Hallecks New English Literature | Page 6

the place of what may be called a
feeling for literature. Such a feeling will develop as the best English
poetry and prose: are sympathetically read. Wordsworth had this
feeling when he defined the poets as those:--
"Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares."
The Mission of English Literature.--It is a pertinent question to ask,
What has English literature to offer?
In the first place, to quote Ben Jonson:--
"The thirst that from the soul cloth rise Doth ask a drink divine."
English literature is of preëminent worth in helping to supply that thirst.
It brings us face to face with great ideals, which increase our sense of
responsibility for the stewardship of life and tend to raise the level of
our individual achievement. We have a heightened sense of the
demands which life makes 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._