And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more."[447]
This is an exquisite and strange voluptuousness, a reverie full of
delight, and full, too, of anguish, the shudder of delicate and
melancholy passion which we have already found in "Winter's Tale" or in
"Twelfth Night."
The three friends have gone forth with the princess and her train, all
on horseback, and pause "near a coppice-feather'd chasm,"
"till the Sun
Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all
The rosy heights came out above the lawns."
Cyril, heated by wine, begins to troll a careless tavern catch, and
betrays the secret. Ida, indignant, turns to leave; her foot slips, and
she falls into the river; the prince saves her, and wishes to flee. But
he is seized by the Proctors and brought before the throne, where the
haughty maiden stands ready to pronounce sentence. At this moment
"... There rose
A hubbub in the court of half the maids
Gather'd together: from the illumined hall
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes,
And gold and golden heads; they to and fro
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale,
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light,
Some crying there was an army in the land,
And some that men were in the very walls,
And some they cared not; till a clamour grew
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built,
And worse-confounded: high above them stood
The placid marble Muses, looking peace."[448]
The father of the prince has come with his army to deliver him, and has
seized King Gama as a hostage. The princess is obliged to release the
young man. With distended nostrils, waving hair, a tempest raging in her
heart, she thanks him with bitter irony. She trembles with wounded
pride; she stammers, hesitates; she tries to constrain herself in order
the better to insult him, and suddenly breaks out:
"'You have done well and like a gentleman,
And like a prince: you have our thanks for all:
And you look well too in your woman's dress:
Well have you done and like a gentleman.
You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks:
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood--
Then men had said--but now--What hinders me
To take such bloody vengeance on you both?--
Yet since our father--Wasps in our good hive,
You would-be quenchers of the light to be,
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears--
O would I had his sceptre for one hour!
You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd
Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us--
_I_ wed with thee! _I_ bound by precontract
Your bride, your bondslave! not tho' all the gold
That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown,
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir,
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us:
I trample on your offers and on you:
Begone: we will not look upon you more.
Here, push them out at gates.'"[449]
How is this fierce heart to be softened, fevered with feminine anger,
embitterbed by disappointment and insult, excited by long dreams of
power and ascendancy, and rendered more savage by its virginity! But how
anger becomes her, and how lovely she is! And how this fire of
sentiment, this lofty declaration of independence, this chimerical
ambition for reforming the future, reveal the generosity and pride of a
young heart, enamoured of the beautiful! It is agreed that the quarrel
shall be settled by a combat of fifty men against fifty other men. The
prince is conquered, and Ida sees him bleeding on the sand. Slowly,
gradually, in spite of herself, she yields, receives the wounded in her
palace, and comes to the bedside of the dying prince. Before his
weakness and his wild delirium pity expands, then tenderness, then love:
"From all a closer interest flourish'd up
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these,
Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears
By some cold morning glacier; frail at first
And feeble, all unconscious of itself,
But such as gather'd colour day by day."[450]
One evening he returns to consciousness, exhausted, his eyes still
troubled by gloomy visions; he sees Ida before him, hovering like a
dream, painfully opens his pale lips, and "utter'd whisperingly":
"'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream,
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself:
But if you be that Ida whom I knew,
I ask you nothing: only, if a dream,
Sweet dream be perfect. I shall die to-night.
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'
... She turned; she paused;
She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry;
Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death;
And I believe that in the living world
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips;
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose
Glowing all over noble shame; and all
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood
Than in her mould that other, when she came
From barren deeps to conquer all with love;
And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides,
Naked, a double light in air and wave."[451]
This is the accent of the Renaissance, as it left the heart of Spenser
and Shakespeare; they had this voluptuous adoration of form and soul,
and this divine sentiment of beauty.
Section V.--The Idylls of the King
There is another chivalry, which inaugurates the Middle Ages, as this
closes it; sung by children, as this by youths; and restored in the
"Idylls of the King," as this in the "Princess." It is the legend of
Arthur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. With admirable heart,
Tennyson has modernized the feelings and the language; this pliant soul
takes all tones, in order to give itself all pleasures. This time he has
become epic, antique and ingenuous, like Homer, and like the old
_trouvères_ of the _chansons de Geste._ It is pleasant to quit our
learned civilization, to rise again to the primitive age and manners, to
listen to the peaceful discourse which flows copiously and slowly, as a
river in a smooth channel. The distinguishing mark of the ancient epic
is clearness and calm. The ideas were new-born; man was happy and in his
infancy. He had not had time to refine, to cut down and adorn his
thoughts; he showed them bare. He was not yet pricked by manifold lusts;
he thought at leisure. Every idea interested him; he unfolded it
curiously, and explained it. His speech never jerks; he goes step by
step, from one object to another, and every object seems lovely to him:
he pauses, observes, and takes pleasure in observing. This simplicity
and peace are strange and charming; we abandon ourselves, it is well
with us; we do not desire to go more quickly; we fancy we would gladly
remain thus, and forever. For primitive thought is wholesome thought; we
have but marred it by grafting and cultivation; we return to it as our
familiar element, to find contentment and repose.
But of all epics, this of the Round Table is distinguished by purity.
Arthur, the irreproachable king, has assembled
"A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time.
I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,...
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds."[452]
There is a sort of refined pleasure in having to do with such a world;
for there is none in which purer or more touching fruits could grow. I
will show one--"Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat"--who, having seen
Lancelot once, loves him when he has departed, and for her whole life.
She keeps the shield, which he has left in a tower, and every day goes
up to look at it, counting "every dint a sword had beaten in it, and
every scratch a lance had made upon it," and living on her dreams. He is
wounded: she goes to tend and heal him:
"She murmur'd, 'vain, in vain: it cannot be.
He will not love me: how then? must I die?'
Then as a little helpless innocent bird,
That has but one plain passage of few notes,
Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er
For all an April morning, till the ear
Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid
Went half the night repeating, 'must I die?'"[453]
At last she confesses her secret; but with what modesty and spirit! He
cannot marry her; he is tied to another. She droops and fades; her
father and brothers try to console her, but she will pot be consoled.
She is told that Lancelot has sinned with the queen; she does not
believe it:
"At last she said, 'Sweet brothers, yester night
I seem'd a curious little maid again,
As happy as when we dwelt among the woods,
And when you used to take me with the flood
Up the great river in the boatman's boat.
Only you would not pass beyond the cape
That hast the poplar on it; there you fixt
Your limit, oft returning with the tide.
And yet I cried because you would not pass
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood
Until we found the palace of the King.
... Now shall I have my will.'"[454]
She dies, and her father and brothers did what she had asked them to do:
"But when the next sun brake from underground,
Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier
Past like a shadow thro' the field, that shone
Full summer, to that stream whereon the barge,
Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay.
There sat the lifelong creature of the house,
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck,
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face.
So those two brethren from the chariot took
And on the black decks laid her in her bed,
Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung
The silken case with braided blazonings
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her:
'Sister, farewell for ever,' and again
'Farewell, sweet sister,' parted all in tears.
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead
Steer'd by the dumb went upward with the flood--
In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter--all her bright hair streaming down--
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white
All but her face, and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled."[455]
Thus they arrive at Court in great silence, and King Arthur read the
letter before all his knights and weeping ladies:
"Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat,
Come, for you left me taking no farewell,
Hither, to take my last farewell of you.
I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
And therefore to our lady Guinevere,
And to all other ladies, I make moan.
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial.
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot,
As thou art a knight peerless."[456]
Nothing more: she ends with this word, full of so sad a regret and so
tender an admiration: we could hardly find anything more simple or more
delicate.
It seems as if an archaeologist might reproduce all styles except the
grand, and Tennyson has reproduced all, even the grand. It is the night
of the final battle; all day the tumult of the mighty fray "roll'd among
the mountains by the winter sea"; Arthur's knights had fallen "man by
man"; he himself had fallen, "deeply smitten through the helm," and Sir
Bedivere, the last of all his knights, bore him to a place hard by,
"A chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full."[457]
Arthur, feeling himself about to die, bids him to take his sword
Excalibur "and fling him far into the middle meer"; for he had received
it from the sea-nymphs, and after him no mortal must handle it. Twice
Sir Bedivere went to obey the king: twice he paused, and came back
pretending that he had flung away the sword; for his eyes were dazzled
by the wondrous diamond setting which clustered and shone about the
haft. The third time he throws it:
"The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the meer."[458]
Then Arthur, rising painfully and scarce able to breathe, bids Sir
Bedivere take him on his shoulders and "bear me to the margin. Quick,
quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die." They arrive thus,
through "icy caves and barren chasms," to the shores of a lake, where
they saw "the long glories of the winter moon":
"They saw then how there hove a dusky barge
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold--and from them rose
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes
Or hath come, since the making of the world.
Then murmur'd Arthur: 'Place me in the barge,'
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud...."[459]
Before the barge drifts away, King Arthur, raising his slow voice,
consoles Sir Bedivere, standing in sorrow on the shore, and pronounces
this heroic and solemn farewell:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world....
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of....
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest--if indeed I go--
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."[460]
Nothing, I think, calmer and more imposing, has been seen since Goethe.
How, in a few words, shall we assemble all the features of so manifold a
talent? Tennyson is a born poet, that is, a builder of airy palaces and
imaginary castles. But the individual passion and absorbing
preoccupations which generally guide the hands of such men are wanting
to him; he found in himself no plan of a new edifice; he lias built
after all the rest; he has simply chosen amongst all forms the most
elegant, ornate, exquisite. Of their beauties he has taken but the
flower. At most, now and then, he has here and there amused himself by
designing some genuinely English and modern cottage. If in this choice
of architecture, adopted or restored, we look for a trace of him, we
shall find it, here and there, in some more finely sculptured frieze, in
some more delicate and graceful sculptured rose-work; but we only find
it marked and sensible in the purity and elevation of the moral emotion
which we carry away with us when we quit his gallery of art.
Section VI.--Comparison of English and French Society
The favorite poet of a nation, it seems, is he whose works a man,
setting out on a journey, prefers to put into his pocket. Nowadays it
would be Tennyson in England, and Alfred de Musset in France. The two
publics differ: so do their modes of life, their reading, and their
pleasures. Let us try to describe them; we shall better understand the
flowers if we see them in the garden.
Here we are at Newhaven, or at Dover, and we glide over the rails
looking on either side. On both sides fly past country houses; they
exist everywhere in England, on the margin of lakes, on the edge of the
bays, on the summit of the hills, in every picturesque point of view.
They are the chosen abodes; London is but a business-place; men of the
world live, amuse themselves, visit each other, in the country. How
well-ordered and pretty is this house! If near it there was some old
edifice, abbey, or castle, it has been preserved. The new building has
been suited to the old; even if detached and modern, it does not lack
style; gable-ends, mullions, broad-windows, turrets perched at every
corner, have a Gothic air in spite of their newness. Even this cottage,
though not very large, suited to people with a moderate income, is
pleasant to see with its pointed roofs, its porch, its bright brown
bricks, all covered with ivy. Doubtless grandeur is generally wanting;
in these days the men who mould opinion are no longer great lords, but
rich gentlemen, well brought up, and landholders; it is pleasantness
which appeals to them. But how they understand the word! All round the
house is turf, fresh and smooth as velvet, rolled every morning. In
front, great rhododendrons form a bright thicket, in which murmur swarms
of bees; festoons of exotics creep and curve over the short grass;
honey-suckles clamber up the trees; hundreds of roses, drooping over the
windows, shed their rain of petals on the paths. Fine elms, yew-trees,
great oaks, jealously tended, everywhere combine their leafage or rear
their heads. Trees have been brought from Australia and China to adorn
the thickets with the elegance or the singularity of their foreign
shapes; the copper-beech stretches over the delicate verdure of the
meadows the shadow of its dark metallic-hued foliage. How delicious is
the freshness of this verdure! How it glistens, and how it abounds in
wild flowers brightened by the sun! What care, what cleanliness, how
everything is arranged, kept up, refined, for the comfort of the senses
and the pleasure of the eyes! If there is a slope, streamlets have been
devised with little islets in the glen, peopled with tufts of roses;
ducks of select breed swim in the pools, where the water-lilies display
their satin stars. Fat oxen lie in the grass, sheep as white as if fresh
from the washing, all kinds of happy and model animals, fit to delight
the eyes of an amateur and a master. We return to the house, and before
entering I look upon the view; decidedly the love of Englishmen for the
country is innate; how pleasant it will be from that parlor window to
look upon the setting sun, and the broad network of sunlight spread
across the woods! And how cunningly they have disposed the house, so
that the landscape may be seen at distance between the hills, and at
hand between the trees! We enter. How nicely everything is got up, and
how commodious. The smallest wants have been forestalled, and provided
for; there is nothing which is not correct and perfect; we imagine that
everything in the house has received a prize, or at least an honorable
mention, at some industrial exhibition. And the attendance of the
servants is as good as everything else; cleanliness is not more
scrupulous in Holland; Englishmen have, in proportion, three times as
many servants as Frenchmen; not too many for the minute details of the
service. The domestic machine acts without interruption, without shock,
without hinderance; every wheel has its movement and its place, and the
comfort which it dispenses falls like honey in the mouth, as clear and
as exquisite as the sugar of a model refinery when quite purified.
We converse with our host. We very soon find that his mind and soul have
always been well balanced. When he left college he found his career
shaped out for him; no need for him to revolt against the Church, which
is half rational; nor against the Constitution, which is nobly liberal:
the faith and law presented to him are good, useful, moral, liberal
enough to maintain and employ all diversities of sincere minds. He
became attached to them, he loves them, he has received from them the
whole system of his practical and speculative ideas; he does not waver,
he no longer doubts, he knows what he ought to believe and to do. He is
not carried away by theories, dulled by sloth, checked by
contradictions. Elsewhere youth is like water, stagnant or running to
waste; here there is a fine old channel which receives and directs to a
useful and sure end the whole stream of its activities and passions. He
acts, works, rules. He is married, has tenants, is a magistrate, becomes
a politician. He improves and rules his parish, his estate, and his
family. He founds societies, speaks at meetings, superintends schools,
dispenses justice, introduces improvements; he employs his reading, his
travels, his connections, his fortune, and his rank, to lead his
neighbors and dependents, amicably, to some work which profits
themselves and the public. He is influential and respected. He has the
pleasures of self-esteem and the satisfaction of conscience. He knows
that he has authority, and that he uses it loyally, for the good of
others. And this healthy state of mind is supported by a wholesome life.
His mind is beyond doubt, cultivated and occupied; he is well informed,
knows several languages, has travelled, is fond of all precise
information; he is kept by his newspapers conversant with all new ideas
and discoveries. But, at the same time, he loves and practises all
bodily exercises. He rides, takes long walks, hunts, yachts, examines
for himself all the details of breeding and agriculture; he lives in the
open air, he withstands the encroachments of a sedentary life, which
always elsewhere leads the modern man to agitation of the brain,
weakness of the muscles, and excitement of the nerves. Such is this
elegant and common-sense society, refined in comfort, regular in
conduct, whose dilettante tastes and moral principles confine it within
a sort of flowery border, and prevent it from having its attention
diverted.
Does any poet suit such a society better than Tennyson? Without being a
pedant, he is moral; he may be read in the family circle by night; he
does not rebel against society and life; he speaks of God and the soul,
nobly, tenderly, without ecclesiastical prejudice; there is no need to
reproach him like Lord Byron; he has no violent and abrupt words,
extravagant and scandalous sentiments; he will pervert nobody. We shall
not be troubled when we close the book; we may listen when we quit him,
without being shocked by the contrast, to the grave voice of the master
of the house, who reads evening prayers before the kneeling servants.
And yet, when we quit him, we keep a smile of pleasure on our lips. The
traveller, the lover of archaeology, has been pleased by the imitations
of foreign and antique sentiments. The sportsman, the lover of the
country, has relished the little country scenes and the rich rural
pictures. The ladies have been charmed by his portraits of women; they
are so exquisite and pure! He has laid such delicate blushes on those
lovely cheeks! He has depicted so well the changing expression of those
proud or candid eyes! They like him because they feel that he likes
them. He even honors them, and rises in his nobility to the height of
their purity. Young girls weep in listening to him; certainly when, a
little while ago, we heard the legend of Elaine or Enid read, we saw the
fair heads drooping under the flowers which adorned them, and white
shoulders heaving with furtive emotion. And how delicate was this
emotion! He has not rudely trenched upon truth and passion. He has risen
to the height of noble and tender sentiments. He has gleaned from all
nature and all history what was most lofty and amiable. He has chosen
his ideas, chiselled his words, equalled by his artifices, successes,
and versatility of style, the pleasantness and perfection of social
elegance in the midst of which we read him. His poetry is like one of
those gilt and painted stands in which flowers of the country and
exotics mingle in artful harmony their stalks and foliage, their
clusters and cups, their scents and hues. It seems made expressly for
these wealthy, cultivated, free business men, heirs of the ancient
nobility, new leaders of a new England. It is part of their luxury as
well as of their morality; it is an eloquent confirmation of their
principles, and a precious article of their drawing-room furniture.
We return to Calais, and travel towards Paris, without pausing on the
road. There are on the way plenty of noblemen's castles, and houses of
rich men of business. But we do not find amongst them, as in England,
the thinking elegant world, which, by the refinement of its taste and
the superiority of its mind, becomes the guide of the nation and the
arbiter of the beautiful. There are two peoples in France: the provinces
and Paris; the one dining, sleeping, yawning, listening; the other
thinking, daring, watching, and speaking: the first drawn by the second,
as a snail by a butterfly, alternately amused and disturbed by the whims
and the audacity of its guide. It is this guide we must look upon! Let
us enter Paris! What a strange spectacle! It is evening, the streets are
aflame, a luminous dust covers the busy noisy crowd, which jostles,
elbows, crushes, and swarms near the theatres, behind the windows of the
cafés. Have you remarked how all these faces are wrinkled, frowning or
pale; how anxious are their looks, how nervous their gestures? A violent
brightness falls on these shining heads; most are bald before thirty. To
find pleasure here, they must have plenty of excitement: the dust of the
boulevard settles on the ice which they are eating; the smell of the gas
and the steam of the pavement, the perspiration left on the walls dried
up by the fever of a Parisian day, "the human air full of impure
rattle"--this is what they cheerfully breathe. They are crammed round
their little marble tables, persecuted by the glaring light, the shouts
of the waiters, the jumble of mixed talk, the monotonous motion of
gloomy walkers, the flutter of loitering courtesans moving about
anxiously in the dark. Doubtless their homes are not pleasant, or they
would not change them for these bagmen's delights. We climb four flights
of stairs, and find ourselves in a polished, gilded room, adorned with
stuccoed ornaments, plaster statuettes, new furniture of old oak, with
every kind of pretty knick-knack on the mantle-pieces and the whatnots.
"It makes a good show;" you can give a good reception to envious friends
and people of standing. It is an advertisement, nothing more; we pass
half an hour there agreeably, and that is all. You will never make more
than a house of call out of these rooms; they are low in the ceiling,
close, inconvenient, rented by the year, dirty in six months, serving to
display a fictitious luxury. All the enjoyments of these people are
factitious, and, as it were, snatched hurriedly; they have in them
something unhealthy and irritating. They are like the cookery of their
restaurants, the splendor of their cafés, the gayety of their theatres.
They want them too quick, too pungent, too manifold. They have not
cultivated them patiently, and culled them moderately; they have forced
them on an artificial and heating soil; they grasp them in haste. They
are refined and greedy; they need every day a stock of word-paintings,
broad anecdotes, biting railleries, new truths, varied ideas. They soon
get bored, and cannot endure tedium. They amuse themselves with all
their might, and find that they are hardly amused. They exaggerate their
work and their expense, their wants and their efforts. The accumulation
of sensations and fatigue stretches their nervous machine to excess, and
their polish of social gayety chips off twenty times a day, displaying
an inner ground of suffering and ardor.
But how quick-witted they are, and how unfettered is their mind! How
this incessant rubbing has sharpened them! How ready they are to grasp
and comprehend everything! How apt this studied and manifold culture has
made them to feel and relish tendernesses and sadnesses unknown to their
fathers, deep feelings, strange and sublime, which hitherto seemed
foreign to their race! This great city is cosmopolitan; here all ideas
may be born; no barrier checks the mind: the vast field of thought opens
before them without a beaten or prescribed track. Use neither hinders
nor guides them; an official Government and Church rid them of the care
of leading the nation: the two powers are submitted to, as we submit to
the beadle or the policeman, patiently and with chaff; they are looked
upon as a play. In short, the world here seems but a melodrama, a
subject of criticism and argument. And be sure that criticism and
argument have full scope. An Englishman entering on life, finds to all
great questions an answer ready made. A Frenchman entering on life,
finds to all great questions simply suggested doubts. In this conflict
of opinions he must create a faith for himself, and, being mostly unable
to do it, he remains open to every uncertainty, and therefore to every
curiosity and to every pain. In this gulf, which is like a vast sea,
dreams, theories, fancies, intemperate, poetic and sickly desires,
collect and chase each other like clouds. If in this tumult of moving
forms we seek some solid work to prepare a foundation for future
opinions, we find only the slowly-rising edifices of the sciences, which
here and there obscurely, like submarine polypes, construct of
imperceptible coral the basis on which the belief of the human race is
to rest.
Such is the world for which Alfred de Musset wrote: in Paris he must be
read. Read? We all know him by heart. He is dead, and it seems as if we
daily hear him speak. A conversation among artists, as they jest in a
studio, a beautiful young girl leaning over her box at the theatre, a
street washed by the rain, making the black pavement shine, a fresh
smiling morning in the woods of Fontainebleau, everything brings him
before us, as if he were alive again. Was there ever a more vibrating
and genuine accent? This man, at least, never lied. He only said what he
felt, and he has said it as he felt it. He thought aloud. He made the
confession of every man. He was not admired, but loved; he was more than
a poet, he was a man. Everyone found in him his own feelings, the most
transient, the most familiar; he did not restrict himself, he gave
himself to all; he possessed the last virtues which remain to us,
generosity and sincerity. And he had the most precious gift which can
seduce an old civilization, youth. As he said, "that hot youth, a tree
with a rough bark, which covers all with its shadow, prospect and path."
With that fire did he hurl onward love, jealousy, the thirst of
pleasure, all the impetuous passions which rise with virgin blood from
the depths of a young heart, and how did he make them clash together!
Has anyone felt them more deeply? He was too full of them, he gave
himself up to them, was intoxicated with them. He rushed through life,
like an eager racehorse in the country, whom the scent of plants and the
splendid novelty of the vast heavens urge, headlong, in its mad career,
which shatters all before him, and himself as well. He desired too much;
he wished, strongly and greedily, to enjoy life in one draught,
thoroughly; he did not glean or enjoy it; he tore it off like a bunch of
grapes, pressed it, crushed it, twisted it, and he remains with stained
hands as thirsty as before.[461] Then broke forth sobs which found an
echo in all hearts. What! so young, and already so wearied! So many
precious gifts, so fine a mind, so delicate a tact, so rich and varied a
fancy, so precocious a glory, such a sudden blossom of beauty and
genius, and yet anguish, disgust, tears, and cries! What a mixture! With
the same attitude he adores and curses. Eternal illusion, invincible
experience, keep side by side in him to fight and tear him. He became
old, and remained young; he is a poet, and he is a sceptic. The Muse and
her peaceful beauty, Nature and her immortal freshness, Love and his
happy smile, all the swarm of divine visions barely passed before his
eyes, when we see approaching with curses, and sarcasms, all the
spectres of debauchery and death. He is as a man in a festive scene, who
drinks from a chased cup, standing up, in front, amidst applause and
triumphal music, his eyes laughing, his heart full of joy, heated and
excited by the generous wine he quaffed, whom suddenly we see growing
pale; there was poison in the cup; he falls, and the death-rattle is in
his throat; his convulsed feet beat upon the silken carpet, and all the
terrified guests look on. This is what we felt on the day when the most
beloved, the most brilliant amongst us, suddenly quivered from an unseen
attack, and was struck down, being hardly able to breathe, amid the
lying splendors and gayeties of our banquet.
Well! such as he was, we love him forever: we cannot listen to another;
beside him, all seem cold or false. We leave at midnight the theatre in
which he had heard Malibran, and we enter the gloomy Rue des Moulins,
where, on a hired bed, his Rolla came to sleep and die. The lamps cast
flickering rays on the slippery pavement. Restless shadows march past
the doors, and trail along their dress of draggled silk to meet the
passers-by. The windows are fastened; here and there a light pierces
through a half-closed shutter, and shows a dead dahlia on the edge of a
window-sill. To-morrow an organ will grind before these panes, and the
wan clouds will leave their droppings on these dirty walls. From this
wretched place came the most impassioned of his poems! These vilenesses
and vulgarities of the stews and the lodging-house caused this divine
eloquence to flow! it was these which at such a moment gathered in this
bruised heart all the splendors of nature and history, to make them
spring up in sparkling jets, and shine under the most glowing poetic sun
that ever rose! We feel pity; we think of that other poet, away there in
the Isle of Wight, who amuses himself by dressing up lost epics. How
happy he is amongst his fine books, his friends, his honeysuckles and
roses! No matter. De Musset, in this wretched abode of filth and misery,
rose higher. From the heights of his doubt and despair, he saw the
infinite, as we see the sea from a storm-beaten promontory. Religions,
their glory and their decay, the human race, its pangs and its destiny,
all that is sublime in the world, appeared there to him in a flash of
lightning. He felt, at least this once in his life, the inner tempest of
deep sensations, giant-dreams, and intense voluptuousness, the desire of
which enabled him to live, the lack of which forced him to die. He was
no mere dilettante; he was not content to taste and enjoy; he left his
mark on human thought; he told the world what was man, love, truth,
happiness. He suffered, but he imagined: he fainted, but he created. He
tore from his entrails with despair the idea which he had conceived, and
showed it to the eyes of all, bloody but alive. That is harder and
lovelier than to go fondling and gazing upon the ideas of others. There
is in the world but one work worthy of a man: the production of a truth,
to which we devote ourselves, and in which we believe. The people who
have listened to Tennyson are better than our aristocracy of townsfolk
and bohemians; but I prefer Alfred de Musset to Tennyson.
[Footnote 434: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Lilian," 5.]
[Footnote 435: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Adeline," 33.]
[Footnote 436: Ibid. "Madeline," 15.]
[Footnote 437: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "The Dying Swan,"
45.]
[Footnote 438: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "The Lotus-Eaters,"
140.]
[Footnote 439: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Locksley Hall,"
266.]
[Footnote 440: Tennyson's "Maud," 1856, IV. 1, 15.]
[Footnote 441: Tennyson's "Maud," 1856, XXVII. 1.]
[Footnote 442: Ibid. XXVII. 11, 105.]
[Footnote 443: Ibid, XXVIII. 3 and 4, 108.]
[Footnote 444: "The Princess, a Medley," 12th ed. 1864, II. 34.]
[Footnote 445: Ibid. II. 46.]
[Footnote 446: Ibid. III. 60.]
[Footnote 447: "The Princess, a Medley," 12th ed. 1864, V. 76.]
[Footnote 448: "The Princess, a Medley," 12th ed. 1864, IV. 99.]
[Footnote 449: Ibid. IV. 102.]
[Footnote 450: "The Princess, a Medley," V. 163.]
[Footnote 451: Ibid. V. 165.]
[Footnote 452: "Idylls of the King," 1864; Guinevere, 249.]
[Footnote 453: Ibid.; Elaine, 193.]
[Footnote 454: Ibid.; Elaine, 201.]
[Footnote 455: "Idylls of the King," 1864, 206.]
[Footnote 456: Ibid. 213.]
[Footnote 457: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Morte d'Arthur,"
189.]
[Footnote 458: Ibid. 194.]
[Footnote 459: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Morte d'Arthur,"
196.]
[Footnote 460: Ibid. 197.]
[Footnote 461: "O médiocrité! celui qui pour tout bien
T'apporte à ce tripot dégoûtant de la vie
Est bien poltron au jeu s'il ne dit: Tout ou rien."]
INDEX
The Roman Numerals Refer to the Volumes.--The Arabic Figures to the Pages
of Each Volume.
Abelard, I. 158, 160
Addison, Joseph, II. 265, 292, 300, 311;
his life and writings, 327-359; III. 83,
95, 259, 272, 280, 306
Adholm, I. 64, 69, 185
Agriculture, improvement in, in sixteenth
century, I. 172; in the nineteenth,
III. 43, 168
Akenside, Mark, III. 36
Alcuin, I. 64, 70
Alexander VI, Pope, II. 5
Alexandrian philosophy, I. 21, 22
Alfred the Great, I. 64, 69
Alison, Sir Archibald, III. 44
Amory, Thomas, II. 438
Angelo, Michael, I. 183, 366; III. 27
Anglo-Saxon poetry, I. 53
Ann of Cleaves, I. 186
Anselm, I. 76
Anthology the, I. 209, 240
Arbuthnot, Dr. John, II. 381
Architecture, Norman, I. 75, 127; the
Tudor style, 174
Ariosto, I. 185, 222; II. 236
Aristocracy British, in the nineteenth
century, III. 169
Arkwright, Sir Richard, II. 320
Armada, the I. 173, 279
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, III. 100, 178
Arthur and Merlin, romance of, I. 77
Ascham, Roger, I. 181, 246; II. 3
Athelstan, I. 36, 54
Augier, Emile, III. 208
Austen, Jane, III. 85
Bacon, Francis, Lord, I. 245, 255-263; II.
34, 39; III. 268, 284
Bacon, Roger, I. 161
Bain, Alexander, III. 185
Bakewell, Robert, II. 320
Bale, John, I. 186
Balzac, Honoré de, I. 3; III. 215, 254
Barclay, Alexander, I. 165
Barclay, John, II. 292
Barclay, Robert, I. 58
Barrow, Isaac, II. 292, 295
Baxter, Richard, I. 268; II. 56, 292
Bayly's (Lewis) Practice of Piety, II. 62
Beattie, Tames, II. 440; III. 36
Beauclerk, Henry, I. 76
Beaumont, Francis, I. 291, 307-317; II.
41, 45, 100
Becket, Thomas à, I. 97
Beckford, W., III. 77
Bede, the Venerable, I. 64
Bedford, Duke of (John Russell), II. 310
Beethovan, Lewis van, III. 87
Behn, Mrs. Aphra, II. 157, 254
Bell, Currer. See Brontë, Charlotte
Bénoit de Sainte-Maure, I. 76
Bentham, Jeremy, II. 320
Bently, Richard, II. 303
Beowolf, an Anglo-Saxon epic poem, I.
49-53
Béranger, II. 11; III. 287
Berkeley, Bishop, II. 303
Berkley, Sir Charles, II. 141
Berners, Lord, I. 186
Best, Paul, II. 50
Bible, English. See Wiclif, Tyndale
Blackmore, Sir Richard, II. 224
Blount, Edward, I. 192
Boccaccio, I. 126, 132; II. 266
Bodley, Sir Thomas, I. 246
Boethius, I. 64-67
Boileau, II. 144, 184, 224, 262, 284; III. 7,
4, 345
Boleyn, Ann, I. 276
Bolingbroke, Lord (Henry St. John), II.
275, 303; III. 8
Bonner, Edmund, II. 33
Borde, Andrew, I. 186
Borgia, Cæsar, II. 5, 6
Borgia, Lucretia, I. 182; II. 5
Bossu (or Lebossu), II. 224
Bossuet, I. 18; II. 233; III. 25, 306
Boswell, James, II. 444
Bourchier. See Berners
Boyle, the Hon. Robert, II. 303
Bridaine, Father, II. 298
Britons, ancient, I. 38
Brontë, Charlotte (Currer Bell), III. 85,
100, 185
Browne, Sir Thomas, I. 245, 246, 252; II.
34, 39
Browning, Mrs., III. 100, 185
Brunanburh, Athelstan's victory at, celebrated
in Saxon song, I. 54
Buckingham, Duke of (John Sheffield),
II. 153, 180, 184
Buckle, Henry Thomas, III. 154, 176
Bulwer, Sir Henry Lytton, III. 85, 185
Bunyan, John, II. 58-70, 133
Burke, Edmund, II. 303, 317-326, 444; III.
286, 306
Burleigh, Lord (William Cecil), I. 273;
III. 286
Burnet, Bishop, II. 202
Burney, Francisca (Madame D'Arblay),
II. 283, 320, 444; III. 275
Burns, Robert, II. 251; Sketch of his life
and works, III. 48-65
Burton, Robert, I. 175, 248-252; II. 34, 100
Busby, Dr. Richard, II. 256
Bute, Lord, II. 273 seq., 310
Butler, Bishop, II. 320
Butler, Samuel, II. 137-140, 303
Byng, Admiral, II. 310
Byron, Lord, III. 11; his life and works,
102-151
Cædmon, hymns of, I. 57, 61; his metrical
paraphrase of parts of the Bible,
61-64, 185
Calamy, Edmund, II. 58
Calderon, I. 161, 279; II. 155
Calvin, John, II. 11, 45, 301
Camden, William, I. 246
Campbell, Thomas, III. 76, 112
Carew, Thomas, I. 238
Carlyle, Thomas, I. 6; III. 100, 176; style
and mind, 308; vocation, 327;
philosophy, morality, and criticism,
336; conception of history, 348
Carteret, John (Earl Granville), II. 311
Castlereagh, Lord, I. 319
Catherine, St., play of, I. 76
Cellini, Benvenuto, I. 26, 114, 184
Cervantes, I. 100, 151, 222; II. 410
Chalmers, George, I. 72
Chandos, Duke of (John Brydges), III. 8
Chapman, George, I. 330
Charles of Orleans, I. 84, 158
Charles I of England, III. 276
Charles II and his court, II. 140 seq.
Chateaubriand, I. 4; II. 346
Chatham. See Pitt
Chaucer, I. 106, 126, 157; II. 265
Chesterfield, Lord, II. 278 seq., 444; III. 15
Chevy Chase, ballad of, I. 125
Chillingworth, William, I. 245; II. 35, 38,
300
Christianity, introduction of, into Britain,
I. 56, 63 seq.
Chroniclers, French, I. 83
Chroniclers, Saxon, I. 68
Cibber, Colley, III. 8, 17
Cimbrians, the, I. 41
Clarendon, Lord Chancellor (Edward
Hyde), I. 245; II. 140
Clarke, Dr. John, II. 289, 301
Classic spirit in Europe, its origin and
nature, II. 170-173
Classical authors translated, I. 180, 190
Clive, Lord, III. 272
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, III. 73
Collier, Jeremy, II. 225, 256
Collins, William, III. 37
Colman, George, II. 220
Comedy-writers, English, II. 188 seq.
Comines, Philippe de, I. 124
Commerce in sixteenth century, I. 172;
III. 165
Comte, Auguste, III. 362
Condillac, Stephen-Bonnot de, III. 333,
363
Congreve, William, II. 188-210, 283
Conybeare, J. J., I. 54 seq.
Corbet, Bishop, II. 35
Corneille, II. 224, 236
Cotton, Sir Robert, I. 246
Court pageantries in the sixteenth century,
I. 176, 177
Coventry, Sir John, II. 142
Coverdale, Miles, II. 20
Cowley, Abraham, I. 242-244; II. 34, 71
Cowper, William, III. 67-73
Crabbe, George, III. 71, 112
Cranmer, Archbishop, II. 15, 23
Crashaw, Richard, II. 34
Criticism and History, III. 267
Cromwell, Oliver, I. 6; II. 35, 50; III.
276, 319, 351
Crowne, John, II. 157
Curll, Edmund, III. 18
Daniel, Samuel, I. 246
Dante, I. 135, 158, 161; II. 110; III. 335
Darwin, Charles, I. 13
Davie, Adam, I. 93
Davies, Sir John, II. 34
Daye, John, II. 47
Decker, Thomas, I. 281
De Foe, II. 307, 402-410; III. 169
Delille, James, III. 21
Denham, Sir John, II. 185-188
Denmark, I. 34, 35
Dennis, John, II. 331
Descartes, II. 149, 233; III. 333
Dickens, Charles, III. 85, 100; his novels,
187-221
Domesday Book, I. 72, 78, 104
Donne, John, I. 240, 241; II. 35
Dorat, C. J., III. 16, 140
Dorset, Earl of (Charles Sackville), II.
179, 180
Drake, Admiral, I. 173
Drake, Dr. Nathan, I. 173, 271
Drama, formation of the, I. 291 seq.
Drayton, Michael, I. 205; II. 34
Drummond, William, II. 100
Dryden, John, I. 18; II. 100; his comedies,
153-157, 184; his life and writings,
II. 222-272, 332; III. 5, 329
Dudevant, Madame (George Sand), III.
207
Dunstan, St., I. 36 seq.
Durer, Albert, II. 9, 10
Dyer, Sir Edward, I. 203
Earle, John, I. 246
Eddas, the Scandinavian, I. 42-46; III.
123, 124
Edgeworth, Maria, III. 253
Edward VI, II. 28
Edwy and Elgiva, story of, I. 38
Eliot, George. See Evans, Mary A.
England, climate of, I. 33
English Constitution, formation of the,
I. 105
Elizabeth, Queen, I. 175-177, 245, 270
Elwin, Whitwell, III. 5
Erigena, John Scotus, I. 64, 69
Esménard, Joseph Alphonse, I. 163
Essex, Robert, Earl of, I. 270, 273
Etheredge, Sir George, II. 137, 158
Evans, Mary A. (George Eliot), III. 85,
179, 185
Eyck, Van, I. 151
Falkland, Lord, I. 245
Farnese, Pietro Luigi, II. 6
Farquhar, George, II. 188, 209
Faust, III. 47
Feltham, Owen, I. 246
Fenn, Sir John, I. 172
Ferguson, Dr. Adam, II. 304; III. 271
Fermor, Mrs. Arabella, III. 15, 16
Feudalism, the protection and character
of, I. 73
Fichte, III. 335
Fielding, Henry, I. 319; II. 135, 434-433,
450
Fitmore, Sir Robert, II. 305
Finsborough, Battle of, an Anglo-Saxon
poem, I. 54
Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, I.
275; II. 26
Flemish artists, I. 170, 178
Fletcher, Giles, II. 34
Fletcher, John, I. 291, 307-317; II. 45, 100
Ford, John, I. 291, 297 seq., 312; II. 248
Fortescue, Sir John, I. 113 seq.
Fox, Charles James, II. 276, 311, 315 seq.
Fox, George, II. 52, 58, 133
Fox, John, II. 13 seq.
Francis of Assisi, I. 161
Freeman, Edward A., I. 74
Frisians, the, I. 32, 33
Froissart, I. 83, 102, 126, 127, 132
Froude, J. A., I. 104; II. 15 seq.
Fuller, Thomas, I. 318
Gaimar, Geoffroy, I. 76, 92
Gainsborough, Thomas, landscape painter,
II. 220
Garrick, David, II. 444, 448
Gaskell, Mrs. Elisabeth C., III. 85, 185
Gay, John, II. 211, 279; III. 4, 29-32
Geoffrey of Monmouth, I. 134
German ideas, introduction of, in Europe
and England, III; 328
Germany, drinking habits in, II. 7
Gibbon, Edward, II. 444
Gladstone, William Ewart, III. 274
Glencoe, Massacre of, III. 302
Glover, Richard, III. 37
Godwin, William, II. 95
Goethe, I. 6, 18; II. 111, 118, 430; III. 48,
74, 125-131, 327
Goldsmith, Oliver, II. 211, 307, 440-443
Goltzius, I. 196
Gower, John, I. 90, 163
Grammont, Count de, II. 135, 169, 170
Gray, Thomas, III. 36
Greene, Robert, I. 206, 210, 281, 283, 364
Grenville, George, II. 310
Gresset, J. B. Lewis, III. 16
Grey, Lady Jane, I. 180, 270
Grostete, Robert, I. 90, 93
Grote, George, III. 185
Guicciardini, Ludovic, I. 173
Guido, I. 16
Guizot, I. 107; III. 276, 282, 305
Guy of Warwick, I. 77
Habington, William, I. 240
Hakluyt, Richard, I. 246
Hale, Sir Matthew, II. 16
Hales, John, I. 245; II. 35, 37, 301
Halifax, Charles, Montague, Earl of, II.
329, 334. 361, 366
Hall, Bishop, Joseph, I. 246; II. 35
Hallam, Henry, I. 118; III. 276
Hamilton, Anthony, II. 136 seq.
Hamilton, Sir William, III. 185
Hampden, John, III. 276
Hampole, I. 93
Hardyng, John, I. 269
Harrington, Sir John, I. 237
Harrison, William, I. 173 seq.
Hastings, Warren, II. 317; III. 272, 285,
291
Hawes, Stephen, I. 165
Hegel, I. 18, 22, 159; II. 271, 331 seq.
Heine, I. 2, 32, 360; III. 39, 48, 74, 87
Hemling, Hans, I. 170
Henry Beauclerk, I. 76
Henry of Huntingdon, I. 39, 76
Henry VIII and his Court, I. 269; II. 15
Herbert, George, I. 240
Herbert, Lord, I. 246
Herder, John Godfrey von, I. 6
Herrick, Robert, I. 238, 239
Hertford, Earl of, I. 270
Hervey, Lord, III. 26
Heywood, Mrs. Eliza, III. 18
Heywood, John, I. 186, 280
Hill, Aaron, III. 8
History, philosophy of. See the Introduction,
passim.
Hobbes, Thomas, II. 147-152, 250
Hogarth, William, II. 450-453; III. 18
Holinslied's Chronicles, I. 176, 246, 275
Holland, I. 31 seq.
Homer and Spenser, I. 217
Hooker, Richard, I. 245; II. 35 seq.
Horn, Ring, romance of, I. 77, 100
Hoveden, John, I. 90
Howard, John, II. 320
Howe, John, III. 299
Hugo, Victor, I. 2, 165; II. 270; III. 74, 87
Hume, David, II. 304, 440; III. 294, 352
Hunter, William, martyrdom of, II.
31, 32
Hutcheson, Francis, II. 304, 320; III. 271
Iceland and its legends, I. 35, 42
Independency in the sixteenth century,
II. 49 seq., 90
Industry, British, in the nineteenth century,
III. 165
Irish, the ancient, I. 38
Italian writings and ideas, taste for, in
sixteenth century, I. 181, 182; vices of
the Italian Renaissance, II. 3-7
James I and his Court, I. 237 seq.
James II, III. 282
Jewell, Bishop, I. 277
Johnson, Samuel, I. 319; II. 303, 321, 444-453;
III. 10, 38, 345
Joinville, Sire de, I. 83
Jones, Inigo, I. 174, 321
Jones, Sir William, II. 444
Jonson, Ben, I. 208, 265, 280; II. 100; III.
155; sketch of his life, I. 318-321; his
learning, style, etc., 321-327; his
dramas, 327-333; his comedies, 333-345;
compared with Molière, 345; fanciful
comedies and smaller poems, 345-350
Jordaens, Jacob, I. 178
Jowett, Benjamin, III. 100, 334
Judith, poem of, I. 60, 61
Junius, Letters of, II. 311 seq.; III. 106
Jutes, the, and their country, I. 31 seq.
Keats, John, III. 130
Kemble, John M., I. 37, 49
Knighton, Henry, I. 123
Knolles, Richard, I. 246
Knox, John, II. 8, 28; III. 354
Kyd, Thomas, I. 280
Lackland, John, I. 102
LaHarpe, III. 345
Lamartine, I. 2; III. 74, 87
Lamb, Charles, III. 73, 76
Languet, Hubert, I. 194
Latimer, Bishop, I. 109; II. 17, 27 seq.
Lanfranc, first Norman Archbishop of
Canterbury, I. 76
Langtoft, Peter, I. 90
Laud, Archbishop, II. 38; III. 287
Lavergne, Léonce de, I. 33
Law, William, II. 303
Layamon, I. 92
Lebrun, Ponce Denis Econchard, I. 163
Lee, Nathaniel, II. 241
Leibnitz, III. 23
Leighton, Dr. Alexander, II. 49, 88
Lely, Sir Peter, II. 320
Leo X, Pope, II. 4
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, I. 4
Lingard, Dr. John, I. 34, 35
Locke, John, II. 71, 300, 303 seq., 320
Lockhart, John Gibson, III. 78
Lodge, Thomas, I. 204, 280
Lombard, Peter, I. 157, 160
Loménie de Brienne, Cardinal, III. 311
London in Henry VIII's time, I. 173;
in the present day, III. 164
Longchamps, William, I. 97
Longus, Greek romance-writer, I. 209
Lorris, Guillaume de, I. 84, 95
Loyola, I. 161, 171; III. 273
Ludlow, Edmund, II. 51
Lulli, a renowned Italian composer, II.
233
Lully, Raymond; I. 161
Luther, Martin, I. 26, 171; II. 3-7; and the
Reformation, 7-14
Lydgate, John, I. 164, 165
Lyly, John, I. 192
Lyly, William, I. 180
Macaulay, Thomas Babington (Lord),
III. 100; his works, 267-307
Machiavelli, I. 183
Mackenzie, Henry, III. 35, 51
Mackintosh, Sir James, III. 276
Macpherson, James, III. 36
Malcolm, Sir John, III. 78
Malherbe, Francis de, III. 329
Malte-brun, Conrad, I. 31
Mandeville, Bernard, II. 303
Manners of the people in the sixteenth
century, I. 178 seq.
Marguerite of Navarre, I. 132
Marlborough, Duchess of, III. 26
Marlborough, Duke of, II. 275, 307; III.
259
Marlowe, Christopher, I. 211, 280; III. 73;
his dramas, I. 282-291
Marston, John, I. 320
Martyr, Peter, II. 23
Martyrs in the reign of Mary, II. 30-34
Marvell, Andrew, II. 254
Masques, under James I, I. 177, 348
Massillon, II. 28
Massinger, Philip, I. 280, 281, 297 seq.
Maundeville, Sir John, I. 91, 102
May, Thomas, II. 57
Medici, Lorenzo de, I. 182
Melanchthon, Philip, II. 13, 23
Merlin, I. 77
Meung, Jean de, I. 93, 162
Michelet, Jules, I. 4, 57; III. 325
Middleton, Thomas, I. 291
Mill, John Stuart, III. 100, 176, 360-408
Milton, John, I. 62, 215, 245; II. 71-84; his
prose writings, 84-100; his poetry, 100-128,
347, 348; III. 272
Molière, I. 213, 359, 361; II. 188 seq., 418;
III. 214
Mommsen, Theodor, I. 19
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, II. 424;
III. 8, 15
Montesquieu, Ch., I. 21, 25
Moore, Thomas, II. 440; III. 75, 138
More, Sir Thomas, I. 246, 276
Müller, Max, III. 361
Muller, Ottfried, I. 6
Murray, John, III. 78, 138, 140
Musset, Alfred de, I. 2, 199, 282, 324, 358;
II. 267; III. 39, 74, 87, 430
Nash, Thomas, I. 281
Nayler, James, II. 53, 57
Neal's History of the Puritans, II. 53, 88
Newcastle, Duchess of (Margaret Lucas),
II. 187
Newspaper, first daily, III. 44
Newton, Sir Isaac, II. 289, 301
Nicole, Peter, II. 283
Norman Conquest, the, I. 71, 72, 73; its
effects on the national language and
literature, 87 seq., 123-125; III. 151
Normans, the character of, I. 74; how
they became French, 75; their taste
and architecture, 75; their literature,
chivalry, and success, 76-80; their position
and tyranny in England, 87-90; III.
152
Nott, Dr. John, I. 191
Novel, the English--its characteristics,
II. 402 seq.; the modern school of novelists,
III. 185
Nut-brown Maid, the--an ancient ballad,
190
Oates, Titus, II. 257
Occam, William, I. 161
Occleve, Thomas, I. 163
Ochin, Bernard, II. 23
Oliphant, Mrs., II. 424
Olivers, Thomas, II. 290
Orrery, Earl of, III. 8
Otway, Thomas, II. 241, 248
Ouseley, Sir William, III. 78
Overbury, Sir Thomas, I. 246
Owen, John, II. 58
Paganism of poetry and painting in
Italy in the sixteenth century, I. 181
seq.
Paley, William, II. 300
Palgrave, Sir Francis, I. 33
Parnell, Dr. Thomas, III. 4
Pascal, III. 300, 400; III. 25, 306
Pastoral poetry, I. 204 seq.
Peele, George, I. 280
Penn, William, II. 288; III. 299
Pepys, Samuel, II. 142, 143, 146
Percy, Thomas, III. 73
Petrarch, I. 126, 185, 190
Philips, Ambrose, III. 4
Philosophy and history, III. 308
Philosophy and poetry, connection of,
I. 157
Picts, I. 38
Pickering, Dr. Gilbert, II. 223
Piers Plowman's Crede, I. 122
Piers Ploughman, Vision of, I. 120 seq.,
185
Pitt, William, first Earl of Chatham, II.
276, 310 seq.; III. 275
Pitt, William (second son of the preceding),
II. 311, 217 seq.; III. 65
Pleiad, the, I. 18
Pluche, Abbé, II. 342
Poe, Edgar Allan, II. 405
Pope, Alexander, II. 252, 328, 332, 381;
III. 5-28, 112, 117, 28O
Prayer-book, English, II. 23-27
Preaching at the Reformation period,
II. 27
Presbyterians and Independents in the
sixteenth century, II. 49 seq., 90
Price, Dr. Richard, II. 304, 321; III. 271
Priestly, Dr., III. 66
Prior, Matthew, III. 4, 28
Proclus, I. 159
Prynne, William, II. 57
Pulci, an Italian painter, I. 182
Pultock, Robert, II. 438
Purchas, Samuel, I. 246
Puritans, the, II. 45 seq., 132 seq.
Puttenham, George, I. 185, 246
Pym, John, III. 276
Quarles, Francis, I. 240
Rabelais, I. 149, 222, 265, 366; II. 144, 388,
438
Racine, I. 371; II. 224, 284; III. 218, 306
Raleigh, Sir Walter, I. 214, 246, 273; II, 34
Rapin, II. 224
Ray, John, II. 303
Reformation in England made way for
by the Saxon character and the situation
of the Norman Church, I. 122-125,
165; II. 7 seq.
Reid, Thomas, II. 304, 320, 440
Renaissance, the English; manners of
the time, I. 169-185; the theatre its
original product, 264 seq.
Renan, Ernest, I. 19, 127
Restoration, period of the, in England,
II. 131 seq., 209
Revolution, period of the, in England,
II. 273 seq.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, II. 220, 320, 444
Richard Cœur de Lion, I. 101
Richardson, Samuel, II. 135, 303, 412-424,
444; III. 8, 35
Ridley, Nicholas, II. 30
Ritson, Joseph, I. 108 seq.
Robert of Brunne, I. 93
Robert of Gloucester, I. 93
Robertson, Dr. William, II. 440; III. 3,
38, 352
Robespierre, II. 284
Robin Hood ballads, I. 109 seq., 178, 185
Rochester, Earl of (John Wilmot), II.
143 seq., 184, 337; III. 28, 140
Rogers, John, martyrdom of, II. 31
Rogers, Samuel, III. 112
Roland, Song of, I. 77, 81 seq.
Rollo, a Norse leader, I. 74
Ronsard, Peter de, I. 18
Roscellinus, I. 160
Roscommon, Earl of, II. 184
Roses, wars of the, I. 114, 124, 172, 287
Rotheland, Hugh de, I. 90
Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste, III. 22
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, II. 447; III. 16, 34
Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul, III. 392
Rubens, I. 151, 177, 178, 232, 366; III. 27
Rückert, III. 74
Russel, Lord William, II. 141
Sacheverell, Dr., II. 273, 306
Sacy, Lemaistre de, II. 22
Sadeler, I. 196
Sainte-Beuve, I. 6
St. John. See Bolingbroke, Lord
Saint-Simon, I. 3; III. 217
St. Theresa, I. 161
Saintré, Jehan de, I. 102
Sand, George. See Dudevant, Madame
Savage, Richard, III. 18
Sawtré, William, I. 124
Saxons, the, I. 31 seq.; characteristics of
the race, 71; contrast with the Normans,
74, 75; their endurance, 103 seq.;
their invasion of England, III. 151, 152
Scaliger, III. 345
Schelling, I. 22
Schiller, III. 48, 74, 87
Scotland in the seventeenth century, II.
134
Scott, Sir Walter, I. 4; II. 222, 361 seq.,
440; III. 74, 105, 107, 260; his novels and
poems, 78
Scotus, Duns, I. 159 seq.
Scudéry, Mademoiselle de, I. 195
Sedley, Sir Charles, I. 240; II. 179
Selden, John, I. 246
Seres, William, II. 47
Settle, Elkanah, II. 225, 240
Sévigné, Madame de, III. 15, 306
Shadwell, Thomas, II. 157, 240, 261
Shaftesbury, Anthony Cooper, third
Earl of, II. 304
Shakespeare, William, I. 186, 206, 245,
280; II. 230, 238 seq.; III. 155; general
idea of, I. 350-353; his life and character,
354-366; his style, 366-371, and manners,
372-377; his dramatis personæ,
377-382; his men of wit, 382-386, and
women, 386-391; his villains, 391, 392;
the principal characters in his plays,
393-407; fancy, imagination--ideas of
existence--love; harmony between the
artist and his work, 407-419
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, III. 74, 95-100, 130
Shenstone, William, III. 37
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, II. 212 seq.,
311, 440
Sherlock, Bishop, II. 292, 301, 412
Shirley, James, I. 280; II. 153
Sidney, Algernon, I. 245; II. 71, 141
Sidney, Sir Phillip, I. 186, 194-204, 245,
266; II. 39; III. 155
Skelton, John, I. 165
Smart, Christopher, III. 37
Smith, Adam, II. 304, 320
Smith, Sidney, II. 282; III. 100
Smollett, Tobias, II. 308, 433-437, 440
Society in Great Britain in the present
day, III. 169; in England and in
France, 430
South, Dr. Robert, II. 292, 295
Southern, Thomas, II. 241
Southey, Robert, II. 438; III. 72, 76, 134,
287
Speed, John, I. 246
Spelman, Sir Henry, I. 246
Spencer, Herbert, III. 185
Spencer, Edmund, I. 186, 207, 213, 245;
II. 71, 110; his life, character and
poetry, I. 214-237; II. 236; III. 155, 424
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, III. 100, 334
Steele, Sir Richard, II. 311, 327; III. 259
Stendhal, Count de, I. 25, 74, 142
Sterling, John, III. 309
Sterne, Laurence, II. 437-440; III. 35
Stewart, Dugald, II. 320, 440; III. 61
Stillingfleet, Bishop, II. 292, 301
Stowe, John, I. 246
Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of,
III. 276
Strafford, William, I. 172
Strype, John, I. 268
Stubbes, John, I. 175, 180
Suckling, Sir John, I. 238; II. 181
Sue, Eugène, III. 220
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, I. 185-192;
II. 16
Swift, Jonathan, II. 135. 224, 303, 311, 327
seq.; III. 259, 288; sketch of his life, II.
360-368; his wit, 368-371; his pamphlets,
371-379; his poetry, 380-389; his philosophy,
etc., 389-401
Taillefer, I. 79, 89
Tasso, I. 222, 229
Taylor, Jeremy, I. 246; II. 35, 38, 44
Temple, Sir William, II. 173, 365, 389;
III. 3, 272
Teniers, David, III. 83
Tennyson, Alfred, III. 100, 185, 410-438
Thackeray, William M. III. 85, 100; his
novels, 223-265
Theatre, the, in the sixteenth century, I.
264 seq.; after the Restoration, II. 153-155,
188 seq., 226 seq.
Thibaut of Champagne, I. 84
Thierry, Augustin, I. 4, 35, 56, 88; III. 305
Thiers, Louis Adolphe, III. 282, 305
Thomson, James, III. 32-35
Thorpe, John, I. 47, 55
Tickell, Thomas, III. 4
Tillotson, Archbishop, II. 292 seq.
Tindal, Matthew, II. 303
Titian, I. 236, 366
Tocqueville, Alexis de, I. 19
Toland, John, II. 303
Toleration Act, the, III. 298, 299, 300
Tomkins, Thomas, II. 32
Townley, James, II. 220
Turner, Sharon, I. 48, 54 seq.
Tutchin, John, III. 18
Tyndale, William, II. 19 seq., 28, 47
Urfé, Honoré d', I. 197, 315
Usher, James, I. 246
Vanbrugh, Sir John, II. 187-209
Vane, Sir Harry, II. 143
Vega, Lope de, I. 161, 279; II. 155
Village feasts of sixteenth century described,
I. 178-180
Villehardouin, a French chronicler, I.
83, 102
Vinci, Leonardo da, I. 16
Voltaire, I. 16; II. 447; III. 22, 137, 346
Vos, Martin de, I. 196
Wace, Robert, I. 76, 78 seq., 89
Waller, Edmund, I. 240; II. 71, 153, 181-184;
III. 3
Walpole, Horace, III. 15
Walpole, Sir Robert, II. 274, 280
Walton, Isaac, I. 246
Warburton, Bishop, II. 303
Warner, William, I. 212
Warton, Thomas, I. 72, 88, 95, 162; III. 73
Watt, James, II. 320
Watteau, Anthony, III. 14
Watts, Isaac, III. 37
Webster, John, 291, 297 seq.; II. 248
Wesley, John, II. 280-291
Wetherell, Elizabeth, III. 179
Wharton, Lord, III. 26
Whitfield, George, II. 289-230
Wiclif, John, I. 123, 286; II. 15
Wilkes, John, II. 310
William III, II. 173
Wither, George, II. 35
William of Malmesbury, I. 75
William the Conqueror, I. 78 seq.
Windham, William, II. 311
Witenagemote, the, I. 46
Wollastom William Hyde, III. 271
Wolsey, Cardinal, I. 165; II. 16
Wordsworth, William, III. 73, 88-95
Wortley, Lady Mary. See Montagu
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, I. 185, 180, 187
Wycherley, William, I. 18; II. 157-167,
178, 187, 188, 202, 250, 337
Yonge, Charlotte Mary, III. 179
Young, Arthur, II. 320
Young, Edward, III. 37