Lord Macaulay, who wrote The Lays of Ancient Rome, was an able historian. He lived from 1800 to 1859. Gibbon had died six years before Macaulay was born. Macaulay was a graduate of Cambridge, a lawyer and a writer. He was a member of Parliament, and lived for several years in India, where he gave splendid governmental service. His History of England is a famous book. When it was first published it was read with as much eagerness as if it had been a thrilling novel. It still charms a multitude of readers. Take down the first volume of his History of England from the shelf, and read in the first chapter two paragraphs that speak of Cromwell and of the gallant bearing of Charles the First at his execution. Perhaps you may remember reading a story by Dumas which tells of the same event. Anyone who cares for history will find delight in Macaulay's famous book.
Here is Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula, in which you may read of the campaigns of Wellington. If you will look at his preface you will find noble praise of Wellington's army. Here are John Richard Green's Short History of the English People, and Miss Agnes Strickland's Queens of England. Here are histories by Carlyle, and by Lecky, who was an Irishman, and many others, and here is John Lothrop Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic. Motley was an American, who, like many other historians, chose a favourite hero of whom to write. His hero was William the Silent. The last sentence of Motley's history reads: "As long as he lived he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets."
One of the first writers who made plain to the world the entrancing history of New France, which, as you know, is an earlier name for Canada, was the historian Francis Parkman. Parkman was born in Boston near the end of the eighteenth century. He devoted himself to historical research, and wrote a long series of books, many of the names of which are familiar to you.
Some of the titles of these volumes written by Parkman are Pioneers of France in the New World, The Jesuits in North America, The Discovery of the Great West, The Old Régime in Canada, Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV, and The Conspiracy of Pontiac.
Parkman begins The Conspiracy of Pontiac, which he completed in 1851, with the paragraph quoted below. It is interesting to note the great changes which have come about on this continent since Parkman wrote this history, nearly eighty years ago.
"The Indian is a true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes and solitudes of nature are his congenial home. His haughty mind is imbued with the spirit of the wilderness, and the light of civilization falls on him with a blighting power. His unruly pride and untamed freedom are in harmony with the lonely mountains, cataracts and rivers among which he dwells; and primitive America, with her savage scenery and savage men, opens to the imagination a boundless world, unmatched in wild sublimity."
Biography sometimes is closely related to history. When the life of a famous public man is written in such a way as to tell the story of how his actions have changed the history of his country, biography and history seem practically identical. The story of Queen Elizabeth is, one may say, the story, or history, of England during her reign. The same statement is partly true of the biography of Queen Victoria. It is true also of the life of any great public man in any country. Books of biography are widely read in this twentieth century. Most of the people you know read biographies.
If we find the alcove in which are kept the newest books in the hall of history, we will discover on the shelves such volumes as Sir Sidney Lee's Life of King Edward VII, Mr. Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria, his Elisabeth and Essex, and Mr. Philip Guedalla's Life of Palmerston. These are all clearly written, easy to read, condensed rather than long drawn out, based on sound historical research and so fascinating that thousands of people begin to read them as soon as they are published.
Here is a little book of history called Gallipoli, which was published in 1916. It was written by a poet, John Masefield, and it tells the story of the Australians when they fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Great War. There are many notable histories of different campaigns in the War, but none surely will last longer than this small, noble book.
Now we know the names of a few histories by historians of English-speaking countries. There are many other histories written by Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, and others.
Before we leave books of history, shall we look at a history of English literature, so that we may mark down for ourselves the names of the periods, or times, when some of the great writers lived?
There was an Anglo-Saxon period before William the Conqueror came to England. Poets and writers lived then, but only learned scholars read now the works they composed. You are likely to read at some time of Beowulf, who is supposed to have written about 520, and of Cædmon, who is said to have been a servant at the monastery of Whitby under the Abbess Hilda.
The first great English poet, who was the master of a period of English poetry, was Chaucer. His work brings us to the fourteenth century. He had a number of less famous contemporaries.
Many of the old ballads were made probably in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Sir Thomas Malory wrote his book Morte d'Arthur in the fifteenth century.
The first book was printed in England by Caxton in 1477.
The Elizabethan Age, as you know, is one of the most famous periods in English literature. It is generally divided into an earlier and a later period. Spenser belonged to the earlier time; and Shakespeare marked the later period, along with other notable writers. The Elizabethan age is reckoned to have lasted longer than Elizabeth's reign, because writers still wrote in the same fashion and spirit. The authorized translation of the Bible into English was written at this time.
In the time of the Commonwealth and later, when England was largely puritan, the great poet Milton lived, and John Bunyan, who wrote The Pilgrim's Progress.
Dryden, a poet, belongs to the second part of the seventeenth century. Pope, another poet, lived most of his life in the eighteenth century. A number of novelists, Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe, of an earlier date than the others, and Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, all great novelists, come in the late seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries.
A group of distinguished men, some of whom we will learn a little about in the next chapter, lived in the eighteenth century. Their names are Johnson; Goldsmith; Burke, the statesman; Gibbon, the historian; Garrick, an actor; and Reynolds, the painter. Swift, Addison, Steele, and other essayists, wrote earlier in the same century.
You do not need to remember specially the various ages in which writers lived. But we understand now that people often speak of periods in English literature; it is interesting to fit into their proper places great writers whose names we know.
Scott and Jane Austen belong to the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Dickens, Thackeray, and many others, lived and wrote in the nineteenth century, and are great Victorians. Hardy is partly Victorian and partly Georgian. Kipling and Barrie belong to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. We live now in the first half of the twentieth century.
A man called James Boswell, who lived in the eighteenth century, chose as his hero a celebrated personage whose name was Samuel Johnson. Boswell was willing, indeed eager and determined, to go about with Johnson from place to place, to listen to what he said, and then to make notes of Johnson's conversation. Boswell was a devoted friend, and Johnson was worthy of his friendship, for he was a truly great man. Boswell spared no pains to learn everything that he could of Johnson's youth, of his family and friends, of his work and character. In this way, James Boswell prepared himself to write the life of Dr. Johnson.
Boswell's Life of Johnson is certainly one of the greatest biographies ever written. Many people think that it is the greatest of all biographies, because it tells us with truth, fidelity and fullness what manner of man Dr. Johnson was.
There are many odd things about Boswell's Life of Johnson. One of the oddest is that Johnson did not like Scotland, or the people of Scotland, but Boswell was a Scot. Johnson, who was outspoken in an extraordinary degree, and somewhat rough, rather what we call a bear of a man, was often rude to Boswell, who, perhaps, was not a little tiresome. But Boswell never minded what happened, or what was said, as long as he could be in Johnson's company.
Samuel Johnson's parents were very poor. He was not even a strong boy, and was often ill. One of the reasons why we admire Johnson is that he contended bravely with poverty and ill-health all his life. He never put money first, or perhaps he might have been rich, in which case, possibly, we might never have heard of him. He does not seem to have thought it any particular hardship to suffer from ill-health. He does not talk, or write, of being ill. What he did put first in his life was scholarship, work, friendship, companionship, and living in accordance with high principles.
How do we know all this, and how can we be certain that it is true? We know because we find Johnson's character in Boswell's Life. No one can read this Life of Johnson by Boswell without being certain that Boswell took great pains to write what was true, and that he succeeded.
Johnson's father was a bookseller in a small way in the English city of Lichfield, where there is a beautiful cathedral, which some day you may see. Both Johnson's father and mother did everything they could for their son. It soon was evident at home and at school that the boy had an unusually fine intelligence. He went to Oxford as a sizar. This means that he had not enough money to live on, so he worked in the college to pay his way. There were few opportunities then for students to earn money. Samuel Johnson had a fine, sturdy self-respect. He was poor, but he was not ashamed of being poor. When someone, who knew that his clothes were shabby, put a pair of boots outside his door, Johnson threw the boots out of the window. He was not the kind of man to take help. There is something comical about this story. We cannot help laughing, yet we like, and respect, the shabby student who was independent. Johnson was not good-looking, and he had odd tricks of manner, but his mind and character impressed everyone.
One day, when he was a famous man, he performed what he considered an act of penance in memory of his father. His father, whose business was going very badly, had wanted him to stand beside a bookstall in Uttoxeter, near Lichfield, and sell any books that he could. Johnson was not willing to do this. Afterwards, he must have regretted his refusal keenly. Many years later, when he visited Lichfield with friends, they missed him one day from breakfast till night. Presently he drove up in a post chaise; and when they inquired urgently what he had been doing, he told them the story of how he had been unwilling to help his father. To show his sorrow, he had gone to Uttoxeter and had stood, bareheaded, beside the bookstall from which his father used to sell books, for an hour at the busiest time of day. Perhaps some people might think it was an odd thing for him to do. But only a great and humble spirit can inspire anyone to carry out such an action.
After he left Oxford, he was a tutor. But since his appearance and manner were both odd, he had difficulty in finding and keeping situations. All the while he wanted to be a writer, and we may be sure that he practised writing. He married, when he was a comparatively young man, a widow much older than he was. He was deeply attached to his wife. After her death, years later, he never ceased to mourn for her, and he treasured every memory of their life together.
Long before this happened, however, Johnson had gone to London, and had become what is called a hack writer. He earned very little by his writing. These were early days in journalism, when newspaper writers suffered hardship, probably because the occupation was not yet fully established, and work was ill-paid. Much has been written of this period among men of letters in London, and of the straits to which they were driven to keep alive. It was out of such conditions as these that Johnson made himself famous, until every word he wrote, or spoke, carried weight, and he himself had greater authority among writers, and with his contemporaries, than, possibly, any other man of letters has ever had.
You will find in an interesting novel, called Midwinter, written by John Buchan, a delightful account of Johnson when he was a tutor and later, before he had become famous.
Johnson wrote a great deal, but his Dictionary is often called his most famous work. It took him years to complete the Dictionary, and the task required all his scholarship, together with much toil, carried on in poverty and privation. When the Dictionary was finished, Johnson was a famous man. It is likely that he enjoyed making his Dictionary. The work suited his temperament. One can imagine how he would choose the words, as if he were a judge or umpire, as indeed he was, deciding that certain words were to be included, and refusing others. Some of his definitions are amusing. Dictionaries now are much more elaborate. The science of words has grown greatly since Johnson's day. But he was a pioneer in the making of a dictionary, and we greatly honour pioneers.
Then there was Dr. Johnson's club, which met at an eating house on a famous street in London named the Strand. Great numbers of people visit the Cheshire Cheese every year because it is generally believed that Dr. Johnson and his friends used to dine there, and there carried on discussions, some of which no doubt Boswell duly reported in his biography.
It is a wonderful achievement to have kept for the world so perfectly the looks, words, and characters of Dr. Johnson and his associates, many of whom were famous men. But Dr. Johnson was the leader. He it was who kept the club together; for, although he was arbitrary, odd, and sometimes brusque and rude, he was astonishingly companionable, affectionate, sincere and very able. His conversation was weighty, full of pith and meaning. It was a highly esteemed privilege to belong to Dr. Johnson's club.
The names of some of his associates are Garrick, the great actor, who came to London from Lichfield with Johnson; Goldsmith, who was a poet, and who wrote plays, as well as one wise and beautiful novel called The Vicar of Wakefield; Reynolds, the great painter, and others not as well known, and Boswell.
If you will find a copy of Boswell's Life of Johnson—remember, it is a large book, in four volumes—and turn to the index at the end, you will discover under the heading Johnson, His Character and Manners, numbers indicating the pages where are printed some stories that you will enjoy reading. On pages 162 and 163 of the fourth volume, we read of his love for children, and his affection for Hodge, his cat, for whom he used to buy oysters. Almost every page contains good reading, as, for instance, beginning at page 300, in the same volume, we may read of his conversation with a young man whom he thought presumptuous, followed immediately by an account of the plan of some of his friends to send him to Italy since he was ill, and of how greatly touched Johnson was by their kindness. Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the books which the world has enjoyed reading ever since it was written.
And now we come to something about this biography that may seem curious. If Boswell had tried to describe Dr. Johnson as being handsome, and polite, instead of unprepossessing and sometimes rude, he likely would have made him seem not nearly as great a man as Johnson really is. The biography would not have been a true picture of Dr. Johnson. A true picture makes a far deeper impression than a picture which is not true; and this is one of the very most important things we can learn about a book.
Biography is not only interesting reading, it helps us to understand other people. In this chapter we may discover that there are few better ways of finding out what kind of work we want to undertake than by reading biography.
First of all, let us think of a very few famous biographies, such books as Plutarch's Lives, Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's Scott, Forster's Dickens, Morley's Life of Gladstone, Churchill's Lord Randolph Churchill, Page's Life and Letters, Sir Sidney Lee's Shakespeare.
Numberless people have read and used Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men. We know that Shakespeare did. If you will turn to the last life in Plutarch's book, the life of Brutus, you will find that Shakespeare must have used this biography of Brutus when he wrote the play Julius Cæsar.
Now we may think of biography as a magic key that will help you to unlock the door behind which you may find what work you are going to do. Let us ask ourselves what occupations these famous men followed whose lives appear in the list given above.
Johnson was a journalist, and an author, and he made a dictionary. Scott was a lawyer, an officer of the Crown, and a novelist; one might almost add that he was something of a farmer. You remember how he loved the land he owned at Abbotsford, and used to ride over it and talk with his men about their work. Dickens was a reporter, a novelist, and, towards the end of his life, he gave public readings from his works. Gladstone was a statesman; he had great skill in finance; and on account of his associations at home, he had somewhat of the training of a business man. He also was interested in the land. You may read in his biography how he used to employ himself cutting down trees, that needed to be felled, on his estate. Lord Randolph Churchill was a statesman. Page was an editor, and a diplomatist. Shakespeare was an actor, the manager of a theatre, and a dramatist. Already you know how to find in biography some knowledge of a good many different occupations.
A great many of you will be farmers. The well-being and health of the world depend directly on farming; and the life of a farmer and of a farmer's family may be happy, independent and wonderfully useful and interesting. To learn about the life of a farmer, one must read other books as well as biography. Three of the novels that we have enjoyed reading contain vivid, true pictures of the life of people who live on a farm. The first of these novels is Scott's Guy Mannering. You remember the farm called Charlies-hope, and Dandie Dinmont and his wife and children. Scott dearly loved and thoroughly understood country life, and there is no more charming picture in a book of the natural, happy life of the farmer and his wife and children than in this novel by Scott. The second novel is George Eliot's Adam Bede. Mr. and Mrs. Poyser had much skill in their occupation. It is interesting to discover how well Mrs. Poyser understands farming, especially dairy farming. Lorna Doone is another novel about farm people. A Scottish poet, Robert Burns, was the son of a tenant farmer, and was himself a ploughman and a farmer. He has written much that is exquisite about country life. Ask someone to read aloud to you "The Cotter's Saturday Night", a wonderful picture of family affection and good living. You may find some of the words hard to understand. But whoever it is that reads the poem aloud to you will likely find the difficult words explained in a glossary. These are all English and Scottish writers. Hamlin Garland has written a good deal about the life of an American farmer, moving to new settlements, in his book called A Son of the Middle Border. In Will Carleton's verse and James Whitcombe Riley's verse we find songs and stories of farm life. Peter McArthur's books, In Pastures Green, The Red Cow and Her Friends, and Around Home, contain true, intimate, delightful pictures of farming in the older provinces of Canada.
And so we see how interesting reading about occupations may be. In the list that follows most of the books are biographies, lives of sailors, soldiers, architects, teachers, clergymen, business men, bankers, lawyers, actors, doctors, painters, craftsmen, journalists, nurses, musicians, explorers, scientists, workmen. There are other books, as well, about animals, and plants, nature and country walks, flying, mountain climbing, inventions, hobbies, and science, about some of the many wonderful pursuits in which you are interested already, or in which you will be interested soon.
If you look in the list for the name of some particular book and do not find it, whether it is the name of a biography belonging to some occupation, or of a book telling about some recreation of which you want to learn, you may go to a library and ask for help in finding the book. Or if you cannot go to the library, write to the librarian and ask him to tell you.
Some day you may make a list of your own favourite books. No one person needs to read all the books named here, but boys and girls may choose from the list a few of the books they want to read. In the case of birds, flowers, and the study of nature, each neighbourhood or district of country needs to be classified according to its latitude and longitude. Birds, flowers and plants vary according to climate; look for their descriptions in books belonging to your own district of country.
Marco Polo, a famous traveller, was born in the City of Venice in 1254, eleven years before the birth of Dante. Dante belonged to Florence: so Marco Polo and Dante both were Italians. Marco Polo's father and uncle were trading merchants. They travelled by ship and overland to sell their goods, and they were probably among the first Europeans to visit the kingdom of China, even yet a mysterious, strange part of the world to us. When Marco was seventeen years old, his father and uncle took him with them on one of their expeditions. He was away from Italy twenty-six years. In that time, he saw many marvels, became a favourite of the great emperor Kublai Khan, and had more astonishing adventures, almost, than we can imagine. He came back safely to Italy, but was thrown into prison in Genoa; you remember that these cities of what is now Italy were often at war with one another. When Marco Polo was in prison, he told some of his adventures to a fellow-prisoner, and this man induced Marco Polo to write a book. Polo dictated what he wished to say, and Rustician wrote it down.
Marco Polo's book, The Travels of Marco Polo, has had a considerable effect on the history of the world. Columbus used to read it, and often quoted what Marco Polo said. It is likely, almost certain, that Polo's example and success helped to inspire Columbus to make his great voyage to the Western hemisphere.
We can judge how interesting and delightful Marco Polo's book is from a brief extract which contains the description of a hill that the Emperor Kublai Khan had had made and planted with trees:
"Moreover, on the north side of the Palace, about a bow-shot off, there is a hill which has been made by art from the earth dug out of the lake; it is a good hundred paces in height and a mile in compass. This hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their leaves, but remain ever green. And I assure you that wherever a beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor gets news of it, he sends for it and has it transported bodily with all its roots and the earth attached to them, and planted on that hill of his. No matter how big the tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants; and in this way he has got together the most beautiful collection of trees in all the world. And he has also caused the whole hill to be covered with the ore of azure, which is very green. And thus not only are the trees all green, but the hill itself is all green likewise; and there is nothing to be seen on it that is not green."
Cook's Voyages is another famous book of exploration. James Cook was born in 1728 and was the son of a farm labourer. As a boy, he was apprenticed first to a shopkeeper, then to a shipowner. He entered the King's service in 1755. The accounts of his voyages, or explorations, to the North and West, South and East, in the days when comparatively little was known of the seas in which he sailed, are as interesting and exciting as a story. His first expedition South was to observe the transit of Venus, when he was in command of the Endeavour. On this expedition he visited New Zealand and Australia. His next voyage, when he also visited the Pacific, was with the Resolution and the Adventure. On his second expedition he discovered the Sandwich Islands. He sailed for nearly four thousand miles along the western coast of North America, searching for a north-west passage, on his third expedition. His ships were the Resolution and the Discovery. The Discovery is perhaps the best known ship in which Cook sailed. The purpose of all his expeditions was largely scientific. On his last voyage, Cook lost his life. It has been said that his best memorial is the map of the Pacific.
Captain Cook wrote in a very simple, natural style. Here is a description of some of the people he saw, on the way to the place which he named Poverty Bay. We can almost imagine that we might have been on the ship with Captain Cook, or venturing ashore, not at all certain what the unknown inhabitants of unknown islands might not do to us. The paragraph is taken from the account of his first expedition:
"In the evening, the weather having become fair and moderate, the boats were again ordered out, and I landed, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander. We were received with great expressions of friendship by the natives, who behaved with a scrupulous attention not to give offence. In particular, they took care not to appear in great bodies: one family, or the inhabitants of two or three houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children. These little companies sat upon the ground, not advancing towards us, but inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the breast. We made them several little presents; and in our walk round the bay found two small streams of fresh water. This convenience, and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay at least a day, that I might fill some of my empty casks, and give Mr. Banks an opportunity of examining the natural produce of the country."
Captain Cook and his people were often in danger from the anger of the strange tribes they met, but we can have only admiration for the gentle behaviour of the people whose home Cook visited on this occasion, as described in his account of the expedition. There are many dramatic scenes in Cook's Voyages. Captain Cook was not only brave, he had extraordinary perseverance.
Many of us find stories of travels, discoveries and explorations among the most interesting books in the world. We travel, too, with the great explorers, by means of these books, and have a share in their dangers, escapes, and discoveries. Explorers are always courageous, and often men of noble character. A few women have been noted explorers, but only a few, partly because travelling alone and in danger, is more difficult for a woman than for a man. Miss Mary Kingsley is one of these notable exceptions. Here are the names of a few books of travel and discovery, old and new: How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa, by Henry M. Stanley; Sir Richard Burton's Pilgrimage to Mecca; Travels in West Africa, by Mary H. Kingsley; the Journals of Captain R. F. Scott, the explorer who reached the South Pole to find that the Danes, led by Amundsen, had been a few days before him, the account is often called Scott's Last Expedition, a very noble book; and a fascinating volume by T. E. Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert. The discoverer of the Mississippi was La Salle. We may read of him in Parkman. Two books of early travels in Canada are Sir Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages from Montreal Through the Continent of North America, and Alexander Henry's Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories.
Charles Lamb is a friend of yours whom you may not know yet; but, when you meet him, you will soon find yourself thinking of Charles Lamb as a friend. He is one of the rare persons who attract and deserve everybody's love. Charles Lamb lived all his life in London, where he was born; he went to a famous school, often called the Bluecoat School, because the boys were dressed after that fashion. His first home was in the Temple. "I was born and passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I had almost said—for in those young years what was this king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?—these are my oldest recollections."
When he grew up he entered the service of the East India Company and worked there as a clerk all his working life. The offices belonging to the East India Company were known as the South Sea House. People think of this building with interest and affection, because Charles Lamb worked in it. Besides being a clerk, he wrote in his leisure time a series of papers, or essays, which deal with many different subjects in a whimsical, gentle, beautiful style. The manner of writing which Lamb used expressed his nature and abilities perfectly. His work is full of sweet laughter, great penetration, unselfishness, and nobility. No wonder we love Charles Lamb. The essays are known as The Essays of Elia. Lamb is supposed to have taken Elia as a pen name from the name of a fellow-clerk in the South Sea House.
Only one sister and one brother out of a rather large family grew up to maturity with Charles Lamb. This sister, whose name was Mary, suffered often from a serious illness, and her brother Charles devoted himself to her care. Mary Lamb also was gifted and lovable. Neither of them married. Charles and Mary Lamb wrote together a book for young people, called Tales from Shakespeare.
The history of the attachment between this brother and sister is one of the most beautiful stories we know of family affection. Charles was a gay, happy person, chivalrous and tender-hearted. He loved jokes, but there were sad happenings in his life which he met with great courage. He stammered a little, but he was excellent company, and gathered about him many friends, themselves men of genius, such men as Coleridge and Wordsworth, both great poets; Hazlitt, who was a writer and critic; Crabb Robinson, Procter and Talfourd, whose tastes were the same as his own. Charles Lamb lived from 1775 to 1834. A great deal has been written about him; two especially delightful biographies of Lamb are those written by Canon Ainger and by Mr. E. V. Lucas. One or other of these you should read when you have time.
But, first of all, there are his essays. You will soon discover that you have favourites among these essays. It is likely that you will find much to your liking "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago"—-this is written about his old school—"Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist", "Mackery End, in Hertfordshire", "The Old Benchers of The Inner Temple", "Blakesmoor in H—shire", but above all "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig", and "Dream Children". You will enjoy almost any of Lamb's essays read aloud by someone who reads well. But begin by reading "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" yourself, if you cannot find someone who will read it to you. In this essay Charles Lamb is, of course, writing humorously, such amusing, whimsical humour. It tells how a small Chinese boy, Bo-bo, discovered by accident that roasted meat tastes a great deal better than meat which has not been cooked at all.
Essays, or papers, are short articles which deal with one subject only. They often, but not always, by reason of their style, tell us a great deal about the nature of the man or woman who has written the essay. No one can read Lamb's essays without learning that the writer was lovable, tender-hearted and upright.
Another famous essayist is Francis Bacon, a very able man who lived as long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His essays are famous; they are not as much concerned with the study of human nature as the essays of Charles Lamb, but are compact with learning, observation and thought. One of his best known and most likable essays is "On Gardens".
Other famous essayists are: Addison, whose Sir Roger de Coverley you may know already; Steele; Swift; a great Frenchman, Montaigne, who lived in the sixteenth century and whose essays people generally read with pleasure when they are middle-aged or older; and Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island. Many of his essays are especially beautiful; read "The Lantern-Bearers" when you have an opportunity.
Essays, and books, often contain what is called criticism. Criticism is an explanation, an appreciation, sometimes an analysis, of what has been written in poetry, verse, fiction, history, biography, and other published work; criticism deals as well with art and music.
But we can understand better what criticism is if we read one or two extracts which have been written by critics. Two of Lamb's friends, Coleridge and Hazlitt, were famous critics. Lamb himself was one of the most discerning among English critics. He did not always care for work which was really great, but when he did care for a great piece of work, no one had more perfect understanding than Charles Lamb.
What follows is part of a paragraph written by Coleridge, a poet, of Shakespeare and Milton. We feel an enthusiasm in what Coleridge has written which makes our own hearts glow. This feeling of elevation and happiness, given to us through reading, is one of the tests of great work.
"What then shall we say? even this; that Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration, possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power, by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human character and passion...; the other attracts all forms and things to himself, into the unity of his own ideal. All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton; while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining himself." Some of this we can understand. Shakespeare and Milton both had great genius. But Shakespeare understood all kinds of human beings and showed them as they really were. Milton changed what he wrote about to be like himself. What Shakespeare did, of course, is the greater work of the two.
It is pleasant to read what the critic William Hazlitt wrote in praise of the essays of his friend Charles Lamb, not for friendship's sake merely, but because he loved and valued the essays. Notice, while Hazlitt seems to write easily and simply, he succeeds in explaining to us at the same time the charm and lasting quality of Charles Lamb as a writer. It is a fine, brief example of one kind of criticism and of the work of a critic.
"With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the inns and courts of law, the Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings! ... He (Lamb) haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; ... and Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands. The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a bright and endless romance!" The quotation from Coleridge is taken from his Biographia Literaria, and Hazlitt's writing from his book called The Spirit of the Age and Lectures on English poets.
Other famous or eminent critics whose writings you may read some day are: Matthew Arnold, a poet as well as critic, whose father was the Dr. Arnold of Engby School that you have read about in Tom Brown's School Days; a Frenchman, Sainte-Beuve, one of the clearest, and most delightful of critical writers; another Frenchman, H. A. Taine; and a Dane, Georg Brandes, a learned writer, who was one of the first to show how close the connection is between one literature and another, especially in European literatures.
Cowper, the poet, who wrote John Gilpin, is a delightful letter writer. He had a number of pets living with him, and these little friends of his, goldfinches, pigeons, a cat and a kitten, often make their appearance in Cowper's letters to his correspondents. Part of one of his letters contains a description of the kitten.
"I have a kitten, the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin. Her gambols are not to be described, and would be incredible, if they could. In point of size she is likely to be a kitten always, being extremely small of her age, but time, I suppose, that spoils everything, will make her also a cat. You will see her, I hope, before that melancholy period shall arrive, for no wisdom that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will compensate the loss of her present hilarity. She is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know that you will delight in her."
Sometimes Cowper used to write his letters in rhyme. The paragraph that follows will make anyone who reads it feel like dancing:
"I have heard before of a room with a floor laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe, or string, or anything such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penn'd, which that you may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me—W.C."
It is surprising to learn how many books contain interesting letters, letters which are gay, amusing, witty, touching, affectionate, wise, and very skilfully written. Some of the most famous letter writers you will know already from their books. Others are famous wholly on account of their letters. One of the latter is Madam de Sévigné, a charming, gifted Frenchwoman who lived in France as long ago as the seventeenth century. When her daughter married and left home, Madame de Sévigné, who was a devoted mother, used to write gay, fascinating letters to the child she loved. She told of the happenings at court, or intrigues and politics, and of everyday, domestic affairs. In this way, it has come about that although in her lifetime Madame de Sévigné's letters were comparatively little known, all the years since then her reputation for wit, wisdom and charm has been growing, until to-day the Marquise de Sévigné is regarded as one of the most brilliant and perfect letter writers, possibly the most skilful and delightful letter writer that the world knows.
The following is part of one of her letters, translated from the French, which tells of the despair of a cook who could not get sufficient of what he considered proper food to serve to the King and his following, who were the guests of his master.
"I meant to tell you that the King arrived at Chantilly last evening. He hunted the stag by moonlight, the lanterns were very brilliant; and altogether the evening, the supper, the play,—all went off marvellously well.....
"The King arrived on Thursday evening, the promenade, the collation,—served on a lawn carpeted with jonquils—all was perfect. At supper there were a few tables where the roast was wanting, on account of some guests whose arrival had not been expected. This mortified Vatel, who said several times, 'My honour is gone: I can never survive this shame.' He also said to Gourville, 'My head swims. I have not slept for twelve nights. Help me give the orders.' Gourville encouraged him as well as he could.... Gourville told M. le Prince, who went immediately to Vatel's room, and said to him, 'Vatel, everything is going on well. Nothing could be finer than the King's supper.' He replied, 'My lord, your goodness overwhelms me. I know that the roast was missing at two tables.' 'Not at all,' said M. le Prince. 'Don't disturb yourself: everything is going on well.' Midnight came; the fireworks, which cost sixteen thousand francs, did not succeed, on account of the fog. At four o'clock in the morning, Vatel, going through the chateau, found every one asleep. He met a young steward, who had brought only two hampers of fish: he asked, 'Is that all?'—'Yes, Sir.' The lad did not know that Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waited some time; the other purveyors did not arrive: his brain reeled; he believed no more fish could be had: and finding Gourville, he said, 'My dear sir, I shall never survive this disgrace....'"
The names of a number of English letter writers, whose letters most people find delightful, are: Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, Thomas Gray, Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats, Jane Welsh Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, Frances Anne Kemble, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, the Brownings, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
We feel about journals and diaries in much the same way as we do about letters. Such writings admit us to the intimate companionship of those whose words we read. Journals and diaries, indeed, are more intimate than letters. There are a number of remarkable English diarists:—John Evelyn, Fanny Burney, Charles Greville, Benjamin Haydon, Lord Shaftesbury and Thomas Moore, but the most famous of all is Samuel Pepys. Pepys was an official at the Admiralty. He was born in 1632 and died in 1703. During his lifetime, he was a much respected man, a good official, interested to a certain extent in art, music and writing. But he scarcely would be remembered to-day if he had not kept a diary in which he wrote every day for a number of years. He wrote his diary in shorthand, a kind of cipher, and what he wrote filled six volumes. These books are now kept in Magdalene College, Oxford, in the Pepysian Library. They lay unnoticed at Magdalene for more than a hundred years. Then part of the diary was deciphered, written out in longhand, and published in 1825. The complete edition of Pepys, by H. B Wheatley, was not published until 1899. And so the world has come to know Samuel Pepys from his diaries as well as it is possible to know anyone.
When Pepys sat down to write in his diary at night he told all the little things he did, what he thought and how he felt. It does not seem likely that he expected what he had written ever to be read by anyone, but wrote only for the pleasure of going over the day's events. We come so close to Samuel Pepys when we read his diary that he seems almost to be living in the pages that we touch with our fingers.
Pepys was fond of fine foods and wine, and enjoyed giving dinners and entertaining. But sometimes the entry in the diary contains no more than an account of an expedition like the following: ... "took coach, it being about seven at night, and passed and saw the people walking with their wives and children to take the ayre, and we set out for home, the sun by and by going down, and we in the cool of the evening all the way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasing ourselves with the pleasure of this day's work.... Anon it grew dark, and as it grew dark we had the pleasure to see several glow-worms which was mighty pretty." This was on the way home from Epsom Downs, Sunday, July 14, 1667.
One of the most lovable diaries is Sir Walter Scott's Journal. He wrote it, like Pepys, for his own pleasure. In the Journal we may enjoy the companionship of Sir Walter, who is so simple, unaffected and good that old and young will find themselves all equally welcome.
There is one book that should be kept nearby for reference, so that we may use it when we need help with words. This book, as you have guessed, is a dictionary. The use of a dictionary which you will think of first, is for correct spelling. To find out how to spell a word correctly is a good use to which to put a dictionary. But it is by no means the only help that a dictionary can give us. Perhaps you are fond of words, which may be beautiful, amusing, curious, interesting, startling, exquisitely appropriate, and by means of which we are able to express the finest shades of meaning. If you do care for words, then in a little spare time, let us turn to a dictionary; any page of a dictionary will do. Read what is printed on the page concerning four or five English words.
Notice carefully the different meanings for the same word. Above all, read with attention the quotations which illustrate how these words may be used. Standard and classic writers are the most helpful teachers when we wish to learn how to use words. The English tongue is a noble language; it is one of our greatest possessions. To use it correctly, skilfully, and with grace, is something that we can learn. Other books which will help us, besides a well-chosen dictionary of the English language, are dictionaries of synonyms, and such a book as Mr. H. W. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, a recent publication by a scholar whose work is not only learned, but delightfully interesting and helpful because of its keen wit and enthusiasm.
Let us gather in this chapter a few of the most beautiful lines in poetry.
The youngest of the great English poets is John Keats. When he was little more than a boy, early in the nineteenth century, he wrote poetry. One of his poems is called "Ode to a Nightingale". Keats had been listening to the voice of the bird, which sings at night a song considered more beautiful than that of any other bird, and he began to imagine how often the nightingale had sung to people who lived long ago, and how often in far away, beautiful lands. As he thought, he could see these other lands, where people lived in faery palaces, with open windows looking on the sea. Keats' words, which we can read to-day, keep the song of the bird, and the picture of the countries where it sang, in perfect beauty.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Wordsworth, whose poetry at times may seem dull and uninspired, again and again has the power to write lines which have a beauty that is inexplicable.
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
. . . . .
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
. . . . .
Hence, in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
These lines are taken from Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality". In another poem he describes a great mountain, Mont Blanc, which is snow-capped, so high that the sun when it rises shines on the mountain's summit long before the sun's rays reach the country below. One line of seven words tells us how at night the mountain peak seems to be in the company of the moving stars:—
"Visited all night by troops of stars."
Shakespeare has many of these magic lines, but one which seems to have come from nowhere, and for which Shakespeare offers no explanation is:
"Child Rowland to the dark tower came."
We ask ourselves who Child Rowland was, and where was the dark tower. Then, perhaps, we begin to weave a story about Child Rowland and the tower, for poetry often stirs in us something which makes us think and feel more intensely, and awakens in us the desire to create beauty ourselves.
It was Thomas Nash, a poet living at the same time as Shakespeare, who wrote in his poem "In Time of Pestilence", lines which many other poets agree are among the most enthralling and beautiful ever written,—
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye;
George Meredith, the novelist, who also was a poet, in his "Love in the Valley" has magical lines.
Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
Robert Louis Stevenson told the Irish poet, Mr. Yeats, that when he first read "Love in the Valley" he went about the country where he was shouting the lines for joy in them.
And so we finally understand that this power of creating strange beauty which stirs and thrills us all may come to any poet, sometimes to great poets, sometimes to poets not so great. Shakespeare and Nash had it, Keats and Wordsworth, Meredith who belongs almost to our own times, and a young poet of a later time even than Meredith, James Elroy Flecker, in whose play Hassan, are many beautiful songs. The last song is "The Golden Road to Samarkand".
We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men are born: but surely we are brave,
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
. . . . . . . .
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
Coleridge, the Samuel Taylor Coleridge who was Charles Lamb's friend, wrote a story, a ballad, following the fashion of the old ballads, which he called "The Ancient Mariner". You probably know this poem already. But if you do not, find time to read it; or, possibly, someone may read parts of it to you. "The Ancient Mariner" is a story of the sea, of wanderings, of shipwreck, of strange sights, of learning that we must love every thing, not only men and women, but birds and beasts, and then of the glad returning to the place which was the sailor's home:
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
. . . . . . . .
The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—
. . . . . . . .
O dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
No matter how familiar such lines may become, we should never forget to realize their beauty.
Ben Jonson, who lived in the seventeenth century, wrote, with other poems, a lyric, wise as well as beautiful, in which we may find life-long companionship.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.
No one can change these lines and express the same idea as perfectly as Jonson has given it to us. For great poetry has some magic power by which it conveys to us truth and beauty which we are not able to discover for ourselves.
It is good to know the names of the great English poets and the order of time in which they come; we may write out such a list for ourselves if we hope to enjoy poetry. Many of you will find no difficulty in learning by heart the names of the poets, or in remembering the centuries to which they belong. The question mark after the first date in the case of Chaucer and Spenser means that there is no exact record of the year in which either of these poets was born.