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would prove uninviting to the tourist standing in its naked deformity, so a reasonable amplitude of treatment often throws a wonderful charm and fascination over old names and dates, otherwise uninteresting.

And not merely to elicit the pupil's interest, but also to secure to an author a really just and intelligent appreciation, is it important that he should not be wrenched from the circumstances and social environments in which he lived and wrote. The great writer of a past age should be to us something more than a "majestic shade." Let him live again; let us study his form and features; let the stage on which he acted be reconstructed; let us clothe him with the costume he wore and surround him with the scenery and personages of his period. If, in addition to the truthfulness and vividness of impression which we seek, there is thus incidentally much of cotemporaneous history grouped around the illustrious figure, clinging like the foliage of a Corinthian pillar to its capital, let us the more rejoice.

Meanwhile confusion of materials and diffuseness of treatment are as fatal to the worth of a work like this as the desolate barrenness of unillustrated data. Definiteness and conciseness of statement and

logical arrangement are here invaluable. The natural progress and sequence of thought will lighten the strain upon the student's memory. The topics under which facts are judiciously classified are like the handles of a vase which make it easy to carry, without scattering or loss, all the separate articles which the vase contains. Moreover, by a natural arrangement of materials, the logical powers of the pupil are unconsciously developed. If, in after life he writes or speaks or even thinks, he will, from the example of his text-book, be the more likely to bring his thoughts out of chaos into order.

I cannot close this introduction, already too long, without declaring my conviction that the author of such a work is recreant to duty if he is not a preacher of righteousness. He holds in his molding hand the student's mind and heart at a most impressible period. It is his to show how the faith or doubt, the purity or profligacy of an age exalts or degrades its literature; how genius when associated with or serving evil passions, like the bird of paradise amidst the filth of a city cess-pool, besoils its gorgeous plumage.

Cognizant of the lofty moral purpose which has inspired my friend in his authorship of this work, and believing that it happily combines the essential requisites of a text-book on English Literature, I predict for it a cordial welcome alike from earnest teachers and thoughtful students, and am happy in acknowledgment of the pleasure its pages have afforded me, and in token of my assured hopes of its success, to associate with it my name.

ROBT. G. HUTCHINS.

Columbus, Ohio, May 19, 1880.

PREFACE.

An appliance for the study of English Literature should be neither. a presentation of details in their chronological connections, nor a mere discussion of causes. The first may enlarge the pupil's store of facts, but will leave no organic and living impression. Knowledge that does not discover germinant principles, that does not excite the learner to re-create it, either for pleasure or for use, is, educationally, as barren as logarithmic tables. The second is equally unsuitable, as beyond the age and progress of those for whom it is intended. Youthful minds have not the development to grapple with its problems and to follow its subtle abstractions. I have accordingly aimed at the golden mean,— a judicious union of facts and philosophy, of narrative and reflection, of objective description and subjective meditation. Color and form may be desirable to attract the eye; but the interlacing, spiritual force that blends them into harmony and coherence is required to make their lesson disciplinary, available, and enduring.

Again, it is a law of intelligence that the greater the number of objects to which our consciousness is simultaneously extended, the smaller is the intensity with which it is able to consider each, and therefore the less vivid and distinct will be the information obtained. If the points considered are unclassified and intermingled, the rays are not brought to a focus, and the mental eye-following the lines, but nowhere abiding-instead of a clear and well-defined image, perceives only a shadowy and confused outline. Now, to the ordinary student, it is believed that the treatment of authors in our current text-books presents the fantastic groupings of the kaleidoscope, a bewildering show. In the whirl and entanglement of topics, he sees nothing in an undivided light, and receives no lasting influences. He reads passively, conceives feebly, and forgets speedily. Therefore each author is here discussed under the classified heads of Biography, Writings, Style, Rank, Character, and Influence. Others are added when rising into special interest and significance. One thing at a time is the accepted condition for all efficient activity. While the topics are logically related as the more or less interdependent parts of a whole, each is done the amplest justice by being made in its turn the central subject of thought. The mind in its work thus becomes more animated and energetic, because its ideas are kindred, all converging to a definite because to a single impression.

Further, a great man, his career, his example, his ideas, can take no strong and permanent hold of the heart and mind, until they have become an integral part of our established associations of thoughts, feelings, and desires. But this can only be accomplished by time. The attention must be detained till the subject becomes real as the face of a friend, fixed as the sun and stars: then the energies of apprehension, of judgment, of sympathy, are aroused; and images, principles, truths, sentiments, though the words be forgotten, become fadeless acquisitions, assimilated into the very substance of the student's living self. Hence, as the end of liberal education is the cultivation of the student through the awakened exercise of his faculties, the authors studied should be relatively few and representative. Time is wasted and the powers are dissipated by attempting too much. Leading authors are creative and pictorial, reflecting, with singular fidelity, the peculiarities of their age; and by limiting the discussion to such, the student acquires the most in learning the least.

Neither the artist nor his art can be understood and estimated independently of his times. No enlarged or profound conception of intellectual culture is possible without completeness of view, a welldefined notion of the other elements of society, and of those products designed to convince of truth or to arouse to action, as well as of those whose prime object is to address the imagination or to please the taste. I have, consequently, divided the century into three periods; and each period is introduced by its distinguishing features, including Politics, the state of Society, Religion, Poetry, the Drama, Periodicals, History, Oratory, Theology, Ethics, Science, Philosophy. The educational value of mental science is peculiarly apparent in its effect on the culture and discipline of the mind,—to quicken it, to teach it precision, to lead it to inquire into the causes and relations of things, to awaken it to a vigorous and varied exertion. Not less salutary in this point of view, and far more so in another, are theology and ethics. Moral culture and religious growth can not be excluded from any just conception of education. Broadly stated, it is of vast moment to the pupil, to reflect upon the motives and springs of human action, to face the unexplained mystery of thought, to ask himself, What is right, and what wrong; what am I, and whither going; what my history, and my destiny?

According to an enlightened science of education, it is difficult to see the utility of a text-book, though critical, that is wholly abstracted from the literature itself. Its criticisms, its general observations, are meaningless and powerless without illustrative specimens to verify them. They produce no answering thoughts, no questioning, and thus no valuable activity. The pupil is expected blindly to yield himself to the direction of another. He forms no independent judgment, is excited to

no disputation, is stimulated to no profitable or pleasurable exercise. But instruction is only instruction, as it enables us to teach ourselves, and leaves on the mind serviceable images and contemplations. If truth is not expansive, if it is not recast and used to interpret nature and guide the life, wherein is its value? The materials of discipline and culture are furnished, not by statements about literature, but by the literature itself. To refine the taste, to sharpen thought, to inspire feeling, the student must be brought closely and consciously into contact with personality, that is, with the writer's productions. Not only are extracts to be presented, but when practicable and expedient, entire artistic products. These are to be interpreted; and in them, as in a mirror, the pupil should be taught to recognize the genius that constructed them,-his style, his character, the manners, opinions, and civilization of the period.

Particular care has been taken to insure an interest in the personal life of an author; for all the rules that have ever been prescribed for controlling the attention find their principal value in this, that they induce or require an interest in the subject-matter. Hence the value of reported sayings, private journals, correspondence, striking events, gossipy incidents, which have the effect to charm the pupil into sympathy. Externals, certainly, are to be rendered subsidiary to the analysis and record of the processes and growth of the actor's inner life.

It is obvious that a history of English Literature—which is but a history of thoughtful and eloquent souls-should note, in a catholic and liberal spirit, the practical lessons suggested by its theme. If it warms not the feelings into noble earnestness, elevates not the mind's ideals, nor supplies healthful truths to live and to die by, it is lamentably defective; and the fault is not in the subject, but in the historian.

While the work is addressed primarily to school and college students, it may also, it is believed, be read with profit as well as with pleasure by 'children of a larger growth.' The present volume is designed as a specimen chapter of the completed history. To each chapter will be appended a list of questions, prepared on the plan of giving a complete account of each subject; and the whole will be executed in that temper which I must ever regard as inseparable from the position of a teacher and counselor,-to form habits of reading with discrimination and with ardor; to add power to the intellect; range to the imagination; finish to character; regard to the bonds and ornaments of human life-conscience and duty, virtue and God.

Columbus, Ohio, May 22, 1880.

A. H. WELSH,

ENGLISH LITERATURE

IN THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

FIRST PHASE OF THE CRITICAL PERIOD.

Age of Anne and of George I. (1702-1727).

FEATURES.

Politics. Tory and Whig had laid aside the sword, and though party spirit ran high, were conducting the competition for power by a parley of words and measures; the first the conservative, the second the progressive element; one the steadying, the other the propelling force,both principles essential to the advance of nations.

France had been humbled, Spain had been all but torn from the house of Bourbon in the War of the Spanish Succession, England and Scotland had been united; and, leaving their country at the height of its material prosperity, the Whigs retired in 1710, to resume their ascendency in 1715, and to continue it without intercession till the accession of George III.

Society. Authors basked in the sunshine of royal patronage. Literary merit found easy admittance into the most distinguished society and to the highest honors of the state. Servility, however, was less marked than formerly, and the period may be regarded as a transition from the early system of patronage, when books had but few readers, to the later one of professional independence, when the public became the patron.

The Revolution of 1688 had indeed secured to the nation liberty of conscience and the right of property, but public interests were endangered by the low standard of political honor. In politics, weapons were freely employed which we should now regard as in the highest degree dishonorable. The secrecy of the mails was habitually violated. Walpole, writing in 1725, confesses, without scruple, to opening the letters of a political rival. The rich purchased their seats in Parliament, and Parliament sold its votes to the ministry.

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