Many readers of Beowulf must have felt that its first climax, the fight with Grendel, is something of a disappointment. Klaeber's notes mention some of the faults when they say that this passage is

There are historical grounds for the appearance of the Saracens in Old French literature. Their appearance upon French soil had been intermittent from the eighth to the tenth century, but in later centuries the point of contact between Christian and Infidel had been shifted first to Spain, and later to the eastern end of the Mediterranean. In the time of the Crusades the local memory of the presence of the Saracens preserved in popular tradition and in clerical records was utilized by the clerks and jongleurs for the specific purpose of arousing popular interest in the holy war. To state briefly our conclusions concerning the Saracens in Old French literature, we may say that they serve a distinct purpose in the earliest epic poems reflecting contemporary Crusade zeal, and that through the popularity of the epic poems they gained wide currency as exotic, marvellous, or romantic characters in mediaeval story.

Many of these interpretative suggestions are merely additions to others which have been made in each case by the commentators and translators available to me. E. Moore's invaluable Indices in Volume I (“Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante”)—now, unfortunately, out of print—of his Studies in Dante (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1896) may be taken as practically basic among compendia of sources and parallels.

Questo libretto del Bruni ci ha sempre interessati per il suo tono battagliero e per la revisione che il suo autore vi fa dei valori culturali del suo tempo. I Dialoghi a Pietro Vergerio apparvero in uno di quei momenti in cui la vita italiana stava per fare una svolta accelerando il ritmo ordinazio del suo divenire. Due generazioni vi si veggono nettamente l'una contro l'altra: quella degli Umanisti morali del secolo XIV e quella degli Umanisti estetizzanti del secolo seguente.

John Shakespeare, shoemaker, or corviser, who lived in Stratford-on-Avon in the 1580's and 1590's, and who is sometimes hard to to distinguish from John Shakespeare, the father of the poet, in the borough records, can now be identified as belonging to the Balsall family of the same name, and the genealogy of that family can now be traced in outline for two hundred years. Since this family lived so long in a neighborhood where many Shakespeares lived, and since it is known to have been the parent of the Baddesley Clinton branch, it may prove, when sufficient evidence has accumulated, to be the parent of other branches also. It is therefore of interest to students of Shakespeare.

Richard Haydocke, who published at Oxford in 1598 a translation of Lomazzo's Trattato dell'arte della Pittura, and Alexander Browne, who claimed authorship of the Ars Pictoria (1669), are not completely unknown to fame. Each had rather curious contacts with historically important persons: the former, with King James I and with Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library; the latter, with the Duchess of Monmouth, and with Mr. Samuel Pepys, whose wife was his pupil. It is true that the shrines of these writers have been visited but seldom, although the diligent inquirer will find that each is accorded a brief notice in the catholic pages of the Dictionary of National Biography, and occasional comment upon one or the other crops up in widely scattered sources.

Although the original MSS of most of Sir Thomas Browne's published works have disappeared, a number of fragments and drafts of passages of The Garden of Cyrus have survived in his loose papers and notebooks, now in the British Museum and Bodleian. In editing Browne's miscellaneous writings a few years ago Keynes noted the resemblance of several fragments to portions of the printed essay, but aside from his brief annotations this material has remained unexplored.

Mr. T. S. Eliot in his essay “The Function of Criticism” has commented admirably upon the part which criticism plays in the work of creation itself, calling the highest kind of criticism that which a trained and skilled writer directs toward his own work. “Probably,” Mr. Eliot says, “probably, indeed, the larger part of the labour of an author in composing his work is critical labour; the labour of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing: this frightful toil is as much critical as creative.” But there is a tendency, “a Whiggery tendency,” so he continues, to deplore this activity of the artist, to regard the great artist as an unconscious artist. Certainly the eighteenth century, whose unfortunate imitation of Milton Mr. Eliot deplores elsewhere, regarded Milton as an unconscious artist, understanding him literally when he speaks (P.L.ix, 21–24) of a

. . . celestial Patroness who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplored,
And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse.

The banquet scene in Paradise Regained has given trouble to the critics. Long considered an inartistic repetition of the first temptation, it was interpreted by Gilbert and by Hanford as the first step in the second temptation, the most obvious and materialistic aspect of the kingdoms of the world offered by Satan; it was the appeal of luxury, embodied in the æsthetic as well as physical appeal of a sumptuous feast.

Louis Racine, born in 1692, elder son of Jean Racine, believing, as he says in his preface to De la Grâce, that “plus les objets sont dignes de l'attention des hommes, plus la poésie est digne de les décrire,” wrote in poetry, while still a young man and a pensionnaire at the Oratoire de Notre Dame des Vertus, his views on Grace, that question which was so long the subject of bitter religious controversies. The date of the publication of De la Grâce has never been generally known, some literary historians such as Vapereau and Lanson having given the date as 1720, and others, such as Beuchot in a note to Voltaire's lines A Monsieur Louis Racine, as 1722. This study will establish the fact that, although the poem was printed in 1720 as most historians agree, there was no public distribution of it until two years later. Moreover, little has been known concerning the composition of the poem. The history of the writing of De la Grâce and of its lot during the period between its initial printing in 1720 and its circulation in 1722 is greatly clarified by evidence in four documents which seem to have been overlooked.

Despite the considerable and valuable critical discussion of Franklin's Poor Richard, certain important points have been too briefly considered, or have been wholly overlooked. In particular, it has not been recognized (1) how extensively Franklin was indebted to Jonathan Swift in his hoaxing of Titan Leeds, the rival almanac-maker; (2) that the source for the characters Richard and Bridget Saunders was almost certainly Swift's Bickerstaff papers; and (3) that there are two Poor Richards—the original comic philomath of 1733 and the final American archetype, the fountain-head of shrewd prudential wisdom. Thus the student of Anglo-American literary relations has been unaware of Swift's part in making a great American figure; and the students of Poor Richard, on the whole regarding him as a static rather than changing character, have been led to make misleading, conflicting, or confused statements concerning him.

In the DNB the lives of both Coleridge and Coleridge's disciple, F. D. Maurice, are by Sir Leslie Stephen. At first thought it may appear rather curious that Stephen undertook to write these lives, because ostensibly he could have had very little in common with the subject of either. As a matter of fact, however, his interest in both men was unusual; he was almost fascinated by them. The strict rationalist and scientific biographer is likely to find much to challenge him in the mystic philosopher and transcendentalist, particularly in such protean philosophers as Coleridge and Maurice. Confronting them, he feels a special urge to make the crooked straight, to render the unintelligible intelligible, and to provide a clear, hard-headed interpretation of confused, soft-headed thinking. Although Sir Leslie was not quite a strict rationalist or a purely scientific biographer, there was enough of both in him to explain his willingness to write the lives of Coleridge and Maurice. Any effort to evaluate or even understand these lives should therefore be supported by a knowledge of Stephen's real attitude toward his subjects.

“For the study of no English poet have we ampler material than for the life and art of John Keats. … The material for the study of Keats's biography is no less complete.” Notwithstanding this wealth of material, until quite recently at least, much confusion has existed with respect to the date of his birth, and the exact time of his death yet remains uncertain. Accuracy in these respects is desirable, not only for its own sake, but especially in fixing the date for memorials, anniversaries, and similar observances. It is confusing to find such writers as Lord Houghton, Sir Sidney Colvin, and Amy Lowell either uncertain or in disagreement upon the subject. A summary of the facts giving rise to these doubts, and an examination of the evidence from the standpoint of its probative value should be of interest to students of the life and art of Keats, and may possibly be useful in reaching a greater degree of certainty with respect to these dates.

Balzac is said to have written in all some forty works before the Human Comedy, but many were in collaboration with other writers. We have now available, among others, Sténie, recently edited by A. Prioult, and ten novels collected under the title Œuvres de jeunesse. Monsieur Pierre Barrière claims that “il n'est presque rien dans la Comédie Humaine qui ne soit en germe dans les Romans de Jeunesse.” While this great admirer of Balzac is inclined to let his enthusiasm color his judgments, he has put forth strong arguments to prove his point. And yet he has failed to include in his evidence a study of the organization and composition of these early novels which would have strengthened his claims. The plots are often ridiculously fantastic, a characteristic, let it be said, that does not entirely disappear in La Comédie Humaine. They exist primarily as devices whereby Balzac makes the characters act and react on each other, and thus they bring out those psychological aspects that he is at the moment interested in revealing. The absurdity of the plot has little to do with the excellence of the novel. The most fantastic tale of all is probably La Dernière fée (1823) and yet this is perhaps the best of these early works.

So much has been said, and on the whole so effectively, concerning Browning's use in Aristophanes' Apology of ancient authors and modern critics that a statement of the author's own contribution to the poem has become not the pointless task it would at first appear. The very thoroughness with which Browning's materials have been examined has tended to obscure the fact that this piece affords us some of our most interesting, and not our least valuable, evidence of what Browning himself thought and felt about poetry.

Depuis plusieurs années on s'intéresse beaucoup à la question de l'influence de l'entourage anglo-saxon sur le français tel qu'on le parle au Canada. Les Canadiens-Français eux-mêmes ont senti toute la gravité de cette influence menaçante et, soucieux de garder leur langue française aussi pure que possible, ils ont fait de l'anglicisme le plus grand des péchés linguistiques. On voit paraître dans les journaux et les revues de longues listes d'anglicismes que le Canadien-Français ne doit pas employer. Tout cela, à notre avis, est peine perdue: le peuple continuera à trouver plus commode de dire la shed que la remise, le wrench que la clé anglaise, le spare que le pneu de rechange, et ainsi de suite.

The present study is an attempt to examine the growth of use of the progressive, or expanded, tense system in Modern English. The shades of significance of the system have been minutely analyzed by Jespersen, Curme, and others. Jespersen's explanation of the form as taking its rise in the preposition on + the gerund after the verb to be (fused with the use of be + the ing participle) seems unchallenged. But the frequency of use is yet another matter.

The meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society with the Modern Language Association of America on the one hand and with the American Anthropological Association on the other in 1938 illustrates very clearly the wide range of interests covered by the term folklore. A century ago no such term existed, but the need for one was greatly felt. Students of the popular ballad, of popular antiquities, and of superstitions all recognized that they had something in common, and, as soon as the word folklore was proposed in the 1840's, it was adopted, not only by the English-speaking public, but by the whole world. It is now as ubiquitous as the Ford car and moves uneasily in Russian or Hungarian texts, not to speak of such familiar literatures as French or German. During the ninety years in which this word has been spreading over the world, it has extended its meaning until no man today can take all folklore for his province.

No one would deny that contemporary Mexico, the Mexico of Lázaro Cárdenas, the Mexico of widespread agrarian reform, of militant trade unions, of advanced social legislation, of expanding popular education and expropriation of foreign oil companies, has entered an era of great historic significance. We who are close to the scene are acutely aware of the swift tempo which this peaceful phase of the thirty year old Mexican Revolution has assumed. However we may evaluate the direction in which Mexico's social order is moving, we are especially conscious of the fact that for the past half-decade, Mexico has been a nation in rapid transition.