English Literature: Its History and Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World - William J. Long (book club books .TXT) 📗

of Isaac Newton, who was one of its members; and its influence for truth--at a time when men were still trying to compound the philosopher's stone, calculating men's actions from the stars, and hanging harmless old women for witches--can hardly be overestimated.

174. If the reader would see this in concrete form, let him read a paragraph of Milton's prose, or a stanza of his poetry, and compare its exuberant, melodious diction with Dryden's concise method of writing.

175. Edmund Waller (1606-1687), the most noted poet of the Restoration period until his pupil Dryden appeared. His works are now seldom read.

176. From Divine Poems, "Old Age and Death."

177. Following the advice of Boileau (1676-1711), a noted French critic, whom Voltaire called "the lawgiver of Parnassus."

178. By a critic we mean simply one who examines the literary works of various ages, separates the good from the bad, and gives the reasons for his classification. It is noticeable that critical writings increase in an age, like that of the Restoration, when great creative works are wanting.

179. Two other principles of this book should be noted: (1) that all power originates in the people; and (2) that the object of all government is the common good. Here evidently is a democratic doctrine, which abolishes the divine right of kings; but Hobbes immediately destroys democracy by another doctrine,--that the power given by the people to the ruler could not be taken away. Hence the Royalists could use the book to justify the despotism of the Stuarts on the ground that the people had chosen them. This part of the book is in direct opposition to Milton's Defense of the English People.

180. Locke's Treatises on Government should also be mentioned, for they are of profound interest to American students of history and political science. It was from Locke that the framers of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution drew many of their ideas, and even some of their most striking phrases. "All men are endowed with certain inalienable rights"; "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; "the origin and basis of government is in the consent of the governed,"--these and many more familiar and striking expressions are from Locke. It is interesting to note that he was appointed to draft a constitution for the new province of Carolina; but his work was rejected,--probably because it was too democratic for the age in which he lived.

181. A few slight changes and omissions from the original text, as given in Wheatley's edition of Pepys (London, 1892, 9 vols.), are not indicated in these brief quotations.

182. The first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, appeared in London in 1702.

183. See Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century.

184. Addison's "Campaign" (1704), written to celebrate the battle of Blenheim.

185. Great writers in every age, men like Shakespeare and Milton, make their own style. They are therefore not included in this summary. Among the minor writers also there are exceptions to the rule; and fine feeling is often manifest in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Herrick.

186. We have endeavored here simply to show the meaning of terms in general use in our literature; but it must be remembered that it is impossible to classify or to give a descriptive name to the writers of any period or century. While "classic" or "pseudo-classic" may apply to a part of eighteenth-century literature, every age has both its romantic and its classic movements. In this period the revolt against classicism is shown in the revival of romantic poetry under Gray, Collins, Burns, and Thomson, and in the beginning of the English novel under Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. These poets and novelists, who have little or no connection with classicism, belong chronologically to the period we are studying. They are reserved for special treatment in the sections following.

187. Pope's satires, for instance, are strongly suggested in Boileau; his Rape of the Lock is much like the mock-heroic Le Lutrin; and the "Essay on Criticism," which made him famous, is an English edition and improvement of L'Art Poétique. The last was, in turn, a combination of the Ars Poetica of Horace and of many well-known rules of the classicists.

188. These are the four kinds of spirits inhabiting the four elements, according to the Rosicrucians,--a fantastic sect of spiritualists of that age. In the dedication of the poem Pope says he took the idea from a French book called Le Comte de Gabalis.

189. Compare this with Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage," in As You Like it, II, 7.

190. It is only fair to point out that Swift wrote this and two other pamphlets on religion at a time when he knew that they would damage, if not destroy, his own prospects of political advancement.

191. See Tennyson's "Merlin and the Gleam."

192. Of the Tatler essays Addison contributed forty-two; thirty-six others were written in collaboration with Steele; while at least a hundred and eighty are the work of Steele alone.

193. From "The Vanity of Human Wishes"

194. A very lovable side of Johnson's nature is shown by his doing penance in the public market place for his unfilial conduct as a boy. (See, in Hawthorne's Our Old Home, the article on "Lichfield and Johnson.") His sterling manhood is recalled in his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, refusing the latter's patronage for the Dictionary. The student should read this incident entire, in Boswell's Life of Johnson.

195. In Johnson's Dictionary we find this definition: "Grub-street, the name of a street in London much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub-street."

196. From Macaulay's review of Boswell's Life of Johnson.

197. Many of the writers show a mingling of the classic and the romantic tendencies. Thus Goldsmith followed Johnson and opposed the romanticists; but his Deserted Village is romantic in spirit, though its classic couplets are almost as mechanical as Pope's. So Burke's orations are "elegantly classic" in style, but are illumined by bursts of emotion and romantic feeling.

198. A much more interesting work is Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, which was written in answer to Burke's essay, and which had enormous influence in England and America.

199. In the same year, 1775, in which Burke's magnificent "Conciliation" oration was delivered, Patrick Henry made a remarkable little speech before a gathering of delegates in Virginia. Both men were pleading the same cause of justice, and were actuated by the same high ideals. A very interesting contrast, however, may be drawn between the methods and the effects of Henry's speech and of Burke's more brilliant oration. Burke makes us wonder at his learning, his brilliancy, his eloquence; but he does not move us to action. Patrick Henry calls us, and we spring to follow him. That suggests the essential difference between the two orators.

200. The romantic revival is marked by renewed interest in mediæval ideals and literature; and to this interest is due the success of Walpole's romance, The Castle of Otranto, and of Chatterton's forgeries known as the Rowley Papers.

201. From The Task, Book II.

202. See, for instance, Phelps, Beginnings of the Romantic Movement, for a list of Spenserian imitators from 1700 to 1775.

203. Such is Goldsmith's version of a somewhat suspicious adventure, whose details are unknown.

204. Goldsmith's idea, which was borrowed from Walpole, reappears in the pseudo Letters from a Chinese Official, which recently attracted considerable attention.

205. Fitz-Greene Halleck's poem "To a Rose from near Alloway Kirk" (1822) is a good appreciation of Burns and his poetry. It might be well to read this poem before the sad story of Burns's life.

206. Introduction, Songs of Innocence.

207. Swinburne's William Blake.

208. There are several omissions from the text in this fragment from Fingal.

209. Several fragments of Gaelic poetry, attributed to Ossian or Oisin, are now known to have existed at that time in the Highlands. Macpherson used these as a basis for his epic, but most of the details were furnished by his own imagination. The alleged text of "Ossian" was published in 1807, some eleven years after Macpherson's death. It only added another mystery to the forgery; for, while it embodied a few old and probably genuine fragments, the bulk of it seems to be Macpherson's work translated back into Gaelic.

210. For various other collections of songs and ballads, antedating Percy's, see Phelps's Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement, ch. vii.

211. The first books to which the term "novel," in the modern sense, may be applied, appeared almost simultaneously in England, France, and Germany. The rapid development of the English novel had an immense influence in all European nations.

212. The name "romance" was given at first to any story in one of the Romance languages, like the French metrical romances, which we have considered. Because these stories were brought to England at a time when the childish mind of the Middle Ages delighted in the most impossible stories, the name "romance" was retained to cover any work of the unbridled imagination.

213. This division of works of fiction into romances and novels is a somewhat arbitrary one, but it seems, on the whole, the most natural and the most satisfactory. Many writers use the generic term "novel" to include all prose fiction. They divide novels into two classes, stories and romances; the story being a form of the novel which relates certain incidents of life with as little complexity as possible; and the romance being a form of novel which describes life as led by strong emotions into complex and unusual circumstances. Novels are otherwise divided into novels of personality, like Vicar of Wakefield and Silas Marner; historical novels, Ivanhoe; novels of romance, like Lorna Doone and novels of purpose, like Oliver Twist and Uncle Tom's Cabin. All such classifications are imperfect, and the best of them is open to objections.

214. One of these tales was called The Wonderful Things beyond Thule. It is the story of a youth, Dinias, who for love of a girl, Dercyllis, did heroic things and undertook many adventures, including a journey to the frozen north, and another to the moon. A second tale, Ephesiaca, is the story of a man and a maid, each of whom scoffs at love. They meet and fall desperately in love; but the course of true love does not run smooth, and they separate, and suffer, and go through many perils, before they "live happily ever after." This tale is the source of the mediæval story, Apollonius of Tyre, which is used in Gower's Confessio Amantis and in Shakespeare's Pericles. A third tale is the pastoral love story, Daphnis and Chloe, which reappeared in many forms in subsequent literature.

215. Minto's Life of Defoe, p. 139.

216. These were not what the booksellers expected. They wanted a "handy letter writer," something like a book of etiquette; and it was published in 1741, a few months after Pamela.

217. See p. 315.

218. For titles and publishers of general reference works, and of inexpensive texts, see General Bibliography at end