Macready, and put on at Covent Garden Theater, but without pronounced success. He wrote many fine dramatic poems, like Pippa Passes, Colombe's Birthday, and In a Balcony; and at least two good acting plays, Luria and A Blot in the Scutcheon. The last named has recently been given to the American public, with Lawrence Barrett's careful and intelligent presentation of the leading role. The motive of the tragedy is somewhat strained and fantastic, but it is, notwithstanding, very effective on the stage. It gives one an unwonted thrill to listen to a play,by a contemporary English writer, which is really literature. One gets a faint idea of what it must have been to assist at the first night of Hamlet.

1. English Literature in the Reign of Victoria. Henry Morley. (Tauchnitz Series.)

2. Victorian Poets. E. C. Stedman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1886.

3. Dickens. Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities.

4. Thackeray. Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Henry Esmond, The Newcomes.

5. George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life, Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Adam Bede, Middlemarch. 6. Macaulay. Essays, Lays of Ancient Rome.

7. Carlyle. Sartor Resartus, French Revolution, Essays on History, Signs of the Times, Characteristics, Burns, Scott, Voltaire, and Goethe.

8. The Works of Alfred Tennyson. London: Stranham & Co., 1872. 6 vols.

9. Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880. 2 vols.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

1 Called.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

THE PRIORESS.

[From the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales.]

There was also a nonne, a prioresse,

That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy;

Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy;
And she was cleped' madame Eglentine.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;
And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,1
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
At metë was she wel ytaught withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippēs falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.4

Hire over lippe wipëd she so clene

That in hire cuppe was no ferthing 5 sene

Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.
Ful semely after hire mete she raught."

7

And sikerly she was of grete disport
And ful plesánt and amiable of port,
And peinëd hire to contrefeten chere
Of court, and ben estatelich of manére
And to ben holden digne' of reverence.
But for to speken of hire conscience,

2 Neatly. 3 Stratford on the Bow (river): a small village where such French as was spoken would be provincial. * Delight. Farthing, bit. • Reached. Surely. 8 Took pains to imitate court manners. • Worthy.

1 Fine bread.

She was so charitable and so pitoús,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smalë houndës hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh and milk and wastel brede.1
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerdë2 smert: 3
And all was conscience and tendre herte.

PALAMON'S FAREWELL TO EMELIE.
[From the Knightes Tale.]

Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare o point of all my sorwes smerte
To you, my lady, that I love most.
But I bequethe the service of my gost

To you aboven every creatúre,

Sin' that my lif ne may no lenger dure.
Alas the wo! alas the peinës stronge

That I for you have suffered, and so longe!
Alas the deth! alas min Emelie!

Alas departing of our compagnie !

Alas min hertës quene! alas my wif!

Min hertës ladie, ender of my lif!

What is this world? what axen men to have?

Now with his love, now in his coldë grave

Alone withouten any compagnie.

Farewel my swete, farewel min Emelie,
And softë take me in your armës twey,"
For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey.