In the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden, and Addison, are to be found the men and women, kings, nobles, and commons, descriptions of English nature, hints of the progress of science and advancement in art; the conduct of government, the force of prevailing fashions—­in a word, the moving life of the time, and not its dry historic record.

“Authors,” says the elder D’Israeli, “are the creators or creatures of opinion:  the great form the epoch; the many reflect the age.”  Chameleon-like, most of them take the political, social, and religious hues of the period in which they live, while a few illustrate it perhaps quite as forcibly by violent opposition and invective.

We shall see that in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and in Gower’s Vox Clamantis are portrayed the political ferments and theological controversies of the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.  Spenser decks the history of his age in gilded mantle and flowing plumes, in his tribute to Gloriana, The Faery Queen, who is none other than Elizabeth herself.  Literature partakes of the fierce polemic and religious enthusiasm which mark the troublous times of the Civil War; it becomes tawdry, tinselled, and licentious at the Restoration, and develops into numerous classes and more serious instruction, under the constitutional reigns of the house of Hanover, in which the kings were bad, but the nation prosperous because the rights of the people were guaranteed.

Many of the finest works of English literature are purely and directly historical; what has been said is intended to refer more particularly to those that are not—­the unconscious, undesigned teachers of history, such as fiction, poetry, and the drama.

PURPOSE OF THE WORK.—­Such, then, is the purpose of this volume—­to indicate the teachings of history in the principal productions of English literature.  Only the standard authors will be considered, and the student will not be overburdened with statistics, which it must be a part of his task to collect for himself.  And now let us return to the early literature embodied in those languages which have preceded the English on British soil; or which, by their combination, have formed the English language.  For, the English language may be properly compared to a stream, which, rising in a feeble source, receives in its seaward flow many tributaries, large and small, until it becomes a lordly river.  The works of English literature may be considered as the ships and boats which it bears upon its bosom:  near its source the craft are small and frail; as it becomes more navigable, statelier vessels are launched upon it, until, in its majestic and lakelike extensions, rich navies ride, freighted with wealth and power—­the heavy ordnance of defence and attack, the products of Eastern looms, the precious metals and jewels from distant mines—­the best exponents of the strength and prosperity of the nation through which flows the river of speech, bearing the treasures of mind.