CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THESE have a cerrence, which may make

HESE studies have a certain aim, and it is hoped

them acceptable to the class of readers for whom they are intended. It may be well to state in a few words what the aim of the writer is.

In the first place, it is somewhat difficult to define where what is called modern English literature commences. In the truest sense English literature is a unity. It has grown up out of small and semi-articulate beginnings into a great organic whole. It may be compared to a tree which has passed through various stages of growth, and has at certain seasons put forth foliage and blossom, passing through adolescence to maturity, at last becoming rooted in a stately strength, and bearing a perpetual harvest. Or it may be compared to a river which has broadened and deepened in its course, until at last what was a feeble and insignificant stream is a mighty tideway, on which the leviathan may float, or the craft of many and diverse masters sail at ease.

Whichever illustration we may select as most appropriate, the point to be remembered is, that English literature is an organic whole. There are no deep dividing fissures, and the divisions which we have

invented to help us in our survey of it are purely arbitrary. Not the less, however, it has its periods. A just criticism and discerning eye perceive how, at certain eras of national life, a seemingly new force has flowed through the old channels, or has made a new channel for itself, and has produced distinct and definite results. The great literary battle of Victor Hugo's life between classicism and romanticism has had its counterpart again and again in English literature. In the days of Pope and Dryden we had a certain theory of poetry which was thought to be perfect and allsufficient. Poetry was treated almost as an exact science, and the laws for its manufacture were reduced to a precise code, and stated with axiomatic clearness. There were even certain phrases for natural facts, which were universally adopted as current coin, and the west wind was always spoken of as "the gentle zephyr," and the north wind as "the blast of Boreas." The aim of poetry was not to startle, but to instruct. It was to put into lucid and authentic phrase certain facts and teachings which the individual poet thought it well that his generation should learn. Poetry was not the vehicle of passion, not the expression of imagination, not the voice of the emotions, so much as the vehicle of philosophic thought and reflection. To say that the poetry produced under such circumstances was not poetry is false; but it is poetry in fetters. Everyone knows that Byron loved and defended Pope, and looked upon Pope as an impeccable master; and Pope deserved the recognition of Byron. For lucidity, for sharpness and brilliance of phrase, for delicate force and effect, it is hard to surpass the finest work of Pope.

But gradually men came to see that Pope's "Essay

on Man" was not the last possibility of English poetry. The new social and political forces at work in the world spread a revolutionary ferment through the realm of letters also. Men were tired of the artificial glitter of didactic poetry; they began to yearn for the freshness and wholesomeness of a more natural style. Just at the nick of time, in 1726, Thomson published his "Seasons," which sounded the note of recall to nature. Then, in 1765, Bishop Percy published his "Reliques of English Ballad-Poetry," in which the note of recall became an imperative and irresistible voice. There was yet to be a long pause before the tree burgeoned. with its new spring, or the river burst its old banks into a wider channel; but at last the ear of the world. caught the voice of a Scotch ploughman singing, at the plough's tail, "A man's a man for a' that," and at the brook-side to his "Mary in Heaven;" and then, in the fulness of the time, came Wordsworth, speaking from the dewy calmness of the English mountains, and Shelley from the passionate air of Italy. But all this was not revolution: it was development. The change was not arbitrary: it was inevitable from the nature of things, and was part of that vast process of evolution which in the world of letters is as distinct a law as in the world of nature.

Where, then, modern literature may be said to begin it is difficult to determine, and is a point one can scarcely determine without adopting some arbitrary law of criticism, such as the general order of history forbids. Speaking generally, however, it may be said the old movement exhausted itself in Pope, and from that point a new era did begin. The poetry of Goldsmith and Cowper is entirely different from the poetry of Pope and Gay. Recurring again to our illustration, we may

say that while the stream flows on, one and indivisible, swelled by many rivulets and springs, yet it is quite possible to follow its banks, and to mark certain alterations in its character as it passes onward to its fuller life. We notice differences of colour, of speed, and of temperature. As the volume of English literature has increased its variety has also increased. It has become more flexible, more various in power, more complex in its manifold results. It reflects the lights of thought and passion more clearly, and it is readier to catch the shifting side-lights of the times. In a thousand ways the literature of to-day differs from, and in a hundred ways transcends, the literature of the eighteenth century. Into this vast subject it is not my province to enter; it is enough for me to point out, even in this general way, what I mean by modern English.

The second point to which I would ask attention is the nature of the brief studies contained in this series. The age in which we live is an age of many books and few readers. Does this appear a paradox? It is explained by what we mean by "a reader." The true reader is a man who applies patience and industry to books, and is contented with nothing less than their actual mastery. He is in earnest in his work, and "reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests" his books. How many do this? There is reading in plenty, but digestion is rare. The very plethora of books has produced literary dyspepsia. But there is another reason for the growth of books and the haste with which they are devoured-not digested. The pace of life has vastly increased since the nineteenth century dawned. Leisure has almost disappeared. The railway has altered everything. It is true that he who runs may read, but much of our reading has

to be taken running.

The vast mass of readers have no time to devote to intricate literary problems and the ever-multiplying details of literary history. They are interested in books, they feel the fascination of literature, but they are destitute of that leisure for contemplation in which a just criticism grows up, and a sound personal opinion on the problems of literature can be formed. They have "no shelter to grow ripe, no leisure to grow wise "-to quote the pregnant line of Matthew Arnold! It follows, therefore, that for this vast mass of readers a sort of middleman is needed, who will do for them what they cannot do for themselves, and put their literary fare before them, not in its uncooked bulk, but carefully prepared in portable doses, and warranted to digest easily. It may not be a very dignified description of the critic to call him a "middleman;" but that is what he really is, -the middleman of literature. But if it is not a very dignified appellation, certainly the function performed is a very useful one, and one that in this age of many books and little leisure is becoming an increasingly important office.

For instance, take in illustration of this statement such a history as Shelley's. The Shelley literature has now become almost a library in itself. It ranges through every variety of detraction and adulation. To one biographer Shelley is a monster of pollution, to another a saviour of society, who, "under favourable circumstances, might have become the saviour of the world." Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson has written a huge book on the subject, and Mr. Edward Dowden has written a still larger. Mr. Jeaffreson's book was the unauthorised version of Shelley's life, in which men complained that everything against Shelley was stated with a sort of malicious veracity, and often with a lack of insight and