(Poems are mentioned in Italics.)
| WILLIAM DUNBAR, 1450-1530. Poet. | The Thistle and the Rose (1503); The Golden Terge (1508); The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins. The greatest of the Scottish poets except Burns. He has been called ‘the Chaucer of Scotland.’ |
| SIR THOMAS MORE, 1480-1535. Barrister; Lord Chancellor of England; writer on social philosophy; historian. | History of King Edward V., and of his brother, and of Richard III. (1513); Utopia (1516)—a description of a model state of society, written to influence the bettering of the laws of England. |
| WILLIAM TYNDALE, 1477-1536. Priest; translator; author. | Translation of New Testament (1525, 1534), also of the Pentateuch and Jonah (1530-31). He has done more by his version to fix and shape our language in its present form, than any writer between Chaucer and Shakspeare. |
| SIR DAVID LYNDSAY, 1490-1556. Keeper of Prince James (afterwards James V. of Scotland); Lyon king-at-arms; poet. | Satire of the Three Estates, that is, King, Lords, and Commons; Monarchie. |
| ROGER ASCHAM, 1515-1568. Lecturer on Greek at Cambridge; tutor to Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. | Toxophĭlus, a treatise on shooting with the bow; The Schoolmaster, a book about teaching, especially the teaching of Latin. |
| JOHN FOX, 1517-1587. Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral. | Book of Martyrs (1563), an account of the chief Protestant martyrs, chiefly those in the reign of Mary. |
| EDMUND SPENSER, 1552-1599. Secretary to Viceroy of Ireland; poet. | Shepherd’s Calendar (1579); Faerie Queene (1590-96), in six books. |
| RICHARD HOOKER, 1553-1600. Scholar and theologian; Master of the Temple; and rector of a country church. | Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. This is a defence of the Church of England, and contains passages of great majesty and splendour of diction. |
| SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 1554-1586. Courtier; romancist; poet. | Arcadia, a romance (1580); Defence of Poesie. Some Sonnets. |
| FRANCIS BACON, 1561-1626. Lord High Chancellor of England; essayist; philosopher. | Essays (1597); Advancement of Learning (1605); Novum Organum (1620); and other works on philosophy, and the art of gaining new knowledge. |
| SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 1552-1618. Courtier; navigator; historian. | History of the World (1614), written in the Tower of London, where he lay for about thirteen years. His work is ‘one of the finest models of our quaint and stately old English style.’ |
| WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, 1564-1616. Dramatist and poet; born at Stratford-on-Avon; went to London at the age of twenty-two; left London in 1609, and from that time lived in his native town. | Tragedies and Comedies, and Historical Plays; thirty-seven in all. Among his greatest tragedies are, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet. Of his comedies the best are the Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream, As you like it, Merchant of Venice, &c. Of his historical plays, Richard III. and Julius Cæsar are specially worth mention. Minor Poems. Wrote no prose. |
| BEN JONSON, 1574-1637. Dramatist; poet; prose-writer. | Tragedies and Comedies, of the latter, the greatest are Volpone or the Fox; Every Man in His Humour; and The Alchemist. |
| WILLIAM DRUMMOND, 1585-1649. Poet. | Sonnets and Religious Poems. |
| SIR THOMAS BROWNE, 1605-1682. Medical practitioner at Norwich. | Religio Medici (the religion of a physician), contains the author’s opinions on a great variety of subjects; Urn Burial, a learned and eloquent work. |
| JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674. Poet; Latin secretary to Cromwell (1649). Became blind in 1654. | Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Samson Agonistes. Many prose works, chiefly on politics, and in defence of the Commonwealth. |
| THOMAS HOBBES, 1588-1679. Philosopher. | Leviathan (1651), a great philosophical and political work. |
| JEREMY TAYLOR, 1613-1667. Bishop of Down in Ireland. | Holy Living and Holy Dying (1649); and many other books and sermons. |
| SAMUEL BUTLER, 1612-1680. Secretary to the Earl of Carberry. | Hudibras (1663), a mock-heroic poem, written to caricature the Puritans. |
| JOHN DRYDEN, 1631-1700. Poet-laureate and Historiographer Royal. Also a playwright; poet; prose-writer; critic. | Annus Mirabilis (1667)—a poem on the Plague and the Fire of London; Absalom and Achitophel (1681)—a poem on political matters; Hind and Panther (1687). He wrote many Tragedies and Comedies and Odes; a translation of the Æneid of Virgil. He wrote a great deal of the best prose—chiefly Essays and Introductions to his poems. |
| JOHN BUNYAN, 1628-1688. Tinker and preacher. | The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678); the Holy War, and other works. |
| JOHN LOCKE, 1632-1704. Member of the Board of Trade; one of the leading men in English philosophy. | Letters on Toleration (1689); Essay concerning the Human Understanding (1690); Thoughts concerning Education, and other prose works. |
| DANIEL DEFOE, 1661-1731. Pamphleteer; journalist; had a very troubled and changeful career. | Robinson Crusoe (1719); The True-born Englishman; Journal of the Plague; The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; and more than a hundred books and pamphlets in all. He is one of the most taking writers that ever lived. |
| JONATHAN SWIFT, 1667-1745. Dean of St Patrick’s in Dublin; satirist; poet; prose-writer. | Battle of the Books; Tale of a Tub (1704); Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Many of the ablest political pamphlets of the day. A number of Poems. His prose was the strongest and most nervous prose written in the eighteenth century. |
| SIR RICHARD STEELE, 1671-1729. Gentleman usher to Prince George; a fashionable man about town. | Essays in the Tatler, in the Spectator, in the Guardian—all of them a kind of magazine. A few plays. |
| JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719. Secretary of State. | Essays in the Tatler, in the Spectator, and in the Guardian. Cato: a tragedy (1713). Several short Poems. His prose is the finest, most genial, and most delicate of all the prose-writings of the eighteenth century. |
| ALEXANDER POPE, 1688-1744. Poet; a Roman Catholic. | Essay on Criticism (1711); Rape of the Lock—the story of the stealing of a lock of hair; Translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, half of the latter done by assistants (1715-20); the Dunciad; Essay on Man. A few essays in prose; and a volume of Letters. |
| JAMES THOMSON, 1700-1748. Poet; held sinecure cure offices under government. | The Seasons—a poem in blank verse; The Castle of Indolence, a poem in the nine-lined stanza of Edmund Spenser. |
| HENRY FIELDING, 1707-1754. Novelist and journalist. | Many comedies—now forgotten. Joseph Andrews (1742); Tom Jones (1749); Amelia (1751). He was the ‘first great English novelist, and he remains to this day one of the greatest.’ |
| DAVID HUME, 1711-1776. Librarian; secretary to the British Embassy in France. | Treatise of Human Nature (1737); Essays (1742); Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals; History of England (1754-62). Writes very clear and pleasant prose. |
| DR SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784. Schoolmaster; literary man; dictionary-maker. | London (1738); the Vanity of Human Wishes; The Rambler (1750-52); The Idler; English Dictionary (1755); Rasselas, a kind of novel; Lives of the Poets; and other prose works. |
| THOMAS GRAY, 1716-1771. Poet; letter-writer; professor of Modern History, Cambridge. | Odes; Elegy written in a Country Churchyard, one of the most pleasing, perfect, and oft-quoted poems in the language. He was also a good letter-writer. |
| WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 1721-1793. Clergyman; historian; Principal of the University of Edinburgh. | History of Scotland (1759); History of Charles V. (1769); History of America (1777). Most readable and fluent prose. |
| TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT, 1721-1771. Medical practitioner; poet; pamphleteer; critic and novelist. | Roderick Random; Peregrine Pickle; and Humphrey Clinker. His novels are notable for their broad humour, and an easy picturesque style of narration. |
| ADAM SMITH, 1723-1790. Professor of Logic in the University of Glasgow; then of Moral Philosophy. | Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759); Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The founder of the science of economics (or wealth of nations). |
| OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774. Poet; literary man; play-writer. | The Vicar of Wakefield (1766); the Deserted Village; She Stoops to Conquer, a comedy. The Traveller; Citizen of the World; Histories and minor Poems. The writer of the most pleasant prose of the eighteenth century. |
| EDMUND BURKE 1730-1797. Statesman; ‘the first man in the Commons;’ writer on political philosophy. | Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful (1756); Reflections on the French Revolution (1790). Many speeches, pamphlets, and articles on political matters. One of the deepest political thinkers, most eloquent speakers, and ornate writers of prose that ever lived. |
| WILLIAM COWPER, 1731-1800. Poet. | Truth, the Progress of Error (1781), and other poems; the Task (1785); John Gilpin; Translations of the Iliad and Odyssey (1791) in blank verse; Hymns. His prose—which consists of letters—is clear, humorous, and pleasant. |
| EDWARD GIBBON, 1737-1794. Historian; sat eight years in the House of Commons, but never spoke. | Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-87); Essays on the Study of Literature (in French). His style is a splendid example ‘of smiting phrases and weighty antithesis.’ |
| ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796. Ploughman; farmer; Excise officer; poet. | Poems and Songs (1786-96) (Cottar’s Saturday Night, Jolly Beggars, Tam o’ Shanter, Mountain Daisy, etc.) His prose consists chiefly of letters. |
| WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850. Distributor of stamps for the county of Westmoreland; poet; poet-laureate. | Descriptive Sketches (1793); Lyrical Ballads (1798); Sonnets; The Excursion (1814); The Prelude. He marks the dawn of a new school of poetry in the nineteenth century. |
| SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1772-1834. Journalist; secretary; literary man; poet. | The Ancient Mariner and Christabel (1797-1806); several plays, including a translation of Schiller’s Wallenstein; many minor poems; The Friend—a set of essays; Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit; Biographia Literaria; Aids to Reflection. His prose is very elaborate and also very musical. |
| ROBERT SOUTHEY, 1774-1843. Literary man; historian; reviewer; poet; poet-laureate. | Joan of Arc (1793); Thalaba the Destroyer; the Curse of Kehama; Life of Nelson. Firm, clear, and sensible prose. Wrote more than a hundred volumes. |
| CHARLES LAMB, 1775-1835. Clerk in the East India House; essayist and humorist. | Essays of Elia (1820-25), which are quaint and familiar, and full of kindly wit and grotesque humour. |
| SIR WALTER SCOTT, 1771-1832. Advocate; poet: novelist. | Border Minstrelsy—a collection of old Border ballads (1802); Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805); Marmion (1808); the Lady of the Lake (1810); Waverley (1814)—the first of that remarkable series, the Waverley Novels. In verse, he is the ‘Homer of Scotland;’ and he was a master of most fluent, bright, flowing narrative prose. |
| THOMAS CAMPBELL, 1777-1844. Poet; literary man. | Pleasures of Hope (1799); Minor Poems—such as Hohenlinden, Battle of the Baltic, Ye Mariners of England, Gertrude of Wyoming (1809). His prose consists chiefly of the Introductions to his Specimens of the British Poets. |
| THOMAS MOORE, 1779-1852. Poet; biographer; historian. | Odes and Epistles (1806); Lalla Rookh (1817); Life of Byron (1830); Irish Melodies (1834); History of Ireland (1836). |
| LORD BYRON, 1788-1824. (George Gordon). Peer; poet. | English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1808); Childe Harold (1812); the Bride of Abydos (1814); and many Plays. His prose—which is full of vigour, fire, and eloquence—consists chiefly of letters. |
| PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792-1822. Poet. | Queen Mab (1813); Revolt of Islam; Prometheus Unbound (1819)—a tragedy; Odes (The Cloud, To the Skylark, etc.), and many minor poems. His prose consists chiefly of letters. |
| HENRY HALLAM, 1778-1859. Historian; literary man; Trustee of the British Museum. | View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages (1818); Constitutional History of England (1827); Literature of Europe (1837); History of the Middle Ages (1848). A clear and impartial writer. |
| THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 1785-1859. Literary man. | Confessions of an English Opium-eater (1821); Essays on subjects in almost every department of History, Philosophy, and Literature. His style is eloquent, musical, and elaborate. In his own way, he was the finest prose-writer of the nineteenth century. |
| JOHN KEATS, 1795-1821. Poet. | Endymion (1818); Hyperion; Eve of St Agnes; Odes. His poems are full of beauty and rich and picturesque imagery. |
| THOMAS CARLYLE, 1795-1881. Mathematician; literary man; reviewer; historian. | Sartor Resartus (1833); The French Revolution, a History (1837); Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (1845); Life of John Sterling (1851); History of Friedrich II. of Prussia (1858-65). His style is full of force, fire, and grotesqueness; he paints in vivid colours, and presents a true and exact picture of the living man. |
| LORD MACAULAY, 1800-1859. Barrister; reviewer; Secretary of the Board of Control for India; member of the Supreme Council of India; historian; peer. | Essay on Milton (1825); Lays of Ancient Rome (1842); Essays (1843); History of England (1848-1859). Wrote a style of the greatest force and picturesqueness—full of allusion, illustration, grace, clearness, and point. |
| LORD LYTTON, 1805-1873. Novelist; poet; statesman. | Eugene Aram (1831); The Last Days of Pompeii; The Caxtons; some plays, minor Poems, and essays. Writes a most clear, fluent, bright, ornate, and readable English style. |
| JOHN STUART MILL, 1806-1873. Clerk in the East India House; Utilitarian philosopher. | System of Logic (1843); Political Economy (1844); Essay on Liberty. One of the foremost thinkers of his time. |
| HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 1807-1882. Professor of Modern Languages and Literature; poet. | Evangeline (1847); Hiawatha (1855); Minor Poems (Excelsior; A Psalm of Life, etc.) One of the sweetest and best known of American poets. |
| ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809- Poet; poet laureate. | Poems, chiefly Lyrical (1830); In Memoriam (1850); Idylls of the King (1859-73); Enoch Arden (1864); and several dramas. His poetical style is full of beauty, sweetness, and variety. |
| ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 1809-1861. Poetess; the wife of Robert Browning. | Poems (1838); Aurora Leigh (1856); The Cry of the Children; Cowper’s Grave; Sonnets from the Portuguese, etc. A poetess of infinite sweetness and power. |
| ROBERT BROWNING, 1812- Poet. | Pauline (1833); Paracelsus (1836); The Ring and the Book, and about two dozen more volumes. His poems are very difficult to understand, but are very well worth understanding. |
| WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863. Novelist. | Vanity Fair (1846); Pendennis (1849); Esmond; English Humorists, etc. The finest novelist and one of the best prose-writers of the century. |
| CHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870. Novelist. | Pickwick Papers (1837); Oliver Twist; Nicholas Nickleby; David Copperfield; Dombey and Son; Christmas Books, etc. He has been read over and over again by hundreds of thousands of delighted readers. |
| JOHN RUSKIN, 1819- Art-critic; moralist; literary-man. | Modern Painters (1843); The Seven Lamps of Architecture; The Stones of Venice (1851-53); Sesame and Lilies; Lectures on Art; Fors Clavigera. One of the most wonderful and imaginative writers of English prose that ever lived. |
| GEORGE ELIOT 1820-1880. (Marian Evans), Novelist. | Adam Bede (1858); Middlemarch (1871); Daniel Deronda (1876); Poems. The novels of this accomplished lady rank among the greatest of modern times. |
THE END.
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. & R. Chambers.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pronounced Mootter.
[2] Pronounced Brooder.
[3] Thus we have Wednesday = the day of Woden or Odin.
[4] Jutland means the land of the Jutes; not the land that juts out.
[5] The division called Wessex included Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, and Devonshire.
[6] The Revival of Letters, or the Renascence (or Renaissance), is the name given to the new enthusiasm which seized Italians, Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to read the great treasures of literature that may be found in Greek and Latin books.