ENGLISH LANDS, LETTERS,

& KINGS

I

CHAPTER I

HAVE undertaken in this book a series of

very familiar and informal talks with my

readers about English literary people, and the ways in which they worked; and also about the times in which they lived and the places where they grew up. We shall have, therefore, a good deal of concern with English history; and with English geography too-or rather topography: and I think that I have given a very fair and honest descriptive title to the material which I shall set before my readers, in calling it a book about ENGLISH LANDS AND LETTERS AND KINGS.

It appears to me that American young people have an advantage over British-born students of our History and Literature-in the fact that the localities consecrated by great names or events have more illuminating power to us, who encounter them rarely and after voyage over sea, than to the Englishman who

lives and grows up beside them. Londoners pass Bolt Court, Fleet Street, and Dr. Johnson's tavern a hundred times a year with no thought but of the chops and the Barclay's ale to be had there. But to the cultivated American these localities start a charming procession, in which the doughty old Dictionary-maker, with his staff and long brown coat and three cornered hat, is easily the leader.

For my own part, when my foot first struck the hard-worked pavement of London Bridge, even the old nursery sing-song came over me with the force of a poem,

As I was going over London Bridge

I found a penny and bought me a kid.

So, too-once upon a time-on a bright May-day along the Tweed, I was attracted by an old square ruin of a tower—very homely— scarcely picturesque: I had barely curiosity enough to ask its name. A stone-breaker on the high-road told me it was Norham Castle; and straightway all the dash and clash of the poem of "Marmion" 1 broke around me.

1

'The breeze which swept away the smoke

Round Norham Castle rolled.

When all the loud artillery spoke,

With lightning flash and thunder stroke,

As Marmion left the hold.

Now I do not think our cousins the Britishers, to whom the loveliest ruins become humdrum, can be half as much alive as we, to this sort of enjoyment.

I shall have then-as I said-a great deal to say about the topography of England as well as about its books and writers; and shall try to tie together your knowledge of historic facts and literary ones, with the yet more tangible and associated geographic facts—so that on some golden day to come (as golden days do come) the sight of a mere thread of spire over tree-tops, or of a cliff on Yorkshire shores, or of a quaint gable that might have covered a "Tabard Tavern," shall set all your historic reading on the flow again—thus extending and brightening and giving charm to a hundred wayside experiences of Travel.

One other preliminary word:-On that great reach of ground we are to pass over—if we make reasonable time-there must be long strides, and skippings: we can only seize upon illustrative types-little kindling feeders of wide-reaching flame. It may well be that I shall ignore and pass by lines of thought or progress very lively and present to you; may be I shall dwell on things already familiar; nay, it may well happen that many readers-young

and old-fresh from their books-shall know more of matters touched on in our rapid survey than I know myself: never mind that; but remember,—and let me say it once for all-that my aim is not so much to give definite instruction as to put the reader into such ways and starts of thought as shall make him eager to instruct himself.

EARLY CENTURIES

IN those dreary early centuries when England was in the throes of its beginnings, and when the Roman eagle-which had always led a half-stifled life amongst British fogs, had gone back to its own eyrie in the South-the old stock historians could and did find little to fasten our regard-save the eternal welter of little wars. Indeed, those who studied fifty years ago will remember that all early British history was excessively meagre and stiff; some of it, I daresay, left yet in the accredited courses of school reading; dreadfully dull— with dates piled on dates, and battles by the page; and other pages of battle peppered with such names as Hengist, or Ethelred and Cerdic and Cuthwulf, or whoever could strike hardest or cut deepest.