The original objection urged against the conclusion of Paradise Lost was its failure to conform strictly to the neo-classic requirement that “an Heroick Poem . . . ought to end happily, and leave the mind of the reader, after having conducted it through many doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, in a state of tranquility and satisfaction.” Milton's subject, according to Dryden, “is not that of an heroick poem, properly so called. His design is the losing of our happiness; his event is not prosperous, like that of all other epic works.” Addison concurred in this opinion; but he considered that the poet's “exquisite judgment” in raising Adam to a state of great happiness through the vision of future events had virtually overcome “the natural defect in his subject.” The author, he says, “leaves the Adversary of Mankind . . . under the lowest state of mortification and disappointment. We see him chewing ashes, grovelling in the dust, and loaden with supernumerary pains and torments. On the contrary, our two first parents are comforted by dreams and visions, cheared with promises of salvation, and, in a manner, raised to a greater happiness than that which they had forfeited. In short, Satan is represented miserable in the height of his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the height of misery.” With one detail of the conclusion, however, Addison found fault. It would have been better, he declared, to omit entirely the last two lines of the poem (misquoted) :

They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

Der Stricker, an Austrian poet who is perhaps best known for his Pfaffe Amîs (ca. 1230), is the first (so far as we know) to tell the story of a wicked advocate (or judge) who was more unscrupulous in robbing his neighbors than the Devil himself. This tale, though perhaps a folk-tale originally, and even in its written versions never very far from the spirit of the folk, is interesting chiefly for its literary adaptations, notably Chaucer's Friar's Tale. Its principal forms, which are maintained with remarkable consistency, no doubt because its propagation was rather through books than through oral tradition, seem to have been determined by its use as exemplum, jest, or simple story. The oldest form, as it occurs in the narratives of der Stricker and Caesarius of Heisterbach, is also the most frequent and important. A rather unhappy rearrangement of the same incidents, which have to do with the leveling of a curse at a man or beast, characterizes a second form, of which the earliest example is found in Johannes Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst (1522). A little later (1537) Hans Sachs altered the story by omitting one episode regularly found in the other two types. Into one of these three closely related groups, represented by der Stricker and Caesarius, Pauli, and Hans Sachs respectively, the great majority of the thirty known versions fall. The variations are comparatively insignificant, and the analogous tales which do not follow one of these standard outlines are strikingly few.

Political controversy and partisan feeling were intimately blended with the literature of England during what we call loosely the Romantic Period. The views of individual authors have been treated here and there by their biographers; but little attempt has been made to generalize or draw conclusions from the several political attitudes of the poets, who, tho forming no school in the strict sense of the term, were nevertheless outstanding figures in the same liberal movement in literature. Some simple conclusions, drawn from a study of these men, are presented here; and in the presentation of this material opportunity has been taken to correct a few misunderstandings which exist regarding their political relations. For convenience, the poets may be divided into three groups : the conservative yet individual men, Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge; the Old Tory, Scott; and the more or less radical trio, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. For obvious reasons little need be said of the last-named poet.

The scholars who have investigated the history of gender in Middle English have been unanimous in the conclusion that the loss of grammatical gender was the result of the loss of the gender-distinctive forms of the strong adjective declension, the definite article and demonstrative, and other pronominal words. Körner wrote in 1888 : Die angelsächsische sprache unterschied bekanntlich drei grammatische genera, während das moderne englisch das grammatische geschlecht überhaupt nicht mehr besitzt. Der verlust desselben hängt natürlich mit dem verluste der flexion aufs engste zusammen und findet auch hierin seine alleinige erklärung. Bot doch die flexion allein dem sprechenden einen anhalt für die unterscheidung des grammatischen geschlechts; woran hätte man sich sonst noch halten können, als erstere aufgegeben wurde? Denn der zusammenhang zwischen der bedeutung und dem überkommenen geschlecht der bezeichnungen für leblose wesen wurde längst nicht mehr gefühlt. Als daher durch aufgabe der flexion das äussere erkennungszeichen für das grammatische genus fiel, so musste letzteres überhaupt schwinden. Es ergab sich von selbst, dass an seine stelle das natürliche gechlecht trat.

That Keats in The Eve of St. Agnes was possibly indebted to Mrs. Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho was suggested to me by my colleague, Professor Margaret Sherwood, who pointed out several signs of relationship between the two works. Since that time I have made some study of the problem, and record the following observations. No attempt is here made to discuss the question raised by President MacCracken of Keats's obligation to Boccaccio's Filocolo, since it is not possible to reach final conclusions in regard to the matter without making a systematic study of the relationship of the Eve of St. Agnes to Floris and Blancheflur, Filocolo, Romeus and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Christabel.