SOCIAL HOURS ENGLISH LITERATURE. "GIVE IT UP HOME GUITURK TEST EXERCISES. 1. What is the nature or "make-up" of the English language? 2. How many words are there in the English language? 3. What are considered the best examples of simple Anglo-Saxon literature? 4. When does English literature commence ? 5. By what discovery was literature in the 15th century promoted? 6. What was the first book printed in Britain? Why are the following persons distinguished in English literature 7. Geoffrey Chaucer, 8. John Gower, 9. John Wyckliff, 15. Jeremy Taylor, 23. Joseph Addison, 24. Jonathan Swift, 25. Alexander Pope, 26. James Thompson, 27. Dr. Isaac Watts, 28. Dr. Samuel Johnson, 30. David Hume, 35. Mrs. Hannah More, 37. Robert Burns, 38. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 39. Robert Southey, 40. Charles Lamb, 41. Thomas Moore, 43. Walter Scott, 44. George Gordon Byron ? 45. Miss Augusta J. Evans and Miss Mulock? 46. W. M. Thackeray, Douglass Jerrold, Charles Dickens, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton? 47. Lord Macaulay, J. A. Froude, Archibald Alison? 48. Sir Humphrey Davy, John Dalton? 49. Hugh Miller! 50. Thomas De Quincey; Thomas Chalmers, Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mills? 51. Thomas H. Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall? 52. Mention an eminent English poet in the reign of Victoria. 53. What is the "Harleian Collection?" 54. What were the Ireland forgeries ? 55. When did English newspapers begin? 56. Who was "Blind Harry?" 1. It is a composition of Anglo-Saxon, French, and Latin, with words of various other languages. 2. There are upwards of 42,000,,of which 13,000 are Anglo-Saxon, and 29,000 French and Latin, the Latin being imported chiefly through the French. 3. The works of Bunyan, and the authorized St. James version of the Bible. 4. It properly begins with the works of Chaucer and Gower in the 14th century, when the language had settled into its present composite form, a though still uncouth in its orthography and expression. 5. The discovery of the art of printing which was introduced into England by William Caxton, about 1471. 6. It was The Game of Chess, printed by Caxton 1474; he also translated or vrote about sixty different books, all of which went through his own pres before his death in 1491. 7. Chucer was the earliest English poet, and was employed in the court of Edward III. Late in life he wrote his Canterbury Tales, which are in vere, purporting to be related for mutual amusement by a party of equestrian pilgrims from the Tabard Inn, Southwark, to Canterbury. They are mw little read on account of a number of words being obsolete or in an old orthography; but their merit places him in the first rank of English poes. B. in London 1328. D. 1400. 8. Gowel was an English gentleman of property, who wrote several poems both in Latin and English. D. 1408. 9. Wycklif was a learned ecclesiastic and translated the Scriptures from the Latin, which remains one of the valuable relics of the English language of the 14th century. B. 1324. D. 1384. 10. Sir Thomas More, the pious and learned Chancellor of Henry VIII., by whom he was barbarously condemned and beheaded in 1535, wrote several works in Latin and English; his best known production is Utopia, descriptive of an imaginary country where everything is perfect. 11. John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, of whom the Earl of Morton said, "One who never feared the face of man ;" wrote several theological works, but his chief production was a History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland. D. 1572. 12. J. Napier attained to everlasting fame by his discovery of Logarithms, a short method of calculation, valuable in many mathematical operations. B. 1550. D. 1617. 13. Shakespeare is the greatest of English poets and dramatists, his works showing the most extraordinary versatility of fancy, felicity of expression, and knowledge of human character. He was born at Stratfordon-Avon, in 1564, and died 1616. It was only after his decease that the grandeur of his genius was appreciated. His works were first published in 1623. 14. Bacon was Chancellor of England in the reign of James I., a luminary of learning, and author of several philosophical works This great statesman was convicted of corrupt practices, and besides being fined £110,000, was for a time confined in the Tower. His Essays are well known. B. 1561. D. 1626, 15. Taylor was an eminent Divine, and author of Holy Living and Holy Dying, and other theological and devotional works, which are highly prized for their learning, piety, and beauty of style. B. 1613. D. 1667. 16. Milton was the author of Paradise Lost, a poem in blink verse, the greatest epic in the English language; he also distinguished himself as the writer of treatises in favor of the Commonwealth and the principles of Civil Liberty. B. 1608. D. 1674. 17. Butler is the author of Hudibras, a satirical poem, vritten after the Restoration, and designed to burlesque the over-zealously religious party which had recently held sway. B. 1612. D. 1680. 18. Dryden was a poet and dramatist by profession. He is chiefly renowned for his poems and for his translation of Virgils Eneid into English verse. B. 1631. D. 1700. 19. Locke was the greatest philosophical writer of the period. His |