By way of caution a sub-title should be added: “A Set of Questions”—questions, that is, to which I do not presume to return a positive answer.

The classical parallels (Vergil, Homer) of Beowulf's obsequies as well as the Jordanes parallel are well known to students of Old English literature (cf. Klaeber's edition, pp. 209, 213, 216). It is especially the latter which has commonly been considered of very great value as illustrating the authentic character of the notable closing scene of Beowulf. “The accuracy [of the Beowulfian funeral],” says Chadwick1—to cite an English authority—“is confirmed in every point by archeological or contemporary literary evidence. We may refer especially to the account of Attila's funeral given by Jordanes.” Again, “the agreement between the two versions could not possibly be greater; here [i.e., in the recital of Attila's obsequies] everything is Germanic”—this was the verdict of Kögel,2 who regarded that 49th chapter of Jordanes' history3 as a most precious source of information on ancient Germanic poetry. It is true, certain differences between the sixth century and the eighth century version did not escape observation, as may be seen from Chambers' Introduction to Beowulf, p. 124, or from Klaeber's Edition, p. 216. But it remained for Edward Schröder's incisive article (ZfdA. LIX, 240-44) to aim a deadly blow at the famous account of Attila's funeral as currently interpreted.

Two minor characters in Beowulf are Hreðric and Hroðmund, the young sons of the aged Danish king Hroðgar. The English poet represents the two princes as mere boys, too young to do anything. Yet they are not introduced simply to complete the picture of the royal household. On the contrary, they are the central and unifying figures in an episode so fraught with pity and terror that even now, after twelve centuries, we read and are deeply moved. Let us examine this episode, and see, if we can, what the poet was about.

The night before, Beowulf had put Grendel to flight, and all day the Danes have been celebrating his victory. The celebration ends with a feast in Heorot. The poet exclaims over the feasters: “I never heard of a people with a greater band of men, a finer array around their lord” (1011 f.). But the picture of such peace and happiness has for the poet and his hearers a tragic irony, for they know it will be short-lived.

Homily VIII of the Vercelli Codex CXVII, is a brief dramatic sermon on penance and the Last Judgment, intended for the first Sunday after Epiphany. It opens with an admonition to the faithful to remember the Lord's warning of the tribulation attending the end of this world. Let us never think our sins too grievous or too shameful for confession: for it is better to confess our sins here before one man, than to confess them at the Day of Judgment, before God and the whole host of Heaven, when all our deeds shall be revealed. The homilist briefly outlines the advent of the Judgment: the coming of the Son of Man in power and great glory, God's mercy to the righteous, the angels blowing their trumpets to the four ends of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and the raging fire. All this, however, is introductory to the central feature of the homily—the address of the Judge to the guilty souls. From His throne of Judgment, God the Son reviews His dealings with man: the Creation, the establishment of man in the joys of Paradise, the Fall, God's mercy to fallen man in His Incarnation, Passion, and Death. The Savior dramatically calls the sinner to behold the wounds in His hands and feet and side; then, charging man with indifference and ingratitude, He sentences him to dwell forever with Satan and his host in Hell. After a brief description of the torments of Hell, the homilist closes with an exhortation to be worthy of the Lord's welcome to the righteous, and of the bliss of Heaven.

1. Sievers' Law of Syncopation of middle vowels has laid the foundation for our present understanding of the forms of the preterite and past participle of the first class of weak verbs: The medial vowel disappears before the period of mutation if the stem syllable is long, and is preserved if it is short. While Sievers had stated the law for West Germanic only, its somewhat modified application to Norse was obvious, so that chaos was apparently reduced to order. Irregular forms like leƷde, sœƷde were termed “anormal” by Sievers, and he adds the objective statement that several short stems in k, t, d, l form their preterite “nach Art der langsilbigen,” e.g., OE. reahte, sette, tredde, tealde. Two years later, Paul added the hypothesis that these preterites had had no medial vowel since Germanic times, supporting his view by certain criteria of such Germanic origin. He remarks: “Das Angelsächsische repräsentiert für uns im grossen und ganzen noch die eigentümlichste Stufe, und zwar liegt das offenbar daran, dass hier im Gegensatz zum Althochdeutschen und Altsächsischen der Umlaut der Synkopierung vorausgegangen ist.” It seems that Sievers never quite agreed with Paul's generalization of the scope of these preterites. As late as 1898, he postulates only a West Germanic basis for the “Rückumlaut” in verbs of the type cwellan-cwealde, sēceansōhte. But otherwise the view has been fairly generally accepted.

Among the writers who express for all countries and time the thoughts, aspirations, and temper of their age is Rabelais. In his day many fundamental questions were mooted. The sixteenth century debated ever and again these among others: the nature and immortality of the soul, the eternity of the world, miracles, God, Nature, Providence, Destiny. On all these questions Rabelais expressed himself, at times enigmatically, it is true, but in a form that has outlived the treatises of the professional philosophers and theologians of the period, of a Pomponazzi, a Vicomercato, a Cardan, a Bodin, and even a Calvin.

John Hall was born in 1627 at Durham, and was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, on February 26, 1645-46. Within a few months after his entry there, he published his first literary work, Horae Vacivae, or Essays. Some Occasional Considerations. But this work was probably the product of three years of reading that the youthful Hall had done in the Durham library before he went to Cambridge.

The fourteen essays fill a duodecimo volume of two hundred pages and average about one thousand words in length. The subjects are those usual in essays of the period. They are: Of Opinions, Of Time, Of Felicity, Of Preaching, Of Fame, Of Studies, Of Company, Of Friends, Of Dissimulation, Of Recreations, Of Warre, Of Religion, Of Rewards, Of Fables. Most of them are subjects used by Bacon.

In both his Life of Sir Henry Wotton and The Compleat Angler, Izaac Walton testifies to Wotton's love of angling. Wotton was, says Walton, “a most dear lover, and frequent practiser of the art,” and intended “to write a Discourse of the Art, and in praise of Angling.” Doubtless when Walton went down from London to visit Wotton at Eton, they would turn aside from discussions of letters and the vexatious questions of church and state to talk about fish and the best methods of catching them. It is not improbable that they cast their lines together in convenient brooks and rivers. Was their talk about angling overheard by a lad who later made both a literal and a literary application of their ideas? It is not unlikely; and it would seem that herein lies a kinship between the fourth section of Robert Boyle's Occasional Reflections and the great masterpiece of mid-seventeenth century literature.

Although unanimously considered a masterpiece, the Lazarillo de Tormes has given some scholars and critics the impression of a poorly sustained or even unfinished piece of work. Chandler says “it seems as if the earlier portion alone had been completed and the rest laid down in a scheme for further elaboration.” Bonilla states that “lo mejor del relato es, sin disputa, la parte contenida en los tres primeros tratados . . . . Lo restante vale mucho menos; a partir del tratado cuarto, la narración se precipita y el interés decae notoriamente.” Chaytor adds: “Lazarillo's story is a series of pictures, between which the only connecting thread is the personality of Lazarillo himself. . . . . . (It) impresses the reader as an unfinished work. Of the seven tratados . . . . only four are elaborated in detail.” Reynier observes that “ce petit roman manque trop évidemment de proportion. Les derniers chapitres sont très écourtés. . . . . On a l'impression que l'auteur n'a suivi que sa fantaisie et qu'il a abandonné son personnage lorsqu'il a cessé de l'amuser.” Finally, Northup writes: “The four final tratados are suspiciously short and betray the hand of the pruner.”

The interesting ballad “Mary Hamilton” appears in Child's collection in 22 full versions and six fragments. The heroine is usually represented to be one of the four Maries attending upon Mary Stuart. Hence it was natural to suppose that a certain known case of child-murder at the court of Queen Mary, ending in the execution of the unhappy mother, was the source of this ballad presenting a similar story. On December 21, 1563, Thomas Randolph, an agent of the English government in Scotland, wrote to Cecil as follows: The Queen's apothecary got one of her maidens, a French woman, with child. Thinking to have covered his fault with medicine, the child was slain. They are both in prison, and she [i. e., Queen Mary] is so much offended that it is thought they shall both die.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century one of the most notable scholars and editors in the field of the older Scottish literature was the learned and energetic John Pinkerton, who began to publish his own poetry at the age of eighteen, brought out several volumes of poems and ballads before he was twenty-five, wrote valuable contributions to the history of Scotland, published two collections of old Scottish poetry, as well as editions of Barbour's “Bruce,” etc.,—and then after 1800 went off into entirely new lines in his “Modern Geography,” “General Collection of Voyages and Travels,” “New Modern Atlas,” and even a “Petralogy.”

The true nature of the so-called Gothic novel has been misunderstood, and the problem of its origin rendered unnecessarily difficult in consequence of a classification which takes only one of the many features into account. The critics who have hit upon supernaturalism as the most distinctive and significant element, have done this in spite of the fact that a part of the body of the fiction they pretend to describe is plainly controlled by a rationalism that forbids anything more than a mere toying with the appearances of the marvellous. No procedure of the authors of such novels is more usual than the lifting of the mask when the mysterious scene has gone far enough to produce its emotional effect. To insist upon the usual classification is to render oneself incapable of differentiating between the Radcliffian novel on the one hand, and Otranto, the Monk and the German Schauerroman on the other.

The purpose of this article is to indicate the character and approximately the scope of Rossetti's reading, and to examine the opinions he expressed on the books he read. Many volumes must, of course, have passed through his hands of which he left no record, but enough allusions remain (and I omit mention of a few relating to unimportant works of the nineteenth century) to enable us to reconstruct the literary interests of Rossetti and define his tendencies as a critic.

Material for the study is drawn in part from Rossetti's works, though he wrote few formal criticisms. Comments on his reading occur also in various biographies of the poet, particularly in that by his brother, William Michael Rossetti. Finally, the greatest source of our knowledge is his own letters. A large number of these have been preserved in volumes edited under different titles by his brother, but there are many others in various memoirs, especially in Hall Caine's Recollections of Rossetti.

The sonnets of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, despite the intensity of feeling and glow of style which seem to immerse the reader in their spirit, are obscure. Often we find ourselves left with a very vague conception as to the import of the sonnet as a whole. Yet the vagueness does not result, as sometimes with Swinburne, from the haziness of meaning, or from the fine diffusion of thought or feeling through the large fecundity of images and words. Rossetti's obscurity arises often from the use of special symbols bound up with his view of life; more often from the fact that although a sonnet takes its inceptions from some specific and personal experience, the poet generalizes and allegorizes it in such a way as to imply the personal experience and still give us no clew to it. The experience is vividly present to his own imagination so that the sonnet is a commentary upon it; yet the actual object is either not present or only vaguely adumbrated. Thus a study of Rossetti's life as a background for his poetry, recreating the lost implications, should and does illuminate the poetry very vividly. Such a study in this particular case, moreover, affords a revealing instance of the way in which experience transmutes itself into lyric art. I wish, then in this paper, to bring together in concise form all the material for dating and grouping the sonnets of The House of Life and to discuss how far we are justified in giving to these sonnets an autobiographical interpretation.

The problem offered by Count Leo Tolstoy to the world has not been advanced appreciably nor has a definite soluio been offered during the past years. Large numbers of hitherto unknown articles and stories have been brought to light. Nearly every person connected with the great writer during his last years has published memoirs and reminiscences. Nevertheless the serious question as to the nature of the real greatness of the man is still unanswered and no one has attempted a synthesis of the various views held about him.