Newman's works range from twelve volumes of sermons, through treatises and essays, historical and critical, and polemical works, to novels of which "Callista," a tale of the early Christians in Africa, is the best, and to poetry. In this, "The Dream of Gerontius" displays intense imaginative power; and "Lead, Kindly Light" is the most admired of his religious lyrics. Perhaps this great and good man is most intelligible in his "Life," by Mr. Wilfrid Ward (1912).
In his love of truth, and in his courage and natural independence of mind, Newman was what we call "thoroughly English". "I am as little able to think by any mind but my own as to breathe by another's lungs," he wrote. As much might be said for two authors who differed from him so widely as Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Thomas Huxley (1825-1895). The nature of their studies was, as a rule, remote from the literary, and must find record and criticism in the History of Science. The greatness of Darwin's character and intellect is among the chief intellectual glories of his country. Huxley, apart from his own special researches, was the Thangbrand of Evolution, the popular fighting man, of a brisk humorous pugnacity; his mental lungs expanding in an atmosphere which would have asphyxiated Newman. He had very wide general reading; of his more literary works his "Life of David Hume" in the series of "English Men of Letters" is an admirable example. He is not to be accepted as an impeccable authority on the religions of the more backward races. The same caution must be extended to the anthropological works of Herbert Spencer, a single-hearted seeker after truth, with a very peculiar scientific style of his own. Of all men who wrote much, and earnestly, and persuasively, Spencer was the least of a reader; to much good literature he was even antipathetic. His tastes may be studied in his autobiography.
W. E. H. Lecky.
Among historians of the later Victorian age, W. E. H. Lecky (1838-1903) held a position which was all his own. He was not an explorer among difficult and ancient archives like Froude; he had not Froude's imaginative and pictorial genius, and power of bringing dead times and personages vividly before the inner eye. He had neither the wide general historical knowledge of Freeman, nor Green's combination of effective rhetoric with very considerable learning. The minute and laborious accuracy of Gardiner, focused on a space comparatively limited, was not his; it was said of him at the moment when, still very young, he produced his "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe" (1865) that he seemed infinitely more familiar with Latin and French than with Greek and German, and so he continued to be. But he gave, to the general reader, the results of wide reading; he was as lucid as he was fluent; his style was unborrowed, but descended from that of the eighteenth century; and so candid was he, that he spoke of the honesty of "The Old Pretender" (James VIII and III) as "heroic". Few historians have been so precocious; few more popular. Born in 1838, of a landed Irish family of Scottish descent, he was educated at Cheltenham College, and Trinity College, Dublin. In his twenty-third year he was already a published historical writer ("Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland"). He travelled in Spain, Italy, and France, and in 1865 published his work on the "History of Rationalism," which was warmly welcomed, and remains a justly popular book. But, in accordance with the nature of historical science, it is such a history of Rationalism, beginning with a study of the belief in witchcraft and the attendant cruelties, as a young man of talent, taking up the subject to-day, could no longer write. Much is adopted from Michelet, Maury, and Guerinet; the psychology of the topic was, in 1865, unknown: and to-day only a very daring youth could aver that the Rev. Mr. Kirk published "A Secret Commonwealth" in 1691 or at any other date. But the work is full of interest for the general reader: the author won a deserved success, and was 31 years of age when he followed it up with his "History of European Morals," a topic that might have taxed the erudition of the maturity of Gibbon. It involved a philosophical dissertation on the origin of morality, Lecky professing a theory of "intuition," which, though opposed to "rationalistic" ideas, is not unsympathetic to some anthropologists; though in knowledge of the ethics of savages, he could not, at the period when he wrote, be accomplished. Again, a study of Neoplatonism was involved, and had to be written without the aid of much psychological inquiry, posterior to the date of the work. The researches of the future antiquate works on such large subjects as the History of Morals with ruthless rapidity. Lecky's works, so far, were in the manner of Montesquieu and other great French philosophes, but, while severe enough on the errors of the clergy, he had none of Gibbon's mischievous love of degrading the early Christian ideal.
The central part of Lecky's literary career, till 1890, was engaged with his great work "The History of England in the Eighteenth Century". This vast and important book is the useful successor of Macaulay's History, and is written with much fairness, though, as usual, a considerable mass of information has since accrued from materials not accessible to the author. This work is not only valuable as a political record, but for its close attention to the changes in thought, manners, literature, and society. Lecky was not, as an Irishman, likely to neglect the affairs of his native island where he had access to the Archives in Dublin public offices. He was in politics a Unionist, but did not conceal his dislike of "the manner of the wooing". His other best-known works are "Democracy and Liberty," and "Historical and Political Essays". He sat in Parliament as the representative of his University; was the friend of all the most eminent men of letters of his time; and, thanks to the amiability of his character, he probably never had an enemy.
With the name of Lecky this work must close, leaving in such brief record much excellent work unchronicled, as too recent to have passed into history.
[1] Sir George Trevelyan's "Life of Lord Macaulay," Chapter XI.
INDEX
A List of Authors is given on [page xi] at the beginning of the book
Abbot, Scott's, [542].
Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's, [376], [378].
Absentee, Miss Edgeworth's, [535].
Abt Vogler, Browning's, [576].
Actors, in the reign of Elizabeth, [193], [194], [225], [235].
Adam Bede, G. Eliot's, [638].
Adam Blair, Lockhart's, [549], [612], [626].
Admiral Guinea, Stevenson's, [641].
Adonais, Shelley's, [518].
Advancement of Learning, Bacon's, [272], [274], [275].
Adventurer, the, [432].
Adventures of an Atom, Smollett's, [469].
Adventures of Ulysses, Lamb's, [552].
Æsop's Fables, sprung from the primitive "beast-story," [1].
Affectionate Shepherd, Barnfield's, [289].
Ages, Bryant's, [563].
Agincourt, Drayton's ballad of, [292].
Aglaura, Suckling's, [338].
Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë's, [624].
Alarum against Usurers, Lodge's, [201].
Alastor, Shelley's, [517].
Alboin, Lombardian legend of, [3], [108].
Albovine, Davenant's, [340].
Alchemist, Jonson's, [237], [238].
Alcibiades, Otway's, [369].
Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, Berkeley's, [421].
Alfred, Life of, Asser's, [27], [28].
Alhambra, W. Irving's, [546].
Alisaundre, King, Romance, [70].
All Fools, Chapman's, [249].
All for Love, Dryden's, [378].
Alliteration, [4], [25], [53], [72], [97], [99], [168].
Alma, or the Progress of the Mind, Prior's, [388].
Alphonsus, King of Arragon, Greene's, [199].
Alton Locke, C. Kingsley's, [630].
Amazing Marriage, G. Meredith's, [636].
Amelia, Fielding's, [462], [466].
American Notes, Dickens's, [582].
American Scholar, Emerson's Lecture on the, [580].
Analecta, Wodrow's, [443].
Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton's, [303]-[305], [308], [313], [486].
Ancient Mariner, Coleridge's, [500], [501].
Ancren Riwle, the, [53].
Andreas, the, [19], [120].
Andromeda, C. Kingsley's, [631].
Anecdotes of Painting, H. Walpole's. [485].
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the, [28], [29], [30], [31], [37].
Anglo-Saxons, their Early Literature, [1].
Anglo-Saxon Language, influence of Normans on the, [41].
Animated Nature, Goldsmith's, [478].
Annals of the Parish, Galt's, [455], [609].
Annual Register, the, [481], [515].
Annus Mirabilis, Dryden's, [376].
Antiquary, Scott's, [140], [503], [541].
Antonio and Mellida, Marston's, [251].
Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's, [232].
Apologia pro Vita Sua, Newman's, [631], [660], [661].
Apology, Churchill's, [451].
Apology, Swift's, [409], [410].
Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence, Dryden's, [360].
Apology for Liturgy, Taylor's, [314].
Apology for Smectymnuus, Milton's, [310].
Appius and Virginia, Webster's, [259].
Arcadia, Sidney's, [179], [182], [183], [442].
Areopagitica, Miltons, [311], [312].
Aretina, Mackenzie's, [183], [442].
Argument against Abolishing Christianity, Swift's, [410].
Ariosto, [162], [186], [200], [359].
Ariosto, Harington's translation of, [281].
Aristotle's Ethics, Wylkinson's translation of, [281].
Armada, Macaulay's, [564], [648].
Arminius, [3].
Arraignment of Paris, Peele's Masque, [193]. [197].
Arthour and Merlin, the Romance, of, [67].
Arthur, Legends of King, [41], [42]-[47], [49], [57], [60], [67], [124].
Arthur Mervyn, C. B. Brown's, [536].
Arts of Empire, Raleigh's, [279].
Asolando, Browning's, [576].
Astoria, W. Irving's, [546].
Astræa Redux, Dryden's, [375], [376].
Astrolabe, Chaucer on the, [115], [118].
As You Like It, Shakespeare's, [200], [201], [227], [228], [229].
Atalanta in Calydon, Swinburne's, [593], [603].
Atheist's Tragedy, Tourneur's, [259], [602].
Attila, the legend of, [3].
Auld House, the, Lady Nairne's, [446].
Aurora Leigh, E. B. Browning's, [597].
Autobiography, Hunt's, [554].
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, O. W. Holmes's, [628].
Avisa, Willoughby's, [289].
Awntyrs of Arthur, the, [75], [76].
Ayenbite of Inwyt, the, [58], [98].
Ayrshire Legatees, Galt's, [609].
Badman, Life and Death of Mr., Bunyan's, 324.
Balin and Balan, Swinburne's, [604].
Ballad, definition and origin of the, [147]-[150].
Ballads and other Poems, Tennyson's, [572].
Banquet of Sense, Chapman's, [248].
Barnaby Rudge, Dickens's [614].
Barneveld, Life of John of, Motley's, [658].
Barons' Wars, Drayton's, [292].
Barry Lyndon, Thackeray's, [465], [618].
Bartholomew Fair, Jonson's, [237], [238].
Basilikon Doron, of James I, [440].
Battle of Alcazar, Peele's, [198].
Battle of the Books, Swift's, [411].
Battle of the Summer Islands, Waller's, [345].
Beach of Falesa, Stevenson's, [641].
Beau Austin, Stevenson's, [641].
Beaux' Stratagem, Farquhar's, [368].
Bee, the, [476].
Beggar's Opera, Gay's, [390].
Behemoth, Hobbes's, [320].
Beleaguered City, Mrs. Oliphant's, [633].
Belinda, Miss Edgeworth's, [535].
Belle Dame sans Merci, Keats's, [501], [526].
Bells and Pomegranates, Browning's, [575].
Benoît de Ste Maure, [62], [87].
Beowulf, [7]-[12].
Beowulf, W. Morris's translation of the, [601].
Beppo, Byron's, [523].
Betrothed, Scott's, [544].
Beues of Hamtoun, Romance of, [66].
Bible, the Authorized Version of the, [117], [174], [282].
Bible, Coverdale's translation of the, [174].
Bible, Revised Version of the, [174].
Bible, Tyndale's translation of the, [282].
Bible, Wyclif's translation of the, [116], [117], [282].
Bible in Spain, G. Borrow's, [632].
Biglow Papers, Lowell's, [583], [584].
Biographia Literaria, Coleridge's, [501].
Bird in a Cage, Shirley's, [263].
Black Bull of Norroway, Christina Rossetti's, [597].
Black Dwarf, Scott's, [541].
Black Knight, Lydgate's, [111].
Blackwood's Magazine, [548], [554], [557], [559], [637].
Bleak House, Dickens's, [615].
Blessed Damozel, D. G. Rossetti's, [598].
Blithedale Romance, N. Hawthorne's, [627].
Blot in the Scutcheon, Browning's, [574].
Blue Closet, W. Morris's, [600].
Boadicea, Cowper's, [439].
Boccaccio, [87], [93], [96], [97], [169].
Boëthius, Chaucer's translation of, [115], [118].
Bonnie Dundee, Scott's, [505], [610].
Bonny Earl o' Murray, ballad, [149].
Booke of Ayres, Campion's, [290].
Book of Ballads, Thackeray's, [622].
Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's, [82].
Book of Faith, Pecock's, [121].
Book of Snobs, Thackeray's, [619].
Borderers, Wordsworth's, [508].
Border Minstrelsy, Scott's, [150], [504], [505].
Borough, Crabb's, [455], [456].
Bosworth Field, Beaumont's, [300], [301].
Bothwell, Swinburne's, [604].
Bowge of Court, Skelton's, [151].
Boy singers ("children"), of Chapel Royal and St. Paul's, [193], [196],
[197], [203], [235].
Bracebridge Hall, W. Irving's, [546].
Brazil, History of, Southey's, [516].
Brennoralt, Suckling's, [338].
Bretwalda, [3].
Bridal of Triermain, Scott's, [504].
Bride of Abydos, Byron's, [521].
Bride of Lammermoor, Scott's, [541], [542].
Bridge of Sighs, Hood's, [608].
Britannia's Pastorals, Browne's, [301].
Britons, History of the, of Geoffrey of Monmouth, [42], [45].
Britons, History of the, of Nennius, [43], [45].
Broken Heart, Ford's, [262].
Brus, Barbour's, [130].
Brut, the, Layamon's, [48].
Buik of Alexander, Barbour's, [130].
Buke of the Howlat, Holland's, [142].
Bunyan, Life of, Froude's, [653].
Burlesques, Thackeray's, [619].
By Proxy, J. Payn's, [634].
Byron's Conspiracy, Chapman's, [249].
Byron, Life of, Moore's, [607].
Byrhtnoth, Anglo-Saxon poem, [30].
Cabinet Council, see Arts of Empire.
Cadenus and Vanessa, Swift's, [413].
Cæsar, Froude's, [653].
Cæsar's, De Bello Gallico, Golding's translation of, [281].
Cagliostro, Carlyle's, [650].
Cain, Byron's, [523].
Caleb Williams, Godwin's, [536].
Callista, Newman's, [661].
Camilla, Fanny Burney's, [532].
Campaign, Addison's, [401].
Campaspe, Lyly's, [196].
Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's, [78], [91]-[98].
Cap and Bells, Swinburne's, [605].
Cardinal, Shirley's, [263].
Carmen Seculare, Prior's, [387].
Casa Guidi Windows, E. B. Browning's, [597].
Cask of Amontillado, Poe's, [579].
Castle of Health, Elyot's, [174].
Castle of Indolence, Thomson's, [425], [426].
Castle of Labour, Barclay's, [152].
Castle of Otranto, H. Walpole's, [435], [484], [485], [532].
Castle Rackrent, Miss Edgeworth's, [535], [540].
Castles of Athlin and Dunboyne, Mrs. Radcliffe's, [532], [533].
Catherine, Thackeray's, [618].
Catiline and his Conspiracy, Jonson's, [237].
Cato, Addison's, [383], [391], [402], [403].
Catriona, Stevenson's, [544], [640].
Caxtons, Lytton's, [308], [611].
Cecilia, Fanny Burney's, [532].
Celts, influence of, on Literature, [1].
Cenci, Shelley's, [260], [518].
Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse in
English, Gascoigne's, [168].
Chaldee Manuscript, Wilson and Lockhart's, [548].
Chalk Stream Studies, C. Kingsley's, [630].
Changeling, Middleton's, [254].
Chapman's Homer, Keats's Sonnet on, [526].
Characteristics, Earl of Shaftesbury's, [443].
Characters, Overbury's, [280].
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, Hazlitt's, [556], [557].
Charity, Cowper's, [438].
Charlemagne, Stories of, [26], [57], [61].
Charles O'Malley, Lever's, [610], [611].
Chastelard, Swinburne's, [602], [604].
Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Middleton's, [255].
Cherry and the Slae, A. Montgomery's, [441].
Chevy Chase, ballad of, [150], [181].
Childe Harold, Byron's, [520], [523],525.
Child's Funeral, Bryant's, [563].
Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson's, [641].
Child's History of England, Dickens's, [616].
Chloris, William Smith's, [289].
Choice Collection, Watson's, [483].
Chrétien de Troyes, [62].
Christabel, Coleridge's, [500], [501], [502], [504].
Christian Hero, Steele's, [397].
Christian Morals, Browne's, [309].
Christ's Kirk on the Green, poem, [144].
Christ's Triumph, Giles Fletcher's, [297].
Chronicle, Cowley's, [342].
Chronicle, the, of Jocelin de Brakelond, [38].
Chronicle History of Edward I., Peele's, [197].
Chronicle of England, Capgrave's, [122].
Chronicles of the Canongate, Scott's, [544].
Chronicles of Carlingford, Mrs. Oliphant's, [633].
Chronicon ex Chronicis, the, [36].
Chronique de Lorraine, the, [62].
Church History of the Race of Angles, Bede's, [24], [26], [27], [37], [42], [43].
Church History, Fuller's, [318].
Cicero, translations from, by Skelton, [151].
Citizen of the World, Goldsmith's, [476].
City of the Plague, J. Wilson's, [549].
Civil Wars, Daniel's, [295].
Clarissa, Richardson's, [459].
Cleopatra, Daniel's, [295].
Clerk Sanders, ballad, [149].
Cloister and the Hearth, Reade's, [642].
Cockney School, the, [506], [525], [557].
Codlingsby, Thackeray's, [610], [619].
Coelum Britannicum, masque, by Carew, [336].
Colin Clout, [185].
Columbus, Life of, W. Irving's, [546].
Colyn Clout, Skelton's, [151].
Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's, [218], [220].
Come Live with Me and be My Love, Marlowe's, [207].
Comic Writers, Hazlitt's, [556].
Commemoration Ode, Lowell's, [584].
Complaint of Buckingham, Sackville's, [170].
Complaint of Philomene, Gascoigne's, [167], [169].
Complaint of Rosamond, Daniel's, [292], [294].
Compleat Angler, Walton's, [321], [322], [343].
Comus, Milton's, [197], [348], [349].
Conchobar, Stories of, [61].
Conduct of the Allies, Swift's, [412].
Confederacy, Vanbrugh's, [368].
Confessio Amantis, see Lover's Confession.
Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Hogg's, [612].
Confessions of an English Opium Eater, De Quincey's, [558].
Coningsby, Beaconsfield's, [610].
Conquest of Granada, Dryden's, [359], [378].
Conquest of Granada, W. Irving's, [546].
Conquest of Mexico, Prescott's, [655].
Conquest of Peru, Prescott's, [655].
Conscious Lovers, Steele's, [394], [399].
Consolation, the, of Boëthius, [27],
Constitutional History of England, Hallam's, [644].
Contention of Ajax and Ulysses, Shirley's, [264].
Cony-catching, Greene's, [199].
Cooper's Hill, Denham's, [342].
Coriolanus, Shakespeare's, [232].
Cornhill Magazine, [622], [634].
Corpus Poeticum Boreale, the, [3].
Corsair, Byron's, [521], [522].
Cosenage, Greene's, [199].
Cottar's Saturday Night, Burns's, [449], [450], [565].
Counterblast to Tobacco, of James I., [440].
Count Julian, Landor's, [527], [528].
Country Wife, Wycherley's, [362].
Cranford, Mrs. Gaskell's, [641].
Criminal Law of Scotland, Mackenzie on the, [443].
Crist, [18], [19].
Critic, Sheridan's, [359], [495].
Cromwell, Carlyle's, [582].
Crossing the Bar, Tennyson's, [573].
Crown of Laurel, Skelton's, [152].
Crown of Thorns, Beaumont's, [300].
Cruise of the Midge, Scott's, [612].
Cuchulain, the Hero, [1], [61].
Cursor Mundi, [57], [103].
Cymbeline, Shakespeare's, [216], [232].
Cynthia, Barnfield's, [289].
Cynthia's Revels, Jonson's, [235].
Cypress Grove, Drummond's, [441].
Damon and Pythias, [162].
Danes, History of the, by Saxo Grammaticus, [230].
Daniel Deronda, G. Eliot's, [638].
Dante, [89].
David and Bathsheba, Peele's, [198].
David Copperfield, Dickens's, [615].
David and Goliath, Drayton's, [293].
Davideis, Cowley's, [341].
Day Dream, Tennyson's, [570].
Day's Ride, Lever's, [611].
Deacon Brodie, Stevenson's, [641].
Death, Drelincourt on, [416], [562].
Death, Bishop Porteous on, [562].
Death of Oenone, Tennyson's, [573].
Death's Jest Book, or The Fool's Tragedy, Beddoes's, [607].
De Augmentis, see Advancement of Learning.
Decameron, of Boccaccio, [97].
De Cive, Hobbes's, [319].
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon's, [490], [491], [492], [493].
De Corpore, Hobbes's, [319], [320].
Deeds of King Stephen, the, [36], [38].
Defence of Guenevere, W. Morris's, [593], [599].
Defence of the King, Salmasius's, [312].
Defence of the people of England, Milton's, [312].
Defence of Poesie, Sidney's, [178], [180]-[3].
Defence of the Remonstrance, Hall's, [310].
Defence of Rhyme, Daniel's, [295].
Dejection, Coleridge's, [501].
Delia, Daniel's, [294].
Democracy and Liberty, Lecky's, [664].
Demonology, by James I, [440].
Denis Duval, Thackeray's, [618], [622].
De Nugis Curialium, the, [40].
Deor, the Plaint of, [12], [13].
De Proprietatibus Rerum, Trevisa's, [118].