FOREWORD.

THOU HOUGH intended primarily for High Schools, it is hoped that this little book may prove not useless in College classes that pursue a sketch – or outline course in English Literature.

To the High School teacher the following explanations may be useful:

I.

The short Biographies are intended as mere outlines which the pupil, if time allow, shall fill in from his reading of larger works. These works are indicated in the Bibliography, under the heading LIFE AND TIMES.

2. The Bibliography of CRITICISM, it is hoped, will assist the teacher in his search for the best that has been thought and said upon the poet whom his class is studying. Perhaps advanced pupils also can use some portion of this Bibliography with profit, but if they have spare time, I should encourage them to read more extensively in the works of the poet himself rather than in the works of those who have written about him.

3. The reference library, placed where the pupil can consult it daily, should contain :

i. Books for which there are no equivalents: Pope's Translation of the Iliad; Lang, Leaf and Myer's Translation of the Iliad; Palmer's Translation of the Odyssey; Dryden's and Conington's Translations of the Æneid; The Century Dictionary.

ii. The following books or their equivalents: Lippincott's Biographical Dictionary; Lippincott's Gazetteer; Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary; Rich's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities; Gayley's Classic Myths in English Literature; Ginn's Classical Atlas; Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase

and Fable; Green's Short History of the English People; McCarthy's History of Our Own Times; Skeat's Etymological Dictionary (Student's edition); Whitney's Essentials of English Grammar; Bain's Rhetoric (new edition in 2 vols.); Hales' Longer English Poems; The English Men of Letters Series.

4. The principles of Metrics will be found laid down in Abbott & Seelye's English Lessons for English People, and in Gummere's Poetics. It has been thought unnecessary, therefore, to give such information in the notes.

5. Exigencies of space have compelled me reluctantly to omit Scott's Lady of the Lake from the place it should have occupied in this book. This defect the student should remedy by reading that poem in the excellent edition of Professor W. J. Rolfe.

Grateful acknowledgments are due to the following gentlemen: To Professor C. M. Gayley of the University of California for constant advice and valuable criticism upon the treatment of all poets represented in this book; to Professor W. D. Whitney of Yale University for permission to draw freely for definitions upon the Century Dictionary; to Professor H. A. Beers of Yale University for helpful suggestion embodied in the notes on Milton, Dryden and Pope; to Professor A. F. Lange of the University of California for similar suggestions in the notes on Milton; to Professor J. C. Rolfe of the University of Michigan for permission to condense information on certain points from his scholarly and exhaustive edition of Macaulay's Lays; to Professor C. B. Bradley of the University of California for advice in the selection of the extracts from Burns and Browning; to Professor Isaac Flagg of the University of California for the happy Latin phrasing he has given to the thought of the editor's inscription.

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA,

March 15, 1894.

MILTON.

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathéd Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unhol Find out some uncouth cell,

5

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings. And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,/

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou Goddess fair and free
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,

And by men heart-easing Mirth;

Whom lovely Venus, of

birth,

With two sister Graces more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:

Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,

Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live i dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides
Come, and up it, as you go,

On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand fead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty/
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovéd pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;

While the cock, with lively diu,

30

35

40

45