WORDSWORTH COLLECTION 
 
 MADE BY 
 
 CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN 
 ITHACA, N. Y. 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 VICTOR EMANUEL 
 
 CLASS OF 1919 
 1925 
 
Eopal ^ocietp of literature. 
 
 AFTERNOON LECTUEES 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
 

 AFTERNOON LECTURES 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 DELIVERED BY MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL 
 FROM JANUARY TO JUNE, 1893. 
 
 The Rev. the Master op St. John's College, Cambridge, D.D., 
 Vice-President, in the Chair. 
 
 LONDON : 
 ASHER AND Co. 
 

 /\. G o I o ! 3 
 
 LONDON : 
 HABKISON AND SONS, PEINTEES IN ORDINAET TO HER MAJESTY, 
 
 ST. maetin's lane. 
 
 K^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Preface ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 Lecture I. 
 
 On the Sbudy of English Literature. By Percy W. 
 
 Ames, Secretary R.S.L. ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 Lecture II. 
 
 On the Literary Treatment of History. By Edward 
 
 W. Brabrook, V.P.R.S.L 37 
 
 Lecture III. 
 
 On Mysteries and Miracle Plays. By Robt. B. Holt, 
 
 P.R.S.L 0,1 
 
 Lecture IV. 
 
 On the Lake School and its Influence on English Poetry. 
 
 By R. A. Douglas Lithgow, M.D., LL.D., P.R.S.L. 99 
 
 Lecture V. 
 
 On Gog and Magog. By William Knighton, LL.D., 
 
 V.P.R.S.L 135 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Towards the close of last year, it was suggested to 
 the Council of the Eoyal Society of Literature that, 
 in the interests of popular education, a series of 
 afternoon lectures on literary subjects, in addition 
 to the ordinary evening meetings, might be ad- 
 visable. 
 
 The idea was favourably received by the Council, 
 and five lectures were subsequently delivered in 
 the meeting room of the Society, to fairly large 
 audiences. 
 
 The experiment will probably be repeated, and 
 a systematic character be given to future courses 
 of lectures. 
 
 The present volume is issued for distribution 
 among the Fellows of the Society. 
 
 July, 1893. 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITEEATUEE. 
 
 BY PERCY W. AMES, 
 Secretary S.S.L. 
 
 In the History of the Royal Society of Literature, 
 recently compiled by our Vice-President, Mr. E. 
 W. Brabrook, it will be found that, at the founda- 
 tion of the Society, one of the first duties of the 
 Council was to elect ten Eoyal Associates, who 
 were to be persons of distinguished learning, authors 
 of some creditable work of literature, and men of 
 good moral character. They were each to be reci- 
 pients, by the bounty of the king, of one hundred 
 guineas per annum, and by the regulations it was 
 provided that every Eoyal Associate should on his 
 admission choose some branch of literature, and 
 that it should be his duty to communicate to the 
 Council, once a year at least, a disquisition or essay 
 on some point relative to that branch of literature 
 chosen by him. 
 
 Many of the circumstances of these early lectures 
 it is not possible to revive, and others it is not 
 desirable to do so, but the present Council, animated 
 by the same spirit and desire as our Founders, to 
 employ all available means for the cultivation and 
 preservation of literary taste, and the promotion of 
 a knowledge of the best literature of our land, have 
 instituted the present series of lectures. 
 
10 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The advantages to be derived from such a course 
 are sufficiently obvious, but we may notice a few 
 considerations which should lead us to cordially 
 welcome, at the present time, every movement in 
 the direction of employing pure literature as an 
 instrument of popular education. Tor the last 
 twenty years, the increasing predominance of sub- 
 jects other than literary in our national education 
 has been most marked. An active movement has 
 been observable to deprive Letters of the prominent 
 place they had hitherto occupied. Not only has 
 this proposed revolution in the curricula of our 
 schools and colleges been to a large extent accom- 
 plished, to the delight of the devotees of Natural 
 Science, but confident predictions have been uttered 
 that the revolution will be complete, that Art and 
 Letters will be entirely replaced by the absorb- 
 ing pursuit of the knowledge afforded in physical 
 science. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that men, equally 
 endowed with so many excellent qualities, having so 
 much in common, vigorous common sense, genuine 
 admiration for mental culture, and sincerity in 
 their desire for rational educational systems, should, 
 nevertheless, be so warmly opposed as are many of 
 the special pleaders for the claims of Science and 
 Letters respectively. It is surely better for all to 
 admit that " the scientific method of investigation 
 is a most valuable discipline, and that it is desir- 
 able that every one should have some experience of 
 it," and on the other hand, it is folly to deny that 
 " Art and Poetry and Eloquence have the capa- 
 bility of refreshing and delighting us, and possess 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITEIlATURE. 11 
 
 for mankind a fortifying, elevating, quickening, and 
 suggestive power." However, for the time being 
 the partisans of Science are popularly supposed to 
 have the victory. Although this triumph has been 
 over the Classics, and a great effort has been made 
 to introduce the study of English Literature, yet 
 the effort has admittedly been a failure, and gloomy 
 prognostications are to be heard with reference to 
 the future of modern literature as well as antique. 
 
 These apprehensions have been felt elsewhere in 
 Europe. The late M. Eenan asserted, that " one 
 hundred years hence the whole of the historical and 
 critical studies in which his life had been passed, and 
 his reputation made, will have fallen into neglect, and 
 that natural science will exclusively occupy man's 
 attention." No one, familiar with the history of our 
 literature, will for a moment accept this view. It is 
 only by the pursuit of this study that we can rightly 
 appreciate the history of the race. Literature is the 
 voice of the people, and in the survival and con- 
 tinuity of the English tongue we can realize more 
 fully than in the pages of the chronicler, the strength 
 and persistence of the national spirit. 
 
 It has not, of course, always been at its best. 
 It has suffered suppression from Danish and Nor- 
 man Conquests and feudal tyranny, and has had 
 its periods of stagnation and neglect, but it could 
 not be finally silenced and has always revived, and 
 with abounding life and vigour and brilliancy, has 
 shown under ever-varying forms the same national 
 characteristics that marked its earliest expression. 
 It will last while the race endures, and will always 
 remain a source of pure delight. 
 
12 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I believe that so long as man exists, from the very 
 constitution of the human mind, there will always 
 be moral and aesthetic cravings, which Science, 
 however attractive, can never gratify. I think 
 therefore that the " splendour and rapid march of 
 the Physical Sciences " have partially eclipsed but 
 will never extinguish the interest in the older sub- 
 ject of literature. 
 
 However, some of those whose opinions carry 
 weight in the scholastic world have asserted that it 
 cannot be taught, and that the experiment has failed. 
 The signs of this failure are to be found in the modi- 
 fications of certain examinational requirements, in 
 which literature has been degraded to a secondary 
 place, or altogether eliminated, or recognised only in 
 connection with Philology. Mr. Churton Collins has 
 pointed out the principal causes of this failure. 
 " Literature has been regarded as mere material for 
 the study of words. All that constitutes its intrinsic 
 value has been ignored. Its masterpieces have been 
 resolved into exercises in grammar, sjmtax, and 
 etymology ; its history into a barren catalogue of 
 names and works and dates. No faculty but that 
 of memory has been called into play in studying it." 
 That it should have failed therefore to commend 
 itself as an instrument of education is no more than 
 might have been expected. 
 
 Men have written much in recent years on the 
 subject of education, and it has been on the whole 
 assumed that the success of these writers has at least 
 equalled their industry. The method of modern 
 culture has been systematized and reduced to a 
 science. It has been freed from superstition and 
 
 1 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 13 
 
 bigotry, and become eminently rationalistic in spirit. 
 Then again, all studies have been appraised and 
 valued, and " saleable knowledge " is the most 
 sought. 
 
 The aim and purpose of modern culture are 
 distinctly utilitarian. No wonder the proper study 
 of literature can find no place in the system. 
 Indeed it is better out of it. 
 
 Mr. John Morley, in his able address at the Mansion 
 House a few years ago, pointed out the necessity in 
 these days for finding some effective agency for 
 cherishing within us the Ideal, and herein is the great 
 value of literature to all those who seek the higher 
 education, with a genuine desire for true culture. It 
 supplies a want, which however much the exclu- 
 sively scientific may ignore, will make itself felt in 
 the human heart. It was well said by Cardinal 
 Newman that " the object of literature in education 
 is to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to 
 enable it to comprehend and digest its know- 
 ledge, to give it power over its own faculties, 
 application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, 
 sagacity, address, and expression." We need not 
 pause to support the truism that literature is a 
 most valuable agent in self-culture. But we can 
 avoid the mistake of those who confound its pur- 
 suit with education, or regard it as the sole and 
 sufiicient agent. Burke said (quoted by Morley), 
 " What is the education of the world ? Eeading a 
 parcel of books ? No ! Eestraint and discipline, 
 examples of virtue and of justice, these are what 
 form the education of the world." Let us avoid all 
 extravagance, however, and remember that it con- 
 
14 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 tains " the best that has been thought and said in 
 the world," and therefore regard it as a priceless 
 factor in self-cultivation. 
 
 The aim of the present series of lectures is not to 
 deal with literature as a whole, nor to attempt a com- 
 plete scheme of literary education. It is rather the 
 less ambitious one of assisting the English reader in 
 his study of " that seasoned life of man, preserved 
 and stored up in Bookes," and that, to him, most 
 interesting part of literature, in which are found the 
 songs of his forefathers, their thoughts and wisdom, 
 their hopes and aspirations, their humour and pathos. 
 If it be thought, since the whole of that literature is 
 already open to all, that teachers and guide books 
 and lecturers are superfluous and even obstructive in 
 the risk of encouraging the frivolous habit of talking 
 about books and authors, instead of reading them, 
 a very little reflection will justify their employment. 
 We have to remember the general disinclination to 
 enter upon such a study and the necessity for calling 
 into activity new aspirations and longings which 
 herein find their gratification. The difficulty of this 
 task with those who do not read at all is greatly 
 increased in the case of others who have formed the 
 unwholesome habit of reading merely for reading's 
 sake, or acquired an insatiable appetite for the 
 curious and new. 
 
 And when this difficulty is overcome a further one 
 is presented in the abundance of materials, a difficulty 
 which daily increases. While some studious men are 
 earnest advocates of systematic reading, others, like 
 the late Lord Sherbrooke, seem to think that the 
 best results follow when it is miscellaneous and desul- 
 
 ^ 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 15 
 
 tory, and certainly Defoe, Swift and Johnson, among 
 others that could be named, indulged in that practice. 
 I suppose we all admit, in a general way, that syste- 
 matic reading, which we have heard advocated all 
 our lives, is the right method, yet if we attempt to 
 keep pace with the literature of the day our reading 
 inevitably becomes desultory. But to read every- 
 thing that comes in one's way is surely fatal to mental 
 improvement. To eat overmuch is an offence against 
 the body and interferes with physical health : it is a 
 graver abuse of the mind to overload it with materials 
 it cannot assimilate, cramping its energies, enfeebling 
 its powers, and leaving it dwarfed and distorted. It 
 is of the highest importance then that judgment 
 should be exercised in dealing with the " pathless 
 immensity " presented in literature. To know what 
 to select and what to reject is the first great need. 
 Then the faculty of memory, least intelligent in itself, 
 but most essential to true intelligence, must be con- 
 sidered. Only such reading that leaves its mark, 
 whose influence is retained, is adapted to permanently 
 affect the mind. If good, it will nourish and develop : 
 if evil, it will poison and corrupt. Therefore the 
 masterpieces should be read again and again. Finally, 
 time and opportunity should be taken for the exercise 
 of reflection, that the new thoughts, the generous 
 motives, the grand conceptions, the heroic resolves, 
 the reverence for the true and beautiful, that which 
 reflects the " delight and aroma of life," may all take 
 up their abode with us and become part of our 
 character and being. The aim of our course then, 
 and the duty of the lecturer, are to stimulate the 
 desire to know the brightest minds in Literature, and 
 
16 THE STUDY OE ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 to assist the cultivation of the difficult habit of 
 reading with judgment, memory, and reflection. 
 
 Although it is proposed to confine our course to 
 English literature, the opportunity will doubtless be 
 seized again and again of urging the necessity of 
 extending private reading far beyond these limits. 
 The intelligent and earnest student will not ex- 
 clude any of tlie masterpieces in other European 
 or in ancient literature. The principles of true art 
 and the highest types can only be discovered by 
 employing the comparative method. And the numer- 
 ous admirable translations now existing, bring the 
 best within the reach of all ; and great as these 
 are, our own literature does not lose in interest and 
 splendour, or become less precious an inheritance to 
 us after the comparison. The student of Shakespeare 
 is indeed better able to appreciate his superlative 
 excellences, and at the same time to comprehend 
 more fully the perfection of dramatic art and the 
 laws of the human mind, by reading in this connec- 
 tion ^schylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, among 
 the ancients, Tasso, Goethe and Moliere, to take the 
 names that first come to one's mind, among the 
 moderns. And for similar purposes Dante is read 
 with Milton, Cervantes with Fielding, Emerson with 
 Bacon and Carlyle. But so far as concerns the 
 present series of lectures the selection of subjects 
 will be confined to our own literature. 
 
 There is one other limitation, which will probably 
 be maintained, which will exclude the works of living 
 authors, and this for the following reasons. There is 
 greater need for lectures on the literature of the past 
 than on that of the present. No one will hazard the 
 
 1 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATUllE. 17 
 
 opinion that contemporary literature does not receive 
 sufficient attention. The real danger is that the past 
 should be neglected and forgotten. Again, truer and 
 more impartial judgment maybe expected on authors 
 and their works belonging to periods which lie 
 beyond the influence of the interests and passions of 
 our own time. In these days when differences of 
 opinion are so prevalent, it is difficult for even the 
 calmest and most judicious mind to judge disinteres- 
 tedly of the opinions and doings of contemporaries, 
 and so the study of the literature of the past is a 
 discipline in candour, tolerance, and impartiality 
 of judgment. 
 
 Principal Caird, Yice-Chancellor of Glasgow Uni- 
 versity, in speaking of the study of History, says 
 what is equally applicable to literature :— " Time 
 takes little account of conventional greatness ; it 
 consigns to oblivion whole hosts of those who 
 possessed only arbitrary claims to honour, and con- 
 fers immortality on many who, in their own day, were 
 obscure or little noted." Moreover, self-advertise- 
 ment is so characteristic of the present day, success 
 seems so dependent upon getting talked about and 
 keeping constantly in the public eye, that it is 
 difficult to distinguish among contemporary litera- 
 ture what is transient from what is lasting. 
 
 Again, fiction practically constitutes the literature 
 of to-day, and novelists and dramatists are now 
 referred to different camps, and it is said that the 
 nineteenth century is about to close in a battle all 
 along the line between the Eomancists and the Eealists. 
 T do not propose to express an opinion and only 
 refer to the matter to illustrate some of the obstacles 
 
 B 
 
18 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 to the formation of final literary judgments upon 
 living writers. The very definite antagonism 
 existing is shown by their own writings. Eobert 
 Louis Stevenson, the first, probably, of English 
 Eomancists, while writing on this subject, introduces 
 the following cutting passage: — "Hence," he says, 
 " when we read the English Eealists, the incredulous 
 wonder with which we observe the hero's constancy 
 under the submerging tide of dulness, and how he 
 bears up with his jibbing sweetheart and endures 
 the chatter of idiot girls, and stands by his whole 
 unfeatured wilderness instead of seeking relief in 
 drink or foreign travel. Hence, in the French, in 
 that meat market of middle-aged sensuality, the 
 disgusted surprise with which we see the hero drift 
 sidelong.^ and practically quite untempted, into every 
 description of misconduct and dishonour. In each 
 we miss the personal poetry, the enchanted atmos- 
 phere, that rainbow work of fancy that clothes what 
 is naked and seems to ennoble what is base ; in 
 each, life falls dead like dough, instead of soaring 
 away like a balloon into the colours of the sunset ; 
 each is inconceivable, for no man lives in the ex- 
 ternal truth, among salts and acids, but in the warm 
 phantasmagoric chamber of his brain with the painted 
 windows and the storied walls." 
 
 When M. Zola and his friends see the phrase, 
 " that meat market of middle-aged sensuality/' we 
 may be sure there is no immediate prospect of a 
 cessation of hostilities. On the other hand it is 
 believed by certain critics that if the Eealists would 
 but " degrade that everlasting problem which they 
 have quite unnecessarily included in their impedi- 
 
 \ 
 
THE STUDY OF EJ^GLISH LITEEATURE. 19 
 
 menta, as to how much or how httle should be said 
 in print about the relations between the sexes, to a 
 second place, ^ and photograph life simply as it 
 appears to them with its imperfections, its miseries, 
 and its ennui" they would have the unequivocal 
 support of all those who seriously wish to ameliorate 
 the social and material conditions of hfe. The 
 ideal realist therefore w^ould appear to have a mis- 
 sion in our rapidly democratised society. But 
 however that may be, it is, I think, clear that no 
 judgment commanding general acceptance, upon 
 present day literature, can be looked for in our own 
 time. 
 
 Lastly, I am disposed to think that the books 
 best worth reading belong to the literature of past 
 ages. Eelating to all the most general experiences 
 of the human spirit, the virtues, the vices, the 
 elemental passions, the hopes and fears, joys and 
 sorrows, love and sympathy, the best thoughts have 
 already been crystallised in the choicest language. 
 We are accustomed in other branches of art to 
 look to the past for the most perfect models of ex- 
 ternal grace, and a similar expectant search in 
 literature is correspondingly rewarded. If we con- 
 sider the one question of form we discover among 
 the immortal books of writers dead long ago the 
 finest perception of the various capacities of our 
 language and the utmost skill in its idiomatic em- 
 ployment ; opulence of diction combined with the 
 most exquisite arrangement of words making the 
 prose often musical like the melody of measured 
 verse. And if we take the history of ideals we shall 
 find that the summit of modern mind has not anything 
 
 ^ B 2 
 
20 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 to surpass the highest revelations of mind in the 
 past, which still constitute the durable propositions 
 of the creeds of higher and more civiHzed humanity. 
 As revelations of existence and expressions of higher 
 manhood they are almost unapproachable. 
 
 I am, of course, now referring to the past in its 
 widest sense, and including Teutonic literature, but no 
 proposition is likely to find general acceptance which 
 exalts the past above the present ; and indeed it 
 entirely depends upon our point of view and standard 
 of comparison. When we think of the practical and 
 utilitarian achievements of the modern nations of 
 Europe, of the extraordinary developments in all the 
 physical sciences and manufactures, the result of 
 endless discovery and invention, all of which tend to 
 ameliorate and add pleasure to the conditions of life, 
 and to humanise it accordingly, and still more when 
 we contemplate the more equable administration of 
 justice, the larger arena for intellect and character, 
 the wider distribution of wealth, the noble extension 
 of liberty and equality, all directly the outcome of 
 the quickened sense of public justice in all civilized 
 nations, we have good reason to be satisfied with 
 modern progress, for in all these respects the present 
 is an advance upon the past. Nevertheless, if we 
 confine our examination to our present subject of 
 enquiry and make purely idealistic comparisons, 
 we shall find examples of the ancient development 
 of idea, which are both higher in tone and more 
 exquisitely sensitive and delicate in outline and 
 finish, though less cosmopolitan in practical ten- 
 dencies. 
 
 If any one object that the operation of the 
 
 i 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 21 
 
 law of evolution necessarily involves the in- 
 feriority of the earlier to the later manifestations 
 of mind in historic times, let him but recall the 
 sublime etTorts of the ancient Greeks in architec- 
 ture, in sculpture, in poetry, and in philosophy. 
 Such an objector has much yet to learn of the 
 application of the doctrine of evolution to the 
 phenomena of mind. These truths, for example, 
 that man as at present constituted is typically a 
 being with limits of potentiality, and that the 
 progress of his mental development within these 
 limits is not in direct and unbroken correspondence 
 with the course of time. The progress of the human 
 mind is more comparable to the advancing and 
 receding waves of the incoming tide. The height 
 attained by any single wave depends upon proximate 
 causes and local circumstances not necessarily 
 affecting the rest, but the advance of the entire 
 tide results from a profounder cause whose influence 
 all feel and obey. And so advancing knowledge and 
 idea become diffused among the people and irre- 
 sistibly raise the general standard of intelligence and 
 develop what we may term the progress of the 
 species. But this progress is not, to change the 
 simile, like an uubroken rising ground, unvaried in 
 its ascent. It is delightfully featured and relieved 
 by those "flowers of the race, the true sons of 
 genius," upon whose memory we love to dwell when 
 contemplating the progress of humanity ; but these 
 creat men, the chosen masters of the intellectual 
 world, o'ertop the moderns as much as the ancients. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as saying that 
 the mind of man, having already reached so high a 
 
22 THE STUDY OF EKGIJSII LITERATURE. 
 
 point, cannot be expected to do so again, nor do 
 I wish to assert tliat some of the hving writers, 
 who delight us so much, may not in the judgment 
 of posterity be placed in that select company ; but 
 no unanimity of opinion can be looked for in their 
 own day, and I think it is wiser to avoid any 
 approach to invidious comparisons. 
 
 JSTow after eliminating from our course foreign 
 and contemporary literature, we next pass to the 
 consideration as to the best way in which the study 
 can be promoted in that vast library furnished by 
 our own forefathers, and this leads us to examine 
 the mutual relations of lecturer and student, and 
 what may be expected of each. Let us deal with 
 the latter first, and the problem has at once to be 
 faced, as to what to read f It is a favourite but 
 not altogether a satisfactory answer to this question 
 to give a list of one hundred books. However 
 interesting these lists may be as a topic of dis- 
 cussion, and useful as types of rational reading, 
 it is too mechanical a device to be regarded as a 
 plan of education for all. The problem is not 
 capable of so simple a solution. While none but 
 a pedant believes that reading can suffice for a 
 man's education, it should, nevertheless, follow the 
 same lines and leave no part of our nature and 
 character untouched. 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison, the assistance of whose 
 suggestive work on the Choice of Books I desire to 
 acknowledge and to recommend at the same time, 
 eloquently pleads for the habit of " reading with a 
 purpose," and for " reading the best." There can be 
 no doubt that many whose reading is but a " refined 
 
THE STUDY OP ENGLISH LITERATUJiE. 23 
 
 idleness," would associate with the idea of reading 
 with a purpose an uncomfortable impression of 
 tediousness and effort, and they turn away from 
 the greatest and best. They have never come under 
 the gracious influence of the poets and the true 
 realism, whose mission is to find out " where joy 
 resides and to give it a voice far beyond sing- 
 ing." They have not experienced, as Matthew 
 Arnold expresses it, " the security one enjoys 
 with truly classic work, the fulness of pleasure, 
 the cordial satisfaction." It is as curious as 
 regrettable that there should be any disinclination 
 to partake of so rich a feast, but it is probable 
 that it indicates an undeveloped quite as much as 
 a vitiated taste. 
 
 Then we have to consider the busy classes, whose 
 members of necessity read for purposes of recreation 
 and not of study, and who naturally prefer the 
 authors who possess the gift of sending the anxious, 
 weary and worried man of affairs off to sleep in a 
 tolerably hopeful and comfortable frame of mind. 
 The philosophy of such soothing writers styled 
 Lullabists by the ingenious author of Present day 
 Literary Portents, is that honest labour, honest love, 
 goodness, virtue, genuine merit of all kinds not only 
 deserve success, but in nine cases out of ten com- 
 mand it. " For the refined and delicate of fibre," 
 says this writer, " Scott and Tennyson are the 
 favourite lullabists, for others, the escape from the 
 troubles of life is a good laugh. Hence the growth 
 of professedly comic papers, the shoals of parodists 
 and punsters, burlesquists and society clowns, the 
 hurly-burly of humorists, old and new, who en- 
 
24 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITEllATURE. 
 
 deavour, not alwaj^s with perfect success, to keep 
 British sides shaking from Land's End to Cape 
 Wrath by making faces at seriousness," 
 
 Ko sensible man thinks that all reading should be 
 serious ; light reading is one of the most delightful 
 restoratives, and in our climate and latitude, in 
 which so much time has to be spent indoors, one 
 of the most convenient also. It is only necessary 
 to urge that the scope of such reading should be 
 extended, that for this innocent purpose we need 
 not exclusively employ what is inferior or trivial. 
 Equally efficient, indeed far more so, will be found 
 those gems of literary art which play upon the 
 imagination, gently stir the feeling and touch the 
 heart. We need to break free from " that monstrous 
 custom " which would absorb our brief leisure in 
 impelling us to devour early copies and new print, 
 and to cultivate and refine our taste so to value the 
 pearls of great price, those " thoughts in blossom,'" 
 the poetic writings of our literature. 
 
 Poetry, which realises Shelley's description as " the 
 record of the best and happiest moments of the 
 best and happiest minds," is surely fitted to relieve 
 the tired brain with its refreshing fragrance. And 
 those who have or acquire appreciation of the 
 spontaneous irrepressible music of lyrical poetry 
 have an inexhaustible resource in Milton, Shake- 
 speare, Shelley, Herrick, Coleridge, Keats, Tennyson, 
 and other masters of the " language of the gods." 
 If any ask, how may these be inexhaustible ? he 
 cannot surely have felt the touch of their inspira- 
 tion. Eemember Coleridge's critical aphorism on 
 the test of true poetry, " that not the poem which 
 
 
THE STUny OF ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 25 
 
 we have read, but that to which we return viith 
 the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power 
 and claims the name of essential poetry " ; and 
 what Keats has said on the all-pervading influence 
 of Beauty : — 
 
 "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ; 
 Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
 Pass into nothingness, but still will keep 
 A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
 
 Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing; 
 Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing 
 A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
 Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
 Of noble natures, of the gloomy days. 
 Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 
 Made for our searching ! Yes, in spite of all, 
 Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
 From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
 Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
 For simple sheep ; and such are daffodils, 
 With the green world they live in ; and clear rills 
 That for themselves a coohng covert make 
 'Gainst the hot season ; the mid-forest brake, 
 Eich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms ; 
 And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
 We have imagined for the mighty dead ; 
 All lovely tales that we have heard or read ; 
 An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
 Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink." 
 
 But those who are gifted with greater leisure 
 and the serious purpose of self-culture, will find 
 satisfaction only in the more systematic and com- 
 prehensive study of our literature, historically and 
 critically, and will trace the growth and development 
 to the fulness of perfection in all its departments. 
 
26 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 
 
 In dramatic poetry such a student will not only 
 familiarise himself with the masterpieces of Shake- 
 speare, but will read Norton and Sackville's Gor- 
 boduc, the earliest in the series of tragedies, and in 
 which the first application of blank verse to dra- 
 matic composition is found, a species of versification 
 which experience has shown to be best adapted to 
 them, and the other predecessors of Shakespeare, 
 Edwards, Lillie, Peele, Greene, Nash, and Christopher 
 Marlowe. These all show, in different degree, a cer- 
 tain richness of idea and command of language. 
 Henry Mackenzie in Essays on the Old Drama, says, 
 " If we seek for a poetical image, a burst of passion, 
 a beautiful sentiment, a trait of nature, we seek not 
 in vain in the works of our oldest dramatists." 
 Campbell regards the Absalom of Peele as the 
 " earliest fountain of pathos and harmony that can 
 be traced in our dramatic poetry." Hallam speaks 
 of Greene's " easy and spirited versification, remind- 
 ing us of Shakespeare," and all know " Marlowe's 
 mighty line." 
 
 The student will not neglect, like so many do, 
 " Eare Ben Jonson," supreme among " literary giants 
 of energy and invention." Mr. Swinburne has pointed 
 out the defect in Jonson's genius, which I think suffi- 
 ciently explains why he is not so great a favourite 
 with the general reader. He says, "the flowers of his 
 growing have every quality but one, which belongs 
 to the rarest and finest among flowers ; they have 
 colour, form, variety, fertility, vigour ; the one thing 
 they want is fragrance." And again, " the singing 
 power which answers in verse to the odour of a 
 blossom, to the colouring of a picture, to the flavour 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITEKATUEE. 27 
 
 of a fruit, that quality without which they may 
 be good, commendable, admirable, but cannot be 
 delightful, was not a natural gift of this great 
 writer." Then the imagery, wit and humour of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, the grace and dignity of 
 Massinger, will further enrich the study and reward 
 the student. 
 
 Again the critical examination of prose literature 
 is an excellent discipline. Dr. Angus has pointed 
 out a delusion which seems to be prevalent, that the 
 creative faculty is not to be expected in prose litera- 
 ture. While the poet is called the Maker, and endowed 
 in the popular imagination with the divine gift of 
 the creation of ideas, the important truth is lost 
 sight of, that the greatest prose writers employ, no 
 less than the poets, imaginativeness, skill in per- 
 ceiving and describing analogies, and in their writ- 
 ings are to be found the " exquisite beauty of words 
 set in perfect shape, as the beautiful dress of noble 
 thought." 
 
 The historical study of prose makes us familiar 
 with Sir John Mandeville, the first writer of new 
 English prose, with Eeginald Pecock, the first theo- 
 logian who wrote in English, and with Sir Thomas 
 More, one of the noblest and best of men and purest 
 of writers who wrote the first history in. English. 
 
 The study of style in prose is full of object lessons 
 of the false and the true. We see examples of " low- 
 creeping matter clothed with high-flown language " ; 
 of writers so false in style that we are reminded of 
 Talleyrand's cynical observation that " language was 
 o-iven to man to conceal his thoughts." Others who 
 think chiefly of style, far less of idea, who subordinate 
 
28 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITER ATUEE. 
 
 truth to antithesis and sacrifice character and repu- 
 tation to a telling phrase or epigram ; still others 
 whose pompous and ponderous rhythm justify the 
 application to them of Macaulay's remarks on Dr. 
 Johnson, " as soon as he took his pen in his hand to 
 write for the public, his style became systematically 
 vicious. All his books are written in a learned 
 language which nobody hears from his mother 
 or his nurse, in a language in which nobody 
 ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love, 
 in a language in which nobody ever thinks." 
 
 In delightful contrast with all this is the writing of 
 those whose characteristic is perfect sincerity, who 
 illustrate the maxim that the " basis of all excellence 
 is truth," whose sentences are clear as " mountain 
 water flowing over a rock," simple, manly, and 
 straightforward. For directness and simplicity, and 
 power of always making himself understood, no 
 writer can surpass kSwift. In the familiar and 
 colloquial style with a wealth of language and ex- 
 treme realism, probably Defoe is the most remark- 
 able. And in saying precisely what he meant to say 
 no writer has succeeded better than Bun3^an. While 
 for perfect ease combined with refined elegance, few 
 surpass Sidney and Addison. The latter's style. Lord 
 Lytton says, " has that nameless urbanity in which 
 we recognise the perfection of manner ; courteous, 
 but not courtier-like ; so dignified, yet so kindly ; so 
 easy, yet high-bred ; it is the most perfect form of 
 English." Dr. Morell's observations on the construc- 
 tion of sentences are, I think, worth quoting : " The 
 tendency of prose has been always towards shorter 
 and more compact sentences. In the fourteenth cen- 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITEllATURE. 29 
 
 tury, for example, Sir John Mandeville hardly knows 
 when to end his sentences, some of which overflow 
 the page, and his notion of organising a sentence is 
 extremely weak and vague. On the other hand, the 
 sentences of Macaulay, in the nineteenth century, are 
 short, compact, and highly organized. Defoe's sen- 
 tences are long and clumsy ; Charles Lamb's are infi- 
 nitely sweet and pleasant to hear ; and perhaps Thac- 
 keray's are the most genuinely attractive and easy to 
 read." And then our late Fellow compares the four- 
 teenth century prose to the heavy springless broad^ 
 wheeled wagon, and that of the nineteenth to the light 
 hung and graceful carriage. Nevertheless the grandest 
 prose style of all belongs to the seventeenth century in 
 the pages of Milton, and it requires Macaulay's pen to 
 do it justice. " The prose works of Milton deserve," 
 he says, " the attention of every man who wishes to 
 become acquainted with the full power of the Eng- 
 lish language. They abound with passages, com- 
 pared with which the finest descriptions of Burke 
 sink into insignificance. The)^ are a perfect field of 
 cloth of gold ; not even in the Paradise Lost has 
 the great poet ever risen higher than in those parts 
 of his controversial works, in which his feelings, 
 excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devo- 
 tional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own 
 majestic language, a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs 
 and harping symphonies." 
 
 Closely allied to this subject of enquiry is the 
 study of language itself in literature. Only by this 
 means can we obtain an adequate conception of the 
 true value of expression, which alone gives immor- 
 tality to thought. We observe the circumstances 
 
30 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LrPEEATUEE. 
 
 and the laws of its steady and continuous growth, as 
 well as of those comparatively sudden augmentations 
 due to special causes, as the national awakening in 
 the time of Edward the Third, the great revival of 
 letters, the invention of printing, the Eeformation, &c., 
 or to individual writers who greatly enriched our 
 vocabulary, like Chaucer, Mandeville, Langlande, 
 Caxton, Bacon, and Shakespeare, and to the influence 
 of translations, all contributing affluence, vigour, 
 clearness and polish to the medium in which the 
 people, similarly growing in knowledge, sensibility, 
 and power, found utterance for their feeling and 
 their thought. 
 
 Finally, we must remember that English literature, 
 rightly understood, includes also scientific works that 
 are more than mere text books. Many of these, 
 indeed, excite emotions of wonder and delight, and 
 show a distinct connection with what is beautiful and 
 morally excellent ; others disclose grand conceptions 
 and noble interpretations of Nature's methods and 
 phenomena, and no earnest student will regret a 
 determination to explore a body of literature which 
 includes the masterpieces of the great and admirable 
 Darwin. 
 
 Turning again to the general reader, who requires 
 the time or opportunity, or perhaps the inclination 
 for s^^stematic study, and is yet urged to read the 
 best, how may he know the best ? 
 
 The most reliable criteria of what is most whole- 
 some and excellent are found ia those subjective 
 experiences, those subtle, varied and indefinable 
 influences, by which we gauge the worth, moral and 
 intellectual, of the men we associate with, as well as 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 31 
 
 of the books we read. Those writings surely are the 
 best companions which show us the hidden beauty of 
 things, which reveal the deeper meaning of life, which 
 give us a healthier and a happier interest in our 
 fellow men, our work, and our surroundings. 
 
 Those who prefer the assistance which the well- 
 expressed opinion of a competent critic gives, will 
 find the characters of a " classic," well estimated in 
 the definition of Saint-Beuve : "An author who has 
 enriched the human mind, who has really added to 
 its treasure, who has got it to take a step farther ; 
 who has discovered some unequivocal moral truth, 
 or penetrated to some eternal passion, in that heart 
 of man where it seemed as though all were known 
 and explored ; who has produced his thought, or 
 his observation, or his invention, under some form, 
 no matter what, so it be great, large, acute, and 
 reasonable, sane and beautiful in itself; who has 
 spoken to all in a style of his own, yet a style that 
 finds itself the style of everybody, in a style that is at 
 once new and antique, and is the contemporary of all 
 the ages." 
 
 We pass now to the consideration of the particular 
 ways in which tlie lecturer on literature may afford 
 the m-ost useful help. Obviously the competent 
 lecturer has knowledge, sympathy, and power of 
 expression. Knowledge not only of the external 
 facts, the phenomena of literary history, but of the 
 laws to which they may be referred, and not only 
 sympathy with beautiful sentiment, but that trained 
 and cultured sensibility, which gives the finest feel- 
 ing for appropriate expression and perfect harmony. 
 And in respect of power of expression he should, as 
 
32 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LriEllATURE. 
 
 Matthew Arnold puts it, " have the merit of so touch- 
 ing men and works of which the general reader 
 knows, and can be expected to know very little, as 
 to make them cease to be mere names, as to give a 
 real sense of their power and charm," 
 
 The lecturer will show how the slowness of Ger- 
 man thought and the quickness of Celtic thought 
 have combined to make the national character which 
 is reflected in our literature. 
 
 The exponent of a period will not only give a clear 
 exposition of its distinguishing characters and general 
 environment, but will illustrate the continuity of our 
 literary history by tracing the antecedent conditions 
 of which it is the outcome, as well as its own effects 
 and influences. 
 
 The interpreter of poetry must be familiar with 
 the brightest minds, with Chaucer and Spenser, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. 
 He must know the fascination of " pure and flawless 
 workmanship," of clear-cut crystalline speech. He 
 must be in sympathy with genius in its most unre- 
 strained and wildest moods, and show as the Eev. 
 James Byrne has done in the case of Eobert Burns? 
 how the very spirits of love, of lust, of friendship, of 
 independence^ of drunkenness, of religious adoration, 
 of universal sympathy, are all invoked in turns by the 
 mighty magician in all their life and power, bringing 
 with them "airs from Heaven or blasts from Hell." 
 
 Again he will guide the student to the appre- 
 ciation of Wordsworth, that fount of inspiration, 
 whereby he may obtain glorious visions of beauty 
 in the face of Nature, and hear the sw^eet music 
 of her voice, whispering all of best and purest and 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 33 
 
 tenderest that has ever passed within him. He 
 will show how Tennyson and Spenser are alike 
 in truthfulness of detail, love of allegory, beauty 
 of sentiment and expression and exquisite choice of 
 words. 
 
 In the plays of Shakespeare, as John Beattie 
 Crozier has brilliantly suggested, he will conduct 
 the student through the dazzling lustre of the 
 writing, the rich and resplendent imagery, and teach 
 him to appreciate, " beneath that magnificence of 
 expression and wealth of metaphor, more striking 
 signs of the poet's genius in his immense and subtle 
 knowledge of the laws of the human heart down 
 to its finest and most evanescent experiences, which 
 enabled Shakespeare to follow, with the fatal sure- 
 ness of a hound following the trail, the winding, 
 ever-fluctuating and evanishing line of thought and 
 passion." 
 
 Again he will show the student that he enters upon 
 a new world when he begins the study of literature, 
 a higher world of thought and idea, wherein we 
 are enabled to realize the identity of nature and 
 essential likeness of men. Great indeed are the 
 inequalities in degree, in power and insight, and those 
 who excel in these respects are here held in their true 
 estimation and are justly regarded as the real glory of 
 the nation, but all the superficial differences of the 
 material world, which foster the delusion that men 
 are of different natures, fade away before the grand 
 moral and spiritual identity which is so clearly seen 
 in the World of Idea. In the republic of letters, 
 kings cast aside the royal mantle and the large- 
 hearted Alfred labours side by side with the monk 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 
 
 of St. David's. How completely people are blinded 
 to real merit in their own time and how dispropor- 
 tionate are their estimates of their contemporaries 
 are seen in the history of every age. In the World 
 of Letters things are seen in their due proportion, 
 and real merit ultimately determines success. 
 
 Another curiously interesting point noticeable is 
 the frequency with which we meet with instances of 
 genius that could only blossom apparently away from 
 the ordinary discipHne of scholastic training, which 
 seemed either not adapted to its development or 
 not required for it. The examples are numerous of 
 poets, scholars, men like Gibbon, Swift, Dryden, 
 Walter Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, 
 who have no academic distinction recorded in their 
 biographies. Although these are exceptional cases 
 yet they also convey a lesson and teach us to distin- 
 guish, more accurately, innate genius from learning, 
 the man himself from his acquirements. 
 
 I desire now to say a word about the present series 
 of lectures. The gentlemen who will address you on 
 subsequent occasions have selected interesting sub- 
 jects, which are, however, independent of each other. 
 The time at disposal after the resolution was taken 
 was not sufficient to organise a systematic course 
 arranged according to a definite plan of connected 
 subjects, successive epochs or schools of writers. It 
 is wholly miscellaneous in character, but it need not 
 be less interesting or instructive on that account. A 
 brief reference to some of the promised lectures will 
 perhaps here be admissible, Mr. E. B. Holt will 
 discourse upon "Miracle Plays," that curious and 
 striking employment of the dramatic instinct in man 
 
THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 35 
 
 to bring the legends of the saints home to the hearts of 
 the illiterate. It is a subject fruitful in ideas and 
 full of interest, as lying not oaly at the foundation of 
 our general literature, but affording materials for the 
 enquiry as to how far they may be regarded as con- 
 stituting the origin of dramatic representation. Then 
 Mr. E. W. Brabrook has promised a lecture on the Lite- 
 rary treatment of History. A noble subject, scarce 
 any more inspiring. A few weeks ago a master mind 
 in science was taken from us,* one who, like the 
 Hebrew prophet, gazed upon the dry bones until, to 
 his trained imagination, they became clothed with 
 flesh, and the long extinct creatures stood pictured 
 before us as in life. So in late years the scattered 
 records of dead and forgotten ages have so, ingeniously 
 been pieced together that the Past, like some fossil 
 mammal, stands reconstructed before us. iSTot only 
 " the great panorama of events, moving in vast per- 
 spective and outline along the ages," but the very 
 life of the people has been vividly portrayed. Our 
 excellent Vice-President is well qualified to deal with 
 so grand a topic. Dr. Douglas Lithgow will lecture 
 on the Influence of the Lake Poets upon Literature, 
 when we nray hope to enjoy the refreshing grace and 
 charm of poetry, and seek to behold with him the 
 " bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still 
 air of delightful studies." Dr. Knighton, who re-, 
 cently in an admirable discourse on Greek and Latin 
 Wit, added one more to the series of papers which 
 stand over his name in our Transactions, 'will lecture 
 on Gocf and Magog. However intei^esting these lec- 
 tures may be, their real object will only be attained 
 
 * Sir Richard Owen, Hon. F.R.S.L. 
 
 C 2 
 
36 THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITER ATUKE. 
 
 if those who attend them are induced to make a 
 personal acquaintance with the subjects treated. 
 
 But enough perhaps has been said upon the dis- 
 cipHnary and educative character of the study of 
 literature. It contains other sources of interest ; it 
 brings to our knowledge many whom' it is a delight 
 to know. While some excite our reverent admira- 
 tion, and some afford endless entertainment, there are 
 others who call forth deeper feelings, by the love- 
 ableness of their character. The noble-minded, in 
 whom pride and vanity, resentment and self-love have 
 no place, who in pure simplicity and singleness of 
 heart give their great knowledge and power unre- 
 servedly to the world, solely that all may share their 
 own happiness ; men whose lives seem realised 
 ideals of what is most excellent in moral beauty. 
 As Kingsley said, " the doctrines which they held are 
 a matter not for us, but for God and their own souls. 
 The deeds which they did are matter for us and for all 
 England." And what a grand company they make, 
 singled out from all the ages, from Baeda at Jarrow 
 1,200 years ago, to Charles Darwin at Downe 
 village, in our own time, all now gracing " England's 
 Pantheon of beneficent and healthy manhood." 
 
37 
 
 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 BY EDWARD BEABROOK, V.P.R.S.L. 
 
 In the lecture by Mr. Ames, to which we listened 
 with so much delight and profit last month, he told us 
 that the present series of discourses is in some sense 
 a continuation of the original plan this Society had in 
 view when, just seventy years ago, it appointed its 
 ten Royal Associates. These distinguished men were 
 each asked to select some branch of literature and to 
 communicate to the Society at least once in every 
 year a disquisition or essay on some point relative to 
 that branch of literature, becoming in effect a Pro- 
 fessor of that subject on the foundation of the 
 Society. When I too rashly accepted the Mattering 
 invitation of the Council to share in this revival, 
 glancing down the list of Royal Associates, I 
 found that William Roscoe, the author of the Life 
 of Lorenzo de Medici, had selected for his province 
 " Literary History," and that suggested the present 
 topic. 
 
 I do not find that that great man ever fulfilled his 
 undertaking to read an annual paper on literary his- 
 tory ; and I am therefore relieved from the fear of 
 placing myself in competition with him when I stand 
 in his place and take as the subject of my discour!?e 
 the Literary Treatment of History. In dealing with 
 
38 THE LITEEARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 it I do not propose to go back any length of time. 
 Mr. Ames laid down for us the limits of our scope, 
 and mentioned incidentally that Sir Thomas More 
 might be regarded as our first English historian, 
 Baeda and the old chroniclers being left out of the 
 question. I pause for a moment, however, on 
 Bacon's historical works : his History of the Reign 
 of King Henry VII, his Queen Elizabeth, and 
 his beginning of the History of Great Britain, a 
 fragment which, as the editor shrewdly puts it, 
 " seems to have been written to oblige the King to 
 whom it was presented." 
 
 Mr. Lecky, in an admirable presidential address, 
 delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Insti- 
 tute in October last, remarks that 
 
 "In its earlier stages history was regarded chiefly as a 
 form of poetry recording the more dramatic actions of kings, 
 warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early ballads are 
 indeed the first historians of their countries, and long after 
 Homer, one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity 
 described history as merely poetry free from the incumbrance 
 of verse. The portraits that adorned it gave some insight 
 into human character ; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded 
 and stimulated noble actions, and kindled by its strong 
 appeals to the imagination high patriotic feeling ; but its end 
 was rather to point than to guide, to consecrate a noble past 
 than to furnish a key for the future ; and the artist in select- 
 ing his facts locked mainly for those which could throw the 
 richest colour upon his canvas." 
 
 This witness is true. 
 
 We all feel instinctively that history demands and 
 deserves a certain dignity of treatment ; that events 
 which shape the destiny of nations and alter the 
 course of men's lives for generations should be des- 
 
THE LITEKARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 39 
 
 cribed with, a certain rliythmical and stately march of 
 expression corresponding to the march of the incidents 
 that are recorded. 
 
 A comic history of England, however skilfully the 
 jests may be contrived, not only wearies one by its 
 endless trifling and laboured facetiousness, but strikes 
 one as a sort of sacrilege, belittling and travestying 
 events that, if not great in themselves, were produc- 
 tive of great results and deserve a certain grandeur 
 of treatment. When even the pencil of a Leech is 
 employed to represent Caesar or Alfred or Cromwell 
 or other great heroes of our history in an undignified 
 attitude, we feel that the artist has a theme which is 
 not worthy of him, and that no real fun is to be found 
 in his work. 
 
 To say that John signed Magna Charta because 
 it was a signe qud non that he should do so ; that 
 some people call it Carta, because a broad-wheeled 
 wagon has been frequently driven through it ; that 
 the battle of Crecy, being fought in a shower of rain, 
 ought to be called the battle of Water Cressy ; that 
 the War of the Eoses planted many thorns in the bosom 
 of fair England ; that the Court of Star Chamber was 
 so called because justice was administered in it in a 
 twinkling ; that Cardinal Pole, for so I must pro- 
 nounce it, was noted for standing erect ; that James I 
 was not a jem remarkable for brilliancy ; that the 
 Eire of London gave the inhabitants several " nichts 
 wi' Burns " ; and so forth, is not only to make a num- 
 ber of execrably bad puns, but to offend the taste of 
 mankind, who think that the events and individuals 
 which go to form history deserve more sober treat- 
 ment. 
 
40 THE LITERAEY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 Bacon, in tLe fragments of history that he wrote, 
 has not forgotten the dignity of the subject. Take the 
 concluding words of his History of Henry VII: 
 
 " He was born at Pembroke Castle, and lieth buried at 
 Westminster, in one of the stateliest and daintiest monuments 
 of Europe, both for the chapel and for the sepulchre, so that 
 he dwelleth more richly dead in the monument of his tomb 
 than he did alive in Richmond, or any of his palaces. I 
 could wish he did the like in this monument of his fame," 
 
 In the dedication to Charles, Prince of Wales, he 
 makes this shrewd comment on the subject of his 
 biography : 
 
 " He was a wise man and an excellent king ; and yet the 
 times were rough, and full of mutations and rare accidents. 
 And it is with times as it is with ways ; some are more up- 
 hill and downhill, and some are more flat and plain, and the 
 one is better for the liver, and the other for the writer." 
 
 Of the Star Chamber he says : " This Court is one 
 of the sagest and noblest institutions of this kingdom." 
 His historical style is that of the individualist ; for 
 both in the time when he wrote and the time he wrote 
 about the King in person had very much to do with 
 the course of events, and it was Bacon's courtly 
 policy to assume that the King did everything. Yet 
 he asks his readers to take in good part his long 
 insisting upon the laws which were made, for he 
 says : 
 
 " In my judgment it is some defect, even in the best writers 
 of history, that they do not often enough summarily deliver 
 and set down the most memorable laws that passed in the 
 times whereof they writ, being indeed the principal acts of 
 peace. For though they may be had in original books of law 
 
THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 41 
 
 themselves ; yet that informetli not the judgment of kings and 
 counsellors and persons of estate, so well as to see them des- 
 cribed and entered in the table and portrait of the times." 
 
 Mr. Lecky, speaking of those vast revolutions, for 
 good or for evil, which seem to have transformed the 
 character or permanently changed the fortunes of 
 nations, either by a sudden and violent shock, or by 
 the slow process of gradual renovation, remarks that 
 you will find in this country two great opposite 
 exaggerations. There is a school of v/riters, he says, 
 of which Buckle is an admirable representative, who 
 are so struck by the long chain of causes, extending 
 over many centuries, that preceded and prepared 
 revolutions, that they teach a kind of historic fatal- 
 ism, reducing almost to nothing the action of indi- 
 vidualities ; and there is another school, which is 
 specially represented by Carlyle, who reduce all 
 history into biographies, into the action of a few 
 great men upon their kind. His own view is, though 
 there is a certain steady and orderly evolution that 
 it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet indivi- 
 dual action, and even mere accident, have borne a 
 very great part in modifying the direction of his- 
 tory. 
 
 This is a point of some importance in considering 
 the literary treatment of history, for it is obvious that 
 that treatment will be very different, as history is 
 approached from the point of view of individual 
 biography, or from that of the slow evolution of 
 causes acting upon great masses of the people. 
 Both the moral purpose and the assthetic treatment 
 of the topic will differ, as the historian proposes 
 either to depict to us some character standing aloof 
 
42 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 and apart from the rest of mankind, above them in 
 its aims and in the power it exercises over others, or 
 as the creature of second causes. In the one case, 
 he seeks to stir merely our admiration or our 
 horror, as the grandeur of the individual has been 
 beneficent or the reverse ; in the other, he claims 
 our study for the patient consideration of the causes 
 v^hich lead to the evolution of events, and work upon 
 all classes alike, 
 
 Mr Lecky treats both as exaggerations, and offers 
 a tempting via media, but the via media itself may 
 tend to exaggeration, and be pushed too far : if ninety- 
 nine is the real value, then an estimate of fifty departs 
 further from it than an exaggeration to one hundred, 
 and the mean value is not true. If the law of evolution 
 is a general law, then the circumstance that once in a 
 hundred times it may be found not to apply, does 
 not warrant the conclusion that equal weight is to be 
 given to the theory of individual action, but only that 
 some weight is to be given to it,. All human reasoning 
 is but an approximation to truth from a balance of pro- 
 babilities, and if we find that events occur from a given 
 cause seventy-six times out of a hundred, it is nearer 
 the truth to say that they always occur from that 
 cause, than to attach an equal weight to another. 
 
 Mr, Lecky also describes the evolutionist theory as 
 historic fatalism ; but I venture to submit that that 
 is an inaccurate, or at least a narrow, view of the 
 theory, which does not leave out of account the hu- 
 man element in mundane affairs, but deals with it in 
 the balk, and not in detail. In this connection, I 
 will take leave to quote from a book, which we do not 
 consult so faithfully as did our fathers, but which 
 
THE LITEEARY TKEATMENT OF HISTORY. Ao 
 
 still contains for us as for them much sound philoso- 
 phy for guidance in life as well as the basis of all our 
 religious belief — I mean the Bible. At the solemn 
 time when our Lord awaited His betrayer, He said, 
 " The Son of Man goeth as it was determined, but woe 
 unto that man by whom He is betrayed"- — an utter- 
 ance that combines the historic fatalism of which 
 Mr. Lecky complains with the fullest recognition of 
 the personal responsibility of man. 
 
 Take, for example, the effect on history of the 
 career of a man to whom alone among historians Mr. 
 Lecky himself has done justice — John Wesley, the 
 prime mover in the religious revival of the eighteenth 
 century, a man whose personal influence and actions 
 have had the largest effect upon thousands of others. 
 Figure to ourselves this little man, with his keen eyes, 
 his flowing brown hair, his neat clerical attire, his 
 tireless energy, his contagious enthusiasm, his plain 
 straightforward manner of speech, and that name- 
 less something about him which showed to everyone 
 that he was every inch a gentleman. Where is a 
 stronger personality ? Yet who will doubt that he was 
 the creature of an unexpressed but felt want of the 
 times — that if he had never lived, or never left 
 Georgia, there would still have been a reaction 
 against the calm scepticism and moral congelation of 
 the country, which would have found other hands to 
 hold its plough, other voices to proclaim it ? 
 
 Fisfure to ourselves also another little man in our 
 own century, whose corporal's riding coat and cocked 
 hat and stern repression of all emotion and boundless 
 ambition, as well as his ruthless cruelty and apparent 
 absence of any moral sense, mark him out as the very 
 
44 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 reverse in every respect of John Wesley — I mean, of 
 course, Napoleon the First, a man whom everyone 
 would quote as the very type of one whose individual 
 character and force of will made events bow before 
 him aud worked out his own intentions in defiance of 
 right, in defiance almost of the laws of God and of 
 Nature. How he swept over the face of Europe like 
 a destroying pestilence, with a very cloud of armed 
 men, subverting thrones and setting up in the place 
 of their occupants his own relatives and soldiers, till 
 nearly the whole continent is brought in a sense 
 under his rule as of an absolute autocrat ! 
 
 Yet who will doubt who looks at the condition of 
 Europe during the years which preceded the in- 
 vasions of Napoleon, that the state of things which it 
 was his mission to subvert was already tottering to 
 its fall, and that the like events would have happened 
 in the long run, even without him ? The form the 
 events took and the cruel accompaniments of his ca- 
 reer owe much no doubt to his personal character; but 
 master of armies though he was, there was nothing in 
 what he did that was not called for by the spirit of 
 the times, and in that sense was as was determined. 
 This is not fatalism ; for the woe pronounced against 
 the man who betrayed took effect just as much on 
 Judas as if the event of the betrayal had not been 
 certain in despite of him ; and in like manner the 
 moral responsibility of Napoleon for his own actions 
 is independent of the event. 
 
 Take yet another instance of a man whom we are 
 accustomed to look upon as the very type of master- 
 ful personality, who had so much his own way that 
 what he said and thought was said and thought by 
 
TIIE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 45 
 
 his Parliaments, and even by the Courts of Law of 
 the country — Henry VIIT. The famihar view of the 
 events of the Reformation is that he wanted to 
 divorce Catharine of Aragon in order that he might 
 marry Anne Boleyn, and that as the Pope would not 
 declare that his marriage with Catharine was illegal, 
 and the dispensation for it invalid, he declared him- 
 self of Protestant faith. As we are told by Gray, 
 
 "Gospel light first dawned from Boleyn's eyes ; " 
 
 and in consequence we have had Henry's personal 
 character discussed by historians with heat correspond- 
 ing to that always evolved by theological discussion ; 
 your Lingards painting him as the worst of men, while 
 Mr. Froude and others describe him as the best. 
 
 Perhaps the most ingenious defence of Henry the 
 Eighth is that put forward by my friend Mr. Luke Owen 
 Pike in his admirable History of Crime — that the 
 monarch had so rooted a horror of the crime of adul- 
 tery that he was impelled by it to the strange courses of 
 action he adopted. Whenever he found his mind turn- 
 ing toward a lady other than his wife for the time 
 being, he would not entertain the possibility of being 
 unfaithful to that wife, and therefore first of all sought 
 a reason, good or bad, for depriving her of the 
 status of wife, either by death or divorce. I do not 
 know whether this view places his personal character 
 in a much more amiable light than the view gener- 
 ally accepted, but it certainly has the advantage of 
 attributing to him the virtue of consistency, and leads 
 us to wonder how long he could have kept up that 
 course of action. 
 
46 THE LITERAKY TREATMENT OF HISTOHy. 
 
 Even in tliis case, however, we shall find upon 
 enquiry that other events had much more to do with 
 the dissolution of the monasteries and the progress of 
 the Eeformation than the personal character of Henry 
 the Eighth had, and that in these is no exception to 
 the rule that things happen as determined. There is 
 a most instructive fact shown by the Eev. Mr. Loftie 
 in his History of London — that by this time the whole 
 of the ground around the cities of London and West- 
 minster, east, north, souths and west, as well as a con- 
 siderable portion of the latter city itself, had become 
 Church property. A state of things in which the 
 dead hand of the Church was at the throat of the 
 commerce of London, stopping the expansion of the 
 City on every hand, is quite sufficient, by the operation 
 of natural laws alone, to cause a reaction sufficiently 
 explosive to upset the religion of the country. 
 
 If it were possible to treat the question as one of 
 facts in natural history, I should gladly proceed to 
 develop the reasons why a cause of this kind should 
 have results of so grave a character ; but if I did so 
 I should be thought to be indulging in controversy. 
 For my present purpose, all I wish to do is to point 
 out that history is not in general concerned with the 
 personal characters or the individual motives of action 
 of the puppets who play their parts on its stage, but 
 that all events are the necessarj^ results of long 
 chains of causes. The woe which waits upon the 
 Individual who does not perform his part, or who, as 
 in the case of Judas, takes upon himself the responsi- 
 bility of working out the evil that the destinies are 
 calling for, is the business of the biographer ; the 
 historian has to do with the remoter general causes. 
 
THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 47 
 
 Mr. Lecky quotes Carlj^le as the representative of 
 those who reduce all history into biography, as the 
 action of a few great men upon their kind : and this 
 is true, so far as regards his Frederick the Great, 
 his Cromivell, his Lectures on Hero Worship, but 
 even he cannot keep up the theory. In his great 
 work on the French Eevolution, perhaps the greatest 
 historical work of our time, he fully recognises that 
 it is not to the action of any one individual, but to 
 the combined operation of causes extended over a 
 long period of time, that the events of that epoch must 
 be traced. 
 
 " Shall we say," he asks, " Wo to Philosophism, that 
 it destroyed religion — what it called extinguishing the 
 abomination ? Wo rather to those that made the Holy 
 an abomination and extinguishable ; wo to all men that 
 live in such a time of world-abomination and world-destruc- 
 tion ! Nay, answer the courtiers, it was Turgot, it was 
 Necker, with their mad innovations ; it was the Queen's 
 want of etiquette ; it was he, it was she, it was that. 
 Friends ! it was every scoundrel that had lived, and quack- 
 like, pretended to be doing, and had been only eating and 
 misdoing, in all provinces of life, as Shoeblack or as 
 Sovereign Lord, each in his degree, from the time of 
 Charlemagne and earher. All this (for be sure no falsehood 
 perishes, but is as seed sown out to grow) has been storing 
 itself for thousands of years ; and now the account day 
 has come. And rude will the f-ettlement be : of wrath laid 
 up against the day of wrath. my brother, be not thou 
 a quack ! Die rather, if thou wilt take counsel ; 'tis but 
 dying once, ani thou art quit of it for ever. Cursed is 
 that trade ; and bears curses, thou knowest not how, long 
 ages after thou art departed, and the wages thou hadst are 
 all consumed; nay, as the ancient wdse have written, 
 
40 THE LITEKARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 through Eternity itself, and is verily marked in the Doom 
 Book of a God." 
 
 Mr. Lecky dwells, however, not merely on the 
 element of individual character as shaping the 
 course of history, but also on that of pure accident. 
 He quotes the saying of Pascal, that if Cleopatra's 
 nose had been shorter the whole face of the world 
 might have been changed ; and he reminds us that 
 Voltaire is never tired of dwelling on the small 
 springs on which the greatest events of history have 
 turned ; and that Frederick the Great, who had 
 probably the keenest practical intellect of his age, 
 constantly insisted on the same view, and maintained 
 that, in the vast field of politics, casual events which 
 no human sagacity can predict play by far the largest 
 part ; that the world is mainly governed by a 
 multitude of secondary, obscure, or impenetrable 
 causes. " It is a game of chance, in which the most 
 skilful may lose like the most ignorant. King 
 Hazard fashions three -fourths of the events in this 
 miserable world." 
 
 If this view were sound, which we gravely doubt, 
 it would detract largely from the dignity and useful- 
 ness of history, especially in the direction of incul- 
 cating lessons for the future guidance of mankind 
 in the like emergencies, which is the main motive 
 that has been always put forward by historians for 
 their work. If the face of the world had been in 
 any real sense liable to be changed by the circum- 
 stance that Cleopatra did or did not captivate by her 
 beauty one or more individuals, the writing its 
 history would not be the work of a scientific reasoner, 
 who knows tliat causes produce effects, it would be 
 
THE LITERAEY TEEATMENT OF HISTORY. 49 
 
 rather the work of a collector of anecdotes, who 
 seeks to amuse his readers by some unexpected ter- 
 mination of a commonplace event, to drag into 
 prominence things bizarre and unusual, and to whom 
 it never occurs to lay down general laws, or to 
 trace the relation of effects to cause. 
 
 Buckle, indeed, remarks that this is a fault com- 
 mon to the generality of historians, of whom the 
 most celebrated are inferior to the successful culti- 
 vators of physical science, and that no one has 
 devoted himself to history who in point of intellect 
 is at all to be compared with Kepler, Newton, or 
 others. Bacon he excepts, but remarks that he wrote 
 on history only as a subordinate object, and it 
 evidently cost him nothing like the thought which 
 he devoted to other subjects. There is no branch 
 of physical or moral science in which a mere " sport " 
 or occasional variety would be treated as interfering 
 with the general laws aflecting the species under 
 observation. The scientific observer of natural facts 
 knows that like must produce its like, and that no 
 change in the orderly sequence of events takes place 
 by mere chance : he has learned indeed to banish 
 chance from the vocabulary, and the historian should 
 do the same. 
 
 Buckle's teaching as to the materials out of which 
 a philosophical history can alone be constructed 
 may best be expressed in his own words : 
 
 " On the one hand, we have the human mind obeying the 
 law of its own existence, and, when uncontrolled by external 
 agents, developing itself according to the conditions of 
 its organisation. On the other hand, we have what is 
 called Nature, obeying likewise its law, but incessantly 
 
50 THE LITEKAEY TREATMENT OF HISTOEY. 
 
 coming into contact with the minds of men, exciting their 
 passions, stimulating their intellect, and therefore giving 
 to their actions a direction which they would not 
 have taken without such disturbance. Thus we have man 
 modifying nature and nature modifying man ; while out 
 of this reciprocal modification all events must necessarily 
 spring." 
 
 For the purpose of ascertaining the method of 
 discovering the laws of this double modification, and 
 which of the two modifications is the more important, 
 he relies, as you are aware, on the evidence of 
 statistics. 
 
 It is not within the scope of this discourse to 
 discuss at length the masterly statistical arguments 
 by which Buckle establishes the fact that events in 
 human life which seem beyond all others to be the 
 result of individual human will are found to recw 
 with such regularity as to prove that a law exists 
 by which they are controlled. It will be better for 
 our present purpose to proceed at once to show how 
 the acceptance of this truth ought to affect the point 
 of view taken by the writers of history, and to 
 modify in the like degree their literary treatment 
 of the historic facts. The results of a war, for 
 example, will be seen to be more marked in the 
 movement of the population, by the loss of so many 
 young and active members of it as fell in the 
 various engagements, than by any mere delimitations 
 of territory or conditions of treaties between the con- 
 tending rulers. 
 
 The change of one dynasty for another will not 
 be regarded as interesting in itself, or from the 
 
 J 
 
THE LITEEAEY TEEATMENT OF HISTOEY. 51 
 
 personal characters of the monarchs concerned, but 
 will be watched in respect of any social effect it 
 may have upon the masses of the people, any 
 modification of their ways of thinking of which it 
 may be the sign rather than the cause. An altera- 
 tion in the form of government, or even in the 
 established religion, will not be treated as a fact in 
 itself so much as the result of a series of facts 
 leading to and culminating in the great and 
 apparently sudden or violent event. The alliances 
 between states will cease to be worked out through 
 the tortuous mazes of the diplomacy which led up to 
 them — the attempts of the ministers of the one state to 
 overreach the other, the lies and frauds of the negotia- 
 tors, and will be watched rather in their influence 
 on the peoples. 
 
 It is true that, as one of our quotations from 
 Bacon implied, it is one of the functions of history 
 to teach sovereigns and statesmen (if we may be 
 permitted to use Lord Beaconsfield's phrase) by the 
 example of the fate that has happened to others 
 before them acting in the like circumstances. Mr. 
 Lecky (the subject of whose lecture is the Political 
 Value of History) says that there has scarcely been 
 a great revolution in the world which might not 
 at some stage of its progress have been either 
 averted, or materially modified, or at least greatly 
 postponed, by wise statesmanship and timely com- 
 promise ; and he mentions the French Eevolution 
 and the War of American Independence as cases in 
 point. Yet he admits that history is never more 
 valuable than when it enables us, standing as on a 
 height, to look beyond the smoke and turmoil of 
 
 D 2 
 
52 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 our petty quarrels, and to detect in the slow develop- 
 ments of the past the great permanent forces that are 
 steadily bearing nations onward to improvement or 
 decay ; and he urges with admirable force that 
 the strongest of these forces are the moral ones, 
 and that the permanent political well-being of 
 nations is essentially the outcome of their moral state. 
 " Its foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in 
 commercial integrity, in a high standard of moral 
 worth and of public spirit." 
 
 The mistake that is committed when history is 
 looked at from the point of view only of the 
 sovereigns and the statesmen, is well illustrated by 
 a valuable little work just published by Mr. Eeginald 
 Brett, under the title of Footprints of Statesmen 
 during the Eighteenth Century in England. He says 
 acutely that a careful examination of the career of 
 great men suffices to convince us that when a hero 
 or a statesman dies, it nearly always happens that his 
 arc of usefulness is complete. He quotes an anecdote 
 of the Duke of Wellington, in 1839, walking in the 
 garden at Walmer, and lamenting the decline of 
 the British Empire, an Empire that, as we know it 
 now, was then still in swaddling clothes. The great 
 work of the Duke's own life was over, and it was not 
 an unnatural mistake on his part to think that his 
 country's work was over too. Mr. Brett proceeds 
 to say, however, that it is not essential, although it 
 may be desirable, that an ordinary English lad 
 should know that England existed before Queen 
 Anne came to the throne. Here the vice of the 
 doctrine and practice comes out ; the accession 
 of Queen Anne originated some political changes, 
 
THE LITERARY TREATIVIENT OF HISTORY. 53 
 
 but it was no break in the continuity of tlie his- 
 tory of the country and of the masses of people who 
 inhabit it. 
 
 The true materials for history are not so much the 
 protocols of ambassadors, the biographies of kings 
 and statesmen, or even the debates in parliament, 
 as they are those numerous indications of the moral 
 forces that sway the real life of the people that are 
 to be found in their social and domestic records. 
 Vast political changes may pass over a people without 
 leaving the least trace on their real life, and it is in 
 the close observation of this inner life that the 
 progress of the nation may best be measured. The 
 materials for this kind of research have been greatly 
 increased of late years ; the societies established for 
 the publication of local records, the several societies 
 which have busied themselves with investigations 
 into early legal history, the researches of antiquaries 
 into every branch of our ancient social life, even its 
 folklore, are gradually creating a wealth of material 
 that the true historian of the future will find available 
 for the description of the actual life of those who 
 form the nation. 
 
 With these principles of the literary treatment of 
 history the names of three illustrious historians 
 of our own time are intimately associated — Freeman, 
 Stubbs, and Green. It is only for us to compare 
 their works with those to which we were accustomed 
 in our school-days to see how large a step in advance 
 has been taken. The favourite, almost the only, 
 history books of our youth were Goldsmith, Hume, 
 and Smollett. While no one will deny the literary 
 excellence of Hume, and indeed also of Smollett's 
 
54 THE LITEEARY TREATMENT OF HISTOllY. 
 
 continuation, there can be little doubt that the ideas 
 they instilled into our youthful minds were false to 
 the real teaching of history. The occasional chapter 
 which they allotted to manners and customs of the 
 people gave us little real idea of the sort of people 
 that our ancestors were : nor in this were the authors 
 to be blamed, for they could not communicate that 
 which they did not possess. 
 
 Another advantage we have over the historians of 
 the earlier period when this Society was instituted, 
 is in the means of a sounder and more critical ap- 
 preciation of the value of the materials for history 
 afibrded by the old chroniclers and other records which 
 are the common property of both classes of historians. 
 The art of falsifying historic records is one that 
 began to be practised very soon, and has been con- 
 tinued in various ways, and the critical skill which 
 detects the falsification is one of the most necessary 
 equipments of the compiler of history, especially 
 with regard to those documents which come from 
 interested custody. It is here that the historian of 
 the people has an immense advantage over the 
 student of chronicles and treaties, for the documents 
 upon which he founds his knowledge are such as no 
 person would have the motive, even if he had the 
 power, to falsify, or alter, or twist from their 
 meaning. 
 
 In a letter recently pubhshed, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 has remarked on the need for criticising and revising 
 historical statements. He says, " AU history has been 
 written by men more or less biassed or prejudiced, 
 and has necessarily been vitiated by garbling and 
 exaggeration." This is a caution very necessary to 
 
 1 
 
ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 55, for John Robert G-reen 
 read John Richard Green. 
 
THE LTTERAUY TREA.TMENT OF HISTOEY. 55 
 
 be borne in mind : while Alison's great history- 
 was, as we all know, written to prove that Provi- 
 dence was on the side of the Tories, Macaulay's 
 was in like manner written to show that the Whigs 
 were in the right. We need hardly repeat the good 
 old story of the physician who prescribed to his 
 patient the reading of Macaulay's history or some 
 other work of fiction. Is there any better correction 
 to this tendency to take a false view of events 
 according to our own prejudices than that of looking 
 upon them as they really are, as the result of an 
 infinite number of diverse causes ? 
 
 Considered in this light, we may almost share the 
 opinion of Professor Burrows, that the real historian 
 has, after all, yet to be evolved : and that, although 
 we have been gradually approaching him by slow de- 
 grees, he has not yet reached us. We may, how- 
 ever, at least say this much — that when he comes, 
 he will find the way made smooth and plain for him 
 by the labours of the great men whose names I 
 have mentioned as the types of the modern historian 
 — by Freeman, by Stubbs, and especially by Mr. John 
 Eobert Green. That he will, when he arrives, be 
 altogether superior to the claims of party or prejudice, 
 may be too much to hope ; at least, we shall be the 
 better able to detect and avoid any defect he may 
 show in that direction the more we avail ourselves of 
 the materials we now possess. 
 
 An element to be gravely considered in this ques- 
 tion of the literary treatment of history, is that of 
 the audience vv^hich the historian addresses ; that 
 audience is now commensurate with the whole popu- 
 lation, just as the balance of power has shifted from 
 
56 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 crown and courtier, noble and landowner, to the 
 people at large. The large extensions of the franchise 
 which ha^e resulted in making our governments more 
 and more democratic, have been accompanied with 
 a large and liberal provision for the education of all 
 classes of the people, and hence it follows that the 
 historian of the future must address the real, not the 
 nominal, rulers. He must tell them that which 
 most concerns them ; the events and the morals he 
 draws from them must be those which are serviceable 
 to the people in guiding them in the expression of 
 their will at the polling booths ; and that will have 
 the greatest weight with them which touches their 
 interests most. 
 
 The old monkish chronicler, who wrote his annals 
 for the benefit of his successors in the cloister, 
 could think of nothing more interesting or important 
 than when this bishop or that abbot died and was suc- 
 ceeded by another, what gifts this or that king gave 
 to the Church, and how good he was. The compiler 
 of those curious old rolls of history, written in Norman- 
 French, which used to be kept in the houses of the 
 nobles and gentry of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries, to serve as manuals for the instruction of 
 their children and retainers in the facts of English 
 history, would also suit himself to his audience. He 
 would be a churchman of course, and would take 
 care to point out that those who did not love and 
 honour Holy Church came to a bad end; but he 
 would record also the accessions of kings, the famous 
 battles, the alliances by marriage of members of the 
 royal family with the great feudal houses, and so forth. 
 
 Take, for example, an event which was a real 
 
 I 
 
 : 
 
THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 57 
 
 turning point in the economic history of our country 
 and affected it for generations — the great pestilence 
 of 1349, called the Black Death, the ravages of 
 which may be estimated from the circumstance that 
 in one City company as many members died in that 
 one year as had died in the forty years preceding. 
 It was no doubt a more considerable fact than even 
 the victory of Cressy or the foundation of the Order 
 of the Garter — yet how much will the historians 
 make of either of those events in comparison with it ? 
 The miserable conditions of existence out of which it 
 arose, the terrible misery and depopulation which 
 accompanied it — as scarcely one-third, it is alleged, 
 of the inhabitants of the country survived — the 
 misery wrought by the mistaken remedies applied to 
 the economic condition of the country^ are surely 
 matters more worthy of historic treatment than the 
 intercession of Queen Philippa for the burgesses of 
 Calais or the building of St. Stephen's at West- 
 minster. 
 
 The board school boy of to-day is the voter, and 
 in not a few cases will be the legislator, of a few years 
 hence ; and it is the function of teaching the future 
 ruler by the example of the past that the historian of 
 to-day has to exercise towards him. What can be 
 more vital to his interests than to know what sanitary 
 errors those were that gave rise to this awful visita- 
 tion ? for such there must have been, if we have 
 faith to believe that death is the wages of sin, and 
 that pestilence is nature's vindication of her right to 
 have her laws regarded. What can be more essential 
 than that he should understand clearly that when a 
 sudden change has come over the relations of capital 
 
58 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 to labour, force, in the shape of a statute of labourers, 
 is not the remedy that is called for, but nature will 
 have all her laws obeyed, economic and physical ? 
 
 I have possibly said enough on the moral and 
 didactic and educational uses of historic literature, 
 and it is time I turned briefly to the consideration 
 of that which must after all be its principal literary 
 element, the manner of selecting and telling those 
 historic incidents which dwell on the memory for 
 ever. For selection, the historian is under a great 
 temptation to let the poetic temperament, which 
 must be strong in him, if he is to hit the public 
 taste at all, prevail over the critical and sceptical 
 turn of mind which is still more necessary to him if 
 he would not mislead the public. That you may not 
 suppose this to be the mere carping commentary of 
 an outsider, I will quote in support of it the criticism 
 of one great historian upon another, for though we 
 are told dog will not eat dog, authors often display 
 a certain pleasing frankness in their criticisms upon 
 one another. 
 
 Macaulay gives an example of the way in which 
 well known tales have been handed down. 
 
 " They originally appeared in a poetical form. Tliey found 
 their way from ballads into an old chronicle. The ballads 
 perished; the chronicle remained. A great historian, some 
 centuries after the ballads had been altogether forgotten, 
 consulted the chronicle. He was struck by the lively 
 colouring of these ancient fictions ; he transferred them to his 
 pages ; and thus we find inserted, as unquestionable facts, in 
 a narrative which is likely to last as long as the English 
 tongue, the inventions of some minstrel, whose works were 
 probably never committed to writing, whose name is buried 
 in oblivion, and whose dialect has become obsolete." 
 
THE LITEEARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 59 
 
 This is the example^ — 
 
 " History," says Hume with the utmost gravity, " has 
 preserved some instances of Edgar's amours, from which, as 
 from a specimen, we may form a conjecture of the rest." 
 
 " He then tells very agreeably the stories of Elfleda 
 and Elfrida, two stories which have a most suspicious 
 air of romance, and which indeed greatly resemble in 
 their general character some of the legends of early 
 Eome. He cites, as his authority for these two tales, 
 the Chronicle of William of Malmesbury, who lived 
 in the time of King Stephen. The great majority of 
 readers suppose that the device by which Elfleda 
 was substituted for her young mistress, the artifice 
 by which Athelwold obtained the hand of Elfrida, 
 the detection of that artifice, the hunting party, and 
 the vengeance of the amorous king, are things about 
 which there is no more doubt than about the exe- 
 cution of Anne Boleyn, or the slitting of Sir John 
 Coventry's nose. But when we turn to William of 
 Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in his eagerness to 
 relate these pleasant fables, has overlooked one very 
 important circumstance. William does indeed tell 
 both the stories ; but he gives us distinct notice that 
 he does not warrant their truth, and that they rest 
 on no better authority than that of ballads." 
 
 After reading this, one feels that to set an historian 
 to catch an historian, is almost as good sport as the 
 old proverb testifies that the setting a thief to catch 
 a thief ought to be. Indeed, when we look into 
 most of the tales which pass for history in our early 
 annals, we shall find, if I am not mistaken, traces of 
 romance which will bring us in touch with the old 
 
CO THE LITEllARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 fabulists of all times and all places, and shall have to 
 relegate much to folk-lore. Such stories, moreover, 
 as that which we derive from Baeda of Gregory's 
 feeble jests in the slave market at Eome, savour to 
 my mind very much of the dreary facetiousness of 
 some Northumbrian cloister — the questions, by whom 
 heard, how treasured, why related, are questions to 
 which I see no very trustworthy answer. 
 
 While I counsel a healthy scepticism, it must be 
 also remembered that this may be carried to a fault ; 
 and I have frequently felt a glow of righteous 
 indignation at attacks on the veracity of the grand 
 old father of history, Herodotus, who deserves, I am 
 inclined to think, more credit than he receives. One 
 thing is obvious to me throughout his writings, and 
 that is the perfect good faith which marks his in- 
 quiries into the manners and customs of the peoples 
 whom he describes^ and inspires him in the record 
 he gives of the result of his researches among the 
 priests and others he consulted. And the stories he 
 tells of these manners and customs, extraordinary as 
 some of them seem to be, have been wonderfully 
 confirmed by the more recent observations of an- 
 thropologists on the like manners and customs as 
 observed to be prevalent among the savage races of 
 our day, in a similarly low stage of civilization. 
 
 He is not fairly to be represented as the credulous 
 swallower of every strange story that was told to 
 him; he displays in many places a high critical 
 faculty, and shows cause why things that he has 
 heard should not be accepted implicitly without some 
 degree of critical inquiry into their real foundation. 
 Take for example his discussion of the oriain of the 
 
THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 61 
 
 oracles of Dodona and Libya respectively ; how the 
 priests of the Theban Jupiter held that two women, 
 employed at their temple, had been carried away 
 and sold in those two directions, and had profited by 
 what they learned in Thebes to establish oracles. 
 The prophetesses of Dodona, however, held that the 
 oracles had been brought to Greece and Libya by 
 two doves, gifted with human speech to impress the 
 people as with a divine message, and Herodotus 
 strives to harmonize these two stories, and to get a 
 metaphorical meaning out of that of the Dodonsean 
 doves. 
 
 I must not, however, allow myself to be betrayed 
 into further discussion of the merits of the father of 
 history, for the object of the present discourse relates 
 rather to the historians of our own time, since this 
 Society was founded, and to those of our own country, 
 than to those of old. I quoted, some time ago, the 
 severe criticism of Buckle on our historians, in 
 which he said that the most celebrated of them were 
 inferior to the successful cultivators of physical 
 science, which may or may not be true; but if true, 
 is not the only thing to be considered for our purpose. 
 For there can be no doubt that, in respect of every 
 consideration of literary excellence, the votaries of 
 Clio can claim a very high place ; that the writings 
 of our historians for generations past have been the 
 best models of literary style, and that some of their 
 works are veritable masterpieces of literature. 
 
 To establish this assertion, I need do little more 
 than repeat the great names which I have had 
 occasion already to mention, and point out how from 
 generation to generation this branch of literature has 
 
62 THE LITEEARY TEEATMENT OE HISTOEY. 
 
 forced itself on the attention of the brightest intel- 
 lects and the finest masters of English of the age. 
 Where in his tim.e shall we find a writer whose 
 literary style is superior to that of Sir Thomas More, 
 and where among his works shall we discover any 
 written in purer English than his historical treatises ? 
 Contrast them with his own controversial works, or 
 with others handed down from that turbulent age. 
 Bacon I have already cited in his own words ; and 
 whether Buckle is right or wrong in saying that his 
 historical works cost him little trouble, at least I 
 may assert that he wrote them in good English, and 
 that they are not unworthy literary relics of the 
 spacious times of great Elizabeth. 
 
 The next age was too busy in the making of 
 history to do much toward the writing of it ; the 
 stirring times of the Great Eebellion however found 
 on both sides of the question an able chronicler. 
 Clarendon for the Eoyalists, and Bulstrode Whitelocke 
 — though his acquirements were rather lawyer-like 
 than literary — for the Commonwealth. Fortunately, 
 however, we have in our own time made up for the 
 defect by the great historical work of one of our own 
 literary giants, the life and letters of Oliver Cromwell 
 by Thomas Carlyle. It is curious to read his own 
 criticism in his address to the students of Edinburgh 
 on the labours of his brother historians. 
 
 " Upon the whole," he says, " I do not think that, in 
 general, out of common history books, you will ever get into 
 the real history of this country, or anything particular which 
 it would become you to know. You may read very ingenious 
 and very clever books by men whom it would be the height of 
 insolence in me to do any other thing than express my respect 
 
 I 
 
TELE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY, 63 
 
 for. But their position is essentially sceptical. Man is 
 unhappily in that condition that he will make only a 
 temporary explanation of anything, and you will not be able, 
 if you are like the man, to understand how this island came 
 to be what it is. You will not find it recorded in books. You 
 will find recorded in books a jumble of tumults, disastrous 
 ineptitudes, and all that kind of thing." 
 
 Still he thinks the history of England beyond all 
 others to be worthy of study, because he believes 
 that the British nation has produced a finer set of 
 men than any you will find it possible to get any- 
 where else in the world. Then he proceeds to reduce 
 this patriotic generalization to a single particular, 
 after his fashion, by saying — 
 
 " I don't know, in any history, where you will get so fine a 
 man as Oliver Cromwell." 
 
 Of the literary merits of Lord Macaulay's History 
 of England it is almost superfluous to speak ; those 
 who are old enough to remember its first appearance 
 will not have forgotten the admiration it excited by 
 the eloquence of the language, and will recollect 
 the tribute of universal popularity to its beauty of 
 style. 
 
 " Unless I greatly deceive myself," he wrote, " the general 
 effect of this chequered narrative will be to excite thankful- 
 ness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts of all 
 patriots. For the history of our country during the last 
 hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, 
 of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those who com- 
 pare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age 
 which exists only in their imagination, may talk of degeneracy 
 and decay ; but no man who is correctly informed as to the 
 past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of 
 
64 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 the present. I should very imperfectly execute the task 
 which I have undertaken," he proceeds, " if I were merely to 
 treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of administra- 
 tions, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in the parha- 
 ment. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the 
 people as well as the history of the government, to trace the 
 progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise 
 of religious sects and the changes of literary taste, to portray 
 the manners of successive generations, and not to pass by 
 with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in 
 dress, furniture, repasts, and public amusements. I shall 
 cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the 
 dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the 
 English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life 
 of their ancestors." 
 
 In this, however, we think, consists the true 
 dignity of history. 
 
 Among the historians of our own time there are 
 two whose names I think ought not to be omitted in 
 this connection — Charles Knight and William Howitt 
 — the one the author of the Popular History of 
 England — the other of the History of England which 
 goes by the name of Cassell's, the publishers. 
 Neither of these excellent writers claims the credit 
 of original research among unpublished documents, 
 but both are entitled to be honourably mentioned for 
 the practised literary skill with which they have 
 weaved the common materials of history into a 
 narrative that has attracted many a reader to the 
 study of his country's history. Knight takes his text 
 from an observation in the Times newspaper in 
 October, 1854— 
 
 " When a young man of eighteen asks for a History of 
 England, there is no resource but to give him Hume. The 
 
THE IJTEEAEY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 65 
 
 cool, scoffing pliilosoplier, who could relate with unruffled 
 temper the outrages of despotism, the cries of kings, and the 
 extravagances of superstition, and reserved his criticisms for 
 genius and his sarcasms for zeal, still retains his place on our 
 shelves and our tables." 
 
 Knight adds that " when we are content to forget 
 the scoffing philosopher in the narrative powers of 
 one of the most perfect masters of style — and can 
 even patiently endure his studied perversions of 
 historical evidence in our wonder at the skill of the 
 most subtle of casuists, we have yet to seek for a 
 History of England." 
 
 That we have more recently obtained in the 
 writings of a living author, and though we were 
 advised by Mr. Ames not to discuss living authors, 
 I must once again mention the historical writings of 
 a gentleman to whom I have already made frequent 
 allusion as a master of English style as well as a most 
 painstaking student of English history^ — I mean Mr. 
 Lecky — whose historical works adorn the last quarter 
 of this century. 
 
 If I have detained you too long, it is for the reason 
 that the subject is one which calls rather for a whole 
 series of lectures than a single discourse. Whether 
 for the abiding interest that waits upon the narra- 
 tives, for the wide issues that are raised by their 
 teachings, or for the personal culture that the know- 
 ledge of history implies and develops, it lays claim 
 to a literary treatment commensurate with its origin, 
 its methods, and its aims. If the elementary and 
 superficial introduction to the subject, which is all 
 that it has been within my power to attempt, should 
 serve to deepen in any one here that love for historical 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF HISTORY. 
 
 studies and especially for the study of the history of 
 our own country and our own times, which is the 
 best security for good citizenship and the surest 
 guarantee of a wise discharge of the responsibilities 
 of life, I shall feel that my tediousness has been well 
 bestowed. 
 
 I 
 
67 
 
 MYSTEEIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS. 
 
 BY E. B. HOLT, F.K.S.L. 
 
 It is so much easier to teach people of little intelli- 
 gence by combining spectacular effects with oral 
 instruction that, being an ease-loving as well as an 
 erudite fraternity, the priesthood of every age and 
 race has instinctively adopted some sort of dramatic 
 representation for the exposition of its sacred 
 mysteries. 
 
 The earliest Biblical drama of which we have any 
 record is one by Ezekiel, the Jewish tragic poet.^ 
 When he wrote it is uncertain. He was long 
 believed to have been one of the interpreters em- 
 ployed by Ptolemy Philadelphus to translate thci 
 Hebrew scriptures. If so, he lived about 170 B.C. 
 Warton, however, thinks that his play was written 
 after the destruction of Jerusalem, and consequently 
 that a much later period must be assigned to him. 
 The few fragments of his drama which have reached 
 us are in Greek. 
 
 The subject is the departure of the Israelites from 
 Egypt. The characters are Moses, Sapphira, and 
 God. The Deity speaks from the burning bush, so 
 He probably did not appear personally, 
 
 1 Warton, Hist, of Poetry, p. 566 
 
 ill ij 
 
68 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 Moses delivers a prologue of some sixty lines and 
 his rod is turned into a serpent on the stage. There 
 is therefore nothing to distinguish this work from 
 what were afterwards known as miracle plays. 
 
 When Christianity became an established faith the 
 expounders of it naturally followed the example of 
 their predecessors, and, as they too found the 
 drama an expedient both profitable and efficacious, 
 it soon became an established institution with them. 
 
 Gregory Nazianzen, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
 and the master of Jerome, appears to have been the 
 first who made a regular attempt to supersede the 
 plays of Sophocles and Euripides, which, in his day, 
 were still periodically represented, and which, by 
 keeping alive the traditions of the older faith, 
 were a serious hindrance to the progress of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The good father acted in an intelligent and prac- 
 tical manner. He recognised the beauty of the old 
 plays both in construction and diction. He knew 
 that the people were familiar with and partial to 
 these dramas, so, instead of denouncing the public 
 taste, he wisely conformed to it, adopted the ap- 
 proved models, changed the plots and incidents, and 
 converted the gods and heroes of antiquity into 
 orthodox angels and saints. 
 
 Gregory wrote many plays, but only one of them 
 is still extant. It is a tragedy called " Christ's 
 Passion,"^ and till the time of the Eeformation it 
 was regularly acted by the Mendicant Friars of 
 Coventry. 
 
 2 Warton, p. 568. 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 69 
 
 The prologue terms it an imitation of Euripides^ 
 and asserts that this is the first appearance of the 
 Virgin Mary on the stage. 
 
 Clement Alexandrinum/ TertuUian, St. Cyprian, 
 and St. Augustine also wrote plays on the Greek 
 models, so none can pretend that sacred dramas 
 were not introduced with sufficient clerical authority. 
 
 Appolinaris,^ Bishop of Laodicea, however, seems 
 to have been the most prolific of these old play- 
 wrights. He, too, wrote Greek tragedies in the 
 manner of Euripides, and dramatised most of the 
 grand events recorded in the Old Testament. He 
 also composed comedies in imitation of Menander on 
 some of the familiar and domestic Scripture stories. 
 
 This is a very interesting incident and aptly illus- 
 trates the impossibility of extinguishing that harmless 
 hilarity by which the joyousness of life is so appro- 
 priately expressed. 
 
 The early Christians could be piously penitent ; 
 they could have a proper reverence for professional 
 saints, and could even copy their austerities with 
 suitable mitigations ; but a religion of gloom out- 
 raged their instincts of happiness, and the love of 
 laughter refused to be suppressed. So, with con- 
 summate tact, the Bishops determined to lead the 
 movement they were unable to withstand, and hence- 
 forth comedy became a recognised feature of sacred 
 plays. Unfortunately the reaction proved too strong. 
 Innocent mirth soon degenerated into coarse frivolity, 
 and restriction after restriction being relaxed, at last 
 blasphemy and buffoonery were consummated when 
 
 ' Fosbrook, p. 592. ^ Menetrer Tournoise, p. 12. 
 
 5 Warton, p. 565. 
 
70 
 
 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 ia A.D. 990 the patriarch. Theophylact instituted the 
 Feast of Fools and the Feast of Asses. 
 
 Such a prostitution of things then held to be 
 sacred naturally met with much opposition from the 
 best and wisest of the clergy. 
 
 In A.D. 1050 Cedrenus writes : " Theophylact 
 introduced the practice, which prevails to this day, 
 of scandalising God and His saints on the most 
 splendid and popular festivals by indecent and 
 ridiculous songs and enormous shoutings, even in 
 the midst of those sacred hymns which we ought to 
 offer to the divine grace with compunction of heart 
 for the salvation of our souls. Having collected a 
 company of base fellows and placed over them 
 Euthymius, surnamed Casmes, whom he hath also 
 appointed superintendent of his church, he admitted 
 into the sacred service dances, exclamations of 
 ribaldry, and ballads borrowed from the streets and 
 brothels." 
 
 Of course all right-minded persons will endorse this 
 condemnation, but, however much we may abhor the 
 spirit which found expression in such profanity we 
 must not impute that spirit to the fathers of Miracle 
 Plays. They appear to have been earnest simple- 
 minded men who saw that many preferred a gay play 
 to a solemn mass, and thought they could further the 
 interests of their church by giving scriptural object 
 lessons to the people in the only manner that was 
 acceptable to them. 
 
 The Italians were the first to adopt the Constanti- 
 nople fashion. From Italy it is said to have passed 
 to France, and from France to our own land. How 
 the custom was transmitted is uncertain, but it was 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 71 
 
 probably introduced in several different ways.^ 
 Warton observes that, "About the eighth century 
 trade was principally carried on by fairs. The mer- 
 chants, to attract customers, employed jugglers, min- 
 strels, and buffoons. The clergy observing that the 
 entertainment thus provided drew people away from 
 the churches, proscribed these sports and excom- 
 municated the performers. Finding no regard was 
 paid to their censures, they too turned actors, and, 
 instead of profane mummeries, presented stories taken 
 from legends or from the Bible." 
 
 This is ascribing a sort of spontaneous generation 
 to the plays. A need of amusement arises in a com- 
 munity, and the means of satisfying it forthwith 
 organise themselves. 
 
 Boileau has rather a different opinion. He says : 
 " When pilgrims returned from the Holy Land they 
 composed songs on their adventures, intermixed with 
 passages from the life of Christ and descriptions of 
 his crucifixion,^ of ths Day of Judgment, of miracles 
 and martyrdoms. These they recited in a pathetic 
 chant and with appropriate gesticulations. They 
 stood in the public streets with their staves in their 
 hands, while their hats and their mantles were 
 fantastically adorned with shells and emblems painted 
 in various colours. These representations were called 
 visions. Afterwards a stage was erected and profes- 
 sional actors took the parts." 
 
 It is probable that both these factors assisted in 
 popularising the performances and their co-existence 
 is not repugnant to reason. 
 
 One of the earliest plays is called " The Death of 
 
 « Hist. Poetry, p. 565. ^ Warton, p. 567. 
 
72 MYSTEUIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 S-t. Catherine." It appears to have been first acted 
 by the monks of St. Denis, who, we are told, per- 
 formed so well that they soon became as popular as 
 the professional actors.® In the eleventh century this 
 play was performed by the novices of Dunstable 
 Abbey under the superintendence of Geoffrey, a 
 Parisian ecclesiastic who ultimately became Abbot of 
 St. Albans. 
 
 Hilarius, an Englishman who studied under 
 Abelard, wrote a number of pieces, fifteen of which 
 still remain. One of his interludes, " The Image of 
 St. Mcholas," was regularly performed in churches 
 dedicated to that saint. It may serve to illustrate 
 this description of play. 
 
 On his fete day the saint's image was removed 
 from its shrine and a living actor, suitably dressed, 
 took its place. A break was made in the service and 
 a man, representing a rich heathen, entered the church 
 door, made his way to the shrine, and there deposited 
 his worldly belongings, saying that he was going a long 
 journey, so he charged the saint to take care of his 
 goods. As soon as he departed some thieves entered 
 and stole his treasures. Presently the heathen returns 
 to have a last look at them, and, enraged to find that 
 his goods have been stolen, he seizes a whip and 
 thrashes the image of the saint. It moves, descends 
 from its niche, goes out, finds the robbers, reasons 
 with them, and threatens to denounce them to the 
 people. Terrified by this miracle, the thieves restore 
 the property, while the heathen, converted by it, 
 becomes a good Christian and the service is resumed 
 as if nothing had happened. 
 
 8 Wartoii, p. 563. 
 
MYSTEEIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 73 
 
 William Fitz-Stephen,^ a monk of Canterbury, who 
 died A.D. 1191, says, "Interludes belonging to the 
 theatre were plays of holy subjects representing the 
 miracles wrought by the saints, with the acts and 
 pious sufferings of the Blessed Martyrs," 
 
 " These holy and religious matters continued for a 
 long time to be the only subject for the drama. They 
 had also plays in which were represented the person 
 and actions of our Blessed Saviour, the Virgin Mary, 
 and twelve apostles." 
 
 It seems then most probable that about the tenth 
 or eleventh century sacred dramas were tolerably 
 well known in England, but the earliest of them 
 appear to have been written in Latin, and so they 
 would only be pantomimes to the unlettered multi- 
 tude. 
 
 Sacred dramas are roughly divided into three 
 classes : — First, Mysteries, or rhythmic recitations 
 alternating with choruses. These plays are simply 
 Biblical stories tediously dilated with orthodox 
 theology, and the authors were so happily oblivious 
 of chronology that in them the Devil of Genesis vows 
 to his God Mahomet and the patriarch Noah swears 
 by John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. 
 
 The next class are termed Miracle Plays, ^° and are 
 supposed to deal solely with miracles performed by 
 Biblical characters or by the saints of church tradition. 
 
 The third set are Moralities which start with the 
 set purpose of inculcating some special moral lesson, 
 without directly using scriptural or legendary events. 
 In our English plays, however, these distinctions are 
 
 3 Strutt, vol. ii, p. 22. 
 1" Andrews' Curiosities of the Church. 
 
74 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 SO little marked that it is generally a matter of 
 caprice rather than of judgment as to which class a 
 given play shall be assigned. 
 
 What are termed interludes were short pieces of a 
 light, and often of a comic character, which were 
 introduced either between two portions of the 
 regular church service or between two acts of a 
 sacred drama. 
 
 The literary merits of all these productions are not 
 of a very high order. The ideas are commonplace, 
 the language by no means classical, and in many 
 cases the authors trust to the reciters to meet the 
 esigencles of rhyme, rhythm, and metre. Some of 
 them, indeed, seem to have anticipated the genius 
 who began all his lines with capitals ; made each of 
 them so many inches in length, and then claimed to 
 have written poetry. In certain instances, however, 
 there is a wealth of alliteration that will satisfy the 
 most exacting ; for ' instance, in introducing the 
 Coventry Plays, " Primus Vexillator," says : — 
 
 " N"ow graeeous God grounded of alle goodnesse, 
 As tlii grete glorie nevyr begynnyng had, 
 So thou socour and save alle tho that sytt and sese 
 And lysten to our talkyng with sylens stylle and sad ; 
 For we purpose us pertly stylle in this presse, 
 The pepyl to plese with plays ful glad 
 JSTow lystenyth us, lovely, botlie more and lesse, 
 Gentyllys and yomanry of goodly lyff lad. 
 This tyde 
 
 We xal you showe, as that we kan, 
 How that this werd ffyrst began 
 And God made both molde and man 
 Iff that ye wyl abyde." 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIKACLE PLAYS. 75 
 
 Of course there are many opinions as to the value 
 of alliteration, and doubtless it, as well as rhyme and 
 rhythm, imposes fetters upon an author. But these 
 fetters are only the laws of harmony, and when noble 
 thoughts and beautiful ideas are embodied in lan- 
 guage that truly conforms to those laws, a perfect 
 melody is evoked that not only captivates the ear but 
 gives a vitality to each expression, which enables it 
 to grapple the memory, and ever after to retain a 
 hold upon it. Little wonder, then, that all poets have 
 courted these three graces of their noble art, and 
 sometimes, in their love of them, have defied the 
 capricious limitations that pendants would impose. 
 
 Another thing which may be noticed is that in these 
 dramas, when the plot is a New Testament story, 
 the incidents and ideas are largely taken from the 
 Apocryphal gospels in preference to the canonical 
 scriptures ; the gospel of Mcodemus being a favour- 
 ite source of information. 
 
 The treatment of the subjects was extremely 
 realistic, so much so indeed, that in the Chester 
 plays, after the creation of Eve, the stage direction 
 reads thus : — 
 
 " Then Adam and Eve shall stande nackede and 
 shall not be ashamed " ; while, in the Coventry 
 version, after the Fall, our first parents not only 
 discuss their nudity, but Adam instructs Eve in the 
 art of wearing fig-leaves properl}?-. Still, so long as 
 the representations were entirely confined to the 
 monks, dull decorum probably prevailed, but when 
 professional players were introduced, and the Trade 
 Guilds undertook the production of the dramas, 
 there seems to have been no little pandering to the 
 
76 MYSTERIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS. 
 
 coarse tastes and love of fun which characterised 
 their audiences, 
 
 Stevens tells us that, in these plays, there was 
 always a droll or buffoon. This buffoon was the 
 Devil, and vinegar was applied to his nose to make 
 him roar. His tormentor was another buffoon called 
 the Vice. This character was accoutred in a long 
 jerkin, his cap had asses' ears, and he carried a long 
 dagger made of lath. This he wore on his back, 
 whence he drew it from time to time to make sport 
 and to belabour the Devil. 
 
 Archbishop Harsnet gives us a more detailed 
 account of the proceedings of this worthy. In 
 his Declaration of Popish Impostures, we read, " It 
 was a pretty part in the Old Church Plays when 
 the nimble Vice would skip up like a jackanapes, 
 and belabour Satan with his wooden dagger till he 
 made him roar, when the people would laugh to 
 see the Devil so Vice-haunted."^^ Fosbrook says his 
 stage directions were to lay about him with a long 
 pole, and to tumble the characters one over the 
 other with great noise and riot. 
 
 Strutt informs us that the stage consisted of three 
 several platforms raised one above another. On 
 the uppermost sat God (a venerable figure with 
 gilded face, hair and beard), while around Him stood 
 His ano-els in radiant attire. 
 
 On the second platform appeared the saints and on 
 the floor below them were mortals. ^^ On one side 
 of this lowest platform was a dark pitchy cavern 
 (usually in the form of a huge fish's mouth). From 
 
 " Fosbrook, p. 593. 
 
 12 Strutt's Sports, p. 260. 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIKACLE PLAYS. 77 
 
 this cavern issued appearances of fire and flames, 
 and, when it was necessary, the audience were 
 treated with hideous yellings and noises to represent 
 the howls and cries of the wretched souls tormented 
 by restless demons. From this yawning cave the 
 Devils themselves constantly ascended to delight and 
 instruct the spectators. 
 
 Now when we remember that such plays were 
 often performed in churches, and that their osten- 
 sible object was religious instruction, our notions of 
 propriety are naturally shocked by such proceedings, 
 and the means seem ill adapted to the end. Still, 
 we must remember that, in those days, Paradise 
 Lost had not been written, nor had the Puritans 
 preached their Gospel of gloom, and denounced 
 laughter as an abomination to the author of it. 
 Besides, we are constrained to admit that even such 
 buffoonery was no more at variance with the decorum 
 of that age, than are the vagaries of the Salvation 
 Army with the propriety of our own times. Con- 
 sequently, if good can come out of the one, there 
 is no reason why the other should not have been 
 equally beneficial. At any rate, it is in these tenta- 
 tive departures from the dead letter of conventional 
 piety that we perceive the first glimmer of that 
 divine light which, nursed by popular appreciation 
 and purified by intelligent criticism, shone forth so 
 resplendently in Jonson, Shakespeare, and other 
 immortal dramatists. 
 
 But what does amaze us is that, for the sake of 
 maintaining their own supremacy, the priests of the 
 God of Love should have encouraged their simple- 
 minded people to rejoice in the sufferings of others, 
 
78 MYSTEKIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS. 
 
 and to laugh at the antics of the fiend who tortured 
 the miserable. Even the simulation of such horrors 
 could have had but a brutalising efiect, and must 
 have impaired that feeling of brotherhood which 
 the Founder of Christianity so commended to His 
 disciples. 
 
 We can only infer that, while the priesthood found 
 Hell a convenient bugbear wherewith to frighten 
 children and imbeciles, as a body, they had ceased 
 to believe in its actuality, and had come to regard 
 the Devil as a grand joke, a zany to be trotted out 
 at fair times as the best stimulant to coarse jocu- 
 larity. 
 
 When the Trade Guilds undertook the plays, much 
 more efficient arrangements were made than were 
 possible for the monks, and authors were encouraged 
 to exercise their creative faculties. Consequently, 
 in the later versions of the plays, we find many, 
 original conceptions, and the manners and customs 
 of the times are often faithfully depicted. 
 
 Each trade had its own play, and provided a stage 
 and suitable pageant at its own cost, but the Civic 
 authorities seem to have exercised a general super- 
 vision of the whole. 
 
 The York municipal records contain some very 
 interesting accounts of what was customary in that 
 city, for instance : — 
 
 In A.D. 1476^^ an order was made that " Yerely in 
 the tyme of Lentyn there shall be called afore the 
 Maire, for the tyme beying, four of the most conyng, 
 discrete and able plaiers within this city, to serche, 
 here and examen all the plaiers, plaies and pagents, 
 
 1* Davis, p. 237. 
 
 1 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 79 
 
 throughout all tlie artificers belonging to Corpus Xti 
 plaie : and all such as they shall fynde sufficient in 
 personne and conyng to the honor of the city and 
 the worship of the craftes, for to admitte, and all 
 other insufficient personnes, either in conyng, voice 
 or personne, to discharge, amove and avoide. And 
 that no plaier that sail plaie in Corpus Xti plaie be 
 conducte and retained to plaie but twise on the day 
 of the saide plaie, and that he or thay so plaieng, 
 plaie not over twise the said day upon payne of 
 XLs to forfet unto the Chamber as oft times as he or 
 they shall be found defaultre in the same." 
 
 At this time the upper platform had been dis- 
 carded, and the scaffold was divided into two stages, 
 the upper one being open at the top ; the lower one 
 enclosed with tapestry and used as a dressing 
 room. It was also often placed on wheels so that it 
 could be moved from place to place as occasion 
 might require. Thus when a scene was ended the 
 stage was removed bodily, and another stage and a 
 new company continued the representation ; con- 
 sequently, different scenes of the same play would 
 be represented simultaneously in various parts of the 
 town. 
 
 A proclamation also enjoins "All manner of crafts- 
 men to bringe forthe their pageantes in order and 
 course by good players well arayed and openly 
 spekyng, and required every player that should play, 
 to be ready in his pageant at convenyant time, that 
 is to say, at the mydhoure betwix iiijth and vth of 
 the cloke in the mornyng, and then all other pageants 
 fast following ilkon after other, as the course is, 
 without tarieng." 
 
80 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 Whitsuntide was the season generally selected for 
 these plays, and the performance was the great event 
 of the year. The fronts of the houses were decorated 
 with tapestry, etc., and their entrances were strewed 
 with flowers and rushes. The streets were thronged 
 with strangers and people from the neighbouring 
 towns. Everyone was in gala dress, and, to secure 
 peace, everyone was required to leave his arms at 
 home, or at his inn if he were a visitor. 
 
 Still, however, the proceedings were not always 
 quite as orderly as could have been wished, for we 
 find William Melton, one of the Minor Friars, and a 
 celebrated preacher, complaining of the neglect of 
 the divine offices, and the revellings, drunkenness, 
 singing, and other improprieties, which resulted in 
 people losing the indulgences granted by Urban IV 
 to all who attended these performances.-^* In con- 
 sequence of his protests, it was arranged that the 
 play should be on the vigil of the feast, and the 
 procession on the day of the festival itself 
 
 As the York folk had no less tha,n forty-seven 
 plays, or, more properly, acts, in their day's pro- 
 gramme, and each had to be repeated a considerable 
 number of times, it must have been rather a relief to 
 defer the long preliminary religious procession. 
 
 Another regulation made by William Bowles, 
 Mayor, and dated 7th June, a.d 1417, ordains "that 
 all the pageants of the plays of Corpus Christi should 
 be brought forth in order by the artificers of the city 
 of York, and begin to play first at the gates of the 
 priory of the Holy Trinity in Mikelgate ; next at the 
 door of Eobert Harpham ; next ^t the door of the 
 
 " Davis, p. 243. 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
MYSTERIES AXD MIRACLE PLAYS. 81 
 
 late John Gyseburn ; next at Skelder-gate head and 
 North Strete head ; next at the end of Conyng 
 Strete towards Castle-gate ; next at the end of Juber- 
 gate ; next at the door of Henry Wyman, deceased, 
 in Conynge Strete ; then at the door of Adam del 
 Brig, deceased, in Stayne-gate ; then at the end of 
 Stayne-gate at the Minster-gates ; then at the end of 
 Girdler-gate in Peter-gate, and lastly upon the pave- 
 ment." 
 
 Thus the play was performed no less than thirteen 
 times, which must have been a very exhausting day's 
 work for the performers^ though probably there were 
 understudies who, from time to time, relieved the 
 principal actors. The performances at the houses of 
 three dead men almost warrant the conclusion that 
 this was intended as a mark of respect for the 
 deceased, but I can find no reason given for it. 
 
 For many years it was customary to have the plays 
 always at the same places, but in a.d. 1417, the 
 Council decided that this was inconvenient and con- 
 trary to the profit of the city. It was therefore 
 ordered^^ " that those persons should be allowed to 
 have the play before their houses who would pay the 
 highest price for the privilege, but no favour should 
 be shown, the public advantage of the whole com- 
 munity being only considered." In accordance with 
 this regulation we find that in a.d. 1478 a lease of 
 twelve years was granted to Henry and Thomas 
 Dawson, pikemongers, at a rental of II5. a year 
 (equal to about £5 IO5. of our money), so evidently 
 people were willing to pay a considerable sum that 
 they and their friends might witness the performances 
 
 '■■' Davis, p. 241. 
 
82 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 more comfortably. Money was also collected from 
 the. audiences, so it is probable that the Guilds were 
 never much out of pocket. 
 
 At Chester the performances were spread over 
 three days, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in 
 Whitsun week. On the first day they had nine 
 plays : — 
 
 1. The Barkers and Tanners brought forth the 
 
 Falling of Lucifer. 
 
 2. Drapers and Hosiers — The Creation of the 
 
 World. 
 
 3. Drawers of Dee and Water leaders — Noe and 
 
 his Shippe. 
 
 4. Barbers, Wax Chandlers, and Leeches — Abra- 
 
 ham and Lsacke. 
 
 5. Cappers,^'' Wire-drawers, and Pinners — King 
 
 Balak and Balam, with Moses. 
 
 6. Wrights, Slaters, Tylers, Daubers," and 
 
 Thatchers — The Nativity of our Lord. 
 
 7. Paynters, Brotherers, and Glaziers — The 
 
 Shepherd's Offering. 
 
 8. Vintners and Merchants — King Herod and the 
 
 Mounte Victorial. 
 
 9. Mercers and Spisers — The Three Kings of 
 
 Coline. 
 
 On Tuesday there were also nine plays : — 
 
 1. Gouldsmiths and Masons gave — The Slayinge 
 
 of the Children by Herod. 
 
 2. Smiths, Forbers, and Pewterers — Purification 
 
 of our Lady. 
 
 '" Makers of Caps- '" Plasterers. 
 

 MYSTEPJES AND IMIliACLE PLAYS. 83 
 
 3. 
 
 Boucliers — The Pinackle with the Woman of 
 
 
 Canaan. 
 
 4. 
 
 Glovers and Parchment-makers — The Arisinge 
 
 
 of Lazarus from Death to Life. 
 
 5. 
 
 Corvisors^^ and Shoemakers — The Coming of 
 
 
 Christ to Jerusalem. 
 
 6. 
 
 Bakers and Millners — Christe's Maundye with 
 
 
 His Discyples. 
 
 7. 
 
 Bowmakers, Boyers, Fletchers/^ Stringers,^" 
 
 
 Cowpers, and Torners — The Scourginge of 
 
 
 Christe. 
 
 8. 
 
 Ironmongers and Eopers — The Crucifieinge of 
 
 
 Christe. 
 
 9. 
 
 Cookes, Tapsters, Hosiers, and Inn-keepers — 
 
 
 The Harrowing of Hell. 
 
 On 
 
 Wednesday there were but seven plays : — 
 
 1. 
 
 Skynners, Cardmakers, Hatters, Poynters, and 
 
 
 Girdlers produced — The Eesurrection. 
 
 2. 
 
 Fullers and Fusterers,^^— The Castell of 
 
 
 Emmaus and the Apostles. 
 
 3. 
 
 The Taylors — ;Ascension of Christe. 
 
 4. 
 
 Fishmongers — Whitsonday — Making of the 
 
 
 Creed. 
 
 5. 
 
 Shermen-^ — Profetts afore the Day of Dome. 
 
 6. 
 
 Hewsters,"^ and Bell-founders — Anti-christe. 
 
 7. 
 
 Weavers and Walkers — Domesday. 
 
 So 
 
 the Chester people had a very complete sum- 
 
 mary 
 
 of Biblical history. 
 
 
 '8 Clogmakers. '^ Put feathers on aiTows. 
 
 
 -0 Made bow-strings. ^i Rough carpenters. 
 
 
 22 Cloth-shearers. -' Huxters. 
 
 
 F 2 
 
84 MYSTERIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS. 
 
 The oldest account of these plays is found in the 
 following proclamation, of which a copy is given in 
 the flarleian MS. No. 2013, and headed— 
 
 " The proclamtion for Whitsone playes made by 
 Wm. Hewall, clarke of the Pendice, 24 Hen. 8, 
 Wm. Snead, 2"^*^ yere maior. 
 
 " For as much as old tyme, not only for the aug- 
 mentation and increase of the holy and catholick 
 faith of our Saviour Jesu Christ, and to exort the 
 minds of comon people to good devotion and holsome 
 doctrine therof, but also for the comenwelth and 
 prosperity of this citty, a play and declaration of 
 divers storeys of the Bible, beginning with the 
 Creation and fall of Lucifer, and ending with the 
 general judgement of the world, to be declared and 
 played in the Whitsonne weeke, was devised and 
 made by one S"" Henry Frances, somtyme moonck of 
 this monastrey disolved, who obtayning and gat 
 of Clemant, then bushop of Eome, a 1000 dayes of 
 pardon, and of the bushop of Chester at that tyme 
 40 dayes of pardon graunted, from thensforth to 
 every person resorting, in peaceble maner with good 
 devotion, to heare and see the sayd playes from tyme 
 to tyme, as oft as the shall be played within the sayd 
 citty (and that every person or persons disturbing 
 the sayd playes in any maner wise to be accused by 
 the authority of the sayd pope Clemants bulls, untill 
 such tyme as he or they be obsolved thereof), which 
 playes were devised to the honour of god by John 
 Arnway, then maior of this citty of i hester, his 
 bretheren and whole cominalty therof, to be brought 
 forth, declared, and played, at the cost and charges 
 of the craftesmen and occupations of the sayd citty. 
 
 ^ 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 85 
 
 whicli hitlierunto have from tyme to tyme used and 
 performed the same accordingly. 
 
 " Wherfore M"" maior, in the Kings name, stratly 
 chargeth and commandeth that every person and 
 persons, of what estate, degree or condition so ever 
 he or they be resorting to the sayd playes, to use 
 themselves peacibhe, without making any asault, 
 affray, or other disturbance, wherby the same playes 
 shall be disturbed and that no maner of person or 
 persons, whiche so ever he or they be, do use or 
 weare any unlawfuU weapons within the precinct of 
 the sayd citty during the tyme of the sayd playes 
 (not only upon payn of cursing by authority of the 
 sayd pope Clemants bulls, but also) upon payne of 
 enprisonment of their bodyes, and making fine to the 
 King at M*" maiors pleasure." 
 
 A note at the end of the proclamation tells us that 
 "S^ Jo Arnway was maior 1327 and 1328 at which 
 tyme these plays were written by Bandall Hig- 
 genett, a monk of Chester abby and openly played 
 in the Whitson week. " Sir Henry Frances, therefore, 
 was probably only a reviser of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 At an early period Clerkenwell was famous for its 
 sacred dramas. They were performed at Skinner's 
 well, which lay a little west of the Church, but is now 
 built over. 
 
 In July, A.D. 1390,^* the parish clerks of London 
 played there for three days before Eichard II. and 
 his Court, and received a gratuity of ten pounds. 
 The play seems to have been similar to the Corpus 
 Christi plays of Coventry. 
 
 -< Strutt. 
 
86 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAfS. 
 
 In 1409 the play lasted for eight days and the 
 matter was from the Creation to Doomsday, 
 
 There appear, however, to have been rival com- 
 panies in London,^^ for in a.d. 1378 the scholars of 
 Paul's School presented a petition to Eichard II., to 
 " prohibit some inexpert people from presenting the 
 history of the Old Testament to the great prejudice 
 of the said clergy who had been at great expense in 
 order to represent it publicly at Christmas." And in 
 the sixth year of Edward III. it was ordered by 
 Parliament that " a company of men called vagrants, 
 who made masquerades through the whole city, 
 should be whipped out of London,^® because they 
 represented scandalous things in little ale-houses and 
 other places where the populace assembled to see 
 performances." 
 
 In spite, however, of these high-handed measures, 
 and of all the spiritual weapons wielded by the 
 clergy, what Dodsley well calls the dead sleep of the 
 Muses ultimately came to an end. One by one the 
 old senseless efhgies of the monks became living men 
 and women who depicted the thoughts, feelings, 
 manners and customs of the day. The time-honoured 
 ]notives were retained, but the dreary paraphrases 
 were copiously curtailed, and in many places were 
 replaced by sparkling, if rude, dialogue. 
 
 One of the most notable instances is that of Noah's 
 wife who, from a subdued Oriental female, is trans- 
 formed into a Western termagant. Here is a sample 
 of the part taken from the Newcastle play. 
 
 Noah, being weary, comes home. His wife greets 
 
 " Strutt, p. 95. 
 28 Strutt, p. 94. 
 
 ^ 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 87 
 
 him with seeming kindness and urges him to rise 
 and eat, adding in an undertone — 
 
 " And soon a drink I shall give thee, 
 Such drank thou never none afore." 
 
 Noah, having emptied the cup, exclaims, 
 
 " What the devil ! What drink is it ? 
 By my father's soul, I have nere lost my wit." 
 
 Wife. 
 
 " Noah, hode you tell me where about you wende, 
 I give God vow, we two shall nere be friend."^'' 
 
 Noah with meek prolixity explains that God sent 
 an angel to bid him make a ship to escape the coming 
 flood. The Wife replies — 
 
 " Who devil may thee a wright ? 
 God give him evil to fayre. 
 Of hand to have such slight 
 To make ship less or more perfect 
 Men should have heard wide where 
 When you began to smite.' 
 
 " Yes, dame, it is God's will 
 Let be, so thou not say 
 Go make an end I will 
 And come again full throng." 
 
 Wife. 
 
 " By my faith I no rake. 
 Whether thou be friend or foe, 
 The Devil in Hell thee speed 
 To ship when thou shall go." 
 
 2' Newcastle play, " Noah's Ark." 
 
bb MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 At last the ark is built, and Japliet forces her on 
 board, which the lady immediately resents by boxing 
 her husband's ears, while Noah exclaims — 
 
 " Ha ha, marry, this is hot, 
 It is good for to be still."^^ 
 
 Here, of course, there is neither refined sentiment 
 nor elegant language, but the patient plodding hus- 
 band and the selfish graceless termagant are admi- 
 rably depicted just as they existed in those days, and 
 every one of the audience must have felt a lively 
 interest in the characters. 
 
 It would seem that a guild sometimes divided its 
 play and gave half one year, and the remainder the 
 next year, for, in the Coventry play of King Herod the 
 Expositor says : — • 
 
 "Sofreynes and frendys, ye must alle be gret with Gode 
 Grace, love, and charyte evyr be you among ! 
 The may deny 's sone preserve you, that for man deyd on 
 
 rode, 
 He that is o God in personys thre, defend you fro your 
 
 fon. 
 By the leve and soferauns of allemyth God 
 We intendyn to precede the matere we lefte the last 
 
 year. 
 Wherefore we beseche yow that your wyllys be good 
 To kepe the passion in your mend that xal be shewyd 
 
 here." 
 
 In this play Herod is a very terrible character, who 
 declares — 
 "To kylle a thousand Crystyn I gyf not an hawe, 
 To see hem hangyn or brent to me is very pleasauns. 
 To dryvyn hem into doongeneys, dragonys to knawe, 
 And to rende here flesche and bonys onto her sustenauns." 
 2' Bist. Newcastle, p. 378. 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS. 89 
 
 But the " Trial of Christ " with the interlude 
 " Pilate's Wife's Dream," will perhaps give the best 
 idea of these performances. I will, therefore, read 
 some extracts from them with suitable comments to 
 keep up the connection of the story. 
 
 The first stage direction in the Trial of Christ is 
 this. " Here xal a massenger com into the place 
 reunyng and crying " Tydynges ! Tydynges ! Jhesus 
 of Nazareth is take ! Jhesus of Nazareth is take ! and 
 forthwith heylyng the princes, thus — 
 
 " AU heyle, my lordys, princes of prestys ! 
 Sere Cayphas and Sere Annas lordys of the lawe ! 
 Tydynges I brynge you, resey ve them in your brestys, 
 Jhesus of Nazareth is take, thereof ye may be faw, 
 He xal be browth hedyr to you anon, 
 I telle you trewly with a gret rowth, 
 Whan he was take I was hem among 
 And ther was I ner to kachyd a clowte. 
 
 Malcus bar a lanterne and put him in pres 
 Anoon he had a towche, and of went his ere ! 
 Jhesus bad his dyscyple put up his swerd and ces 
 And set Malcus ere agegn as hool as it was ere." 
 
 After a little more of this, Christ is brought in and 
 his captors exclaim — 
 
 " Lo ! lo ! Lordys, here is the man 
 That ye sent us fore." 
 
 A'/inas. 
 
 " Therefore we cone you thanke than 
 And reward ye xal have the more 
 
 Jhesus, thou are welcome hedyr to our presens 
 Ful of tyn we han the bessly do sowth. 
 We payd to thi dyscyple, for the, thirty pens, 
 And as an ox or an lios we trewly the bowth ; 
 
90 MYSTEEIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 Therfore nowast oure as thou stanclyst us before, 
 
 Say why thou ast trobelyd us and subvertyd oure 
 
 lawe, 
 Thou ast ofte concludyd us, and so thou hast do 
 
 more, 
 Wherfor it were ful nedful to bring the adawe." 
 
 Cayphas then enquires about his disciples and his 
 doctrine. 
 
 Jhesus answers that he has done nothing secretly, 
 and refers them to those who heard him. 
 
 Primus Judeus. 
 
 " What thou fela ? to whom spekyst thou ? 
 Xalt thou so speke to a busechop ? 
 Thou xalt have on the cheke I make a vow 
 And get thereto a knock." 
 
 {Smites Jesus.) 
 
 The text now becomes mere paraphrase till Jesus 
 admits himself to be the Son of God. Then Cayphas 
 exclaims : — 
 
 " A ! out ! out ! alias ! What is this ? 
 Heryth ye not how he blasfemyth God ? 
 What nedyth us to have more wytness ? 
 Here ye have herd alle his owyn worde ; 
 Thynk ye not he is worthy to dey ? " 
 
 All cxchmn : — 
 
 " Yys ! Yys ! Yys ! alle we seye he is worthy to dey 
 Ya! Ya! Ya!" 
 
 Annas. 
 
 " Takyth him to yow and bety th hym sone del, 
 Ffor hese blasfemyng at this sel." 
 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS, 91 
 
 Then follows the stage direction : " Here thei xal 
 bete Jhesus about the hed and the body, and spyttyn 
 in his face and puttyn hym down and settyn hym 
 on a stol and castyn a cloth over his face." After 
 this the judges abuse and mock him in alternating 
 doggrel. 
 
 Isext follows Peter's denial and the cock crowing. 
 This seems to have been a special feature of the 
 play, as a considerable fee was sometimes paid to the 
 crower. 
 
 Peter duly repents, and a messenger is sent to 
 Pylat. 
 
 (" Pylat is shewn sitting on his throne ; the mes- 
 senger kneeleth to him and says) : — 
 
 " Al heyl ! Sere Pylat that senily is to se 1 
 Prynce of al Juri and kepere of the lawe, 
 My lord busshop Cayphas coinawiidyd hym to the 
 And prayd the to be at the mot halle by the day dawe." 
 
 Pylat. 
 
 " Go thi way, praty masanger and comawnde me also 
 I xal be there in hast and so thou mayest say 
 Be the oure of prime I xal comyn hem to 
 I tery no lenger, no make no delay." 
 
 The Messenger returns and delivers his report. 
 
 Cayphas. 
 
 " I^ow weyl mote thou fare my good page 
 Take thou this (gives him money) for thi massage." 
 
 Here Judas enters ; confesses his sin ; throws down 
 the silver ; goes to the back of the stage and hangs 
 himself. 
 
92 MYSTEKIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 This was done so realistically that on one occasion 
 the performer actually strangled himself; the 
 audience doubtless applauding the excellence of the 
 poor wretch's acting. 
 
 Jhesus, having been led about the stage, is at last 
 brought to Pylat's hall. 
 
 Pilate tries to save him, but the priests insist on 
 liis death. On which, learning that Jesus was born 
 ia Galilee, Pilate sends him to Herod, the king of 
 that country. 
 
 Then the stage direction is : — 
 
 " Here thei take Jhesus and lede hym in gret hast 
 to the Herowde ; and the Herowdys scafald xal 
 unclose shewyng Herowdes in a stete, alle the Jewys 
 knelyng except Annas and Cayphas, thei xal be 
 stondyn." 
 
 Primus Doctor. 
 
 " Heyl, Herowde, most excyllent Kyng, 
 We arn comawndyd to thine presens. 
 Pylat sendyth the, bi us, gretyng. 
 And chargyth us by our obedyens." 
 
 Secundus Doctor. 
 
 " That we xuld do oure dylygens 
 To bryng Jhesus of Nazareth unto the. 
 And chargyth us to make no resystens, 
 Because he was born in this countre." 
 
 Annas. 
 
 " We know he hath wrowth gret fole 
 Ageyns the lawe shewyd present ; 
 Therfore Pylat sent hym onto the 
 That thou xuldyst gyf hym jugement.' 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
MYbTERlES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 93 
 
 Herowde Rex. 
 
 " How, be Mahound, my God of Grace ! 
 Of Pylat this is a dede ful kende ! 
 I forgyf him now his gret trespace 
 And shall be his frend withowtyn ende, 
 Jhesus to me that he wole sende 
 I desyred ful sore hym for to se ; 
 Gret ese in this Pylat xal fynde, 
 And Jhesus, thou art welcome to me." 
 
 The Jews and Caiaphas accuse Jesus. Herod 
 answers that he has heard all these things before, 
 and, addressing the prisoner, says : — 
 
 " Jhesus, thou art welcome to me, 
 I kan Pylat gret thank for his sendyng, 
 I have desyred ful longe the to se, 
 And of thi meracles to have knowing." 
 
 He speaks at some length, but Jesus makes no 
 answer. 
 
 Herod. 
 
 " Jhesus why spekyst not to thi kyng ? 
 What is the cawse thou standyst so stylle ? 
 Thou nowyst I may deme alle thyng. 
 Thyn lyf and deth lyth at my wylle," etc., etc. 
 
 Cayphas. 
 
 " Loo I Serys, this is of hym a false sotlylte, 
 He wyl not speke but whan he lyst ! 
 Thus he dysceyvyth the pepyl in eclie degre 
 He is ful fals ye weryly tryst." 
 
94 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 Rex Herovjde. 
 
 " What ! thou onhanged harlot, why 
 Wyllt thou not speke ? 
 Hast thou skorne to speke onto thi kynge ? 
 Becawse thou dost oure lawys breke 
 I trowe thou art aferd of our talkyng." 
 
 Annas. 
 
 "■ Nay, he is not aferde but of a fals wyle, 
 Becawse we xuld not hyrn acuse, 
 If that he answerd yow ontylle 
 He knowyth he can not hymself excuse." 
 
 Rex Herowde. 
 
 " What ? spek I say, thou foulyng ! evyl mot thou fare, 
 Loke up ! the devyl mote the cheke ! 
 Seres, bete his body with scorges here, 
 And asay to make hym for to speke." 
 
 Primus Judaeus. 
 
 " It xal be do wythoutyn terying. 
 , Come on, thou tretour ; evyl mot thou the ! 
 
 Wylt thou not speke onto oure kyng ? 
 A new lesson we xal lere thee." 
 
 (Here thei puUe of Jliesus clothes and betyn hym 
 with whyppys.) 
 
 Secundtcs Judaeus. 
 
 " Jhesus, thi bonys we xal not breke, 
 But we xal make the to skyppe. 
 Thou hast lost thi tongue, thou mayst not speke 
 Thou xalt asay now of this whippe." 
 
 Tertius Judaeus speaks and acts in a similar man- 
 ner, and when "he is all bloodye " Herod, after 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIEACLE PLAYS. 94 
 
 abusing him, sends Jesus back to Pilate, and primus 
 doctor undertakes to conduct him. 
 
 The stage direction here says : " Then enteryth 
 Satan into the place in the most orryble wyse and 
 gwyl that he pleyth they xal don on Jhesus clothis 
 and overest a whyte clothe and ledyn him abouth the 
 place, and to Pylat be the tym that his wyf hath 
 played." 
 
 Apparently, then, there was a break in the play, 
 occupied by an Interlude, during which Jesus was 
 led about among the people to excite pity and to 
 collect money. This Interlude was evidently a 
 screaming farce. It was called Pilate's Wife's Dream, 
 and, to appreciate it we must remember that, ac- 
 cording to the custom of the times, the lady was in 
 bed without a scrap of body clothing on her. 
 
 The Interlude begins with a soliloquy by Satan : — 
 
 "Thus I reyne as a roe^^ hand with a ryng gyng rowtli/*^ 
 As a devyl most dowty dred is my dynt 
 Brennyng in flames as lyre out of flynt, 
 
 Ho so serve me, Sathan, to sorwe is sent 
 With dragonys in doungenys and devyls fu derke 
 In bras and in bronston the brothellys^^ be brent 
 That went in this werd my wyl for to werk." 
 
 He next recounts the evil that Jesus has done to 
 his cause, and how he has tempted him in vain, 
 adding : — 
 
 "I have do make redy his cross that he xal dye upon 
 And thre nayles to takke him with that he xal not styrte 
 Be he nevyr so holy he xal not fro me gon 
 But with a sharpe spere he xal be smeet to the herte ! " 
 
 -^ Roe — ruler. 
 
 3" Rowth — suffer. 
 
 ^* Brethellys— wretches. 
 
96 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 Satan then prophesies that Jesus shall come to Hell, 
 and warns the demons to prepare for such a visit. 
 One of them replies : 
 
 " Out upon the ! we conjure the 
 That never in Helle we may hym se, 
 Ffor ane he once in Helle be, 
 He xal oure power brest." 
 
 Sathan. 
 
 " A I A ! than have I go to ferre 1 
 But som wyle help. I have a shrewde torne ! 
 My game is wers than 1 wend here ; 
 I may seyn my game is lorne." 
 
 The poor self-deluded Devil, infinitely grotesque in 
 his bewilderment, and profuse in his comic contor- 
 tions when tormented by the harlequin tricks of the 
 Vice, at last imagines that if he can but save the life 
 of Jesus his kingdom may still be preserved, and, 
 remembering the influence that ladies exercise in 
 this world, he determines to incite Pilate's wife to 
 avert the threatened catastrophe. 
 
 The stage direction is : — 
 
 " Here xal the devyl gon to Pylat^^s wyf, the 
 corteyn drawyn as vshe lyth in bedde : and he shall 
 no dene make ; but she xal sone after that he is come 
 in, makyn a rewly noyse commyng and rennyng of 
 the schafFald, and her shert and here kyrtyl in here 
 hand, and sche xal come beforn Pylat like a mad 
 woman, saying 
 
MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE TLAYS. 97 
 
 " Pylat I charge thee that thou take hede, 
 Dome not Jhesu, but be his frend 
 Yyf thou jewge hym to be dede 
 Thou art dampnyd withouty mende, 
 A fend aperyd me beforn, 
 As I lay in bed slepyng fast ! 
 Sythyn the tyme that I was born 
 Was I nevyr so sore aghast. 
 
 " As wylde f yre and thondyr blast 
 He came cryeng onto me ! 
 
 He seyd, thei that bete Jesu or bownd him fast 
 Withoutyn ende dampnyd xal be." 
 
 Pylat, though evidently annoyed at her intrusion, 
 replies courteously : 
 
 " Gramercy, myn wyf, for evyr ye be trewe, 
 Your cowncel is good and evyr hath be, 
 Now to your chawmer ye do sewe, 
 And all xal be weyl, dame, as ye xal se." 
 
 By this time the new stage is in place, and, the 
 old one being removed, a fresh company begins the 
 next act, the " Condemnation of Christ." 
 
 It is evident that the stage on which such perfor- 
 mances were given must have been a very elaborate 
 structure with many mechanical appliances for pro^ 
 ducing scenic effects. This was a vast improvement 
 on the primitive arrangements of tlie monks. 
 
 We must also not forget that the Coventry plays 
 which have come down to us are not the original texts, 
 but amended editions with the characters more dis- 
 tinctly marked and their parts modernised. We may 
 therefore regard them as the drama in its traditional 
 
98 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 state, many traces of the orthodox paraphrase still 
 remaining, but now largely interspersed with the 
 conceptions of aspiring authors. 
 
 Time does not permit me to do more than just 
 mention the Cornish, Wakefield, Hull, and other 
 plays, but a good deal of interesting matter con- 
 cerning them is to be found in the various records, 
 and anyone who cares to pursue the study will be 
 amply rewarded for his pains. In the present paper, 
 too, I have only given a general sketch of these 
 dramas as a whole without attempting a minute 
 critical examination of any of them. I can only say 
 that their linguistic characteristics are very peculiar 
 and exceedingly interesting, as for the most part 
 they are written in the local dialect, and so offer a 
 rare treat to philologists. 
 
99 
 
 THE LAKE SCHOOL, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON 
 ENGLISH POETEY. 
 
 BY R. A. DOUGLAS LITHGOW, M.D., LL.D., F.S.A., ETC. 
 
 In dealing particularly with any period of literary 
 history it is, I think, in the first place, desirable to 
 consider, at least in its broader outlines, that which 
 preceded it ; as we are thus better enabled to estimate 
 not only the developmental influences which have 
 evolved its production, but also the causes of which 
 such development is the result. In briefly con- 
 sidering therefore the Lake Poets and their influence 
 on English poetry, I shall glance backward for a 
 moment to the so-called Classical School which the 
 Lake Poets superseded, and against which the latter 
 so vigorously protested. 
 
 The germs of Classicism in our literature may be 
 said to have been introduced during the glorious 
 Elizabethan era, during which the discovery of 
 printing, and the consequent diffusion of the Greek 
 and Eoman classics, and the works of Italian and 
 French writers, by means of translations, not only 
 excited a general taste for elegant reading, but 
 exerted the genial influences of literature upon a 
 class of readers who had never previously been 
 subject to them. England, however, was late in 
 
 G 2 
 
100 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 cultivating classical learning, as English literature 
 was slower still in yielding to classical influences. 
 The great stream of Elizabethan literature gushed 
 forth from a native source, and with such power 
 that it resisted the influence of the classics even after 
 they had begun to be studied in England. 
 
 The classical revolution, however, which ultimately 
 gained such an ascendency in English versification, 
 having aimed at the simplicity, fitness, and per- 
 spicuity which characterised the classical writers, 
 certainly produced a general refinement and polish 
 of thought and language, and was the means of 
 neutralising the exaggerated and excessive con- 
 densation of thought, and of banishing those far- 
 fetched images and wild personifications of Nature 
 which had distinguished the immediately preceding 
 period. But the effort to acquire these benefits 
 necessitated the declension of English literature in 
 Nature and truth. As a writer says : — •' Attention 
 was drawn away from the realities of life and Nature 
 to the nice congruities and harmonies of thought 
 and expression. The language of the heart was 
 lost in the roll of harmonious verse, and the real 
 aspects of the world were disguised by the false 
 colouring of merely conventional imagery."^ 
 
 Edmund Waller may be said to have founded the 
 Classical School, which Denham, Dryden, and Pope 
 did so much to cultivate afterwards, but the polished 
 and eclectic elegance at which they aimed degene- 
 rated into time-serving sarcastic maxims, and a meek 
 philosophic didacticism, confined within the bounds 
 of couplets dreary in their regularity, unimaginative, 
 
 ^ Anon. 
 
 I 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETKY. 101 
 
 precise, stilted, prosaic, and pedantic, until the 
 period which they initiated, and which, as they 
 thought, comprised all that deserved the name of 
 English poetry, came to be excluded down to the 
 time of Cowper as a great hiatus in the development 
 of English verse. 
 
 That part of the eighteenth century in England 
 between 1727 and 1780 formed the period of the 
 followers and imitators of Waller, Denham, Dryden, 
 Pope, Swift, and Addison. It is generally the case 
 in literature that an age of original writing is 
 followed by one of mere repetition, which often, in 
 untalented hands, sinks into servile imitation and 
 exaggeration of, perhaps, the weaknesses of the 
 masters, or of the outward expression without the 
 spirit of their works. So, indeed, it was in the 
 literature of England in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. It was altogether an artificial age ; nothing 
 natural was allowed to appear. The gardens of 
 those days are examples of the prevailing taste in 
 their formality and preciseness. Even the great 
 trees must not be allowed to grow as they would, 
 but must be cut into formal and fantastic shapes. 
 In architecture, in dress, and in poetry, the same 
 fashion prevailed. The characters, either painted 
 or written about, all wear the prescribed dress of the 
 time, and even the ancients introduced into their 
 literature seem to have the stifihess and unnatural- 
 ness of the Court of the first two Georges. The 
 poets devoted themselves to refining upon the style 
 of Pope and his contemporaries ; the artificial man- 
 ners of the people were their most fertile subjects, 
 and the delicately-finished compositions, after the 
 
102 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 pattern of those of Queen Anne, were the only styles 
 that pleased the fastidious ears of their fashionable 
 critics. In some cases it had reached to a pitch of 
 absurdity, when it was considered a great merit to 
 raise a low subject by overlaying it with poetical 
 language, and to express the most commonplace 
 things in words that would have suited a great heroic 
 poem. 
 
 Men's minds at length grew weary of this constant 
 reproduction of the same style, and, after 1780, 
 there arose a new race of poets who were animated 
 with a spirit of reform similar to that which was 
 actuating men in the social and political world. - 
 
 There is always a connection between stirring times 
 in the history of a country and the literature then 
 produced. It was natural, therefore, that the over- 
 throw of all old forms in the revolution that was 
 convulsing France in government and in society, 
 should bring to pass a corresponding result in litera- 
 ture. The reforms spread to our own country, and 
 the old affectations could no longer be endured. The 
 passions of men had been stirred to their depths, and 
 poetry must be fired with some of their own spirit, 
 for the outward artificial manners, and the descrip- 
 tion of them, had now no charm. Poets had begun 
 to see the grandeur and sublimity of Nature, and to 
 feel the effects of it in their souls, and no elaborate 
 descriptions of garden scenes whence everything 
 natural was excluded could now employ their 
 muse. 
 
 A real poetic imagination was beginning to appear 
 which must find expression in verse, and its truth 
 was to stand in the stead of the old technical 
 
 1 
 
AKD ITS INFLL'ENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. 103 
 
 system of versification, which had a beautiful form 
 outwardly, but was wanting in any fervour or true 
 poetry. 
 
 Cowper and Burns began their great reform in 
 Great Britain, and the three Lake poets, and among 
 them especially Wordsworth, set themselves earnestly 
 to carry it out further. 
 
 What a curious study it is to compare a description 
 of Nature in Pope and in Cowper — one of the first to 
 really love her among modern poets — will be seen in 
 contrasting the two following descriptions : — 
 
 " As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night ! 
 O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light ; 
 When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, 
 And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; 
 Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
 And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole ; 
 O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed 
 And tip with silver every mountain's head ; 
 Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, 
 A flood of glory bursts from all the skies ; 
 The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight. 
 Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light." 
 
 The foregoing quotation is from Pope's transla- 
 tion of the eighth book of the Iliad, and may be ac- 
 cepted as a fair example of his melodious versification, 
 and his false and contradictory imagery. Cowper's 
 translation of the same scene, although by no means 
 showing him at his best, is, at least, appropriate, and 
 will serve, by way of contrast, to manifest his vividity, 
 distinctness, and truth to Nature : — 
 
104 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 '^' As when around the clear, bright moon, the stars 
 Shine in full splendour, and the winds are hushed, 
 The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights 
 Stand all apparent ; not a vapour streaks 
 The boundless blue, but ether opened wide 
 All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheered." 
 
 Cowper in England and Burns in Scotland were 
 the two poets who, recognising the true mission of 
 poetry, viz., to act as the high interpreter of Nature, 
 made her forget the plaything she had been in the 
 days of the Eestoration and long afterwards, and 
 upreared her as a priestess in Nature's innermost 
 temple. Their gifted souls found nothing exalted, 
 beneficent, or humanising in the jingling sweetness 
 of their predecessors, no kinship with, no knowledge 
 of, no appreciation for Nature in her every mood, 
 and thus they determined to awake the world 
 to the true power and purpose of poetry and her 
 votaries. 
 
 The lessons which they taught, the principles 
 which they inculcated, took deep and abiding root in 
 the hearts and minds of three gifted friends, viz., 
 Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, who ultimately 
 founded the so-called Lake School, and dedicated 
 their lives to the promulgation and establishment of 
 the principles initiated by Cowper and Burns. The 
 tenets of the new school drew down upon their 
 upholders all the ridicule and hostility that the 
 critical world had at its command ; but they 
 struggled on bravely and unflinchingly through it, 
 as true genius merely recognises opposition or diflfi- 
 culties in order to overcome them. On Words- 
 worth's verse especially did the weight of unfair 
 
 i 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. 105 
 
 Criticism fall, but his friend Coleridge resisted every 
 attack made upon his master, and the judgment of 
 posterity is more hkely to agree with his opinion and 
 with the warmth of his praise, than with the censure 
 of his opponents. That there was, however, some 
 truth in these adverse criticisms cannot be denied, 
 and they may be mainly attributed to the fact that 
 the poet was at first misunderstood owing to his 
 simplicity and total want of the sense of humour, or, 
 still more broadly, because his art was so great that 
 he concealed it with the utmost care. 
 
 In their youth Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 
 Southey had each been warm supporters of the 
 French Ee volution, and exhibited such a love of 
 humanity, French democracy, and expansion of mind 
 and liberty, as enraged not only the old Tory school 
 of politics, but outraged the susceptibilities of the 
 English critics who, in return, exposed them to 
 hatred and ridicule, and dubbed them as the 
 " Cockney School," the '" Lakers," and the " Lake 
 School." In later years, however, their republicanism 
 vanished, and they became disciples of the very 
 opposite school in politics. Wordsworth had settled 
 at Eydal Mount, happy in the solitude and in the 
 beauty of the scenery which he loved so much. 
 After a time Coleridge and Southey were attracted to 
 the same neighbourhood, and hence the name of the 
 " Lake Poets," originally applied to them in derision, 
 became an appellation dear to all lovers of poetry 
 and to all classes of their fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in April, 
 1770. In his ninth year he was sent to the grammar 
 »chool at Hawkshead, where he remained until about 
 
106 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 his eighteenth year. In 1787 he was entered at St. 
 John's College, Cambridge (and I am sure we are all 
 proud to have the honoured Master of this illustrious 
 College presiding over us to-day), but during the 
 four sessions he was there he in no way distinguished 
 himself, being more partial to the poets than the 
 schoolmen. In 1790 he visited France with a fellow 
 student, and in the following year took his degree. 
 In 1793 he published An Evening Walk and Descrip- 
 tive Sketches, and although these fell dead from the 
 press, yet they elicited the admiration of the few men 
 who recognised the genius of the author, amongst 
 whom Samuel Taylor Coleridge remarked concerning 
 these poems that " Seldom, if ever, was the emergence 
 of an original poetical genius above the literary 
 horizon more evidently announced." 
 
 In 1795 Wordsworth and his sister took a cottage 
 near Crewkerne, in Dorsetshire, but in order to be 
 near Coleridge, they removed to Alfoxden, in Somer- 
 setshire, in 1797. At Crewkerne Wordsworth wrote 
 his Salisbury Plain, and the tragedy of The Borderers, 
 and at Alfoxden he and Coleridge composed the 
 Lyrical Ballads, which were published by the cele- 
 brated Joseph Cottle, of Bristol. This volume, how- 
 ever, was very little, if any more successful than the 
 first one, but the two friends were in no way dis- 
 couraged or disheartened by the absence of public 
 appreciation. In 1796 and 1799 they travelled to- 
 gether in Germany, and in the latter year Words- 
 worth took up his residence at Grasmere, in the 
 neighbourhood of which he spent the remainder of 
 his life. 
 
 A second and enlarged edition of Lyrical Ballads 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETEY. 107 
 
 appeared in 1800, in two volumes, and a third and 
 fourth edition respectively in 1802 and 1805. 
 
 In 1802 Wordsworth married his cousin, Mary 
 Hutchinson, by whom he had five children. In 1808 
 he again changed his residence to Allan Bank, and 
 finally, in 1813, he removed to Eydal Mount, in the 
 same district. 
 
 Between 1807 and 1818 he published most of his 
 best known works, but to even enumerate these now 
 would take more space than the exigencies of time 
 will permit. He subsequently classified and pub- 
 lished all his poems in six volumes, and after the 
 death of his friend Southey, in 1843, the laureate's 
 crown was made greener by adorning his noble brow. 
 His honour and purity of character increasing with 
 his years, he at length died at Eydal Mount in 1850, 
 at the advanced age of eighty years. 
 
 A writer^ has well said : " During the whole of a 
 long life this poet devoted himself most sedulously to 
 three things : the worship of God through Nature, the 
 cultivation of that genius that God had given him, 
 and the proper cultivation of self. Hence he is an 
 author very healthy and wholesome to contemplate^ 
 He sets himself to one steady purpose, never looks 
 away from it, bends not to Courts, nor to popularity, 
 nor to power, nor to riches. He lives among the 
 Cumberland lakes a poor man, thinking the mountain, 
 the sky, or a common field flower a grander subject 
 of contemplation than a bag of gold. He publishes 
 his poems, and critics laugh at them. They call them 
 childish, and the author silly ; and yet, unheeding 
 them, he still lives under the habitual sway of Nature, 
 
 • Essays on English Writers, 1869. 
 
108 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 and urges that the effect of Nature and her contem- 
 plation exalt the soul to thoughts that live, while 
 meaner worldly glories die away." 
 
 Wordsworth had faith in his belief, and he con- 
 tinued to worship Nature, worshipping the true and 
 beautiful wherever found — on hill or mountain, in 
 dale or valley, in earth, sky, or sea, by the murmur- 
 ing brook, or in the flowery hedge-row — in the heart 
 or mind of the merest hind, as in the heart or mind 
 of the most illustrious. As he says himself, " Nature 
 never did betray the heart that worshipped her " ; 
 and so he lived and died in this pure and simple faith, 
 leaving the world far happier and better in that he 
 had lived, and how much all who love our English 
 literature are indebted to him we shall see presently, 
 when we come to estimate the power and purpose of 
 his life work. 
 
 Of the three poets, Coleridge was the most imagina- 
 tive. His intellect was seemingly capable of doing 
 anything, from the wide range of subjects it embraced, 
 and the magnificent fragments of work that he has 
 left. His genius was, however, clouded by the effects 
 of opium-eating, a habit into which he had fallen, 
 and of which he was not able to cure himself till late 
 in life. This and a restless way of living for many 
 years, prevented his finishing some of his greatest 
 works, and only from the beauties of the fragments 
 can we surmise what the whole might have been. 
 The great beauty of his mind was the simplicity of its 
 religious earnest search after truth, even when he 
 had been led into erroneous opinions. Its great 
 defect was a want of energetic will. He had a lively, 
 original, imaginative genius, and a great purity of 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETEY. 109 
 
 feeling in his style. He was admired and imitated 
 by his contemporaries, and the phraseology and 
 melody of his verses have often echoed in the strains 
 of later poets. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. 
 Mary, in Devonshire, in 1772. From his eighth to 
 his fourteenth year he was a day-dreamer, finding no 
 allurement in either the sports or games of his school- 
 fellows, and when eighteen he had imbibed so much 
 learning as to constitute him a veritable walking 
 encyclopgedia. Had his determination of character 
 been commensurate with his grasp of mind there is 
 no position to which he might not have attained. In 
 his youth he became a Deist — afterwards enlisted as 
 a dragoon — became a Unitarian Minister, gave up 
 Deism, and ultimately became, by a process of 
 elaborate reasoning, a confirmed Trinitarian, and a 
 pillar of the Church, opposed alike to Eomanism and 
 Free -thought. 
 
 Then he followed literature as a profession, gave 
 lectures on the English dramatists and poets — wrote 
 metaphysical essays — translated Schiller's Wallenstein, 
 published The Statesman s Manual^ Aids to Refiection, 
 Biographia Literaria, edited a newspaper, devised 
 literary reviews, published his poems, yet withal met 
 with little pecuniary return ; and finally resided with 
 his friend Mr. Gillman, at Highgate Grove, where 
 surrounded by those who appreciated his immense 
 talents and genius, and his unrivalled powers as an 
 inspired talker, he ultimately died in 1834. 
 
 The remaining unit of the great Lake trio, Eobert 
 South ey. was perhaps the most indefatigable worker 
 in the whole range of literary history, having pub- 
 
110 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 lished over one hundred volumes of poems, history? 
 travels, &c., in addition to one hundred and twenty- 
 six important Papers upon politics^ history, biography, 
 and general hterature. 
 
 With regard to his poetry, he indubitably lacked, 
 in some degree, the divine gift which so distinguished 
 his friends Wordsworth and Coleridge, and thus his 
 poems display not so much creative genius as the 
 rewards of toil and thought ; not so much the golden 
 fruit which has sprung from a rich native soil, as that 
 which has resulted from artificial cultivation ; not so 
 much the glow of originality as the less resplendent 
 glimmer of laborious imitation. 
 
 Southey ^as born at Bristol in 1774, and in 1792 
 was dismissed from Westminster School for writing a 
 sarcastic attack upon corporal punishment as then 
 practised at the school. He entered Balliol College, 
 Oxford, with the intention of taking orders, but, like 
 his friend Coleridge, he too became a sceptic in 
 religious matters, so that the pursuit was aban- 
 doned. 
 
 A year after leaving Oxford he made the acquaint- 
 ance of Coleridge, and subsequently the two poets 
 were married to two sisters on the same day. He 
 sold his poem of Joan of Arc for fifty guineas, and 
 for a time supported himself by giving historical 
 lectures in his native place. Then his uncle took him 
 with him to Spain and Portugal, where he remained 
 six months, the result of his visit being the publica- 
 tion oi Letters from Spain and Portugal, in 1796. 
 
 He afterwards became a law student, but ulti- 
 mately abandoned all thought of the legal profession ; 
 published Madoc — again visited Lisbon — became 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. Ill 
 
 private Secretary to the Irish Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, which he soon relinquished, and from 1801 he 
 dates his entrance upon literature as a profession. In 
 1804 he took up his residence at Greta Hall, Keswick, 
 where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1807 
 he was pensioned by the Government, became Poet- 
 Laureate in 1813, received a further Government 
 pension of £300 a year, and was offered a Baronetcy, 
 which he, however, declined. His first wife died in 
 1837, and he afterwards married Miss Caroline 
 Bowles, the poetess, in 1839. Unfortunately, for 
 some years before his death, which happened in 1843, 
 his overtaxed faculties gave way beneath the exces- 
 sive mental strain to which they had been subjected ; 
 and thus passed away a great and good man whose 
 name will live in the literature of his country which 
 he so much enriched. 
 
 In estimating the genius of such a poet as Words- 
 worth, and in making a critical analysis of his work, 
 however brief, we should, in the first place, I think, 
 regard the individuality of the man, and the aims and 
 motives of his work. As he says himself, in one of 
 his prefaces, " The principal object proposed in these 
 poems was to choose incidents and situations from 
 common life, and to relate or describe them through- 
 out, as far as possible, in a selection of language 
 really used by men, and, at the same timcj to throw 
 over them a certain colouring of imagination, where- 
 by ordinary things should be presented to the mind 
 in an unusual aspect ; and further, and above all, to 
 make these incidents and situations interesting by 
 tracing in them, truly, though not ostentatiously, the 
 primary laws of our nature. Humble and rustic life 
 
112 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 was generally cliosen, because in that condition th 
 essential passions of the heart find a better soil in 
 which they can attain their maturity, are less under 
 restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic 
 language, because in that condition of life our 
 elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater 
 simplicity, and consequently may be more accurately 
 contemplated, and more forcibly communicated, 
 because the manners of rural life germinate from 
 those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary 
 character of rural occupations, are more easily 
 comprehended, and are more durable ; and, lastly, 
 because in that condition the passions of men are 
 incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms 
 of nature." 
 
 Simplicity, earnestness, and truthfulness therefore 
 characterise his aims, and these joined to a character- 
 istic piety and nobleness of purpose, with a rapturous 
 love for Nature in her every mood, and a beneficent 
 interest in humanity constitute the gospel which he 
 preaches. I very much question whether, in the 
 whole range of literature, any other poet has more 
 essentially possessed what I may term the poetic 
 temperament than William Wordsworth. From his 
 earliest youth poetry alone solaced the desires of 
 his soul, and thrilled and permeated him through 
 every hour of his long life. 
 
 Self-consciously inspired by God to be a priest in 
 the vast temple of Nature, he gave himself up to her 
 service, and whilst worshipping God's goodness and 
 power, as manifested through her, he none the less 
 reveres the divinity of soul and inner worth of man- 
 kind. He recognises no merit in rank or mere 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETKY. 113 
 
 position, no essential differences between men except 
 in point of virtue or worthiness, and pays his 
 homage to the beautiful and true in human nature, 
 whether in king or subject, in peer or peasant. 
 
 During his long life — so pure, and sweet, and 
 child-like, the sole desire of his being is to teach his 
 fellow- creatures the faith that is in him through the 
 divine medium of poetry, to elevate and ennoble 
 them by directing their hearts and minds to the 
 worship of God through Nature, and to the power 
 and purpose of existence itself. This is the object 
 to which he devotes himself, without faltering or 
 flattering, and plods on steadily and steadfastly, 
 looking neither to one side nor the other, unmindful 
 alike of Court or camp, of rank or riches, of power 
 or popularity. 
 
 The character of his poetry is as pure as was his 
 own life — the life " of him that uttered nothing 
 base," — and from first to last it appeals to everything 
 that is high and holy in man, and is everywhere 
 directed towards those surroundings of his which 
 are pure and useful, elevating, and ennobling. 
 
 Wordsworth was a voluminous and most indus- 
 trious writer, and, during more than half of the 
 eighty years of his life, he produced poetry of every 
 class and variety. Although he took infinite pains 
 with his work, and tried to make it as perfect as 
 possible by processes of correction and polishing, 
 yet I must own that much of what he has written is 
 unworthy of his genius at its best, so simple as to 
 be almost puerile, so prosaic as scarcely to merit the 
 name of poetry at all. 
 
 That he was always anxious, however, not to 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 publish anything until he had made every effort to 
 have it as flawless as could be will appear from a 
 quotation from a dedicatory letter to his friend 
 Southey, prefixed to his poem of Peter Bell. He 
 
 says : " Pains have been taken to fit 
 
 it for filling permanently a station, however humble, 
 in the literature of our country. This has, indeed, 
 been the aim of all my endeavours in poetry, which, 
 you know, have been sufficiently laborious to prove 
 that I deem the art not lightly to be approached." 
 
 We can only account for the prosaic quality of 
 much that he has written by recollecting that it was 
 his aim to choose and describe incidents from 
 common life, and to use only the common language 
 instead of the ornamental diction previously used in 
 verse, and that it was this desire which led him 
 astray, sometimes into the exceeding homeliness of 
 both subject and language which is found in some of 
 his lyrical ballads. When a poet speaks of a subject 
 that has touched his heart, however simple it may be, 
 and expresses it in the natural language which his 
 cultivated and refined taste suggests, it will find its 
 way to the hearts of his readers ; but if the poet 
 takes a subject which is too puerile to touch him, and 
 invests it with poetic beauties foreign to it, it loses its 
 truth of nature and fails in giving interest or pleasure. 
 Thus, in The Tables Turned we find in one verse a 
 kind of doggerel rhyme fit, perhaps, for the mouth 
 it is put into, and in another one all the grace and 
 poetry of a refined, accomplished writer, and of a 
 tender, thoughtful mind. It seems, indeed, strange 
 that the same mind would write in one poem the 
 verse that drew down Byron's sharp ridicule : — 
 
 1 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETEY. 115 
 
 " Up ! Up ! my friend, and quit yonr books, 
 Or surely you'll grow double ; 
 Up ! Up ! my friend, and clear your looks, 
 Why all this toil and trouble ? " 
 
 And the following : — 
 
 " One impulse from a vernal wood 
 May teach you more of man. 
 Of moral evil and of good 
 Than all the sages can." 
 
 The same simplicity of expression is also seen in 
 the poem entitled Lucy, but surely in the following 
 lines there is a gentle pathos which touches the heart, 
 and when sympathetically appreciated leaves a sense 
 of desolation : — 
 
 " She lived unknown ; and few could know 
 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
 But she is in her grave ; and oh. 
 The difference to me ! " 
 
 On the other hand, perhaps, no other preceding 
 poet had the same marvellous capacity for crystal- 
 lising " thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," 
 into a single line or couplet. Take the following 
 examples selected almost at random : — 
 
 " The child is father to the man." 
 
 " To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 The following again from his sonnet to Milton : — 
 
 " Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart ; 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 
 Pure as the paked heavens — majestic, free." 
 
 What could be more full of pathos, simplicity, and 
 
 H 2 ' 
 
116 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 delicate fancy than some of his minor pieces — " the 
 little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses " of the 
 great Gothic church that he was to rear in The 
 Recluse ? In all these we may find, in Wordsworth's 
 own words : — 
 
 " The gleam, 
 The light that never was on sea or land ; 
 The consecration, and the poet's dream." 
 
 One distinguishing feature of Wordsworth's poetry 
 is the meditative calm that pervades it, a kind of 
 reaction from the strife and tumult of the French 
 Eevolution which had attracted his youth. What- 
 ever was simple and permanent he valued and loved, 
 whatever was noisy and clamorous he disliked and 
 repudiated. 
 
 Wordsworth's poetry at his best is equal to any in 
 our language. No other poet has so nearly attained 
 to the sublimity of Milton in his sonnets, and as 
 has been well said : " His ode on the Intimations of 
 Immortality is simply the very finest piece of its kind 
 that ever was written or will be written. It is un- 
 surpassed and unsurpassable," 
 
 What can be finer, for example, than the fol- 
 lowing verse from this exquisitely beautiful 
 poem ? — 
 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting. 
 
 And Cometh from afar ; 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness. 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God, who is our home : 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETEY. 117 
 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
 Shades of the prison-Iiouse begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing boy, 
 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows ; 
 
 He sees it in his joy ; 
 The youth, who daily farther from the east 
 Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
 
 And by the vision splendid, 
 
 Is on his way attended ; 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day." 
 
 In his great poem, The Excursion, forming the 
 back-bone of the grand v^ork he proposed, under the 
 title of The Becluse, the thought may sometimes be 
 obscure and difficult to follow, but the beautiful 
 pictures of Nature, of humble virtue, and the con- 
 stant all-pervading religious fervour can never fail 
 to give pleasure or to sway the heart of the ap- 
 preciative reader with a feeling almost akin to divine- 
 ness. 
 
 I very much question whether a finer moral and 
 meditative poem was ever written. 
 
 How willingly I would linger amid 
 
 " This feast of nectar'd sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 
 But to do anything like justice to the heaven- 
 hallowed poetry of Wordsworth is simply impossible 
 within the limits of such a Paper as the present. I 
 cannot, however, resist the temptation to quote the 
 following lines, " Written near Tintern Abbey " : — 
 
 " I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
118 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns. 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit which impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 Of eye and ear, both what they half create, 
 And what perceive : well pleased to recognise 
 In Nature, and the language of the sense 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
 Of all my moral being." 
 
 I conclude this cursory and very brief analysis of 
 Wordsworth's poetry by quoting the following esti- 
 mate of his genius from the pen of Mr. Algernon 
 Swinburne : — " The incommunicable, the immitigable 
 might of Wordsworth, when the god has indeed 
 fallen on him, cannot but be felt by all, and can but 
 be felt by any ; none can partake and catch it up. 
 There are many men greater than he ; there are men 
 much greater ; but what he has of greatness is his 
 only. His concentration, his majesty, his pathos, 
 have no parallel : some have gone higher, many 
 lower ; none have touched precisely the same point 
 as he." 
 
 The collected poems of Coleridge have been pub- 
 lished in three volumes, which contain much that is 
 dear to every lover of English poetry. His was, 
 indeed, a many-sided genius, like a precious stone on 
 which the hand of ligature had cut and polished many 
 facets, but which earth and time had blurred in the 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE GN ENGLISH POETEY. 119 
 
 using and spoiled with accidental flaws. Whilst the 
 range of his knowledge was cyclopsedic, his intellect 
 Titanic in its power, and capable of adding lustre to 
 all realms of thought, alas ! he inherited with his 
 humanity a want of concentration and steadiness of 
 purpose, a mental bias which warped and made him 
 in some sense unworthy of the intellectual riches 
 with which he was dowered. Hence, while some 
 of his work is of the highest order, whether meta- 
 physical, critical, or imaginative, it is nearly all 
 fragmentary and somewhat inconsecutive, indicative 
 of innate power, rather than of the achievement of 
 great results. 
 
 His imaginative works, various in style and 
 manner, consist of " ode, tragedy, and epigram — 
 love-poems, and strains of patriotism and super- 
 stition — a wild witchery of imagination, and, at other 
 times, severe and stately thought and intellectual 
 retrospection. His language is often rich and 
 musical, highly figurative and ornate, and many of 
 his minor poems are characterised by tenderness and 
 beauty."^ 
 
 The incompleteness of his great designs, owing to 
 his constitutional infirmity of purpose (rendered all 
 the more galling by his ambitious promptings to 
 excel in some great work) — the feeling that instead 
 of using his great talents profitably he had, to use 
 his own expression, wasted " the prime and manhood 
 of his intellect," brought to the poet often great 
 sorrow and heart-rending remorse. This will be 
 seen in the following beautiful and pathetic lines 
 addressed to Wordsworth after hearing the latter 
 
 3 Cyclop, of Eng. Lit., Vol. II, p. 72 (1876). 
 
120 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 recite a poem " On the growth of an individual 
 mind " : — 
 
 " Ah ! as I hstened with a heart forlorn, 
 The pulses of my being beat anew ; 
 And even as life returns upon the drowned, 
 Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains, 
 Keen pangs of love, awakening as a babe 
 Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ; 
 And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope ; 
 And hope that scarce would know itself from fear ; 
 Sense of past youth and manhood come in vain ; 
 And genius given, and knowledge won in vain ; 
 And all which I had culled in wood- walks wild. 
 And all which patient toil had reared, and all 
 Commune with thee had opened out ; but flowers 
 Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, 
 In the same coffin, for the self-same grave." 
 
 Notwithstanding the capacity and subtlety of his 
 intellect, his morbidly transcendental and dreamy 
 imagination, which delighted in the supernatural, and 
 the vigour of his mental activity, yet the weaknesses 
 of his Nature rendered his best efforts incomplete 
 and intermittent. I have to deal only with his 
 poetry, but he was more than a poet, for his meta- 
 physical powers were of the highest order, and he 
 was, perhaps, the most brilliant conversationalist of 
 the century. Indeed, he had always a difficulty in 
 expressing himself in writing, but he was entirely in 
 his element when he could pour forth with lavish and 
 inexhaustible flow the vast range of knowledge and 
 learning which he had acquired. This marvellous 
 conversational gift joined to a fine sense of humour, 
 a sharp and ready wit, and critical acumen of sur- 
 
 I 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETKY. 121 
 
 passing excellence, made him one of the most remark- 
 able men of his time. 
 
 His poetry is chiefly celebrated for the exquisite 
 melody of the versification, which enchains the ear 
 by its music, for the tenderness and delicacy of its 
 sentiment, for the spirituality of its imagination, and 
 for the harmonious colouring of his descriptions 
 and their truth to Nature. 
 
 His Ode to France, The Rime of the Ancient 
 Mari7ier, Christabel, Genevieve, Youth and Age, and 
 the Ode to the Departing Year, are not only unsur- 
 passed by any similar productions in our language, 
 but are by far the most original, the most purely 
 poetical pieces produced during this century. 
 
 As a writer says : " Beyond the mere mechanical 
 and musical beauty of the verse, there is a deep 
 hidden meaning, a satisfying fancy, a pure and holy 
 conception, that makes one at once acknowledge a 
 true poet " with his singing robes about him," one 
 not content to wait in the outer courts of fancy, or 
 to ornament himself with the mere prettinesses of 
 rhyme, like the fashionable writers of the eighteenth 
 century, but who penetrated at once into the Adytum, 
 and stood in the presence of God."^ 
 
 I have neither the time nor inclination to mar 
 the beauties of the poems which I have mentioned 
 by any mere quotation, but as illustrating how his 
 high art was informed by loftier genius, I quote the 
 following lines from his Hymn before Sunrise in the 
 Vale of Chamouni : — 
 
 Essays on English Writers (1869), p. 337. 
 
122 
 
 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 " Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star 
 In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause 
 On thy bald, awfal head, sovran Blanc ! 
 The Avv6 and Arveiron at thy base 
 Rave ceaselessly ! but thou, most awful form ! 
 Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines 
 
 • How silently ! Around thee and above 
 Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, 
 An ebon mass ; methinks thou piercest it 
 As with a wedge ! But when I look again 
 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, 
 Thy habitation from eternity ! 
 
 dread and silent mount ! I gazed upon thee 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 
 
 Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer, 
 
 1 worshipped the Invisible alone ! " 
 
 " Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale ! 
 Oh ! struggling with the darkness all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of stars. 
 Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink 
 Companion of the morning star at dawn, 
 Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
 Co-herald ! Wake, wake, and utter praise 
 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 
 Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 
 Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 
 
 Thou too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, 
 
 Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 
 
 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, 
 
 Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast. 
 
 Thou too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou 
 
 That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 
 
 In adoration, upward from thy base 
 
 Slow travelling with dim eyes, suffused with tears, 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. 123 
 
 Solemnly seemest like a vapoury cloud 
 To rise before me, Eise, oh, ever rise ; 
 Eise like a cloud of incense from the earth ! 
 Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, 
 Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 
 Great hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God ! " 
 
 Southey, the third of this poetical triumvirate, 
 dates his entrance upon literature as a profession in 
 1801, but he had published several works previous 
 to this date, including his Joan of Arc, which he had 
 sold to Cottle, the Bristol bookseller. In 1804 he 
 settled down at Greta Hall, near Keswick, and from 
 that time his library was the only world he lived in. 
 As he says himself : — 
 
 " My days among the dead are passed ; 
 
 Around me I behold, 
 Where'er these casual eyes are cast, 
 
 The mighty minds of old ; 
 My never-failing friends are they. 
 With whom I converse night and day." 
 
 Here he devoted his time entirely to literature, and 
 every day and hour had its appropriate and select 
 task. " His dearly-prized books," says his son, 
 " were a pleasure to him almost to the end, and he 
 would walk slowly round his library looking at 
 them and taking them down mechanically." It is 
 melancholy to think of this great, gifted, and good 
 man spending the last three years of his life in utter 
 and hopeless vacuity of intellect, yet loving to linger 
 amongst, and to touch and handle his beloved 
 friends — his books — almost until his death ! 
 
124 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 Both in prose and poetry Southey 'vvas the most 
 fertile and voluminous writer of this century, but he 
 never attained to great popularity, owing to the 
 subjects which he chose and his manner of treating 
 them, his subjects being too wild and supernatural, 
 and his images and descriptions, although gorgeous 
 and sublime, being " too remote, too fanciful, and 
 often too learned." 
 
 His best known poetical works are Thalaba, the 
 Destroyer, Madoc, The Curse of Kehama, and 
 Roderick, the Last of the Goths; but some of his 
 youthful ballads, such as Lord William, Mary, the 
 Maid of the _ Inn, The Well of St. Keyne, The Battle 
 of Blenheim, and the Holly-Tree, were extremely 
 popular, and the delight of most young readers 
 when they were written. 
 
 In most of his poems he is alike original in his 
 language and his style. He chooses his characters, 
 as in Thalaha and The Curse of Kehama, from beings 
 almost on the verge of the supernatural, and leads 
 them through scenes of more than earthly terror or 
 beauty. His language is sometimes wearisome from 
 its very eloquence and grandeur ; it now and again 
 obscures the thought it was meant to express, and 
 inclines to the fault which, perhaps, characterises our 
 modern poetry too much, viz., the " efflorescence of 
 mere language." In Thalaha he uses a style of verse 
 quite of his own invention, which consists of an un- 
 rhymed lyrical stanza, possessing a peculiar charm 
 and rhythmical harmony, which adds greatly to the 
 effect of the descriptions. 
 
 The Curse of Kehama is in rhyme, but otherwise 
 resembles Thalaha in character and structure. The 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. 125 
 
 story is founded upon the Hindu mythology, and has 
 for its hero a Hindu Eajah who acquires and exercises 
 supernatural power like Dr. Faustus. The vividity 
 of the scene portraiture in this splendid poem is only 
 equalled by its marvellous originality, and the bril- 
 liancy and richness of the imagination which it 
 reveals. The pictures have all the florid colouring of 
 the oriental scenes which they depict, and alike in 
 habits and manners, modes of thought, costume, and 
 descriptiveness, the poem is perfectly and consistently 
 oriental. Roderick, the Last of the Goths, a truly 
 magnificent poem overflowing with genuine pathos, 
 almost palls upon the reader on account of its 
 ornate and gorgeous diction, and the redundancy 
 of its word-painting, but it contains also many 
 beauties of style and expression — ^much truthfulness 
 to Nature — a subtle delicacy of refined feeling, 
 and many king-thoughts crystallised in imperishable 
 poetry. 
 
 Time alas ! will only permit me to quote two brief 
 extracts — the first from the opening stanzas of 
 Thalaha, descriptive of a widowed mother wandering 
 over the eastern desert during the silence of night : — 
 
 " How beautiful is .Night ! ■ 
 
 A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
 No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 
 Breaks the serene of heaven : 
 In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine 
 EoUs through the dark blue depths. 
 Beneath her steady way 
 The desert circle spreads, 
 Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. , 
 
 How beautiful is Niszht ! " 
 
126 
 
 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 My second brief extract is fi-om the The Curse of 
 Kehama, and is an apostrophe to Love. 
 
 " They sin who tell us Love can die, 
 With life all other passions fly, 
 
 All others are but vanity. 
 In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell, 
 ISTor Avarice in the vaults of hell ; 
 Earthly these passions of the earth, 
 They perish where they had their birth. 
 
 But Love is indestructible : 
 
 Its holy flame for ever burnetii, 
 From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. 
 Too oft on earth a troubled guest. 
 At times deceived, at times oppressed, 
 It here is tried and purified. 
 Then hath in heaven its perfect rest : 
 It soweth here with toil and care. 
 But the harvest-time of Love is there. 
 Oh ! when a mother meets on high 
 The babe she lost in infancy, 
 Hath she not then, for pains and fears, 
 The day of woe, the watchful night, 
 Eor all her sorrows, all her tears 
 
 An over-payment of delight ? " 
 
 Comparing Southey with "Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge it must be admitted that he was dowered with 
 the divine gift of poesy in a less liberal measure than 
 his two illustrious friends, but the admirable poetic 
 diction, the fine descriptive power, and the rich, 
 glowing imagery which characterise the majority 
 of his poetic works fully entitle him to be included 
 in that brilliant and exalted trio to which English 
 poetry is so deeply indebted. 
 
 Such were the poets of the so-called Lake School 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. 127 
 
 Let me now briefly seek to inquire as to the influence 
 they exerted on English poetry. We have already 
 seen that the so-called poets of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, although, for the most part, able and accom- 
 plished men, possessed little if any creative imagina- 
 tion, and thus regarded the essential attributes of 
 poetry as consisting of metre, and " a certain peculiar 
 and artificial phraseology called poetic diction."^ In- 
 deed, the principal authorities in literary history are 
 almost unanimous in regarding the period from the 
 time of Dryden to about the year 1800 as an era 
 of poetic sterility in England, characterised by clever • 
 ness, conceit, and poverty. Almost simultaneously 
 with the promulgation of the Transcendental 
 Philosophy in Germany, and the action of those 
 social and political forces that culminated in the 
 French Eevolution, as already stated, a new spirit 
 arose in Britain — a sudden manifestation of long- 
 repressed energy, in a word, a protest against — a 
 reaction and an awakening from the previous period 
 of poetical degeneracy. Cowper and Crabbe in 
 England, and Burns in Scotland, first felt the 
 influence of this m.ental quickening, and sympathis- 
 ing with it, carried forward the process of reforma- 
 tion until every hamlet in Britain had become 
 instinct and pregnant with the newly-rekindled poetic 
 fire. 
 
 To these succeeded Wordsworth, and to him be- 
 yond doubt is mainly due the renaissance of English 
 poetical literature in the present century. In the 
 grasp of illustrious men, associated with him, more 
 or less, in this re-creation of English poetry, I may 
 
 * Professor Masson, Essays, <£■<:., jd. 16. 
 
128 THE LAKE SCHOOL; 
 
 mention Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and 
 Southey, but he was undoubtedly the leader, as he 
 may also be regarded as the father of a new poetical 
 era. 
 
 He regarded poetry as something holy, and him- 
 self as set apart as a ministering servant of God and 
 Nature. Indeed, poetry with him was a service of 
 devotion. " Never, perhaps, in the whole range of 
 literary history, from Homer downwards, did any 
 individual throughout the course of a long life, 
 dedicate himself to poetry with a devotion so pure, 
 so perfect, and so uninterrupted as he did. It was 
 not his amusement, his recreation, his mere pleasure. 
 It was the main, the serious, the solemn business of 
 his being. It was his morning, noon, and evening 
 thought, the object of his outdoor rambles, the 
 subject of his indoor reflections ; and, as an art, he 
 studied it as severely as ever Canova did sculpture, 
 or Michael Angelo painting.^ As he said himself in 
 a letter to Sir George Beaumont : " The poet is a 
 teacher. I wish to be considered as a teacher, or as 
 nothing " ; and in all literature no one approaches 
 him in his sense of dignity as a poet. What then 
 did he teach us? How did his teaching influence 
 our poetry ? In reply to the first question it may be 
 broadly stated that he interpreted Nature, and Man 
 in relation to Nature. He recognised the fact that 
 Nature had a revelation to impart ; he strove with 
 all the powers of his being to induce man to receive 
 this revelation, and to this work he dedicated his 
 life. In his interpretation of Nature he simply des- 
 cribed what he saw as he saw it, but, in regarding 
 
 « Dr. D. M. Moir, Poet. Lit. of Last Half Century, p. 65. 
 
 I 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETKY. 129 
 
 an object, he sought not only to see its meaning and 
 significance, but also to find out the open secrets 
 which lay at the heart of every common thing in 
 Nature, by looking at them with a spiritual eye, 
 which penetrated into their very core. In a word, 
 every natural object revealed a soul to him, which 
 was vitally related to the soul of every other natural 
 object, and all formed part of the great soul of the 
 universe. " The highest life of each separate object 
 having thus an interior relation to the life of every 
 other, there is reciprocity amongst them all, a never- 
 ceasing inter-communion as the common element 
 ebbs and flows throughout them."^ As Mr. Stopford 
 Brooke says : " This idea is the loveliest of all which 
 Wordsworth has introduced into English poetry, and 
 it flowed from his conception of everything in Nature 
 having its own peculiar life. . . . There was cease- 
 less inter-communion founded on the unutterable love 
 which flowed through all things, and with which 
 everything acted on every other. The whole world 
 was linked together ; every part, every element, gave 
 and received, honoured and did service, to each 
 other. . , . And they delight in social intercourse 
 like friends who love each other ; there is no jar, no 
 jealousy, no envy there ; their best joy is in being 
 kind to one another."^ This is one of the lovely 
 lessons which Wordsworth has taught us. Nature 
 was much to him, and his intimate knowledge and 
 love of her informs every line he wrote, but he cared 
 still more for Nature in relation to man : not only 
 as he says himself, was 
 
 ^ Professor Knight, English Lake District^ p. 239. 
 ' Theology in English Poets, p. 107. 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 " the mind of man 
 The haunt and the main region of my song," 
 but he cared little for Nature apart from man, and it 
 was man chiefly in fellowship with his brother-man 
 that he cared for most — humanity, in fact, in its 
 relationship with Nature. "He not only desired to 
 bring humanity into vital contact with the sunshine 
 of the broad world, and to 
 
 " Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities," 
 but he saw that human life finds its deepest inter- 
 pretation in direct relation to Nature. Thus Nature 
 reveals man, while man mirrors Nature."^ 
 
 I can only mention a few of the other lessons he 
 teaches. His intellectual insight is intimately corre- 
 lated with his moral fervour and exaltation, and the 
 moral tone of his poetry is as elevated as it is un- 
 impeachable, and it is, indeed, a question whether he 
 ranked higher as a poet or as a moralist. Beyond 
 all he teaches us simplicity and earnestness in life, 
 character, and thought ; and that, in devout com- 
 munion with Nature we find a never-failing source of 
 joy and enlightenment, an invariable source of com- 
 fort and solace amid the worries and perplexities of 
 life. 
 
 With regard to his influence on English poetry it 
 may safely be said that of all the poets that have 
 appeared in England since Wordsworth's poetic 
 career began — Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, and 
 others— there is not one that does not owe something 
 to his influence and example ; and he and Coleridge, 
 perhaps equally, each in his own way, have had a 
 wider eiTect upon the minds and thought of their suc- 
 
 * Professor Knight, opus cit. 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETRY. 131 
 
 cessors than any men of the last century. " They 
 were not so much the teachers of the people as the 
 teachers of those men that taught the people. Their 
 great thoughts have filtered down, gladdening, 
 purifying, and rendering fertile the minds of many 
 men. Without Wordsworth we should never have 
 had Dr. Arnold as a teacher, nor Tennyson as a poet, 
 at least their language and modes of thought must 
 have been different."^" 
 
 Among the poets who have helped to cultivate 
 delight in the observation of natural appearances 
 there is none that deserves to be ranked before 
 Wordsworth, his extreme sensibility to, and accurate 
 knowledge of the ever-changing and protean pheno- 
 mena of external nature being unsurpassed. More- 
 over, he re-introduced into English poetry the 
 descriptive power which had lain dormant for nearly 
 two centuries. Apart from the intellectual vigour 
 which he also re-introduced, he elevated the moral 
 tone of poetry by the peculiarly placid, religious con- 
 templativeness which characterised his writings, and 
 this blending of robust intelligence with exalted 
 moral fervour and meditative calm, has caused him 
 to be known as the " English Philosophical Poet." 
 His narratives of humble country life are full of 
 pathos, and in these he has, perhaps, never been 
 equalled, while the admirable appropriateness and 
 purity of his style — his facile and faultless comrnand 
 over every element of language have not only en- 
 riched our literature but left a splendid example to 
 his successors for all time. 
 
 In sonnet writing he very nearly approaches 
 
 1" Essays on English Writers, p. 329. 
 
 I 2 
 
132 THE LAKE SCHOOL, 
 
 Milton, and, indeed, his sonnets are among the 
 choicest and best in our literature. By these alone 
 his name will ever be indelibly engraved in the 
 history of English poetry. 
 
 It will thus be seen that while Wordsworth 
 brought the vision of a seer to bear upon the 
 mysterious soul which he recognised in even the 
 lowliest and commonest objects in Nature, he also in- 
 terpreted the power and purpose of their teaching as 
 an inspired priest of humanity. His marvellous con- 
 centration of intellect, the majesty of his spirit, and 
 the pathos and purity of his life, thought, character, 
 and language enabled him to interpret the myriad 
 voices of Nature, and to give them expression as he 
 alone could do ; and the influence which he thus 
 exercised upon the poetical literature of England 
 will be as enduring as the " everlasting hills " which 
 surrounded his beautiful and peaceful dwelling- 
 place. 
 
 In exactly the same spirit Coleridge and Southey 
 learnt from their master and taught the same en- 
 nobling lessons. " Without Coleridge we should not 
 have known that school of reverential philosophy 
 which, while it has kept pace with science and dis- 
 covery, has yet preserved the noblest and sweetest 
 faith in the world, to which the world owes all its 
 ffood, pure and intact. These are great gains, and 
 the men who gave them to us are great men."^^ 
 
 Well, indeed, might the "gentle Elia" apostrophise 
 his illustrious friend as " Logician, Metaphysician, 
 Bard," for he was assuredly all this. The subtle and 
 far-seeing spirit of his philosophy was in no slight 
 
 " Essays on English Writers (1869), p. 329. 
 
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH POETEY. 133 
 
 degree infused into his poetry, and his metaphysical 
 speculations thrill with the exquisiteness of sentiment, 
 and are permeated with the iridescent hues of fancy 
 and imagination. 
 
 If for no other reason our country owes him a 
 debt of gratitude, inasmuch as he has done more 
 than any other English writer to make Shakespeare 
 understood in a spirit of love and reverence. 
 
 The vividness of imagination, the subtlety of 
 thought, and the unrivalled soul of music which 
 characterised Coleridge, breathed an ethereal vitality 
 into English poetry, which every poet since his time 
 has recognised and sought to make his own. 
 
 The weird mysteriousness and glowing language 
 of Southey have helped to sustain and perpetuate the 
 vigour, the vividity, and the harmoniousness of 
 English verse. "The magnificent creations of his 
 poetry — piled up like clouds at sunset in the calm 
 serenity of his capacious intellect — have always been 
 duly appreciated by poetical students and critical 
 readers " ; yet they were too scholarly ; the sub- 
 limity of his natural descriptions was too gorgeous 
 and florid for them to become popular ; but, as he 
 was a co-worker and co-thinker with Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge, our literature would be poorer without 
 them, and would not willingly let them die. More- 
 over, his youthful ballads were extremely popular 
 and are still highly esteemed. Beyond all this his 
 style as a prose writer is the best the age can pro- 
 duce, and he has no rival. 
 
 But I must reluctantly conclude. 
 
 These three great men, residing in the same dis- 
 trict, actuated by the same noble motives and high 
 
134 
 
 THE LAKE SCHOOL. 
 
 resolves, and each, in his own way, divinely inspired 
 to benefit humanity by his teaching, have in no 
 small measure contributed to place and secure our 
 national poetry in its present high position. They 
 found our English Muse, who erst had occupied an 
 imperial throne, and the altar of a high priestess, 
 wandering unrecognised, unprotected, unappreciated 
 among the highways and byeways, her intellect 
 weakened, her spirit subdued, her body languishing, 
 her raiment besmirched, and her feet bleeding ; her 
 crown and sceptre had long disappeared, and in their 
 stead she wore upon her tattered robe the meretri- 
 cious gew-gaws of a degenerate age. These great 
 and good men so found her, and led her gently back 
 beneath the star of Hope to the vast temple of Nature. 
 Here they breathed into her new life and renewed 
 energy ; they clothed her afresh with the majesty of 
 genius, put a crown upon her head, and a sceptre in 
 her hand, and placed her upon a throne beside the 
 high altar, where she still reigns, and rules, and 
 serves, the glory of our country, the envy of the 
 world ! 
 
1^5 
 
 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 BY WILLIAM KNIGHTON, ESQ., LL.D. 
 Vice-Presidtnt Ji.S.L. 
 
 A EORMER paper of mine was on the " Sporting 
 Literature of ancient Greece and Eome," and, coming 
 like the present lecture on Derby day, it did not 
 seem out of place. Since then it seems to be anti- 
 cipated that all my papers and lectures are to partake 
 of a sporting character, at least that is the inference I 
 draw from three of them being fixed for Derby days. 
 
 My subject to-day however is dry, and some 
 persons may even doubt whether it has any connec- 
 tion with literature. I hope, however, to be enabled 
 to convince you of the contrary. In the Bible, 
 Ezekiel mentions Gog as a king, with Magog as his 
 people, a rebellious ])eople, and in the Eevelations 
 Gog and Magog are referred to as the unbelievers, 
 and as in league with Anti-Christ and Satan. 
 
 It is, howe'/er, not in reference to these that I am 
 about to speak, but of the Gog and Magog whose 
 images adorn the Guildhall. These giants evidently 
 
136 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 are derived from the mythical exaggerations which 
 prevailed in the Low Countries in the Middle Ages, 
 and these exaggerations and the wildness of imagina- 
 tion which characterise them, must have been the 
 result of the teaching coming to all Europe from 
 the East, 
 
 There is no limit to the wildness of imagination 
 and gross exaggeration constantly found in con- 
 nection with Eastern stories. You are all familiar 
 with the Arabian Nights' Entertainment^ but they are 
 moderate in comparison with the legendary stories in 
 Brahminical, Buddhistic, and Talmudic literature. 
 
 As an example from Brahminical literature, men- 
 tion is made of a mountain, Maha Meru by name, 
 stated to be in the centre of the world. Its height 
 is 137,428 yojanas. Now each yojana is sixteen 
 miles long, and if we multiply 137,428 by sixteen 
 we get a very respectable height for this moun- 
 tain. We are told too that a stone falling from the 
 top of it to the ground below, would take four 
 months, fifteen days, seventeen hours to reach 
 the earth. This is a mild example of what the Brah- 
 mins can do in the way of mythical exaggeration 
 and wild imagination. The Dambu tree, which 
 flourished on this mountain, was said to measure 
 over 4,800 miles in circumference. Now I have 
 been to America, and seen what are supposed to be 
 the largest trees in the world, and one of them, 
 which we measured, was 107 feet round, three 
 feet from the ground, but these are mere trifles 
 compared with the Brahminical Dambu trees. Eahu 
 and Ketu are mentioned as giants, or Asurs, dwelling 
 on this mountain, and Eahu as making periodical 
 
GOG AND MAGOG. 137 
 
 attacks ou tlie sun, while Ketu makes periodical 
 attacks on the moon, and we are given to understand 
 that sun and moon would be respectively devoured 
 did not some friendly deities stand in the way. 
 These attempts of Eahu and Ketu account for eclipses. 
 
 Each one of Brahma's days comprises 4,320 
 millions of our years, and 360 of these form a cycle 
 of activity, with a similar cycle of inactivity or state 
 of coma, in which he leaves things to get into a 
 state of chaos, that is to say, each cycle consists of 
 about 300 billions of our years. That will give you 
 some idea of the extraordinary wildness and gross 
 exaggeration of the imagination of the Brahminical 
 writers. 
 
 JSTow for the Buddhists. We are told by Mahindo, 
 one of their historians, that a king and his people 
 were offenders against the laws, and the punishment 
 that was inflicted upon them was that one of the 
 greater deities took hold of the trees on the top of 
 an adjacent mountain, pulled them up from the 
 earth, by the roots, and shook them over the heads 
 of the offending people in order to frighten them, all 
 the rocks and stones falling on them. This is an- 
 other instance of wild imagination, but the Talmud 
 goes far beyond this. 
 
 When Og, the King of Bash an, heard that the 
 Israelites were coming towards his territory, he 
 inquired what space their encampment covered on 
 the ground, and, on being informed that it was three 
 square miles, he went up into the neighbouring 
 mountain and selected a stone of that size, carrying 
 it down on his head and hands to hurl it upon them 
 and destroy them. He was not allowed to do this, 
 
138 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 however. The Almighty interfered. The stone 
 became softened, and gave way in the centre, falhng 
 over his shoulders and forming a kind of extensive 
 necklace. As he came along, Moses, who is described 
 as having been ten cubits high, having taken an axe 
 ten cubits long, made a leap ten cubits high, and 
 wounded Og above the heel, so that he fell ; his neck 
 was broken by the fall, and by the weight of the stone, 
 and so he died. This was the sort of story in which 
 Eastern imagination runs riot. Maimonedes in his 
 Digest of Rabbinical Law quotes this from the Talmud. 
 
 Even in later Christian times there are not want- 
 ing traditions of giants and their exploits. St. 
 Christopher, for instance, we are told, was twelve 
 cubits high, was converted by a hermit from 
 heathendom, and induced to take up his position 
 near a stream in which a large number of people 
 had lost their lives, in attempting to cross. He bore 
 the wayfarers across. This was his occupation after 
 conversion. One night he heard a child's voice 
 calling to him. He got up and took the child 
 across the stream, but, as he went along, the stream 
 became deeper and deeper, and the child heavier 
 and heavier, and it was only with the greatest diffi- 
 culty that he got to the other side. " Oh child !" he 
 exclaimed, " you weighed me down almost with the 
 weight of the world," "That can be no matter for 
 surprise," said the child, " for I am the maker of the 
 world." Hence the name Christopher, or Christ- 
 bearer. 
 
 Thus have similar legends come down to us, 
 though they have become modified and less gross 
 and extravagant in character in Christian times. 
 
GOG AND MAGOG. 189 
 
 In the old cities of the Low Countries we find 
 traces of a struggle, continued for many years, be- 
 tween the mercantile spirit, on the one hand, and 
 the old feudal system on the other. This struggle 
 was one in which there were many martyrs and 
 much shedding of blood. Ultimately the mercantile 
 spirit prevailed. The merchants erected Guildhalls, 
 rivalling in splendour the palaces of the Kings, and 
 their civic processions rivalled the processions of the 
 kings and nobles, while the trade that they estab- 
 lished brought in riches to these towns much 
 greater than the wealth accruing from the feudal 
 system of rapine and oppression. 
 
 Modern commerce owes an eternal debt of grati- 
 tude, for its very existence, to the determined 
 resistance of the traders of the Middle Ages to an 
 effete and destructive feudalism. The true history 
 of trade is the history of modern civilization. The 
 civic heroes of the Low Countries ultimately 
 triumphed, and established on a firm basis the rights 
 of the commercial community. In their popular 
 displays we find the origin of our ancient civic 
 observances, copied from those of Antwerp, Douai, 
 Lille, Malines, and Brussels even to the minutest 
 particulars. And so we are brought to the history 
 of Gog and Magog, our Guildhall giants. 
 
 Mixed up with these struggles there was a large 
 amount of legend connected with giants. At Ant- 
 werp, Grapheus, the town clerk, about 1550, wrote 
 an interesting book, giving an account of the patron 
 giant of that city, who was called Antigonus. There 
 is a statue of him forty feet high, which is still 
 preserved in Antwerp, and was inspected by Queen 
 
140 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 Victoria on the occasion of her visit to that town in 
 1843. The legend is as follows : — Antigonus was a 
 great benefactor to Antwerp, but, relying on his im- 
 pregnable castle, he played the tyrant, exacting toll 
 from inoffensive travellers by violence. Those who 
 could not pay he did not let go without cutting off 
 one of their hands. In the civic processions which 
 were arranged to celebrate this giant's exploits, there 
 were a certain number of figures to represent those 
 whose hands had been cut off. This legend is not 
 less worthy of credence than the stories of the 
 ancients about their deities. 
 
 Antwerp is not the only town with legends of a 
 giant. At Douai, for instance, there was a whole 
 family of giants. Gayant — the giant — was the name 
 of the giant himself, and his wife was Marie Cagenon, 
 Jacquot the giant's son, and Mademoiselle Filion was 
 his daughter. There was an infant also, called Bimbin. 
 Their images varied in height from twenty-two to 
 eight feet, and were dragged in procession during 
 the civic festivals of the town. The same thing 
 obtained in the towns of Malines, Dunkerque, Lille, &c. 
 All these giants were, of course, the terror of the 
 young people, though they were supposed at one 
 time or another to have saved their respective towns. 
 
 Sir John Mandeville, who travelled through Asia 
 between the years 1352 and 1356, thus describes a 
 region near the Caspian Sea : — 
 
 " In that same regioun ben the mountaynes of 
 Caspyn, that men clepen Uber in that countree. 
 Between the mountaynes the lewes of ten lynages 
 ben enclosed, that men clepen Gothe and Magothe, 
 and they mowe not gon out on no syde. There 
 
 1 
 
GOG AND MAGOG. 141 
 
 weren enclosed 22 Kynges/'with thire people, that 
 dwellen between the mouhtaynes of Scythe. There 
 King Alisandre chacede them between the moun- 
 taynes, and there he thought for to enclose them 
 between thorghe the work of his men. But when 
 he saw that he might not dou it, ne bringe it to an 
 ende, he preyed to the God of Nature, that he wolde 
 perform that that he had begonne. And all were it so 
 that altho he was a Paynim, and not worthy to ben 
 heard, zit God of his mercy closed the moun- 
 taynes togyther, so that they dwellen there all fast 
 ylokken and enclosed with high mouutaynes all 
 about, saf only on one syde, and that is the syde 
 of Caspyn See." 
 
 It was a prevalent tradition amongst the Tartars 
 that the people of Jayiouge and Majiouge, the 
 Gothes and Magothes of Mandeville, were con- 
 stantly trying to make a passage through this wall 
 fortress, but without success. Both the Caliph Al 
 Amin, and Peter the Great, of Eussia, inspected the 
 remains of this wall, which was built of petrified 
 earth, sand, and shells. Several of the adjacent 
 towns and villages are said to have been built out 
 of the materials used in the construction of this 
 wall. 
 
 Here, you see, we have the names of Gog and 
 Magog brought into prominence by Mandeville, and 
 evidently derived from Arabic traditions. The name 
 he gives of Gothe and Magothe correspond with our 
 Gog and Magog, and the wall of which he speaks was 
 built between the Caspian and the Black Sea. It 
 was supposed to shut out the Scythians, just as the 
 wall built between the Solway and the Tyne, by 
 
H2 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 Agricola, on the north of England, was supposed to 
 keep out marauders from the north. 
 
 It was not only in London that these figures of 
 giants were brought forward in the civic processions 
 of our own country, for we meet with them also in 
 Chester, Salisbury, Coventry, &c. On festive occa- 
 sions they were carried in procession, and they be- 
 came the terror of the young people. This terror was 
 made use of by the masters to keep unruly appren- 
 tices in order. People believed in them in those days, 
 and, when the master threatened his apprentices " by 
 Gog and Magog," it was enough to reduce the most un- 
 ruly to obedience. There are several books in which 
 the history of these giants is set forth, as for example 
 a work in two volumes entitled The Giyantick History 
 of the two famous giants at Guildhall, by Thomas 
 Boreman, at the " Boot and Crown," Ludgate Hill, 
 1741. These volumes, so far as I know, can only be 
 seen in the British Museum — a curiosity in their way 
 — bound in boards, covered with old Dutch paper, 
 and having a green raised pattern on a gold ground. 
 This is the only work with which I am acquainted 
 that gives the full legendary history of these two 
 fabulous giants. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in 1150, in- 
 troduced them into his History of England {Britannice 
 utriusque Regum et Principum origo et gesta), giving 
 a wonderful account of their prowess and exploits. 
 As he was a bishop he did not probably narrate this 
 story as a joke. He must have imagined that they 
 had really existed, though he could scarcely fail to be 
 impressed by the conviction that imagination had a 
 large share in the history. 
 
 In one or two of the old narratives mention is 
 
 1 
 
GOG AND MAGOG. 143 
 
 made of bones having been discovered, which must 
 have belonged to giants, living at about the same 
 time as Gog and Magog. These presumably were 
 fossil bones of extinct animals. 
 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth mentions that Diocletian 
 had thirty-three daughters. This Diocletian was not 
 the Eoman Emperor of that name, but an Asiatic 
 monarch, who flourished at about the time "when 
 Eli and Samuel judged in Israel." Diocletian pro- 
 vided these thirty-three daughters with thirty-three 
 husbands, but they were all discontented with their 
 husbands, and determined to put an end to them. 
 At an opportune moment they assassinated the whole 
 thirty and three. Diocletian was not pleased with 
 his daughters' conduct, and, by way of punishment, 
 he put them on a vessel with six months' provisions, 
 and set them afloat. They set sail through the Medi- 
 terranean, to the Island of Albion, though whether 
 this name was derived from the name of one of the 
 daughters, or one of their sons, or, from the white 
 colour of the rocks, is a matter of doubt. There 
 were giants in those days, and we hear of Brute or 
 Brutus, one of the heroes from Troy, and his brother, 
 Corineus, amongst them. Brute or Brutus, having 
 killed his father accidentally, fled with a host by sea, 
 and arrived in Britain. There he had to encounter 
 the giants, who had taken possession of the country, 
 the descendants of the daughters of Diocletian. 
 Great battles were fought, the giants were destroyed, 
 but two of them were taken prisoners, Gog and 
 Magog, and carried in triumph to the new town of 
 London. There they were chained on each side of 
 the palace gate, as porters. That is one legend. 
 
144 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 Another says, that one of the giants who fought 
 against Brutus was Gogmagog, a name which is still 
 preserved among the hills of Cambridgeshire. This 
 Gogm^agog was one who had inflicted great loss and 
 destruction upon the hosts of Brutus. Among his 
 chief officers was his brother, Corineus, who was very- 
 anxious to try his prowess in single combat with 
 Gogmagog. They passed one day through a country 
 in which all was ravaged and destroyed, and the 
 king asked why it was that all was thus destroyed. 
 He was told that it was done by a ferocious giant 
 Gogmagog. This giant measured twelve cubits in 
 height. When Corineus at length succeeded in 
 meeting him, in single combat, Gogmagog seized 
 the Trojan with so mighty a grip that he succeeded 
 in breaking three of his ribs. This made Corineus 
 angry, so he promptly grasped his enemy round the 
 waist, and, going on to the nearest rock, he hurled 
 him over, and Gogmagog fell into the sea, and the 
 mountain on which this feat was performed has 
 preserved the name ever since, we are told, although 
 from the description it would appear the combat 
 took place in the neighbourhood of the modern 
 Plymouth. 
 
 Corineus evidently comes in with some propriety 
 as a Trojan or Eoman hero, because, if you look at 
 the figures, you will see that the one is clothed more 
 in the Eoman manner, with spear and shield, while 
 the other has bows and arrows and a club, like an 
 ancient Briton. The latter represents the ancient 
 Celtic race and the former the conquering Eoman, 
 both being supposed to be giants. Their figures are 
 about fourteen feet high. 
 
GOG AND MAGOG. 145 
 
 The original wicker-work statues were burned in 
 the Great Fire of London in 1660 and were replaced 
 in 1669 by similar effigies. Captain Saunders, in 
 1707, was ordered by the Corporation to put up much 
 more substantial ones of wood. His account for 
 making them has been discovered and preserved. It 
 came to £70, a considerable sum in those days. 
 
 The last time the giants appeared in a pageant was 
 in 1730. Their origin was evidently the result of 
 the impression spread abroad in the Low Countries 
 that there had been a race of giants that had 
 rendered incalculable services to towns in the 
 struggl' ■; with savage or feudal enemies. There are 
 several circumstances mentioned in the literature of 
 the period which confirmed these ideas that there had 
 been giants ; for instance there was King Arthur's 
 " chyn-bone," said to have been discovered at 
 Glastonbury, and stated to be " longer by three 
 inches than the legge and knee of the largest man 
 then found." The grave of one Sir Gawain, of the 
 Knights of the Eound Table, was reported to be more 
 than fourteen feet in length. Guy of Warwick was 
 also a reputed giant, whose breast plate, as shown in 
 the castle at Warwick, weighs fifty-two pounds. Of 
 course you might suggest that it was the crupper of 
 a horse — defensive armour of the sixteenth century 
 — but that view would not find favour at Warwick. 
 There is also his porridge-pot, capable of holding 102 
 gallons, probably a camp kettle, but it would not do 
 to suggest that. We are told by Stowe of a gigantic 
 tooth and shank-bone discovered at the church of St. 
 Lawrence in the Old Bailey. The tooth was about 
 the size of a man's fist, and the shank-bone measured 
 
 K 
 
146 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 twenty-five inches. The tooth, he says, was long since 
 removed from that place, but the shank-bone remained 
 attached by a chain to a beam. He thinks that the 
 tooth mic^ht have been the tooth of some monster fish, 
 and the shank-bone that of a large animal, as, for in- 
 stance, an elephant. In Caxton's Chronicle of England 
 these stories are reproduced, and they are related just 
 as if they were all true. Similarly in the history of the 
 Trojan wars we have them recapitulated, with the story 
 of Brute or Brutus coming into this country, and fight- 
 ing against the gigantic descendants of the daughters 
 of Diocletian. See The History of the Trojan Wars, 
 and Troys Destruction printed for Sarah Bates, at the 
 Sun and Bible, Giltspur Street, London ; and for James 
 Ho^ge^ 2it the Looking Glass, on London Bridge, 1735. 
 
 The history of Fulke Fitz warren, an outlawed 
 Baron, in the time of King John, is full of legendary 
 lore of the giants Gog and Magog, and of evil spirits. 
 We are told that the difficulties that had to be 
 encountered on the borders of Wales resulted from 
 the evil spirits left there by the giants, who resisted 
 all improvement. William the Conqueror, it is said, 
 paid a visit to the neighbourhood, and enquired into 
 the cause of the barrenness of the land, and the 
 ruined appearance of the towns. He was told that 
 the region was inhabited only by a race of giants of 
 whom, in former times, Gothe and Magothe only 
 remained alive, and that since that time no one had 
 inhabited these parts. A courageous knight swore 
 to combat the demons, and conquered by the Cross 
 and his good sword. 
 
 In Fox's Acts and Monuments we have a refer- 
 ence to the same, with strong condemnation of 
 
GOG AND MAGOG. 147 
 
 the pageantry of giants. When Philip and Mary 
 made their pubhc entry in 1554 the two images of 
 Oogmagog and Corineus were exhibited. Fox says 
 the history of the giants was represented all over 
 the town at night, as if that history was an article of 
 Holy Writ. When Queen Elizabeth passed through 
 the town subsequently, the giants were exhibited, in 
 great splendour, at Temple Bar. 
 
 In 1661 George Wither, the city poet, wrote on the 
 subject of the giants, and composed a " Discourse 
 between the two dead giants " in which there was 
 supposed to be a great deal of fun and humour, but 
 it was of a character that would hardly commend 
 itself at the present day, consisting chiefly of 
 scurrilous attacks upon female virtue. A Latin poem 
 appeared in 1667, under the title of Londinii quod 
 reliquium, in which the whole story of Gogmagog and 
 Corineus is recapitulated in execrable verse. Finally 
 Harrison Ainsworth, in his Tower of London, mentions 
 Og, Gog, and Magog as gigantic sons of Henry the 
 Eighth, on guard at the Tower, but as Mr. Froude, 
 in making Henry a hero, does not mention these sons, 
 we may conclude that they were the offspring of a 
 novelist's unbridled imagination, and may be con- 
 signed to oblivion. 
 
 That there was a serious belief in the existence of 
 these giants may be inferred, not only from such 
 histories as those of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but from 
 the use made of their names in bringing unruly 
 apprentices and children to order. We have out- 
 lived these beliefs, but we still have our prejudices 
 and superstitions, instilled into us in early life. They 
 oTOW with our growth, and gain strength with our 
 
14 8 GOG AND MAGOG. 
 
 increase in strength. It should be our object to get 
 rid of them. I have known persons, for instance, 
 to notice some minor examples, during a violent 
 thunderstorm, go into a cupboard or closet to get 
 protection from it ! while others will not sit thirteen 
 to table, lest something terrible should happen to one 
 of them. Others again will not walk under a ladder, 
 for fear their doing so should bring mischief in its 
 train. These are minor absurdities which still pre- 
 vail. We have graver and more pernicious super- 
 stitions also amongst us, and it should be our object 
 to abolish them and root them out, as far as we can. 
 So far as our influence oroes it will be healthilv 
 exercised, if we employ it in getting rid of such 
 remnants of a superstitious past. I may conclude, I 
 think, that we shall thus aid in establishing the truth 
 of the noble lines of the poet, that, 
 
 " Through the ages one increasing purpose runs 
 And the thoughts of men are widened 
 With the process of the suns." 
 
 Haeeison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane. 
 
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