31. 32. 33. 34. 35. "One likes no language but the Faery Queene; He swears the Muses met him at the Devil." "What brought Sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste? "Or if you needs must write, write Cæsar's praise. P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, "Alas! how chang'd from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!" "This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom Mention where the following phrases occur, and to whom they severally refer : 1. "Well of English undefiled." 2. "The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 3. "In wit, a man; simplicity, a child." 4. 5. "I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came." "Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new." Viva voce Examination on the History of English Literature, and the History and Etymology of the English Language. 1. Hallam enumerates the changes by which Anglo-Saxon was converted into English? 2. Too large a share in producing the most important of these changes has commonly been attributed to the Norman Conquest? 3. For what period of the language has the name 'Semi-Saxon' been invented? 4. The two most important works usually attributed to this period differ widely in their philological character? 5. What hypothesis will alone enable us to attribute these works to the same age? 6. What is commonly regarded as the earliest specimen of English, properly so called? 7. In what reign did the English language acquire a decisive ascendancy? 8. What Act of Parliament, important in the history of our language, was passed in the year 1362 ? 9. To what has Warton compared Chaucer's appearance in the history of our literature? 10. When Milton speaks of Chaucer in "Il Penseroso," which of the Canterbury Tales does he select for mention? 11. From what source did Chaucer borrow the groundwork of the "Knight's Tale"? 12. Which of the Tales does he profess to have borrowed from Petrarch? 13. How is Chaucer's contemporary, Gower, introduced in one of the works commonly attributed to Shakspeare? 14. When was printing introduced into England? 15. From what collection do we obtain an insight into the state of England, with respect to literary cultivation, in the time of Edward IV. ? 16. Whom does Hallam consider to have given the first example of good English prose? 17. What beautiful ballad of the beginning of the sixteenth century is remarked by Hallam as being particularly modern in turn and structure? 18. In which of his writings did Surrey introduce blank verse into our tongue? 19. What English poet supplies the link by which Gower and Lydgate are connected with Spenser? 20. What was the difference between the 'miracle' plays and the 'moralities' of the early stage? 21. What was the Vice' of the moralities? 22. Where does Shakspeare allude to the 'Vice'? 23. Who was the best English dramatist before Shakspeare? 24. He had made the only successful attempt before Shakspeare to dramatize the English Chronicles? 25. How does Ben Jonson characterize the versification of Marlowe ? 26. What was the year of Shakspeare's birth; and of his death? 27. What was his earliest work? 28. Which of Shakspeare's plays does Dryden state to have come first in order? 29. The date of the "Comedy of Errors" is determined approximately by an allusion which occurs in it? 30. Whence was the subject of the "Comedy of Errors" borrowed? 31. Shakspeare was so pleased with the idea on which it is founded, that he returned to it again? 32. In one play only, besides Henry VI., has Shakspeare been very largely a borrower? 33. Where do the often-quoted words, "Small Latin and less Greek," occur? 34. Hallam remarks that a certain class of words in Shakspeare would seem to indicate more knowledge of Latin than is commonly allowed him? u 35. There is one part of the story of "Romeo and Juliet" which no vulgar poet would have introduced? 36. There is a 'locus classicus' in Meres respecting Shakspeare's plays, in which a drama is mentioned as his, whose name we do not now find at all in the lists of his works: how is this accounted for? 37. Another play, which Hallam and others hold not to be his, is attributed to him in the same passage? 38. What are the plays belonging to Shakspeare's second period? 39. In what play has Shakspeare best displayed English manners? 40. In Shallow he had, without doubt, a particular family in view? Prove this. 41. One good comedy of English domestic life had been produced before this play of Shakspeare? 42. A character, essentially the same as Lear's, appears in another play? 43. Both are forms of one primary character, which is found in different shapes in Shakspeare's plays of this period? 44. What are the other embodiments of the character here alluded to? 45. Where did Shakspeare find the materials for his Roman plays? 46. Why does Hallam particularly insist on judgment as a quality of Shakspeare? 47. Hallam selects six plays to show how little justice there is in the charge of irregularity of construction, often brought against Shakspeare? 48. What was the date of the closing of the theatres on account of the Civil War? 49. What passage in Milton's "Lycidas" has been censured by Johnson and others as involving an offensive incongruity? 50. On what occasion was "Comus" written? 51. Hallam says:-"In the admirable ordonnance or composition of 'Paradise Lost' we perceive the advantages which Milton's original scheme of the poem had given him." What does this mean? 52. It is known that Milton intended an epic on an English subject. "But" (we are told in Johnson's "Lives of the Poets") "Arthur was reserved for another destiny." Explain this. 53. To what writers was Milton most indebted as models for imitation? 54. To what French writer is Milton said to have been under occasional obligations in "Paradise Lost"? 55. Enumerate the Dramatis Persona in "Samson Agonistes." 56. What is Johnson's objection to the conduct of this drama? 57. Hallam replies, that some great dramas of the ancient writers are open to the same objection. What instances does he mention? 58. One of Milton's sonnets opens with the line "A book was writ of late, called Tetrachordon." What was the object of the book referred to? 59. What does Scott consider to be the distinguishing characteristic of Dryden's genius? 60. What was the first public event which called forth Dryden's poetical powers? 61. What year is the one celebrated in the "Annus Mirabilis"? 62. Who was the author of the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel"? 63. Who are the persons delineated in the lines contributed by Dryden to the second part? 64. What other poem is in some sense a continuation of "Absalom and Achitophel" ? 65. Johnson accuses Dryden of habitual negligence and unevenness. In vindicating him, to what instance does Hallam point? 66. Who is the hero of "Mac Flecknoe"? 67. Hallam thinks Dryden was probably right in choosing the strange fiction in the "Hind and Panther." For what reason? 68. Dryden's coarseness of mind disfigures one of his Fables? 69. Whom does Pope eulogize as the only morally pure writer of the time of Charles II.? 70. One of the characters in the Prologue to Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" is modernized by Dryden ? 71. He gives it a special turn, suggested by the circumstances of his own time? 72. Dryden projected an epic poem: he hesitated between two subjects? 73. On what two odes does Dryden's fame as a lyric poet rest? 74. What ode does Hallam incline to consider the finest in our language? 75. How did the first draught of the "Rape of the Lock" differ from its final shape? 76. What celebrated passage of Pope is directed against the weaknesses of Addison's character? 77. Who is said to have supplied the philosophy of the "Essay on Man"? 78. What favourite moral theory does Pope bring forward and illustrate in the "Epistle to Cobham"? 79. Who was at first the hero of the Dunciad; and who was afterwards substituted? So. By whom had the sort of modernizing adaptation which Pope uses in his "Imitations of Horace" been first attempted in English? 81. How may the contributions of Addison to the first seven volumes of the "Spectator" be recognised by the signature? 82. What are the only vestiges in our language of what Latham calls the "Latin of the first period"? 83. What is in general the character of the words constituting the "Latin of the second period"? 84. What does Latham mean by "dimorphism"? 85. Give examples of substantives and adjectives, paronyms of each other, derived from the Latin,-one immediately, the other through the French? 86. What proportions of the English vocabulary are derived from the Saxon, Latin, and Greek respectively? 87. A fourth language has supplied a number of scientific terms? 88. Would the proportion between the Saxon and Latin elements already mentioned result from separating, under the two heads, all the words in a set of English sentences? 89. Illustrate, by examples, the effect of spelling in disguising the derivation of words. 90. Mistaken etymologies have in some instances corrupted the orthography. Cite examples. 91. What changes have, in process of time, taken place in the meanings of the words, 'conceit,' 'kindly,' 'knave,' 'miscreant,' 'silly'? 92. In what senses, now obsolete, has Shakspeare used the words, 'modern,' 'rival,' 'taxation,' 'to affront,' 'to tender,' 'to vail' ? 93. One of two things is in general necessary to constitute true composition? 94. There may be real composition where there is apparently only derivation? 95. And there may be only derivation where there appears to be composition? 96. What is essential to true grammatical gender? 97. To what amount does gender exist in the English language? 98. Cobbett mentions the rule spontaneously observed in the rural districts in the attribution of sex to inanimate objects? 99. The German feminine termination, inn, is found in English in, at least, one word? 100. In one English word the original meaning of the termination -ster is retained? 101. What is the anomaly in the forms 'seamstress,' 'songstress' ? 102. How does Latham name the phenomenon which appears in the words 'streamlet,' 'children,' 'outmost'? 103. What is the correct etymological view of the words 'alms' and 'riches'? 104. The identity of the genitive singular and the nominative plural sign in English is accidental? 105. Show that what was formerly the common account of the genitive singular termination in English was erroneous. 106. Both the Anglo-Saxon and the old English had a plural personal characteristic ? 107. What is the one instance commonly given of a true perfect in English? 108. Latham mentions some etymological tendencies which may safely be affirmed of the English language in its present stage? |