Sketches of English Literature

was my duty to read on the subject discussed in these two volumes. I have rarely quoted my authorities, because they are known to men of letters, and men of the world care nothing about them. What do they want to know about Warton, Evans, Jones, Percy, Owen, Ellis, Leyden, Edward Williams, Tyrwhit, Roquefort, Tressan, the collections of the historians and poets, manuscripts, &c.? I will nevertheless mention here one French work, precisely because the journals seem to have neglected it too much. Long articles are occupied with frivolous publications, but scarcely twenty lines are bestowed on instructive and serious books.

The Essais historiques sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, etc, by the Abbé de la Rue, is a work that deserves to fix the attention of every friend of sound criticism, of an erudition acquired at the source, and not composed of scraps stolen from some forgotten investigator. One of my honourable and learned colleagues of the French Academy does not always, it is true, agree with the historian of the bards: M. de la Rue is Trouvère, and M. Raynouard, Troubadour; it is the old quarrel of the language of Oc and the language of Oil.*

* At the moment of writing this commendation of the Abbé de la Rue, of whom I know nothing but his works, I have re

The Idée de la Poésie anglaise, (1749) by the Abbé Yart, and the Poétique anglaise (1806) by M. Hennel, may be consulted with advantage. M. Hennel is thoroughly acquainted with the language of which he treats. Besides, several collections are announced; and to the genuine lovers of English literature the Bibliothèque anglofrançaise, by M. O'Sullivan, will leave nothing to wish for.

In this Review of English Literature I have treated at considerable length of Milton, because it was written expressly on account of the Paradise Lost. I analyse his different works, I show that revolutions have approximated Milton to us; that he is become a man of our times, that he was as great a writer in prose as in verse; prose conferred celebrity on him during his life, poetry after his death; but the renown of the prose writer is lost in the glory of the poet.

I ought to premise that in this Historical View I have not stuck close to my subject: I have treated of every thing-the present, the past, the future; I digress hither and thither. When I meet with the middle ages, I talk of them;

ceived intelligence of the death of this friend of Sir Walter Scott's.

when I run foul of the reformation, I dwell upon it; when I come to the English revolution, it reminds me of our own, and I advert to the actors and the events of the latter. If an English royalist is thrown into jail, I think of the cell which I occupied at the prefecture of police. The English poets lead me to the French poets ; Lord Byron brings to my recollection my exile in England, my walks to Harrow Hill, and my travels to Venice-and so of the rest. The book is composed of miscellanies which have all tones, because they relate to all things: they pass from literary criticism, lofty or familiar, to historical observations, narratives, portraits, and recollections, general or personal. That I may not take any one by surprise, that the reader may know from the first what he has to expect, that he may be aware that English Literature here forms but the ground of my medley, the canvas for my embroidery, I have given a second title to this work.

PREFACE

CONTENTS

OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTION.

Of the Latin as the source of the Languages of Latin