LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ALFRED THE GREAT PAGE Frontispiece From the statue by Hamo Thornycroft, R. A. By permission of Alfred Bowker, Mayor of Winchester, England, and Honorary Secretary of the National Commemoration of King Alfred the Great. ENGLAND IN THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF BEOWULF MANUSCRIPT IN 15 FACSIMILE TAKEN FROM AN ELEVENTH CENTURY MANUSCRIPT 51 Containing an account of the wonders of the East. CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES FACSIMILE OF A PAGE FROM CAXTON'S SECOND EDITION OF 85 Printed about 1484. THE INTERIOR OF THE SWAN THEATRE, ABOUT 1596. 123 From a sketch, in the University Library at Utrecht, by Johannes de Witt, a Dutch scholar. 135 QUEEN ELIZABETH. After an engraving by Holl from an original portrait in Edward VII.'s collection, St. James Palace. Autograph from Winsor's America. FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF HAMLET 153 In the quarto texts (1611). Reproduced from the original copy in the Boston Public Library. FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF PARADISE LOST Reproduced from an original copy of the first edition (1667) in the Boston Public Library. 189 FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE, PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, FIRST EDITION 213 SCENE IN A TYPICAL ENGLISH COFFEE-HOUSE . 229 From the heading of an old Broadside of 1674. A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF ENG LISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 1. Britain and the English. II. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. III. Anglo-Saxon Prose. IV. The Nation and the Language. By the term Literature is meant those written or printed compositions which preserve the thought and experience of a race recorded Literature. in artistic form. The element of beauty must be present in greater or less degree, and such works must be inspired by a purpose to afford intellectual pleasure to the one who reads them or hears them read. Books written to give information merely are not usually included in this term; text-books, scientific treatises, chronicles, reports, and similar compilations hardly belong to literature; but works in which the imaginative power of the writer is engaged, those which move or stir the feelings and appeal to the sense of beauty which is found in every intelligent mind these make up the real literature of a people. Such are poems and dramas, prose works also, in which these elements - may find a place; works which are distinguished by the quality called style, and which reflect more or less of the personality which gave them birth. Hence it has happened frequently that books designed to inform have also partaken of these other qualities as well, and have found a permanent place in the literature of our land; such, for example, are the reviews of Macaulay, the political pamphlets of Swift and Burke, the histories of Gibbon and Hume, the narrative papers of De Quincey, the essays of Ruskin and Carlyle. The history of our English Literature begins almost coincidently with the arrival and settlement of large companies of our Teutonic ancestors in Britain about 450 A. D. Britain and the Romans. I. BRITAIN AND THE ENGLISH. So far as history records, the earliest inhabitants of Britain were a Celtic race, the Cymri. These people were not unknown to the Romans even in very early times; in B. c. 55 the island was invaded by Julius Cæsar, although at that period no permanent colony was established. In the next century new invasions followed, and for many years the island was a frequent battle-ground for the Roman legions as they advanced in their conquest of the world. Gradually their victories in Britain carried civilization well to the north, until the Roman frontier was marked by a great line of defense, crossing from the Frith of Forth to the Clyde. For four hundred years the Roman occupation continued. Britain became a colony; native citizens of Rome settled there, and their descendants remained. Permanent camps were established in places of vantage; splendid military roads were built traversing the island; the fields were tilled; the mines were worked; seaports were developed; the exports of THE ROMANS AND THE TEUTONS 3 Britain became an important factor in the commerce of Europe. Even the luxuries of Roman life were not lacking in wealthy fortified towns like York, Lincoln, and London. However, the legions were withdrawn from Britain in 410 A. D. in order to defend the empire in Italy from the incursions of the Goths; and the decay of Roman civilization began. The rapidity of its disappearance is noteworthy. Besides the solid paving of their famous roads and the remains of their massive walls, scarcely a trace of this domination is to be found. Only a half-dozen words remain in our language as the undisputed heritage of that long period to remind us that the Latin tongue was during these four hundred years the native speech of the rulers of the land. The names of many English towns, like Chester, Winchester, Worcester, Gloucester, Lancaster, and Doncaster, preserve the Latin castra, a camp; the English street (as in Watling Street, the name of an ancient Roman road running north from Dover to Chester) represents, doubtless, the Latin strata via, a paved way; while portus, fossa, villa, and vallum may at this time have supplied the words which give us modern port, fosse, villa, and wall. The native Celts had been partially christianized as early as the third century; by the beginning of the fifth the Church in Britain had attained a decided growth, and was an institution of considerable power. Upon the withdrawal of the Roman arms, the southern part of the island was speedily overrun The Teutons. by fierce tribes from the highlands of the north, and by other tribes no less fierce from Ireland on the west. Invasions by the Northmen and by the Germans from the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic were frequent also on the eastern coast. Particularly these last, appearing suddenly and settling |