Chapter 17

THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

1. +Science.+-- The second half of the nineteenth century is distinguished by the enormous advance made in science, and in the application of science to the industries and occupations of the people. Chemistry and electricity have more especially made enormous strides. Within the last twenty years, chemistry has remade itself into a new science; and electricity has taken a very large part of the labour of mankind upon itself. It carries our messages round the world-- under the deepest seas, over the highest mountains, to every continent, and to every great city; it lights up our streets and public halls; it drives our engines and propels our trains. But the powers of imagination, the great literary powers of poetry, and of eloquent prose,-- especially in the domain of fiction,-- have not decreased because science has grown. They have rather shown stronger developments. We must, at the same time, remember that a great deal of the literary work published by the writers who lived, or are still living, in the latter half of this century, was written in the former half. Thus, Longfellow was a man of forty-three, and Tennyson was forty-one, in the year 1850; and both had by that time done a great deal of their best work. The same is true of the prose-writers, Thackeray, Dickens, and Ruskin.

2. +Poets and Prose-Writers.+-- The six greatest poets of the latter half of this century are +Longfellow+, a distinguished American poet, +Tennyson+, +Mrs Browning+, +Robert Browning+, +William Morris+, and +Matthew Arnold+. Of these, Mrs Browning and Longfellow are dead-- Mrs Browning having died in 1861, and Longfellow in 1882. --The four greatest writers of prose are +Thackeray+, +Dickens+, +George Eliot+, and +Ruskin+. Of these, only Ruskin is alive.

3. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (+1807-1882+), the most popular of American poets, and as popular in Great Britain as he is in the United States, was born at Portland, Maine, in the year 1807. He was educated at Bowdoin College, and took his degree there in the year 1825. His profession was to have been the law; but, from the first, the whole bent of his talents and character was literary. At the extraordinary age of eighteen the professorship of modern languages in his own college was offered to him; it was eagerly accepted, and in order to qualify himself for his duties, he spent the next four years in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. His first important prose work was +Outre-Mer+, or a +Pilgrimage beyond the Sea+. In 1837 he was offered the Chair of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, and he again paid a visit to Europe-- this time giving his thoughts and study chiefly to Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia. In 1839 he published the prose romance called +Hyperion+. But it was not as a prose-writer that Longfellow gained the secure place he has in the hearts of the English-speaking peoples; it was as a poet. His first volume of poems was called +Voices of the Night+, and appeared in 1841; Evangeline was published in 1848; and +Hiawatha+, on which his poetical reputation is perhaps most firmly based, in 1855. Many other volumes of poetry-- both original and translations-- have also come from his pen; but these are the best. The University of Oxford created him Doctor of Civil Law in 1869. He died at Harvard in the year 1882. A man of singularly mild and gentle character, of sweet and charming manners, his own lines may be applied to him with perfect appropriateness--

“His gracious presence upon earth Was as a fire upon a hearth; As pleasant songs, at morning sung, The words that dropped from his sweet tongue Strengthened our hearts, or-- heard at night-- Made all our slumbers soft and light.”

4. +Longfellow’s Style.+-- In one of his prose works, Longfellow himself says, “In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” This simplicity he steadily aimed at, and in almost all his writings reached; and the result is the sweet lucidity which is manifest in his best poems. His verse has been characterised as “simple, musical, sincere, sympathetic, clear as crystal, and pure as snow.” He has written in a great variety of measures-- in more, perhaps, than have been employed by Tennyson himself. His “Evangeline” is written in a kind of dactylic hexameter, which does not always scan, but which is almost always musical and impressive--

“Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey; Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.”

The “Hiawatha,” again, is written in a trochaic measure-- each verse containing four trochees--

“‘Farewell!’ said he, ‘Minnehaha, Farewell, O my laughing water! All my heart is buried with you, All´ my | thou´ghts go | on´ward | wi´th you!’”

He is always careful and painstaking with his rhythm and with the cadence of his verse. It may be said with truth that Longfellow has taught more people to love poetry than any other English writer, however great.

5. ALFRED TENNYSON, a great English poet, who has written beautiful poetry for more than fifty years, was born at Somersby, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1809. He is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom are poets. He was educated at Cambridge, and some of his poems have shown, in a striking light, the forgotten beauty of the fens and flats of Cambridge and Lincolnshire. In 1829 he obtained the Chancellor’s medal for a poem on “Timbuctoo.” In 1830 he published his first volume, with the title of +Poems chiefly Lyrical+-- a volume which contained, among other beautiful verses, the “Recollections of the Arabian Nights” and “The Dying Swan.” In 1833 he issued another volume, called simply +Poems+; and this contained the exquisite poems entitled “The Miller’s Daughter” and “The Lotos-Eaters.” +The Princess+, a poem as remarkable for its striking thoughts as for its perfection of language, appeared in 1847. The +In Memoriam+, a long series of short poems in memory of his dear friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Hallam the historian, was published in the year 1850. When Wordsworth died in 1850, Tennyson was appointed to the office of Poet-Laureate. This office, from the time when Dryden was forced to resign it in 1689, to the time when Southey accepted it in 1813, had always been held by third or fourth rate writers; in the present day it is held by the man who has done the largest amount of the best poetical work. +The Idylls of the King+ appeared in 1859. This series of poems-- perhaps his greatest-- contains the stories of “Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” Many other volumes of poems have been given by him to the world. In his old age he has taken to the writing of ballads and dramas. His ballad of +The Revenge+ is one of the noblest and most vigorous poems that England has ever seen. The dramas of +Harold+, +Queen Mary+, and +Becket+, are perhaps his best; and the last was written when the poet had reached the age of seventy-four. In the year 1882 he was created Baron Tennyson, and called to the House of Peers.

6. +Tennyson’s Style.+-- Tennyson has been to the last two generations of Englishmen the national teacher of poetry. He has tried many new measures; he has ventured on many new rhythms; and he has succeeded in them all. He is at home equally in the slowest, most tranquil, and most meditative of rhythms, and in the rapidest and most impulsive. Let us look at the following lines as an example of the first. The poem is written on a woman who is dying of a lingering disease--

“Fair is her cottage in its place, Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides: It sees itself from thatch to base Dream in the sliding tides.

“And fairer she: but, ah! how soon to die! Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease: Her peaceful being slowly passes by To some more perfect peace.”

The very next poem, “The Sailor Boy,” in the same volume, is-- though written in exactly the same measure-- driven on with the most rapid march and vigorous rhythm--

“He rose at dawn and, fired with hope, Shot o’er the seething harbour-bar, And reached the ship and caught the rope And whistled to the morning-star.”

And this is a striking and prominent characteristic of all Tennyson’s poetry. Everywhere the sound is made to be “an echo to the sense”; the style is in perfect keeping with the matter. In the “Lotos-Eaters,” we have the sense of complete indolence and deep repose in--

“A land of streams! Some, like a downward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go.”

In the “Boädicea,” we have the rush and the shock of battle, the closing of legions, the hurtle of arms and the clash of armed men--

“Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred, Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.”

Many of Tennyson’s sweetest and most pathetic lines have gone right into the heart of the nation, such as--

“But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!”

All his language is highly polished, ornate, rich-- sometimes Spenserian in luxuriant imagery and sweet music, sometimes even Homeric in massiveness and severe simplicity. Thus, in the “Morte d’Arthur,” he speaks of the knight walking to the lake as--

“Clothed with his breath, and looking as he walked, Larger than human on the frozen hills.”

Many of his pithy lines have taken root in the memory of the English people, such as these--

“Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.”

“For words, like Nature, half reveal, And half conceal, the soul within.”

“Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.”

7. ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT, afterwards MRS BROWNING, the greatest poetess of this century, was born in London in the year 1809. She wrote verses “at the age of eight-- and earlier,” she says; and her first volume of poems was published when she was seventeen. When still a girl, she broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, was ordered to a warmer climate than that of London; and her brother, whom she loved very dearly, took her down to Torquay. There a terrible tragedy was enacted before her eyes. One day the weather and the water looked very tempting; her brother took a sailing-boat for a short cruise in Torbay; the boat went down in front of the house, and in view of his sister; the body was never recovered. This sad event completely destroyed her already weak health; she returned to London, and spent several years in a darkened room. Here she “read almost every book worth reading in almost every language, and gave herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess.” This way of life lasted for many years: and, in the course of it, she published several volumes of noble verse. In 1846 she married Robert Browning, also a great poet. In 1856 she brought out +Aurora Leigh+, her longest, and probably also her greatest, poem. Mr Ruskin called it “the greatest poem which the century has produced in any language;” but this is going too far. --Mrs Browning will probably be longest remembered by her incomparable sonnets and by her lyrics, which are full of pathos and passion. Perhaps her two finest poems in this kind are the +Cry of the Children+ and +Cowper’s Grave+. All her poems show an enormous power of eloquent, penetrating, and picturesque language; and many of them are melodious with a rich and wonderful music. She died in 1861.

[Transcriber’s Note: The above paragraph is given as printed. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born Elizabeth Barrett Moulton, later Moulton-Barrett, in 1806. Her year of birth was universally given as 1809 until some time after Robert Browning’s death. Her brother’s fatal accident took place in 1840.]

8. ROBERT BROWNING, the most daring and original poet of the century, was born in Camberwell, a southern suburb of London, in the year 1812. He was privately educated. In 1836 he published his first poem +Paracelsus+, which many wondered at, but few read. It was the story of a man who had lost his way in the mazes of thought about life,-- about its why and wherefore,-- about this world and the next,-- about himself and his relations to God and his fellow-men. Mr Browning has written many plays, but they are more fit for reading in the study than for acting on the stage. His greatest work is +The Ring and the Book+; and it is most probably by this that his name will live in future ages. Of his minor poems, the best known and most popular is +The Pied Piper of Hamelin+-- a poem which is a great favourite with all young people, from the picturesqueness and vigour of the verse. The most deeply pathetic of his minor poems is +Evelyn Hope+:--

“So, hush,-- I will give you this leaf to keep-- See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand, There! that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand.”

9. +Browning’s Style.+-- Browning’s language is almost always very hard to understand; but the meaning, when we have got at it, is well worth all the trouble that may have been taken to reach it. His poems are more full of thought and more rich in experience than those of any other English writer except Shakspeare. The thoughts and emotions which throng his mind at the same moment so crowd upon and jostle each other, become so inextricably intermingled, that it is very often extremely difficult for us to make out any meaning at all. Then many of his thoughts are so subtle and so profound that they cannot easily be drawn up from the depths in which they lie. No man can write with greater directness, greater lyric vigour, fire, and impulse, than Browning when he chooses-- write more clearly and forcibly about such subjects as love and war; but it is very seldom that he does choose. The infinite complexity of human life and its manifold experiences have seized and imprisoned his imagination; and it is not often that he speaks in a clear, free voice.

10. MATTHEW ARNOLD, one of the finest poets and noblest stylists of the age, was born at Laleham, near Staines, on the Thames, in the year 1822. He is the eldest son of the great Dr Arnold, the famous Head-master of Rugby. He was educated at Winchester and Rugby, from which latter school he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. The Newdigate prize for English verse was won by him in 1843-- the subject of his poem being +Cromwell+. His first volume of poems was published in 1848. In the year 1851 he was appointed one of H.M. Inspectors of Schools; and he held that office up to the year 1885. In 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. In 1868 appeared a new volume with the simple title of +New Poems+; and, since then, he has produced a large number of books, mostly in prose. He is no less famous as a critic than as a poet; and his prose is singularly beautiful and musical.

11. +Arnold’s Style.+-- The chief qualities of his verse are clearness, simplicity, strong directness, noble and musical rhythm, and a certain intense calm. His lines on +Morality+ give a good idea of his style:--

“We cannot kindle when we will The fire that in the heart resides: The spirit bloweth and is still In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish ’twere done. Not till the hours of light return, All we have built do we discern.”

His finest poem in blank verse is his +Sohrab and Rustum+-- a tale of the Tartar wastes. One of his noblest poems, called +Rugby Chapel+, describes the strong and elevated character of his father, the Head-master of Rugby. --His prose is remarkable for its lucidity, its pleasant and almost conversational rhythm, and its perfection of language.

12. WILLIAM MORRIS, a great narrative poet, was born near London in the year 1834. He was educated at Marlborough and at Exeter College, Oxford. In 1858 appeared his first volume of poems. In 1863 he began a business for the production of artistic wall-paper, stained glass, and furniture; he has a shop for the sale of these works of art in Oxford Street, London; and he devotes most of his time to drawing and designing for artistic manufacturers. His first poem, +The Life and Death of Jason+, appeared in 1867; and his magnificent series of narrative poems-- +The Earthly Paradise+-- was published in the years from 1868 and 1870. ‘The Earthly Paradise’ consists of twenty-four tales in verse, set in a framework much like that of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales.’ The poetic power in these tales is second only to that of Chaucer; and Morris has always acknowledged himself to be a pupil of Chaucer’s--

“Thou, my Master still, Whatever feet have climbed Parnassus’ hill.”

Mr Morris has also translated the Æneid of Virgil, and several works from the Icelandic.

13. +Morris’s Style.+-- Clearness, strength, music, picturesqueness, and easy flow, are the chief characteristics of Morris’s style. Of the month of April he says:--

“O fair midspring, besung so oft and oft, How can I praise thy loveliness enow? Thy sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft That o’er the blossoms of the orchard blow, The thousand things that ’neath the young leaves grow The hopes and chances of the growing year, Winter forgotten long, and summer near.”

His pictorial power-- the power of bringing a person or a scene fully and adequately before one’s eyes by the aid of words alone-- is as great as that of Chaucer. The following is his picture of Edward III. in middle age:--

“Broad-browed he was, hook-nosed, with wide grey eyes No longer eager for the coming prize, But keen and steadfast: many an ageing line, Half-hidden by his sweeping beard and fine, Ploughed his thin cheeks; his hair was more than grey, And like to one he seemed whose better day Is over to himself, though foolish fame Shouts louder year by year his empty name. Unarmed he was, nor clad upon that morn Much like a king: an ivory hunting-horn Was slung about him, rich with gems and gold, And a great white ger-falcon did he hold Upon his fist; before his feet there sat A scrivener making notes of this and that As the King bade him, and behind his chair His captains stood in armour rich and fair.”

Morris’s stores of language are as rich as Spenser’s; and he has much the same copious and musical flow of poetic words and phrases.

14. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (+1811-1863+), one of the most original of English novelists, was born at Calcutta in the year 1811. The son of a gentleman high in the civil service of the East India Company, he was sent to England to be educated, and was some years at Charterhouse School, where one of his schoolfellows was Alfred Tennyson. He then went on to the University of Cambridge, which he left without taking a degree. Painting was the profession that he at first chose; and he studied art both in France and Germany. At the age of twenty-nine, however, he discovered that he was on a false tack, gave up painting, and took to literary work as his true field. He contributed many pleasant articles to ‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ under the name of +Michael Angelo Titmarsh+; and one of his most beautiful and most pathetic stories, +The Great Hoggarty Diamond+, was also written under this name. He did not, however, take his true place as an English novelist of the first rank until the year 1847, when he published his first serial novel, +Vanity Fair+. Readers now began everywhere to class him with Charles Dickens, and even above him. His most beautiful work is perhaps +The Newcomes+; but the work which exhibits most fully the wonderful power of his art and his intimate knowledge of the spirit and the details of our older English life is +The History of Henry Esmond+-- a work written in the style and language of the days of Queen Anne, and as beautiful as anything ever done by Addison himself. He died in the year 1863.

15. CHARLES DICKENS (+1812-1870+), the most popular writer of this century, was born at Landport, Portsmouth, in the year 1812. His delicate constitution debarred him from mixing in boyish sports, and very early made him a great reader. There was a little garret in his father’s house where a small collection of books was kept; and, hidden away in this room, young Charles devoured such books as the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and many other famous English books. This was in Chatham. The family next removed to London, where the father was thrown into prison for debt. The little boy, weakly and sensitive, was now sent to work in a blacking manufactory at six shillings a-week, his duty being to cover the blacking-pots with paper. “No words can express,” he says, “the secret agony of my soul, as I compared these my everyday associates with those of my happier childhood, and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast.... The misery it was to my young heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written.” When his father’s affairs took a turn for the better, he was sent to school; but it was to a school where “the boys trained white mice much better than the master trained the boys.” In fact, his true education consisted in his eager perusal of a large number of miscellaneous books. When he came to think of what he should do in the world, the profession of reporter took his fancy; and, by the time he was nineteen, he had made himself the quickest and most accurate-- that is, the best reporter in the Gallery of the House of Commons. His first work, +Sketches by Boz+, was published in 1836. In 1837 appeared the +Pickwick Papers+; and this work at once lifted Dickens into the foremost rank as a popular writer of fiction. From this time he was almost constantly engaged in writing novels. His +Oliver Twist+ and +David Copperfield+ contain reminiscences of his own life; and perhaps the latter is his most powerful work. “Like many fond parents,” he wrote, “I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child; and his name is _David Copperfield_.” He lived with all the strength of his heart and soul in the creations of his imagination and fancy while he was writing about them; he says himself, “No one can ever believe this narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in the writing;” and each novel, as he wrote it, made him older and leaner. Great knowledge of the lives of the poor, and great sympathy with them, were among his most striking gifts; and Sir Arthur Helps goes so far as to say, “I doubt much whether there has ever been a writer of fiction who took such a real and living interest in the world about him.” He died in the year 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

16. +Dickens’s Style.+-- His style is easy, flowing, vigorous, picturesque, and humorous; his power of language is very great; and, when he is writing under the influence of strong passion, it rises into a pure and noble eloquence. The scenery-- the external circumstances of his characters, are steeped in the same colours as the characters themselves; everything he touches seems to be filled with life and to speak-- to look happy or sorrowful,-- to reflect the feelings of the persons. His comic and humorous powers are very great; but his tragic power is also enormous-- his power of depicting the fiercest passions that tear the human breast,-- avarice, hate, fear, revenge, remorse. The great American statesman, Daniel Webster, said that Dickens had done more to better the condition of the English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain had ever sent into the English Parliament.

17. JOHN RUSKIN, the greatest living master of English prose, an art-critic and thinker, was born in London in the year 1819. In his father’s house he was accustomed “to no other prospect than that of the brick walls over the way; he had no brothers, nor sisters, nor companions.” To his London birth he ascribes the great charm that the beauties of nature had for him from his boyhood: he felt the contrast between town and country, and saw what no country-bred child could have seen in sights that were usual to him from his infancy. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and gained the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1839. He at first devoted himself to painting; but his true and strongest genius lay in the direction of literature. In 1843 appeared the first volume of his +Modern Painters+, which is perhaps his greatest work; and the four other volumes were published between that date and the year 1860. In this work he discusses the qualities and the merits of the greatest painters of the English, the Italian, and other schools. In 1851 he produced a charming fairy tale, ‘The King of the Golden River, or the Black Brothers.’ He has written on architecture also, on political economy, and on many other social subjects. He is the founder of a society called “The St George’s Guild,” the purpose of which is to spread abroad sound notions of what true life and true art are, and especially to make the life of the poor more endurable and better worth living.

18. +Ruskin’s Style.+-- A glowing eloquence, a splendid and full-flowing music, wealth of phrase, aptness of epithet, opulence of ideas-- all these qualities characterise the prose style of Mr Ruskin. His similes are daring, but always true. Speaking of the countless statues that fill the innumerable niches of the cathedral of Milan, he says that “it is as though a flight of angels had alighted there and been struck to marble.” His writings are full of the wisest sayings put into the most musical and beautiful language. Here are a few:--

“Every act, every impulse, of virtue and vice, affects in any creature, face, voice, nervous power, and vigour and harmony of invention, at once. Perseverance in rightness of human conduct renders, after a certain number of generations, human art possible; every sin clouds it, be it ever so little a one; and persistent vicious living and following of pleasure render, after a certain number of generations, all art impossible.”

“In mortals, there is a care for trifles, which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles, which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base.”

His power of painting in words is incomparably greater than that of any other English author: he almost infuses colour into his words and phrases, so full are they of pictorial power. It would be impossible to give any adequate idea of this power here; but a few lines may suffice for the present:--

“The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of enlarged and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour; it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God’s tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivered with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald.”

19. GEORGE ELIOT (the literary name for +Marian Evans, 1819-1880+), one of our greatest writers, was born in Warwickshire in the year 1819. She was well and carefully educated; and her own serious and studious character made her a careful thinker and a most diligent reader. For some time the famous Herbert Spencer was her tutor; and under his care her mind developed with surprising rapidity. She taught herself German, French, Italian-- studied the best works in the literature of these languages; and she was also fairly mistress of Greek and Latin. Besides all these, she was an accomplished musician. --She was for some time assistant-editor of the ‘Westminster Review.’ The first of her works which called the attention of the public to her astonishing skill and power as a novelist was her +Scenes of Clerical Life+. Her most popular novel, +Adam Bede+, appeared in 1859; +Romola+ in 1863; and +Middlemarch+ in 1872. She has also written a good deal of poetry, among other volumes that entitled +The Legend of Jubal, and other Poems+. One of her best poems is +The Spanish Gypsy+. She died in the year 1880.

20. +George Eliot’s Style.+-- Her style is everywhere pure and strong, of the best and most vigorous English, not only broad in its power, but often intense in its description of character and situation, and always singularly adequate to the thought. Probably no novelist knew the English character-- especially in the Midlands-- so well as she, or could analyse it with so much subtlety and truth. She is entirely mistress of the country dialects. In humour, pathos, knowledge of character, power of putting a portrait firmly upon the canvas, no writer surpasses her, and few come near her. Her power is sometimes almost Shakespearian. Like Shakespeare, she gives us a large number of wise sayings, expressed in the pithiest language. The following are a few:--

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

“It is easy finding reasons why other people should be patient.”

“Genius, at first, is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.”

“Things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

“Nature never makes men who are at once energetically sympathetic and minutely calculating.”

“To the far woods he wandered, listening, And heard the birds their little stories sing In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech-- Melted with tears, smiles, glances-- that can reach More quickly through our frame’s deep-winding night, And without thought raise thought’s best fruit, delight.”

TABLES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

[Transcriber’s Note:

In the original book, the following table-- spanning 14 pages-- was laid out in four columns: Writers; Works; Contemporary Events; Centuries (through 1500) or Decades (beginning 1550).

Missing punctuation has been silently supplied.]

+Centuries/Decades+ WRITERS Works Contemporary Events

+500+

(_Author unknown._) +Beowulf+ (brought over by Saxons and Angles from the Continent).

+600+

CAEDMON. A secular monk of Whitby. Died about +680+. +Poems+ on the Creation and other subjects taken from the Old and the New Testament.

Edwin (of Deira), King of the Angles, baptised 627.

+700+

BAEDA. +672-735+. “The Venerable Bede,” a monk of Jarrow-on-Tyne. An +Ecclesiastical History+ in Latin. A translation of +St John’s Gospel+ into English (lost).

First landing of the Danes, 787.

+800+

ALFRED THE GREAT. +849-901+. King; translator; prose-writer. Translated into the English of Wessex, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and other Latin works. Is said to have begun the +Anglo-Saxon Chronicle+.

The University of Oxford is said to have been founded in this reign.

Compiled by monks in various monasteries. +Anglo-Saxon Chronicle+, 875-1154.

+900+

ASSER. Bishop of Sherborne. Died +910+. +Life of King Alfred+.

+1000+

(_Author unknown._) A poem entitled +The Grave+.

+1100+

LAYAMON. +1150-1210+. A priest of Ernley-on-Severn. +The Brut+ (1205), a poem on Brutus, the supposed first settler in Britain.

John ascended the throne in 1199.

ORM or ORMIN. +1187-1237+. A canon of the Order of St Augustine. +The Ormulum+ (1215), a set of religious services in metre.

+1200+

ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER. +1255-1307+. +Chronicle of England+ in rhyme (1297).

Magna Charta, 1215. Henry III. ascends the throne, 1216.

ROBERT OF BRUNNE. (Robert Manning of Brun.) +1272-1340+. +Chronicle of England+ in rhyme; _Handlyng Sinne_ (1303).

University of Cambridge founded, 1231. Edward I. ascends the throne, 1272. Conquest of Wales, 1284.

+1300+

SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. +1300-1372+. Physician; traveller; prose-writer. +The Voyaige and Travaile+. Travels to Jerusalem, India, and other countries, written in Latin French and English (1356). The first writer “in formed English.”

Edward II ascends the throne, 1307. Battle of Bannockburn, 1314.

JOHN BARBOUR. Archdeacon of Aberdeen. +1316-1396+. +The Bruce+ (1377), a poem written in the Northern English or “Scottish” dialect.

Edward III. ascends the throne, 1327.

+1350+

JOHN WYCLIF. +1324-1384+. Vicar of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire. Translation of the +Bible+ from the Latin version; and many tracts and pamphlets on Church reform.

Hundred Years’ War begins, 1338. Battle of Crecy, 1346.

JOHN GOWER. +1325-1408+. A country gentleman of Kent; probably also a lawyer. +Vox Clamantis+, +Confessio Amantis+, +Speculum Meditantis+ (1393); and poems in French and Latin.

The Black Death, 1349, 1361, 1369.

WILLIAM LANGLANDE. +1332-1400+. Born in Shropshire. +Vision concerning Piers the Plowman+-- three editions (1362-78).

Battle of Poitiers, 1356. First law-pleadings in English, 1362.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER +1340-1400+. Poet; courtier; soldier; diplomatist; Comptroller of the Customs: Clerk of the King’s Works; M.P. +The Canterbury Tales+ (1384-98), of which the best is the +Knightes Tale+. Dryden called him “a perpetual fountain of good sense.”

Richard II. ascends the throne, 1377. Wat Tyler’s insurrection, 1381.

JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. +1394-1437+. Prisoner in England, and educated there, in 1405. +The King’s Quair+ (= _Book_), a poem in the style of Chaucer.

Henry IV. ascends the throne, 1399.

+1400+

WILLIAM CAXTON. +1422-1492+. Mercer; printer; translator; prose-writer. +The Game and Playe of the Chesse+ (1474)-- the first book printed in England; +Lives of the Fathers+, “finished on the last day of his life;” and many other works.

Henry V. ascends the throne, 1415. Battle of Agincourt, 1415. Henry VI. ascends the throne, 1422. Invention of Printing, 1438-45.

+1450+

WILLIAM DUNBAR. +1450-1530+. Franciscan or Grey Friar; Secretary to a Scotch embassy to France. +The Golden Terge+ (1501); the +Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins+ (1507); and other poems. He has been called “the Chaucer of Scotland.”

Jack Cade’s insurrection, 1450. End of the Hundred Years’ War, 1453.

GAWAIN DOUGLAS. +1474-1522+. Bishop of Dunkeld, in Perthshire. +Palace of Honour+ (1501); translation of +Virgil’s Æneid+ (1513)-- the first translation of any Latin author into verse. Douglas wrote in Northern English.

Wars of the Roses, 1455-86. Edward IV. ascends the throne, 1461.

WILLIAM TYNDALE. +1477-1536+. Student of theology; translator. Burnt at Antwerp for heresy. +New Testament+ translated (1525-34); the +Five Books of Moses+ translated (1530). This translation is the basis of the Authorised Version.

Edward V. king, 1483.

SIR THOMAS MORE. +1480-1535+. Lord High Chancellor; writer on social topics; historian. +History of King Edward V., and of his brother, and of Richard III+. (1513); +Utopia+ (= “The Land of Nowhere”), written in Latin; and other prose works.

Richard III. ascends the throne, 1483. Battle of Bosworth, 1485.

SIR DAVID LYNDESAY. +1490-1556+. Tutor of Prince James of Scotland (James V.); “Lord Lyon King-at-Arms;” poet. +Lyndesay’s Dream+ (1528); +The Complaint+ (1529); +A Satire of the Three Estates+ (1535)-- a “morality-play.”

Henry VII. ascends the throne, 1485. Greek began to be taught in England about 1497.

+1500+

ROGER ASCHAM. +1515-1568+. Lecturer on Greek at Cambridge; tutor to Edward VI., Queen Elizabeth, and Lady Jane Grey. +Toxophilus+ (1544), a treatise on shooting with the bow; +The Scholemastre+ (1570). “Ascham is plain and strong in his style, but without grace or warmth.”

Henry VIII. ascends the throne, 1509. Battle of Flodden, 1513. Wolsey Cardinal and Lord High Chancellor, 1515.

JOHN FOXE. +1517-1587+. An English clergyman. Corrector for the press at Basle; Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral; prose-writer. +The Book of Martyrs+ (1563), an account of the chief Protestant martyrs.

Sir Thomas More first layman who was Lord High Chancellor, 1529. Reformation in England begins about 1534.

EDMUND SPENSER. +1552-1599+. Secretary to Viceroy of Ireland; political writer; poet. +Shepheard’s Calendar+ (1579): +Faerie Queene+, in six books (1590-96).

Edward VI. ascends the throne, 1547. Mary Tudor ascends the throne, 1553.

+1550+

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. +1552-1618+. Courtier; statesman; sailor; coloniser; historian. +History of the World+ (1614), written during the author’s imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Cranmer burnt 1556.

RICHARD HOOKER. +1553-1600+. English clergyman; Master of the Temple; Rector of Boscombe, in the diocese of Salisbury. +Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity+ (1594). This book is an eloquent defence of the Church of England. The writer, from his excellent judgment, is generally called “the judicious Hooker.”

Elizabeth ascends the throne, 1558.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. +1554-1586+. Courtier; general; romance-writer. +Arcadia+, a romance (1580). +Defence of Poesie+, published after his death (in 1595). +Sonnets+.

+1560+

FRANCIS BACON. +1561-1626+. Viscount St Albans; Lord High Chancellor of England; lawyer; philosopher; essayist. +Essays+ (1597); +Advancement of Learning+ (1605); +Novum Organum+ (1620); and other works on methods of inquiry into nature.

Hawkins begins slave trade in 1562. Rizzio murdered, 1566.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. +1564-1616+. Actor; owner of theatre; play-writer; poet. Born and died at Stratford-on-Avon. Thirty-seven plays. His greatest +tragedies+ are _Hamlet_, _Lear_, and _Othello_. His best +comedies+ are _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, _The Merchant of Venice_, and _As You Like It_. His best +historical plays+ are _Julius Cæsar_ and _Richard III_. Many _minor poems_-- chiefly +sonnets+. He wrote no prose.

Marlowe, Dekker, Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Webster, Ben Johnson, and other dramatists, were contemporaries of Shakspeare.

+1570+

BEN JONSON. +1574-1637+. Dramatist; poet; prose-writer. +Tragedies+ and +comedies+. Best plays: _Volpone or the Fox_; _Every Man in his Humour_.

Drake sails round the world, 1577. Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 1578.

+1580+

WILLIAM DRUMMOND (“of Hawthornden”). +1585-1649+. Scottish poet; friend of Ben Jonson. +Sonnets+ and +poems+.

Raleigh in Virginia, 1584. Babington’s Plot, 1586. Spanish Armada, 1588.

+1590+

THOMAS HOBBES. +1588-1679+. Philosopher; prose-writer; translator of Homer. +The Leviathan+ (1651), a work on politics and moral philosophy.

Battle of Ivry, 1590.

+1600+

SIR THOMAS BROWNE. +1605-1682+. Physician at Norwich. +Religio Medici+ (= “The Religion of a Physician”); +Urn-Burial+; and other prose works.

Australia discovered, 1601. James I. ascends the throne in 1603.

JOHN MILTON. +1608-1674+. Student; political writer; poet; Foreign (or “Latin”) Secretary to Cromwell. Became blind from over-work in +1654+. _Minor Poems_; +Paradise Lost+; +Paradise Regained+; +Samson Agonistes+. Many prose works, the best being +Areopagitica+, a speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.

Hampton Court Conference for translation of Bible, 1604-11. Gunpowder Plot, 1605.

+1610+

SAMUEL BUTLER. +1612-1680+. Literary man; secretary to the Earl of Carbery. +Hudibras+, a mock-heroic poem, written to ridicule the Puritan and Parliamentarian party.

Execution of Raleigh, 1618.

JEREMY TAYLOR. +1613-1667+. English clergyman; Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland. +Holy Living+ and +Holy Dying+ (1649); and a number of other religious books.

+1620+

JOHN BUNYAN. +1628-1688+. Tinker and traveling preacher. +The Pilgrim’s Progress+ (1678); the +Holy War+; and other religious works.

Charles I. ascends the throne in 1625. Petition of Right, 1628.

+1630+

JOHN DRYDEN. +1631-1700+. Poet-Laureate and Historiographer-Royal; playwright; poet; prose-writer. +Annus Mirabilis+ (= “The Wonderful Year,” 1665-66, on the Plague and the Fire of London); +Absalom and Achitophel+ (1681), a poem on political parties; +Hind and Panther+ (1687), a religious poem. He also wrote many plays, some odes and a translation of Virgil’s +Æneid+. His prose consists chiefly of prefaces and introductions to his poems.

No Parliament from 1629-40. Scottish National Covenant, 1638.

+1640+

Long Parliament, 1640-53. Marston Moor, 1644. Execution of Charles I., 1649.

+1650+

JOHN LOCKE. +1632-1704+. Diplomatist; Secretary to the Board of Trade; philosopher; prose-writer. +Essay concerning the Human Understanding+ (1690); +Thoughts on Education+; and other prose works.

The Commonwealth, 1649-60. Cromwell Lord Protector, 1653-58.

+1660+

DANIEL DEFOE. +1661-1731+. Literary man; pamphleteer; journalist; member of Commission on Union with Scotland. +The True-born Englishman+ (1701); +Robinson Crusoe+ (1719); +Journal of the Plague+ (1722); and more than a hundred books in all.

Restoration, 1660. First standing army, 1661. First newspaper in England, 1663.

JONATHAN SWIFT. +1667-1745+. English clergyman; literary man; satirist; prose-writer; poet; Dean of St Patrick’s, in Dublin. +Battle of the Books+; +Tale of a Tub+ (1704), an allegory on the Churches of Rome, England, and Scotland; +Gulliver’s Travels+ (1726); a few poems; and a number of very vigorous political pamphlets.

Plague of London, 1665. Fire of London, 1666.

+1670+

SIR RICHARD STEELE. +1671-1729+. Soldier; literary man; courtier; journalist; M.P. Steele founded the ‘Tatler,’ ‘Spectator,’ ‘Guardian,’ and other small journals. He also wrote some plays.

Charles II. pensioned by Louis XIV. of France, 1674.

JOSEPH ADDISON. +1672-1719+. Essayist; poet; Secretary of State for the Home Department. +Essays+ in the ‘Tatler,’ ‘Spectator,’ and ‘Guardian.’ Cato, a Tragedy (1713). Several _Poems_ and _Hymns_.

The Habeas Corpus Act, 1679.

+1680+

ALEXANDER POPE. +1688-1744+. Poet. +Essay on Criticism+ (1711); +Rape of the Lock+ (1714); Translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, finished in 1726; +Dunciad+ (1729); +Essay on Man+ (1739). A few prose _Essays_, and a volume of _Letters_.

James II. ascends the throne in 1685. Revolution of 1688. William III. and Mary II. ascend the throne, 1689.

+1690+

Battle of the Boyne, 1690.

JAMES THOMSON. +1700-1748+. Poet. +The Seasons+; a poem in blank verse (1730); +The Castle of Indolence+; a mock-heroic poem in the Spenserian stanza (1748).

Censorship of the Press abolished, 1695. Queen Anne ascends the throne in 1702.

+1700+

HENRY FIELDING. +1707-1754+. Police-magistrate, journalist; novelist. +Joseph Andrews+ (1742); +Amelia+ (1751). He was “the first great English novelist.”

Battle of Blenheim, 1704. Gibraltar taken, 1704.

DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. +1709-1784+. Schoolmaster; literary man; essayist; poet; dictionary-maker. +London+ (1738); +The Vanity of Human Wishes+ (1749); +Dictionary of the English Language+ (1755); +Rasselas+ (1759); +Lives of the Poets+ (1781). He also wrote +The Idler+, +The Rambler+, and a play called +Irene+.

Union of England and Scotland, 1707.

+1710+

DAVID HUME. +1711-1776+. Librarian; Secretary to the French Embassy; philosopher; literary man. +History of England+ (1754-1762); and a number of philosophical _Essays_. His prose is singularly clear, easy, and pleasant.

George I. ascends the throne in 1714.

THOMAS GRAY. +1716-1771+. Student; poet; letter-writer; Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge. +Odes+; +Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard+ (1750)-- one of the most perfect poems in our language. He was a great stylist, and an extremely careful workman.

Rebellion in Scotland in 1715.

+1720+

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT. +1721-1771+. Doctor; pamphleteer; literary hack; novelist. +Roderick Random+ (1748); +Humphrey Clinker+ (1771). He also continued +Hume’s History of England+. He published also some _Plays_ and _Poems_.

South-Sea Bubble bursts, 1720.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. +1728-1774+. Literary man; play-writer; poet. +The Traveller+ (1764); +The Vicar of Wakefield+ (1766); +The Deserted Village+ (1770); +She Stoops to Conquer+--a Play (1773); and a large number of books, pamphlets, and compilations.

George II. ascends the throne, 1727.

ADAM SMITH. +1723-1790+. Professor in the University of Glasgow. +Theory of Moral Sentiments+ (1759); +Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations+ (1776). He was the founder of the science of political economy.

+1730+

EDMUND BURKE. +1730-1797+. M.P.; statesman; “the first man in the House of Commons;” orator; writer on political philosophy. +Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful+ (1757); +Reflections on the Revolution of France+ (1790); +Letters on a Regicide Peace+ (1797); and many other works. “The greatest philosopher in practice the world ever saw.”

WILLIAM COWPER. +1731-1800+. Commissioner in Bankruptcy; Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords; poet. +Table Talk+ (1782); +John Gilpin+ (1785); +A Translation of Homer+ (1791); and many other _Poems_. His Letters, like Gray’s, are among the best in the language.

+1740+

EDWARD GIBBON. +1737-1794+. Historian; M.P. +Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire+ (1776-87). “Heavily laden style and monotonous balance of every sentence.”

Rebellion in Scotland, 1745, commonly called “The ’Forty-five.”

+1750+

ROBERT BURNS. +1759-1796+. Farm-labourer; ploughman; farmer; excise-officer; lyrical poet. _Poems and Songs_ (1786-96). His prose consists chiefly of Letters. “His pictures of social life, of quaint humour, come up to nature; and they cannot go beyond it.”

Clive in India, 1750-60. Earthquake at Lisbon, 1755. Black Hole of Calcutta, 1756.

+1760+

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. +1770-1850+. Distributor of Stamps for the county of Westmoreland; poet; poet-laureate. +Lyrical Ballads+ (with Coleridge, 1798); +The Excursion+ (1814); +Yarrow Revisited+ (1835), and many poems. +The Prelude+ was published after his death. His prose, which is very good, consists chiefly of Prefaces and Introductions.

George III. ascends the throne in 1760. Napoleon and Wellington born, 1769.

+1770+

SIR WALTER SCOTT. +1771-1832+. Clerk to the Court of Session in Edinburgh; Scottish barrister; poet; novelist. +Lay of the Last Minstrel+ (1805); +Marmion+ (1808); +Lady of the Lake+ (1810); +Waverley+-- the first of the “Waverley Novels”-- was published in 1814. The “Homer of Scotland.” His prose is bright and fluent, but very inaccurate.

Warren Hastings in India, 1772-85.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. +1772-1834+. Private soldier; journalist; literary man; philosopher; poet. +The Ancient Mariner+ (1798); +Christabel+ (1816); +The Friend+-- a Collection of Essays (1812); +Aids to Reflection+ (1825). His prose is very full both of thought and emotion.

ROBERT SOUTHEY. +1774-1843+. Literary man; Quarterly Reviewer; historian; poet-laureate. +Joan of Arc+ (1796); +Thalaba the Destroyer+ (1801); +The Curse of Kehama+ (1810); +A History of Brazil+; +The Doctor+-- a Collection of Essays; +Life of Nelson+. He wrote more than a hundred volumes. He was “the most ambitious and and most voluminous author of his age.”

American Declaration of Independence, 1776.

CHARLES LAMB. +1775-1834+. Clerk in the East India House; poet; prose-writer. _Poems_ (1797); +Tales from Shakespeare+ (1806); +The Essays of Elia+ (1823-1833). One of the finest writers of writers of prose in the English language.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. +1775-1864+. Poet; prose-writer. +Gebir+ (1798); +Count Julian+ (1812); +Imaginary Conversations+ (1824-1846); +Dry Sticks Faggoted+ (1858). He wrote books for more than sixty years. His style is full of vigour and sustained eloquence.

Alliance of France and America, 1778.

THOMAS CAMPBELL. +1777-1844+. Poet; literary man; editor. +The Pleasures of Hope+ (1799); +Poems+ (1803); +Gertrude of Wyoming+, +Battle of the Baltic+, +Hohenlinden+, etc. (1809). He also wrote some _Historical Works_.

Encyclopædia Britannica founded in 1778.

HENRY HALLAM. +1778-1859+. Historian. +View of Europe during the Middle Ages+ (1818); +Constitutional History of England+ (1827); +Introduction to the Literature of Europe+ (1839).

THOMAS MOORE. +1779-1852+. Poet; prose-writer. +Odes and Epistles+ (1806); +Lalla Rookh+ (1817); +History of Ireland+ (1827); +Life of Byron+ (1830); +Irish Melodies+ (1834); and many prose works.

+1780+

THOMAS DE QUINCEY. +1785-1859+. Essayist. +Confessions of an English Opium-Eater+ (1821). He wrote also on many subjects-- philosophy, poetry, classics, history, politics. His writings fill twenty volumes. He was one of the finest prose-writers of this century.

French Revolution begun in 1789.

LORD BYRON (George Gordon). +1788-1824+. Peer; poet; volunteer to Greece. +Hours of Idleness+ (1807); +English Bards and Scotch Reviewers+ (1809); +Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage+ (1812-1818); +Hebrew Melodies+ (1815); and many _Plays_. His prose, which is full of vigour and animal spirits, is to be found chiefly in his Letters.

Bastille overthrown, 1789.

+1790+

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. +1792-1822+. Poet. +Queen Mab+ (1810); +Prometheus Unbound+--a Tragedy (1819); +Ode to the Skylark+, +The Cloud+ (1820); +Adonaïs+ (1821), and many other poems; and several prose works.

Cape of Good Hope Hope taken, 1795. Bonaparte in Italy, 1796. Battle of the Nile, 1798.

+1800+

JOHN KEATS. +1795-1821+. Poet. +Poems+ (1817); +Endymion+ (1818); +Hyperion+ (1820). “Had Keats lived to the ordinary age of man, he would have been one of the greatest of all poets.”

Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 1801. Trafalgar and Nelson, 1805.

+1810+

Peninsular War, 1808-14. Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia; Moscow burnt, 1812.

+1820+

THOMAS CARLYLE. +1795-1881+. Literary man; poet; translator; essayist; reviewer; political writer; historian. +German Romances+-- a set of Translations (1827); +Sartor Resartus+-- “The Tailor Repatched” (1834); +The French Revolution+ (1837); +Heroes and Hero-Worship+ (1840); +Past and Present+ (1843); +Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches+ (1845); +Life of Frederick the Great+ (1858-65). “With the gift of song, Carlyle would have been the greatest of epic poets since Homer.”

War with United States, 1812-14. Battle of Waterloo,1815.

+1830+

George IV. ascends the throne, 1820. Greek War of Freedom, 1822-29. Byron in Greece, 1823-24. Catholic Emancipation, 1829.

LORD MACAULAY (Thomas Babington). +1800-1859+. Barrister; Edinburgh Reviewer; M.P.; Member of the Supreme Council of India; Cabinet Minister; poet; essayist; historian; peer. +Milton+ (in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ 1825); +Lays of Ancient Rome+ (1842); +History of England+-- unfinished (1849-59). “His pictorial faculty is amazing.”

William IV. ascends the throne, 1830. The Reform Bill, 1832. Total Abolition of Slavery, 1834.

LORD LYTTON (Edward Bulwer). +1805-1873+. Novelist; poet; dramatist; M.P.; Cabinet Minister; peer. +Ismael and Other Poems+ (1825); +Eugene Aram+ (1831); +Last Days of Pompeii+ (1834); +The Caxtons+ (1849); +My Novel+ (1853); +Poems+ (1865).

Queen Victoria ascends the throne, 1837.

+1840+

Irish Famine, 1845.

JOHN STUART MILL. +1806-1873+. Clerk in the East India House; philospher; political writer; M.P.; Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews. +System of Logic+ (1843); +Principles of Political Economy+ (1848); +Essay on Liberty+ (1858); +Autobiography+ (1873); “For judicial calmness, elevation of tone, and freedom from personality, Mill is unrivalled among the writers of his time.”

Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846.

+1850+

Revolution in Paris, 1851. Death of Wellington, 1852.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. +1807-1882+. Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, U.S.; poet; prose-writer. +Outre-Mer+--a Story (1835); +Hyperion+--a Story (1839); +Voices of the Night+ (1841); +Evangeline+ (1848) +Hiawatha+ (1855); +Aftermath+ (1873). “His tact in the use of language is probably the chief cause of his success.”

Napoleon III. Emperor of the French, 1852. Russian War, 1854-56.

LORD TENNYSON (Alfred Tennyson). +1809----+. Poet; poet-laureate; peer. +Poems+ (1830) +In Memoriam+ (1850); +Maud+ (1855); +Idylls of the King+ (1859-73); +Queen Mary+--a Drama (1875); +Becket+--a Drama (1884). He is at present our greatest living poet.

Franco-Austrian War, 1859.

+1860+

Emancipation of Russian serfs, 1861.

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT (afterwards Mrs Browning). +1809-1861+. Poet; prose-writer; translator. +Prometheus Bound+-- translated from the Greek of Æschylus (1833); +Poems+ (1844); +Aurora Leigh+ (1856); and _Essays_ contributed to various magazines.

Austro-Prussian “Seven Weeks’ War”, 1866. Suez canal finished, 1869.

+1870+

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. +1811-1863+. Novelist; writer in ‘Punch’; artist. +The Paris Sketch-Book+ (1840); +Vanity Fair+ (1847); +Esmond+ (1852); +The Newcomes+(1855); +The Virginians+ (1857). The greatest novelist and one of the most perfect stylists of this century. “The classical English humorist and satirist of the reign of Queen Victoria.”

Franco-Prussian War 1870-71. Third French Republic, 1870. William I. of Prussia made Emperor of the Germans at Versailles, 1871.

CHARLES DICKENS. +1812-1870+. Novelist. +Sketches by Boz+ (1836); +The Pickwick Papers+ (1837); +Oliver Twist+ (1838); +Nicholas Nickleby+ (1838); and many other novels and works; +Great Expectations+ (1868). The most popular writer that ever lived.

Rome the new capital of Italy, 1871. Russo-Turkish War 1877-78. Berlin Congress and Treaty, 1878.

ROBERT BROWNING. +1812----+. Poet. +Pauline+ (1833); +Paracelsus+ (1836); _Poems_ (1865); +The Ring and the Book+ (1869); and many other volumes of poetry.

Leo XIII. made Pope in 1878.

+1880+

JOHN RUSKIN. +1819----+. Art-critic; essayist; teacher; literary man. +Modern Painters+ (1843-60); +The Stones of Venice+ (1851-53); +The Queen of the Air+ (1869); +An Autobiography+ (1885); and very many other works. “He has a deep, serious, and almost fanatical reverence for art.”

Assassination of Alexander II., 1881. Arabi Pasha’s Rebellion 1882-83. War in the Soudan, 1884.

GEORGE ELIOT. +1819-1880+. Novelist; poet; essayist. +Scenes of Clerical Life+ (1858); +Adam Bede+ (1859); and many other novels down to +Daniel Deronda+ (1876); +Spanish Gypsy+ (1868); +Legend of Jubal+ (1874).

Murder of Gordon, 1884. New Reform Bill, 1885.

INDEX.

[Spellings in the Index are sometimes different from those used in the main text, as with the names “Shakespeare” and “Wycliffe”, or the use of ligatures in names such as “Bæda” and “Cædmon”. Paragraph references given in {braces} were added by the transcriber. Parts III and IV are separately indexed.]