first view " of English literature which should be at once a practical manual adapted to the routine work of the classroom, and an unfolding story whose intrinsic interest should claim the student's willing attention. The authors also desire to thank Scott, Foresman, and Company for permission to include in the text two or three paragraphs originally written for their school edition of Coleridge's “Ancient Mariner,” and the Macmillan Company for permission reproduce, from Garnett and Gosse's English Literature : an Illustrated Record, the manuscript facsimile which forms the frontispiece of the present volume.

LU

CONTENTS

ENGLISH LITERATURE

CHAPTER

PAGE

I. OLD ENGLISH PERIOD: ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE ON

THE CONTINENT

I

IN

II. OLD ENGLISH PERIOD: ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

ENGLAND

IO

III. MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD: FROM THE NORMAN CON.

QUEST TO CHAUCER

25

IV. MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD: THE AGE OF CHAUCER .

39

V. THE RENAISSANCE: NON-DRAMATIC LITERATURE TO THE

DEATH OF ELIZABETH .

64

VI. THE RENAISSANCE: THE DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

90

VII. SHAKESPEARE AND HIS FELLOW DRAMATISTS

106

VIII. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: FROM THE DEATH OF

ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION

129

XII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: THE REVIVAL OF ROMAN.

TICISM

224

XIII. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE TRIUMPH OF ROMAN-

TICISM

241

XIV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE VICTORIAN AGE.

IV. THE POPULAR SPOKESMEN OF THE MID-CENTURY

469

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

.

SPRING SONG: "SOMER IS I CUMEN IN (THIRTEENTH CENT.
URY).

Frontispiece
Middle-English and Latin texts, with music, from a manuscript in the British

Museum

PAGE

38

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

From the Occleve manuscript

74

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

From the miniature by Isaac Oliver, in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle

80

EDMUND SPENSER

From an original picture in the possession of the Earl of Kinnoull

.

.

JOHN MILTON

From an engraving by Humphreys after the Faithorne portrait

321

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

From a drawing by Field Talfourd, Rome, March, 1859

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

From a Portrait by Duplessis in Boston Public Library

425

WASHINGTON IRVING .

From a Painting by Charles Loring Elliott

438