III.

THE "MONUMENT" OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

To arrange the standard authors into groups, and to fix in the memory the principal facts in history, and their relation to other great authors, we may make use of the following diagram. It may be copied in the notebook, the names and dates committed to memory, and in due time may be made the subject of a blackboard exercise. The pupil should be instructed to fill in, orally, literary, biographical, and historical facts.

Illustration

Longfellow,

1807-1882.

Addison, 1672–1719. — Joseph Addison, one of England's great classical prose writers, was born in 1672, the same year with Peter the Great, and six years after the great London fire. Addison was three years older than Sir Richard Steele, his lifelong and intimate friend. At this time Swift was five years old, while Addison was a small boy of only two years, when Milton died. The first number of "The Spectator" was issued in 1711, the same year that the ruins of Herculaneum were discovered. Among the celebrated persons whom Addison might have seen were Swift, Defoe, Richardson, William Penn, Fielding, Sir Isaac Newton, Murillo, Handel, Prior, Gay, Sterne, Pope, Lady Montagu, Peter the Great, Thomson, Sir William Temple, Charles XII., Bishop Berkeley, Dryden, and Young.

Addison might have read, as news of his day, of the passage of Habeas Corpus Act (1676), execution of Lord Stafford (1680), Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. in 1685, Glencoe Massacre in 1691, defeat of Charles XII. at Pultowa in 1709, and of the death of Murillo in 1685, Fontaine in 1695, and Dryden in 1700.

Wordsworth,

1770-1850.

Pope,

Cowper, Byron,

1688-1744.

1731-1800.

1788-1824.

Addison,

1672-1719.

Dryden,

1631-1700.

Milton,

1608-1674.

IV. SOME REFERENCE BOOKS FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

I. Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar.

2. Adams's Dictionary of English Literature.

3. Allibone's Dictionary of Authors.

4. Arvine's Cyclopedia of Literary Anecdotes. 5. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

6. Bartlett's Shakespeare Phrase Book.

7. Bascom's Philosophy of English Literature.

8. Botta's (Mrs.) Handbook of Universal Literature.
9. Brooke's History of Early English Literature.
10. Cathcart's Literary Reader.

II. Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature.
12. Clarke's (Mrs.) Concordance to Shakespeare.
13. Cleveland's Concordance to Milton.

14. Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature. 15. Furness's Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems. 16. Gosse's History of Elizabethan Literature.

17. Harrison's Early Victorian Literature.

18. Lamb's Specimens of the English Dramatists.

19. Lee's Life of Shakespeare.

20. Lowell's My Study Windows.

21. Lowell's Among my Books. (2 series.)

22. Morris's Half-Hours with Best American Authors.

23. Pierce's Dickens Dictionary.

24. Porter's Books and Reading.

25. Richardson's (Mrs.) Stories from Old English Poetry.

26. Richardson's Primer of American Literature.

27. Rogers's (Miss) Waverley Dictionary.

28. Saintsbury's Short History of English Literature.

29. Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literature.
30. Saintsbury's History of Nineteenth Century Literature.
31. Sanborn's (Miss) Home Pictures of the English Poets.

32. Scoone's Four Centuries of English Letters.

33. Smith's Studies in English Literature.

34. Stedman's Victorian Poets.

35. Stedman's Poets of America.

36. Stephen's Hours in a Library. (3 series.) 37. Tyler's Colonial American Literature.

NOTES

CHAPTER II

LONGFELLOW'S WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. Page 8

THIS fine ballad was written nearly fifty years ago. Longfellow in his private diary, under date of Dec. 17, 1839, says, "News of horrible shipwrecks on the coast. Twenty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef called Norman's Woe, where many of these took place, among others the schooner 'Hesperus.' I must write a ballad upon this." Nearly two weeks afterwards, as the poet says, one night he sat till twelve o'clock by his fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into his mind to write the ballad, which he accordingly did. "The clock was striking three," says the diary, "when I finished the last stanza. I then went to bed, and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas."

SOUTHEY'S INCHCAPE ROCK. Page 16

The celebrated and dangerous sunken reef known as the Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is in the German Ocean, on the northern side of the entrance of the Firth of Forth, and about twelve miles from land. According to an old tradition, an abbot of Aberbrothok placed a bell here, as a warning to sailors, which was cut loose by a Dutch rover, who, as a retribution for this mischievous act, was afterwards wrecked upon the same rock. This is the story which is told by Southey in his

well-known ballad of "The Inchcape Rock."

"In old times upon the saide rock there was a bell fixed upon a timber, which rang continually, being moved by the sea, giving notice to saylers of the danger. This bell was put there and maintained by the abbot of Aberbrothock; but, being taken down by a sea-pirate, a yeare thereafter he perished upon the same rocke, with ship and goodes, in the righteous judgement of God." - STODDART'S Remarks on Scotland.

Robert Southey, who wrote "The Inchcape Rock," was born in England in 1774, was educated at Westminster School, and afterwards studied two years at Oxford. He married the sister of Coleridge, and lived in the Lake district, a companion and friend of Wordsworth, the poet. Southey's entire life was devoted to literary pursuits. His industry, both as a student and writer, was unparalleled in our literature. He wrote several long poems which are almost forgotten. His shorter poems are still popular. His most popular prose work, the "Life of Lord Nelson," is universally accepted as an English classic, and is still read by young people. Southey was appointed poet laureate in 1813, and lived until 1843 to enjoy the honor. At last his overworked brain gave way, and he became an imbecile during the last three years of his life. As a man, Southey's life was without a stain. His cheerful disposition, scholarly habits, and a keen sense of honor won for him universal respect and esteem.

This poem was first printed in 1842.

Tennyson says it was partly suggested by one of Miss Mitford's charming stories, probably that of "Dora Cresswell" in "Our Village."

THIS charming ballad is taken from Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel" (Canto VI. xxiii. 1. 352). "It is intended," says Jeffrey, "to represent that wild style of composition which prevailed among the bards of the Northern continent, somewhat softened and adorned by the minstrel's residence in the South.”

"The reader will probably be struck," says the same critic, "with the poetical effect of the dramatic form into which it is thrown, and of the indirect description by which everything is most expressively told without one word of distinct narrative."

4. Rosabelle. "This was a family name in the house of St. Clair. Henry St. Clair, the second of the line, married Rosabelle, fourth daughter of the Earl of Stratherne."- SCOTT.

7. Castle Ravensheuch. - A strong castle, now in ruins, situated on

a steep crag washed by the Firth of Forth. It was long a residence of the barons of Roslin. The word means a raven's crag or steep.

10. Inch. A Keltic word for "island."

to certain islands in the estuary of the Forth.

The word is attached

11. Water Sprite. - Often used in old poems, and in poems that

imitate or refer to these. Also called the "water wraith." Consult Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited," and Campbell's "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (p. 44, l. 26).

21. The Ring they Ride. - A ring was suspended, not tightly fastened, but so that it could easily be detached, from a horizontal beam resting on two upright posts. The players rode at full speed through the archway thus made, and, as they went under, passed their lance points, or aimed at passing them, through the ring, and so bore it off. 26. A Wondrous Blaze. See Chambers's "Book of Days," a most valuable repertory of antiquarian and other information, vol. i. 623– 625: "An old 'guide' at Roslin used to tell how when any evil or death was about to befall one of them [St. Clairs], 'The chaipel aye appeared on fire the nicht afore.""

- Near Roslin, standing on a cliff rising from the

river Esk. The cliff abounded in caverns.

50. With candle, with book, and with knell. - With proper religious rites duly performed. Compare "The Tempest":

"Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Hark! now I hear them, -Ding, dong, bell!"

THOMAS CAMPBELL. Page 43

Thomas Campbell, author of "Lord Ullin's Daughter," was born in Scotland, in 1777, and was educated at the university in Glasgow, his native place. He published his celebrated poem, "The Pleasures of Hope," in his twenty-first year. This established his reputation as a poet. His poems are not numerous, and it is probable that he composed very slowly. His well-known poems called "Hohenlinden " and "Lochiel's Warning" were both revised by his friend Sir Walter Scott. Some of his longer poems are quite inferior. His shorter pieces, like "The Battle of the Baltic," "Hohenlinden," "Soldier's Dream," and a few others, are well remembered. His poems, as a whole, are marked by graceful imagery, purity of thought, and elegance of language. He died in France in 1844, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.