Shandy, and the Sentimental Journey - Goldsmith - Chinese Let- David Hume As Historian As Moralist and Metaphysician Attacks on Revealed Religion William Robertson Defects of the "Classicist" Historians - Edward Gibbon The Decline and cals: the Newspaper, the Magazine, and the Review The Quar- - Literature in the Colonies imitative - Relation of American to Eng- lish Literature - Gradual Advancement of the United States in Letters Their first Development theological · Writers in this liam E. Channing Writings of the Clergy-Newspapers and School Books- Domestic Literature - Female Writers - Oratory- Revolutionary Eloquence - American Orators - Alexander Hamil- Daniel Webster and others - Edward Everett - American History and Historians Jared Sparks - David Ramsay Belles Lettres - Influence of British Essayists - Franklin - Dennie - Signs of Literary Improvement - Jonathan Oldstyle Washing- ton Irving His Knickerbocker Sketch-Book- His other Works - Popularity — Tour on the Prairies Character as an Author- Dana Wilde - Hudson - Griswold - Lowell - Whipple - Tick- morous Writers - Belles Lettres - Tudor - Wirt - Sands - Fay - Walsh Mitchell Kimball - American Travellers their Success as Writers Fiction Charles Brockden Brown His Novels James Fenimore Cooper- His Novels Their Po- pularity and Characteristics - Nathaniel Hawthorne - His Works · Cliffton Allston, and others Pierpont — Dana Sprague - Percival - Halleck - Drake - Hoffman Willis - Longfellow-Holmes - Lowell - Boker - Favorite Single Poems Descriptive Poetry Street - Whittier, and others Brainard-Song-Writers - Other Poets Female Poets - Bryant 468 OUTLINES OF GENERAL LITERATURE. CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Britons Their Oriental Origin-Cæsar's Invasion, B.c. 60-Traces of the Celtic Speech in English-Analysis of English-Saxon Tongue-Disuse of Saxon Inflections-The English Th-The English W-PronunciationLatin Element--Origin of English Language-Norman Conquest-William - Monasteries-Twelfth Century-Saxon Chronicle-Norman FrenchLayamon-Thirteenth Century-Robert of Gloucester-Neologism-Fourteenth Century-Mannyng-Wickliffe and Chaucer-Gower-Hermit of Hampole-Pleadings in English-Trevisa, Translation of Higden-Mandeville-Fifteenth Century-Lydgate-Statutes in English-Sixteenth Century - Reformation - Cheke-Skelton- Surrey and Wyatt- BernersAscham-Spenser-Chaucerism-Euphuism-Seventeenth Century-Protectorate-Gallicism - Restoration-Eighteenth Century-Proportion of Saxon in English. THE most ancient inhabitants of the British islands were the Celts, Cymry, or Britons, as they are variously styled. That these rude and savage tribes were offshoots from the mighty race whose roots have struck so deep into the soil of most countries of Western and Southern Europe, there can be no doubt. Antiquaries may be undecided as to the origin of this venerable family of mankind, or as to the period at which it first migrated into Europe; but it is impossible not to believe that it formed one of the primary divisions of the human race; and there is very strong probability, from many noteworthy circumstances, that it originally came from the eastern regions of the globe. In their mysterious and venerable system of theistic philosophy there are to be found so many points of resemblance with various recondite doctrines which we know to have been current from the remotest ages in the interior of India, that it is very difficult to believe such resemblances to be entirely accidental; particularly when (25) |