A Literary History of the English People | Page 3

present version has been prepared with the help of M.
E. R., who have once more lent me their most kind and valuable
assistance. I beg them to accept the expression of my heartfelt
gratitude.
No attempt has been made to say everything and be complete. Many
notes will however allow the curious to go themselves to the sources, to
verify, to see with their own eyes, and, if they find cause (absit omen!),

to disagree. In those notes most of the space has been filled by
references to originals; little has been left for works containing
criticisms and appreciations: the want of room is the only reason, not
the want of reverence and sympathy for predecessors.
To be easily understood one must be clear, and, to be clear,
qualifications and attenuations must be reduced to a minimum. The
reader will surely understand that many more "perhapses" and "abouts"
were in the mind of the author than will be found in print; he will make,
in his benevolence, due allowance for the roughness of that instrument,
speech, applied to events, ideas, theories, things of beauty, as difficult
to measure with rule as "the myst on Malverne hulles." He will know
that when Saxons are described as having a sad, solemn genius, and not
numbering among their pre-eminent qualities the gift of repartee, it
does not mean that for six centuries they all of them sat and wept
without intermission, and that when asked a question they never knew
what to answer. All men are men, and have human qualities more or
less developed in their minds; nothing more is implied in those
passages but that one quality was more developed in one particular race
of men and that in another.
When a book is just finished, there is always for the author a most
doleful hour, when, retracing his steps, he thinks of what he has
attempted, the difficulties of the task, the unlikeliness that he has
overcome them. Misprints taking wrong numbers by the hand, black
and thorny creatures, dance their wild dance round him. He is
awe-stricken, and shudders; he wonders at the boldness of his
undertaking; "Qu'allait-il faire dans cette galère?" The immensity of the
task, the insufficience of the means stand in striking contrast. He had
started singing on his journey; now he looks for excuses to justify his
having ever begun it. Usually, it must be confessed, he finds some,
prints them or not, and recovers his spirits. I have published other
works; I think I did not print the excuses I found to explain the whys
and the wherefores; they were the same in all cases: roadway stragglers,
Piers Plowman, Count Cominges, Tudor novelists, were in a large
measure left-off subjects. No books had been dedicated to them; the
attempt, therefore, could not be considered as an undue intrusion. But

in the present case, what can be said, what excuse can be found, when
so many have written, and so well too?
The author of this book once had a drive in London; when it was
finished, he offered the cabman his fare. Cabman glanced at it; it did
not look much in his large, hollow hand; he said: "I want sixpence
more." Author said: "Why? It is the proper fare; I know the distance
very well; give me a reason." Cabman mused for a second, and said: "I
should like it so!"
I might perhaps allege a variety of reasons, but the true one is the same
as the cabman's. I did this because I could not help it; I loved it so.
J.
All Souls Day, 1894.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Preface 1
BOOK I.
THE ORIGINS.
CHAPTER I.
BRITANNIA.
I. Fusion of Races in France and in England.--First inhabitants--Celtic
realms--The Celts in Britain--Similitude with the Celts of Gaul--Their
religion--Their quick minds--Their gift of speech 3
II. Celtic Literature.--Irish stories--Wealth of that literature--Its
characteristics--The dramatic gift--Inventiveness--Heroic
deeds--Familiar dialogues--Love and woman--Welsh tales 9

III. Roman Conquest.--Duration and results--First coming of the
Germanic invader 18
CHAPTER II.
THE GERMANIC INVASION.
The mother country of the Germanic invader--Tacitus--Germans and
Scandinavians--The great invasions--Character of the Teutonic
nations--Germanic kingdoms established in formerly Roman provinces.
Jutes, Frisians, Angles, and Saxons--British resistance and
defeat--Problem of the Celtic survival--Results of the Germanic
invasions in England and France 21
CHAPTER III.
THE NATIONAL POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
I. The Poetry of the North.--The Germanic period of English
literature--Its characteristics--Anglo-Saxon poetry stands apart and
does not submit to Celtic influence--Comparison with Scandinavian
literature--The Eddas and Sagas; the "Corpus Poeticum Boreale"--The
heroes; their tragical adventures--Their temper and sorrows 36
II. Anglo-Saxon Poems.--War-songs--Epic tales--Waldhere,
Beowulf--Analysis of "Beowulf"--The ideal of happiness in
"Beowulf"--Landscapes--Sad meditations--The idea of death--Northern
snows 45
CHAPTER IV.
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND PROSE LITERATURE OF THE
ANGLO-SAXONS.
I. Conversion.--Arrival of Augustine--The new teaching--The imperial
idea and