We have now traced the course of literature through a period of forty years, distinguished for their fertility and for the variety of the talent displayed in them. In the prominence given to history, in the drift of philosophic speculation, in the prevalence of the novel of purpose, and in the spirit of the later poetry, we see the influence of social problems clamouring for solution. The Age of Tennyson has been essentially an age of reconstruction. It inherited from the preceding generation a gigantic task, which it has earnestly and laboriously striven to accomplish. What measure of success has been won is still doubtful; how long the literary expression of the effort will remain satisfying may be doubtful too. It is said to-day that we no longer read Carlyle; it may be said to-morrow that we no longer read Tennyson or Browning either. But there is substance in the work of all these men, and of all the leaders of the period. If they are no longer read it is because their thought has penetrated the life of the time; and we may be sure that they will revive and have a second vogue when they are old enough to be partly forgotten. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 1831. Disraeli: _The Young Duke_. Ebenezer Elliott: _Corn Law Rhymes_. Peacock: _Crotchet Castle_. Scott: _Count Robert of Paris_. Scott: _Castle Dangerous_. 1832. John Austin: _The Province of Jurisprudence Determined_. E. L. Bulwer (Lord Lytton): _Eugene Aram_. Disraeli: _Contarini Fleming_. Samuel Warren: _The Diary of a Late Physician_. Bentham died. Crabbe died. Scott died. 1833. Robert Browning: _Pauline_. Carlyle: _Sartor Resartus_ (finished 1834). Hartley Coleridge: _Poems_. Disraeli: _The Wondrous Tale of Alroy_. Lamb: _Last Essays of Elia_. Lyell: _Principles of Geology_ (completed). J. H. Newman: _Arians of the Fourth Century_. Newman and others: _Tracts for the Times_ (begun). Tennyson: _Poems_. 1834. E. L. Bulwer (Lord Lytton): _The Last Days of Pompeii_. Landor: _The Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare_. Marryat: _Peter Simple_. Marryat: _Jacob Faithful_. Henry Taylor: _Philip van Artevelde_. S. T. Coleridge died. Charles Lamb died. Malthus died. 1835. Robert Browning: _Paracelsus_. E. L. Bulwer (Lord Lytton): _Rienzi_. Dickens: _Sketches by Boz_ (finished 1836). Thirlwall: _History of Greece_ (finished 1847). Wordsworth: _Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems_. Mrs. Hemans died. James Hogg died. 1836. Dickens: _Pickwick_ (finished 1837). Landor: _Pericles and Aspasia_. Lockhart: _Life of Sir Walter Scott_ (finished 1838). Marryat: _Mr. Midshipman Easy_. Marryat: _Japhet in Search of a Father_. W. Godwin died. James Mill died.