THE substance of the following work was delivered in the form of lectures to students, and it is for the use of students that it is principally intended. At the same time I trust that it may prove not uninteresting to the general reader. While conceding the praise which is justly their due to existing compilations to the works of Craik and Spalding, and the epitome published by Chambers, — one may say without offence that the point of view taken in them lies too far north, and that Scottish authors receive a little more than relative justice from these Scottish critics. To profound research the present work makes no pretension: in this respect I cheerfully acknowledge the immeasurable superiority of the really learned work of Professor Craik; but if I have succeeded in presenting an intelligible and connected view of at least the more popular portion of our literature, as it appears to an ordinary Englishman who has paid attention to the subject, my book will, I think, fill a vacant niche, and my endeavours will not be without a certain value, whether at home or in foreign countries.
Desiring, if possible, that the work should be widely useful as an educational manual, I have thought it a duty to adapt it for general circulation, by avoiding, as far as
was practicable, debatable topics, and carefully respecting religious susceptibilities.
The arrangement of the subject-matter according to two distinct principles that of the order of time and that
is a novel one: whether it be
also sound, let the critics decide. I will only say that in my lectures I have followed this plan, and that it has appeared to be successful, and to engage the attention of the hearers better than an unbroken adherence either to the historical or the critical mode of treatment.
Decline of Literature; invention of Printing; foundation of Schools and
Universities.-POETRY: Hawes, Skelton, Surrey, Wyat; first Poet Laureate.
-SCOTTISH POETS: Henryson, Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Lyndsay. -
LEARNING: Grocyn; Colet; the Humanities; state of the Universities.—
PROSE WRITERS:-Fortescue, Caxton, Leland, More; Chroniclers (Fabyan, Hall, Grafton); Bale; Theological Writers: Roger Ascham, PAGES 62–82
Brilliant Period of our Literature; connected with the social Prosperity of the
Country.-POETS AND DRAMATISTS: Spenser, Daniel, &c.; origin of the
English Drama; Dramatic Unities: Marlowe; Shakspeare, Sketch of his
Life; his Plays; Ben Jonson; Beaumont and Fletcher.-PROSE WRITERS:
Novels; Essays; Pamphlets; Criticism. Sidney, Bacon, Spenser, Gascoyne.
-HISTORIANS: Holinshed, Bacon, Raleigh, Knolles. -THEOLOGIANS:
Puritan Writers: Hooker, Donne, Allen, Parsons.-PHILOSOPHY: Lord
Bacon 83-108
Historical Sketch of the leading political Events.-POETRY: the Fantastic
School; Donne, Cowley, Cleveland, &c. ; Crashaw; Song-writers. Milton;
Sketch of his literary Life; Wither; Marvell. Dryden; Sketch of his
literary Life; Roscommon; Butler. Heroic Plays; Comedy of Manners :
Jeremy Collier.-LEARNING: Usher, Selden, Gale, &c. -PROSE FICTION:
Bunyan.-HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY: Milton, Ludlow, Clarendon, &c.;
Wood's Athenæ, Pepys, Evelyn, &c.-THEOLOGY: Hall, Jeremy Taylor,
Gother, Baxter, &c.-PHILOSOPHY: Hobbes, Locke. - ESSAY WRITERS:
Hall, Felltham, Browne.-SCIENCE: Newton 109-152
Historical Sketch, general characteristics.-POETRY FROM 1700 To 1745: Pope: Sketch of his literary Life; Addison; Parnell; Swift; Thomson; Prior; Garth; &c.—THE DRAMA: Addison, Rowe, &c.; Prose Comedy;
Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Gay.-LEARNING, 1700-1745: Bentley, Lardner.—
PROSE FICTION: Swift, Defoe. Pamphleteers: Swift; Arbuthnot. Perio-
dical Miscellany: Tatler, Spectator, Guardian, &c. Satirical Works; Swift.
HISTORY, 1700-1745: Burnet, Rapin.-POETRY, 1745-1800: Johnson,
Gray, Cowper, Burns, &c. THE DRAMA; Home, Johnson, Goldsmith,
Sheridan.-PROSE FICTION, 1745-1800: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett,
Sterne, Goldsmith, Miss Burney. - ORATORY: Chatham, Burke, &c. Pamphleteers; Junius, Burke, Johnson.- HISTORY, 1745-1800: Hume, Robertson, Gibbon. Biographers: Boswell, &c.- THEOLOGY: the English Deists; Bentley, Berkeley; Warburton ; Methodism ; Middleton.- PHI- LOSOPHY: Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Butler, Paley.--Political Science: Hume, Burke, Godwin.- Political Economy: Adam Smith.-Criticism: Burke, Reynolds, &c. PAGES 153-210
Definition of Literature: Poetry and Prose-writings: Classification of Poetical
Compositions; -EPIC POETRY: the Paradise Lost; -DRAMATIC POETRY:
its kinds; Shakspeare, Addison, Ben Jonson, Milton.— HEROIC POETRY:
The Bruce, the Mirrour for Magistrates; the Campaign.-NARRATIVE
POETRY; 1. Romances, Sir Isumbras; 2. Tales, Chaucer and the Canter-
bury Tales, Falconer, Prior, Crabbe, Parnell; 3. Allegories; Vision of
Piers Plowman, Flower and the Leaf, Spenser's Faery Queen, Castle of
Indolence; Fables: Gay, Mrs. Thrale, Merrick; 4. Romantic Poems:
Scott's Lay and others; Byron's Oriental Tales; Lalla Rookh; 5. His-
torical Poems; Rhyming Chroniclers, Dryden's Annus Mirabilis.-DI-
DACTIC POETRY: The Hind and Panther; Essay on Man; Essay on
Criticism; Vanity of Human Wishes.-SATIRICAL POETRY: of three kinds,
moral, personal, political; Satires of Donne, Hall, and Swift; Pope's
Satires; Moral Essays, the Dunciad ; Dryden's M'Flecknoe, English Bards
and Scotch Reviewers, Hudibras, Absalom and Ahitophel, Moore's Satires;
the Vicar of Bray.-PASTORAL POETRY: Spenser, Pope, Shenstone.--
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