ABSTRACT
Stopford Brooke (1832-1916), like Earle, was a clergyman whose literary interests developed late. His Primer of English Literature, however, sold half a million copies between 1876 and 1917. This work, The History of Early English Literature, 2 vols, New York 1892, for the most part makes the points to be repeated more forcefully in Brooke 1898, item 113 below. It does, however, claim (p. 17) that The last thing to say with regard to these questions of date, origin, and place is that we may fairly claim the poem as English. It is in our tongue, and in our country alone that it has been preserved.’ It also concludes on p. 73 with an adjuration to imagine the poem as the original hall-audience of ‘fierce rovers of the deep’ would have heard it: ‘Then as we image this, and read the accented verse, sharply falling and rising with the excitement of the thing recorded, we understand how good the work is, how fitted for its time and place, how national, how full of noble pleasure.’ Just before, in a paragraph on pp. 72-3, Brooke says the best he can for its poetic qualities.