Revolution; Fisher, Struggle for American Independence; Fiske, A
+    Critical Period of American History; Hart, Formation of the Union.
+
+    Studies of social life in Earle, Home Life in Colonial Days;
+    Fisher, Men, Women and Manners of Colonial Times; Crawford,
+    Romantic Days in the Early Republic.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. Tyler, History of American Literature,
+    1607-1765, and Literary History of the Revolution; Sears, American
+    Literature of the Colonial and National Periods; Marble, Heralds of
+    American Literature (a few Revolutionary authors); Patterson,
+    Spirit of the American Revolution as Revealed in the Poetry of the
+    Period; Loshe, The Early American Novel (includes a study of
+    Charles Brockden Brown).
+
+    Life of Franklin, by Bigelow, 3 vols., by Parton, 2 vols., by
+    McMaster, by Morse, etc. Lives of other Colonial and Revolutionary
+    worthies in American Statesmen, Makers of America, Cyclopedia of
+    American Biography, etc. (see "Biography" in General Bibliography).
+
+    _FICTION_. A few historical novels dealing with Colonial times
+    are: Cooper, Satanstoe, The Red Rover; Kennedy, Rob of the Bowl;
+    Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter; Motley, Merry Mount; Cooke, The
+    Virginia Comedians; Carruthers, Cavaliers of Virginia; Austin,
+    Standish of Standish; Barr, The Black Shilling; Mary Johnston, To
+    Have and to Hold.
+
+    Novels with a Revolutionary setting are: Cooper, The Spy, The
+    Pilot; Simms, The Partisan, Katherine Walton; Kennedy, Horseshoe
+    Robinson; Winthrop, Edwin Brothertoft; Eggleston, A Carolina
+    Cavalier; Maurice Thompson, Alice of Old Vincennes; Mitchell, Hugh
+    Wynne; Churchill, Richard Carvel; Gertrude Atherton, The Conqueror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+LITERATURE OF THE NEW NATION (1800-1840)
+
+
+  Behind him lay the gray Azores,
+    Behind, the gates of Hercules;
+  Before him not the ghost of shores,
+    Before him only shoreless seas.
+  The good mate said, "Now must we pray,
+    For lo! the very stars are gone:
+  Brave Admiral, speak; what shall I say?"
+    "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"
+
+                        Joaquin Miller, "Columbus"
+
+    HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. It was in the early part of the nineteenth
+    century that America began to be counted among the great nations of
+    the world, and it was precisely at that time that she produced her
+    first national literature, a literature so broadly human that it
+    appealed not only to the whole country but to readers beyond the
+    sea. Irving, Cooper and Bryant are commonly regarded as the first
+    notable New World writers; and we may better understand them and
+    their enthusiastic young contemporaries if we remember that they
+    "grew up with the country"; that they reflected life at a time when
+    America, having won her independence and emerged from a long period
+    of doubt and struggle, was taking her first confident steps in the
+    sun and becoming splendidly conscious of her destiny as a leader
+    among the world's free people.
+
+    [Sidenote: NATIONAL ENTHUSIASM]
+
+    Indeed, there was good reason for confidence in those early days;
+    for never had a young nation looked forth upon a more heartening
+    prospect. The primitive hamlets of Colonial days had been replaced
+    by a multitude of substantial towns, the somber wilderness by a
+    prosperous farming country. The power of a thousand rivers was
+    turning the wheels of as many mills or factories, and to the
+    natural wealth of America was added the increase of a mighty
+    commerce with other nations. By the Louisiana Purchase and the
+    acquisition of Florida her territory was vastly increased, and
+    still her sturdy pioneers were pressing eagerly into more spacious
+    lands beyond the Mississippi. Best of all, this enlarging nation,
+    once a number of scattered colonies holding each to its own course,
+    was now the Union; her people were as one in their patriotism,
+    their loyalty, their intense conviction that the brave New World
+    experiment in free government, once scoffed at as an idle dream,
+    was destined to a glorious future. American democracy was not
+    merely a success; it was an amazing triumph. Moreover, this
+    democracy, supposed to be the weakest form of government, had
+    already proved its power; it had sent its navy abroad to humble the
+    insolent Barbary States, and had measured the temper of its soul
+    and the strength of its arm in the second war with Great Britain.
+
+    In fine, the New World had brought forth a hopeful young giant of a
+    nation; and its hopefulness was reflected, with more of zeal than
+    of art, in the prose and poetry of its literary men. Just as the
+    enthusiastic Elizabethan spirit reflected itself in lyric or drama
+    after the defeat of the Armada, so the American spirit seemed to
+    exult in the romances of Cooper and Simms; in the verse of
+    Pinckney, Halleck, Drake and Percival; in a multitude of national
+    songs, such as "The American Flag," Warren's Address, "Home Sweet
+    Home" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." We would not venture to liken
+    one set of writings to the other, for we should be on the weak side
+    of an Elizabethan comparison; we simply note that a great national
+    enthusiasm was largely responsible for the sudden appearance of a
+    new literature in the one land as in the other.
+
+LITERARY ENVIRONMENT. In the works of four writers, Irving, Cooper, Bryant
+and Poe, we have the best that the early national period produced; but we
+shall not appreciate these writers until we see them, like pines in a wood,
+lifting their heads over numerous companions, all drawing their nourishment
+from the same soil and air. The growth of towns and cities in America had
+led to a rapid increase of newspapers, magazines and annuals (collections
+of contemporary prose and verse), which called with increasing emphasis for
+poems, stories, essays, light or "polite" literature. The rapid growth of
+the nation set men to singing the old psalm of _Sursum Corda_, and
+every man and woman who felt the impulse added his story or his verse to
+the national chorus. When the first attempt at a summary of American
+literature was made in 1837, the author, Royal Robbins, found more than two
+thousand living writers demanding his attention.
+
+[Sidenote: KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL]
+
+It was due, one must think, to geography rather than to any spirit of
+sectionalism, to difficulty of travel between the larger towns rather than
+to any difference of aim or motive, that the writers of this period
+associated themselves in a number of so-called schools or literary centers.
+New York, which now offered a better field for literary work than Boston or
+Philadelphia, had its important group of writers called the Knickerbocker
+School, which included Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake, both
+poets and cheerful satirists of New World society; the versatile Nathaniel
+Parker Willis, writer of twenty volumes of poems, essays, stories and
+sketches of travel; and James Kirke Paulding, also a voluminous writer, who
+worked with Irving in the _Salmagundi_ essays and whose historical
+novels, such as _The Dutchman's Fireside_ (1831), are still mildly
+interesting. [Footnote: Irving, Cooper and Bryant are sometimes classed
+among the Knickerbockers; but the work of these major writers is national
+rather than local or sectional, and will be studied later in detail.]
+
+[Sidenote: SOUTHERN WRITERS]
+
+In the South was another group of young writers, quite as able and
+enthusiastic as their northern contemporaries. Among these we note
+especially William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), whose _Yemassee_,
+_Border Beagles_, _Katherine Walton_ and many other historical
+romances of Colonial and Revolutionary days were of more than passing
+interest. He was a high-minded and most industrious writer, who produced
+over forty volumes of poems, essays, biographies, histories and tales; but
+he is now remembered chiefly by his novels, which won him the title of "the
+Cooper of the South." At least one of his historical romances should be
+read, partly for its own sake and partly for a comparison with Cooper's
+work in the same field. Thus _The Yemassee_ (1835), dealing with
+frontier life and Indian warfare, may be read in connection with Cooper's
+_The Deerslayer_ (1841), which has the same general theme; or _The
+Partisan_ (1835), dealing with the bitter struggle of southern Whigs and
+Tories during the Revolution, may well be compared with Cooper's _The
+Spy_ (1821), which depicts the same struggle in a northern environment.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS]
+
+Other notable writers of the South during this period were Richard Henry
+Wilde the poet, now remembered by the song (from an unfinished opera)
+beginning, "My life is like the summer rose"; William Wirt, the essayist
+and biographer; and John Pendleton Kennedy, writer of essays and stories
+which contain many charming pictures of social life in Virginia and
+Maryland in the days "before the war."
+
+[Sidenote: NEW ENGLAND AND THE WEST]
+
+In New England was still another group, who fortunately avoided the name of
+any school. Sparks, Prescott, Ticknor, Story, Dana,--the very names
+indicate how true was Boston to her old scholarly traditions. Meanwhile
+Connecticut had its popular poet in James Gates Percival; Maine had its
+versatile John Neal; and all the northern states were reading the "goody
+goody" books of Peter Parley (Samuel Goodrich), the somewhat Byronic
+_Zophiel_ and other emotional poems of Maria Gowen Brooks (whom
+Southey called "Maria del Occidente"), and the historical romances of
+Catherine Sedgwick and Sarah Morton.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY]
+
+The West also (everything beyond the Alleghenies was then the West) made
+its voice heard in the new literature. Timothy Flint wrote a very
+interesting _Journal_ from his missionary experiences, and a highly
+colored romance from his expansive imagination; and James Hall drew some
+vigorous and sympathetic pictures of frontier life in _Letters from the
+West_, _Tales of the Border_ and _Wilderness and Warpath_.
+
+There are many other writers who won recognition before 1840, but those we
+have named are more than enough; for each name is an invitation, and
+invitations when numerous are simply bothersome. For example, the name of
+Catherine Sedgwick invites us to read _Hope Leslie_ and _The
+Linwoods_, both excellent in their day, and still interesting as
+examples of the novels that won fame less than a century ago; or the name
+of Kennedy leads us to _Swallow Barn_ (alluring title!) with its
+bright pictures of Virginia life, and to _Horseshoe Robinson_, a crude
+but stirring tale of Revolutionary heroism. The point in naming these minor
+writers, once as popular as any present-day favorite, is simply this: that
+the major authors, whom we ordinarily study as typical of the age, were not
+isolated figures but part of a great romantic movement in literature; that
+they were influenced on the one hand by European letters, and on the other
+by a host of native writers who were all intent on reflecting the expanding
+life of America in the early part of the nineteenth century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859)
+
+A very pleasant writer is Irving, a man of romantic and somewhat
+sentimental disposition, but sound of motive, careful of workmanship,
+invincibly cheerful of spirit. The genial quality of his work may be due to
+the fact that from joyous boyhood to serene old age he did very much as he
+pleased, that he lived in what seemed to him an excellent world and wrote
+with no other purpose than to make it happy. In summarizing his career an
+admirer of Irving is reminded of what the Book of Proverbs says of wisdom:
+"Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
+
+[Sidenote: THE MAN AND HIS TIMES]
+
+The historian sees another side of Irving's work. Should it be asked, "What
+did he do that had not been as well or better done before him?" the first
+answer is that the importance of any man's work must be measured by the age
+in which he did it. A schoolboy now knows more about electricity than ever
+Franklin learned; but that does not detract from our wonder at Franklin's
+kite. So the work of Irving seems impressive when viewed against the gray
+literary dawn of a century ago. At that time America had done a mighty work
+for the world politically, but had added little of value to the world's
+literature. She read and treasured the best books; but she made no
+contribution to their number, and her literary impotence galled her
+sensitive spirit. As if to make up for her failure, the writers of the
+Knickerbocker, Charleston and other "schools" praised each other's work
+extravagantly; but no responsive echo came from overseas, where England's
+terse criticism of our literary effort was expressed in the scornful
+question, "Who reads an American book?"
+
+Irving answered that question effectively when his _Sketch Book_,
+_Bracebridge Hall_ and _Tales of a Traveller_ found a multitude
+of delighted readers on both sides of the Atlantic. His graceful style was
+hardly rivaled by any other writer of the period; and England, at a time
+when Scott and Byron were playing heroic parts, welcomed him heartily to a
+place on the literary stage. Thus he united the English and the American
+reader in a common interest and, as it were, charmed away the sneer from
+one face, the resentment from the other. He has been called "father of our
+American letters" for two reasons: because he was the first to win a
+lasting literary reputation at home and abroad, and because of the
+formative influence which his graceful style and artistic purpose have ever
+since exerted upon our prose writers.
+
+[Illustration: WASHINGTON IRVING]
+
+    LIFE. Two personal characteristics appear constantly in Irving's
+    work: the first, that he was always a dreamer, a romance seeker;
+    the second, that he was inclined to close his eyes to the heroic
+    present and open them wide to the glories, real or imaginary, of
+    the remote past. Though he lived in an American city in a day of
+    mighty changes and discoveries, he was far less interested in the
+    modern New York than in the ancient New Amsterdam; and though he
+    was in Europe at the time of the Napoleonic wars, he apparently saw
+    nothing of them, being then wholly absorbed in the battles of the
+    long-vanished Moors. Only once, in his books of western
+    exploration, did he seriously touch the vigorous life of his own
+    times; and critics regard these books as the least important of all
+    his works.
+
+    [Sidenote: BOYHOOD]
+
+    He was born in New York (1783) when the present colossal city was a
+    provincial town that retained many of its quaint Dutch
+    characteristics. Over all the straggling town, from the sunny
+    Battery with its white-winged ships to the Harlem woods where was
+    good squirrel shooting, Irving rambled at ease on many a day when
+    the neighbors said he ought to have been at his books. He was the
+    youngest of the family; his constitution was not rugged, and his
+    gentle mother was indulgent. She would smile when he told of
+    reading a smuggled copy of the _Arabian Nights_ in school,
+    instead of his geography; she was silent when he slipped away from
+    family prayers to climb out of his bedroom window and go to the
+    theater, while his sterner father thought of him as sound asleep in
+    his bed.
+
+    Little harm came from these escapades, for Irving was a merry lad
+    with no meanness in him; but his schooling was sadly neglected. His
+    brothers had graduated from Columbia; but on the plea of delicate
+    health he abandoned the idea of college, with a sigh in which there
+    was perhaps as much satisfaction as regret. At sixteen he entered a
+    law office, where he gave less time to studying Blackstone than to
+    reading novels and writing skits for the newspapers.
+
+    [Sidenote: FINDING HIMSELF]
+
+    This happy indifference to work and learning, this disposition to
+    linger on the sunny side of the street, went with Irving through
+    life. Experimentally he joined his brothers, who were in the
+    hardware trade; but when he seemed to be in danger of consumption
+    they sent him to Europe, where he enjoyed himself greatly, and
+    whence he returned perfectly well. Next he was sent on business to
+    England; and there, when the Irving Brothers failed, their business
+    having been ruined by the War of 1812, Irving manfully resolved to
+    be no longer a burden on others and turned to literature for his
+    support. With characteristic love of doing what he liked he refused
+    a good editorial position (which Walter Scott obtained for him) and
+    busied himself with his _Sketch Book_ (1820). This met with a
+    generous welcome in England and America, and it was followed by the
+    equally popular _Bracebridge Hall_ and _Tales of a
+    Traveller_. By these three works Irving was assured not only of
+    literary fame but, what was to him of more consequence, of his
+    ability to earn his living.
+
+    [Sidenote: LIFE ABROAD]
+
+    Next we find him in Spain, whither he went with the purpose of
+    translating Navarrete's _Voyages of Columbus_, a Spanish book,
+    in which he saw a chance of profit from his countrymen's interest
+    in the man who discovered America. Instead of translating another
+    man's work, however, he wrote his own _Life and Times of
+    Columbus_ (1828). The financial success of this book (which is
+    still our most popular biography of the great explorer) enabled
+    Irving to live comfortably in Spain, where he read diligently and
+    accumulated the material for his later works on Spanish history.
+
+    [Illustration: "SUNNYSIDE," HOME OF IRVING]
+
+    By this time Irving's growing literary fame had attracted the
+    notice of American politicians, who rewarded him with an
+    appointment as secretary of the legation at London. This pleasant
+    office he held for two years, but was less interested in it than in
+    the reception which English men of letters generously offered him.
+    Then he apparently grew homesick, after an absence of seventeen
+    years, and returned to his native land, where he was received with
+    the honor due to a man who had silenced the galling question, "Who
+    reads an American book?"
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS MELLOW AUTUMN]
+
+    The rest of Irving's long life was a continued triumph. Amazed at
+    first, and then a little stunned by the growth, the hurry, the
+    onward surge of his country, he settled back into the restful past,
+    and was heard with the more pleasure by his countrymen because he
+    seemed to speak to them from a vanished age. Once, inspired by the
+    tide of life weeping into the West, he journeyed beyond the
+    Mississippi and found material for his pioneering books; but an
+    active life was far from his taste, and presently he built his
+    house "Sunnyside" (appropriate name) at Tarrytown on the Hudson.
+    There he spent the remainder of his days, with the exception of
+    four years in which he served the nation as ambassador to Spain.
+    This honor, urged upon him by Webster and President Tyler, was
+    accepted with characteristic modesty not as a personal reward but
+    as a tribute which America had been wont to offer to the profession
+    of letters.
+
+CHIEF WORKS OF IRVING. A good way to form a general impression of Irving's
+works is to arrange them chronologically in five main groups. The first,
+consisting of the _Salmagundi_ essays, the _Knickerbocker
+History_ and a few other trifles, we may call the Oldstyle group, after
+the pseudonym assumed by the author. [Footnote: Ever since Revolutionary
+days it had been the fashion for young American writers to use an assumed
+name. Irving appeared at different times as "Jonathan Oldstyle," "Diedrich
+Knickerbocker" and "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent."] The second or Sketch-Book
+group includes the _Sketch Book_, _Bracebridge Hall_ and _Tales
+of a Traveller_. The third or Alhambra group, devoted to Spanish and
+Moorish themes, includes _The Conquest of Granada_, _Spanish Voyages
+of Discovery_, _The Alhambra_ and certain similar works of a later
+period, such as _Moorish Chronicles_ and _Legends of the Conquest of
+Spain_. The fourth or Western group contains _A Tour on the
+Prairies_, _Astoria_ and _Adventures of Captain Bonneville_.
+The fifth or Sunnyside group is made up chiefly of biographies, _Oliver
+Goldsmith_, _Mahomet and his Successors_ and _The Life of
+Washington_. Besides these are some essays and stories assembled under
+the titles of _Spanish Papers_ and _Wolfert's Roost_.
+
+The _Salmagundi_ papers and others of the Oldstyle group would have
+been forgotten long ago if anybody else had written them. In other words,
+our interest in them is due not to their intrinsic value (for they are all
+"small potatoes") but to the fact that their author became a famous
+literary man. Most candid readers would probably apply this criticism also
+to the _Knickerbocker History_, had not that grotesque joke won an
+undeserved reputation as a work of humor.
+
+[Sidenote: KNICKERBOCKER HISTORY]
+
+The story of the Knickerbocker fabrication illustrates the happy-go-lucky
+method of all Irving's earlier work. He had tired of his _Salmagundi_
+fooling and was looking for variety when his eyes lighted on Dr. Mitchill's
+_Picture of New York_, a grandiloquent work written by a prominent
+member of the Historical Society. In a light-headed moment Irving and his
+brother Peter resolved to burlesque this history and, in the approved
+fashion of that day, to begin with the foundation of the world. Then Peter
+went to Europe on more important business, and Irving went on with his joke
+alone. He professed to have discovered the notes of a learned Dutch
+antiquarian who had recently disappeared, leaving a mass of manuscript and
+an unpaid board-bill behind him. After advertising in the newspapers for
+the missing man, Irving served notice on the public that the profound value
+of Knickerbocker's papers justified their publication, and that the
+proceeds of the book would be devoted to paying the board-bill. Then
+appeared, in time to satisfy the aroused curiosity of the Historical
+Society, to whom the book was solemnly dedicated, the _History of New
+York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by
+Diedrich Knickerbocker_ (1809).
+
+This literary hoax made an instant sensation; it was denounced for its
+scandalous irreverence by the members of the Historical Society, especially
+by those who had Dutch ancestors, but was received with roars of laughter
+by the rest of the population. Those who read it now (from curiosity, for
+its merriment has long since departed, leaving it dull as any
+thrice-repeated joke) are advised to skip the first two books, which are
+very tedious fooling, and to be content with an abridged version of the
+stories of Wouter van Twiller, William the Testy and Peter the Headstrong.
+These are the names of real Dutch governors of New Amsterdam, and the dates
+given are exact dates; but there history ends and burlesque begins. The
+combination of fact and nonsense and the strain of gravity in which
+absurdities are related have led some critics to place the _Knickerbocker
+History_ first in time of the notable works of so-called American humor.
+That is doubtless a fair classification; but other critics assert that real
+humor is as purely human as a smile or a tear, and has therefore no
+national or racial limitations.
+
+[Sidenote: SKETCH BOOK]
+
+The _Sketch Book_, chief of the second group of writings, is perhaps
+the best single work that Irving produced. We shall read it with better
+understanding if we remember that it was the work of a young man who,
+having always done as he pleased, proceeds now to write of whatever
+pleasant matter is close at hand. Being in England at the time, he
+naturally finds most of his material there; and being youthful, romantic
+and sentimental, he colors everything with the hue of his own disposition.
+He begins by chatting of the journey and of the wide sea that separates him
+from home. He records his impressions of the beautiful English country,
+tells what he saw or felt during his visit to Stratford on Avon, and what
+he dreamed in Westminster Abbey, a place hallowed by centuries of worship
+and humanized by the presence of the great dead. He sheds a ready tear over
+a rural funeral, and tries to make us cry over the sorrows of a poor widow;
+then to relieve our feelings he pokes a bit of fun at John Bull. Something
+calls his attention to Isaac Walton, and he writes a Waltonian kind of
+sketch about a fisherman. In one chapter he comments on contemporary
+literature; then, as if not quite satisfied with what authors are doing, he
+lays aside his record of present impressions, goes back in thought to his
+home by the Hudson, and produces two stories of such humor, charm and
+originality that they make the rest of the book appear almost commonplace,
+as the careless sketches of a painter are forgotten in presence of his
+inspired masterpiece.
+
+These two stories, the most pleasing that Irving ever wrote, are "Rip van
+Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." They should be read if one reads
+nothing else of the author's twenty volumes.
+
+[Illustration: RIP VAN WINKLE]
+
+[Sidenote: SPANISH THEMES]
+
+The works on Spanish themes appeal in different ways to different readers.
+One who knows his history will complain (and justly) that Irving is
+superficial, that he is concerned with picturesque rather than with
+important incidents; but one who likes the romance of history, and who
+reflects that romance plays an important part in the life of any people,
+will find the legends and chronicles of this Spanish group as interesting
+as fiction. We should remember, moreover, that in Irving's day the romance
+of old Spain, familiar enough to European readers, was to most Americans
+still fresh and wondrous. In emphasizing the romantic or picturesque side
+of his subject he not only pleased his readers but broadened their horizon;
+he also influenced a whole generation of historians who, in contrast with
+the scientific or prosaic historians of to-day, did not hesitate to add the
+element of human interest to their narratives.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ALHAMBRA]
+
+The most widely read of all the works of the Spanish group is _The
+Alhambra_ (1832). This is, on the surface, a collection of
+semihistorical essays and tales clustering around the ancient palace, in
+Granada, which was the last stronghold of the Moors in Europe; in reality
+it is a record of the impressions and dreams of a man who, finding himself
+on historic ground, gives free rein to his imagination. At times, indeed,
+he seems to have his eye on his American readers, who were then in a
+romantic mood, rather than on the place or people he was describing. The
+book delighted its first critics, who called it "the Spanish Sketch Book";
+but though pleasant enough as a romantic dream of history, it hardly
+compares in originality with its famous predecessor.
+
+[Sidenote: WESTERN STORIES]
+
+Except to those who like a brave tale of exploration, and who happily have
+no academic interest in style, Irving's western books are of little
+consequence. In fact, they are often omitted from the list of his important
+works, though they have more adventurous interest than all the others
+combined. _A Tour on the Prairies_, which records a journey beyond the
+Mississippi in the days when buffalo were the explorers' mainstay, is the
+best written of the pioneer books; but the _Adventures of Captain
+Bonneville_, a story of wandering up and down the great West with plenty
+of adventures among Indians and "free trappers," furnishes the most
+excitement. Unfortunately this journal, which vies in interest with
+Parkman's _Oregon Trail_, cannot be credited to Irving, though it
+bears his name on the title-page. [Footnote: The _Adventures_ is
+chiefly the work of a Frenchman, a daring free-rover, who probably tried in
+vain to get his work published. Irving bought the work for a thousand
+dollars, revised it slightly, gave it his name and sold it for seven or
+eight times what he paid for it. In _Astoria_, the third book of the
+western group, he sold his services to write up the records of the fur
+house established by John Jacob Astor, and made a poor job of it.]
+
+
+[Illustration: OLD DUTCH CHURCH, SLEEPY HOLLOW
+Mentioned by Irving in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"]
+
+[Sidenote: BIOGRAPHIES]
+
+Of the three biographies _Oliver Goldsmith_ (1849) is the best,
+probably because Irving had more sympathy and affinity with the author of
+"The Deserted Village" than with Mahomet or Washington. The _Life of
+Washington_ (1855-1859) was plainly too large an undertaking for
+Irving's limited powers; but here again we must judge the work by the
+standards of its own age and admit that it is vastly better than the
+popular but fictitious biographies of Washington written by Weems and other
+romancers. Even in Irving's day Washington was still regarded as a demigod;
+his name was always printed in capitals; and the rash novelist who dared to
+bring him into a story (as Cooper did in _The Spy_) was denounced for
+his lack of reverence. In consequence of this false attitude practically
+all Washington's biographers (with the exception of the judicious Marshall)
+depicted him as a ponderously dignified creature, stilted, unlovely,
+unhuman, who must always appear with a halo around his head. Irving was too
+much influenced by this absurd fashion and by his lack of scholarship to
+make a trustworthy book; but he gave at least a touch of naturalness and
+humanity to our first president, and set a new biographical standard by
+attempting to write as an honest historian rather than as a mere
+hero-worshiper.
+
+AN APPRECIATION OF IRVING. The three volumes of the Sketch-Book group and
+the romantic _Alhambra_ furnish an excellent measure of Irving's
+literary talent. At first glance these books appear rather superficial,
+dealing with pleasant matters of no consequence; but on second thought
+pleasant matters are always of consequence, and Irving invariably displays
+two qualities, humor and sentiment, in which humanity is forever
+interested. His humor, at first crude and sometimes in doubtful taste (as
+in his _Knickerbocker History_) grew more refined, more winning in his
+later works, until a thoughtful critic might welcome it, with its kindness,
+its culture, its smile in which is no cynicism and no bitterness, as a true
+example of "American" humor,--if indeed such a specialized product ever
+existed. His sentiment was for the most part tender, sincere and manly.
+Though it now seems somewhat exaggerated and at times dangerously near to
+sentimentality, that may not be altogether a fault; for the same criticism
+applies to Longfellow, Dickens and, indeed, to most other writers who have
+won an immense audience by frankly emphasizing, or even exaggerating, the
+honest sentiments that plain men and women have always cherished both in
+life and in literature.
+
+[Sidenote: STYLE OF IRVING]
+
+The style of Irving, with its suggestion of Goldsmith and Addison (who were
+his first masters), is deserving of more unstinted praise. A "charming"
+style we call it; and the word, though indefinite, is expressive of the
+satisfaction which Irving's manner affords his readers. One who seeks the
+source of his charm may find it in this, that he cherished a high opinion
+of humanity, and that the friendliness, the sense of comradeship, which he
+felt for his fellow men was reflected in his writing; unconsciously at
+first, perhaps, and then deliberately, by practice and cultivation. In
+consequence, we do not read Irving critically but sympathetically; for
+readers are like children, or animals, in that they are instinctively drawn
+to an author who trusts and understands them.
+
+Thackeray, who gave cordial welcome to Irving, and who called him "the
+first ambassador whom the New World of letters sent to the Old," was deeply
+impressed by the fact not that the young American had an excellent prose
+style but that "his gate was forever swinging to visitors." That is an
+illuminating criticism; for we can understand the feeling of the men and
+women of a century ago who, having read the _Sketch Book_, were eager
+to meet the man who had given them pleasure by writing it. In brief, though
+Irving wrote nothing of great import, though he entered not into the stress
+of life or scaled its heights or sounded its deeps, we still read him for
+the sufficient but uncritical reason that we like him.
+
+In this respect, of winning our personal allegiance, Irving stands in
+marked contrast to his greatest American contemporary, Cooper. We read the
+one because we are attracted to the man, the other for the tale he has to
+tell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878)
+
+Bryant has been called "the father of American song," and the year 1821,
+when his first volume appeared, is recorded as the natal year of American
+poetry. Many earlier singers had won local reputations, but he was the
+first who was honored in all the states and who attained by his poetry
+alone a dominating place in American letters.
+
+That was long ago; and times have changed, and poets with them. In any
+collection of recent American verse one may find poems more imaginative or
+more finely wrought than any that Bryant produced; but these later singers
+stand in a company and contribute to an already large collection, while
+Bryant stood alone and made a brave beginning of poetry that we may
+honestly call native and national. Before he won recognition by his
+independent work the best that our American singers thought they could do
+was to copy some English original; but after 1821 they dared to be
+themselves in poetry, as they had ever been in politics. They had the
+successful Bryant for a model, and the young Longfellow was one of his
+pupils. Moreover, he stands the hard test of time, and seems to have no
+successor. He is still our Puritan poet,--a little severe, perhaps, but
+American to the core,--who reflects better than any other the rugged spirit
+of that puritanism which had so profoundly influenced our country during
+the early, formative days of the republic.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT]
+
+    LIFE. In the boyhood of Bryant we shall find the inspiration for
+    all his enduring work. He was of Pilgrim stock, and was born (1794)
+    in the little village of Cummington, in western Massachusetts.
+    There, with the Berkshire Hills and the ancient forest forever in
+    sight, he grew to man's stature, working on the farm or attending
+    the district school by day, and reading before the open fire at
+    night. His father was a physician, a scholarly man who directed his
+    son's reading. His mother was a Puritan, one of those quiet,
+    inspiring women who do their work cheerfully, as by God's grace,
+    and who invariably add some sign or patent of nobility to their
+    sons and daughters. There was also in the home a Puritan
+    grandfather who led the family devotions every evening, and whose
+    prayers with their rich phraseology of psalm or prophecy were
+    "poems from beginning to end." So said Bryant, who attributed to
+    these prayers his earliest impulse to write poetry.
+
+
+    Between these two influences, nature without and puritanism within,
+    the poet grew up; in their shadow he lived and died; little else of
+    consequence is reflected in the poems that are his best memorial.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE CITIZEN]
+
+    The visible life of Bryant lies almost entirely outside the realm
+    of poesie. He as fitted for Williams by country ministers, as was
+    customary in that day; but poverty compelled him to leave college
+    after two brief terms. Then he studied law, and for nine or ten
+    years practiced his profession doggedly, unwillingly, with many a
+    protest at the chicanery he was forced to witness even in the
+    sacred courts of justice. Grown weary of it at last, he went to New
+    York, found work in a newspaper office, and after a few years'
+    apprenticeship became editor of _The Evening Post_, a position
+    which he held for more than half a century. His worldly affairs
+    prospered; he became a "leading citizen" of New York, prominent in
+    the social and literary affairs of a great city; he varied the
+    routine of editorship by trips abroad, by literary or patriotic
+    addresses, by cultivating a country estate at Long Island. In his
+    later years, as a literary celebrity, he loaned his name rather too
+    freely to popular histories, anthologies and gift books, which
+    better serve their catchpenny purpose if some famous man can be
+    induced to add "tone" to the rubbish.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE POET]
+
+    And Bryant's poetry? Ah, that was a thing forever apart from his
+    daily life, an almost sacred thing, to be cherished in moments
+    when, his day's work done, he was free to follow his spirit and
+    give outlet to the feelings which, as a strong man and a Puritan,
+    he was wont to restrain. He had begun to write poetry in childhood,
+    when his father had taught him the value of brevity or compression
+    and "the difference between poetic enthusiasm and fustian."
+    Therefore he wrote slowly, carefully, and allowed ample time for
+    change of thought or diction. So his early "Thanatopsis" was hidden
+    away for years till his father found and published it, and made
+    Bryant famous in a day. All this at a time when English critics
+    were exalting "sudden inspiration," "sustained effort" and poems
+    "done at one sitting."
+
+    Once Bryant had found himself (and the blank verse and simple
+    four-line stanza which suited his talent) he seldom changed, and he
+    never improved. His first little volume, _Poems_ (1821),
+    contains some of his best work. In the next fifty years he added to
+    the size but not to the quality of that volume; and there is little
+    to indicate in such poems as "Thanatopsis" and "The Flood of Years"
+    that the one was written by a boy of seventeen and the other by a
+    sage of eighty. His love of poetry as a thing apart from life is
+    indicated by the fact that in old age, to forget the grief
+    occasioned by the death of his wife, he gave the greater part of
+    six years to a metrical translation of the Greek poet Homer. That
+    he never became a great poet or even fulfilled his early promise is
+    due partly to his natural limitations, no doubt, but more largely
+    to the fact that he gave his time and strength to other things. And
+    a poet is like other men in that he cannot well serve two masters.
+
+THE POETRY OF BRYANT. Besides the translation of the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_ there are several volumes of prose to Bryant's credit, but
+his fame now rests wholly on a single book of original poems. The best of
+these (the result of fifty years of writing, which could easily be printed
+on fifty pages) may be grouped in two main classes, poems of death and
+poems of nature; outside of which are a few miscellaneous pieces, such as
+"The Antiquity of Freedom," "Planting of the Apple Tree" and "The Poet," in
+which he departs a little from his favorite themes.
+
+[Sidenote: POEMS OF DEATH]
+
+Bryant's poems on death reflect something of his Puritan training and of
+his personal experience while threatened with consumption; they are also
+indicative of the poetic fashion of his age, which was abnormally given to
+funereal subjects and greatly influenced by such melancholy poems as Gray's
+"Elegy" and Young's "Night Thoughts." He began his career with
+"Thanatopsis" (or "View of Death"), a boyhood piece which astonished
+America when it was published in 1817, and which has ever since been a
+favorite with readers. The idea of the poem, that the earth is a vast
+sepulcher of human life, was borrowed from other poets; but the stately
+blank verse and the noble appreciation of nature are Bryant's own. They
+mark, moreover, a new era in American poetry, an original era to replace
+the long imitative period which had endured since Colonial times. Other and
+perhaps better poems in the same group are "The Death of the Flowers," "The
+Return of Youth" and "Tree Burial," in which Bryant goes beyond the pagan
+view of death presented in his first work.
+
+That death had a strange fascination for Bryant is evident from his
+returning again and again to a subject which most young poets avoid. Its
+somber shadow and unanswered question intrude upon nearly all of his nature
+pieces; so much so that even his "June" portrays that blithe, inspiring
+month of sunshine and bird song as an excellent time to die. It is from
+such poems that one gets the curious idea that Bryant never was a boy, that
+he was a graybeard at sixteen and never grew any younger.
+
+[Sidenote: POEMS OF NATURE]
+
+It is in his poems of nature that Bryant is at his best. Even here he is
+never youthful, never the happy singer whose heart overflows to the call of
+the winds; he is rather the priest of nature, who offers a prayer or hymn
+of praise at her altar. And it may be that his noble "Forest Hymn" is
+nearer to a true expression of human feeling, certainly of primitive or
+elemental feeling, than Shelley's "Skylark" or Burns's "Mountain Daisy."
+Thoreau in one of his critical epigrams declared it was not important that
+a poet should say any particular thing, but that he should speak in harmony
+with nature; that "the tone of his voice is the main thing." If that be
+true, Bryant is one of our best poets. He is always in harmony with nature
+in her prevailing quiet mood; his voice is invariably gentle, subdued,
+merging into the murmur of trees or the flow of water,--much like Indian
+voices, but as unlike as possible to the voices of those who go to nature
+for a picnic or a camping excursion.
+
+Among the best of his nature poems are "To a Waterfowl" (his most perfect
+single work), "Forest Hymn," "Hymn to the Sea," "Summer Wind," "Night
+Journey of a River," "Autumn Woods," "To a Fringed Gentian," "Among the
+Trees," "The Fountain" and "A Rain Dream." To read such poems is to
+understand the fact, mentioned in our biography, that Bryant's poetry was a
+thing apart from his daily life. His friends all speak of him as a
+companionable man, receptive, responsive, abounding in cheerful anecdote,
+and with a certain "overflowing of strength" in mirth or kindly humor; but
+one finds absolutely nothing of this genial temper in his verse. There he
+seems to regard all such bubblings and overflowings as unseemly levity (lo!
+the Puritan), which he must lay aside in poetry as on entering a church. He
+is, as we have said, the priest of nature, in whom reverence is uppermost;
+and he who reads aloud the "Forest Hymn," with its solemn organ tone, has
+an impression that it must be followed by the sublime invitation, "O come,
+let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker."
+
+[Illustration: BRYANT'S HOME, AT CUMMINGTON]
+
+[Sidenote: IN LIGHTER MOOD]
+
+Though Bryant is always serious, it is worthy of note that he is never
+gloomy, that he entirely escapes the pessimism or despair which seizes upon
+most poets in times of trouble. Moreover, he has a lighter mood, not gay
+but serenely happy, which finds expression in such poems as "Evening Wind,"
+"Gladness of Nature" and especially "Robert of Lincoln." The exuberance of
+the last-named, so unlike anything else in Bryant's book of verse, may be
+explained on the assumption that not even a Puritan could pull a long face
+in presence of a bobolink. The intense Americanism of the poet appears in
+nearly all his verse; and occasionally his patriotism rises to a prophetic
+strain, as in "The Prairie," for example, written when he first saw what
+was then called "the great American desert." It is said that the honeybee
+crossed the Mississippi with the first settlers, and Bryant looks with
+kindled imagination on this little pioneer who
+
+  Fills the savannas with his murmurings,
+  And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,
+  Within the hollow oak. I listen long
+  To his domestic hum, and think I hear
+  The sound of that advancing multitude
+  Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
+  Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
+  Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
+  Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds
+  Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
+  Over the dark brown furrows. All at once
+  A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,
+  And I am in the wilderness alone.
+
+OUR PIONEER POET. From one point of view our first national poet is a
+summary of all preceding American verse and a prophecy of better things to
+come. To be specific, practically all our early poetry shows the
+inclination to moralize, to sing a song and then add a lesson to it. This
+is commonly attributed to Puritan influence; but in truth it is a universal
+poetic impulse, a tribute to the early office of the bard, who was the
+tribal historian and teacher as well as singer. This ancient didactic or
+moralizing tendency is very strong in Bryant. To his first notable poem,
+"Thanatopsis," he must add a final "So live"; and to his "Waterfowl" must
+be appended a verse which tells what steadfast lesson may be learned from
+the mutable phenomena of nature.
+
+Again, most of our Colonial and Revolutionary poetry was strongly (or
+weakly) imitative, and Bryant shows the habit of his American predecessors.
+The spiritual conception of nature revealed in some of his early poems is a
+New World echo of Wordsworth; his somber poems of death indicate that he
+was familiar with Gray and Young; his "Evening Wind" has some suggestion of
+Shelley; we suspect the influence of Scott's narrative poems in the
+neglected "Stella" and "Little People of the Snow." But though influenced
+by English writers, the author of "Thanatopsis" was too independent to
+imitate them; and in his independence, with the hearty welcome which it
+received from the American public, we have a prophecy of the new poetry.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS ORIGINALITY]
+
+The originality and sturdy independence of Bryant are clearly shown in his
+choice of subjects. In his early days poetry was formal and artificial,
+after the manner of the eighteenth century; the romantic movement had
+hardly gained recognition in England; Burns was known only to his own
+countrymen; Wordsworth was ridiculed or barely tolerated by the critics;
+and poets on both sides of the Atlantic were still writing of larks and
+nightingales, of moonlight in the vale, of love in a rose-covered cottage,
+of ivy-mantled towers, weeping willows, neglected graves,--a medley of
+tears and sentimentality. You will find all these and little else in _The
+Garland_, _The Token_ and many other popular collections of the
+period; but you will find none of them in Bryant's first or last volume.
+From the beginning he wrote of Death and Nature; somewhat coldly, to be
+sure, but with manly sincerity. Then he wrote of Freedom, the watchword of
+America, not as other singers had written of it but as a Puritan who had
+learned in bitter conflict the price of his heritage:
+
+  O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,
+  A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
+  And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
+  With which the Roman master crowned his slave
+  When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
+  Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailéd hand
+  Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
+  Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
+  With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs
+  Are strong with struggling.
+
+He wrote without affectation of the Past, of Winter, of the North Star, of
+the Crowded Street, of the Yellow Violet and the Fringed Gentian. If the
+last-named poems now appear too simple for our poetic taste, remember that
+simplicity is the hardest to acquire of all literary virtues, and that it
+was the dominant quality of Bryant. Remember also that these modest flowers
+of which he wrote so modestly had for two hundred years brightened our
+spring woods and autumn meadows, waiting patiently for the poet who should
+speak our appreciation of their beauty. Another century has gone, and no
+other American poet has spoken so simply or so well of other neglected
+treasures: of the twin flower, for example, most fragrant of all blooms; or
+of that other welcome-nodding blossom, beloved of bumblebees, which some
+call "wild columbine" and others "whippoorwill's shoes."
+
+In a word, Bryant was and is our pioneer poet in the realm of native
+American poetry. As Emerson said, he was our first original poet, and was
+original because he dared to be sincere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851)
+
+In point of time Cooper is the first notable American novelist. Judging by
+the booksellers, no other has yet approached him in the sustained interest
+of his work or the number of his readers.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MAN]
+
+On first analysis we shall find little in Cooper to account for his abiding
+popularity. The man himself was not exactly lovable; indeed, he had almost
+a genius for stirring up antagonism. As a writer he began without study or
+literary training, and was stilted or slovenly in most of his work. He was
+prone to moralize in the midst of an exciting narrative; he filled
+countless pages with "wooden" dialogue; he could not portray a child or a
+woman or a gentleman, though he was confident that he had often done so to
+perfection. He did not even know Indians or woodcraft, though Indians and
+woodcraft account for a large part of our interest in his forest romances.
+
+[Sidenote: THE STORYTELLER]
+
+One may enjoy a good story, however, without knowing or caring for its
+author's peculiarities, and the vast majority of readers are happily not
+critical but receptive. Hence if we separate the man from the author, and
+if we read _The Red Rover_ or _The Last of the Mohicans_ "just
+for the story," we shall discover the source of Cooper's power as a writer.
+First of all, he has a tale to tell, an epic tale of heroism and manly
+virtue. Then he appeals strongly to the pioneer spirit, which survives in
+all great nations, and he is a master at portraying wild nature as the
+background of human life. The vigor of elemental manhood, the call of
+adventure, the lure of primeval forests, the surge and mystery of the
+sea,--these are written large in Cooper's best books. They make us forget
+his faults of temper or of style, and they account in large measure for his
+popularity with young readers of all nations; for he is one of the few
+American writers who belong not to any country but to humanity. At present
+he is read chiefly by boys; but half a century or more ago he had more
+readers of all classes and climes than any other writer in the world.
+
+    LIFE. The youthful experiences of Cooper furnished him with the
+    material for his best romances. He was born (1789) in New Jersey;
+    but while he was yet a child the family removed to central New
+    York, where his father had acquired an immense tract of wild land,
+    on which he founded the village that is still called Cooperstown.
+    There on the frontier of civilization, where stood the primeval
+    forest that had witnessed many a wild Indian raid, the novelist
+    passed his boyhood amid the picturesque scenes which he was to
+    immortalize in _The Pioneers_ and _The Deerslayer_.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS TRAINING]
+
+    Cooper picked up a little "book learning" in a backwoods school and
+    a little more in a minister's study at Albany. At thirteen he
+    entered Yale; but he was a self-willed lad and was presently
+    dismissed from college. A little later, after receiving some scant
+    nautical training on a merchantman, he entered the navy as
+    midshipman; but after a brief experience in the service he married
+    and resigned his commission. That was in 1811, and the date is
+    significant. It was just before the second war with Great Britain.
+    The author who wrote so much and so vividly of battles, Indian
+    raids and naval engagements never was within sight of such affairs,
+    though the opportunity was present. In his romances we have the
+    product of a vigorous imagination rather than of observation or
+    experience.
+
+    [Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER]
+
+    His literary work seems now like the result of whim or accident.
+    One day he flung down a novel that he was reading, declaring to his
+    wife that he could write a better story himself. "Try it,"
+    challenged his wife. "I will," said Cooper; and the result was
+    _Precaution_, a romance of English society. He was then a
+    farmer in the Hudson valley, and his knowledge of foreign society
+    was picked up, one must think, from silly novels on the subject.
+
+    Strange to say, the story was so well received that the gratified
+    author wrote another. This was _The Spy_ (1821), dealing with
+    a Revolutionary hero who had once followed his dangerous calling in
+    the very region in which Cooper was now living. The immense success
+    of this book fairly drove its author into a career. He moved to New
+    York City, and there quickly produced two more successful romances.
+    Thus in four years an unknown man without literary training had
+    become a famous writer, and had moreover produced four different
+    types of fiction: the novel of society in _Precaution_, the
+    historical romance in _The Spy_, and the adventurous romance
+    of forest and of ocean in _The Pioneers_ and _The Pilot_.
+
+    [Sidenote: YEARS OF STRIFE]
+
+    Cooper now went abroad, as most famous authors do. His books,
+    already translated into several European languages, had made him
+    known, and he was welcomed in literary circles; but almost
+    immediately he was drawn into squabbles, being naturally inclined
+    that way. He began to write political tirades; and even his
+    romances of the period (_The Bravo_, _The Heidenmauer_,
+    _The Headsman_) were devoted to proclaiming the glories of
+    democracy. Then he returned home and proceeded to set his
+    countrymen by the ears (in such books as _Home as Found_) by
+    writing too frankly of their crudity in contrast with the culture
+    of Europe. Then followed long years of controversy and lawsuits,
+    during which our newspapers used Cooper scandalously, and Cooper
+    prosecuted and fined the newspapers. It is a sorry spectacle, of no
+    interest except to those who would understand the bulk of Cooper's
+    neglected works. He was an honest man, vigorous, straightforward,
+    absolutely sincere; but he was prone to waste his strength and
+    embitter his temper by trying to force his opinion on those who
+    were well satisfied with their own. He had no humor, and had never
+    pondered the wisdom of "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
+
+    [Illustration: OTSEGO HALL, HOME OF COOPER]
+
+    The last years of his life were spent mostly at the old home at
+    Cooperstown, no longer a frontier settlement but a thriving
+    village, from which Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook had long since
+    departed. Before his death (1851) the fires of controversy had sunk
+    to ashes; but Cooper never got over his resentment at the public,
+    and with the idea of keeping forever aloof he commanded that none
+    of his private papers be given to biographers. It is for lack of
+    such personal letters and documents that no adequate life of Cooper
+    has yet been written.
+
+COOPER'S WORKS. There are over sixty volumes of Cooper, but to read them
+all would savor of penance rather than of pleasure. Of his miscellaneous
+writings only the _History of the Navy_ and _Lives of Distinguished
+Naval Officers_ are worthy of remembrance. Of his thirty-two romances
+the half, at least, may be ignored; though critics may differ as to whether
+certain books (_The Bravo_ and _Lionel Lincoln_, for example)
+should be placed in one half or the other. There remain as the measure of
+Cooper's genius some sixteen works of fiction, which fall naturally into
+three groups: the historical novels, the tales of pioneer life, and the
+romances of the sea.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SPY]
+
+_The Spy_ was the first and probably the best of Cooper's historical
+romances. Even his admirers must confess that it is crudely written, and
+that our patriotic interest inclines us to overestimate a story which
+throws the glamor of romance over the Revolution. Yet this faulty tale
+attempts to do what very few histories have ever done fairly, namely, to
+present both sides or parties of the fateful conflict; and its unusual
+success in this difficult field may be explained by a bit of family
+history. Cooper was by birth and training a stanch Whig, or Patriot; but
+his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, was the daughter of an
+unbending Tory, or Loyalist; and his divided allegiance is plainly apparent
+in his work. Ordinarily his personal antagonisms, his hatred of "Yankees,"
+Puritans and all politicians of the other party, are dragged into his
+stories and spoil some of them; but in _The Spy_ he puts his
+prejudices under restraint, tells his tale in an impersonal way, dealing
+honestly with both Whigs and Tories, and so produces a work having the
+double interest of a good adventure story and a fair picture of one of the
+heroic ages of American history.
+
+Aside from its peculiar American interest, _The Spy_ has some original
+and broadly human elements which have caused it, notwithstanding its
+dreary, artificial style, to be highly appreciated in other countries, in
+South American countries especially. The secret of its appeal lies largely
+in this, that in Harvey Birch, a brave man who serves his country without
+hope or possibility of reward, Cooper has strongly portrayed a type of the
+highest, the most unselfish patriotism.
+
+The other historical novels differ greatly in value. Prominent among them
+are _Mercedes of Castile_, dealing with Columbus and the discovery of
+America; _Satanstoe_ and _The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish_, depicting
+Colonial life in New York and New England respectively; and _Lionel
+Lincoln_, which is another story of the Revolution, more labored than
+_The Spy_ and of less sustained interest.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SEA STORIES]
+
+Cooper's first sea story, _The Pilot_ (1823), was haphazard enough in
+both motive and method, [Footnote: The Waverley novels by "the great
+unknown" were appearing at this time. Scott was supposed to be the author
+of them, but there was much debate on the subject. One day in New York a
+member of Cooper's club argued that Scott could not possibly have written
+_The Pirate_ (which had just appeared), because the nautical skill
+displayed in the book was such as only a sailor could possess. Cooper
+maintained, on the contrary, that _The Pirate_ was the work of a
+landsman; and to prove it he declared that he would write a sea story as it
+should be written; that is, with understanding as well as with imagination.
+_The Pilot_ was the result.] but it gave pleasure to a multitude of
+readers, and it amazed critics by showing that the lonely sea could be a
+place of romantic human interest. Cooper was thus the first modern novelist
+of the ocean; and to his influence we are partly indebted for the stirring
+tales of such writers as Herman Melville and Clark Russell. A part of the
+action of _The Pilot_ takes place on land (the style and the
+characters of this part are wretchedly stilted), but the chief interest of
+the story lies in the adventures of an American privateer commanded by a
+disguised hero, who turns out to be John Paul Jones. Cooper could not
+portray such a character, and his effort to make the dashing young captain
+heroic by surrounding him with a fog of mystery is like his labored attempt
+to portray the character of Washington in _The Spy_. On the other
+hand, he was thoroughly at home on a ship or among common sailors; his sea
+pictures of gallant craft driven before the gale are magnificent; and Long
+Tom Coffin is perhaps the most realistic and interesting of all his
+characters, not excepting even Leatherstocking.
+
+Another and better romance of the sea is _The Red Rover_ (1828). In
+this story the action takes place almost wholly on the deep, and its vivid
+word pictures of an ocean smiling under the sunrise or lashed to fury by
+midnight gales are unrivaled in any literature. Other notable books of the
+same group are _The Water Witch_, _Afloat and Ashore_ and _Wing
+and Wing_. Some readers will prize these for their stories; but to
+others they may appear tame in comparison with the superb descriptive
+passages of _The Red Rover_.
+
+[Sidenote: LEATHERSTOCKING TALES]
+
+When Cooper published _The Pioneers_ (1823) he probably had no
+intention of writing a series of novels recounting the adventures of Natty
+Bumppo, or Leatherstocking, and his Indian friend Chingachgook; otherwise
+he would hardly have painted so shabby a picture of these two old heroes,
+neglected and despised in a land through which they had once moved as
+masters. Readers were quick to see, however, that these old men had an
+adventurous past, and when they demanded the rest of the story Cooper wrote
+four other romances, which are as so many acts in the stirring drama of
+pioneer life. When these romances are read, therefore, they should be taken
+in logical sequence, beginning with _The Deerslayer_, which portrays
+the two heroes as young men on their first war trail, and following in
+order with _The Last of the Mohicans_, _The Pathfinder_, _The
+Pioneers_ and _The Prairie_. If one is to be omitted, let it be
+_The Pathfinder_, which is comparatively weak and dull; and if only
+one is to be read, _The Last of the Mohicans_ is an excellent choice.
+
+After nearly a century of novel writing, these five books remain our most
+popular romances of pioneer days, and Leatherstocking is still a wingéd
+name, a name to conjure with, in most civilized countries. Meanwhile a
+thousand similar works have come and gone and been forgotten. To examine
+these later books, which attempt to satisfy the juvenile love of Indian
+stories, is to discover that they are modeled more or less closely on the
+original work of the first American novelist.
+
+COOPER'S SCENES AND CHARACTERS. Even in his outdoor romances Cooper was
+forever attempting to depict human society, especially polite society; but
+that was the one subject he did not and could not understand. The sea in
+its grandeur and loneliness; the wild lakes, stretching away to misty,
+unknown shores or nestling like jewels in their evergreen setting; the
+forest with its dim trails, its subdued light, its rustlings, whisperings,
+hints of mystery or peril,--these are his proper scenes, and in them he
+moves as if at ease in his environment.
+
+[Illustration: COOPER'S CAVE
+Scene of Indian fight in _The Last of the Mohicans_]
+
+In his characters we soon discover the same contrast. If he paints a hero
+of history, he must put him on stilts to increase his stature. If he
+portrays a woman, he calls her a "female," makes her a model of decorum,
+and bores us by her sentimental gabbing. If he describes a social
+gathering, he instantly betrays his unfamiliarity with real society by
+talking like a book of etiquette. But with rough men or manly men on land
+or sea, with half-mutinous crews of privateers or disciplined man-of-war's
+men, with woodsmen, trappers, Indians, adventurous characters of the border
+or the frontier,--with all these Cooper is at home, and in writing of them
+he rises almost to the height of genius.
+
+[Sidenote: THE RETURN TO NATURE]
+
+If we seek the secret of this contrast, we shall find it partly in the
+author himself, partly in a popular, half-baked philosophy of the period.
+That philosophy was summed up in the words "the return to nature," and it
+alleged that all human virtues flow from solitude and all vices from
+civilization. Such a philosophy appealed strongly to Cooper, who was
+continually at odds with his fellows, who had been expelled from Yale, who
+had engaged in many a bitter controversy, who had suffered abuse from
+newspapers, and who in every case was inclined to consider his opponents as
+blockheads. No matter in what society he found himself, in imagination he
+was always back in the free but lawless atmosphere of the frontier village
+in which his youth was spent. Hence he was well fitted to take the point of
+view of Natty Bumppo (in _The Pioneers_), who looked with hostile eyes
+upon the greed and waste of civilization; hence he portrayed his uneducated
+backwoods hero as a brave and chivalrous gentleman, without guile or fear
+or selfishness, who owed everything to nature and nothing to society.
+Europe at that time was ready to welcome such a type with enthusiasm. The
+world will always make way for him, whether he appears as a hero of fiction
+or as a man among men.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. The faults of Cooper--his stilted style and
+slipshod English, his tedious moralizing, his artificial dialogue, his
+stuffed gentlemen and inane "females," his blunders in woodcraft--all these
+are so easily discovered by a casual reader that the historian need not
+linger over them. His virtues are more interesting, and the first of these
+is that he has a story to tell. Ever since Anglo-Saxon days the
+"tale-bringer" has been a welcome guest, and that Cooper is a good
+tale-bringer is evident from his continued popularity at home and abroad.
+He may not know much about the art of literature, or about psychology, or
+about the rule that motives must be commensurate with actions; but he knows
+a good story, and that, after all, is the main thing in a novel.
+
+Again, there is a love of manly action in Cooper and a robustness of
+imagination which compel attention. He is rather slow in starting his tale;
+but he always sees a long trail ahead, and knows that every turn of the
+trail will bring its surprise or adventure. It is only when we analyze and
+compare his plots that we discover what a prodigal creative power he had.
+He wrote, let us say, seven or eight good stories; but he spoiled ten times
+that number by hasty or careless workmanship. In the neglected _Wept of
+Wish-Ton-Wish_, for example, there is enough wasted material to furnish
+a modern romancer or dramatist for half a lifetime.
+
+[Sidenote: DESCRIPTIVE POWER]
+
+Another fine quality of Cooper is his descriptive power, his astonishing
+vigor in depicting forest, sea, prairie,--all the grandeur of wild nature
+as a background of human heroism. His descriptions are seldom accurate, for
+he was a careless observer and habitually made blunders; but he painted
+nature as on a vast canvas whereon details might be ignored, and he
+reproduced the total impression of nature in a way that few novelists have
+ever rivaled. It is this sustained power of creating a vast natural stage
+and peopling it with elemental men, the pioneers of a strong nation, that
+largely accounts for Cooper's secure place among the world's fiction
+writers.
+
+[Sidenote: MORAL QUALITY]
+
+Finally, the moral quality of Cooper, his belief in manhood and womanhood,
+his cleanness of heart and of tongue, are all reflected in his heroes and
+heroines. Very often he depicts rough men in savage or brutal situations;
+but, unlike some modern realists, there is nothing brutal in his morals,
+and it is precisely where we might expect savagery or meanness that his
+simple heroes appear as chivalrous gentlemen "without fear and without
+reproach." That he was here splendidly true to nature and humanity is
+evident to one who has met his typical men (woodsmen, plainsmen, lumbermen,
+lonely trappers or timber-cruisers) in their own environment and
+experienced their rare courtesy and hospitality. In a word, Cooper knew
+what virtue is, virtue of white man, virtue of Indian, and he makes us know
+and respect it. Of a hundred strong scenes which he has vividly pictured
+there is hardly one that does not leave a final impression as pure and
+wholesome as the breath of the woods or the sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)
+
+It is a pleasant task to estimate Irving or Bryant, but Poe offers a hard
+nut for criticism to crack. The historian is baffled by an author who
+secretes himself in the shadow, or perplexed by conflicting biographies, or
+put on the defensive by the fact that any positive judgment or opinion of
+Poe will almost certainly be challenged.
+
+At the outset, therefore, we are to assume that Poe is one of the most
+debatable figures in our literature. His life may be summed up as a pitiful
+struggle for a little fame and a little bread. When he died few missed him,
+and his works were neglected. Following his recognition in Europe came a
+revival of interest here, during which Poe was absurdly overpraised and the
+American people berated for their neglect of a genius. Then arose a
+literary controversy which showed chiefly that our critics were poles apart
+in their points of view. Though the controversy has long endured, it has
+settled nothing of importance; for one reader regards Poe as a literary
+_poseur_, a writer of melodious nonsense in verse and of grotesque
+horrors in prose; while another exalts him as a double master of poetry and
+fiction, an artist without a peer in American letters.
+
+Somewhere between these extremes hides the truth; but we shall not here
+attempt to decide whether it is nearer one side or the other. We note
+merely that Poe is a writer for such mature readers as can appreciate his
+uncanny talent. What he wrote of abiding interest or value to young people
+might be printed in a very small book.
+
+    BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Notwithstanding all that has been written
+    about Poe, we do not and cannot know him as we know most other
+    American authors, whose lives are as an open book. He was always a
+    secretive person, "a lover of mystery and retreats," and such
+    accounts of his life as he gave out are not trustworthy. He came
+    from a good Maryland family, but apparently from one of those
+    offshoots that are not true to type. His father left the study of
+    law to become a strolling actor, and presently married an English
+    actress. It was while the father and mother were playing their
+    parts in Boston that Edgar was born, in 1809.
+
+    [Illustration: EDGAR ALLAN POE]
+
+    Actors led a miserable life in those days, and the Poes were no
+    exception. They died comfortless in Richmond; their three children
+    were separated; and Edgar was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy
+    tobacco merchant. It was in the luxurious Allan home that the boy
+    began the drinking habits which were his bane ever afterwards.
+
+    [Sidenote: POE'S SCHOOL DAYS]
+
+    The Allans were abroad on business from 1815 to 1820, and during
+    these years Edgar was at a private school in the suburbs of London.
+    It was the master of that school who described the boy as a clever
+    lad spoiled by too much pocket money. The prose tale "William
+    Wilson" has some reflection of these school years, and, so far as
+    known, it is the only work in which Poe introduced any of his
+    familiar experiences.
+
+    Soon after his return to Richmond the boy was sent to the
+    University of Virginia, where his brilliant record as a student was
+    marred by his tendency to dissipation. After the first year Mr.
+    Allan, finding that the boy had run up a big gambling debt, took
+    him from college and put him to work in the tobacco house.
+    Whereupon Edgar, always resentful of criticism, quarreled with his
+    foster father and drifted out into the world. He was then at
+    eighteen, a young man of fine bearing, having the taste and manners
+    of a gentleman, but he had no friend in the world, no heritage of
+    hard work, no means of earning a living.
+
+    [Illustration: WEST RANGE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA]
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS WANDERINGS]
+
+    Next we hear vaguely of Poe in Boston where he published a tiny
+    volume, _Tamerlane and Other Poems, by a Bostonian_ (1827).
+    Failing to win either fame or money by his poetry he enlisted in
+    the army under an assumed name and served for about two years. Of
+    his army life we know nothing, nor do we hear of him again until
+    his foster father secured for him an appointment to the military
+    academy at West Point. There Poe made an excellent beginning, but
+    he soon neglected his work, was dismissed, and became an Ishmael
+    again. After trying in vain to secure a political office he went to
+    Baltimore, where he earned a bare living by writing for the
+    newspapers. The popular but mythical account of his life (for which
+    he himself is partly responsible) portrays him at this period in a
+    Byronic rôle, fighting with the Greeks for their liberty.
+
+    [Sidenote: FIRST SUCCESS]
+
+    His literary career began in 1833 when his "Manuscript Found in a
+    Bottle" won for him a prize offered by a weekly newspaper. The same
+    "Manuscript" brought him to the attention of John Pendleton
+    Kennedy, who secured for him a position on the staff of the
+    _Southern Literary Messenger_. He then settled in Richmond,
+    and in his grasp was every thing that the heart of a young author
+    might desire. He had married his cousin, Virginia Clem, a beautiful
+    young girl whom he idolized; he had a comfortable home and an
+    assured position; Kennedy and other southern writers were his loyal
+    friends; the _Messenger_ published his work and gave him a
+    reputation in the literary world of America. Fortune stood smiling
+    beside him, when he quarreled with his friends, left the Messenger
+    and began once more his struggle with poverty and despair.
+
+    [Sidenote: A LIFE OF FRAGMENTS]
+
+    It would require a volume to describe the next few years, and we
+    must pass hurriedly over them. His pen was now his only hope, and
+    he used it diligently in an effort to win recognition and a living.
+    He tried his fortune in different cities; he joined the staffs of
+    various periodicals; he projected magazines of his own. In every
+    project success was apparently within his reach when by some
+    weakness or misfortune he let his chance slip away. He was living
+    in Fordham (a suburb of New York, now called the Bronx) when he did
+    his best work; but there his wife died, in need of the common
+    comforts of life; and so destitute was the home that an appeal was
+    made in the newspapers for charity. One has but to remember Poe's
+    pride to understand how bitter was the cup from which he drank.
+
+    After his wife's death came two frenzied years in which not even
+    the memory of a great love kept him from unmanly wooing of other
+    women; but Poe was then unbalanced and not wholly responsible for
+    his action. At forty he became engaged to a widow in Richmond, who
+    could offer him at least a home. Generous friends raised a fund to
+    start him in life afresh; but a little later he was found
+    unconscious amid sordid surroundings in Baltimore. He died there,
+    in a hospital, before he was able to give any lucid account of his
+    last wanderings. It was a pitiful end; but one who studies Poe at
+    any part of his career has an impression of a perverse fate that
+    dogs the man and that insists on an ending in accord with the rest
+    of the story.
+
+THE POETRY OF POE. Most people read Poe's poetry for the melody that is in
+it. To read it in any other way, to analyze or explain its message, is to
+dissect a butterfly that changes in a moment from a delicate, living
+creature to a pinch of dust, bright colored but meaningless. It is not for
+analysis, therefore, but simply for making Poe more intelligible that we
+record certain facts or principles concerning his verse.
+
+[Sidenote: THEORY OF POETRY]
+
+Perhaps the first thing to note is that Poe is not the poet of smiles and
+tears, of joy and sorrow, as the great poets are, but the poet of a single
+mood,--a dull, despairing mood without hope of comfort. Next, he had a
+theory (a strange theory in view of his mood) that the only object of
+poetry is to give pleasure, and that the pleasure of a poem depends largely
+on melody, on sound rather than on sense. Finally, he believed that poetry
+should deal with beauty alone, that poetic beauty is of a supernal or
+unearthly kind, and that such beauty is forever associated with melancholy.
+To Poe the most beautiful imaginable object was a beautiful woman; but
+since her beauty must perish, the poet must assume a tragic or despairing
+attitude in face of it. Hence his succession of shadowy Helens, and hence
+his wail of grief that he has lost or must soon lose them.
+
+[Sidenote: THE RAVEN]
+
+All these poetic theories, or delusions, appear in Poe's most widely known
+work, "The Raven," which has given pleasure to a multitude of readers. It
+is a unique poem, and its popularity is due partly to the fact that nobody
+can tell what it means. To analyze it is to discover that it is extremely
+melodious; that it reflects a gloomy mood; that at the root of its sorrow
+is the mysterious "lost Lenore"; and that, as in most of Poe's works, a
+fantastic element is introduced, an "ungainly fowl" addressed with
+grotesque dignity as "Sir, or Madame," to divert attention from the fact
+that the poet's grief is not simple or human enough for tears:
+
+  And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, _still_ is sitting
+  On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
+  And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
+  And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
+  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
+      Shall be lifted--nevermore!
+
+Equally characteristic of the author are "To One in Paradise," "The
+Sleeper" and "Annabel Lee,"--all melodious, all in hopeless mood, all
+expressive of the same abnormal idea of poetry. Other and perhaps better
+poems are "The Coliseum," "Israfel," and especially the second "To Helen,"
+beginning, "Helen, thy beauty is to me."
+
+Young readers may well be content with a few such lyrics, leaving the bulk
+of Poe's poems to such as may find meaning in their vaporous images. As an
+example, study these two stanzas from "Ulalume," a work which some may find
+very poetic and others somewhat lunatic:
+
+  The skies they were ashen and sober;
+    The leaves they were crispéd and sere--
+    The leaves they were withering and sere;
+  It was night in the lonesome October
+    Of my most immemorial year;
+  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
+    In the misty mid region of Weir--
+  It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
+    In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
+
+  Here once, through an alley Titanic
+    Of cypress, I roamed with my soul--
+    Of cypress, with Psyche, my soul.
+  These were days when my heart was volcanic
+    As the scoriac rivers that roll--
+    As the lavas that restlessly roll
+  Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,
+    In the ultimate climes of the pole--
+  That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek,
+    In the realms of the boreal pole.
+
+This is melodious, to be sure, but otherwise it is mere word juggling, a
+stringing together of names and rimes with a total effect of lugubrious
+nonsense. It is not to be denied that some critics find pleasure in
+"Ulalume"; but uncritical readers need not doubt their taste or
+intelligence if they prefer counting-out rimes, "The Jabberwock," or other
+nonsense verses that are more frankly and joyously nonsensical.
+
+POE'S FICTION. Should it be asked why Poe's tales are nearly all of the
+bloodcurdling variety, the answer is that they are a triple reflection of
+himself, of the fantastic romanticism of his age, and of the taste of
+readers who were then abnormally fond of ghastly effects in fiction. Let us
+understand these elements clearly; for otherwise Poe's horrible stories
+will give us nothing beyond the mere impression of horror.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MAN AND HIS TIMES]
+
+To begin with the personal element, Poe was naturally inclined to
+morbidness. He had a childish fear of darkness and hobgoblins; he worked
+largely "on his nerves"; he had an abnormal interest in graves, ghouls and
+the terrors which preternatural subjects inspire in superstitious minds. As
+a writer he had to earn his bread; and the fiction most in demand at that
+time was of the "gothic" or _Mysteries of Udolpho_ kind, with its
+diabolical villain, its pallid heroine in a haunted room, its medley of
+mystery and horror. [Footnote: As Richardson suggests, the popular novels
+of Poe's day are nearly all alike in that they remind us of the fat boy in
+_Pickwick_, who "just wanted to make your flesh creep." Jane Austen
+(and later, Scott and Cooper) had written against this morbid tendency, but
+still the "gothic" novel had its thousands of shuddering readers on both
+sides of the Atlantic.] At the beginning of the century Charles Brockden
+Brown had made a success of the "American gothic" (a story of horror
+modified to suit American readers), and Poe carried on the work of Brown
+with precisely the same end in view, namely, to please his audience. He
+used the motive of horror partly because of his own taste and training, no
+doubt, but more largely because he shrewdly "followed the market" in
+fiction. Then as now there were many readers who enjoyed, as Stevenson
+says, being "frightened out of their boots," and to such readers he
+appealed. His individuality and, perhaps, his chief excellence as a
+story-writer lay in his use of strictly logical methods, in his ability to
+make the most impossible yarn seem real by his reasonable way of telling
+it. Moreover, he was a discoverer, an innovator, a maker of new types,
+since he was the first to introduce in his stories the blend of calm,
+logical science and wild fancy of a terrifying order; so he served as an
+inspiration as well as a point of departure for Jules Verne and other
+writers of the same pseudo-scientific school.
+
+[Sidenote: GROUPS OF STORIES]
+
+Poe's numerous tales may be grouped in three or four classes. Standing by
+itself is "William Wilson," a story of double personality (one good and one
+evil genius in the same person), to which Stevenson was indebted in his
+_Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. Next are the tales of
+pseudo-science and adventure, such as "Hans Pfaall" and the "Descent into
+the Maelstrom," which represent a type of popular fiction developed by
+Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and many others, all of whom were more or less
+influenced by Poe. A third group may be called the ingenious-mystery
+stories. One of the most typical of these is "The Gold Bug," a tale of
+cipher-writing and buried treasure, which contains the germ, at least, of
+Stevenson's _Treasure Island_. To the same group belong "The Murders
+in the Rue Morgue" and other stories dealing with the wondrous acumen of a
+certain Dupin, who is the father of "Old Sleuth," "Sherlock Holmes" and
+other amateur detectives who do such marvelous things in fiction,--to
+atone, no doubt, for their extraordinary dullness in real life.
+
+Still another group consists of phantom stories,--ghastly yarns that serve
+no purpose but to make the reader's spine creep. The mildest of these
+horrors is "The Fall of the House of Usher," which some critics place at
+the head of Poe's fiction. It is a "story of atmosphere"; that is, a story
+in which the scene, the air, the vague "feeling" of a place arouse an
+expectation of some startling or unusual incident. Many have read this
+story and found pleasure therein; but others ask frankly, "Why bother to
+write or to read such palpable nonsense?" With all Poe's efforts to make it
+real, Usher's house is not a home or even a building in which dwells a man;
+it is a vacuum inhabited by a chimera. Of necessity, therefore, it tumbles
+into melodramatic nothingness the moment the author takes leave of it.
+
+[Sidenote: WHAT TO READ]
+
+If it be asked, "What shall one read of Poe's fiction?" the answer must
+depend largely upon individual taste. "The Gold Bug" is a good story,
+having the adventurous interest of finding a pirate's hidden gold; at
+least, that is how most readers regard it, though Poe meant us to be
+interested not in the gold but in his ingenious cryptogram or secret
+writing. The allegory of "William Wilson" is perhaps the most original of
+Poe's works; and for a thriller "The House of Usher" may be recommended as
+the least repulsive of the tales of horror. To the historian the chief
+interest of all these tales lies in the influence which they have exerted
+on a host of short-story writers at home and abroad.
+
+[Illustration: _SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER_ BUILDING]
+
+AN ESTIMATE OF POE. Any summary of such a difficult subject is
+unsatisfactory and subject to challenge. We shall try here simply to
+outline Poe's aim and method, leaving the student to supply from his own
+reading most of the details and all the exceptions.
+
+Poe's chief purpose was not to tell a tale for its own sake or to portray a
+human character; he aimed to produce an effect or impression in the
+reader's mind, an impression of unearthly beauty in his poems and of
+unearthly horror in his prose. Some writers (Hawthorne, for example) go
+through life as in a dream; but if one were to judge Poe by his work, one
+might think that he had suffered a long nightmare. Of this familiar
+experience, his youth, his army training, his meeting with other men, his
+impressions of nature or humanity, there is hardly a trace in his work; of
+despair, terror and hallucinations there is a plethora.
+
+[Sidenote: HIS METHOD]
+
+His method was at once haphazard and carefully elaborated,--a paradox, it
+seems, till we examine his work or read his records thereof. In his poetry
+words appealed to him, as they appeal to some children, not so much for
+their meaning as for their sound. Thus the word "nevermore," a gloomy,
+terrible word, comes into his mind, and he proceeds to brood over it. The
+shadow of a great loss is in the word, and loss meant to Poe the loss of
+beauty in the form of a woman; therefore he invents "the lost Lenore" to
+rime with his "nevermore." Some outward figure of despair is now needed,
+something that will appeal to the imagination; and for that Poe selects the
+sable bird that poets have used since Anglo-Saxon times as a symbol of
+gloom or mystery. Then carefully, line by line, he hammers out "The Raven,"
+a poem which from beginning to end is built around the word "nevermore"
+with its suggestion of pitiless memories.
+
+Or again, Poe is sitting at the bedside of his dead wife when another word
+suddenly appeals to him. It is Shakespeare's
+
+                    Duncan is in his grave;
+  After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
+
+And from that word is born "For Annie," with an ending to the first stanza
+which is an epitome of the poem, and which Longfellow suggested as a
+fitting epitaph for Poe's tomb:
+
+  And the fever called "Living"
+    Is conquered at last.
+
+He reads Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and his "Manuscript
+Found in a Bottle" is the elaborated result of his chance inspiration. He
+sees Cooper make a success of a sea tale, and Irving of a journal of
+exploration; and, though he knows naught of the sea or the prairie, he
+produces his hair-raising _Arthur Gordon Pym_ and his _Journal of
+Julius Rodman_. Some sailor's yarn of a maelstrom in the North Sea comes
+to his ears, and he fabricates a story of a man who went into the
+whirlpool. He sees a newspaper account of a premature burial, and his
+"House of Usher" and several other stories reflect the imagined horror of
+such an experience. The same criticism applies to his miscellaneous
+thrillers, in which with rare cunning he uses phantoms, curtains, shadows,
+cats, the moldy odor of the grave,--and all to make a gruesome tale
+inspired by some wild whim or nightmare.
+
+In fine, no other American writer ever had so slight a human basis for his
+work; no other ever labored more patiently or more carefully. The unending
+controversy over Poe commonly reduces itself to this deadlock: one reader
+asks, "What did he do that was worth a man's effort in the doing?" and
+another answers, "What did he do that was not cleverly, skillfully done?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The early part of the nineteenth century (sometimes called
+    the First National period of American letters) was a time of
+    unusual enthusiasm. The country had recently won its independence
+    and taken its place among the free nations of the world; it had
+    emerged triumphant from a period of doubt and struggle over the
+    Constitution and the Union; it was increasing with amazing rapidity
+    in territory, in population and in the wealth which followed a
+    successful commerce; its people were united as never before by
+    noble pride in the past and by a great hope for the future. It is
+    not surprising, therefore, that our first really national
+    literature (that is, a literature which was read by practically the
+    whole country, and which represented America to foreign nations)
+    should appear in this expansive age as an expression of the
+    national enthusiasm.
+
+    [Sidenote: CHIEF WRITERS]
+
+    The four chief writers of the period are: Irving, the pleasant
+    essayist, story-teller and historian; Bryant, the poet of primeval
+    nature; Cooper, the novelist, who was the first American author to
+    win world-wide fame; and Poe, the most cunning craftsman among our
+    early writers, who wrote a few melodious poems and many tales of
+    mystery or horror. Some critics would include also among the major
+    writers William Gilmore Simms (sometimes called "the Cooper of the
+    South"), author of many adventurous romances dealing with pioneer
+    life and with Colonial and Revolutionary history.
+
+    The numerous minor writers of the age are commonly grouped in local
+    schools. The Knickerbocker school, of New York, includes the poets
+    Halleck and Drake, the novelist Paulding, and one writer of
+    miscellaneous prose and verse, Nathaniel P. Willis, who was for a
+    time more popular than any other American writer save Cooper. In
+    the southern school (led by Poe and Simms) were Wilde, Kennedy and
+    William Wirt. The West was represented by Timothy Flint and James
+    Hall. In New England were the poets Percival and Maria Brooks, the
+    novelists Sarah Morton and Catherine Sedgwick, and the historians
+    Sparks and Bancroft. The writers we have named are merely typical;
+    there were literally hundreds of others who were more or less
+    widely known in the middle of the last century.
+
+    [Sidenote: FOREIGN INFLUENCE]
+
+    The first common characteristic of these writers was their
+    patriotic enthusiasm; the second was their romantic spirit. The
+    romantic movement in English poetry was well under way at this
+    time, and practically all our writers were involved in it. They
+    were strongly influenced, moreover, by English writers of the
+    period or by settled English literary traditions. Thus, Irving
+    modeled his style closely on that of Addison; the early poetry of
+    Bryant shows the influence of Wordsworth; the weird tales of Poe
+    and his critical essays were both alike influenced by Coleridge;
+    and the quickening influence of Scott appears plainly in the
+    romances of Cooper. The minor writers were even more subject to
+    foreign influences, especially to German and English romanticism.
+    There was, however, a sturdy independence in the work of most of
+    these writers which stamps it as original and unmistakably
+    American. The nature poetry of Bryant with its rugged strength and
+    simplicity, the old Dutch legends and stories of Irving, the
+    pioneer romances of Cooper and Simms, the effective short stories
+    of Poe,--these have hardly a counterpart in foreign writings of the
+    period. They are the first striking expressions of the new American
+    spirit in literature.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Irving's Sketch Book, in Standard English
+    Classics and various other school editions (see "Texts" in General
+    Bibliography); The Alhambra, in Ginn and Company's Classics for
+    Children; parts of Bracebridge Hall, in Riverside Literature;
+    Conquest of Granada and other works, in Everyman's Library.
+
+    Selections from Bryant, in Riverside Literature and Pocket
+    Classics.
+
+    Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, in Standard English Classics and
+    other school editions; the five Leatherstocking tales, in
+    Everyman's Library; The Spy, in Riverside Literature.
+
+    Selections from Poe, prose and verse, in Standard English Classics,
+    Silver Classics, Johnson's English Classics, Lake English Classics.
+
+    Simms's The Yemassee, in Johnson's English Classics. Typical
+    selections from minor authors of the period, in Readings from
+    American Literature and other anthologies (see "Selections" in
+    General Bibliography).
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. For works covering the whole field of American
+    history and literature see the General Bibliography. The following
+    are recommended for a special study of the early part of the
+    nineteenth century.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Adams, History of the United States, 1801-1817, 9
+    vols.; Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, 1787-1861,
+    8 vols.; Sparks, Expansion of the American People; Low, The
+    American People; Expedition of Lewis and Clarke, in Original
+    Narratives Series (Scribner); Page, The Old South; Drake, The
+    Making of the West.
+
+    _LITERATURE_. There is no good literary history devoted to
+    this period. Critical studies of the authors named in the text may
+    be found in Richardson's American Literature and other general
+    histories. For the lives of minor authors see Adams, Dictionary of
+    American Authors, or Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.
+
+    _Irving_. Life and Letters, by P. M. Irving, 4 vols., in
+    Crayon edition of Irving's works. Life by Warner, in American Men
+    of Letters; by Hill, in American Authors; by Boynton (brief), in
+    Riverside Biographies.
+
+    Essays by Brownell, in American Prose Masters; by Payne, in Leading
+    American Essayists; by Perry, in A Study of Prose Fiction; by
+    Curtis, in Literary and Social Addresses.
+
+    _Bryant_. Life, by Godwin, 2 vols.; by Bigelow, in American
+    Men of Letters; by Curtis. Wilson, Bryant and his Friends.
+
+    Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Curtis, in Orations and
+    Addresses; by Whipple, in Literature and Life; by Burton, in
+    Literary Leaders.
+
+    _Cooper_. Life, by Lounsbury, in American Men of Letters; by
+    Clymer (brief), in Beacon Biographies.
+
+    Essays, by Erskine, in Leading American Novelists; by Brownell, in
+    American Prose Masters; by Matthews, in Gateways to Literature.
+
+    _Poe_. Life, by Woodberry, in American Men of Letters; by
+    Trent, in English Men of Letters; Life and Letters, 2 vols., by
+    Harrison.
+
+    Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Brownell, in American
+    Prose Masters; by Burton, in Literary Leaders; by Higginson, in
+    Short Studies of American Authors; by Andrew Lang, in Letters to
+    Dead Authors; by Gates, in Studies and Appreciations; by Gosse, in
+    Questions at Issue.
+
+    _Simms_. Life, by Trent, in American Men of Letters. Critical
+    studies by Moses, in Literature of the South; by Link, in Pioneers
+    of Southern Literature; by Wauchope, in Writers of South Carolina.
+
+    _FICTION_. A few novels dealing with the period are: Brown,
+    Arthur Merwyn; Kennedy, Swallow Barn; Paulding, Westward Ho; Mrs.
+    Stowe, The Minister's Wooing; Cooke, Leather Stocking and Silk;
+    Eggleston, The Circuit Rider, The Hoosier Schoolmaster; Winthrop,
+    John Brent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE PERIOD OF CONFLICT (1840-1876)
+
+
+  The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
+    The soldier's last tattoo;
+  No more on Life's parade shall meet
+    That brave and fallen few.
+  On Fame's eternal camping-ground
+    Their silent tents are spread,
+  And Glory guards, with solemn round,
+    The bivouac of the dead.
+
+           O'Hara, "The Bivouac of the Dead"
+
+
+    POLITICAL HISTORY. To study the history of America after 1840 is to
+    have our attention drawn as by a powerful lodestone to the Civil
+    War. It looms there in the middle of the nineteenth century, a
+    stupendous thing, dominating and dwarfing all others. To it
+    converge many ways that then seemed aimless or wandering, the
+    unanswered questions of the Constitution, the compromises of
+    statesmen, the intrigues of politicians, the clamor of impatient
+    reformers, the silent degradation of the slave. And from it, all
+    its passion and suffering forgotten, its heroism remembered,
+    proceed the unexpected blessings of a finer love of country, a
+    broader sense of union, a surer faith in democracy, a better
+    understanding of the spirit of America, more gratitude for her
+    glorious past, more hope for her future. So every thought or
+    mention of the mighty conflict draws us onward, as the first sight
+    of the Rockies, massive and snow crowned, lures the feet of the
+    wanderer on the plains.
+
+    We shall not attempt here to summarize the war between the South
+    and the North or even to list its causes and consequences. The
+    theme is too vast. We note only that the main issues of the
+    conflict, state rights and slavery, had been debated for the better
+    part of a century, and might still have found peaceful solution had
+    they not been complicated by the minor issues of such an age of
+    agitation as America never saw before and, as we devoutly hope, may
+    never see again.
+
+    [Illustration: "The Man" (Abraham Lincoln)]
+
+    [Sidenote: THE AGE OF AGITATION]
+
+    Such agitation was perhaps inevitable in a country that had grown
+    too rapidly for its government to assimilate the new possessions.
+    By the Oregon treaty, the war with Mexico and the annexation of
+    Texas vast territories had suddenly been added to the Union, each
+    with its problem that called for patient and wise deliberation, but
+    that a passionate and half-informed Congress was expected to settle
+    overnight. With the expansion of territory in the West came a
+    marvelous increase of trade and wealth in the North, and a
+    corresponding growth in the value of cotton and slave labor in the
+    South. Then arose an economic strife; the agricultural interests of
+    one part of the country clashed with the manufacturing interests of
+    another (in such matters as the tariff, for example), and in the
+    tumult of party politics it was impossible to reach any harmonious
+    adjustment. Finally, the violent agitation of the slave question
+    forced it to the front not simply as a moral or human but as a
+    political issue; for the old "balance of power" between the states
+    was upset when the North began to outstrip the South in population,
+    and every state was then fiercely jealous of its individual rights
+    and obligations in a way that we can now hardly comprehend.
+
+    As a result of these conflicting interests and the local or
+    sectional passions which they aroused, there was seldom a year
+    after 1840 when the country did not face a situation of extreme
+    difficulty or danger. Indeed, even while Webster was meditating his
+    prophetic oration with its superb climax of "Liberty and Union, now
+    and forever, one and inseparable," many of the most thoughtful
+    minds, south and north, believed that Congress faced a problem
+    beyond its power to solve; that no single government was wise
+    enough or strong enough to meet the situation, especially a
+    government divided against itself.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND]
+
+    In the midst of the political tumult, which was increased by the
+    clamor of agitators and reformers, came suddenly the secession of a
+    state from the Union, an act long threatened, long feared, but
+    which arrived at last with the paralyzing effect of a thunderbolt.
+    Then the clamor ceased; minor questions were swept aside as by a
+    tempest, and the main issues were settled not by constitutional
+    rights, not by orderly process of law or the ballot, but by the
+    fearful arbitrament of the sword. And even as the thunderbolt fell
+    and the Union trembled, came also unheralded one gaunt, heroic,
+    heaven-sent man to lead the nation in its hour of peril:
+
+      Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
+        Gentle and merciful and just!
+      Who in the fear of God didst bear
+        The sword of power, a nation's trust!
+
+    Such is an outline of the period of conflict, an outline to which
+    the political measures or compromises of the time, its sectional
+    antagonism, its score of political parties, its agitators,
+    reformers, and all other matters of which we read confusedly in the
+    histories, are but so many illuminating details.
+
+    SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHANGES. The mental ferment of the period
+    was almost as intense as its political agitation. Thus, the
+    antislavery movement, which aimed to rescue the negro from his
+    servitude, was accompanied by a widespread communistic attempt to
+    save the white man from the manifold evils of our competitive
+    system of industry. Brook Farm [Footnote: This was a Massachusetts
+    society, founded in 1841 by George Ripley. It included Hawthorne,
+    Dana and Curtis in its large membership, and it had the support of
+    Emerson, Greeley, Channing, Margaret Fuller and a host of other
+    prominent men and women] was the most famous of these communities;
+    but there were more than thirty others scattered over the country,
+    all holding property in common, working on a basis of mutual
+    helpfulness, aiming at a nobler life and a better system of labor
+    than that which now separates the capitalist and the workingman.
+
+    [Sidenote: WIDENING HORIZONS]
+
+    This brave attempt at human brotherhood, of which Brook Farm was
+    the visible symbol, showed itself in many other ways: in the
+    projection of a hundred social reforms; in the establishment of
+    lyceums throughout the country, where every man with a message
+    might find a hearing. In education our whole school system was
+    changed by applying the methods of Pestalozzi, a Swiss reformer;
+    for the world had suddenly become small, thanks to steam and
+    electricity, and what was spoken in a corner the newspapers
+    immediately proclaimed from the housetops. In religious circles the
+    Unitarian movement, under Channing's leadership, gained rapidly in
+    members and in influence; in literature the American horizon was
+    broadened by numerous translations from the classic books of
+    foreign countries; in the realm of philosophy the western mind was
+    stimulated by the teaching of the idealistic system known as
+    Transcendentalism.
+
+    [Sidenote: TRANSCENDENTALISM]
+
+    Emerson was the greatest exponent of this new philosophy, which
+    made its appearance here in 1836. It exalted the value of the
+    individual man above society or institutions; and in dealing with
+    the individual it emphasized his freedom rather than his subjection
+    to authority, his soul rather than his body, his inner wealth of
+    character rather than his outward possessions. It taught that
+    nature was an open book of the Lord in which he who runs may read a
+    divine message; and in contrast with eighteenth-century philosophy
+    (which had described man as a creature of the senses, born with a
+    blank mind, and learning only by experience), it emphasized the
+    divinity of man's nature, his inborn ideas of right and wrong, his
+    instinct of God, his passion for immortality,--in a word, his
+    higher knowledge which transcends the knowledge gained from the
+    senses, and which is summarized in the word "Transcendentalism."
+
+    We have described this in the conventional way as a new philosophy,
+    though in truth it is almost as old as humanity. Most of the great
+    thinkers of the world, in all ages and in all countries, have been
+    transcendentalists; but in the original way in which the doctrine
+    was presented by Emerson it seemed like a new revelation, as all
+    fine old things do when they are called to our attention, and it
+    exercised a profound influence on our American life and literature.
+
+LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD. The violent political agitation and the profound
+social unrest of the period found expression in multitudinous works of
+prose or verse; but the curious fact is that these are all minor works, and
+could without much loss be omitted from our literary records. They are
+mostly sectional in spirit, and only what is national or human can long
+endure.
+
+[Sidenote: MINOR WORKS]
+
+To illustrate our criticism, the terrible war that dominates the period
+never had any worthy literary expression; there are thousands of writings
+but not a single great poem or story or essay or drama on the subject. The
+antislavery movement likewise brought forth its poets, novelists, orators
+and essayists; some of the greater writers were drawn into its whirlpool of
+agitation, and Whittier voiced the conviction that the age called for a man
+rather than a poet in a cry which was half defiance and half regret:
+
+  Better than self-indulgent years
+    The outflung heart of youth,
+  Than pleasant songs in idle ears
+    The tumult of the truth!
+
+That was the feeling in the heart of many a promising young southern or
+northern poet in midcentury, just as it was in 1776, when our best writers
+neglected literature for political satires against Whigs or Tories. Yet of
+the thousand works which the antislavery agitation inspired we can think of
+only one, Mrs. Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, which lives with power to
+our own day; and there is something of universal human nature in that
+famous book, written not from knowledge or experience but from the
+imagination, which appeals broadly to our human sympathy, and which makes
+it welcome in countries where slavery as a political or a moral issue has
+long since been forgotten.
+
+[Sidenote: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS]
+
+Though the ferment of the age produced no great books, it certainly
+influenced our literature, making it a very different product from that of
+the early national period. For example, nearly every political issue soon
+became a moral issue; and there is a deep ethical earnestness in the essays
+of Emerson, the poems of Longfellow and the novels of Hawthorne which sets
+them apart, as of a different spirit, from the works of Irving, Poe and
+Cooper.
+
+Again, the mental unrest of the period showed itself in a passion for new
+ideas, new philosophy, new prose and poetry. We have already spoken of the
+transcendental philosophy, but even more significant was the sudden
+broadening of literary interest. American readers had long been familiar
+with the best English poets; now they desired to know how our common life
+had been reflected by poets of other nations. In answer to that desire
+came, first, the establishment of professorships of _belles-lettres_
+in our American colleges; and then a flood of translations from European
+and oriental literatures. As we shall presently see, every prominent writer
+from Emerson to Whitman was influenced by new views of life as reflected in
+the world's poetry. Longfellow is a conspicuous example; with his songs
+inspired by Spanish or German or Scandinavian originals he is at times more
+like an echo of Europe than a voice from the New World.
+
+[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LONGFELLOW, AT FALMOUTH (NOW PORTLAND), MAINE]
+
+[Sidenote: AN AGE OF POETRY]
+
+Finally, this period of conflict was governed more largely than usual by
+ideals, by sentiment, by intense feeling. Witness the war, with the heroic
+sentiments which it summoned up south and north. As the deepest human
+feeling cannot be voiced in prose, we confront the strange phenomenon of an
+American age of poetry. This would be remarkable Poetry enough to one who
+remembers that the genius of America had hitherto appeared practical and
+prosaic, given to action rather than speech, more concerned to "get on" in
+life than to tell what life means; but it is even more remarkable in view
+of the war, which covers the age with its frightful shadow. As Lincoln, sad
+and overburdened, found the relief of tears in the beautiful ending of
+Longfellow's "Building of the Ship," so, it seems, the heart of America,
+torn by the sight of her sons in conflict, found blessed relief in songs of
+love, of peace, of home, of beauty,--of all the lovely and immortal ideals
+to which every war offers violent but impotent contradiction. And this may
+be the simple explanation of the fact that the most cherished poems
+produced by any period of war are almost invariably its songs of peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE GREATER POETS
+
+HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882)
+
+When Longfellow sent forth his _Voices of the Night_, in 1839, that
+modest little volume met with a doubly warm reception. Critics led by Poe
+pounced on the work to condemn its sentimentality or moralizing, while a
+multitude of readers who needed no leader raised a great shout of welcome.
+
+Now as then there are diverse critical opinions of Longfellow, and
+unfortunately these opinions sometimes obscure the more interesting facts:
+that Longfellow is still the favorite of the American home, the most
+honored of all our elder poets; that in foreign schools his works are
+commonly used as an introduction to English verse, and that he has probably
+led more young people to appreciate poetry than any other poet who ever
+wrote our language. That strange literary genius Lafcadio Hearn advised his
+Japanese students to begin the study of poetry with Longfellow, saying that
+they might learn to like other poets better in later years, but that
+Longfellow was most certain to charm them at the beginning.
+
+The reason for this advice, given to the antipodes, was probably this, that
+young hearts and pure hearts are the same the world over, and Longfellow is
+the poet of the young and pure in heart.
+
+    LIFE. The impression of serenity in Longfellow's work may be
+    explained by the gifts which Fortune offered him in the way of
+    endowment, training and opportunity. By nature he was a gentleman;
+    his home training was of the best; to his college education four
+    years of foreign study were added, a very unusual thing at that
+    time; and no sooner was he ready for his work than the way opened
+    as if the magic _Sesame_ were on his lips. His own college
+    gave him a chair of modern languages and literature, which was the
+    very thing he wanted; then Harvard offered what seemed to him a
+    wider field, and finally his country called him from the
+    professor's chair to teach the love of poetry to the whole nation.
+    Before his long and beautiful life ended he had enjoyed for half a
+    century the two rewards that all poets desire, and the most of them
+    in vain; namely, fame and love. The first may be fairly won; the
+    second is a free gift.
+
+    [Illustration: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW]
+
+    Longfellow was born (1807) in the town of Falmouth, Maine, which
+    has since been transformed into the city of Portland. Like Bryant
+    he was descended from Pilgrim stock; but where the older poet's
+    training had been strictly puritanic, Longfellow's was more liberal
+    and broadly cultured. Bryant received the impulse to poetry from
+    his grandfather's prayers, but Longfellow seems to have heard his
+    first call in the sea wind. Some of his best lyrics sing of the
+    ocean; his early book of essays was called _Driftwood_, his
+    last volume of poetry _In the Harbor_; and in these lyrics and
+    titles we have a reflection of his boyhood impressions in looking
+    forth from the beautiful Falmouth headland, then a wild,
+    wood-fringed pasture but now a formal park:
+
+      I remember the black wharves and the slips,
+        And the sea tides tossing free,
+      And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
+      And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
+        And the magic of the sea.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE CALL OF BOOKS]
+
+    This first call was presently neglected for the more insistent
+    summons of literature; and thereafter Longfellow's inspiration was
+    at second hand, from books rather than from nature or humanity.
+    Soon after his graduation from Bowdoin (1825) he was offered a
+    professorship in modern languages on condition that he prepare
+    himself for the work by foreign study. With a glad heart he
+    abandoned the law, which he had begun to study in his father's
+    office, and spent three happy years in France, Spain and Italy.
+    There he steeped himself in European poetry, and picked up a
+    reading knowledge of several languages. Strangely enough, the
+    romantic influence of Europe was reflected by this poet in a book
+    of prose essays, _Outre Mer_, modeled on Irving's _Sketch
+    Book_.
+
+    [Sidenote: YEARS OF TEACHING]
+
+    For five years Longfellow taught the modern languages at Bowdoin,
+    and his subject was so new in America that he had to prepare his
+    own textbooks. Then, after another period of foreign study (this
+    time in Denmark and Germany), he went to Harvard, where he taught
+    modern languages and literature for eighteen years. In 1854 he
+    resigned his chair, and for the remainder of his life devoted
+    himself whole-heartedly to poetry.
+
+    His literary work began with newspaper verses, the best of which
+    appear in the "Earlier Poems" of his collected works. Next he
+    attempted prose in his _Outre Mer_, _Driftwood Essays_
+    and the romances _Hyperion_ and _Kavanagh_. In 1839
+    appeared his first volume of poetry, _Voices of the Night_,
+    after which few years went by without some notable poem or volume
+    from Longfellow's pen. His last book, _In the Harbor_,
+    appeared with the news of his death, in 1882.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS SERENITY]
+
+    Aside from these "milestones" there is little to record in a career
+    so placid that we remember by analogy "The Old Clock on the
+    Stairs." For the better part of his life he lived in Cambridge,
+    where he was surrounded by a rare circle of friends, and whither
+    increasing numbers came from near or far to pay the tribute of
+    gratitude to one who had made life more beautiful by his singing.
+    Once only the serenity was broken by a tragedy, the death of the
+    poet's wife, who was fatally burned before his eyes,--a tragedy
+    which occasioned his translation of Dante's _Divina Commedia_
+    (by which work he strove to keep his sorrow from overwhelming him)
+    and the exquisite "Cross of Snow." The latter seemed too sacred for
+    publication; it was found, after the poet's death, among his
+    private papers.
+
+    [Sidenote: HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE]
+
+    Reading Longfellow's poems one would never suspect that they were
+    produced in an age of turmoil. To be sure, one finds a few poems on
+    slavery (sentimental effusions, written on shipboard to relieve the
+    monotony of a voyage), but these were better unwritten since they
+    added nothing to the poet's song and took nothing from the slave's
+    burden. Longfellow has been criticized for his inaction in the
+    midst of tumult, but possibly he had his reasons. When everybody's
+    shouting is an excellent time to hold your tongue. He had his own
+    work to do, a work for which he was admirably fitted; that he did
+    not turn aside from it is to his credit and our profit. One demand
+    of his age was, as we have noted elsewhere, to enter into the
+    wealth of European poetry; and he gave thirty years of his life to
+    satisfying that demand. Our own poetry was then sentimental, a kind
+    of "sugared angel-cake"; and Longfellow, who was sentimental enough
+    but whose sentiment was balanced by scholarship, made poetry that
+    was like wholesome bread to common men. Lowell was a more brilliant
+    writer, and Whittier a more inspired singer; but neither did a work
+    for American letters that is comparable to that of Longfellow, who
+    was essentially an educator, a teacher of new ideas, new values,
+    new beauty. His influence in broadening our literary culture, in
+    deepening our sympathy for the poets of other lands, and in making
+    our own poetry a true expression of American feeling is beyond
+    measure.
+
+MINOR POEMS. It was by his first simple poems that Longfellow won the
+hearts of his people, and by them he is still most widely and gratefully
+remembered. To name these old favorites ("The Day is Done," "Resignation,"
+"Ladder of St. Augustine," "Rainy Day," "Footsteps of Angels," "Light of
+Stars," "Reaper and the Flowers," "Hymn to the Night," "Midnight Mass,"
+"Excelsior," "Village Blacksmith," "Psalm of Life") is to list many of the
+poems that are remembered and quoted wherever in the round world the
+English language is spoken.
+
+[Sidenote: VESPER SONGS]
+
+Ordinarily such poems are accepted at their face value as a true expression
+of human sentiment; but if we examine them critically, remembering the
+people for whom they were written, we may discover the secret of their
+popularity. The Anglo-Saxons are first a busy and then a religious folk;
+when their day's work is done their thoughts turn naturally to higher
+matters; and any examination of Longfellow's minor works shows that a large
+proportion of them deal with the thoughts or feelings of men at the close
+of day. Such poems would be called _Abendlieder_ in German; a good
+Old-English title for them would be "Evensong"; and both titles suggest the
+element of faith or worship. In writing these poems Longfellow had,
+unconsciously perhaps, the same impulse that leads one man to sing a hymn
+and another to say his prayers when the day is done. Because he expresses
+this almost universal feeling simply and reverently, his work is dear to
+men and women who would not have the habit of work interfere with the
+divine instinct of worship.
+
+Further examination of these minor poems shows them to be filled with
+sentiment that often slips over the verge of sentimentality. The sentiments
+expressed are not of the exalted, imaginative kind; they are the sentiments
+of plain people who feel deeply but who can seldom express their feeling.
+Now, most people are sentimental (though we commonly try to hide the fact,
+more's the pity), and we are at heart grateful to the poet who says for us
+in simple, musical language what we are unable or ashamed to say for
+ourselves. In a word, the popularity of Longfellow's poems rests firmly on
+the humanity of the poet.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL POEMS]
+
+Besides these vesper songs are a hundred other short poems, among which the
+reader must make his own selection. The ballads should not be neglected,
+for Longfellow knew how to tell a story in verse. If he were too prone to
+add a moral to his tale (a moral that does not speak for itself were better
+omitted), we can overlook the fault, since his moral was a good one and his
+readers liked it. The "occasional" poems, also, written to celebrate
+persons or events (such as "Building of the Ship," "Hanging of the Crane,"
+"Morituri Salutamus," "Bells of Lynn," "Robert Burns," "Chamber over the
+Gate") well deserved the welcome which the American people gave them. And
+the sonnets (such as "Three Friends," "Victor and Vanquished," "My Books,"
+"Nature," "Milton," "President Garfield," "Giotto's Tower") are not only
+the most artistic of Longfellow's works but rank very near to the best
+sonnets in the English language.
+
+AMERICAN IDYLS. In the same spirit in which Tennyson wrote his _English
+Idyls_ the American poet sent forth certain works reflecting the beauty
+of common life on this side of the ocean; and though he never collected or
+gave them a name, we think of them as his "American Idyls." Many of his
+minor poems belong to this class, but we are thinking especially of
+_Evangeline_, _Miles Standish_ and _Hiawatha_. The
+last-named, with its myths and legends clustering around one heroic
+personage, is commonly called an epic; but its songs of Chibiabos,
+Minnehaha, Nokomis and the little Hiawatha are more like idyllic pictures
+of the original Americans.
+
+[Sidenote: EVANGELINE]
+
+_Evangeline: a Tale of Acadie_ (1847) met the fate of Longfellow's
+earlier poems in that it was promptly attacked by a few critics while a
+multitude of people read it with delight. Its success may be explained on
+four counts. First, it is a charming story, not a "modern" or realistic but
+a tender, pathetic story such as we read in old romances, and such as young
+people will cherish so long as they remain young people. Second, it had a
+New World setting, one that was welcomed in Europe because it offered
+readers a new stage, more vast, shadowy, mysterious, than that to which
+they were accustomed; and doubly welcomed here because it threw the glamor
+of romance over familiar scenes which deserved but had never before found
+their poet. Third, this old romance in a new setting was true to universal
+human nature; its sentiments of love, faith and deathless loyalty were such
+as make the heart beat faster wherever true hearts are found. Finally, it
+was written in an unusual verse form, the unrimed hexameter, which
+Longfellow handled as well, let us say, as most other English poets who
+have tried to use that alluring but difficult measure. For hexameters are
+like the Italian language, which is very easy to "pick up," but which few
+foreigners ever learn to speak with the rhythm and melody of a child of
+Tuscany.
+
+Longfellow began his hexameters fairly well, as witness the opening lines
+of _Evangeline_:
+
+  This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
+  Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
+  Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
+  Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
+  Loud from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
+  Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
+
+Occasionally also he produced a very good but not quite perfect line or
+passage:
+
+  And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,
+  So with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,
+  Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.
+
+One must confess, however, that such passages are exceptional, and that one
+must change the proper stress of a word too frequently to be enthusiastic
+over Longfellow's hexameters. Some of his lines halt or hobble, refusing to
+move to the chosen measure, and others lose all their charm when spoken
+aloud:
+
+  When she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
+
+That line has been praised by critics, but one must believe that they never
+pronounced it. To voice its sibilant hissing is to understand the symbol
+for a white man in the Indian sign language; that is, two fingers of a hand
+extended before the face, like the fork of a serpent's tongue. [Footnote:
+This curious symbol, a snake's tongue to represent an Englishman, was
+invented by some Indian whose ears were pained by a language in which the
+_s_ sounds occur too frequently. Our plurals are nearly all made that
+way, unfortunately; but Longfellow was able to make a hissing line without
+the use of a single plural.] On the whole, Longfellow's verse should be
+judged not by itself but as a part of the tale he was telling. Holmes
+summed up the first impression of many readers by saying that he found
+these "brimming lines" an excellent medium for a charming story.
+
+That is more than one can truthfully say of the next important idyl, _The
+Courtship of Miles Standish_ (1858). The story is a good one and, more
+than all the histories, has awakened a romantic interest in the Pilgrims;
+but its unhappy hexameters go jolting along, continually upsetting the
+musical rhythm, until we wish that the tale had been told in either prose
+or poetry.
+
+[Sidenote: SONG OF HIAWATHA]
+
+_The Song of Hiawatha_ (1855) was Longfellow's greatest work, and by
+it he will probably be longest remembered as a world poet. The materials
+for this poem, its musical names, its primitive traditions, its fascinating
+folklore, were all taken from Schoolcraft's books about the Ojibway
+Indians; its peculiar verse form, with its easy rhythm and endless
+repetition, was copied from the _Kalevala_, the national epic of
+Finland. Material and method, the tale and the verse form, were finely
+adapted to each other; and though Longfellow showed no originality in
+_Hiawatha_, his poetic talent or genius appears in this: that these
+tales of childhood are told in a childlike spirit; that these forest
+legends have the fragrance of hemlock in them; and that as we read them,
+even now, we seem to see the wigwam with its curling smoke, and beyond the
+wigwam the dewy earth, the shining river, and the blue sky with its pillars
+of tree trunks and its cloud of rustling leaves. The simplicity and
+naturalness of primitive folklore is in this work of Longfellow, who of a
+hundred writers at home and abroad was the first to reveal the poetry in
+the soul of an Indian.
+
+As the poem is well known we forbear quotation; as it is too long, perhaps,
+we express a personal preference in naming "Hiawatha's Childhood," his
+"Friends," his "Fishing" and his "Wooing" as the parts most likely to
+please the beginner. The best that can be said of _Hiawatha_ is that
+it adds a new tale to the world's storybook. That book of the centuries has
+only a few stories, each of which portrays a man from birth to death,
+fronting the problems of this life, meeting its joy or sorrow in man
+fashion, and then setting his face bravely to "Ponemah," the Land of the
+Hereafter. That Longfellow added a chapter to the volume which preserves
+the stories of Ulysses, Beowulf, Arthur and Roland is undoubtedly his best
+or most enduring achievement.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAPROOM, WAYSIDE INN, SUDBURY]
+
+HIS EXPERIMENTAL WORKS. Unless the student wants to encourage a sentimental
+mood by reading _Hyperion_, Longfellow's prose works need not detain
+us. Much more valuable and readable are his translations from various
+European languages, and of these his metrical version of _The Divine
+Comedy_ of Dante is most notable. He attempted also several dramatic
+works, among which _The Spanish Student_ (1843) is still readable,
+though not very convincing. In _Christus: a Mystery_ he attempted a
+miracle play of three acts, dealing with Christianity in the apostolic,
+medieval and modern eras; but not even his admirers were satisfied with the
+result. "The Golden Legend" (one version of which Caxton printed on the
+first English press, and which a score of different poets have paraphrased)
+is the only part of _Christus_ that may interest young readers by its
+romantic portrayal of the Middle Ages. To name such works is to suggest
+Longfellow's varied interests and his habit of experimenting with any
+subject or verse form that attracted him in foreign literatures.
+
+The _Tales of a Wayside Inn_ (1863-1873) is the most popular of
+Longfellow's miscellaneous works. Here are a score of stories from ancient
+or modern sources, as told by a circle of the poet's friends in the Red
+Horse Inn, at Sudbury. The title suggests at once the _Canterbury
+Tales_ of Chaucer; but it would be unwise to make any comparison between
+the two works or the two poets. The ballad of "Paul Revere's Ride" is the
+best known of the _Wayside Inn_ poems; the Viking tales of "The Saga
+of King Olaf" are the most vigorous; the mellow coloring of the Middle Ages
+appears in such stories as "The Legend Beautiful" and "The Bell of Atri."
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF LONGFELLOW. The broad sympathy of Longfellow, which made
+him at home in the literatures of a dozen nations, was one of his finest
+qualities. He lived in Cambridge; he wrote in English; he is called the
+poet of the American home; but had he lived in Finland and written in a
+Scandinavian tongue, his poems must still appeal to us. Indeed, so simply
+did he reflect the sentiments of the human heart that Finland or any other
+nation might gladly class him among its poets.
+
+[Sidenote: A POET OF ALL PEOPLES]
+
+For example, many Englishmen have written about their Wellington, but, as
+Hearn says, not even Tennyson's poem on the subject is quite equal to
+Longfellow's "Warden of the Cinque Ports." The spirit of the Spanish
+missions, with their self-sacrificing monks and their soldiers "with hearts
+of fire and steel," is finely reflected in "The Bells of San Blas." The
+half-superstitious loyalty of the Russian peasant for his hereditary ruler
+has never been better reflected than in "The White Czar." The story of
+Belisarius has been told in scores of histories and books of poetry; but
+you will feel a deeper sympathy for the neglected old Roman soldier in
+Longfellow's poem than in anything else you may find on the same theme. And
+there are many other foreign heroes or brave deeds that find beautiful
+expression in the verse of our American poet. Of late it has become almost
+a critical habit to disparage Longfellow; but no critic has pointed out
+another poet who has reflected with sympathy and understanding the feelings
+of so many widely different peoples.
+
+[Illustration: LONGFELLOW'S LIBRARY IN CRAIGIE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE]
+
+Naturally such a poet had his limitations. In comparison with Chaucer, for
+example, we perceive instantly that Longfellow knew only one side of life,
+the better side. Unhappy or rebellious or turbulent souls were beyond his
+ken. He wrote only for those who work by day and sometimes go to evensong
+at night, who hopefully train their children or reverently bury their dead,
+and who cleave to a writer that speaks for them the fitting word of faith
+or cheer or consolation on every proper occasion. As humanity is largely
+made of such men and women, Longfellow will always be a popular poet. For
+him, with his serene outlook, there were not nine Muses but only three, and
+their names were Faith, Hope and Charity.
+
+[Sidenote: POETIC FAULTS]
+
+Concerning his faults, perhaps the most illuminating thing that can be said
+is that critics emphasize and ordinary readers ignore them. The reason for
+this is that every poem has two elements, form and content: a critic looks
+chiefly at the one, an ordinary reader at the other. Because the form of
+Longfellow's verse is often faulty it is easy to criticize him, to show
+that he copies the work of others, that he lacks originality, that his
+figures are often forced or questionable; but the reader, the young reader
+especially, may be too much interested in the charm of the poet's story or
+the truth of his sentiment to dissect his poetic figures. Thus, in the
+best-known of his earlier poems, "A Psalm of Life," he uses the famous
+metaphor of "footprints on the sands of time." That is so bad a figure that
+to analyze is to reject it; yet it never bothers young people, who would
+understand the poet and like him just as well even had he written
+"signboards" instead of "footprints." The point is that Longfellow is so
+obviously a true and pleasant poet that his faults easily escape attention
+unless we look for them. There is perhaps no better summary of our poet's
+qualities than to record again the simple fact that he is the poet of young
+people, to whom sentiment is the very breath of life. Should you ask the
+reason for his supremacy in this respect, the answer is a paradox.
+Longfellow was not an originator; he had no new song to sing, no new tale
+to tell. He was the poet of old heroes, old legends, old sentiments and
+ideals. Therefore he is the poet of youth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)
+
+The strange mixture of warrior and peace lover in Whittier has led to a
+strange misjudgment of his work. From the obscurity of a New England farm
+he emerged as the champion of the Abolitionist party, and for thirty
+tumultuous years his poems were as war cries. By such work was he judged as
+"the trumpeter of a cause," and the judgment stood between him and his
+audience when he sang not of a cause but of a country. Even at the present
+time most critics speak of Whittier as "the antislavery poet." Stedman, for
+example, focuses our attention on certain lyrics of reform which he calls
+"words wrung from the nation's heart"; but the plain fact is that only a
+small part of the nation approved these lyrics or took any interest in the
+poet who wrote them.
+
+Such was Whittier on one side, a militant poet of reform, sending forth
+verses that had the brattle of trumpets and the waving of banners in them:
+
+  Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield,
+  Give to Northern winds the Pine Tree on our banner's tattered field.
+  Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board,
+  Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!"
+  Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array!
+  What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.
+
+On the other side he was a Friend, or Quaker, and the peaceful spirit of
+his people found expression in lyrics of faith that have no equal in our
+poetry. He was also a patriot to the core. He loved America with a profound
+love; her ideals, her traditions, her epic history were in his blood, and
+he glorified them in ballads and idyls that reflect the very spirit of
+brave Colonial days. To judge Whittier as a trumpeter, therefore, is to
+neglect all that is important in his work; for his reform poems merely
+awaken the dying echoes of party clamor, while his ballads and idyls belong
+to the whole American people, and his hymns of faith to the wider audience
+of humanity.
+
+    LIFE. The span of Whittier's life was almost the span of the
+    nineteenth century. He was born (1807) in the homestead of his
+    ancestors at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and spent his formative
+    years working in the fields by day, reading beside the open fire at
+    night, and spending a few terms in a "deestrict" school presided
+    over by teachers who came or went with the spring. His schooling
+    was, therefore, of the scantiest kind; his real education came from
+    a noble home, from his country's history, from his toil and outdoor
+    life with its daily contact with nature. The love of home and of
+    homely virtues, the glorification of manhood and womanhood, the
+    pride of noble traditions, and always a background of meadow or
+    woodland or sounding sea,--these were the subjects of Whittier's
+    best verse, because these were the things he knew most intimately.
+
+    [Sidenote: FIRST VERSES]
+
+    It was a song of Burns that first turned Whittier to poetry; but
+    hardly had he begun to write songs of his own when Garrison, the
+    antislavery agitator, turned his thought from the peaceful farm to
+    the clamoring world beyond. Attracted by certain verses (Whittier's
+    sister Elizabeth had sent them secretly to Garrison's paper) the
+    editor came over to see his contributor and found to his surprise a
+    country lad who was in evident need of education. Instead of asking
+    for more poetry, therefore, Garrison awakened the boy's ambition.
+    For two terms he attended the Haverhill Academy, supporting himself
+    meanwhile by making shoes. Then his labor was needed at home; but
+    finding his health too delicate for farm work he chose other
+    occupations and contributed manfully to the support of his family.
+
+    [Illustration: JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER]
+
+    For several years thereafter Whittier was like a man trying to find
+    himself. He did factory work; he edited newspapers; he showed a
+    talent for political leadership; he made poems which he sold at a
+    price to remind him of what he had once received for making shoes.
+    While poetry and politics both called to him alluringly a crisis
+    arose; Garrison summoned him; and with a sad heart, knowing that he
+    left all hope of political or literary success behind, he went over
+    to the Abolitionist party. That was in 1833, when Whittier was
+    twenty-six years old. At that time the Abolitionists were detested
+    in the North as well as in the South, and to join them was to
+    become an outcast.
+
+    [Sidenote: STORM AND STRESS]
+
+    Then came the militant period of Whittier's life. He became editor
+    of antislavery journals; he lectured in the cause; he was stoned
+    for his utterances; his printing shop was burned by a mob.
+    Meanwhile his poems were sounding abroad like trumpet blasts,
+    making friends, making enemies. It was a passionate age, when
+    political enemies were hated like Hessians, but Whittier was always
+    chivalrous with his opponents. Read his "Randolph of Roanoke" for a
+    specific example. His "Laus Deo" (1865), a chant of exultation
+    written when he heard the bells ringing the news of the
+    constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery, was the last poem of
+    this period of storm and stress.
+
+    [Illustration: OAK KNOLL, WHITTIER'S HOME, DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS]
+
+    In the following year Whittier produced _Snow-Bound_, his
+    masterpiece. Though he had been writing for half a century, he had
+    never won either fame or money by his verse; but the publication of
+    this beautiful idyl placed him in the front rank of American poets.
+    Thereafter he was a national figure, and the magazines which once
+    scorned his verses were now most eager to print them. So he made an
+    end of the poverty which had been his portion since childhood.
+
+    [Sidenote: PEACEFUL YEARS]
+
+    For the remainder of his life he lived serenely at Amesbury, for
+    the most part, in a modest house presided over by a relative. He
+    wrote poetry now more carefully, for a wider audience, and every
+    few years saw another little volume added to his store: _Ballads
+    of New England_, _Miriam and Other Poems_, _Hazel
+    Blossoms_, _Poems of Nature_, _St. Gregory's Quest_,
+    _At Sundown_. When he died (1892) he was honored not so widely
+    perhaps as Longfellow, but more deeply, as we honor those whose
+    peace has been won through manful strife. Holmes, the ready poet of
+    all occasions, expressed a formal but sincere judgment in the
+    lines:
+
+      Best loved and saintliest of our singing train,
+        Earth's noblest tributes to thy name belong:
+      A lifelong record closed without a stain,
+        A blameless memory shrined in deathless song.
+
+EARLIER WORKS. [Footnote: Though we are concerned here with Whittier's
+poetry, we should at least mention certain of his prose works, such as
+_Legends of New England_, _Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal_
+and _Old Portraits and Modern Sketches_. The chief value of these is
+in their pictures of Colonial life.] In Whittier's poetry we note three
+distinct stages, and note also that he was on the wrong trail until he
+followed his own spirit. His earliest work was inspired by Burns, but this
+was of no consequence. Next he fell under the spell of Scott and wrote
+"Mogg Megone" and "The Bridal of Pennacook." These Indian romances in verse
+are too much influenced by Scott's border poems and also by sentimental
+novels of savage life, such as Mrs. Child's _Hobomok_; they do not
+ring true, and in this respect are like almost everything else in
+literature on the subject of the Indians.
+
+[Sidenote: REFORM POEMS]
+
+In _Voices of Freedom_ (1849) and other poems inspired by the
+antislavery campaign Whittier for the first time came close to his own age.
+He was no longer an echo but a voice, a man's voice, shouting above a
+tumult. He spoke not for the nation but for a party; and it was inevitable
+that his reform lyrics should fall into neglect with the occasions that
+called them forth. They are interesting now not as poems but as sidelights
+on a critical period of our history. Their intensely passionate quality
+appears in "Faneuil Hall," "Song of the Free," "The Pine Tree," "Randolph
+of Roanoke" and "The Farewell of an Indian Slave Mother."
+
+There is a fine swinging rhythm in these poems, in "Massachusetts to
+Virginia" especially, which recalls Macaulay's "Armada"; and two of them at
+least show astonishing power and vitality. One is "Laus Deo," to which we
+have referred in our story of the poet's life. The other is "Ichabod"
+(1850), written after the "Seventh of March Speech" of Webster, when that
+statesman seemed to have betrayed the men who elected and trusted him.
+Surprise, anger, scorn, indignation, sorrow,--all these emotions were
+loosed in a flood after Webster's speech; but Whittier waited till he had
+fused them into one emotion, and when his slow words fell at last they fell
+with the weight of judgment and the scorching of fire upon their victim. If
+words could kill a man, these surely are the words. "Ichabod" is the most
+powerful poem of its kind in our language; but it is fearfully unjust to
+Webster. Those who read it should read also "The Lost Occasion," written
+thirty years later, which Whittier placed next to "Ichabod" in the final
+edition of his poems. So he tried to right a wrong (unfortunately after the
+victim was dead) by offering generous tribute to the statesman he had once
+misjudged.
+
+BALLADS AND AMERICAN IDYLS. Whittier's manly heart and his talent for
+flowing verse made him an excellent ballad writer; but his work in this
+field is so different from that of his predecessors that he came near to
+inventing a new type of poetry. Thus, many of the old ballads celebrate the
+bravery that mounts with fighting; but Whittier always lays emphasis on the
+higher quality that we call moral courage. "Barclay of Ury" will illustrate
+our criticism: the verse has a martial swing; the hero is a veteran who has
+known the lust of battle; but his courage now appears in self-mastery, in
+the ability to bear in silence the jeers of a mob. Again, the old ballad
+aims to tell a story, nothing else, and drives straight to its mark; but
+Whittier portrays the whole landscape and background of the action. He
+deals largely with Colonial life in New England, and his descriptions of
+place and people are unrivaled in our poetry. Read one of his typical
+ballads, "The Wreck of Rivermouth" or "The Witch's Daughter" or "The
+Garrison of Cape Ann" or "Skipper Ireson's Ride," and see how closely he
+identifies himself with the place and time of his story.
+
+[Illustration: STREET IN OLD MARBLEHEAD
+Skipper Ireson's home on extreme right]
+
+[Sidenote: PATRIOTIC QUALITY]
+
+There is one quality, however, in which our Quaker poet resembles the old
+ballad makers, namely, his intense patriotism, and this recalls the fact
+that ballads were the first histories, the first expression not only of
+brave deeds but of the national pride which the deeds symbolized. Though
+Whittier keeps himself modestly in the background, as a story teller ought
+to do, he can never quite repress the love of his native land or the
+quickened heartbeats that set his verse marching as if to the drums. This
+patriotism, though intense, was never intolerant but rather sympathetic
+with men of other lands, as appears in "The Pipes at Lucknow", a ballad
+dealing with a dramatic incident of the Sepoy Rebellion. The Scotsman who
+could read that ballad unmoved, without a kindling of the eye or a stirring
+of the heart, would be unworthy of his clan or country.
+
+Even better than Whittier's ballads are certain narrative poems reflecting
+the life of simple people, to which we give the name of idyls. "Telling the
+Bees," "In School Days," "My Playmate," "Maud Muller," "The Barefoot
+Boy,"--there are no other American poems quite like these, none so tender,
+none written with such perfect sympathy. Some of them are like photographs;
+and the lens that gathered them was not a glass but a human heart. Others
+sing the emotion of love as only Whittier, the Galahad of poets, could have
+sung it,--as in this stanza from "A Sea Dream":
+
+  Draw near, more near, forever dear!
+    Where'er I rest or roam,
+  Or in the city's crowded streets,
+    Or by the blown sea foam,
+    The thought of thee is home!
+
+SNOW-BOUND. The best of Whittier's idyls is _Snow-Bound_ (1866), into
+which he gathered a boy's tenderest memories. In naming this as the best
+poem in the language on the subject of home we do not offer a criticism but
+an invitation. Because all that is best in human life centers in the ideal
+of home, and because Whittier reflected that ideal in a beautiful way,
+_Snow-Bound_ should be read if we read nothing else of American
+poetry. There is perhaps only one thing to prevent this idyl from becoming
+a universal poem: its natural setting can be appreciated only by those who
+live within the snow line, who have seen the white flakes gather and drift,
+confining every family to the circle of its own hearth fire in what Emerson
+calls "the tumultuous privacy of storm."
+
+The plan of the poem is simplicity itself. It opens with a description of a
+snowstorm that thickens with the December night. The inmates of an old
+farmhouse gather about the open fire, and Whittier describes them one by
+one, how they looked to the boy (for _Snow-Bound_ is a recollection of
+boyhood), and what stories they told to reveal their interests. The rest of
+the poem is a reverie, as of one no longer a boy, who looks into his fire
+and sees not the fire-pictures but those other scenes or portraits that are
+graved deep in every human heart.
+
+[Sidenote: CHARM OF SNOW-BOUND]
+
+To praise such a work is superfluous, and to criticize its artless
+sincerity is beyond our ability. Many good writers have explained the poem;
+yet still its deepest charm escapes analysis, perhaps because it has no
+name. The best criticism that the present writer ever heard on the subject
+came from a Habitant farmer in the Province of Quebec, a simple, unlettered
+man, who was a poet at heart but who would have been amazed had anyone told
+him so. His children, who were learning English literature through the
+happy medium of _Evangeline_ and _Snow-Bound_, brought the latter
+poem home from school, and the old man would sit smoking his pipe and
+listening to the story. When they read of the winter scenes, of the fire
+roaring its defiance up the chimney-throat at the storm without,
+
+  What matter how the night behaved?
+  What matter how the north-wind raved?
+  Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
+  Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow,--
+
+then he would stir in his chair, make his pipe glow fiercely, and blow a
+cloud of smoke about his head. But in the following scene, with its
+memories of the dead and its immortal hope, he would sit very still, as if
+listening to exquisite music. When asked why he liked the poem his face
+lighted: "W'y I lak heem, M'sieu Whittier? I lak heem 'cause he speak de
+true. He know de storm, and de leetle _cabane_, and heart of de boy
+an' hees moder. _Oui, oui_, he know de man also."
+
+Nature, home, the heart of a boy and a man and a mother,--the poet who can
+reflect such elemental matters so that the simple of earth understand and
+love their beauty deserves the critic's best tribute of silence.
+
+POEMS OF FAITH AND NATURE. Aside from the reform poems it is hard to group
+Whittier's works, which are all alike in that they portray familiar scenes
+against a natural background. In his _Tent on the Beach_ (1867) he
+attempted a collection of tales in the manner of Longfellow's _Wayside
+Inn_, but of these only one or two ballads, such as "Abraham Davenport"
+and "The Wreck of Rivermouth," are now treasured. The best part of the book
+is the "Prelude," which pictures the poet among his friends and records his
+impressions of sky and sea and shore.
+
+[Sidenote: TWO VIEWS OF NATURE]
+
+The outdoor poems of Whittier are interesting, aside from their own beauty,
+as suggesting two poetic conceptions of nature which have little in common.
+The earlier regards nature as a mistress to be loved or a divinity to be
+worshiped for her own sake; she has her own laws or mercies, and man is but
+one of her creatures. The Anglo-Saxon scops viewed nature in this way; so
+did Bryant, in whose "Forest Hymn" is the feeling of primitive ages. Many
+modern poets (and novelists also, like Scott and Cooper) have outgrown this
+conception; they regard nature as a kind of stage for the drama of human
+life, which is all-important.
+
+Whittier belongs to this later school; he portrays nature magnificently,
+but always as the background for some human incident, sad or tender or
+heroic, which appears to us more real because viewed in its natural
+setting. Note in "The Wreck of Rivermouth," for example, how the merry
+party in their sailboat, the mowers on the salt marshes, the "witch"
+mumbling her warning, the challenge of a careless girl, the skipper's fear,
+the river, the breeze, the laughing sea,--everything is exactly as it
+should be. It is this humanized view of the natural world which makes
+Whittier's ballads unique and which gives deeper meaning to his "Hampton
+Beach," "Among the Hills," "Trailing Arbutus," "The Vanishers" and other of
+his best nature poems.
+
+[Sidenote: WHITTIER'S CREED]
+
+Our reading of Whittier should not end until we are familiar with "The
+Eternal Goodness," "Trust," "My Soul and I," "The Prayer of Agassiz" and a
+few more of his hymns of faith. Our appreciation of such hymns will be more
+sympathetic if we remember, first, that Whittier came of ancestors whose
+souls approved the opening proposition of the Declaration of Independence;
+and second, that he belonged to the Society of Friends, who believed that
+God revealed himself directly to every human soul (the "inner light" they
+called it), and that a man's primal responsibility was to God and his own
+conscience. The creed of Whittier may therefore be summarized in two
+articles: "I believe in the Divine love and in the equality of men." The
+latter article appears in all his poems; the former is crystallized in "The
+Eternal Goodness," a hymn so trustful and reverent that it might well be
+the evensong of humanity.
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF WHITTIER. One may summarize Whittier in the statement
+that he is the poet of the home and the hills, and of that freedom without
+which the home loses its chief joy and the hill its inspiration. In writing
+of such themes Whittier failed to win the highest honors of a poet; and the
+failure was due not to his lack of culture, as is sometimes alleged (for
+there is no other culture equal to right living), but rather to the stern
+conditions of his life, to his devotion to duty, to his struggle for
+liberty, to his lifelong purpose of helping men by his singing. Great poems
+are usually the result of seclusion, of aloofness, but Whittier was always
+a worker in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: A NATURAL SINGER]
+
+His naturalness is perhaps his best poetic virtue. There is in his verse a
+spontaneous "singing" quality which leaves the impression that poetry was
+his native language. It is easy to understand why Burns first attracted
+him, for both poets were natural singers who remind us of what Bede wrote
+of Cædmon: "He learned not the art of poetry from men." Next to his
+spontaneity is his rare simplicity, his gift of speaking straight from a
+heart that never grew old. Sometimes his simplicity is as artless as that
+of a child, as in "Maud Muller"; generally it is noble, as in his modest
+"Proem" to _Voices of Freedom_; occasionally it is passionate, as in
+the exultant cry of "Laus Deo"; and at times it rises to the simplicity of
+pure art, as in "Telling the Bees." The last-named poem portrays an old
+Colonial custom which provided that when death came to a farmhouse the bees
+must be told and their hives draped in mourning. It portrays also, as a
+perfect, natural background, the path to Whittier's home and his sister's
+old-fashioned flower garden, in which the daffodils still bloom where she
+planted them long ago.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MAN AND THE POET]
+
+That Whittier was not a great poet, as the critics assure us, may be
+frankly admitted. That he had elements of greatness is also without
+question; and precisely for this reason, because his power is so often
+manifest in noble or exquisite passages, there is disappointment in reading
+him when we stumble upon bad rimes, careless workmanship, mishandling of
+his native speech. Our experience here is probably like that of Whittier's
+friend Garrison. The latter had read certain poems that attracted him; he
+came quickly to see the poet; and out from under the barn, his clothes
+sprinkled with hayseed, crawled a shy country lad who explained bashfully
+that he had been hunting hens' nests. Anything could be forgiven after
+that; interest in the boy would surely temper criticism of the poet.
+
+Even so our present criticism of Whittier's verse must include certain
+considerations of the man who wrote it: that he smacked of his native soil;
+that his education was scanty and hardly earned; that he used words as his
+father and mother used them, and was not ashamed of their rural accent. His
+own experience, moreover, had weathered him until he seemed part of a
+rugged landscape. He knew life, and he loved it. He had endured poverty,
+and glorified it. He had been farm hand, shoemaker, self-supporting
+student, editor of country newspapers, local politician, champion of
+slaves, worker for reform, defender of a hopeless cause that by the awful
+judgment of war became a winning cause. And always and everywhere he had
+been a man, one who did his duty as he saw it, spake truth as he believed
+it, and kept his conscience clean, his heart pure, his faith unshaken. All
+this was in his verse and ennobled even his faults, which were part of his
+plain humanity. As Longfellow was by study of European literatures the poet
+of books and culture, so Whittier was by experience the poet of life. The
+homely quality of his verse, which endears it to common men, is explained
+on the ground that he was nearer than any other American poet to the body
+and soul of his countrymen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891)
+
+The work of Lowell is unusual and his rank or position hard to define.
+Though never a great or even a popular writer, he was regarded for a
+considerable part of his life as the most prominent man of letters in
+America. At the present time his reputation is still large, but historians
+find it somewhat easier to praise his works than to read them. As poet,
+critic, satirist, editor and teacher he loomed as a giant among his
+contemporaries, overtopping Whittier and Longfellow at one time; but he
+left no work comparable to _Snow-Bound_ or _Hiawatha_, and one is
+puzzled to name any of his poems or essays that are fairly certain to give
+pleasure. To read his volumes is to meet a man of power and brilliant
+promise, but the final impression is that the promise was not fulfilled,
+that the masterpiece of which Lowell was capable was left unwritten.
+
+    BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Lowell came from a distinguished family that
+    had "made history" in America. His father was a cultured clergyman;
+    he grew up in a beautiful home, "Elmwood," in the college town of
+    Cambridge; among his first companions were the noble books that
+    filled the shelves of the family library. From the beginning,
+    therefore, he was inclined to letters; and though he often turned
+    aside for other matters, his first and last love was the love of
+    poetry.
+
+    At fifteen he entered Harvard, where he read almost everything, he
+    said, except the books prescribed by the faculty. Then he studied
+    law and opened an office in Boston, where he found few clients,
+    being more interested in writing verses than in his profession.
+    With his marriage in 1844 the first strong purpose seems to have
+    entered his indolent life. His wife was zealous in good works, and
+    presently Lowell, who had gayly satirized all reformers, joined in
+    the antislavery campaign and proceeded to make as many enemies as
+    friends by his reform poems.
+
+    [Illustration: JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL]
+
+    [Sidenote: VARIED TASKS]
+
+    Followed then a period of hard, purposeful work, during which he
+    supported himself by editing _The Pennsylvania Freeman_ and by
+    writing for the magazines. In 1848, his banner year, he published
+    his best volume of _Poems_, _Sir Launfal_, _A Fable for
+    Critics_ and the first series of _The Biglow Papers_. It
+    was not these volumes, however, but a series of brilliant lectures
+    on the English poets that caused Lowell to be called to the chair
+    in Harvard which Longfellow had resigned. He prepared for this work
+    by studying abroad, and for some twenty years thereafter he gave
+    courses in English, Italian, Spanish and German literatures. For a
+    part of this time he was also editor in turn of _The Atlantic
+    Monthly_ and _The North American Review_.
+
+    [Sidenote: LIFE ABROAD]
+
+    In the simpler days of the republic, when the first question asked
+    of a diplomat was not whether he had money enough to entertain
+    society in a proper style, the profession of letters was honored by
+    sending literary men to represent America in foreign courts, and
+    Lowell's prominence was recognized by his appointment as ambassador
+    to Spain (1877) and to England (1880). It was in this patriotic
+    service abroad that he won his greatest honors. In London
+    especially he made his power felt as an American who loved his
+    country, as a democrat who believed in democracy, and as a cultured
+    gentleman who understood Anglo-Saxon life because of his
+    familiarity with the poetry in which that life is most clearly
+    reflected. Next to keeping silence about his proper business,
+    perhaps the chief requirement of an ambassador is to make speeches
+    about everything else, and no other foreign speaker was ever
+    listened to with more pleasure than the witty and cultured Lowell.
+    One who summed up his diplomatic triumph said tersely that he found
+    the Englishmen strangers and left them all cousins.
+
+    He was recalled from this service in 1885. The remainder of his
+    life was spent teaching at Harvard, writing more poetry and editing
+    his numerous works. His first volume of poems, _A Year's
+    Life_, was published in 1841; his last volume, _Heartsease and
+    Rue_, appeared almost half a century later, in 1888. That his
+    death occurred in the same house in which he was born and in which
+    he had spent the greater part of his life is an occurrence so rare
+    in America that it deserves a poem of commemoration.
+
+LOWELL'S POETRY. There are golden grains everywhere in Lowell's verse but
+never a continuous vein of metal. In other words, even his best work is
+notable for occasional lines rather than for sustained excellence. As a
+specific example study the "Commemoration Ode," one of the finest poems
+inspired by the Civil War. The occasion of this ode, to commemorate the
+college students who had given their lives for their country, was all that
+a poet might wish; the brilliant audience that gathered at Cambridge was
+most inspiring; and beyond that local audience stood a nation in mourning,
+a nation which had just lost a million of its sons in a mighty conflict. It
+was such an occasion as Lowell loved, and one who reads the story of his
+life knows how earnestly he strove to meet it. When the reading of his poem
+was finished his audience called it "a noble effort," and that is precisely
+the trouble with the famous ode; it is too plainly an effort. It does not
+sing, does not overflow from a full heart, does not speak the inevitable,
+satisfying word. In consequence (and perhaps this criticism applies to most
+ambitious odes) we are rather glad when the "effort" is at an end. Yet
+there are excellent passages in the poem, notably the sixth and the last
+stanzas, one with its fine tribute to Lincoln, the other expressive of
+deathless loyalty to one's native land.
+
+[Sidenote: LYRICS]
+
+The best of Lowell's lyrics may be grouped in two classes, the first
+dealing with his personal joy or grief, the second with the feelings of the
+nation. Typical of the former are "The First Snowfall" and a few other
+lyrics reflecting the poet's sorrow for the loss of a little
+daughter,--simple, human poems, in refreshing contrast with most others of
+Lowell, which strive for brilliancy. The best of the national lyrics is
+"The Present Crisis" (1844). This was at first a party poem, a ringing
+appeal issued during the turmoil occasioned by the annexation of Texas; but
+now, with the old party issues forgotten, we can all read it with pleasure
+as a splendid expression of the American heart and will in every crisis of
+our national history.
+
+In the nature lyrics we have a double reflection, one of the external
+world, the other of a poet who could not be single-minded, and who was
+always confusing his own impressions of nature or humanity with those other
+impressions which he found reflected in poetry. Read the charming "To a
+Dandelion," for example, and note how Lowell cannot be content with his
+
+  Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way,
+  Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
+
+but must bring in Eldorado and twenty other poetic allusions to glorify a
+flower which has no need of external glory. Then for comparison read
+Bryant's "Fringed Gentian" and see how the elder poet, content with the
+flower itself, tells you very simply how its beauty appeals to him. Or read
+"An Indian-Summer Reverie" with its scattered lines of gold, and note how
+Lowell cannot say what he feels in his own heart but must search everywhere
+for poetic images; and then, because he cannot find exactly what he seeks
+or, more likely, because he finds a dozen tempting allusions where one is
+plenty, he goes on and on in a vain quest that ends by leaving himself and
+his reader unsatisfied.
+
+[Sidenote: SIR LAUNFAL]
+
+The most popular of Lowell's works is _The Vision of Sir Launfal_
+(1848), in which he invents an Arthurian kind of legend of the search for
+the Holy Grail. Most of his long poems are labored, but this seems to have
+been written in a moment of inspiration. The "Prelude" begins almost
+spontaneously, and when it reaches the charming passage "And what is so
+rare as a day in June?" the verse fairly begins to sing,--a rare occurrence
+with Lowell. Critical readers may reasonably object to the poet's
+moralizing, to his imperfect lines and to his setting of an Old World
+legend of knights and castles in a New World landscape; but uncritical
+readers rejoice in a moral feeling that is fine and true, and are content
+with a good story and a good landscape without inquiring whether the two
+belong together. Moreover, _Sir Launfal_ certainly serves the first
+purpose of poetry in that it gives pleasure and so deserves its continued
+popularity among young readers.
+
+[Sidenote: SATIRES]
+
+Two satiric poems that were highly prized when they were first published,
+and that are still formally praised by historians who do not read them, are
+_A Fable for Critics_ and _The Biglow Papers_. The former is a
+series of doggerel verses filled with grotesque puns and quips aimed at
+American authors who were prominent in 1848. The latter, written in a
+tortured, "Yankee" dialect, is made up of political satires and conceits
+occasioned by the Mexican and Civil wars. Both works contain occasional
+fine lines and a few excellent criticisms of literature or politics, but
+few young readers will have patience to sift out the good passages from the
+mass of glittering rubbish in which they are hidden.
+
+Much more worthy of the reader's attention are certain neglected works,
+such as Lowell's sonnets, his "Prometheus," "Columbus," "Agassiz,"
+"Portrait of Dante," "Washers of the Shroud," "Under the Old Elm" (with its
+noble tribute to Washington) and "Stanzas on Freedom," It is a pity that
+such poems, all of which contain memorable lines, should be kept from the
+wide audience they deserve, and largely because of the author's
+digressiveness. To examine them is to conclude that, like most of Lowell's
+works, they are not simple enough in feeling to win ordinary readers, like
+the poetry of Longfellow, and not perfect enough in form to excite the
+admiration of critics, like the best of Poe's melodies.
+
+[Illustration: LOWELL'S HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, IN WINTER]
+
+LOWELL'S PROSE. In brilliancy at least Lowell has no peer among American
+essayists, though others excel him in the better qualities of originality
+or charm or vigor. The best of his prose works are the scintillating essays
+collected in _My Study Window_ and _Among My Books_. In his
+political essays he looked at humanity with his own eyes, but the titles of
+the volumes just named indicate his chief interest as a prose writer, which
+was to interpret the world's books rather than the world's throbbing life.
+For younger readers the most pleasing of the prose works are the
+comparatively simple sketches, "My Garden Acquaintance," "Cambridge Thirty
+Years Ago" and "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners." In these
+sketches we meet the author at his best, alert, witty and so widely read
+that he cannot help giving literary flavor to whatever he writes. Among the
+best of his essays on literary subjects are those on Chaucer, Dante Keats,
+Walton and Emerson.
+
+[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE ESSAYS]
+
+One who reads a typical collection of Lowell's essays is apt to be divided
+between open admiration and something akin to resentment. On the one hand
+they are brilliant, stimulating, filled with "good things"; on the other
+they are always digressive, sometimes fantastic and too often
+self-conscious; that is, they call our attention to the author rather than
+to his proper subject. When he writes of Dante he is concerned to reveal
+the soul of the Italian master; but when he writes of Milton he seems
+chiefly intent on showing how much more he knows than the English editor of
+Milton's works. When he presents Emerson he tries to make us know and
+admire the Concord sage; but when he falls foul of Emerson's friends,
+Thoreau and Carlyle, his personal prejudices are more in evidence than his
+impersonal judgment. In consequence, some of the literary essays are a
+better reflection of Lowell himself than of the men he wrote about.
+
+An author must be finally measured, however, by his finest work, by his
+constant purpose rather than by his changing mood; and the finest work of
+Lowell, his critical studies of the elder poets and dramatists, are perhaps
+the most solid and the most penetrating that our country has to show. He
+certainly kept "the great tradition" in criticism, a tradition which
+enjoins us, in simple language, to seek only the best and to reverence it
+when we find it. As he wrote:
+
+  Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
+  Great souls are portions of eternity;
+  Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran
+  With lofty message, ran for thee and me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894)
+
+It is a sad fate for a writer to be known as a humorist; nobody will take
+him seriously ever afterward. Even a book suffers from such a reputation,
+the famous _Don Quixote_ for example, which we read as a type of
+extravagant humor but which is in reality a tragedy, since it portrays the
+disillusionment of a man who believed the world to be like his own heart,
+noble and chivalrous, and who found it filled with villainy. Because Holmes
+(who was essentially a moralist and a preacher) could not repress the
+bubbling wit that was part of his nature, our historians must set him down
+as a humorist and name the "One-Hoss Shay" as his most typical work. Yet
+his best poems are as pathetic as "The Last Leaf," as sentimental as "The
+Voiceless," as patriotic as "Old Ironsides," as worshipful as the "Hymn of
+Trust," as nobly didactic as "The Chambered Nautilus"; his novels are
+studies of the obscure problems of heredity, and his most characteristic
+prose work, _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, is an original
+commentary on almost everything under the sun.
+
+Evidently we prize a laugh above any other product of literature, and
+because there is a laugh or a smile hidden in many a work of Holmes he must
+still keep the place assigned to him as an "American" humorist. Even so, he
+is perhaps our most representative writer in this field; for he is as
+thoroughly American as a man can be, and his rare culture and kindness are
+in refreshing contrast to the crude horseplay or sensationalism that is
+unfortunately trumpeted abroad as New World humor.
+
+    A PLACID LIFE. Though Holmes never wrote a formal autobiography he
+    left a very good reflection of himself in his works, and it is in
+    these alone that we become acquainted with him,--a genial, witty,
+    observant, kind-hearted and pure-hearted man whom it is good to
+    know.
+
+    He belonged to what he called "the Brahmin caste" of intellectual
+    aristocrats (as described in his novel, _Elsie Venner_), for
+    he came from an old New England family extending back to Anne
+    Bradstreet and the governors of the Bay Colony. He was born in
+    Cambridge; he was educated at Andover and Harvard; he spent his
+    life in Boston, a city which satisfied him so completely that he
+    called it "the hub of the solar system." Most ambitious writers
+    like a large field with plenty of change or variety, but Holmes was
+    content with a small and very select circle with himself at the
+    center of it.
+
+    For his profession he chose medicine and studied it four years, the
+    latter half of the time in Paris. At that period his foreign
+    training was as rare in medicine as was Longfellow's in poetry. He
+    practiced his profession in Boston and managed to make a success of
+    it, though patients were a little doubtful of a doctor who wrote
+    poetry and who opened his office with the remark that "small
+    fevers" would be "gratefully received." Also he was for thirty-five
+    years professor of anatomy at the Harvard Medical School. What with
+    healing or teaching or learning, this doctor might have been very
+    busy; but he seems to have found plenty of leisure for writing, and
+    the inclination was always present. "Whoso has once tasted type" he
+    said, "must indulge the taste to the end of his life."
+
+    [Illustration: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES]
+
+    [Sidenote: THE WRITER]
+
+    His literary work began at twenty-one, when he wrote "Old
+    Ironsides" in protest against the order to dismantle the frigate
+    _Constitution_, which had made naval history in the War of
+    1812. That first poem, which still rings triumphantly in our ears,
+    accomplished two things: it saved the glorious old warship, and it
+    gave Holmes a hold on public attention which he never afterward
+    lost. During the next twenty-five years he wrote poetry, and was so
+    much in demand to furnish verses for special occasions that he was
+    a kind of poet-laureate of his college and city. He was almost
+    fifty when the _Atlantic Monthly_ was projected and Lowell
+    demanded, as a condition of his editorship, that Holmes be engaged
+    as the first contributor. Feeling in the mood for talk, as he
+    commonly did, Holmes responded with _The Autocrat_. Thereafter
+    he wrote chiefly in prose, making his greatest effort in fiction
+    but winning more readers by his table talk in the form of essays.
+    His last volume, _Over the Teacups_, appeared when he was past
+    eighty years old.
+
+    [Sidenote: PET PREJUDICES]
+
+    We have spoken of the genial quality of Holmes as revealed in his
+    work, but we would hardly be just to him did we fail to note his
+    pet prejudices, his suspicion of reformers, his scorn of
+    homeopathic doctors, his violent antipathy to Calvinism. Though he
+    had been brought up in the Calvinistic faith (his father was an
+    old-style clergyman), he seemed to delight in clubbing or
+    satirizing or slinging stones at it. The very mildest he could do
+    was to refer to "yon whey-faced brother" to express his opinion of
+    those who still clung to puritanic doctrines. Curiously enough, he
+    still honored his father and was proud of his godly ancestors, who
+    were all stanch Puritans. The explanation is, of course, that
+    Holmes never understood theology, not for a moment; he only
+    disliked it, and was consequently sure that it must be wrong and
+    that somebody ought to put an end to it. In later years he mellowed
+    somewhat. One cannot truthfully say that he overcame his prejudice,
+    but he understood men better and was inclined to include even
+    reformers and Calvinists in what he called "the larger humanity
+    into which I was born so long ago."
+
+WORKS OF HOLMES. In the field of "occasional" poetry, written to celebrate
+births, dedications, feasts and festivals of every kind, Holmes has never
+had a peer among his countrymen. He would have made a perfect
+poet-laureate, for he seemed to rise to every occasion and have on his lips
+the right word to express the feeling of the moment, whether of patriotism
+or sympathy or sociability. In such happy poems as "The Boys," "Bill and
+Jo," "All Here" and nearly forty others written for his class reunions he
+reflects the spirit of college men who gather annually to live the "good
+old days" over again. [Footnote: It may add a bit of interest to these
+poems if we remember that among the members of the Class of '29 was Samuel
+Smith, author of "America," a poem that now appeals to a larger audience
+than the class poet ever dreamed of.] He wrote also some seventy other
+poems for special occasions, the quality of which may be judged from "Old
+Ironsides," "Under the Violets," "Grandmother's Story" and numerous
+appreciations of Lowell, Burns, Bryant, Whittier and other well-known
+poets.
+
+Among poems of more general interest the best is "The Chambered Nautilus,"
+which some read for its fine moral lesson and others for its beautiful
+symbolism or almost perfect workmanship. Others that deserve to be
+remembered are "The Last Leaf" (Lincoln's favorite), "Nearing the Snow
+Line," "Meeting of the Alumni," "Questions and Answers" and "The
+Voiceless,"--none great poems but all good and very well worth the reading.
+
+[Sidenote: HUMOROUS POEMS]
+
+"The Deacon's Masterpiece, or the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" is the most
+popular of the humorous poems. Many readers enjoy this excellent skit
+without thinking what the author meant by calling it "a logical story." It
+is, in fact, the best pebble that he hurled from his sling against his
+_bête noire_; for the old "shay" which went to pieces all at once was
+a symbol of Calvinistic theology. That theology was called an iron chain of
+logic, every link so perfectly forged that it could not be broken at any
+point. Even so was the "shay" built, unbreakable in every single part; but
+when the deacon finds himself sprawling and dumfounded in the road beside
+the wrecked masterpiece the poet concludes:
+
+  End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
+  Logic is logic. That's all I say.
+
+Other typical verses of the same kind are "The Height of the Ridiculous,"
+"Daily Trials," "The Comet" and "Contentment." In the last-named poem
+Holmes may have been poking fun at the Brook Farmers and other enthusiasts
+who were preaching the simple life. Poets and preachers of this gospel in
+every age are apt to insist that to find simplicity one must return to
+nature or the farm, or else camp in the woods and eat huckleberries, as
+Thoreau did; but Holmes remembered that some people must live in the city,
+while others incomprehensibly prefer to do so, and wrote his "Contentment"
+to express their idea of the simple life:
+
+  Little I ask; my wants are few;
+    I only wish a hut of stone
+  (A _very plain_ brown stone will do)
+    That I may call my own;
+  And close at hand is such a one,
+  In yonder street that fronts the sun.
+
+  I care not much for gold or land;
+    Give me a mortgage here and there,
+  Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
+    Or trifling railroad share.
+  I only ask that Fortune send
+  A _little_ more than I shall spend.
+
+[Sidenote: THE AUTOCRAT]
+
+The most readable of the prose works is _The Autocrat of the Breakfast
+Table_ (1858), a series of monologues in which Holmes, who was called
+the best talker of his age, transferred his talk in a very charming way to
+paper. As the book professes to record the conversation at the table of a
+certain Boston boarding-house, it has no particular subject; the author
+rambles pleasantly from one topic to another, illuminating each by his
+wisdom or humor or sympathy. Other books of the same series are _The
+Professor at the Breakfast Table_, _The Poet at the Breakfast
+Table_ and _Over the Teacups_. Most critics consider _The
+Autocrat_ the best and _The Poet_ second best of the series; but
+there is a tender vein of sentiment and reminiscence in the final volume
+which is very attractive to older readers.
+
+The slight story element in the breakfast-table books probably led Holmes
+to fiction, and he straightway produced three novels, _Elsie Venner_,
+_The Guardian Angel_ and _A Mortal Antipathy_. These are studies
+of heredity, of the physical element in morals, of the influence of mind
+over matter and other subjects more suitable for essays than for fiction;
+but a few mature readers who care less for a story than for an observation
+or theory of life will find _The Guardian Angel_ an interesting novel.
+And some will surely prize _Elsie Venner_ for its pictures of New
+England life, its description of boarding school or evening party or social
+hierarchy, at a time when many a New England family had traditions to which
+it held as firmly and almost as proudly as any European court.
+
+[Illustration: OLD COLONIAL DOORWAY
+Holmes's birthplace, at Cambridge]
+
+THE QUALITY OF HOLMES. The intensely personal quality of the works just
+mentioned is their most striking characteristic; for Holmes always looks at
+a subject with his own eyes, and measures its effect on the reader by a
+previous effect produced upon himself. "If I like this," he says in
+substance, "why, you must like it too; if it strikes me as absurd, you
+cannot take any other attitude; for are we not both human and therefore
+just alike?" It never occurred to Holmes that anybody could differ with him
+and still be normal; those who ventured to do so found the Doctor looking
+keenly at them to discover their symptoms. In an ordinary egoist or
+politician or theologian this would be insufferable; but strange to say it
+is one of the charms of Holmes, who is so witty and pleasant-spoken that we
+can enjoy his dogmatism without the bother of objecting to it. In one of
+his books he hints that talking to certain persons is like trying to pet a
+squirrel; if you are wise, you will not imitate that frisky little beast
+but assume the purring-kitten attitude while listening to the Autocrat.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST-HAND IMPRESSIONS]
+
+Another interesting quality of Holmes is what we may call his rationalism,
+his habit of taking nothing for granted, of judging every matter by
+observation rather than by tradition or sentiment or imagination; and
+herein he is in marked contrast with Longfellow and other romantic writers
+of the period. We shall enjoy him better if we remember his bent of mind.
+As a boy he was fond of tools and machinery; as a man he was interested in
+photography, safety razors, inventions of every kind; as a physician he
+rebelled against drugs (then believed to have almost magical powers, and
+imposed on suffering stomachs in horrible doses) and observed his patients
+closely to discover what mentally ailed them; and as boy or man or
+physician he cared very little for books but a great deal for his own
+observation of life. Hence there is always a surprise in reading Holmes,
+which comes partly from his flashes of wit but more largely from his
+independent way of looking at things and recording his first-hand
+impressions. His _Autocrat_ especially is a treasure and ranks with
+Thoreau's _Walden_ among the most original books of American
+literature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881)
+
+The name of Lanier is often associated with that of Timrod, and the two
+southern poets were outwardly alike in that they struggled against physical
+illness and mental depression; but where we see in Timrod the tragedy of a
+poet broken by pain and neglect, the tragedy of Lanier's life is forgotten
+in our wonder at his triumph. It is doubtful if any other poet ever raised
+so pure a song of joy out of conditions that might well have occasioned a
+wail of despair.
+
+[Illustration: SIDNEY LANIER]
+
+The joyous song of Lanier is appreciated only by the few. He is not popular
+with either readers or critics, and the difficulty of assigning him a place
+or rank may be judged from recent attempts. One history of American
+literature barely mentions Lanier in a slighting reference to "a small cult
+of poetry in parts of America"; [Footnote: Trent, _History of American
+Literature_ (1913), p. 471.] another calls him the only southern poet
+who had a national horizon, and accords his work ample criticism;
+[Footnote: Moses, _Literature of the South_ (1910), pp 358-383] a
+third describes him as "a true artist" having "a lyric power hardly to be
+found in any other American," but the brief record ends with the cutting
+criticism that his work is "hardly national." [Footnote: Wendell,
+_Literary History of America_ (1911), pp 495-498.] And so with all
+other histories, one dismisses him as the author of a vague rhapsody called
+"The Marshes of Glynn," another exalts him as a poet who rivals Poe in
+melody and far surpasses him in thought or feeling. Evidently there is no
+settled criticism of Lanier, as of Bryant or Longfellow; he is not yet
+secure in his position among the elder poets, and what we record here is
+such a personal appreciation as any reader may formulate for himself.
+
+    LIFE. America has had its Puritan and its Cavalier writers, but
+    seldom one who combines the Puritan's stern devotion to duty with
+    the Cavalier's joy in nature and romance and music. Lanier was such
+    a poet, and he owed his rare quality to a mixed ancestry. He was
+    descended on his mother's side from Scotch-Irish and Puritan
+    forbears, and on his father's side from Huguenot (French) exiles
+    who were musicians at the English court. One of his ancestors,
+    Nicholas Lanier, is described as "a musician, painter and engraver"
+    for Queen Elizabeth and King James, and as the composer of music
+    for some of Ben Jonson's masques.
+
+    [Sidenote: EARLY TRAITS]
+
+    His boyhood was spent at Macon, Georgia, where he was born in 1842.
+    A study of that boyhood reveals certain characteristics which
+    reappear constantly in the poet's work. One was his rare purity of
+    soul; another was his brave spirit; a third was his delight in
+    nature; a fourth was his passion for music. At seven he made his
+    first flute from a reed, and ever afterwards, though he learned to
+    play many instruments, the flute was to him as a companion and a
+    voice. With it he cheered many a weary march or hungry bivouac;
+    through it he told all his heart to the woman he loved; by it he
+    won a place when he had no other means of earning his bread. Hence
+    in "The Symphony," a poem which fronts one of life's hard problems,
+    it is the flute that utters the clearest and sweetest note.
+
+    [Sidenote: IN WAR TIME]
+
+    Lanier had finished his course in Oglethorpe University (a
+    primitive little college in Midway, Georgia) and was tutoring there
+    when the war came, and the college closed its doors because
+    teachers and students were away at the first call to join the army.
+    For four years he was a Confederate soldier, serving in the ranks
+    with his brother and refusing the promotion offered him for gallant
+    conduct in the field. There was a time during this period when he
+    might have sung like the minstrels of old, for romance had come to
+    him with the war. By day he was fighting or scouting with his life
+    in his hand; but when camp fires were lighted he would take his
+    flute and slip away to serenade the girl who "waited for him till
+    the war was over."
+
+    We mention these small incidents with a purpose. There is a
+    delicacy of feeling in Lanier's verse which might lead a reader to
+    assume that the poet was effeminate, when in truth he was as manly
+    as any Norse scald or Saxon scop who ever stood beside his chief in
+    battle. Of the war he never sang; but we find some reflection of
+    the girl who waited in the poem "My Springs."
+
+    [Sidenote: WAR'S AFTERMATH]
+
+    Lanier was at sea, as signal officer on a blockade runner, when his
+    ship was captured by a Federal cruiser and he was sent to the
+    military prison at Point Lookout (1864). A hard and bitter
+    experience it was, and his only comfort was the flute which he had
+    hidden in his ragged sleeve. When released the following year he
+    set out on foot for his home, five hundred miles away, and reached
+    it more dead than alive; for consumption had laid a heavy hand upon
+    him. For weeks he was desperately ill, and during the illness his
+    mother died of the same wasting disease; then he rose and set out
+    bravely to earn a living,--no easy matter in a place that had
+    suffered as Georgia had during the war.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE GLEAM]
+
+    We shall not enter into his struggle for bread, or into his
+    wanderings in search of a place where he could breathe without
+    pain. He was a law clerk in his father's office at Macon when,
+    knowing that he had but a slender lease of life, he made his
+    resolve. To the remonstrances of his father he closed his ears,
+    saying that music and poetry were calling him and he must follow
+    the call. The superb climax of Tennyson's "Merlin and the Gleam"
+    was in his soul:
+
+      O young mariner,
+      Down to the haven
+      Call your companions,
+      Launch your vessel
+      And crowd your canvas,
+      And, ere it vanishes
+      Over the margin,
+      After it, follow it,
+      Follow the Gleam!
+
+    Thus bravely he went northward to Baltimore, taking his flute with
+    him. He was evidently a wonderful artist, playing not by the score
+    but making his instrument his voice, so that his audience seemed to
+    hear a soul speaking in melody. His was a magic flute. Soon he was
+    supporting himself by playing in the Peabody Orchestra, living
+    joyously meanwhile in an atmosphere of music and poetry and books;
+    for he was always a student, determined to understand as well as to
+    practice his art. He wrote poems, stories, anything to earn an
+    honest dollar; he gave lectures on music and literature; he planned
+    a score of books that he did not and could not write, for he was
+    living in a fever of mind and body. Music and poetry were surging
+    within him for expression; but his strength was failing, his time
+    short.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE STRUGGLE]
+
+    In 1879 he was appointed lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and
+    for the first time he had an assured income, small, indeed, but
+    very heartening since it was enough to support his family. He began
+    teaching with immense enthusiasm; but presently he was speaking in
+    a whisper from an invalid's chair. Under such circumstances were
+    uttered some of our most cheering words on art and poetry. Two
+    years later he died in a tent among the hills, near Asheville,
+    North Carolina, whither he had gone in a vain search for health.
+
+      [Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF McGAHEYSVILLE, VIRGINIA
+      Near here Lanier spent his summers during the last years of his life]
+
+    There is in all Lanier's verse a fragmentariness, a sense of
+    something left unsaid, which we may understand better if we
+    remember that his heart was filled with the noblest emotions, but
+    that when he strove to write them his pen failed for weariness.
+    Read the daily miracle of dawn in "Sunrise," for example, and find
+    there the waiting oaks, the stars, the tide, the marsh with its
+    dreaming pools, light, color, fragrance, melody,--everything except
+    that the hand which wrote the poem was too weak to guide the
+    pencil. The rush of impressions and memories in "Sunrise," its
+    tender beauty and vague incompleteness, as of something left
+    unsaid, may be explained by the fact that it was Lanier's last
+    song.
+
+WORKS OF LANIER. Many readers have grown familiar with Lanier's name in
+connection with _The Boy's Froissart_, _The Boy's King Arthur_,
+_The Boy's Mabinogion_ and _The Boy's Percy_, four books in which
+he retold in simple language some of the old tales that are forever young.
+His chief prose works, _The English Novel_ and _The Science of
+English Verse_, are of interest chiefly to critics; they need not detain
+us here except to note that the latter volume is devoted to Lanier's pet
+theory that music and poetry are governed by the same laws. Of more general
+interest are his scattered "Notes," which contain suggestions for many a
+poem that was never written, intermingled with condensed criticisms. Of the
+poet Swinburne he says, "He invited me to eat; the service was silver and
+gold, but no food therein except salt and pepper." One might say less than
+that with more words, or read a whole book to arrive at this summary of
+Whitman's style and bottomless philosophy: "Whitman is poetry's butcher;
+huge raw collops slashed from the rump of poetry, and never mind the
+gristle, is what he feeds our souls with.... His argument seems to be that
+because the Mississippi is long, therefore every American is a god."
+
+[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]
+
+Those who read Lanier's poems should begin with the simplest, with his love
+songs, "My Springs" and "In Absence," or his "Ballad of Trees and the
+Master," or his outdoor poems, such as "Tampa Robins," "Song of the
+Chattahoochee," "Mocking Bird," and "Evening Song." In the last-named
+lyrics he began the work (carried out more fully in his later poems) of
+interpreting in words the harmony which his sensitive ear detected in the
+manifold voices of nature.
+
+Next in order are the poems in which is hidden a thought or an ideal not to
+be detected at first glance; for to Lanier poetry was like certain oriental
+idols which when opened are found to be filled with exquisite perfumes.
+"The Stirrup Cup" is one of the simplest of these allegories. It was a
+custom in olden days when a man was ready to journey, for one who loved him
+to bring a glass of wine which he drank in the saddle; and this was called
+the stirrup or parting cup. In the cup offered Lanier was a rare cordial,
+filled with "sweet herbs from all antiquity," and the name of the cordial
+was Death:
+
+  Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt:
+  Hand me the cup whene'er thou wilt;
+  'T is thy rich stirrup cup to me;
+  I'll drink it down right smilingly.
+
+In four stanzas of "Night and Day" he compresses the tragedy of
+_Othello_, not the tragedy that Shakespeare wrote but the tragedy that
+was in the Moor's soul when Desdemona was gone. In "Life and Song" he
+sought to express the ideal of a poet, and the closing lines might well be
+the measure of his own heroic life:
+
+  His song was only living aloud,
+  His work a singing with his hand.
+
+In "How Love Looked for Hell" the lesson is hidden deeper; for the profound
+yet simple meaning of the poem is that, search high or low, Love can never
+find hell because he takes heaven with him wherever he goes. Another poem
+of the same class, but longer and more involved, is "The Symphony." Here
+Lanier faces one of the greatest problems of the age, the problem of
+industrialism with its false standards and waste of human happiness, and
+his answer is the same that Tennyson gave in his later poems; namely, that
+the familiar love in human hearts can settle every social question when
+left to its own unselfish way:
+
+  Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it,
+  Plainly the heart of a child might solve it.
+
+[Sidenote: MARSHES OF GLYNN]
+
+The longer poems of Lanier are of uneven merit and are all more or less
+fragmentary. The chief impression from reading the "Psalm of the West," for
+example, is that it is the prelude to some greater work that was left
+unfinished. More finely wrought and more typical of Lanier's mood and
+method is "The Marshes of Glynn," his best-known work. It is a marvelous
+poem, one of the most haunting in our language; yet it is like certain
+symphonies in that it says nothing, being all feeling,--vague,
+inexpressible feeling. Some readers find no meaning or satisfaction in it;
+others hail it as a perfect interpretation of their own mood or emotion
+when they stand speechless before the sunrise or the afterglow or a
+landscape upon which the very spirit of beauty and peace is brooding.
+
+THE QUALITY OF LANIER. In order to sympathize with Lanier, and so to
+understand him, it is necessary to keep in mind that he was a musician
+rather than a poet in our ordinary understanding of the term. In his verse
+he used words, exactly as he used the tones of his flute, not so much to
+express ideas as to call up certain emotions that find no voice save in
+music. As he said, "Music takes up the thread that language drops," which
+explains that beautiful but puzzling line which closes "The Symphony":
+
+  Music is Love in search of a word.
+
+[Sidenote: MUSIC AND POETRY]
+
+We have spoken of "The Symphony" as an answer to the problem of industrial
+waste and sorrow, but it contains also Lanier's confession of faith;
+namely, that social evils arise among men because of their lack of harmony;
+and that spiritual harmony, the concord of souls which makes strife
+impossible, may be attained through music. The same belief appears in
+_Tiger Lilies_ (a novel written by Lanier in his early days), in which
+a certain character makes these professions:
+
+    "To make a _home_ out of a household, given the raw
+    materials--to wit, wife, children, a friend or two and a house--two
+    other things are necessary. These are a good fire and good music.
+    And inasmuch as we can do without the fire for half the year, I may
+    say music is the one essential."
+
+    "Late explorers say they have found some nations that have no God;
+    but I have not read of any that had no music." "Music means
+    harmony, harmony means love, love means--God!"
+
+One may therefore summarize Lanier by saying that he was poet who used
+verbal rhythm, as a musician uses harmonious chords, to play upon our
+better feelings. His poems of nature give us no definite picture of the
+external world but are filled with murmurings, tremblings, undertones,--all
+the vague impressions which one receives when alone in the solitudes, as if
+the world were alive but inarticulate:
+
+  Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-witholding and free
+  Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
+  Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
+  Ye spread and span like the catholic man that hath mightily won
+  God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
+  And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
+
+His poems of life have similar virtues and weaknesses: they are melodious;
+they are nobly inspired; they appeal to our finest feelings; but they are
+always vague in that they record no definite thought and speak no downright
+message.
+
+[Sidenote: LANIER AND WHITTIER]
+
+The criticism may be more clear if we compare Lanier with Whittier, a man
+equally noble, who speaks a language that all men understand. The poems of
+the two supplement each other, one reflecting the reality of life, the
+other its mysterious dreams. In Whittier's poetry we look upon a landscape
+and a people, and we say, "I have seen that rugged landscape with my own
+eyes; I have eaten bread with those people, and have understood and loved
+them." Then we read Lanier's poetry and say, "Yes, I have had those
+feelings at times; but I do not speak of them to others because I cannot
+tell what they mean to me." Both poets are good, and both fail of greatness
+in poetry, Whittier because he has no exalted imagination, Lanier because
+he lacks primitive simplicity and strength. One poet sings a song to cheer
+the day's labor, the other makes a melody to accompany our twilight
+reveries.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"WALT" WHITMAN (1819-1892)
+
+Since Whitman insisted upon being called "Walt" instead of Walter, so let
+it be. The name accords with the free-and-easy style of his verse. If you
+can find some abridged selections from that verse, read them by all means;
+but if you must search the whole of it for the passages that are worth
+reading, then pass it cheerfully by; for such another vain display of
+egotism, vulgarity and rant never appeared under the name of poetry.
+Whitman was so absurdly fond of his "chants" and so ignorant of poetry that
+he preserved the whole of his work in a final edition, and his publishers
+still insist upon printing it, rubbish and all. The result is that the few
+rare verses which stamp him as a poet are apt to be overlooked in the
+multitudinous gabblings which, of themselves, might mark him as a mere
+freak or "sensation" in our modest literature.
+
+[Illustration: WALT WHITMAN]
+
+    BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ordinarily when we read poetry we desire to
+    know something of the man who wrote it, of his youth, his training,
+    the circumstance of his work and the personal ideals which made him
+    view life steadily in one light rather than in another. In dealing
+    with Whitman it is advisable to leave such natural curiosity
+    unsatisfied, and for two reasons: first, the man was far from
+    admirable or upright, and to meet him at certain stages is to lose
+    all desire to read his poetry; and second, he was so extremely
+    secretive about himself, while professing boundless good-fellowship
+    with all men, that we can seldom trust his own record, much less
+    that of his admirers. There are great blanks in the story of his
+    life; his real biography has not yet been written; and in the
+    jungle of controversial writings which has grown up around him one
+    loses sight of Whitman in a maze of extravagant or contradictory
+    opinions. [Footnote: Of the many biographies of Whitman perhaps the
+    best for beginners is Perry's _Walt Whitman_ (1906), in
+    American Men of Letters Series.]
+
+    [Sidenote: TRAITS AND INCIDENTS]
+
+    Let it suffice then to record, in catalogue fashion, that Whitman
+    was born (1819) on Long Island, of stubborn farmer stock; that he
+    spent his earliest years by the sea, which inspired his best verse;
+    that he grew up in the streets of Brooklyn and was always
+    fascinated by the restless tide of city life, as reflected in such
+    poems as "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"; that his education was scanty
+    and of the "picked up" variety; that to the end of his life, though
+    ignorant of what literary men regard as the _a-b-c_ of
+    knowledge, he was supremely well satisfied with himself; that till
+    he was past forty he worked irregularly at odd jobs, but was by
+    choice a loafer; that he was a man of superb physical health and
+    gloried in his body, without much regard for moral standards; that
+    his strength was broken by nursing wounded soldiers during the war,
+    a beautiful and unselfish service; that he was then a government
+    clerk in Washington until partly disabled by a paralytic stroke,
+    and that the remainder of his life was spent at Camden, New Jersey.
+    His _Leaves of Grass_ (published first in 1855, and
+    republished with additions many times) brought him very little
+    return in money, and his last years were spent in a state of
+    semipoverty, relieved by the gifts of a small circle of admirers.
+
+WHITMAN'S VERSE. In a single book, _Leaves of Grass_, Whitman has
+collected all his verse. This book would be a chaos even had he left his
+works in the order in which they were written; but that is precisely what
+he did not do. Instead, he enlarged and rearranged the work ten different
+times, mixing up his worst and his best verses, so that it is now very
+difficult to trace his development as a poet. We may, however, tentatively
+arrange his work in three divisions: his early shouting to attract
+attention (as summarized in the line "I sound my barbaric yawp over the
+roofs of the world"), his war poems, and his later verse written after he
+had learned something of the discipline of life and poetry.
+
+The quality of his early work may be judged from a few disjointed lines of
+his characteristic "Song of Myself":
+
+  Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
+  I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know
+                it.
+
+  I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am
+                not contain'd between my hat and boots,
+  And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good,
+  The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
+
+  The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
+  The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
+  The clear light plays on the brown, gray and green intertinged,
+  The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.
+  I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
+  I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
+  I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
+  And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.
+
+  The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
+  I tuck'd my trowser ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
+  You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.
+
+Thus he rambles on, gabbing of every place or occupation or newspaper
+report that comes into his head. When he ends this grotesque "Song of
+Myself" after a thousand lines or more, he makes another just like it. We
+read a few words here and there, amazed that any publisher should print
+such rubbish; and then, when we are weary of Whitman's conceit or bad
+taste, comes a flash of insight, of imagination, of poetry:
+
+  Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
+  Healthy, free, the world before me,
+  The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
+  These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are
+                they?
+  Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight
+                expands my blood?
+  Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
+  Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts
+                descend upon me?
+
+There are, in short, hundreds of pages of such "chanting" with its grain of
+wheat hid in a bushel of chaff. We refer to it here not because it is worth
+reading but to record the curious fact that many European critics hail it
+as typical American poetry, even while we wonder why anybody should regard
+it as either American or poetic.
+
+[Sidenote: FOREIGN OPINION]
+
+The explanation is simple. Europeans have not yet rid themselves of the
+idea that America is the strange, wild land Cooper's _Pioneers_, and
+that any poetry produced here must naturally be uncouth, misshapen, defiant
+of all poetic laws or traditions. To such critics Whitman's crudity seems
+typical of a country where one is in nightly danger of losing his scalp,
+where arguments are settled by revolvers, and where a hungry man needs only
+to shoot a buffalo or a bear from his back door. Meanwhile America, the
+country that planted colleges and churches in a wilderness, that loves
+liberty because she honors law, that never saw a knight in armor but that
+has, even in her plainsmen and lumberjacks, a chivalry for woman that would
+adorn a Bayard,--that real America ignores the bulk of Whitman's work
+simply because she knows that, of all her poets, he is the least
+representative of her culture, her ideals, her heroic and aspiring life.
+
+[Sidenote: DRUM TAPS]
+
+The second division of Whitman's work is made up chiefly of verses written
+in war time, to some of which he gave the significant title, _Drum
+Taps_. In such poems as as "Beat, Beat, Drums," "Cavalry Crossing a
+Ford" and "By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame" he reflected the emotional
+excitement of '61 and the stern days that followed. Note, for example, the
+startling vigor of "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors," which depicts an old
+negro woman by the roadside, looking with wonder on the free flag which she
+sees for the first time aloft over marching men:
+
+  Who are you, dusky woman, so ancient, hardly human,
+  With your woolly-white and turban'd head and bare bony feet?
+  Why, rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?
+
+Another side of the war is reflected in such poems as "Come up from the
+Fields, Father," an exquisite picture of an old mother and father receiving
+the news of their son's death on the battlefield. In the same class belong
+two fine tributes, "O Captain, My Captain" and "When Lilacs Last in the
+Dooryard Bloomed," written in moments of noble emotion when the news came
+that Lincoln was dead. The former tribute, with its rhythmic swing and
+lyric refrain, indicates what Whitman might have done in poetry had he been
+a more patient workman. So also does "Pioneers," a lyric that is wholly
+American and Western and exultant:
+
+       Have the elder races halted?
+  Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
+  We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
+       Pioneers! O Pioneers!
+
+[Sidenote: LATER POEMS]
+
+In the third class of Whitman's works are the poems written late in life,
+when he had learned to suppress his blatant egotism and to pay some little
+attention to poetic form and melody. Though his lines are still crude and
+irregular, many of them move to a powerful rhythm, such as the impressive
+"With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea," which suggests the surge and beat of
+breakers on the shore. In others he gives finely imaginative expression to
+an ideal or a yearning, and his verse rises to high poetic levels. Note
+this allegory of the spider, an insect that, when adrift or in a strange
+place, sends out delicate filaments on the air currents until one thread
+takes hold of some solid substance and is used as a bridge over the
+unknown:
+
+  A noiseless patient spider,
+  I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
+  Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding
+  It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
+  Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
+
+  And you, O my soul, where you stand,
+  Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
+  Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect
+                them,
+  Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
+  Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN'S BIRTHPLACE, WEST HILLS, LONG ISLAND]
+
+Among the best of Whitman's works are his poems to death. "Joy, Shipmate,
+Joy," "Death's Valley," "Darest Thou Now, O Soul," "Last Invocation,"
+"Good-Bye, My Fancy,"--in such haunting lyrics he reflects the natural view
+of death, not as a terrible or tragic or final event but as a confident
+going forth to meet new experiences. Other notable poems that well repay
+the reading are "The Mystic Trumpeter," "The Man-of-War Bird," "The Ox
+Tamer," "Thanks in Old Age" and "Aboard at a Ship's Helm."
+
+In naming the above works our purpose is simply to lure the reader away
+from the insufferable Whitmanesque "chant" and to attract attention to a
+few poems that sound a new note in literature, a note of freedom, of joy,
+of superb confidence, which warms the heart when we hear it. When these
+poems are known others will suggest themselves: "Rise, O Days, from Your
+Fathomless Deeps," "I Hear America Singing," "There was a Boy Went Forth,"
+"The Road Unknown," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking." There is magic
+in such names; but unfortunately in most cases the reader will find only an
+alluring title and a few scattered lines of poetry; the rest is Whitman.
+
+[Sidenote: DEMOCRACY]
+
+The author of the "Song of Myself" proclaimed himself the poet of democracy
+and wrote many verses on his alleged subject; but those who read them will
+soon tire of one whose idea of democracy was that any man is as good, as
+wise, as godlike as any other. Perhaps his best work in this field is "Thou
+Mother with Thy Equal Brood," a patriotic poem read at "Commencement" time
+in Dartmouth College (1872). There is too much of vainglorious boasting in
+the poem (for America should be modest, and can afford to be modest), but
+it has enough of prophetic vision and exalted imagination to make us
+overlook its unworthy spread-eagleism.
+
+[Sidenote: PRAYER OF COLUMBUS]
+
+As a farewell to Whitman one should read what is perhaps his noblest single
+work, "The Prayer of Columbus." The poem is supposed to reflect the thought
+of Columbus when, as a worn-out voyager, an old man on his last expedition,
+he looked out over his wrecked ships to the lonely sea beyond; but the
+reader may see in it another picture, that of a broken old man in his
+solitary house at Camden, writing with a trembling hand the lines which
+reflect his unshaken confidence:
+
+  My terminus near,
+  The clouds already closing in upon me,
+  The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost,
+  I yield my ships to Thee
+  My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,
+  My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd;
+  Let the old timbers part, I will not part,
+  I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,
+  Thee, Thee at least I know.
+
+  Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
+  What do I know of life? what of myself?
+  I know not even my own work past or present;
+  Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
+  Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,
+  Mocking, perplexing me.
+
+  And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
+  As if some miracle, some hand divine, unseal'd my eyes,
+  Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,
+  And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
+  And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PROSE WRITERS
+
+RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)
+
+Emerson is the mountaineer of our literature; to read him is to have the
+impression of being on the heights. It is solitary there, far removed from
+ordinary affairs; but the air is keen, the outlook grand, the heavens near.
+Our companions are the familiar earth by day or the mysterious stars by
+night, and these are good if only to recall the silent splendor of God's
+universe amid the pother of human inventions. There also the very spirit of
+liberty, which seems to have its dwelling among the hills, enters into us
+and makes us sympathize with Emerson's message of individual freedom.
+
+It is still a question whether Emerson should be classed with the poets or
+prose writers, and our only reason for placing him with the latter is that
+his "Nature" seems more typical than his "Wood Notes," though in truth both
+works convey precisely the same message. He was a great man who used prose
+or verse as suited his mood at the moment; but he was never a great poet,
+and only on rare occasions was he a great prose writer.
+
+    LIFE. Emerson has been called "the wingéd Franklin," "the Yankee
+    Shelley" and other contradictory names which strive to express the
+    union of shrewd sense and lofty idealism that led him to write
+    "Hitch your wagon to a star" and many another aphorism intended to
+    bring heaven and earth close together. We shall indicate enough of
+    his inheritance if we call him a Puritan of the Puritans, a
+    moralist descended from seven generations of heroic ministers who
+    had helped to make America a free nation, and who had practiced the
+    love of God and man and country before preaching it to their
+    congregations.
+
+    [Illustration: RALPH WALDO EMERSON]
+
+    The quality of these ancestors entered into Emerson and gave him
+    the granite steadfastness that is one of his marked
+    characteristics. Meeting him in his serene old age one would hardly
+    suspect him of heroism; but to meet him in childhood is to
+    understand the kind of man he was, and must be. If you would
+    appreciate the quality of that childhood, picture to yourself a
+    bare house with an open fire and plenty of books, but little else
+    of comfort. There are a mother and six children in the house,
+    desperately poor; for the father is dead and has left his family
+    nothing and everything,--nothing that makes life rich, everything
+    in the way of ideals and blessed memories to make life wealthy. The
+    mother works as only a poor woman can from morning till night. The
+    children go to school by day; but instead of playing after
+    school-hours they run errands for the neighbors, drive cows from
+    pasture, shovel snow, pick huckleberries, earn an honest penny. In
+    the evening they read together before the open fire. When they are
+    hungry, as they often are, a Puritan aunt who shares their poverty
+    tells them stories of human endurance. The circle narrows when an
+    older brother goes to college; the rest reduce their meals and
+    spare their pennies in order to help him. After graduation he
+    teaches school and devotes his earnings to giving the next brother
+    his chance. All the while they speak courteously to each other,
+    remember their father's teaching that they are children of God, and
+    view their hard life steadily in the light of that sublime
+    doctrine.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE COLLEGE BOY]
+
+    The rest of the story is easily told. Emerson was born in Boston,
+    then a straggling town, in 1803. When his turn came he went to
+    Harvard, and largely supported himself there by such odd jobs as
+    only a poor student knows how to find. Wasted time he called it;
+    for he took little interest in college discipline or college fun
+    and was given to haphazard reading, "sinfully strolling from book
+    to book, from care to idleness," as he said. Later he declared that
+    the only good thing he found in Harvard was a solitary chamber.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE PREACHER]
+
+    After leaving college he taught school and shared his earnings,
+    according to family tradition. Then he began to study for the
+    ministry; or perhaps we should say "read," for Emerson never really
+    studied anything. At twenty-three he was licensed to preach, and
+    three years later was chosen pastor of the Second Church in Boston.
+    It was the famous Old North Church in which the Mathers had
+    preached, and the Puritan divines must have turned in their graves
+    when the young radical began to utter his heresies from the ancient
+    pulpit. He was loved and trusted by his congregation, but presently
+    he differed with them in the matter of the ritual and resigned his
+    ministry.
+
+    Next he traveled in Europe, where he found as little of value as he
+    had previously found in college. The old institutions, which roused
+    the romantic enthusiasm of Irving and Longfellow, were to him only
+    relics of barbarism. He went to Europe, he said, to see two men,
+    and he found them in Wordsworth and Carlyle. His friendship with
+    the latter and the letters which passed between "the sage of
+    Chelsea" and "the sage of Concord" (as collected and published by
+    Charles Eliot Norton in his _Correspondence of Carlyle and
+    Emerson_) are the most interesting result of his pilgrimage.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE LECTURER]
+
+    On his return he settled in the village of Concord, which was to be
+    his home for the remainder of his long life. He began to lecture,
+    and so well was the "Lyceum" established at that time that he was
+    soon known throughout the country. For forty years this lecturing
+    continued, and the strange thing about it is that in all that time
+    he hardly met one audience that understood him or that carried away
+    any definite idea of what he had talked about. Something noble in
+    the man seemed to attract people; as Lowell said, they did not go
+    to hear what Emerson said but to hear Emerson.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE WRITER]
+
+    Meanwhile he was writing prose and poetry. His literary work began
+    in college and consisted largely in recording such thoughts or
+    quotations as seemed worthy of preservation. In his private
+    _Journal_ (now published in several volumes) may be found
+    practically everything he put into the formal works which he sent
+    forth from Concord. These had at first a very small circle of
+    readers; but the circle widened steadily, and the phenomenon is
+    more remarkable in view of the fact that the author avoided
+    publicity and had no ambition for success. He lived contentedly in
+    a country village; he cultivated his garden and his neighbors; he
+    spent long hours alone with nature; he wrote the thoughts that came
+    to him and sent them to make their own way in the world, while he
+    himself remained, as he said, "far from fame behind the birch
+    trees."
+
+    The last years of his life were as the twilight of a perfect day.
+    His mental powers failed slowly; he seemed to drift out of the
+    present world into another of pure memories; even his friends
+    became spiritualized, lost the appearance of earth and assumed
+    their eternal semblance. When he stood beside the coffin of
+    Longfellow, looking intently into the poet's face, he was heard to
+    murmur, "A sweet, a gracious personality, but I have forgotten his
+    name." To the inevitable changes (the last came in 1882) he adapted
+    himself with the same serenity which marked his whole life. He even
+    smiled as he read the closing lines of his "Terminus":
+
+      As the bird trims her to the gale,
+      I trim myself to the storm of time,
+      I man the rudder, reef the sail,
+      Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
+      "Lowly faithful, banish fear,
+      Right onward drive unharmed;
+      The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
+      And every wave is charmed."
+
+EMERSON'S POETRY. There is a ruggedness in Emerson's verse which attracts
+some readers while it repels others by its unmelodious rhythm. It may help
+us to measure that verse if we recall the author's criticism thereof. In
+1839 he wrote:
+
+    "I am naturally keenly susceptible to the pleasures of rhythm, and
+    cannot believe but one day I shall attain to that splendid dialect,
+    so ardent is my wish; and these wishes, I suppose, are ever only
+    the buds of power; but up to this hour I have never had a true
+    success in such attempts."
+
+One must be lenient with a poet who confesses that he cannot attain the
+"splendid dialect," especially so since we are inclined to agree with him.
+In the following passage from "Each and All" we may discover the reason for
+his lack of success:
+
+  Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown
+  Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
+  The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
+  Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
+  The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
+  Deems not that great Napoleon
+  Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
+  Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
+  Nor knowest thou what argument
+  Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
+  All are needed by each one;
+  Nothing is fair or good alone.
+  I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
+  Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
+  I brought him home in his nest at even;
+  He sings the song, but it cheers not now,
+  For I did not bring home the river and sky:
+  He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
+  The delicate shells lay on the shore;
+  The bubbles of the latest wave
+  Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
+  And the bellowing of the savage sea
+  Greeted their safe escape to me.
+  I wiped away the weeds and foam,
+  I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
+  But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
+  Had left their beauty on the shore
+  With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
+
+Our first criticism is that the poem contains both fine and faulty lines,
+and that the total impression is an excellent one. Next, we note that the
+verse is labored; for Emerson was not a natural singer, like Whittier, and
+was hampered by his tendency to think too much instead of giving free
+expression to his emotion. [Footnote: Most good poems are characterized by
+both thought and feeling, and by a perfection of form that indicates
+artistic workmanship. With Emerson the thought is the main thing; feeling
+or emotion is subordinate or lacking, and he seldom has the patience to
+work over his thought until it assumes beautiful or perfect expression.]
+Finally, he is didactic; that is, he is teaching the lesson that you must
+not judge a thing by itself, as if it had no history or connections, but
+must consider it in its environment, as a part of its own world.
+
+As in "Each and All" so in most of his verse Emerson is too much of a
+teacher or moralist to be a poet. In "The Rhodora," one of his most perfect
+poems, he proclaims that "Beauty is its own excuse for being"; but
+straightway he forgets the word and devotes his verse not to beauty but to
+some ethical lesson. Very rarely does he break away from this unpoetic
+habit, as when he interrupts the moralizing of his "World Soul" to write a
+lyric that we welcome for its own sake:
+
+  Spring still makes spring in the mind
+    When sixty years are told;
+  Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
+    And we are never old.
+  Over the winter glaciers
+    I see the summer glow,
+  And through the wide-piled snowdrift
+    The warm rosebuds below.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL POEMS]
+
+The most readable of Emerson's poems are those in which he reflects his
+impressions of nature, such as "Seashore," "The Humble-Bee," "The
+Snow-Storm," "Days," "Fable," "Forbearance," "The Titmouse" and
+"Wood-Notes." In another class are his philosophical poems devoted to
+transcendental doctrines. The beginner will do well to skip these, since
+they are more of a puzzle than a source of pleasure. In a third class are
+poems of more personal interest, such as the noble "Threnody," a poem of
+grief written after the death of Emerson's little boy; "Good-Bye," in which
+the poet bids farewell to fame as he hies him to the country; "To Ellen,"
+which half reveals his love story; "Written in Rome," which speaks of the
+society he found in solitude; and the "Concord Hymn," written at the
+dedication of Battle Monument, with its striking opening lines:
+
+  By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
+    Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
+  Here once the embattled farmers stood,
+    And fired the shot heard round the world.
+
+PROSE WORKS. Perhaps the most typical of Emerson's prose works is his first
+book, to which he gave the name _Nature_ (1836). In this he records
+not his impressions of bird or beast or flower, as his neighbor Thoreau was
+doing in _Walden_, but rather his philosophy of the universe. "Nature
+always wears the colors of the spirit"; "Every animal function, from the
+sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and
+wrong, and echo the ten commandments"; "The foundations of man are not in
+matter but in spirit, and the element of spirit is eternity,"--scores of
+such expressions indicate that Emerson deals with the soul of things, not
+with their outward appearance. Does a flower appeal to him? Its scientific
+name and classification are of no consequence; like Wordsworth, he would
+understand what thought of God the flower speaks. To him nature is a mirror
+in which the Almighty reflects his thought; again it is a parable, a little
+story written in trees or hills or stars; frequently it is a living
+presence, speaking melodiously in winds or waters; and always it is an
+inspiration to learn wisdom at first hand:
+
+    "Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers.
+    It writes biographies, histories, criticisms. The foregoing
+    generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their
+    eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the
+    universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of
+    insight, and not of tradition?"
+
+The last quotation might well be an introduction to Emerson's second work,
+_The American Scholar_ (1837), which was a plea for laying aside
+European models and fronting life as free men in a new world. Holmes called
+this work "our intellectual Declaration of Independence," and it was
+followed by a succession of volumes--_Essays_, _Representative
+Men_, _Conduct of Life_, _Society and Solitude_ and several
+others--all devoted to the same two doctrines of idealism and
+individuality.
+
+[Sidenote: REPRESENTATIVE MEN]
+
+Among these prose works the reader must make his own selection. All are
+worth reading; none is easy to read; even the best of them is better
+appreciated in brief instalments, since few can follow Emerson long without
+wearying. _English Traits_ is a keen but kindly criticism of "our
+cousins" overseas, which an American can read with more pleasure than an
+Englishman. _Representative Men_ is a series of essays on Plato,
+Shakespeare, Napoleon and other world figures, which may well be read in
+connection with Carlyle's _Heroes and Hero Worship_, since the two
+books reflect the same subject from widely different angles. Carlyle was in
+theory an aristocrat and a force-worshiper, Emerson a democrat and a
+believer in ideals. One author would relate us to his heroes in the
+attitude of slave to master, the other in the relation of brothers and
+equals.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ESSAYS]
+
+Of the shorter prose works, collected in various volumes of _Essays_,
+we shall name only a few in two main groups, which we may call the ideal
+and the practical. In the first group are such typical works as "The
+Over-Soul," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws" and "History"; in the latter
+are "Heroism," "Self-Reliance," "Literary Ethics" (an address to young
+collegians), "Character" and "Manners."
+
+It is difficult to criticize such writings, which have a daring originality
+of thought and a springlike freshness of expression that set them apart
+from all other essays ancient or modern. They are the most quotable, the
+fittest to "point a moral or adorn a tale" that have ever appeared in our
+literature; but they are also disjointed, oracular, hard to follow; and the
+explanation is found in the manner of their production. When Emerson
+projected a new lecture or essay he never thought his subject out or
+ordered it from beginning to end. That would have been another man's way of
+doing it. He collected from his notebooks such thoughts as seemed to bear
+upon his subject, strung them together, and made an end when he had enough.
+The connection or relation between his thoughts is always frail and often
+invisible; some compare it with the thread which holds the pearls of a
+necklace together; others quote with a smile the epigram of Goldwin Smith,
+who said that he found an Emersonian essay about as coherent as a bag of
+marbles. And that suggests a fair criticism of all Emerson's prose; namely,
+that it is a series of expressions excellent in themselves but having so
+little logical sequence that a paragraph from one essay may be placed at
+the beginning, middle or end of any other, where it seems to be equally at
+home.
+
+THE DOCTRINE OF EMERSON. Since we constantly hear of "idealism" in
+connection with Emerson, let us understand the word if we can; or rather
+the fact, for idealism is the most significant quality of humanity. The
+term will be better understood if we place it beside "materialism," which
+expresses an opposite view of life. The difference may be summarized in the
+statement that the idealist is a man of spirit, or idea, in that he trusts
+the evidence of the soul; while the materialist is a man of flesh, or
+sense, in that he believes only what is evident to the senses. One judges
+the world by himself; the other judges himself by the world.
+
+To illustrate our meaning: the materialist, looking outward, sees that the
+world is made up of force-driven matter, of gas, carbon and mineral; and he
+says, "Even so am I made up." He studies an object, sees that it has its
+appointed cycle of growth and decay, and concludes, "Even so do I appear
+and vanish." To him the world is the only reality, and the world perishes,
+and man is but a part of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: THE IDEALIST]
+
+The idealist, looking first within, perceives that self-consciousness is
+the great fact of life, and that consciousness expresses itself in words or
+deeds; then he looks outward, and is aware of another Consciousness that
+expresses itself in the lowly grass or in the stars of heaven. Looking
+inward he finds that he is governed by ideas of truth, beauty, goodness and
+duty; looking outward he everywhere finds evidence of truth and beauty and
+moral law in the world. He sees, moreover, that while his body changes
+constantly his self remains the same yesterday, to-day and forever; and
+again his discovery is a guide to the outer world, with its seedtime and
+harvest, which is but the symbol or garment of a Divine Self that abides
+without shadow of change in a constantly changing universe. To him the only
+reality is spirit, and spirit cannot be harmed by fire or flood; neither
+can it die or be buried, for it is immortal and imperishable.
+
+Such, in simple words, was the idealism of Emerson, an idealism that was
+born in him and that governed him long before he became involved in
+transcendentalism, with its scraps of borrowed Hindu philosophy. It gave
+message or meaning to his first work, _Nature_, and to all the
+subsequent essays or poems in which he pictured the world as a symbol or
+visible expression of a spiritual reality. In other words, nature was to
+Emerson the Book of the Lord, and the chief thing of interest was not the
+book but the idea that was written therein.
+
+[Sidenote: THE INDIVIDUALIST]
+
+Having read the universe and determined its spiritual quality, Emerson
+turned his eyes on humanity. Presently he announced that a man's chief
+glory is his individuality; that he is a free being, different from every
+other; that his business is to obey his individual genius; that he should,
+therefore, ignore the Past with its traditions, and learn directly "from
+the Divine Soul which inspires all men." Having announced that doctrine, he
+spent the rest of his life in illustrating or enlarging it; and the sum of
+his teaching was, "Do not follow me or any other master; follow your own
+spirit. Never mind what history says, or philosophy or tradition or the
+saints and sages. The same inspiration which led the prophets is yours for
+the taking, and you have your work to do as they had theirs. Revere your
+own soul; trust your intuition; and whatever you find in your heart to do,
+do it without doubt or fear, though all the world thunder in your ears that
+you must do otherwise. As for the voice of authority, 'Let not a man quit
+his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the anointed and honorable of
+the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom.'"
+
+[Illustration: EMERSON'S HOME, CONCORD]
+
+Such was Emerson's pet doctrine of individualism. It appeared with
+startling vigor in _The American Scholar_ at a time when our writers
+were prone to imitate English poetry, German sentimentality or some other
+imported product. It came also with good grace from one whose life was
+noble, but it had a weak or dangerous or grotesque side that Emerson
+overlooked. Thus, every crank or fanatic or rainbow-chaser is also an
+individualist, and most of them believe as strongly as Emerson in the
+Over-Soul. The only difference is that they do not have his sense or
+integrity or humor to balance their individualism. While Emerson exalted
+individual liberty he seemed to forget that America is a country devoted to
+"liberty under law," and that at every period of her history she has had
+need to emphasize the law rather than the liberty. Moreover, individualism
+is a quality that takes care of itself, being finest in one who is least
+conscious of his own importance; and to study any strongly individual
+character, a Washington or a Lincoln for example, is to discover that he
+strove to be true to his race and traditions as well as to himself. Hence
+Emerson's doctrine, to live in the Present and have entire confidence in
+yourself, needs to be supplemented by another: to revere the Past with its
+immortal heroes, who by their labor and triumph have established some
+truths that no sane man will ever question.
+
+[Sidenote: A NEW WORLD WRITER]
+
+There are other interesting qualities of Emerson, his splendid optimism,
+for instance, which came partly from his spiritual view of the universe and
+partly from his association with nature; for the writer who is in daily
+contact with sunshine or rain and who trusts his soul's ideals of truth and
+beauty has no place for pessimism or despair; even in moments of darkness
+he looks upward and reads his lesson:
+
+  Teach me your mood, O patient stars,
+    Who climb each night the ancient sky,
+  Leaving on space no shade, no scars,
+    No trace of age, no fear to die!
+
+Though he was and still is called a visionary, there is a practical quality
+in his writing which is better than anything you will find in _Poor
+Richard's Almanac_. Thus the burden of Franklin's teaching was the value
+of time, a lesson which the sage of Concord illuminates as with celestial
+light in his poem "Days," and to which he brings earth's candle in his
+prose essay "Work and Days." [Footnote: The two works should be read in
+connection as an interesting example of Emerson's use of prose and verse to
+reflect the same idea. Holmes selects the same two works to illustrate the
+essential difference between prose and poetry. See Holmes, _Ralph Waldo
+Emerson_, p. 310.] Indeed, the more one reads Emerson the more is one
+convinced that he is our typical New World writer, a rare genius who
+combines the best qualities of Franklin and Edwards, having the practical
+sense of the one and the spiritual insight of the other. [Footnote: In 1830
+Channing published an essay, "National Literature," in which he said that
+Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards were the only writers up to that
+time who had worthily presented the American mind, with its practical and
+ideal sides, to foreign readers.] With his idealism and individuality, his
+imagination that soars to heaven but is equally at home on solid earth, his
+sound judgment to balance his mysticism, his forceful style that runs from
+epigram to sustained eloquence, his straight-fibered manhood in which
+criticism finds nothing to pardon or regret,--with all these sterling
+qualities he is one of the most representative writers that America has
+ever produced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)
+
+Some great writers belong to humanity, others to their own land or people.
+Hawthorne is in the latter class apparently, for ever since Lowell rashly
+characterized him as "the greatest imaginative genius since Shakespeare"
+our critics commonly speak of him in superlatives. Meanwhile most European
+critics (who acclaim such unequal writers as Cooper and Poe, Whitman and
+Mark Twain) either leave Hawthorne unread or else wonder what Americans
+find in him to stir their enthusiasm.
+
+The explanation is that Hawthorne's field was so intensely local that only
+those who are familiar with it can appreciate him. Almost any reader can
+enjoy Cooper, since he deals with adventurous men whom everybody
+understands; but Hawthorne deals with the New England Puritan of the
+seventeenth century, a very peculiar hero, and to enjoy the novelist one
+must have some personal or historic interest in his subject. Moreover, he
+alienates many readers by presenting only the darker side of Puritanism. He
+is a man who never laughs and seldom smiles in his work; he passes over a
+hundred normal and therefore cheerful homes to pitch upon some gloomy
+habitation of sin or remorse, and makes that the burden of his tale. In no
+other romancer do we find genius of such high order at work in so barren a
+field.
+
+    LIFE. There is an air of reserve about Hawthorne which no biography
+    has ever penetrated. A schoolmate who met him daily once said, "I
+    love Hawthorne; I admire him; but I do not know him. He lives in a
+    mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits
+    me to enter." That characterization applies as well to-day as when
+    it was first spoken, almost a century ago. To his family and to a
+    very few friends Hawthorne was evidently a genial man, [Footnote:
+    Intimate but hardly trustworthy pictures of Hawthorne and his
+    family are presented by his son, Julian Hawthorne, in _Nathaniel
+    Hawthorne and his Wife_. A dozen other memoirs have appeared;
+    but Hawthorne did not want his biography written, and there are
+    many unanswered questions in the story of his life.] but from the
+    world and its affairs he always held aloof, wrapped in his mantle
+    of mystery.
+
+    A study of his childhood may help us to understand the somber
+    quality of all his work. He was descended from the Puritans who
+    came to Boston with John Winthrop, and was born in the seaport of
+    Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. He was only four years old when his
+    father, a sea captain, died in a foreign port; whereupon the mother
+    draped herself in weeds, retired from the sight of neighbors, and
+    for the next forty years made life as funereal as possible. Besides
+    the little boy there were two sisters in the family, and the elder
+    took her meals in her own room, as did the mother. The others went
+    about the darkened house on tiptoe, or peeped out at the world
+    through closed shutters.
+
+    [Illustration: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE]
+
+    The shadow of that unnatural home was upon Hawthorne to the end of
+    his life; it accounts in part for his shyness, his fear of society,
+    his lack of interest in his own age or nation.
+
+    [Sidenote: SECLUSION AT SALEM]
+
+    At seventeen Hawthorne went to Bowdoin College, where Longfellow
+    was his classmate and Franklin Pierce (later President of the
+    United States) one of his friends. His college life seems to have
+    been happy, even gay at times; but when he graduated (1825) and his
+    classmates scattered to find work in the world he returned to his
+    Salem home and secluded himself as if he had no interest in
+    humanity. It was doubtful, he said afterwards, whether a dozen
+    people knew of his existence in as many years.
+
+    All the while he was writing, gathering material for his romances
+    or patiently cultivating his fine style. For days he would brood
+    over a subject; then he would compose a story or parable for the
+    magazines. The stamp of originality was on all these works, but
+    they were seldom accepted. When they returned to him, having found
+    no appreciative editor, he was apt to burn them and complain that
+    he was neglected. Studying the man as he reveals himself at this
+    time in his _Note-Books_ (published in a garbled edition by
+    the Hawthorne family), one has the impression that he was a shy,
+    sensitive genius, almost morbidly afraid of the world. From a
+    distance he sent out his stories as "feelers", when these were
+    ignored he shrank into himself more deeply than before.
+
+    [Illustration: OLD CUSTOMHOUSE, BOSTON,
+    Where Hawthorne worked.]
+
+    Love brought him out of his retreat, as it has accomplished many
+    another miracle. When he became engaged his immediate thought was
+    to find work, and one of his friends secured a position for him in
+    the Boston customhouse, where he weighed coal until he was replaced
+    by a party spoilsman. [Footnote: Hawthorne profited three times by
+    the spoils system. When his Boston experience was repeated at Salem
+    he took his revenge in the opening chapter of _The Scarlet
+    Letter_, which ridicules those who received political jobs from
+    the other party.] There were no civil-service rules in those days.
+    Hoping to secure a home, he invested his savings in Brook Farm,
+    worked there for a time with the reformers, detested them, lost his
+    money and gained the experience which he used later in his
+    _Blithedale Romance_. Then he married, and lived in poverty
+    and great happiness for four years in the "Old Manse" at Concord.
+    Another friend obtained for him political appointment as surveyor
+    of the Salem customhouse; again he was replaced by a spoilsman, and
+    again he complained bitterly. The loss proved a blessing, however,
+    since it gave him leisure to write _The Scarlet Letter_, a
+    novel which immediately placed Hawthorne in the front rank of
+    American writers.
+
+    [Sidenote: FAREWELL GREATNESS]
+
+    He was now before an appreciative world, and in the flush of fine
+    feeling that followed his triumph he wrote _The House of the
+    Seven Gables, A Wonder Book_ and _The Snow Image_.
+    Literature was calling him most hopefully when, at the very prime
+    of life, he turned his back on fortune. His friend Pierce had been
+    nominated by the Democrats (1852), and he was asked to write the
+    candidate's biography for campaign purposes. It was hardly a worthy
+    task, but he accepted it and did it well. When Pierce was elected
+    he "persuaded" Hawthorne to accept the office of consul at
+    Liverpool. The emoluments, some seven thousand dollars a year,
+    seemed enormous to one who had lived straitly, and in the four
+    years of Pierce's administration our novelist saved a sum which,
+    with the income from his books, placed him above the fear of want.
+    Then he went for a long vacation to Italy, where he collected the
+    material for his _Marble Faun_. But he wrote nothing more of
+    consequence.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE UNFINISHED STORY]
+
+    The remainder of his life was passed in a pleasant kind of
+    hermitage in Emerson's village of Concord. His habits of solitude
+    and idleness ("cursed habits," he called them) were again upon him;
+    though he began several romances--_Dr. Grimshawe's Secret_,
+    _Septimius Felton_, _The Ancestral Footstep_ and _The
+    Dolliver Romance_--he never made an end of them. In his work he
+    was prone to use some symbol of human ambition, and the symbol of
+    his own later years might well have been the unfinished manuscript
+    which lay upon the coffin when his body was laid under the pines in
+    the old Concord burying ground (1864). His friend Longfellow has
+    described the scene in his beautiful poem "Hawthorne."
+
+SHORT STORIES AND SKETCHES. Many young people become familiar with
+Hawthorne as a teller of bedtime stories long before they meet him in the
+role of famous novelist. In his earlier days he wrote _Grandfather's
+Chair_ (modeled on a similar work by Scott), dealing with Colonial
+legends, and broadened his field in _Biographical Stories for
+Children_. Other and better works belonging to the same juvenile class
+are _A Wonder Book_ (1851) and _Tanglewood Tales_ (1853), which
+are modern versions of the classic myths and stories that Greek mothers
+used to tell their children long ago.
+
+[Sidenote: PICTURES OF THE PAST]
+
+The best of Hawthorne's original stories are collected in _Twice-Told
+Tales_, _Mosses from an Old Manse_ and _The Snow Image and Other
+Twice-Told Tales_. As the bulk of this work is rather depressing we
+select a few typical tales, arranging them in three groups. In the first
+are certain sketches, as Hawthorne called them, which aim not to tell a
+story but to give an impression of the past. "The Old Manse" (in _Mosses
+from an Old Manse_) is an excellent introduction to this group. Others
+in which the author comes out from the gloom to give his humor a glimpse of
+pale sunshine are "A Rill from the Town Pump," "Main Street," "Little
+Annie's Ramble," "Sights from a Steeple" and, as suggestive of Hawthorne's
+solitary outings, "Footprints on the Seashore."
+
+[Sidenote: ALLEGORIES]
+
+In the second group are numerous allegories and symbolical stories. To
+understand Hawthorne's method of allegory [Footnote: An allegory is a
+figure of speech (in rhetoric) or a story (in literature) in which an
+external object is described in such a way that we apply the description to
+our own inner experience. Many proverbs, such as "People who live in glass
+houses should not throw stones," are condensed allegories. So also are
+fables and parables, such as the fable of the fox and the grapes, or the
+parable of the lost sheep. Bunyan's famous allegory, The Pilgrim's
+Progress, describes a journey from one city to another, but in reading it
+we are supposed to think of a Christian's experience in passing through
+this world to the next.] read "The Snow Image," which is the story of a
+snowy figure that became warm, living and companionable to some children
+until it was spoiled by a hard-headed person, without imagination or real
+sense, who forgot that he was ever a child himself or that there is such a
+beautiful and precious thing as a child-view of the universe.
+
+In his constant symbolism (that is, in his use of an outward sign or token
+to represent an idea) Hawthorne reflected a trait that is common to
+humanity in all ages. Thus, every nation has its concrete symbol, its flag
+or eagle or lion; a great religion is represented by a cross or a crescent;
+in art and poetry the sword stands for war and the dove for peace; an
+individual has his horseshoe or rabbit's foot or "mascot" as the simple
+expression of an idea that may be too complex for words. Among primitive
+people such symbols were associated with charms, magic, baleful or
+benignant influences; and Hawthorne accepted this superstitious idea in
+many of his works, though he was apt to hint, as in "Lady Eleanor's
+Mantle," that the magic of his symbol might have a practical explanation.
+In this story the lady's gorgeous mantle is a symbol of pride; its
+blighting influence _may_ be due to the fact that,--but to tell the
+secret is to spoil the story, and that is not fair to Hawthorne or the
+reader.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BLACK VEIL]
+
+Some of these symbolic tales are too vague or shadowy to be convincing; in
+others the author makes artistic use of some simple object, such as a
+flower or an ornament, to suggest the mystery that broods over every life.
+In "The Minister's Black Veil," for example, a clergyman startles his
+congregation by appearing with a dark veil over his face. The veil itself
+is a familiar object; on a woman or a bonnet it would pass unnoticed; but
+on the minister it becomes a portentous thing, at once fascinating and
+repellent. Yesterday they knew the man as a familiar friend; to-day he is a
+stranger, and they fear him with a vague, nameless fear. Forty years he
+wears the mysterious thing, dies and is buried with it, and in all that
+time they never have a glimpse of his face. Though there is a deal of
+nonsense in the story, and a hocus-pocus instead of a mystery, we must
+remember that veil as a striking symbol of the loneliness of life, of the
+gulf that separates a human soul from every other.
+
+Another and better symbolic tale is "The Great Stone Face," which appeals
+strongly to younger readers, especially to those who have lived much out of
+doors and who cherish the memory of some natural object, some noble tree or
+mossy cliff or singing brook, that is forever associated with their
+thoughts of childhood. To others the tale will have added interest in that
+it is supposed to portray the character of Emerson as Hawthorne knew him.
+
+[Sidenote: LEGENDARY TALES]
+
+In the third group are numerous stories dealing with Colonial history, and
+of these "The Gray Champion" and "The Gentle Boy" are fairly typical.
+Hawthorne has been highly praised in connection with these tales as "the
+artist who created the Puritan in literature." Most readers will gladly
+recognize the "artist," since every tale has its line or passage of beauty;
+but some will murmur at the "creation." The trouble with Hawthorne was that
+in creating his Puritan he took scant heed of the man whom the Almighty
+created. He was not a scholar or even a reader; his custom was to brood
+over an incident of the past (often a grotesque incident, such as he found
+in Winthrop's old _Journal_), and from his brooding he produced an
+imaginary character, some heartless fanatic or dismal wretch who had
+nothing of the Puritan except the label. Of the real Puritan, who knew the
+joy and courtesy as well as the stern discipline of life, our novelist had
+only the haziest notion. In consequence his "Gentle Boy" and parts also of
+his _Scarlet Letter_ leave an unwarranted stain on the memory of his
+ancestors. [Footnote: Occasionally, as in "The Gray Champion" and "Endicott
+and the Red Cross," Hawthorne paints the stern courage of the Puritan, but
+never his gentle or humane qualities. His typical tale presents the Puritan
+in the most unlovely guise. In "The Maypole of Merrymount," for example,
+Morton and his men are represented as inoffensive, art-loving people who
+were terrorized by the "dismal wretches" of a near-by colony of Puritans.
+Nothing could be farther from the truth. Morton's crew were a lawless set
+and a scandal to New England; but they were tolerated until they put all
+the settlements in danger by debauching the Indians and selling them rum,
+muskets and gunpowder. The "dismal wretches" were the Pilgrims of
+Plymouth,--gentle, heroic men, lovers of learning and liberty, who
+profoundly influenced the whole subsequent history of America.]
+
+THE FOUR ROMANCES. The romances of Hawthorne are all studies of the effects
+of sin on human development. If but one of these romances is to be read,
+let it be _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851), which is a
+pleasanter story than Hawthorne commonly tells, and which portrays one
+character that he knew by experience rather than by imagination. Many of
+Hawthorne's stories run to a text, and the text here is, "The fathers have
+eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." The
+characters are represented as "under a curse"; [Foonote: This is a
+reflection of a family tradition. An ancestor of Hawthorne was judge at the
+Salem witch trials, in 1692. One of the poor creatures condemned to death
+is said to have left a curse on the judge's family. In his _Note
+Books_ Hawthorne makes mention of the traditional curse, and analyzes
+its possible effect on his own character.] that is, they are bearing the
+burden and sorrow of some old iniquity committed before they were born; but
+the affliction is banished in a satisfactory way without leaving us in the
+haze of mystery that envelops so much of Hawthorne's work. His humor is
+also in evidence, his interest in life overcomes for a time his absorption
+in shadowy symbols, and his whole story is brightened by his evident love
+of Phoebe Pyncheon, the most natural and winsome of all his characters.
+
+[Illustration: "THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES," SALEM (BUILT IN 1669)]
+
+The other romances deal with the same general theme, the blighting effect
+of sin, but vary greatly in their scenes and characters. The _Marble
+Faun_ (published in England as _Transformation_, 1860) is the most
+popular, possibly because its scene is laid in Rome, a city to which all
+travelers go, or aspire to go, before they die; but though it moves in "an
+atmosphere of art," among the studios of "the eternal city," it is the
+least artistic of all the author's works. [Footnote: The _Marble Faun_
+ends in a fog, as if the author did not know what to do with his
+characters. It has the amateurish fault of halting the narrative to talk
+with the reader; and it moralizes to such an extent that the heroine (who
+is pictured as of almost angelic virtue) eventually becomes a prig and a
+preacher,--two things that a woman must never be. Nevertheless, the romance
+has a host of enthusiastic readers, and to criticize it adversely is to
+bring a storm about one's ears.] In _The Blithedale Romance_ (1852)
+Hawthorne deals with the present rather than the past and apparently makes
+use of his observation, since his scenes and characters are strongly
+suggestive of the Brook Farm community of reformers, among whom he spent
+one critical and unhappy year. _The Scarlet Letter_ (1850) is not only
+the most original and powerful of the romances but is commonly ranked by
+our critics at the head of American fiction. The scene is laid in Boston,
+in the old Puritan days; the main characters are vividly drawn, and the
+plot moves to its gloomy but impressive climax as if Wyrd or Fate were at
+the bottom of it.
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF HAWTHORNE. Almost the first thing we notice in Hawthorne
+is his style, a smooth, leisurely, "classic" style which moves along, like
+a meadow brook, without hurry or exertion. Gradually as we read we become
+conscious of the novelist's characters, whom he introduces with a veil of
+mystery around them. They are interesting, as dreams and other mysterious
+things always are, but they are seldom real or natural or lifelike. At
+times we seem to be watching a pantomime of shadows, rather than a drama of
+living men and women.
+
+[Sidenote: METHOD OF WORK]
+
+The explanation of these shadowy characters is found in Hawthorne's method
+of work, as revealed by the _Note-Books_ in which he stored his
+material. Here is a typical record, which was occasioned, no doubt, by the
+author's meeting with some old nurse, whom he straightway changed from her
+real semblance to a walking allegory:
+
+    "Change from a gay young girl to an old woman. Melancholy events,
+    the effects of which have clustered around her character....
+    Becomes a lover of sick chambers, taking pleasure in receiving
+    dying breaths and laying out the dead. Having her mind full of
+    funeral reminiscences, and possessing more acquaintances beneath
+    the turf than above it."
+
+This is enough of a story in itself; we need not read "Edward Fane's
+Rosebud" to see how Hawthorne filled in the details. The strange thing is
+that he never studied or questioned the poor woman to discover whether she
+was anything like what he imagined her to be. On another page we read:
+
+    "A snake taken into a man's stomach and nourished there from
+    fifteen to thirty five years, tormenting him most horribly." [Then
+    follows the inevitable moral.] "Type of envy or some other evil
+    passion."
+
+[Illustration: HAWTHORNE'S BIRTHPLACE, SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS]
+
+There are many such story-records in the _Note-Books_, but among them
+you will find no indication that the story-teller ever examined the facts
+with a purpose to discover whether a snake could survive thirty-five years,
+or minutes, in the acids of a human stomach, or how long a Puritan church
+would tolerate a minister who went about with a veil on his face, or
+whether any other of his symbols had any vital connection with human
+experience. In a word, Hawthorne was prone to make life conform to his
+imagination, instead of making his imagination conform to life. Living as
+he did in the twilight, between the day and the night, he seems to have
+missed the chief lesson of each, the urge of the one and the repose of the
+other; and especially did he miss the great fact of cheerfulness. The
+deathless courage of man, his invincible hope that springs to life under
+the most adverse circumstances, like the cyclamen abloom under the snows of
+winter,--this primal and blessed fact seems to have escaped his notice. At
+times he hints at it, but he never gives it its true place at the
+beginning, middle and end of human life.
+
+[Sidenote: ARTIST AND MORALIST]
+
+Thus far our analysis has been largely negative, and Hawthorne was a very
+positive character. He had the feeling of an artist for beauty; and he was
+one of the few romancers who combine a strong sense of art with a puritanic
+devotion to conscience and the moral law. Hence his stories all aim to be
+both artistic and ethical, to satisfy our sense of beauty and our sense of
+right. In his constant moralizing he was like George Eliot; or rather, to
+give the figure its proper sequence, George Eliot was so exclusively a
+moralist after the Hawthornesque manner that one suspects she must have
+been familiar with his work when she began to write. Both novelists worked
+on the assumption that the moral law is the basis of human life and that
+every sin brings its inevitable retribution. The chief difference was that
+Hawthorne started with a moral principle and invented characters to match
+it, while George Eliot started with a human character in whose experience
+she revealed the unfolding of a moral principle.
+
+[Sidenote: A SOLITARY GENIUS]
+
+The individuality of Hawthorne becomes apparent when we attempt to classify
+him,--a vain attempt, since there is no other like him in literature. In
+dealing with almost any other novelist we can name his models, or at least
+point out the story-tellers whose methods influenced his work; but
+Hawthorne seems to have had no predecessor. Subject, style and method were
+all his own, developed during his long seclusion at Salem, and from them he
+never varied. From his _Twice-Told Tales_ to his unfinished
+_Dolliver Romance_ he held steadily to the purpose of portraying the
+moral law against a background of Puritan history.
+
+Such a field would have seemed very narrow to other American writers, who
+then, as now, were busy with things too many or things too new; but to
+Hawthorne it was a world in itself, a world that lured him as the Indies
+lured Columbus. In imagination he dwelt in that somber Puritan world,
+eating at its long-vanished tables or warming himself at its burnt-out
+fires, until the impulse came to reproduce it in literature. And he did
+reproduce it, powerfully, single-heartedly, as only genius could have done
+it. That his portrayal was inaccurate is perhaps a minor consideration; for
+one writer must depict life as he meets it on the street or in books, while
+another is confined to what Ezekiel calls "the chambers of imagery."
+Hawthorne's liberties with the facts may be pardoned on the ground that he
+was not an historian but an artist. The historian tells what life has
+accomplished, the artist what life means.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECONDARY WRITERS OF PROSE OR VERSE
+
+THE POETS. Among the fifty or more poets of the period of conflict Henry
+Timrod, Paul Hamilton Hayne and Abram J. Ryan are notable for this reason,
+that their fame, once local, seems to widen with the years. They are
+commonly grouped as southern poets because of the war lyrics in which they
+voiced the passionate devotion of the South to its leaders; but what makes
+them now interesting to a larger circle of readers are their poems of an
+entirely different kind,--poems that reflect in a tender and beautiful way
+the common emotions of men in all places and in all ages. Two other
+prominent singers of the southern school are Theodore O'Hara and James
+Ryder Randall.
+
+[Illustration: HENRY TIMROD]
+
+In another group are such varied singers as Richard Henry Stoddard, George
+H. Boker, Henry Howard Brownell, Thomas B. Read, John G. Saxe, J. G.
+Holland and Bayard Taylor. These were all famous poets in their own day,
+and some of them were prolific writers, Holland and Taylor especially. The
+latter produced thirty volumes of poems, essays, novels and sketches of
+travel; but, with the exception of his fine translation of Goethe's
+_Faust_ and a few of his original lyrics, the works which he sent
+forth so abundantly are now neglected. He is typical of a hundred writers
+who answer the appeal of to-day and win its applause, and who are forgotten
+when to-morrow comes with its new interests and its new favorites.
+
+[Illustration: PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE]
+
+FICTION WRITERS. Comparatively few novels were written during this period,
+perhaps because the terrible shadow of war was over the country and readers
+were in no mood for fiction. The most popular romance of the age, and one
+of the most widely read books that America has ever produced, was _Uncle
+Tom's Cabin_ (1852), which has been translated and dramatized into so
+many tongues that it is known all over the earth. The author, Harriet
+Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), wrote several other stories, all characterized
+by humor, kindness and intense moral earnestness. Some of these, such as
+_Oldtown Folks_, _The Minister's Wooing_, _The Pearl of Orr's
+Island_ and _Oldtown Fireside Stories_ have decidedly more literary
+charm than her famous story of slavery.
+
+[Illustration: HARRIET BEECHER STOWE]
+
+[Sidenote: TALES OF THE SEA]
+
+The mid-century produced some very good sea stories, and in these we see
+the influence of Cooper, who was the first to use the ocean successfully as
+a scene of romantic interest. Dana's _Two Years before the Mast_
+(1840) was immensely popular when our fathers were boys. It contained,
+moreover, such realistic pictures of sailor life that it was studied by
+aspirants for the British and American navies in the days when the flag
+rippled proudly over the beautiful old sailing ships. This excellent book
+is largely a record of personal experience; but in the tales of Herman
+Melville (1819-1891) we have the added elements of imagination and
+adventure. _Typee_, _White Jacket_, _Moby Dick_,--these are
+capital tales of the deep, the last-named especially.
+
+_Typee_ (a story well known to Stevenson, evidently) is remarkable for
+its graphic pictures of sailor life afloat and ashore in the Marquesas
+Islands, a new field in those days. The narrative is continued in _White
+Jacket_, which tells of the return from the South Pacific aboard a
+man-of-war. In _Moby Dick_ we have the real experience of a sailorman
+and whaler (Melville himself) and the fictitious wanderings of a stout
+captain, a primeval kind of person, who is at times an interesting lunatic
+and again a ranting philosopher. In the latter we have an echo of Carlyle,
+who was making a stir in America in 1850, and who affected Melville so
+strongly that the latter soon lost his bluff, hearty, sailor fashion of
+writing, which everybody liked, and assumed a crotchety style that nobody
+cared to read.
+
+[Sidenote: FROM ROMANCE TO REALISM]
+
+A few other novels of the period are interesting as showing the sudden
+change from romance to realism, a change for which the war was partly
+responsible, and which will be examined more closely in the following
+chapter. John Esten Cooke (1830-1886) may serve as a concrete example of
+the two types of fiction. In his earlier romances, notably in _Leather
+Stocking and Silk_ and _The Virginia Comedians_ (1854), he aimed to
+do for the Cavalier society of the South what Hawthorne was doing for the
+old Puritan régime in New England; but his later stories, such as _Surrey
+of Eagle's Nest_, are chiefly notable for their realistic pictures of
+the great war.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN ESTEN COOKE]
+
+The change from romance to realism is more openly apparent in Theodore
+Winthrop and Edward Eggleston, whose novels deal frankly with pioneers of
+the Middle West; not such pioneers as Cooper had imagined in _The
+Prairie_, but such plain men and women as one might meet anywhere beyond
+the Alleghenies in 1850. Winthrop's _John Brent_ (1862) and
+Eggleston's _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ and _The Circuit Rider_
+(1874) are so true to a real phase of American life that a thoughtful
+reader must wonder why they are not better known. They are certainly
+refreshing to one who tires of our present so-called realism with its
+abnormal or degenerate characters.
+
+More widely read than any of the novelists just mentioned are certain
+others who appeared in answer to the increasing demand of young people for
+a good story. It is doubtful if any American writer great or small has
+given more pleasure to young readers than Louisa M. Alcott with her
+_Little Women_ (1868) and other stories for girls, or John T.
+Trowbridge, author of _Cudjo's Cave_, _Jack Hazard_, _A Chance
+for Himself_ and several other juveniles that once numbered their boy
+readers by tens of thousands.
+
+[Illustration: LOUISA M. ALCOTT]
+
+THOREAU. Among the many secondary writers of the period the most original
+and most neglected was Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862), a man who differed
+greatly from other mortals in almost every respect, but chiefly in this,
+that he never was known to "go with the crowd," not even on the rare
+occasions when he believed the crowd to be right. He was one of the few
+persons who select their own way through life and follow it without the
+slightest regard for the world's opinion.
+
+Numerous examples of Thoreau's oddity might be given, but we note here only
+his strange determination to view life with his own eyes. This may appear a
+simple matter until we reflect that most men measure life by what others
+have said or written concerning life's values. They accept the standards of
+their ancestors or their neighbors; they conform themselves to a world in
+which governments and other long-established institutions claim their
+allegiance; they are trained to win success in such a world by doing one
+thing well, and to measure their success by the fame or money or office or
+social position which they achieve by a lifetime of labor and self-denial.
+
+[Illustration: HENRY D. THOREAU]
+
+[Sidenote: HIS ORIGINALITY]
+
+Thoreau sharply challenged this whole conception of life, which, he said,
+was more a matter of habit than of reason or conviction. He saw in our
+social institutions as much of harm as of benefit to the individual. He
+looked with distrust on all traditions, saying that he had listened for
+thirty years without hearing one word of sound advice from his elders. He
+was a good workman and learned to do several things passing well; but he
+saw no reason why a free man should repeat himself daily in a world of
+infinite opportunities. Also he was a scholar, versed in classical lore and
+widely read in oriental literature; but unlike his friend Emerson he seldom
+quoted the ancients, being more concerned with his own thoughts of life
+than by the words of philosophers, and more fascinated by the wild birds
+that ate crumbs from his table than by all the fabled gods of mythology. As
+for success, the fame or money for which other men toiled seemed to him but
+empty bubbles; the only wealth he prized was his soul's increase in love
+and understanding: "If the day and the night are such that you greet them
+with joy, and life emits a fragrance like sweet-scented herbs--is more
+elastic, starry and immortal--that is your success."
+
+[Sidenote: WALDEN]
+
+There are other interesting matters in Thoreau's philosophy, but these will
+appear plainly enough to one who reads his own record. His best-known work
+is _Walden_ (1854), a journal in which he recorded what he saw or
+thought or felt during the two years when he abandoned society to live in a
+hut on the shore of Walden Pond, near his native village of Concord. If
+there be any definite lesson in the book, it is the proof of Thoreau's
+theory that simplicity is needed for happiness, that men would be better
+off with fewer possessions, and that earning one's living should be a
+matter of pleasure rather than of endless toil and anxiety. What makes
+_Walden_ valuable, however, is not its theories but its revelation of
+an original mind fronting the facts of life, its gleams of poetry and
+philosophy, its startling paradoxes, its first-hand impressions of the
+world, its nuggets of sense or humor, and especially its intimate
+observation of the little wild neighbors in feathers or fur who shared
+Thoreau's solitude. It is one of the few books in American literature that
+successive generations have read with profit to themselves and with
+increasing respect for the original genius who wrote it.
+
+THE HISTORIANS. The honored names of Bancroft, Sparks, Prescott, Motley and
+Parkman are indicative of the importance attached to history-writing in
+America ever since Colonial days, and of the remarkably fine and sometimes
+heroic quality of American historians. Another matter suggested by these
+names is the changing standard or ideal of historical writing. In an
+earlier time history was a dry chronicle of important events, or of such
+events as seemed important to the chronicler; at the present day it
+threatens to degenerate into an equally dry chronicle of economic forces;
+and between these thirsty extremes are various highly colored records
+glorifying kings or conquerors or political parties as the chief things of
+history.
+
+[Sidenote: THE EPIC OF HISTORY]
+
+These American historians had a different standard. They first consulted
+all available records to be sure of the facts or events. Then they closely
+examined the scene in which the event had come to pass, knowing that
+environment is always a factor in human history. Finally they studied
+historical personages, not as others had described them but as they
+revealed themselves in letters, diaries, speeches,--personal records
+revealing human motives that all men understand, because man is everywhere
+the same. From such a combination of event, scene and characters our
+historians wrote a dramatic narrative, giving it the heroic cast without
+which history, the prose epic of liberty, is little better than a dull
+catalogue. Another very important matter was that they cultivated their
+style as well as their knowledge; they were literary men no less than
+historians, and in the conviction that the first object of literature is to
+give pleasure they produced works that have charmed as well as instructed a
+multitude of readers. There are chapters in Prescott's _Conquest of
+Mexico_ and _Conquest of Peru_ over which one must sit up late, as
+over a novel of Scott; in Motley's _Rise of the Dutch Republic_ and
+_History of the United Netherlands_ there are scores of glowing
+passages dealing with great characters or great events which stir the
+reader like a tale of gallant adventure.
+
+Prescott deals with force in action, and the action at times seems to be an
+exaltation of violence and cruelty. Motley also delights in action; but he
+is at heart an apostle of liberty, or perhaps we should say, of the
+American ideal of liberty, and his narrative often assumes the character of
+a partisan chant of freedom.
+
+[Sidenote: PARKMAN]
+
+To the native, at least, Francis Parkman (1823-1893) is probably the most
+interesting of our historians, partly because of his lucid style and partly
+because of his American theme. Early in life he selected his subject (the
+Old French Wars) and spent the best part of forty years in making himself
+familiar not only with what occurred during the struggle between France and
+England for possession of the New World, but also with the primeval scene
+and all the motley characters of the fateful drama. It is doubtful if any
+other historian ever had a more minute knowledge of his subject; and the
+astonishing, the heroic part of the matter is that he attained this vast
+knowledge in spite of the handicap of almost constant suffering and
+blindness. In a dozen volumes he tells his story, volumes crowded with
+action or adventure, and written in such a vividly convincing style that
+one has the impression that Parkman must have been an eye-witness of the
+events which he describes.
+
+[Illustration: FRANCIS PARKMAN]
+
+Among these volumes the second part of _Pioneers of France in the New
+World_ and _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_ are
+recommended to the beginner. The former deals with the career of Champlain,
+who opened the way for future settlements in the North; the latter with one
+of the most adventurous, lion-hearted men that ever cheerfully faced toil
+and endless danger. Standing apart from Parkman's main theme is a single
+volume, _The California and Oregon Trail_ (1849), which recounts the
+picturesque incidents of the author's trip through the Northwest, then an
+unknown country, with a tribe of unspoiled Indians. Those who like a tale
+of adventure need not go to fiction to find it, for it is here in Parkman's
+narrative,--a tale of care-free wandering amid plains or mountains and,
+what is historically more important, a picture of a vanished life that will
+never be seen here again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    SUMMARY. The period of conflict has no definite limits on either
+    side, but for convenience we may think of it as included between
+    the years 1840 and 1876. Its earlier years were filled with an
+    ever-increasing agitation of the questions of slavery and state
+    rights; its center was the Civil War; its close was the Centennial
+    Exposition at Philadelphia, which we have selected as an outward
+    symbol of a reunited country.
+
+    The most noticeable feature of the age, apart from the great war,
+    was its ceaseless political turmoil. Of deeper significance to the
+    student of literature was the profound mental unrest which showed
+    itself in reform movements, in various communistic societies like
+    Brook Farm, in an eager interest in the poetry of other nations, in
+    the establishment of college professorships of foreign literatures,
+    in the philosophical doctrine of transcendentalism, and in many
+    other efforts of mid-century Americans to enlarge their mental
+    horizon.
+
+    A host of minor writings of the period reflect the sectional
+    passions or interests that stirred our people deeply at the time,
+    but that are now almost forgotten. The comparatively small body of
+    major literature was concerned with the permanent ideals of America
+    or with the simple human feelings that have no age or nationality.
+    In general, it was a time of poetry rather than of prose, being
+    distinguished above all other periods of American literature by the
+    number and quality of its poets.
+
+    Our detailed study of the age includes: (1) The major or so-called
+    elder poets, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Lanier and
+    Whitman. (2) The life and work of Emerson, who was both poet and
+    prose writer. (3) The career of Hawthorne, the novelist of
+    Puritanism, who is commonly ranked at the head of American
+    fiction-writers. (4) A brief review of the secondary writers of
+    prose and verse. (5) An examination of the work of Thoreau, the
+    most individualistic writer in an age of individualism, and of
+    Parkman, whom we have selected as representative of the American
+    historians.
+
+    SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections from minor writers of
+    the period in Calhoun and MacAlarney, Readings from American
+    Literature; Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature,
+    and various other collections. Important works of all major writers
+    are published in inexpensive editions for school use, a few of
+    which are named below. Longfellow's short poems, Evangeline, parts
+    of Hiawatha and of Tales of a Wayside Inn, in Riverside Literature;
+    selections from the narrative poems in Lake English Classics;
+    selected poems in various other school series.
+
+    Whittier's Snow Bound and selected short poems, in Riverside
+    Literature, Maynard's English Classics, etc.
+
+    Lowell's Sir Launfal, selected short poems and selected essays, in
+    Riverside Literature, Maynard's English Classics.
+
+    Holmes's poems, selected, in Maynard's English Classics; The
+    Autocrat, in Everyman's Library; selected prose and verse, in
+    Riverside Literature.
+
+    Lanier's poems, with selections from Timrod and Hayne, in Pocket
+    Classics, Maynard's English Classics, etc.
+
+    Whitman's poems, brief selections, in Maynard's English Classics;
+    Triggs, Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman.
+
+    Emerson's poems, in Riverside Literature; Representative Men and
+    selected essays, in Pocket Classics; Nature and various essays, in
+    Everyman's Library.
+
+    Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and selected short stories,
+    in Pocket Classics; Twice-Told Tales and other selections, in
+    Riverside Literature.
+
+    Thoreau's Walden, in Everyman's Library; Walden and selections from
+    other works, in Riverside Literature.
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. For extended works covering the field of American
+    history and literature see the General Bibliography. The following
+    works are useful in a special study of the period of conflict.
+
+    _HISTORY_. Rhodes, History of the United States 1850-1877, 7
+    vols.; Wilson, Division and Reunion; Stephens, War between the
+    States; Paxson, the Civil War; Rhodes, Lectures on the Civil War;
+    Hart, Romance of the Civil War (supplementary reading for young
+    people). Lives of notable characters in American Statesmen, Great
+    Commanders and other series. Grant, Personal Memoirs; Gordon,
+    Reminiscences of the Civil War; Alexander Stephens, Recollections;
+    Hoar, Autobiography; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress; Greeley,
+    Recollections; Booker Washington, Up from Slavery.
+
+    _LITERATURE,_. The great period of American letters is still
+    awaiting its historian. Brief chapters are found in Richardson,
+    Trent, Cairns, Wendell and other general histories of our
+    literature. Good essays on individual authors of the period in
+    Stedman, Poets of America; Brownell, American Prose Masters;
+    Erskine, Leading American Novelists; Vincent, American Literary
+    Masters; Burton, Literary Leaders of America.
+
+    Frothingham's Transcendentalism in New England will throw light on
+    the so-called Concord school. Howells's Literary Friends and
+    Acquaintance is a fine appreciation of the Cambridge writers.
+    Wauchope's Writers of South Carolina contains excellent studies of
+    Timrod, Hayne, Simms and other writers of the Palmetto state.
+    Moses' Literature of the South and Henneman's Literary and
+    Intellectual Life of the South are among the best works devoted to
+    southern authors exclusively.
+
+    _Longfellow._ Life, by Higginson, in American Men of Letters;
+    by Carpenter (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Robertson, in Great
+    Writers; by S. Longfellow, 3 vols. (the standard biography). Essays
+    by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Mrs. Fields, in Authors and
+    Friends; by Curtis, in Literary and Social Essays; by Higginson, in
+    Old Cambridge; by Howells, in Literary Friends and Acquaintance.
+
+    _Whittier._ Life, by Pickard, 2 vols.; by Carpenter, in
+    American Men of Letters; by Higginson, in English Men of Letters;
+    by Burton (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Perry, by Underwood.
+    Mrs. Claflin, Personal Recollections of Whittier; Hawkins, the Mind
+    of Whittier; Fowler, Whittier: Prophet, Seer and Man; Pickard,
+    Whittier Land. Essays, by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by
+    Stedman, in Poets of America; by Higginson, in Contemporaries; by
+    Hazeltine, in Chats about Books; by Mrs. Fields, in Authors and
+    Friends.
+
+    _Lowell._ Life, by Greenslet; by Scudder, 2 vols.; by Hale
+    (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Underwood. Edward Everett Hale,
+    James Russell Lowell and his Friends. Essays, by Higginson, in Old
+    Cambridge; by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Stedman, in
+    Poets of America.
+
+    _Holmes._ Life, by Morse, 2 vols.; by Crothers, in American
+    Men of Letters. Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Haweis,
+    in American Humorists; by Noble, in Impressions and Memories; by
+    Stearns, in Cambridge Sketches; by L. Stephen, in Studies of a
+    Biographer.
+
+    _Lanier._ Life, by Mims, in American Men of Letters; by West;
+    by Ward, in Preface to Lanier's Poems (1884). Essays, by
+    Baskerville, in Southern Writers; by Higginson, in Contemporaries;
+    by Gilman, in South Atlantic Quarterly (1905); by Ward, in Century
+    Magazine (1888); by Northrup, in Lippincott's (1905).
+
+    _Whitman._ Life, by Perry; by Carpenter, in English Men of
+    Letters; by Platt (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Binns, by
+    Bucke. Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Stevenson, in
+    Familiar Studies of Men and Books; by Dowden, in Studies in
+    Literature; by Santayana, in Interpretations of Poetry and
+    Religion.
+
+    _Emerson._ Life, by Woodberry; by Cabot (Memoir of Emerson, 2
+    vols.); by O. W. Holmes, in American Men of Letters; by Garnett, in
+    Great Writers; by Sanborn (brief), in Beacon Biographies. E. W.
+    Emerson, Emerson in Concord; Conway, Emerson at Home. Essays, by
+    Stedman, in Poets of America; by Mrs. Fields, in Authors and
+    Friends; by Lowell, in Literary Essays; by Stearns, in Sketches
+    from Concord and Appledore; by Everett, in Essays Theological and
+    Literary; by Beers, in Points at Issue; by Chapman, in Emerson and
+    Other Essays.
+
+    _Hawthorne._ Life, by Woodberry, in American Men of Letters;
+    by Henry James, in English Men of Letters; by Fields (brief), in
+    Beacon Biographies; by Conway, in Great Writers. A more intimate
+    but doubtful biography is Julian Hawthorne's Nathaniel Hawthorne
+    and his Wife. Bridge, Personal Recollections of Hawthorne. Essays,
+    by Brownell, in American Prose Masters; by Perry, in A Study of
+    Prose Fiction; by Gates, in Studies and Appreciations; by L.
+    Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Higginson, in Short Studies of
+    American Authors.
+
+    _Thoreau_. Life, by Salt, in Great Writers; by Sanborn, in
+    American Men of Letters. Page, Thoreau: his Life and Aims. Essays
+    by Higginson, in Short Studies of American Authors; by Stevenson,
+    in Familiar Studies of Men and Books; by Lowell, in Literary
+    Essays.
+
+    _Parkman_. Life, by Fiske; by Farnham; by Sedgwick. Essays, by
+    Fiske, in introduction to Parkman's works and in A Century of
+    Science and Other Essays; by Vedder, in American Writers of To-day;
+    by Whipple, in Recollections of Eminent Men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ALL-AMERICA PERIOD
+
+
+  Thou Mother with thy equal brood,
+  Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only,
+  A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest:
+  For thee, the Future.
+
+                                        Whitman, "Thou Mother"
+
+
+Some critics find little or no American literature of a distinctly national
+spirit prior to 1876, and they explain the lack of it on the assumption
+that Americans were too far apart and too much occupied with local or
+sectional interests for any author to represent the nation. It was even
+said at the time of the Centennial Exposition that our countrymen had never
+met, save on the battlefields of the Civil War, until the common interest
+in Jubilee Year drew men and women from the four quarters of America
+"around the old family altar at Philadelphia." Whatever exaggeration there
+may be in that fine poetic figure, it is certain that our literature, once
+confined to a few schools or centers, began in the decade after 1870 to be
+broadly representative of the whole country. Miller's _Songs of the
+Sierras_, Hay's _Pike-County Ballads_, Harte's _Tales of the
+Argonauts_, Cable's _Old Creole Days_, Mark Twain's _Tom
+Sawyer_, Miss Jewett's _Deephaven_, Stockton's _Rudder
+Grange_, Harris's _Uncle Remus_,--a host of surprising books
+suddenly appeared with the announcement that America was too large for any
+one man or literary school to be its spokesman. It is because of these new
+voices, coming from North, South, East or West and heard with delight by
+the whole nation, that we venture to call the years after 1876 the
+all-America period of our literature.
+
+[Sidenote: CONTEMPORARY HISTORY]
+
+We are still too near that period to make a history of it, for the simple
+reason that a true history implies distance and perspective. No historian
+could read, much less measure and compare, a tenth part of the books that
+have won recognition since 1876. In such works as he might select as
+typical he must be governed by his own taste or judgment; and the writer
+was never born who could by such personal standards forecast the judgment
+of time and of humanity. In a word, contemporary or "up-to-date" histories
+are vain attempts at the impossible; save in the unimportant matter of
+chronicling names or dates they are all alike untrustworthy. The student
+should bear in mind, therefore, that the following summary of our recent
+literature is based largely upon personal opinion; that it selects a few
+authors by way of illustration, omitting many others who may be of equal or
+greater importance. We are confronted by a host of books that serve the
+prime purpose of literature by giving pleasure; but what proportion of them
+are enduring books, or what few of them will be known to readers of the
+next century as the _Sketch Book_ and _Snow-Bound_ are known to
+us,--these are questions that only Father Time can answer.
+
+THE SHORT STORY. The period after 1876 has been called the age of fiction,
+but "the short-story age" might be a better name for it, since the short
+story is apparently more popular than any other form of literature and
+since it has been developed here more abundantly than in any other
+land,--possibly because America offers such an immense and ever-surprising
+field to an author in search of a strange or picturesque tale. Readers of
+the short story demand life and variety, and here are all races and tribes
+and conditions of men, living in all kinds of "atmosphere" from the
+trapper's hut to the steel skyscraper and from the crowded city slums to
+the vast open places where one's companionship is with the hills or the
+stars. Hence a double tendency in our recent stories, to make them
+expressive of New World life and to make each story a reflection of some
+peculiar type of Americanism,--one of the many types that here meet in a
+common citizenship.
+
+The truth of the above criticism may become evident by reviewing the
+history of the short story in America. Irving began with mere hints or
+outlines of stories (sketches he called them) and added a few legendary
+tales of the Dutch settlers on the Hudson. Then came Poe, dealing with the
+phantoms of his own brain rather than with human life or endeavor. Next
+appeared Hawthorne, who dealt largely in moral allegories and whose tales
+are always told in an atmosphere of mystery and twilight shadows. Finally,
+after the war, came a multitude of writers who insisted on dealing with our
+American life as it is, with miners, immigrants, money kings, mountaineers,
+planters, cowboys, woodsmen,--a host of varied characters, each speaking
+the speech and typifying the customs or ideals of his particular locality.
+It was these _post-bellum_ writers who invented the so-called story of
+local color (a story true to a certain place or a certain class of men),
+which is America's most original contribution to the world's literature.
+
+[Illustration: BRET HARTE]
+
+[Sidenote: BRET HARTE]
+
+Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902) is generally credited with the invention of
+the local-color story; but he was probably indebted to earlier works of the
+same kind, notably to Longstreet's _Georgia Scenes_ (1836) and
+Baldwin's _Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi_ (1853). He had
+followed the "forty-niners" to California in a headlong search for gold
+when, finding himself amid the picturesque scenes and characters of the
+early mining camps, it suddenly occurred to him that he had before his eyes
+a literary gold mine such as no other modern romancer had discovered.
+Thereupon he wrote "The Luck of Roaring Camp" (first published in _The
+Overland Monthly_, 1868), and followed it with "The Outcasts of Poker
+Flat" and "Tennessee's Partner."
+
+These stories took the literary world by storm, and almost overnight Harte
+became a celebrity. Following up his advantage he proceeded to write some
+thirty volumes of the same general kind, which were widely read and
+promptly forgotten. Though he was plainly too sentimental and sensational,
+there was a sense of freshness or originality in his early stories and
+poems which made them wonderfully attractive. His first three tales were
+probably his best, and they are still worth reading,--not for their
+literary charm or truth but as interesting early examples of the
+local-color story.
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE W. CABLE]
+
+[Sidenote: CABLE]
+
+The interest aroused by the mining-camp tales influenced other American
+writers to discover the neglected literary wealth of their several
+localities; but they were fortunately on guard against Harte's exaggerated
+sentimentality and related their stories with more art and more truth to
+nature. As a specific example read Cable's _Old Creole Days_ and
+_Madame Delphine_ with their exquisite pictures of life in the old
+French city of New Orleans. These are romances or creations of fancy, to be
+sure; but in their lifelike characters, their natural scenes and soft
+Creole dialect they are as realistic (that is, as true to a real type of
+American life) as anything that can be found in literature. They are, in
+fact, studies as well as stories, such minute and affectionate studies of
+old people, old names and old customs as the great French novelist Balzac
+made in preparation for his work. Though time holds its own secrets, one
+can hardly avoid the conviction that _Old Creole Days_ and _Madame
+Delphine_ are not books of a day but permanent additions to American
+fiction.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL STORY-WRITERS]
+
+Cable was accompanied by so many other good writers that it would require a
+volume to do them justice. We name only, by way of indicating the wide
+variety that awaits the reader, the charming stories of Grace King and
+writers Kate Chopin dealing with plantation life; the New England stories,
+powerful or brilliant or somber, of Sarah Orne Jewett, Rose Terry Cooke and
+Mary E. Wilkins; the tender and cheery southern stories of Thomas Nelson
+Page; the impressive stories of mountaineer life by Mary Noailles Murfree
+(Charles Egbert Craddock); the humorous, _Alice-in-Wonderland_ kind of
+stories told by Frank Stockton; and a bewildering miscellany of other
+works, of which the names Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Hamlin Garland, Alice
+French (Octave Thanet), Rowland Robinson, Frank Norris and Henry C. Bunner
+are as a brief but inviting index.
+
+It would be unjust at the present time to discriminate among these writers
+or to compare them with others, perhaps equally good, whom we have not
+named. Occasionally in the flood of short stories appears one that compels
+attention. Aldrich's "Marjorie Daw," Edward Everett Hale's "The Man without
+a Country," Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger,"--each of these impresses us
+so forcibly by its delicate artistry or appeal to patriotism or whimsical
+ending that we hail it as a new classic, forgetting that the term "classic"
+carries with it the implication of something old and proved, safe from
+change or criticism. Undoubtedly a few of our recent stories deserve the
+name; they will be more widely known a century hence than they are now, and
+may finally rank above "Rip Van Winkle" or "The Gold Bug" or "The Snow
+Image"; but until the perfect tale is sifted from the thousand that are
+almost perfect, every ambitious critic is free to make his own prophecy.
+
+[Illustration: MARY E. WILKINS-FREEMAN]
+
+SOME RECENT NOVELISTS. There is a difference between our earlier and later
+fiction which becomes apparent when we compare specific examples. As a type
+of the earlier novel take Cooper's _The Spy_ or Longfellow's
+_Hyperion_ or Hawthorne's _The House of the Seven Gables_ or
+Simms's _Katherine Walton_ or Cooke's _The Virginia Comedians_,
+and read it in connection with a recent novel, such as Howells's _Annie
+Kilburn_ or Miss Jewett's _Deephaven_ or Harold Frederick's
+_Illumination_ or James Lane Allen's _The Reign of Law_ or Frank
+Norris's _The Octopus_. Disregarding the important element of style,
+we note that the earlier novels have a distant background in time or space;
+that their chief interest lies in the story they have to tell; that they
+take us far away from present reality into regions where people are more
+impressive and sentiments more exalted than in our familiar, prosaic world.
+The later novels interest us less by the story than by the analysis of
+character; they deal with human life as it is here and now, not as we
+imagine it to have been elsewhere or in a golden age. In a word, our later
+novels are realistic in purpose, and in this respect they are in marked
+contrast with our novels of an earlier age, which are nearly all of the
+romantic kind. [Footnote: In the above comparison we have ignored a large
+number of recent novels that are quite as romantic as any written before
+the war. Romance is still, as in all past ages, more popular than realism:
+witness the millions of readers of Lew Wallace, E. P. Roe and other modern
+romancers.]
+
+The realistic movement in American fiction began, as we have noted, with
+the short-story writers; and presently the most talented of these writers,
+having learned the value of real scenes and characters, turned to the novel
+and produced works having the double interest of romance and realism; that
+is, they told an old romantic tale of love or heroism and set it amid
+scenes or characters that were typical of American life. Miss Jewett's
+novels of northern village life, for example, are even finer than her short
+stories in the same field. The same criticism applies to Miss Murfree with
+her novels of mountaineer life in Tennessee, to James Lane Allen with his
+novels of his native Kentucky, and to many another recent novelist who
+tells a brave tale of his own people. We call these, in the conventional
+way, novels of New England or the South or the West; in reality they are
+novels of humanity, of the old unchanging tragedies or comedies of human
+life, which seem more true or real to us because they appear in a familiar
+setting.
+
+There is another school of realism which subordinates the story element,
+which avoids as untrue all unusual or heroic incidents and deals with
+ordinary men or women; and of this school William Dean Howells is a
+conspicuous example. Judging him by his novels alone it would be difficult
+to determine his rank; but judging him by his high aim and distinguished
+style (a style remarkable for its charm and purity in an age too much
+influenced by newspaper slang and smartness) he is certainly one of the
+best of our recent prose writers. Since his first modest volume appeared in
+1860 he has published many poems, sketches of travel, appreciations of
+literature, parlor comedies, novels,--an immense variety of writings; but
+whatever one reads of his sixty-odd books, whether _Venetian Life_ or
+_A Boys' Town_, one has the impression of an author who lives for
+literature, who puts forth no hasty or unworthy work, and who aims steadily
+to be true to the best traditions of American letters.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS]
+
+In middle life Howells turned definitely to fiction and wrote, among
+various other novels, _A Woman's Reason_, _The Minister's
+Charge_, _A Modern Instance_ and _The Rise of Silas Lapham_.
+These are all realistic in that they deal frankly with contemporary life;
+but in their plots and conventional endings they differ but little from the
+typical romance. [Footnote: Several of Howells's earlier novels deal with
+New England life, but superficially and without understanding. However
+minutely they depict its manners or mannerisms they seldom dip beneath the
+surface. If the reader wants not the body but the soul of New England, he
+must go to some other fiction writer, to Sarah Orne Jewett, for example, or
+to Rose Terry Cooke] Then Howells fell under the influence of Tolstoi and
+other European realists, and his later novels, such as _Annie
+Kilburn_, _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ and _The Quality of
+Mercy_, are rather aimless studies of the speech, dress, mannerisms and
+inanities of American life with precious little of its ideals,--which are
+the only things of consequence, since they alone endure. He appears here as
+the photographer rather than the painter of American life, and his work has
+the limited interest of another person's family album.
+
+[Illustration: MARK TWAIN]
+
+Another realist of a very different kind is Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910),
+who is more widely known by his pseudonym of Mark Twain. He grew up, he
+tells us, in "a loafing, down-at-the-heels town in Missouri"; he was
+educated "on the river," and in most of his work he attempted to deal with
+the rough-and-ready life which he knew intimately at first hand. His
+_Life on the Mississippi_, a vivid delineation of river scenes and
+characters, is perhaps his best work, or at least the most true to his aim
+and his experience. _Roughing It_ is another volume from his store of
+personal observation, this time in the western mining camps; but here his
+realism goes as far astray from truth as any old romance in that it
+exaggerates even the sensational elements of frontier life.
+
+The remaining works of Mark Twain are, with one or two exceptions, of very
+doubtful value. Their great popularity for a time was due largely to the
+author's reputation as a humorist,--a strange reputation it begins to
+appear, for he was at heart a pessimist, an iconoclast, a thrower of
+stones, and with the exception of his earliest work, _The Celebrated
+Jumping Frog_ (1867), which reflected some rough fun or horseplay, it is
+questionable whether the term "humorous" can properly be applied to any of
+his books. Thus the blatant _Innocents Abroad_ is not a work of humor
+but of ridicule (a very different matter), which jeers at travelers who
+profess admiration for the scenery or institutions of Europe,--an
+admiration that was a sham to Mark Twain because he was incapable of
+understanding it. So with the grotesque capers of _A Connecticut Yankee
+at King Arthur's Court_, with the sneering spirit of _The Man that
+Corrupted Hadleyburg_, with the labored attempts to be funny of
+_Adam's Diary_ and with other alleged humorous works; readers of the
+next generation may ask not what we found to amuse us in such works but how
+we could tolerate such crudity or cynicism or bad taste in the name of
+American humor.
+
+The most widely read of Mark Twain's works are _Tom Sawyer_ and
+_Huckleberry Finn_. The former, a glorification of a liar and his
+dime-novel adventures, has enough descriptive power to make the story
+readable, but hardly enough to disguise its sensationalism, its
+lawlessness, its false standards of boy life and American life. In
+_Huckleberry Finn_, a much better book, the author depicts the life of
+the Middle West as seen by a homeless vagabond. With a runaway slave as a
+companion the hero, Huck Finn, drifts down the Mississippi on a raft,
+meeting with startling experiences at the hands of quacks and imposters of
+every kind. One might suppose, if one took this picaresque record
+seriously, that a large section of our country was peopled wholly by knaves
+and fools. The adventures are again of a sensational kind; but the
+characters are powerfully drawn, and the vivid pictures of the mighty river
+by day or night are among the best examples of descriptive writing in our
+literature.
+
+[Sidenote: CRANE AND NORRIS]
+
+Still another type of realism is suggested by the names Stephen Crane and
+Frank Norris. These young writers, influenced by the French novelist Zola,
+condemned the old romance as false and proclaimed, somewhat grandly at
+first, that they would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
+truth. Then they straightway forgot that health and moral sanity are the
+truth of life, and proceeded to deal with degraded or degenerate characters
+as if these were typical of humanity. Their earlier works are studies of
+brutality, miscalled realism; but later Crane wrote his _Red Badge of
+Courage_ (a rather wildly imaginative story of the Civil War), and
+Norris produced works of real power in _The Octopus_ and _The
+Pit_, one a prose epic of the railroad, the other of a grain of wheat
+from the time it is sown in the ground until it becomes a matter of good
+food or of crazy speculation. There is an impression of vastness, of
+continental breadth and sweep, in these two novels which sets them apart
+from all other fiction of the period.
+
+The flood of dialect stories which appeared after 1876 may seem at first
+glance to be mere variations of Bret Harte's local-color stories, but they
+are something more and better than that. The best of them--such, for
+example, as Page's _In Ole Virginia_ or Rowland Robinson's _Danvis
+Folk_--are written on the assumption that we can never understand a man,
+that is, the soul of a man, unless we know the very language in which he
+expresses his thought or feeling. These dialect stories, therefore, are
+intimate studies of American life rather than of local speech or manners.
+
+[Sidenote: HARRIS]
+
+Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) is not our best writer of dialect stories
+but only the happy and most fortunate man who wrote _Uncle Remus_
+(1880), and wrote it, by the way, as part of his day's work as a newspaper
+man, without a thought that it was a masterpiece, a work of genius. The
+first charm of the book is that it fascinates children with its frolicsome
+adventures of Brer Rabbit, Brer Tarrypin, Brer B'ar, Brer Fox and the
+wonderful Tar Baby; the second, that it combines in a remarkable way a
+primitive or universal with a local and intensely human interest. Thus,
+almost everybody is interested in folklore, especially in the animal
+stories which are part of the tradition of every primitive tribe; but
+folklore, as commonly written, is not a branch of fiction but of science.
+Before it can enter the golden door of literature it must find or create
+some human character who interests us not by his stories but by his
+humanity; and Harris furnished this character in the person of Uncle Remus,
+a very lovable old plantation negro, drawn with absolute fidelity to life.
+
+[Illustration: JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS]
+
+Other novelists have portrayed a negro in fiction, but Harris did a more
+original work by creating his Brer Rabbit. In the adventures of this
+happy-go-lucky creature, with his childishness and humor, we have the
+symbol not of any one negro but of the whole race of negroes as the author
+knew them intimately in a condition of servitude. The creation of these two
+original characters, as real as Poor Richard or Natty Bumppo and far more
+fascinating, is one of the most notable achievements of American fiction.
+
+[Sidenote: PROBLEM NOVELS]
+
+Aside from the realistic movement, our recent fiction is like a river
+flowing sluggishly over hidden bowlders: the surface is so broken by
+whirlpools, eddies and aimless flotsam that it is difficult to determine
+the main current. Here our attention is attracted by clever stories of
+"society in the making," there by somber problem-novels dealing with city
+slums, lonely farms, department stores, political rings, business
+corruption, religious creeds, social injustice,--with every conceivable
+matter that can furnish a novelist not with a story but with a cry for
+reform. The propaganda novel is evidently a favorite in America; but
+whether it has any real influence in reforming abuses, as the novels of
+Dickens led to better schools and prisons in England, is yet to be
+determined.
+
+Occasionally appears a reform novel great enough to make us forget the
+reform, such as Helen Hunt Jackson's _Ramona_ (1884). This famous
+story began as an attempt to plead the cause of the oppressed Indian, to do
+for him what _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was supposed to have done for the
+negro; it ended in an idyllic story so well told that readers forgot to
+cry, "Lo, the poor Indian," as the author intended. At the present time
+_Ramona_ is not classed with the problem-novels but with the most
+readable of American romances.
+
+[Sidenote: POPULAR ROMANCES]
+
+While the new realistic novel occupied the attention of critics the old
+romance had, as usual, an immensely larger number of readers. Moral
+romances with a happy ending have always been popular, and of these E. P.
+Roe furnished an abundance. His _Barriers Burned Away_, _A Face
+Illumined_, _Opening of a Chestnut Burr_ and _Nature's Serial
+Story_ depict American characters in an American landscape, and have a
+wholesome atmosphere of manliness and cleanness that makes them eminently
+"safe" reading. Unfortunately they are melodramatic and sentimental, and
+critics commonly sneer or jeer at them; but that is not a rational
+criticism. Romances that won instant welcome from a host of readers and
+that are still widely known after half a century have at least "the power
+to live"; and vitality, the quality that makes a character or a story
+endure, is always one of the marks of a good romance.
+
+Another romancer untouched by the zeal for realism was Marion Crawford, who
+in a very interesting essay, _The Novel_, proclaimed with some show of
+reason that the novel was simply a "pocket theater," a convenient stage
+whereon the reader could enjoy by himself any comedy or tragedy that
+pleased him. That Crawford lived abroad the greater part of his life and
+was familiar with society in a dozen countries may explain the fact that
+his forty-odd novels are nearly all of the social kind. His Roman novels,
+_Saracinesca_, _Sant' Ilario_ and a dozen others, are perhaps his
+best work. They are good stories; they take us among cultured foreign
+people and give us glimpses of a life that is hidden from most travelers;
+but they are superficial and leave the impression that the author was a man
+without much heart, that he missed the deeper meanings of life because he
+had little interest in them. His characters are as puppets that are sent
+through a play for our amusement and for no other reason. In this, however,
+he remained steadily true to his own ideal of fiction as a convenient
+substitute for the theater. Moreover, he was a good workman; his stories
+were for the most part well composed and very well written.
+
+More popular even than the romances of Roe and Crawford are the stories
+with a background of Colonial or Revolutionary history, a type to which
+America has ever given hearty welcome. Ford's _Janice Meredith_,
+Mitchell's _Hugh Wynne_, Mary Johnston's _To Have and to Hold_,
+Maurice Thompson's _Alice of Old Vincennes_, Churchill's _Richard
+Carvel_,--the reader can add to the list of recent historical romances
+almost indefinitely; but no critic can now declare which shall be called
+great among them. To the same interesting group of writers belong Lew
+Wallace, whose enormously popular _Ben Hur_ has obscured his better
+story, _The Fair God_, and Mary Hartwell Catherwood, whose _Lady of
+Fort St. John_ and other stirring tales of the Northwest have the same
+savage wilderness background against which Parkman wrote his histories.
+
+For other romances of the period we have no convenient term except to call
+them old-fashioned. Such, for instance, are Blanche Willis Howard's _One
+Summer_ and Arthur Sherburne Hardy's _Passe Rose_ and _But Yet a
+Woman_,--pleasant, leisurely, exquisitely finished romances, which
+belong to no particular time or place and which deserve the fine old name
+of romance, because they seem to grow young rather than old with the
+passing years.
+
+POETRY SINCE 1876. It is commonly assumed that the last half century has
+been almost exclusively an age of prose. The student of literature knows,
+on the contrary, that one difficulty of judging our recent poetry lies in
+the amount and variety of it. Since 1876 more poetry has been published
+here than in all the previous years of our history; and the quality of it,
+if one dare judge it as a whole, is surprisingly good. The designation of
+"the prose age," therefore, should not blind us to the fact that America
+never had so many poets as at present. Whether a future generation will
+rank any of these among our elder poets is another question. Of late years
+we have had no singer to compare with Longfellow, to be sure; but we have
+had a dozen singers who reflect the enlarging life of America in a way of
+which Longfellow never dreamed. He lived mostly in the past and was busy
+with legends, folklore, songs of the night; our later singers live in the
+present and write songs of the day. And this suggests the chief
+characteristic of recent poetry; namely, that it aims to be true to life as
+it is here and now rather than to life as it was romantically supposed to
+be in classic or medieval times. [Footnote: The above characterization
+applies only to the best, or to what most critics deem best, of our recent
+poetry. It takes no account of a large mass of verse which leaves an
+impression of faddishness in the matter of form or phrase or subject. Such
+verse appeals to the taste of the moment, but Time has an effective way of
+dealing with it and with all other insincerities in literature.]
+
+This emancipation of our poetry from the past, with the loss and gain which
+such a change implies, was not easily accomplished, and the terrible
+reality of the great war was perhaps the decisive factor in the struggle.
+Before the war our poetry was largely conventional, imitative, sentimental;
+and even after the war, when Miller's _Songs of the Sierras_ and John
+Hay's _Pike-County Ballads_ began to sing, however crudely, of
+vigorous life, the acknowledged poets and critics of the time were
+scandalized. Thus, to read the letters of Bayard Taylor is to meet a poet
+who bewails the lack of poetic material in America and who "hungers," as he
+says, for the romance and beauty of other lands. He writes _Songs of the
+Orient_, _Lars: a Pastoral of Norway_, _Prince Deukalion_ and
+many other volumes which seem to indicate that poetry is to be found
+everywhere save at home. Even his "Song of the Camp" is located in the
+Crimea, as if heroism and tenderness had not recently bloomed on a hundred
+southern battlefields. So also Stedman wrote his _Alectryon_ and
+_The Blameless Prince_, and Aldrich spent his best years in making
+artificial nosegays (as Holmes told him frankly) when he ought to have been
+making poems. These and many other poets said proudly that they belonged to
+the classic school; they all read Shelley and Keats, dreamed of medieval or
+classic beauty, and in unnumbered reviews condemned the crudity of those
+who were trying to find beauty at their own doors and to make poetry of the
+stuff of American life.
+
+[Illustration: EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN]
+
+[Sidenote: STEDMAN AND ALDRICH]
+
+It was the war, or rather the new American spirit that issued from the war,
+which finally assured these poets and critics that mythology and legend
+were, so far as America was concerned, as dead as the mastodon, and that
+life itself was the only vitally interesting subject of poetry. Edmund
+Clarence Stedman (1833-1908), after writing many "finished" poems that were
+praised and forgotten, manfully acknowledged that he had been following the
+wrong trail and turned at last to the poetry of his own people. His
+_Alice of Monmouth_, an idyl of the war, and a few short pieces, such
+as "Wanted: a Man," are the only parts of his poetical works that are now
+remembered. Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) went through the same
+transformation. He had a love of formal beauty, and in the exquisite finish
+of his verse has had few rivals in American poetry; but he spent the great
+part of his life in making pretty trifles. Then he seemed to waken to the
+meaning of poetry as a noble expression of the truth or beauty of this
+present life, and his last little book of _Songs and Sonnets_ contains
+practically all that is worth remembering of his eight or nine volumes of
+verse.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH]
+
+[Sidenote: JOAQUIN MILLER]
+
+One of the first in time of the new singers was Cincinnatus Heine Miller
+or, as he is commonly known, Joaquin Miller (1841-1912). His _Songs of
+the Sierras_ (1871) and other poems of the West have this advantage,
+that they come straight from the heart of a man who has shared the stirring
+life he describes and who loves it with an overmastering love. To read his
+_My Own Story_ or the preface to his _Ship in the Desert_ is to
+understand from what fullness of life came lines like these:
+
+  Room! room to turn round in, to breathe and be free,
+  To grow to be giant, to sail as at sea
+  With the speed of the wind on a steed with his mane
+  To the wind, without pathway or route or a rein.
+  Room! room to be free, where the white-bordered sea
+  Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he;
+  Where the buffalo come like a cloud on the plain,
+  Pouring on like the tide of a storm-driven main,
+  And the lodge of the hunter to friend or to foe
+  Offers rest, and unquestioned you come or you go.
+  My plains of America! seas of wild lands!...
+  I turn to you, lean to you, lift you my hands.
+
+Indeed, there was a splendid promise in Miller, but the promise was never
+fulfilled. He wrote voluminously, feeling that he must express the lure and
+magic of the boundless West; but he wrote so carelessly that the crude bulk
+of his verse obscures the originality of his few inspired lines. To read
+the latter is to be convinced that he was a true poet who might have
+accomplished a greater work than Whitman, since he had more genius and
+manliness than the eastern poet possessed; but his personal oddities, his
+zeal for reforms, his love of solitude, his endless quest after some
+unnamed good which kept him living among the Indians or wandering between
+Mexico and the ends of Alaska,--all this hindered his poetic development.
+It may be that an Indian-driven arrow, which touched his brain in one of
+his numerous adventures, had something to do with his wanderings and his
+failure.
+
+There is a poetry of thought that can be written down in words, and there
+is another poetry of glorious living, keenly felt in the winds of the
+wilderness or the rush of a splendid horse or the flight of a canoe through
+the rapids, for which there is no adequate expression. Miller could feel
+superbly this poetry of the mountaineer, the plainsman and the voyageur;
+that he could even suggest or half reveal it to others makes him worthy to
+be named among our most original singers.
+
+[Sidenote: IRWIN RUSSELL]
+
+The hundred other poets of the period are too near for criticism, too
+varied even for classification; but we may at least note two or three
+significant groupings. In one group are the dialect poets, who attempt to
+make poetry serve the same end as fiction of the local-color school. Irwin
+Russell, with his gay negro songs tossed off to the twanging accompaniment
+of his banjo, belongs in this group. His verses are notable not for their
+dialect (others have done that better) but for their fidelity to the negro
+character as Russell had observed it in the old plantation days. There is
+little of poetic beauty in his work; it is chiefly remarkable for its
+promise, for its opening of a new field of poesie; but unfortunately the
+promise was spoiled by the author's fitful life and his untimely death.
+
+[Illustration: JOAQUIN MILLER]
+
+[Sidenote: CARLETON AND RILEY]
+
+Closely akin to the dialect group in their effective use of the homely
+speech of country people are several popular poets, of whom Will Carleton
+and James Whitcomb Riley are the most conspicuous. Carleton's "Over the
+Hills to the Poorhouse" and other early songs won him a wide circle of
+readers; whereupon he followed up his advantage with _Farm Ballads_
+and other volumes filled with rather crude but sincere verses of home and
+childhood. For half a century these sentimental poems were as popular as
+the early works of Longfellow, and they are still widely read by people who
+like homely themes and plenty of homely sentiment in their poetry.
+
+Riley won an even larger following with his _Old Swimmin' Hole_,
+_Rhymes of Childhood Days_ and a dozen other volumes that aimed to
+reflect in rustic language the joys and sorrows of country people. Judged
+by the number of his readers he would be called the chief poet of the
+period; but judged by the quality of his work it would seem that he wrote
+too much, and wrote too often "with his eye on the gallery." He was
+primarily an entertainer, a platform favorite, and in his impersonation of
+country folk was always in danger of giving his audience what he thought
+they would like, not what he sincerely felt to be true. Hence the
+impression of the stage and a "make-up" in a considerable part of his work.
+At times, however, Riley could forget the platform and speak from the heart
+as a plain man to plain men. His work at such moments has a deeper note,
+more simple and sincere, and a few of his poems will undoubtedly find a
+permanent place in American letters. The best feature of his work is that
+he felt no need to go far afield, to the Orient or to mythology, but found
+the beauty of fine feeling at his door and dared to call one of his
+collections _Poems Here at Home_.
+
+[Sidenote: TYPICAL POETS]
+
+In a third group of recent poets are those who try to reflect the feeling
+of some one type or race of the many that make up the sum total of American
+life. Such are Emma Lazarus, speaking finely for the Jewish race, and Paul
+Lawrence Dunbar, voicing the deeper life of the negro,--not the negro of
+the old plantation but the negro who was once a slave and must now prove
+himself a man. In the same group we are perhaps justified in placing Lucy
+Larcom, singing for the mill girls of New England, and Eugene Field, who
+shows what fun and sentiment may brighten the life of a busy newspaper man
+in a great city.
+
+Finally come a larger number of poets who cannot be grouped, who sing each
+of what he knows or loves best: Celia Thaxter, of the storm-swept northern
+ocean; Madison Cawein, of nature in her more tender moods; Edward Rowland
+Sill, of the aspirations of a rare Puritan soul. More varied in their
+themes are Edith Thomas, Emily Dickinson, Henry C. Bunner, Richard Watson
+Gilder, George Edward Woodberry, William Vaughn Moody, Richard Hovey, and
+several others who are perhaps quite as notable as any of those whom we
+have too briefly reviewed. They all sing of American life in its wonderful
+complexity and have added poems of real merit to the book of recent
+American verse. And that is a very good book to read, more inspiring and
+perhaps more enduring than the popular book of prose fiction.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS PROSE. The historian who is perplexed by our recent poetry or
+fiction must be overwhelmed by the flood of miscellaneous works covering
+every field of human endeavor. As one who wanders through a forest has no
+conception of the forest itself but only of individual trees, so the reader
+of latter-day literature can form no distinct impression of it as a whole
+but must linger over the individual authors who happen to attract his
+attention. Hence in all studies of contemporary literature we have the
+inevitable confusion of what is important with what merely seems so because
+of its nearness or newness or appeal to our personal interests. The reader
+is amused by a _David Harum_, or made thoughtful by a _Looking
+Backward_, or wonderstruck by a _Life of Lincoln_ as big as a
+ten-volume history; and he thinks, "This is surely a book to live." But a
+year passes and _David Harum_ is eclipsed by a more popular hero of
+fiction, _Looking Backward_ is relegated to the shelf of forgotten
+tracts, and Nicolay and Hay's "monumental" biography becomes a source book,
+which someone, it is to be hoped, will some day use in making a life of
+Lincoln that will be worthy of the subject and of the name of literature.
+
+[Sidenote: NATURE WRITERS]
+
+There is one feature in our recent literature, however, which attracts the
+attention of all critics; namely, the number of nature writers who have
+revealed to us the beauty of our natural environment, as Ruskin awakened
+his readers to the beauty of art and Joaquin Miller to the unsung glory of
+the pioneers. In this respect, of adding to our enjoyment of human life by
+a new valuation of all life, our nature literature has no parallel in any
+age or nation.
+
+To be specific, one must search continental literatures carefully to find
+even a single book that belongs unmistakably to the outdoor school. In
+English literature we find several poets who sing occasionally of the
+charms of nature, but only two books in fourteen centuries of writing that
+deal frankly with the great outdoors for its own sake: one is Isaac
+Walton's _Complete Angler_ (1653), the other Gilbert White's
+_Natural History of Selborne_ (1789). [Footnote: There were other
+works of a scientific nature, and some of exploration, but no real nature
+books until the first notable work of Richard Jefferies (one of the best of
+nature writers) appeared in 1878. By that time the nature movement in
+America was well under way.] In American literature the story is shorter
+but of the same tenor until recent times. From the beginning we have had
+many journals of exploration; but though the joy of wild nature is apparent
+in such writings, they were written to increase our knowledge, not our
+pleasure in life. Josselyn's _New England's Rarities_ (1672),
+Alexander Wilson's _American Ornithology_ (1801), Audubon's _Birds
+of America_ (1827),--these were our nearest approach to nature books
+until Thoreau's _Walden_ (1854) called attention to the immense and
+fascinating field which our writers had so long overlooked.
+
+Thoreau, it will be remembered, was neglected by his own generation; but
+after the war, when writers began to use the picturesque characters of
+plantation or mining camp as the material for a new American literature,
+then the living world of nature seemed suddenly opened to their vision.
+Bradford Torrey, himself a charming nature writer, edited Thoreau's
+journals, and lo! these neglected chronicles became precious because the
+eyes of America were at last opened. Maurice Thompson wrote as a poet and
+scholar in the presence of nature, John Muir as a reverent explorer, and
+William Hamilton Gibson as an artist with an eye single to beauty; then in
+rapid succession came Charles Abbott, Rowland Robinson, John Burroughs,
+Olive Thorne Miller, Florence Bailey, Frank Bolles, and a score more of a
+somewhat later generation. Most of these are frankly nature writers, not
+scientists; they aim not simply to observe the shy, fleeting life of the
+woods or fields but to reflect that life in such a way as to give us a new
+pleasure by awakening a new sense of beauty.
+
+It is a remarkable spectacle, this rediscovery of nature in an age supposed
+to be given over to materialism, and its influence appears in every branch
+of our literature. The nature writers have evidently done a greater work
+than they knew; they have helped a multitude of people to enjoy the beauty
+of a flower without pulling it to pieces for a Latin name, to appreciate a
+living bird more than a stuffed skin, and to understand what Thoreau meant
+when he said that the _anima_ of an animal is the only interesting
+thing about him. Because they have given us a new valuation of life, a new
+sense of its sacredness and mystery, their work may appeal to a future
+generation as the most original contribution to recent literature.
+
+[Sidenote: HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY]
+
+Another interesting feature of recent times is the importance attached to
+historical and biographical works, which have increased so rapidly since
+1876 that there is now no period of American life and no important
+character or event that lacks its historian. The number of such works is
+astonishing, but their general lack of style and broad human interest
+places them outside of the field of literature. The tendency of recent
+historical writing, for example, is to collect facts _about_ persons
+or events rather than to reproduce the persons or events so vividly that
+the past lives again before our eyes. The result of such writing is to make
+history a puppet show in which dead figures are moved about by unseen
+economic forces; meanwhile the only record that lives in literature is the
+one that represents history as it really was in the making; that is, as a
+drama of living, self-directing men.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN FISKE]
+
+There is at least one recent historian, however, whose style gives
+distinction to his work and makes it worthy of especial notice. This is
+John Fiske (1842-1901), whose field and method are both unusual. He began
+as a student of law and philosophy, and his first notable book, _Outlines
+of Cosmic Philosophy_, attracted instant attention in England and
+America by its literary style and rare lucidity of statement. It was
+followed by a series of essays, such as _The Idea Of God_, _The
+Destiny Of Man_ and _The Origin of Evil_, which were so far above
+others of their kind that for a time they were in danger of becoming
+popular. Of a thousand works occasioned by the theory of evolution, when
+that theory was a nine days' wonder, they are among the very few that stand
+the test of time by affording as much pleasure and surprise as when they
+were first written.
+
+It was comparatively late in life that our philosopher turned historian,
+and his first work in this field, _American Political Ideals Viewed from
+the Standpoint of Universal History_, announced that here at last was a
+writer with broad horizons, who saw America not as an isolated nation
+making a strange experiment but as adding a vital chapter to the great
+world's history. It was a surprising work, unlike any other in the field of
+American history, and it may fall to another generation to appreciate its
+originality. Finally Fiske took up the study of particular periods or
+epochs, viewed them with the same deep insight, the same broad sympathy,
+and reflected them in a series of brilliant narratives: _Old Virginia and
+her Neighbors_, _The Beginnings of New England_, _Dutch and
+Quaker Colonies in America_ and a few others, the series ending
+chronologically with _A Critical Period of American History_, the
+"critical" period being the time of doubt and struggle over the
+Constitution. These narratives, though not unified, form a fairly complete
+history from the Colonial period to the formation of the Union.
+
+To read any of these books is to discover that Fiske is concerned not
+chiefly with events but with the meaning or philosophy of events; that he
+has a rare gift of delving below the surface, of seeing in the endeavors of
+a handful of men at Jamestown or Plymouth or Philadelphia a profoundly
+significant chapter of universal history. Hence we seem to read in his
+pages not the story of America but the story of Man. Moreover, he had
+enthusiasm; which means that his heart was young and that he could make
+even dull matters vital and interesting. Perhaps the best thing that can be
+said of his work is that it is a pleasure to read it,--a criticism which is
+spoken for mature or thoughtful readers rather than for those who read
+history for its dramatic or heroic interest.
+
+[Sidenote: LITERARY HISTORY]
+
+Another feature of our recent prose is the number of books devoted to the
+study of American letters; and that, like the study of nature, is a
+phenomenon which is without precedent. Notwithstanding Emerson's plea for
+independence in _The American Scholar_ (1837), our critics were busy
+long after that date with the books of other lands, thinking that there was
+no American literature worthy of their attention. In the same year that
+Emerson made his famous address Royal Robbins made what was probably the
+first attempt at a history of American literature. [Footnote: _Chambers'
+History of the English Language and Literature, to which is added A History
+of American Contributions to the English Language and Literature, by Royal
+Robbins (Hartford, 1837)_. It is interesting to note that the author
+complained of the difficulty of his task in view of the fact that there
+were at that time over two thousand living American authors.] It consisted
+of a few tag-ends attached to a dry catalogue of English writers, and the
+scholarly author declared that, as there was only one poor literary history
+then in existence (namely, Chambers'), he must depend largely on his own
+memory for correcting the English part of the book and creating a new
+American part. Nor were conditions improved during the next forty years.
+
+[Illustration: EDWARD EVERETT HALE]
+
+After the war, however, the viewpoint of our historians was changed. They
+began to regard American literature with increasing respect as an original
+product, as a true reflection of human life in a new field and under the
+stimulus of new incentives to play the fine old game of "life, liberty and
+the pursuit of happiness." In 1878 appeared Tyler's _History of American
+Literature 1607-1765_ in two bulky volumes that surprised readers by
+revealing a mass of important writings in a period supposed to be barren of
+literary interest; and the surprise increased when the same author produced
+two more volumes dealing with the literature of the Revolution. In 1885
+came Stedman's _Poets of America_, an excellent critical study of New
+World poetry; and two years later Richardson published the first of his two
+splendid volumes of _American Literature_. These good beginnings were
+followed by a host of biographies dealing with every important American
+author, until we now have choice of a large assortment of literary material
+where Royal Robbins had none at all.
+
+Such formal works are for the student, but the reader who goes to books for
+recreation has also been remembered. Edward Everett Hale's _James Russell
+Lowell and his Friends_, Higginson's _Old Cambridge_, Howells's
+_Literary Friends and Acquaintance_, Trowbridge's _My Own Story_,
+Mrs. Field's _Authors and Friends_, Stoddard's _Homes and Haunts of
+our Elder Poets_, Curtis's _Homes of American Authors_, Mitchell's
+_American Lands and Letters_,--these are but few of many recent books
+of reminiscences, all bearing witness to the fact that American literature
+has a history and tradition of its own. It is no longer an appendix to
+English literature but an original record, to be cherished as we cherish
+any other precious national heritage, and to stand or fall among the
+literatures of the world as it shall be found true or false to the
+fundamental ideals of American life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    BIBLIOGRAPHY. The best work on our recent literature is Pattee, A
+    History of American Literature since 1870 (Century Co., 1915),
+    which deals with two hundred or more writers. A more sketchy
+    attempt at a contemporaneous history is Vedder, American Writers of
+    To-day (Silver, 1894, revised 1910), devoted to nineteen writers
+    whom the author regards as most important.
+
+    From a multitude of books dealing with individual authors or with
+    special types of literature we have selected the following brief
+    list, which is suggestive rather than critical.
+
+    _Study of Fiction_. Henry James, The Art of Fiction; Howells,
+    Criticism in Fiction; Crawford, The Novel: What It Is; Smith, The
+    American Short Story; Canby, The Short Story in English.
+
+    _Biography_. Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, by C. E. Stowe.
+    Life of Bret Harte, by Pemberton, or by Merwin, or by Boynton. Life
+    of Bayard Taylor, by Marie Taylor and Horace Scudder; or by Smyth,
+    in American Men of Letters. Life of Stedman, by Laura Stedman and
+    G. M. Gould. Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, by Greenslet. Letters
+    of Sarah Orne Jewett, edited by Annie Fields. Life of Edward
+    Rowland Sill, by Parker. Thompson's Eugene Field. Mrs. Field's
+    Charles Dudley Warner. Grady's Joel Chandler Harris. Life of Mark
+    Twain, by Paine, 3 vols.
+
+    _Historical and Reminiscent_. Page, The Old South; Nicholson,
+    The Hoosiers; Howells, My Literary Passions; Henry James, Notes of
+    a Son and Brother; Stoddard, Recollections Personal and Literary,
+    edited by Hitchcock; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Chapters from a Life;
+    Trowbridge, My Own Story.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+    Books dealing with individual writers and with limited periods are
+    named elsewhere, in the special bibliographies that supplement each
+    of the preceding chapters. The following works, selected from a
+    much larger number, will be found useful for reference during the
+    entire course of study.
+
+    AMERICAN LITERATURE. There is unfortunately no series of scholarly
+    volumes covering the whole field, and nothing that approaches a
+    standard history of the subject. One of the best general surveys is
+    Richardson, American Literature, 2 vols. (Putnam, 1887). This is a
+    critical work, containing no biographical material, and the
+    historical sequence is broken by studying each type of literature
+    (fiction, poetry, etc.) by itself. Other general surveys,
+    containing a small amount of biography sadly interwoven with
+    critical matter, are Trent, American Literature (Appleton); Cairn,
+    History of American Literature (Oxford University Press); Wendell,
+    Literary History of America (Scribner); and the Cambridge American
+    Literature, 2 vols. (announced, 1916, Putnam). There are also a
+    score of textbooks dealing briefly with the subject.
+
+    Among histories dealing with selected authors in groups or with the
+    writers of some particular section of the country are National
+    Studies in American Letters (Macmillan), which includes Higginson's
+    Old Cambridge, Nicholson's The Hoosiers, Addison's The Clergy in
+    American Letters, etc.; Fulton, Southern Life in Southern
+    Literature; Moses, Literature of the South; Holliday, History of
+    Southern Literature; Wauchope, Writers of North Carolina; Lawton,
+    The New England Poets; Painter, Poets of Virginia; Venable,
+    Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley.
+
+    _POETRY_. Stedman, Poets of America; Onderdonck, History of
+    American Verse; Collins, Poetry and Poets of America.
+
+    _FICTION_. Loshe, The Early American Novel; Erskine, Leading
+    American Novelists; Smith, The American Short Story; Baldwin,
+    American Short Stories; Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Howells,
+    Criticism in Fiction; James, The Art of Fiction; Crawford, The
+    Novel: What It Is.
+
+    _MISCELLANEOUS TYPES_. Jameson, History of Historical Writing
+    in America; Payne, Leading American Essayists; Brownell, American
+    Prose Masters; Haweis, American Humorists; Payne, American Literary
+    Criticisms; Sears, History of Oratory; Fuller and Trueblood,
+    British and American Eloquence; Seilhamer, History of the American
+    Theater; Hudson, Journalism in the United States; Thomas, History
+    of Printing in America.
+
+    A very useful little book is Whitcomb, Chronological Outlines of
+    American Literature (Macmillan), in which all important works are
+    arranged, first, in chronological order, year by year, and then
+    according to authors.
+
+    _BIOGRAPHY_. The best series of literary biographies is
+    American Men of Letters (Houghton). A few American authors are
+    included in English Men of Letters, Great Writers, the brief Beacon
+    Biographies and other series. Biographical collections are Adams,
+    Dictionary of American Authors; Cyclopedia of American Biography, 6
+    vols. (Appleton); Allibone, Dictionary of English Literature and
+    British and American Authors, 6 vols. (Lippincott); Howes, American
+    Bookmen; Fields, Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches.
+
+    _SELECTIONS_. Calhoun and MacAlarney, Readings from American
+    Literature, containing selections from all important authors in one
+    volume (Ginn and Company); Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of
+    American Literature, 11 vols. (Webster); Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of
+    American Literature, 2 vols. (Scribner); Bronson, American Poems
+    and American Prose, 2 vols. (University of Chicago Press);
+    Lounsbury, American Poems (Yale University Press); Stedman, An
+    American Anthology, supplementing the same author's Poets of
+    America (Houghton); Page, Chief American Poets, with very full
+    selections from our nine elder poets (Houghton); The Humbler Poets,
+    newspaper and magazine verse, 2 vols. (McClurg); Golden Treasury of
+    American Songs and Lyrics (Macmillan); Rittenhouse, Little Book of
+    Modern Verse (Houghton); Carpenter, American Prose (Macmillan);
+    Johnson, American Orations, 3 vols. (Putnam); Harding, Select
+    Orations (Macmillan).
+
+    Library of Southern Literature, 16 vols., a monumental work, edited
+    under supervision of the University of Virginia (Martin and Holt
+    Co., Atlanta); Trent, Southern Writers; Mims and Payne, Southern
+    Poetry; Kent, Southern Poets.
+
+    _SCHOOL TEXTS_. For the works of minor writers some of the
+    anthologies named above are necessary; but the major authors may be
+    read to better advantage in various inexpensive texts edited for
+    class use. Such, for example, are Standard English Classics (Ginn
+    and Company); Riverside Literature (Houghton); Pocket Classics
+    (Macmillan); Lake Classics (Scott); Maynard's English Classics
+    (Merrill); Silver Classics (Silver, Burdett); Johnson's English
+    Classics (Johnson); English Readings (Holt); Eclectic Classics
+    (American Book Co.); Everyman's Library (Dutton). There are nearly
+    a score more of these handy little editions, lists of which may be
+    obtained by writing to the various publishing houses, especially to
+    those that make a specialty of schoolbooks.
+
+    AMERICAN HISTORY. In studying our literature a good textbook of
+    history should always be at hand; such as Montgomery, Student's
+    American History, or Muzzey, American History, or Channing,
+    Students' History of the United States. More extended works are
+    much better, if the student has time or inclination to consult
+    them.
+
+    A useful reference work in connection with our early literature is
+    American History Told by Contemporaries, edited by Hart, 4 vols.
+    (Macmillan). The American History Series, 6 vols. (Scribner), tells
+    the story of America by epochs, the different epochs being treated
+    by different authors. Another good history of the same kind is
+    Epochs of American History, 3 vols. (Longmans). The most complete
+    history is The American Nation, 27 vols. (Harper).
+
+    Political and party history in Stanwood, History of the Presidency
+    (Houghton), and Johnston, American Political History, 2 vols.
+    (Putnam).
+
+    Biographies of notable characters in American Statesmen (Houghton),
+    Makers of America (Dodd), Great Commanders (Appleton), True
+    Biographies (Lippincott), and various other series. National
+    Cyclopedia of American Biography, 15 vols. (White).
+
+    Bibliography of the subject in Channing, Hart and Turner, Guide to
+    the Study and Reading of American History, revised to 1912 (Ginn
+    and Company); and in Andrews, Gambrill and Tall, Bibliography of
+    History (Longmans).
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outlines of English and American
+Literature, by William J. Long
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