The two following essays are separate studies joined by a common source. The unpublished Tennyson poems, Hail, Briton! and Tithon, are taken from the Heath MS. at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

John Moore Heath was a college friend of Tennyson, a member, like him, of the Cambridge Apostles group. During the years of his closest friendship with Tennyson, 1883–35, Heath was an assistant tutor of Trinity College. The two men met there and corresponded often; at the same time they were both associated with other members of the old Cambridge group. Like most of these literati of the 1830's, Heath kept a Commonplace Book in which he laboriously and faithfully copied out the work of his friends, Arthur Hallam, Richard Trench, William Donne, Frederick, Septimus, Edward, and Alfred Tennyson. The flyleaf of his MS book Heath inscribed with the date September 24, 1832, clearly the } time at which he began to record the poetry. The Tennyson entries, however, he certainly made later, most of them in 1833, probably all within the limit 1835.

In the study of American culture one of the most significant figures to examine may well be the American popular novelist—the writer who appeals to the trade instead of the class market. He is also one of the most neglected. In spite of the approval with which he is read by the public, he is usually either castigated or dismissed by the strictly literary critic. And with justice, from the point of view of belles-lettres. Yet when this novelist has been dead long enough he is apt to emerge even in the learned journals. The scholar of the future may then leaf through an annotated article on “Primitivism in a Forgotten ‘Western’ Writer, Zane Grey” or “Theological Patterns in the Fiction of Lloyd Douglas.” The place of the popular novelist, the people's novelist if you will, in the study of American culture over and above literary history is also apt to become officially more important with the passage of time. The longer such a novelist has been dead, the better it seems is his claim to attention in, for example, courses in American civilization.

The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that the truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects to the world about them; secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind us down to a single flat surface. … People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be “consistent.” But a great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because they are partial views of a truth, and many often look unlike at first, as a front view of a face and its profile often do.

—Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast-Table

The rose-diamond cut of Milton's thought often disconcerts his reader, but perhaps nowhere so completely as in his views on learning. After the high enthusiasm for unrestricted inquiry, after all the “intent study” which he took as his own “portion in life”, in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, the ripe products of his learning, he gives to Raphael, Michael, and Jesus speeches that seem a wholesale repudiation of studies of all sorts. The three passages are too well known to quote. In the first (P.L., viii, 66–178)1 Raphael disparages Adam's inquiries about astronomy, but answers them, and then comments, “Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid.” In the second (P.L., XII, 575–587) Michael commends Adam for the inference he has drawn from his preview of universal history (that “to obey is best, / And love with fear the only God”), and admonishes him, “This having learnt, thou hast attain'd the sum / Of wisdom; hope no higher.” In the third (P.R., iv, 286–364) Jesus spurns Satan's offer of Greek learning, with an analysis of the defects of Greek philosophy and literature and a thrust at learning in general: “Many books / Wise men have said are wearisome.”

Students of Faust have known for many years that Goethe was influenced by Swedenborg when he wrote that tragedy. They have differed only as to the extent and degree of this influence. The list of earlier investigators is too long to thank them individually and, at the same time, to point out why it is necessary once more to scrutinize this influence as far as the last scene of Faust is concerned. In general, it may be said that they have concentrated their investigations mainly on the way the “spirit-seer” of the eighteenth century influenced the spirits in our scene as to appearance, speech, food, abodes, and other incidentals. Since they all started their investigation with the generally accepted assumption that Faust had “saved” himself through his last earthly endeavors in behalf of his fellow-men, they saw no reason to check the way Goethe depicts his salvation against Swedenborg's doctrine of redemption. This investigation starts from the opposite assumption, viz. that the hero at the end of his terrestial journey has reached the lowest and most tragic moment of his life (see my “Julirevolution, St. Simonismus und die Faustpartien von 1831, ”Zeitschrift fuer deutsche Philologie, vol. 60).

From the number of articles on Dante and the frequency of American printings of the Divine Comedy in translation, it appears that even before 1850 Dante had a larger American public than might be supposed. At the mid-century Emerson remarked in his comments on Margaret Fuller's interest in Dante: “An edition of Cary's translation, reprinted in Boston, many years ago, was rapidly sold; and, for the last twenty years, all studious youths and maidens have been reading the Inferno.” Melville was one of these studious readers. He purchased a copy of Cary in 1848, and in works after this date made frequent reference to “that infernalest of infernos, The Inferno”, especially in Pierre. The hero of the novel is a devoted reader of Dante—“you always loved Dante”, says Millthorpe to Pierre (p. 441)—and about one half of it, Books ii to ix, pivots on references to the Inferno, which in a powerfully symbolical manner underscore the pervasive tragic gloom and develop on an emotive level the hero's reactions to the existence of evil. Relying on some knowledge of the Inferno on the reader's part, Melville adopts the technique of literary allusion and quotation functioning in place of formal exposition, the literary reference itself becoming contextually an expository symbol of the hero's internal states and of the ubiquity and universality of evil. Melville adopts this technique in other works, but never so extensively as in Pierre, nor so effectively at crucial moments in the development of character and theme.

Just three centuries ago, in January, 1649, thirteen days before the execution of King Charles, his Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, the Marquis of Ormond, proclaimed a peace with the Catholic Confederacy of Kilkenny which seemed to promise ultimate virtual independence for the Irish, subject only to a tenuous loyalty to the English crown. The promise was fallacious, for both Ormond and Charles were bargaining for Irish support with pledges that they hoped never to have to keep. At the height of the Irish negotiations, in November, 1648, Charles had professed to the commissioners of Parliament that he disapproved of Ormond's work, and had even offered to “publish such a declaration against his power and proceedings” as Parliament might desire.1 But the treaty was ratified and when Ormond proclaimed Charles II in Ireland, its terms became a matter of practical politics, if not as the immediate basis of a working constitution for a free kingdom, then at least as incentives for the Kilkenny Confederates to put their forces into the field for Charles in Ireland, and perhaps ultimately in England also. One of Parliament's first measures of defense was to order Milton to prepare them and three other highly relevant documents for publication in the form of the pamphlet that was printed by Matthew Simmons in Alders-gate Street and published on or before 16 May 1649, under the title: Articles of Peace, made and concluded with the Irish Rebels, and Papists, by James Earle of Ormond, for and in behalfe of the late King, and by vertue of his autoritie. Also a Letter sent by Ormond to Col. Jones, Governour of Dublin, with his Answer thereunto. And A Representation of the Scotch Presbytery at Belfast in Ireland. Upon all which are added Observations. Publisht by Autority.

Persönlichkeiten der Geschichte mit einander zu vergleichen, könnte als ein schon methodologisch verfehltes Unterfangen bezeichnet werden, da ja jede geschichtliche Erscheinung als Individuum ein Einmaliges und Besonderes darstellt. Und doch schließt der Begriff Individuum Verwandtschaft oder Gleichgerichtetheit in Wesentlichem und Unwesentlichem nicht aus. Eine Vergleichung kann daher als gegenseitige Aufhellung oder auch Beleuchtung des einem aus dem andern neue Gesichtspunkte der Charakteristik aufzeigen, vorausgesetzt, daß zur Vergleichung ein gemeinsamer psychologischer oder geistiger Grund und Boden vorhanden ist. In diesem Sinne mag der nachfolgende Versuch aufgefaßt werden. Wenn dabei in unserer Fragestellung der Name Keller dem Goethes vorangeht, so wird damit natürlich nicht eine Wertordnung ausgedrückt, sondern eine Messung des späteren Dichters an dem sozusagen absoluten Maßstab des früheren.

When the Cid appeared on the boards of the Marais, it was a success both universal and instantaneous—a success beyond anything its author had dreamed of. Day after day the theater was crowded with the best people of the Court and the city. We are told that receipts of the play were greater than that of ten of the best plays of other leading dramatists. Pellisson in his Histoire de l'Académie Française published sixteen years later tells us:

Il est malaisé de s'imaginer avec quelle approbation cette pièce fut reçue de la Cour et du public. On ne se pouvoit lasser de la voir, on n'entendoit autre chose dans les compagnies, chacun en savoit quelque partie par cceur, on la faisoit apprendre aux enfants, et, en plusieurs endroits de la France, il étoit passé en proverbe de dire: Cela est beau comme le Cid.

In his preface to The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton acknowledges the wide diversity of taste in a reading audience and suggests that there are those who desire “a fine frontispiece, enticing pictures.” In the third edition of 1628, there appeared a frontispiece engraved by one Christian Le Blon, little known except for his contribution to the Anatomy. Le Blon's work was probably directed by Burton, for the engravings suggest a detailed knowledge of Burton's text and of the relationship which certain birds, beasts, herbs, and planets bore to the very prevalent disease of melancholy. The frontispiece contains ten “enticing pictures”, and centered within their rectangular mass is the title-page of the two earlier editions; the only significant change in the title-page is in motto—from Macrobius's Omne meum, Nihil meum to Horace's Omne tulit punclum, qui miscuit utile dulci. Burton finds the latter more complimentary to his life's work; he asserts at the beginning of the third partition that his “earnest intent is as much to profit as to please.”

Already at an early stage in his life, when the Urfaust was being conceived, did Goethe sense the dynamic essence of the universe. He was deeply aware of the fact that the whole of existence, both in its physical and spiritual manifestations, is in a constant state of flux, with conflicting forces acting upon each other, eventually weaving themselves into a harmonious whole. This vast dynamic urge extends far beyond the biological into the very essence of the entire physical universe to the point where even matter itself is energy. His conviction became strengthened when he later took up the study of the natural sciences, and it played a most basic rôle in his view of life as an old man. Out of this idea of existence as ceaseless activity, which found varied poetic expression in his works, emerged a second concept equally important to an understanding of his philosophy: the concept of the polarity of conflicting antagonistic forces in nature, the name for which he took from the polarity of magnetism. Having accepted the fact that the nature of matter is force, he advanced to the idea that this force never expresses itself in a single phenomenon, but in two diagrammatically opposed entities or forces. Proceeding from the same point of departure they divide, repulse each other, finally to attract and unite again.

Johann Khuen, der Unbekannte, der vergessenste der Barockdichter, ist Bayer durch und durch. Jakob Balde, sein Freund und Stadtgenosse, war geborener Elsäßer, und von dem derben und ein wenig unflätigen Humor der al ten südwestdeutschen Dichtung ist in ihm manches noch vorhanden, dem drastischen Witz, der tolldreisten Übertreibung der Sebastian Brandt, Thomas Murner und Johann Fischart. Nicht so Khuen. Sein Humor ist so bayrisch wie seine Herkunft aus der Nähe von München. Es ist etwas Naives und Ungeschlachtes in ihm, eine fröhliche Derbheit, eine Lust an saftigen Wendungen, bei tiefer und echter, durchaus katholischer Religiosität, wie sie noch heute den Bayern auszeichnet.

There are dissenters, but scholarly opinion now generally agrees that The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster is a “Bad Quarto”, a reportorial version of Henry VI, Part 2. Most authorities likewise agree that The Contention is a memorial reproduction rather than a product of stenography. But on the question of who did the reporting, whose memory is behind the Q., there is little agreement. Peter Alexander, who devoted most attention to the problem of the reporter's identity, suggests that the pirates were two principal actors, one of whom played the part of Warwick while the other doubled as Suffolk and Clifford. Alfred Hart believes, however, that “the evidence for Suffolk and Warwick as the reporter of Contention is rather weak”, and C. A. Greer, while doubting that the play is a Bad Quarto, argues that these two actors could not have been the reporters because of the “stupidity” evidenced in their rôles. Chambers tentatively proposes the person who played the Citizen in iv, v, but prefers the theory that the bookkeeper was responsible for the reporting.1 It is the purpose of this paper to ascertain what data are available for determining the identity of the reporter, examine the claims of candidates in the field, and suggest another possibility.

The verse-epistle comprising all but a few sentences of the letter which Keats wrote to John Hamilton Reynolds on March 25, 1818, is a mixture of half-morbid jocularity and half-cynical seriousness. In lines 67–85 Keats tries to explain his strange mood by declaring that he feels the obligation to “philosophize” in poetry, does not yet “dare” to do so, fears that he never will be able to do so, and does not really wish to do so because “It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.” This conflict between “sensation” and “thought” is an old story to students of Keats. It has never been sufficiently emphasized, however, that in the concluding verse-paragraph what really “spoils the singing of the Nightingale” turns out to be not moral philosophy, but natural philosophy of so pessimistic a kind that it forbids any hope of harmonizing the sensuous love of beauty with a helpfully benevolistic view of the universe.

Everyone knows that “The Prelude in the Theatre” belongs to Faust; that it has introduced the so-called First Part of the tragedy ever since the earliest publication of the great play in 1808; that nowhere in Goethe's written or oral statements can the slightest indication be detected from which we may infer that this prelude had not been from the very beginning in the very spot where it is found today? All this is unquestionably true; and yet, without any claim to final conclusiveness, I should like to consider the possibility whether or not, within the organic structure of Goethe's works, the Prelude in the Theatre may have grown on a branch which was not the one that produced Faust.