A SCHEDULE OF THE GENERAL TOPICS DISCUSSED UNDER Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Bacon, John Milton, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Alfred Tennyson: PORTRAITS. PERSONAL APPEARANCE. COMMENTS. TOPICAL STUDY OF LIFE. HOMES. FRIENDS. PERSONAL CHARACTER. WORKS. STUDIES OF CHIEF WRITINGS. CHARACTERISTICS AS A WRITER. LITERARY STYLE. BOOKS OF REFERENCE. INTRODUCTION. BEFORE entering on the historical outlines of modern literature and civilization, it is well to note five universal features of European history which were primary and powerful elements in their origin and early growth. I. Rise of Modern Nations.-Europe was the scene of disorder and confusion long before the dissolution of the Roman Empire: Goths and Huns had invaded Italy, and various Teutonic tribes were pressing into Gaul, Spain, and the island of Britain. But with the fall of Rome, 476 A.D., the last traces of political organization vanished. General convulsions followed; barbarian kingdoms were founded and overthrown-whole tribes were on the march. Out of this ferment sprang modern nations. The chief factor in their formation was Germanic. Ancient civilization included only Græco-Latins; now three other races -Celts, Teutons or Germans, and Sclavonians—became historical. Germanic tribes, chiefly Goths, Franks, Lombards, Angles, and Saxons, overspread Europe, and incorporating with the Latin and Celtic inhabitants of the various countries formed composite nations which became gradually developed and defined into Spanish, French, Italian, and English. Thus, of the great historical European nations the Germanic alone are elemental. Their individuality is so distinct that, in analyzing modern civilization, that which is Germanic is easily distinguished from what is Latin, Celtic, or Sclavonic. The Russians are also of unmixed stock-Sclavonian; but they do not act an important part in history till comparatively recent times. II. Formation of Modern Languages and Literatures.— It is well known that the establishment of new nations on |