Although Charles Sorel was the author of two of the most popular French novels in the seventeenth century, plus a number of other novels, and many scholarly works, including a history of literature, essays on morality and history, and an encyclopedia of science of philosophy, he is rarely heard of today. Born in 1602, in a bourgeois quarter of Paris, Sorel, according to his own statement, wrote his first books when he was only seventeen, and before he was twenty-four years old had written over a dozen works, most of them novels. His family income cut off at an early age as a result of his having abandoned the study of law for literature, Sorel found writing practically his only means of earning a living. In 1635, having shown an early predilection for history, he was able to secure the post of royal historiographer, left vacant by the death of his uncle, Charles Bernard. For several years he mingled with the most important political, social, and literary personages of his time, taking part in the “Querelle du Cid,” making fun of the French Academy at its inception, and attacking Mazarin in a series of comic gazettes and “mazarinades” in Parisian patois. However, as a result of his supreme egoism and his inevitable gift for making influential enemies, he was soon forced from this post and from the “grand monde” which he thereafter never ceased to criticize. Disdaining rich patrons, Sorel withdrew into private bourgeois life, living many years at the home of his sister and her husband, the assistant “procureur général,” Parmentier. Leaving his desk only to secure precise first-hand documentation for his diversified works, he spent the greater part of his time during nearly fifty years writing copiously on nearly every conceivable subject.

The silhouette of the Troilus, the kinds of poem behind it that it approximates, are essential and not difficult to perceive. Mr. Young, in the most important recent article on the subject, and in a delicate and masterful style, has shown its pervasive elements from the romances. Chaucer hardly set out deliberately to write a poem in the line of Chrétien de Troyes or Floris or what not, but the usages and assumptions of such poems, the commonest kind of serious secular narrative he knew, he adopted as a matter of course. There is vast variety in medieval romance, and the word itself (meaning at first merely a poem in French) is vague, to say nothing of the rarefied air which we reach when we try to grasp the romantic in the abstract. Medieval romance and the romantic in the abstract are not the same, though historically and essentially allied. I turn to the second. One of the essentials of the romantic, the satisfying a taste for the strange, Chaucer provided plentifully for his own day in the intentional ancient coloring, which affected his readers (and not us at all) just as the inevitable and unconscious medieval coloring affects us. He here aimed however no less at satisfying his own informed awareness that the remote past was very unlike his own present than at creating a romantic impression. The emotionalism which belongs to romance also in good sooth is plentiful. What Mr. Young is specially combating is the summary labelling the poem as a psychological novel, a phrase now almost a cliché, taken too literally, though no doubt meant by its first user as a mere simplification to assure the momentum of a fresh idea. The word novel is onesided, even misleading. The hazy word psychological implies lifelike portraiture of complex people with internal conflicts, which allows us with probability to descry undercurrents and motives. This is true of the Troilus. The facts are, as most critics will admit, that the poem is an intricate blending of romance on every side with delicate and perceptive truth to humanity (though emphatically not a mere “page out of the book of modern every-day life”); that the two are not contradictory, though more intense and more commingled here than in almost any other English narrative one can think of; that though it is stimulating to guess briefly, it is impossible to decide how much would fall into each category for Chaucer and his readers. Emphatically he no more medievalizes than he humanizes his chief source; he complicates and intensifies it.

Dal Montaigne in poi si è spesso accusato il Guicciardini di avere attribuito le azioni umane solo a moventi d'interesse e perciò di aver considerato gli uomini malvagi, simulatori, cupidi, ed ingrati. Queste imputazioni non sono del tutto infondate; tuttavia il Fiorentino non giudicò per mero gusto di dir del male, ma per sincero convincimento di chi è deluso per troppo contatto coll'uomo politico. La sua critica non ha risparmiato né il Papato né la Francia né Venezia né gli altri stati italiani. Non deve quindi meravigliarci che ne abbia fatta a danno della Spagna e degli Spagnoli. Questi non tardarono a tacciarlo di passione; eppure furono essi i primi ad insegnargli gli intrighi e i raggiri della politica europea. Non fu alla scuola di Ferdinando il Cattolico ch'egli imparò a diffidare oltremisura dell'uman genere?

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.

The opinion of scholars who have dealt with this question reveals an interesting, if somewhat reluctant, evolution. This opinion has held that Du Bellay did not know Pindar, that if one or two of his odes are cast into Pindaric form, the resemblance does not go beyond externals, and that if a reminiscence of Pindar may occasionally be found in a metaphor or in a poetic movement, this is merely a reflection of the profound influence of Ronsard upon Du Bellay.

Le Registre d'Hubert is the only known document concerning Molière and his theater which has not yet been the subject of the most careful study. It is the book of accounts kept by the treasurer of the Palais Royal theater for 1672–73, preserved in the archives of the Comédie-Française since its foundation. I have been able to make a leisurely examination of this Registre, and I am presenting in this place all the items found in Hubert's records that are of interest to the historian of the French stage.

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.”

The Towneley play on the Harrowing of Hell, play xxv, derives throughout most of its length from the York play on the same subject, York xxxvii. Towneley, however, varies from York constantly in wording, omits some Y lines, and transmits others in varied degrees of confusion. It also contains considerable writing in septenar quatrains and trimeter double quatrains which, in form and content, have no relation whatever to Y xxxvii as it has come down to us. As the York play is composed of thirty-four perfectly regular stanzas of twelve lines each, the variations of T have given rise to many suggestions in an effort to account for them. It is the purpose of this paper to study these suggestions and the play itself in the hope that from such a study a solution of the complex problem offered by the composite nature of T may emerge with sufficient clarity to warrant belief.

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.

On October 26, 1740, Tobias Smollett, surgeon's second mate, sailed from St. Helen's aboard His Majesty's eighty-gun ship, the Chichester, one of the largest vessels in the fleet of over a hundred sail which Sir Chaloner Ogle was leading to the Caribbean. At Jamaica this huge expedition joined Admiral Vernon's squadron, already in those waters; and from there the combined forces proceeded to attack the Spanish stronghold of Carthagena, near the southern base of the Isthmus of Panama.

John Donne, Jr., has been said to have “flung” his father's letters “to the world in complete disorder” when he prepared Letters to Severall Persons of Honour: Written by John Donne Sometime Deane of S' Pauls London (1651), and it is true that the letters in this volume are not arranged for biographical purposes. No effort was made to put any of them in chronological order, except that one, the last in the volume, seems to have been selected for its position partly because it was written during Donne's last illness. Most of the letters, moreover, are without dates, and many were deliberately given false addresses. The editor was chiefly concerned about preparing a volume of elegant letters to “severall persons of honour.” Both the adjective and the adjective phrase are significant; for the 1651 volume was not just thrown together. It was arranged so that it would appear to contain letters to a greater variety of people than it did, and to people who were better remembered in 1651. It is the purpose of this article to formulate working hypotheses about the editorial processes which determined the Letters to Severall Persons, first by discovering what the most probable sources of the letters were, and second by examining the motives and methods which governed their arrangement and the headings which were given to them.

Emotion, according to scientific writers of the Renaissance, is a physiological as well as a psychological phenomenon. A passion provokes muscular activity in the heart and movements of humors to or from the heart. It is accompanied, moreover, by intensification of two of the four primary physical qualities: heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. Heat and dryness, for instance, are concomitants of anger; an angry man is a hot, dry man. A sorrowful or fearful man is a cold, dry man. A desirous, hopeful, or joyful man is a hot, moist man. Since choler is a hot, dry humor, men of choleric complexion, or temperament, are physically predisposed to anger, and anger is the passion most characteristic of them. Since melancholy is a cold, dry humor, melancholy men are naturally prone to fear and sorrow. Since blood is hot and moist, sanguine persons are naturally inclined to desire, hope, and joy. Phlegmatic men are relatively passionless, for phlegm is cold and moist and there are no cold and moist passions.

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 duodecimo volume which is known in the British Museum as Additional MS 10,309 comprises 155 folio sheets, closely written on both sides. It is completely filled with written matter, all in the same hand but showing the gradual variation in handwriting that would normally occur in one person with the passage of time. That the filling of the book took several years, is made more apparent by the wide range of interests shown in its contents.

“‘There's some herb that's good for everybody except for them J. that thinks they're sick when they ain't,’ announced Mrs. Todd, with a truly professional air of finality. ‘Come, William, let's have Sweet Home, an’ then mother'll sing Cupid an' the Bee for us.'” Accuracy in detail is a merit that no one would deny to the work of Sarah Orne Jewett and hence some time ago, on reading the words just quoted from The Country of the Pointed Firs, the present writer was puzzled at finding Cupid and the Bee linked with Sweet Home in a setting meant to call up nothing but the homely reality of Maine. The title suggested Theocritus (pseudo-Theocritus) or an Anacreon (pseudo-Anacreon) unlikely to be much on the mind of Mrs. Todd or her aged mother. Sweet Home is duly sung, but we hear no more of Cupid and the Bee. One only gathers that to Miss Jewett in 1896 it had the color of an old song suitable to the age of the singer. As I had long been noting down occurrences of the theme,

As Cupid midst the roses played,
Transporting in the damask shade,
A bee stepped unseen among
The silken leaves' his finger stung.

His beauteous cheeks with tears were drowned;
He stormed, he blew the burning wound,
Then nimbly running through the grove
Thus plaintive to the Queen of Love:

“I'm killed, Mamma; alas, I die!
A little serpent winged to fly
That's called the bee in yonder plain,
Has stung me, and I die with pain.”

When Venus smiling thus rejoining:
“My dear, if you such anguish find
From the resentment of a bee,
Think what they feel that's stung by thee.”

Die Irrfahrten des freien Individuums, die mit der Reformation begannen, wurden zugleich vollendet und abgeschlossen durch das Jahr 1789, den Beginn der französischen Revolution. Durch sie sollte der verkümmerte Untertan des absolutistischen Staates vermählt werden mit der unendlichen Freiheit der protestantischen Seele. Das Kind dieser Ehe war der Bürger, der sich freiwillig bindende, in die Gesellschaft einordnende Mensch. Die politische Freiheit existierte nicht mehr wie die religiöse und philosophische Freiheit der vorangehenden Jahrhunderte im unendlichen Raum des Geistes. Der freie Bürger steht im realen Raum des Staates; das bürgerliche Individuum findet seine Grenze in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Die Rolle des Einzelnen in der Gemeinschaft wurde das beherrschende philosophische, literarische und politische Thema des Zeitalters, das der französischen Revolution folgte. Auch die beiden tiefsten Romane der deutschen Literatur der bürgerlichen Epoche wachsen aus dem Boden dieses Problems auf und sind bis in die feinsten Fasern von ihm durchdrungen: der Wilhelm Meister Goethes und der Grüne Heinrich von Gottfried Keller. Beide führen das an Freiheit leidende Individuum in die Grenzen der bürgerlichen Ordnung. Sie sind beide Geschöpfe des Gedankenkreises der französischen Revolution, aber im Sinne der Gegenwirkung: sie sind aus dem Glauben der notwendigen Begrenzung des Menschen und nicht aus dem Geiste unendlicher Freiheit geboren.