D. G. Rossetti-C. G. Rossetti-J. Ingelow-A. G. Swin- burne-W. Morris-Lord de Tabley-R. Buchanan— F. Locker-Lampson-C. S. Calverley-A. Dobson-A. T. de Quincey-Professor Wilson-J. Ruskin-M. Arnold -Dr John Brown-R. L. Stevenson-John Morley- R. H. Hutton-A. Lang-Professor Saintsbury-F. CHAPTER I Introductory Retrospect THE heritage of literature that has fallen to Englishmen in the nineteenth century is the most wonderful that any nation has to show; and the story of its slow development through so many centuries forms one of the most interesting and remarkable chapters in the history of the human mind. There are three periods in this history that stand out prominently from the rest, and specially deserve the attention of the thoughtful student. The first, which is also the greatest in respect of creative genius and enthusiasm, is the Elizabethan age. The next, separated from its predecessor by a not inconsiderable interval of achievement, is the period of Queen Anne, or so-called Augustan age of English literature. The third is that in which we live, and this, although inferior in power to its predecessors, has nevertheless so distinctly marked a character of its own as to deserve the most intimate knowledge we can give it. It stands differently from the others. Viewed in the calm light of distance, their giant forms are seen in their right perspective and true proportions. We know both what they A were in themselves, and what they have become to the generations succeeding. The unparalleled outburst of fresh and forceful qualities in the best literature of the Elizabethan age cannot but be regarded as a unique phenomenon in the general history of mankind. It may be that great reputations even of that age are destined to pale, and indeed of this there are already indications. Nothing, however, is likely to abate the glory of the great master-spirits of our literature, who shed such amazing lustre around the Elizabethan and Jacobean thrones. In all the highest qualities-creative imagination, vigour and originality of thought, exquisiteness of fancy, depth of humour and of pathos, loftiness of phrase and melody, the literature that gave us Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton must remain for ever crowned and supreme. And the best proof of its power is to be found in the fact, that after three hundred years this literature is still fresh to us, and that it continues to be the source from which our best minds still draw their highest inspirations. That can hardly be said of the Augustan age, at least in the same degree. Its concern was with the form rather than with the substance; with the perfecting of the expression of thought rather than with the thought itself. In creative imagination and vigour, both of thought and language, Swift stands chief among his contemporaries, for if he also attains to the correctness and refinement of style at which they aimed, it is at least without sacrificing so much of the forcefulness of the Elizabethan elements. Mainly, however, to Pope in poetry, and to Addison in prose, belongs the credit of completing the work of the Critical School which Dryden and others began, and of making language, in a manner quite unparalleled up to that time, an adequate instrument for the expression of thought. But thought at its noblest must always transcend speech. This their achievement, therefore, was won by the sacrifice of the deeper elements of thought, feeling, and imagination, which after all are essential to literature in its supreme form. The most predominant quality in these writings, as has been well said, is a glorified common sense. It is not a literature to cause the pulses of men's blood to beat more wildly. The noblest thoughts and ambitions do not spring into the mind as we read. The light that never was by sea or shore seldom visits it. But, on the other hand, it satisfies the understanding with a singular justness of observation, appositeness of reflection, and cogency of argument; and at the same time it gratifies the faculty of taste by the felicitous wedding of thought and language, by the glitter of a marvellously copious wit, by terseness of epigram, and trenchant incisiveness of sarcastic speech. But when English literature thus ceased to make its appeal to the vital elements of thought and natural feeling, and concerned itself chiefly with what was outward and formal, it lost strength, and was but the shadow of itself. Recovery came with a return to nature and old traditions. At the close of the eighteenth century English literature began once more to live near to the heart of things, and to become productive. And here it is that the third and latest period is reached-a period still in progress, with a future which it is quite impossible to foresee. The reaction from the chill, lifeless, artificial forms of the eighteenth century had begun before the century was closed. The nature of this quickening and fertilising change can be distinctly seen in the works of Robert Burns and William Cowper. On the intellectual side, literature, to whose service the search-lights of imagination had once more been added, thus began to seek the fundamentals of thought and being, and to demand that all opinion should be able to give a reasonable account of itself. On the emotional side, it expressed sympathy with nature and all natural conditions, and was a cry from the heart on behalf of the wide brotherhood of man. It thus broadened the whole horizon of human thought, feeling, and imagination. But contemporaneously these inward elements of change in our literature were reinforced from without by the new literature of Germany, and still more by startling convulsions in France. The century, now itself dying, was called upon to witness the death of a time-honoured system. A literature with new aims and a new standpoint was required, because a new form of man and of society had emerged. The dumb agony of the nations had found articulate voice at last. Goaded by intolerable wrongs, oppressed peoples saw in the tremendous |