IX.

+Miscellaneous Lyrics.+

Study selections from the poems of Burns, Ramsay, and Fergusson; Whittier, Bryant, and Longfellow; William Blake; Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne; and others, both British and American.

Refer to the manuals elsewhere mentioned.

Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.

Discuss the distinctive qualities of Lyric Poetry, and the place which it occupies in English Literature.

SCHEME VIII.

+For the Study of Descriptive Poetry, Etc.+

LITERATURE.

Study selections from the poems of William Cullen Bryant.

Study Whittier’s _Snow-Bound_, and other descriptive poems.

Study Milton’s _L’Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_.

Study selections from Thomson’s _Seasons_, and Cowper’s _Task_.

Study Goldsmith’s _Traveller_, and _The Deserted Village_; also, Shenstone’s _Schoolmistress_.

Find and read characteristic descriptive passages in the poems of Scott, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, and others. Compare Scott’s descriptions with the descriptions in Pope’s _Windsor Forest_ and in Denham’s _Cooper’s Hill_.

Select and study descriptive passages from Chaucer’s Poems, and from Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_.

Read selections from Gay’s _Rural Sports_, and from Bloomfield’s _Farmer’s Boy_.

PARALLEL STUDIES.

See Godwin’s _Life of William Cullen Bryant_; and Underwood’s biography of John G. Whittier. See Stopford Brooke’s _Milton_; and Mark Pattison’s _Milton_, in “English Men of Letters;” Irving’s _Life of Goldsmith_; Thackeray’s _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_; William Black’s _Goldsmith_, in “English Men of Letters;” Hazlitt’s _English Poets_; and De Quincey’s _Literature of the Eighteenth Century_.

Read Macaulay’s Essay on _Moore’s Life of Byron_.

Refer to Goldwin Smith’s _Cowper_, in “English Men of Letters;” also to Charles Cowden Clarke’s _Life of Cowper_.

See references to Chaucer and Spenser elsewhere given.

+Pastoral Poetry.+

Study Milton’s _Arcades_, and selections from Pope’s _Pastorals_; also from Spenser’s _Shepherd’s Calendar_.

See Drayton’s _Shepherd’s Garland_; Browne’s _Britannia’s Pastorals_; Jonson’s _Sad Shepherd_; Fletcher’s _Faithful Shepherdess_; Gay’s _Shepherd’s Week_; Ramsay’s _Gentle Shepherd_; and Shenstone’s _Pastoral Ballads_.

Read Pope’s _Essay on Pastoral Poetry_.

Learn something about Theocritus and his _Idyls_, and about the _Eclogues_ of Virgil. A translation of the former may be found in Bohn’s Classical Library. The latest translation of the _Eclogues_ is that by Wilstach.

SCHEME IX.

+For the Study of Satire, Wit, and Humor.+

LITERATURE.

DEAN SWIFT, the great English satirist. Study his life and character. See Forster’s _Life of Swift_; or Leslie Stephen’s _Swift_, in “English Men of Letters.”

Read selections from _Gulliver’s Travels_, and the _Tale of a Tub_. Read, also, his _Modest Proposal_.

DANIEL DEFOE’S Satirical Essays: _The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, etc.

See Minto’s _Defoe_, in “English Men of Letters.”

PARALLEL STUDIES.

RABELAIS, the great satirist of France. Read Besant’s _French Humorists_; and _Rabelais_, by the same author. Refer also to Van Laun’s _History of French Literature_.

VOLTAIRE, the third of the great modern satirists. Read Parton’s _Life of Voltaire_; or _Voltaire_, by John Morley; or Colonel Hamley’s _Voltaire_, in “Foreign Classics for English Readers.”

The origin and growth of satirical literature in England.

JOHN SKELTON’S _Satires_. See Warton’s _History of English Poetry_, and Taine’s _English Literature_.

BARCLAY’S _Shyp of Fooles_. See Warton’s _History_.

The Satires of Surrey and Wyatt. See Hallam’s _Literary History_, and Chalmers’ _Collection of the Poets_.

GASCOIGNE’S _The Steele Glass_.

DONNE’S _Satires_. See Pope’s _The Satires of Dr. Donne Versified_.

HALL’S _Virgidemiarum_. See Warton’s _History_, and Campbell’s _Specimens of the English Poets_.

Study selected passages from Butler’s _Hudibras_.

Refer to Hazlitt’s _Comic Writers_, and Leigh Hunt’s _Wit and Wisdom_.

DRYDEN’S _Absalom and Achitophel_, and the publications which followed it.

Satirical literature in Rome.

The great poetical satirists of ancient times,—Horace and Juvenal. See Lord Lytton’s translation of the _Epodes and Satires of Horace_; and Dryden’s _Imitations of Juvenal_. Dr. Johnson’s _London_ and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ are also imitations of Juvenal. See Dryden’s _Essay on Satire_.

To understand the satires of Hall, Butler, Dryden, and Pope, it is absolutely necessary to be well acquainted with the history and social condition of England during the seventeenth century.

Study Green’s _History of the English People_.

Study the political agitations in England just preceding the Revolution of 1688.

DRYDEN’S _MacFlecknoe_.

POPE’S _Dunciad_.

BYRON’S _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.

LOWELL’S _Fable for Critics_.

Compare these four personal satires, and write essays on the subjects suggested by their study.

POPE’S _Moral Essays_.

SWIFT’S Satirical Poems.

The humor of Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith, as exhibited in their writings.

CHATTERTON’S _Prophecy_.

Read Burns’ _Holy Willie’s Prayer_, and the _Holy Fair_.

Read Thackeray’s _Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_, and Hazlitt’s _Comic Writers_.

Study the social condition of England in the eighteenth century.

SYDNEY SMITH. See the _Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith_ (1861).

_The Fudge Family in Paris_, by Thomas Moore.

The Humorous Essays of Charles Lamb.

THOMAS CARLYLE’S _Sartor Resartus_, and _Latter-Day Pamphlets_. Study selections.

Study the political agitations in England during the first half of the present century. Refer to _Knight’s History of England_, and to Justin McCarthy’s _History of Our Own Times_. Miss Martineau’s _History of the Thirty Years’ Peace_ may be read with profit.

Write essays on subjects suggested by these studies.

THACKERAY as a humorist. Read his _Irish Sketch-Book_, and selections from the _Book of Snobs_, but especially observe his power in _Vanity Fair_.

Read and study Dr. Holmes’ _Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_.

Study the true distinctions between Wit, Humor, and Satire; and select from what you have read a number of illustrative examples.

Discuss questions which may arise from these studies; and write essays on the same.

Read Lowell’s _Biglow Papers_.

Read selections from Mark Twain and other living American humorists.

Compare the humor of the present day with that of the last generation. Read selections from Irving’s _Sketch Book_, and _Knickerbocker’s New York_.

Read Burns’ _Tam O’Shanter_; and selections from Hood, John G. Saxe, and others.

Study the biographies of Irving, Lowell, Holmes, Mark Twain, Saxe, and other American authors whose works have been noticed in this scheme.

SCHEME X.

+For the Study of English Prose Fiction.+

+General Works of Reference.+

LITERATURE.

DUNLOP’S _History of Fiction_.

JEAFFRESON’S _Novels and Novelists_.

MASSON’S _British Novelists and their Styles_.

TUCKERMAN’S _History of English Prose Fiction_.

PARALLEL STUDIES.

The historical works and also the literary manuals mentioned in Scheme IV. should be at hand for constant reference.