A Literary History of the English People | Page 3

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 the Christian idea--Beginnings of the new faith--Heathen survivals--Convents and schools--Religious kings and princes--Proselytism, St. Boniface 60
II. Latin Culture.--Manuscripts--Alcuin, St. Boniface, Aldhelm, ?ddi, Bede--Life and writings of Bede--His "Ecclesiastical History"--His sympathy for the national literature 65
III. Christian Poems.--The genius of the race remains nearly unchanged--Heroical adventures of the saints--Paraphrase of the Bible--C?dmon--Cynewulf--His sorrows and despair--"Dream of the Rood"--"Andreas"--Lugubrious sights--The idea of death--Dialogues--Various poems--The "Physiologus"--"Phoenix" 68
IV. Prose--Alfred the Great.--Laws and