Literature of the English Language: Comprising Representative Selections ...

He left the whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless, by so doing, laid himself open to the charge of inconsistency; but, though philosophically in the wrong, we can not but believe that he was poetically in the right. This task, which almost any other writer would have found impracticable, was easy to him. The peculiar art which he possessed, of communicating his meaning circuitously, through a long succession of associated ideas, and of intimating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those incongruities which he could not avoid.

Poetry which relates to the beings of another world ought to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque, indeed, beyond any that was ever written. Its effect approaches to that produced by the pencil or the chisel; but it is picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. This is a fault, indeed, on the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of his poem, which, as we have already observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of description necessary. Still it is a fault. His supernatural agents excite an interest; but it is not the interest which is proper to supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk with his ghosts and demons without any emotions of unearthly awe. We could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper, and eat heartily in their company. His angels are good men with wings; his devils are spiteful, ugly executioners; his dead men are merely living men in strange situations. The scene which passes between the poet and Facinata is justly celebrated: still Facinata in the burning tomb is exactly what Facinata would have been at an auto-da-fe. Nothing can be more touching than the first interview of Dante and Beatrice; yet what is it but a lovely woman chiding with sweet austere composure the lover for whose affections she is grateful, but whose vices she reprobates? The feelings which give the passage its charm would suit the streets of Florence as well as the summit of the Mount of Purgatory. The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. They are not metaphysical abstractions; they are not wicked men; they are not ugly beasts; they have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tasso and Klopstock: they have just enough in common with human nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom.

Perhaps the gods and demons of Eschylus may best bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, something of the vagueness and tenor of the Oriental character; and the same

His

peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of the amenity and elegance which we generally find in the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colossal. legends seem to harmonize less with the fragrant groves and graceful porticos in which his countrymen paid their vows to the God of Light, and Goddess of Desire, than with those huge and grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindostan still bows down to her seven-headed idols. His favorite gods are those of the elder generations, the sons of heaven and earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself was a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans, and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among his creations of this class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of heaven. He bears, undoubtedly, a considerable resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both, we find the same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same unconquerable pride. In both characters, also, are mingled, though in very different proportions, some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly superhuman enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uneasy posture; he is rather too much depressed and agitated; his resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which he possesses that he holds the fate of his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his release will surely come. But Satan is a creature of another sphere. The might of his intellectual nature is victorious over the extremity of pain. Amidst agonies which can not be conceived without horror, he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Against the sword of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, against the flaming lake and the marl burning with solid fire, against the prospect of an eternity of unintermittent misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, requiring no support from any thing external, nor even from hope itself!

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVEL.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. to the Death of Elizabeth." several historical characters. HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. 1823-1862. "History of Civilization," two vols.; a most remarkable attempt to write history in the order of its scientific growth. Not completed.

-1818. "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey Materially qualifies the generally-received opinions of

Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON. — 1792. "The History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons," ten vols.; "To Accession of Louis Napoleon," eight vols.; also "A Life of Marlborough."

GEORGE GROTE. -1794. "The History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great," - a work of the highest merit.

THOMAS ARNOLD. .- 1795-1842. Head master of Rugby. Author of “A Fragment of Roman History,' Sermons," and "Historical Lectures."

CONNOP THIRLWALL.

Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE. 1788-1861. "The History of the Anglo-Saxons: " "The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth;" "The History of Normandy and of England."

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. — 1793-1854. "Life of Sir Walter Scott," his fatherin-law; "Valerius" and "Reginald Dalton," novels; Spanish ballads.

JOHN FORSTER. - 1812. "Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth," and "Life of Goldsmith."

The

GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 1817. "Life of Goethe;" "A Biographical History of Philosophy;""Life of Robespierre; ""The Physiology of Common Life; ' Spanish Drama," and other works.

DAVID MASSON. .-1822. Times of John Milton."

SAMUEL LAING.

of a Traveler."

"British Novelists and their Styles;" "Life and

"A Residence in Norway;" "A Tour in Sweden;" "Notes

DAVID LIVINGSTONE. - 1817. "Missionary Travels in South Africa." AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD.-1817. "Nineveh and its Remains; ""Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon."

RICHARD FORD.-1796-1858. Murray's "Handbook for Spain;" "Gatherings from Spain."

GEORGE BORROW.- 1803. "The Bible in Spain;" "Zincali, or the Gypsies in Spain; "Lavengro, or the Scholar, the Gypsy, and the Priest," and Sequel; "The Romany Rye."

ALEXANDER W. KINGLAKE.—1811. "Eothen," - travels in the East. Sir JAMES EMERSON TENNENT. - 1804. "Modern Greece; "Wine;" and "Ceylon."

*Belgium;"

Sir FRANCIS HEAD.-1793. "Pampas and the Andes," and other works. CHARLES WAterton. 66 - Wanderings in South America; "" Antilles;" &c. Capt. SHERRARD OSBORNE. — 1820. 'Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal;" "A Cruise in Japanese Waters."

Dr. RAE, Sir Robert M'Clure, and Sir LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK, are eminent for arctic travel and discovery.

HENRY D. INGLIS, Sir JOHN BOWING, ELIOT WARBURTON, JOHN FRANCIS DAVIS, WINGROVE COOKE, LAURENCE OLIPHANT, and Rev. JOSIAS PORTER, have all written interesting accounts of travel.

Lord CAMPBELL.-1799-1861. "Lives of the Lord Chancellors; ""Lives of the Chief Justices."

CHARLES KNIGHT. — 1790. "Old Printer and Modern Press;" "Popular History of England; " edition of Shakspeare.

ROBERT VAUGHN. — 1798. "John de Wycliffe;" "England under the Stuarts;" "Revolutions of English History."

AGNES and ELIZABETH STRICKLAND. — “ "Lives of the Queens of England and Scotland."

WALTER F. HOOK.-"Ecclesiastical Biography; "Church Diet;' ""Arch

bishops of Canterbury.”

ROBERT CHAMBERS.

1802. "Traditions of Edinburgh;""Domestic Annals of Scotland;" and "History of the Rebellion of 1745, 1746."

COSMO INNES.—"Scotland in the Middle Ages;" "Sketches of Early Scottish History."

Earl STANHOPE. 1805. 'Life of Belisarius;""War of Succession in Spain;" "History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles."

THEOLOGIANS, SCHOLARS, ESSAYISTS, ETC.

345

Sir GEORGE C. LEWIS.-1806. "The Credibility of Early Roman History;' "Influence of Authority on Opinions." 1809. "Life of Hume;" "History of Scotland;" and

JOHN HILL BURTON.

others.

THOMAS A. TROLLOPE.—“Girlhood of Catherine de Medici;' ""A Decade of Italian Women."

And many others who have written biographies or histories of short periods or of a local character.

THEOLOGIANS AND SCHOLARS.

THOMAS CHALMERS. - 1780-1847. "Natural Theology;" "Evidences of Christianity;" ""Lectures on the Romans," and other eloquent discourses, in all, thirty-four vols.

ISAAC TAYLOR. — 1787. anity."

WILLIAM MURE. - 1799.
Ancient Greece."

THOMAS GUTHRIE.
HENRY ROGERS.

"Natural History of Enthusiasm;" "Ancient Christi

JOHN BIRD SUMNER.
JOHN BROWN.

JULIUS HARE.

JOHN KITTO.

"Critical History of the Language and Literature of

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.
HENRY RAWLINSON.
ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
JOHN TULLOCH.
NORMAN M'LEOD.
JOHN H. NEWMAN.
BENJAMIN Jowett.
JAMES MARTINEAU.
Bishop COLENSO.

J. W. DONALDSON.
RALPH WARDLAW.
THOMAS H. HORNE.
HUGH M'NEILE.
R. S. CANDLISH.
RICHARD C. TRENCH.
HENRY ALFord.
WILLIAM A. BUTLER.
ROBERT A. THOMPSON,
JOHN CAIRD.
EDWARD PUSEY.
FRANCIS NEWMAN.
J. F. D. MAURICE.
Cardinal WISEMAN.
GOLDWIN SMITH.

ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS.

JOHN WILSON.-1785-1854. Author of "Noctes Ambrosianæ." He was the "Christopher North" of "Blackwood."

ANNA JAMESON.-1796-1860. "Characteristics of Women;" "Sacred and Legendary Art;" and others.

HARRIET MARTINEAU. 1802.

"Society in America; "

"Deerbrook;" and

The Hour and the Man; ""The History of the Thirty-Years' Peace."

SARAH ELLIS. -"The Women of England," and several others.

"The

Arthur Helps. - "Friends in Council," and "Companions of my Solitude." JOHN RUSKIN.-1819. The very popular author of “Modern Painters, Seven Lamps of Architecture," and "The Stones of Venice."

JOHN STERLING.
MARY C. CLARKE.
SAMUEL PHILLIPS.

GEORGE BRIMLEY.

GEORGE GILFILLAN.

ALEXANDER DYCE.

And many others, all of whom have written one or more volumes worthy the pupil's

attention.

SCIENCE.

Sir DAVID BREWSTER. - 1781-1868.

Optics;" "More Worlds than One;" and "Life of Sir Isaac Newton." Twenty years writing "Edinburgh Encyclopædia."

RICHARD WHATELY.-1787-1863. "Logic;" "Rhetoric;" "Political Economy," and other philosophical works.

Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON.-1788-1856.

Distinguished Metaphysicians."

Sir RODERICK MURCHISON. - 1792. "Geology of Russia," and "Siluria." WILLIAM WHEWELL.-1795. "History of Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," and one of "The Bridgewater Treatises."