National Literature the Exponent of National Character [pp. 201-225]

National Literature, the
born in 1328, and died in 1400. He may be taken as the
poetic representative of England during the latter half of the
fourteenth century. Possessing a mind of extraordinary cultivation and calibre, enlarged by travel, and enlightened by
familiar acquaintance with the men and manners of many
nations-of a free, joyous, and princely spirit-pronounced
"wise" by Milton, and quoted as authority in one of the most
elaborate of his immortal and invaluable treatises-writing a
rude language with unrivalled and inimitable sweetness-and
infusing a portion of the harmony of his own spirit into his
mother-tongue-softening its rigours, and imparting to it a
graceful cadence and refined music, while he retained its
native vigour and untamed energy, he may be taken as the
representative of an age marked by turbulence-by frequent
disorders-often by terrible calamities and crimes-as we learn
from the pictorial page of Froissart-but often adorned by
examples of knightly courtesy and heroic valour, and occasionally by the influence of lettered taste and true piety. Himself not only a scholar, but a soldier, Chaucer may be regarded
as especially the representative of the reign of Edward III., a
prince eminently sagacious, enterprising, and successful, in the
arts both of peace and war.
Every great writer reflects while he receives the spirit of his
age; thus the literature of a nation becomes its interpreter
and witness. He acts powerfully upon that spirit, but it in
turn reacts upon him. Accordingly we discern a family likeness-a cyclical character-in writers who appear at or about
the same period. Among the great writers of the Augustan
age of old Rome, not only do we find a community of language
and of general culture, but of moral sentiment and feeling.
The same general harmony may be observed in the splendid
constellation of taste and genius which gave such an impulse
to'the fine arts, and imparted so aesthetic a character to the
earlier years of the pontificate of Leo X. Modern Italy can
boast no nobler names in painting-in poetry, with the solitary
exception of Dante-or in architecture-than those which
grace this epoch. The majestic forms of Michael Angelo and
Raphael rise at once before us, as the representatives and
ornaments of this brilliant era.
206
[ APRIL