English literature

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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 13

CHAPTER n.

LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.

The Uses of Literature — Italy, France, England — Purpose of the Work — Celtic Literary Remains — Druids and Druidisra — Roman Writers — Psalter of Cashel — Welsh Triads and Mabinogion — Gildas and St. Colm 22

CHAPTER HI.

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 . jQ

CHAPTER IV.

THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.

Blcgi'aphy — Ecclesiastical History — The Recorded Miracles — Bede's Latin — Other Writers — The Anglo - Saxon Chronicle : its Value — Alfred the Great — Effect of the Danish Invasions . 37 f ♦ »

Vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.

PAG I

Nonnan Rule — Its Oppression — Its Benefits — William of Malmesbury — Geoffrey of Monmouth — Other Latin Chronicles — Anglo-Norman Poets — Richard Wace — Other Poets . 45

CHAPTER VI.

THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Semi-Saxon Literature — Layamon — The Ormulum — Robert ol Gloucester — Langland. Piers Plowman — Piers Plowman's Creed — Sir Jean Froissart — Sir John Mandevil , , , ,53

CHAPTER Vn.

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 . . ,60

CHAPTER Vni.

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 70 •

CHAPTER IX.

CHAUCER (continued). — PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OP LANGUAGE.

Social Life — Government — Chaucer's English — His Death — Historical Facts — John Gower — Chaucer and Gower — Gower's Lan<niage — Other Writers ........ 81

CONTENTS. Vll

CHAPTER X.

IHE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.

FAGl

Greek Literature — Invention of Printing. Caxton — Contemporary History — Skelton — Wyatt — Surrey — Sir Thomas Moore — Utopia, and other Works — Other Writers . . • 91

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 104

CHAPTER Xn.

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 W^riters 1 14

CHAPTER Xin.

THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

Origin of the Drama — Miracle Plays — Moralities — First Comedy — Early Tragedies — Christopher Marlowe — Other Dramatists — Playwrights and Morals 1 28

CHAPTER XIV.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

The Power of Shakspeare — Meagre Early History — Doubts of his Identity — WTiat is known — Marries and goes to London — "Venus" and "Lucrece" — Retirement and Death — Literary Habitudes — Variety of the Plays —Table of Dates and Sources 137

Vili CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XV.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (cONTINUED).

fAGI

Ttixi Grounds of his Fame — Creation of Character — Imaginaticft and Fancy — Power of Expression — His Faults — Influence of Elizabeth — Sonnets — Ireland and Collier — Concordance — Other Writers 148

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 156

CHAPTER XVn.

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 . . .167

CHAPTER XVni.

JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMOmVEALTH.

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 . 174

CHAPTER XIX.

THE POETRY OF MILTON.

The Blind Poet — Paradise Lost — Milton and Dante — His Faults — Characteristics of the Age — Paradise Regained — His S(-holarship — His Sonnets — His Death and Fame . . iS^

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 . , . 195

CONTENTS. ix

CHAPTER XXI.

DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.

PAG>

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 — Diyden's Conversion — Dryden's Fall — His Odes . . . 207

CHAPTER XXn.

THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBEL- LION AND OF THE RESTORATION.

The English Divines — Hall — Chillingsworth — Taylor — Fuller

- -Sir T. Browne — Baxter — Fox — Bunyan — South — Other Writers 221

CHAPTER XXUI.

THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.

ITie License of the Age — Dryden — Wycherley — Congreve — Vanbrugh — Farquhar — Etherege — Tragedy ■ — Otway ■ — Rowe — Lee — Southern 233

CHAPTER XXIV.

POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.

Contemporar}' 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 Scliool — Estimate of Pope — Other Writers , . , .241

CHAPTER XXV.

ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.

rhe Character of the Age — Queen Anne — Wliigs and Tories — George I. — Addison : The Campaign — Sir Roger de Coverley — The Club — Addison's Hymns — Person and Literary Character 254

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXVI.

STEELE AND SWIFT.

PAua

Sir Richard Steele — Periodicals — The Crisis — His Last Days —

Jon<ithan 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 XXVn.

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 XXVni.

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 300

CHAPTER XXX.

SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.

Early Life and Career — London — RambleT and Idler — The Dictionary — Other Works — Lives of the Poets — Person and Chara ;ter — 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

CONTENTS. Xi

CHAPTER XXXII.

POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.

PAGI

The Transition Period — James Thomson — The Seasons — The Castle of Indolence — Mark Akenside — Pleasures of the Imagination — Thomas Gray — The Elegy. The Bard — William v\,\vper — The Task — Translation of Homer — Other Writers 347

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE LATER DRAMA.

Th-i Progress of the Drama — Garrick — Foote — Cumberland — ^neridau — George Colman — George Colman, the Younger — Cnher Dramatists and Humorists — Other Writers on Various" b.bjects . , . 360

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY : SCOTT.

WaK^r Scott — Translations and Minstrelsy — The Lay of the Last Mmstrel — 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 Bums — His Poems — His Career — George Crabbe — Thomas Campbell — Samuel Rogers — P. B. Shelley — John Keats — Other Writers 397

XH CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.

TKGt

The New School — William Wordsworth — Poetical Canons — Tlie 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 — Thack. ercy — Vanity P'air — ■ 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.

THE WRITERS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.

Novelists — Poets — Historians — Miscellaneous Writers . . .475

English Literature.

CHAPTER I.

THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.

Literature and Science, i Celts and Cymry. I Danish Invasions.

English Literature. Roman Conquest. The Norman Conquest

General Principle. I Coming of the Saxons. I Changes in Language,

Literature and Science.

TH^RE are two words in the English language which are now used to express the two great divisions of mental production — Science ?in6. 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 tiaced 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 knowl-

2 13 edge in ihe 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, dramatist:^, 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 re- (juires a glossiry, as a considerable portion of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified ; but

HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT. I5

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 rootdanguages from which the English has sprung. Many works justly classified under English literature are written in Latin and other languages.

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 Cambria7i, and the Gadhelic classes. In process of time these were subdivided thus: The British into

Welsh, at present spoken in Wales.

Coniish, 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.

Sue h are the first people and dialects to be considered as Llie antecedent occupants of the country in which English lit erature was to have its birth.

II. Roman Conquest. — But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans under Coesar 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 ap«

HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT. 1/

point a general to defend the eastern coast, known as comes litoris Scixonici, or count of the Saxon shore. ^

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 ricts 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;^ 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

1 His jurisdiction extended from Norfolk around to Sussex.

* This is the usually accepted division of tribes; but Dr. Latham denies that the Jutes, or inhabitants of Jutland, shared in the invasicm The difficult question does not affect the scope of our inquiiy. 2* B

Saxons, began to leave their homes for foreign connnest, " Impatient of a bleak cUmate and narrow limits, they started from tlie banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."^ To England they Qame 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

i Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. Iv.

HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT. I9

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 invincii3le 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 sum'mary, 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 I<anguage. — The changes and transformations of language may be thus briefly stated : — In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the Romans, the people spoke

^O ENGLISH LITERATURE.

different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic languages, all cog!iate 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 Ihcm, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these conquerors learned and used the Latin language.

When the Romaub 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 enteied, 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

HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT. 21

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 conlain, works produced by historical causes, and illustrative of hiisiorical events.

Note. — Among the Romance languages, the daughters of the Latin, the one which prevailed in the north of Gaul, and called the Langue d'oil, was distinguished from that in the south, or the Langue cf oc, by the use of the Latin pronouns which signified yes, the former being a corruption of illud, and the latter of the redundant hoc illud. The furmer became the Norman French and eventually the French of to-day, the language of the Trouvers, and the latter was known generically as the Provencal, the language of the Troubadours. In the Langue d'oil the best poems of the Anglo- Norman period in England were composed.

' CHAPTER II.

LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.

nieUses of Liierature. i Celtic Literary Remains. i Psalter of Cashel. [gioa Italy, France, England. Druids and Druidism. \Velsh Triads and Mabino

Purpose of the Work. I Roman Writers. I Gildas and St. Colm. .

The Uses of Literature.

BEFORE examining these periods in order to find the literature produced in them, it will be well to consider briefly what are the practical uses of literature, and to set forth, as a theme, that particular utility which it is the object of these pages to inculcate and apply.

The uses of literature are manifold. Its study gives wholesome food to the mind, making it strong and systematic. It cultivates and delights the imagination and the taste of men. It refines society by elevating the thoughts and aspirations above what is sensual and sordid, and by checking the grosser passions; it makes up, in part, that *' multiplication of agreeable consciousness" which Dr. Johnson calls happiness. Its adaptations in religion, in statesmanship, in legislative and judicial inquiry, are productive of noble and beneficent results. History shows us, that while it has given to the individual man, in all ages, contemplative habits, and high moral tone, it has thus also been a powerful instrument in producing the brilliant civilization of mighty empires.

A Teacher of History. — But apart from these its subjective benefits, it has its highest and most practical utility as a teacher of history. Ballads, more powerful tlian laws,

LITERATJRE A TEACHER OF HISTORV. 23

shouted forth from a nation's heart, have been in part the achiever?, and afterward the victorious hymns, of its new-born freedcra^ and have been also used in after ages to reinspire the peopie with the spirit of their ancestors. Immortal epics not only present magnificent displays of heroism for imitation, but, like the Iliad and Odyssey, still teach the theogony, national policy, and social history of a people, after the Bcma has long been silent, the temples in ruin, and the groves prostrate under the axe of repeated conquests.

Satires have at once exhibited and scourged social faults and national follies, and remained to after times as most essential materials for history.

Indeed, it was a quaint but just assertion of Hare, in his ''Guesses at Truth," that in Greek history there is nothing truer than Herodotus except Homer.

Italy and France. — Passing by the classic periods, which afford abundant illustration of the position, it would be easy to exhibit the clear and direct historic teachings in purely literary works, by a reference to the literature of Italy and France. The history of the age of the Guelphs and Ghibellines is clearly revealed in the vision of Dante : the times of Louis XIV. are amply illustrated by the pulpit of Massillon, Bourdaloue, and Bridaine, and by the drama of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere.

English Literature the best Illustration, — But in seeking for an illustration of the position that literature is eminently a teacher and interpreter of history, we are fortunate in finding none more striking than that presented by English literature itself. All the great events of English history find complete correspondent delineation in English literature, so that, were the purely historical record lost, we should have in the works of poetry, fiction, and the drama, correct portraitures of the character, habits, manners and customs, political sentiments, and modes and forms of religious belief among the

English people ; in a word, the philosophy of English history.

In the works of Chancer; Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden, and Addison, are to be found the men and women, kings, nobles, and commons, descriptions of English nature, liinu of the progress of science and advancement in art; tlic conduct of government, the force of prevailing fashions — in a word, the moving life of the time, and not its dry historic record.