PREFACE. one The substance of the following work was delivered in the form of lectures to students, and it is for the use of students that it is principally intended. At the same time I trust that it may prove not uninteresting to the general reader. While conceding the praise which is justly their due to existing compilations — to the works of Craik and Spalding, and the epitome published by Chambers, may say without offence that the point of view taken in them lies too far north, and that. Scottish authors receive a little more than relative justice from these Scottish critics. To profound research the present work makes no pretension: in this respect I cheerfully acknowledge the immeasurable superiority of the really learned work of Professor Craik; but if I have succeeded in presenting an intelligible and connected view of at least the more popular portion of our literature, as it appears to an ordinary Englishman who has paid attention to the subject, my book will, I think, fill a vacant niche, and my endeavours will not be without a certain value, whether at home or in foreign countries. Desiring, if possible, that the work should be widely useful as an educational manual, I have thought it a duty to adapt it for general circulation, by avoiding, as far as was practicable, debatable topics, and carefully respecting religious susceptibilities. The arrangement of the subject-matter according to two distinct principles — that of the order of time and that of the order of thought -- is a novel one: whether it be also sound, let the critics decide. I will only say that in my lectures I have followed this plan, and that it has appeared to be successful, and to engage the attention of the hearers better than an unbroken adherence either to the historical or the critical mode of treatment. CONTENTS. Character of Anglo-Saxon Literature.-Works in Latin : Bede, Alcuin.-- Poetry: Beowulf, Caedmon.–Prose: Alfred, Saxon Chronicle. Pages 1–7 Decline of the Saxon tongue.—Later portion of the Saxon Chronicle.- Impulse given to Learning by the Moors. — SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY: St. Anselm; Abelard; St. Bernard; Peter Lombard; Alexander Hales; Duns Scotus; William of Occam.-HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS: William of Malmesbury; Geoffrey of Monmouth ; Matthew Paris.—LAW AND MEDICINE : Glanvile; Salerno. - SCIENCE: Roger Bacon. - Means of Education: Universities; Monasteries; invention of Paper.—POETRY: Leonine Verses ; Troubadours ; Trouvères ; Romances; Fabliaux ; Satires ; Historical Poems; English Poets; Rhyming Chroniclers, Layamon; Robert of Gloucester; Robert Mannyng; Religious Poems; Occasional Latin and French Compositions ; growth of the English Language and Literature; Chaucer, Sketch of his Life ; Chronology of his Writings. — Gower, Langlande, Occleve, Lydgate, Minot.—SCOTTISH Posts : Barbour, James I.-PROSE WRITERS : Mandevile, Chaucer, Wycliffe 45- 61 а Decline of Literature; invention of Printing ; foundation of Schools and Universities.—POETRY: Hawes, Skelton, Surrey, Wyat; first Poet Laureate. SCOTTISH POETS: Henryson, Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Lyndsay. LEARNING: Grocyn; Colet; the Humanities ; state of the Universities.- PROSE WRITERS:-Fortescue, Caxton, Leland, More; Chroniclers (Fabyan, Brilliant Period of our Literature; connected with the social Prosperity of the Country.-POETS AND DRAMATISTS: Spenser, Daniel, &c.; origin of the English Drama ; Dramatic Unities : Marlowe ; Shakspeare, Sketch of his Life; his Plays; Ben Jonson ; Beaumont and Fletcher.-PROSE WRITERS: Novels; Essays; Pamphlets; Criticism. Sidney, Bacon, Spenser, Gascoyne. -HISTORIANS : Holinshed, Bacon, Raleigh, Knolles. — THEOLOGIANS : Puritan Writers : Hooker, Donne, Allen, Parsons.-PHILOSOPHY: Lord Historical Sketch of the leading political Events.—POETRY: the Fantastic School ; Donne, Cowley, Cleveland, &c.; Crashaw; Song-writers. Milton; Sketch of his literary Life; Wither; Marvell. Dryden ; Sketch of his literary Life; Roscommon; Butler. Heroic Plays ; Comedy of Manners : Jeremy Collier.-LEARNING: Usher, Selden, Gale, &c. - PROSE FICTION : Bunyan.-HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY: Milton, Ludlow, Clarendon, &c.; Wood’s Athenæ, Pepys, Evelyn, &c.—THEOLOGY: Hall, Jeremy Taylor, Gother, Baxter, &c.—PHILOSOPHY: Hobbes, Locke. — Essay WRITERS: Historical Sketch, general characteristics.-POETRY FROM 1700 to 1745: Pope: Sketch of his literary Life; Addison; Parnell; Swift; Thomson ; Pages 153-210 Reaction against the Ideas of the Eighteenth Century; Theory of the Sponta- neous in Poetry.- POETRY: Sir Walter Scott; Sketch of his literary Life; Keats, Shelley, Byron, Crabbe, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Wordsworth, Definition of Literature: Poetry and Prose-writings : Classification of Poetical Compositions ; — EPIC POETRY: the Paradise Lost; — DRAMATIC POETRY: its kinds; Shakspeare, Addison, Ben Jonson, Milton.— HEROIC POETRY: The Bruce, the Mirrour for Magistrates; the Campaign.— NARRATIVE POETRY; 1. Romances, Sir Isumbras ; 2. Tales, Chaucer and the Canter- DACTIC POETRY: The Hind and Panther; Essay on Man; Essay on Criticism; Vanity of Human Wishes.—SATIRICAL POETRY: of three kinds, moral, personal, political ; Satires of Donne, Hall, and Swift ; Pope's Satires; Moral Essays, the Dunciad ; Dryden's M’Flecknoe, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Hudibras, Absalom and Ahitophel, Moore's Satires ; the Vicar of Bray.- PASTORAL POETRY: Spenser, Pope, Shenstone.- |
