No one well acquainted with mediæval literature will deny that the tail-rhyme strophe was a favorite stanza form in English poetry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. When we meet, in any period of literature, such a fashionable garb of thought, an interest is roused to discover, if possible, whence it comes, and why it prevails. For instance the heroic couplet, darling of the eighteenth century, has had many students. That had its vogue in an age we know well, and we can easily discover its origin and the cause of its popularity, but it is quite otherwise with the tail-rhyme strophe. Although recognized as important, it has never been discussed in all its bearings, nor has its origin and history ever been generally acknowledged or established. In the following paper, an effort is made to bring together and examine the various theories of its origin, to investigate its forms and history in Latin, French and English poetry, and to trace the connections, if any, of the form in the three literatures. In brief, it aims to be the biography of the tail-rhyme strophe.

There is a restlessness in the world of criticism to-day. Its leading exponents, the impressionistic, appreciative, and scientific critics, do not enjoy any longer the unalloyed confidence of former years. Each has a large body of adherents; but there is a disquieting undercurrent set into motion by not a few, asking for something the criticism of to-day cannot give them. They may value the best of the fruitage each has to offer, but they miss something, forcing itself upon them with ever-increasing conviction,—a standard, a criterion, a code of laws or principles, which should form a basis for critical judgments. There is an urgent demand far judicial criticism.

Perhaps no portion of the chapters of Moryson's Itinerary, published in 1903 under the somewhat unexpected title of “Shakespeare's Europe,” has aroused more interest than his brief passage about the so-called English comedians, whom he saw at the Frankfort fair in September, 1592. Of the few contemporary accounts known to us his is the only one from an English source and probably the only one written by a man whose previous acquaintance with the theater fitted him in any way to judge of the merits of such performances.

Gautier de Coincy, ou Quency, ou Comsy, ou Coinsy, ou Coigny, est, on le sait, ce moine bénédictin, Prieur de Vic-sur Aisne, puis de Saint Médard près de Soissons, qui au début de la relativement brillante période littéraire du XIIIe siècle, écrivit en français la collection la plus importante qui nous soit parvenue des Miracles de Notre Dame. Son œuvre entière, dont la plus grande partie de beaucoup consiste en ces contes rimés, comprend 30 à 40,000 vers. Il a été parfois étudié par les savants, mais les hommes de lettres, considérant un poète du point de vue de sa valeur intrinsèque et artistique, n'ont pas encore été tentés fortement. Pourtant son œuvre est importante. Les hommes qui connaissent le mieux leur Moyen-Age s'en rendent compte et appellent de leurs vœux depuis longtemps le Romaniste dévoué qui mettra la main à une édition scientifique de notre auteur. Plusieurs travailleurs, comme Mussafia et Paul Meyer, ont posé les premiers jalons.

What is the importance of De Quincey in comparison with Carlyle in introducing German literature and thought into England? In dealing with this question I shall speak of the field of German writing from which De Quincey drew the material that he presented to his English audience; of the value of that material; of his method of presenting it; and of his attitude toward his work.

The main view which I shall here present was formulated about the time of the last meeting of this Association in New Haven, when Professor Price, of Columbia University, read his paper before the Association on Troilus and Criseyde. In that year, 1895—6, I was giving an undergraduate course in Chaucer, and found, on coming to Troilus and Criseyde, that a majority of the men in the course felt that a great change for the worse had come over Criseyde's character after her departure for Troy. This led me to look with more care into the poem, both to see how far there might be a basis for such a view, and to discover items of evidence tending to modify this impression. The opinion which I then came to entertain was communicated to my graduate seminary in Chaucer in the academic year 1899–1900, and in various other years. In the present paper, this view is supported by some additional considerations.

Concerning Homer, Lessing makes in the twelfth chapter of Laokoon the rash generalization, “Unsichtbar seyn, ist der natürliche Zustand seiner Götter.” Herder, in chapter xiii of his Erstes kritisches Wäldchen, has an easy task to disprove this proposition; but he cites in support of his case some witnesses of exceedingly doubtful credibility. The story of Pallas and Tiresias, which he tells after Callimachus, is good evidence that gods can be surprised by mortals. Having given, however, only the vague reference, “Callim. hymn, in Pallad. Dianam &c.,” Herder goes on to say:—“Wie der Pallas: so gieng es auch der badenden keuschen Diana. Kalydon sah sie, ebenfalls wider seinen und der Göttin Willen, und ward zu Steine. So gieng es selbst dem Jupiter, da er in seinem liebsten Vergnügen einmal seine Wolke vergessen hatte. Er ward, da er bei der Rhea schlief, von Haliakmon, wider Willen seiner, und seiner geliebten Beischläferin, und seines Überraschers, in seiner Schäferstunde gestört—wie das? wenn ‘unsichtbar seyn, der natürliche Zustand der Götter wäre.‘ —Ich will solche gestörte Schäferstunden der Götter und Göttinnen nicht aufzälen. Meine Muse ist diesmal nicht so, wie die Schwester des Amors, die

The influence of the Romance of the Rose upon Chaucer has been generally recognized, Chaucer scholars differ, however, concerning the extent and the time of this influence. The relatively older view (represented by Mr. E. G. Sandras in his Étude sur Chaucer, Paris, 1859) that Chaucer is an imitator of the Romance of the Rose who has never freed himself sufficiently from this influence to appreciate the greater art of his Italian model, seems now generally put aside by those who, following the lead of Mr. ten Brink, bring the English poet before us as having not only fully grasped the value of his Italian models, but as having actually surpassed at least some of them.