CHAPTER I. ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE.

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HISTORY OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE

FROM

"BEOWULF" TO SWINBURNE

BY

ANDREW LANG, M.A.

LATE HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE

OXFORD

_NEW IMPRESSION_

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK

BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1921

PREFACE.

A Preface to a book on the History of English Literature is apt to

be an apology, for a writer must be conscious of his inability to

deal with a subject so immense and so multiplex in its aspects. This

volume does not pretend to be an encyclopædia of our literature; or

to include all the names of authors and of their works. Selection has

been necessary, and in the fields of philosophy and theology but a few

names appear. The writer, indeed, would willingly have omitted not a

few of the minor authors in pure literature, and devoted his space

only to the masters. But each of these springs from an underwood, as

it were, of the thought and effort of men less conspicuous, whom it

were ungrateful, and is practically impossible, to pass by in silence.

Nevertheless the attempt has been made to deal most fully with the

greatest names.

The author's object has been to arouse a living interest, if it may

be, in the books of the past, and to induce the reader to turn to them

for himself. Scantiness of space forbids the presentation of extracts;

for poetry there is perhaps no better selection than that of the

Oxford Book of Verse by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.[1] For prose, the

Anthologies of Mrs. Barnett and Mrs. Dale may be recommended.[2]

It is unhappily the fact that the works of a majority of the earlier

authors are scarcely accessible except in the publications of learned

societies or in very limited editions; but from Chaucer onwards the

Globe Editions are open to all; and the great Cambridge "History of

English Literature" is invaluable as a guide to the Bibliography. It is

better to study even a little of the greatest authors than to read many

books about them. If the writer should perchance succeed in bringing

any readers to the works of the immortals his purpose will be fulfilled

But readers, like poets and anglers, are "born to be so"; and when born

under a fortunate star do not need to be allured or compelled to come

into the Muses' paradise.

That sins of commission as well as of omission will be discovered the

author cannot doubt, for through much reading and writing they that

look out of window are darkened, and errors come.

[1] University Press.

[2] Longmans, Green & Co.

CONTENTS.

Preface v

List of Authors xi

CHAPTER

I. Anglo-Saxon Literature: The Anglo-Saxon Way of

Living--Minstrels, Story-Tellers, and Stories--Beowulf--The

Wanderer--The Plaint of Deor--The Seafarer--Waldhere--The

Fight at Finnsburg

II. Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry: Cædmon--Cynewulf

--Andreas--Dream of the Rood--Elene--Riddles--Phœnix

III. Anglo-Saxon Learning and Prose: Latin among the

Anglo-Saxons--Bede--Alcuin--Alfred--The Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle--The Monks and Learning--Ælfric

IV. After the Norman Conquest: Latin Literature--Walter

Map--Changes Since the Conquest

V. Geoffrey of Monmouth: The Stories of Arthur

VI. Layamon's "Brut": Ormulum--Ancren Riwle--The Owl

and the Nightingale--Lyrics--Political Songs--Robert of

Gloucester--Cursor Mundi--Devotional Books--Minot

VII. The Romances in Rhyme: Tristram--Havelok--King

Horn--Beues of Hamtoun--Guy of Warwick--Arthur and

Merlin--The Tale of Troy--The Story of Troy from Homer to

Shakespeare--King Alisaundre

VIII. Alliterative Romances and Poems: Gawain and the Green

Knight--Pearl--Huchowne 72

IX. Chaucer: Early Poems--The Dethe of the Duchesse--Other

Early Poems--Troilus and Criseyde--The Canterbury Tales 78

X. "Piers Plowman," Gower

XI. The Successors of Chaucer: Lydgate--Occleve--Hawes

XII. Late Mediaeval Prose: Wyclif--Chaucer's

Prose Style--Trevisa--Mandeville--Pecock: "The

Repressor"--Capgrave--Lord Berners

XIII. Malory

XIV. Early Scottish Literature: Barbour--Wyntoun--The

Kingis Quhair--Henryson--Dunbar--Blind Harry--The Buke of

the Howlat--Gawain Douglas--Sir David Lyndsay

XV. Popular Poetry. Ballads

Professional Poetry: Skelton--Barclay

XVI. Rise of the Drama: Heywood--Ralph Roister

Doister--Gammer Gurton's Needle--"Gorboduc"

XVII. Wyatt and Surrey. Gascoigne. Sackville: The Earl of

Surrey--Tottel's Miscellany--Gascoigne--Sackville

XVIII. Prose of the Renaissance: Elyot--Ascham--Lyly's

Euphues--Sidney--Sidney's "Defence of Poesie" Spenser

XIX. The Elizabethan Stage and Playwrights: John Lyly

--Peele--Greene--Lodge--Nash--Marlowe--Kyd--Shakespeare

--The Sonnets--Later Plays--Jonson--Jonson's Prose

XX. Other Dramatists: Beaumont and Fletcher--Chapman--John

Marston--Dekker--Middleton--Heywood--Webster--Massinger

--Ford--Shirley

XXI. Elizabethan and Jacobean Prose Writers: Hooker--"Martin

Marprelate"--Bacon--Raleigh--Overbury--Translators--Pulpit

Eloquence

XXII. Late Elizabethan and Jacobean Poets: Minor

Lyrists-- Drayton --Daniel--Davies--Giles and Phineas

Fletcher--Corbet--Sir John Beaumont

XXIII. Late Jacobean and Caroline Prose: Burton--Herbert of

Cherbury--Browne.

Caroline Prose: Milton--Jeremy Taylor--Thomas

Fuller--Hobbes--Izaak Walton--John Bunyan--Clarendon

XXIV. Caroline Poets:

Crashaw--Herbert--Vaughan--Herrick--Carew--Lovelace

--Suckling--Habington--Cartwright--Davenant--Cowley

--Denham--Sherburne--Stanley--Browne--Cotton

--Waller--Marvell--Milton--Samuel Butler

XXV. Restoration Theatre: Congreve--Vanbrugh--George

Farquhar --Otway--Nat Lee--Dryden

XXVI. Augustan Poetry: Alexander Pope--Prior--Gay--Ambrose

Philips--Tickell

XXVII. Augustan Prose: Steele--Addison--Swift--De Foe

XXVIII. Georgian Poetry I.: Edward Young--James

Thomson--William Collins--Thomas Gray--The Wartons--John

Dyer--William Shenstone

XXIX. Georgian Poetry II.: Thomas Chatterton--William

Cowper--Literature in Scotland (1550-1790)--Robert

Burns--Charles Churchill--George Crabbe

XXX. Georgian Prose I.: The Great

Novelists--Richardson--Henry Fielding--Tobias Smollet

XXXI. Georgian Prose II.: Samuel Johnson--Oliver

Goldsmith--Edmund Burke--Horace Walpole--Laurence

Sterne--David Hume--Robertson--Edward Gibbon--Richard

Brinsley Sheridan--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--Junius

XXXII. The Romantic Movement: Coleridge--Walter

Scott--William Wordsworth--Robert Southey--Shelley--Byron

--Keats--Walter Savage Landor

XXXIII. Later Georgian Novelists: Frances Burney-- Mrs.

Radcliffe--Maria Edgeworth--Charles Brockden Brown--Jane

Austen--Walter Scott, the Novelist--James Fenimore

Cooper--Washington Irving.

Magazines and Essayists: Charles Lamb--Leigh Hunt--William

Hazlitt--Thomas de Quincey

XXXIV. Poets after Wordsworth: Philip Freneau--William

Cullen. Bryant--John Greenleaf Whittier--Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow--Alfred Tennyson--Robert Browning--Edgar Allan

Poe--Ralph Waldo Emerson--James Russell Lowell--Matthew

Arnold.

General Writers: John Ruskin

XXXV. Late Victorian Poets: Edward FitzGerald--George

Meredith--Elizabeth Barrett Browning--Christina

Rossetti--Dante Gabriel Rossetti--William Morris--Swinburne.

Poetic Underwoods

XXXVI. Latest Georgian and Victorian Novelists: Dickens--

Thackeray--The Brontë Sisters--Nathaniel Hawthorne--Oliver

Wendell Holmes--Charles Kingsley--George Meredith--Anthony

Trollope--George Eliot--Robert Louis Stevenson--Minor

Novelists

XXXVII. Historians: Thomas Babington Macaulay--Thomas

Carlyle--James Anthony Froude--Edward Augustus

Freeman--William Hickling Prescott--John Lothrop Motley--J.

S. Mill--Cardinal Newman--W. E. H. Lecky

Index (not included in this text ed.)

LIST OF AUTHORS.

Adamnan, Abbot (_c._ 625-704)

Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Ælfric (_c._ 955-1020)

Ailred (_c._ 1109-1166)

Ainsworth, William Harrison (1805-1882)

Alcuin (735-804)

Aldhelm, Bp. (_c._ 640--709)

Alexander, Sir William, Earl of Stirling (_c._ 1567-1640)

Alfred, King (849-901)

Andrewes, Lancelot (1555-1626)

Arbuthnot, John (1667-1735)

Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)

Ascham, Roger (1515-1568)

Asser, Bp. (_fl. c._ 900)

Atterbury, Francis (1662-1732)

Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Ayton, Sir Robert (1570-1638)

Aytoun, William Edmonstoune, (1813-1865)

Bacon, Francis (1561-1626)

Baillie, Lady Grizel (1665-1746)

Bale, John (1495-1563)

Bannatyne, George (1545-1608)

Barbour, John (_c._ 1316-1396)

Barclay, Alexander (_c._ 1475-1552)

Barnfield, Richard (1574-1627)

Barrow, Isaac (1630-1677)

Baxter, Richard (1615-1691)

Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Beaumont, Francis (1584-1616)

Beaumont, Sir John (1582-1628)

Beckford, William (1759-1844)

Beddoes, Thomas Lovell (1803-1849)

Bede (673-735)

Behn, Mrs. Aphra (1640-1689)

Bentley, Richard (1662-1742)

Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Berners, Lord (1467-1533)

Besant, Sir Walter (1836-1901)

Black, William (1841-1898)

Blackwood, William (1776-1834)

Blair, Robert (1699-1746)

Borrow, George (1803-1881)

Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth (1837- )

Brome, Richard (_fl. c._ 1623-1652)

Brontë, Anne (1820-1849)

Brontë, Charlotte (1816-1855)

Brontë, Emily (1818-1848)

Broome, William (1689-1745)

Brougham, Henry, Lord Brougham (1778-1868)

Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682)

Browne, William (_c._ 1591-1643)

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861)

Browning, Robert (1812-1889)

Bryant, William Cullen (1794-1878)

Bunyan, John (1628-1688)

Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Burnet, Gilbert (1643-1715)

Burnett, James, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799)

Burney, Charles (1726-1814)

Burney, Frances (1752-1840)

Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Butler, Samuel (1612-1680)

Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824)

Cædmon (_fl. c._ 670)

Campbell, Thomas (1777-1844)

Campion, Thomas (_fl._ 1581-1619)

Canning, George (1770-1827)

Capgrave, John (1393-1464)

Carew, Richard (1555-1620)

Carew, Thomas (_c._ 1598-1639)

Carlyle, Alexander (1722-1805)

Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881)

Cartwright, William (1611-1643)

Caxton, William (_c._ 1422-1491)

Chambers, Robert (1802-1871)

Chapman, George (_c._ 1559-1634)

Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Chaucer, Geoffrey (_c._ 1340-1400)

Chillingworth, William (1602-1644)

Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Churchyard, Thomas (_c._ 1520-1604)

Cibber, Colley (1671-1757)

Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of (1607-1674)

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)

Collins, Wilkie (1824-1889)

Collins, William (1721-1759)

Colman, George (1762-1836)

Congreve, William (1670-1729)

Constable, Henry (_c._ 1560-1613)

Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Cooper, James Fenimore (1789-1851)

Corbet, Richard (1582-1635)

Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

Coverdale, Miles (1488-1568)

Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667)

Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Crabbe, George (1754-1832)

Cranmer, Thomas (1489-1556)

Crashaw, Richard (_c._ 1613-1649)

Creighton, Mandell (1843-1901)

Cross, Mary Ann: "George Eliot" (1819-1880)

Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Cynewulf (_fl. c._ 750)

Dalrymple, Sir David, Lord Hailes (1726-1792)

Daniel, Samuel (1562-1619)

D'Arblay, Madame, _see_ Frances Burney.

Darwin, Charles (1809-1882)

Davenant, Sir William (1606-1668)

Davies, Sir John (1569-1626)

Day, Thomas (1748-1789)

De Foe, Daniel (1661-1731)

Dekker, Thomas (_c._ 1570-1641)

De la Ramée, Louise (1840-1908)

Denham, Sir John (1615-1669)

De Quincey, Thomas (1785-1859)

Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881)

Donne, John (1573-1631)

Douglas, Gawain (_c._ 1473-1522)

Drayton, Michael (1563-1631)

Drummond, William, of Hawthornden (1585-1649)

Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Dunbar, William (_c._ 1460-1520)

D'Urfey, Thomas (1653-1723)

Dyer, John (_c._ 1700-1758)

Edgeworth, Maria (1767-1849)

Edwards, Jonathan (1629-1712)

Edwards, Richard (_c._1523-1566)

Eliot, George, _see_ Mary Ann Cross.

Elliot, Jean (1727-1805)

Elyot, Sir Thomas (_c._ 1499-1546)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882), 579-82.

Etherege, Sir George (_c._ 1635-1691)

Evelyn, John (1620-1706)

Fairfax, Edward (_fl. c._ 1600)

Farquhar, George (1678-1707)

Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Ferguson, Rev. Adam (1723-1816)

Fergusson, Robert (1750-1774)

Ferrier, Susan (1782-1854)

Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

FitzGerald, Edward (1809-1883)

Fitzneale, Richard (_fl._ 1169-1198)

Fletcher, Giles (_c._ 1549-1611)

Fletcher, John (1579-1625)

Fletcher, Phineas (_c._ 1582-1650)

Florence of Worcester (_d._ 1118)

Florio, John (_c._ 1553-1625)

Forbes, Bishop Robert (1708-1775)

Ford, John (_fl. c._. 1613-1633)

Fordun, John (_d. c._ 1384)

Forster, John (1812-1876)

Fox, George (1624-1690)

Francis, Sir Philip (1740-1818)

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)

Freeman, E. A. (1823-1892)

Freneau, Philip (1752-1832)

Froude, James Anthony (1818-1894)

Froude, Richard Hurrell (1803-1836)

Fuller, Thomas (1608-1661)

Galt, John (1779-1839)

Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1829-1902)

Gascoigne, George (_c._ 1525-1577)

Gaskell, Elizabeth (1810-1865)

Gay, John (1685-1732)

Geoffrey of Monmouth (_c._ 1100-1155)

Gerald of Wales (_c._ 1147-1217)

Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Gildas (_c._ 516-570)

Giraldus Cambrensis, _see_ Gerald of Wales.

Glanvill, Joseph (1636-1680)

Godric, St. (_c._ 1065-1170)

Golding, Arthur (_c._ 1536-1605)

Goldsmith, Oliver (1728-1774)

Googe, Barnabe (1540-1594)

Gosson, Stephen (1554-1624)

Gower, John (_c._ 1325-1408)

Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Green, J. R. (1837-1883)

Green, Matthew (1696-1737)

Greene, Robert (_c._ 1560-1592)

Griffin, B. (_fl._ 1596)

Grimald, Nicholas (1519-1562)

Grote, George (1794-1871)

Gwynne, Talbot (_fl. c._ 1862-1865)

Habington, William (1605-1654)

Hales, John (1584-1656)

Hall, Joseph (1574-1656)

Hallam, Henry (1777-1859)

Hamilton, William, of Bangour (1704-1754)

Hamilton, William, of Gilbertfield (_c._ 1665-1751)

Harington, Sir John (1561-1612)

Harry, Blind (_fl. c._ 1480-1492)

Harvey, Gabriel (_c._ 1545-1630)

Hawes, Stephen (_c._ 1475-1523)

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864)

Haywood, Eliza (_c._ 1693-1756)

Hazlitt, William (1778-1830), 555-7.

Henley, W. E. (1849-1903)

Henry of Huntingdon (_fl._ 1125-1154)

Henry son, Robert (_fl. c._ 1462)

Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648)

Herbert, George (1593-1633)

Herrick, Robert (1591-1674)

Heywood, John (_c._ 1497-1580)

Heywood, Thomas (_fl. c._ 1596-1650)

Higden, Ranulf (_d._ 1364)

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Hogg, James (1770-1835)

Holland, Philemon (1552-1637)

Holland, Sir Richard (_fl. c._ 1450)

Holmes, Oliver Wendell (1809-1894)

Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Home, John (1722-1808)

Hood, Thomas (1799-1845)

Hook, Theodore (1788-1841)

Hooker, Richard (_c._ 1553-1600)

Horner, Francis (1778-1817)

Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey (_c._ 1517-1547)

Howell, James (1594-1666)

Huchown (_fl._ 1342-1377)

Hume, David (1711-1776)

Hunt, James Henry Leigh (1784-1859)

Hutcheson, Francis (1694-1746)

Huxley, T. H. (1825-1895)

Irving, Washington (1783-1859)

James I of Scotland (1394-1437)

James, G. P. R. (1799-1860)

Jeffrey, Francis (1773-1850)

Jocelin de Brakelond (_fl._ 1173-1202)

Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Jonson, Ben (_c._ 1573-1637)

"Junius" (_fl._ 1768-1773)

Keats, John (1795-1821)

Kingsley, Charles (1819-1875)

Kingsley, Henry (1830-1876)

Kirke, Edward (1553-1613)

Knox, John (_c._ 1505-1572)

Kyd, Thomas (_c._ 1558-1594)

Lamb, Charles (1775-1834)

Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864)

Langland, William (_c._ 1332-1400)

Lawrence, G. A. (1827-1876)

Layamon (_fl. c._ 1200-1220)

Lecky, W. E. H. (1838-1903)

Leighton, Robert (1611-1684)

Leslie of Ross, Bishop (1527-1596)

Lever, Charles (1806-1872)

Lingard, John (1772-1851)

Locke, John (1632-1704)

Lockhart, George, of Carnwath

Lockhart, John Gibson (1794-1854)

Lodge, Thomas (_c._ 1558-1625)

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882)

Lovelace, Richard (1618-1658)

Lowell, James Russell (1819-1891)

Lydgate, John (_c._ 1370-1446)

Lyly, John (_c._ 1554-1606)

Lyndsay, Sir David (1490-1555)

Lytton, Edward George Bulwer (1803-1873)

Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800-1859)

Mackenzie, Sir George (1636-1691).

Macpherson, James (1736-1796)

Malory, Sir Thomas (_c._ 1400-1471)

Mandeville, Sir John (_fl. c._ 1322-1357)

Map, Walter (_c._ 1137-1200)

Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593)

Marryat, Capt. Frederick (1792-1848)

Marston, John (_c._ 1575-1634)

Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Massinger, Philip (1583-1640)

Mather, Cotton (1663-1728)

Mayne, Jasper (1604-1672)

Meredith, George (1828-1909)

Meres, Francis (1565-1647)

Middleton, Thomas (_c._ 1570-1627)

Mill, James (1773-1836)

Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873)

Milman, Henry Hart (1791-1868)

Milton, John (1608-1674)

Minot, Laurence (_c._ 1300-1352)

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley (1689-1762)

Montgomery, Alexander (_c._ 1556-1610)

Montgomery, Robert (1807-1855)

Moore, Thomas (1779-1852)

More, Henry (1614-1687)

More, Sir Thomas (1478-1535)

Morris, William (1834-1896)

Nairne, Carolina, Lady (1766-1845)

Napier, Sir William (1785-1860)

Nash, Thomas (1567-1601)

Nennius (_c._ 800)

Newman, John Henry, Cardinal (1801-1890)

Nicholas of Guildford (_fl._ 1250)

Nicolls, Thomas (_fl._ 1550

North, Christopher, _see_ John Wilson.

North, Roger (1653-1733)

North, Sir Thomas (_c._ 1535-1601)

Occleve, Thomas (_c._ 1368-1450)

Oliphant, May Margaret Wilson, (1828-1897)

Ormin (_c._ 1200)

Otway, Thomas (1652-1685)

Ouida, _see_ De la Ramée.

Overbury, Sir Thomas (1581-1613)

Painter, William (_c._ 1540-1594)

Palgrave, Sir Francis (1788-1861)

Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Pater, Walter Horatio (1839-1894)

Payn, James (1830-1898)

Peacock, Thomas Love (1785-1866)

Pecock, Reginald (_c._ 1395-1460)

Peele, George (_c._ 1558-1598)

Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703)

Percy, Thomas (1729-1811)

Phaer, Thomas (_c._ 1510-1560)

Philips, Ambrose (1675-1749)

Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849)

Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Praed, Winthrop Mackworth (1802-1839)

Prescott, William Hickling (1796-1859)

Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Prynne, William (1600-1669)

Radcliff, Ann (1764-1822)

Raleigh, Sir Walter (_c._ 1552-1618)

Ramsay, Allan (1686-1758)

Randolph, Thomas (1605-1635)

Reade, Charles (1814-1884)

Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Reynolds, John Hamilton (1796-1852)

Rich, Barnaby (_c._ 1540-1620)

Richard, Prior of Hexham (_fl._ 1138-1154)

Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761)

Ritson, Joseph (1752-1803)

Robert of Gloucester (_fl. c._ 1260-1300)

Robertson, William (1721-1793)

Robynson, Ralph (_fl. c._ 1551)

Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855)

Rolle, Richard (_c._ 1290-1349)

Rossetti, Christina (1830-1894)

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)

Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Rowley, William (_c._ 1585-1642)

Ruskin, John (1819-1900)

Sackville, Thomas (1536-1608)

St. John, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Savile, Sir Henry (1549-1622)

Scott, Alexander (_c._ 1525-1584)

Scott, John (1783-1821)

Scott, Michael (1789-1835)

Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)

Sedley, Sir Charles (_c._ 1639-1701)

Shadwell, Thomas (1642-1692)

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

Shenstone, William (1714-1763)

Sherburne, Sir Edward (1618-1702)

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)

Shirley, James (1596-1666)

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1586)

Simeon of Durham (_fl._ 1130)

Skelton, John (_c._ 1460-1529)

Smith, Horace (1779-1849)

Smith, Captain John (1580-1631)

Smith, Sydney (1771-1845)

Smith, William (_fl._ 1596)

Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)

South, Robert (1634-1716)

Southerne, Thomas (1660-1746)

Southey, Robert (1774-1843)

Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903)

Spenser, Edmund (_c._ 1552-1599)

Stanley, Thomas (1625-1678)

Stanyhurst, Richard (1547-1618)

Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)

Still, John (1543-1608)

Strachey, William (_fl._ 1609-1618)

Stubbs, William (1825-1901)

Suckling, Sir John (1609-1642)

Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)

Symonds, John Addington (1840-1893)

Talfourd, Sir T. N. (1795-1854)

Tautphœus, Baroness (1807-1893)

Taylor, Jeremy (1613-1667)

Temple, Sir William (1628-1699)

Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892)

Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863)

Thomas of Ercildoune (_d. c._ 1299)

Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Tickell, Thomas (1686-1740)

Tourneur, Cyril (_c._ 1575-1626)

Trevisa, John (_c._ 1326-1412)

Trollope, Anthony (1815-1882)

Turner, Sharon (1768-1847)

Tusser, Thomas (_c._ 1524-1580)

Udall, Nicholas (1505-1556)

Urquhart, Sir Thomas (1611-1660)

Ussher, James (1581-1656)

Vanbrugh, Sir John (1666-1726)

Vaughan, Henry (1622-1695)

Villiers, George, second Duke of Buckingham (1627-1688)

Wace (_fl._ 1170)

Waller, Edmund (1606-1687)

Walpole, Horace (1717-1797)

Walton, Izaac (1593-1683)

Wardlaw, Elizabeth, Lady (1677-1727)

Warton, Joseph (1722-1800)

Warton, Thomas (_c._ 1688-1745)

Warton, Thomas (1728-1790)

Watson, Thomas (_c._ 1557-1592)

Webster, John (_c._ 1580-1625)

Whetstone, George (_c._ 1544-1587)

Whittier, John Greenleaf (1807-1892)

Whyte-Melville, George John (1821-1878)

Wilkie, Prof. William (1721-1772)

William of Malmesbury (_c._ 1095-1143)

William of Newburgh (1136-1198)

Willoughby, Henry (_c._ 1574-1596)

Wilson, John (1785-1854)

Wither, George (1588-1667)

Wodrow, Robert (1679-1734)

Wood, Mrs. Henry (1814-1887)

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Wyatt, Sir Thomas (1503-1542)

Wycherley, William (_c._ 1640-1716)

Wyclif, John (_c._ 1329-1384)

Wyntoun, Andrew (_fl. c._ 1413

Young, Edward (1683-1765)

CHAPTER I. ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE.

The literature of every modern country is made up of many elements,

contributed by various races; and has been modified at different times

by foreign influences. Thus, among the ancient Celtic inhabitants of

our islands, the peoples whom the Romans found here, the Welsh have

given us the materials of the famous romances of King Arthur, and from

the Gaelic tribes of Ireland and Scotland come the romances of heroes

less universally known, Finn, Diarmaid, Cuchulain, and the rest. But

the main stock of our earliest poetry and prose, like the main stock

of our language, is Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon tribes who invaded

Britain, and after the departure of the Romans (411) conquered the

greater part of the island, must have had a literature of their own,

and must have brought it with them over sea.

For all early peoples, even the least civilized, possess the germs of

literature. They have their hymns to their Divine Father above the

sky, and to gods and spirits; they have magic songs, to win the love

of women, or to cause the deaths of men; they have love-songs, and

songs of feats of war. They possess fairy-tales, and legends in prose

concerning gods and fabulous heroes; they have tales of talking birds

and beasts; and they have dances in which the legends of old heroes are

acted and sung. These dances are the germ of the drama: the songs are

the germs of lyric poetry; the beast-stories are the sources of books

like Æsop's Fables and Ovid's "Metamorphoses"; and the fairy-tales are

the earliest kind of novels.

The Anglo-Saxon invaders were, of course, on a very much higher level

than that of savages. They were living in the age of iron; they did

not use bronze for their swords, spears, and axes; much more remote

were they from the period of stone axes, stone, knives, and stone

arrow-heads. They could write, not in the Roman alphabet, but in

"Runes," adapted at some unknown time by the Germanic peoples, probably

from the Greek characters; and there is no reason why they should not

have used this writing to preserve their poetry, though it is not

certain that they did so at this early, period.

One early Anglo-Saxon poem, indeed, "The Husband's Message," professes

to be written in runic characters on a staff or tablet of wood. Even

more ancient poems may have been written and preserved in this way, but

the wood, the _bóc_ (book) as it was called, has perished, while brief

runic inscriptions on metal and on stone remain.

The Anglo-Saxon Way of Living.

The society of the Anglo-Saxons, as described in the oldest surviving

poems, was like that of the early Irish about A.D. 200

as depicted in their oldest romances, and like that of the early

Icelanders as painted in the sagas, or stories of 1100, and later. Each

free man had his house, with its large hall, and a fire in the centre.

In the hall, usually built of timber, the people ate and passed their

time when not out of doors, and also slept at night, while there were

other rooms (probably each was a small separately roofed house) for

other purposes. The women had their "bower," the married people had

their little bedclosets off the hall, and there were store-rooms. The

house stood in a wide yard or court, where geese and other fowls were

kept; it was fenced about with a palisade, or a bank and hedge. Tilling

the soil, keeping cattle, hunting, and war and raiding, by sea and

land, were the occupations of the men; the women sewed and span, and

kept house.

A group of such homesteads, each house well apart from its neighbours,

made the village or settlement: there were no towns with streets, such

as the Romans left in Britain.

A number of such villages were united in the tribe, each tribe had

its king, while the other chief men, the richest and best born,

constituted a class of gentry. Later, tribes were gathered into small

kingdoms, with a "Bretwalda" or "Over-Lord," the most powerful of the

kings, at the head of all.

This kind of society is almost exactly the same as that which Homer

describes among the Greeks, more than a thousand years before Christ.

As in Homer, each Anglo-Saxon king had his Gleeman (_scop_) or

minstrel, who sang to his household and to the guests in hall. The

songs might be new, of his own making, or lays handed down from of old.

We shall see that the longer Anglo-Saxon poems, before Christianity

came in, were stories about fabulous heroes; or real kings of times

past, concerning whom many fables were told. Most of these tales, or

"myths," were not true; they were mere ancient "fairy stories," in

which sometimes real but half-forgotten warriors and princes play their

parts. The traditions, however, were looked on as being true, and the

listeners to the gleemen thought that they were learning history as

well as being amused. Meanwhile any man might make and sing verses for

his own pleasure, about his own deeds and his own fancies, sorrows, and

loves.

There was no lack of old legends of times before the English invasion

of Britain, or of legends quite fabulous about gods and heroes. We

know from Roman and early Christian authors, that the other Germanic

peoples, on the Continent, had abundance of this material for poetry:

thus the Germans sang of Arminius, the Lombards sang of Alboin, or

Ælfwine (died A.D. 573), and the Scandinavians and Germans

had legends of Attila, the great Hun conqueror, in the fifth century,

and of Sigurd, who slew Fafnir, the Snake-Man; of the vengeance of

Brynhild, and all the other adventures of the Volsungs and Niblungs; in

Germany fashioned, much later, into the famous "Nibelungenlied".[1]

The Anglo-Saxons, too, knew forms of these legends; and mention the

heroes of them in their poetry. Thus there is no reason why the

Anglo-Saxons should not have produced poems as magnificent as those of

the early Greeks, except that they, like all other peoples, had not

the genius of the Greeks for poetry, and for the arts; and had not

their musical language, and glorious forms of verse. They were a rough

country folk, and for long did not, like the Greeks, live in towns.

But even if they had possessed more genius than they did, much of

their old literature would probably have been lost when they became

Christians; and when the clergy, who had, most to do with writing,

generally devoted themselves only to verses on Biblical or other

Christian subjects, or to prose sermons; and to learned books _in

Latin._ While plenty of Anglo-Saxon _Christian_ poetry survives, of

poetry derived from the heathen times of the Anglo-Saxons there is

comparatively little, and much of it has been more or less re-written,

and affected by later changes and additions, in early Christian times.

The fragments of old poetry enable us to understand the poetic genius

of our remote ancestors as it was before they had wholly adopted

Christianity, or come under Latin, French, and Norman influences. From

the descendants of the Britons whom they had conquered, or who survived

as their Welsh neighbours, they seem, at this time, to have borrowed

little or nothing in the way of song or story.

Before beginning to try to understand the Anglo-Saxon literature, we

ought to set before our minds two or three considerations. Though the

language of these very old poems is the early form of our own English,

we cannot understand them except in translations, unless we learn

Anglo-Saxon. However well a translator may render the ideas of a poem,

he cannot give the original words of it in another language. Now the

poet's very own words have a beauty and harmony and appropriateness

which a translation cannot reproduce. The ideas remain, but the essence

of the poem is lost: gone is the vigour, the humour is weakened; the

harmony is impaired. Once more we are accustomed to _rhyme_, and to

certain forms of versification in our poetry. The early Anglo-Saxons

did not employ rhyme; the peculiar cadence, with alliteration, of

their verse cannot easily be reproduced; and there is much difference

of opinion as to the prosody or scansion of Anglo-Saxon verse. Thus,

till we can read Anglo-Saxon easily, and while we only read its poetry

through translations, we are apt to think less highly of it than it

deserves.

Again, the ideas and manners of the Anglo-Saxons were not like our own

in many details. Their poets did not write for us, but for men of their

own time, whose taste and ways of thinking and living were in many

respects very different from ours.

If many people cannot now take pleasure in the novels of Fielding,

Scott, Miss Austen, Thackeray, and Dickens--the novels of

1745-1870--because these seem "so old-fashioned," they will certainly

be unable to admire the poetry of 500-800. Yet it may be excellent

poetry, when we put ourselves as far as we can in the place of the

hearers for whom it was composed. If we fail to do this we may read

Anglo-Saxon poetry as a matter of history, but, as poetry, we cannot

enjoy it.

Minstrels, Story-tellers, and Stories.

Perhaps the oldest of the Anglo-Saxon poems is that called "Widsith,"

after the name of the far-travelled minstrel or gleeman who sang it

before the people in the hall of a prince or noble. This short poem

tells us what kind of tales the people liked to hear. It begins:--

Widsith spoke

His word-hoard unlocked,

that is, he opened his treasure of stories as a travelling pedlar opens

his box of goods. He says that he has wandered, gathering songs and

tales, all over the world from the German Ocean to Egypt and India. He

means that he knows all, stories; he is merely giving his hearers their

choice of a tale about any king and people in the known world.

Let us suppose that they choose to hear about Ælfwine, or Alboin, king

of the Longobards or Lombards, whom Widsith says that he had visited.

We know what tales were told of Ælfwine. One of these is a fair example

of the rest; it is probably not true. Ælfwine had killed the father of

his wife Rosamund, and had a cup made out of the skull, and he made

Rosamund drink out of it at a feast. She determined to be revenged for

this cruel insult, and took counsel with the king's shield-bearer and

guardsman. By his advice she entrapped Beartheow, a very strong man, by

a trick, so that he became guilty of high treason. He was now at her

mercy, for she threatened to inform against him, and thus compelled

him to murder her husband, Ælfwine, in his bed. After that, the king's

shield-bearer tried to win the kingdom. But Rosamund gave him poisoned

wine, and he, when he knew that it was poisoned, made her drink out the

cup, and they two died in the same hour.

This makes a noble tragic song, but the story is only a form of a much

older Greek tale which Herodotus, 1000 years earlier, tells of King

Candaules of Lydia, of his wife, whom he insulted, and of the Captain

of his guard, whom she induced to kill King Candaules.

Probably an Anglo-Saxon minstrel would recite the poem called

"Widsith," and then the listeners would ask him for any of the stories

which he had mentioned, perhaps for one about Ælfwine; or Alexander the

Great; or Sigurd of the Volsungs, who slew the Serpent-Man, Fafnir;

or of Hygelac (who is believed to have been the man named, in Latin,

Chochilaicus, a real king of about 520); or of Hrothgar, whom Widsith

mentions. This king is befriended by Beowulf, in the great Anglo-Saxon

poem of that name, the noblest and most famous of all these old songs.

The minstrel makes requests for gifts of rings and bracelets; and

speaks of his desire to meet generous princes. In the same way Homer

loves to tell how golden cups and beautiful swords were given by

princes to the minstrels in Greece. The last verses of "Widsith" run

thus, in modern English, and are a fair example of early Anglo-Saxon

versification:--

Swa scrithende So wandering on

gesceapum hweorfath the world about,

glee men gumena gleemen do roam

geond grunda fela; through many lands;

thearfe secgath they say their needs

thonc word sprecath, they speak their thanks,

Simle suth oththe north sure, south or north

sumne gemetath, some one to meet,

gydda gleawne of songs to judge

geofam unhncawne and gifts not grudge.[2]

There are few early Anglo-Saxon poems that can be called "lyrics"; they

are rather narratives, as in the case of the songs of war, the battles

of Brunanburh and Maldon; or "elegiac," and reflective, as in "The

Ruined City," though personal emotion, a characteristic of the lyric,

often appears in the Christian poems and elsewhere as we shall see.

"Beowulf" the chief poem may be called a brief "epic," a narrative of

over 3000 lines, on great heroic adventures. Such a poem would be sung

in hall, to beguile more than one long winter night.

Beowulf.

It is impossible to be certain about the date when the original form

of this great old poem, "Beowulf," was first composed, because it

contains, on the one hand, descriptions of the ancient heathen way

of living, thinking, manners, and customs; and, on the other hand,

has many allusions to Christian doctrine, which the Anglo-Saxons knew

nothing of till after they had quite conquered this country. The poet

of "Beowulf" as it now exists, had read the Bible, or knew part of its

contents. We must look first at the poem as it stands, and the story

as it is told, or rather at the stories, for there are several.

One Beowulf, not our hero, was the son of Scyld. Scyld died, and,

in place of Christian burial, was placed in his ship, with arms and

treasures, and so sailed out to sea at the wind's will. Not so, when

his time came, was _our_ Beowulf buried; that is, Beowulf the hero of

the poem, for the earlier Beowulf, son of Scyld, was another man.

The grandson of Scyld was Hrothgar (whose name becomes Roger in later

times), and Hrothgar was a Danish king, builder of Heorot, a princely

hall. His happiness awoke the envy of Grendel, a fiend of the wilds.

The Christian author of the poem, as it stands, thinks that Grendel and

other monsters are descendants of Cain!

The nobles slept in the great hall, whither Grendel came and caught

away thirty of them. Men sought other sleeping-rooms, but Grendel still

came and slew them. The house was empty, and men promised sacrifices

to their false gods all in vain: "they knew not the true God," yet

the poet often forgets their ignorance, and makes them speak like

Christians:

There was a king of Gothland named Hygelac, a real king living at the

beginning of the sixth century. The king's nephew, Beowulf, heard of

the evil deeds of Grendel, and set sail with some of Hygelac's men to

help the unhappy Hrothgar. They all wore shirts of mail made curiously

of interlaced iron rings, they had spears with iron heads, and helmets

crowned with the figure of a boar made in iron; some of these shirts of

chain-mail and helmets still exist. Coming into the great hall, built

of timber plated with gold, the heroes explained their errand, and

were well received. As Grendel cannot be harmed with stroke of steel,

Beowulf will carry neither sword nor shield, but be slain by Grendel;

or slay him with his hands. If Grendel eats him, Hrothgar will not need

to give him due burial--burning his body, and burying the bones in a

mound of earth; the custom is that of the _unconverted_ German tribes.

Hrothgar accepts the offer, the warriors sit at their ale (they had not

much wine), and listen to the clear voice of the minstrel as he sings

of old adventures. But Hunferth, a thane of Hrothgar, out of jealousy,

taunts Beowulf with having been beaten in a swimming match that lasted

for seven nights. Beowulf replies that Hunferth "has drunk too much

beer": he himself swam better than his opponent for five nights, and

slew nine sea-monsters with his sword; Hunferth, on they other hand,

dare not face Grendel, and has been the destroyer of his own brothers.

Yet Hunferth does not draw his sword, after these insults, which is

strange; and the feast in hall goes on merrily.

Such scenes of boasting and quarrelling were, no doubt, common over the

ale cups, but Waltheow, Queen of Hrothgar, "the golden-garlanded lady,

the peace-weaver," enters the throng, and bears the cup of welcome

to Beowulf, thanking God that she has found a helper to her heart's

desire. Then she takes her place by her lord Hrothgar.

Night fell, Beowulf, committing himself "to the all-knowing God,"

takes off his armour and lays his head on the bolster--the word is the

same in Anglo-Saxon. Grendel arrived, burst in the iron-bolted door,

and laughed as he saw the sleeping men. One warrior he tore to pieces

and devoured; but Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty, gripped

the fiend, and the hall echoed with their wrestling and stamping up

and down; the clamped benches were torn from the floor. Men smote

at Grendel with swords, but the steel did not bite on his body.

Beowulf tore his arm and shoulder clean away, and Grendel, flying to

a haunted pool, described as a terrible place, dived down through the

bloodstained water, and "hell caught hold of him".

In Heorot men now made merry, and the minstrel sang a new song of the

fight.

After, the rejoicings, eight horses and princely armour are given

to Beowulf. The minstrel sings of the hero Finn, with a pleasant

description of the coming of spring after a long winter. The poem is

not all about fiends and fighting; the descriptions of wild rocks

and seas, and of happy nature, are beautiful. Then the gracious wife

of Hrothgar bids Beowulf farewell, giving him a cup of gold. Other

presents are offered, and on so happy a day, wine, not ale, is drunk in

hall.

But Beowulf s adventure is not ended. That night he slept, not in

hall, but in a separate room, and the mother of Grendel, a creature

more terrible than himself, came to avenge her son, and slew a warrior.

Next day Hrothgar described to Beowulf the home of the fiends; they

abode in dark wolf-haunted places, windy "nesses," or headlands, wild

marshlands, where the hill-stream rushes through black shadows into a

pool or perhaps sea-inlet, under the earth. The boughs of trees hang

dense over the water, and at night a fire shines from it. Even the stag

that ranges the moors, when he flies from the hounds to the lake, dies

rather than venture there to take the water. This is a fine example of

the descriptions of nature in the poem. Beowulf is not alarmed; we must

all die at last, he says, but while we live we should try to win glory.

So they all rode to the haunted pool, Beowulf in his iron armour and

helmet. The man who had insulted him now repents, and gives Beowulf

the best of iron swords, named _Hrunting_; for famous swords in these

days had names, like King Arthur's blade, _Excalibur_, or Roland's

_Durendal._ "I will gain glory with _Hrunting_, or death shall take

me," says Beowulf.[3]

Beowulf dived into the black water, the fiend strove to crush him, but

his iron shirt of mail protected him, and she dragged him into the

dreadful hall, her home, where the water did not enter. A strange light

burned; Beowulf saw his hideous foe and smote at her with _Hrunting_;

but the edge did not bite on her body. He threw away the useless sword,

and they wrestled; they fell, Beowulf was under her, and she drew her

short sword. She could not pierce his armour, but he saw and seized a

huge sword, made for a giant in times long ago. With this he cut her

down from the neck to the breast-bone, and his friends on shore saw the

pool turn to blood; all but his own men had believed that Beowulf was

dead, and had gone home.

Meanwhile the blade of the great sword melted away in the poisoned

blood of his foe, and he swam to shore with the hilt, and with the

heads of the two monsters, Grendel and his mother. With these he came

gloriously to Hrothgar, who wondered at that sword hilt, covered with

plates of gold, engraved with a poem in Runic letters; for the poet is

fond of describing beautiful swords and armour.

Hrothgar now made a long speech about the goodness of God, which,

of course, is a Christian addition to the poem. Beowulf gave back

_Hrunting_ to Hunferth, saying no word against the weapon though it had

been of no service. Then they all departed in high honour, and their

swift ship under sail cut the sea into foam as she flew homeward.

In time Hygelac and his son fell in battle, and Beowulf was for fifty

years "the shepherd of the people". The last adventure of his old age

was a fight with a fiery dragon which dwelt among the golden treasures

in an ancient burial mound. In the tomb, says the poet, "there is no

sound of swords or harness, no joy of the harp; the good hawk flits

not through the hall; the swift horse does not beat the ground at the

gate". Anglo-Saxon poetry is full of the melancholy of death, and of

mournful thoughts awakened in presence of the ruined homes of men long

dead.

In his last fight and his best fight, Beowulf, with a young prince to

aid him, slew the Fire Drake, but he was mortally hurt by its poisonous

flaming breath, and spoke his latest words: "Bid the brave men pile up

a mound for me, high and far-seen on the headland, that seafaring men

in time to come may call it Beowulf's mound". These are almost the very

words of the ghost of the dead oarsman, Elpenor, to Odysseus in Homer.

So much has been said about the poem of "Beowulf," because it is by far

the greatest poem that the Anglo-Saxons have left to us, and best shows

how they lived. From "Beowulf" we learn that our ancestors lived almost

exactly as did the ancestors of the Greeks, in Homer's poems, made

perhaps 1600 years before the making of "Beowulf". Both these ancient

Greeks and our own ancestors had, and expressed in poetry, the same

love, of life and of the beauty of the world; and the same belief that,

after death, hope was hopeless, and joy was ended. Both had the same

sense of the mystery of existence, and, when they took time to think,

had the same melancholy. Our poetry thus began like that of Greece,

and, in the end, became the rival of the greatness of Greece.

We know from broken pieces of these old songs which have come down

to us that the Anglo-Saxons, like their German neighbours on the

Continent, had even better stories than "Beowulf". But they have been

lost, and "Beowulf" was perhaps saved by the Christian parts of it,

which must have been put in by some one who wrote it over again after

the Anglo-Saxons were converted: the language is like what was spoken

and written about 750. One beautiful poem is "The Ruined City". The

minstrel, beholding the desolation of the towers and baths of some

Roman town which the Anglo-Saxons have overthrown, laments its fall

and the perishable state of human fortunes. Other poems may be briefly

mentioned.

The Wanderer.

In "The Wanderer" there is abundance of gloom, but it is a less noble

poem than "The Ruined City," for the speaker is in sorrow, not for

the griefs of all mankind, but for his own. He is an exile, homeless,

in fact a tramp, _Eardstapa._ He has lost his lord, his patron; and

dreams of his kindness, in the old happy days; and wakens, an aged man,

friendless, to see the snow falling in the ocean, and the seabirds

flitting with their white wings through the snow. The house where he

had been young has fallen, and he laments over the ruins.

The Plaint of Deor.

This complaint is also rueful, but it is manly. The poet calk to mind

old heroes and heroines, such as Weland (remembered still as Wayland

Smith, in Scott's "Kenilworth"), who suffered many misfortunes, but

endured them bravely. The poem is in stanzas; each ending with the

burden or refrain,

_That evil he overcame_,

_So may I this!_

It is like the often repeated word of Odysseus in Homer:--

_Endure my heart_,

_Worse hast thou endured!_

One sorrow of the poet is that his lord has taken from him the land

which he held as a minstrel, and given it to another singer. Now he is

in new trouble.

_That I surmounted_,

_So may I this!_

Probably there were many other poems with refrains, or recurring lines

at the end of each stanza; this is a very old poetic device; originally

the refrains were sung in chorus by the listeners as they danced to the

music of the minstrels.

The Seafarer.

In this poem, as in "Beowulf," the sea is spoken of as it would be by

men who knew its wild moods; cold, tempest, biting salt water, danger,

and grey waves under driving rain, yet the seafarer loves, it. The poet

says that (like

The gentlemen of England

Who live at home at ease,)

many a one knows not the dangers of the deep, while the minstrel has

heard the swan sing through the ice-cold showers of hail and the

spindrift. But the coming of spring and the cuckoo's cry, admonish

the brave man to go seafaring, despite the distresses; they are more

inspiriting than life on land. He is a Christian, but he falls back on

the old melancholy for the passing of kings and gold-givers. Though he

preaches over much, he still thinks of the bale-fire as the mode of

burial, as if Christian rites of earth to earth were not yet adopted.

Waldhere.

Of this poem only some sixty lines exist. They were found at

Copenhagen, written on two pieces of vellum which had been used in

binding a book: it is common to find fragments of early printed books

or manuscripts in the bindings of books more recent. One page of

"Waldhere" contains a speech by the heroine of the tale, Hildeguthe,

urging Waldhere to fight Guthere; the other fragment has portions of a

dialogue between the two combatants.

The names of the personages show that the poem was one of which we have

other versions, the most intelligible is a Latin form in verse.[4]

The story deals with an adventure, real or romantic, in the wars of

Attila with the Franks. Waldhere, an Aquitanian hostage, brought up

in Attila's court, with his betrothed lady, Hildeguthe, daughter of

the King of the Burgundians, is now keeper of Attila's treasures;

he and his friend Hagen escape; Hagen, who first fled, reached the

court of Guthere, King of the Franks, and hearing there that a lady

and a knight, with a treasure, are wandering about, he recognizes

his friends, and follows them with King Guthere (who mainly wants

the treasure), and with eleven other warriors. Hildeguthe sees them

coming, and Waldhere, who will not give up the treasures, slays the

eleven companions of Guthere, who are chivalrous enough to "set him

man for man," as the Scottish ballad says, in place of overpowering

him by numbers. Hagen, of course, does not want to fight his friend

Waldhere, but Fate, the Anglo-Saxon _Wyrd_, is too strong: Waldhere has

to encounter both Guthere and Hagen, for Hagen is Guthere's man, or

thegn, and may not disobey him; moreover, he _must_ avenge his nephew,

whom Waldhere has already slain. All three men receive terrible wounds,

and then they make friends; and Waldhere keeps both his lady and the

treasure.

This version of the story is more like a later romance than the other

Germanic epics. In these, as in this tale, there is usually a tragic

conflict of passions and duties, as when the law of blood-vengeance

compels a woman to avenge a slain father or brother, or her husband or

her lover. The end is always tragic, but the Latin poet has probably

contrived "a happy ending," while retaining the many good fights, and

the conflict of friendship and duty to a hero's lord, which make the

interest of the story.

In the Anglo-Saxon fragments, Hildeguthe, encouraging, her lover to

fight, praises the swordsmith, the old German hero, Weland, the Tubal

Cain of the race. He made the sword Miming, the best of all swords,

which never fails the fighter. Hildeguthe has never seen Waldhere

flee the fight; now he must not be less noble than himself. The other

fragment is like the dialogues of the heroes in the Iliad before they

come to blows.

The whole of "Waldhere" must have been, when complete, a poem much more

complex, and even more interesting (at least to modern readers) than

"Beowulf". It had "love interest," a brave heroine, good duels, and

the tragic conflict of duties, while it was full of allusions to other

ancient epics of the Germanic peoples.

The Fight at Finnsburg.

In a song of the gleeman at Hrothgar's house in "Beowulf," there are

obscure references to the slaying of Hnæf, brother of Hildeburh, wife

of the Frisian King Finn, and the slaying of Hildeburh's own sons by

the men of Hnæf, in a fight within the royal hall of Finn. They are all

burned together on the funeral pyre, while Hildeburh weeps for sons

and brother. A fragment of an Anglo-Saxon epic on this affair exists

only in one copy, the original is lost. It is a complicated story of

slayings and revenges among folk akin by marriage, and the interest

clearly lay in the tragic situation of Hildeburh, who owes vengeance

against her husband, Finn, and also against the family of her brother,

who have slain her sons. As Hildeburh returns to her own people, the

Danes, after her husband is killed, she probably preferred her own

blood kindred to those of her husband.

[1] The best versions for English readers of these splendid stories are

to be found in "The Volsungs and the Niblungs," translated by William

Morris and Magnusson, and in "The Corpus Poeticum Boreale," with

translations by F. York Powell and Vigfusson.

[2] This form of verse has been described thus by Prof. Saintsbury:--

"The staple line of this verse consists of two halves or sections, each

containing two 'long,' 'strong,' 'stressed,' 'accented' syllables,

these same syllables being, to the extent of three out of the four,

alliterated. At the first casting of the eye on a page of Anglo-Saxon

poetry no common resemblance except these seem to emerge, but we see

on some pages an altogether extraordinary difference in the lengths

of the lines, or, in other words, of the number of 'short,' 'weak,'

'unstressed,' 'unaccented' syllables, which are allowed to group

themselves round the pivots or posts of the rhythm, that is, round the

syllables on which strong stress is laid."

The eye and ear of the reader soon find out the essential facts of

the measures; the strong pause in the middle of each verse, the

alliteration, the accent, and the great variety in the number of the

syllables which are slurred, or not dwelt upon, in each case. The

poetry avoids rhymes, except in "The Rhyming Poem," later than King

Alfred's time, and in two or three Other instances.

[3] The words are:--

Ic me mid Hruntinge

dóm gewyrce, otthe mec death nimeth.

I (Ic, German _Ich_) with (German _mit_) _Hrunting_, glory will win,

otherwise (_otthe_) me (_mec_) death taketh (_nimmeth_), German

_nehmen_ ("to take").

[4] Translated from a lost German form; the Latin is of the tenth

century, by Ekkehard of St. Gall.