PAGE. Differences between the First and Second Phases........ 184 (a) Pre-eminence of Prose (6) Influence of Johnson. LAST PORTION OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The Slight Hold on him of Conventional Forces The Influences making way for a New Era.... THE PHILOSOPHY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. LECTURE I. Literature.-Its Essential Characteristics.-Variable Use of the Word.-The Initiative Period in English Literature.-Last half of Fourteenth Century the Date of the English Nation, Language and Literature.-Anglo-Saxon Element.-Norman Element.-Norman Superiority.-Early Relation of the Two.Causes which United Them.-English Character.-Foreign Influences: First, Classical; Second, Italian; Third, Norman. THE literature of a nation is the embodiment of that which is most artistic and complete in its intellectual, literary life. There are many practical (products of composition, records, chronicles, works of instruction, of science, and of reference, which contain the material of knowledge, the raw staple of art, but are not literature. These change with succeeding years, and reappear in altered and enlarged forms, as the progress of events and investigation determine. Many books, in each generation, are the seed which is returned to the soil as the condition of farther increase. No work is a part of national literature, in its more specific sense, till it is possessed of such merit of execution, aside from |