THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
1. +Science.+-- The second half of the nineteenth century is
distinguished by the enormous advance made in science, and in the
application of science to the industries and occupations of the people.
Chemistry and electricity have more especially made enormous strides.
Within the last twenty years, chemistry has remade itself into a new
science; and electricity has taken a very large part of the labour of
mankind upon itself. It carries our messages round the world-- under the
deepest seas, over the highest mountains, to every continent, and to
every great city; it lights up our streets and public halls; it drives
our engines and propels our trains. But the powers of imagination, the
great literary powers of poetry, and of eloquent prose,-- especially in
the domain of fiction,-- have not decreased because science has grown.
They have rather shown stronger developments. We must, at the same time,
remember that a great deal of the literary work published by the writers
who lived, or are still living, in the latter half of this century, was
written in the former half. Thus, Longfellow was a man of forty-three,
and Tennyson was forty-one, in the year 1850; and both had by that time
done a great deal of their best work. The same is true of the
prose-writers, Thackeray, Dickens, and Ruskin.
2. +Poets and Prose-Writers.+-- The six greatest poets of the latter
half of this century are +Longfellow+, a distinguished American poet,
+Tennyson+, +Mrs Browning+, +Robert Browning+, +William Morris+, and
+Matthew Arnold+. Of these, Mrs Browning and Longfellow are dead--
Mrs Browning having died in 1861, and Longfellow in 1882. --The four
greatest writers of prose are +Thackeray+, +Dickens+, +George Eliot+,
and +Ruskin+. Of these, only Ruskin is alive.
3. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (+1807-1882+), the most popular of
American poets, and as popular in Great Britain as he is in the United
States, was born at Portland, Maine, in the year 1807. He was educated
at Bowdoin College, and took his degree there in the year 1825. His
profession was to have been the law; but, from the first, the whole bent
of his talents and character was literary. At the extraordinary age of
eighteen the professorship of modern languages in his own college was
offered to him; it was eagerly accepted, and in order to qualify himself
for his duties, he spent the next four years in Germany, France, Spain,
and Italy. His first important prose work was +Outre-Mer+, or a
+Pilgrimage beyond the Sea+. In 1837 he was offered the Chair of Modern
Languages and Literature in Harvard University, and he again paid a
visit to Europe-- this time giving his thoughts and study chiefly to
Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia. In 1839 he published the prose
romance called +Hyperion+. But it was not as a prose-writer that
Longfellow gained the secure place he has in the hearts of the
English-speaking peoples; it was as a poet. His first volume of poems
was called +Voices of the Night+, and appeared in 1841; Evangeline was
published in 1848; and +Hiawatha+, on which his poetical reputation is
perhaps most firmly based, in 1855. Many other volumes of poetry-- both
original and translations-- have also come from his pen; but these are
the best. The University of Oxford created him Doctor of Civil Law in
1869. He died at Harvard in the year 1882. A man of singularly mild and
gentle character, of sweet and charming manners, his own lines may be
applied to him with perfect appropriateness--
“His gracious presence upon earth
Was as a fire upon a hearth;
As pleasant songs, at morning sung,
The words that dropped from his sweet tongue
Strengthened our hearts, or-- heard at night--
Made all our slumbers soft and light.”
4. +Longfellow’s Style.+-- In one of his prose works, Longfellow himself
says, “In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme
excellence is simplicity.” This simplicity he steadily aimed at, and in
almost all his writings reached; and the result is the sweet lucidity
which is manifest in his best poems. His verse has been characterised as
“simple, musical, sincere, sympathetic, clear as crystal, and pure as
snow.” He has written in a great variety of measures-- in more, perhaps,
than have been employed by Tennyson himself. His “Evangeline” is written
in a kind of dactylic hexameter, which does not always scan, but which
is almost always musical and impressive--
“Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey;
Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.”
The “Hiawatha,” again, is written in a trochaic measure-- each verse
containing four trochees--
“‘Farewell!’ said he, ‘Minnehaha,
Farewell, O my laughing water!
All my heart is buried with you,
All´ my | thou´ghts go | on´ward | wi´th you!’”
He is always careful and painstaking with his rhythm and with the
cadence of his verse. It may be said with truth that Longfellow has
taught more people to love poetry than any other English writer, however
great.
5. ALFRED TENNYSON, a great English poet, who has written beautiful
poetry for more than fifty years, was born at Somersby, in Lincolnshire,
in the year 1809. He is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom are
poets. He was educated at Cambridge, and some of his poems have shown,
in a striking light, the forgotten beauty of the fens and flats of
Cambridge and Lincolnshire. In 1829 he obtained the Chancellor’s medal
for a poem on “Timbuctoo.” In 1830 he published his first volume, with
the title of +Poems chiefly Lyrical+-- a volume which contained, among
other beautiful verses, the “Recollections of the Arabian Nights” and
“The Dying Swan.” In 1833 he issued another volume, called simply
+Poems+; and this contained the exquisite poems entitled “The Miller’s
Daughter” and “The Lotos-Eaters.” +The Princess+, a poem as remarkable
for its striking thoughts as for its perfection of language, appeared in
1847. The +In Memoriam+, a long series of short poems in memory of his
dear friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Hallam the historian, was
published in the year 1850. When Wordsworth died in 1850, Tennyson was
appointed to the office of Poet-Laureate. This office, from the time
when Dryden was forced to resign it in 1689, to the time when Southey
accepted it in 1813, had always been held by third or fourth rate
writers; in the present day it is held by the man who has done the
largest amount of the best poetical work. +The Idylls of the King+
appeared in 1859. This series of poems-- perhaps his greatest-- contains
the stories of “Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” Many other
volumes of poems have been given by him to the world. In his old age he
has taken to the writing of ballads and dramas. His ballad of +The
Revenge+ is one of the noblest and most vigorous poems that England has
ever seen. The dramas of +Harold+, +Queen Mary+, and +Becket+, are
perhaps his best; and the last was written when the poet had reached the
age of seventy-four. In the year 1882 he was created Baron Tennyson, and
called to the House of Peers.
6. +Tennyson’s Style.+-- Tennyson has been to the last two generations
of Englishmen the national teacher of poetry. He has tried many new
measures; he has ventured on many new rhythms; and he has succeeded in
them all. He is at home equally in the slowest, most tranquil, and most
meditative of rhythms, and in the rapidest and most impulsive. Let us
look at the following lines as an example of the first. The poem is
written on a woman who is dying of a lingering disease--
“Fair is her cottage in its place,
Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides:
It sees itself from thatch to base
Dream in the sliding tides.
“And fairer she: but, ah! how soon to die!
Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease:
Her peaceful being slowly passes by
To some more perfect peace.”
The very next poem, “The Sailor Boy,” in the same volume, is-- though
written in exactly the same measure-- driven on with the most rapid
march and vigorous rhythm--
“He rose at dawn and, fired with hope,
Shot o’er the seething harbour-bar,
And reached the ship and caught the rope
And whistled to the morning-star.”
And this is a striking and prominent characteristic of all Tennyson’s
poetry. Everywhere the sound is made to be “an echo to the sense”; the
style is in perfect keeping with the matter. In the “Lotos-Eaters,” we
have the sense of complete indolence and deep repose in--
“A land of streams! Some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go.”
In the “Boädicea,” we have the rush and the shock of battle, the closing
of legions, the hurtle of arms and the clash of armed men--
“Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred,
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.”
Many of Tennyson’s sweetest and most pathetic lines have gone right into
the heart of the nation, such as--
“But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!”
All his language is highly polished, ornate, rich-- sometimes Spenserian
in luxuriant imagery and sweet music, sometimes even Homeric in
massiveness and severe simplicity. Thus, in the “Morte d’Arthur,” he
speaks of the knight walking to the lake as--
“Clothed with his breath, and looking as he walked,
Larger than human on the frozen hills.”
Many of his pithy lines have taken root in the memory of the English
people, such as these--
“Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.”
“For words, like Nature, half reveal,
And half conceal, the soul within.”
“Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”
7. ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT, afterwards MRS BROWNING, the greatest
poetess of this century, was born in London in the year 1809. She wrote
verses “at the age of eight-- and earlier,” she says; and her first
volume of poems was published when she was seventeen. When still a girl,
she broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, was ordered to a warmer climate
than that of London; and her brother, whom she loved very dearly, took
her down to Torquay. There a terrible tragedy was enacted before her
eyes. One day the weather and the water looked very tempting; her
brother took a sailing-boat for a short cruise in Torbay; the boat went
down in front of the house, and in view of his sister; the body was
never recovered. This sad event completely destroyed her already weak
health; she returned to London, and spent several years in a darkened
room. Here she “read almost every book worth reading in almost every
language, and gave herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she
seemed born to be the priestess.” This way of life lasted for many
years: and, in the course of it, she published several volumes of noble
verse. In 1846 she married Robert Browning, also a great poet. In 1856
she brought out +Aurora Leigh+, her longest, and probably also her
greatest, poem. Mr Ruskin called it “the greatest poem which the century
has produced in any language;” but this is going too far. --Mrs Browning
will probably be longest remembered by her incomparable sonnets and by
her lyrics, which are full of pathos and passion. Perhaps her two finest
poems in this kind are the +Cry of the Children+ and +Cowper’s Grave+.
All her poems show an enormous power of eloquent, penetrating, and
picturesque language; and many of them are melodious with a rich and
wonderful music. She died in 1861.
[Transcriber’s Note:
The above paragraph is given as printed. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
was born Elizabeth Barrett Moulton, later Moulton-Barrett, in 1806.
Her year of birth was universally given as 1809 until some time after
Robert Browning’s death. Her brother’s fatal accident took place in
1840.]
8. ROBERT BROWNING, the most daring and original poet of the century,
was born in Camberwell, a southern suburb of London, in the year 1812.
He was privately educated. In 1836 he published his first poem
+Paracelsus+, which many wondered at, but few read. It was the story of
a man who had lost his way in the mazes of thought about life,-- about
its why and wherefore,-- about this world and the next,-- about himself
and his relations to God and his fellow-men. Mr Browning has written
many plays, but they are more fit for reading in the study than for
acting on the stage. His greatest work is +The Ring and the Book+; and
it is most probably by this that his name will live in future ages. Of
his minor poems, the best known and most popular is +The Pied Piper of
Hamelin+-- a poem which is a great favourite with all young people, from
the picturesqueness and vigour of the verse. The most deeply pathetic of
his minor poems is +Evelyn Hope+:--
“So, hush,-- I will give you this leaf to keep--
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand,
There! that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.”
9. +Browning’s Style.+-- Browning’s language is almost always very hard
to understand; but the meaning, when we have got at it, is well worth
all the trouble that may have been taken to reach it. His poems are more
full of thought and more rich in experience than those of any other
English writer except Shakspeare. The thoughts and emotions which throng
his mind at the same moment so crowd upon and jostle each other, become
so inextricably intermingled, that it is very often extremely difficult
for us to make out any meaning at all. Then many of his thoughts are so
subtle and so profound that they cannot easily be drawn up from the
depths in which they lie. No man can write with greater directness,
greater lyric vigour, fire, and impulse, than Browning when he chooses--
write more clearly and forcibly about such subjects as love and war; but
it is very seldom that he does choose. The infinite complexity of human
life and its manifold experiences have seized and imprisoned his
imagination; and it is not often that he speaks in a clear, free voice.
10. MATTHEW ARNOLD, one of the finest poets and noblest stylists of the
age, was born at Laleham, near Staines, on the Thames, in the year 1822.
He is the eldest son of the great Dr Arnold, the famous Head-master of
Rugby. He was educated at Winchester and Rugby, from which latter school
he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. The Newdigate prize for English
verse was won by him in 1843-- the subject of his poem being +Cromwell+.
His first volume of poems was published in 1848. In the year 1851 he was
appointed one of H.M. Inspectors of Schools; and he held that office up
to the year 1885. In 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry in the
University of Oxford. In 1868 appeared a new volume with the simple
title of +New Poems+; and, since then, he has produced a large number of
books, mostly in prose. He is no less famous as a critic than as a poet;
and his prose is singularly beautiful and musical.
11. +Arnold’s Style.+-- The chief qualities of his verse are clearness,
simplicity, strong directness, noble and musical rhythm, and a certain
intense calm. His lines on +Morality+ give a good idea of his style:--
“We cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides:
The spirit bloweth and is still
In mystery our soul abides:
But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish ’twere done.
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.”
His finest poem in blank verse is his +Sohrab and Rustum+-- a tale of
the Tartar wastes. One of his noblest poems, called +Rugby Chapel+,
describes the strong and elevated character of his father, the
Head-master of Rugby. --His prose is remarkable for its lucidity, its
pleasant and almost conversational rhythm, and its perfection of
language.
12. WILLIAM MORRIS, a great narrative poet, was born near London in the
year 1834. He was educated at Marlborough and at Exeter College, Oxford.
In 1858 appeared his first volume of poems. In 1863 he began a business
for the production of artistic wall-paper, stained glass, and furniture;
he has a shop for the sale of these works of art in Oxford Street,
London; and he devotes most of his time to drawing and designing for
artistic manufacturers. His first poem, +The Life and Death of Jason+,
appeared in 1867; and his magnificent series of narrative poems-- +The
Earthly Paradise+-- was published in the years from 1868 and 1870. ‘The
Earthly Paradise’ consists of twenty-four tales in verse, set in a
framework much like that of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales.’ The poetic
power in these tales is second only to that of Chaucer; and Morris has
always acknowledged himself to be a pupil of Chaucer’s--
“Thou, my Master still,
Whatever feet have climbed Parnassus’ hill.”
Mr Morris has also translated the Æneid of Virgil, and several works
from the Icelandic.
13. +Morris’s Style.+-- Clearness, strength, music, picturesqueness, and
easy flow, are the chief characteristics of Morris’s style. Of the month
of April he says:--
“O fair midspring, besung so oft and oft,
How can I praise thy loveliness enow?
Thy sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft
That o’er the blossoms of the orchard blow,
The thousand things that ’neath the young leaves grow
The hopes and chances of the growing year,
Winter forgotten long, and summer near.”
His pictorial power-- the power of bringing a person or a scene fully
and adequately before one’s eyes by the aid of words alone-- is as great
as that of Chaucer. The following is his picture of Edward III. in
middle age:--
“Broad-browed he was, hook-nosed, with wide grey eyes
No longer eager for the coming prize,
But keen and steadfast: many an ageing line,
Half-hidden by his sweeping beard and fine,
Ploughed his thin cheeks; his hair was more than grey,
And like to one he seemed whose better day
Is over to himself, though foolish fame
Shouts louder year by year his empty name.
Unarmed he was, nor clad upon that morn
Much like a king: an ivory hunting-horn
Was slung about him, rich with gems and gold,
And a great white ger-falcon did he hold
Upon his fist; before his feet there sat
A scrivener making notes of this and that
As the King bade him, and behind his chair
His captains stood in armour rich and fair.”
Morris’s stores of language are as rich as Spenser’s; and he has much
the same copious and musical flow of poetic words and phrases.
14. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (+1811-1863+), one of the most original
of English novelists, was born at Calcutta in the year 1811. The son of
a gentleman high in the civil service of the East India Company, he was
sent to England to be educated, and was some years at Charterhouse
School, where one of his schoolfellows was Alfred Tennyson. He then went
on to the University of Cambridge, which he left without taking a
degree. Painting was the profession that he at first chose; and he
studied art both in France and Germany. At the age of twenty-nine,
however, he discovered that he was on a false tack, gave up painting,
and took to literary work as his true field. He contributed many
pleasant articles to ‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ under the name of +Michael
Angelo Titmarsh+; and one of his most beautiful and most pathetic
stories, +The Great Hoggarty Diamond+, was also written under this name.
He did not, however, take his true place as an English novelist of the
first rank until the year 1847, when he published his first serial
novel, +Vanity Fair+. Readers now began everywhere to class him with
Charles Dickens, and even above him. His most beautiful work is perhaps
+The Newcomes+; but the work which exhibits most fully the wonderful
power of his art and his intimate knowledge of the spirit and the
details of our older English life is +The History of Henry Esmond+--
a work written in the style and language of the days of Queen Anne, and
as beautiful as anything ever done by Addison himself. He died in the
year 1863.
15. CHARLES DICKENS (+1812-1870+), the most popular writer of this
century, was born at Landport, Portsmouth, in the year 1812. His
delicate constitution debarred him from mixing in boyish sports, and
very early made him a great reader. There was a little garret in his
father’s house where a small collection of books was kept; and, hidden
away in this room, young Charles devoured such books as the ‘Vicar of
Wakefield,’ ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and many other famous English books. This
was in Chatham. The family next removed to London, where the father was
thrown into prison for debt. The little boy, weakly and sensitive, was
now sent to work in a blacking manufactory at six shillings a-week, his
duty being to cover the blacking-pots with paper. “No words can
express,” he says, “the secret agony of my soul, as I compared these my
everyday associates with those of my happier childhood, and felt my
early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed
in my breast.... The misery it was to my young heart to believe that,
day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and
raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from me, never
to be brought back any more, cannot be written.” When his father’s
affairs took a turn for the better, he was sent to school; but it was to
a school where “the boys trained white mice much better than the master
trained the boys.” In fact, his true education consisted in his eager
perusal of a large number of miscellaneous books. When he came to think
of what he should do in the world, the profession of reporter took his
fancy; and, by the time he was nineteen, he had made himself the
quickest and most accurate-- that is, the best reporter in the Gallery
of the House of Commons. His first work, +Sketches by Boz+, was
published in 1836. In 1837 appeared the +Pickwick Papers+; and this work
at once lifted Dickens into the foremost rank as a popular writer of
fiction. From this time he was almost constantly engaged in writing
novels. His +Oliver Twist+ and +David Copperfield+ contain reminiscences
of his own life; and perhaps the latter is his most powerful work. “Like
many fond parents,” he wrote, “I have in my heart of hearts a favourite
child; and his name is _David Copperfield_.” He lived with all the
strength of his heart and soul in the creations of his imagination and
fancy while he was writing about them; he says himself, “No one can ever
believe this narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in the
writing;” and each novel, as he wrote it, made him older and leaner.
Great knowledge of the lives of the poor, and great sympathy with them,
were among his most striking gifts; and Sir Arthur Helps goes so far as
to say, “I doubt much whether there has ever been a writer of fiction
who took such a real and living interest in the world about him.” He
died in the year 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
16. +Dickens’s Style.+-- His style is easy, flowing, vigorous,
picturesque, and humorous; his power of language is very great; and,
when he is writing under the influence of strong passion, it rises into
a pure and noble eloquence. The scenery-- the external circumstances of
his characters, are steeped in the same colours as the characters
themselves; everything he touches seems to be filled with life and to
speak-- to look happy or sorrowful,-- to reflect the feelings of the
persons. His comic and humorous powers are very great; but his tragic
power is also enormous-- his power of depicting the fiercest passions
that tear the human breast,-- avarice, hate, fear, revenge, remorse. The
great American statesman, Daniel Webster, said that Dickens had done
more to better the condition of the English poor than all the statesmen
Great Britain had ever sent into the English Parliament.
17. JOHN RUSKIN, the greatest living master of English prose, an
art-critic and thinker, was born in London in the year 1819. In his
father’s house he was accustomed “to no other prospect than that of the
brick walls over the way; he had no brothers, nor sisters, nor
companions.” To his London birth he ascribes the great charm that the
beauties of nature had for him from his boyhood: he felt the contrast
between town and country, and saw what no country-bred child could have
seen in sights that were usual to him from his infancy. He was educated
at Christ Church, Oxford, and gained the Newdigate prize for poetry in
1839. He at first devoted himself to painting; but his true and
strongest genius lay in the direction of literature. In 1843 appeared
the first volume of his +Modern Painters+, which is perhaps his greatest
work; and the four other volumes were published between that date and
the year 1860. In this work he discusses the qualities and the merits of
the greatest painters of the English, the Italian, and other schools. In
1851 he produced a charming fairy tale, ‘The King of the Golden River,
or the Black Brothers.’ He has written on architecture also, on
political economy, and on many other social subjects. He is the founder
of a society called “The St George’s Guild,” the purpose of which is to
spread abroad sound notions of what true life and true art are, and
especially to make the life of the poor more endurable and better worth
living.
18. +Ruskin’s Style.+-- A glowing eloquence, a splendid and full-flowing
music, wealth of phrase, aptness of epithet, opulence of ideas-- all
these qualities characterise the prose style of Mr Ruskin. His similes
are daring, but always true. Speaking of the countless statues that fill
the innumerable niches of the cathedral of Milan, he says that “it is as
though a flight of angels had alighted there and been struck to marble.”
His writings are full of the wisest sayings put into the most musical
and beautiful language. Here are a few:--
“Every act, every impulse, of virtue and vice, affects in any
creature, face, voice, nervous power, and vigour and harmony of
invention, at once. Perseverance in rightness of human conduct
renders, after a certain number of generations, human art possible;
every sin clouds it, be it ever so little a one; and persistent
vicious living and following of pleasure render, after a certain
number of generations, all art impossible.”
“In mortals, there is a care for trifles, which proceeds from love
and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles, which
comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also,
there is a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of
enjoyment, which is most base.”
His power of painting in words is incomparably greater than that of any
other English author: he almost infuses colour into his words and
phrases, so full are they of pictorial power. It would be impossible to
give any adequate idea of this power here; but a few lines may suffice
for the present:--
“The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia,
and its masses of enlarged and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints
were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were
penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour; it was
conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains
of God’s tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in
showers of light, every separate leaf quivered with buoyant and
burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the
sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald.”
19. GEORGE ELIOT (the literary name for +Marian Evans, 1819-1880+), one
of our greatest writers, was born in Warwickshire in the year 1819. She
was well and carefully educated; and her own serious and studious
character made her a careful thinker and a most diligent reader. For
some time the famous Herbert Spencer was her tutor; and under his care
her mind developed with surprising rapidity. She taught herself German,
French, Italian-- studied the best works in the literature of these
languages; and she was also fairly mistress of Greek and Latin. Besides
all these, she was an accomplished musician. --She was for some time
assistant-editor of the ‘Westminster Review.’ The first of her works
which called the attention of the public to her astonishing skill and
power as a novelist was her +Scenes of Clerical Life+. Her most popular
novel, +Adam Bede+, appeared in 1859; +Romola+ in 1863; and
+Middlemarch+ in 1872. She has also written a good deal of poetry, among
other volumes that entitled +The Legend of Jubal, and other Poems+. One
of her best poems is +The Spanish Gypsy+. She died in the year 1880.
20. +George Eliot’s Style.+-- Her style is everywhere pure and strong,
of the best and most vigorous English, not only broad in its power, but
often intense in its description of character and situation, and always
singularly adequate to the thought. Probably no novelist knew the
English character-- especially in the Midlands-- so well as she, or
could analyse it with so much subtlety and truth. She is entirely
mistress of the country dialects. In humour, pathos, knowledge of
character, power of putting a portrait firmly upon the canvas, no writer
surpasses her, and few come near her. Her power is sometimes almost
Shakespearian. Like Shakespeare, she gives us a large number of wise
sayings, expressed in the pithiest language. The following are a few:--
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
“It is easy finding reasons why other people should be patient.”
“Genius, at first, is little more than a great capacity for
receiving discipline.”
“Things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, half
owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in
unvisited tombs.”
“Nature never makes men who are at once energetically sympathetic
and minutely calculating.”
“To the far woods he wandered, listening,
And heard the birds their little stories sing
In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech--
Melted with tears, smiles, glances-- that can reach
More quickly through our frame’s deep-winding night,
And without thought raise thought’s best fruit, delight.”
TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
[Transcriber’s Note:
In the original book, the following table-- spanning 14 pages-- was
laid out in four columns: Writers; Works; Contemporary Events; Centuries
(through 1500) or Decades (beginning 1550).
Missing punctuation has been silently supplied.]
+Centuries/Decades+
WRITERS
Works
Contemporary Events
+500+
(_Author unknown._)
+Beowulf+ (brought over by Saxons and Angles from the Continent).
+600+
CAEDMON. A secular monk of Whitby. Died about +680+.
+Poems+ on the Creation and other subjects taken from the Old and
the New Testament.
Edwin (of Deira), King of the Angles, baptised 627.
+700+
BAEDA. +672-735+. “The Venerable Bede,” a monk of Jarrow-on-Tyne.
An +Ecclesiastical History+ in Latin. A translation of +St John’s
Gospel+ into English (lost).
First landing of the Danes, 787.
+800+
ALFRED THE GREAT. +849-901+. King; translator; prose-writer.
Translated into the English of Wessex, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History
and other Latin works. Is said to have begun the +Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle+.
The University of Oxford is said to have been founded in this
reign.
Compiled by monks in various monasteries.
+Anglo-Saxon Chronicle+, 875-1154.
+900+
ASSER. Bishop of Sherborne. Died +910+.
+Life of King Alfred+.
+1000+
(_Author unknown._)
A poem entitled +The Grave+.
+1100+
LAYAMON. +1150-1210+. A priest of Ernley-on-Severn.
+The Brut+ (1205), a poem on Brutus, the supposed first settler in
Britain.
John ascended the throne in 1199.
ORM or ORMIN. +1187-1237+. A canon of the Order of St Augustine.
+The Ormulum+ (1215), a set of religious services in metre.
+1200+
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER. +1255-1307+.
+Chronicle of England+ in rhyme (1297).
Magna Charta, 1215.
Henry III. ascends the throne, 1216.
ROBERT OF BRUNNE. (Robert Manning of Brun.) +1272-1340+.
+Chronicle of England+ in rhyme; _Handlyng Sinne_ (1303).
University of Cambridge founded, 1231.
Edward I. ascends the throne, 1272.
Conquest of Wales, 1284.
+1300+
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. +1300-1372+. Physician; traveller; prose-writer.
+The Voyaige and Travaile+. Travels to Jerusalem, India, and other
countries, written in Latin French and English (1356). The first
writer “in formed English.”
Edward II ascends the throne, 1307.
Battle of Bannockburn, 1314.
JOHN BARBOUR. Archdeacon of Aberdeen. +1316-1396+.
+The Bruce+ (1377), a poem written in the Northern English or
“Scottish” dialect.
Edward III. ascends the throne, 1327.
+1350+
JOHN WYCLIF. +1324-1384+. Vicar of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire.
Translation of the +Bible+ from the Latin version; and many tracts
and pamphlets on Church reform.
Hundred Years’ War begins, 1338.
Battle of Crecy, 1346.
JOHN GOWER. +1325-1408+. A country gentleman of Kent; probably also a
lawyer.
+Vox Clamantis+, +Confessio Amantis+, +Speculum Meditantis+ (1393);
and poems in French and Latin.
The Black Death, 1349, 1361, 1369.
WILLIAM LANGLANDE. +1332-1400+. Born in Shropshire.
+Vision concerning Piers the Plowman+-- three editions (1362-78).
Battle of Poitiers, 1356.
First law-pleadings in English, 1362.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER +1340-1400+. Poet; courtier; soldier; diplomatist;
Comptroller of the Customs: Clerk of the King’s Works; M.P.
+The Canterbury Tales+ (1384-98), of which the best is the +Knightes
Tale+. Dryden called him “a perpetual fountain of good sense.”
Richard II. ascends the throne, 1377.
Wat Tyler’s insurrection, 1381.
JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. +1394-1437+. Prisoner in England, and educated
there, in 1405.
+The King’s Quair+ (= _Book_), a poem in the style of Chaucer.
Henry IV. ascends the throne, 1399.
+1400+
WILLIAM CAXTON. +1422-1492+. Mercer; printer; translator;
prose-writer.
+The Game and Playe of the Chesse+ (1474)-- the first book printed
in England; +Lives of the Fathers+, “finished on the last day of his
life;” and many other works.
Henry V. ascends the throne, 1415.
Battle of Agincourt, 1415.
Henry VI. ascends the throne, 1422.
Invention of Printing, 1438-45.
+1450+
WILLIAM DUNBAR. +1450-1530+. Franciscan or Grey Friar; Secretary to a
Scotch embassy to France.
+The Golden Terge+ (1501); the +Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins+
(1507); and other poems. He has been called “the Chaucer of
Scotland.”
Jack Cade’s insurrection, 1450.
End of the Hundred Years’ War, 1453.
GAWAIN DOUGLAS. +1474-1522+. Bishop of Dunkeld, in Perthshire.
+Palace of Honour+ (1501); translation of +Virgil’s Æneid+ (1513)--
the first translation of any Latin author into verse. Douglas wrote
in Northern English.
Wars of the Roses, 1455-86.
Edward IV. ascends the throne, 1461.
WILLIAM TYNDALE. +1477-1536+. Student of theology; translator. Burnt
at Antwerp for heresy.
+New Testament+ translated (1525-34); the +Five Books of Moses+
translated (1530). This translation is the basis of the Authorised
Version.
Edward V. king, 1483.
SIR THOMAS MORE. +1480-1535+. Lord High Chancellor; writer on social
topics; historian.
+History of King Edward V., and of his brother, and of Richard
III+. (1513); +Utopia+ (= “The Land of Nowhere”), written in Latin;
and other prose works.
Richard III. ascends the throne, 1483.
Battle of Bosworth, 1485.
SIR DAVID LYNDESAY. +1490-1556+. Tutor of Prince James of Scotland
(James V.); “Lord Lyon King-at-Arms;” poet.
+Lyndesay’s Dream+ (1528); +The Complaint+ (1529); +A Satire of the
Three Estates+ (1535)-- a “morality-play.”
Henry VII. ascends the throne, 1485.
Greek began to be taught in England about 1497.
+1500+
ROGER ASCHAM. +1515-1568+. Lecturer on Greek at Cambridge; tutor to
Edward VI., Queen Elizabeth, and Lady Jane Grey.
+Toxophilus+ (1544), a treatise on shooting with the bow; +The
Scholemastre+ (1570). “Ascham is plain and strong in his style, but
without grace or warmth.”
Henry VIII. ascends the throne, 1509.
Battle of Flodden, 1513.
Wolsey Cardinal and Lord High Chancellor, 1515.
JOHN FOXE. +1517-1587+. An English clergyman. Corrector for the press
at Basle; Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral; prose-writer.
+The Book of Martyrs+ (1563), an account of the chief Protestant
martyrs.
Sir Thomas More first layman who was Lord High Chancellor, 1529.
Reformation in England begins about 1534.
EDMUND SPENSER. +1552-1599+. Secretary to Viceroy of Ireland;
political writer; poet.
+Shepheard’s Calendar+ (1579): +Faerie Queene+, in six books
(1590-96).
Edward VI. ascends the throne, 1547.
Mary Tudor ascends the throne, 1553.
+1550+
SIR WALTER RALEIGH. +1552-1618+. Courtier; statesman; sailor;
coloniser; historian.
+History of the World+ (1614), written during the author’s
imprisonment in the Tower of London.
Cranmer burnt 1556.
RICHARD HOOKER. +1553-1600+. English clergyman; Master of the Temple;
Rector of Boscombe, in the diocese of Salisbury.
+Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity+ (1594). This book is an eloquent
defence of the Church of England. The writer, from his excellent
judgment, is generally called “the judicious Hooker.”
Elizabeth ascends the throne, 1558.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. +1554-1586+. Courtier; general; romance-writer.
+Arcadia+, a romance (1580). +Defence of Poesie+, published after
his death (in 1595). +Sonnets+.
+1560+
FRANCIS BACON. +1561-1626+. Viscount St Albans; Lord High Chancellor
of England; lawyer; philosopher; essayist.
+Essays+ (1597); +Advancement of Learning+ (1605); +Novum Organum+
(1620); and other works on methods of inquiry into nature.
Hawkins begins slave trade in 1562.
Rizzio murdered, 1566.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. +1564-1616+. Actor; owner of theatre;
play-writer; poet. Born and died at Stratford-on-Avon.
Thirty-seven plays. His greatest +tragedies+ are _Hamlet_, _Lear_,
and _Othello_. His best +comedies+ are _Midsummer Night’s Dream_,
_The Merchant of Venice_, and _As You Like It_. His best +historical
plays+ are _Julius Cæsar_ and _Richard III_. Many _minor poems_--
chiefly +sonnets+. He wrote no prose.
Marlowe, Dekker, Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Webster,
Ben Johnson, and other dramatists, were contemporaries of
Shakspeare.
+1570+
BEN JONSON. +1574-1637+. Dramatist; poet; prose-writer.
+Tragedies+ and +comedies+. Best plays: _Volpone or the Fox_; _Every
Man in his Humour_.
Drake sails round the world, 1577.
Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 1578.
+1580+
WILLIAM DRUMMOND (“of Hawthornden”). +1585-1649+. Scottish poet;
friend of Ben Jonson.
+Sonnets+ and +poems+.
Raleigh in Virginia, 1584.
Babington’s Plot, 1586.
Spanish Armada, 1588.
+1590+
THOMAS HOBBES. +1588-1679+. Philosopher; prose-writer; translator of
Homer.
+The Leviathan+ (1651), a work on politics and moral philosophy.
Battle of Ivry, 1590.
+1600+
SIR THOMAS BROWNE. +1605-1682+. Physician at Norwich.
+Religio Medici+ (= “The Religion of a Physician”); +Urn-Burial+;
and other prose works.
Australia discovered, 1601.
James I. ascends the throne in 1603.
JOHN MILTON. +1608-1674+. Student; political writer; poet; Foreign (or
“Latin”) Secretary to Cromwell. Became blind from over-work in +1654+.
_Minor Poems_; +Paradise Lost+; +Paradise Regained+; +Samson
Agonistes+. Many prose works, the best being +Areopagitica+, a
speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.
Hampton Court Conference for translation of Bible, 1604-11.
Gunpowder Plot, 1605.
+1610+
SAMUEL BUTLER. +1612-1680+. Literary man; secretary to the Earl of
Carbery.
+Hudibras+, a mock-heroic poem, written to ridicule the Puritan and
Parliamentarian party.
Execution of Raleigh, 1618.
JEREMY TAYLOR. +1613-1667+. English clergyman; Bishop of Down and
Connor in Ireland.
+Holy Living+ and +Holy Dying+ (1649); and a number of other
religious books.
+1620+
JOHN BUNYAN. +1628-1688+. Tinker and traveling preacher.
+The Pilgrim’s Progress+ (1678); the +Holy War+; and other religious
works.
Charles I. ascends the throne in 1625.
Petition of Right, 1628.
+1630+
JOHN DRYDEN. +1631-1700+. Poet-Laureate and Historiographer-Royal;
playwright; poet; prose-writer.
+Annus Mirabilis+ (= “The Wonderful Year,” 1665-66, on the Plague
and the Fire of London); +Absalom and Achitophel+ (1681), a poem on
political parties; +Hind and Panther+ (1687), a religious poem. He
also wrote many plays, some odes and a translation of Virgil’s
+Æneid+. His prose consists chiefly of prefaces and introductions
to his poems.
No Parliament from 1629-40.
Scottish National Covenant, 1638.
+1640+
Long Parliament, 1640-53.
Marston Moor, 1644.
Execution of Charles I., 1649.
+1650+
JOHN LOCKE. +1632-1704+. Diplomatist; Secretary to the Board of Trade;
philosopher; prose-writer.
+Essay concerning the Human Understanding+ (1690); +Thoughts on
Education+; and other prose works.
The Commonwealth, 1649-60.
Cromwell Lord Protector, 1653-58.
+1660+
DANIEL DEFOE. +1661-1731+. Literary man; pamphleteer; journalist;
member of Commission on Union with Scotland.
+The True-born Englishman+ (1701); +Robinson Crusoe+ (1719);
+Journal of the Plague+ (1722); and more than a hundred books in
all.
Restoration, 1660.
First standing army, 1661.
First newspaper in England, 1663.
JONATHAN SWIFT. +1667-1745+. English clergyman; literary man;
satirist; prose-writer; poet; Dean of St Patrick’s, in Dublin.
+Battle of the Books+; +Tale of a Tub+ (1704), an allegory on the
Churches of Rome, England, and Scotland; +Gulliver’s Travels+
(1726); a few poems; and a number of very vigorous political
pamphlets.
Plague of London, 1665.
Fire of London, 1666.
+1670+
SIR RICHARD STEELE. +1671-1729+. Soldier; literary man; courtier;
journalist; M.P.
Steele founded the ‘Tatler,’ ‘Spectator,’ ‘Guardian,’ and other
small journals. He also wrote some plays.
Charles II. pensioned by Louis XIV. of France, 1674.
JOSEPH ADDISON. +1672-1719+. Essayist; poet; Secretary of State for
the Home Department.
+Essays+ in the ‘Tatler,’ ‘Spectator,’ and ‘Guardian.’ Cato, a
Tragedy (1713). Several _Poems_ and _Hymns_.
The Habeas Corpus Act, 1679.
+1680+
ALEXANDER POPE. +1688-1744+. Poet.
+Essay on Criticism+ (1711); +Rape of the Lock+ (1714); Translation
of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, finished in 1726; +Dunciad+ (1729);
+Essay on Man+ (1739). A few prose _Essays_, and a volume of
_Letters_.
James II. ascends the throne in 1685.
Revolution of 1688.
William III. and Mary II. ascend the throne, 1689.
+1690+
Battle of the Boyne, 1690.
JAMES THOMSON. +1700-1748+. Poet.
+The Seasons+; a poem in blank verse (1730); +The Castle of
Indolence+; a mock-heroic poem in the Spenserian stanza (1748).
Censorship of the Press abolished, 1695.
Queen Anne ascends the throne in 1702.
+1700+
HENRY FIELDING. +1707-1754+. Police-magistrate, journalist; novelist.
+Joseph Andrews+ (1742); +Amelia+ (1751). He was “the first great
English novelist.”
Battle of Blenheim, 1704.
Gibraltar taken, 1704.
DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. +1709-1784+. Schoolmaster; literary man; essayist;
poet; dictionary-maker.
+London+ (1738); +The Vanity of Human Wishes+ (1749); +Dictionary
of the English Language+ (1755); +Rasselas+ (1759); +Lives of the
Poets+ (1781). He also wrote +The Idler+, +The Rambler+, and a play
called +Irene+.
Union of England and Scotland, 1707.
+1710+
DAVID HUME. +1711-1776+. Librarian; Secretary to the French Embassy;
philosopher; literary man.
+History of England+ (1754-1762); and a number of philosophical
_Essays_. His prose is singularly clear, easy, and pleasant.
George I. ascends the throne in 1714.
THOMAS GRAY. +1716-1771+. Student; poet; letter-writer; Professor of
Modern History in the University of Cambridge.
+Odes+; +Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard+ (1750)-- one of the
most perfect poems in our language. He was a great stylist, and an
extremely careful workman.
Rebellion in Scotland in 1715.
+1720+
TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT. +1721-1771+. Doctor; pamphleteer; literary
hack; novelist.
+Roderick Random+ (1748); +Humphrey Clinker+ (1771). He also
continued +Hume’s History of England+. He published also some
_Plays_ and _Poems_.
South-Sea Bubble bursts, 1720.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. +1728-1774+. Literary man; play-writer; poet.
+The Traveller+ (1764); +The Vicar of Wakefield+ (1766); +The
Deserted Village+ (1770); +She Stoops to Conquer+--a Play (1773);
and a large number of books, pamphlets, and compilations.
George II. ascends the throne, 1727.
ADAM SMITH. +1723-1790+. Professor in the University of Glasgow.
+Theory of Moral Sentiments+ (1759); +Inquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations+ (1776). He was the founder of the
science of political economy.
+1730+
EDMUND BURKE. +1730-1797+. M.P.; statesman; “the first man in the
House of Commons;” orator; writer on political philosophy.
+Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful+ (1757); +Reflections on the
Revolution of France+ (1790); +Letters on a Regicide Peace+ (1797);
and many other works. “The greatest philosopher in practice the
world ever saw.”
WILLIAM COWPER. +1731-1800+. Commissioner in Bankruptcy; Clerk of the
Journals of the House of Lords; poet.
+Table Talk+ (1782); +John Gilpin+ (1785); +A Translation of Homer+
(1791); and many other _Poems_. His Letters, like Gray’s, are among
the best in the language.
+1740+
EDWARD GIBBON. +1737-1794+. Historian; M.P.
+Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire+ (1776-87). “Heavily laden
style and monotonous balance of every sentence.”
Rebellion in Scotland, 1745, commonly called “The ’Forty-five.”
+1750+
ROBERT BURNS. +1759-1796+. Farm-labourer; ploughman; farmer;
excise-officer; lyrical poet.
_Poems and Songs_ (1786-96). His prose consists chiefly of Letters.
“His pictures of social life, of quaint humour, come up to nature;
and they cannot go beyond it.”
Clive in India, 1750-60.
Earthquake at Lisbon, 1755.
Black Hole of Calcutta, 1756.
+1760+
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. +1770-1850+. Distributor of Stamps for the county
of Westmoreland; poet; poet-laureate.
+Lyrical Ballads+ (with Coleridge, 1798); +The Excursion+ (1814);
+Yarrow Revisited+ (1835), and many poems. +The Prelude+ was
published after his death. His prose, which is very good, consists
chiefly of Prefaces and Introductions.
George III. ascends the throne in 1760.
Napoleon and Wellington born, 1769.
+1770+
SIR WALTER SCOTT. +1771-1832+. Clerk to the Court of Session in
Edinburgh; Scottish barrister; poet; novelist.
+Lay of the Last Minstrel+ (1805); +Marmion+ (1808); +Lady of the
Lake+ (1810); +Waverley+-- the first of the “Waverley Novels”-- was
published in 1814. The “Homer of Scotland.” His prose is bright and
fluent, but very inaccurate.
Warren Hastings in India, 1772-85.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. +1772-1834+. Private soldier; journalist;
literary man; philosopher; poet.
+The Ancient Mariner+ (1798); +Christabel+ (1816); +The Friend+--
a Collection of Essays (1812); +Aids to Reflection+ (1825). His
prose is very full both of thought and emotion.
ROBERT SOUTHEY. +1774-1843+. Literary man; Quarterly Reviewer;
historian; poet-laureate.
+Joan of Arc+ (1796); +Thalaba the Destroyer+ (1801); +The Curse of
Kehama+ (1810); +A History of Brazil+; +The Doctor+-- a Collection
of Essays; +Life of Nelson+. He wrote more than a hundred volumes.
He was “the most ambitious and and most voluminous author of his
age.”
American Declaration of Independence, 1776.
CHARLES LAMB. +1775-1834+. Clerk in the East India House; poet;
prose-writer.
_Poems_ (1797); +Tales from Shakespeare+ (1806); +The Essays of
Elia+ (1823-1833). One of the finest writers of writers of prose in
the English language.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. +1775-1864+. Poet; prose-writer.
+Gebir+ (1798); +Count Julian+ (1812); +Imaginary Conversations+
(1824-1846); +Dry Sticks Faggoted+ (1858). He wrote books for more
than sixty years. His style is full of vigour and sustained
eloquence.
Alliance of France and America, 1778.
THOMAS CAMPBELL. +1777-1844+. Poet; literary man; editor.
+The Pleasures of Hope+ (1799); +Poems+ (1803); +Gertrude of
Wyoming+, +Battle of the Baltic+, +Hohenlinden+, etc. (1809). He
also wrote some _Historical Works_.
Encyclopædia Britannica founded in 1778.
HENRY HALLAM. +1778-1859+. Historian.
+View of Europe during the Middle Ages+ (1818); +Constitutional
History of England+ (1827); +Introduction to the Literature of
Europe+ (1839).
THOMAS MOORE. +1779-1852+. Poet; prose-writer.
+Odes and Epistles+ (1806); +Lalla Rookh+ (1817); +History of
Ireland+ (1827); +Life of Byron+ (1830); +Irish Melodies+ (1834);
and many prose works.
+1780+
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. +1785-1859+. Essayist.
+Confessions of an English Opium-Eater+ (1821). He wrote also on
many subjects-- philosophy, poetry, classics, history, politics. His
writings fill twenty volumes. He was one of the finest prose-writers
of this century.
French Revolution begun in 1789.
LORD BYRON (George Gordon). +1788-1824+. Peer; poet; volunteer to
Greece.
+Hours of Idleness+ (1807); +English Bards and Scotch Reviewers+
(1809); +Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage+ (1812-1818); +Hebrew Melodies+
(1815); and many _Plays_. His prose, which is full of vigour and
animal spirits, is to be found chiefly in his Letters.
Bastille overthrown, 1789.
+1790+
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. +1792-1822+. Poet.
+Queen Mab+ (1810); +Prometheus Unbound+--a Tragedy (1819); +Ode to
the Skylark+, +The Cloud+ (1820); +Adonaïs+ (1821), and many other
poems; and several prose works.
Cape of Good Hope Hope taken, 1795.
Bonaparte in Italy, 1796.
Battle of the Nile, 1798.
+1800+
JOHN KEATS. +1795-1821+. Poet.
+Poems+ (1817); +Endymion+ (1818); +Hyperion+ (1820). “Had Keats
lived to the ordinary age of man, he would have been one of the
greatest of all poets.”
Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 1801.
Trafalgar and Nelson, 1805.
+1810+
Peninsular War, 1808-14.
Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia; Moscow burnt, 1812.
+1820+
THOMAS CARLYLE. +1795-1881+. Literary man; poet; translator; essayist;
reviewer; political writer; historian.
+German Romances+-- a set of Translations (1827); +Sartor
Resartus+-- “The Tailor Repatched” (1834); +The French Revolution+
(1837); +Heroes and Hero-Worship+ (1840); +Past and Present+ (1843);
+Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches+ (1845); +Life of Frederick the
Great+ (1858-65). “With the gift of song, Carlyle would have been
the greatest of epic poets since Homer.”
War with United States, 1812-14.
Battle of Waterloo,1815.
+1830+
George IV. ascends the throne, 1820.
Greek War of Freedom, 1822-29.
Byron in Greece, 1823-24.
Catholic Emancipation, 1829.
LORD MACAULAY (Thomas Babington). +1800-1859+. Barrister; Edinburgh
Reviewer; M.P.; Member of the Supreme Council of India; Cabinet
Minister; poet; essayist; historian; peer.
+Milton+ (in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ 1825); +Lays of Ancient Rome+
(1842); +History of England+-- unfinished (1849-59). “His pictorial
faculty is amazing.”
William IV. ascends the throne, 1830.
The Reform Bill, 1832.
Total Abolition of Slavery, 1834.
LORD LYTTON (Edward Bulwer). +1805-1873+. Novelist; poet; dramatist;
M.P.; Cabinet Minister; peer.
+Ismael and Other Poems+ (1825); +Eugene Aram+ (1831); +Last Days of
Pompeii+ (1834); +The Caxtons+ (1849); +My Novel+ (1853); +Poems+
(1865).
Queen Victoria ascends the throne, 1837.
+1840+
Irish Famine, 1845.
JOHN STUART MILL. +1806-1873+. Clerk in the East India House;
philospher; political writer; M.P.; Lord Rector of the University of
St Andrews.
+System of Logic+ (1843); +Principles of Political Economy+ (1848);
+Essay on Liberty+ (1858); +Autobiography+ (1873); “For judicial
calmness, elevation of tone, and freedom from personality, Mill is
unrivalled among the writers of his time.”
Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846.
+1850+
Revolution in Paris, 1851.
Death of Wellington, 1852.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. +1807-1882+. Professor of Modern Languages and
Literature in Harvard University, U.S.; poet; prose-writer.
+Outre-Mer+--a Story (1835); +Hyperion+--a Story (1839); +Voices
of the Night+ (1841); +Evangeline+ (1848) +Hiawatha+ (1855);
+Aftermath+ (1873). “His tact in the use of language is probably the
chief cause of his success.”
Napoleon III. Emperor of the French, 1852.
Russian War, 1854-56.
LORD TENNYSON (Alfred Tennyson). +1809----+. Poet; poet-laureate;
peer.
+Poems+ (1830) +In Memoriam+ (1850); +Maud+ (1855); +Idylls of the
King+ (1859-73); +Queen Mary+--a Drama (1875); +Becket+--a Drama
(1884). He is at present our greatest living poet.
Franco-Austrian War, 1859.
+1860+
Emancipation of Russian serfs, 1861.
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT (afterwards Mrs Browning). +1809-1861+. Poet;
prose-writer; translator.
+Prometheus Bound+-- translated from the Greek of Æschylus (1833);
+Poems+ (1844); +Aurora Leigh+ (1856); and _Essays_ contributed to
various magazines.
Austro-Prussian “Seven Weeks’ War”, 1866.
Suez canal finished, 1869.
+1870+
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. +1811-1863+. Novelist; writer in ‘Punch’;
artist.
+The Paris Sketch-Book+ (1840); +Vanity Fair+ (1847); +Esmond+
(1852); +The Newcomes+(1855); +The Virginians+ (1857). The
greatest novelist and one of the most perfect stylists of this
century. “The classical English humorist and satirist of the reign
of Queen Victoria.”
Franco-Prussian War 1870-71.
Third French Republic, 1870.
William I. of Prussia made Emperor of the Germans at Versailles,
1871.
CHARLES DICKENS. +1812-1870+. Novelist.
+Sketches by Boz+ (1836); +The Pickwick Papers+ (1837); +Oliver
Twist+ (1838); +Nicholas Nickleby+ (1838); and many other novels and
works; +Great Expectations+ (1868). The most popular writer that
ever lived.
Rome the new capital of Italy, 1871.
Russo-Turkish War 1877-78.
Berlin Congress and Treaty, 1878.
ROBERT BROWNING. +1812----+. Poet.
+Pauline+ (1833); +Paracelsus+ (1836); _Poems_ (1865); +The Ring and
the Book+ (1869); and many other volumes of poetry.
Leo XIII. made Pope in 1878.
+1880+
JOHN RUSKIN. +1819----+. Art-critic; essayist; teacher; literary man.
+Modern Painters+ (1843-60); +The Stones of Venice+ (1851-53); +The
Queen of the Air+ (1869); +An Autobiography+ (1885); and very many
other works. “He has a deep, serious, and almost fanatical reverence
for art.”
Assassination of Alexander II., 1881.
Arabi Pasha’s Rebellion 1882-83.
War in the Soudan, 1884.
GEORGE ELIOT. +1819-1880+. Novelist; poet; essayist.
+Scenes of Clerical Life+ (1858); +Adam Bede+ (1859); and many other
novels down to +Daniel Deronda+ (1876); +Spanish Gypsy+ (1868);
+Legend of Jubal+ (1874).
Murder of Gordon, 1884.
New Reform Bill, 1885.
INDEX.
[Spellings in the Index are sometimes different from those used in
the main text, as with the names “Shakespeare” and “Wycliffe”, or the
use of ligatures in names such as “Bæda” and “Cædmon”. Paragraph
references given in {braces} were added by the transcriber. Parts
III and IV are separately indexed.]
PART III.
+African+ words in English, 263.
+American+ words in English, 263.
+Analytic+ English (= modern), 239 {III.2}.
+Ancient+ English, 199 {I.4}.
synthetic, 239 {III.1}.
+Anglo-Saxon+, specimen from, 250 {IV.2}.
contrasted with English of Wyclif and Tyndale, 251 {IV.3}.
+Arabic+ words in English, 263.
+Aryan+ family of languages, 195 {intro.7}.
+Bible+, English of the, 256 {IV.11}.
+Bilingualism+, 222 {II.33}.
+Changes+ of language, never sudden, 198 {I.2}.
+Chinese+ words in English, 264.
+Dead+ and living languages, 198 {I.1}.
+Dialects+ of English, 238 {II.52}.
+Doublets+, English and other, 236-238 {II.47-II.51}.
Greek, 233 {II.45}.
Latin, 230-233 {II.41-II.43}.
+Dutch+ and Welsh contrasted, 197 {intro.10}.
words in English, 260 {V.5}.
+English+, 194 {intro.4}.
a Low-German tongue, 196 {intro.9}.
diagram of, 203.
dialects of, 238 {II.52}.
early and oldest, compared, 252 {IV.5}.
elements of, characteristics of the two, 234-236 {II.46-II.47}.
English element in, 202 {II.2}.
foreign elements in, 204 {II.5}.
grammar of, its history, 239-249 {III.1-III.16}.
its spread over Britain, 197 {intro.11}.
modern, 258-265 {V.1-V.10}.
nation, 202 {II.1}.
of the Bible, 256 {IV.11}.
of the thirteenth century, 254 {IV.8}.
of the fourteenth century, 255 {IV.9}.
of the sixteenth century, 256 {IV.10}.
on the Continent, 194 {intro.5}.
periods of, 198-201 {I.3-I.8}.
marks which distinguish, 254.
syntax of, changed, 245 {III.11}.
the family to which it belongs, 195 {intro.7}.
the group to which it belongs, 195 {intro.8}, 196.
vocabulary of, 202-238 {II.1-II.52}.
+Foreign+ elements in English, 204 {II.5}.
+French+ (new) words in English, 261 {V.6}.
(Norman), see Norman-French.
+German+ words in English, 262 {V.7}.
+Grammar+ of English, 239-249 {III.1-III.16}.
comparatively fixed (since 1485), 258 {V.1}.
First Period, 240 {III.5}.
general view of its history, 243 {III.9}.
Second Period, 241 {III.6}.
short view of its history, 239-243 {III.3-III.8}.
Third Period, 242 {III.7}.
Fourth Period, 242 {III.8}.
+Greek+ doublets, 233 {II.45}.
+Gutturals+, expulsion of, 246-248 {III.12-III.14}.
+Hebrew+ words in English, 262 {V.8}.
+Hindu+ words in English, 264.
+History+ of English, landmarks in, 266.
+Hungarian+ words in English, 264.
+Indo-European+ family, 195 {intro.7}.
+Inflexions+ in different periods, compared, 253 {IV.6}.
loss of, 239 {III.3}, 240 {III.4}.
grammatical result of loss, 248 {III.16}.
+Italian+ words in English, 259 {V.4}.
+Keltic+ element in English, 204-206 {II.6-II.9}.
+Landmarks+ in the history of English, 266.
+Language+, 193 {intro.1}.
changes of, 198 {I.2}.
growth of, 193 {intro.3}.
living and dead, 198 {I.1}.
spoken and written, 203 {II.3}.
written, 193 {intro.2}.
+Latin+ contributions and their dates, 209 {II.16}.
doublets, 230-233 {II.41-II.43}.
element in English, 208-233 {II.15-II.44}.
of the eye and ear, 230 {II.41}.
of the First Period, 210 {II.17}.
Second Period, 211 {II.19}, 212 {II.21}.
Third Period, 212-227 {II.22-II.36}.
Fourth Period, 227-230 {II.37-II.39}.
triplets, 233 {II.44}.
+Lord’s Prayer+, in four versions, 251 {IV.4}, 252.
+Malay+ words in English, 264.
+Middle+ English, 200 {I.6}.
+Modern+ English, 201 {I.8}, 258-265 {V.1-V.10}.
analytic, 239 {III.2}.
+Monosyllables+, 244 {III.10}.
+New words+ in English, 258-265 {V.2-V.10}.
+Norman-French+, 212 {II.22}.
bilingualism caused by, 222 {II.33}.
contributions, general character of, 220 {II.30}.
dates of, 213-215 {II.23-II.24}.
element in English, 212-227 {II.22-II.36}.
gains to English from, 221-224 {II.31-II.33}.
losses to English from, 225-227 {II.34-II.36}.
synonyms, 222 {II.32}.
words, 216-220 {II.24-II.29}.
+Oldest+ and early English compared, 252 {IV.5}.
+Order+ of words in English, changed, 245 {III.11}.
+Periods+ of English, 198-201 {I.3-I.8}.
Ancient, 199 {I.4}.
Early, 199 {I.5}.
Middle, 200 {I.6}.
Tudor, 201 {I.7}.
Modern, 201 {I.8}.
grammar of the different, 239-249 {III.1-III.16}.
marks indicating different, 254.
specimens of different, 250-257 {IV.1-IV.12}.
+Persian+ words in English, 264.
+Polynesian+ words in English, 264.
+Portuguese+ words in English, 264.
+Renascence+ (Revival of Learning), 227 {II.37}.
+Russian+ words in English, 264.
+Scandinavian+ element in English, 206-208 {II.10-II.14}.
+Scientific+ terms in English, 265 {V.10}.
+Spanish+ words in English, 259 {V.3}.
+Specimens+ of English of different periods, 250-257 {IV.1-IV.12}.
+Spoken+ and written language, 203 {II.3}.
+Syntax+ of English, change in, 245 {III.11}.
+Synthetic+ English (= ancient), 239 {III.1}.
+Tartar +words in English, 264.
+Teutonic+ group, 195 {intro.8}.
+Tudor+ English, 201 {I.7}.
+Turkish+ words in English, 264.
+Tyndale’s+ English, compared with Anglo-Saxon and Wyclif, 251 {IV.3}.
+Vocabulary+ of the English language, 202-238 {II.1-II.52}.
+Welsh+ and Dutch contrasted, 197 {intro.10}.
+Words+ and inflexions in different periods, compared, 253 {IV.6}.
new, in English, 258-265 {V.2-V.10}.
+Written+ language, 193 {intro.2}.
and spoken, 203 {II.3}.
+Wyclif’s+ English, compared with Tyndale’s and Anglo-Saxon,
251 {IV.3}.
PART IV.
+Addison+, Joseph, 315 {VI.7}.
+Alfred+, 276 {I.9}.
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 276 {I.10}.
+Arnold+, Matthew, 359 {IX.10}.
+Austen+, Jane, 348 {VIII.25}.
+Bacon+, Francis, 299 {V.3}.
+Bæda+ (Venerable Bede), 275 {I.8}.
+Barbour+, John, 285 {II.10}.
_Beowulf_, 273 {I.5}.
+Blake+, William, 334 {VII.20}.
+Browning+, Robert, 358 {IX.8}.
+Browning+, Mrs., 357 {IX.7}.
_Brunanburg, Song of_, 275 {I.7}.
+Brunne+, Robert of, 279 {I.12}.
_Brut_, 277 {I.11}.
+Bunyan+, John, 309 {V.17}.
+Burke+, Edmund, 326 {VII.6}.
+Burns+, Robert, 332 {VII.16}.
+Butler+, Samuel, 304 {V.10}.
+Byron+, George Gordon, Lord, 343 {VIII.16}.
+Cædmon+, 274 {I.6}.
+Campbell+, Thomas, 342 {VIII.14}.
+Carlyle+, Thomas, 349 {VIII.27}.
+Caxton+, William, 288 {III.3}.
+Chatterton+, Thomas, 333 {VII.18}.
+Chaucer+, Geoffrey, 283 {II.7}.
followers of, 287 {III.1}.
+Coleridge+, Samuel Taylor, 340 {VIII.10}.
+Collins+, William, 321 {VI.19}.
+Cowper+, William, 329 {VII.11}.
+Crabbe+, George, 331 {VII.13}.
+Defoe+, Daniel, 312 {VI.3}.
+De Quincey+, Thomas, 348 {VIII.26}.
+Dickens+, Charles, 361 {IX.15}.
+Dryden+, John, 305 {V.12}.
+Eliot+, George, 364 {IX.19}.
+Gibbon+, Edward, 327 {VII.8}.
+Gloucester+, Robert of, 279 {I.12}.
+Goldsmith+, Oliver, 325 {VII.4}.
+Gower+, John, 282 {II.5}.
+Gray+, Thomas, 320 {VI.17}.
+Hobbes+, Thomas, 308 {V.16}.
+Hooker+, Richard, 296 {IV.16}.
+James I.+ (of Scotland), 287 {III.2}.
+Johnson+, Samuel, 323 {VII.2}.
+Jonson+, Ben, 295 {IV.15}.
+Keats+, John, 345 {VIII.20}.
+Lamb+, Charles, 346 {VIII.23}.
+Landor+, Walter Savage, 347 {VIII.24}.
+Langlande+, William, 282 {II.6}.
+Layamon+, 277 {I.11}.
+Locke+, John, 309 {V.18}.
+Longfellow+, Henry Wadsworth, 354 {IX.3}.
+Macaulay+, Thomas Babington, 351 {VIII.29}.
_Maldon_, Song of the Fight at, 275 {I.7}.
+Mandeville+, Sir John, 281 {II.3}.
+Marlowe+, Christopher, 295 {IV.14}.
+Milton+, John, 303 {V.8}.
+Moore+, Thomas, 342 {VIII.15}.
+More+, Sir Thomas, 290 {IV.3}.
+Morris+, William, 360 {IX.12}.
+Orm’s+ _Ormulum_, 278 {I.12}.
+Pope+, Alexander, 317 {VI.11}, 319 {VI.14}.
+Raleigh+, Sir Walter, 298 {V.2}.
+Ruskin+, John, 363 {IX.17}.
+Scott+, Sir Walter, 339 {VIII.5}.
+Shakespeare+, William, 292 {IV.9}, 301 {V.5}.
contemporaries of, 294 {IV.13}.
+Shelley+, Percy Bysshe, 344 {VIII.18}.
+Sidney+, Sir Philip, 297 {IV.18}.
+Southey+, Robert, 341 {VIII.12}.
+Spenser+, Edmund, 291 {IV.6}.
+Steele+, Richard, 316 {VI.10}.
+Surrey+, Earl of, 289 {IV.2}.
+Swift+, Jonathan, 313 {VI.5}.
+Taylor+, Jeremy, 307 {V.14}.
+Tennyson+, Alfred, 355 {IX.5}.
+Thackeray+, William Makepeace, 361 {IX.14}.
+Thomson+, James, 319 {VI.15}, 320 {VI.16}.
+Tyndale+, William, 290 {IV.4}.
+Wordsworth+, William, 337 {VIII.3}.
+Wyatt+, Sir Thomas, 289 {IV.2}.
+Wyclif+, John, 282 {II.4}.
* * * * *
* * * *
_ENGLISH LITERATURE._
“+_The chief glory of every people arises from its authors._+”
_An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning’s Poetry._
By HIRAM CORSON, LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature
in the Cornell University. 5¼ by 7½ inches. × + 338 pages. Cloth.
Price by mail, $1.50; Introduction price, $1.40.
The purpose of this volume is to afford some aid and guidance to the
study of Robert Browning’s Poetry, which being the most complexly
subjective of all English poetry, is, for that reason alone, the most
difficult. And then the poet’s favorite art form, the dramatic, or
rather psychologic, monologue, which is quite original with himself, and
peculiarly adapted to the constitution of his genius, and to the
revelation of themselves by the several “dramatis personæ,” presents
certain structural difficulties, but difficulties which, with an
increased familiarity, grew less and less. The exposition presented in
the Introduction, of its constitution and skilful management, and the
Arguments given to the several poems included in the volume, will, it is
hoped, reduce, if not altogether remove, the difficulties of this kind.
In the same section of the Introduction certain peculiarities of the
poet’s diction, which sometimes give a check to the reader’s
understanding of a passage, are presented and illustrated.
It is believed that the notes to the poems will be found to cover all
points and features of the texts which require explanation and
elucidation. At any rate, no real difficulties have been wittingly
passed by.
The following Table of Contents will give a good idea of the plan and
scope of the work:--
I. The Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry from
Chaucer to Tennyson and Browning.
II. The Idea of Personality and of Art as an intermediate agency of
Personality, as embodied in Browning’s Poetry. (Read before the
Browning Society of London in 1882.)
III. Browning’s Obscurity.
IV. Browning’s Verse.
V. Arguments of the Poems.
VI. Poems. (Under this head are thirty-three representative poems,
the Arguments of which are given in the preceding section.)
VII. List of criticisms of Browning’s works, selected from Dr.
Furnivall’s “Bibliography of Robert Browning” contained in the
Browning Society’s Papers.
_From +Albert S. Cook+, Professor of English Literature in the
University of California_:--
Among American expositors of Browning, Professor Corson is easily
first. He has not only satisfied the English organization which
devotes itself to the study of the poet, but, what is perhaps a
severer test, he attracts the reader to whom Browning is only a
name, and, in the compass of one small volume, educates him into the
love and appreciation of the poet. If Browning is to be read in only
a single volume, this, in my opinion, is the best; if he is to be
studied zealously and exhaustively, Professor Corson’s book is an
excellent introduction to the complete series of his works.
_From +The Critic+:--
Ruskin, Browning, and Carlyle all have something in common: a vast
message to deliver, a striking way of delivering it, and an
over-mastering spirituality. In none of them is there mere smooth,
smuck surface: all are filled with the fine wrinkles of thought
wreaking itself on expression with many a Delphic writhing. A priest
with a message cares little for the vocal vehicle; and yet the
utterances of all three men are beautifully melodious. Chiefest of
them all in his special poetic sphere appears to be Browning, and to
him Professor Corson thinks our special studies should be directed.
This book is a valuable contribution to Browning lore, and will
doubtless be welcomed by the Browning clubs of this country and
England. It is easy to see that Professor Corson is more than an
annotator: he is a poet himself, and on this account he is able to
interpret Browning so sympathetically.
_From +The Unitarian Review+, Boston, March, 1887_:--
More than almost any other poet, Browning-- at least, his reader--
needs the help of a believing, cheery, and enthusiastic guide, to
beguile the weary pilgrimage.
There is, as we have intimated, a fast-growing esoteric literature
of exposition and comment,-- part of it simply the expression of the
disciple’s loyal homage, part of it designed to win and educate the
reluctant Philistine intellect to the comforts of a true faith. In
the latter class we reckon the excellent work of Professor Corson,
of Cornell University. More than half of it is, as it should be,
made up of a selection from the shorter poems, giving each complete;
while these include what is perhaps the most readable and one of the
most characteristic of the narrative pieces, “The Flight of the
Duchess,” with which a beginner may well make his first attempt.
_From +The Christian Union+, New York_:--
Browning, like every other great original artist, has been compelled
to wait upon the slow processes by which his own public has been
educated.
It is doubtful if any other single work on Browning deserves to rank
with this, with the exception of Professor Dowden’s striking
comparative study of Browning and Tennyson. Professor Corson’s
elucidation of the idea of personality in art as embodied in Mr.
Browning’s poetry is the most luminous, the most adequate, and the
most thoroughly helpful article that has ever been written on
Browning’s poetry. Those who study it carefully will discern in it a
rare insight into the workings of one of the most subtle of modern
minds, and a singularly clear and complete statement of the
philosophy of life at which that mind has arrived. The chapters on
Browning’s obscurity and on his use of the dramatic monologue are
also extremely suggestive and helpful; the selections from
Browning’s poems are admirably chosen, and, with the notes, make the
best of all possible introductions to the study of Browning.
_From +Rev. Francis Tiffany+, in “The Boston Herald,” Nov. 30, 1886_:--
The volume is well worthy the serious study of thinking men and
women, for it embodies the results of years, not only of thorough
investigation, but of the finest poetical appreciation. From
beginning to end, it is pervaded with a fervid feeling that not to
know Robert Browning is to lose something.
Professor Corson, in his chapter on “Browning’s Obscurity,” has done
his best to smooth the path of the reader by explaining, and so
removing from his way, those grammatical obstructions, habits of
word inversion and baffling ellipses that stand as a lion in the
path to so many of the poet’s untried readers. This chapter is
exceedingly well wrought out, and, once carefully studied, with the
illustrations given, can hardly fail to banish many a perplexity.
_From +The American+, Philadelphia_:--
Can Browning be made intelligible to the common mind? Ten years ago
it was assumed that he could not. But of late years a different view
has begun to prevail. And as all those who have addressed themselves
seriously to the study of Browning report themselves as having found
him repay the trouble he gave them, there has arisen very naturally
an ambition to share in their fruitful experience. Hence the rise of
Browning Societies on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the
publication of analyses and discussions of his poems, and the
preparation of such manuals as this of Professor Hiram Corson’s.
Professor Corson is a Browningite of the first era. He owes nothing
but encouragement to the new enthusiasm which has gathered around
the writings of the Master, whom he recognized as such long before
he had begun to attain any general recognition of his masterfulness.
Browning has helped him to a deeper sense of the spiritual life
present in the older current of English poetry. He finds in him the
“subtlest assertor of the soul in song,” and the noblest example of
the spiritual element in our modern verse. He thinks that no greater
mistake has been made with regard to him, than to treat him merely
as the most intellectual of our poets. He is that, but far more; he
is the most spiritual of our poets also.
All or nearly all his poems are character-studies of the deeper
sort, and hence the naturalness with which they fall into the form
of dramatic monologues. It is true, as Mr. Corson says, that the
liberties our poet takes in the collocation of words, the complexity
of constructions, and some of his verbal liberties, are of a nature
to increase the difficulty the careless reader finds. But there are
poems and passages of his which present none of these minor
stumbling-blocks, but of which no reader will make anything until he
has acquired the poet’s interest in personality, its God-given
mission as a force for the world’s regeneration, and its innate
intimacy with divine forces. But we believe that with Mr. Corson’s
aids-- notes as well as preliminary analyses-- they can be mastered
by any earnest student; and certainly few things in literature so
well repay the trouble.
+F. A. March+, _Prof. in Lafayette Coll_.: Let me congratulate you
on having brought out so eloquent a book, and acute, as Professor
Corson’s Browning. I hope it pays as well in money as it must in
good name.
+Rev. Joseph Cook+, _Boston_: Professor Corson’s Introduction to
Robert Browning’s Poetry appears to me to be admirably adapted to
its purposes. It forms an attractive porch to a great and intricate
cathedral. (_Feb. 21, 1887._)
+Louise M. Hodgkins+, _Prof. of English Literature, Wellesley
Coll._: I consider it the most illuminating textbook which has yet
been published on Browning’s poems. (_March 12, 1887._)
+F. H. Giddings+, in _“The Paper World,” Springfield, Mass._: It is
a stimulating, wisely helpful book. The arguments of the poems are
explained in luminous prose paragraphs that take the reader directly
into the heart of the poet’s meaning. Chapters on Browning’s
obscurity and Browning’s verse clear away, or rather show the reader
how to overcome by his own efforts, the admitted difficulties
presented by Browning’s style. These chapters bear the true test;
they enable the attentive reader to see, as Professor Corson sees,
that such features of Browning’s diction are seldom to be condemned,
but often impart a peculiar crispness to the expressions in which
they occur.
The opening chapter of the book is the finest, truest introduction
to the study of English literature, as a whole, that any American
writer has yet produced.
This chapter leads naturally to a profound and noble essay, of which
it would be impossible to convey any adequate conception in a
paragraph. It prepares the reader for an appreciation of Browning’s
loftiest work. (_March, 1887._)
+Melville B. Anderson+, _Prof. of English Literature, Purdue Univ.,
in “The Dial,” Chicago_: The arguments to the poems are made with
rare judgment. Many mature readers have hitherto been repelled from
Browning by real difficulties such as obstruct the way to the inner
sanctuary of every great poet’s thought. Such readers may well be
glad of some sort of a path up the rude steeps the poet has climbed
and whither he beckons all who can to follow him.
(_January, 1887._)
+Queries+, _Buffalo, N.Y._: It is the most noteworthy treatise on
the poetry of Browning yet published. Professor Corson is well
informed upon the poetic literature of the age, is an admirably
clear writer, and brings to the subject he has in hand ample
knowledge and due-- we had almost said undue-- reverence. It has
been a labor of love, and he has performed it well. The book will be
a popular one, as readers who are not familiar with or do not
understand Browning’s poetry either from incompetency, indolence, or
lack of time, can here gain a fair idea of Browning’s poetical aims,
influence, and works without much effort, or the expense of
intellectual effort. Persons who have made a study of Browning’s
poetry will welcome it as a matter of course. (_December, 1886._)
+Education+, _Boston_: Any effort to aid and guide the young in the
study of Robert Browning’s poetry is to be commended. But when the
editor is able to grasp the hidden meaning and make conspicuous the
poetic beauties of so famous an author, and, withal, give such
clever hints, directions, and guidance to the understanding and the
enjoyment of the poems, he lays us all under unusual obligations. It
is to be hoped that this book will come into general use in the high
schools, academies, and colleges of America. It is beautifully
printed, in clear type, on good paper, and is well bound.
(_February, 1887._)
_THE STUDY OF ENGLISH._
_Practical Lessons in the Use of English._
For Primary and Grammar Schools. By MARY F. HYDE, Teacher of
Composition in the State Normal School, Albany, N.Y.
This work consists of a series of _Practical Lessons_, designed to aid
the pupil in his own use of English, and to assist him in understanding
its use by others. No topic is introduced for study that does not have
some practical bearing upon one or the other of these two points.
The pupil is first led to observe certain facts about the language, and
then he is required to apply those facts in various exercises. At every
step in his work he is compelled to think.
The Written Exercises are a distinctive feature of this work. These
exercises not only give the pupil daily practice in using the knowledge
acquired, but lead him to form the habit of independent work.
Simple exercises in composition are given from the first. In these
exercises the aim is not to train the pupil to use any set form of
words, but so to interest him in his subject, that, when writing, he
will think simply of what he is trying to say.
Special prominence is given to letter-writing and to written forms
relating to the ordinary business of life.
The work will aid teachers as well as pupils. It is so arranged that
even the inexperienced teacher will have no difficulty in awakening an
interest in the subjects presented.
This series consists of three parts (in two volumes), the lessons being
carefully graded throughout:--
+_Part First. For Primary Schools.--Third Grade._+
[_Ready._
+_Part Second. For Primary Schools.--Fourth Grade._+
(Part Second will be bound with Part First.)
[_Ready soon._
+_Part Third. For Grammar Schools._+
[_Ready in September._
_The English Language; Its Grammar, History, and Literature._
By Prof. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, of the University of St. Andrews,
Scotland. One volume. viii + 388 pages. Introduction price, $1.30.
Price by mail, $1.40. Also bound in two parts.
Readable in style. Omits insignificant details. Treats all salient
features with a master’s skill, and with the utmost clearness and
simplicity. Contains:--
I. A concise and accurate _resumé_ of the principles and rules of
_English Grammar_, with some interesting chapters on _Word-Building
and Derivation_, including an historical dictionary of _Roots and
Branches_, of _Words Derived from Names of Persons or of Places_,
and of _Words Disguised in Form_, and _Words Greatly Changed in
Meaning_.
II. Thirty pages of practical instruction in _Composition_,
_Paraphrasing_, _Versification_, and _Punctuation_.
III. A _History of the English Language_, giving the sources of its
vocabulary and the story of its grammatical changes, with a table
of the _Landmarks_ in the history, from the Beowulf to Tennyson.
IV. An _Outline of the History of English Literature_, embracing
_Tabular Views_ which give in parallel columns, (_a_) the name of
an author; (_b_) his chief works; (_c_) notable contemporary
events; (_d_) the century, or decade.
The Index is complete, and is in the most helpful form for the student
or the general reader.
The book will prove invaluable to the teacher as a basis for his course
of lectures, and to the student as a compact and reliable statement of
all the essentials of the subject. [_Ready August 15th._
_Wordsworth’s Prelude; an Autobiographical Poem._
Annotated by A. J. GEORGE, Acting Professor of English Literature in
Boston University, and Teacher of English Literature, Newton (Mass.)
High School. [_Text ready in September. Notes later._
This work is prepared as an introduction to the life and poetry of
Wordsworth, and although never before published apart from the author’s
complete works, has long been considered as containing the key to that
poetic philosophy which was the characteristic of the “New Brotherhood.”
_The Disciplinary Value of the Study of English._
By F. C. WOODWARD, Professor of English and Latin, Wofford College,
Spartanburg, S.C.
The author restricts himself to the examination of the arguments for the
study of English as a means of discipline, and shows that such study,
both in schools and in colleges, can be made the medium of as sound
training as the ancient languages or the other modern languages would
give; and that the study of English forms, idioms, historical grammar,
etc., is the only linguistic discipline possible to the great masses of
our pupils, and that it is entirely adequate to the results required of
it as such. He dwells especially on the disciplinary value of the
analytical method as applied to the elucidation of English syntax, and
the striking adaptation of English constructions to the exact methods of
logical analysis. This Monograph discusses English teaching in the
entire range of its disciplinary uses from primary school to high
collegiate work. [_Ready in August._
_English in the Preparatory Schools._
By ERNEST W. HUFFCUT, Instructor in Rhetoric in the Cornell
University.
The aim of this Monograph is to present as simply and practically as
possible some of the advanced methods of teaching English grammar and
English composition in the secondary schools. The author has kept
constantly in mind the needs of those teachers who, while not giving
undivided attention to the teaching of English, are required to take
charge of that subject in the common schools. The defects in existing
methods and the advantages of fresher methods are pointed out, and the
plainest directions given for arousing and maintaining an interest in
the work and raising it to its true place in the school curriculum.
[_Ready in August._
_The Study of Rhetoric in the College Course._
By J. F. GENUNG, Professor of Rhetoric in Amherst College.
This book is the outcome of the author’s close and continued inquiry
into the scope and limits of rhetorical study as pursued by
undergraduates, and of his application of his ideas to the organization
of a progressive rhetorical course. The first part defines the place of
rhetoric among the college studies, and the more liberal estimate of its
scope required by the present state of learning and literature. This is
followed by a discussion of what may and should be done, as the most
effective practical discipline of students toward the making of
literature. Finally, a systematized and progressive course in rhetoric
is sketched, being mainly the course already tried and approved in the
author’s own classes. [_Ready._
_Methods of Teaching and Studying History._
Edited by G. STANLEY HALL, Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy in
Johns Hopkins University. 12mo. 400 pages. Mailing price, $1.40;
Introduction price, $1.30.
This book gathers together, in the form most likely to be of direct
practical utility to teachers, and especially students and readers of
history, generally, the opinions and modes of instruction, actual or
ideal, of eminent and representative specialists in each department. The
following Table of Contents will give a good idea of the plan and scope
of this valuable book:--
+Introduction.+ By the Editor.
+Methods of Teaching American History.+ By Dr. A. B. Hart, Harvard
University.
+The Practical Method in Higher Historical Instruction.+ By
Professor Ephraim Emerton, of Harvard University.
+On Methods of Teaching Political Economy.+ By Dr. Richard T. Ely,
Johns Hopkins University.
+Historical Instruction in the Course of History and Political
Science at Cornell University.+ By President Andrew D. White,
Cornell University.
+Advice to an Inexperienced Teacher of History.+ By W. C. Collar,
A.M., Head Master of Roxbury Latin School.
+A Plea for Archæological Instruction.+ By Joseph Thacher Clarke,
Director of the Assos Expedition.
+The Use of a Public Library in the Study of History.+ By William E.
Foster, Librarian of the Providence Public Library.
+Special Methods of Historical Study.+ By Professor Herbert B.
Adams, Johns Hopkins University.
+The Philosophy of the State and of History.+ By Professor George S.
Morris, Michigan and Johns Hopkins Universities.
+The Courses of Study in History, Roman Law, and Political Economy
at Harvard University.+ By Dr. Henry E. Scott, Harvard University.
+The Teaching of History.+ By Professor J. R. Seeley, Cambridge
University, England.
+On Methods of Teaching History+. By Professor C. K. Adams, Michigan
University.
+On Methods of Historical Study and Research in Columbia
University.+ By Professor John W. Burgess, Columbia University.
+Physical Geography and History.+
+Why do Children Dislike History?+ By Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
+Gradation and the Topical Method of Historical Study; Historical
Literature and Authorities; Books for Collateral Reading.+ By
Professor W. F. Allen, Wisconsin University.
+Bibliography of Church History.+ By Rev. John Alonzo Fisher, Johns
Hopkins University.
+D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers,+
Boston, New York, and Chicago.
THE STUDENT’S OUTLINE HISTORICAL MAP OF ENGLAND.
By T. C. RONEY, Instructor in History, Denison University, Granville,
Ohio.
+INTRODUCTION PRICE, 25 CENTS.+
_The attention of teachers is invited to the following features of this
Map:_
1. It emphasizes the vital connection (too often neglected) between
History and Geography.
2. It leads the student through “the eye gate” into the fair fields
of English History.
3. It gives a local habitation to his often vague ideas of time and
place.
4. It serves as an historical laboratory, in which he makes
practical application of acquired facts, in accordance with the most
approved method of teaching History.
5. It presents a _few_ prominent facts, to which he is to add others
_singly_ and _consecutively_.
_In particular:_
1. The exhibition, side by side, of different periods illustrates by
the approximate identity of boundaries a real historical unity of
development.
2. The student’s attention is called to the culmination of Saxon
England, and the overweening power and disintegrating tendencies of
the great earldoms just before the Norman conquest, as marking the
turning-point of English History.
3. The water-shed has been sufficiently indicated by the insertion
of a few rivers.
4. As an aid to the memory, the modern counties are grouped under
the divisions of Saxon England.
5. Special attention is called to the insertion of Cathedral towns,
as touching upon the ecclesiastical history of England.
6. This Map can be used effectively with a class in English
Literature, to record an author’s birthplace, the scene of a story,
poem, or drama, etc.
+D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers,+
Boston, New York, and Chicago.
_SCIENCE._
_Organic Chemistry:_
_An Introduction to the Study of the Compounds of Carbon._ By IRA
REMSEN, Professor of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
x + 364 pages. Cloth. Price by mail, $1.30; Introduction price,
$1.20.
_The Elements of Inorganic Chemistry:_
_Descriptive and Qualitative._ By JAMES H. SHEPARD, Instructor in
Chemistry in the Ypsilanti High School, Michigan. xxii + 377 pages.
Cloth. Price by mail, $1.25; Introduction price, $1.12.
_The Elements of Chemical Arithmetic:_
_With a Short System of Elementary Qualitative Analysis_. By J.
MILNOR COIT, M.A., Ph.D., Instructor in Chemistry, St. Paul’s
School, Concord, N.H. iv + 89 pages. Cloth. Price by mail, 55 cts.;
Introduction price, 50 cts.
_The Laboratory Note-Book._
_For Students using any Chemistry._ Giving printed forms for “taking
notes” and working out formulæ. Board covers. Cloth back. 192 pages.
Price by mail, 40 cts.; Introduction price, 35 cts.
_Elementary Course in Practical Zoölogy._
By B. P. COLTON, A.M., Instructor in Biology, Ottawa High School.
_First Book of Geology._
By N. S. SHALER, Professor of Palæontology, Harvard University. 272
pages, with 130 figures in the text. 74 pages additional in
Teachers’ Edition. Price by mail, $1.10; Introduction price, $1.00.
_Guides for Science-Teaching._
Published under the auspices of the +Boston Society of Natural
History+. For teachers who desire to practically instruct classes in
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not likely to get from any other source. 26 to 200 pages each.
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XIII. RICHARDS’ FIRST LESSONS IN MINERALS, 10 cts.
_The Astronomical Lantern._
By REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. Intended to familiarize students with
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and a copy of “HOW TO FIND THE STARS,” $4.50.
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_MODERN LANGUAGES._
_Sheldon’s Short German Grammar._
+Irving J. Manatt+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, Marietta College,
Ohio_: I can say, after going over every page of it carefully in the
class-room, that it is admirably adapted to its purpose.
+Oscar Howes+, _Prof. of German, Chicago University_: For beginners,
it is superior to any grammar with which I am acquainted.
+Joseph Milliken+, _formerly Prof. of Modern Languages, Ohio State
University_: There is nothing in English equal to it.
_Deutsch’s Select German Reader._
+Frederick Lutz+, _recent Prof. of German, Harvard University_:
After having used it for nearly one year, I can _conscientiously_
say that it is an _excellent_ book, and well adapted to beginners.
+H. C. G. Brandt+, _Prof. of German, Hamilton College_: I think it
an excellent book. I shall use it for a beginner’s reader.
+Henry Johnson+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, Bowdoin College,
Brunswick, Me._: Use in the class-room has proved to me the
excellence of the book.
+Sylvester Primer+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, College of
Charleston, S.C._: I beg leave to say that I consider it an
excellent little book for beginners.
_Boisen’s Preparatory German Prose._
+Hermann Huss+, _Prof. of German, Princeton College_: I have been
using it, and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction.
+A. H. Mixer+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, University of Rochester,
N.Y._: It answers to my idea of an elementary reader better than any
I have yet seen.
+C. Woodward Hutson+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, University of
Mississippi_: I have been using it. I have never met with so good a
first reading-book in any language.
+Oscar Faulhaber+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, Phillips Exeter
Academy, N.H._: A professional teacher and an intelligent mind will
regard the Reader as unexcelled.
_Grimm’s Märchen._
+Henry Johnson+, _Prof. of Mod. Lang., Bowdoin Coll._: It has
excellent work in it.
+Boston Advertiser+: Teachers and students of German owe a debt of
thanks to the editor.
+The Beacon+, _Boston_: A capital book for beginners. The editor has
done his work remarkably well.
_Hauff’s Märchen: Das Kalte Herz._
+G. H. Horswell+, _Prof. of Modern Languages, Northwestern Univ.
Prep. School, Evanston, Ill._: It is prepared with critical
scholarship and judicious annotation. I shall use it in my classes
next term.
+The Academy+, _Syracuse, N.Y._: The notes seem unusually well
prepared.
+Unity+, _Chicago_: It is decidedly better than anything we have
previously seen. Any book so well made must soon have many friends
among teachers and students.
_Hodge’s Course in Scientific German._
+Albert C. Hale+, _recent President of School of Mines, Golden,
Col._: We have never been better pleased with any book we have used.
_Ybarra’s Practical Spanish Method._
+B. H. Nash+, _Prof. of the Spanish and Italian Languages, Harvard
Univ._: The work has some very marked merits. The author evidently
had a well-defined plan, which he carries out with admirable
consistency.
+Alf. Hennequin+, _Dept. of Mod. Langs., University of Michigan_:
The method is thoroughly practical, and quite original. The book
will be used by me in the University.
For Terms for Introduction apply to
+D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers,+
Boston, New York, and Chicago.
_HISTORY._
Students and Teachers of History will find the following to be
invaluable aids:--
_Studies in General History._
(1000 B.C. to 1880 A.D.) _An Application of the Scientific Method to
the Teaching of History._ BY MARY D. SHELDON, formerly Professor of
History in Wellesley College. This book has been prepared in order
that the general student may share in the advantages of the Seminary
Method of Instruction. It is a collection of historic material,
interspersed with problems whose answers the student must work out
for himself from original historical data. In this way he is trained
to deal with the original historical data of his own time. In short,
it may be termed _an exercise book in history and politics_. Price
by mail, $1.75.
+THE TEACHER’S MANUAL+ contains the continuous statement of the
results which should be gained from the History, and embodies the
teacher’s part of the work, being made up of summaries,
explanations, and suggestions for essays and examinations. Price by
mail, 85 cents.
_Sheldon’s Studies in Greek and Roman History._
Meets the needs of students preparing for college, of schools in
which Ancient History takes the place of General History, and of
students who have used an ordinary manual, and wish to make a
spirited and helpful review. Price by mail, $1.10.
_Methods of Teaching and Studying History._
Edited by G. STANLEY HALL, Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy in
Johns Hopkins University. Contains, in the form most likely to be of
direct practical utility to teachers, as well as to students and
readers of history, the opinions and modes of instruction, actual or
ideal, of eminent and representative specialists in leading American
and English universities. Price by mail, $1.40.
_Select Bibliography of Church History._
By J. A. FISHER, Johns Hopkins University. Price by mail, 20 cents.
_History Topics for High Schools and Colleges._
_With an Introduction upon the Topical Method of Instruction in
History._ By WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLEN, Professor in the University of
Wisconsin. Price by mail, 30 cents.
_Large Outline Map of the United States._
Edited by EDWARD CHANNING, PH.D., and ALBERT B. HART, PH.D.,
Instructors in History in Harvard University. For the use of Classes
in History, in Geography, and in Geology. Price by mail, 60 cents.
_Small Outline Map of the United States._
_For the Desk of the Pupil._ Prepared by EDWARD CHANNING, PH.D., and
ALBERT B. HART, PH.D., Instructors in Harvard University. Price,
2 cents each, or $1.50 per hundred.
We publish also small Outline Maps of North America, South America,
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for indicating physical features, political boundaries, and the progress
of historical growth. Price, 2 cents each, or $1.50 per hundred.
_Political and Physical Wall Maps._
We handle both the JOHNSTON and STANFORD series, and can always supply
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+D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers,+
Boston, New York, and Chicago.
_NEW BOOKS ON EDUCATION._
I do not think that you have ever printed a book on education that
is not worthy to go on any “Teacher’s Reading List,” and _the best_
list. --DR. WILLIAM T. HARRIS.
_Compayré’s History of Pedagogy._
Translated by Professor W. H. PAYNE, University of Michigan. Price
by mail, $1.75. The best and most comprehensive history of education
in English. --Dr. G. S. HALL.
_Gill’s Systems of Education._
An account of the systems advocated by eminent educationists. Price
by mail, $1.10.
I can say truly that I think it eminently worthy of a place on the
Chautauqua Reading List, because it treats ably of the Lancaster and
Bell movement in Education,-- a _very important_ phase. --Dr.
WILLIAM T. HARRIS.
_Radestock’s Habit in Education._
With an Introduction by Dr. G. STANLEY HALL. Price by mail, 65
cents.
It will prove a rare “find” to teachers who are seeking to ground
themselves in philosophy of their art. --E. H. RUSSELL, Prin. of
Normal School, Worcester, Mass.
_Rousseau’s Émile._
Price by mail, 85 cents.
There are fifty pages of Émile that should be bound in velvet and
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Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject of
education. --R. H. QUICK.
_Pestalozzi’s Leonard and Gertrude._
With an Introduction by Dr. G. STANLEY HALL. Price by mail, 85
cents.
If we except Rousseau’s “Émile” only, no more important educational
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“Leonard and Gertrude.” --_The Nation._
_Richter’s Levana; The Doctrine of Education._
A book that will tend to build up that department of education which
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mail, $1.35.
A spirited and scholarly book. --Prof. W. H. PAYNE, University of
Michigan.
_Rosmini’s Method in Education._
Price by mail, $1.75.
The best of the Italian books on education. --_Editor London Journal
of Education._
_Hall’s Methods of Teaching History._
A symposium of eminent teachers of history. Price by mail, $1.40.
Its excellence and helpfulness ought to secure it many readers.
--_The Nation._
_Bibliography of Pedagogical Literature._
Carefully selected and annotated by Dr. G. STANLEY HALL. Price by
mail, $1.75.
_Lectures to Kindergartners._
By ELIZABETH P. PEABODY. Price by mail, $1.10.
_Monographs on Education._ (25 cents each.)
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Boston, New York, and Chicago.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
ERRATA
Myhneer Calf
_spelling unchanged: probably error for “Mynheer”_
Plurals in +es+ (separate syllable).
_printed in Verbs column_
died of fever in London, in the year 1688.
_text reads “1698”_
the most polished verse-writer
_text reads “mose polished”_
he entered himself of the Inner Temple
_text unchanged_
Punctuation and Presentation:
17. +Latin of the First Period+ (i).--
_originally formatted as:_
17. +Latin of the First Period.+--(i)
(The word _al_ means _the_. Thus _alcohol_ = _the spirit_.)
_close parenthesis missing_
homely, plain, and pedestrian.
_period (full stop) invisible_
“Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
_open quote missing_
and his meat nothing but sauce.”
_close quote missing_
“A good man is as much in awe of himself as of a whole assembly.”
_close quote missing_
designated by a hand ([->]) at the foot of each
_printed text has drawing of hand with pointing finger_
Wordsworth and Coleridge spoke with awe of his genius;
_semicolon invisible_
“‘Farewell!’ said he, ‘Minnehaha,
_text has double quote for single before “Minnehaha”_
All´ my | thou´ghts go | on´ward | wi´th you!
_all ´ marks are as in original text_
Index
+Grammar+ of English...
general view of its history, 243.
short view of its history, 239-243.
_each line indented as if a subentry to preceding line_
language, living and dead 198
_text reads “168”_
Chaucer, Geoffrey. 283
_text reads “383”_
Spenser, Edmund. 291
_text reads “261”_