leaves unsaid what the cyclopædias say, it is to be understood as part of my method. The style I have used may be regarded as sometimes too familiar for the subject. But I hope my book may be read largely by young people; I hope it may be read aloud in classes devoted to the study of literature; and I have therefore used a colloquial tone, hoping by this means more easily to gain the interest and the ear of the reader. I have used the words "our literature," "our English authors," all through the book with intention. Writing as I do for American readers, for the young people of our country, I have endeavored to impress. on them a pride in the works written in their language; I want them to feel that they have as much share and as much cause for pride in the glorious names of Shakespeare and Milton as if their grandfathers had not crossed the ocean to settle in Massachusetts or Virginia. English literature to the year 1800 is as much our literature as it is that of any girl or boy born in London or in Yorkshire. hold of and claim this grand inheritance. Let us lay A. S. R. CONTENTS. I. TELLING ABOUT THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, WHO THEY WERE, AND HOW THEY FIRST CAME TO THE IS- IV. ON THE FORM OF EARLY ENGLISH Poetry, and tHE V. TELLING OF THE VENERABLE BEDA AND OF KING Alfred the Good, and of THE WORK THEY DID VI. TELLING HOW WILLIAM THE NORMAN CAME TO THE VII. ON LITERATURE UNDER THE NORMANS, ESPECIALLY IN THE REIGN OF HENRY II.; AND THE LEGENDS 37 VIII. ON THE STRUGGLES OF THE ENGLISH SPEECH TO HOLD ITS OWN AGAINST THE NORMAN; OF OLD. BALLADS, ESPECIALLY THE ROBIN HOOD BALLADS; THE "OLD GESTE OF ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF IX. HOW THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE FINALLY CAME TO ITS OWN AGAIN, AND WHAT BOOKS AND AUTHORS 54 XI. ON THREE GREAT CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER, -JOHN WYCLIFFE, JOHN MANDEVILLE, AND XII. ON GEOFFREY CHAUCer, his Life and Poetry XIII. ON THE STORIES OF THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS XIV. TELLING OF SOME OF THE GREAT EVENTS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY,- OF CAXTON AND HIS XV. ON LITERATURE IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.; MORE'S UTOPIA; TYNDALE'S BIBLE; SKELTON, |