ENGLISH LITERATURE IN FRENCH UNIVERSITIES. 173 
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once, when they come back to France and settle into the old man again, 
hey have become able to look at English writers from the English point 
of view. 
As you see, the licence 1s but a first step. During these two years the 
student has only begun to specialize ; side by side with his English studies 
he has carried on his literary studies in French, Greek, and Latin. He 
has learnt English and developed a taste for English literature, but he is 
aot an English scholar yet. This he becomes when he prepares for the 
agrégation. The agrégation is the degree which will entitle him to 
oc appointed master, or, as we say, professeur, in one of the govern- 
ment’s lycées for secondary education. The number of possible appoint- 
ments being, of course, limited, the agrégation is more of a competition 
shan of an examination, and the number of candidates increasing every 
year, it has developed into a very severe test indeed. We have several 
kinds of agrégation in the literary department—one for history, one for 
philosophy, one for philology, one for belles-lettres and classics, one 
tor German, and one for English. Each of these examinations is strictly 
special. Let us see what the agrégation for English consists of. The 
course of studies is at least of two years after the licence, and often more, 
as such a limited number of students get through. The list of authors 
for the examination is changed every year, and as the lectures and papers 
uring the terms bear on the authors appointed for the examination at 
the end of the year, every candidate, when he attempts the agrégation, 
aas gone through two of thosé lists. The following is the programme of 
authors for this year : 
William Langland.—¢¢ Piers the Plowman.” The extracts given in 
Specimens of Rarly English, by the Rev. Richard Morris and the Rev. 
Walter W. Skeat. (Part II. From Robert of Gloucester to Gower.) 
Clarendon Press. 
Spenser.—¢¢ Epithalamion,” ¢¢ Prothalamion ;” ¢“Fowre Hymnes : An 
dymne in Honour of Love; An Hymne in Honour of Beauty; An 
Tymne of Heavenly Love ; An Hymne of Heavenly Beauty.” 
Greene. — ¢“ Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.” 
:dited by A. W. Ward. Clarendon Press. 
Shakespeare. —¢“ Much Ado about Nothing.” 
Sir Thomas Browne.—¢¢ Hydriotaphia: A Letter to a Friend, upon 
sccasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend.” 
Pope.—¢ The Rape of the Lock.” 
Cowper.—¢¢ Letters.” (Golden Treasury Series.) 
Burke.—¢¢ Reflections on the Revolution in France.” 
Byron.—¢¢ Cain. A Mystery.” 
Walter Savage Landor.—‘¢Imaginary Conversations.” (The Camelot 
Classics.) 
Tennvson.—¢ The Dying Swan,” < The Merman.” <The Mermaid,”