Although by the fourteenth century, minstrelsy had passed the time of its greatest glory, which had been the period of the troubadours, the courts of kings and nobles were still the centers of activity for the better class of musicians and entertainers. While the lower orders of the profession roamed the highways, picking up a living wherever and however they could, their more skilful brethren were usually attached to the households of the wealthy and powerful, where they not only received superior compensation, but frequently were able to practise their art on a higher plane than could the wanderers of the road. This was often due as much to their superior ability as to the more cultivated taste of their audiences. Edward III of England, as one of the greatest monarchs of the fourteenth century, and perhaps partly because of the influence of Queen Philippa, maintained a group of minstrels appropriate to the splendor of his court. Though we have no complete record of the personnel of his band of musicians during the half century of his reign, some facts as to their number, names, compensation, and activities have survived which enable us to visualize certain aspects of their life and work.

In her important study of the Wakefield Group in the Towneley cycle, Dr. Millicent Carey has much to say regarding the various English versions of the play of Noah and his wife. Here, says Dr. Carey, “Noah's wife appears as a speaking character for the first time ... Although she is mentioned in all the other versions from the Bible on, she is never known to utter a word until the dramatists of the Middle Ages make her an important member of their dramatis personae.” For the unbiblical Newcastle introduction of the devil and the temptation of Noah's wife—unique in the English miracle plays—Dr. Carey says that she has found no hint in Jewish legend. She considers the suggestion of Brotanek, who favors derivation by analogy with the Eve legend; of Brandl, who argues an approximation to Morality play construction; and of Cushman, who, rejecting the two former theories, remarks on the ubiquitous rôle of the devil as tempter in medieval legend generally. She points out an English dramatic parallel in the incident of the appearance of the devil to Pilate's wife in the York cycle, itself perhaps derived through analogy from the Eve story, and refers to certain other Continental parallels where the devil is a well-recognized device for registering “obstruction to the expressed wishes of God”—a device which may have originated in the Eve story or “may simply be a reflection of the mediaeval tendency to explain all evil as caused by the devil.”

Bei allen Völkern ist die zu Sprüchen geprägte Volks- und Lebensweisheit uralter Besitz. Auch in der deutschen Literatur beginnen die zwei wesensverschiedenen Quellen der spruchhaften Literaturgattung, nämlich Volksgefühl und Uebersetzungsliteratur, bereits in früher Zeit zu fliessen. Lang müsste natürlich die Liste bei letzterer sein, wollte der mit ihr vertraute Kenner nur ein ungefähres Bild ihrer mannigfaltigen Wirkungsweise entwerfen. Denn ein Cato, Facetus, Moretus, Floretus, Regimen Scholarium, Speculum Morum, Liber de Contemptu Mundi, Traditio Morum, Liber Moralis, Phagifacetus, Poenitentiarius, usw. geben nur ein sehr unvollkommenes Bild der ungeheuren Masse der gnomischen Poesie, die vermittels mehr oder minder gut gelungener Uebersetzungen zur Verfügung gestellt, bei günstigen Voraussetzungen auf empfänglichen Boden fiel und so allmählich dem immer umfangreicher werdenden Spruchschatze einverleibt werden konnte. Früh wurden ausser deutschen Sprichwörtern auch verdeutschte in den Dienst der Schule gestellt, wobei, ganz der mittelalterlichen Gepflogenheit entsprechend, dem Schüler nebst gutem Latein auch gediegene Lebensweisheit übermittelt werden sollte. Dem Inhalt nach decken sich die meisten dieser Lehrsprüche mit guten Ratschlägen und Vorschriften, wie sie zumeist in der Bibel, den Kirchenvätern und in den moralisierenden Schriften der Alten zutage treten.

One of the most common standards by which the Pléiade poets judged a writer was that of his truth or sincerity. Although none could be more classically traditional or more psychologically obvious, the wide use of this criterion is surprising. For nowhere in the prose treatises of Du Bellay, Peletier, Sébilet, Ronsard, or the others, are mendacity and sincerity in literature discussed independently. It is true that Ronsard comments in brief fashion upon historical truth and verisimilitude in the Abbrégé de l'arl poétique and in the 1587 preface to the Franciade, but, as we shall explain below, it is truth as an ethical concept that is to be our concern here.

The Gratulationes Valdinenses is one of the extant Latin works of Gabriel Harvey, published in 1578, and first referred to in the gloss to the September Eclogue of the Shepheardes Calendar in the following year:

Mayster Gabriel Harvey: of whose speciall commendation, as well in poetrye as rhetorike and other choyce learning, we have lately had a sufficient tryall in diverse his workes, but specially in his Musarum Lachrymae, and his late Gratulationum Valdinensium, which boke, in the progresse at Audley in Essex, he dedicated in writing to her Majestie, afterward presenting the same in print unto her Highnesse at the worshipfull Maister Capells in Hertfordshire.

Hume as historian is still seriously misrepresented. The respect which all critics, friendly and unfriendly alike, are compelled to pay to his philosophical works is not extended to his historical works. Seeking to write a fair-minded history of England, Hume was genuinely astonished to find himself condemned at home by virtually all parties. The Whigs attacked him as Tory, the Tories as anti-clerical, the Church as anti-religious, the scholars as inaccurate. All of these accusations have some basis in fact; but, generally speaking, all centered around contemporary political and religious prejudices. Despite these initial assaults, Hume's History of England became a national classic within his lifetime and remained standard for well over a century. When Macaulay's History of England began to appear in 1849, it was generally regarded as a continuation of Hume's taking up where he had left off, and the two sets were frequently matched in binding. “To tell the world in 1849,” rhapsodizes an American reviewer, “that Hume's History is a work entitled to their favorable regard, would be like informing the public what are the peculiar features that render Niagara Falls a highly agreeable spectacle, or that George Washington was a great patriot.”

Als Gottfried Christoph Lichtenberg 1799 starb, war er der öffentlichen Meinung als angesehener Physiker und als viel bewunderter satirischer Schriftsteller bekannt, der allerdings mit dem Aufstieg der deutschen Literatur nicht habe Schritt halten können. Von dem Zeitpunkte aber an, da sein Bruder, bald nach Lichtenbergs Tode, aus dem Nachlaβ die Notizhefte herausgab, jene unausschöpfliche, Jahrzehnte hindurch fortgeführte Sammlung von Beobachtungen und Gedanken, von Wendungen und Einfällen, begann ihr Glanz, sein bei Lebzeiten veröffentlichtes Werk zu überstrahlen. Ihre Wirkung verstärkte sich langsam, aber stetig, und heute sind sie allein berühmt. Tiefsinnig in ihrer Toleranz, amüsant noch im schrulligen Eigensinn, voll von “Widersprüchen”, sind sie uns wert um ihrer selbst willen und als ein Spiegel ihrer Zeit mit seltsamen Brechungswinkeln. Der oft bemerkte angebliche Widerspruch zwischen angespanntem Rationalismus und der Hingabe an mystische Stimmungen ist nur eines der Probleme, die uns sein Werk aufgibt, und vielleicht nicht das bedeutendste.

In 1817 one of Scott's closest friends and most penetrating critics wrote of his latest romance: “I must mention a remark Mrs Weddell has repeatedly made: ‘This has the nature of Daniel Defoe's novels, tho with a higher style of writing. I can hardly forbear fancying every word of it true.‘” This underlying resemblance is due in part to Scott's course of reading, in part to his literary methods or his traits of mind. But, paradoxically, the influence of Defoe on Scott is hardly more remarkable than the influence of Scott on Defoe's literary reputation.

The story of Landor's relations with the Yescombes, and the background of the libel suit which caused him to fly from England showered with the abuse of respectable Englishmen, has never been told. It was shunned by those of his friends who might best have told it, John Forster and Mrs. Lynn Linton, and we are left to reconstruct the tale principally from Landor's three pamphlets on the subject, now quite rare and never reprinted, and from contemporary newspapers.

A new manuscript of Walter Savage Landor's pamphlet, Mr. Landor's Remarks on a Suit Preferred against Him (London [George Jacob Holyoake], 1859), has recently been found in the Charles A. Brown Collection of Autographs and Manuscripts in the University of Rochester Library. A study of this new material led to the writing of Dr. Super's article, and a description of the document is included here in order to give details which were not strictly germane to the broader treatment. The manuscript, which bears the title, “Mr. Landor's Remarks on his Trial for Libel,” is of importance in that it is revised by Landor and contains unprinted passages of his private defence.

To read Browning's Sordello and then, concurrently, Jung's expositions of his psycho-therapeutic theories is to be struck by the close similarity of many of the ideas both men have expressed. In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung has described the spiritual malaise of the modern “civilized” world, its causes and cure. In Sordello, begun about one hundred years before Modem Man in Search of a Soul (1933), Browning anticipated Jung in describing minutely, albeit poetically, the same illness and in prescribing a similar cure. Furthermore, he wrote this poem not unconscious of its practical application to his fellow-man, for in Book iii, he speaks personally to the reader, telling him that Sordello may be he and that his creator, Browning, is a Moses to the People, prepared to lead them out of the spiritual desert they are wandering in.

The reader who turns to Herman Melville's works for the first time is likely to be struck by his many strange words and strange usages. This strangeness is not only because they come from the vocabularies of seamen and life in the southern Pacific, but also because many of them are forgotten Americanisms or revivals of Elizabethan and seventeenthcentury English terms. Melville seems to have had a notable memory for words. I have no doubt that if a comparison were made it would be found that he possessed one of the most individualized vocabularies among American writers of the nineteenth century, and that his influence has tended to preserve or revive many words which otherwise might have disappeared from American, and even English, usage. Such obvious Americanisms as “not to prick the buffalo” (i.e., “let sleeping dogs lie”) the revival of sea-beef (“pickled beef”), pitched (meaning “chosen”), bower (“to dwell”), and the creation of “Logan of the Woods” (“grizzly bear”), bedarned, carasposa, curios, and bosky, are typical of Melville's effort to seize upon every striking word or phrase that came his way.

The literary work of Hutton (1826–97) went into almost total eclipse soon after the author's death in the last years of the nineteenth century. Students of the poets or novelists about whom Hutton wrote have usually, it is true, read some of his work—and in doing so have usually found something worthy of quotation. Occasionally, too, a scholar mentions Hutton with some of the high praise he deserves. But apart from specialists and historians of literature, Hutton's work has been almost totally neglected. The main reason for the neglect is probably that Hutton was too much of his age. His writing undeniably exposes to the first view a number of those Victorian characteristics against which the twentieth century has reacted with intense dislike. Hutton sometimes prettifies life; he sometimes gives the impression of bringing all life and literature to the arbitrament of narrow moral standards; and sometimes he is guilty of Victorian complacency—a fault no one in our day has been willing to condone. Yet the Victorian characteristics of Hutton's essays are not more than a superficial reflection of the climate of the age, and do small injury to the substance of his criticism. Since the Victorianisms are in manner rather than matter, and also since we are at present in the process of reacting against the very reaction against Victorianism, it is not unreasonable to expect that Hutton will take his place, before long, among the considerable literary figures of the nineteenth century. As for his controversial writing, though one cannot expect widespread interest in a “dated” controversy, one can expect that credit will eventually be given Hutton for the historical importance of his contribution to the main intellectual conflict of his period. The present article will examine Hutton's rôle in the controversy over science and religion, and his essays in literary criticism, and will attempt, in so doing, to form some estimate of the values and the limitations of these two main divisions of his work.

Elinor Wylie's closest literary kinship, which began in early childhood and lasted throughout her lifetime, developing as an obsession in her life and work, was Percy Bysshe Shelley. The best and the greater part of her prose and poetry reflect his subtle influence. Seven of her eleven essays and sketches in Fugitive Prose are a key to her sources and methods in regard to Shelley. In her four novels there is a progression of interest in the same poet: Jennifer Lorn contains a background resembling that of the Shelley family; The Venetian Glass Nephew stems from some of Shelley's thought and the philosophy of his age; The Orphan Angel brings Shelley to life again; and Mr. Hodge and Mr. Hazard is a composite picture of Shelley and Elinor Wylie. Of her four volumes of verse, the last two books Trivial Breath and Angels and Earthly Creatures, which contain her finest poetry, also show an increasing preoccupation with Shelley himself and with his thought. For the purposes of this paper I shall limit my study to a detailed examination of the two novels and the poems concerned directly with Shelley.

Much criticism has been made of Paul Hervieu, and all too frequently, it would seem, his drama has been labelled as thesis plays. Too often, such opinions are based upon little more than a familiarity with certain of his plays (Les Tenailles, La Loi de l'Homme, Le Réveil, etc. which, detached from his work as a whole and read without consideration of the author's fundamental concept of man as a social creature, do seem strongly to bear the imprint of social reform. However, to many, such classifications, even for the plays mentioned above, will appear entirely unwarranted when the plays are studied in the light of what one inevitably comes to feel—after studying the man and his whole work—are the author's essential and sincere beliefs concerning man and his behavior in society. Unlike some writers of his own period who professed a similar faith and who unquestionably were impelled primarily by the desire for social reform, Hervieu sincerely believes that man's own nature stands as an insurmountable barrier to reform. Such a conviction could never become a welcomed guest in the mind of one who so earnestly longed for a more optimistic view of life; and, in my opinion, it is this unwelcomed conviction that leads him at all times to emphasize the tragedies of life in a manner that to some has suggested reform. If we understand him, however, he is primarily concerned with the tragedy in each case; and he offers no suggestions or corrections, because reform is untenable in his belief.

Toute sa vie, Mallarmé poursuit un idéal illusoire. Créer un œuvre parfait qui sera l'étude de l'homme et de l'univers, voilà son rêve. L'idée de ce travail gigantesque s'est brusquement présentée à lui, comme une sorte de révélation fulgurante. A partir de ce moment, le projet du “Grand Œuvre” domine de plus en plus la vie du poète, au point de se transformer en véritable obsession. Mallarmé lui-même n'ignore pas le progrès funeste de ce rêve qui va gâter sa vie. Dans ses lettres intimes, il parle très franchement à ses amis de son travail. Parfois il veut partager avec eux toute la joie que lui cause la révélation de l'idéal; parfois il analyse avec tristesse l'impuissance totale où aboutissent ses efforts.

The Executive Council met at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York, N. Y., on April 19 and 20, 1941, in three sessions: 2:30–6:00 p.m.; 8:00–10:30 p.m.; and 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. All members were present except Professor Schevill (for whom Professor Carleton Brown proxied), and Professor Bradley after the first session.