But the novel has in the last generation so overshadowed other forms of literature as to justify its treatment in these closing paragraphs with the same approach to exclusiveness as the drama claimed in the Elizabethan period. It would have been both hopeless and profitless to attempt to enu merate with any fullness of characterization the vast multitude of novelists that the last century has produced, or even the better-known among them—in the earlier period Bulwer and Disraeli and Charles Reade, Anthony Trollope and the Brontes. and the Kingsley brothers; and in more recent times Blackmer° and Mrs. Oliphant and Matlock, and Black and Mrs. Ward and 'Lucas Attila.' and especially Kipling. and a score of others whose names will occur to any reader. But there are three names which may fitly re ceive less summary treatment—not only because two of them stand at least, after long diversified career, unquestionably at the head of their craft. and because the third by a beautiful and inspiring life and an intimate charm of personality revealed in every line of his work has also won a very special place of his own. They are singled out also, in accordancewith the general scheme of this art icle, as typical of the attainment and the outlook in their kind of work. The first and possibly the greatest of them, George Meredith, is in some sense the successor of George Eliot—the successor in development, though, for actual chronology, lie published his first hook before hers appeared. We have already noted her work in the study of social questions and her portrayal of the char acteristic mental temper of her day; it remaitei to call attention, for the connection of thought, to the ethical import of her novels, to her rigor ous insistence on the reign of law in the develop ment of moral character. Meredith, though he works not so much through individuals as through types, though his InotIntd is often elusive. deals mainly with the inevitable working-out and consequence of one or another moral quality. Ilis style is often called obscure, like that of Brown ing, with whom he has many analogies; but his marvelous insight into the springs of human action, his ripe philosophy, and his genial In nor compensate the reader for any effort of attention. , To Meredith, man, his work in the world, his development of himself, is the centre of interest. To an equally great novelist, Thomas Hardy. man is but an insignificant and feeble crea ture, moving helplessly through a world con trolled by gigantic forces, pitiless, implacable— a world conceived in a spirit not unlike that ..Eschylean gloom and awe of the forces of Nature and Fate which we saw to pervade the poetry of the pagan Saxons. Life to him is pure tragedy, relieved only by flashes of a grim irony as bitter as, though more resigned than, Swift's. His attitude expresses one aspect of the temper of the closing nineteenth century, its weariness of the insistent discussion of questions of right and wrong which so occupied its central period. A totally different means of escape, one offered with the light-heartedness of a child who breaks out from tedious lessons to play, is that of Robert Louis Stevenson, the third of the authors chosen to lead to a conclusion. 'Hs style is noteworthy for its deliberate artistic finish and grace, quali ties which he shared with a brilliant contempo rary master of form, Walter Pater. It is probable that his essays, in which he expresses a whole courageous and hopeful philosophy of life, will in the end hold a higher place than his fiction; but for the moment it will be well to direct the attention to the latter. which marks the rounding off of our survey of the nineteenth century with a return to the romanticism that began it, and reminds us once more of one of the chief func tions of all literature, which is to lift us above the sordid atmosphere, the corroding cares of that 'struggle for life' which modern science pre sents to us as our only occupation, into a brighter and more joyous world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. For excellent selections. conBibliography. For excellent selections. con- sult: Craik. English Prose Selections (5 vols.. London, 1893-96) ; Ward. English Poets (4 vols... ib., 1880-83) ; Palgrave, Golden Treasury of Eng lish Songs and Lyrics (ib., 1877; second series, ib., 1897) ; Morris and Skeat, Spe cimens of Early English (Oxford, 1S79) : Skeat, Specimens of English Literature, 1394-1570 (ib., 1871). For general outlines, Ry land, Chronological Outlines of English, Litera ture (London, 1890) ; Ten Brink, History of Eng lish Literature, translated by Kennedy (New York, 1883) ; Jusserand, Literary History of the Emthsh Peopic. to the Renaissance lib.. is95) Cr urthope. History of English Poetry (London, 1895-97) ; Moody and Lovett. History of English Lite rut are (New 11102 ) : Beers. Front Chaucer to 7', nanson lib.. 1S9S ; Ta ine, English translated by Van Laun (lb., 1900) Ki;rting. (bs (icschichtc der englischen Lit tent the best bibliographical treatment (\liinster. 1887) : 11 iilker, Geschichte der engli schen Litteratur (Leipzig, 1896) ; Morley, English from earliest times to dames I. (11 vols., London. 1887-95). For special periods or sub ject.. Earle. A ngio-Saron Literature (ib., 1884)"; Brooke, English Literature to the Norman Con quest (ib., 1898) ; Saintsbury, Elizabethan Lit ( rat lir, (ib..14S7 : Symonds. Shakespeare's Pred ecessors in the English Drama (ib., 1884) ; Ward. History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne (2d ed.. ib., 1899) ; Gosse, Jacobean Poets (ib., 1594) ; id., Seven teenth Century Studies (ib.. 1883) ; Swinburne, Studies in Prose and Poetry lib.. 1894) ; C.osse, From Shakespeare to Pope (Cambridge, 1535) ; Garnett, The Age of Dryden (London, 1895) ; Perry. English Literature in the Eighteenth Cen tury (New York, 18S3) ; Lanier. The English Novel 1897) : Raleigh. The English to rli y i ib, 1894) : Cross. The Development of the English Novel (ib.,1899); Gosse, Eighteenth. Literature I London. 1889) : Beers, Eng lish Romanticism in the Eighteenth. Century (New York. 1899) ; Phelps, The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement (Boston, 1893) ; Mrs. Oliphant. Literary History of England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London. 1883) : Alinte. Lit' rut err of the Georgian Era (ib., 1595) ; Woodberry, linkers of Literature New York, 1900) : SainIsbu•y. Essays in Eng lish Literature 1750-1S60 (London, first series, seeond series. 1895) Dowden, The French Revolution and Enali•h Literature lib., 1S97); A 1110111. Essays in Criticism (5th ed.. ih,. ]SSG) : Bagehot. Literary Studies (ib., 1879) : Beers. English komant ieisin in the Yineteenth Century (New York, 1901) : Saintsbury. Cen tury Liti•ra arc (London. 18911) : Dowden. Studies in. Li terat are. (2d ed.. 1882 ) ; id.. New Studies in Literature ( : Stephen, Hours in a Library (3 vols., ib., 1R7-I 79) : lIntton, Literary Essays (ib.. 1888) Slut irp. Studies in Poetry and Philosophy 18M;): 11 a rrison, Early •ierorian Literal are (ib„ 1g95) irtorian Prose Masters (New York. 1901) ; Saintsbury, Corrected pressions (London. 1895) : Pater. Appreciations l RR!) ) Sarra zin. Po(' tcs modernes de 1'.1 ngb t( eery ( Pa ris. 1885) : Stedman, Victorian ts (Boston. 1881; ) : Bra rules. mrrn(irr der Lit teratur de.c Viten JahrhundertR Berlin. 1900: translated. i., London, 19(11 Soria ideals in English Letters (Bo.ton. I R94 I.