English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History: Designed as a Manual of InstructionCoppée, Henry
History
English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History: Designed as a Manual of Instruction
Coppée, Henry
English literature -- History and criticism
Alfred Tennyson--Early Works--The Princess--Idyls of the
King--Elizabeth B. Browning--Aurora Leigh--Her Faults--Robert
Browning--Other Poets 428
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE LATER HISTORIANS.
New Materials--George Grote--History of Greece--Lord Macaulay--History
of England--Its Faults--Thomas Carlyle--Life of Frederick II.--Other
Historians 439
CHAPTER XL.
THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
Bulwer--Changes in Writers--Dickens's Novels--American Notes--His
Varied Powers--Second Visit to America--Thackeray--Vanity Fair--Henry
Esmond--The Newcomes--The Georges--Estimate of his Powers 450
CHAPTER XLI.
THE LATER WRITERS.
Charles Lamb--Thomas Hood--Thomas de Quincey--Other Novelists--Writers
on Science and Philosophy 466
CHAPTER XLII.
ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
Roman News Letters--The Gazette--The Civil War--Later Divisions--The
Reviews--The Monthlies--The Dailies--The London Times--Other Newspapers
475
Alphabetical Index of Authors
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
Literature and Science. English Literature. General Principle. Celts
and Cymry. Roman Conquest. Coming of the Saxons. Danish Invasions. The
Norman Conquest. Changes in Language.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
There are two words in the English language which are now used to express
the two great divisions of mental production--_Science_ and _Literature_;
and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has
been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may
employ them without confusion.
_Science_, from the participle _sciens_, of _scio, scire_, to know, would
seem to comprise all that can be known--what the Latins called the _omne
scibile_, or all-knowable.
_Literature_ is from _litera_, a letter, and probably at one remove from
_lino, litum_, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet
was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can
be conveyed by the use of letters.
But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same
meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing
and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant
the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been
given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.
In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men
search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which
establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral
sciences.
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