Such are some of the principles by which we should test and judge all works of dramatic art, whether plays on the stage or novels. We need not, however, in all cases wholly condemn a book professing to be a novel which falls short by this criterion: it may be good as an essay or a history or a treatise, and its author may have mistaken its character in calling it a novel. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: We should not overlook the important part the pulpit has had in the development of English literature.] CHAPTER IV. _LANDMARKS IN MODERN LITERATURE._ Most people read in such a desultory way that they never know whether they are really familiar with standard literature or not. All the books of one author are read because they are liked; and none of the books of another are known because the reader never managed to get interested, or never happened to have his or her attention called to that author’s books. A very simple working system is needed, with landmarks, as it were, set up here and there to guide the choice of books at all times and make it intelligent and just. SHAKSPERE--1600. English literature practically begins with Shakspere, who did his best work about 1600 A. D., three hundred years ago. Two important poets come before him--Spenser, who was still living when he began to be known as a successful dramatist, and Chaucer, who was a contemporary of Boccaccio and the first noteworthy writer in the then new English tongue, that tongue in which Norman-French had mingled with Anglo-Saxon in the common patois of the people, though pure French and Latin remained the languages of the court and of scholarship. The language in which Chaucer wrote is now so antiquated that it is not easy for the ordinary person to read it. His “Canterbury Tales” are pleasant and cheerful, for he was an eminently sane man; but what he wrote has been often rewritten since his time till we are quite familiar with most of his stories and ideas through other channels.