Garrick 10

of them gave no answer; the other replied "Jesus Christ." Johnson, however, could boast of one eminent pupil in David Garrick, though, by Garrick's account, his master was of little service except as affording an excellent mark for his early powers of 5 ridicule. The school, or "academy," failed after a year and a half; and Johnson, once more at a loss for employment, resolved to try the great experiment, made so often and so often unsuccessfully. He left Lichfield to seek his fortune in London. accompanied him, and the two brought a common letter of introduction to the master of an academy from Gilbert Wamsley, registrar of the Prerogative Court in Lichfield. Long afterward Johnson took an opportunity in the Lives of the Poets, of expressing his 15 warm regard for the memory of his early friend, to whom he had been recommended by a community of literary taste, in spite of party differences and great inequality of age. Wamsley says in his letter, that "one Johnson" is about to accompany Garrick to 20 London, in order to try his fate with a tragedy and get himself employed in translation. Johnson, he adds, "is a very good scholar and poet, and I have great hopes will turn out a fine tragedy writer."

The letter is dated March 2nd, 1737. Before 25 recording what is known of his early career thus started, it will be well to take a glance at the general condition of the profession of Literature in England at this period.2

2 The limits of the passage are well emphasized the six years between 1731 and 1737 were the period of Johnson's struggle and experiment before entering definitely into literature,

3. John Richard Green.

Born 1837. Died 1883.

The Norman Conquest.1

[The selection is introduced to represent the narrative treatment of history, in contrast to the expository treatment, as in Mr. Lecky's History of European Morals, and the more pictorial methods of treatment, such as are illustrated in Carlyle's French Revolution. The passage should be compared with the more detailed, and often prolix, account of the battle in the third volume of Mr. Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest. Other well-known examples of excellent narrative style occur in the works of Gibbon, Macaulay, Froude, and Parkman.

From the large amount of material and various sources at his disposal, Green has selected his facts so as to form a coherent and glowing tale. The principle of structure seems to be a balance between the English and the Norman affairs, a principle which is carried out in each paragraph to the end of the selection. Altogether, the period, as is stated in the opening sentence, covers about fifty years, but the events of 1066 constitute the greater part of the selection, and the others serve chiefly to intro: duce these.]

FOR half a century the two countries [England and Normandy] had been drawing nearer together. At the close of the reign of Richard the Fearless the Danish descents upon the English coast had found

1 From A Short History of the English People (1874), Chapter II., Section 4, from the edition of 1888 of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.

support in Normandy, and their fleet had wintered in her ports. It was to avenge these attacks that Æthelred had dispatched a fleet across the Channel to ravage the Cotentin, but the fleet was repulsed, and the strife appeased by Æthelred's marriage with Emma, a sister 5 of Richard the Good. Ethelred with his children found shelter in Normandy from the Danish kings, and, if Norman accounts are to be trusted, contrary winds alone prevented a Norman fleet from undertaking their restoration. The peaceful recall of Edward 10 to the throne seemed to open England to Norman ambition, and Godwine was no sooner banished than Duke William appeared at the English court, and received, as he afterward asserted, a promise of succession to its throne from the king. Such a promise, un- 15 confirmed by the national assembly of the Wise Men, was utterly valueless, and for the moment Godwine's recall put an end to William's hopes. They are said to have been revived by a storm which threw Harold, while cruising in the Channel, on the French coast, 20 and William forced him to swear on the relics of the saints to support the Duke's claim as a price of his own return to England; but the news of the King's death was at once followed by that of Harold's accession, and after a burst of furious passion the Duke pre- 25 pared to enforce his claim by arms. William did not claim the Crown. He claimed simply the right which he afterward used when his sword had won it, of presenting himself for election by the nation, and he believed himself entitled so to present himself by the 30 direct commendation of the Confessor. The actual election of Harold which stood in his way, hurried as

it was, he did not recognize as valid. But with this constitutional claim was inextricably mingled his resentment at the private wrong which Harold had done him, and a resolve to exact vengeance on the man 5 whom he regarded as untrue to his oath.

The difficulties in the way of his enterprise were indeed enormous. He could reckon on no support within England itself. At home he had to extort the consent of his own reluctant baronage; to gather a 10 motley host from every quarter of France, and to keep it together for months; to create a fleet, to cut down the very trees, to build, to launch, to man the vessels; and to find time amidst all this for the common business of government, for negotiations with Denmark 15 and the Empire, with France, Brittany, and Anjou, with Flanders and with Rome. His rival's difficulties were hardly less than his own. Harold was threatened with invasion not only by William but by his brother Tostig, who had taken refuge in Norway and secured 20 the aid of its king, Harald Hardrada. The fleet and army he had gathered lay watching for months along the coast. His one standing force was his body of hus-carls, but their numbers only enabled them to act as the nucleus of an army. On the other hand the 25 Land-fyrd, or general levy of fighting-men, was a body easy to raise for any single encounter, but hard to keep together. To assemble such a force was to bring labour to a standstill. The men gathered under the king's standard were the farmers and ploughmen of 30 their fields. The ships were the fishing-vessels of the coast. In September the task of holding them together became impossible, but their dispersion had

hardly taken place when the two clouds which had so long been gathering burst at once upon the realm. A change of wind released the landlocked armament of William; but before changing, the wind which prisoned the Duke had flung the host of Harald Har- 5 drada on the coast of Yorkshire. The king hastened with his household troops to the north, and repulsed the invaders in a decisive overthrow at Stamford Bridge, in the neighbourhood of York; but ere he could hurry back to London the Norman host had 10 crossed the sea, and William, who had anchored on the 28th off Pevensey, was ravaging the coast to bring his rival to an engagement. His merciless ravages succeeded, as they were intended, in drawing Harold from London to the south; but the king wisely re- 15 fused to attack with the forces he had hastily summoned to his banner. If he was forced to give battle, he resolved to give it on ground he had himself chosen, and advancing near enough to the coast to check William's ravages, he entrenched himself on a hill 20 known afterwards as that of Senlac, a low spur of the Sussex Downs near Hastings. His position covered London, and drove William to concentrate his forces. With a host subsisting by pillage, to concentrate is to starve; and no alternative was left to William but a 25 decisive victory or ruin.

Along the higher ground that leads from Hastings the Duke led his men in the dim dawn of an October morning to the mound of Telham. It was from this point that the Normans saw the host of the English 30 gathered thickly behind a rough trench and a stockade on the height of Senlac. Marshy ground covered