Though mentioned by every compendious grammar, the stylistic figure of litotes has been the subject of few specialized treatments for the individual languages. Of these, two are outstanding longo intervallo: Carl Weyman's learned and apparently exhaustive treatise entitled Studien über die Figur der Litotes, which deals with the phenomenon in Latin literature; and Alfred Hübner's Die mhd. Ironie oder die Litotes im Altdeutschen abounding in subtle and thought-provoking suggestions based on a vast material, but not well organized.

These terms all indicate a monetary unit of uncertain value and obscure origin, but Du Cange is doubtless correct in assuming that the French, Anglo-Saxon, and Latin forms are related. The earliest occurrence of mancus (or mances) in England dates from 848; the Latin mancus is found on the Continent as early as 814. The authorities are agreed that the Anglo-Saxon form came to Britain from the Continent. For me the main point of interest in this discussion is Old French mangon, best known through its first occurrence—in the Chanson de Roland:

Tenez m'espee, meillur nen at nuls horn,
Entre les helz ad plus de mil manguns.

Godefroy defines it as a “sorte de monnaie d'or: il fallait deux besantz pour faireun mangon.” This estimate of value was certainly taken from the fabliau of Guillaume au Faucon:

Dist la dame, “Or avez faucon;
Deux besans va'ent un mangon.”

In the critical writing of the last few decades Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde has been described prevailingly as a psychological novel. Our most influentual interpreters, that is to say, draw our attention primarily to the subtle exhibition of psychology in the personages of the poem, and to the resemblance of the descriptive background to what we ordinarily call real life. By emphasizing these aspects of the Troilus they bring it into association with our modern novel. Representative of this view are such expressions as the following:

“Our first great psychological novel”; “A great psychological novel”; “An elaborate psychological novel”; “The first novel, in the modern sense”; “Its spirit and temper is that of the modern novel”; “A page out of the book of modern everyday life”;6 “[Chaucer's] first and greatest adventure into the world of every day”; “[What Chaucer adds to the Filostralo] is what we roughly call reality…. one has a sense of ordinary life going on”; “Troy is mediaeval London”; “[The Troilus] is not a romance”; “[In the Troilus Chaucer] leaves all romantic convention behind.”

One of the many treasures of the Newberry Library in Chicago is the valuable philological library of Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte. In this large collection is a German translation of Thomas a Kempis's famous devotional work, Imitatio Christi. This volume (Incunabulum 1699) Ein ware nachuolgung Cristi was printed by Anthonius Sorg in Augsburg in 1486, and according to Victor Collins in An Attempt at a Catalogue (London 1894), 478, is the first known German translation. At the end of the book are 66 pages of German manuscript to which the attention of the editors was called by Professor James Taft Hatfield. They are indebted also to Dr. Pierce Butler, formerly of Newberry Library, who has kindly put the manuscript at their disposal for further examination.

A prose text of the Twelve Profits of Tribulation (MS. Royal 17 B xvii) based on the Latin treatise, De Duodecim Utilitatibus Tribulationis ascribed to Peter of Blois, archdeacon of Bath (†ca. 1200), was included by Horstmann in his edition of the works of Richard Rolle. Miss Hope Allen in her study of Rolle's writings has since demonstrated that this treatise is wrongly assigned to him. Horstmann also printed the text of the Twelve Profits from MS. Rawlinson C.894, and listed several other manuscripts containing prose versions of this treatise, in both English and French.

In PMLA for September, 1935, I proposed a new and later date than customary for the flourishing of the author of the Secunda Pastorum in the Towneley cycle of mystery plays. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that the evidence of the costume allusions in his plays and the evidence of local history both pointed to the years 1425–50 as encompassing the years of his major work. At the close of that article I quoted W. W. Greg and Miss Marie C. Lyle as bibliographical authorities, the one as believing that the York Passion Group could “hardly be earlier than 1400” and the other as placing the influence of the Gospel of Nicodemus upon that group as after 1415 when Roger Burton, city clerk of York, set down in the official York Memorandum Book a description of the plays as he knew them at that time. Miss Lyle, it is true, was immediately replied to by Miss Grace Clark and partly dislodged from her position. After reviewing Miss Clark's argument as it bore on the point at issue, however, I concluded that “my case would stand.” I propose now to bring the bibliographical evidence under the review of Burton's two “lists”—the first set down, as I have said, in 1415, and the second a few years later—and also under the review of entries in the York Memorandum Book (Surlees Society,cxx and cxxv).

The collection of poems in MS. Harley 7392 (article 2) has proved to be a unique source for verses by Raleigh, Dyer, the Earl of Oxford, and other lesser poets writing during the period of 1570–90. The most distinguished name among them, however, and the poet with the largest number of poems, is Sir Philip Sidney. Of the thirteen pieces by him, two do not appear elsewhere; and one, though familiar from its appearance in The Phoenix Nest (1593), has not before been attributed to him. These three are reprinted below.

The revised Arcadia has long been recognized as a great treasure-house of sixteenth-century references. Scholars have unearthed from incidental and episodical passages many significant bits of political and social background. Like a mosaic, these pieces are gradually fitted together to complete the work; so that each fragment, no matter how small, fits into its place. Among the scholars eminent in this field are Friedrich Brie, who recognized the importance of knowledge of Elizabethan life generally to an understanding of the Arcadia; Emma Denkinger, who has investigated the impresa and emblems of Sidney's in connection with sixteenth-century literature and practice; and Edwin Greenlaw, who has revealed much political and autobiographical significance. Indeed, so great is the contemporaneity of the Arcadia that it is this aspect of the book which has a special interest, and Sidney himself may have derived greater pleasure in writing the so-called extraneous matter than in untangling his romance or in depicting characters.

About a decade after Kyd's Spanish Tragedy had introduced the revenge-play to the English stage, there appeared almost simultaneously two tragedies which presented a somewhat different treatment of revenge—Shakespeare's Hamlet and Marston's Antonio's Revenge. Although neither play departed entirely from the traditions established by Kyd, both contained a profounder philosophy than the earlier plays of their type. Immediately thereafter followed a succession of tragedies of revenge obviously influenced by the new philosophical treatment. A. H. Thorndike in his “Relations of Hamlet to Contemporary Revenge Plays” attributes the revival of interest wholly to Marston; indeed, he maintains that Shakespeare did not “set the fashion from 1599 on, for Marston almost certainly preceded him.” The other scholars who more recently have interested themselves in this problem, Dr. Friedrich Radebrecht and Sir. E. K. Chambers, share Thorndike's opinion. Yet, as a result of evidence discovered in connection with a study of the influence of Hamlet on the dramatic literature of the period, I question giving Marston credit for the renewed interest in the revenge-play.

Among the playwrights of the Elizabethan age, Thomas Heywood stands in a peculiar position. He is not as interesting as Webster or Chapman; he is far below Jonson or Marlowe or Lyly in artistic power; he has proved less attractive to scholars than Massinger or Beaumont and Fletcher or Marston. He wrote too much, it is said, and he was too eager to flatter the 'prentices to care about the quality of his work, either as poetry or as drama. Charles Lamb, to be sure, called him a prose Shakespeare, but Lamb could find something kind to say about any Elizabethan, and men like Heywood and Dekker were of that gentle and friendly disposition which would particularly endear them to Elia. And yet one play of Heywood's, A Woman Killed With Kindness, is reprinted in every anthology of plays of the period, always as a masterpiece of its kind. If literary immortality consists in having written a work which is always in print, of being known by name and by at least the title of that work to all historians of literature, Heywood has achieved immortality with A Woman Killed With Kindness.

Henry Playford in his note to the reader in Orpheus Britannicus felt free to say:

From the time of the miracle cycles and the morality plays songs have been used for the embellishment of English tragedy. As the drama developed, lyrics in plays came to have functional as well as decorative or merely divertive significance, until with Shakespeare their dramatic values acquired subtlety, and songs became an integral part of the technique of comedy and tragedy. The rôle of song in the plays of Shakespeare's predecessors and contemporaries to 1642, and especially in those of Shakespeare himself, has been analyzed with great detail, but there has been no account of the projection of songs into the drama of the Restoration, when with neo-classic emphasis on regularity and a body of tragedies essentially classical in form, one might expect altered usage of previously established conventions or even an astringent use of song itself.

Von allen Gebilden dichterischer Phantasie, denen wir in Kleists Werken begegnen, ist wohl Penthesileas Amazonenstaat das sonderbarste. Ein eingeschlechtlicher Staat, mit künstlich geregelter Fortpflanzung, Frauen, die von Jugend auf für das Kriegshandwerk erzogen werden und ihr ganzes Leben lang Kriegerinnen bleiben—dies alles ist so phantastisch, so unglaublich, so von der Wirklichkeit entfernt, dass es fast unerklärlich scheint, wie der Dichter seinen Zuschauern ein solches Staatsgebilde mit dem Anspruch auf dichterische Wahrscheinlichkeit vorsetzen konnte. Tatsächlich ist aber der Amazonenstaat in keiner Weise so phantastisch-bizarr, wie er auf den ersten Blick zu sein scheint, denn trotz aller seiner Eigenarten ist er im Grunde nichts als ein getreues, wenn auch zum Extrem getriebenes Abbild führender rechtlicher, sozialer und pädagogischer Ideen des 18. Jahrhunderts, und insbesondere eine genaue Ausführung der Ideen Rousseaus.

The literary, critical, historical, and biographical importance of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads of 1800 gives added attraction and significance to the intrinsically interesting bibliographical features of the two volumes. The following notes on cancel leaves and variant readings in the books will perhaps be welcomed not only by bibliographers, collectors, and persons curious in the solving of problems, but also by critics professing larger concerns. The notes are based on a personal study of forty-five copies of Volume i (six in original boards) and fifty-two copies of Volume ii (seven in original boards).

Coleridge's disciples fall into two classes: those who, like J. H. Green, felt themselves to be the appointed custodians of Coleridge's teachings and who set about the scholarly business of collecting, completing, systematizing, editing, interpreting, and preserving Coleridge's writings and sayings; and those who, like J. C. Hare and Frederick Denison Maurice, were interested chiefly in extracting from Coleridge's teaching what would be food for their own minds, and truth confirmed by their own experience. The first group of disciples sought to make Coleridge accessible and understandable; the second group attempted to apply and test what he had taught. The comments of both groups upon their teacher may be of value. Of special importance, however, are the comments of Maurice, who, a devoted but discriminating student of Coleridge and a disciple whose whole life gave testimony as to both the worth and the shortcomings of Coleridge's message, was in his own day, a prolific writer and influential teacher.

La critique à l'égard de Th. Gautier est loin d'avoir été toujours bienveillante. Son génie ou du moins son originalité a souvent été méconnue. Plusieurs études de mise au point ont paru, ces derniers années, restituant à Gautier sa part de gloire dans le grand mouvement littéraire du 19e siècle. On s'est occupé du poète, du romancier et du critique, mais, quand on s'est aventuré à toucher à l'œuvre dramatique, c'est pour la considérer comme étant presque une erreur, en tous cas, comme quantité négligeable. C'est pour combler cette lacune que nous avons entrepris cette étude. Th. Gautier a toujours aimé le théâtre et cela de très bonne heure. Il a eu sur l'art dramatique des idées très précises. Et en dépit des assertions des contemporains qui lui refusent en général le don du théâtre, l'étude de ses productions dramatiques révèle une originalité, qu'à moins de préventions, on ne saurait nier. On a même voulu faire croire que celles de ses pièces, qui avaient vu le feu de la rampe, n'avaient remporté qu'un succès douteux. Rien n'est plus faux. Le succès sans être bruyant a couronné ses efforts et eût pu flatter de plus ambitieux dramaturges.

Studies of Henry David Thoreau as a man of letters have led primarily to an examination of his attitude toward nature, society, government, and religion, and, on the purely literary side, of his style. His theory of the art of poetry has received less emphatic attention, perhaps because Thoreau wrote very little verse, because he failed to embody his theory in any formal discourse, and because it is commonly assumed that in the main his theories coincide with those of Emerson. Nevertheless, Thoreau was deeply interested in the theory of poetry. His utterances concerning it may be found in every volume of his writings and would, if brought together, comprise a noteworthy body of poetic theory.

In a letter to Cardinal Newman, written when he was fifty years old, Matthew Arnold mentions four people from whom he is conscious of having learnt—Goethe, Wordsworth, Sainte-Beuve, and Newman himself. Arnold goes on to explain that he does not mean merely receiving a strong impression but actually acquiring “habits, methods, ruling ideas, which are constantly with me.” Much as he admired Newman, Goethe, and Wordsworth, Arnold's literary fame owes more to Sainte-Beuve than to any other one man. The two volumes of Essays in Criticism, which contain Arnold's most interesting and enduring prose, are a lasting monument to the force of Sainte-Beuve's ideas. Posterity would gladly exchange Arnold's attempts to rationalize religion for a few more volumes of literary essays, but unfortunately, much as he admired Sainte-Beuve, he was too much of an Englishman to follow in Sainte-Beuve's footsteps. Sir Walter Raleigh used to maintain that Arnold was thoroughly unEnglish in his tastes and that he invariably condemned everything that was characteristically British. If that were true he would not have yearned for England as he did whenever he went abroad. Arnold had an unerring eye for national defects, but no man could care more deeply for the welfare of his country. Beneath the gay exterior of the man of the world Arnold was serious to the extent of didacticism. In the letters to his mother he is continually saying that he thinks such and such an article “will do good.” Sainte-Beuve never spared himself in the Causeries du Lundi, but he probably worried more about giving a faithful portrait than about “doing good.”

During a recent re-examination of The Return of the Native I stumbled upon a feature in the construction of that story to which I had been for years totally blind. Turning for similar investigation to others of the Wessex novels, I was startled at the hitherto unsuspected evidence of a special kind of careful workmanship.