Among the works of authority referred to by mediæval writers the Revelations of Methodius long held a prominent place. Its popularity continued even into comparatively modern times, for from the year 1475 printed editions of the text appeared at frequent intervals. Sackur, its latest editor, who has prepared a critical version of the work, goes so far as to credit it with an influence second only to that of the canonical books and the Church Fathers. It is the purpose of the present study, first, to investigate the influence of this work upon Middle-English writers, discovering, if possible, to what extent and in what version, they used Methodius; and furthermore, to publish, as evidence of the popularity of the Revelations, a Middle-English metrical translation, which has been preserved in a single ms. Before taking up this phase of the influence of Methodius, however, it will simplify the discussion to summarize briefly what sort of material the Revelations contains, and what is known of its author and its origin.

Of the British ballads not included in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads one of the most interesting is that which, following the example of Professor Tolman's correspondent, I shall call The Bramble Briar. Altho in poetic quality it is inferior even to that broadside version of Chevy Chase the serious discussion of which in the Spectator provoked the raillery of Wagstaffe, yet I have ventured to deal with it here at some length; for it is interesting not only because of its possible relation to Boccaccio, Hans Sachs, and Keats, but in itself. It is a fairly clear instance of what to some expounders of ballad doctrine is a contradiction in terms: it is a traditional vulgar ballad.

Rather less attention has been paid to the later portion of Beowulf than to the earlier adventures; Grendel and his dam have, as it were, been more beloved of the commentators than has the dragon. There is every reason, however, why the fight with the dragon should receive careful attention. It is, despite some damaged and illegible passages, of great poetic beauty, with a dignity and a brooding atmosphere of impending fate which are quite its own. And it stands greatly in need of critical as well as of appreciative examination; for there is much which presents difficulty in the interpretation of the text, and in larger problems for the solution of which textual study is necessary.

Virtually all the current discussions of William Godwin devote the bulk of their attention to the elucidation of the anarchic social philosophy of his Political Justice (1793), and, as a rule, they give serious consideration to his first subsequent novel, Caleb Williams (1794). They deal perfunctorily and apologetically with St. Leon (1799), and generally refuse to extend their discussion beyond it so as to include Fleetwood (1805), Mandeville (1815), Cloudesley (1830), and Deloraine (1833). There is, indeed, much to be said for this lapsing of the spirit of inquiry, as any reader of the uninspired minor fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century knows. But the neglect of Godwin's novels and, more particularly, the failure to examine their relationship to Political Justice result, I think, in a misconception of their tendencies and the diverse nature of their appeal to his generation. Preoccupation with Political Justice, and, in a less degree, with Caleb Williams, has thrown into bold relief the frigid rationalistic elements in Godwin's thought. This is, of course, the place where the emphasis belongs in a discussion of Godwinism, but at the same time this point of view overlooks some important qualities of his later work. The fact is that a reader coming to Godwin's novels would, unless he were very observant and analytic, have difficulty in distinguishing between Godwin's fiction and the sentimental literature with which he was already familiar. He would find that whatever might be his theory, in practice, at any rate, Godwin reveals a constant inclination for the rhapsodic and lachrymose situations of contemporary literature. Certainly the reader would discover little emotional restraint in Deloraine's description of Emilia as “a being just descended from celestial spheres, new lighted on the earth” or in the account of Julian, who, haunting Cloudesley's grave, “threw himself on his knees on the earth, kissed the turf that covered the dead body of his protector.” These are the usual excesses of Rousseauistic children, a Saint Preux, a Werther, or a René, but they create an unexpected impression in the work of a recognized rationalist. In this paper the object is to take full account of Godwin's sentimental tendencies and to attempt to show their relationship to his rationalism. If we can explain this paradoxical union of reason and feeling, we shall, perhaps, understand even better than before why he had such a profound influence upon his contemporaries.

Description as commonly understood is portrayal in language; specifically, poetical description is the esthetic representation of objects through the medium of speech. I shall assume for the purposes of the following discussion that such representation is possible, that poetry is, though not exclusively, a “representative” art. Such an assumption does not equate poetry and painting, since the media of an art determine the substance and form of that art. Now the media of poetic representation, mental images, have indeed many points of likeness to the actual sense perceptions through which the painter affects us, since mental images have their origin in percepts; otherwise they would be poor means of representing objects. But there exist also many obvious differences between images and percepts, such as different degrees of intensity, permanence, specificness. These differences condition differences between poetry and painting. There are other differences. The formative artist, for example, is confined to an appeal to the sense of sight, while the poet knows no such limitation. I shall take occasion in the course of the following discussion to call attention to such matters, when the examples are before us.

It is my purpose in this paper to consider the quantity of, the syllables in twenty-five lines of Milton's Paradise Lost. The selection, given below, was read by three different men. The first is an instructor in vocal expression, the second is a graduate student in language and phonetics, and the third is a professor in the Department of General Linguistics. All three are connected with the University of Michigan.

Sous l'influence du déterminisme de Comte et des theories de Taine sur la race, le milieu et le moment, la critique littéraire de la seconde partie du 19e siècle exagéra l'importance de l'élément collectif ou national dans la production des æuvres d'art et ne mit pas suffisamment en évidence l'influence essentielle du talent individuel. Depuis vingt ans environ, une forte reaction contre ces théories nous a fait oublier systématiquement l'élément racique pour insister exclusivement sur la personnalité des auteurs. On s'est plu à étudier les moindres détails de l'existenee des écrivains, de leur enfance, de leur vie privée. On a même affecté d'ignorer—ou à peu près—l'influence du milieu, du goût de l'époque, des tendances existant chez les auteurs contemporains, etc., éléments qui nécessairement guident l'inspiration des artistes les plus indépendants.

It is a commonplace of literary history that no great outburst of poetic energy has been unattended by the lyric. Not only may we fairly say that its vitality is an index of the vitality of the deeper poetic energies, but we may add that it endures when other forms seem dormant or moribund, and that when it is wholly extinguished, true poetry is practically at an end. It would, therefore, seem that an examination of the lyric, and a definition of its peculiar qualities, would be likely to throw light on the nature of poetry itself. We all recognize lyrics when we see them, but we are also conscious that not every poem which wears the outward semblance of a lyric is essentially so; yet it is not always easy to give a precise and satisfactory statement of what constitutes the essence of the lyric form.

At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, which has aptly been called “the century of the child,” a new sense of the sacredness of childhood found expression in Wordsworth's song written in 1802:

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

My chief business in this article is to study the characteristic details in Otherworld descriptions, to see how widely they are used, and to discover any constant traditions in the use. A great deal of work, already done in this field, has made the material accessible; and since my paper is only by way of being a preliminary sketch, I shall frequently use the summaries offered by previous scholars in the case of particular documents. In general, the material with which I shall work is very well known and scarcely subject to any dispute.

It has been generally recognized by students of the mediæval drama, that certain of the moral tales found in collections of exempla and in commonplace books influenced indirectly the morality play. This inference seems to be drawn as much from evidence of the dramatic possibilities inherent in specific exempla as from evidence of their widespread popularity. An example of a didactic story with such dramatic adaptability is offered by the tale of the penitent usurer. Its theme, the struggle between demons and angels for the soul of man, seems to foreshadow the conflict-between-the-vices-and-virtues type of morality. The number of mss., moreover, which have survived, proves that the tale was disseminated throughout England and the Continent, and therefore would be easily accessible to playwrights in search of dramatic material. Furthermore, the same inference may be drawn from the analogy between plays embodying favorite miracles or fabliaux and morality plays probably based upon popular exempla. For, although no scholar has hitherto shown the dependence of any extant morality play upon a specific exemplum, yet it is almost inconceivable that well-known didactic tales, obviously suited to dramatic purposes and extensively circulated in collections of exempla and in commonplace books, should not have been used by the makers of moral plays.

The purpose of this brief paper is to study the characteristic and prevailing accentual rhythms of English prose in as far as these occur in phrases that can be detached from the context. Two types of such phrases have been examined. They may be distinguished as (1) phrasal idioms, and (2) titles. The first class embraces such examples as “in fact,” “of course,” “to be sure,” “ebb and flow,” “fits and starts”—the permanent “bromides” of the language, representing the most ordinary contacts of mind with mind, the most necessary aspects and currents of thought, and the homeliest logic. Stripped of every superfluity by incessant use, they exhibit with peculiar aptness the form and pressure of the language in its minuter elements.

There are few things in literature so beautiful as the endings of Milton's three long poems. Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, the great Puritan poems of sin and righteousness, end, each in its own way, on a quiet note of reconciliation with life. In all three the story tapers off and there is no final climax. In all three the grand style sinks into the simple, the music dies away on the slow chords of a cadence, the mighty pinions on which the poet was lifted in his flight float him gently down to earth again. And in all three, though he does not cry “back into life, back into life” with Groethe, he drops back into it instinctively. Like the skylark, he is true to the kindred points of heaven and home. In Paradise Lost is the finest of these closes, and concerning the meaning of this one there has, of late, arisen some question.

In the winter of 1567–8 five gentlemen of the Inner Temple presented befor the queen a tragedy entitled Gismond of Salerne. In 1591–2 Robert Wilmot, author of the fifth act, publisht a revision of the entire work under the name Tancred and Gismund. This was reprinted by Dodsley. The erlier version has cum down to us in two ms. copies, both in the British Museum: Hargrave 205, knoen as H, and Landsdowne 786, knoen as L, the former dating from the third quarter of the sixteenth century, the latter from the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century. L has been reprinted by Brandl in volume LXXX of Quellen und Forschungen and by Cunliffe in his Early English Classical Tragedies. Renewed study of the work finds a stimulus in the recent publication of a fotografic reproduction of H in Farmer's facsimile edition of The Old English Drama.

Mr. H. M. Chadwick departs from current views about the early settlers of Great Britain and challenges Bede's long-accepted classification of them as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. He believes them to have been a homogeneous people, their dialectic differences having come about after the immigration and through political and geographical influences. He opposes the prevailing notion that the Anglo-Saxon organization at the time of the migration was “tribal,” and thinks that the invasion was accomplished by large organized bands, not by small groups of adventurers acting independently. The migration of the Angli Mr. Chadwick regards as exceptional. Although there was no external pressure, it was on a large scale and extended over a considerable space of time. And, he says, according to the constitution of military forces of the time, the warriors required to make up the forces of invasion were not all drawn from within the territories of the Angli, but came, many of them, from the surrounding regions.

For those who enjoy tracing literary relationships there is a very attractive problem in regard to the possible indebtedness of Swinburne's The Garden of Proserpine to Delavigne's Les Limbes. Swinburne's poem has long been a favorite, for its subtle cadences have elusive, indefinable melody, and the picture of the dim beauty of Proserpine's realm is a masterpiece of descriptive art. However one may regard the philosophy of languid surrender to extinction, one cannot fail to recognize Swinburne's power in depicting a pallid world where all things are wan, bloomless, and indeterminate.