Certain critical conceptions regarding the Shepheards Calender require to be re-examined. One of these is the idea that the Calender is a series of experiments, lacking unity except through the rather imperfectly worked out idea of the seasons or the little drama of Colin and Rosalind. This view probably proceeds from the fact that in 1579-1580 Spenser and Harvey were discussing the subject of reformed versifying, and is strengthened by the well-known indebtedness of the Calender to certain types of Renaissance pastoral. But these discussions with Harvey are easily magnified; the careful reader of the famous letters finds abundant evidence that Spenser was none too serious. The indebtedness to foreign models is very real, but it has been stressed to the exclusion of elements not less important, and it no more proceeds from a supposedly experimental character of the work as a whole than the similar eclecticism of the Faerie Queene; a serious, unified purpose is by no means precluded. Moreover, we know by Spenser's own statement that his chief model was Chaucer; and this influence of Chaucer, strange to say, has not yet been thoroughly investigated. As to the idea that this so-called series of experiments possesses only the slight unity afforded by the seasons motif or by the Colin-Rosalind story, the fanciful importance attached to the Kalendrier des Bergeres as a possible model on the one hand, and the not unnatural desire to learn all that is possible of the life of Spenser on the other, have too long diverted attention from what I believe was Spenser's real purpose in writing the Calender.

In 1899 Dr. C. W. Eastman read a paper before the Modern Language Association, in which he maintained that of all Scott's novels Ivanhoe served Hauff most completely as the source of his historical romance, Lichtenstein. In 1903 this claim was disputed by Dr. W. H. Carruth, who thro the same channel advanced his reasons for believing that Waverley and not Ivanhoe was the model in question. A year later Max Schuster in a monograph discussed Hauff's relation to his historical sources; and almost simultaneously the whole problem of his historical and literary dependence was treated by Max Drescher. Incisive and scholarly as these inquiries are, it has seemed to us in the light of our own studies that one phase of the matter still offered opportunity for further investigation. The evidence of Hauff's attitude toward Walter Scott is by no means meagre or indirect; and we have never been able to persuade ourselves that this specific relation has been adequately determined. In any case it is insufficient merely to ask whether Waverley or Ivanhoe was the prototype, or, as Drescher did, arbitrarily to choose only six of Scott's novels for comparison. The situation demanded rather a most careful study of all the works to which Hauff had access, and an equally careful analysis of the evidence thus obtained.

Romance seldom stalks frank and undisguised. It wears the sober cloak of religion in the pious fictions of the saints and assumes the honest name of history in the inventions of chroniclers. Yet nowhere does it veil its face more darkly than in the pages of seemingly serious-minded biographers. That curious volume, recorded by Isaac D'Israeli, the Farfalloni degli Antichi Historici, might easily find its counterpart in our English literary apocrypha. The legalized narrative of Alfred's splendid foundation of the University of Oxford; Chaucer's life at the University and at Woodstock and his base betrayal of his friends; Shakespeare's intrigue with William Herbert's mistress; Milton's dream-meeting with the fair Italians under the Cambridge tree—all these have been themes of the legend maker. Now he who harks back to the earliest days of Old English prose and poetry will find disguised romance lurking everywhere. The philologist has often dragged it forth and stripped it of its pretences; but he has just as often connived at its rogueries. This connivance has been in the main unconscious, for the Anglist has been the dupe of his methods which have led him all unwitting into the very lap of legends. In his fallacies of false assumption, in his tame acquiescence in unfounded assertions that bear a certain stamp of authority and in his proneness to manipulate by argument data that he will be branded for doubting, the modern scholar is too often akin to the medieval schoolman. And so, in his last chapter, sly romance has its way with him.

Before we may hope to solve some of the problems which confront the student of Chaucer we must gain a clearer understanding of the relationship in which the extant mss. stand to the text written by the poet's own hand. In the hope of throwing some light upon this relationship it occurred to the present writer to apply to all the Chaucer mss. thus far printed a very obvious grammatical test by noting their usage in the case of the plural present indicative of the verb shullen. The use of this test first suggested itself as a result of my observation that in these forms there is a curious variation among different mss., and even in the same ms. in different portions of Chaucer's text. These reversals of usage in the same ms. are best illustrated in Camb. Gg. 4, 27, for this manuscript contains not only the Cant. Tales, but also Troilus, the Parl, of Foules, and the Legend of G. W. In the Parl, of F. one finds the plural of the present indicative written schul eight times and schal only once; in Troilus, on the other hand, there are no less than forty-one schal's as against eight schul's. Much the same ratio is found in the Legend, which has eleven schal's and only two schul's. Moreover, among the several tales of the Canterbury collection this manuscript shows marked difference of usage, swinging abruptly from six to two in favor of schal in the Man of Law's Tale to nine to one in favor of schul in the Wife of Bath's Tale, which immediately follows. Similar examples of reversal of usage in these forms might be cited in nearly all the printed mss. Such alternations between schal and schul on the part of the same scribe are evidently due to variations in the mss. from which he was copying. In other words, the responsibility for this variation in usage does not rest upon the scribes of the extant mss.,—though they may have added to the confusion already existing. It is clear, then, that this confusion between shul and shal must proceed, either from scribes intermediate between Chaucer and the extant copies or—from Chaucer himself.

The relation of Latin lyric poetry to the lyric poetry of the Romance peoples remains one of the interesting problems of medieval literature. It has already challenged the industry of generations of investigators with no definite result. And it may be doubted whether conclusions which are self-convincing will be reached in the immediate future. The chief hindrance to a satisfactory solution is presented, of course, by the incompleteness of relevant material. The examples of Latin lyrics which may be considered as expressive of natural emotion are few in number before the end of the eleventh century, and the poems of William IX are the first in Romance. There may be found here and there, to be sure, scattered hints of the existence of non-artistic poetry, whether in Latin or the vernacular, but the information so furnished by Latin writers is uncertain as well as meager. Widely different interpretations may be put on it. Contradictory theories find inconclusive support in it, further confusing an already perplexing problem. In view of all this doubt, and the difficulties with which the subject is still beset, it may not be unprofitable to go over the ground once more, and arrange the documents which allude to non-literary poetry, Latin or Romance, in their chronological order from the first century to the eleventh. While nothing new may be discovered from such a classification it will be useful to have at hand, grouped together, the texts from which the opposing factions draw their partisan arguments.

It was probably during, or shortly after, his residence at Cambridge University that Edmund Spenser composed two ‘hymnes,’ or odes, in praise of love and beauty. The ‘love’ praised was ‘platonic love’; the ‘beauty’ praised was ‘intellectual’ beauty.

These two poems were written, it seems certain, before 1580. Over twenty years later, perhaps twenty-five,–at any rate not long before 1596,–the poet, grown older, professes to condemn them as conspicuous among “the many lewd layes” that “in the greener times of his youth” he had made

In his discussion in Laokoon of the limits of poetry Lessing declares that detailed description of bodies in space is unpoetical. He justifies his contention that progressive actions are the peculiar subject of poetry by reference (1) to the means of poetry and (2) to the practice of Homer, all of whose descriptions he affirms are progressive. Many critics have not been satisfied with Lessing's limitation of poetry to progressive actions, and have attacked his conclusions by showing (1) that his conception of the means of poetry is inadequate, (2) that Homer contains a number of descriptions of objects in space. Taking as a starting point Lessing's position in regard to these descriptions, I think it possible to explain on a psychological basis the reason for Lessing's assertion that the poet would better not attempt to describe objects in space, except by the Homeric device of substituting progression for co-existence.

In the legend of St. Cecilia, not only as the Second Nun tells it, but also as it appears in the Legenda aurea and in Simeon Metaphrastes, an angel gives to Cecilia and Valerian (as everybody knows) two crowns:

Valerian goth hoom, and fint Cecilie
With-inne his chambre with an angel stonde;
This angel hadde of roses and of lilie
Corones two, the which he bar in honde;
And first to Cecile, as I understonde,
He yaf that oon, and after gan he take
That other to Valerian, hir make.
'With body clene and with unwemmed thoght
Kepeth ay wel thise corones' quod he;
'Fro Paradys to yow have I hem broght,
Ne never-mo ne shal they roten be,
Ne lese her sote savour, trusteth me;
Ne never wight shal seen hem with his yë,
But he be chaast and hate vileinyë.

A popular allegorical subject in the Middle Ages was that which represented the struggle of the good and evil powers for the possession of man's soul. Frequently the evil power is centralized in the devil or his procurator, and the contest is excited by the harrowing of Hell and the release of the damned souls by Christ. According to some of the Church Fathers, the devil had certain rights over man after the first sin, a right which was the more legitimate since it was sanctioned by God himself. The whole subject is closely connected with the dogmatic traditions of the Church concerning the redemption. In the twelfth century, Hugo of St. Victor in his commentary on the fifteenth Psalm gives an account of a dispute between Christ and Satan, in which the devil asserts his right to man as having been consigned to him after the Fall. We find this reproduced in an Italian version of the thirteenth century entitled Piato del Dio col Nemico. According to other versions, the Virgin Mary undertook the defense of man against the claims of the devil. This idea was a product of the worship of the Virgin which affected so many of the doctrines of the Church. As the protecting Mother of sinners, she was the natural adversary of the forces of evil. Mary, the Queen of Heaven, was thus contrasted with Lucifer, the independent ruler of Hell. In certain cases, the story represents a trial scene in which Christ appears as the judge, the Virgin Mary as the advocate of mankind and Mascaron, the devil's procurator, as the plaintiff. This version is found in three texts, Dutch, Latin, and Catalan, which show marked similarities.

Contrairement à bien des écrivains et à bien des philosophes, Jean Jacques Rousseau semble avoir trouvé, dès le début de sa carrière, l'idée directrice qui devait le guider dans toute son œuvre. Contenue, déjà presque entière, dans le Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts, la théorie sur la bonté originelle de l'homme est formulée avec netteté et développée dans le Discours sur l'Inégalité; on la retrouve dans tous les ouvrages de Rousseau, c'est l'essential même de sa doctrine, le principe admis par lui comme absolu et incontestable, dont il ne se départira pas et qu'il défendra obstinément. Il est assez étonnant, au premier abord, de voir Rousseau prendre cette attitude dans la lutte philosophique à un moment où les idées de progrès out gagné tellement de terrain, dans un des siècles les plus civilisés et les plus heureux de son raffinement que l'on ait connu. Ajoutons que Rousseau, en sa double qualité de Génevois et de protestant foncier, qu'il est toujours resté, aurait dû croire plus que tout autre à ce que Calvin appelle la “malice humain.” Suffitil de dire que Rousseau “étant éminemment individualiste, toute sa doctrine sort de la constitution particulière de son moi,” comme M. Lanson le déclare? Il ne semble pas, et cette solution ne nous satisfait guère; il y a pourtant là un problème psychologique autant que littéraire qui vaut d'être examiné.

With the publication of Luther's manuscripts of the Bible translations in the Weimar edition of his works, a veritable mine has been opened to the investigators of Luther's language. These manuscripts were written in the years 1523-1530; Zerbster Handschrift, 1523; Berliner Handschrift, 1523-1524; Heidelberger Handschrift, 1527-1528; Gothaer Handschrift, 1530; etc. Luther began intensive work upon his translation of the Old Testament immediately after the appearance of the revision of the New Testament, 1522. He had profited from a closer study of the earlier editions, of the sources, and of German life and language, before he entered upon his monumental work. He had also attained to a more philosophical view of life and had become more skilled in the art of translation.

It would appear, on investigation, that English classicism made itself firm roots in Elizabethan soil. Furthermore, that the plant was exotic, and came of French stock seems extremely probable. If this is our conclusion, it is necessary to premise the characteristics of an age possessing classic tendencies and show them to have appeared in sixteenth century English letters. Also we must trace interrelations of technique and theme between France and England, in order to support our latter deduction.

Many students of English literature are agreed that the Eighteenth Century stands in special need of reconsideration. In earlier days Wordsworth, Keats, and many more, with the new dawn on their lips, consigned their Augustan fathers and grandfathers to an ill-considered damnation. In our own age we have tried to be more tolerant. But our methods have been unfortunate. We admit the Eighteenth Century to be interesting, but interesting only in so far as it anticipates romanticism. In consequence all scholarship on the Eighteenth Century literature of England has become a mad scramble in search of romanticism. Since Professor Beers and Professor Phelps traced its growth in the Eighteenth Century it has become so fashionable to detect signs of revolt against neo-classicism that some brilliant critic of the future may gain distinction by turning the tables and by proving that a school of Pope actually existed. Of the many conceptions of the Eighteenth Century one of the most exaggerated is the notion that the influence of Spenser was one of the main forces that made for romanticism. It is the purpose of this study to examine the Spenserian problem by a brief analysis of those poems which fashion dubbed Spenserian Imitations. My contentions may be made more clear by departing from the strict chronological method and by taking Thomson's Castle of Indolence, a very composite poem, as a climax.

The heroes of the novels of the Abbé Prevost present certain emotional states which are generally regarded as characteristic of the romantic school. Since these moods are not commonly supposed to have received literary expression until a later date, it may be worth while to point out the more striking among them. It is interesting to note the anticipation of some of the doctrines of Rousseau, and of the type of romantic rebel represented by Werther, René, and Childe Harold. Most of the following passages are from Cleveland, the novel which offers the greatest interest from this point of view. The others show the same tendencies, but in a less marked degree, and in a form less convenient for citation.

The unique quarto to which this title has been given was printed at London for Thomas Cadman in 1585. It crossed the Atlantic as part of the Rowfant Library, and was for some time offered for sale in New York, until Mr. A. W. Pollard, on his recent visit to this country, bought it for the British Museum. It has been privately printed in England, with an introduction by Mr. Pollard, to whom I am indebted for many courtesies, but otherwise it has not been published since the original issue of 1585. It is, unfortunately, imperfect, lacking sig. A (title page and three other leaves) and beginning on B1 with the latter part of a sentence. Apart altogether from its rarity, it has features of considerable interest, but before entering upon questions of authorship and interpretation, it will be well to put the reader in possession of the text. Only obvious errors have been corrected, and in these cases the original readings are given in footnotes. I have numbered the lines of the comedy for reference.