teen lines, and ran chiefly upon three rhymes. The name is also applied to the music for a simple song sung in a rich, artistic style but without musical accompaniment.

Minnesingers, The, were love poets, contemporary in Germany with the House of Hohenstauffen. Though called love singers, some of their poems were national ballads, and some were extended romances. Walter of Vogelweide was by far the best of the lyrists; Heinrich of Veldig was the most naïve and ingenuous; Hartman the most classical; Wolfram the most sublime, and Gottfried the most licentious.

Iliad, The, is the tale of the siege of Troy, an epic poem in 24 books by Homer. Menelaus, King of Sparta, received as a guest, Paris, a son of Priam, King of Troy. Paris eloped with Helen, his host's wife, and Menelaus induced the Greeks to lay siege to Troy to avenge the perfidy. The siege lasted ten years, when Troy was taken and burned to the ground. Homer's poem is confined to the last year of the siege.

not forego his claim. Latinus, in this dilemma, said the rivals must settle the dispute by an appeal to arms. Turnus being slain, Æneas married Lavinia, and ere long succeeded his father-in-law in the throne.

Gesta Romanorum, the deeds of the Romans, is the title of a collection of short stories and legends in the Latin tongue, widely spread during the Middle Ages, but of the authorship of which little is known save that it took its present form most likely in England, about the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. The stories are invariably moralized, and, indeed, this edifying purpose throughout is the sole unifying element of the collection. The title is only so far descriptive as the nucleus of the collection consists of stories from Roman history, or rather pieces from Roman writers, not necessarily of any greater historical value than that of Androcles and the Lion from Allus Gallius. Moralized, mystical, and religious tales, as well as other pieces, many of ultimate oriental origin, were afterwards added, and upon them edifying conclusions hung, bringing the whole up to about 180 chapters.

Lorelei, famed in song and story, is a rock which rises perpendicularly from the Rhine to the height of 427 feet, near St. Goar. It was Bluebeard is the hero of the well-known formerly dangerous to boatmen, and has a nursery tale, and is so named from the color celebrated echo. The name is best known of his beard. The story is widely known in from Heine's Song of the Siren," who sits Western Europe, but the form in which it has on the rock, combing her long tresses, and become familiar is a free translation of that singing so ravishingly, that the boatmen, en- given by Perrault in 1697. In this story chanted by the music of her voice, forget their Bluebeard is a Signeur of great wealth, who duty, and are drawn upon the rock and perish. marries the daughter of a neighbor in the Beauty and the Beast.-This venerable country and a month after the wedding goes story, from Les Contes Marines, of Mme. Ville- from home on a journey leaving his wife the neuve (1740), is, perhaps, the most beautiful keys of his castle, but forbidding her to enter of all nursery tales. A young and lovely one room. She cannot resist her curiosity, woman saved her father by putting herself in opens the door, to find the bodies of all Bluethe power of a frightful but kind-hearted beard's former wives, and at once sees the fate monster, whose respectful affection and melan-to which she herself is doomed. Bluebeard, choly overcame her aversion to his ugliness, on his return, discovers from a spot of blood and she consented to become his bride. Being thus freed from enchantment the monster assumed his proper form and became a young and handsome prince.

upon the key which could not be cleaned off,
that his wife has broken his command and
tells her that she must die. She begs for a
short respite to commend herself to God, sends
her sister Anne to the top of the tower to
seek for help, and finally is just on the point of
having her head cut off, when her two brothers
burst in and dispatch Bluebeard.
many versions of the story, all agreeing in es-
sential details. It is found in the German,
French, Greek, Tuscan, Icelandic, Esthonian,
Gaelic, and Basque folklore.

There are

Æneid, The, Virgil's epic poem, is contained in twelve books. When Troy was taken by the Greeks and set on fire, Æneas, with his father, son, and wife, took flight, with the intention of going to Italy, the original birthplace of the family. The wife was lost, and the old man died on the way; but, after numerous perils by sea and land, Eneas and his son Ascanius reached Italy. Here Latinus, Sagas, The, belong to the Norse literature the reigning king, received the exiles hospita- and are generally books in the form of a tale, bly, and promised his daughter Lavinia in like a Welch "mahinogi." "Edda was the marriage to Æneas; but she had been already name of the Bible of the ancient Scandinavibetrothed by her mother to Prince Turnus, son ans. In the Edda there are numerous Sagas. of Valmus, king of Rutuli, and Turnus would | As our Bible contains the history of the Jews,

religious songs, moral proverbs, and religious | worship; and the other important actors are stories, so the Edda contains the history of said to be selected for their holy life and to be Norway, religious songs, a book of proverbs, consecrated to their work with and numerous stories. The original Edda was compiled and edited by Saemun Sigfusson, an Icelandic priest, in the eleventh century. It contains twenty-eight parts or books, all of which are in verse.

Two hundred years later, Snorro Sturlesson, of Iceland, abridged, re-arranged, and reduced the prose of the Edda, giving the various parts a kind of dramatic form like the Dialogues of Plato. It then became needful to distinguish between the two works; so the old poetical compilation is called the Elder or Rhythmical Edda, while the more modern work is called the Younger or Prose Edda, and sometimes the Snorro Edda. The Younger Edda is, however, partly original, containing the discourse of Bragi on the Origin of Poetry; here, too, we find the famous story called by the Germans "Nibelungen-Lied." Beside the Sagas contained in the Eddas there are a number of productions of various forms.

Miracle Plays, The, were founded on the historical parts of the Old and New Testaments and on the lives of the saints. They were performed at first in churches, and afterwards on platforms in the streets. Their design was to instruct the people in Bible history; but long before the Reformation, they had so far departed from their original character as to bring contempt upon the church and religion. The exhibition of a single play often occupied several days. The earliest recorded Miracle Play took place in England in the beginning of the twelfth century; but they soon became popular in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

prayer. Travelers from all parts of the world flock to Oberammergau during the time announced for its representation.

Cid Campeador, historically Roderigo Diaz, the noted Spanish warrior, is so intermingled with fable that it is almost impossible to get at the truth. His career is celebrated in the Spanish Epic, "Poem of the Cid." From this poem and other Spanish works Southey translated and compiled his "Chronicle of the Cid."

The Cid is supposed to have been born about the year 1026, and to have died at Valentia, 1099. He was such a terror to the Moors, and seemed so superior to all others, that he was called El Seid (Arabic for the Lord); and finally Cid Campeador (Lord Champion).

Rebecca, of Ivanhoe. Sir Walter Scott's model for this character was a young woman, Rebecca Gratz by name, of an honorable Jewish family of Philadelphia. She was born on the 4th of March, 1781, and in her younger days, and even beyond middle life, possessed singular beauty. She was noted for her benevolent and charitable life and for her devotion to the Jewish faith. One of the most intimate friends of her family was Washington Irving, who in the fall of 1817 first introduced the character to the notice of Scott during his visit to Abbotsford. During one of their many conversations, Irving spoke of his friend Kebecca Gratz of Philadelphia, described her wonderful beauty, and related the story of her firm adherence to her religious faith. Scott was deeply interested and conceived the plan of embodying a character like hers in one of his novels. Shortly after this he wrote Ivanhoe, and named his heroine Rebecca.

In Germany these plays, with one exception, were suppressed in the year 1779. The villages of Oberammergau in the Bavarian Highlands, had, upon the cessation of a plague, in Romance of the Rose, the Iliad of 1633, vowed to perform the "Passion of Our France, is a poetical allegory begun by GuilSaviour" every tenth year out of gratitude, laume de Loris in the latter part of the thirand also as a means of instruction to the peo- teenth century and continued by Jean de Munge ple. The pleading of a deputation of Oberam- in the fourteenth century. The poet dreams mergau peasants with Maximilian II. of Ba- that Dame Idleness conducts him to the palace varia, saved their play from general condemna- of pleasure, where he meets Love, whose attion. The play was remodeled and is per- tendant maidens are Sweet Looks, Courtesy, haps the only Miracle Play that survives to Youth, Joy, and Competence; by them he is the present day. The performance lasts for conducted to a bed of roses. He has just eight hours with an intermission of one hour singled out one rose when an arrow from at noon; and though occurring only once in Love's bow stretches him fainting on the a decade is repeated on several Sundays in ground and he is carried away. When he is succession during the season. The characters revived he resolves to find his rose, and Welin the play number about 600. The person- come promises to aid him. Shyness, Fear, and ator of the Saviour seems to regard the per- Slander obstruct his way; Reason advises him formance of his part as an act of religious to give up the quest; Pity and Kindness show

him the object of his search; but Jealousy adventures of Telemachus, the only son of seizes Welcome and locks her in Fear Castle. Here the original poem ends. The sequel takes up the tale at this point, and is an extraordinary mixture of erudition and satire. The poem reached the height of its popularity in the sixteenth century.

Classic and Romantic Literature.-step toward writing was rude pictorial repreThe term classic has, ever since the second century, been applied to writers of the highest rank. Latterly it has come to designate the best writers of ancient Greece and Rome. Romantic literature was the term first used in Germany, about the beginning of the present century, by a number of young poets and critics who wished to indicate that they sought the essence of art and poetry in the wonderful and fantastic.

that

half centuries before the Christian era, introduced some of the marks now used. But it was not until about the year 1500 A. D., Aldus Manutius, a learned printer of Venice, reduced the art of punctuation to a system.

Surnames are so called from the early practice of writing them over the Christian names. In modern times they were first used in France, particularly in Normandy, where they can be traced to the latter part of the tenth century. They were introduced into England by the Normans after the conquest. The ancient Hebrews, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, and others had but a single name which was generally significant of some feature connected with their birth. Thus, Rachel, dying, had called her child Benoni, "the son of my sorrow"; but Jacob gave him the name of Benjamin, "the son of my strength." These simple names, however, soon became so common to many owners, that they failed to convey individuality; and this led to the addition of other designations, now known to us as surnames. Only about a thousand surnames were taken up by the most noble families in France and in England about the time of Edward the Confessor. The lower nobility did not follow this example before the twelfth century and the citizens and husbandmen had no family names before the fourteenth century. English names have recruits among them from almost every race.

enchorial, and Coptic. The hieroglyphic was | Aristophanes of Alexandria, about two and a probably in use before 4,000 B. C., and at first was made up entirely of pictures; but about 2,000 B. C. the hieratic form was introduced, in which the hieroglyphs were greatly simplified, and developed into purely linear forms. The enchorial form of writing was in use from 700 B. C. to A. D. 200, and was a still further simplification of the earlier forms, finally developing into the alphabetic form known as the Coptic. The cuneiform writing of the Assyrian empire disputes the honors of antiquity with the Egyptian early forms. This was probably hieroglyphic in its origin, but became modified by the different nations occupying the Assyrian empire until it assumed the form of the inscriptions as known to archæologists. The name of this writing is from a Latin word meaning a wedge, and it is so called because all the characters used are made up of different arrangements of a single pointed figure resembling a wedge in form. There were three classes of cuneiform characters used in the period of development of this form of writing; first, the Assyrian or Babylonian, which was very complicated, containing from six hundred to seven hundred symbols; the Scythian or Median, having about one hundred characters only; and the third, the Persian, which is purely alphabetic. The Chinese gives an example of a written language which was arrested in an early period of its development, before the alphabetic stage had been reached. The people of China still use a written character for a word, as they did thousands of years ago. The Egyptian is the most important of those early systems, as from it was probably derived the Phoenician alphabet, which became the parent of all the graphic systems of the modern world. The Egyptians never fully separated the hieroglyphic and phonetic symbols, but the Phoenicians adopted the latter only, and thus originated the first purely alphabetic plan of writing. The Phoenician alphabet was the parent of five principal branches of graphic forms, the most important of which is the Greek, which was the parent of the Roman alphabet, from which sprung the alphabets of all modern European nations, and those taken from them by the people who now inhabit the Western hemisphere.

Capital letters were first invented, and were in use for many centuries before the invention of small letters. The oldest manuscripts now in use, dating as far back as the third century, are written entirely in capitals, and without spacing between the words, or marks of punctuation. The small letters were first introduced about the seventh century.

The three most numerous patronymics of Celtic origin now in use among the English are the O, the Mac, and the Ap. The Irish O originally meant grandson, the Scotch Mac and the Welch Ap meaning son.

The Jews were the last to adopt surnames, and it is only within the past hundred years that they were compelled by law to adopt them in England.

Sacred Books of the Hindus are of great antiquity. The oldest of their sacred books, the Vedas (knowledge or science), contain the revelation of Brahma, and were preserved by tradition until collected by Vyasa. The Vedas are three in number: first, the Rig-Veda containing hymns and mystic pray. ers; second, the Yajur-Veda containing the religious rites; third, the Sama-Veda, with prayers in the form of songs. The Vedas were written in Sanskrit and were first translated into English by Sir William Jones. The whole life of Ancient India is found in the Vedas, the Puranas, and the two great epics, called the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

The Ramayana contains about 50,000 lines describing the youth of Rama who is an inPunctuation was unknown to the ancients. carnation of their God Vishnu; his banish

ment and residence in central India. The was generally recognized, it did not become an Mahabharata of later date consists of about established office until 1619, with Ben Jonson. 220,000 lines and is divided into eighteen books. Five brothers, the descendants of Bharata are the heroes of the Mahabharata; and episodes in the lives of these heroes occupy three fourths of the poem. The Puranas relate largely to mythological legends. The gods Siva and Vishnu are the sole objects of worship in the Puranas.

Pilgrim's Progress, the chief work of John Bunyan, has gone through more editions and been translated into more languages, than any book, except the Bible. It is an allegory of a Christian's life from the time of his conversion to that of his death. The book was written during the author's incarceration in Bedford jail, where he passed twelve years of his life. He was born near Bedford, in England, in 1628, in 1655 became a Baptist minister and preached with great success until the restoration of Charles II., when an act against conventicles was passed, which put an end to his labors. His trial, conviction, and sentence followed. He was several times offered his liberty on the condition that he would give up preaching; but his answer was always, "If you let me out to-day, I will preach again to-morrow." He died in London, 1688.

Hungarian Literature is in the main confined to the Magyar language, which bears a resemblance to the Turkish. It is only of late years that this literature has assumed a popular character. The native language was excluded from public and official documents for eight centuries, but, notwithstanding this fact, the Hungarians possess to-day a literature, which, both in regard to quantity and quality, will sustain comparison with that of the most civilized of western nations. The Latin language was introduced about 1000 A. D. and became the tongue of both church and state until the close of the fifteenth century. The Hungarian language was revived in the sixteenth century and became the sole vehicle for sacred poetry. Translations of the Bible were multiplied, chronicles, histories, grammars, and dictionaries were published, and the period from 1702 to 1780 probably marks the Golden Age of literature in Hungary. But the native language suffered a severe reverse when the country came under the absolute dominion of Austria.

Renaissance, The, means simply a new birth or revival; but the word is always understood to mean a revival in learning. The Latin language first appears in literature period known as the Renaissance dates from as a written language as well as spoken, in the the taking of Constantinople by the Turks plain of Latium in the third century B. C. (1453), but long before that epoch the love for The conquering armies of Rome soon carried classical literature had been reviving. This a knowledge of the Latin tongue to the utmost event, however, gave a decided impulse to the boundaries of the known world. Hence its revival of learning in western Europe; the presence is discernible in all European lan-learned men of the Greek or eastern empire guages. Those languages which are the im- sought new homes in the Occident and estabmediate offspring of the Latin, as the Italian, lished schools throughout Europe. The reviSpanish, Portuguese, and French, both Nor- val of learning, the invention of printing, the man and Provençal, are called the Romance discovery of the new world, the decline of feulanguages. Wallachian, the language of Rou-dalism, the elevation of the middle classes, all mania, in which Latin predominates, has not contributed to bring about the Renaissance. until lately been classified with the Latin lan- It reached its climax about the beginning of guage. Latin ceased to be a spoken language the present century. about 580 A. D.

Theatrical Performances have been Poet Laureate means "The Poet of the traced to the Grecian custom of celebrating Laurel Wreath." It was the custom in early every spring, in Athens, a festival in honor of Greece to crown with a laurel wreath the suc- Bacchus. Thespis originated the custom of cessful poet in a contest; this custom was introducing a single speaker to amuse the adopted by the Romans during the Empire. company with recitations. He also invented a But the title of "Poet Laureate " originated movable car on which his performances were in Germany during the twelfth century, when exhibited in various places. Theatrical perthe ancient ceremony of crowning the poet par formers are still called thespians. The car of excellence was revived. The early history of Thespis was soon exchanged for a permanent the Laureateship in England is traditional. stage in the Temple of Bacchus. Eschylus The story goes that Edward III., following the soon added a second speaker and a chorus, example of the coronation of Petrarch at Rome, masks, scenery, etc., and is therefore called conferred a similar honor upon Geoffrey Chau- the "Father of Tragedy." At the festivals cer with the yearly pension of 100 marks and of Bacchus new plays were brought out yearly other perquisites. Although the Laureateship in competition. Eschylus won the prize every