LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap... Copyright No. Shelf±&..^i Srfe UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Victorian Literature Births have brought us richness and variety, And other births will bring us rich?iess and variety j I do not call o?ie greater and one smaller; That which Jills its ftei'iod and place is equal to any. Walt Whitman. Victorian Literature Sixty Tears of Books and Bookmen BY CLEMENT K. SHORTER AUTHOR OF " CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE ' t NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1897 a-jo v V CE1VED uA - They were never popular, although his poetry gained him the esteem of many eminent men, Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne among others. Mrs. Chandler Moulton, an American lady who wrote "Swallow Flights," gave us a memoir of Philip Bourke Marston. In this she was assisted by Mr. William Sharp, who was also one of Rossetti's bio- graphers. Mrs. Moulton did a like good office to the memory of Arthur O'Shaughnessy, a poet of 1844-1881 considerable distinction in his day. O'Shaugh- nessy married the younger Marston's sister. His "Epic of Women and Other Poems," published in 1870, was a volume of very great promise. He wrote other verses, which never attained to quite the same measure of success. It only remains for me to name Alfred Austin 1835- the Poet Laureate. After Lord Tennyson's death in 1892 the office remained vacant for four years. The two poets who might have been considered to 39 Sixty Years of have had some claim, William Morris and Mr. Swinburne, were supposed to be impossible on account of democratic sympathies, although it is doubtful if either would have accepted the office. Almost every living poet, however small the bulk of his achievement, and however inconsiderable his years, was nominated — by the press — in turn. Finally, in 1896, by a pleasant irony of circum- stances the laureateship was given to a journalist, — for Mr. Austin had been a leader-writer on the staff of the Standard newspaper for many years. He has written "The Golden Age, a Satire" (187 1), "Savonarola" (1881), "English Lyrics" (1891), and many prose works. His " English Lyrics " contained an appreciative introduction by William Watson, the author of " Wordsworth's Grave," " Lachrymse Musarum," and other poems which have been received with abundant cordiality by the press and public. Another living poet who has 1864- been well and justly praised is Rudyard Kipling. He made his earliest fame as a writer of short stories of Indian military life. "Soldiers Three" and " Wee Willie Winkie " have entirely captivated the imagination of Mr. Kipling's contemporaries. It is as a poet, however, that he will perhaps longest retain his hold upon them. His " Barrack- Room Ballads " (1892) are finely touched with that martial spirit which so strongly appeals to the heart of our nation. 40 CHAPTER II The Novelists A NY comparison of the novels of the Victorian x *- Era, with the novels of the Georgian Period, must be very much to the disadvantage of the former. The great epoch of English fiction began with Goldsmith and Richardson, and ended with Sir Walter Scott. It was an epoch which gave us "The Vicar of Wakefield," "Clarissa," "Tom Jones," "Pride and Prejudice," "Humphry Clinker," and "Tristram Shandy." That fiction had a naturalness and spontaneity to which the novels of the Victorian Era can lay no claim. The novels of the period with which we are concerned aspire to regenerate mankind. Dickens, indeed, started off with but little literary equipment save sundry eighteenth century novels. He had read Smollett, and Fielding, and Sterne, diligently. But the influence of these humourists — so marked in " Pickwick " — became qualified in his succeeding books by the strenuous spirit of the times. It is alike interesting in itself and convenient 41 Sixty Years of for my purpose that the most popular novelist of the Victorian Era should have published his first great book in 1837. Dickens awoke then to abundant fame, and his popularity has never waned for an instant during the sixty succeeding years. To-day he may be more or less decried by "literary" people, but his audience has multi- plied twofold. He has added to it the countless thousands whom the School Board has given to the reading world. 1812-1870 Charles Dickens was born at Landport, Portsea, his father being an improvident clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth. Dickens senior has been immortalised for us by the not too pleasing portrait of "Micawber." After infinite struggle and penury, Dickens became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle. Under the signature of " Boz " he wrote "Sketches" for the Monthly Magazine in 1834. "Pickwick" appeared from April 1836 to November 1837, and alike in parts and in book form took the world by storm. It was succeeded by "Oliver Twist" (1838), "Nicholas Nickleby" (1839), "The ld Curiosity Shop" (1840), and " Barnaby Rudge " (1841). From this time forth Dickens was the most popular writer that our literature has seen. Within twelve years after his death some four millions of his books were sold in England, and there is no reason to believe that this popularity has in any 42 Victorian Literature way abated, although George Eliot foretold that much of Dickens's humour would be meaningless to the next generation, that is to say, to the generation which is now with us. It is the fashion to call Dickens the novelist of the half- educated, to charge him with lack of reflectiveness, with in- capacity for serious reasoning. His humour has been described as insincere, his pathos as exagger- ated. Much of this indictment may with equal justice be made against Richardson and even against Jane Austen, who surely anticipated Dickens by the creation of the Rev. William Collins. If Dickens had been a learned University Pro- fessor he would not have possessed the equipment most needful for the artist who was to portray to us in an imperishable manner the London which is now fast disappearing. The people who censure Dickens are those for whom he has served a purpose and is of no further use. They are a mere drop in the ocean of readers. It is not easy to-day to gauge his precise position. The exhaustion of many of his copyrights has given up his work to a host of rival publishers. There are probably thousands of men and women now, as there were in the fifties and sixties, who have been stimulated by him, and who have found in t his writings the aid to a cheery optimism which has made life more tolerable amid adverse conditions. Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, tells 43 Sixty Years of us how keenly Dickens's capacity for stirring the heart was felt even in the home of the rival novel- ist. Thackeray's youngest daughter, then a child, looked up from the book she was reading to ask the question, " Papa, why do you not write books like ' Nicholas Nickleby ' ? " Thackeray himself shared the general enthusiasm. " David Copper- field," he writes to a correspondent, " By Jingo ! It is beautiful ! It is charming ! Bravo Dickens ! It has some of his very brightest touches — those inimitable Dickens touches which make such a great man of him. And the reading of the book has done another author a great deal of good. . . . It has put me on my mettle and made me feel that I must do something ; that I have fame and name and family to support." If Dickens is still beloved by the multitude, 1811-1863 the name of William Makepeace Thackeray has entirely eclipsed his in the minds of a certain literary section of the community. Thackeray stands to them for culture, Dickens for illiteracy. Thackeray had indeed a more polished intellect ; he had also a more restrained style. Thackeray was born at Calcutta. His father, who was an Indian civil servant, died when the boy was only five years old. He was educated at Charterhouse^ School and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1831 he went to Weimar. He studied long at Paris 44 Victorian Literature with a view to becoming an artist, and when " Pickwick " wanted an illustrator to continue the work of Seymour who had committed suicide, Thackeray applied to Dickens, but Hablot Browne was chosen, and Thackeray was disappointed — happily for the world, which lost an indifferent artist to gain a great author. Thackeray in 1837 — the year which saw the publication of "Pick- wick " as a volume — joined the staff of Fraser's Magazine. In that journal appeared in succession " The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond," "The Yellowplush Papers," and "The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon." In 1847 "Vanity Fair" was begun in numbers, and not till then did its author secure real renown. "Pendennis" was published in 1850, and "Es- mond"ini852. " The Newcomes " (1854) isin some measure a sequel to " Pendennis," as " The Virginians" (1858) is in some measure a sequel to " Esmond." These are the five works by Thackeray which everyone must read. In 1857 Thackeray unsuccessfully contested Oxford. In 1859 he undertook the editorship of the new Cornhill Magazine, which flourished in his hands. These were the halcyon days of magazine editors. On Macaulay's death in 1859, Thackeray talked of purchasing the historian's vacant house. A friend remarked upon his prosperity. " To make money one must edit a magazine," was the answer. 45 Sixty Years of He did not buy Macaulay's house, but built himself one at Palace Green, and here he died the day before Christmas- day 1863. His daughter, Anne Thackeray, who became Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has written " Old Kensington " and other stories of singular charm. The twenty-six volumes of Thackeray's works make a veritable nursery of style for the modern literary aspirant. But it is, as has been said, upon his five great novels that his future fame must rest. They are as permanent a picture of life among the well-to-do classes as those Dickens has given us of life among the poor. 1816-1855 Charlotte Bronte, who gave to Thackeray the enthusiastic hero-worship of her early years, called him a Titan, and dedicated " Jane Eyre " to him, had little enough in common with the author of " Vanity Fair." The daughter of a poor parson of Irish birth, she was born at Thornton in York- shire. She and two sisters grew up in the cramped atmosphere of a vicarage at Haworth, in the centre of the moorlands. They wrote stories and poems from childhood, and dreamed of literary fame. Meanwhile it was necessary to add to the scanty stipend of their father; two of them went back as governesses to the school in which they had been educated ; and all of them a little later at- tempted the uncongenial life of private governesses. 46 Victorian Literature The desire to have a school of their own led Charlotte and her sister Emily to Brussels, where they studied French and German. Returning to the Haworth parsonage, the three sisters, Char- lotte, Emily, and Anne, with money left them by an aunt, published a volume of verse — " Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell." Then each sister produced from her drawer the manuscript of a novel, and Charlotte's " Professor," Emily's "Wuthering Heights," and Anne's "Agnes Grey" were sent round to the publishers and returned more than once to the parsonage. Finally " The Professor " was read by Smith & Elder, who asked for a longer story by the writer. "Jane Eyre" (1847), was the result, and that story became one of the most successful novels of the day. It was followed by " Shirley " (1849) and " Villette " (1853). In 1854 Charlotte Bronte became Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls, and the wife of her father's curate. In the following year she died. "The Professor" was published two years after her death. Emily Bronte accomplished less than her elder 1818-1848 sister, but her name will live as long. She secured the admiration of Sydney Dobell, of Matthew Arnold, and of Mr. Swinburne, and her best verse is perhaps the greatest ever written by a woman. "Last Lines" and "The Old Stoic" will rank with the finest poetry in our literature. Her one 47 Sixty Years of novel, " Wuthering Heights," has been most happily criticised by Mr. Swinburne : " As was the author's life so is her book in all things ; troubled and taint- less, with little of rest in it and nothing of reproach. It may be true that not many will ever take it to their hearts ; it is certain that those who do like it will like nothing very much better in the whole world of poetry or prose." Emily Bronte's sole contributions to literature were the poems written in conjunction with her two sisters under the name of Ellis Bell, some further poems published by her sister Charlotte after her death, and the single novel "Wuthering Heights." 1819-1849 Anne Bronte wrote more than her sister Emily, but with less of recognition. She contributed verses to the little volume of poems under the name of Acton Bell, and additional verses were published after her death by Charlotte. In addition to this she wrote two novels, the first of them "Agnes Grey," and the second "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." This last, curiously enough, went into a second edition during Anne's lifetime, and she contributed a preface to it defend- ing herself against her critics. Neither Anne's poetry nor her novels are of any account to-day. They would not be read, were it not for the glory with which her two sisters have surrounded the name of Bronte. 4 8 Victorian Literature Women novelists have abundantly nourished during the Victorian Era, but then the path was made easy for them by Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, and Fanny Burney. By all those who delight in debatable comparisons the name of George Eliot is frequently brought into contrast with that of Charlotte Bronte. George Eliot was born at Griff in Warwickshire, her real i8ig-i88o name being Mary Ann Evans. She was for a time at a school at Nuneaton, and afterwards at Coventry. At first she was an evangelical church- woman, but about 1842 she became acquainted with two or three cultivated women friends at whose houses she met Froude, Emerson, and Francis Newman, all of whom represented a reverent antagonism to supernatural Christianity. In conjunction with Sarah Hennell, she undertook a translation of Strauss's " Life of Jesus." On her father's death, in 1849, she came to London and became associated with Dr. Chapman in the editor- ship of the Westminster Review. It was her friendship with George Henry Lewes, whom she met in 185 1, which gave her the first impulse towards fiction. Lewes was an active critic, and a writer of two now forgotten novels. Miss Evans's " Scenes of Clerical Life " were sent to Blackwood's Maga- zine in 1856. The stories were a great success. Thackeray and Dickens were loud in expressions of admiration. In 1859 "Adam Bede " was pub- D 49 Sixty Years of lished and made George Eliot famous. " It is the finest thing since Shakspere," said Charles Reade. Her success, however, did not lead to hasty pro- duction. She wrote only six novels during the remainder of her life. " I can write no word that is not prompted from within," she said. "The Mill on the Floss " was written in i860; " Silas Marner " in 1861 ; "Romola" in 1863; "Felix Holt " in 1866; " Middlemarch " in 1871-1872; and "Daniel Deronda " in 1876. In 1880 Miss Mary Ann Evans became Mrs. Walter Cross, but after a few months of wedded life she died of inflammation of the heart at 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Her husband wrote her biography, not with much success. So entirely was George Eliot's best mind concentrated upon her books, that her letters, and indeed her personality, were a disappointment to all but a few hero-worshippers. The novels, with two volumes of poems and two of essays, make up George Eliot's collected works. The essays written before and after her novels give, like her letters, but few indications of her remark- able powers. Nor, although "The Spanish Gipsy" is deeply interesting, can her poetry be counted for much. " The Choir Invisible " is her best known poem. It is by her novels that she must be judged, and these, for insight into character, 50 Victorian Literature analysis of the motives which guide men, and sympathy with the intellectual and moral struggles which make up so large a part of life, have a literary niche to themselves. With singular catho- licity she paints the simplest faith and the highest idealism. Whether it be an Evangelical clergyman, a Dissenting minister, or a Methodist factory-girl, she enters into the spirit of their lives with fullest sympathy. Carlyle could see in Methodism only " a religion fit for gross and vulgar-minded people, a religion so-called, and the essence of it cowardice and hunger, terror of pain and appetite for pleasure both carried to the infinite." George Eliot's sym- pathies were wider. She won the heart of Metho- dists, who have stood in imagination listening to Dinah Morris addressing the Hayslope peasantry, as she gained the devotion of Roman Catholics like Lord Acton, who have seen in her portrait of Savonarola a wise expression of their faith. And it is not only in religious matters that her sympathies are so broad. The sententious dulness of Mr. Macey is as much within the range of her feelings as the manliness of Adam Bede or the scholastic pride of old Bardo. She feels equally for the weak and frivolous Hetty and the lofty, self-sustained Romola. " At least eighty out of a hundred," she says, " of your adult male fellow- Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily 51 Sixty Years of wicked, nor extraordinarily wise ; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor spark- ling with suppressed witticisms; they have pro- bably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures ; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people — many of them — bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime promptings to do the painful right ; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys ; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance, in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possi- bilities of that human nature which they share? Depend upon it you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones." The creations of George Eliot — Tito and Baldassare, Mrs. Poyser and Silas Marner, Dorothy Brooke and Gwendolen — are not as familiar to the reading public of to-day as they were to that of ten or fifteen years ago. 52 Victorian Literature Of the idolatry which almost made her a pro- phetess of a new cult we hear nothing now. She has not maintained her position as Dickens, Thackeray, and Charlotte Bronte have maintained theirs. But if there be little of partisanship and much detraction, it is idle to deny that George Eliot's many gifts, her humour, her pathos, her remarkable intellectual endowments, give her an assured place among the writers of Victorian literature. The next in order of prominence among the novelists of the period is Charles Kingsley. He 1819-1875 was born at Holne Vicarage, on the borders of Dartmoor, and was educated at King's College, London, and Magdalen College, Cambridge. After this he received the curacy of Eversley, in Hampshire, of which parish he finally became rector. In 1848 he published a drama entitled "The Saint's Tragedy," with St. Elizabeth of Hungary as heroine. A year later his novel of "Alton Locke" gained him the title of "The Chartist Parson." This tale, in which Carlyle is introduced in the person of an old Scotch book- seller, was a crude and yet vigorous expression of sympathy with the Chartist movement, and its in- fluence was tremendous. For its sympathy with the working classes, and in its reflection of the broad and tolerant Christianity of which Kingsley S3 Sixty Years of was always the eloquent preacher, " Alton Locke," in common with " Yeast " and " Two Years Ago," is a valuable contribution to literature. Kingsley, however, became a truer artist when, as in " Hypatia " and " Westward Ho ! " he had not social and religious ends in view. "Hypatia," in spite of many historical errors, is a brilliant sketch of the early Church at Alexandria. Gibbon, from whom Kingsley obtained the hint for this book, would have revelled in the apparent en- dorsement by a latter-day clergyman of his estimate of the early Christianity of the East. " Westward Ho ! " is a picturesque narrative of English rivalry with Spain in the reign of Elizabeth. The con- trasts of character in Frank and Amyas Leigh perhaps give this novel a claim to be considered Kingsley's best effort. He wrote many other works, including children's stories, scientific lec- tures, and poems, among which last the beautiful ballads, " The Three Fishers " and " The Sands of Dee," are the most popular. For nine years he held the office of Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, but his unphilosophical views of history made his presence there a mis- fortune. A model country clergyman, a man essentially healthy-minded and interested in all phases of life and thought, Kingsley's influence, especially on young men, during the past five- 54 Victorian Literature and- thirty years, has been very great and very beneficial. Henry Kingsley, a younger brother of Charles, 1830-1876 wrote many novels and romances, three of them memorable. " Geoffrey Hamlyn " is popular as the best novel of Australian life. To Australia he had gone to make his fortune at the diggings. He did not make a fortune, but joined the colonial mounted police instead. Compelled by his office to attend an execution, he threw up the post in disgust, and returned to England to find his brother installed as Vicar of Eversley and on the high road to fame. Little wonder that he attempted to emulate him, and he succeeded. Never, surely, has literature produced two brothers so remarkable, and at the same time so different. Both gave us energetic heroes, and loved manliness. In Charles Kingsley, however, the novelist was always largely subordinated to the preacher. In Henry there was nothing of the preacher whatever. " Geoffrey Hamlyn," "Ravenshoe," and "The Hillyars and The Burtons " are all forcible, effective works, and they have secured generous praise and appreciation from many a literary colleague. But Henry was a bit of a ne'er-do-well, and so his personality has been carefully screened from the public. His name is not even mentioned in Charles Kingsley's 55 Sixty Years of biography. Sir Edwin Arnold, however, who knew him at Oxford, and Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie, who knew him towards the end of his life, testify to certain delightful qualities of mind and heart which peculiarly appealed to them. 1 A writer not less successful than Charles Kingsley, but in no way comparable as a man, 1803-1873 was Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton, who was born in London, and created no small sensa- tion in 1828 by the publication of " Pelham." This was followed by a long list of novels of infinite variety. Some dealt with the preternatural like " Zanoni," and others with history, psychology, and ethics. Of these the most popular were doubt- less the historical "Harold," " Rienzi," "The Last of the Barons," and " The Last Days of Pompeii," which still hold their own with the younger genera- tion. The thoughtful men of to-day do not how- ever read " The Caxtons " as they did in the sixties and seventies. Lytton was one of the cleverest men of his age — using the word in no friendly sense — he was a clever novelist, a clever dramatist (his comedy of " Money," and his tragedies " Richelieu " and " The Lady of Lyons," still 1 Charles Kingsley's novels and miscellaneous writings are published by Macmillan & Co., in twenty-nine volumes. Henry Kingsley's novels have been recently issued by Ward & Lock in twelve volumes. 56 Victorian Literature hold the stage), and a clever Parliamentary debater. Another writer, with higher claims to considera- tion than those of literature, was Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881 Earl of Beaconsneld. Disraeli entered life under conditions peculiarly favourable to a successful literary career. His father, Isaac D' Israeli, was an enthusiastic bookworm, whose "Curiosities of Literature " and other books are an inexhaustible mine of anecdote on the quarrels and calamities of authors. The young Disraeli wrote "Vivian Grey " in 1827, following this very successful effort with "The Young Duke," " Venetia," "Hen- rietta Temple," and other novels. In 1837 he was returned to Parliament as member for Maid- stone. His career as an orator and statesman does not concern us here ; suffice to say that of his many later novels "Coningsby," " Tancred," and "Sybil" are by far the ablest and most brilliant, and that "Sybil" was an effective exposure of many abuses in the relations of capital to labour. In addition to his work as a novelist, Lord Beaconsfield wrote an able bio- graphy of his friend and colleague, Lord George Bentinck. One of the most successful of the greater novel- ists of the reign was Charles Reade, who first 1814-1884 57 Sixty Years of became famous by "Peg Woffington " in 1852. " The Cloister and the Hearth " was published in 1861, and " Griffith Gaunt " in 1866. Several of his later novels were written " with a purpose." In " Hard Cash " he drew attention to the abuses of private lunatic asylums; in "Foul Play" he aroused public interest in the iniquities of ship- knackers; in "Put Yourself in His Place," he attacked Trades Unions, and in " Never Too Late to Mend " he exposed some of the abuses of our prison system as it existed at that time. Reade was also an industrious dramatist ; " Masks and Faces " and "Drink " are among his most popular plays. Of all his books " The Cloister and the Hearth " is the best, and also the most widely read. It has for its hero the father of Erasmus. Those who in days to come will want to know what provincial life was really like in England in early Victorian times will enquire for the 1815-1882 novels of Anthony Trollope. " Barchester Towers," " Framley Parsonage," and " Dr. Thorne " are the most popular of a series of tales, in all of which the country life of Eng- land, its clergy and squirearchy, are portrayed. Trollope wrote on many subjects. His " Life of Cicero " secured the commendation of Professor Freeman, and his biography of Thackeray, though all too slight, is the best book about 58 Victorian Literature the author of "Vanity Fair" that has so far been given us. Another novelist of about equal status with Trollope in mid- Victorian fiction is George John Whyte Melville. Major Whyte Melville is the 1821-1878 novelist of all lovers of the hunting-field, and strangely enough he fell a victim to the very sport which he had done so much to picture. He was killed by a fall from his horse. Whyte Melville's hunting novels include " Katerfelto " and " Black but Comely." He also wrote historical novels, of which " The Queen's Maries " and " The Gladiators " were the most popular, and he had a pretty gift of verse. Literature has rarely produced a more pic- turesque figure than Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850-1894 The son of a famous Scottish engineer he was destined, like his great countryman Sir Walter Scott, for a Writership to the Signet. He took, however, to literature instead, and died at forty- four in Samoa, — where he had gone for his health, — after a remarkable literary achievement. With a style not always rigidly grammatical, but al- ways impressive and distinguished, he shone in many branches of literary work. He wrote travel pictures like " With a Donkey in the Cevennes," which were incomparably superior to those of any contemporary ; his plays — written 59 Sixty Years of in collaboration with Mr. W. E. Henley — had a power of their own, and one of them, "Beau Austin," although not accepted by the public, is probably the greatest contribution to the drama of the era. As a critic of life and of books Stevenson has also an honourable place. I know of no better treatment of the one than " Virginibus Puerisque," or of the other than " Some Aspects of Robert Burns." He has given abundant pleasure to children by " A Child's Garden of Verses," and in "Underwoods" he has scarcely less successfully appealed to their elders. It is as a novelist, however, that Stevenson fills the largest place. He is the inheritor of the traditions of Scott, with the world-pain of his own epoch superadded. Men and boys alike have found "Treasure Island" absorbing, while men have also pondered over the widely different powers which are displayed in " The New Arabian Nights " and "The Master of Ballantrae," " Prince Otto," and " St. Ives." " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " is a parable which has thrilled us all. Stevenson delighted to call Mr. George Meredith his master, and the two men were friends of years. George Meredith began his literary career in 1 85 1, with a volume of poems, one of which, " Love in a Valley," is still an unqualified joy to all who read it. Mr. Meredith has published 60 Victorian Literature several volumes of poems since then, and all of them have their loyal admirers, but it is as a novelist that the world at large appraises him. His concentrated thought and vivid passion have gained for him the title of the "Browning of novelists." Each of his books in turn has had its ardent partisans among cultivated and thoughtful readers. " The Shaving of Shagpat " appeared in 1856, and "Farina" in 1857. "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," which ap- peared in 1859, is by many considered Meredith's best novel. It treats, with subtle humour and profound philosophical insight, of the problem of a youth's education, and is full of truth to life. " Feverel " was followed by " Evan Harrington " (1861), while "Rhoda Fleming" (1865), "The Adventures of Harry Richmond " (1871), "Beau- champ's Career " (1876), "The Egoist" (1879), "The Tragic Comedians" (1881), and "Diana of the Crossways " (1885), have each of them abundance of readers. Merely to enumerate George Meredith's novels is to call to the memory of all who have read them a widening of mental and moral vision. The rich vein of poetry running through the books, their humour and imagination, place their author in the very front rank of English novelists. " I should never forgive myself," said Robert Louis Stevenson, " if I forgot 'The Egoist,' which, of all the novels I 61 Sixty Years of have read (and I have read thousands), stands in a place by itself. I have read ' The Egoist ' five or six times, and I mean to read it again." Others have spoken with equal enthusiasm of " Sandra Belloni," with its sweet singer Emilia; others of " Beauchamp's Career," with its aristocratic Radical, now generally understood to have been intended for Admiral Maxse. Mr. Meredith dedicated his volume of "Poems" 1785-1866 of 1 85 1 to Thomas Love Peacock, who, perhaps, more than any other writer influenced his own style. Peacock was born at Weymouth, and he was mainly self-educated. In 1804 and 1806 he published two small volumes of poetry, "The Monks of St. Mark" and "Pal- myra." In 181 2 he became acquainted with Shelley, and the two were intimate at Great Marlow, where Peacock lived in 181 5, and later. Peacock's novels " Headlong Hall " (1816-1817), " Melincourt " (181 7), and "Nightmare Abbey" (1818), which have been two or three times re- printed within the last five or six years, gained no commensurate attention on their appearance, although one of them was translated into French. In 1819 Peacock became a clerk in the India House, and married a Welsh girl, Jane Gryffdh. " Maid Marion " appeared in 1822, "Crotchet Castle" in 1831, and in 1837 "Paper Money Lyrics and other Poems." All 62 Victorian Literature the novels I have named, and they are his most famous, belong to the pre-Victorian period, but " Gryll Grange," his last novel, was published in 1 86 1. Peacock is interesting as a novelist and for his relations with other famous men. He was, as I have said, the friend of Shelley, and he was the father-in-law of Mr. George Meredith. Added to this he succeeded to James Mill's post at the India House, and vacated it for James Mill's son, John Stuart Mill. To R. L. Stevenson we undoubtedly owe much of the impulse to the modern romantic movement, which adds every day an historical novel or a story of adventure to our libraries. It has given us Stanley Weyman, "Q" (A. T. Quiller Couch), "Anthony Hope," Max Pemberton, and Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Another Scotsman, George MacBonald, whose " Robert Falconer," 1824- " David Elginbrod," and "Alec Forbes of How- glen" have charmed nearly a generation, had less influence than might have been thought upon the younger Scottish writers, who have made Scottish scenes and Scottish dialect so marked an element in many popular works. James Matthew Barrie, for example, had written "A Window in Thrums," before he had read one of Dr. Mac- Donald's books. Mr. Barrie was probably in- fluenced, however, by John Gait (1 779-1859), whose " Ayrshire Legatees " and " Annals of the 63 Sixty Years of Parish" were written before the Queen began to reign. A writer whose most striking book was published sufficiently long ago to justify its inclusion here, was 1834- Joseph Henry Shorthouse. His " John Inglesant " gained for him a reputation which his " Sir Perci- val " did not sustain. Mr. Shorthouse has written nothing since "John Inglesant" so beautiful as his " Little Schoolmaster Mark," a singularly poetical conception of abnormal childhood. The best stories for children have been written 1833- by Lewis Carroll. This is the pseudonym of the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a lecturer on mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, and the author of several mathematical text-books. In " Euclid and his Modern Rivals " and " A Tangled Tale," Mr. Dodgson has succeeded in combining his taste for science with a rich humour, but his fame rests upon his remarkable fairy- stories, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," pub- lished in 1865, and its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass," which appeared in 1872. Men and women, quite as much as little children, have found pleasure and entertainment in these happy efforts of a genius as individual as anything our age has produced. I have purposely all but ignored many writers of fiction who are still actively engaged in literary 64 Victorian Literature pursuits. The daily journals bring their achieve- ments sufficiently to the front. But literary workers owe so much to the untiring zeal of Sir Walter Besant in their behalf, that at the risk of 1838- inconsistency, I mention his "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," a story which not only sold by thousands, but had a practical influence such as is rarely given to poet or novelist to achieve. The writer dreams of a wealthy heiress devoting her time and money to purifying and elevating the East End of London. She builds a Palace of Delight, and devotes it to the service of the people. In May, 1887, the dream was realised, for the Queen opened just such a Palace for the People in the Mile-End Road. How far this institution, the outcome of a novelist's imagination and the generous subscriptions of philanthropists, has achieved the regeneration of the London poor, history has yet to record. Sir Walter Besant wrote at an earlier period twelve novels in con- junction with James Rice, a collaborator of singu- 1843-1882 lar humour and imagination. Of the books written conjointly "Ready Money Mortiboy" and "The Golden Butterfly " are the most popular. Passing from the acknowledged masters in imaginative literature, one turns to a crowd of popular and interesting writers who have charmed and delighted multitudes of readers. Foremost E 6$ Sixty Years of among these are Lever and Marryat. Charles 1806-1872 Lever was for some time editor of the Dublin University Magazine, but his Irish stories, "Charles O'Malley " and "Harry Lorrequer" are his chief title to fame. That the rollicking humour, of these books still commands attention is proved by a recent luxurious re-issue of them. 1 Another Irishman, who won the affections of Irishmen as Lever won their laughter, was William 1798-1869 Carleton, who was born at Prillisk, county Tyrone. He was the youngest of fourteen children. His equal knowledge of Irish and English gave him an intimacy with the folk-lore and fairy tales, which make up so large a part in the lives of the poorer among his countrymen, and "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry" (1833) and "Tales of Ireland" (1834) were the result. His romance, "Fardorougha the Miser," appeared in 1839, and he treated in 1847 of the horrors of the Irish famine in his "Black Prophet." Carleton has for many years ceased to be read in England, but he shares in the revived interest in Irish literature, which has taken the place of interest 1814-1873 in Irish politics. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu also made a great success with "Uncle Silas " (1864) and " In a Glass Darkly " (1872). 1792-1848 Frederick Marryat ran away to sea several 1 " The Collected Works of Charles Lever." Downey & Co. 66 Victorian Literature times before his father, a member of Parliament of great wealth, consented to his being a sailor. He was a successful and popular naval officer before he was twenty-one. He was thirty-seven years of age when he wrote his first novel, " Frank Mildmay," the success of which led him to adopt literature as the profession of his later life. Of his many novels, of which " Mr. Midshipman Easy " and " Peter Simple " are perhaps the best, several appeared in the Metropolitan Magazine, which Marryat edited for four years. Not only is Marryat the most delightful of writers for boys, but it is interesting to note that both Carlyle and Ruskin during long terms of illness solaced themselves with his wonderful sea-stories. A writer who gave much healthy pleasure to schoolboys was William Henry Giles King- 1814-1880 ston, who left behind him one hundred and twenty-five stories of the sea. Another writer for boys, William Harrison Ainsworth, was the 1805-1882 son of a Manchester solicitor. The majority of his thirty novels treat of historical themes. The best of them, "Old St. Paul's," "The Tower of London," and "Rookwood," have been trans- lated into most modern languages. Scarcely less popular for a time was G. P. R. James, who also 1801-1860 dealt freely with history. Thackeray burlesqued James so skilfully that he has already become 67 Sixty Years of a tradition. He was British Consul in Virginia, and afterwards at Venice, where he died. Living English novelists of well-deserved popu- larity, are Mr. Hardy, Mr. Black, and Mr. Blackmore. 1840- Thomas Hardy made his earlier fame by " Far from the Madding Crowd " (1874). He made his later popularity by " Tess of the D'Urbervilles " (1892). Between these books came two stories greater than either — " The Return of the Native " (1878) and "The Woodlanders " (1887). One must read those books to appreciate how very great a novelist Mr. Hardy is, how full of poetry and of insight. The Dorsetshire landscape which, under the guise of "Wessex," he has made so familiar, will be classic ground for many a day to all lovers of good literature. 1 841- Although William Black, who was born in Glas- gow, has written numerous stories about the West Highlands of Scotland, he has no affinity whatever to the new Scotch school. He made his first appearance as a novelist in 1867 with "Love or Marriage," and almost every year since he has published a story, over thirty novels now bearing his name. Black has recognised the value of the picturesque back-ground afforded by West High- land scenery, with its accompanying incidents in the outdoor life of the deer stalker and angler. He has given us some real characterisation in 68 Victorian Literature "A Daughter of Heth" (1871), in " Madcap Violet" (1876) : while "Macleod of Dare" (1878) is perhaps the best thing he has written. Richard Doddridge Blackmore has written many 1825- interesting novels, but it has been his perverse fate to live by only one of them. " Lorna Doone " was published in 1869, and although received coldly at first, finally achieved great popularity : and visits to the Lorna Doone country, as that part of Devon- shire is called, make part of the travelled educa- tion of every literary American. As a master of rustic comedy he stands unexcelled in our day, and the merits of certain other novels — " The Maid of Sker," " Christowell," and " Cripps the Carrier " — may some day become more fully recognised. Not less popular than the novelist of locality — for this description may surely be applied to Mr. Hardy and the two other writers I have named — is the novelist of sensation. William Wilkie Collins 1824-1889 was the most prominent exponent of that School. "The Woman in White," which appeared in i860 in All the Year Round, took^the town by storm, but Count Fosco would be pronounced a tiresome villain to-day. With " The Moonstone " and " The New Magdalen " Wilkie Collins secured almost equal success. Although it has been affirmed that a new Wilkie Collins, that is to say a novelist of pure 69 Sixty Years of sensation, might even now have a great vogue, it is quite certain that the actual Wilkie Collins has lost the greater part of his. 1 Another novelist who presents himself as little more than a name to the 1807-1877 present generation is Samuel Warren. He was a doctor, and, like his homotype, Mr. Conan Doyle half a century later, studied medicine at the Uni- versity of Edinburgh. His "Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician " began in Black- wood's Magazine in 1830, and was well received, but a still greater success attended his "Ten Thousand a Year," which appeared first in the same periodical. Time has dealt unkindly with Samuel Warren : it is yet to be seen how time will deal with another 1820-1887 popular favourite, Mrs. Henry Wood, who was born in Worcestershire and made the city of Worcester the centre of many of her stories. The " Chan- nings " and " Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles " are her best novels, and they have had a well-deserved popularity, for Mrs. Wood had a splendid faculty for telling a story. Her even more popular novel, "East Lynne,"will probably survive for many a year as a stage play. Next to Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot the 1 of th Chat 70 1 A New Library Edition of the novels of Wilkie Collins has just been published by Chatto and Windus. Victorian Literature most distinguished woman novelist of the era is Mrs. Gaskell, who, as Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, 1810-1865 married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister of Manchester. Mrs. GaskelPs first literary success was "Mary Barton," the story of a Manchester factory girl. " Ruth," " North and South," and ** Sylvia's Lovers " were equally successful, but the two books which are certain to secure immortality to their author are "Cranford " (1853) and "The Life of Charlotte Bronte" (1857). "Cranford" is an idyll of village life which is sure to charm many generations of readers, and not a few artists have delighted to illustrate its quaint and fascinat- ing character studies. " Cranford " has been iden- tified with Knutsford in Cheshire. Mrs. Gaskell's biography of her friend Charlotte Bronte has probably had a larger sale than any other bio- graphy in our literature. Many causes contributed to this — the popularity of the Bronte novels, the exceptionally romantic and pathetic life of their authors, Mrs. Gaskell's own fame as a writer of fiction, and the literary skill with which she treated the material at her command. Other women writers who have had a large measure of fame, and are now well-nigh forgotten, are Mrs. Marsh (1791-1874), who wrote "The Admiral's Daughter " and " The Deformed," Mrs. Crowe (1800-1876), who wrote "Susan Hopley " 71 Sixty Years of and "The Night Side of Nature," Mrs. Archer Clive (1801-1873), who wrote "Paul Ferroll," Lady Georgiana Fullerton (18 12-1885), tne author of "Ann Sherwood," Mrs. Stretton (1812-1878), who wrote "The Valley of a Hundred Fires." All these are now little more than names to us, 1800-1879 but not so Anne Manning, whose " Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell " will long continue to be read. It is an effective presentation of Milton 1808-1877 and his first wife. Mrs. Norton, " the Byron of poetesses," as Lockhart described her, wrote several novels, " Stuart of Dunleath " and " Lost and Saved " being perhaps the best known in their time, but she lives now mainly in George Meredith's 1826-1887 " Diana of the Crossways." Dinah Mulock (Mrs. Craik) may still be ranked among our most popular novelists, although her best and most successful book "John Halifax, Gentleman," was published 1824-1877 m 1857. The memory of Julia Kavanagh, al- though her " Madeleine " was enthusiastically greeted on its appearance, has all but faded away. Miss Kavanagh's " Woman in France in the 18th Century," "English Women of Letters," and " French Women of Letters " were handsomely got-up books, and are still to be found in many old-fashioned libraries. Two of the most popular writers for children 72 Victorian Literature were A. L. O. E. and Mrs. Ewing. A. L. O. E., or A Lady of England, was the pseudonym of Charlotte Maria Tucker, who after many years of 1821-1893 successful literary labour, went out to India for the Church Missionary Society, at the age of fifty- four. Miss Tucker's most popular stories were "Pride and his Pursuers," "Exiles in Babylon," " House Beautiful," and " Cyril Ashley." Scarcely less popular was Mrs. Ewing, whose mother, Mrs. 1841-1885 Gatty, edited Aunt Judy's Magazine. It was in this magazine that Mrs. Ewing's " Remembrances of Mrs. Overtheway " made their appearance. Another writer of great popularity, Mrs. Charles, 1828-1896 secured an immense success with " The Schonberg- Cotta Family," "Kitty Trevelyan's Diary," and other books of a semi-religious, semi-historical tendency. It is a natural association, not derived from similarity of name, to mention Maria Louisa Charlesworth at the same time, because Miss 1819-1880 Charles worth's " Ministering Children " had an enormous success with the religious public of England, the public which supports Missionary Societies and Sunday Schools. I might easily devote many pages to the living women novelists who have impressed themselves upon the era ; but that scarcely comes within the scope of this little book. There are, to name but 73 Sixty Years of a few, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Ouida, Miss Braddon, Miss Marie Corelli, Miss Olive Schreiner, Miss Rhoda Broughton, Edna Lyall, Lucas Malet, Miss Charlotte Yonge, Miss Adeline Sergeant, Mrs. Macquoid, Mrs. Alexander, Mrs. W. K. Clifford — names which recall to thousands of readers many familiar books and some of the happiest hours they have ever spent. 1828-1897 With the name of Mrs. Oliphant, who has recently died, I may fitly close this survey of Victorian fiction. Mrs. Oliphant struck the note of the era alike in her versatility and in her lack of thoroughness. She was so versatile that she once offered to write a whole number of Blackwood's Magazine, a publication to which she was for years a valued contributor. And she would have done it with fair effectiveness. That she wrote good fiction is now generally acknowledged. She wrote also biography, criticism, and every form of prose. Her "Makers of Florence" has been a popular history, — it treats of Dante, Giotto, and Savonarola, — as her " Life of Edward Irving " has been a popular biography. She wrote many other books apart from her fiction, " A History of Eighteenth Century Literature," a "Memoir of Principal Tulloch," biographies of Cervantes and Moliere, and a volume on " Dress." But she was not a good critic, nor was she a very accurate 74 Victorian Literature student. It is upon her novels that her fame will have to rest. " Salem Chapel," a skilful delinea- tion of a minister and his congregation, has been compared to George Eliot's "Silas Marner." " Passages in the Life of Margaret Maitland " (1849) was ner fi rst nove l an d " The Lady's Walk " (1897) her last, and in the intervening years she probably wrote sixty or seventy stories, each of them containing indications of a genius which, with more concentration, would have given her an enduring place in English fiction. 75 CHAPTER III The Historians HTHE reign of Victoria has been pre-eminently ■*■ the reign of the historian in our literature. Greater poets we had seen in the reigns of the Georges, greater essayists in the reign of Anne. But Grote and Carlyle, Macaulay and Gardiner, Bishop Stubbs and Dr. Freeman had no counter- parts in an earlier age — always excepting the one great name of Gibbon. Before them there were chroniclers of contemporary events and pamphleteers under the guise of historians, but little more. Goldsmith's histories are the laughing-stock of those to whom the modern methods of research are familiar, and even Hume had little of the spirit of the genuine student. Hallam and Lingard were the pioneers in this branch of literature, although both of them had done their work before Queen Victoria came to the throne. Henry Hallam was born at Windsor, where his 1777-1859 father held a canonry. His first great work, entitled " View of the State of Europe during the 77 Sixty Years of Middle Ages," was published in 1818, and his " Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II.," in 1827. In 1838 he produced his " Intro- duction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries." Of these three works the first and the last are valuable, mainly for their stimulus to the more philo- sophical and imaginative work of later writers, but the "Constitutional History" remains the text- book for the period which it covers. Macaulay praised it highly, possibly because of the Whiggism which undoubtedly underlies some of the more debatable propositions in the book ; but Macaulay and many other writers have disputed the correct- ness of many of Hallam's judgments. To write the constitutional history of England from the earliest period to the year 1485, where Hallam begins, was a far more difficult undertaking than to deal with the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts. This work devolved on Dr. Stubbs. 1825- William Stubbs, who was appointed Bishop of Oxford in 1889, was born at Knaresborough, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1850 he became vicar of Navestock, in Essex, and in 1862 he was made librarian at Lambeth Palace. His editions of mediaeval chronicles were well calculated to smooth the path of any future historian, and the critical 78 Victorian Literature introductions showed the profound scholarship of the editor. Probably no one man has done so much to throw light on the obscure by-ways of history, and as Regius Professor of Modern His- tory at Oxford, a post he accepted in 1866, he gave so great a stimulus to historical study that many brilliant writers have since been proud to call him "master." In 1870 he published his " Select Charters," of which the " Introductions " are also invaluable, and between 1874 and 1878 he wrote his great work, " The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Develop- ment," the three volumes of which carry us down to the death of Richard III. The book is pro- foundly scientific in its method, but it is a mis- taken, although popular, belief which classes Dr. Stubbs among Dryasdust investigators. The work glows with life and interest, and is full of suggestive parallels for modern political society. The work of tracing the growth of the English constitution, which had been so worthily begun by Hallam, and continued in so wise and scholarly a fashion by Bishop Stubbs, was carried on by Sir Thomas Erskine May, who, a few days before his 1815-1886 death, was created Baron Farnborough. After a long official career in connection with the House of Commons, he was appointed Clerk to the House in 187 1. In addition to several publications deal- ing with Parliamentary forms, and a book on 79 Sixty Years of " Democracy in Europe," he wrote a " Constitu- tional History since the Accession of George III.," thus continuing the work from the point at which Hallam had dropped it, and completing a continu- ous history of the English Constitution. When we turn to what is more popularly under- stood by the history of a country, the political and social life of peoples, and the wars and conquests of nations, we are not less fortunate in the results 1771-1851 attained. John Lingard had, it is true, written his great work before 1837. "The History of Eng- land, from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Commencement of the Reign of William III.," appeared in eight volumes between 18 19 and 1830. Lingard was the son of a Winchester car- penter. He was for some time the Professor of Moral Philosophy at a Roman Catholic College. His religious views doubtless affected, in considerable measure, his judgment of events, especially in the reign of Henry VIII., but he is a fairly impartial historian. He confesses that he has been more anxious to arrive at the facts than troubled as to the garb in which those facts were presented to the public, and his work is really very- dull in consequence. A contemporary of Lingard, who covered much of the same historic ground, was Sharon Turner (1 768-1 847), and yet another was 1807-1857 John Mitchell Kemble, whose " Saxons in England " (1849) ^l fiH s a useful place. Another distin- 80 Victorian Literature guished writer, of what we may term the earlier school of historical research, was Sir Francis Palgrave, one of whose accomplished sons, Francis 1788-1861 Turner Palgrave, is still living (born 1824), whilom Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the friend of Tennyson, the author of excellent verse, and, moreover, the editor of that incomparable volume, the " Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics." Sir Francis was the son of a Jewish stockbroker named Cohen, and changed his name on becom- ing a Christian. His best book, the " History of Normandy and of England," lost much of its value by the publication of Freeman's monu- mental work, " The History of the Norman Con- quest." Edward Augustus Freeman was born at Har- 1823-1892 borne, in Staffordshire, and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. His first work was a " History of Architecture," published in 1849. In 1863 he issued the first volume of a " History of Federal Government." The "History of the Norman Conquest," in five large volumes, appeared between 1867 and 1876, and the "Reign of William Rufus, and Accession of Henry I.," in 1882. His "Old English History" was a most delightful collection of the primitive stories which have always had a great fascination for beginners in history. There was scarcely any period of Euro- pean history with which the author of the " Norman Sixty Years of Conquest" did not show a thorough familiarity. No historian has had a keener grasp of hard solid facts, or is more able to make common-sense deductions from them. «' I am quite unable," he candidly confessed, " to appreciate physical or metaphysical works in any language," and he hated literary discussion, which he contemptuously termed " Chatter about Harriet," in reference to the de- batable question of Shelley's treatment of his wife. Perhaps this lack of breadth did not materially spoil him for his work. Of his many volumes of histories and essays, those on the " Norman Conquest " must be given the first place. It has been said, indeed, that the work takes as long to read as the event took to achieve, but it is worth reading nevertheless. The battle of Hastings, or, as Mr. Freeman would say, of Senlac, was a turning-point in our national history, and we have here the most complete description of that great struggle. Since Free- man's death some attempt has been made to question his accuracy and his scholarship ; but it has not amounted to very much. When Dr. Stubbs, with whom difference of political views has in no way impaired a lifelong friendship, was appointed Bishop of Chester in 1884, Mr. Freeman succeeded him as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, where he was followed on his death by Mr. Froude. 82 Victorian Literature It would be hard to find a greater contrast, both in method and in manner, than between Edward Freeman and James Anthony Froude. Freeman's style, though clear and trenchant, was never brilliant; Froude's language compares with that of the best artists in literature. Free- man was always scrupulously exact, never at fault in a fact or a date; Froude was notoriously careless, and slipped at every turn. Freeman cared nothing for theories; Froude was never so happy as when he stopped abruptly in a de- scription to discourse on the mysteries of Pro- vidence or the follies of mankind. Between men of such opposite natures no friendship was possible, and in the Saturday Review and other periodicals Freeman commented vigorously, and not always fairly, on the other's inaccuracy. James Anthony Froude was one of three gifted 1818-1894 brothers, another being William Froude (1810- 1879), the mathematician and engineer; and the third, Richard Hurrell Froude (1 803-1 836), a leader of the Tractarian movement, whose " Literary Remains " were published after his death by Keble and Newman. Froude was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and for a time came under the influence of the movement of which his elder brother was a leading spirit, but ultimately he abandoned supernatural Christ- ianity altogether, substituting for it a kind of 83 Sixty Years of poetic Theism which he partly adopted from Carlyle. In 1847 he published anonymously two novels, "The Spirit's Trials " and "The Lieutenant's Daughter," which contained some not very generous criticisms on his brother and former friends. His "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1848, was a further criticism of the doctrines which he had abandoned. Between the years 1856 and 1869 he published the twelve volumes of his great work, " The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada," which achieved a great and, in many respects, a well- deserved popularity. Rarely indeed has history been written with so much brilliancy and pictur- esque power. The earlier volumes have been much discredited among historical students : yet we would not willingly miss such delightful word-painting as his description of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other scenes in the career of the Eighth Henry, whom he selected for rehabilitation. It was, of course, a vain and impossible task to remove the odium which has settled upon the name of Henry VIII. ; but it was as well that the attempt should be made. Henry had appeared to the mass of modern Englishmen as an old-world ogre, and Mr. Froude has at least enabled them to see that he was after all a man. Mr. Freeman, himself the most conscientious and laborious of writers, expressed his hearty contempt for an author who 84 Victorian Literature professed in the preface to his history that he took up the subject because he had " nothing better to do." As, however, Froude warmed to his work his book increased in value, and there are few who will deny the most sterling worth to his " Edward VI.," " Mary," and " Elizabeth." His escape from Trac- tarianism had made him unfriendly to all kindred movements, and his views of the struggle between Catholicism and Evangelicalism in the sixteenth century are more worthy of a Puritan divine than of an academic writer of our own day. But we can forgive all this, and much more, to one who has described with so much delicate fancy the adven- turous life of Drake and Hawkins, the intrigues of the Scottish Queen, and the restless fickleness and untruthfulness of Elizabeth. His exquisite literary' style and general breadth of sympathy are shown in such passages as his sketch of the rise of Protestantism and the execution of More and Fisher : — " Whilst we exult in that chivalry with which the Smithfield martyrs bought England's freedom with their blood, so we will not refuse our admiration to those other gallant men whose high forms in the sunset of the old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory." * Inaccuracy and tactlessnes's, however, seemed to haunt Mr. Froude like evil spirits. He wrote a 1 Froude's " History of England," vol. ii. chap. ix. 85 Sixty Years of series of articles on Thomas a Becket, but the numerous mistakes and misstatements brought down on him once again the strictures of Mr. Freeman. He wrote a biography of Carlyle, to whom he acted as literary executor, and the whole of the literary world was in arms at the revelations of Carlyle's somewhat unamiable relations with his wife, and of his too contemptuous sentiments about many personal friends. Still, Mr. Froude's great literary faculty will secure to this biography a far greater permanence than will fall to the lot of the thousand and one memoirs which have appeared during the reign. Even should Carlyle's writings cease to be generally studied, it is not improbable that Froude's " Life of Carlyle " will always be read as an important chapter in literary history. In this connection I cannot do better than quote from an unpublished letter from Sir Fitz James Ste- phen, Mr. Froude's co-executor, to Mr. Froude : — " For about fifteen years I was the intimate friend and constant companion of both you and Mr. Carlyle, and never in my life did I see any one man so much devoted to any other as you were to him during the whole of that period of time. The most affectionate son could not have acted better to the most venerated father. You cared for him, soothed him, protected him as a guide might pro- tect a weak old man down a steep and painful path. The admiration you habitually expressed 86 Victorian Literature for him both morally and intellectually was un- qualified. You never said to me one ill-natured word about him down to this day. It is to me wholly incredible that anything but a severe regard for truth, learnt to a great extent from his teaching, could ever have led you to embody in your por- trait of him a delineation of the faults and weak- nesses which mixed with his great qualities. " Of him I will make only one remark in justice to you. He did not use you well. He threw upon you the responsibility of a decision which he ought to have taken himself in a plain, unmistakable way. He considered himself bound to expiate the wrongs which he had done to his wife. If he had done this himself it would have been a courageous thing ; but he did not do it himself. He did not even decide for himself that it should be done after his death. If any courage was shown in the matter, it was shown by you, and not by him. You took the responsibility of deciding for him that it ought to be done. You took the odium of doing it, of avowing to the world the faults and weaknesses of one whom you regarded as your teacher and master. In order to present to the world a true picture of him as he really was, you, well knowing what you were about, stepped into a pillory in which you were charged with treachery, violation of confidence, and every imaginable base motive, when you were in fact guilty of no other fault than 87 Sixty Years of that of practising Mr. Carlyle's great doctrine that men ought to tell the truth." Mr. Froude has other claims to remembrance. In his " Short Studies on Great Subjects," many of them essays written for Fraser's Magazine, of which he was for a long time editor, are some very wise and thoughtful papers, particularly one on the Book of Job. His "Life of Bunyan " is characteristic, as is also his "Life of Caesar." Carlyle taught him hero-worship, and from Carlyle also he learnt the disposition which inspired his powerful book, " The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." He also wrote two picturesque books of travel, and three volumes of lectures * delivered at Oxford during his occupancy of the chair of history, which had been previously held in succession by his two great rivals, Bishop Stubbs and Dr. Freeman. The historian who devoted himself most ear- nestly to Mr. Froude's chief historical period, and whose writings were in some measure a reply to 1810-1879 his, was the Rev. John Sherren Brewer, who for many years was Professor of English Literature at King's College, London. Brewer's chief work, a "Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIIL," comes down, however, to 1530, the year in which Mr. Froude's history commences, and thus Brewer 1 " Lectures on the Council of Trent," " English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century/' and " Life and Letters of Erasmus." Victorian Literature stands alone as an authority on Henry's early reign. A compressed work in one volume, " The Reign of Henry VIII.," was published after his death. Mr. Froude concludes his narrative at the year 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, but no recent writer of mark has treated of the closing years of Elizabeth's reign in any detail, although we owe to Major Martin Hume a well- written study entitled "The Year after the Armada." Major Hume, who is the best living authority upon this period, has also written upon " The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth," and has edited for the Public Record Office the Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth. The next great period of English history, that of the Stuart kings, is dealt with by Professor Gardiner. Samuel Rawson Gardiner was born at 1829- Ropley, in Hampshire, and was educated at Win- chester and at Christ Church, Oxford. His whole life has been devoted to the most laborious re- search in the annals of the reigns of James I., Charles I., and the Protectorate of Cromwell. He has not, like Mr. Froude, taken up history as a pleasant literary recreation, but has given years of un- remitting labour to the production of each separate volume. He is now well into the study of the Protectorate, the first volume of his history of which appeared in 1894. He has written many minor 89 Sixty Years of books, one dealing with "The Gunpowder Plot," and another with " Cromwell's Place in History." Mr. Gardiner will not perhaps be counted a brilliant writer. He gives us none of the fire and eloquence, almost bordering on poetry, which we find so abundantly in Froude ; but he has been described by Sir John Seeley as the only historian who has trodden the controversial ground of seventeenth- century English political history with absolute fairness and impartiality. James and Charles, Buckingham and Bristol, Strafford and Pym, stand out in clear and well-defined lineaments. There is no hero-worship to blind us ; no flowing rhetoric to atone for insufficient knowledge. We see these men in their weakness and in their strength, neither side monopolising the virtue and the patriotism, but each, on occasion, acting from noble or ignoble motives. It may be urged that too much attention is devoted to the follies of princes and the intrigues of courtiers, and cer- tainly of the inner life of the nation we get all too little in Mr. Gardiner's pages : but it may be fairly said that these books are the safest and best of guides to one of the most important and critical periods in our political history. It is impossible to avoid contrasting Mr. Gardiner with a far more popular and more brilliant historian, Lord Mac- aulay, and the contrast is, in some respects, in favour of the former. Mr. Gardiner sees that in 9 o Victorian Literature dealing with the complexities of human motives we are on very uncertain and delicate ground. We need to pause step by step to weigh probabilities and to qualify our every statement, although such hesitancy and qualification is not conducive to brilliant writing. The importance of this rhetorical principle was fully grasped by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1800-1859 and, accordingly, in his writings a single definite and distinct motive is seized upon as the guiding principle of every action, and, by the simple plan of ignoring complexities in human character, we are carried along in an easy manner to positive and undoubting opinions. " I wish," said Lord Melbourne, " that I were as cock-sure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything;" and the remark hit off an undoubted failing, at least from the standpoint of sound and trustworthy workman- ship. Macaulay, whose father was a distinguished philanthropist and slavery abolitionist, was born at Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire. From a private school he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. His earliest efforts in literature were articles for Knight's Quarterly Magazine, and contributions to the Edinburgh Review, the first of which, on " Milton," drew from Lord Jeffrey the remark, "The more I think the less I can conceive where you picked up that style." Perhaps Macaulay's 9 1 Sixty Years of essays have been more popular even than his history. The extraordinary knowledge they display, the discursive familiarity with all poetry and fiction, ancient and modern, and their enthusiastic interest in historical events, make them a kind of education to men whose reading has been slight, or who are beginners in the art of reading — an art at which Macaulay was such an adept. In 1830 Macaulay entered Parliament as member for Calne, and four years later received the post of member of the Indian Council at Calcutta, with a salary of ;£i 0,000 a year. He left India in 1838, having rendered great service to that country by assist- ing to frame the Indian penal code. After his return to England he sat in Parliament for many years as member for Edinburgh, and for a short time held a seat in Lord Melbourne's Cabinet. Some of his speeches in the House were among the most eloquent and successful to which that assembly has listened. In 1849 the first two volumes of his "History of England from the Accession of James II." were published. The great success of these and the succeeding volumes made him one of the most popular authors of his day. In 1857 Macaulay was made a Peer, but he never spoke in the House of Lords. He died in December 1859, before he had finished the " Reign of William III.," and was buried in Westminster Abbey. During the later years of 9 2 Victorian Literature Macaulay's life, and for many years after his death, he received the unstinted praise, not only of the great mass of readers, but even of cultured brother authors. Of late years this has changed; a re- action has set in, and perhaps the time has not yet come to assign to him his true place in literature. When Sir George Trevelyan's admirable life of his uncle appeared in 1876, a number of eminent writers based upon that book a criticism of Macaulay's work. Mr. Gladstone wrote in the Quarterly Review, Mr. Leslie Stephen in the Cornhill Magazine, and Mr. John Morley in the Fortnightly Review. In each separate case the review was unfavourable. All alike agreed as to his high qualities as a man; his sincerity, generosity, kindliness, and purity, his love of children, and his brotherly devotion ; but each in turn found matter for censure in his work. One condemned his style, another his Whig partialities, another his boundless optimism, and another his errors of judgment or alleged misstatements of facts. It is true that Macaulay is sometimes inaccurate, that he is not seldom unjust to the characters whom he paints so vividly. It is now a commonplace to say that his history was written, as Carlyle said, " to prove that Providence was on the side of the Whigs." It is clear that he was a man of strong literary prejudices, and he undoubtedly owes much of his popularity to the fact that he expresses in grandly 93 Sixty Years of rhetorical language the average sentiment of his day, its belief in material prosperity, and its de- light in being told that there has been no age of the world so happy as our own. All this is true, and yet it is also true that Macaulay's real services to literature are lost sight of when such an estimate is propounded too harshly. In spite of obvious deficiencies, Macaulay's history is a great work. It fills up a gap in historical literature, and such incidents as the trial of the seven bishops and the siege of Londonderry excel both in picturesqueness and in accuracy. But Macaulay has claims far byond his merits as a historian. The critics who con- demn him so freely seem to have forgotten their own early years. " If I am in the wrong," said Macaulay of his history, " I shall at least have set the minds of others at work." He has set the minds of others at work. What cultivated man or woman lives, with whom Macaulay's writings have not been among the first books read, who has not been made to feel that all the great poetry, and fiction, and history to which he alludes so freely must be well worth careful study? What matter if in after-years we discover that Macaulay was unjust to Bacon the man, and was entirely ignorant of Bacon the philosopher; or understand clearly what he meant by saying that such critiques as Lessing's " Laocoon " " filled him with wonder and 94 Victorian Literature despair "? If we have been encouraged by him to desire a wider knowledge, if we have learnt from him to admire so many great writers, so many famous statesmen, we may surely forgive him much, if indeed there be anything to forgive. Earl Stanhope, who did most of his historical 1805-1875 work when, as an expectant peer, he was known as Lord Mahon, was a great friend of Macaulay's. In 1870 he published a "History of the Reign of Queen Anne," which began at the year 1701, and thus served as a connecting link between Macaulay's history and his own larger work — the " History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht down to the Peace of Versailles (17 13-1783)." The continuation of Earl Stanhope's narrative may be found either in Mr. Lecky's " Eighteenth Century," or in William Nathaniel Massey's " His- i8og-i88i tory of England under George III." Mr. Massey brings us down to the Peace of Amiens in 1801, from which date Harriet Martineau leads us to 1846 in a work (" History of the Peace ") which is quite unworthy of her abilities. The reign of Victoria has been written by many hands, not the least successful being the "History of England, 1830- 1873," of the Rev. "William Nassau Molesworth 1816-1890 of Rochdale, the author also of a " History of the Church of England." Equally popular is the "History of Our Own Time, 1830-189 7," of Justin MacCarthy, who has also written a "History of 1830- 95 Sixty Years of the Four Georges," and many popular novels. Nor must we forget the brilliant literary effort 1811-1891 of Alexander William Kinglake, who, in his " History of the War in the Crimea," has made a younger generation familiar with a struggle in which their fathers took so brave a part. Mr. Kinglake was for some years the Liberal member for Bridgewater. His first literary effort, " Eothen," a volume of travels, is scarcely less popular than his history. By far the most important work, however, on English history, in a period subsequent to that dealt with by Macaulay, is Lecky's " History of England in the Eighteenth Century," a work of great thoroughness and thoughtfulness, the eighth and concluding volume of which was published in 1838- 1890. William Edward Hartpole Lecky, who was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, which he now represents in Parliament, is one of the most bril- liant and suggestive writers of our age. His " Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism," and " European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne," as well as the " History of the Eighteenth Century," are justly popular. It is impossible to enumerate all the important contributions to historical study of the past few years, but the "History of Scotland, from the Invasion of Agricola to the Revolution of 1688," 1809- 1881 by John Hill Burton, and the " Life and Reign of Richard III.," by James Gairdner must not be 96 Victorian Literature forgotten, nor the "History of the War in the Peninsula," by Sir Charles Napier (i 786-1860). Many writers have embodied the main con- clusions of the historians we have named, in brief, but useful, histories for the use of the more advanced schools. The more successful of these are the Rev. James Franck Bright and the late John Richard Green. James Franck Bright is 1832- master of University College, Oxford, and his " English History for the use of Public Schools " is a work so lucidly and carefully written, that it is entitled to be lifted out of the category of mere text- books, and to take rank as good literature. Still more is this true of Green's " Short History of the English People." John Richard Green 1837-1883 was born at Oxford, and educated at Magdalen College School and at Jesus College. For some time he was vicar of St. Philip's, Stepney. His "Short History," published in 1874, was speedily adopted in schools, and had an enormous sale among general readers. It was immediately recognised that a brilliant writer had appeared, one who had assimilated all that was worthy in the work of laborious contemporary historians, had himself made much study of original docu- ments, and had welded all together by the power of real genius. A critic here and there devoted himself to discovering the errors, mainly of dates, which, owing to the illness of the author, disfigured G 97 J Sixty Years of the first edition. But the popular instinct which declared this to be a great work, was a sound one. In the main its conclusions are just. There is not a line of cheap sentiment or rhetorical clap-trap in the book. Mr. Green soon afterwards enlarged his work, and published it in four handsome volumes, which he dedicated to his friends — " My Masters in the Study of English History," — Bishop Stubbs and Professor Freeman. Later on appeared "The Making of England," and, after his decease, another volume, " The Conquest of England," written on his deathbed, was published by his widow, Alice Stopford Green, who has written "Town Life in the Fifteenth Century." Sir Archi- bald Geikie, the geologist, once rendered a tribute to Green for endeavouring to bring geological science to the aid of historical research; but on the question of the Teutonic element in our nation, it has been urged that Green follows his friends, Stubbs and Freeman, all too readily, and ignores the evidence from anthropology in favour of the very great prevalence of Celtic blood in the English-speaking race. I regret that my space will not permit me to write at length of the men who have studied so thoroughly sciences which have so much bearing upon history, and who have written delightful books upon them. I must be content merely to mention the names of William Boyd Dawkins, who 9 8 Victorian Literature has written " Cave-hunting " and " Early Man in Britain ; " and Sir John Lubbock, banker and member of Parliament, who has written " Pre- historic Times" and "The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man," also various books on natural science, and some very inadequate literary essays. Nor must I for- get Edward Burnett Tylor's " Primitive Culture " and "Anthropology," Grant Allen's "Anglo-Saxon Britain," and Edward Clodd's "Childhood of the World," "Childhood of Religion," and "Pioneers of Evolution." From such works as these it is but a very short step to the writings of Max Miiller. Friedrich Max Miiller, son of the 1823- German poet, Wilhelm Miiller, was educated at the University of Leipzig, and made a special study of philosophy in Germany for many years before he came to the land of his adoption, in 1846. Appointed an Oxford professor, first of modern languages and later of comparative philo- logy, a science which he may almost be said to have created, he has become an Englishman both in speech and in writing. Max Miiller's most popular works are his interesting " Lectures on the Science of Language," and his " Chips from a German Workshop," in which he deals not only with the common origin of the world's leading languages, but in a skilful and almost startling manner reconstructs, by the aid of language alone, 99 Sixty Years of the conditions out of which have risen the various religious and social systems of the early nations. The writers who have most prominently followed in Max Mliller's footsteps, as elucidators of primitive religious belief, are Professor Sayce and the Rev. Sir George Cox. Archibald Henry 1846- Sayce, who succeeded Max Miiller in the chair of comparative philology at Oxford, has written numerous books and treatises dealing with the Chaldean and other ancient nations, and has also published an annotated edition of Herodotus, noticeable chiefly for its unfavourable verdict on 1827- the " Father of History." Sir George Cox, whose " Mythology of the Aryan Nations" has pro- voked much adverse criticism from its extreme application of the "Solar" theory to the inter- pretation of myth, epic, and romance, has also written an interesting "History of Greece" in two volumes. The " History of Greece " which may be con- sidered one of the most satisfactory achievements of the Victorian Era, is that by Grote, published in 1794-1871 twelve volumes. George Grote was born at Clay Hill, near Beckenham, and was educated at the Charterhouse School. He early went into the banking-house in Threadneedle Street, of which his father was one of the partners, but found time to devote himself to philosophy and history, and to write for the Westminster Review, the organ of IOO Victorian Literature philosophical Radicalism. It was as a representa- tive of this phase of thought that he was returned as member of Parliament for the city of London in 1833. He sat in the House as one of a small body of philosophical Radicals until 1841, bring- ing forward annually a resolution in favour of the ballot. He retired from Parliamentary life to devote himself more energetically to his " History of Greece," the first two volumes of which ap- peared in 1846 ; the twelfth, and last, which takes us to the death of Alexander the Great, was pub- lished in 1856. During the same years, but un- known to Grote, Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St. 1797-1875 David's, a former schoolfellow of his, was engaged upon the same task. Each acknowledged the superiority of his rival's work, and Grote said that he should never have written his had Thirlwall's book appeared a few years earlier ; but there can be little hesitation in assigning the higher place to Grote. Of Thirlwall it may be said, however, that but for Grote his history would have taken high rank, and would have been a welcome relief from the foolish but once popular work of William Mitford. Thirlwall is also interesting for having translated, in 1825, Schleiermacher's "Essay on St. Luke," and thus first introduced German theo- logy into England. Grote's history is a book of high educational value. In it we have all that is best in Herodotus, Thucydides, and the other IOI Sixty Years of ancient historians, added to the sound and weighty judgment of a clear-sighted modern critic, excep- tionally free from prejudice. It was Grote's great destiny to free the English mind from the errone- ous impressions which had so long prevailed as to the real character of the Athenian democracy, and we cannot find elsewhere a truer or juster picture of Athens at the height of her power. A great work on Greek history in later aspects than those of Grote and Thirlwall is " A History of Greece, from its Conquest by the Romans to the Present 1799-1875 Time," by George Finlay. Finlay fought in the Greek War of Independence, and lived for the greater part of his life in Athens. A number of clergymen besides Dr. Thirlwall have shown an able grasp of classical history. Dr. Arnold wrote a " History of Rome," based on Niebuhr, which, although interesting, is scarcely 1808-1893 worthy of so great a man. Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely, wrote an admirable summary of Roman history from the foundation of the city in B.C. 753 to the fall of Augustulus in a.d. 476 ; but his great work is the " History of the Romans under the Empire," which is indispensable for a thorough 1791-1868 appreciation of Gibbon. Henry Hart Milman, Dean of St. Paul's, did good service to historical scholarship by his edition of Gibbon's pre-eminent work, and by his own " History of the Jews," " History of Christianity under the Empire," and I02 Victorian Literature "Latin Christianity." The nine volumes of this last were called by Dean Stanley " a complete epic and philosophy of mediaeval Christianity." Milman is said to have described himself as " the last learned man in the Church," but in the presence of so eminent a scholar as Mandell Creighton, Bishop 1843- of London, the statement is meaningless. Dr. Creighton's great work, " A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome," is of the highest value in the consecutive study of European history ; and so also is the work of another clergyman, George William Kitchin, Dean 1827- of Durham, whose " History of France previous to the Revolution " is very attractively written. A writer who generalises freely from the facts of history, and whose generalisations were once very popular, and, according to Sir Mackenzie Wallace, are still widely read in Russia, was Henry Thomas Buckle, who published in 1857 the first 1821 -1862 volume of the " History of Civilisation in England ; " a second volume appeared in 1861, but the author died before he had completed his intended under- taking. Buckle unduly emphasises the influence of national and moral laws upon the progress of civil- isation, minimises the influence of individuals, and overlooks the momentous action of heredity. A writer of equal importance with Buckle was John Addington Symonds, whose " Renaissance in 1840-1893 Italy " is a work of great literary merit, and whose 103 Sixty Years of translation of Cellini's " Autobiography " has superseded Roscoe's. Passing from historic Italy to Germany we may note that " The Holy Roman Empire " of James 1838- Bryce created quite a furore as a prize essay at Oxford, and, in its enlarged shape, forms the only English sketch of German history of great literary merit. Mr. Bryce was, some years ago, announced to write a " History of Germany " of more formidable dimensions, but the glamour of parliamentary life and a seat in the Cabinet have robbed us of a capable historian. Although we are without a satisfactory German history we possess two very solid contributions to such a work. With one of these, Carlyle's "Frederick II.," I shall deal 1834-1895 later ; the other is Sir John Robert Seeley's " Life and Times of Stein ; or, Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age." When this work appeared it was received with high commendation in Ger- many, but in England with the qualification that it had none of the literary charm of the author's earlier efforts. To such criticism Professor Seeley ■ — he received the professorship of modern history at Cambridge on Kingsley's resignation in 1869 — replied in a series of papers entitled " History and Politics," wherein he practically contended that it was the business of historians to be dull, and that brilliant history- writing was, as a matter of fact, little other than fiction. Still, in his lectures on 104 Victorian Literature "The Expansion of England" (1883) and "A Short History of Napoleon " (1886) he succeeded in making himself entirely interesting. The books which gave Sir John Seeley his greatest fame — he received a knighthood in 1893 — were not, however, historical, but, in a sense, theo- logical • and with him we find ourselves in the midst of the great religious controversies of the reign. " Ecce Homo ; a Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ," was published anonymously in 1865. While censured on many sides on account of its alleged heterodoxy, it drew from opponents unstinted admiration on account of its perfect literary workmanship. One of these opponents was Mr. Gladstone, who ventured the prophecy that the author would at a later period write something from a more orthodox standpoint. The prediction was not verified, for in 1882 a further work, "Natural Religion," by the Author of " Ecce Homo," showed still less sympathy with the supernatural side of religion. Mr. Gladstone, who flung himself into this as into so many other controversies, has a fame quite apart from any literary achievement. But whatever posterity may say of his influence on the destinies of the nation which he has helped for so many years to rule, it is certain that his powers as an author would have made the reputation of a man of less versatility. 105 Sixty Years of 1809- William Ewart Gladstone, the son of a Lanca- shire merchant, was born at Liverpool. Into his political career it is not my province to enter. His first literary work, " The State in its Relations with the Church," was made famous through a review by Macaulay. Later in life he indulged in theological controversy, publishing an " Essay on Ritualism " and " The Vatican Decrees." Mr. Gladstone's chief work is, however, his "Studies in Homer," in which he argues for the unity of the poem, for the foundation in fact of its main incidents, and for the definite personal- ity of the author. His contributions to periodical literature have been innumerable, and only a few — and those non-controversial and non-classical — have been republished in his five volumes of " Gleanings." Mr. Gladstone's chief opponent in theological controversy, Cardinal Newman, has profoundly influenced his religious views. "In my opinion," wrote Mr. Gladstone many years after Newman had become a Roman Catholic, " his secession from the Church of England has never yet been estimated among us at anything like the full amount of its calamitous importance. It has been said that the world does not know its greatest men ; neither, I will add, is it aware of the power and weight carried by the words and the acts of those among its greatest men whom it does know. The ecclesiastical historian will perhaps hereafter 106 Victorian Literature judge that this secession was a much greater event even than the partial secession of John Wesley, the only case of personal loss suffered by the Church of England since the Reformation which can be at all compared with it in magnitude." John Henry Newman was born in London, and 1 801-1890 educated at a private school at Ealing and at Trinity College, Oxford. Inclined at first to the liberal Christianity which men like Whately and Milman were furthering among churchmen, he was, he says, "rudely awakened by two great blows — illness and bereavement ; " and he devoted himself to a life-long opposition to what he has called " the great apostasy — liberalism in religion." "My battle," he writes, " was with liberalism; by liberalism I mean the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments." From 1828 to 1843 ne ne ^ the incumbency of St. Mary's Church, Oxford, and the influence which he then exerted was of the deepest moment for the future of religious life in England. " Who," says Matthew Arnold, himself, like his father before him, one of the leaders of the movement which Newman has hated so intensely, " who could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon light through the aisles of St. Mary's, rising into the pulpit, and then, in the most entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were a religious music — subtle, 107 Sixty Years of sweet, mournful? I seem to hear him still, say- ing : ' After the fever of life, after wearinesses and sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and succeeding; after all the changes and chances of this troubled, un- healthy state, — at length comes death, at length the white throne of God, at length the beatific vision.' " During these years at St. Mary's what is called the Tractarian movement sprang to life — a movement, as we have said, against Broad-Church- ism. It was at the beginning of the movement, on his way home from Sicily in 1833, whilst pondering over the difficulties of the task he had undertaken, that Newman wrote the hymn " Lead, kindly Light," which is now as popular in the most advanced and liberalised churches as it can be in those nearest to its author's religious standpoint. The " Tracts for the Times," whence Tractarians derived their name, were written by Newman, Hurrell, Froude, Pusey, and others. Bishop Bloomfield said that the whole movement was nothing but Newmania. The writers argued, now in short papers, now in elaborate treatises, for the Divine mission of the Anglican Church. Not till " Tract XC." was reached did the alarm of the Protestant party manifest itself in any practical form. In that Tract Newman declared that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles was not inconsistent with the acceptance of Roman Catholic teaching on 108 Victorian Literature purgatory, on the invocation of saints, and on the mass. The Hebdomadal Council of the University condemned the Tract. Two years later Newman resigned his position at St. Mary's, and in 1845 formally joined the Church of Rome. According to Disraeli, Anglicanism " reeled under the shock," and Dean Stanley remarked to a friend that the fortunes of the English Church might have been very differ- ent " had Newman been able to read German." x In 1848 he was appointed head of the Birming- ham Oratory, and there he resided — with one short break as rector of the Roman Catholic University at Dublin — for nearly forty years. In 1 879 he was created a cardinal, and his visit to Rome and in- stallation as a Prince of the Sacred College excited much attention in England. Although by tempera- ment and inclination one of the least combative and most retiring of men, Cardinal Newman found himself again and again in the thick of the argu- mentative fray. At one time he was involved in a libel action by an ex-priest and ultra- Protestant lecturer named Father Achilli, and this cost New- man and his friends twelve thousand pounds ; at another time he was arguing with the foremost English statesman, Mr. Gladstone, as to the prob- able loyalty of English Roman Catholics if the Papacy and the English Government were brought into collision. In one great controversy of his life 1 " Memoirs of Mark Pattison." IO9 Sixty Years of he was generally admitted to have achieved a suc- cess, and this success is associated with an endur- ing literary work, the autobiography which he calls his " Apologia pro Vita Sua." Reviewing Froude's "History of England" in Macmillan 's Magazine (January 1864), Charles Kingsley charged New- man with being careless about truth, and with teaching that cunning and not truth-seeking was the acceptable method of the Roman Catholic clergy. Brought to bay by Newman, Kingsley contra- dicted himself in an amazing fashion, and even the most enthusiastic Protestants were compelled to admit that the clever novelist was no match for the trained dialectician. Mrs. Kingsley, in her charming life of her husband, practically admits that he was worsted in the conflict, and J. A. Froude, his brother-in-law, wrote : " Kingsley entirely misunderstood Newman's character. Newman's whole life had been a struggle for truth. He had neglected his own interests ; he had never thought of them at all. He had brought to bear a most powerful and subtle intellect to support the con- victions of a conscience which was superstitiously sensitive. His single object had been to discover what were the real relations between man and his Maker, and to shape his own conduct by the con- clusions at which he arrived. To represent such a person as careless of truth was neither generous nor even reasonable." no Victorian Literature The final outcome of the controversy was the publication of the " Apologia," a work which, alike in beauty of style and devotion of spirit, must be assigned a very high place in religious literature. My space is too limited to pass in review, or even to name, the thirty-six volumes which contain the writings of this eloquent preacher and teacher. His " Dream of Gerontius " and " Verses on Various Occasions" show his high qualities as a poet; his "Apologia," " Callista," and "Essay in aid of the Grammar of Assent," display his genius as a prose stylist. In " Callista : a Sketch of the Third Century," he pictures a beautiful Greek girl, who becomes a convert to Christianity after a severe struggle between human affection and religious faith. The " Grammar of Assent " is an apology for Christianity, far above the narrow controversies in which the author took so distinguished a part. The question whether Cardinal Newman or Carlyle has been the most influential personality in Victorian literature will be largely decided by the temperament of the critic. Mr. Swinburne, looking at them both from a standpoint of anta- gonism to the priestly proclivities of the one and to the tyrannical proclivities of the other, apostrophised them jointly in the well-known lines : — III Sixty Years of " With all our hearts we praise you whom ye hate, High souls that hate us ; for our hopes are higher, And higher than yours the goal of our desire, Though high your ends be as your hearts are great." Newman, indeed, left England more dominated by ritual than in any other period of its history, the Roman Church more powerful than ever be- fore, the new High Church party in the Establish- ment a great institution, with the rival Prime Ministers, Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury, among its supporters, and a taste for ritual con- spicuous in the chapels of the Nonconformists. And yet with all this Carlyle was the more dominant personality. 1 795-1 88 1 Thomas Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, on the 4th of December, 1795. His father was a stonemason, at whose death Carlyle thus tenderly wrote in his Diary : — "I owe him much more than existence. I owe him a noble inspiring example. It was he exclusively that determined on educating me ; that from his small hard-earned funds sent me to school and college, and made me whatever I am and may become. Let me not mourn for my father, let me do worthily of him. So shall he still live, even here in me, and his worth plant itself honourably forth into new generations." From Annan Gram- mar School the young Carlyle went to Edinburgh University, where he became a voracious reader, 112 Victorian Literature although never a great classical scholar. He then took the post of mathematical tutor at Annan school, and afterwards at Kirkcaldy, where he was friendly with Edward Irving, afterwards the famous preacher. Disgusted with this life he flung up his appointment, and determined to study for the law. For some time he eked out a scanty subsistence in Edinburgh by writing biographies for Brewster's Encyclopedia. It was at this period that he obtained some measure of mental and moral stimulus from his German studies. Goethe opened a new world to him. He began to study German in 1819, induced thereto by Madame de StaeTs interesting account of the German poets and philosophers. Goethe was seventy- five years old when in 1824 he received from Carlyle an English translation of " Wilhelm Meister," with a letter, saying, " Four years ago, when I read your < Faust ' among the mountains of my native Scotland, I could not but fancy I might one day see you, and pour out before you, as before a father, the woes and wanderings of a heart whose mysteries you seemed so thoroughly to comprehend, and could so beautifully represent." Two years later Carlyle sent Goethe his " Life of Schiller," and once again he expressed his intense devotion to one " whose voice came to me from afar, with counsel and help, in my utmost need." " For if," he continues, " I have been delivered H 113 Sixty Years of from darkness into any measure of light, if I know aught of myself and my destination, it is to the study of your writings more than to any other circumstance that I owe this ; it is you more than any other man that I should always thank and reverence with the feeling of a disciple to his Master, nay, of a son to his spiritual Father." In the meantime Carlyle had married Jane Welsh, the daughter of a doctor in Haddington, and had settled at the lonely farm-house of Craigenputtock, in Dumfriesshire. There he was visited by Emer- son, and there he remained for six years, before removing to London. Not only had Carlyle then translated " Wilhelm Meister " and written the " Life of Schiller," but he had made numerous translations from Musseus, Tieck, and Richter, and had pub- lished essays on these and other German authors. Jean Paul Richter had a peculiar attraction for him, and there can be no doubt that Carlyle owed his extraordinary style, in some degree, to his study of the German humorist. The forty-seven years of Carlyle's London life (1834-1881) were years of incessant literary activity. The thirty volumes which came from his pen dur- ing that time not only secured for him a permanent place amongst the historians, biographers, and essayists of our literature, but they kindled for him a glow of intense personal enthusiasm amongst the best of his contemporaries, such as, perhaps, no II 4 Victorian Literature other English author has enjoyed. At his death on the 5 th of February, 1881, the world knew Carlyle, apart from his books, as a man of simple tastes, content, in spite of the wealth which literary success had brought, to reside amidst unostenta- tious surroundings, ever ready to help the dis- tressed and needy, refusing a title and the like official recognitions, and carrying out to the letter the reverence, earnestness, and unobtrusive manli- ness which he had inculcated in his writings ; de- votedly attached to his wife, whom he described on her tombstone as having " unweariedly forwarded him as none else could, in all of good that he did or attempted ; " and, in short, worthy of the address presented to him on his eightieth birthday, by nearly all the men of literary and scientific eminence in England, including, amongst others, Lord Tenny- son and George Eliot, Robert Browning and Pro- fessor Huxley. " A whole generation has elapsed," they said, " since you described for us the hero as a man of letters. We congratulate you and our- selves on the spacious fulness of years which has enabled you to sustain this rare dignity amongst mankind in all its possible splendour and com- pleteness." The publication of Mr. Froude's nine volumes of memorials caused a considerable revulsion of feeling. The Carlyle of these "Letters" and "Reminiscences" appeared to be over-censorious in his estimate of his contem- "5 Sixty Years of poraries, not too considerate in his relations with his wife, and, however admirable he might find contentment in Richter or Heine, not content without much murmuring to accept a life of re- stricted means. To give too much emphasis to this view of Carlyle's character is to ignore certain peculiarities of Mr. Froude's biographical and historical style, to which reference has already been made. It will suffice to point out here that there are other sources of information about Carlyle than the books of his accredited biographer. Sir Henry Taylor, Mrs. Oliphant, Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, Mrs. Gilchrist, and other friends of Carlyle's later life have published much additional matter, and have shown, as it were, the other side of the shield. To Sir Henry Taylor, who knew him well, he seemed "the most faithful and true-hearted of men," and from many sources we learn that Mr. Froude's picture is not that of the true Carlyle; that he was not a selfish husband, that his married life was not unhappy, that he was not altogether dumb to the heroes living, whilst eloquent over heroes dead, and that, in spite of many faults, he was a noble high-minded man, a "kingly soul," as Longfellow called him. Writing in his Diary during his second visit to England in 1847, Emerson says : — " Carlyle and his wife live on beautiful terms. Their ways are very engaging, and in her Il6 Victorian Literature bookcase all his books are inscribed to her as they came from year to year, each with some significant lines." The letters which Carlyle wrote to his wife at the time she lost her mother are most touchingly affectionate. This is what she wrote to a friend at that time : — "In great matters he is always kind and considerate, but these little attentions which we women attach so much importance to, he was never in the habit of rendering to anyone. And, now, the desire to replace the irreplaceable makes him as good in little things as he used to be in great." And to Carlyle himself she writes : — " God keep you, my dear husband, and bring you safe back to me. The house looks very desolate without you, and my mind feels empty too. I expect, with impatience, the letter that is to fix your return." On another occasion, writing to her husband's mother, she says : — " You have others behind and I have only him — only him in the whole wide world to love me and take care of me — poor little wretch that I am. Not but that numbers of people love me, after their fashion, far more than I de- serve, but then his fashion is so different from theirs, and seems alone to suit the crotchety creature that I am." And then her pride in her husband is well exemplified by an experience re- lated in a letter to him, which shows also how 117 Sixty Years of wide and deep is that mysterious impersonal in- fluence of great authors on men who are totally unknown to them : — " A man of the people mounted the platform and spoke; a youngish, intelligent-looking man, who alone, of all the speakers, seemed to understand the question, and to have feelings as well as notions about it. He spoke with a heart- eloquence that left me warm. I never was more affected by public speaking. . . . A sudden thought struck me : this man would like to know you. I would give him my address in London. I borrowed a piece of paper and handed him my address. When he looked at it he started as if I had sent a bullet into him, caught my hand, and said, ' Oh, it is your husband ! Mr. Carlyle has been my teacher and master ! I have owed everything to him for years and years ! ' I felt it a credit to you really to have had a hand in turning out this man, was prouder of that heart-tribute to your genius than any amount of reviewers' praises or aristocratic invitations to dinner." It is because the spirit which breathes in the words of this young workman has been the guiding moral force of numbers of men and women in all stations of life, during the last sixty years, that I have devoted so much space to Carlyle. It is of the greatest importance to literature that the man whose eloquent preaching of justice, sincerity, and reverence has turned the hearts of thousands of 118 Victorian Literature his fellowmen towards nobility and simplicity of life, should not himself have been out of harmony with all that he taught. "The world," says Thackeray's gifted daughter, "has pointed its moral finger of late at the old man in his great old age, accusing himself in the face of all, and confessing the overpowering irritations which the suffering of a lifetime had laid upon him and upon her he loved. That old caustic man of deepest feeling, with an ill-temper and a tender heart, and a racking imagination, speaking from the grave, and bearing unto it that cross of passionate remorse which few among us dare to face, seems to some of us now a figure nobler and truer, a teacher greater far than in the days when all his pain and love and remorse were still hidden from us all." 1 Of the " Reminiscences " which excited so much criticism on account of their references to persons still living, Carlyle wrote on the last page : — "I still mainly mean to burn this book before my own departure, but feel that I shall always have a kind of grudge to do it, and an indolent excuse. ' Not yet ; wait, any day that can be done ! ' and that it is possible the thing may be left behind me, legible to interested survivors — friends only, I will hope, and with worthy curiosity, not ^^worthy ! In which event, I solemnly forbid them, each and all, to publish this bit of writing as it stands here, and 1 Mrs. Thackeray-Ritchie, Harper's Magazine (1883). 119 Sixty Years of warn them that without fit editing no part of it should be printed (nor so far as I can order shall ever be), and that the ' fit editing' of perhaps nine-tenths of it will, after I am gone, have become impossible." x The only editing which Mr. Froude deemed " fit " was the omission of this paragraph from his edition of the work. And yet to read, with the " worthy curiosity " of which he speaks, of his love for father and wife, and of his kindly solicitude for brothers and sisters, whom he constantly assisted, is to make him nearer and dearer to those who care to remember that he was after all but human. Carlyle spoke with too little kindness, it must be owned, of Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and Lamb, because he saw only the palpable weaknesses of their characters, and was blinded by forbidding externals to the sterling worth of these great men ; but he loved Emerson, and Tennyson, and Ruskin, and he profoundly revered Goethe, who, after all, was the only one of his contemporaries who could take rank anywhere near him. 2 Carlyle recognised that Goethe was incomparably his 1 " Reminiscences," by Thomas Carlyle. 2nd Edition. Edited by C. 3. Norton (1887). 2 When George Eliot read Carlyle's eulogy on Emerson in introducing his essays to the British public, she wrote : — " I have shed many tears over it : this is a world worth abid- ing in while one man can thus venerate and love another." — Cross's Mangan, James Clarence, 34. Manning, Anne. Author of ' Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell,' 72. Manning, Cardinal. A disputant for Roman Catholicism ; books and sermons of theological in- terest only ; his ' Life ' caused much controversy, 169. Mansel, Henry Longueville. A vigorous defender of the Angli- can position ; ' The Limits of Religious Thought'; 'Meta- physics, or the Philosophy of Consciousness, Phenomenal and Real ' ; a skilful fighter, 169. 'Manual of Political Economy' (Fawcett's), 142. 'Marcian Colonna/ 36. 'Marie Bashkirtseff's Diary/ 190. ' Marie de Meranie/ 38. ' Marius the Epicurean/ 171. ' Marmorne/ 171. Marryat, Captain Frederick. 'Frank Mildmay'; 'Mr. Mid- shipman Easy' ; 'Peter Simple ' ; editor of Metropolitan Magazine; appreciated by Carlyle and , Ruskin, 66-67. Marsh, Mrs. Author of ' The I 2l6 Admiral's Daughter ' and ' The Deformed/ 71. Marshall, Alfred. Author of 'Economics of Industry' and ' Principles of Economics/ 143. Marston, John Westland. Author of ' Strathmore/ ' Marie de Meranie/ and ' A Hard Struggle,' 38. Marston, Philip Bourke. Pub- lished ' Song Tide and Other Poems/ 'All in All/ and ' Ward Voices/ 39. Martin, Sir Theodore. 'Life of the late Prince Consort/ 190; ' Book of Ballads ' ; ' Memoir of Aytoun ' ; ' Life of Lord Lyndhurst ' ; translated the Odes of Horace ; ' The Vita Nuova'; 'Faust'; and Heine's 'Poems and Ballads'; ' Sketch of the Life of Princess Alice/ 191. Martineau, Harriet. ' History of the Peace/ 95 ; Abridgment of Comte; influence upon her own generation ; very versatile writer ; her ' Biographical Sketches ' originally published in Daily News, 180; her his- torical work mere compilation ; ' Deerbrook ' ; ' The Hour and the Man'; 'Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development/ 181. Martineau, James. Early career, 166; a supporter of Bentham's philosophy ; finally a believer in Kantian metaphysics; as Theist and Unitarian ; his re- lations with his sister Harriet ; ' Endeavour after the Christian Life ' ; ' Hours of Thought on Sacred Things ' ; ' Study of Index 'Spinoza'; 'Types of Ethical Theory/ 167. 'Martyrs of Science/ 150. ' Mary Barton/ 71. ' Mary Tudor/ 33. ' Masks and Faces/ 58. Massey, Gerald. Chartist poet. Wrote ' Poems and Charms ' and ' Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love/ &c, 37. Massey, William Nathaniel. ' His- tory of England under George III./ 95. Masson, David. ' Life of Milton ' ; 'British Novelists and their Styles'; ' Drummond of Haw- thornden/ 177. ' Master of Ballantrae, The/ 60. 'Maud/ 10. ' Maude/ 22. Maurice, John Frederick Denison. Son of a Unitarian minister; editor of the Athenaum ; joined the Anglican Church, 163; 'Subscription no Bondage'; 'Kingdom of Christ' tracts; joint authorship with Kingsley and Hughes of ' Politics for the People ' ; organised the Chris- tian socialist and co-operative movement ; preference to social rather than theological prob- lems, 164. Maxse, Admiral, 62. May, Sir Thomas Erskine. Con- tinued the work of Hallam and Stubbs, 79 ; ' Democracy in Europe'; 'Constitutional His- tory/ 80. Melbourne, Lord, and Macaulay, 91. ' Melincourt/ 62. Melville, George John Whyte. | 21 The novelist of the hunting field ; ' Katerfelto ' ; ' Black but Comely'; 'The Queen's Maries ' ; ' The Gladiators/ 59. ' Memoir of Principal Tulloch/ 74. ' Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, The/ 45- 'Memorials of Canterbury/ 161. ' Men and Women/ 12. 'Mental and Moral Science/ 147. ' Mental Evolution in Animals/ 157- Meredith, George. Began his literary career with a volume of poems; 'Love in a Valley/ 60; 'The Browning of Novel- ists'; his audience among cul- tured and thoughtful people ; ' The Shaving of Shagpat ' ; ' Farina ' ; ' The Ordeal of Richard Feverel ' considered his best novel ; ' Evan Harrington ' ; ' Rhoda Fleming ' ; ' The Ad- ventures of Harry Richmond ' ; ' Beauchamp's Career ' ; ' The Egoist'; 'The Tragic Come- dians'; 'Diana of the Cross- ways ' ; Stevenson's admiration of The Egoist/ 61 ; ' Sandra Belloni/ 62. Meredith, George, and Rossetti, 24. Merivale, Charles. 'History of the Romans under the Empire/ 102. 'Metaphysics, or the Philosophy of Consciousness, Phenomenal and Real,' 169. Methodism and Carlyle, $i. 'Methods of Ethics/ 143. Metropolitan Magazine, The, 67. ' Micawber/ the prototype of the elder Dickens, 42. 7 Index 'Middle Ages' (Hallam's), 77. ' Middlemarch/ 50. Mill, James. ' History of India'; ' Analysis of the Human Mind/ 137- Mill, John Stuart. Ruskin's scorn of; education, 137; in- fluence of Wordsworth; the India House ; Westminster Re- view ; Carlyle's ' French Revolu- tion/ 138; marriage; his ex- aggerated opinion of his wife ; ' Political Economy ' ; ' Liberty ' ; ' Subjection of Women ' ; con- temporary opinion of Mrs. Mill, 139; 'Logic'; 'Essays on Un- settled Questions in Political Economy ' ; 'Principles of Poli- tical Economy' ; ' Liberty ' ; ' Sir William Hamilton's Philoso- phy' ; ' Dissertations and Dis- cussions '; 'Considerations on Representative Government ' ; character ; a stimulator of pub- lic opinion, 140; his philosophi- cal weaknesses, 141-142 ; aban- donment of early positions; ' Autobiography ' ; a socialist at the last, 142. ' Mill on the Floss, The/ 50. Millais, Sir John, and the pre- Raphaelite movement, 23. Miller, Hugh, 151. Journalist; The Witness ; 'Old Red Sand- stone ' ; ' Footprints of the Creator ' ; ' The Testimony of the Rocks/ 152. Milman, Henry Hart. ' Gibbon's Rome'; ' History of the Jews '; ' History of Christianity under the Empire/ 102 ; ' Latin Chris- tianity ' ; Dean Stanley's appre- ciation, 103. 21* 'Milton, Masson's Life of/ 177. ' Ministering Children/ 73. Minor Poet, The, of our era, 31. ' Mirandola/ 36. Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. G. H. Lewes ; their application of the ' Doctrine of Evolution to Thought/ 147. ' Mr. Midshipman Easy,' 67. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures/ 187. 'Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles/ 71. Mivart, St. George, 151. ' Modern ' essays, 172. 'Modern Painters/ 130, 132. Molesworth, Rev. William Nassau. ' History of England, 1830- 1873 ' ; ' History of the Church of England,' 95. * Moliere/ 74. 'Money/ 56. ' Monks of St. Mark, The/ 62. ' Monograph on Charlotte Bronte/ 183. Monthly Magazine, The, 42. ' Moonstone, The/ 69. Moore, Thomas. The pioneer of the ' Celtic Renaissance ' ; ' Irish Melodies/ 33 ; ' Lalla Rookh ' ; ' Life of Byron/ 34. 'More Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands/ 192. 'More Worlds than One,' 150. Morison, James Cotter. Biogra- pher of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Macaulay; 'The Service of Man/ 180. Morley, John. Antagonist of 'Supernatural Christianity'; a gifted biographer and journalist; editor of Morning Star, Literary Gazette, Fortnightly Review, Pall Mall Gazette, and Macmillan's Index Magazine ; M. P. for Newcastle- on-Tyne ; editor of ' English Men of Letters Series ' ; ' Life of Burke ' ; influence on thought- ful young men at the universi- ties, 181 ; lives of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot ; ' Life of Cobden'; his essay 'On Com- promise ' probably the most exhaustive treatment of the question, 182. Morley, John, and Macaulay, 93. Morning Chronicle, The, 42. Morning Star, 181. Morris, Sir Lewis. Wrote ' Songs of Two Worlds ' ; ' Epic of Hades ' ; ' A Vision of Saints/ &c, 26. Morris, William. Connection with Rossetti, 23; versatility of his genius ; ' Dream of John Ball ' ; ' News from Nowhere,' 24 ; ' Defence of Guenevere ' ; ' Life and Death of Jason'; 'The Earthly Paradise,' 25. Moulton, Mrs. Chandler, 39. Miiller, Friedrich Max. Wilhelm Muller ; education ; philosophi- cal studies ; Oxford professor- ship ; ' Lectures on the Science of Language ' ; ' Chips from a German Workshop,' 99; early religious systems, 100. Mulock, Dinah. ' John Halifax, Gentleman,' her best and most successful book, 72. ' Munera Pulveris,' 133. Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey. Geologist; popularity of his ' Siluria,' 152. Murray, Dr. John, 155. 'My Beautiful Lady,' 23. *My Cousin Nicholas,' 30. Myers, Ernest, 173. Myers, Frederick William Henry. ' Saint Paul ' ; his ' Classical ' and 'Modern' critical essays full of delightful ideas ; bio- graphy of Wordsworth, 172. ' Mythology of the Aryan Nations,' Nansen, Dr., 186. 'Napoleon, A Short History of,' 105. ' National and Historical Ballads, Songs and Poems,' 34. National Reformer, The, and ' The City of Dreadful Night,' 32. 'Natural History,' 153. ' Natural Religion,' J05. ' Naturalist's Voyage round the World, A,' 155. ' Nelson Memorial, The,' 6. 'Nemesis of Faith,' 84. ' Never Too Late to Mend,' 58. ' New Arabian Nights, The,' 60. ' Newcomes, The,' 45. ' New Magdalen, The,' 69. Newman, Francis William . Brother of Cardinal Newman, but hold- ing opposite religious views ; 'The Soul,' ' Theism,' ' Phases of Faith,' 170, 171. Newman, Francis, and George Eliot, 49. Newman, John Henry. Early re- ligious tendencies; 'My Battle with Liberalism,' 107; Matthew Arnol d's description of Newman, 107-10S ; Tractarian movement; 'Lead Kindly Light'; 'Tracts for the Time'; Tract XC, 108- 109 ; joins Church of Rome ; Birmingham oratory; created Cardinal ; installed as Prince of 119 Index the Sacred College ; Father Achilli, 109; 'Apologia pro Vita Sua ' ; Kingsley's attack and defeat, iio-in ; Froude on Newman's character, u ' Dream of Gerontius ' ; ' Verses on Various Occasions/ in 'Callista'; 'A Sketch of the Third Century'; 'Essay in Aid of the Grammar of Assent,' in; Swinburne's ' Apostrophe'; Newman's influence on England and her Prime Ministers, 112. ' New Poems,' 22. ' News from Nowhere/ 24. ' Nicholas Nickleby/ 42. ' Nightmare Abbey/ 62. ' Night Side of Nature, The/ 72. Noitconformist, The, and Spencer, 145- 'North and South/ 71. Norton, Mrs. Author of ' Stuart of Dunleath ' and ' Lost and Saved ' ; now lives mainly in ' Diana of the Crossways ' ; the ' Byron of Poetesses/ 72. Novelists and journalism, 186- 187. Novelists of the Era : — Ainsworth, W. H., 67. Alexander, Mrs., 74. A. L. O. E., 73. Barrie, J. M., 63. Besant, Sir W., 65. Black, W., 68. Blackmore, R. D., 69. Braddon, Miss, 74. Bronte, Anne, 48. Bronte, Charlotte, 46. Bronte, Emily, 47. Broughton, Miss R., 74. Carleton, W., 66. Carroll, Lewis, 64. Novelists of the Era (continued)- Charles, Mrs., 73. Charlesworth, Miss M. L., 7^. Clifford, Mrs. W. K., 74. Clive, Mrs. Archer, 72. Craik, Mrs., 72. Crowe, Mrs., 71. Collins, W. W., 69. Corelli, Miss M., 74. Dickens, C, 42. Disraeli, B., 57. Doyle, Conan, 63. Eliot, George, 49. Ewing, Mrs., 73. Fullerton, Lady G., 72. Gaskell, Mrs., 71. Hardy, T., 68. Hope, Anthony, 63. James, G. P. R., 67. Kavanagh, Miss J., 72. Kingsley, C, 53. Kingsley, H., 55. Kingston, W. H. G., 67. Le Fanu, J. S., 66. Lever, C, 66. Linton, Mrs. Lynn, 74. Lyall, Edna, 74. Lytton, E. B., 56. MacDonald, G., 63. Macquoid, Mrs., 74. Malet, L., 74. Manning, Anne, 72. Marry at, Captain F., 66. Marsh, Mrs., 71. Melville, G. J. W., 59. Meredith, G., 59. Mulock, Miss D., 72. Norton, Mrs., 72. Oliphant, Mrs., 74. Ouida, 74. Peacock, T. L., 62. Pemberton, Max, 67. "Q-",6 3 . 220 Index Novelists of the Era {continued) — Reade, C, 57. Rice, J., 65. Schreiner, Miss O., 74. Sergeant, Miss A., 74. Shorthouse, J. H., 64. Stevenson, R. L., 59. Stretton, Mrs., 72. Thackeray, W. M., 44. Trollope, A., 57. Tucker, Miss C. M., 73. Ward, Mrs. H., 74. Warren, S., 70. Weyman, S., 63. Wood, Mrs. H., 70. Yonge, Miss C, 74. Odes of Horace (Martin's trans- lation), 191. ' Old Arm Chair, The/ 29. ' Old Curiosity Shop, The,' 42. < Old English History,' 81. ' Old Red Sandstone/ 152. ' Old St. Paul's/ 67. ' Old Stoic, The/ 47. Oliphant, Mrs. Type of the age, alike in her versatility and lack of thoroughness ; wrote bio- graphy, criticism, and every form of prose ; ' Makers of Florence ' ; ' Life of Edward Irving ' ; ' History of Eighteenth Century Literature ' ; ' Memoir of Principal Tulloch ' ; ' Cer- vantes ' ; ' Moliere ' ; ' Dress ' ; neither a good critic nor a very accurate student ; her fame will have to rest on her novels, 74 ; ' Salem Chapel ' has been com- pared to ' Silas Marner ' ; ' Pas- sages in the Life of Margaret Maitland ' her first novel ; * The Lady's Walk' the last; with more concentration her genius would have given her an endur- ing place in English fiction, 75. ' Oliver Twist,' 42. ' Omar Khayyam/ 35. ' On Compromise/ 182. ' Onesimus/ 165. 1 On the Divinity of Jesus Christ/ 167. ' On the Proper Sphere of Govern- ment/ 145. * On the Structure and Motion of Glaciers/ 151. ' Ordeal of Richard Feverel/ 61. ' Order and Progress/ 179. ' Origin of Civilization,' 99. ' Origin of Species/ 156. ' Orion/ 36. O'Shaughnessy, Arthur. Wrote ' Epic of Women and other Poems/ 39. Ouida, 74. Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, The, 23. Palgrave, Francis Turner. Editor of the ' Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics/ 81. Palgrave, Sir Francis. Wrote ' History of Normandy and England/ 81. Pall Mall Gazette, 181, 188. ' Palmyra/ 62. ' Paper Money Lyrics and other Poems/ 62. ' Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician/ 70. ' Passages in the Life of Margaret Maitland/ 75. ' Past and Present,' 123. Pater, Walter. 'A great Critic'; ' Marius the Epicurean ' ; ' Ima- ginary Portraits'; 'the most 221 Index rhythmical of English prose writers ' ; ' Renaissance ' ; • Ap- preciations/ 171. Patmore, Coventry. ' The Poet of Domestic Bliss ' ; ' Angel in the House'; not always sincere, 31 ; ' Unknown Eros,' 32. Pattison, Mark. ' Essays and Reviews ' ; ' The Tendencies of Religious Thought in England ' ; ' Assistance in the Tractarian Movement ' ; final acceptance of ' Liberalism ' ; Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; a profound scholar; 'Life of Isaac Casaubon,' 163. ' Paul Ferrell,' 72. ' Pauline,' 13. Payn, James. Editor Cornhill Magazine; his ' Lost Sir Massing- berd ' ; 'By Proxy ' the most popular of his novels, 189. Peacock, Thomas Love. Influence of, on Meredith; 'The Monks of St. Mark'; 'Palmyra'; 'Headlong Hall'; 'Melin- court ' ; ' Nightmare Abbey ' ; ' Maid Marion ' ; ' Crotchet Castle ' ; ' Paper Money Lyrics and other Poems,' 62 ; * Gryll Grange ' ; his relations with other famous men, 63. ' Peg Woffington,' 58. ' Pelham,' 56. Pemberton, Max, 63. ' Pendennis/ 45. ' Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined, The,' 164. ' Peter Simple,' 67. ' Phantasmion,' 35. ' Phases of Faith,' 170, 171. ' Philip Van Artevelde/ 27. ' Philochristus,' 165. 2 * Philosophy of Kant,' 170. ' Physics and Politics/ 184. ' Physiography/ 158. ' Pickwick Papers/ influence of eighteenth century humorists marked in, 4.1 ; first appearance of, 42. ' Pioneers of Evolution/ 99. ' Poems and Charms/ 37. ' Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell/ 47. ' Poems ' by George Meredith, 60, 62. ' Poems,' by Matthew Arnold, 20. ' Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect/ yi- Poets of the Era : — Arnold, M., 17-21. Arnold, Sir Edwin, 26. Austin, A., 39. Bailey, P. J., 28. Banim, J., 34. Banim, M., 34. Barham, R. H., 30. Barnes, W., 37. Beddoes, T. L., 36. Browning, Mrs., 14- 1 5. Browning, Robert, 13-14. Calverly, C. S., 30. Clough, A. H., 2i. Coleridge, H, 35. Coleridge, Sara, 35. Cook, Eliza, 29. Cooper, T., 37. Davies, T., 34. De Vere, T. A., 33. Dobell, S.. 31. Dobson, A., 30. Dufferin, Lady, 34. Elliott, E., 37. Ferguson, Sir S., 34. FitzGerald, E., 34. Hawker, R. S., 38. 22 Index Poets of the Era {continued) — Hood,^., 29. Home, R. H., 36. Ingelow, Jean, 29. Jones, E., 37. Kipling, R., 40. Landor, W. S., 15-16. Lang, A., 30. Lover, S., 34. Mangan, J. C, 34. Marston, J. W., 39. Marston, P. B., 40. Massey, G., 37. Moore, T., 33. Morris, Sir Lewis, 25. Morris, William, 24-26. O'Shaughnessy, A., 40. Patmore, C, 31. Procter, A. A., 36. Procter, B. W., 35. Rossetti, Christina, 22. Rossetti, Dante G., 22-23. Rossetti, Maria Francesca, 22. Smith, A., 31. Southey, R., 5-7. Swinburne, A. C, 16-17. Taylor, Sir Henry, 28. Tennyson, A., 10-13. Thomson, J., 32. Tupper, M. F., 27. Watson, W., 40. Woolmer, T, 23. Wordsworth, 47-49. 1 Political Destiny of Canada, The,' 185. 'Political Economy' (Fawcett's), 142. 'Political Economy' (Mill's), 139, 141. ' Political Economy ' (Sidgwick's), 143- ' Politics for the People,' 164. Portfolio, The, 172. 223 Potter, Miss Beatrice, 144. Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 36. ' Praaterita,' 130. ' Pre-historic Times,' 99. ' Prelude, The,' 9. ' Pre-Raphaelite Movement, The,' 2 3- ' Pre-Raphaelitism,' 132. ' Pride and his Pursuers,' 73. ' Pride and Prejudice,' 41. ' Primer of English Literature,' 166. ' Primitive Condition of Man,' 99. ' Primitive Culture,' 99. ' Prince Otto,' 60. ' Principles of Economics,' 143. ' Principles of Geology,' 152. ' Principles of Political Economy ' (Mill's), 139, 140, 141. ' Principles of Political Economy ' (Sidgwick's), 143. ' Principles of Psychology,' 145. ' Problems of Life and Mind,' 149. Procter, Adelaide Anne. Wrote ' Legends and Lyrics,' &c, 36. Procter, Bryan Waller. Wrote 'Dramatic Scenes'; 'Marcian Colonna'; ' Mirandola,' &c, 35-36. ' Professor, The,' 47. ' Prolegomena to Ethics,' 148. ' Proverbial Philosophy,' 27. ' Proverbs in Porcelain,' 30. Punch, 188. ' Purgatory of Suicides, The/ 37- Pusey, Edward Bouverie. Founder of the modern high church movement ; a writer of ' Tracts for the Times'; 'Letter to Keble ' ; ' Eirenicon,' 158 ; Cardinal Newman's reply, 159. ' Put Yourself in His Place,' 58. Index Quarterly Magazine, The, 91. Quarterly Review, The, 28, 93, 154, 177. ' Queen's Maries, The, 59. ' Queen Mary,' 10. ' Raleigh,' 27. ' Ranthorpe/ 149. Rattlesnake Survey, The, 157. ' Ravenshoe,' 55. Reade, Charles, 57-58. ' Peg Woffington ' ; ' The Cloister and the Hearth ' ; ' Griffith Gaunt ' ' Hard Cash ' ; * Foul Play ' ' Put Yourself in His Place ' ' Never Too Late to Mend ' ' Masks and Faces ' ; ' Drink, 58. Reade, Charles. His opinion of 'Adam Bede/ 50. ' Ready Money Mortiboy/ 65. 'Realmah/ 191. ' Recreations of Christopher North,' 187. Reid, Sir Wemyss. ' Monograph on Charlotte Bronte,' and life of Lord Houghton, 183. 'Reign of Henry VIII., The/ 89. ' Reign of William Rufus and Ac- cession of Henry I.,' 81. ' Rejected Addresses,' 8. ' Relations between England and America, The/ 185. ' Remembrances of Mrs. Overthe- way/ 73. ' Renaissance in Italy/ 103. ' Renaissance. Studies in Art and Poetry/ 171. • Return of the Native, The,' 68. ' Rhetoric' (Whately's), 159. ' Rhoda Fleming/ 61. 2 Rice, James. Collaborated with Walter Besant in ' Ready Money Mortiboy ' and ' The Golden Butterfly/ 65. Richardson, 41, 43. ' Richelieu/ 56. ' Rienzi/ 56. ' Ring and the Book, The/ 12. ' Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism/ 96. ' Ritualism, Essay on/ 106. ' Rivulet, The/ 166. ' Robert Falconer/ 63. Robertson, Frederick William. Perhaps the purest and most in- spiring teacher of the broad church party, 165; his life made known to us by Stopford Brooke's beautiful biography, 166. Robinson, Henry Crabb. ' Diary/ edited by Dr. Sadler; Robinson's ' Breakfasts to Literary Men and Women/ 183. 'Rocks Ahead/ 170. Rogers, Samuel. ' His Break- fasts ' ; poems written before Queen's accession ; his ' Table Talk ' full of good stories, 183. ' Rogers and his Contemporaries/ T84. 'Rogers, Early Life of/ 184. Rogers, Thorold. ' History of Agriculture and Prices/ 144. ' Roman Empire, The Holy/ 104. Romanes, George John. 'Animal Intelligence/ ' Mental Evolution in Animals/ 157. ' Romany Rye, The,' 185. ' Rome, History of ' (Dr. Arnold's), 160. ' Romola,' 50. ' Rookwood/ 67. 24 Index 'Rory O'More/ 34. Rossetti,Christina Georgina. 'Gob- lin Market/ 'Called to be Saints/ ' The Face of the Deep/ ' Maude/ ' New Poems/ 22. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 22 ; the pre-Raphaelite movement ; the Germ; ' The Blessed Damozel ' ; ' Hand and Soul ' ; connection with Ruskin,Morris, Swinburne, and Oxford and Cambridge Mag- azine ; ' The Earlyltalian Poets/ 23; 'The White Ship'; 'The King's Tragedy ' ; ' Sister Helen ' ; ' The House of Life/ 24. Rossetti, Maria Francesca. 'Shad- ow of Dante/ 22. 'Rubayat of Omar Khayyam of Naishapur, 35. Ruskin, John, 129. ' Praeterite ' ; early influences ; Oxford ; ' Sal- sette and Elephanta ' ; ' Modern Painters ' ; Mazzini's opinion of ; ' Seven Lamps of Architecture/ meaning of the ' Seven Lamps/ 131 ; the ' Stones of Venice ' ; ' Pre-Raphaelitism ' ; Slade lec- tures ; as economist ; ' Unto this Last/ 132; the Corn/till Maga- zine readers ; his socialism ; 'Munera Pulveris'; 'Time and Tide by Wear and Tyne ' ; Man- chester Examiner ; ' Fors Clavi- gera/ 133; the tea-shop in the Marylebone Road ; St. George's Guild; Ruskin museum, 134; his influence on English taste in dress, furniture, &c. ; ' Crown of Wild Olive ' ; ' Time and Tide/ 'Sesame and Lilies/ 135-6; his self-criticism, 136; scorn of John Stuart Mill, 137. P 225 Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelite movement, 23; generosity to Rossetti, 23 ; and Coventry Pat- more, 32. 'Ruth/ 71. Ryle, John Charles. Famous liter- ary exponent of the Evangelical position ; ' Shall we know one another in Heaven ' ; ' Bible In- spiration/ 168. Saintsbury, George. Professor of English Literature at the Uni- versity of Edinburgh ; profound knowledge of French literature; influence of English seventeenth- century literature upon his style, 174 ; in brief biographies of Sir Walter Scott and others most excellent, 175. ' Saint Paul/ 172. ' Saint's Tragedy, The/ 53. ' St. Ives/ 60. St. Luke, Thirl wall's Translation of Schleiermacher's Essay on, 101. ' St. Thomas of Canterbury/ 33. Sala, George Augustus. 'The Land of the Golden Fleece ' ; ' America Revisited ' ; ' Living London/ 188. ' Salem Chapel/ 75. ' Salsette and Elephanta/ 130. Sanderson, Burdon, 151. ' Sandra Belloni/ 61. ' Sands of Dee, The/ 54. ' Sartor Resartus/ 121. Saturday Review, The, and Free- man, 82. ' Savonarola/ 40. ' Saxons in England/ 80. Sayce, Archibald Henry. At Oxford; ' Herodotus/ 100. Index ' Scenes of Clerical Life/ 49. Schloss, D. F., 144. ' Schonberg-Cotta Family, The,' 73- Schreiner, Miss Olive, 74. ' Science, Lectures on, for Un- scientific People,' 1 50-1 51. Scott, Sir Walter. Death of, 5; on ' Madoc/ 6 ; Lockhart's ' Life of,' 177. Scott, William Bell. Best known by his 'Autobiography/ 173. ' Seaside Studies,' 149. Seeley, Sir John Robert. ' Life and Times of Stein ' ; German and English criticisms; pro- fessorship at Cambridge ; ' History and Politics/ 104 ; 1 Expansion of England ' : ' A Short History of Napoleon ' ; 'Ecce Homo'; censure and praise ; Mr. Gladstone ; ' Nat- ural Religion/ 105. ' Select Charters/ 79. ' Selections from Wordsworth/ 8, 9- 'Select Poem of Wordsworth/ 8,9- 'Senses and the Intellect, The/ . 147. Sergeant, Miss Adeline, 74. ' Service of Man, The/ 180. 'Sesame and Lilies/ 135-136. ' Seven Lamps of Architecture/ 130-131. 'Shadow of Dante/ 22. 'Shakspere, his Mind and Art/ 173- ' Shall we know one another in Heaven/ 168. ' Shaving of Shagpat, The/ 61. Shelley, Death of, 5 ; on Southey's ' Thalaba/ 6 ; acquaintance 1 with Peacock, 62 ; Dowden's 'Life of/ 174. Sherlock Holmes, 63. Shirley, 47. ' Short History of Napoleon, A? 105. ' Short History of the English People/ 98. Shorthouse, Joseph Henry. ' John Inglesant ' ; ' Sir Percival ' ; ' Little Schoolmaster Mark/ 64. ' Short Studies on Great Subjects/ 88. Sidgwick, Henry. ' Principles of Political Economy ' ; a criticism of conflicting views ; ' Methods of Ethics ' ; a com- promise ; ' Elements of Politics/ 143. ' Silas Marner, 50. ' Siluria/ 152. ' Sinai and Palestine/ 161. ' Sir Percival/ 64. ' Sister Helen/ 24. ' Sketches by Boz/ 42. ' Sketch of the Life of Princess Alice/ 191. Smith, Alexander, 31. Smith, Goldwin. ' The Relations between England and Amer- ica'; ' The Political Destiny of Canada/ 185. Smith, H. Llewellyn, 144. Smith, Sydney. 'The Ballot'; ' The Church Bills ' ; ' The Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith/ 187. ' Social Statics/ 145. ' Soldiers, Three/ 40. ' Some Aspects of Robert Burns/ 60. ' Song of the Shirt/ 29. ' Song of the Sword/ 172. 26 Index ' Song of the Western Men,' 38. ' Songs of Two Worlds/ 26. ' Song Tide and other Poems/ 39. '■ Sonnets from the Portuguese/ 14. ' Sonnets on the War/ 31. 'Soul, The/ 170. Southey. Chiefly known to-day by his ' Life of Nelson/ and a few lyrics and ballads, 5; his ' Cowper ' a better book than ' Nelson/ but, like his ' Thalaba ' and ' Madoc/ is not read to-day ; opinions of his contemporaries on his works, 6; Southey the man, 7 ; his estimate of Landor, ' Spanish Gypsy/ 50. Spedding, James. 'Letters and Life of Francis Bacon/ an at- tempt at a thorough destruction of Macaulay's criticism upon the great philosopher, 184. 1 Speeches and Addresses of the late Prince Consort/ 92. Spencer, Herbert. The most char- acteristic philosopher of the cen- tury ; birth ; education ; career ; ' On the Proper Sphere of Gov- ernment' ; Nonconformist ; West- minster Review ; ' Social Statics'; ' Principles of Psychology ' ; ' Education ' ; ' First Principles/ 145 ; ' Descriptive Sociology' ; his great achievement ; univer- sality of his knowledge ; his ' Study of Sociology ' and ' Edu- cation/ books which all who read must enjoy ; his the glory of restoring to Great Britain the old supremacy in philosophy, 146. ( Spencer, Mr. Herbert, and Mr. G. H. Lewes : their Application of the Doctrine of Evolution to Thought/ 147. ' Spirit's Trials, The/ 84. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. Most distinguished Nonconformist minister of the period; 'John Ploughman's Talk/ 168. Standard, The. Austin's con- nection with, 40. Stanhope, Earl (Lord Mahon). ' History of the Reign of Queen Anne,' a link between Mac- aulay and his own later ' History of England from the Peace of Utrecht down to the Peace of Versailles (1713-1783)/ 95. Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn. 'Life of Dr. Arnold'; 'Memorials of Canterbury' ; ' Sinai and Pales- tine'; 'Lectures on the East- ern Church ' ; ' Lectures on the Jewish Church ' ; leader of the broad church movement; proposed the suppression of the Athanasian creed in church services ; his ' Life/ written by Dean Bradley, 162. Stanley, H. M., 186. ' State in its Relations with the Church, The/ 106. ' Statesmen of the Common- wealth/ 179. ' Stein, Life and Times of/ 104. Stephen, Leslie. A critic of re- markable learning ; ' Hours in a Library ' ; ' History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Cen- tury/ 175; first editor of the Dictionary of National Biog- raphy, 176. Stephen, Leslie, and Macaulay, Sterne, 41. 227 Index Stevenson, Robert Louis. One of the most picturesque figures in literature. ' With a Donkey in the Cevennes/ 59; his plays; 'Beau Austin/ probably the greatest contribution to the drama of the era ; ' Virginibus Puerisque'; 'Some Aspects of Robert Burns ' ; ' A Child's Gar- den of Verse'; 'Underwoods'; his place as a novelist ; ' Treas- ure Island ' ; ' The New Arabian Nights ' ; ' The Master of Bal- lantrae ' ; ' Prince Otto ' ; 'St. Ives ' ; ' Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/ a parable which has thrilled us all, 60; his admira- tion of ' The Egoist/ 61 ; his influence on the modern histor- ical romance, 63. Stewart, Balfour, 151. ' Stones of Venice/ 132. ' Story cf My Heart, The/ 188. ' Strathmore/ 38. Strauss, 49. ' Strayed Reveller, The/ 20. Stretton, Mrs. Author of 'The Valley of a Hundred Fires/ 72. ' Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs/ 155. ' Stuart of Dunleath/ 72. Stubbs, William. Librarian at Lambeth Palace ; edited mediae- val chronicles, 78 ; Regius Pro- fessor of History at Oxford ; ' Select Charters ' ; ' Constitu- tional History' ; profoundly scientific, but not dry-as-dust, 79. ' Student's Elements of Geology/ 152. ' Studies in Art and Poetry/ 171. ' Studies in Homer/ 106. ' Studies in Literature/ 173. 22 ' Studies in Sensation and Event,' 37- ' Study of Sociology/ 146. ' Study of Spinoza/ 167. ' Subjection of Women/ 139. ' Subscription no Bondage,' 164. 'Supernatural Religion/ 171. ' Supper at the Mill/ 29. ' Susan Hopley/ 71. ' Swallow Flights/ 39. Swift, modern biographies of, 178. Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Admiration of, and likeness to Landor ; his rank as poet, 16 ; 'Ave atque Vale'; a critic of almost unequalled distinction, perhaps the most distinguished literary figure of our day, 17 ; connection with Rossetti, 24 ; admiration of Emily Bronte, 47. ' Sybil/ 57. ' Sylvia's Lovers/ 71. Symonds, John Addington. Re- naissance in Italy, 103 ; Cel- lini's ' Autobiography/ 104. 1 Table Talk ' (Southey's), 6. 1 Table Talk ' (Roger's), 183. ' Tales of Ireland/ 66. ' Tancred/ 57. ' Tangled Tale, A/ 64. ' Task, The/ 6. Taylor, Sir Henry. Author of ' Philip Van Artevelde/ &c, 28. Temple, Frederick. 'The Edu- cation of the world ' ; opposition to his receiving bishopric of Exeter ; Bishop of London, Archbishop of Canterbury, 162. 'Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The/ 48. ' Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, The/ 163. Index Tennyson, Alfred. Purity of his style ; music ; no great char- acterisation in 'Harold* or ' Queen Mary ' ; insight of ' Maud ' ; 'In Memoriam ' and ' The Idylls of the King ' won him wider audiences, 10, his transcendentalism ; friendship with Browning; social traits, ii ; popularity, 12. ' Ten Thousand a Year/ 70. 1 Tess of the D'Urbervilles,' 68. ' Testimony of the Rocks, The/ 152. Thackeray, William Makepeace, 44-46; admiration for 'David Copperfield ' ; his literary posi- tion, 44 ; Fraser's Magazine ; ' History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond ' ; ' Yellow Plush Papers'; 'Memoirs of Barry Lyndon ' ; ' Vanity Fair ' ; ' Pendennis ' ; ' Esmond ' ; ' The Newcomes ' ; ' The Virginians ' ; contested Oxford ; Cornhill Magazine, 45 ; his death ; his five great novels the basis of his future fame, 46; Trollope's biography of, 58; burlesqued G. P. R. James, 67. 1 Thalaba/ 6. ' Theism/ 170. • Theocritus (Lang's translation), 176. ' Theology in the English Poets/ 166. Thirlwall, Connop (Bishop). ' History of Greece ' ; Grote's ap- preciation of; Schleiermacher's ' Essay on St. Luke/ 101. ' Thomas a Becket/ 86. Thomson, James. Author of ' The City of Dreadful Night/ &c, 3 2 - ' Three Fishers, The/ 54. ' Through Nature to Christ/ 165. ' Through the Looking-Glass/ 64. ' Thucydides/ 160. ' Thyrsis/ 21. ' Time and Tide by Wear and Tyne/ 133, 135. 'Tom Brown's School Days/ 161. 'Tom Jones/ 41. ' Tower of London, The/ 67. ' Town Life in the Fifteenth Cen- tury/ 98. Toynbee, Arnold. 'The Indus- trial Revolution/ 144. ' Tract XC.,' 108. ' Tracts for the Time/ 108. 1 Trade Unionism, The History of/ H5- ' Tragic Comedians, The/ 61. ' Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry/ 66. ' Treasure Island/ 60. Trevelyan, Sir George Otto. His 'Life of Lord Macaulay' a delight- ful biography ; ' Early History of Charles James Fox/ 182. ' Tristram Shandy/ 41. Trollope, Anthony. The novelist of provincial life in early Vic- torian times ; ' Barchester Towers ' ; ' Framley Parsonage ' ; ' Dr. Thorne ' ; ' Life of Cicero ' ; his biography of Thackeray the best that has yet appeared, 58. Tucker, Miss C. M. (A. L. O. E.), 73- Tupper, Martin Farquhar. Popu- larity of his ' Proverbial Phil- osophy ' ; later works, ' Ballads for the Times/ ' Raleigh/ ' Cithara/ not so successful, 26. 229 Index Turner, Sharon, 80. ' Two Years Ago/ 54. Tylor, Edward Burnett. ' Primitive Culture'; ' Anthropology/ 99. Tyndall, John. ' Faraday as a Discoverer/ 150; 'Lectures on Science for Unscientific People' ; Huxley's eulogy of; 'On the Structure and Motion of Gla- ciers/ 151. ' Types of Ethical Theory/ 167. 1 Uncle Silas/ 66. ' Underwoods/ 60. ' Unknown Eros/ 31 ; ' Unto this Last/ 132-133, 136. ' Valley of a Hundred Fires, The/ 72. ' Vanity Fair/ 45. ' Vatican Decrees, The/ 106. ' Venetia/ 57. ' Verses and Translations/ 30. ' Verses on Various Occasions/ in. ' Vicar of Wakefield, The/ 41. Victoria, Queen. ' Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the High- lands ' ; ' The Early Days of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort ' ; ' More Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands/ 192 ; Her Majesty's sympathetic interest in the books and bookmen of the epoch, 192. ' Views and Reviews/ 172. ' Vignettes in Rhyme/ 30. ' Villette/ 47. ' Virginians, The/ 45. ' Virginibus Puerisque/ 60. ' Vision of Saints, A,' 26. 'Vita Nuova' (Martin's transla- tion), 191. ' Vivian Grey/ 57. ' Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love/ 37. ' Waldenses, The/ 23- Wallace, Alfred Russel, 156. Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 74; trans- lated Amiel's ' Journal/ 189. Warren, Samuel. ' Passages from a Diary of a Late Physician,' began in Blackwood's Magazine ; ' Ten Thousand a Year/ 70. Watson, William. Author of 'Wordsworth's Grave/ 'Lach- rymae Musarum/ &c, 40. ' Wearing of the Green, The/ 178. Webb, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney. ' The History of Trade Unionism/ 144, 145- ' Wedgwood, Josiah/ 154. ' Wee Willie Winkie/ 40. Westminster Review, 49, 138, 145. ' Westward Ho/ 54. Weyman, Stanley, 63. Whately, Richard. His 'Logic' and ' Rhetoric/ pre-Victorian ; Archbishop of Dublin, 159; ' Chief Importance of the Logic'; 'Christian Evidences/ more popular once, 160. ' White Ship, The/ 24. Wilberforce, Bishop, and Darwin, 154- ' Wilhelm Meister, 113. Wilson, John. Editor of B 'lack- wood' 's Magazine ; 'Recreations of Christopher North/ 187. ' Window in Thrums, A/ 63. 'Wind Voices/ 39. ' Wit and Wisdom of Sidney Smith, The/ 187. ' With a Donkey in the Cevennes/ 59- 23O Index Witness, The, 152. ' Woman in White, The,' 69. 'Women in France in the i8th Century,' 72. Women novelists abundantly flourished in Victorian era, 49. ' Woodlanders, The,' 68. ' Wood Magic/ 188. Wood, Mrs. Henry. * The Chan- nings ' and ' Mrs. Haliburton's Troubles ' her best novels ; ' East Lynne ' the most popular, 71. Woolmer, Thomas, 23. Wordsworth, William. His pre- judice ; best work written before the accession ; ' Lyrical Bal- lads' ; ' Laodamia ' ; Keble's eu- logy on ; laureate, 7 ; jeered at by Byron ; achieved fame in later years ; Arnold's estimate of, 18 ; Wordsworth Society; a vital force in the last decade; Ar- nold's 'Selections' only need be read to-day; no time now for 'The Excursion,' 'The Pre- lude,' ' Ecclesiastical Sonnets ' or 'The Borderers,' 9; on the Brownings' marriage, 13. 'Wordsworth's Grave,' 40. Wordsworth, Knight's biography of, 178. Wordsworth Society, The, 8, 9. ' Wuthering Heights,' 47 ; Swin- burne's criticism of, 48. Yates, Edmund. Founded The World; his 'Autobiography' one of the best books of the kind ever issued, 188. ' Yeast/ 54. ' Yellowplush Papers, The/ 45. Yonge, Miss Charlotte, 74. ' Young Duke, The,' 57. 'Zanoni/ 56. 231 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 00135192144 n