1. English Literature in the Reign of Victoria. Henry Morley. (Tauchnitz Series.)
2. Victorian Poets. E.C. Stedman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1886.
3. Dickens. Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities.
4. Thackeray. Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Henry Esmond, The Newcomes.
5. George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life, Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Adam Bede, Middlemarch.
6. Macaulay. Essays, Lays of Ancient Rome.
7. Carlyle. Sartor Resartus, French Revolution, Essays on History, Signs of the Times, Characteristics, Burns, Scott, Voltaire, and Goethe.
8 The Works of Alfred Tennyson. London: Stranham & Co., 1872. 6 vols.
9. Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880. 2 vols.
[From the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales.]
There was also a nonne, a prioresse, That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy; Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy; And she was clepëd[23] madame Eglentine. Ful wel she sange the servicë devine, Entunëd in hire nose ful swetëly; And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly[24] After the scole of Stratford-attë-Bowe,[25] For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe. At mete was she wel ytaught withalle; She lette no morsel from hire lippë falle, Ne wette hire fingres in hire saucë depe. Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest. In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.[26] Hire over lippë wipëd she so clene That in hire cuppe was no ferthing[27] sene Of gresë, whan she dronken hadde hire draught. Ful semëly after hire mete she raught.[28] And sikerly[29] she was of grete disport And ful plesánt and amiable of port, And peinëd hire to contrefeten chere Of court,[30] and ben estatelich of manére And to ben holden digne[31] of reverence. But for to speken of hire conscience, She was so charitable and so pitoús, She woldë wepe if that she saw a mous Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde. Of smalë houndës hadde she, that she fedde With rested flesh and milk and wastel brede.[32] But sore wept she if on of hem were dede, Or if men smote it with a yerdë[33] smert:[34] And all was conscience and tendre herte.