The spirit of chivalry, the love of adventure, the love of country-these are ideals developed in certain periods of our past history and present in many aspects of our life today. These ideals you have found illustrated in the selections that you have been reading. Every epoch has certain outstanding characteristics that help to explain what men did in that period, what they thought, and what they wrote. The Age of Queen Anne, in early eighteenth century England, is as distinct as any of the great periods that preceded, and certain elements in modern life, certain forms of literature that are familiar to us today, took their beginnings or became especially prominent in that

age.

In the Introduction to the Tale of Two Cities you read something about the political changes that swept over England between the death of the great Elizabeth and the end of the eighteenth century. The troubles between Charles I and the Parliament resulted in Civil War and the rule of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. In 1660 the throne was reëstablished and Charles II became the monarch. But the troubles were not over, and it was not until 1688, in the Revolution which drove James II from the throne and made William and Mary the sovereigns, that the principle was established, once for all, that the English sovereign is a constitutional monarch, subject to the people as represented in the Parliament. Thus a contest that had continued, at intervals, for five centuries was settled by the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament. The next year after the Revolution, in 1689, the Act of Toleration was passed,

curbing the religious disputes that had raged for more than a century.

These great events contributed to a feeling of order, a sense that however much men might engage in the debates of political parties, the great fundamental questions about the nature of the British Constitution were settled. There was a feeling, too, that hotly debated religious controversies which in former times had led to persecution and martyrdom, were out of place in modern civilization. The life of people of ordinary rank, outside the court circle, became more ceremonious and polite. The Age of Queen Anne, dating from her coronation in 1702, was an age of sanity and order. Its chief characteristic was urbanity.

The urbane man is, strictly speaking, the man of the city. That is what the word means. For our purpose urbanity means what the French call savoir faire, knowing how to conduct oneself, tact. It involves good manners, poise, breeding, ceremonious politeness. It is supposed to result from city life, where men have to learn to get along with their fellows, and gain this knowledge by constant association with them. It was originally a product of a high state of civilization, or of what seems to be a high state of civilization. When genuine, it is a very fine quality indeed. Like other virtues, it may be assumed as a cloak for an artificial courtesy that does not come from the heart, and may be applied only to ceremony and external observances, not to true consideration for others.

Of course, you must not get the idea that people said, about 1702, "Well, we have settled that foolish claim of the kings that they rule by divine right, and that

other foolish idea that people of one religion have a right to hang or burn all who do not hold to their religious faith; now let's give our attention to good manners." In school we may finish arithmetic and take up algebra, and then finish algebra and take up geometry; but human society does not move, or progress, from one period to another in any such fashion. As a matter of fact, chivalry paid great attention to good manners. There was an elaborate code telling what a knight might do and what he might not do. But these ideas of conduct were not such as develop in city life; they are not urbane, in the strict sense of the word.

There are many interesting things about the development of such manners and customs as we are familiar with today. In the volumes of Traill's Social England you will find a great deal of fascinating lore, if you care to look for it. You will also find in such books, and in literature as well, much information about rules of social life that are different from ours and seem strange. Life at Elizabeth's court or the ceremonies attending one of her visits to the home of some favored lord, reveal a life of great stateliness and dignity. Court life after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 became very gay and frivolous. Books on "Courtesy" have been known for centuries in Italy, France, and England. But most of this social development affected the court and the nobility; it did not extend to the middle and lower classes. In the Age of Queen Anne, the English middle classes acquired some of the characteristics of the modern man that we associate with urbanity.

There were no great enthusiasms. To die for an ideal or for a faith would not be good form. Extravagance in expression and manner was frowned upon. The great problems of life, religion, and conduct appeared to be settled. It was regarded as a very good world. Science was improv

ing living conditions; houses were more comfortable; there was less open poverty and suffering. Men and women turned to conversation, to manners, to observing the external matters of daily association instead of to searching their souls. A comedy of manners sprang up, by which is meant literature, sometimes drama and sometimes essay or verse, which finds its chief appeal in holding the mirror up to polite society. Essays that dealt wittily or scornfully with fashionable foibles were written. Thus the new age contributed its quota to the types of literature. Light comment on life took the place of the heroic epic or imaginative romance, or the tragedy of a soul.

In this section you are to study chiefly the essay as a reflection of a writer's personal observations on life and society, and that form of drama which satirizes or mirrors the manners of a period or class. Both these kinds of literature were very popular in the early eighteenth century. Both of them reflect perfectly the characteristics of that brilliant age. Both of them are also practiced today, and so we have included three modern one-act plays and a group of essays of more recent times. We have also included a number of interesting letters, related in many ways to the essay because of their themes and their style. At its best, the letter is, in fact, a personal essay.

Your definition of the complete and many-sided modern man and woman will be still further extended by this study. "The Complete Gentleman" was a title they loved in old England. It expresses a good ideal for any age. Such a man, as we have observed, is chivalrous, eager to know new things, a lover of his country. He is also urbane, tactful, able to get on with others. "Manners maketh man," as the old proverb has it. All that is implied in good manners is the subject that is illustrated, in many different ways, by the literature you are now to read.

When you pick up a newspaper, you do not read it through. You may glance over the account of an explosion or a storm in some neighboring state. You may note the activities of some visiting prince or the incidents in some baseball game in the national leagues. But the chances are that you are most interested in the life immediately about you. You con eagerly the details of an automobile accident or an entertainment if you know some of the persons concerned. Your interest in the life about you may extend to the editorial page. You want to know what the editor thinks of some candidate for office or of some public improvement, or of the proposal to have moving pictures all day Sunday, or of the extravagance people are displaying in automobiles or dresses or parties. If you find that the editor expresses ideas that you like, giving them, perhaps, a novel or witty application, you are particularly pleased.

Newspapers have not always expressed opinions on current interests. The first daily newspaper in England dates back only to 1702, the beginning of Queen Anne's reign. This Daily Courant, as it was called, contained nothing that we should recognize as editorials. In those days, when a man wished to express his opinions about some political or religious question, he usually printed them in a pamphlet. He did not secure a large audience, because relatively few people could read. Though London contained about a half-million people, a sale of sixty thousand copies of a pamphlet was extraordinary. The upper classes, whose wealth came from estates in the country, could send their sons to schools and to the universities or could employ tutors. Many of the merchants were able to buy the same privileges for their sons. But the great mass of the population was too poor to be admitted to these schools for "gentlemen," and there were no free schools for

them to attend. The daughters even of the upper classes were not expected to read. Swift, one of the brilliant writers of Queen Anne's time, declared that not one gentleman's daughter in a thousand could read her own language or "be the judge of the easiest books that are written in it." Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, declared that "they are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names or so; and that is the height of a woman's education."

Thus the greater part of the reading public of today was cut off at once. Many of those who could read often led lives of leisure, at least in London, where most of them were to be found. A man of the period writes: "We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables; about twelve the beau monde [fashionable world] assembles in coffee or chocolate houses." Besides these aristocrats there were many of the great and rising middle class who were able to gratify a growing interest in news and conversation. Manufacturers, merchants, shippers were increasing their wealth day by day. Financiers had become so independent by this time that they had been able to found the Bank of England and to lend vast sums to the government. Times had changed greatly from the far days of Henry V, when the whole government and conduct of affairs were in the hands of men of high birth. In fact, one of the chief reasons for the popularity of the coffee-house was the subconscious desire of these middle-class men of leisure to educate themselves in the urbanity and culture that had once been considered proper only for aristocrats.

For these various reasons the coffeehouses were so popular that every intelligent man in London went to one or more of them to see the fine gentlemen, to hear the latest news, to listen to witty con

versations, or to meet his friends and receive his mail. So important were these meeting-places during Queen Anne's reign that two thousand flourished in different parts of London. Some appealed to wits and poets, others to lawyers or clergymen, still others to merchants or military men. Here they sipped their coffee and discussed every topic under the sun. One of the writers for the Spectator relates that in an inner room "Within the steams of the coffeepot, I heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of and all the line of Bourbons provided for in less than a quarter of an hour." The coffee-houses were, nevertheless, the places where most of the intelligent men in London exchanged and formed opinions.

Such daily intercourse developed in the frequenters new interests. They came to observe each other's manners and ways of thinking. They noted prejudices and eccentricities, and kept an eye out for trivial but characteristic actions and sayings. Instead of indulging in scurrilous attacks such as most political writers of the time delighted in, they became tolerant, respected each other's opinions, and grew versatile, alert, and urbane in conversation. At the same time, they did not lose their middle-class convictions. They disapproved of the frivolities and dissipations of fashionable circles and applied standards of sound sense and morality to the gay life of the town. Thus the coffee-house enriched and widened the interest of Londoners in each other and tended to develop a public opinion about the affairs of daily life. In short, these Londoners were very much like you when you criticize someone's manners or dress at some recent party.

Opinions about the manners of the time did not get into The Daily Courant, however. Indeed, that paper had been running seven years before a new paper, called The Tatler, began to appear on April 12, 1709, with editorial articles but very little news. It was a single sheet, no larger than a piece of foolscap, printed in double columns. Part of the last column was left blank for the insertion of late news in handwriting. It appeared every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and after the

first four issues sold for a penny a copy. The anonymous editor of The Tatler, Richard Steele, tried to represent the different shades of opinion in the clubs and coffeehouses. He announced: "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate House; poetry under that of Will's Coffee-house; learning under the title of the Grecian; foreign and domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffee-house; and what else I shall on any subject offer shall be dated from my own apartment." Steele thus began a new kind of writing. It was not bookish. It used short, simple sentences. It borrowed terms and phrases from daily talk to make the discussion seem natural and personal. Though it was informal, it discussed matters in more detail and with fuller reasoning than a coffee-house conversation, but with the same insight and urbanity.

Steele had published only his sixth number when his identity was discovered by Joseph Addison. He and Addison had been born in the same year (1672), had gone to the same school, the famous Charterhouse School in London, had both gone to Oxford, and were now through this discovery to be associated in developing the periodical essay. Addison soon contributed to The Tatler and continued to do so until the paper was terminated suddenly on January 2, 1711. He seems to have been by nature rather bookish. He trav eled for four years over Europe, but when he came to write of his travels he composed a treatise on Ancient Medals which revealed that he knew classical authors almost by heart but disclosed no warm human interest. After he began writing for The Tatler, however, he applied his knowledge of ancient literature to the observation and criticism of the morals and manners of Londoners. He developed a sense of humor in relating their inconsistencies and failings. He kept in his writing a good deal of the naturalness of conversation, but increased its clearness and polished it by a singular care in the choice of words.

Steele grew tired of The Tatler. Besides, he feared that everybody had pierced to the secret of its authorship. But the friends drew up a new plan, and in accord