Hallecks New English Literature | Page 6

and a better comprehension of the "far-off divine event" toward which we move, after we have heard Swinburne's ringing call:--
"...this thing is God, To be man with thy might, To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light."
We feel prompted to act on the suggestion of--
"...him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on striping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things."[4]
In the second place, the various spiritual activities demanded for the interpretation of the best things in literature add to enjoyment. This pleasure, unlike that which arises from physical gratification, increases with age, and often becomes the principal source of entertainment as life advances. Shakespeare has Prospero say:--
"...my library Was dukedom large enough."
The suggestions from great minds disclose vistas that we might never otherwise see. Browning truly says:--
"...we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred tunes nor cared to see."
Sometimes it is only after reading Shakespeare that we can see--
"...winking Mary buds begin To ope their golden eyes. With everything that pretty is."
and only after spending some time in Wordsworth's company that the common objects of our daily life become invested with--
"The glory and the freshness of a dream."
In the third place, we should emphasize the fact that one great function of English literature is to bring deliverance to souls weary with routine, despondent, or suffering the stroke of some affliction. In order to transfigure the everyday duties of life, there is need of imagination, of a vision such as the poets give. Without such a vision the tasks of life are drudgery. The dramas of the poets bring relief and incite to nobler action.
"The soul hath need of prophet and redeemer. Her outstretched wings against her prisoning bars She waits for truth, and truth is with the dreamer Persistent as the myriad light of stars."[5]
We need to listen to a poet like Browning, who--
"Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph. Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake."
In the fourth place, the twentieth century is emphasizing the fact that neither happiness nor perpetuity of government is possible without the development of a spirit of service,--a truth long since taught by English literature. We may learn this lesson from Beowulf, the first English epic, from Alfred the Great, from William Langland, and from Chaucer's Parish Priest. All Shakespeare's greatest and happiest characters, all the great failures of his dramas, are sermons on this text. In The Tempest he presents Ariel, tendering his service to Prospero:--
"All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure."
Shakespeare delights to show Ferdinand winning Miranda through service, and Caliban remaining an abhorred creature because he detested service. Much of modern literature is an illuminated text on the glory of service. Coleridge voiced for all the coming years what has grown to be almost an elemental feeling to the English-speaking race:--
"He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small."
The Home and Migrations of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--Just as there was a time when no English foot had touched the shores of America, so there was a period when the ancestors of the English lived far away from the British Isles. For nearly four hundred years prior to the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, Britain had been a Roman province. In 410 A.D. the Romans withdrew their legions from Britain to protect Rome herself against swarms of Teutonic invaders. About 449 a band of Teutons, called Jutes, left Denmark, landed on the Isle of Thanet (in the north-eastern part of Kent), and began the conquest of Britain. Warriors from the tribes of the Angles and the Saxons soon followed, and drove westward the original inhabitants, the Britons or Welsh, _i.e._ foreigners, as the Teutons styled the natives.
Before the invasion of Britain, the Teutons inhabited the central part of Europe as far south as the Rhine, a tract which in a large measure coincides with modern Germany. The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons were different tribes of Teutons. These ancestors of the English dwelt in Denmark and in the lands extending southward along the North Sea.
The Angles, an important Teutonic tribe, furnished the name for the new home, which was called Angle-land, afterward shortened into England. The language spoken by these tribes is generally called Anglo-Saxon or Saxon.
The Training of the Race.--The climate is a potent factor in determining the vigor and characteristics of a race. Nature reared the Teuton like a wise but not indulgent parent. By every method known to her, she endeavored to render him fit to colonize and sway the world. Summer paid him but a brief visit. His companions were the