Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History.
Designed as a _Manual of Instruction_.
By
Henry Coppée, LL.D.,
President of the Lehigh University.
The Roman Epic abounds in moral and poetical defects; nevertheless it
remains the most complete picture of the national mind at its highest
elevation, the most precious document of national history, if the
history of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events
and incidents.--Rev. C. Merivale.
_History of the Romans under the Empire_, c. xli.
Second Edition.
Philadelphia:
Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
1873.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Claxton,
Remsen & Haffelfinger, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.
Stereotyped by J. Fagan & Son, Philadelphia.
To The Right Reverend William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Of
Pennsylvania.
My Dear Bishop:
I desire to connect your name with whatever may be useful and valuable in
this work, to show my high appreciation of your fervent piety, varied
learning, and elegant literary accomplishments; and, also, far more than
this, to record the personal acknowledgment that no man ever had a more
constant, judicious, generous and affectionate brother, than you have been
to me, for forty years of intimate and unbroken association.
Most affectionately and faithfully yours,
Henry Coppée.
PREFACE
It is not the purpose of the author to add another to the many volumes
containing a chronological list of English authors, with brief comments
upon each. Such a statement of works, arranged according to periods, or
reigns of English monarchs, is valuable only as an abridged dictionary of
names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.
Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
favorite author.
English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.
To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to
note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
bibliographic assistance, to _The Dictionary of Authors_, by my friend S.
Austin Allibone, LL.D., in which bibliography is a strong feature. I am
not called upon to eulogize that noble work, but I cannot help saying that
I have found it invaluable, and that whether mentioned or not, no writer
can treat of English authors without constant recurrence to its accurate
columns: it is a literary marvel of our age.
It will be observed that the remoter periods of the literature are those
in which the historic teachings are the most distinctly visible; we see
them from a vantage ground, in their full scope, and in the interrelations
of their parts. Although in the more modern periods the number of writers
is greatly increased, we are too near to discern the entire period, and
are in danger of becoming partisans, by reason of our limited view.
Especially is this true of the age in which we live. Contemporary history
is but party-chronicle: the true philosophic history can only be written
when distance and elevation give due scope to our vision.
The principle I have laid down is best illustrated by the great literary
masters. Those of less degree have been treated at less length, and many
of them will be found in the smaller print, to save space. Those who study
the book should study the small print as carefully as the other.
After a somewhat elaborate exposition of English literature, I could not
induce myself to tack on an inadequate chapter on American literature;
and, besides, I think that to treat the two subjects in one volume would
be as incongruous as to write a joint biography of Marlborough and
Washington. American literature is too great and noble, and has had too
marvelous a development to be made an appendix to English literature.
If time shall serve, I hope to prepare a separate volume, exhibiting the
stages of our literature in the Colonial period, the Revolutionary epoch,
the time of Constitutional establishment, and the present period. It will
be found to illustrate these historical divisions in a remarkable manner.
H. C.
The Lehigh University, _October_, 1872.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
Literature and Science--English Literature--General Principle--Celts
and Cymry--Roman Conquest--Coming of the Saxons--Danish Invasions--The
Norman Conquest--Changes in Language
CHAPTER II.
LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
The Uses of Literature--Italy, France, England--Purpose of the
Work--Celtic Literary Remains--Druids and Druidism--Roman
Writers--Psalter of Cashel--Welsh Triads and Mabinogion--Gildas and St.
Colm
CHAPTER III.
ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon--Earliest Saxon Poem--Metrical
Arrangement--Periphrasis and Alliteration--Beowulf--Caedmon--Other
Saxon Fragments--The Appearance of Bede
CHAPTER IV.
THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
Biography--Ecclesiastical History--The Recorded Miracles--Bede's
Latin--Other Writers--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value--Alfred the
Great--Effect of the Danish Invasions
CHAPTER V.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
Norman Rule--Its Oppression--Its Benefits--William of
Malmesbury--Geoffrey of Monmouth--Other Latin Chronicles--Anglo-Norman
Poets--Richard Wace--Other Poets
CHAPTER VI.
THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Semi-Saxon Literature--Layamon--The Ormulum--Robert of
Gloucester--Langland. Piers Plowman--Piers Plowman's Creed--Sir Jean
Froissart--Sir John Mandevil
CHAPTER VII.
CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
A New Era: Chaucer--Italian Influence--Chaucer as a Founder--Earlier
Poems--The Canterbury Tales--Characters--Satire--Presentations of
Woman--The Plan Proposed
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
Historical Facts--Reform in Religion--The Clergy, Regular and
Secular--The Friar and the Sompnour--The Pardonere--The Poure
Persone--John Wiclif--The Translation of the Bible--The Ashes of Wiclif
CHAPTER IX.
CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGE.
Social Life--Government--Chaucer's English--His Death--Historical
Facts--John Gower--Chaucer and Gower--Gower's Language--Other Writers
CHAPTER X.
THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
Greek Literature--Invention of Printing. Caxton--Contemporary
History--Skelton--Wyatt--Surrey--Sir Thomas Moore--Utopia, and other
Works--Other Writers
CHAPTER XI.
SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
The Great Change--Edward VI. and Mary--Sidney--The Arcadia--Defence of
Poesy--Astrophel and Stella--Gabriel Harvey--Edmund Spenser: Shepherd's
Calendar--His Great Work
CHAPTER XII.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
The Faerie Queene--The Plan Proposed--Illustrations of the History--The
Knight and the Lady--The Wood of Error and the Hermitage--The
Crusades--Britomartis and Sir Artegal--Elizabeth--Mary Queen of
Scots--Other Works--Spenser's Fate--Other Writers
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
Origin of the Drama--Miracle Plays--Moralities--First Comedy--Early
Tragedies--Christopher Marlowe--Other Dramatists--Playwrights and
Morals
CHAPTER XIV.
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
The Power of Shakspeare--Meagre Early History--Doubts of his
Identity--What is known--Marries and goes to London--"Venus" and
"Lucrece"--Retirement and Death--Literary Habitudes--Variety of the
Plays--Table of Dates and Sources
CHAPTER XV.
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (CONTINUED).
The Grounds of his Fame--Creation of Character--Imagination and
Fancy--Power of Expression--His Faults--Influence of
Elizabeth--Sonnets--Ireland and Collier--Concordance--Other Writers
CHAPTER XVI.
BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
Birth and Early Life--Treatment of Essex--His Appointments--His
Fall--Writes Philosophy--Magna Instauratio--His Defects--His Fame--His
Essays
CHAPTER XVII.
THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
Early Versions--The Septuagint--The Vulgate--Wiclif;
Tyndale--Coverdale; Cranmer--Geneva; Bishop's Bible--King James's
Bible--Language of the Bible--Revision
CHAPTER XVIII.
JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
Historical Facts--Charles I.--Religious Extremes--Cromwell--Birth and
Early Works--Views of Marriage--Other Prose Works--Effects of the
Restoration--Estimate of his Prose
CHAPTER XIX.
THE POETRY OF MILTON.
The Blind Poet--Paradise Lost--Milton and Dante--His
Faults--Characteristics of the Age--Paradise Regained--His
Scholarship--His Sonnets--His Death and Fame
CHAPTER XX.
COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
Cowley and Milton--Cowley's Life and Works--His Fame--Butler's
Career--Hudibras--His Poverty and Death--Izaak Walton--The Angler; and
Lives--Other Writers
CHAPTER XXI.
DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
The Court of Charles II.--Dryden's Early Life--The Death of
Cromwell--The Restoration--Dryden's Tribute--Annus Mirabilis--Absalom
and Achitophel--The Death of Charles--Dryden's Conversion--Dryden's
Fall--His Odes 207
CHAPTER XXII.
THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
The English Divines--Hall--Chillingsworth--Taylor--Fuller--Sir T.
Browne--Baxter--Fox--Bunyan--South--Other Writers 221
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
The License of the Age--Dryden--Wycherley--Congreve--Vanbrugh--
Farquhar--Etherege--Tragedy--Otway--Rowe--Lee--Southern 233
CHAPTER XXIV.
POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
Contemporary History--Birth and Early Life--Essay, on Criticism--Rape
of the Lock--The Messiah--The Iliad--Value of the Translation--The
Odyssey--Essay on Man--The Artificial School--Estimate of Pope--Other
Writers 241
CHAPTER XXV.
ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
The Character of the Age--Queen Anne--Whigs and Tories--George
I.--Addison: The Campaign--Sir Roger de Coverley--The Club--Addison's
Hymns--Person and Literary Character 254
CHAPTER XXVI.
STEELE AND SWIFT.
Sir Richard Steele--Periodicals--The Crisis--His Last Days--Jonathan
Swift: Poems--The Tale of a Tub--Battle of the Books--Pamphlets--M. B.
Drapier--Gulliver's Travels--Stella and Vanessa--His Character and
Death 264
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
The New Age--Daniel Defoe--Robinson Crusoe--Richardson--Pamela, and
Other Novels--Fielding--Joseph Andrews--Tom Jones--Its
Moral--Smollett--Roderick Random--Peregrine Pickle 280
CHAPTER XXVIII.
STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
The Subjective School--Sterne: Sermons--Tristram Shandy--Sentimental
Journey--Oliver Goldsmith--Poems: The Vicar--Histories, and Other
Works--Mackenzie--The Man of Feeling 296
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
The Sceptical Age--David Hume--History of England--Metaphysics--Essay
on Miracles--Robertson--Histories--Gibbon--The Decline and Fall 309
CHAPTER XXX.
SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
Early Life and Career--London--Rambler and Idler--The Dictionary--Other
Works--Lives of the Poets--Person and Character--Style--Junius 324
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
The Eighteenth Century--James Macpherson--Ossian--Thomas
Chatterton--His Poems--The Verdict--Suicide--The Cause 334
CHAPTER XXXII.
POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
The Transition Period--James Thomson--The Seasons--The Castle of
Indolence--Mark Akenside--Pleasures of the Imagination--Thomas
Gray--The Elegy. The Bard--William Cowper--The Task--Translation of
Homer--Other Writers 347
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE LATER DRAMA.
The Progress of the Drama--Garrick--Foote--Cumberland--Sheridan--George
Colman--George Colman, the Younger--Other Dramatists and
Humorists--Other Writers on Various Subjects 360
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
Walter Scott--Translations and Minstrelsy--The Lay of the Last
Minstrel--Other Poems--The Waverley Novels--Particular
Mention--Pecuniary Troubles--His Manly Purpose--Powers
Overtasked--Fruitless Journey--Return and Death--His Fame 371
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
Early Life of Byron--Childe Harold and Eastern Tales--Unhappy
Marriage--Philhellenism and Death--Estimate of his Poetry--Thomas
Moore--Anacreon--Later Fortunes--Lalla Rookh--His Diary--His Rank as
Poet 384
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
Robert Burns--His Poems--His Career--George Crabbe--Thomas
Campbell--Samuel Rogers--P. B. Shelley--John Keats--Other Writers 397
CHAPTER XXXVII.
WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
The New School--William Wordsworth--Poetical Canons--The Excursion and
Sonnets--An Estimate--Robert Southey--His Writings--Historical
Value--S. T. Coleridge--Early Life--His Helplessness--Hartley and H. N.
Coleridge 414
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE REACTION IN POETRY.
Alfred Tennyson--Early Works--The Princess--Idyls of the
King--Elizabeth B. Browning--Aurora Leigh--Her Faults--Robert
Browning--Other Poets 428
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE LATER HISTORIANS.
New Materials--George Grote--History of Greece--Lord Macaulay--History
of England--Its Faults--Thomas Carlyle--Life of Frederick II.--Other
Historians 439
CHAPTER XL.
THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
Bulwer--Changes in Writers--Dickens's Novels--American Notes--His
Varied Powers--Second Visit to America--Thackeray--Vanity Fair--Henry
Esmond--The Newcomes--The Georges--Estimate of his Powers 450
CHAPTER XLI.
THE LATER WRITERS.
Charles Lamb--Thomas Hood--Thomas de Quincey--Other Novelists--Writers
on Science and Philosophy 466
CHAPTER XLII.
ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
Roman News Letters--The Gazette--The Civil War--Later Divisions--The
Reviews--The Monthlies--The Dailies--The London Times--Other Newspapers
475
Alphabetical Index of Authors
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
Literature and Science. English Literature. General Principle. Celts
and Cymry. Roman Conquest. Coming of the Saxons. Danish Invasions. The
Norman Conquest. Changes in Language.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
There are two words in the English language which are now used to express
the two great divisions of mental production--_Science_ and _Literature_;
and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has
been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may
employ them without confusion.
_Science_, from the participle _sciens_, of _scio, scire_, to know, would
seem to comprise all that can be known--what the Latins called the _omne
scibile_, or all-knowable.
_Literature_ is from _litera_, a letter, and probably at one remove from
_lino, litum_, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet
was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can
be conveyed by the use of letters.
But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same
meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing
and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant
the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been
given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.
In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men
search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which
establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral
sciences.
Literature, which is of later development as at present used, comprises
those subjects which have a relation to human life and human nature
through the power of the imagination and the fancy. Technically,
literature includes _history, poetry, oratory, the drama_, and _works of
fiction_, and critical productions upon any of these as themes.
Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose,
although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain
occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each
other's advantage. Thus it is no confusion of terms to speak of the poetry
of science and of the science of poetry; and thus the great functions of
the human mind, although scientifically distinct, co-operate in harmonious
and reciprocal relations in their diverse and manifold productions.
ENGLISH LITERATURE.--English Literature may then be considered as
comprising the progressive productions of the English mind in the paths of
imagination and taste, and is to be studied in the works of the poets,
historians, dramatists, essayists, and romancers--a long line of brilliant
names from the origin of the language to the present day.
To the general reader all that is profitable in this study dates from the
appearance of Chaucer, who has been justly styled the Father of English
Poetry; and Chaucer even requires a glossary, as a considerable portion
of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified;
but for the student of English literature, who wishes to understand its
philosophy and its historic relations, it becomes necessary to ascend to a
more remote period, in order to find the origin of the language in which
Chaucer wrote, and the effect produced upon him by any antecedent literary
works, in the root-languages from which the English has sprung.
GENERAL PRINCIPLE.--It may be stated, as a general principle, that to
understand a nation's literature, we must study the history of the people
and of their language; the geography of the countries from which they
came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes
which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find,
as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are
reciprocally reflective.
I. CELTS AND CYMRY.--Thus, in undertaking the study of English literature,
we must begin with the history of the Celts and Cymry, the first
inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any record, who had
come from Asia in the first great wave of western migration; a rude,
aboriginal people, whose languages, at the beginning of the Christian era,
were included in one family, the _Celtic_, comprising the _British_ or
_Cambrian_, and the _Gadhelic_ classes. In process of time these were
subdivided thus:
The British into
_Welsh_, at present spoken in Wales.
_Cornish_, extinct only within a century.
_Armorican_, Bas Breton, spoken in French Brittany.
The Gadhelic into
_Gaelic_, still spoken in the Scottish Highlands.
_Irish_, or _Erse_, spoken in Ireland.
_Manx_, spoken in the Isle of Man.
Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent
occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its
birth.
II. ROMAN CONQUEST.--But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans
under Cæsar and his successors, and kept in a state of servile thraldom
for four hundred and fifty years. There was but little amalgamation
between them and their military masters. Britain was a most valuable
northern outpost of the Roman Empire, and was occupied by large garrisons,
which employed the people in hard labors, and used them for Roman
aggrandizement, but despised them too much to attempt to elevate their
condition. Elsewhere the Romans depopulated, where they met with barbarian
resistance; they made a solitude and called it peace--for which they gave
a triumph and a cognomen to the conqueror; but in Britain, although
harassed and endangered by the insurrections of the natives, they bore
with them; they built fine cities like London and York, originally
military outposts, and transformed much of the country between the Channel
and the Tweed from pathless forest into a civilized residence.
III. COMING OF THE SAXONS.--Compelled by the increasing dangers and
troubles immediately around the city of Rome to abandon their distant
dependencies, the Roman legions evacuated Britain, and left the people,
who had become enervated, spiritless, and unaccustomed to the use of arms,
a prey to their fierce neighbors, both from Scotland and from the
continent.
The Saxons had already made frequent incursions into Britain, while rival
Roman chieftains were contesting for pre-eminence, and, as early as the
third century, had become so troublesome that the Roman emperors were
obliged to appoint a general to defend the eastern coast, known as _comes
litoris Saxonici_, or count of the Saxon shore.[1]
These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when
the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons
against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess
themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race--Teutons
overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large
numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy
permanently. From the less attractive seats of Friesland and the basin of
the Weser, they came to establish themselves in a charming country,
already reclaimed from barbarism, to enslave or destroy the inhabitants,
and to introduce their language, religion, and social institutions. They
came as a confederated people of German race--Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and
Frisians;[2] but, as far as the results of their conquest are concerned,
there was entire unity among them.
The Celts, for a brief period protected by them from their fierce northern
neighbors, were soon enslaved and oppressed: those who resisted were
driven slowly to the Welsh mountains, or into Cornwall, or across the
Channel into French Brittany. Great numbers were destroyed. They left few
traces of their institutions and their language. Thus the Saxon was
established in its strength, and has since remained the strongest element
of English ethnography.
IV. DANISH INVASIONS.--But Saxon Britain was also to suffer from
continental incursions. The Scandinavians--inhabitants of Norway, Sweden,
and Denmark--impelled by the same spirit of piratical adventure which had
actuated the Saxons, began to leave their homes for foreign conquest.
"Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the
banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and
explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."[3] To
England they came as Danes; to France, as Northmen or Normans. They took
advantage of the Saxon wars with the British, of Saxon national feuds, and
of that enervation which luxurious living had induced in the Saxon kings
of the octarchy, and succeeded in occupying a large portion of the north
and east of England; and they have exerted in language, in physical type,
and in manners a far greater influence than has been usually conceded.
Indeed, the Danish chapter in English history has not yet been fairly
written. They were men of a singularly bold and adventurous spirit, as is
evinced by their voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and thence to the Atlantic
coast of North America, as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries. It
is more directly to our purpose to observe their character as it is
displayed in their conquest of the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, in their
facile reception and ready assimilation of the Roman language and arts
which they found in Gaul, and in their forcible occupancy, under William
the Conqueror, of Saxon England, in 1066.
V. THE NORMAN CONQUEST.--The vigor of the Normans had been trained, but
not weakened by their culture in Normandy. They maintained their supremacy
in arms against the efforts of the kings of France. They had long
cultivated intimate relations with England, and their dukes had long
hankered for its possession. William, the natural son of Duke
Robert--known to history and musical romance as Robert le Diable--was a
man of strong mind, tenacious purpose, and powerful hand. He had obtained,
by promise of Edward the Confessor, the reversion of the crown upon the
death of that monarch; and when the issue came, he availed himself of
that reversion and the Pope's sanction, and also of the disputed
succession between Harold, the son of Godwin, and the true Saxon heir,
Edgar Atheling, to make good his claim by force of arms.
Under him the Normans were united, while divisions existed in the Saxon
ranks. Tostig, the brother of Harold, and Harald Hardrada, the King of
Norway, combined against Harold, and, just before the landing of Duke
William at Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, Harold was obliged to march
rapidly northward to Stanford bridge, to defeat Tostig and the Norwegians,
and then to return with a tired army of uncertain _morale_, to encounter
the invading Normans. Thus it appears that William conquered the land,
which would have been invincible had the leaders and the people been
united in its defence.
As the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were of the same great Teutonic family,
however modified by the different circumstances of movement and residence,
there was no new ethnic element introduced; and, paradoxical as it may
seem, the fusion of these peoples was of great benefit, in the end, to
England. Though the Saxons at first suffered from Norman oppression, the
kingdom was brought into large inter-European relations, and a far better
literary culture was introduced, more varied in subject, more developed in
point of language, and more artistic.
Thus much, in a brief historical summary, is necessary as an introduction
to our subject. From all these contests and conquests there were wrought
in the language of the country important changes, which are to be studied
in the standard works of its literature.
CHANGES IN LANGUAGE.--The changes and transformations of language may be
thus briefly stated:--In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the
Romans, the people spoke different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic
languages, all cognate and radically similar.
These were not much affected by the occupancy of the Romans for about four
hundred and fifty years, although, doubtless, Latin words, expressive of
things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were
adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these
conquerors learned and used the Latin language.
When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and
sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English,
became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but
retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also
did of Latin terminations in names.
Before the coming of the Normans, their language, called the _Langue
d'oil_, or Norman French, had been very much favored by educated
Englishmen; and when William conquered England, he tried to supplant the
Saxon entirely. In this he was not successful; but the two languages were
interfused and amalgamated, so that in the middle of the twelfth century,
there had been thus created the _English language_, formed but still
formative. The Anglo-Saxon was the foundation, or basis; while the Norman
French is observed to be the principal modifying element.
Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of
them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign
invasion.
Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of
literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding
words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek
into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words,
and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The
establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts,
brought in the practice and study of German, and somewhat of its
phraseology; and English conquests in the East have not failed to
introduce Indian words, and, what is far better, to open the way for a
fuller study of comparative philology and linguistics.
In a later chapter we shall reconsider the periods referred to, in an
examination of the literary works which they contain, works produced by
historical causes, and illustrative of historical events.