KNXiLISH L1TKUATCKK. 



The Bunter-iandttrin, tho first member of the Trias which 



meet* an a* wo ancoiiil from the Permian, attains the thieknaM 



>;i)0 foot in tho unit ditriot of Cheshire and Lancashire. 



It in composed of red sandstone*, red and green shales, M well 



KM white quartzose sandstones. The deposit of those strata 

 appear* to hare taken place in shallow seas, which were undis- 

 turbed by inm-li upheaval or violent action of any kind, for 

 none of tho elevations of this period rise above 800 feet. This 

 is a remarkable proof of the general quietude of the era. It is 

 in the sandrttoiu-s <>f this |..TI,,.I that thu interesting footprints 

 of tho Chrirotherium are found so m tho impression 



>t being like that of tho hand, as our illustration will 

 show (Fig. 100). ThoHo foot-prints are often seen in a quarry 

 II, a few miles from Liverpool, where thin beds 

 !' daj run through tho white quartzoso sandstone. Whon 

 these beds woro deposited tho water muut have been shallow, 

 and perhaps the clay was a mud bank, which at certain times 

 was above tho surface, when the creatures passed over it, 

 leaving tho impressions of their footsteps, now called by the 

 quarry -mon "tho old man's hands." 



PTho marks of rain-drops have also boon noticed upon the 

 same slabs. This establishes the fact that when tho animal 

 crawled over tho shoro the water did not cover it, and therefore 

 tho creature was an air-breather. 



Some reptilian remains discovered in the German and English 

 trios were examined by Professor Owen, and the teeth sub- 

 mitted to the microscope proved to bo of a most complicated 

 structure, the onamol winding from tho central pulp cavity in a 

 number of twists, like tho windings of tho surface of the brain. 

 From this fact tho creature who owned the tooth was named 

 the Labyrinthodon. The bones provod that tho hind limbs of 

 tho reptile woro much larger than the fore limbs, and that 

 there wore three kinds of labyrinthodons differing in size ; so, 

 also, there wore three sizes of foot-prints ; and, lastly, tho 

 ivptilo was an air-breather, as tho structure of the nasal 

 cavity proved. Hence it was concluded that the labyrinthodon 

 was tho reptile which made the foot-prints ascribed to the 

 cheirotherium. 



The slabs of the trias rocks are noted for the footprints 

 they exhibit. Dr. Hitchcock has enumerated no less than 123 

 different kinds of birds, reptiles, insects, etc., which left im- 

 prossions on the Connecticut river sandstones, when they were 

 the shores of some triassic sea. 



The Musclielkalk, as the name implies, is a limestone forma- 

 tion, very fossiliferous. We have said it is wholly unrepre- 

 sented in England, but is found occupying considerable areas 

 in Germany, France, and Poland. It contains some very cha- 

 racteristic fossils : tho Encrinus liliiformis is very abundant 

 (Fig. 101). These encrinites, of which only two kinds at present 

 exist, were star-fish on stems tho fixed stars of the ocean 

 world. There is also found an ordinary star-fish, Aspidura 

 loricata. Another very abundant fossil, the bivalve Avicula 

 socialis (Fig. 102), is peculiarly characteristic of tho Mnschelkalk. 

 The Ceratitcs nodosus (Fig. 103) is a chambered shell, allied to 

 the ammonites, which will be found in great numbers in the 

 next formation, and is also characteristic of this centre deposit 

 of tho trias formation. 



The Keuper is the uppermost member of tho group, and is 

 especially interesting as being tho earliest strata which have 

 afforded evidence of the existence of warm-blooded animals on 

 the globe. 



Immediately beneath tho lias there is found a bono breccia, 

 containing shells distinct from those of the lias, and so allied 

 to the subjacent trias that it has been reckoned as the topmost 

 member of the trias. In 1847 Professor Plieningor found in 

 this bed, near Stuttgart, the molar tooth of a mammifer. From 

 the fact that the tooth had two fangs, and from the number of 

 tho cusps or protuberances on the crown, tho discoverer con- 

 sidered the creature must have been predaceous, and therefore 

 he called it Microlestes (little beast of prey). Ten years later, 

 Dr. Falconer showed a resemblance between this tooth and the 

 back. molars of the Plagiaulax. This, by analogy, would seem 

 to indicate that the Microlestes was marsupial and plant-eating 

 In Wurtemberg, at the base of the Keuper, another of the bone- 

 beds appears a bed rich in the remains of fish and reptiles 

 From this we learn that many of the reptiles existed through 

 the triassio period, since the same species are found in both 

 beds. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH I 1 1KRATURE-M 1 



A CHBOMOixxilcAb arrangement of the plays of 

 being, for the reasons that we have atplainad, 

 various other modes of arrangement have been duuma' by 

 different editors and criMoa. Some, for instate, hare eJataiied 

 them according to the sources from whence the stories of fee 

 plays were originally derived, whether from history more or Us. 

 anthem mere fiction. Bat it ean hardly be of amah 



use to the student, or -T*M him mneh in Ua study of Hhaka- 

 speare, to distribute the plays by reference to a cbeameteMa 

 which in Shakespeare's eyes was evidenUy of Tary little im- 

 portance, and is of still leas importance to as, and which 

 throws absolutely no light opon the nhaiantar of the play. 

 themselves. A distribution which places " Hamlet " and " King 

 Lear " in one class and " Othello " in another is not a vary fav 

 structivo one. By far the most eonraniant elaaaiflraitinn. we 

 think, is the old-fashioned and customary one, ' 

 plays into comedies, histories, and tragedies. This < 

 is historically correct, for tho three kinds of plays with which ft 

 deals though in Shakespeare's day the difference between them 

 was not always very strongly marked were much more diatmot, 

 as we have already seen, in their origin. "Gorbodnc," ' 

 Gurton's Needle," and Bale's play of " King John," 

 far more markedly to distinct classes of ffl"HKH 

 " Othello," tho " Merchant of Venice," and " Richard II." This 

 division, too, of the drama was one unquestionably quite 

 familiar to Shakespeare himself, and waa applied to his plays by 

 his own contemporaries. Nor is there any strong objection to 

 the division. Some of the comedies, no doubt, have a tragic 

 element in them ; comic scenes in the tragedies are 

 indeed almost universal ; and there are some few plays 

 which a doubt may arise to which class they shall 

 priately be assigned. But the difficulties are not , 

 commonly arise in tho case of any such classification; and, 

 until a better is suggested, this must continue to be em- 

 ployed. 



THE COMEDIES. 



To a modern reader, the first works which the name of Shake- 

 speare recalls to the mind are probably the great tragediaa. 

 Lear," "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Othello." The comedies 

 generally occupy a somewhat secondary place in men's estima- 

 tion. But among his contemporaries there is every imaon to 

 believe that Shakespeare's comedies were at least aa highly 

 appreciated as his tragedies. Certainly, a very few yean after- 

 wards, Milton considered the plays of Shakespeare fit enter- 

 tainment not for the pensive and serious man, whom he depieta 

 " II Penseroso," but for the cheerful and light-hearted man, 

 who is portrayed in " L' Allegro." It is in the latter mood 

 that he would hear 



" Sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy' child. 

 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 



The comedies of Shakespeare naturally divide themselrea into 

 several classes, though of course any such division most be a 

 mere approximation to the truth. The first and most numerous 

 class includes a series of plays which are rather comediea of 

 incident than of character. The scene of these plays is almost 

 always laid in foreign countries, and thus the effect of common- 

 placeness on the one hand, and the reproach of improbability 

 on the other, is avoided. They show little study of character, 

 and little or nothing of that effort to work out the deeper 

 problems of human nature, or deal with the subtler enigmas of 

 life, which is so distinctively the characteristic of another class 

 of Shakespeare's plays. Even the plot of these plays has 

 not always mnch more probability than the characters have 

 of individuality. Their charm is rather in the incidents of the 

 voyage than in the end to which it leads or the characters of 

 the travellers. Variety of incident, a perpetual succession of 

 pleasurable pictures, dialogue whose freshness nerer faila, 

 poetical beauty of language, an incessant sparkle of wit, and 

 unflagging powers of humour these are the chief sources 

 pleasure in the plays of which we are now speaking. They 

 belong for the most part to the earlier period of Shake, 

 speare's career ; and though they differ much both in kind and 

 degree of merit, they will be found to be generally distinguished 

 by the characteristics, both positive and negative, of which w 



