Influence of Caxton.—William Caxton, who introduced the art of printing into England, gave an impetus to literature whose effects have been of incalculable value. The earliest work which can with certainty be maintained to have been printed in England was theDictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, published in 1477. In 1474, however, Caxton had issued at Bruges the first book printed in the English tongue, theRecuyell of the Historyes of Troye, and soon after this he printed theGame and Playe of the Chesse. Caxton was a most assiduous workman, and produced editions of Chaucer, Lydgate, Gower, and Sir Thomas Mallory’sKing Arthur, translations of Cicero’sDe SenectuteandDe Amicitia, and other works.
William Dunbar, the Chaucer of the North, is placed by Sir Walter Scott at the head of the roll of Scottish poets. Dunbar led a checkered life, and his works are remarkable for their strong human lights and shadows. His allegorical poem,The Thistle and the Rose, was written in celebration of the marriage of James IV. with Henry VII.’s daughter Margaret.The Golden Terge, another of his poems of fantasy, is very descriptive and rhetorical.The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sinspowerfully depicts—under the lead of Pride—a procession of the seven deadly sins in the infernal regions. Dunbar was equally remarkable in the comic as in the serious vein.
At the close of the fifteenth century many of the best spirits of the age were drawn to Oxford for the study of Greek. It was taught by William Grocyn and the physician Linacre. Erasmus came over from Paris to acquire it, and while at Oxford he made the acquaintance of young Thomas More, who wrote a defense of the new branch of learning. More afterwards entered upon the thorny paths of statecraft, and paid for his opposition to Henry VIII. with his head. More was the leading prose writer of his time, and hisLife and Reign of Edward V.—in which he draws a somber picture of the usurper Richard—is the earliest specimen of classical English prose; but his real fame rests upon theUtopia, in which he imagines an ideal commonwealth in the New World, discovered by a supposed companion of Amerigo Vespucci. The root idea was borrowed from Plato.
When William Tyndale completed his famous translation of the New Testament in 1525, More adversely criticized it on the ground of its Lutheran bias in the choice of words. Tyndale replied with spirit, however, and also defended against More the exposition of the Lord’s Supper published by John Frith. In 1530 Tyndale completed, with the help of Miles Coverdale, his translation of the Pentateuch, and six years later he was put to death for heresy in Belgium. Coverdale’s translation of the whole Bible appeared in 1535.
Many Church writers and reformers flourished at this time. To Cranmer was largely dueThe Book of Common Prayer, a work which contains some of the noblest specimens of English in our literature. He was also responsible for a book ofTwelve Homiliesand a revised translation of the Scriptures, known asCranmer’s Bible. The martyr Latimer was the author of sermons which are rare specimens of vigorous eloquence, while Bishop Fisher preached and wrote trenchantly on the other side. John Knox, the great Scottish reformer, wrote aHistory of the Scottish Reformation, and he was so indignant at the fact that three ruling sovereigns were women that just before the accession of Elizabeth he issued from Geneva hisFirst Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. John Foxe, the martyrologist did much for Protestantism by his work on theActs and Monuments of the Church; and Roger Ascham, classical tutor to Queen Elizabeth, and author ofToxophilusandThe Schoolmaster, was the first writer on education in the language. Mention must not be omitted here of the unfortunate Earl of Surrey, who was the first writer of blank verse in England, and who did much to invest English poetry with accuracy, polish, and a general spirit of refinement. Surrey used the medium of blank verse in translating two books of theÆneid. With his friend, Sir Thomas Wyatt, he also transplanted the sonnet into the garden of English verse.
The most brilliant, as well as the most virile, era in English literature was that extending from the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 to the closing of the theaters by the Long Parliament in 1648. No other period of ninety years in English history exhibits such a profusion of literary effort and achievement, especially on the dramatic and imaginative sides. The former portion of this period, however, known as the Elizabethan age—but really extending to the middle of the reign of James I.—was the greater in conception. It witnessed not only the rise but the culminating splendor of the drama. Miracle plays or mysteries were the forerunners of the drama. They were acted in churches and convents, and by their dramatic representations of Biblical episodes it was sought to influence the people in favor of virtue.
There was something grotesque, however, in the choice of Satan as the first comedian, while the general treatment of sacred subjects was most objectionable. In course of time the plays changed into moralities, in which abstract qualities such as Justice and Vice took the place of Scripture characters. Next to these, and before the drama proper, came a series of farcical productions, of which Heywood’sInterludesmay be taken as a type.
Edmund Spenser.—One great name interposes between these early plays and the drama, namely, that of Edmund Spenser. He restored the glory of English poetry from the long eclipse it suffered after the death of Chaucer. Spenser’sShepherd’s Calendarapplied pastoral[765]images to the religious conflicts of the time, and under the name of Algrind he introduced Archbishop Grindal, whose firmness in encouraging free search for Scripture truth he applauded. To his master, Chaucer, the poet paid tribute under the name of Tityrus. In 1590 Spenser published his great but unfinished allegorical epicThe Faerie Queene, in which he depicted man with all his capacity for good striving heavenwards. The work is “an intense utterance of the spiritual life of England under Elizabeth.” Spenser’sColin Clout Come Home Againwas written in memory of his friendship for Sir Walter Raleigh. The purely poetic qualities were redundant in Spenser, and these have made him a favorite with all his singing brethern since his death.
Sir Philip Sidney has gained a reputation as an English classic for hisDefense of Poesie, but his romance ofArcadiais the more widely known, as it was the more warmly appreciated on its publication. Later critics have censured it, but it is rich and highly finished in its phrases, and “full of fine enthusiasm and courtesy of high sentiment, and of the breath of a gentle and heroic spirit.”
Beginning of English Comedy and Tragedy.—The first English comedy,Ralph Roister Doister, was written by Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton, between 1534 and 1541. It was avowedly modeled uponPlautus, and intended for the edification of Eton boys.
The first tragedy wasGorboduc, a new rendering of the old British story of Ferrex and Porrex by Thomas Sackville (Lord Buckhurst), and Thomas Norton. It was acted at the Inner Temple in 1561, and also before the queen by command. It substituted English for Latin in a play constructed after the manner of Seneca, and “its grave dwelling upon the need of union to keep a people strong, a truth of deep significance to England at that time, pleased Elizabeth.” But nearly twenty years yet elapsed before the drama obtained a stable hold, and theaters began to be built.
John Lyly, author of theEuphues, wrote a number of mythological plays, and George Peele producedThe Arraignment of ParisandThe Device of the Pageantin 1584-1585; but Christopher Marlowe, with his “mighty line,” was the first great Elizabethan dramatist. His genius was somber, and his tragedies dark and terrible. HisTamburlaine the Greatwas produced in 1587, but hisDoctor Faustuswas not published until ten years after his death, which occurred in 1593.
William Shakespeare.—In the latter part of the sixteenth century began the career of the greatest poet the world has ever seen, William Shakespeare. A period of less than twenty-five years covers the production of all those comedies and histories which are the wonder of modern literature. We marvel what kind of man that could be whose intellect could conceive such widely different works asA Midsummer Night’s Dream,Venus and Adonis,Romeo and Juliet,The Rape of Lucrece, the famousSonnets,The Merchant of Venice,Othello,Macbeth,King Lear, andHamlet. Shakespeare seems to sum up within himself the whole of poetry and of human philosophy. His power and universality are unique, and will probably ever remain so.
Ben Jonson, the greatest and most scholarly of his contemporaries, wrote from 1596 to 1637; but he lacked the freedom and naturalness of Shakespeare. Beaumont and Fletcher worked in unison with a success rarely attained by collaborators. Massinger was a dramatist of undoubted power, as hisNew Way to Pay Old Debtstestifies; and Dekker, Heywood, Marston, and Middleton would all have taken a higher niche in the temple of fame had they lived in a less prolific age. Ford and Webster produced plays of a dark and terrible cast, and the list of Elizabethan dramatists closes with James Shirley who was purer in thought and expression than any of his predecessors. Other poets of this period were Thomas Tusser, who gave an excellent picture of English peasant life in hisFive Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, and Michael Drayton described this favored isle itself in hisPolyolbion. The learned John Donne gave utterance to his metaphysical conceits, while Drummond of Hawthornden attested his claim to the title of the finest Scottish poet of his day. Carew, Herrick, and Suckling produced their exquisite lyrics, and Herbert chanted the solemn strains ofThe Temple.
Elizabethan Prose Writers.—The great prose writers of the period must be headed with the illustrious name of Francis Bacon. The father of the inductive philosophy was regarded by those of his contemporaries who knew him best as “one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been for ages.” His adventurous intellect could not be bound by mere tradition. He brought his keen analytical faculty to bear upon the study of man and nature, so that in his matchlessEssayswe have the result of his penetration into the human mysteries, while his philosophy of nature stands revealed in the two books of theAdvancement of Learning, in which he laid the basis for hisNew Organon.
“Who is there,” Burke demands, “that upon hearing the name of Lord Bacon does not instantly recognize everything of genius the most profound, everything of literature the most extensive, everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of observation of human life the most distinguishing and refined?”
George Buchanan ranks as the Scottish Virgil from the elegance of his Latin verse, while he exhibited equal command over Latin prose. Richard Hooker gave a new elevation and dignity to English prose by hisLaws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Sir Walter Raleigh, the admirable Crichton of his age, carried the English name abroad, but returned only to find imprisonment and the scaffold. He glorified his prison life by the production of his greatHistory of the World, which is especially memorable for its vivid recital of the histories of Greece and Rome. Camden the antiquary constructed hisBritannia, and Hakluyt and Purchas indited their wonderful records of travel. James I. threw his ill-digested learning into treatises on Divine Right, Witchcraft, etc.; Burton wrote his quaint and erudite work,The Anatomy of Melancholy; Selden, the chief of the learned men of his time, according to Milton, alternated politics with the production of hisTreatise on Titles of Honourand hisHistory of Tithes; Hobbes of[766]Malmesbury, the terseness of whose style is unique, promulgated his theory of action and morals, as well as his absolutism in politics, inThe Leviathan; Howell first showed what correspondence might become in hisFamiliar Letters, and genial old Izaak Walton wove an immortal spell over all lovers of good literature by hisLives of Donne,Hooker, and others, andThe Complete Angler. Altogether the age was one eminently full of intellectual life.
The Puritan Period.—The decline of the drama, and the end of what we may call the Pagan Renaissance, were contemporaneous with the birth of the great constitutional struggle which began with James I. and did not terminate until the English Revolution.
It is strange that such a time of upheaval should have produced the greatest Christian epic,The Paradise Lost, and the greatest Christian allegory,The Pilgrim’s Progress, which are to be found in any literature. Three great men represented the various forms of the religious struggle going forward; the saintly Jeremy Taylor, a poet among preachers, upheld the cause of Episcopacy; Richard Baxter, while desiring the church discipline and the form of belief, advocated a greater liberty for the individual conscience; and John Milton was a type of the religious freedom and toleration which found best exposition in the principles of the Independents. Milton’sEikonoklastesbroke down the buttresses of kingly authority; hisAreopagiticawas a noble argument in behalf of intellectual liberty; while hisParadise Lost,Paradise Regained, andSamson Agonisteswere not merely magnificently great as poetry, but Christian evidences of the most sublime type.
John Bunyan, a man of the people, came forward with words that burn and images that enthrall, to show the way from a world of vice to a pure and Holy City. Thomas Fuller, remembering that “blessed are the peacemakers,” sought to heal that strife between king and people which was beyond all healing save that of the sword. Some men held themselves aloof from violent controversy while yet maintaining independence of thought—as, for example, Thomas Browne in theReligio Medici, published in 1642.
The anti-Puritans had their champions in Samuel Butler, whose fierce wit blazed forth inHudibras; in the great Royalist writer, Clarendon; and in that staunch Royalist and Churchman, Bishop South, whose antipathy to the Nonconformists may be partly condoned by his brilliant wit. Among other writers of the time may be mentioned the versatile Barrow; the powerful satirists Wither, and Bishop Hall; Harrington, the author of theOceana; the patriotic Algernon Sidney, with his admirableDiscourses on Government; and those garrulous but inimitable chroniclers, Pepys and Evelyn.
The poets were many and varied, including Waller, Davenant, Denham, Marvell, Lovelace, and Cowley.
Extremes always lead to revulsion, and from Puritanism we pass to the licentious court of Charles II., with the songs of Rochester, and the works of Etherege. The comic dramatists of the Restoration and the period immediately succeeding—Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar—vividly and wittily reflect the glittering life and base morality of the age. One stronger intellect did bring with it for a time the sense of a fresher and diviner air, when John Dryden sang with vigor and insight, and also produced his best comedies and tragedies. Otway likewise showed a momentary gleam of the old Elizabethan dramatic fire. In the sphere of mental and natural philosophy, Locke, Newton, and Boyle grappled with problems hitherto considered unsolvable, and illumined for the world the devious and mysterious paths of scientific inquiry. The selection of names in every branch of English literature, and in every age, can, of course, only be illustrative, not exhaustive.
Period of Dryden and Pope.—The eighteenth century witnessed a great revolution in English literature, especially on the poetic side. Imagination, passion, and nature were dethroned, and poetry became didactic, philosophical, and political.
Dryden manifested something of the qualities of both schools, but when Alexander Pope arose the new order triumphed. Everything was sacrificed to precision and artificiality.
Pope was the most brilliant and impressive of the new writers. HisEssay on Manand hisEssay on Criticismenshrined many old philosophical truths in epigrammatic form. The heroic couplet became in his hands an instrument for cutting diamonds, but the lover of poetry longs after a time to exchange his dazzling couplets for the flowers of poesy. In all that he did, however, whether the work took the form of satires, essays, epistles, or translations, Pope was the finished artist.
The minor poets of Pope’s period included John Philips, known by hisSplendid Shilling; John Gay, the author of theShepherd’s Week, and theFables; Samuel Garth, the writer of the mock heroic poem ofThe Dispensary; and Richard Blackmore, who tried to restore the epic inPrince Arthur.
Prose literature had many distinguished exponents. Jonathan Swift looms up before us as a gloomy, overshadowing figure, whose saturnine genius found bitter yet powerful expression inGulliver’s Travels, theBattle of the Books, and theTale of a Tub. His command of English was masterly, but his wit was coarse, his life hopelessly sad, and his death miserable.
Daniel Defoe was not only one of the most vigorous of political pamphleteers, but practically the father of the English novel by hisRobinson Crusoe, a work which has surpassed almost every other in its uninterrupted popularity. Defoe invested fictitious events with an unapproachable semblance of truth. Metaphysical literature had its best representative in the philosopher Bishop Berkeley, the founder of Idealism in English philosophy; Bernard de Mandeville unfolded a new satirical philosophy inThe Fable of the Bees, which was intended to prove that the vices of society are the foundation of civilization; and Bishop Butler sought to reconcile reason and revelation by his closely argumentative work, theAnalogy of Religion.
Rise of the Essay and Modern Newspaper.—A new and interesting form of literary[767]effort, which popularized letters and criticism, was the periodical essay, instituted by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele.
The latter began theTatler, which dealt in humorous and incisive fashion with the social and political life of the times. Steele was aided by Addison, and they afterwards founded the more famousSpectator, which was inimitable in its humor and criticism. TheGuardianand theFreeholderfollowed, and a higher tone was given to both literature and manners by these admirable publications.
The modern newspaper had its origin in thePublic Intelligencer, begun in August, 1663, by Sir Roger L’Estrange. TheOxford Gazettebegan in November, 1665, and theLondon Gazetteon the 5th of February, 1666. Defoe, while in prison, began the publication of theReview(February, 1704).
The drama at the close of the seventeenth century had, besides the greater names already mentioned, Sedley, Shadwell, Mrs. Behn, and Mrs. Centlivre, all of whose comedies, however, were licentious. Nicholas Rowe wrote heavy tragedies, which are no more likely to rise again in popularity than Addison’sCato. Foote, Cibber, and Fielding reproduced the follies of the times in their comedies and farces; and theBeggar’s Opera, by Gay, produced in 1728, was the first specimen of the English ballad opera. Sentimental comedy is associated with Macklin, the Colmans, Murphy, Cumberland, and others; but the two greatest names in English comedy in the eighteenth century are Goldsmith and Sheridan. The delightful humor ofThe Good-natured ManandShe Stoops to Conqueris only to be matched by the sparkling wit of theRivalsand theSchool for Scandal.
Samuel Johnson, born in 1709, began to write in 1744, and from that period until his death in 1784 he was an acknowledged leading power in letters. HisLives of the Poets, hisRasselas,The Rambler, and the greatDictionarywere remarkable undertakings in various fields; while the world could afford to part with a thousand masterpieces rather than lose that immortalBiographyby Boswell which has enshrined his master’s opinions and conversations. TheLetters of Juniusremind us of the right of criticism over public events and public men, and of the struggle by which the freedom of the press was ultimately won.
The modern novel of actual life and manners dates from 1740, when Samuel Richardson published hisPamela, a story that was the talk and wonder of the town. It was followed byClarissa Harlowe, its author’s masterpiece—a book charged with pathos, and instinct with tenderness and morality. Henry Fielding, “the prose Homer of human nature,” and, if not so delicate, a more powerful artist than Richardson, issued hisJoseph Andrewsin 1742, and his world-famousTom Jonesin 1749. Tobias Smollett wrote hisRoderick Randomin 1748, and this was followed by other stories as realistic as Fielding’s but much more marred by caricature. Laurence Sterne’sTristram Shandyand theSentimental Journeywere novelties in prose writing, and, although they are thin as novels, they will live for their peculiar wit and pathos. Goldsmith’sVicar of Wakefield, published in 1766, stands alone for its idyllic beauty and charming simplicity. Fanny Burney’sEvelinaandCeciliawere noticeable for invention and observation and skill in portraiture.
The poetry of the second half of the century was varied in character, but it closed with a noble elevation in Burns. To the heavy religious poems of Blair and Young succeeded the more artistic strains of Gray and Collins and Goldsmith, and the mystical yearnings and Elizabethan fervor of Blake. Thomson, one of the most excellent of descriptive poets, had given place to Shenstone, who had less genius but more taste, and a third writer of the Spenserian stanza was found in Beattie. Percy’sReliques of Ancient English Poetrybrought the ballad again into favor; while Chatterton deceived the very elect by his marvelous imitation of the older forms of poetry.
William Cowper, notwithstanding his fastidiousness and over-refinement, was a poet of a high and genuine order. He let nature have its way in such exquisite poems as theLines to His Mother’s Pictureand theLoss of the “Royal George,”while any humorist might envy the delightful abandonment ofJohn Gilpin. His larger poems are severer in style, yet many of their pictures, testifying to a reverent love of nature, remain imprinted on the memory; and they are full of happy phrases and turns of expression.
The new life infused into Scottish poetry was heralded by Michael Bruce, a sweet singer who died at twenty-one, and by Allan Ramsay, whose pastoral drama of theGentle Shepherdaffords one of the most beautiful and tender pictures of Scottish rural life. The ballad acquired a new pathos and interest in such productions as Lady Anne Barnard’sAuld Robin Gray.
But the poetic genius of Scotland found its ripest and fullest expression in Robert Burns. His love songs have the freshness and fervor of the Elizabethan lyrics; his poems of man and of nature, like those of Cowper, reveal the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity; his humorous compositions are as lifelike in their character-painting as they are full to overflowing of fun; and his serious poems reveal a pathos which has never been excelled. Nature seemed to put on new beauties when Robert Burns chanted her praises, and the daisy can never again seem commonplace since he immortalized it. The poor at length acquired their laureate in this sweet singer of the North.
Historical and philosophical literature attained a high level at this period. Edward Gibbon, though lacking human sympathy, had great creative power and originality, and hisDecline and Fall of the Roman Empireis one of the most massive of historical conceptions, worked out with stately eloquence. David Hume, whoseHistory of Englanddoes not take such high rank, was more original in his philosophical speculations, referring all actual knowledge to experience, and making utility the standard of virtue.
Adam Smith, by hisWealth of Nations, established his claim to be regarded as the founder of the modern system of political economy, and one of the benefactors of his[768]species. All questions of labor and capital were placed by this work on a scientific basis, and it paved the way for the doctrine of free trade.
Edmund Burke’sReflections on the French Revolutioncaused a revulsion of feeling against France, while hisLetters on a Regicide Peaceincreased the war fever in England. The former work was answered by Thomas Paine in hisRights of Man, and the latter by Sir James Mackintosh in hisVindiciæ Gallicæ. Burke’s philosophical works are models of eloquence and construction. William Paley, in hisEvidences of Christianityand other works, skillfully defended revealed religion against the attacks of its enemies.
Towards the close of the century the newspaper press received a strong impetus by the establishment ofThe Timesand other important journals; knowledge likewise began to be condensed and methodized in Cyclopædias; while criticism took a wider as well as a more popular range in the first decade of the nineteenth century by the foundation of theEdinburghandQuarterly Reviews.
We cannot pass from the eighteenth century without noticing the remarkable development in hymnology. George Wither issued the earliest English hymn-book in 1623,Hymns and Songs of the Church; but the first hymn-book of the modern type was published by John Wesley for use in the Church of England in 1737. Among the hymnologists of the eighteenth century whose compositions remain in general use until this day may be mentioned A. M. Toplady, John Newton, the Wesleys, Isaac Watts, William Cowper, and Philip Doddridge.
Romanticism and the Early Nineteenth Century.—The literature of the nineteenth century is almost overwhelming in its magnitude and variety. In nearly every branch it has attained a higher level than in the preceding century, and in nothing is this more noticeable than in poetry. Although the century opened when Crabbe, the reporter of rural life, was painting his Dutch-like pictures, we soon pass on to higher things. There was a great revival in imaginative poetry before 1820.
Byron, with his precociousness in love and genius, took a high flight in hisChilde Harold, and although all his works—Don Juan,Manfred,Cain, etc.—were impressed by his own gloomy personality, he yet made living verse.
Shelley, imbued with revolutionary ideas and aspirations after an ideal being, was one of the greatest poets of the age, now Miltonic in his elegiac verse inAdonais, and now unapproachable in his lyrics. No singer has ever drawn deeper from the wells of poetic inspiration.
Wordsworth, contemplative and philosophic the patriarch of the Lake School, taught the dependence of the poet on nature, and from theLyrical Balladsto theExcursionhe illustrated his own saying in his works, that “poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.” He threw off the conventional, and endeavored to pierce to the heart of things, whether in man or in nature.
Fancy and imagination were made perfect in the exquisite creations and sensuous verse of Keats; wit and pathos abounded in Thomas Hood; while historic and romantic poetry found notable exemplars in Southey, Scott, Rogers, Campbell, and Coleridge. Hannah More and Joanna Baillie sought to galvanize the classical drama; Cunningham sang his Scottish songs; and Keble consecrated sacred hopes in theChristian Year.
The historic novel was made memorable by Sir Walter Scott, whose extraordinary fecundity was the wonder of his generation. His novels were the first and greatest prose result of the revived spirit of romanticism. Jane Austen did for the domestic novel what Scott did for the historical. The pictures of English life inPride and Prejudice,Mansfield Park, and the remaining stories by this writer, have never been excelled. Her painting of manners was exquisite, and while her characters and incidents were of the most every-day description, she lifted them out of the commonplace by her exquisite touch and her absolute truthfulness to nature.
The Victorian age may justly be called great in history, philosophy, biography, fiction, and poetry. Macaulay, in the earlier half of the Victorian period, illumined history by the brilliant glow of his imagination; while in the latter half Carlyle was not only his equal in history, but the first man of letters of his time. In his prose epic,The French Revolution, there was the vigor of a Rembrandt; biography was ennobled by hisCromwell; while throughout all his works—fromSartor Resartusto the latest of his utterances—he upheld the dignity of labor, and the sacredness of duty.
English history in all periods, and the progress and growth of the constitution, found brilliant chroniclers or scholarly interpreters in Hallam, Freeman, Froude, Green, Stubbs, Brewer, and Gardiner; while the philosophical aspects of history have been vividly presented by Buckle and Lecky. Rome lived again in the pages of Merivale; the Jewish race in those of Milman; and Greece in those of Grote and Thirlwall.
Turning to philosophy and science, John Stuart Mill exercised a profound influence upon the age as metaphysician, logician, politician, and moralist. Charles Darwin revolutionized scientific thought by promulgating the theory of evolution, which Herbert Spencer, its most conspicuous philosophical exponent, applied to psychology, morals, and politics. Logic and science had other exponents in Brewster, Whately, Bain, Hugh Miller, John Tyndall, T. H. Huxley, T. G. Tait, and W. K. Clifford. John Ruskin has eloquently wedded art and morality, while biography and criticism have found representative writers in Lockhart, Forster, De Quincey, Masson, Arnold, “Christopher North,” Lewes, Helps, Trevelyan, John Morley, and others. Religious thought was deeply impressed by the school of religious literature which arose with the Oxford movement. In poetry, its greatest result was Keble’sChristian Year, while its greatest product in prose was the beautiful and haunting style of Cardinal Newman, best shown in hisApologia.
Pusey, Arnold, Maurice, Robertson, Stanley, Liddon, Martineau, Gladstone, Spurgeon, and many more of all creeds contributed in a lesser degree.
ALFRED TENNYSON’S BEAUTIFUL “LADY OF SHALOTT”
From the exquisite painting of J. W. Waterhouse, who has interpreted for us in flesh and blood Tennyson’s far-famed poem. This is the dramatic moment when the curse is falling upon the lady of the silent isle.
From the exquisite painting of J. W. Waterhouse, who has interpreted for us in flesh and blood Tennyson’s far-famed poem. This is the dramatic moment when the curse is falling upon the lady of the silent isle.
The literature of fiction was surprising in its growth, and practically limitless in its variety. Thackeray showed to what a pitch of literary excellence and finish the novel might attain, and also demonstrated its power as a moral scourge. Dickens, the Hogarth of modern novelists, evoked smiles and tears in myriads of homes by his vivid pictures of life; and George Eliot reflected much of the sadness and unrest of the time in her searching and minutely conscientious works. Charlotte Brontë uttered a passionate note on behalf of her suffering sisters; and Mrs. Gaskell proved herself a genuine artist in the delineation of human life.
Of later women writers, mention must be made of Mrs. Oliphant, Miss Braddon, Mrs. Henry Wood, and “Ouida”—all different in style, yet all equally prolific. Marryat, James, Ainsworth, Warren, and others still find readers.
Charles Kingsley struck a sympathetic human note in his fictions; Anthony Trollope was the most interesting even of all his brethren; Wilkie Collins was a master of mystery; Richard Jefferies was the interpreter of nature; Charles Reade was an intense moral reformer; George Meredith has delighted and puzzled his admirers by his brilliant powers and genius; Lord Lytton is still read for two or three of his healthiest works; and Lever and Lover for their rollicking Irish wit.
It would be invidious to attempt to give a catalogue of all contemporary novelists worthy of mention; but in addition to those already mentioned the names will occur of R. D. Blackmore, Thomas Hardy, Robert Buchanan, George Macdonald, and William Black—all widely different in their gifts and work, but all imbued with a sense of the dignity of the novelist’s art. Newer writers of imaginative and adventurous fiction have sprung up in Hall Caine, J. M. Barrie, Rider Haggard, R. L. Stevenson, and Rudyard Kipling.
Tennyson and Other Poets.—In poetry two names stand out above the rest through the Victorian age. Tennyson, the most artistic of all poets, deservedly occupies the first place from the breadth of his range. His lyrics are the finest since Shelley; hisIdylls of the Kingdeserve the name of epic poetry; his dramas are finely conceived; and hisIn Memoriamsums up the religious aspirations of the time.
Robert Browning, massive and profound in thought, was of all modern poets the most full of pith, energy, and moral aspiration. Mrs. Browning may well be called the daughter of Shakespeare, for never did poet play more divinely upon the Æolian harp of the human heart. Walter Savage Landor exhibited the classical spirit, and Matthew Arnold had an unbroken elevation in his verse. Swinburne is a master of music and rhythm, Rossetti is a perfect artist in construction, while William Morris is a Spenserian singer cast upon a later age.
Among later poets of undoubted gifts are Alfred Austin, William Watson, Clough, Christina Rossetti, Coventry Patmore, and Sir Lewis Morris.
The dramas of Talfourd, Sheridan Knowles, R. H. Horne, Lord Lytton, and Sir Henry Taylor exhibited striking but widely varying merits.
The minor poetic singers and writers of fugitive verse of both sexes are too numerous for particularization.
Note.—Titles of words initalicsindicate that they are poetic or dramatic.