II

'The Subject of English Literature.' Surely—for a start—there is no such thing; or rather, may we not say that everything is, has been or can be, a subject of English Literature? Man's loss of Paradise has been a subject of English Literature, and so has been a Copper Coinage in Ireland, and so has been Roast Sucking-pig, and so has been Holy Dying, and so has been Mr Pepys's somewhat unholy living, and so have been Ecclesiastical Polity, The Grail, Angling for Chub, The Wealth of Nations, The Sublime and the Beautiful, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Prize-Fights, Grecian Urns, Modern Painters, Intimations of Immortality in early Childhood, Travels with a Donkey, Rural Rides and Rejected Addresses—all these have been subjects of English Literature: as have been human complots and intrigues as wide asunder as "Othello" and "The School for Scandal"; persons as different as Prometheus and Dr Johnson, Imogen and Moll Flanders, Piers the Plowman and Mr Pickwick; places as different as Utopia and Cranford, Laputa and Reading Gaol. "Epipsychidion" is literature: but so is "A Tale of a Tub."

Listen, for this is literature:

If some king of the earth have so large an extent of dominion, in north, and south, so that he hath winter and summer together in his dominions, so large an extent east and west as that he hath day and night together in his dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgement together: He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons[1].

But listen again, for this also is literature:

  A sweet disorder in the dress
  Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
  A lawn about the shoulders thrown
  Into a fine distraction:
  An erring lace, which here and there
  Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
  A cuff neglectful, and thereby
  Ribbons to flow confusedly:
  A winning wave, deserving note,
  In the tempestuous petticoat:
  A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
  I see a wild civility:
  Do more bewitch me than when art
  Is too precise in every part.

Here again is literature:

When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth … The reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. [BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]

Of a bridal, this is literature:

     Open the temple gates unto my love,
     Open them wide that she may enter in!

But so also is Suckling's account of a wedding that begins

I tell thee, Dick, where I have been.

This is literature:

  And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and
    a covert from the tempest;
  As rivers of water in a dry place,
  As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

But so is this literature:

  One circle cannot touch another circle on the outside at
  more points than one.
  For, if it be possible, let the circle ACK touch the circle
  ABC at the points A, C. Join AC.
  Then because the two points A, C are in the
  circumference of the circle ACK the line which joins them
  falls within that circle.
  But the circle ACK is without the circle ABC. Therefore
  the straight line AC is without the circle ABC.
  But because the two points A, C are in the circumference of
  ABC therefore the straight line AC falls within that circle.
  Which is absurd.
  Therefore one circle cannot touch another on the outside at
  more points than one.

All thoughts, as well as all passions, all delights

votum, timor, ira, voluptas—

whatsoever, in short, engages man's activity of soul or body, may be deemed the subject of literature and is transformed into literature by process of recording it in memorable speech. It is so, it has been so, and God forbid it should ever not be so!