Although more than thirty years have passed since the publication of Nitze's fundamental study of Chrétien's Erec, Arthurian scholarship has still to make full use of the implications he has given toward a better understanding both of details and of the unifying principle of this first French Arthurian romance. Basing itself, then, upon Nitze's contribution, and drawing upon other more recent studies, the present article proposes as its end the presentation of the many episodes of this romance as concordant elements in a great psychological novel.

In his excellent study of the Latin and Italian sources of Joachim du Bellay's Antiquitez de Rome, M. Joseph Vianey indicates a number of passages that derive in some way from Lucan's Pharsalia. To the best of my knowledge, no one has pointed out any further borrowings, or made any kind of detailed study of du Bellay's debt to Lucan, which is, however, considerably more extensive than M. Vianey's mentions would lead one to believe. In this paper, therefore, I propose to quote all those passages in the two works which are so similar in expression or in thought as to suggest that du Bellay had Lucan in mind, or actually before him, when he wrote the Antiquitez. After this comparison of details, it will perhaps be possible to show that du Bellay owed to Lucan something much more important than these imitations and translations.

In the Palatine Anthology were preserved two inscriptions of Bacchylides. One of them, the dedication of a shrine to the southwest wind, was written in behalf of a farmer named Eudemus:

Some doubt has always been felt regarding the textual purity of the printed sermons of Bishop Hugh Latimer. The recent discovery of two hitherto unnoticed mid-sixteenth century manuscripts, each of a famous sermon, provides the first opportunity to test the printed versions. One of these, MS. Corpus Christi College Cambridge 104, fols. 339-360, is a Latin translation of the first sermon preached by Latimer before Edward VI in 1549; the other, MS. Sloane 1460, is an English version of the last sermon (two parts), preached by Latimer before Edward VI in 1550.

Most editors and commentators writing about Macbeth or Richard the Third notice a resemblance between the two plays, but seldom does the comparison go beyond this eighteenth century comment: “Both Macbeth and Richard are soldiers, both usurpers; both attain the throne by the same means, by treason and murder; and both lose it too in the same manner, in battle against the person claiming it as lawful heir.” A few parallel passages have been pointed out, but there are many parallels that as far as I have been able to determine have not been noticed in the commentaries. It is my intention, therefore, to examine closely the resemblance between the two plays, calling attention to parallels, which may be so many and of such a sort as to require an explanation other than coincidence.

In his Illustrations of Shakespeare Francis Douce maintains that Adlington's translation of Apuleius' Golden Ass is a book that Shakespeare certainly used. Admittedly, Douce supports this repeated assertion with very slight evidence; and no other scholar, so far as I know, has hitherto seriously urged the dramatist's knowledge of this popular book. Yet the chances are many that any reputable author in the sixteenth century would have known the writings of Apuleius, in the original, or, after 1566, in translation, or in both.

Smollett, like all great writers, is forgiven his failures; it is for his successes he is condemned. Ferdinand Fathom and Launcelot Greaves neither add to nor detract much from his reputation, but certain aspects of Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphry Clinker have won him a critical thrashing as sound as any cudgeling he described. Because these qualities appear with least relief in Peregrine Pickle that novel has been the one most abused. Critics assert that there more than elsewhere Smollett showed himself unable to distinguish between brutality and humor, between a ruffian and a hero. But the most serious charge is the complaint that the novel is completely formless, that the loose picaresque structure, in a measure characteristic of Smollett, is especially offensive here. These commonplaces of Smollett criticism are founded on misconceptions which ignore the nature and purpose of this novel. It will not be difficult to show that Peregrine Pickle, far from being a haphazard collection of episodes, was composed according to a plan that accounts for most of the aspects to which critics object. In particular, Smollett's modification of the picaresque form has not been explicitly stated. When the purpose and the essential structure of Peregrine Pickle are understood, it becomes apparent that the real cause of Smollett's inferiority to the greatest English novelists is neither carelessness regarding form nor inability to tell a blackguard from a hero, but other more important intellectual and spiritual limitations as a satiric novelist.

On February 23, 1804, shortly after he had settled in the lake country, Southey wrote John May:

Although some of Shelley's Victorian critics—notably Forman—believed The Cenci to be an acting play, it now seems to have become a settled dictum of Shelley scholarship that it is a closet drama. Woodberry in his edition of the play and Bates in his study of it both conclude that it is unsuitable for stage production, Bates summarizing his views as follows:

Writers on Keats, when discussing the central problem of the effects upon the poet of the contemptuous criticism directed against Endymion and against Keats personally, have presented various and often contradictory opinions. The two extreme views, namely, that Keats was killed by this criticism, or, on the other hand, that he was scarcely touched by it, are no longer regarded as tenable. The current opinion was first stated, I believe, by Sir Sidney Colvin when he wrote:

Depuis l'article que Barbey d'Aurevilly écrivit pour le Pays, à l'occasion de la publication de la première édition des Fleurs du mal, le terme d'architecture s'est imposé à la pensée des commentateurs qui ont voulu s'occuper de la composition du recueil baudelairien. Il me semble, pourtant, que l'intention de Barbey d'Aurevilly a générale-été mal comprise et qu'on s'est en vain efforcé de trouver ce dont le critique du Pays ne parlait pas, ou, tout au moins, qu'on a négligé ce qui, pour Barbey, était l'essentiel. Les Fleurs du mal, a-t-il dit, en effet, ‘sont moins des poésies qu'une oeuvre poétique de la plus forte unité. Au point de vue de l'art et de la sensation esthétique, elles perdraient donc beaucoup à n’être pas lues dans l'ordre où le poète, qui sait bien ce qu'il fait, les a rangées. Mais elles perdraient bien davantage au point de vue de l'effet moral que nous avons signalé en commençant. Cet effet sur lequel il importe beaucoup de revenir, gardons-nous bien de l‘énerver!’ La thèse que défendait Barbey d'Aurevilly, c’était celle de la moralité de l'oeuvre baudelairienne. L'intention de Baudelaire, disait-il, c’était de flétrir les Fleurs du mal. La manière du poète, ajoute-t-il, ‘n'est rien moins que celle de la Toute-Puissante Providence elle même, qui envoie le châtiment après le crime, la maladie après l'excès, le remords, la tristesse, l'ennui, toutes les hontes et toutes les douleurs qui nous dégradent et nous dévorent, pour avoir transgressé ses lois. Mais, pour comprendre la leçon des Fleurs du mal, il faut avoir soin de considérer l'ensemble: ‘une pièce citée n'aurait que sa valeur individuelle, et, il ne faut pas s'y méprendre! dans le livre chaque poésie a, de plus que la réussite des détails ou de la fortune de la pensée, une valeur très importante d'ensemble et de situation, qu'il ne faut pas lui faire perdre en la détachant. Les artistes, qui voient les lignes sous le luxe ou l'efflorescence de la couleur, percevront très bien qu'il y a ici une architecture secrète, un plan calculé par le poète, méditatif et volontaire.’ Les Fleurs du mal, conclut-il, n'ont pas été ramassées ‘dans un recueil sans d'autre raison que de les réunir,’ elles ont été disposées dans un ordre voulu, moins en vue d'un effet artistique que d'un effet moral: ‘Cet effet sur lequel il importe beaucoup de revenir, gardons-nous bien de l’énerver!’ Et telle était si bien la pensée de Barbey d'Aurevilly que Me Chaix d'Est-Ange a cité, au procès de Baudelaire, des extraits de l'article du critique, et a choisi les passages mêmes qui se rapportent à l'unité des Fleurs du mal et à leur effet moral: le poète, plaidait-il, ‘vous montre le vice, mais il vous le montre odieux.’ Mais le terme seul d'architecture, que l'avocat de Baudelaire a, d'ailleurs, omis de citer, a attiré l'attention des commentateurs. Aussi, malgré les déclarations du poète lui-même, ce n'est pas l'effet moral qu'on a retenu, c'est l'idée que le recueil avait un ‘plan logique.’

The unhappy fate of the man whom choice or chance has alienated from the human community greatly interested Hawthorne, as is well known. The theme held a similar fascination for Melville—even before he became acquainted with many of Hawthorne's tales. The probable discussions subsequently with his friend and neighbor, however, may well have strengthened his interest in the Ishmael motif. As might be expected, Melville explored the moral and philosophical implications of the theme, and out of them he evolved a doctrine of racial and social community as an ideal to set opposite the isolated individual. This positive doctrine need concern us here, however, only in so far as it is implicit in his delineation of individuals who, because of birth or achievement or action or character—a white jacket of some kind, in short—were set apart from normal human relationships. These persons may appropriately be called “Isolatoes,” a term coined by Melville himself in describing the crew of the Pequod: “They were nearly all Islanders … ‘Isolatoes’ too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own.” In each of his books one character at least is just such an exile, either by accident or volition.

That Charles Reade was interested in art, along with Cremona violins, Scottish herring fisheries, and other such hobbies, has long been known. Coleman listed some of the paintings in Reade's private collection and declared him a connoisseur; Elwin pointed out that he had a genuine taste in art and was the best sort of collector; and Rives added still further information of much the same type. One of Rives' quotations is particularly interesting.

During most of his life Samuel Butler carried a note-book in his pocket in which he wrote down thoughts that he wanted to preserve. After 1874, in an attempt to make his copious collection more useful and interesting, he began to revise the entries, transcribing them into a larger book, and keeping an index. For eighteen years he followed this system until his collection had grown so enormous that it was once more disorganized and hard to use; then, in 1891, he began a second thorough revision, re-editing all the notes, copying them neatly on good paper and, when enough pages had been filled, having them bound into large volumes provided with careful indexes. He used copying ink in this work or had his secretary Alfred use the typewriter, and as an insurance against total loss of the notes by fire he made a pressed copy which was kept in the rooms of his friend Henry Festing Jones. By the time of Butler's death in 1902 his notes had grown to fill six large volumes of about two hundred pages each. These volumes were bought by Mr. Carroll A. Wilson and are now in the possession of the Chapin Library at Williams College as part of the Butler collection.