PREFATORY NOTE.

The first five of the following Essays are reprinted from the Author’s Essays Biographical and Critical: chiefly on English Poets, published in 1856. The present Volume and two similar Volumes issued separately (under the titles “Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays” and “Chatterton: A Story of the Year 1770”) may be taken together as forming a new and somewhat enlarged edition of the older book. The addition in the present Volume consists of the last Essay.

Edinburgh:
November 1874.


CONTENTS.

PAGE
I.THE THREE DEVILS: LUTHER’S, MILTON’S, AND GOETHE’S[1]
II.SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE[61]
III.MILTON’S YOUTH[125]
IV.DRYDEN AND THE LITERATURE OF THE RESTORATION[153]
V.DEAN SWIFT[235]
VI.HOW LITERATURE MAY ILLUSTRATE HISTORY[301]

THE THREE DEVILS:
LUTHER’S, MILTON’S, AND GOETHE’S.