Crown 8vo. 6s. THE VICTORIAN AGE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE VOL. I CONTENTS The State of Literature at the Queen's Accession, and of those whose work was already done-Men who had made their name, especially John Gibson Lockhart, Walter Savage Landor, Leigh Hunt— Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, and other Essayists and Critics-Macaulay and the other Historians and Biographers in the early part of the reign-The Greater Poets-Dickens, Thackeray, and the older Novelists-Index. LONDON: PERCIVAL AND CO. PREFACE It is always somewhat rash to attempt to determine the final place in literature of contemporary writers. There is nothing in which the generations make greater mistakes. Looking back upon the past age the reader smiles if he sometimes shudders to see Davenant or Congreve placed above Shakespeare, the age of Anne regarding as barbarous the age of Elizabeth, and in nearer days Southey placed on an equal rank with Byron or with Wordsworth. Posterity, we cannot doubt, will displace some of our greater and lesser lights in the same way; but we must accept the disabilities of contemporary judgment along with its advantages, and with the certainty that what is written here is for the reader of to-day, and not for that eventual judge whose verdict will ultimately prevail, let us say what we will. In a record of so large and widely spreading a literature as our own it is inevitable that some names must be left out or too lightly mentioned. The present writers have endeavoured as far as possible to include all; but for any unintentional shortcomings in this respect must throw themselves upon the charity of the gentle and courteous reader. Since these lines were written, we, and we may say all the English-speaking portions of the world, have sustained a loss greater than has been felt since Scott fell, like a great tower, changing the very perspective and proportions of the national landscape. Lord Tennyson has departed from among us full of years and honours: so long ours that we dared not wish to detain him, yet so much a part of all the noblest thoughts and hopes which he has inspired, in patriotism, in religion, in song, that it seemed almost impossible he should die. He has gone in a noble tranquillity and faith which is one of the greatest lessons he has ever given to the country he so much loved: and his death puts back this record almost as by the end of the epoch which it treats. Other names less important have also vanished from the lists of living men between the writing and the printing of these annals. The reader will understand that this makes no difference to the estimate and criticism undertaken here. |