ize and follow it. The novelists tell a story which pictures
human life, and at the same time call us to the work Of social reform, or
drive home a moral lesson. The essayists are nearly all prophets or
teachers, and use literature as the chief instrument of progress and
education. Among them all we find comparatively little of the exuberant
fancy, the romantic ardor, and the boyish gladness of the Elizabethans.
They write books not primarily to delight the artistic sense, but to give
bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty in soul. Milton's famous
sentence, "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit,"
might be written across the whole Victorian era. We are still too near
these writers to judge how far their work suffers artistically from their
practical purpose; but this much is certain,--that whether or not they
created immortal works, their books have made the present world a better
and a happier place to live in. And that is perhaps the best that can be
said of the work of any artist or artisan.

SUMMARY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE. The year 1830 is generally placed at the
beginning of this period, but its limits are very indefinite. In general we
may think of it as covering the reign of Victoria (1837-1901). Historically
the age is remarkable for the growth of democracy following the Reform Bill
of 1832; for the spread of education among all classes; for the rapid
development of the arts and sciences; for important mechanical inventions;
and for the enormous extension of the bounds of human knowledge by the
discoveries of science.

At the accession of Victoria the romantic movement had spent its force;
Wordsworth had written his best work; the other romantic poets, Coleridge,
Shelley, Keats, and Byron, had passed away; and for a time no new
development was apparent in English poetry. Though the Victorian Age
produced two great poets, Tennyson and Browning, the age, as a whole, is
remarkable for the variety and excellence of its prose. A study of all the
great writers of the period reveals four general characteristics: (1)
Literature in this Age has come very close to daily life, reflecting its
practical problems and interests, and is a powerful instrument of human
progress. (2) The tendency of literature is strongly ethical; all the great
poets, novelists, and essayists of the age are moral teachers. (3) Science
in this age exercises an incalculable influence. On the one hand it
emphasizes truth as th