Chapter CIV: Section VI: Comparison of English and French Society

The favorite poet of a nation, it seems, is he whose works a man, setting out on a journey, prefers to put into his pocket. Nowadays it would be Tennyson in England, and Alfred de Musset in France. The two publics differ: so do their modes of life, their reading, and their pleasures. Let us try to describe them; we shall better understand the flowers if we see them in the garden.

Here we are at Newhaven, or at Dover, and we glide over the rails looking on either side. On both sides fly past country houses; they exist everywhere in England, on the margin of lakes, on the edge of the bays, on the summit of the hills, in every picturesque point of view. They are the chosen abodes; London is but a business-place; men of the world live, amuse themselves, visit each other, in the country. How well-ordered and pretty is this house! If near it there was some old edifice, abbey, or castle, it has been preserved. The new building has been suited to the old; even if detached and modern, it does not lack style; gable-ends, mullions, broad-windows, turrets perched at every corner, have a Gothic air in spite of their newness. Even this cottage, though not very large, suited to people with a moderate income, is pleasant to see with its pointed roofs, its porch, its bright brown bricks, all covered with ivy. Doubtless grandeur is generally wanting; in these days the men who mould opinion are no longer great lords, but rich gentlemen, well brought up, and landholders; it is pleasantness which appeals to them. But how they understand the word! All round the house is turf, fresh and smooth as velvet, rolled every morning. In front, great rhododendrons form a bright thicket, in which murmur swarms of bees; festoons of exotics creep and curve over the short grass; honey-suckles clamber up the trees; hundreds of roses, drooping over the windows, shed their rain of petals on the paths. Fine elms, yew-trees, great oaks, jealously tended, everywhere combine their leafage or rear their heads. Trees have been brought from Australia and China to adorn the thickets with the elegance or the singularity of their foreign shapes; the copper-beech stretches over the delicate verdure of the meadows the shadow of its dark metallic-hued foliage. How delicious is the freshness of this verdure! How it glistens, and how it abounds in wild flowers brightened by the sun! What care, what cleanliness, how everything is arranged, kept up, refined, for the comfort of the senses and the pleasure of the eyes! If there is a slope, streamlets have been devised with little islets in the glen, peopled with tufts of roses; ducks of select breed swim in the pools, where the water-lilies display their satin stars. Fat oxen lie in the grass, sheep as white as if fresh from the washing, all kinds of happy and model animals, fit to delight the eyes of an amateur and a master. We return to the house, and before entering I look upon the view; decidedly the love of Englishmen for the country is innate; how pleasant it will be from that parlor window to look upon the setting sun, and the broad network of sunlight spread across the woods! And how cunningly they have disposed the house, so that the landscape may be seen at distance between the hills, and at hand between the trees! We enter. How nicely everything is got up, and how commodious. The smallest wants have been forestalled, and provided for; there is nothing which is not correct and perfect; we imagine that everything in the house has received a prize, or at least an honorable mention, at some industrial exhibition. And the attendance of the servants is as good as everything else; cleanliness is not more scrupulous in Holland; Englishmen have, in proportion, three times as many servants as Frenchmen; not too many for the minute details of the service. The domestic machine acts without interruption, without shock, without hinderance; every wheel has its movement and its place, and the comfort which it dispenses falls like honey in the mouth, as clear and as exquisite as the sugar of a model refinery when quite purified.

We converse with our host. We very soon find that his mind and soul have always been well balanced. When he left college he found his career shaped out for him; no need for him to revolt against the Church, which is half rational; nor against the Constitution, which is nobly liberal: the faith and law presented to him are good, useful, moral, liberal enough to maintain and employ all diversities of sincere minds. He became attached to them, he loves them, he has received from them the whole system of his practical and speculative ideas; he does not waver, he no longer doubts, he knows what he ought to believe and to do. He is not carried away by theories, dulled by sloth, checked by contradictions. Elsewhere youth is like water, stagnant or running to waste; here there is a fine old channel which receives and directs to a useful and sure end the whole stream of its activities and passions. He acts, works, rules. He is married, has tenants, is a magistrate, becomes a politician. He improves and rules his parish, his estate, and his family. He founds societies, speaks at meetings, superintends schools, dispenses justice, introduces improvements; he employs his reading, his travels, his connections, his fortune, and his rank, to lead his neighbors and dependents, amicably, to some work which profits themselves and the public. He is influential and respected. He has the pleasures of self-esteem and the satisfaction of conscience. He knows that he has authority, and that he uses it loyally, for the good of others. And this healthy state of mind is supported by a wholesome life. His mind is beyond doubt, cultivated and occupied; he is well informed, knows several languages, has travelled, is fond of all precise information; he is kept by his newspapers conversant with all new ideas and discoveries. But, at the same time, he loves and practises all bodily exercises. He rides, takes long walks, hunts, yachts, examines for himself all the details of breeding and agriculture; he lives in the open air, he withstands the encroachments of a sedentary life, which always elsewhere leads the modern man to agitation of the brain, weakness of the muscles, and excitement of the nerves. Such is this elegant and common-sense society, refined in comfort, regular in conduct, whose dilettante tastes and moral principles confine it within a sort of flowery border, and prevent it from having its attention diverted.

Does any poet suit such a society better than Tennyson? Without being a pedant, he is moral; he may be read in the family circle by night; he does not rebel against society and life; he speaks of God and the soul, nobly, tenderly, without ecclesiastical prejudice; there is no need to reproach him like Lord Byron; he has no violent and abrupt words, extravagant and scandalous sentiments; he will pervert nobody. We shall not be troubled when we close the book; we may listen when we quit him, without being shocked by the contrast, to the grave voice of the master of the house, who reads evening prayers before the kneeling servants. And yet, when we quit him, we keep a smile of pleasure on our lips. The traveller, the lover of archaeology, has been pleased by the imitations of foreign and antique sentiments. The sportsman, the lover of the country, has relished the little country scenes and the rich rural pictures. The ladies have been charmed by his portraits of women; they are so exquisite and pure! He has laid such delicate blushes on those lovely cheeks! He has depicted so well the changing expression of those proud or candid eyes! They like him because they feel that he likes them. He even honors them, and rises in his nobility to the height of their purity. Young girls weep in listening to him; certainly when, a little while ago, we heard the legend of Elaine or Enid read, we saw the fair heads drooping under the flowers which adorned them, and white shoulders heaving with furtive emotion. And how delicate was this emotion! He has not rudely trenched upon truth and passion. He has risen to the height of noble and tender sentiments. He has gleaned from all nature and all history what was most lofty and amiable. He has chosen his ideas, chiselled his words, equalled by his artifices, successes, and versatility of style, the pleasantness and perfection of social elegance in the midst of which we read him. His poetry is like one of those gilt and painted stands in which flowers of the country and exotics mingle in artful harmony their stalks and foliage, their clusters and cups, their scents and hues. It seems made expressly for these wealthy, cultivated, free business men, heirs of the ancient nobility, new leaders of a new England. It is part of their luxury as well as of their morality; it is an eloquent confirmation of their principles, and a precious article of their drawing-room furniture.

We return to Calais, and travel towards Paris, without pausing on the road. There are on the way plenty of noblemen's castles, and houses of rich men of business. But we do not find amongst them, as in England, the thinking elegant world, which, by the refinement of its taste and the superiority of its mind, becomes the guide of the nation and the arbiter of the beautiful. There are two peoples in France: the provinces and Paris; the one dining, sleeping, yawning, listening; the other thinking, daring, watching, and speaking: the first drawn by the second, as a snail by a butterfly, alternately amused and disturbed by the whims and the audacity of its guide. It is this guide we must look upon! Let us enter Paris! What a strange spectacle! It is evening, the streets are aflame, a luminous dust covers the busy noisy crowd, which jostles, elbows, crushes, and swarms near the theatres, behind the windows of the cafés. Have you remarked how all these faces are wrinkled, frowning or pale; how anxious are their looks, how nervous their gestures? A violent brightness falls on these shining heads; most are bald before thirty. To find pleasure here, they must have plenty of excitement: the dust of the boulevard settles on the ice which they are eating; the smell of the gas and the steam of the pavement, the perspiration left on the walls dried up by the fever of a Parisian day, "the human air full of impure rattle"--this is what they cheerfully breathe. They are crammed round their little marble tables, persecuted by the glaring light, the shouts of the waiters, the jumble of mixed talk, the monotonous motion of gloomy walkers, the flutter of loitering courtesans moving about anxiously in the dark. Doubtless their homes are not pleasant, or they would not change them for these bagmen's delights. We climb four flights of stairs, and find ourselves in a polished, gilded room, adorned with stuccoed ornaments, plaster statuettes, new furniture of old oak, with every kind of pretty knick-knack on the mantle-pieces and the whatnots. "It makes a good show;" you can give a good reception to envious friends and people of standing. It is an advertisement, nothing more; we pass half an hour there agreeably, and that is all. You will never make more than a house of call out of these rooms; they are low in the ceiling, close, inconvenient, rented by the year, dirty in six months, serving to display a fictitious luxury. All the enjoyments of these people are factitious, and, as it were, snatched hurriedly; they have in them something unhealthy and irritating. They are like the cookery of their restaurants, the splendor of their cafés, the gayety of their theatres. They want them too quick, too pungent, too manifold. They have not cultivated them patiently, and culled them moderately; they have forced them on an artificial and heating soil; they grasp them in haste. They are refined and greedy; they need every day a stock of word-paintings, broad anecdotes, biting railleries, new truths, varied ideas. They soon get bored, and cannot endure tedium. They amuse themselves with all their might, and find that they are hardly amused. They exaggerate their work and their expense, their wants and their efforts. The accumulation of sensations and fatigue stretches their nervous machine to excess, and their polish of social gayety chips off twenty times a day, displaying an inner ground of suffering and ardor.

But how quick-witted they are, and how unfettered is their mind! How this incessant rubbing has sharpened them! How ready they are to grasp and comprehend everything! How apt this studied and manifold culture has made them to feel and relish tendernesses and sadnesses unknown to their fathers, deep feelings, strange and sublime, which hitherto seemed foreign to their race! This great city is cosmopolitan; here all ideas may be born; no barrier checks the mind: the vast field of thought opens before them without a beaten or prescribed track. Use neither hinders nor guides them; an official Government and Church rid them of the care of leading the nation: the two powers are submitted to, as we submit to the beadle or the policeman, patiently and with chaff; they are looked upon as a play. In short, the world here seems but a melodrama, a subject of criticism and argument. And be sure that criticism and argument have full scope. An Englishman entering on life, finds to all great questions an answer ready made. A Frenchman entering on life, finds to all great questions simply suggested doubts. In this conflict of opinions he must create a faith for himself, and, being mostly unable to do it, he remains open to every uncertainty, and therefore to every curiosity and to every pain. In this gulf, which is like a vast sea, dreams, theories, fancies, intemperate, poetic and sickly desires, collect and chase each other like clouds. If in this tumult of moving forms we seek some solid work to prepare a foundation for future opinions, we find only the slowly-rising edifices of the sciences, which here and there obscurely, like submarine polypes, construct of imperceptible coral the basis on which the belief of the human race is to rest.

Such is the world for which Alfred de Musset wrote: in Paris he must be read. Read? We all know him by heart. He is dead, and it seems as if we daily hear him speak. A conversation among artists, as they jest in a studio, a beautiful young girl leaning over her box at the theatre, a street washed by the rain, making the black pavement shine, a fresh smiling morning in the woods of Fontainebleau, everything brings him before us, as if he were alive again. Was there ever a more vibrating and genuine accent? This man, at least, never lied. He only said what he felt, and he has said it as he felt it. He thought aloud. He made the confession of every man. He was not admired, but loved; he was more than a poet, he was a man. Everyone found in him his own feelings, the most transient, the most familiar; he did not restrict himself, he gave himself to all; he possessed the last virtues which remain to us, generosity and sincerity. And he had the most precious gift which can seduce an old civilization, youth. As he said, "that hot youth, a tree with a rough bark, which covers all with its shadow, prospect and path." With that fire did he hurl onward love, jealousy, the thirst of pleasure, all the impetuous passions which rise with virgin blood from the depths of a young heart, and how did he make them clash together! Has anyone felt them more deeply? He was too full of them, he gave himself up to them, was intoxicated with them. He rushed through life, like an eager racehorse in the country, whom the scent of plants and the splendid novelty of the vast heavens urge, headlong, in its mad career, which shatters all before him, and himself as well. He desired too much; he wished, strongly and greedily, to enjoy life in one draught, thoroughly; he did not glean or enjoy it; he tore it off like a bunch of grapes, pressed it, crushed it, twisted it, and he remains with stained hands as thirsty as before.[461] Then broke forth sobs which found an echo in all hearts. What! so young, and already so wearied! So many precious gifts, so fine a mind, so delicate a tact, so rich and varied a fancy, so precocious a glory, such a sudden blossom of beauty and genius, and yet anguish, disgust, tears, and cries! What a mixture! With the same attitude he adores and curses. Eternal illusion, invincible experience, keep side by side in him to fight and tear him. He became old, and remained young; he is a poet, and he is a sceptic. The Muse and her peaceful beauty, Nature and her immortal freshness, Love and his happy smile, all the swarm of divine visions barely passed before his eyes, when we see approaching with curses, and sarcasms, all the spectres of debauchery and death. He is as a man in a festive scene, who drinks from a chased cup, standing up, in front, amidst applause and triumphal music, his eyes laughing, his heart full of joy, heated and excited by the generous wine he quaffed, whom suddenly we see growing pale; there was poison in the cup; he falls, and the death-rattle is in his throat; his convulsed feet beat upon the silken carpet, and all the terrified guests look on. This is what we felt on the day when the most beloved, the most brilliant amongst us, suddenly quivered from an unseen attack, and was struck down, being hardly able to breathe, amid the lying splendors and gayeties of our banquet.

Well! such as he was, we love him forever: we cannot listen to another; beside him, all seem cold or false. We leave at midnight the theatre in which he had heard Malibran, and we enter the gloomy Rue des Moulins, where, on a hired bed, his Rolla came to sleep and die. The lamps cast flickering rays on the slippery pavement. Restless shadows march past the doors, and trail along their dress of draggled silk to meet the passers-by. The windows are fastened; here and there a light pierces through a half-closed shutter, and shows a dead dahlia on the edge of a window-sill. To-morrow an organ will grind before these panes, and the wan clouds will leave their droppings on these dirty walls. From this wretched place came the most impassioned of his poems! These vilenesses and vulgarities of the stews and the lodging-house caused this divine eloquence to flow! it was these which at such a moment gathered in this bruised heart all the splendors of nature and history, to make them spring up in sparkling jets, and shine under the most glowing poetic sun that ever rose! We feel pity; we think of that other poet, away there in the Isle of Wight, who amuses himself by dressing up lost epics. How happy he is amongst his fine books, his friends, his honeysuckles and roses! No matter. De Musset, in this wretched abode of filth and misery, rose higher. From the heights of his doubt and despair, he saw the infinite, as we see the sea from a storm-beaten promontory. Religions, their glory and their decay, the human race, its pangs and its destiny, all that is sublime in the world, appeared there to him in a flash of lightning. He felt, at least this once in his life, the inner tempest of deep sensations, giant-dreams, and intense voluptuousness, the desire of which enabled him to live, the lack of which forced him to die. He was no mere dilettante; he was not content to taste and enjoy; he left his mark on human thought; he told the world what was man, love, truth, happiness. He suffered, but he imagined: he fainted, but he created. He tore from his entrails with despair the idea which he had conceived, and showed it to the eyes of all, bloody but alive. That is harder and lovelier than to go fondling and gazing upon the ideas of others. There is in the world but one work worthy of a man: the production of a truth, to which we devote ourselves, and in which we believe. The people who have listened to Tennyson are better than our aristocracy of townsfolk and bohemians; but I prefer Alfred de Musset to Tennyson.

[Footnote 434: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Lilian," 5.]

[Footnote 435: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Adeline," 33.]

[Footnote 436: Ibid. "Madeline," 15.]

[Footnote 437: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "The Dying Swan," 45.]

[Footnote 438: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "The Lotus-Eaters," 140.]

[Footnote 439: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Locksley Hall," 266.]

[Footnote 440: Tennyson's "Maud," 1856, IV. 1, 15.]

[Footnote 441: Tennyson's "Maud," 1856, XXVII. 1.]

[Footnote 442: Ibid. XXVII. 11, 105.]

[Footnote 443: Ibid, XXVIII. 3 and 4, 108.]

[Footnote 444: "The Princess, a Medley," 12th ed. 1864, II. 34.]

[Footnote 445: Ibid. II. 46.]

[Footnote 446: Ibid. III. 60.]

[Footnote 447: "The Princess, a Medley," 12th ed. 1864, V. 76.]

[Footnote 448: "The Princess, a Medley," 12th ed. 1864, IV. 99.]

[Footnote 449: Ibid. IV. 102.]

[Footnote 450: "The Princess, a Medley," V. 163.]

[Footnote 451: Ibid. V. 165.]

[Footnote 452: "Idylls of the King," 1864; Guinevere, 249.]

[Footnote 453: Ibid.; Elaine, 193.]

[Footnote 454: Ibid.; Elaine, 201.]

[Footnote 455: "Idylls of the King," 1864, 206.]

[Footnote 456: Ibid. 213.]

[Footnote 457: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Morte d'Arthur," 189.]

[Footnote 458: Ibid. 194.]

[Footnote 459: Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; "Morte d'Arthur," 196.]

[Footnote 460: Ibid. 197.]

[Footnote 461: "O médiocrité! celui qui pour tout bien T'apporte à ce tripot dégoûtant de la vie Est bien poltron au jeu s'il ne dit: Tout ou rien."]

INDEX

The Roman Numerals Refer to the Volumes.--The Arabic Figures to the Pages of Each Volume.

Abelard, I. 158, 160 Addison, Joseph, II. 265, 292, 300, 311; his life and writings, 327-359; III. 83, 95, 259, 272, 280, 306 Adholm, I. 64, 69, 185 Agriculture, improvement in, in sixteenth century, I. 172; in the nineteenth, III. 43, 168 Akenside, Mark, III. 36 Alcuin, I. 64, 70 Alexander VI, Pope, II. 5 Alexandrian philosophy, I. 21, 22 Alfred the Great, I. 64, 69 Alison, Sir Archibald, III. 44 Amory, Thomas, II. 438 Angelo, Michael, I. 183, 366; III. 27 Anglo-Saxon poetry, I. 53 Ann of Cleaves, I. 186 Anselm, I. 76 Anthology the, I. 209, 240 Arbuthnot, Dr. John, II. 381 Architecture, Norman, I. 75, 127; the Tudor style, 174 Ariosto, I. 185, 222; II. 236 Aristocracy British, in the nineteenth century, III. 169 Arkwright, Sir Richard, II. 320 Armada, the I. 173, 279 Arnold, Dr. Thomas, III. 100, 178 Arthur and Merlin, romance of, I. 77 Ascham, Roger, I. 181, 246; II. 3 Athelstan, I. 36, 54 Augier, Emile, III. 208 Austen, Jane, III. 85

Bacon, Francis, Lord, I. 245, 255-263; II. 34, 39; III. 268, 284 Bacon, Roger, I. 161 Bain, Alexander, III. 185 Bakewell, Robert, II. 320 Bale, John, I. 186 Balzac, Honoré de, I. 3; III. 215, 254 Barclay, Alexander, I. 165 Barclay, John, II. 292 Barclay, Robert, I. 58 Barrow, Isaac, II. 292, 295 Baxter, Richard, I. 268; II. 56, 292 Bayly's (Lewis) Practice of Piety, II. 62 Beattie, Tames, II. 440; III. 36 Beauclerk, Henry, I. 76 Beaumont, Francis, I. 291, 307-317; II. 41, 45, 100 Becket, Thomas à, I. 97 Beckford, W., III. 77 Bede, the Venerable, I. 64 Bedford, Duke of (John Russell), II. 310 Beethovan, Lewis van, III. 87 Behn, Mrs. Aphra, II. 157, 254 Bell, Currer. See Brontë, Charlotte Bénoit de Sainte-Maure, I. 76 Bentham, Jeremy, II. 320 Bently, Richard, II. 303 Beowolf, an Anglo-Saxon epic poem, I. 49-53 Béranger, II. 11; III. 287 Berkeley, Bishop, II. 303 Berkley, Sir Charles, II. 141 Berners, Lord, I. 186 Best, Paul, II. 50 Bible, English. See Wiclif, Tyndale Blackmore, Sir Richard, II. 224 Blount, Edward, I. 192 Boccaccio, I. 126, 132; II. 266 Bodley, Sir Thomas, I. 246 Boethius, I. 64-67 Boileau, II. 144, 184, 224, 262, 284; III. 7, 4, 345 Boleyn, Ann, I. 276 Bolingbroke, Lord (Henry St. John), II. 275, 303; III. 8 Bonner, Edmund, II. 33 Borde, Andrew, I. 186 Borgia, Cæsar, II. 5, 6 Borgia, Lucretia, I. 182; II. 5 Bossu (or Lebossu), II. 224 Bossuet, I. 18; II. 233; III. 25, 306 Boswell, James, II. 444 Bourchier. See Berners Boyle, the Hon. Robert, II. 303 Bridaine, Father, II. 298 Britons, ancient, I. 38 Brontë, Charlotte (Currer Bell), III. 85, 100, 185 Browne, Sir Thomas, I. 245, 246, 252; II. 34, 39 Browning, Mrs., III. 100, 185 Brunanburh, Athelstan's victory at, celebrated in Saxon song, I. 54 Buckingham, Duke of (John Sheffield), II. 153, 180, 184 Buckle, Henry Thomas, III. 154, 176 Bulwer, Sir Henry Lytton, III. 85, 185 Bunyan, John, II. 58-70, 133 Burke, Edmund, II. 303, 317-326, 444; III. 286, 306 Burleigh, Lord (William Cecil), I. 273; III. 286 Burnet, Bishop, II. 202 Burney, Francisca (Madame D'Arblay), II. 283, 320, 444; III. 275 Burns, Robert, II. 251; Sketch of his life and works, III. 48-65 Burton, Robert, I. 175, 248-252; II. 34, 100 Busby, Dr. Richard, II. 256 Bute, Lord, II. 273 seq., 310 Butler, Bishop, II. 320 Butler, Samuel, II. 137-140, 303 Byng, Admiral, II. 310 Byron, Lord, III. 11; his life and works, 102-151

Cædmon, hymns of, I. 57, 61; his metrical paraphrase of parts of the Bible, 61-64, 185 Calamy, Edmund, II. 58 Calderon, I. 161, 279; II. 155 Calvin, John, II. 11, 45, 301 Camden, William, I. 246 Campbell, Thomas, III. 76, 112 Carew, Thomas, I. 238 Carlyle, Thomas, I. 6; III. 100, 176; style and mind, 308; vocation, 327; philosophy, morality, and criticism, 336; conception of history, 348 Carteret, John (Earl Granville), II. 311 Castlereagh, Lord, I. 319 Catherine, St., play of, I. 76 Cellini, Benvenuto, I. 26, 114, 184 Cervantes, I. 100, 151, 222; II. 410 Chalmers, George, I. 72 Chandos, Duke of (John Brydges), III. 8 Chapman, George, I. 330 Charles of Orleans, I. 84, 158 Charles I of England, III. 276 Charles II and his court, II. 140 seq. Chateaubriand, I. 4; II. 346 Chatham. See Pitt Chaucer, I. 106, 126, 157; II. 265 Chesterfield, Lord, II. 278 seq., 444; III. 15 Chevy Chase, ballad of, I. 125 Chillingworth, William, I. 245; II. 35, 38, 300 Christianity, introduction of, into Britain, I. 56, 63 seq. Chroniclers, French, I. 83 Chroniclers, Saxon, I. 68 Cibber, Colley, III. 8, 17 Cimbrians, the, I. 41 Clarendon, Lord Chancellor (Edward Hyde), I. 245; II. 140 Clarke, Dr. John, II. 289, 301 Classic spirit in Europe, its origin and nature, II. 170-173 Classical authors translated, I. 180, 190 Clive, Lord, III. 272 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, III. 73 Collier, Jeremy, II. 225, 256 Collins, William, III. 37 Colman, George, II. 220 Comedy-writers, English, II. 188 seq. Comines, Philippe de, I. 124 Commerce in sixteenth century, I. 172; III. 165 Comte, Auguste, III. 362 Condillac, Stephen-Bonnot de, III. 333, 363 Congreve, William, II. 188-210, 283 Conybeare, J. J., I. 54 seq. Corbet, Bishop, II. 35 Corneille, II. 224, 236 Cotton, Sir Robert, I. 246 Court pageantries in the sixteenth century, I. 176, 177 Coventry, Sir John, II. 142 Coverdale, Miles, II. 20 Cowley, Abraham, I. 242-244; II. 34, 71 Cowper, William, III. 67-73 Crabbe, George, III. 71, 112 Cranmer, Archbishop, II. 15, 23 Crashaw, Richard, II. 34 Criticism and History, III. 267 Cromwell, Oliver, I. 6; II. 35, 50; III. 276, 319, 351 Crowne, John, II. 157 Curll, Edmund, III. 18

Daniel, Samuel, I. 246 Dante, I. 135, 158, 161; II. 110; III. 335 Darwin, Charles, I. 13 Davie, Adam, I. 93 Davies, Sir John, II. 34 Daye, John, II. 47 Decker, Thomas, I. 281 De Foe, II. 307, 402-410; III. 169 Delille, James, III. 21 Denham, Sir John, II. 185-188 Denmark, I. 34, 35 Dennis, John, II. 331 Descartes, II. 149, 233; III. 333 Dickens, Charles, III. 85, 100; his novels, 187-221 Domesday Book, I. 72, 78, 104 Donne, John, I. 240, 241; II. 35 Dorat, C. J., III. 16, 140 Dorset, Earl of (Charles Sackville), II. 179, 180 Drake, Admiral, I. 173 Drake, Dr. Nathan, I. 173, 271 Drama, formation of the, I. 291 seq. Drayton, Michael, I. 205; II. 34 Drummond, William, II. 100 Dryden, John, I. 18; II. 100; his comedies, 153-157, 184; his life and writings, II. 222-272, 332; III. 5, 329 Dudevant, Madame (George Sand), III. 207 Dunstan, St., I. 36 seq. Durer, Albert, II. 9, 10 Dyer, Sir Edward, I. 203

Earle, John, I. 246 Eddas, the Scandinavian, I. 42-46; III. 123, 124 Edgeworth, Maria, III. 253 Edward VI, II. 28 Edwy and Elgiva, story of, I. 38 Eliot, George. See Evans, Mary A. England, climate of, I. 33 English Constitution, formation of the, I. 105 Elizabeth, Queen, I. 175-177, 245, 270 Elwin, Whitwell, III. 5 Erigena, John Scotus, I. 64, 69 Esménard, Joseph Alphonse, I. 163 Essex, Robert, Earl of, I. 270, 273 Etheredge, Sir George, II. 137, 158 Evans, Mary A. (George Eliot), III. 85, 179, 185 Eyck, Van, I. 151

Falkland, Lord, I. 245 Farnese, Pietro Luigi, II. 6 Farquhar, George, II. 188, 209 Faust, III. 47 Feltham, Owen, I. 246 Fenn, Sir John, I. 172 Ferguson, Dr. Adam, II. 304; III. 271 Fermor, Mrs. Arabella, III. 15, 16 Feudalism, the protection and character of, I. 73 Fichte, III. 335 Fielding, Henry, I. 319; II. 135, 434-433, 450 Fitmore, Sir Robert, II. 305 Finsborough, Battle of, an Anglo-Saxon poem, I. 54 Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, I. 275; II. 26 Flemish artists, I. 170, 178 Fletcher, Giles, II. 34 Fletcher, John, I. 291, 307-317; II. 45, 100 Ford, John, I. 291, 297 seq., 312; II. 248 Fortescue, Sir John, I. 113 seq. Fox, Charles James, II. 276, 311, 315 seq. Fox, George, II. 52, 58, 133 Fox, John, II. 13 seq. Francis of Assisi, I. 161 Freeman, Edward A., I. 74 Frisians, the, I. 32, 33 Froissart, I. 83, 102, 126, 127, 132 Froude, J. A., I. 104; II. 15 seq. Fuller, Thomas, I. 318

Gaimar, Geoffroy, I. 76, 92 Gainsborough, Thomas, landscape painter, II. 220 Garrick, David, II. 444, 448 Gaskell, Mrs. Elisabeth C., III. 85, 185 Gay, John, II. 211, 279; III. 4, 29-32 Geoffrey of Monmouth, I. 134 German ideas, introduction of, in Europe and England, III; 328 Germany, drinking habits in, II. 7 Gibbon, Edward, II. 444 Gladstone, William Ewart, III. 274 Glencoe, Massacre of, III. 302 Glover, Richard, III. 37 Godwin, William, II. 95 Goethe, I. 6, 18; II. 111, 118, 430; III. 48, 74, 125-131, 327 Goldsmith, Oliver, II. 211, 307, 440-443 Goltzius, I. 196 Gower, John, I. 90, 163 Grammont, Count de, II. 135, 169, 170 Gray, Thomas, III. 36 Greene, Robert, I. 206, 210, 281, 283, 364 Grenville, George, II. 310 Gresset, J. B. Lewis, III. 16 Grey, Lady Jane, I. 180, 270 Grostete, Robert, I. 90, 93 Grote, George, III. 185 Guicciardini, Ludovic, I. 173 Guido, I. 16 Guizot, I. 107; III. 276, 282, 305 Guy of Warwick, I. 77

Habington, William, I. 240 Hakluyt, Richard, I. 246 Hale, Sir Matthew, II. 16 Hales, John, I. 245; II. 35, 37, 301 Halifax, Charles, Montague, Earl of, II. 329, 334. 361, 366 Hall, Bishop, Joseph, I. 246; II. 35 Hallam, Henry, I. 118; III. 276 Hamilton, Anthony, II. 136 seq. Hamilton, Sir William, III. 185 Hampden, John, III. 276 Hampole, I. 93 Hardyng, John, I. 269 Harrington, Sir John, I. 237 Harrison, William, I. 173 seq. Hastings, Warren, II. 317; III. 272, 285, 291 Hawes, Stephen, I. 165 Hegel, I. 18, 22, 159; II. 271, 331 seq. Heine, I. 2, 32, 360; III. 39, 48, 74, 87 Hemling, Hans, I. 170 Henry Beauclerk, I. 76 Henry of Huntingdon, I. 39, 76 Henry VIII and his Court, I. 269; II. 15 Herbert, George, I. 240 Herbert, Lord, I. 246 Herder, John Godfrey von, I. 6 Herrick, Robert, I. 238, 239 Hertford, Earl of, I. 270 Hervey, Lord, III. 26 Heywood, Mrs. Eliza, III. 18 Heywood, John, I. 186, 280 Hill, Aaron, III. 8 History, philosophy of. See the Introduction, passim. Hobbes, Thomas, II. 147-152, 250 Hogarth, William, II. 450-453; III. 18 Holinslied's Chronicles, I. 176, 246, 275 Holland, I. 31 seq. Homer and Spenser, I. 217 Hooker, Richard, I. 245; II. 35 seq. Horn, Ring, romance of, I. 77, 100 Hoveden, John, I. 90 Howard, John, II. 320 Howe, John, III. 299 Hugo, Victor, I. 2, 165; II. 270; III. 74, 87 Hume, David, II. 304, 440; III. 294, 352 Hunter, William, martyrdom of, II. 31, 32 Hutcheson, Francis, II. 304, 320; III. 271

Iceland and its legends, I. 35, 42 Independency in the sixteenth century, II. 49 seq., 90 Industry, British, in the nineteenth century, III. 165 Irish, the ancient, I. 38 Italian writings and ideas, taste for, in sixteenth century, I. 181, 182; vices of the Italian Renaissance, II. 3-7

James I and his Court, I. 237 seq. James II, III. 282 Jewell, Bishop, I. 277 Johnson, Samuel, I. 319; II. 303, 321, 444-453; III. 10, 38, 345 Joinville, Sire de, I. 83 Jones, Inigo, I. 174, 321 Jones, Sir William, II. 444 Jonson, Ben, I. 208, 265, 280; II. 100; III. 155; sketch of his life, I. 318-321; his learning, style, etc., 321-327; his dramas, 327-333; his comedies, 333-345; compared with Molière, 345; fanciful comedies and smaller poems, 345-350 Jordaens, Jacob, I. 178 Jowett, Benjamin, III. 100, 334 Judith, poem of, I. 60, 61 Junius, Letters of, II. 311 seq.; III. 106 Jutes, the, and their country, I. 31 seq.

Keats, John, III. 130 Kemble, John M., I. 37, 49 Knighton, Henry, I. 123 Knolles, Richard, I. 246 Knox, John, II. 8, 28; III. 354 Kyd, Thomas, I. 280

Lackland, John, I. 102 LaHarpe, III. 345 Lamartine, I. 2; III. 74, 87 Lamb, Charles, III. 73, 76 Languet, Hubert, I. 194 Latimer, Bishop, I. 109; II. 17, 27 seq. Lanfranc, first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, I. 76 Langtoft, Peter, I. 90 Laud, Archbishop, II. 38; III. 287 Lavergne, Léonce de, I. 33 Law, William, II. 303 Layamon, I. 92 Lebrun, Ponce Denis Econchard, I. 163 Lee, Nathaniel, II. 241 Leibnitz, III. 23 Leighton, Dr. Alexander, II. 49, 88 Lely, Sir Peter, II. 320 Leo X, Pope, II. 4 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, I. 4 Lingard, Dr. John, I. 34, 35 Locke, John, II. 71, 300, 303 seq., 320 Lockhart, John Gibson, III. 78 Lodge, Thomas, I. 204, 280 Lombard, Peter, I. 157, 160 Loménie de Brienne, Cardinal, III. 311 London in Henry VIII's time, I. 173; in the present day, III. 164 Longchamps, William, I. 97 Longus, Greek romance-writer, I. 209 Lorris, Guillaume de, I. 84, 95 Loyola, I. 161, 171; III. 273 Ludlow, Edmund, II. 51 Lulli, a renowned Italian composer, II. 233 Lully, Raymond; I. 161 Luther, Martin, I. 26, 171; II. 3-7; and the Reformation, 7-14 Lydgate, John, I. 164, 165 Lyly, John, I. 192 Lyly, William, I. 180

Macaulay, Thomas Babington (Lord), III. 100; his works, 267-307 Machiavelli, I. 183 Mackenzie, Henry, III. 35, 51 Mackintosh, Sir James, III. 276 Macpherson, James, III. 36 Malcolm, Sir John, III. 78 Malherbe, Francis de, III. 329 Malte-brun, Conrad, I. 31 Mandeville, Bernard, II. 303 Manners of the people in the sixteenth century, I. 178 seq. Marguerite of Navarre, I. 132 Marlborough, Duchess of, III. 26 Marlborough, Duke of, II. 275, 307; III. 259 Marlowe, Christopher, I. 211, 280; III. 73; his dramas, I. 282-291 Marston, John, I. 320 Martyr, Peter, II. 23 Martyrs in the reign of Mary, II. 30-34 Marvell, Andrew, II. 254 Masques, under James I, I. 177, 348 Massillon, II. 28 Massinger, Philip, I. 280, 281, 297 seq. Maundeville, Sir John, I. 91, 102 May, Thomas, II. 57 Medici, Lorenzo de, I. 182 Melanchthon, Philip, II. 13, 23 Merlin, I. 77 Meung, Jean de, I. 93, 162 Michelet, Jules, I. 4, 57; III. 325 Middleton, Thomas, I. 291 Mill, John Stuart, III. 100, 176, 360-408 Milton, John, I. 62, 215, 245; II. 71-84; his prose writings, 84-100; his poetry, 100-128, 347, 348; III. 272 Molière, I. 213, 359, 361; II. 188 seq., 418; III. 214 Mommsen, Theodor, I. 19 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, II. 424; III. 8, 15 Montesquieu, Ch., I. 21, 25 Moore, Thomas, II. 440; III. 75, 138 More, Sir Thomas, I. 246, 276 Müller, Max, III. 361 Muller, Ottfried, I. 6 Murray, John, III. 78, 138, 140 Musset, Alfred de, I. 2, 199, 282, 324, 358; II. 267; III. 39, 74, 87, 430

Nash, Thomas, I. 281 Nayler, James, II. 53, 57 Neal's History of the Puritans, II. 53, 88 Newcastle, Duchess of (Margaret Lucas), II. 187 Newspaper, first daily, III. 44 Newton, Sir Isaac, II. 289, 301 Nicole, Peter, II. 283 Norman Conquest, the, I. 71, 72, 73; its effects on the national language and literature, 87 seq., 123-125; III. 151 Normans, the character of, I. 74; how they became French, 75; their taste and architecture, 75; their literature, chivalry, and success, 76-80; their position and tyranny in England, 87-90; III. 152 Nott, Dr. John, I. 191 Novel, the English--its characteristics, II. 402 seq.; the modern school of novelists, III. 185 Nut-brown Maid, the--an ancient ballad, 190

Oates, Titus, II. 257 Occam, William, I. 161 Occleve, Thomas, I. 163 Ochin, Bernard, II. 23 Oliphant, Mrs., II. 424 Olivers, Thomas, II. 290 Orrery, Earl of, III. 8 Otway, Thomas, II. 241, 248 Ouseley, Sir William, III. 78 Overbury, Sir Thomas, I. 246 Owen, John, II. 58

Paganism of poetry and painting in Italy in the sixteenth century, I. 181 seq. Paley, William, II. 300 Palgrave, Sir Francis, I. 33 Parnell, Dr. Thomas, III. 4 Pascal, III. 300, 400; III. 25, 306 Pastoral poetry, I. 204 seq. Peele, George, I. 280 Penn, William, II. 288; III. 299 Pepys, Samuel, II. 142, 143, 146 Percy, Thomas, III. 73 Petrarch, I. 126, 185, 190 Philips, Ambrose, III. 4 Philosophy and history, III. 308 Philosophy and poetry, connection of, I. 157 Picts, I. 38 Pickering, Dr. Gilbert, II. 223 Piers Plowman's Crede, I. 122 Piers Ploughman, Vision of, I. 120 seq., 185 Pitt, William, first Earl of Chatham, II. 276, 310 seq.; III. 275 Pitt, William (second son of the preceding), II. 311, 217 seq.; III. 65 Pleiad, the, I. 18 Pluche, Abbé, II. 342 Poe, Edgar Allan, II. 405 Pope, Alexander, II. 252, 328, 332, 381; III. 5-28, 112, 117, 28O Prayer-book, English, II. 23-27 Preaching at the Reformation period, II. 27 Presbyterians and Independents in the sixteenth century, II. 49 seq., 90 Price, Dr. Richard, II. 304, 321; III. 271 Priestly, Dr., III. 66 Prior, Matthew, III. 4, 28 Proclus, I. 159 Prynne, William, II. 57 Pulci, an Italian painter, I. 182 Pultock, Robert, II. 438 Purchas, Samuel, I. 246 Puritans, the, II. 45 seq., 132 seq. Puttenham, George, I. 185, 246 Pym, John, III. 276

Quarles, Francis, I. 240

Rabelais, I. 149, 222, 265, 366; II. 144, 388, 438 Racine, I. 371; II. 224, 284; III. 218, 306 Raleigh, Sir Walter, I. 214, 246, 273; II, 34 Rapin, II. 224 Ray, John, II. 303 Reformation in England made way for by the Saxon character and the situation of the Norman Church, I. 122-125, 165; II. 7 seq. Reid, Thomas, II. 304, 320, 440 Renaissance, the English; manners of the time, I. 169-185; the theatre its original product, 264 seq. Renan, Ernest, I. 19, 127 Restoration, period of the, in England, II. 131 seq., 209 Revolution, period of the, in England, II. 273 seq. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, II. 220, 320, 444 Richard Cœur de Lion, I. 101 Richardson, Samuel, II. 135, 303, 412-424, 444; III. 8, 35 Ridley, Nicholas, II. 30 Ritson, Joseph, I. 108 seq. Robert of Brunne, I. 93 Robert of Gloucester, I. 93 Robertson, Dr. William, II. 440; III. 3, 38, 352 Robespierre, II. 284 Robin Hood ballads, I. 109 seq., 178, 185 Rochester, Earl of (John Wilmot), II. 143 seq., 184, 337; III. 28, 140 Rogers, John, martyrdom of, II. 31 Rogers, Samuel, III. 112 Roland, Song of, I. 77, 81 seq. Rollo, a Norse leader, I. 74 Ronsard, Peter de, I. 18 Roscellinus, I. 160 Roscommon, Earl of, II. 184 Roses, wars of the, I. 114, 124, 172, 287 Rotheland, Hugh de, I. 90 Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste, III. 22 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, II. 447; III. 16, 34 Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul, III. 392 Rubens, I. 151, 177, 178, 232, 366; III. 27 Rückert, III. 74 Russel, Lord William, II. 141

Sacheverell, Dr., II. 273, 306 Sacy, Lemaistre de, II. 22 Sadeler, I. 196 Sainte-Beuve, I. 6 St. John. See Bolingbroke, Lord Saint-Simon, I. 3; III. 217 St. Theresa, I. 161 Saintré, Jehan de, I. 102 Sand, George. See Dudevant, Madame Savage, Richard, III. 18 Sawtré, William, I. 124 Saxons, the, I. 31 seq.; characteristics of the race, 71; contrast with the Normans, 74, 75; their endurance, 103 seq.; their invasion of England, III. 151, 152 Scaliger, III. 345 Schelling, I. 22 Schiller, III. 48, 74, 87 Scotland in the seventeenth century, II. 134 Scott, Sir Walter, I. 4; II. 222, 361 seq., 440; III. 74, 105, 107, 260; his novels and poems, 78 Scotus, Duns, I. 159 seq. Scudéry, Mademoiselle de, I. 195 Sedley, Sir Charles, I. 240; II. 179 Selden, John, I. 246 Seres, William, II. 47 Settle, Elkanah, II. 225, 240 Sévigné, Madame de, III. 15, 306 Shadwell, Thomas, II. 157, 240, 261 Shaftesbury, Anthony Cooper, third Earl of, II. 304 Shakespeare, William, I. 186, 206, 245, 280; II. 230, 238 seq.; III. 155; general idea of, I. 350-353; his life and character, 354-366; his style, 366-371, and manners, 372-377; his dramatis personæ, 377-382; his men of wit, 382-386, and women, 386-391; his villains, 391, 392; the principal characters in his plays, 393-407; fancy, imagination--ideas of existence--love; harmony between the artist and his work, 407-419 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, III. 74, 95-100, 130 Shenstone, William, III. 37 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, II. 212 seq., 311, 440 Sherlock, Bishop, II. 292, 301, 412 Shirley, James, I. 280; II. 153 Sidney, Algernon, I. 245; II. 71, 141 Sidney, Sir Phillip, I. 186, 194-204, 245, 266; II. 39; III. 155 Skelton, John, I. 165 Smart, Christopher, III. 37 Smith, Adam, II. 304, 320 Smith, Sidney, II. 282; III. 100 Smollett, Tobias, II. 308, 433-437, 440 Society in Great Britain in the present day, III. 169; in England and in France, 430 South, Dr. Robert, II. 292, 295 Southern, Thomas, II. 241 Southey, Robert, II. 438; III. 72, 76, 134, 287 Speed, John, I. 246 Spelman, Sir Henry, I. 246 Spencer, Herbert, III. 185 Spencer, Edmund, I. 186, 207, 213, 245; II. 71, 110; his life, character and poetry, I. 214-237; II. 236; III. 155, 424 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, III. 100, 334 Steele, Sir Richard, II. 311, 327; III. 259 Stendhal, Count de, I. 25, 74, 142 Sterling, John, III. 309 Sterne, Laurence, II. 437-440; III. 35 Stewart, Dugald, II. 320, 440; III. 61 Stillingfleet, Bishop, II. 292, 301 Stowe, John, I. 246 Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of, III. 276 Strafford, William, I. 172 Strype, John, I. 268 Stubbes, John, I. 175, 180 Suckling, Sir John, I. 238; II. 181 Sue, Eugène, III. 220 Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, I. 185-192; II. 16 Swift, Jonathan, II. 135. 224, 303, 311, 327 seq.; III. 259, 288; sketch of his life, II. 360-368; his wit, 368-371; his pamphlets, 371-379; his poetry, 380-389; his philosophy, etc., 389-401

Taillefer, I. 79, 89 Tasso, I. 222, 229 Taylor, Jeremy, I. 246; II. 35, 38, 44 Temple, Sir William, II. 173, 365, 389; III. 3, 272 Teniers, David, III. 83 Tennyson, Alfred, III. 100, 185, 410-438 Thackeray, William M. III. 85, 100; his novels, 223-265 Theatre, the, in the sixteenth century, I. 264 seq.; after the Restoration, II. 153-155, 188 seq., 226 seq. Thibaut of Champagne, I. 84 Thierry, Augustin, I. 4, 35, 56, 88; III. 305 Thiers, Louis Adolphe, III. 282, 305 Thomson, James, III. 32-35 Thorpe, John, I. 47, 55 Tickell, Thomas, III. 4 Tillotson, Archbishop, II. 292 seq. Tindal, Matthew, II. 303 Titian, I. 236, 366 Tocqueville, Alexis de, I. 19 Toland, John, II. 303 Toleration Act, the, III. 298, 299, 300 Tomkins, Thomas, II. 32 Townley, James, II. 220 Turner, Sharon, I. 48, 54 seq. Tutchin, John, III. 18 Tyndale, William, II. 19 seq., 28, 47

Urfé, Honoré d', I. 197, 315 Usher, James, I. 246

Vanbrugh, Sir John, II. 187-209 Vane, Sir Harry, II. 143 Vega, Lope de, I. 161, 279; II. 155 Village feasts of sixteenth century described, I. 178-180 Villehardouin, a French chronicler, I. 83, 102 Vinci, Leonardo da, I. 16 Voltaire, I. 16; II. 447; III. 22, 137, 346 Vos, Martin de, I. 196

Wace, Robert, I. 76, 78 seq., 89 Waller, Edmund, I. 240; II. 71, 153, 181-184; III. 3 Walpole, Horace, III. 15 Walpole, Sir Robert, II. 274, 280 Walton, Isaac, I. 246 Warburton, Bishop, II. 303 Warner, William, I. 212 Warton, Thomas, I. 72, 88, 95, 162; III. 73 Watt, James, II. 320 Watteau, Anthony, III. 14 Watts, Isaac, III. 37 Webster, John, 291, 297 seq.; II. 248 Wesley, John, II. 280-291 Wetherell, Elizabeth, III. 179 Wharton, Lord, III. 26 Whitfield, George, II. 289-230 Wiclif, John, I. 123, 286; II. 15 Wilkes, John, II. 310 William III, II. 173 Wither, George, II. 35 William of Malmesbury, I. 75 William the Conqueror, I. 78 seq. Windham, William, II. 311 Witenagemote, the, I. 46 Wollastom William Hyde, III. 271 Wolsey, Cardinal, I. 165; II. 16 Wordsworth, William, III. 73, 88-95 Wortley, Lady Mary. See Montagu Wyatt, Sir Thomas, I. 185, 180, 187 Wycherley, William, I. 18; II. 157-167, 178, 187, 188, 202, 250, 337

Yonge, Charlotte Mary, III. 179 Young, Arthur, II. 320 Young, Edward, III. 37