In any study which involves the consideration of a network of stories, it is chiefly necessary to regard the skeleton upon which the tales in question are built up. Although it is impossible to decide upon the relationship of the various members of a cycle without some consideration of individual incidents and even turns of thought or phrase, it is constantly necessary to check and control the information thus gained by the larger matters of motive and purpose. Individual incidents and all the flesh and blood of a narrative are so easily changed that the skeleton appears stable in comparison. With due regard to the kaleidoscopic changes which are familiar to every student of this field of comparative literature, it furnishes the clue by which the labyrinth of plots must be threaded, if at all.

Character-writing was of Greek origin. It had its beginnings in the “ of Theophrastus, who lived between 370 and 285 B. C. Popularized by Casaubon's Latin translation of 1592, these Ethical Characters furnished a model of which the English writers were prompt to avail themselves. The first of the English writers to be influenced by Theophrastus was Joseph Hall. His Characterisms of Virtues and Vices appeared in 1608, and was translated into French in 1619. In France it contributed, along with Casaubon's translation, to make Character-writing only less popular than in England. Chief among those who felt its influence was Jean de la Bruyère, whose book, Les Caractères De Theophraste, Traduits Du Grec; avec Les Caractères ou les Mœurs de ce Siècle, was published in 1688. This, in turn, influenced the further development of English Character-writing, particularly in the form that it came to assume in the work of the periodical essayists of the eighteenth century, through which it finally merged into the novel. To point out the nature and extent of this influence of La Bruyère upon the contributors to the Spectator is the purpose of this article.

In dem Abschnitt über die romanischen Sprachen welchen die “Année linguistique” Bd. I (1901–1902) enthält, widmet A. Dauzat auch den Etymologieen ein paar kurze und abgerissene Bemerkungen und preist dabei den “scepticisme salutaire” den Gaston Paris in Bezug auf das Problem aller-andare an den Tag gelegt hat (S. 33). Dieser Skeptizismus ist keineswegs heilsam gewesen. Gegen zwei Erkenntnisse, welche, längst vorbereitet, jetzt fast Gemeingut geworden sind, hat sich G. P. bis zuletzt gesträubt und dadurch unter den Seinigen dem Aufkommen neuer phantastisoher Erklärungen Vorschub geleistet. Diese Erkenntnisse sind : dass nur ambulare (mit oder ohne * ambitare als Variante) das Grundwort für jene romanischen Verben sein kann, und ferner dass diese—sogar auch dann wenn für sie ein anderer Ursprung vorauszusetzen wäre — auf ganz regelmässige Weise sich nicht haben entwickeln können. Bei seiner Kritik jener Aufstellung hat G. P. Bedeutung und Gebrauchsumfang der Wörter nicht hinlänglich gewürdigt —dachte er doch selbst, auch für aller, an ein * addare = addere gradum, und hat diesen Gedanken wohl nie ganz aufgegeben (s. z. B. Rom. XXVII, 627). Hinsichtlich des zweiten Punktes ist zu bemerken dass wir über das Wie ? noch sehr verschiedene Ansichten hegen, aber keiner von uns die seinige für unwiderleglich halten dürfte.

In his Preface to The Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque Poe, while discussing the character and style of these tales, says: “I am led to think it is this prevalence of the ‘Arabesque’ in my serious tales, which has induced one or two critics to tax me, in all friendliness, with what they have been pleased to term ‘Germanism’ and gloom. The charge is in bad taste, and the grounds of accusation have not been sufficiently considered. Let us admit for a moment that the ‘phantasy-pieces’ now given are ‘Germanic’ or what not…. But the truth is that, with a single exception, there is no one of these stories in which the scholar should recognize the distinctive features of that species of pseudo-horror which we are taught to call Germanic, for no better reason than that some of the secondary names of German literature have become identified with its folly. If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.” In this passage, though himself possessed with almost a monomania for discovering ‘plagiarism’ in other writers, (nowadays we should rather speak of 'influences'), Poe practically denies similar charges brought against him. And, in this denial, he takes occasion to lunge a side thrust at Hoffmann in his reference to 'phantasypieces' and ‘some secondary names of German literature‘—as will be seen later.

It is a well known fact that the ground-work of the story of Saint George as told by Richard Johnson in his Seven Champions of Christendom is represented by the Old French, or better the Early English, story of Sir Beves of Hamtoun. The object of this article is to determine the history of the fusion of the two traditions.

When Saint George had become the champion of the English knights during the third crusade, the official sanction being given at Oxford in 1222, it is not difficult to understand why the story of his life should have passed into a new phase of its development. Before the crusades only the legend of his martyrdom was known in Western Europe. There, however, he had always been represented as a warrior, ‘miles egregius,’ and now during these expeditions he became the battle saint, whose timely aid brings victory to the Christian armies.

The object of this paper is to show that Lessing's knowledge of Shakespeare and his influence in introducing and popularizing the great English poet in Germany have been generally overestimated. To forestall any preconceived opinions it may be stated that the position advocated has not been suggested by such works as Franz Mehring's Die Lessing-Legende or Paul Albrecht's Lessings Plagiate, in which the sole purpose of the authors seems to be to pluck the laurel wreath from the head of one whom Herder regarded as the greatest critic of Germany and Macaulay as the first of Europe.

In his German Culture and Christianity, London, 1882, Joseph Gostwick says apologetically of Schiller: “As regards his unbelief, he must be classed with the more respectable rationalists.” And of his middle life he says: “The poet, naturally a proud man, learned to look down with contempt on everything that in his boyhood had been believed.” And as a sort of final judgment: “When the saying is once more repeated, that for Schiller independent culture takes the place of religion, the truth of the conclusion is obvious, though it may require some qualification.” This qualification is found in the statement at the end of the chapter on Schiller, that “there may be found passages in his later prose writings to support our opinion that near the close of his life he was led to think with reverence of religion.” This judgment of Gostwick's may stand as a fair sample of the conservative view of Schiller's religion, and this by one who is partial to the poet and would fain count him as a fellow-believer.

Among the points of superiority which distinguish the plays of Shakespeare from those of most Elizabethan dramatists, none is more obvious and more easily demonstrable than the firmly built plan, the clear construction which sets in strong relief a dominant dramatic idea. In the poet's mature tragedies, this dominant idea is always a development of what Professor Dowden calls “the fatality of character.” The protagonist is hurried to the catastrophe, not so much by the irresistible force of external events, as by some defect, or some enfeebling excess in his own spiritual constitution. From the analogy of the other plays, therefore, we should expect in Hamlet to find little or no emphasis laid upon external hindrances to the execution of the prescribed revenge, but rather the accentuation of a purely subjective hesitancy inherent in the emotional and intellectual habits of the man himself.

The history of the pastoral is a long history; perhaps no other manner of writing has exerted so wide an influence or held so deep a fascination. The words pastoral, idyllic, Arcadian still move us; they surround us with an atmosphere of charm; they encourage those moments that are unstrenuous; they recall us to an early and almost outgrown freshness of feeling. Yet, oftentimes, the poets of the Golden Age are regarded as mere literary alchemists by critics who cannot yield themselves to genuine poetic illusion, failing to recognize in that distant world the embodiment of really existent beauty. Pastoral has, in many cases, justly been a word of reproach and ridicule, a synonym for insipid creations, unreal in feeling, affected in style; but whether good art or bad it has appeared, Proteus-like, in numerous forms. Music, sculpture, and painting have used the pastoral motif; the Good Shepherd has been for twenty centuries, in the Christian church, a tender symbol of Divine Care; and in literature the pastoral has never really faded away, but has come back again and again with persistent appeal. It seems, therefore, that there must be in it some inherent beauty, some elemental greatness which deserves investigation and acknowledgment.

Some twenty years ago M. Émile Picot had occasion to edit a group of sixteenth century French moralities, two of which were signed by the device “Rien sans l'Esprit.” He discovered that this curious pseudonym veiled a certain Pierre Duval, a poet of Rouen. On following up his researches, the learned Paris scholar found that Duval was the centre of a little group of poets who produced several modest volumes of verse during the last decade of the reign of Francis I.

It is my purpose in this paper to consider the relations of the two great types of literary expression, poetry and prose, and, if possible, to determine the most vital, fundamental, and essential trait which discriminates one type from the other, more particularly in the primitive stages of their development.

In this investigation certain postulates regarding the nature of literature and of art will be of service in clearing the ground. I shall make four such assumptions, as follows:

First, the difference between these two literary types is a fundamental, not a superficial difference. In the words of Professor Earle, “the distinction between poetry and prose is one which is seated in the nature of things…. it is a profound and essential organic distinction.”

The object of this article is to call attention to certain cases of close resemblance between passages in Molière's plays and others taken from Spanish literature or connected with it. Except in details where credit is duly given to the discoverer, none of these cases has ever before been noted, to my knowledge.

It is seldom possible to decide categorically whether or no these parallels are genuine instances of borrowing by Molière, or merely coincidences of thought and expression. Therefore I am content usually to leave the judgment to the reader, after putting the facts before him.

The national epic poems of France offer a vast body of literature in which we may study the development of French ideals from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. During so long a period at a critical epoch in European civilization influences of all kinds are of course reflected in this poetry. These influences may be described as literary, political, social and religious.

It is with but one of the literary forces which came to bear upon the chansons de geste that we are concerned just now. This external force is that exerted by the matièdre de Bretagne, popularized in France about the middle of the twelfth century. The admirably brief statement of Mr. Alfred N utt (in Celtic and Mediaeval Romance, pp. 15-18) leaves little to be desired as regards the influence of the Breton matter upon the matièdre de France. Mr. Nutt's account of the change in literary ideals during the twelfth century recommends itself to anyone who is conversant with the period.

In 1775 Tyrwhitt, speaking of the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, suggested that “it is possible that le dit de la fleur de lis et de la Marguerite by Guillaume de Machaut … and the Dittié de la flour de la Margherite by Froissart … might furnish us with the true key to those mystical compliments, which our poet has paid to the Daysie-flower.” This suggestion of Tyrwhitt has been echoed and reëchoed by succeeding editors and commentators, but has never been seriously put to the test. Godwin, in his Life of Chaucer, called attention to the story told in Froissart's Dittié, of the birth of the daisy from the tears shed by Herés on the grave of Cepheï, but did not connect it with the transformation of Alcestis into the daisy. Mr. Skeat, in his discussion of the Prologue in the Oxford Chaucer, pointed out three specific passages in Froissart and Machault which are more or less closely parallel with certain lines of Chaucer. Vollmer added to Mr. Skeat's observations a reference to the balade at the close of Froissart's Paradys d'Amours. Beyond similar instances to these, no examination has apparently been made of Chaucer's indebtedness, in the Prologue, to the poems referred to. Yet such an examination seems to come very near doing just what Tyrwhitt suggested it might do, besides throwing welcome light on certain other problems connected with the poem.

To say that the seventeenth century Character holds an important place in the development of prose fiction is a commonplace of criticism. That it was through the periodical essay of the eighteenth century that it influenced the development of fiction is equally well known. But the Character of the periodical essay, written by men more interested in the individual than in the type, was quite different from the old formal Character of the beginning of the seventeenth century. Through what changes it passed in the course of its development; and why it was through the periodical essay, rather than in its own proper form, that it came to exert the influence it did, are two questions which I shall attempt to answer.

On pages 94 and 116, respectively, of Vol. I of Jonas's edition of Schiller's Letters, we find the following two communications: 52. An Reinwald. Bauerbach d. 29. Jenn. Zwischen 11 und 12 Uhr des Nachts [Mittwoch 1783]. Hier, mein lieber Freund, haben Sie das versprochene Gedicht, das, wenn ich es noch einmal überlese keinen Werth hat, als den guten Willen seines Verfaszers. Meine L. Millerin geht mir im Kopf herum. Sie glauben nicht, wie es mich Zwang kostet, mich in eine andre Dichtart hineinzuarbeiten.