Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke.. Charles James Lever... 1808 . Author of Concordance of Shakespeare. 1809... Novelist.......... Mark Lemon, Editor of Punch.... Author of Dramas and Sketches.. Rich. Moncton Milnes, Lord Houghton. Poet.. 1809 1809-1870 1809 Edinburgh Encyclopædia, begun 1808, finished 1830. Encyclopædia Britannica, begun 1810, finished 1824, new edition 1860. Edinburgh Review, founded 1802. Quarterly Review, founded 1809. Blackwood's Magazine, founded 1817. Westminster Review, founded 1824. VI. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS (SINCE 1810). The period has now been reached at which the wise critic will hesitate about giving any very positive judgments. As we look far backward, the great lights of our literature shine like stars. Chaucer and Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, are as fixed in our firmament as Sirius, Arcturus, Lyra, and Spica Virginis are in the blue above us. As to later names, the debate still goes on, and the next age may make a new order of succession; and when we come nearer, such are the honest differences of opinion, growing out of varying religious culture, and varying mental training, it is no wonder that there are nearly as many Valhallas for literary heroes as there are separate sects and schools of thought. When we remember how few geniuses have been appreciated while living, we shall be cautious as to our estimates of contemporaries. We do not know what form of faith, what school of thought, what theory of criticism, is to rule the world. To recognize the divine gift in any of the mortals with whom we daily mingle, and whose errors and foibles are as evident as their talents, requires the eye of prophecy. The suitors of Portia had an easier task set before them, for the enigmatical inscriptions upon the caskets gave some clew for a ready wit to seize upon. There has been no attempt at making these last lists full and complete. The number of living writers is very great, and their relative rank is wholly problematical. It is only hoped that this is a reasonably fair summary. Among writers of fiction will be noticed Wilkie Collins, eminent for his skilfully constructed plots, — Charles Reade, whose power is unquestioned, and Sala, cleverest of imitators, and with a good style of his own also. Dr. Brown, the genial essayist and charming story-teller, has written only enough to make us regret that an absorbing profession had left him so little leisure for authorship. Some views of the philosophy of history are ably presented by Creasy in his "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World." Lewes challenges the attention of all cultivated readers by his life of the illustrious Goethe and his History of Philosophy. Helps has furnished many topics for discussion to "friends in council." Buckle has taken the vast accumulations of history, and having "sorted" the classes of facts, has given to the world a doctrine of averages, showing a constant law in apparent disorder. But the largest and most valuable contributions to our literature in the widest sense have come from the travellers, natural philosophers, and scientific explorers, who now command the most eager attention from all educated men, and are exerting an influence upon thought, as well as upon the whole tone of literature and language, of which we have but a faint conception. While these powerful causes are at work within, events are ex tending the sphere of the language without. The colonizing genius of our race has planted civilization on all the prominent points in the highway around the globe, so that the people once known as barbarians, dwelling upon an insignificant island, are probably destined to diffuse their speech as widely as their political and commercial influence, and to return to the East, the old cradle of races, the augmented light of a more universal learning and nobler moral truth. Gilbert Abbot à Becket. Author of Comic History of Rome, &c., in “Punch.” Divine and Philologist. Essayist and Historian.. Dramatist.. Poetess. Philosopher.. Author of Travels and Hist. Studies. Historian of Civilization.. HINTS ON THE ORDER OF READING. The course prepared for the Latin School embraced extracts from American as well as British authors; but after the work of compilation was begun, it was found to be impracticable to condense the whole into one book, and accordingly it was determined to leave the specimens of American literature for a second volume. Omitting (for this purpose) the American authors, the order suggested was as follows: SCOTT The Lady of the Lake, and prose extracts. GOLDSMITH - The Deserted Village and The Vicar of Wakefield. CAMPBELL. DICKENS — A Christmas Carol, as abridged. Wordsworth-We are Seven. CoWPER - John Gilpin. TENNYSON- Charge of the Light Brigade. LEIGH HUNT. ANCIENT BALLADS. STERNE. BEATTIE. TENNYSON - The Miller's Daughter. MORRIS- The Man born to be King. HAZLITT. GRAY. ADDISON. MOORE. BURNS. HOOD. SHELLEY. MILTON L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. POPE - Rape of the Lock. THOMSON. COLLINS. COLERIDGE. KEATS. WORDSWORTH Intimations of Immortality. TYNDALL. MILTON Lycidas and Comus. POPE Essay on Man. DRYDEN. SPENSER. THACKERAY. LAMB. TENNYSON -The Passing of Arthur. RUSKIN. SHAKESPEARE — Julius Cæsar and As You Like It. MACAULAY Burke. MARVELL. HERBERT. - prose and verse. BYRON. CARLYLE. ROBERT SHAKESPEARE The Tempest, The list does not comprise all the authors in the volume; but it is given for what it is worth to the consideration of instructors. HAND-BOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. GEOFFREY CHAUCER. Geoffrey Chaucer, who has been fitly styled "the morning star of English poetry," fourished in the reign of Edward III., and died A. D. 1400. The date of his birth is unknown, but it is supposed to have been about the year 1328. He had some public employments, and a pension from the crown; but the royal instructions, on one occasion, certainly, indicate that the practical monarch had no special appreciation of the poet's genius. "The Canterbury Tales," his principal work, is a connected series of stories told by a number of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of à Becket. The characters are vividly and minutely drawn, so that, if history were silent, the dress and customs of the age, and even the general condition of the kingdom, could be reproduced from this poem alone. Chancer has never been equalled in flowing, animated, and picturesque narrative; and though his capricious versification and his use of a French accent and of words now obsolete are enough to repel most readers, still no student ever regretted the labor it cost to understand this great poet. A week's study will make his pages luminous. [From the Prologue to Canterbury Tales.] WHAN that Aprillé with his shourés soote1 The drought of March hath percéd to the roote, 6 Hallowed persons, saints. 7 Known. |