_Forces at Work._--Note the influence of German thought, the effects of the French Revolution and of the War between England and France, _1793-1815_. Also the attitude of the English liberals to the French Republic and the difference between the older revolutionary poets such as Wordsworth and the younger such as Shelley. Equally important are the effects of the industrial revolution, the congregation of people in towns and the growing demand for political and social measures ending in the Reform Bill. Note also the War of _1812_, and the emergence of American literature proper. _Literary Features._--Literature is marked by a remarkable activity and success in all forms except the drama. Here nothing better could be done than low comedy, and the unsuccessful poetic tragedy of Byron and others. Poetry is exceedingly fertile. The return to Nature heralded in the previous age, and the new interest in the Middle Ages, comes to full fruition, while the growing philosophical spirit demands more than a mere metrical facility and sympathetic observation. All nature is the field, and the meaning thereof the quest. No new metrical forms are in vogue, but the new verse is marked by a wider range of subject, a freshness of treatment, and a simplicity of style. In the novel we have the full development of the historical and domestic types, and the introduction of the hybrid “society” novel. A tremendous advance takes place in the critical and miscellaneous essay. The vogue of these and of the political essay is seen in the number of new magazines and newspapers. Prose tends towards the middle style, but all kinds are represented from plain Cobbett to fervid De Quincey. Letter writers, literary biography and satire hold minor positions, but by no means negligible ones, while history and other forms of research are well represented. (_a_) AMERICAN LITERATURE. _1._ POETRY.--Bryant. Paulding. Dana, _Snr._ Woodworth. _2._ THE DRAMA.--Barker. Payne. _3._ THE NOVEL.--Brackenridge. Brown. Cooper. Irving. Paulding. _4._ THE ESSAY.--Channing. Dennie. Wirt. Paulding. Dana, _Snr._ _5._ HUMOR.--Irving and the beginnings of short humorous sketch. _6._ POLITICIANS AND ORATORS.--Calhoun. Randolph. Clay. Webster. _7._ PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.--Hopkins. T. Dwight. A. Norton. _8._ HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.--Irving. (_b_) ENGLISH LITERATURE. _1._ POETRY.--(_a_) _Wordsworth Group--Poetry of Man and Nature_: Wordsworth. Coleridge. Bowles. Crabbe. Bloomfield. Clare. Elliott, (_b_) _Scott Group--Ballad and Song_: Scott. Leyden. Hogg. Cunningham. Tannahill. Motherwell. Campbell. Moore. Rogers. Southey. Hemans. (_c_) _Religious Poets_: Montgomery. Heber. Milman. K. White, (_d_) _Shelley and the younger Revolutionaries_: Shelley. Byron. Keats. Tennant. Horace Smith. Beddoes. Wells. Wade. Darley. Proctor. Landor.