Educ T HARVARD UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION MONROE C. GUTMAN LIBRARY DEC 21 1896 Copyright, 1894, By FLOOD & VINCENT. The Chautauqua-Century Press, Meadville, Pa., U. S. A. IN PREFACE. so brief a history of so rich a literature, the problem is how to get room enough to give, not an adequate impression-that is impossible-but any impression at all of the subject. To do this I have crowded out every thing but belles lettres. Books in philosophy, history, science, etc., however important in the history of English thought, receive the merest incidental mention, or even no mention at all. Again, I have omitted the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, which is written in a language nearly as hard for a modern Englishman to read as German is, or Dutch. Cædmon and Cynewulf are no more a part of English literature than Vergil and Horace are of Italian. I have also left out the vernacular literature of the Scotch before the time of Burns. Up to the date of the union Scotland was a separate kingdom, and its literature had a development independent of the English, though parallel with it. In dividing the history into periods, I have followed, with some modifications, the divisions made by Mr. Stopford Brooke in his excellent little Primer of English Literature. A short reading course is appended to each chapter. HENRY A. BEERS. JOHN DRYDEN, JOSEPH ADDISON, Alexander POPE, JON- 141 *SAMUEL JOHNSON, OLIVER GOLDSMITH, WILLIAM COWPER, ROBERT BURNS. 157 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, GEORGE GORDON BYRON, PERCY 164 ROBERT SOUTHEY, SIR WALTER SCOTT, SAMUEL TAYLOR 197 THOMAS CARLYLE, JOHN RUSKIN, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE 205 GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANN EVANS), JAMES ANTHONY 213 |