PAGE
Scope of the volume[3]
The term Modern[3]
The origins[4]
Need of caution here[5]
Case of Butler on Rymer, Denham[5]
And Benlowes[6]
PAGE
Of Addison and others[7]
Of La Bruyère and “Tout est dit”[8]
Of Fénelon and Gravina[9]
Of Dryden and Fontenelle[9]
The more excellent way[10]

CHAPTER II.

THE RALLY OF GERMANY—LESSING.

Starting-point of this volume[11]
Neo-Classic complacency and exclusiveness illustrated from Callières[12]
Béat de Muralt[13]
His attention to English[13]
And to French[14]
German Criticism proper[15]
A glance backward[15]
Theobald Hoeck[16]
Weckherlin and others[17]
Weise, Wernicke, Werenfels, &c.[17]
Some mutineers: Gryphius and Neumeister[18]
Gottsched once more[19]
Bodmer and Breitinger[20]
The Diskurse der Maler[21]
Gradual divergence from their stand-point; König on “Taste”[22]
Main works of the Swiss School[23]
Breitinger’s Kritische Dichtkunst, &c.[24]
Bodmer’s Von dem Wunderbaren, &c.[24]
Special criticisms of both[26]
Bodmer’s verse criticism[26]
Their later work in mediæval poetry, and their general position[27]
The “Swiss-Saxon” quarrel[27]
The elder Schlegels: Johann Adolf[29]
Johann Elias[30]
Moses Mendelssohn[32]
Lessing[33]
Some cautions respecting him[33]
His moral obsession; on Soliman the Second[34]
The strictures on Ariosto’s portrait of Alcina[36]
Hamlet and Semiramis[37]
The Comte d’Essex, Rodogune, Mérope[37]
Lessing’s Gallophobia[38]
And typomania[38]
His study of antiquity more than compensating[39]
And especially of Aristotle[40]
With whom he combines Diderot[41]
His deficiencies in regard to mediæval literature[41]
The close of the Dramaturgie and its moral[42]
Miscellaneous specimens of his criticism[44]
His attitude to Æschylus and Aristophanes[46]
Frederic the Great[48]
De la Littérature Allemande[49]

CHAPTER III.

THE ENGLISH PRECURSORS.

The first group[53]
Mediæval reaction[53]
Gray[54]
Peculiarity of his critical position[55]
The Letters[56]
The Observations on Aristophanes and Plato[59]
The Metrum[60]
The Lydgate Notes[61]
Shenstone[63]
Percy[64]
The Wartons[66]
Joseph’s Essay on Pope[66]
The Adventurer Essays[67]
Thomas Warton on Spenser[68]
His History of English Poetry[70]
Hurd: his Commentary on Addison[72]
The Horace[73]
The Dissertations[74]
Other Works[75]
The Letters on Chivalry and Romance[75]
Their doctrine[76]
His real importance[78]
Alleged imperfections of the group[79]
Studies in Prosody[80]
John Mason: his Power of Numbers in Prose and Poetry[81]
Mitford: his Harmony of Language[83]
Importance of prosodic inquiry[86]
Sterne and the stop-watch[86]