4s 
 
 
 3 ~-jiw 
 
 HJN/COL^ 
 

 
 '■ 
 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 LANDMARKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY J. NICOLL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GREAT MOVEMENTS," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN HOGG, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1883. 
 
 [AU rights reserved.']
 
 T> IV. 
 
 BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 KDINBUKGH AND LONDON
 
 CONTENTS AND CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Plan of the Work. — Some Hints on the Study of 
 English Literature ..... Pp. 7-24 
 
 Chapter I. — The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 Chaucer ; James I. of Scotland, Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Sir 
 David Lyndsay ; Mandeville, Wiclif, Tyndalc, Coverdale, 
 Rogers (translations of the Bible) ; Sir Thomas Malory, 
 More, Latimer, Foxe, .... Pp. 25-48 
 
 1300. 
 
 1324- 
 1340. 
 
 1356. 
 
 1371- 
 1380. 
 
 13S0- 
 
 1384. 
 
 1394- 
 
 1400. 
 
 1437- 
 
 1470. 
 
 ' 175- 
 
 1 17"- 
 
 ' !■'!• 
 1490. 
 1 1 91. 
 1508. 
 
 Mandeville born. 
 
 1513 
 
 Wicklif born. 
 
 
 Chaucer born. 
 
 1313 
 
 Mandeville's " Travels." 
 
 
 Mandeville died. 
 
 1516 
 
 Wicklifs translation of the 
 
 L5I7 
 
 Bible. 
 
 1520. 
 
 1400. Chaucer's " Canterbury 
 
 1522. 
 
 Tales." 
 
 1526. 
 
 Wi klil d 
 
 
 [am !. born. 
 
 1535- 
 
 Chaucer died. 
 
 1535- 
 
 James I. died. 
 
 1536. 
 
 I lunbar b 
 
 1537. 
 
 Sir 'I'll- .111:1 - M:il'.ry, fl. 
 
 1539. 
 
 Gawain 1 )ouglaa born. 
 
 1539- 
 
 Caxton settled in England. 
 
 
 More 1 "in. 
 
 1549- 
 
 Tyndale born. 
 
 
 Sir David Lyndsay born. 
 
 1553. 
 
 I oer boi n. 
 
 '555- 
 
 1 lunbar'a " Golden Targe." 
 
 1557. 
 
 
 1587. 
 
 Douglas's translation of the 
 
 "/Eneid." 
 More's " History of Edward 
 
 the Fifth." (?) 
 More's " Utopia." 
 Foxe born. 
 Dunbar died. 
 Gawain Douglas died. 
 Tyndale's translation of the 
 
 New Testament. 
 Coverdale's bible. 
 More died. 
 Tyndale died. 
 " Matthew's Bible." 
 Cranmer's Bible. 
 Lyndsay's "Satire 
 
 Three Estates." 
 Latimer's " Sermon 
 
 Ploughers." 
 Lyndsay's " Monarchy." 
 Latimer died. 
 Lynd ay died, 
 Foxe died. 
 
 of 
 
 "ii 
 
 the 
 the
 
 IV 
 
 Contents and Chronology. 
 
 Chapter II. — The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 Ascham ; Wyatt, and Surrey; Spenser; Sidney, Hooker, Raleigh, 
 Lyly ; the Elizabethan dramatists: Lyly, Marlowe, Greene, 
 Peele, Shakespeare, Chapman, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, and others, .... Pp. 49-88 
 
 1503. Wyatt born. 
 
 1 5 1 5. Ascham born. 
 
 1 5 16. Surrey born. 
 1541. Wyatt died. 
 
 1545. Ascham's " Toxophilus." 
 1547. Surrey died. 
 1552 (?). Spenser born. 
 
 1552. Raleigh born. 
 
 1553. Hooker born. 
 
 1554. Sidney born. 
 1554. Lyly born. 
 
 1557. Tottel's " Miscellany." 
 1568. Ascham died. 
 1570. Ascham's " Schoolmaster." 
 1 5 79- Spenser's " Shepherd's Calen- 
 dar. " 
 
 1579. Lyly's " Euphues, the Ana- 
 
 tomy of Wit." 
 
 1580. Sidney's " Arcadia." 
 
 1580. Lyly's "Euphues and his 
 
 England." 
 
 1581. Sidney's " Apologie for 
 
 Poetry." 
 1586. Sidney died. 
 1590. Spenser's "Faerie Queen" 
 
 (first three books). 
 
 1594. Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Po- 
 
 lity " (first four books). 
 
 1595. Spenser's " Epithalamion." 
 
 1596. Spenser's "Faerie Queen" 
 
 (last three books). 
 
 1597. Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Po- 
 
 lity " (fifth book), 
 
 1599. Spenser died. 
 
 1600. Hooker died. 
 1606. Lyly died. 
 
 161 1. Authorised Version of the 
 
 Bible. 
 161 8. Raleigh died. 
 
 The Elizabethan Dramatists. 
 
 1551 
 
 1558, 
 
 1559 
 1560 
 1562, 
 
 1564 
 1564 
 1573- 
 1576. 
 
 I579> 
 1582, 
 
 1584 
 1586 
 
 Udall's "Ralph Roister 
 Doister " (first English 
 comedy) acted. 
 
 Peele born. 
 
 Chapman born. 
 (?). Greene born. 
 
 Sackville and Norton's "Gor- 
 boduc" (first English tra- 
 gedy) acted. 
 
 Marlowe born. 
 
 Shakespeare born. 
 
 Ben Jonson born. 
 
 First theatre erected in 
 London. 
 
 Fletcher born. 
 
 Shakespeare's marriage. 
 
 Massinger born. 
 (?). Shakespeare goes to Lon- 
 don. 
 
 1 5 86. Ford born. 
 
 15S6. Beaumont born. 
 
 1587. Marlowe's " Tamburlaine." 
 
 1588-94. Shakespeare's "First 
 Period." 
 
 1592. Greene died. 
 
 1592. Greene's reference to Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 1592. Peele died. 
 
 1593. Marlowe died. 
 
 1593. Shakespeare's "Venus and 
 Adonis." 
 
 1594. Shakespeare's " Rape of Lu- 
 
 crece." 
 1 595-160 1. Shakespeare's "Second 
 
 Period." 
 1596. Shirley born. 
 1596. Ben Jonson's "Every Man 
 
 in his Humour."
 
 Contents and Chronology 
 
 v 
 
 1601-S. Shakespeare's "Third 
 
 Period." 
 1603. Ben Jonson's " Sejanus." 
 1605. Ben Jonson's "Volpone." 
 
 1609. Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
 1609-13 (?). Shakespeare's "Fourth 
 
 Period." 
 
 1610. Ben Jonson's "Alchemist." 
 1612. Webster's " Vittoria Corom- 
 
 bona." 
 1612 (?). Shakespeare returns to 
 Stratford. 
 
 1616. Shakespeare died. 
 
 1616. Beaumont died. 
 
 1623. Webster's "Duchess 
 
 Main." 
 1625. Fletcher died. 
 1634. Chapman died. 
 1637. Ben Jonson died. 
 1640. Ford died. 
 1640. Massinger died. 
 1642. Theatres closed. 
 1667. Shirley died. 
 
 of 
 
 Chapter III. — The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 Bacon ; Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, Baxter, Bunyan ; Walton ; Browne ; 
 Clarendon; Hobbes ; Lovelace, Suckling, Herbert, Herrick 
 Milton, Donne, Cowley, Denham, Waller, . Pp. 89-128 
 
 1561. 
 
 1573- 
 
 1588. 
 
 1593- 
 1597- 
 
 1605. 
 
 1605. 
 [6 »5. 
 1608. 
 1608. 
 1608. 
 1608. 
 1612. 
 
 1613. 
 16 1 5. 
 1615. 
 1618. 
 
 1618. 
 1618. 
 1620. 
 1621. 
 1625. 
 
 \UzU. 
 1628. 
 
 Bacon born. j 
 
 
 1629. 
 
 Donne born. 
 
 
 1631. 
 
 Hobbes born. 
 
 
 i633- 
 
 Isaak Walton born. 
 
 
 1633. 
 
 First edition of 
 
 Bacon's 
 
 
 "Essays." 
 
 
 1634. 
 
 Bacon's "Advancement of 
 
 1637. 
 
 Learning." 
 
 
 1640- 
 
 Waller born. 
 
 
 1641. 
 
 Browne born. 
 
 
 1641- 
 
 Fuller born. 
 
 
 
 Suckling born. 
 
 
 1642. 
 
 Clarendon born. 
 
 
 1643. 
 
 Milton bom. 
 
 
 1644. 
 
 Second edition of 
 
 Bacon's 
 
 1644- 
 
 " Essays." 
 
 
 1645. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor born. 
 
 
 
 Baxter born. 
 
 
 1646. 
 
 Denham born. 
 
 
 1646. 
 
 Bacon made Lord Chancel- 
 
 
 lor. 
 
 
 1647. 
 
 Lovelace born. 
 
 
 1648. 
 
 ( lowley born. 
 
 
 1648. 
 
 Bacon's " Novum Ot 
 
 ganum." 
 
 1649. 
 
 n'a fall from po 
 
 wer. 
 
 1653- 
 
 Third edition of 
 
 Bacon's 
 
 ir, V .. 
 
 " Essays." 
 
 
 1658. 
 
 1 '1 ■■ :i 1 Lied. 
 
 
 1659- 
 
 Banyan born, 
 
 Milton B.A. at Cambridge. 
 Donne died. 
 Herbert's "Temple." 
 Milton's "Arcades," " L'Al- 
 
 legro," "II Penseroso." 
 Milton's " Comus " acted. 
 Milton's " Lycidas." 
 -78. Walton's "Lives." 
 
 Suckling died. 
 -42. Milton's Pamphlets on 
 Church Government. 
 Fuller's " Holy State." 
 Browne's " Religio Medici." 
 Milton's " Areopagitica." 
 -45. Milton's Divorce Tracts. 
 Fuller's " Good Thoughts in 
 
 Bad Times." 
 Browne's " Vulgar Errors." 
 Collected edition of Milton's 
 
 Poems. 
 Cowley's " Mistress." 
 Puller's " Profane State." 
 I [errick's " Hesperides." 
 Milton's " Eikonoclastes." 
 Walton's "CorapL teAngler." 
 Fuller's "Church History." 
 Lovelace died, 
 -60. Milton's Restoration Pam- 
 phlets.
 
 VI 
 
 Contents and Chronology. 
 
 [6 <i. Fuller died. 
 
 !, Fuller's "Worthies of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 1667. Milton's "Paradise Lost." 
 
 1667. Cowley died. 
 
 1667. Jeremy Taylor died. 
 
 166S. Denham died. 
 
 1671. Milton's " Paradise Re- 
 gained " and " Samson 
 Agonistes." 
 
 1674. Clarendon died. 
 
 1674. Milton died. 
 
 1675. Banyan's "Pilgrim's 
 gress." 
 
 Ilobbes died. 
 
 Browne died. 
 
 Walton died. 
 
 Waller died. 
 1688. Banyan died. 
 1 69 1. Baxter died. 
 
 Tro- 
 
 1679. 
 1682. 
 1683. 
 
 1687 
 
 Chapter IV. — The Restoration. 
 
 Butler ; Dryden ; Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, 
 Sheridan ; Otway, Lee, Rowe ; Barrow, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, 
 Sherlock, South ; Gilbert Burnet ; Locke ; Newton, Pp. 1 29-161 
 
 1612. 
 1630. 
 1630. 
 1631. 
 1632. 
 1633. 
 
 1635- 
 1640. 
 1641. 
 1642. 
 1643. 
 165 1. 
 1658. 
 1660. 
 1661. 
 
 1662. 
 1662. 
 
 1662. 
 
 1663. 
 1663. 
 
 1663. 
 
 1666. 
 
 1667. 
 1668. 
 
 Butler born. 1670. 
 
 John Tillotson born. 
 
 Dr. Baac Barrow born. 1670. 
 
 John Dryden born. 
 
 John Locke born. 
 
 Robert South born. 1 670. 
 
 Edward Stillingfleet born. 1671. 
 
 William Wycherley born. 1672. 
 
 William Sherlock born. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton born. 1673. 
 
 Gilbert Burnet born. 1675. 
 
 Thomas Otway born. 1677. 
 
 Dryden's first poem published. 1077- 
 
 Dryden's "Astraea Redux." 1 67 7. 
 
 Dryden's "Panegyric on the 1678. 
 
 Coronation." 1678. 
 
 Royal Society incorporated. 1680. 
 First part of Butler's " Iludi- 
 
 bras." 
 
 n's " Epistle on the 16S0. 
 
 Lord Chancellor." 1680. 
 Second part of " Iludibras." 
 
 Dryden's " Epistle to Dr. 16S1. 
 
 Charlton" and "Wild 
 
 Gallant." 16S2. 
 Dryden married. 
 Sir John Vanbrugh born. 
 
 Dryden's " Annus Mirabilis." 1685. 
 
 Drvden's " Essay of Dramatic 1686. 
 
 J :sy." 
 
 Dryden's " Conquest of 
 
 Granada." 
 Dryden appointed Historio- 
 grapher Royal and Poet 
 
 Laureate. 
 Congreve born. 
 The " Rehearsal." 
 Wycherley's " Love in a 
 
 Wood." 
 Nicholas Rowe born. 
 Wycherley's " Country Wife." 
 Dryden's "All for Love." 
 Wycherley's " Plain Dealer." 
 Dr. Isaac Barrow died. 
 Third part of " Hudibras." 
 George Farquhar born. 
 Gilbert Burnet's " Account of 
 
 the Life and Death of the 
 
 Earl of Rochester." 
 Butler died. 
 Sir Robert Filmer's " Patri- 
 
 archa." 
 Dryden's "Absalom and 
 
 Achitophel." 
 Dryden's "The Medal," 
 
 " MacFlecknoe," and 
 
 " Religio Laici." 
 Thomas Otway died. 
 Dryden joined the Church of 
 
 Rome.
 
 Contents and Chronology 
 
 vn 
 
 1686. Dryden's poem "To the 
 
 Memory of Miss Anne 
 Killegrew." 
 
 1687. Dryden's " Hind and Pan- 
 
 ther." 
 16S7. Sir Isaac Newton's " Prin- 
 
 cipia." 
 1689. Dryden's " Don Sebastian." 
 16S9. Burnet appointed Bishop of 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 1689. Locke's "Letter on Tolera- 
 
 tion " and " Two Treatises 
 on Government." 
 
 1690. Locke's " Essay on the Hu- 
 
 man Understanding." 
 
 1 69 1. Tillotson appointed Arch- 
 
 bishop of Canterbury. 
 
 1692. Locke made Secretary of 
 
 Prosecutions. 
 
 1692. Nathaniel Lee died. 
 
 1693. Congreve's " Old Bachelor." 
 
 1694. Dryden's " Love Trium- 
 
 phant." 
 1 694. Congreve's " Double Dealer." 
 
 1694. Tillotson died. 
 
 1695. Congreve's " Love for Love." 
 1697. Dryden's translation of " Vir- 
 
 giL" 
 
 1697. Congreve's "Mourning 
 
 Bride." 
 1697. Vanbrugh's "Relapse" and 
 
 " Provoked Wife." 
 
 169S. 
 
 1699. 
 1699. 
 1700. 
 1700. 
 
 1704. 
 1706. 
 
 1707. 
 
 1707. 
 1707. 
 1715. 
 
 I7I5- 
 
 1716. 
 1718. 
 1726. 
 1728. 
 
 1751- 
 I759- 
 
 1775- 
 
 1777. 
 
 1779. 
 1780. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Jeremv Collier's " Short 
 
 View." 
 Edward Stillingfleet died. 
 Dryden's "Fables." 
 Dryden died. 
 Congreve's " Way of the 
 
 World." 
 John Locke died. 
 Farquhar's " Recruiting Offi- 
 cer." 
 Farquhar's " Beaux Strata- 
 gem." 
 William Sherlock died. 
 Sir Isaac Newton died. 
 Gilbert Burnet died. 
 Wycherley died. 
 Robert South died. 
 Nicholas Rowe died. 
 Sir John Vanbrugh died. 
 Congreve died. 
 Richard B. Sheridan born. 
 Butler's " Genuine Prose Re- 
 mains " published. 
 Sheridan's " The Rivals," 
 " St. Patrick's Day," and 
 " The Duenna." 
 Sheridan's " School for 
 
 Scandal." 
 Sheridan's "The Critic." 
 Sheridan became a Member 
 
 of Parliament. 
 Sheridan died. 
 
 Chapter V. — The Wits of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 Swift, Addison, Steele, Arbuthnott, Bolingbroke, Berkeley, Butler; 
 Pope, Prior, Gay, Young, Churchill, Gray, Collins, and Aken- 
 side, ...... Pp. 162-202 
 
 Warburton born. 
 
 Thomson bom. 
 
 Swift's " I >iscourse." 
 
 Steele's "The Christian 
 Hero." 
 
 Steele's "The funeral." 
 
 Steele's "The Tender Hus- 
 band " and " The 1 tying 
 I. over." 
 
 Swift's "Tale of a Tub." 
 
 1664. 
 
 Prior born. 
 
 1698. 
 
 1667. 
 
 Arbuthnott born. 
 
 1699. 
 
 1667. 
 
 Swift born. 
 
 1701. 
 
 1 671. 
 
 lie born. 
 
 1701. 
 
 1672. 
 
 Ad lison born. 
 
 
 1678. 
 
 Bolingbroke born. 
 
 1702. 
 
 1 681. 
 
 Young born. 
 
 I703- 
 
 1684. 
 
 Bei keley born. 
 
 
 
 1 born. 
 
 
 1 
 
 Butler born. 
 
 1704.
 
 Ylll 
 
 Contents and Chronology 
 
 1704. Addison's " The Campaign." 
 1 707. Addison's " Present State of 
 
 the War." 
 170S-9. Swift's "Argument against 
 the Abolishing of Chris- 
 tianity " and " Predictions 
 of Isaac Bickerstaff." 
 1709. Steele's "Tatler" begun. 
 1709. Pope's " Pastorals." 
 171 1. Pope's " Essay on Criticism." 
 171 1. The "Tatler" closed. 
 
 17 11. The " Spectator" begun. 
 
 1712. Pope's first edition of the 
 
 " Rape of the Lock." 
 
 1 7 13. Gay's " Rural Sports." 
 1 713. Addison's " Cato." 
 
 1713. Steele's "Guardian." 
 
 1 7 14. Steele's "Englishman" and 
 
 "The Crisis." 
 1 714. Pope's second edition of the 
 
 " Rape of the Lock." 
 1715-16. Addison's "Freeholder." 
 1 7 16. Gray born. 
 
 1 7 19. Addison died. 
 
 1720. Swift's " Universal Use of 
 
 Irish Manufactures." 
 1720. Collins born. 
 
 1720. Pope's "Iliad." 
 
 1 72 1. Prior dead. 
 
 1722. Steele's "The Conscious 
 
 Lovers." 
 
 1723. Swift's " Drapier's Letters." 
 1 725. Pope's " Odyssey." 
 
 1726-27. Swift's "Gulliver's Tra- 
 vels." 
 1726-30. Thomson's " Seasons." 
 1728. Gay's " Beggar's Opera." 
 
 1728. Pope's " Dunciad." 
 
 1729. Steele died. 
 
 1 73 1. Churchill born. 
 
 1732. Pope's " Essay on Man." 
 1732. Gay died. 
 
 1733-38. Pope's " Satires and Ep- 
 istles of Horace Imitated." 
 
 1735. Arbuthnott died. 
 
 1736. Butler's "Analogy of Reli- 
 
 gion." 
 1 741. Pope's revised edition of the 
 
 "Dunciad." 
 1744. Young's "Night Thoughts." 
 1744. Pope died. 
 
 1744. Akenside's "Pleasures of 
 
 the Imagination." 
 
 1745. Swift died. 
 
 1748. Thomson's "Castle of Indo- 
 lence." 
 1748. Thomson died. 
 
 1750. Gray's " Elegy in a Country 
 
 Churchyard." 
 
 1 75 1. Bolingbroke died. 
 
 1752. Butler died. 
 
 1753. Berkeley died. 
 1756. Collins died. 
 
 1764. Churchill died. 
 
 1765. Young died. 
 1 77 1. Gray died. 
 1779. Warburton died. 
 
 Chapter VI. — Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 Defoe : Richardson 
 
 Fielding 
 
 1661. Defoe born. 
 
 1689. Richardson born. 
 
 1704. Defoe's " Review" started. 
 
 1707. Fielding born. 
 
 17 13. Sterne born. 
 
 1 7 19. Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 1 72 1. Smollett born. 
 
 1722. Defoe's "Journal of the 
 
 Placrue." 
 
 Smollett ; Sterne. Pp. 203-236 
 
 1731. Defoe died. 
 
 1740. Richardson's "Pamela." 
 
 1742. Fielding's "Joseph And- 
 
 rews." 
 
 1743. Fielding's "Jonathan Wild." 
 1748. Richardson's "Clarissa." 
 
 1748. Smollett's "Roderick Ran- 
 
 dom." 
 
 1749. Fielding's "Tom Jones."
 
 Contents and Chronology. 
 
 IX 
 
 1751. Fielding's "Amelia." 
 1 75 1. Smollett's "Peregrine 
 Pickle." 
 
 1753. Smollett's "Count Fa- 
 
 thom." 
 
 1754. Richardson's "Sir Charles 
 
 Grandison." 
 1754. Fielding died. 
 1759—67. Sterne's "Tristram 
 
 Shandy." 
 1761. Richardson died. 
 
 1764. V\'alpole's "Castle of Ot- 
 
 ranto." 
 1768. Sterne's "Sentimental 
 Journey." 
 
 1765. Sterne died. 
 
 1771. Smollett's "Humphrey 
 
 Clinker." 
 1771. Smollett died. 
 
 1771. Mackenzie's "Man of Feel- 
 
 ing." 
 1778. Fanny Burney's "Evelina.'' 
 17S4. Beckford's "Vathek." 
 1794. Mrs. Radcliffe's "Mysteries 
 
 of Udolpho." 
 1794. Godwin's " Caleb Williams." 
 
 1511. Miss Austen's "Sense and 
 
 Sensibility." 
 
 1512. Miss Edge-worth's "Ab- 
 
 sentee." 
 1S12. Miss Austen's "Pride and 
 Prejudice." 
 
 1514. Miss Austen's "Mansfield 
 
 Park." 
 1816. Miss Austen's "Emma." 
 
 1515. Miss Austen's "Northanger 
 
 Abbey." 
 1S1S. Miss Austen's "Persuasion." 
 
 Chapter VII. — Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 Johnson; Goldsmith; Burke; Boswell ; Junius] Hume; Robert- 
 son; Gibbon ..... Pp. 237-275 
 
 Johnson's Dictionary. 
 Burke on the "Sublime and 
 
 Beautiful." 
 -60. Johnson's "Idler." 
 Robertson's "History of 
 
 Scotland." 
 Johnson's "Rasselas." 
 Goldsmith's "Enquiry into 
 
 the State of Literature." 
 Goldsmith's "Traveller." 
 Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wake- 
 
 field." 
 Goldsmith's "Good-Natured 
 
 Man." 
 1 1 tsun's "Charles V." 
 72. " Lettei "i funius." 
 Goldsmitn's "Deserted Vil- 
 
 lage. 
 Burke's " Though! • on Pre- 
 sent I 'i sctfnti ni s." 
 ( Jold mith's " She Stoops to 
 
 ( '< mqui 1 . " 
 Goldoinith died. 
 
 1709. 
 
 Johnson born. 
 
 1755- 
 
 1 71 1. 
 
 Hume born. 
 
 1756. 
 
 1721. 
 
 Robertson born. 
 
 
 1728. 
 
 Goldsmith born. 
 
 I75S- 
 
 1729. 
 
 Burke born. 
 
 1758- 
 
 1735- 
 
 Johnson's translation of 
 
 
 
 Lobo's "Voyage to Abys- 
 
 1759- 
 
 
 sinia." 
 
 '759- 
 
 I737- 
 
 Gibbon born. 
 
 
 '738. 
 
 Hume's " Treatise of Human 
 
 1764. 
 
 
 Nature." 
 
 1766. 
 
 1738. 
 
 Johnson's " London." 
 
 
 1740. 
 
 ' 
 
 1768. 
 
 1742. 
 
 1 [urn' ' " 1 . says." 
 
 
 1744. 
 
 John on' "1 e of Savag 
 
 1769. 
 
 1749- 
 
 Johnson's " Vanity ol Human 
 
 (76g 
 
 
 Wishe ." 
 
 1770. 
 
 1749. 
 
 Johnson's " Irene." 
 
 
 1750-52. Johnson's "Rambler." 
 
 1770. 
 
 1752. 
 
 1 lame 1 " Political 1 1 - 
 
 
 
 1 oui se .'' 
 
 >773- 
 
 >754 
 
 or. Hume's "History of 
 
 
 
 1 ogland." 
 
 1774-
 
 X 
 
 Contents and Chronology. 
 
 1775- 
 
 Johnson's "Tour to the 
 Western Isles." 
 
 1785 
 
 1776. 
 
 Hume died. 
 
 1786 
 
 1776. 
 
 Adam Smith's "Wealth of 
 Nations." 
 
 
 1776- 
 
 Campbell's "Philosophy of 
 Rhetoric." 
 
 1790. 
 
 1776- 
 
 ■SS. Gibbon's " Decline and 
 
 Fall of the Roman Em- 
 
 1791 
 
 
 pire." 
 
 1791. 
 
 1777- 
 
 Robertson's "History of 
 
 1793 
 
 
 America." 
 
 1794 
 
 1779- 
 
 81. Johnson's " Lives of the 
 
 1795 
 
 
 Poets." 
 
 1797. 
 
 1784. 
 
 Johnson died. 
 
 
 Burke's speech on the " Na- 
 bob of Arcot's Debts." 
 
 Burke's speech on the Im- 
 peachment of Warren 
 Hastings. 
 
 Burke's " Reflections on 
 the French Revolution." 
 
 Robertson's " Disquisition on 
 Ancient India." 
 
 Bos well's " Life of Johnson." 
 
 Robertson died. 
 
 Gibbon died. 
 
 Boswell died. 
 
 Burke died. 
 
 Chapter VIII. — The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 Pery's "Reliques;" Warton's "History 'of English Poetry;" 
 Ossian, Chatterton, Shenstone, Beattie ; Blake; Cowper, 
 Burns, Crabbe; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Byron, 
 Shelley, Keats ; Rogers, Hogg, Campbell, Moore, Pp. 276-322 
 
 1725. 
 
 i73i- 
 
 1742. 
 
 1754- 
 1757- 
 1759- 
 1762. 
 1765. 
 1768. 
 
 1770. 
 1772. 
 1774- 
 1774- 
 1774- 
 
 1777- 
 1779- 
 1782. 
 
 1783. 
 1785. 
 1786. 
 1788. 
 
 Ramsay's "Gentle Shep- 
 herd." 
 
 1791. 
 
 Cowper born. 
 
 Shenstone's " Schoolmis- 
 
 1792. 
 
 1792. 
 
 tress." 
 
 
 Crabbe born. 
 
 1795- 
 
 Blake born. 
 
 1796. 
 
 Burns born. 
 
 1796 
 
 "Ossian." 
 
 1798. 
 
 Percy's " Reliques." 
 
 
 Chatterton's " Mediaeval Ro- 
 
 1799. 
 
 mances." 
 
 
 Wordsworth born. 
 
 1800. 
 
 Coleridge born. 
 
 1801. 
 
 Beattie's "Minstrel." 
 
 1805. 
 
 Southey born. 
 78. Warton's " History of 
 
 English Poetry." 
 Blake's " Poetical Sketches." 
 
 1807. 
 1807. 
 1S09. 
 
 "Olney Hymns." 
 
 Cowper's "Table-Talk," &c. 
 
 1809. 
 
 Crabbe's " Village." 
 
 1810. 
 
 Cowper's " Task." 
 
 1 81 2. 
 
 Burns's Poems. 
 
 1812- 
 
 Byron born. 
 
 1S13. 
 
 of 
 
 of 
 
 Cowper's translation 
 "Homer." 
 
 Shelley born. 
 
 Rogers's "Pleasures 
 Memory." 
 
 Keats born. 
 
 Burns died. 
 
 Southey's "Joan of Arc." 
 
 Wordsworth's "Lyrical Bal- 
 lads." 
 
 Campbell's " Pleasures of 
 Hope." 
 
 Cowper died. 
 
 Southey's " Thalaba." 
 
 Southey's " Madoc." 
 
 Wordsworth's Poems. 
 
 Byron's ' ' Hours of Idleness. " 
 
 Byron's " English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers." 
 
 Campbell's " Gertrude of 
 Wyoming." 
 
 Southey's " Kehama." 
 
 Crabbe's "Tales in Verse." 
 -18. Byron's "Childe Harold." 
 
 Southey's " Life of Nelson."
 
 Contents and Chronology, 
 
 XI 
 
 1813. Hogg's " Queen's Wake." 
 
 1814. Southey's "Roderick." 
 
 1814. Wordsworth's "Excursion." 
 
 1815. Wordsworth's "White Doe 
 
 of Rylstone." 
 
 1516. Coleridge's " Christabel." 
 
 1817. Coleridge's " Biographia 
 
 Literaria." 
 
 1517. Shelley's "Revolt of Islam." 
 1S17. Moore's " Lalla Rookh." 
 
 1818. Coleridge's "Friend." 
 
 1818. Keats's "Endvmion." 
 
 1819. Crabbe's "Tales of the 
 
 Hall." 
 
 1S19. Shelley's " Prometheus Un- 
 bound " and "The Cenci." 
 1 Si 9-24. Byron's " Childe Harold." 
 
 1820. Keats's " Lamia," &c. 
 
 1821. Keats died. 
 
 1822. Shelley died. 
 
 1S24. Byron died. [tion." 
 
 1825. Coleridge's "Aids to Refiec- 
 
 1828. Blake died. 
 
 1S32. Crabbe died. 
 
 1834. Coleridge died. 
 
 1843. Southey died. 
 
 1850. Wordsworth died. 
 
 1S50. Wordsworth's "Recluse." 
 
 Chapter IX. — Sir Walter Scott and the Prose Litera- 
 ture of the Early Part of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott ; Mackintosh, Hallam, Alison ; Jeffrey, Sydney 
 Smith ; Wilson, Lockhart, De Quincey ; Lamb, Hazlitt, 
 
 Hunt ; Landor, Chalmers, 
 
 765. Sir James Mackintosh burn.. 
 771. Scott born. 
 
 Sydney Smith born. 
 
 Jeffrey born. 
 
 Lamb born. 
 
 Landor born. 
 
 Hallam burn. 
 778. Hazlitt born. 
 780. Chalmers born. 
 
 Lei<;h Hunt born. 
 
 John Wilson horn. 
 
 De Quincey born. 
 
 Alison born. 
 
 Lockhart born. 
 802-3. Scott's " Minstrelsy of the 
 Border." 
 
 771 
 773- 
 
 775- 
 775- 
 777 
 
 784. 
 785. 
 785. 
 792. 
 794- 
 
 Pp. 323 376 
 
 1S02-2S. Sydney Smith's Contribu- 
 tions to " The Edinburgh 
 Review." 
 
 1802-40. Jeffrey's Contributions to 
 " The Edinburgh Review." 
 
 1S05. Scott's "Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel." 
 
 1S08. Scott's " Marmion." 
 
 1510. Scott's " Lady of the Lake." 
 
 1511. Scott's " Vision of Don Ro- 
 
 derick." 
 1812. Scott's " Kokeby." 
 
 1812. Wdson's "Isle <-f Palms." 
 
 1813. Scott's " Bridal of Trier- 
 
 main." 
 
 'I'm. Waverlky Noyi.i s. 
 
 1514. " Waverley." 
 
 1515. " Guy Mannering." 
 
 181O. "The Antiquary;" 
 Dwarf;" "Old 
 My." 
 
 1817. " Rob Roy." 
 
 [8x8 "I b( Heart of Midlothian." 
 
 Black 1819. "Bi di of Lammermoor ; " 
 Morta- "Legend <>f Montrose;" 
 
 " I vanhoe."
 
 XII 
 
 Contents and Chronology . 
 
 1820. "The Monastery;" "The 
 Abbot." 
 
 1521. "Kenilworth ;" "The Pi- 
 
 rate." 
 
 1522. " The Fortunes of Nigel." 
 1823. "Peveril of the Peak;" 
 
 "Quentin Durward;" 
 " St. Ronan's Well." 
 1S24. " Redgauntlet." 
 
 1S25. " The Betrothed ; " " The 
 Talisman." 
 
 1826. "Woodstock." 
 
 1S27. " The Two Drovers ; " " The 
 HighlandWidow;" "The 
 Surgeon's Daugliter." 
 
 1828. "The Fair Maid of Perth." 
 
 1829. " Anne of Geierstein." 
 1831. "Count Robert of Paris;" 
 
 " Castle Dangerous." 
 
 1S16. Wilson's "City of the Plague." 
 
 1S16. Leigh Hunt's " Story of 
 Rimini." 
 
 1S1S. Ilallam's " State of Europe 
 during the Middle Ages." 
 
 1S19. Lockhart's "Peter's Letters 
 to his Kinsfolk." 
 
 1821. Lockhart's " Spanish Bal- 
 lads." 
 
 1821. De Quincey's "Confessions 
 of an Opium-Eater." 
 
 1823. Lamb's " Essays of Elia." 
 
 1824-29. Landor's " Imaginary 
 Conversations." 
 
 1825. Ilazlitt's " Spirit of the Age." 
 
 1S27. Lockhart's " Life of Burns." 
 
 1827. Scott's " Life of Napoleon." 
 
 1827. Ilallam's "Constitutional 
 History of England." 
 
 1828-30. Ilazlitt's "Life of Napo- 
 leon." 
 
 1830. Ilazlitt died. 
 
 1830. Mackintosh's " Dissertation 
 on Ethical Philosophy." 
 
 1830-32. Mackintosh's " History of 
 England." 
 
 1832. 
 1832. 
 1834. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh died. 
 
 Scott died. 
 
 Mackintosh's " History of 
 
 the Revolution, 168S." 
 Lamb died. 
 38. Lockhart's "Life of 
 
 Scott." 
 l8 3 s ~39- Hallam's "Literature of 
 
 Europe." 
 42. Alison's "History of 
 
 Europe." 
 Wilson's "Recreations of 
 
 Christopher North." 
 Sydney Smith died. 
 Chalmers died. 
 Jeffrey died 
 
 1834. 
 1S36- 
 
 1S39- 
 1S42. 
 
 1S45. 
 1847. 
 1850. 
 1850. 
 
 Leigh Hunt's " Autobio- 
 graphy." 
 1S54. John Wilson died. 
 1854. Lockhart died. 
 1859. Hallam died. 
 1859. De Quincey died. 
 1859. Leigh Hunt died. 
 1867. Alison died. 
 
 Chapter X. — Our Own Times. 
 
 Dickens, Thackeray, Lytton, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Lever, 
 Charles Kingsley, Beaconsfield, Charles Reade, Anthony Trol- 
 lope, Blackmore, Hardy, Black ; Tennyson, Browning, Mrs. 
 Browning, Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne ; Macaulay, Carlyle,
 
 Contents and Chronology. 
 
 xin 
 
 Grote, Froude, Freeman, Lecky ; Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, 
 Helps, John Morley, W. H. Pater, Mark Pattison ; Theology, 
 Science, and Philosophy, . . .Pp. 377-442 
 
 1795. Carlyle born. 
 1S00. Macaulay born. 
 1805. Lytton born. 
 1809. Tennyson born. 
 1809. Mrs. Browning born. 
 1S11. Thackeray born. 
 1812. Dickens born. 
 
 1 8 19. Ruskin born. 
 
 1820. George Eliot born. 
 
 1825. Macaulay's Edinburgh Re- 
 
 view article on Milton. 
 
 1826. B. Disraeli's "Vivian Grey." 
 1828. Lytton's " Pelham." 
 
 1831. Lytton's "Paul Clifford." 
 1833-34. Carlyle's "Sartor Resar- 
 
 tus " published in Eraser's 
 
 Magazine. 
 1S34. Lytton's " Last Days of 
 
 Pompeii." 
 
 1836. Dickens's "Sketches by Boz." 
 
 1837. DickensV'Pickwick Papers." 
 1837. Carlyle's " French Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 1839. Lever's " Harry Lorrequer." 
 1839. Carlyle's " Chartism." 
 
 1841. Carlyle's " Heroes and Hero- 
 
 Worship." 
 1841-46. Browning's " Bells and 
 Pomegranates." 
 
 1842. Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient 
 
 Rome." 
 
 1842. Tennyson's Poems. 
 
 1843. Macaulay's Edinburgh Re- 
 
 ' Articles republished. 
 
 1843. Carlyle's " Past and Present." 
 1843-60. Raskin's " Modern 
 
 Painti : 
 
 1844. Dickens's " Martin Chuzzlc- 
 
 wit." 
 
 1845. Carlyle's "Cromwell." 
 1846-48- Thackeray's " Vanity 
 
 Fair." 
 1846 -56. Grote's "History of 
 
 ce." 
 1847. Charlotte Bronte's " Jane 
 
 Eyre." 
 
 1847. Tennyson's " Princess." 
 1847-49. Helps's "Friends in 
 
 Council." 
 1S48-55. Macaulay's " History of 
 
 England." 
 1849. Lytton's " Caxtons." 
 
 1849. Charlotte Bronte's ".Shirley." 
 
 1549. Ruskin's " Seven Lamps of 
 
 Architecture." 
 
 1550. Thackeray's " Pendennis." 
 
 1850. Kingsley's "Alton Locke." 
 1S50. Tennyson's "In Memo- 
 
 riarn." 
 
 1850. Carlyle's "Latter-Day Pam- 
 
 phlets." 
 
 1851. Carlyle's "Life of Sterling." 
 
 1 85 1. Mrs. Browning's " Casa Guidi 
 
 Windows." 
 1851-53. Ruskin's " Stones of 
 Venice." 
 
 1852. Charlotte Bronte's "Villette." 
 
 1852. Thackeray's "Esmond." 
 
 1853. Dickens's "Bleak House." 
 1853. Matthew Arnold's "Poems." 
 1855. Tennyson's " Maud." 
 
 1855. Thackeray's " Newcomes." 
 
 1 85 5. Charlotte Bronte died. 
 
 1 856-70. Froude's " History of 
 England." 
 
 1856. Mrs. Browning's "Aurora 
 
 Leigh." 
 1S57. George Eliot's "Scenes from 
 
 Clerical Life." 
 1S57. Dickens's " Little Dorrit." 
 1858-65. Carlyle's "Frederick the 
 
 Great." 
 1859. George Eliot's "Adam Bede." 
 1859. Tennyson's " Idylls of the 
 
 King." 
 1859. Macaulay died. 
 1859. Darwin's " Origin of Spei 
 1 1 Mi . Browning 1 
 
 1862. Thackeray's "Adventures of 
 
 Philip/' 
 
 1863. George Mint's " Romola." 
 1 1 1 ay died.
 
 XIV 
 
 Contents and Chronology, 
 
 1S64 Tennyson's "Enoch Arden." 
 
 1865. Matthew Arnold's " Essays 
 in Criticism." 
 
 1S67-79. Freeman's "Norman Con- 
 quest." 
 
 1S68. George Eliot's " Spanish 
 Gipsy." 
 
 1S70. Dickens's " Mystery of Edwin 
 Drood." 
 
 1S70. Dickens died. 
 
 1S72. George Eliot's " Middle- 
 march." 
 
 1S73. Lytton's " Kenelm Chilling- 
 ly-" 
 1S73. Lytton died. 
 
 1875. Tennyson's "Queen Mary." 
 1S77. George Eliot's "Daniel Dc- 
 
 ronda." 
 1S77. Tennyson's "Harold." 
 
 1880. Lord Beaconsfield's " Endy- 
 
 mion." 
 1SS0. George Eliot died. 
 
 1 88 1. Tennyson's " Poems and Bal- 
 
 lads." 
 
 Chap. XL — Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopaedias. 
 
 The Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essayists ; New Departures 
 in Periodical Literature in the Nineteenth Century ; the great 
 English Encyclopaedias, . . . Pp. 443-458
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PLAN OF THE WORK— SOME HINTS ON THE STUDY 
 OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 HE present volume does not pretend to be a full record 
 of the literary activity of our country. Not only are 
 many writers omitted whose works are dear to those 
 laborious pedants who speak contemptuously of the 
 literature of our own time, but regard with admiring reverence 
 the rubbish bequeathed to us by wretched playwrights and dreary 
 prose writers of three or four centuries ago ; not only are the 
 names of these forgotten worthies, whose proper place is in 
 bibliographies and biographical dictionaries, passed over, but 
 a great number of authors whose writings are of real and per- 
 manent value, and should in nowise be neglected by those who 
 can find time and opportunity for the thoroughgoing study of 
 our noble literature, are either not mentioned at all, or only 
 very slightly alluded to. The plan adopted in this book has 
 been to deal solely with the very greatest names in the several 
 departments of English literature — with those writers whose 
 works are among the most imperishable glories of Britain, 
 and with whom it is a disgrace for even the busiest to remain 
 unacquainted. The time which most people are able to 
 devote to literature proper is very limited ; and if second or 
 third rate authors are read by them, the result must in- 
 evitably be that first-rate authors will be neglected. "Always 
 in books keep the best company,'' wrote Sydney Smith 
 to his son with his usual good sense. " Don't read a line of 
 Ovid till you have mastered Virgil, nor a line of Thomson 
 till you have exhausted Tope, nor of Ma till you are 
 
 familiar with Shakespeare." It i.> very obvious that those who
 
 
 
 8 Introduction. 
 
 read Pollok's "Course of Time " while remaining ignorant of 
 Milton's " Paradise Lost," or the writings of " A. K. H. B." 
 while neglecting Bacon's " Essays " and Addison's Specta- 
 tor, are guilty of a lamentable waste of time and misex- 
 penditure of energy. " If you should transfer the amount of 
 your reading day by day," says Emerson, 1 " from the news- 
 papers to the standard authors — but who dare speak of such 
 a thing ? " To expect people to give up newspaper-reading 
 is certainly a very Utopian speculation, nor, indeed, is it 
 desirable in many respects that they should give it up. But it 
 is a very easy and practicable thing to obey the rule to study 
 the best authors first, for it may be safely laid down as a 
 general principle that the greatest works of our literature are 
 also the most attractive. No dramatist is so readable as 
 Shakespeare ; to no works of fiction can we return again and 
 again with greater pleasure than to the masterpieces of 
 Fielding and Scott ; nowhere can the blood-stained story of 
 the French Revolution be followed with keener interest than 
 in the pages of Carlyle. 
 
 Literature is a word often so loosely applied, that it may 
 be well at the outset to define exactly what we mean by it. 
 By people in general it is used with a very wide range of 
 meaning. Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Buchan's "Domes- 
 tic Medicine;" Rhymer's "Foedera" and Macaulay's " History 
 of England," are ranked under the same all-embracing name. 
 But literature rightly so termed is a word of much narrower 
 signification. To entitle anything to be classed as literature, 
 it must be so written that, apart from the meaning conveyed, 
 its mere style shall be such as to give pleasure. Neither 
 wealth of information nor depth of thought gives a work a right 
 to be called literature unless the information and the thought 
 be attractively expressed. From this it is clear that many 
 books, otherwise of great merit, have no claim to considera- 
 tion in a literary history. A plan of a country may have 
 more practical utility than the most beautiful landscape ever 
 painted, but as it lacks the essential element of beauty, it will 
 not be placed in the same category. In like manner many 
 
 1 " Society and Solitude," p. 164 (English edition).
 
 
 * 
 
 
 The Study of English Literature. 9 
 
 books which we could very ill afford to dispense with, being 
 destitute of attractiveness and distinction of style, have no 
 value viewed merely as literature. The true literary man is 
 an artist, using his words and phrases with the same felicity 
 and care as a painter uses his colours ; and whoever aspires to 
 win literary fame must pay the closest attention not only to 
 what he says, but to how he says it. 
 
 De Quincey, whose speculations on such subjects are 
 always ingenious and worth attending to, if sometimes over- 
 refined and far-fetched, in one of his essays x lays down _a_ 
 distinction, first suggested by Wordsworth, which bears upon 
 what we have been saying. As De Quincey's critical writings 
 are not so generally read as they should be, we may quote 
 part of his remarks. "In that great social organ, which 
 collectively we call literature, there may be distinguished two 
 separate offices, that may blend, and often do so, but capable 
 severally of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reci- 
 procal repulsion. There is first the literature of knowledge^ and 
 secondly the literature of power. The function of the first is 
 to teach ; the function of the second is to move. The first is 
 a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the 
 mere discursive understanding ; the second speaks ultimately, 
 it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but 
 always through affections of pleasure or sympathy. . . . 
 What do you learn from 'Paradise Lost?' Nothing at all. 
 What do you learn from a cookery-book? Something new, 
 something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. 
 But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a 
 higher level of estimation than the divine poem ? What you 
 owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million 
 separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the 
 same earthly level ; what you owe is power t that is, exercise 
 and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with 
 the infinite, when every pulse and each separate influx is a 
 Btep upwards — a step ascending as from a Jacob's ladder from 
 
 1 Ori^innlly published in North British Review fur August 1S4S, 
 article on Pope. 
 
 A
 
 i o Introduction. 
 
 earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. . . . All the 
 literature of knowledge builds only ground nests, that are swept 
 away by floods, or confounded by the plough ; but the litera- 
 ture of power builds nests in aerial altitudes of temples sacred 
 from violation, or of forests inaccessible to fraud. This is a 
 great prerogative of the power literature ; and it is a greater 
 which lies in the mode of its influence. The knowledge 
 literature, like the fashion of this world, passeth away. An 
 Encyclopaedia is its abstract ; and, in this respect, it may 
 be taken for its speaking symbol, that, before one generation 
 has passed, an Encyclopaedia is superannuated, for it speaks 
 through the dead memory and unimpassioned understanding, 
 which have not the rest of higher faculties, but are continually 
 enlarging and varying their phylacteries." 
 
 In the preceding extracts, as will be seen, De Quincey uses 
 the phrase "literature of knowledge" to express that class of 
 writings to which the term literature cannot, as he himself 
 afterwards says, be with propriety applied — writings the sole 
 aim of which is to convey information without any effort after 
 beauty of style; and the phrase "literature of power " to ex- 
 press that class of writings — fiction and poetry — of which the 
 object is, not to instruct, but to move the feelings and to give 
 pleasure, and of which, therefore, attractiveness of style is an 
 essential characteristic. But, as he himself says in a note, a 
 great proportion of books — history, biography, travels, miscel- 
 laneous essays, &c. — belong strictly to neither of these two 
 classes. Macaulay's "History of England" contains avast 
 amount of information, but it is not its stores of information 
 which have attracted to it millions of readers ; it is the fasci- 
 nating style in which the information is conveyed, making the 
 narrative as pleasing as a novel, and giving some passages a 
 power of exciting the emotions which not many poems possess. 
 And though to instruct be not the prime function of the novel 
 or the poem, a great fund of instruction as to morals and manners 
 is embodied in almost all good poems and novels. Shake- 
 speare abounds in pithy aphorisms as to the conduct of life, 
 which have become part of the moralist's stock-in-trade;
 
 The Study of English Literature. 1 1 
 
 Scott, in the " Heart of Midlothian " (to give only one ex- 
 ample out of many), preaches a very effective homily on the 
 evil consequences of giving up inward peace of mind for the 
 sake of outward grandeur ; and such writers as Thackeray 
 and Miss Austen have done much to make people ashamed of 
 angularities and affectations of manner. So that De Quincey's 
 distinction, though true in a wide sense, and very suggestive 
 in many ways, is not to be accepted as absolutely correct. 
 All literature worthy of the name is "literature of power," but 
 it may be, and very often is, "literature of knowledge" also. 
 
 Having defined what literature is, we now proceed to con- 
 sider the way in which its study may be most profitably pur- 
 sued. In order fully to comprehend any author's work, and 
 to place him in his true position among his fellows, not only 
 must his writings be studied with due care, but we must pay 
 regard to his outward "environment" and to the circum- 
 stances of the times in which he lived. Sainte Beuve, the 
 prince of French critics, in all his inquiries made it a rule 
 before studying the author to study the man, thinking that "as 
 the tree is so will be the fruit." He was of opinion " that so 
 long as you have not asked yourself a certain number of 
 questions and answered them satisfactorily — if only for your 
 own private benefit and sotto voce — you cannot be sure of 
 thoroughly understanding your model, and that even though 
 these questions may seem to be quite foreign to the nature of 
 his writings. For instance, what were his religious views? 
 how did the sight of nature affect him ? what was he in his 
 dealings with women and in his feelings respecting money? 
 was he rich, was he poor? what was his regimen? what his 
 daily manner of life? &C. Finally, to what vice was he 
 addicted or to what weakness subject? for no man is entirely 
 free from such. There is not one of the answers to these 
 questions that is without its value in judging the author of a 
 book, or even the book itself, if it be not a treatise on pure 
 mathematics, but a literary work into the composition of 
 which some of the writer's whole nature has perforce entered." 
 The practice which now prevails of publishing full and autiien-
 
 1 2 Introduction. 
 
 tic memoirs of celebrities, if perhaps not unobjectionable in 
 some respects, is certainly an incalculable gain to the fruitful 
 and intelligent study of literature. If we were so fortunate as 
 to find a Life of Shakespeare similar to that which Boswell 
 wrote of Dr. Johnson, can any one doubt that it would throw 
 an immense light upon the many literary puzzles which are 
 to be found in his writings, and which have perplexed genera- 
 tions of commentators and evoked hundreds of volumes ? 
 How many ingenious and elaborate studies on "Hamlet" 
 would be shown to be as the baseless fabric of a vision ? how 
 many passages which verbal critics have (as they thought) 
 proved to demonstration not to have come from Shakespeare's 
 pen would be claimed as his ? how, perchance, every one of the 
 theories about the Sonnets would crumble into dust, never again 
 to be mentioned but with laughter after their mystery had been 
 unveiled by unimpeachable evidence ? Again, to take a case 
 from our own time, how would we explain the gloomy pes- 
 simism of the latter writings of Carlyle as contrasted with the 
 sanguine optimism of Macaulay if no records of his life were 
 to be found, and we were compelled to judge of him by his 
 works alone ? Carlyle's temperament, no doubt, was naturally 
 gloomy, but that fact alone would not be a sufficient solution 
 of the enigma. But when we study the story of his life, and 
 learn how he was constantly tormented by ill-health ; how, 
 eagerly ambitious of literary fame, he had to toil on for many 
 a long year unnoticed and unknown, with bitter experience 
 of that deferred hope which makes the heart sick ; how, when 
 the day of triumph came, it came so late that the flower of 
 success had well-nigh lost its fragrance — then we have no 
 difficulty in understanding the cause of his frequently dark 
 and harsh views of human character and destiny. We need 
 hardly dwell on the additional interest given to a book by a 
 knowledge of the circumstances under which it was composed. 
 Byron's poetry owes half its attractiveness to the fascination 
 exercised by his singular and strongly marked personality. 
 Johnson's works, excellent though some of them are, would 
 now, we imagine, be very little read if Boswell's Life of
 
 The Study of English Literature. 13 
 
 him had not made him one of the best known, and (with all 
 his eccentricities) one of the best-loved characters in our lite- 
 rary history. One's interest even in such a book as Gibbon's 
 "Decline and Fall" is perceptibly quickened by the full and 
 curious portrait of himself which he has drawn in his Auto- 
 biography. 
 
 But for the thorough and profitable study of an author, it 
 is not enough that we know the circumstances of his private 
 history : we must also make ourselves acquainted with the 
 period in which his lot was cast. No writer, however great 
 and original his genius, can escape the influence of the spirit 
 of the age in which he lives ; whether with or without his 
 consent, his way of looking at things will be modified by the 
 intellectual atmosphere by which he is surrounded. Literary 
 men alike influence and are influenced by their time ; and as 
 no history of a country can be considered complete which 
 ignores the influence exerted by its literature, so any literary 
 history which ignores the currents of thought and opinion set 
 afloat by political movements must necessarily be partial and 
 inadequate. There is no greater desideratum in our literature 
 at present than a complete and able account of the history 
 of English literature, in which the connection between the 
 literary and political history of our country shall be fully 
 dealt with ; and it is very much to be desired that some one 
 of sufficient talents and acquirements may be induced to 
 undertake the task. He will have comparatively unbeaten 
 ground to deal with. M. Taine, indeed, in his " History of 
 English Literature," has done something in this direction; 
 but his erratic brilliancy is not to be implicitly relied upon. 1 
 In periods of great national emotion, the influence exerted on 
 literature by the powerful currents of thought and action 
 
 1 It is not to the credit of England that the only full survey of its 
 literature ing any high merit from a purely literary point of view 
 
 should he the work of a Frenchman. We have among us not a few writers, 
 any one of whom, if they would ahandon for a few years the practice, now 
 unhappily at, of writing merely Review articles and brief mi 
 
 graphs, could produce a woik on i t worthy of so great a theme. 

 
 
 1 4 Introduction. 
 
 sweeping on around it is so strong and so manifest that it 
 cannot escape the notice of the most careless observer. The 
 mighty burst of song in England during the reign of Elizabeth, 
 a time of great men and great deeds, when new ideas and 
 new influences were powerfully at work among all sections of 
 society, has often been commented on. The impurity and 
 heartlessness of the drama of the Restoration was a true type 
 of the nation's wild outburst of revelry after its escape from 
 the austere chains of Puritanism. Not so strikingly apparent, 
 yet very noticeable, is the connection between the tortuous 
 and shifty politics of the early years of the eighteenth century 
 and the absence from the literature of that period of any high 
 ideal or elevating principle. Coming nearer our own time, 
 all are aware that the revolutionary movement of the close 
 of the last century was active not only in politics but in letters; 
 that as old laws and old principles were found inadequate to 
 the needs of the time, so the literary forms and rules of the 
 preceding generation were cast to the winds as quite incapable 
 of expressing the novel ideas and imaginations of a race of 
 writers who possessed little or nothing in common with their 
 predecessors. But even in quieter times, when the broad 
 river of national life is unruffled by violent storms, careful 
 inquiry will make it apparent that its influence upon literature 
 is very close and very real. 
 
 The most useful commentary on a great writer is to be 
 found in the works of his contemporaries. It is mainly the 
 service which they render in this direction that prevents one 
 from agreeing with Emerson when he says that perhaps the 
 human mind would be a gainer if all secondary writers were 
 lost. From an author's contemporaries we may learn what 
 ideas in his time were, to use Dr. Newman's phrase, " in the 
 air," and thus be able to gauge with some degree of accuracy 
 the extent of his originality. We have all been taught that 
 Shakespeare far outshone any of the brilliant constellations of 
 dramatic stars which adorned the reign of Elizabeth ; but this 
 is only a barren phrase to us till we have studied the other 
 dramatists of his time, and are thus in a position to realise 

 
 
 The Study of English Liter attire. 15 
 
 what it really means. The writings of contemporaries, more- 
 over, often help us to account for the flaws and deficiencies 
 which not unfrequently occur even in authors of the highest 
 class, by giving us a clue to the literary fashions which pre- 
 vailed in their time. Shakespeare's tendency to indulge in 
 puns and verbal quibbles, which mars some of his finest pas- 
 sages, was, no doubt, due not so much to any natural inclina- 
 tion as because he lived in an age extravagantly fond of such 
 ingenuities ; and even he, immeasurably great man as he was, 
 proved unable to resist the contagion which spread everywhere 
 around him. In this connection we should not omit to notice 
 the valuable aid which writers destitute of original power, but 
 with a faculty for assimilating the ideas and imitating the style 
 of others, often afford to the study of those whose voices they 
 echo. Every great writer, while his popularity is at its height, 
 is surrounded by a crowd of imitators, who copy in an ex- 
 aggerated fashion his peculiar mannerism, and thus afford a 
 very ready means of observing the minute traits of its style, 
 and its little weaknesses and affectations, which might other- 
 wise escape our notice. If imitation be the sincerest form of 
 flattery, it is often also the bitterest satire. The severest critics 
 of Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Swinburne have not so accurately 
 shown the imperfections in the work of these writers, nor 
 have they, it is probable, caused them so much pain as the 
 verses of certain minor singers of our day have done. No 
 parody is at once so scathing and so ridiculous as an attempt 
 made by a writer of feeble powers to emulate the production 
 of a man of genius. 
 
 If ten men of literary culture were asked to write down the 
 names of the thirty English writers (exclusive of authors of 
 our own time) who are their greatest favourites, of whom they 
 make as it were companions and friends, the lists, we may be 
 sure, would differ widely. But if these ten men were asked 
 to write down the names of the thirty English writers who 
 occupy the highest rank, who are accepted as the best repre- 
 sentatives of our literature, the lists would probably resemble 
 each other very closely. In the former case, single lists would
 
 i6 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 contain names which were found in none of the others ; in the 
 latter case, it is very unlikely that any list would contain a 
 name which was not also mentioned in several. " If I were 
 confined to a score of English books," said Southey, "Sir 
 Thomas Browne would, I think, be one of them j nay, pro- 
 bably it would be one if the selection were cut down to twelve. 
 My library, if reduced to these bounds, would consist of 
 Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton ; Jackson, Jeremy 
 Taylor, and South ; Isaac Walton, Sydney's " Arcadia," Ful- 
 ler's "Church History," and Sir Thomas Browne; 1 and what 
 a wealthy and well-stored mind would that man have, what an 
 inexhaustible reservoir, what a Bank of England to draw upon 
 for profitable thoughts and delightful associations, who should 
 have fed upon them." Some of the names in the above list 
 will strike the reader as curious. Jackson, South, and even 
 Fuller's "Church History" and Sydney's "Arcadia" are not 
 books which can be ranked among general favourites. But 
 Southey found in them the mental food best adapted to his 
 constitution, and therefore preferred them to others of greater 
 intrinsic merit and much wider popularity. In books, as in 
 other things, tastes differ very much. Not a few, whether they 
 are honest enough to confess it or not, agree with worthy 
 George III. in thinking that Shakespeare often wrote "sad 
 stuff;" some people, by no means deficient in abilities, can 
 read "Pickwick" without a laugh or even a smile; Macaulay, 
 Mr. Trevelyan tells us, was so disgusted with the unconven- 
 tional style of Ruskin and Carlyle that he refused even to look 
 at their works. 
 
 It is, therefore, not at all surprising that when a young 
 reader takes up a book which, he has heard, is enrolled in the 
 list of English classics, he should not unfrequently find little 
 in it to please him, and thus be tempted to think that it has 
 been overrated. But if, as in the case we suppose, the book 
 is one which has stood the test of time, he may be sure he is 
 wrong. " Nature," writes Emerson, " is much our friend in 
 
 1 Doubtless from inadvertence, Southey mentions only eleven writers. 
 Who the twelfth was affords matter for curious speculation.
 
 The Study of English Literature. ij 
 
 this matter. Nature is always clarifying her water and her 
 wine ; no filtration can be so perfect. She does the same 
 thing by books as by her gases and plants. There is always 
 a selection in writers, and then a selection from the selection. 
 In the first place, all books that get fairly into the open air of 
 the world were written by the successful class, by the affirming 
 and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel 
 though they cannot say. There has already been a scrutiny 
 and choice from many hundreds of young pens before the 
 pamphlet or political chapter which you read in a fugitive 
 journal comes to your eye. All these are young adventurers, 
 who produce their performances to the wise ear of Time, who 
 sits and weighs, and ten years hence out of a million of pages 
 reprints one. Again, it is judged, it is winnowed by all the 
 winds of opinion — and what terrific selection has not passed 
 on it before it can be reprinted after twenty years — and re- 
 printed after a century ! It is as if Minos and Rhadamanthus 
 had indorsed the writing. 'Tis therefore an economy of time 
 to read old and famed books. Nothing can be preserved 
 which is not good." We might almost add that whatever has 
 not been preserved is not good. Those whose duty or inclina- 
 tion leads them to wander in literary bypaths sometimes come 
 across forgotten writers in whom they find a certain tone of 
 manner or feeling which gives them, in their eyes, more attrac- 
 tiveness than is possessed by writers whose praises are echoed 
 by thousands. But all attempts to resuscitate such books fail 
 as utterly as attempts to lower the position of books which 
 have been accepted as classical. The opinion of the majority 
 of readers during many years is better than that of any indi- 
 vidual reader, or any small coterie of readers, however high 
 their gifts or attainments may be. 
 
 It often happens that wider knowledge and culture lead 
 one who at first was unable to recognise the merits of a classi- 
 cal author to see his error and acquiesce in the general verdict 
 In the case of our older authors, there arc preliminary diffi- 
 culties of style and language, which must, at the cost of some 
 trouble, be vanquished before they can be read with pleasure. 

 
 1 8 Introduction. 
 
 The practice of "dipping into" an author and reading bits 
 here and there is productive of a great deal of literary hetero- 
 doxy. It is, for example, a not uncommon remark that 
 articles, of which the writers are never heard of, but which are 
 as good as any in the Spectator or Tatler, appear in our news- 
 papers every day. No doubt there is a very large amount of 
 talent now employed in newspaper-writing ; nevertheless our 
 average journalists are not Steeles or Addisons. The reason, 
 in most cases, why newspaper articles are thought equal to 
 the Spectator is because the former deal with living subjects, 
 subjects which are interesting people at the moment, while 
 the latter, having been written more than a century and a 
 half ago, has an antique flavour about it. The Spectator 
 cannot be appreciated but by those who, not content with 
 dipping into it here and there, have read at least a consider- 
 able portion of it, and thus gained such a knowledge of the 
 manners and opinions which prevailed when it was written as 
 to be able to enter into the spirit of the work. A newspaper 
 article, referring to matters occupying the minds of all, may 
 be perused with pleasure without any preparation. 
 
 But though increased knowledge and wider culture generally 
 lead one to acquiesce in received opinions regarding the 
 value of authors, they do not always do so. Every critic, 
 however large his range and however keen his discernment, 
 occasionally meets in with works of great fame of which he 
 cannot appreciate the merit. He may, indeed, be able to 
 perceive the qualities which cause others to admire them, but 
 they are written in a vein which he cannot bring himself to 
 like : the tone of sentiment running through them, or the 
 style in which they are written, is repugnant to his nature. 
 The fact that this is so, generally leads to a plentiful indul- 
 gence in what Mr. James Payn has so happily christened 
 " sham admiration in literature." People praise books which 
 they have never been able to read, or which they have only 
 read at the cost of much labour and weariness, not because 
 they like them themselves, but simply because they have 
 heard others praise them. It is melancholy to reflect how 

 
 The Study of English Literature. 19 
 
 much of our current criticism upon classical authors is of 
 this nature, consisting of mere windy rhetoric, not of the un- 
 biassed and honest expression of the critic's real opinions. 
 The practice is both an unprofitable and a dishonest one. 
 Much more is to be learned from the genuine opinions of an 
 able man, even though these opinions be erroneous, than from 
 the repetition of conventional critical dicta. Johnson's " Lives 
 of the Poets " contain many incorrect critical judgments ; but 
 does any one suppose that the work would have been of more 
 value if, instead of relating in manly and straightforward 
 fashion the opinions of his own powerful, if somewhat narrow, 
 understanding, he had merely repeated the "orthodox" criti- 
 cisms on such writers as Milton and Gray ? Even Jeffrey's 
 articles on Wordsworth — those standing examples of blunder- 
 ing criticism — are much more useful and interesting to the 
 intelligent reader than the thrice-repeated laudatory criticisms 
 which are now so often uttered by countless insincere devotees 
 of the poet of the Lakes. Every student of literature should 
 make an honest effort to form opinions for himself, and not 
 take up too much with borrowed criticism. Critical essays, 
 books of literary history, books of select extracts, are all very 1 
 useful as aids to the study of great writers, but they ought not, 
 as is too often the case, to be made a substitute for the study of 
 the writers themselves. Infinitely more is to be learned from 
 the reading of " Hamlet" than from the reading of a hundred 
 studies on that drama. If, after having made a fair attempt 
 to peruse some author whose works are in high repute, the 
 reader finds that he is engaged in afield of literature which 
 presents no attractions to him ; that he is studying a writer 
 with whom he has no sympathy, who strikes no respondent 
 chord in his own nature ; the best course for him is to abandon 
 the vain attempt to like what he does not like, to admire what 
 he really does not admire. Shakespeare's famous lines — 
 
 " No profil here is no pleasure ta'en, 
 
 In brief, ir, study what you most affect," — 
 
 convey thoroughly sound advice, provided, of course, that
 
 20 Introduction. 
 
 proper pains be taken to extend one's culture as widely as 
 possible, and that opinions regarding the profitableness or 
 unprofitableness of studying certain authors be not formed 
 without due deliberation. In the study of literature, as in 
 other studies, interest advances as knowledge increases ; very 
 frequently books which to the tyro seem " weary, stale, flat, 
 and unprofitable," are those which he afterwards comes to 
 regard as among his most cherished intellectual possessions. 
 
 A very attractive and instructive way of studying literature 
 is to select some great book or some great author as a nucleus 
 round which to group one's knowledge of the writers of a 
 period. If, for example, one studies that universally delight- 
 ful book, Boswell's " Life of Johnson," and follows up the 
 clues which its perusal suggests, a very competent knowledge 
 of a large part of the literature of the eighteenth century may 
 be acquired. Boswell's frequent cutting allusions to his rival, 
 Sir John Hawkins, naturally induce us to read that worthy's 
 Life of the "great lexicographer," in which, amid much trash 
 and tedious moralising, many curious and suggestive details 
 are to be found. In a similar way, his obvious dislike of Mrs. 
 Piozzi draws attention to that lively lady's entertaining gossip ; 
 while the glimpses he gives of the life and conversation of 
 most of the celebrated writers of the period, such as Burke, 
 Goldsmith, Robertson, Hume, inspire us with a desire to be- 
 come acquainted with their writings and with the particulars 
 of their lives. Or if Pope be taken as the vantage-ground 
 from which to survey the literary landscape around, how 
 easily and pleasantly are we introduced to the acquaintance, 
 not only of the greater figures of the time, — Addison, Swift, 
 Bolingbroke, Arbuthnot, and others, — but of the smaller fry, 
 the ragged denizens of Grub Street, so mercilessly satirised 
 in the " Dunciad." No one can know Dryden thoroughly 
 without picking up, almost imperceptibly it may be, an im- 
 mense fund of information about the many curious literary 
 products of the Restoration ; and few more interesting literary 
 studies could be suggested than, taking Shakespeare as a 
 centre, to mark wherein he differed from his predecessors and
 
 The Study of English Literature. 21 
 
 contemporaries, how far he availed himself of what they had 
 done, how far he influenced them, and how far he was influ- 
 enced by them, and to trace the whole course of the Eliza- 
 bethan drama from its first dim dawnings to its melancholy 
 but not inglorious close. When one has made oneself at 
 home in the literature of any period, so as to be able to con- 
 jure up before the mind's eye its- more important writers, even 
 its minutest details, which in themselves seem trifling and 
 tedious, acquire an interest and importance, every fresh parti- 
 cular adding a new shade of colour to the mental picture we 
 form of the epoch. 
 
 In the pages which follow, considerable space has been 
 devoted to the literature of the last hundred years, while our 
 earlier writers have been dealt with briefly, many of consider- 
 able importance having been altogether omitted. To this 
 arrangement not a few may possibly be inclined to object ; 
 nevertheless, I believe that, for a work like the present, 
 intended mainly for young readers and others whose time is 
 limited, it is the best arrangement. Literary history becomes 
 much more interesting to most people the nearer it approaches 
 to our own time ; and very few are likely to acquire a 
 taste for reading by having their attention directed mainly to 
 our older authors. Now, what every writer of a book like the 
 present and every teacher of English literature ought to aim 
 at is, to give his readers or his pupils a taste for literature. If 
 the teacher of English literature fails in this, his labours are 
 almost in vain. The amount of knowledge which he is able 
 to communicate is comparatively small ; but if he manages to 
 impress on his pupils a sense of the greatness and importance 
 of literature, and of the countless benefits and pleasures which 
 may be derived from its study, he has sown the seeds of what 
 will yet produce a very abundant harvest. The remark is 
 very often made that young people are of their own accord 
 likely to peruse writers of the day, while leaving the classical 
 writers of former generations neglected. No doubt there is a 
 good deal of truth in this ; but I am disposed to question very 
 much whether the practice of using mainly our older writers
 
 
 2 2 Introduction. 
 
 for educational purposes has any appreciable effect whatever 
 in extending their general perusal ; and when one considers 
 how literature — even literature of the day — is neglected by 
 numbers of educated people, one is inclined to have some 
 doubt as to the wisdom of leaving recent writers out of the 
 educational curriculum. Few will be disposed to deny that 
 the most important section of political history is that which 
 relates to recent times. To a large extent, the same is true 
 of literature. Nothing is more likely to quicken one's interest 
 in books, and to serve as an incentive to further research, than 
 an acquaintance with the various literary modes that have 
 been prevalent in recent times or which are still in vogue. 
 Moreover, if the study of English literature is pursued partly 
 as a means of acquiring a correct style, there can be no doubt 
 whatever that the prose writers of the last two centuries will 
 prove much more useful guides than their predecessors. The 
 following interesting remarks on this subject, quoted from a 
 lecture "On Teaching English," recently delivered by Dr. 
 Alexander Bain before the Birmingham Teachers' Association, 
 appear to me to have much force, though the views expressed 
 are perhaps rather extreme. " Irrespective of any question 
 as to the superiority of Shakespeare and Milton, it must from 
 necessity be the case that the recent classics possess the 
 greatest amount of unexhausted interest. Their authors have 
 studied and been guided by the greatest works of the past, 
 have reproduced many of their effects, as well as added new 
 strokes of genius ; and thus our reading is naturally directed 
 to them by preference. A canto of ' Childe Harold ' has not 
 the genius of ' Macbeth ' or of the second book of ' Paradise 
 Lost,' but it has more freshness of interest. This is as regards 
 the reader of mature years, but it must be taken into account 
 in the case of the youthful reader also. 
 
 " So with regard to the older prose. The ' Essays ' of Bacon 
 cannot interest this generation in any proportion to the 
 author's transcendent genius. They have passed into subse- 
 quent literature until their interest is exhausted, except from 
 the occasional quaint felicity of the phrases. Bacon's maxims
 
 
 The Study of English Literature. 23 
 
 on the conduct of business are completely superseded by Sir 
 Arthur Helps's essay on that subject, simply because Sir 
 Arthur absorbed all that was in Bacon, and augmented it by 
 subsequent wisdom and experience. To make Bacon's origi- 
 nal a text-book of the present day, whether for thought or for 
 style, is to abolish the three intervening centuries. 
 
 " Of Richard Hooker's ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' another lite- 
 rary monument of the Elizabethan age, while I give it every 
 credit as a work suited to its own time, I am obliged to con- 
 cur in the judgment of an authority great both in jurisprudence 
 and in English style — the late John Austin — who denounced 
 its language as ' fustian.' 
 
 " So much as regards the decay of interest in the old 
 classics. Next as to their use in teaching style or in exercis- 
 ing pupils in the practice of good composition. Here, too, I 
 think, they labour under incurable defects. Their language 
 is not our language ; their best expressions are valuable as 
 having the stamp of genius, and are quotable to all time, but 
 we cannot work them into the tissue of our own familiar 
 discourse." 
 
 The concluding chapter of this book, dealing with Periodi- 
 cals, Reviews, and Encyclopaedias, gives a brief account of 
 the more remarkable papers of the Spectator class, which form 
 a noticeable feature of the literature of the eighteenth century • 
 of the origin of the two great Quarterlies, which exercised an 
 almost fabulous influence over criticism in the beginning of 
 their career; of some of the more prominent new departures in 
 periodical literature made during the present century; and of the 
 various great English Encyclopaedias. A good deal of our best j 
 literature, especially of a critical kind, has appeared in serial 
 publications; and Encyclopaedias, besides having been in recent 
 times adorned by contributions from the ablest pens of the 
 day, have, as digests of knowledge, afforded immense aid to 
 all sorts of literary workers. No apology accordingly is re- 
 quired for devoting a chapter to the origin and history of pub- 
 lications belonging to the classes mentioned. 
 
 Much difference of opinion will naturally prevail as to the
 
 24 Introduction. 
 
 writers selected for notice in this work. Some will think that 
 names are included which would have been better omitted ; 
 others, that names are omitted which ought to have been in- 
 cluded. I can only say that I have endeavoured to make as 
 representative and catholic a selection as possible ; and that, 
 in choosing writers for brief notice, I have tried to fix on such 
 as are especially remarkable, not only on account of their 
 intrinsic merit, but as showing the literary tendencies of their 
 time. It is with great regret that many authors of high merit 
 and interest have been altogether left unnoticed ; but more 
 names could not have been inserted without destroying the 
 distinctive character of the work. 
 
 As strict chronological order has not been adopted in deal- 
 ing with the various authors mentioned, chronological tables 
 giving the leading dates belonging to each chapter have been 
 given in the Contents. These will, it is hoped, be useful for 
 reference.
 
 LANDMARKS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE DAWN OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Chaucer ; James I. of Scotland, Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Sir David 
 Lyndsay ; Mandeville ; IViclif, Tyndale, Coverdale, Rogers {trans- 
 lations cf the Bible) ; Sir Thomas Malory, More, Latimer, Foxe. 
 
 " Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
 Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill 
 The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
 
 With sounds that echo still."— Tennyson. 
 
 F this book were a history of the English language, 
 or if it dealt with such writers as have an interest 
 only to those who have made them the subjects of 
 special study, not a few names would have to be 
 mentioned ere we came to deal with our first really great poet. 
 Literature is a plant of slow and gradual growth : its begin- 
 nings, like the source of some great river, are obscure and diffi- 
 cult to trace : it is not till many influences have been at work, 
 and many busy pens employed in moulding and forming the 
 language, that the appearance of a writer who deserves to be 
 ranked as a classic is possible. The authors before Chaucer 
 (be it said with reverence to those zealous antiquaries whose 
 enthusiasm has done so much to make the study of our old 
 literature attractive and profitable) are interesting only for 
 
 B
 
 26 Tkc Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 historical reasons : Chaucer is interesting for himself alone, 
 apart from all considerations regarding his influence upon the 
 language, or the admirable representations which his works 
 afford of the social life of his time. His was a genial, sunny 
 nature, Shakespearean in its breadth and sweet placidity ; 
 and hence he was able to look human life straight in the face 
 and to hold the mirror up to nature without flinching. "All 
 sorts and conditions of men " are described by him with sly 
 humour, and, in general, a strong undercurrent of sympathy : 
 like the character in Terence, he might have said, " I am a 
 man, and think nothing human alien from me." Had he 
 lived in our day, we cannot doubt that he would have made 
 an admirable novelist had he chosen to employ his pen in 
 that direction. But in addition to his gifts as a story-teller, 
 he was a genuine poet : our first, and still, after the lapse of 
 more than six centuries, one of our greatest. He had the 
 poet's command of language, the poet's ear for rhythm, the 
 poet's love of the beautiful, the poet's love of nature. So 
 great was he, that we have to leap over nearly two centuries 
 ere we come to a poet fit to be mentioned in the same breath 
 with him. 
 
 Of the story of Chaucer's life we do not know so much as 
 could be wished, but within the past few years a good deal 
 has been done by earnest students both in the way of finding 
 out new facts and in demolishing traditional fictions. He was 
 the son of a London vintner, and was born about 1340, the 
 date given in all the older biographies, 1328, being now almost 
 universally abandoned as inconsistent with certain other facts 
 in his life. Of his early years almost nothing is known. It 
 lias been supposed that he studied at Oxford or Cambridge ; 
 but this is mere baseless conjecture. At all events, we are safe 
 to imagine that from his childhood he was fond of reading, 
 and improved his opportunities in that direction to the best of 
 his ability. Few, indeed, are the men who neglect books in 
 their youth, and find pleasure in them when they are grown 
 up; and Chaucer's works conclusively prove that he was, for 
 his time, a man of great learning. " The acquaintance,"
 
 Chancer. 
 
 27 
 
 writes Sir Harris Nicolas, "he possessed with the classic s, with 
 divinity, with astronomy, with so much as was then known of 
 ch emistr y, and indeed with every other branch of the scholas- 
 tic learning of the age, proves that his education had been 
 particularly attended to ; and his attainments render it impos- 
 sible to believe that he quitted college at the early period at 
 which persons destined for a military life usually began their 
 career. It was not then the custom for men to pursue learning 
 for its own sake ; and the most natural manner of accounting 
 for the extent of Chaucer's acquirements is to suppose that he 
 was educated for a learned profession. The knowledge he 
 displays of divinity would make it more likely that he was 
 intended for the Church than for the Bar, were it not that the 
 writings of the Fathers were generally read by all classes of 
 students." 
 
 Whether educated at a university, whether intended for 
 the Church or the Bar (all which conjectures rest on no real 
 basis of fact), it is certain that in 1359 Chaucer accompanied 
 the expedition of Edward III. into France. He was taken 
 prisoner during the campaign, but was promptly released — the 
 king paying £16 for his ransom early in 1360. Seven years 
 later we find him one of the king's valets, at the same time 
 receiving a yearly pension of twenty marks in consideration of 
 former and future services. For some time after this his 
 career seems to have been one of unbroken prosperity. From 
 1370 to 1380 he was employed in no fewer than seven diplo- 
 matic services, in which he appears to have acquitted himself 
 well, as indeed the tact and knowledge of human nature 
 shown in his writings would lead us to expect. Of these 
 diplomatic missions, three were to Italy, where Chaucer is 
 supposed by some to have met Petrarch, the most consummate 
 master of poetical form then living, and Boccaccio, that prince 
 of story-tellers, whose gay raillery and cheerful spirit must 
 have been eminently congenial to Chaucer. Whether he 
 became personally acquainted with these great writers is not 
 certain : it is certain that he knew and loved their works, and 
 that they exerted a great influence over his genius. During 

 
 
 28 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 the same ten years honours and offices were freely showered 
 on him. In 1374 he was appointed comptroller of the customs 
 and subsidy of wools, skins, and tanned hides in the port of 
 London, and about the same time he received other remunera- 
 tive appointments which gave him an income equivalent to 
 about ;£iooo a year of our money. In 1382 he was made 
 comptroller of the petty customs, and in 1386 member of Par- 
 liament for the shire of Kent. This was the culminating point 
 of his fortunes. His patron, John of Gaunt, was abroad, and 
 his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, showed little favour to the 
 poet, who was deprived of his two comptrollerships. Chaucer 
 seems to have possessed in abundance that " perfect readiness 
 to spend whatever could be honestly got," which is said to be 
 characteristic of men of letters, and of the ample revenues which 
 he had enjoyed during the preceding years he had probably 
 saved little. In 1388 we find him raising money by transferring 
 the two pensions he enjoyed to another man. In 1389 a gleam 
 of returning prosperity shone on him. He was appointed clerk 
 of the king's works, receiving two shillings a day, equal to £1 
 of our money. This office, however, he did not hold long. By 
 the end of 1391 he had lost it, "and for the next three years 
 his only income was his annuity of ^10 from the Duke of 
 Lancaster, and an allowance of 40s., payable half-yearly, for 
 robes as the king's esquire." In 1394 he obtained an annuity 
 of ^20 from the king for life, but his pecuniary embarrassments 
 still continued. To them he pathetically alludes in the verses 
 " To his Empty Purse : " — 
 
 
 " To yow, my Purse, and to noon other wight, 
 Complayn I, for ye be my lady dere ; 
 I am so sory now that ye been lyght, 
 For, certes, but yf ye make me hevy chere, 
 Me were as leef be layd upon my bere. " 
 
 By and by, it is satisfactory to be able to say, his purse was 
 made heavier. In 1398 the king made him a grant of a tun 
 of wine a year for life — a suitable donation to a poet who, it 
 should seem, was by no means destitute of convivial qualities.
 
 ' Chaucer s Appearance. 29 
 
 In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke doubled his annual pension of 
 twenty marks. Chaucer did not live long to enjoy his newly 
 recovered prosperity. He died in a house in the garden of St. 
 Mary at Westminster, on October 25, 1400. 
 
 Chaucer's personal appearance is well known from the 
 portrait of him by Occleve, which, in a greater degree than 
 most portraits, confirms the ideas regarding him which one 
 might gather from reading his works. There we see the medi- 
 tative, downcast, yet slyly observant eyes, the broad brow, the I 
 sensuous mouth, the general expression of good-humour which 
 are all so characteristic of the describer of the Canterbury 
 pilgrims. In the " Prologue to the Rime of Sir Thopas," 
 Chaucer has put into the mouth of the host a half-bantering 
 description of his personal appearance : — 
 
 "And then at first he looked upon me 
 And sayde thus, ' What man art thou ? ' quoth he ; 
 ' Thou lookest as thou wouldest find a hare, 
 And ever upon the ground I see thee stare ; 
 Approche' near, and lookii merrily ! 
 Now ware you, sirs, and let this man have space, 
 He in the waist is shaped as well as I ; 
 This were a puppet in an arm to embrace 
 For any woman, small and fair of face. 
 lie seemeth elvish by his countenance, 
 For unto no wight doth he daliaunnce." 
 
 . 
 
 
 Two great traits of character prominently distinguished him — 
 traits not very often found united in the same individual. He 
 was an insatiable reader, and he was also an enthusiastic 
 admirer of the beauties of nature. When the two tastes came 
 in conflict, it was the latter that had to give way, as he tells us 
 in a charming passage : — 
 
 "And as for me, though I have knowledge slight, 
 In bookes for to read I me delight, 
 And to them give I faitli and full credence, 
 And in my heart have them in reverence 
 So heartily, that there is game none 
 That from my bookes makcih me begone,
 
 ! 
 
 30 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 But it be seldom on the holiday, — 
 Save, certainly, when that the month of May 
 Is come, and that I hear the fowles sing 
 And see the flowers as they begin to spring, 
 Farewell my book, and my devotion." 
 
 Other features in Chaucer we shall have occasion to indicate 
 when dealing with the " Canterbury Tales." 
 
 By the most recent critics of Chaucer his work has been 
 divided into three periods — the French period, the Italian 
 period, and the English period. To the first is assigned his 
 " A. B. C," a prayer to the Virgin, translated from the French; 
 a translation of the "Romance of the Rose;" 1 the " Com- 
 pleynte of Pity" (1368?), and the "Book of the Duchess," 
 a poem commemorating the death in 1369 of the Duchess 
 Blanche. To the second period, extending from 1372 to 1384, 
 during which, as we have seen, Chaucer three times visited 
 Italy, and is supposed to have fallen under Italian literary 
 influence, are assigned his " Parliament of Fowls," " Troilus 
 and Cresside," certain of the " Canterbury Tales," the " House 
 of Fame," and some minor poems. To the third period be- 
 long the rest of the " Canterbury Tales." This division rests 
 on no solid basis of fact, and must be taken for what it is 
 worth. Though, of course, every deference is to be paid to 
 the opinion of those who have devoted great attention to 
 Chaucerian study, it must be confessed that there is some- 
 thing arbitrary and artificial in thus parcelling a man's work 
 out into periods divided by a distinct line of demarcation. 
 Professor Minto, whose soundness of judgment gives his 
 opinion great weight, is inclined to reject the division as 
 throwing a factitious, and, upon the whole, misleading light 
 on the natural development of Chaucer's genius. 2 Of certain 
 other works, the " Court of Love," the " Flower and the Leaf," 
 . and Chaucer's " Dream," the genuineness has been admitted 
 by some and denied by others. We need not take up space 
 
 1 It has been doubted, apparently on insufficient evidence, whether this 
 translation was by Chaucer. 
 * "English Poets," p. 19. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 Chaucer s Works. 3 1 
 
 with the consideration of such questions, which can only Le 
 profitably discussed by those who have a very ripe knowledge 
 of the literature of the period. It shows the versatility of 
 Chaucer's intellect that he was the author of a translation of 
 Boethius on the " Consolation of Philosophy," a very popular 
 book in the Middle Ages, and that he wrote in 1391 a trea- 
 tise " On the Astrolabe " for the use of his little son Lewis. 
 
 Having thus enumerated the chief minor works of Chaucer, 
 we pass on to the consideration of the " Canterbury Tales," to 
 which alone we propose to confine our attention. Chaucer's 
 other writings, excellent though many of them are, and interest- 
 ing though they all are, partly for philological reasons, partly 
 as indicating his mental growth, may be passed over by readers 
 whose time is short ; but the " Canterbury Tales" is of peren- 
 nial importance, invaluable alike to the student of poetry, 
 to the historian who aspires to delineate the social life of the 
 period, and to the philologer. The plan of the " Canterbury 
 Tales," a series of stones prefixed by a prologue and linked 
 together by a framework, was probably derived by Chaucer 
 from Boccaccio's " Decamerone," though there are other 
 sources from which he might have borrowed the scheme. 
 But there is a wide difference, greatly in favour of the Eng- 
 lish writer, between the "Decamerone" and the "Canterbury 
 Tales." Boccaccio's connections between the stories might 
 have been omitted and his book have been none the worse ; 
 there is no dramatic propriety in the tales which he puts in the 
 mouth of the several speakers. One of the great attractions 
 of the " Canterbury Tales," on the other hand, is that Chaucer, 
 with the true instinct of genius, took care that each of the 
 stories should be such as the speaker would naturally have 
 told. In the "Prologue" he has hit off the points of the 
 several characters with unrivalled grace and dexterity. " I 
 see all the pilgrims in the ' Canterbury Tales,'" said Dryden, 
 " their humours, their features, and their very dress, as dis- 
 tinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in South- 
 war k." A strangely mixed and jocund company they were 
 who set forth on the pilgrimage, then a very common one for 

 
 32 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 Londoners, to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. We 
 see before us the chivalrous Knight ; the young Squire, " em- 
 broidered as a mead," and " as fresh as is the month of May ;" 
 the Yeoman, so careful of his accoutrements; the tender- 
 hearted Prioress, who spoke French " after the school of Strat- 
 ford-atte-Bowe ;" the Monk, who was so fond of hunting, and 
 whose bridle "jingled in the air as clear and eke as loud as 
 doth the chapel bell ;" the Friar, who thought that instead of 
 weeping and of prayers " men ought to give silver to the poor 
 friars ;" the Merchant, who sedulously attended to his busi- 
 ness, and " spoke his reasons full pompously ; " the Clerk of 
 Oxford, who preferred books to any other earthly pleasure, 
 and who would gladly learn and gladly teach ; the Sergeant of 
 Law, who " ever seemed busier than he was ;" the Franklin, 
 at whose house it "snowed of meat and drink;" the Ship- 
 man, who " of nice conscience took no keep ; " the Doctor of 
 Physic, whose "study was but little in the Bible;" the gaily- 
 attired buxom Wife of Bath ; the poor Parson and his brother 
 the Ploughman, who, if it lay in his power, was always ready 
 to work for the poor without hire ; the stout Miller, who was 
 not over honest, and who carried with him a bagpipe which 
 he could " blow and sound ;" the Reeve, "a slender, choleric 
 man;" the Summoner, with his "fire-red cherubim's face;'' 
 the Pardoner, with his wallet full " of pardons come from Rome 
 all hot ; " and a good many other equally typical specimens 
 of humanity, notably the jovial host of the Tabard, a fit pre- 
 decessor to " mine host of the Garter" and to Boniface. "It 
 is the first time in English poetry that we are brought face to ^ 
 face, not with characters, or allegories, or reminiscences of the 
 past, but with living and breathing men, men distinct in temper 
 or sentiment as in face, or costume, or mode of speech ; and 
 with this distinctness of each maintained throughout the story 
 by a thousand shades of expression and action. It is the 
 first time, too, that we meet with the dramatic power which 
 not only creates each character, but combines it with its fellows, 
 which not only adjusts each tale or jest to the temper of the 
 person who utters it, but fuses all into a poetic unity. It
 
 Pilgrimage to Canter bury. •$$ 
 
 is life in its largeness, its variety, its complexity, which sur- 
 rounds us in the ' Canterbury Tales.' In some of the stories, 
 indeed, composed no doubt at an earlier time, there is the 
 tedium of the old romance or the pedantry of the schoolman ; 
 but, taken as a whole, the poem is the work not of a man of 
 letters, but of a man of action. He has received his training 
 from war, courts, business, travel — a training not of books, but 
 of life. And it is life that he loves — the delicacy of its senti- 
 ment, the breadth of its farce, its laughter and its tears, the 
 tenderness of its Griseldis, or the Smollett-like adventures of 
 the miller and the schoolboy. It is this largeness of heart, 
 this wide tolerance, which enables him to reflect man for us as 
 none but Shakespeare has ever reflected it, but to reflect it 
 with a pathos, a shrewd sense and kindly humour, a freshness 
 and joyousness of feeling, that even Shakespeare has not 
 surpassed." 1 
 
 Pilgrimages to Canterbury seem to have been joyous affairs, 
 in which merriment and not devotion held the foremost place 
 in the minds of those who took part in them. " They will 
 ordain with them before," says an old writer indignantly, > 
 " to have with them both men and women that can sing 
 wanton songs, and some other pilgrims will have with them 
 
 /pipes; 2 so that every town they come through, what with 
 the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, 
 and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the 
 barking out of the dogs after them, that they make more 
 noise than if the king came thereaway with all his clarions 
 and many other minstrels. And if these men and women be 
 a month in their pilgrimage, many of them shall be a half year 
 after great janglers, talc-tellers, and liars." The "gentle" 
 portion of Chaucer's company must have been not a little 
 scandalised by the riotous behaviour of such " roistering 
 blades" as the Miller, the Summoner, and the Cook, and 
 by the grossly indecorous nature of some of the stories 
 
 1 Gr< n's "Short History of England," chap. v. 
 
 2 Tim Miller carried his bagpipes with him.
 
 34 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 told. For this indecorousness Chaucer makes a characteristic 
 apology: — 
 
 " And, therefore, every gentle wight I pray, 
 For Goddes love deemeth not that I say 
 Of evil intent; but for I must rehearse 
 Their tales all, be they better or worse, 
 Or elles falsen some of my matter. 
 And, therefore, whoso list it not to hear, 
 Turn over the leaf and choose another tale ; 
 For he shall find enowe great and small 
 Of storial thing that touches gentilesse, 
 And eke morality and holiness, 
 Blameth not me, if that ye choose amiss. 
 The Miller is a churl, ye know well this; 
 So was the Reeve, and other many mo, 
 And harlotry they tolden bothe two. 
 Aviseth you, and put me out of blame ; 
 And eke men shall not maken earnest of game." 
 
 It is easy to see that Chaucer is here laughing in his sleeve. 
 The excuse he gives will not hold water. But we can forgive 
 much to the man who, whatever his occasional license of lan- 
 guage, was capable of delineating the finer qualities of human 
 nature and the most tender of human feelings as none but one 
 who really deeply sympathised with them could have done. 
 A man who had seen much of the world, and had taken part 
 in several of these diplomatic transactions which are not sup- 
 posed to raise one's estimate of humanity, Chaucer yet preserved, 
 amid all his frolicsome gaiety, a childlike simplicity of spirit 
 which made him prompt to reverence worth, and gentleness, 
 and mercy. There was nothing of the cynic in his composi- 
 tion. He took the world as he found it, and was very well 
 contented with it. He was not a " good hater ; " there is no 
 trace of bitterness in his satire, nothing at all akin to the fierce 
 misanthropy of Swift. Yet perhaps his sly touches of satire 
 are none the less pungent on that account. There are few 
 people who would not prefer being bitterly railed at to being 
 good-humouredly laughed at. His penetrating accuracy of 
 observation is perhaps best shown in what he says about 
 women. Though, as many passages prove, he had a high and
 
 Chaucer s Religious Opinions. 35 
 
 chivalrous estimate of women, he was well aware of their 
 weak points, and from his works a choice anthology might be 
 compiled of innuendoes or open sarcasms directed against the 
 sex. This must be partly attributed to the custom of age ; 
 very probably it is in greater measure to be attributed to 
 Chaucer's experience of married life, which is thought to have 
 been far from a happy one. A pleasing feature in Chaucer is 
 his want of all exaggerated reverence for rank and his total 
 freedom from cant. Sprung from the people himself, he knew 
 that it is neither long descent, nor high position, nor great 
 wealth, that constitutes a gentleman : — 
 
 " Look, who that is most virtuous alway, 
 Privy and open, and most intendeth aye 
 To do the gentle deedes that he can, 
 Take him for the greatest gentleman." 
 
 His freedom from cant, and his contempt for those poetical 
 commonplaces which form the stock in-trade of minor versifiers, 
 are shown by such passages as the following : — 
 
 " Till that the brighte sun had lost his hue, 
 For th' orison had reft the sun his light, 
 (This is as much to sayen as ' it was night ')." , 
 
 What were Chaucer's religious views? The question is not 
 very easy to answer. That he was fully aware of the abuses of 
 the prevailing ecclesiastical system is conclusively proved by 
 his pictures of the Monk, the Friar, the Pardoner, and others. 
 On the other hand, his fine portrait of the " Poor Parson of a 
 Town," who 
 
 Waited for no pomp and reverence, 
 
 Nor made himself a spiced conscience ; 
 But Christe's lore and His Apostles' twelve 
 
 He taught, but first lie followed it himself," 
 
 has every appearance of being a representation of a Wiclifite 
 priest Hence some have rashly inferred that Chaucer himself 
 was a Wiclifite. "Chaucer," wrote John Foxe, "seems to 
 have been a right Wydevian, or else there never was any; and 
 that all his works almost, if they be Oioroughly advised, will
 
 - 
 
 
 36 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 testify." But portions of the " Parson's Tale " are inconsistent 
 with this supposition, which, indeed, other facts do not seem 
 to corroborate. Chaucer was not a man to hold very pro- 
 1 nounced religious views. Like many other people of his time, 
 he was disgusted with the insolence and avarice of the eccle- 
 siastical dignitaries, and, with his genuine appreciation of 
 human excellence, could not look but with sympathy and 
 admiration on the faithful pastors like the " Poor Parson," 
 whom he saw amid discouragement and poverty striving to do 
 their duty, and animated by a genuine religious spirit. But it 
 is not likely that he ever desired or looked for an overthrow 
 of the power of the Church of Rome in England : he was not 
 the stuff of which reformers are made. 
 
 Though Chaucer was always a popular poet, as is proved 
 by the many existing manuscripts of the " Canterbury Tales," 
 by the fact that Caxton (who declares that " in all his works 
 he excelleth, in mine opinion, all other writers in our English ") 
 issued two editions of his works, and by the numerous respect- 
 ful allusions made to him by the poets of succeeding genera- 
 tions, his versification was a puzzle to his readers when the 
 language had become fixed in substantially its present form. 
 " The verse of Chaucer," wrote Dryden, " I confess is not 
 harmonious to us. They who lived with him, and some time 
 after him, thought it musical, and it continues so, even in our 
 judgment, if compared with the munbers of Lydgate and 
 Gower, his contemporaries : there is a rude sweetness of a 
 Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing." Waller 
 went further : — 
 
 " Chaucer his sense can only boast, 
 The glory of his numbers lost ! 
 Years have defaced his matchless strain, 
 And yet he did not sing in vain." 
 
 Chaucer himself perceived that he lived at a period when 
 the language was in a state of transition. Towards the close 
 of " Troilus and Cresside " he says : — 
 
 " And since there is so great diversity 
 In English, and in writing of our tongue,
 
 James I. of Scotland. . $7 
 
 I pray to God that none may miswrite thee, 
 Nor thee mismetre, for default of tongue, 
 And wheresoe'er thou mayst be read or sung 
 That thou be understood, God I beseech." 1 
 
 He was, however, " mismetred " till the publication, in 177S, 
 of Tyrwhitt's " Essay on the Language and Versification of 
 Chaucer," which paved the way for what has been done since 
 for the restoration of the text of Chaucer and the accurate know- 
 ledge of his language. The student may now, with very little | 
 trouble, acquaint himself with rules which regulate Chaucer's 
 versification and grammar, and so be able to read him with a 
 much fuller and clearer appreciation than such a man as Dryden 
 could have done. The small expenditure of time necessary 
 in order to do so will be recompensed a hundredfold by 
 the pleasure derived from the study of the first English 
 classic. 
 
 The appearance of Chaucer in our literature was compared 
 by Warton to a premature day in an English spring, after 
 which the gloom of winter returns, and the buds and blossoms 
 which have been called forth by a transient sunshine are 
 nipped by frosts and scattered by storms. The fifteenth cen- 
 tury was a period of the deepest gloom, morally, materially, 
 and intellectually. The wretched civil wars which devastated 
 the country proved fatal to the muse : no great English poet 
 arose within the period ; no poet worthy even of a high place 
 in the second rank. It is to Scotland, bleak, wild, barren, but 
 full of men of high spirit and indomitable tenacity of purpose, 
 that we must turn if we wish to find a writer who inherited the 
 genius of Chaucer in any tolerable measure. James I. of 
 Scotland, who has been styled the best king among poets 
 and the best poet among kings, during his long captivity in , 
 England, which extended from 1405 to 1424, had the advan- 
 f receiving an excellent education and of familiarising 
 himself with the works of the best English poets. Though 
 poems of a humorous nature, "Peebles to the Play" and 
 
 1 Here and elsewhere the extracts from Chaucer have been modi
 
 38 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 " Christ's Kirk of the Green," are generally supposed to have 
 been written by him, his fame mainly rests on his " King's 
 Quhair" [Book], a poem in six cantos, in which the influence 
 of Chaucer is very apparent. It describes, in allegorical 
 fashion, the attachment which, while a prisoner in Windsor 
 Castle, he formed to a young English princess whom he saw 
 walking in an adjacent garden. This lady is supposed to have 
 been Lady Jane Beaufort, whom he afterwards married ; but 
 more probably the account given of her appearance is a pure 
 poetical fancy. If rather deficient in originality — for it is im- 
 possible to believe that the " King's Quhair " would ever have 
 been written if the works of Chaucer had not been already in 
 existence — James I. had a fine poetical spirit, and were it not 
 for the many difficulties of dialect which it presents, his poem 
 would be much more generally read than it is. The unfor- 
 tunate author, who was born in 1394, affords a bright example 
 of the union of a poetical temperament with great practical 
 powers. When he came to his kingdom, he found it in a state 
 of anarchy through the lawless conduct of those turbulent 
 nobles who were for many generations the curse of Scotland. 
 " Let God but grant me life," he is reported to have said, 
 " and throughout my dominions I shall make the key keep the 
 castle and the furze-bush the cow, though I should lead the 
 life of a dog to accomplish it." He was in a fair way to redeem 
 his promise when he perished by assassination in 1437. 
 
 A poet of less tender and grateful fancy than the royal bard, 
 but of more original genius, was William Dunbar, who has 
 been called the Scotch Chaucer, a designation which recalls 
 Coleridge's remark on hearing Klopstock styled the German 
 Milton, " A very Germa?i Milton indeed." Dunbar, who was 
 born in 1460, was educated at the University of St. Andrews, 
 and in early life became a Franciscan friar — not a particularly 
 suitable calling for him, if one may judge from the frequent 
 license of his muse. By James IV. he was employed as a clerk 
 to foreign embassies, and received numerous gratuities from 
 the king in response to numerous supplications, for Dunbar 
 was not a man to want money if it could be got for the asking. 

 
 
 
 
 Gawaiii Douglas. 39 
 
 His principal poems are the " Golden Targe," the target being 
 Reason as a protection against the assaults of Desire, and his 
 " Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins," a poem which, in its wild, 
 reckless spirit, may be compared to the " Jolly Beggars " of 
 Burns. The poetry of Dunbar has been described by Irving 
 in his " Lives of the Scottish Poets " with something of a 
 Scotchman's partiality to his countryman. " In the poetry of 
 Dunbar," he says, " we recognise the emanations of a mind ' 
 adequate to splendid and varied exertion — a mind equally 
 capable of soaring into the higher regions of fiction, and of 
 descending into the humble walk of the familiar and ludicrous. 
 He was endowed with a vigorous and well-regulated imagina- 
 tion, and to it was superadded that conformation of the intel- 
 lectual faculties which constitutes the quality of good sense. 
 In his allegorical poems we discover originality and even 
 sublimity of invention, while those of a satirical kind present 
 us with striking images of real life and manners. As a 
 descriptive poet he has received superlative praise. In the 
 mechanism of poetry he evinces a wonderful degree of skill. 
 He has employed a great variety of metres ; and his versifica- 
 tion, when opposed to that of his most eminent contemporaries, 
 will appear highly ornamental and varied." The date of Dun- 
 bar"s death is uncertain, but is supposed to have occurred 
 about 1520. The "Golden Targe" was printed in 1508. 
 
 Gawain Douglas (1475-1522), Bishop of Dunkeld, is memo- 
 rable as having been the author of the first metrical translation 
 into English of a Latin author. He translated, with spirit and 
 felicity, but with great diffuseness, the "yEneid" of Vergil in 
 1 5 13. To each book he prefixed a prologue, and these pro- 
 logues are commonly considered the most favourable specimens 
 of his genius. His chief original poem is the "Palace of 
 Honour," an allegory in which he maintains the theses that 
 virtue is the only true chivalry. Like all the old Scottish 
 poets, Douglas was permeated with a love for nature, which 
 constitutes one of the great sources of his inspiration. 
 
 The last of the old school of Scottish poets was Sir David 
 I ay of the Mount, whose name is familiar to many who
 
 40 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 know nothing of his works by the ringing lines about him in 
 Scott's " Marmion : " — 
 
 " lie was a man of middle age ; 
 In aspect manly, grave, and sage, 
 
 As on king's errand come ; 
 But in the glances of his eye 
 A penetrating, keen, and sly 
 
 Expression found its home ; 
 The flash of that satiric rage, 
 Which, bursting on the early stage, 
 Branded the vices of the age 
 
 And broke the keys of Rome. 
 
 Still is thy name in high account, 
 And still thy verse hath charms, 
 
 Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, 
 Lord Lion Kintr-at-arms." 
 
 Lyndsay of the Mount (his family estate in Scotland) was no 
 less a man of action than a poet : indeed it is mainly because 
 he devoted his poetical talent to practical ends that his verses 
 attained the wide popularity they long enjoyed among his 
 countrymen. He was born in 1490, and rose to high office in 
 the court of James V., with whom he was a great favourite. 
 He had acted as gentleman-usher to that King in his youthful 
 days, and the relations between master and pupil seem to have 
 been unusually affectionate. Three of his poems, the ''Dream," 
 the " Complaint to the King," and the " Testament of the 
 King's Papyngo," have for their purpose the exposure of abuses 
 prevalent in church and state. Most of his works to a greater 
 or less degree point in the same direction. His "Satire of the 
 Three Estates," which was represented before the King at 
 Linlithgow in 1539, having been first acted in 1535, is a 
 morality play, having for its motif the fall of Cardinal Beaton, 
 and stigmatising the crimes which led to that fall. In his last 
 work, the "Monarchic" (1553), he continued in a graver tone 
 than had been adopted in his earlier performances to protest 
 against the abuses which had crept into the state. Different 
 though their characters were, Lyndsay shares with Knox the
 
 Mandeville. 
 
 4i 
 
 
 honour of being one of the leaders of the Reformation. A 
 clear-sighted, practical man, with considerable humour and 
 much satirical power, he had great influence in stirring up the 
 people to a sense of the wrongs which they endured and in 
 bringing these wrongs under the attention of those in authority. 
 We now turn to our early prose writers 
 
 Prose is a much 
 more artificial and mechanical mode of literary expression 
 than verse : the poet's song (if it be a genuine song) is the 
 outpouring of his heart in the metrical form which seems to 
 him best adapted to the subject with which he deals: "he 
 sings but as the linnets do," from the uncontrollable force of 
 his genius. The prose writer, who has to handle all sorts of 
 themes, uses, indeed, a much more commonplace instrument— 
 for we all talk in prose — but before that instrument is adapted 
 for literary purposes many refinements have to be adopted, 
 and many expedients tried. The talk of an uneducated 
 person, with its repetitions, its wanderings from the point, its 
 innumerable accessory circumstances heedlessly thrown in at 
 the most unsuitable places, its linking together of the most 
 incongruous subjects, its want of clearness and precision, con- 
 veys a good idea of the style of our early prose-writers, who 
 wrote before the language was fully formed and before the 
 pathway to the art of English prose composition had been 
 trodden smooth by the steps of innumerable wayfarers. With 
 regard to the merely mechanical part of style, literary genius 
 has not much to do : it may, in great measure, be acquired as 
 grammar is acquired. A schoolboy would be ashamed of him- 
 self who could not express his meaning in a form less awkward 
 and cumbrous than that used by Milton in his prose works. 
 
 The " first writer of formed English" is commonly said to 
 have been Sir John Mandeville (1300-1371), and though the 
 general opinion of experts now is that he was not the author 
 of the English translation of the book of "Travels" which 
 rs his name, that book, whoever translated it, is the first 
 English prose composition which deserves to be called litn.i- 
 ture. Of his own life, he says: "1, John Maundevylle, 
 Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond. 
 
 Tt\ 
 
 
 77
 
 i 
 
 42 The Dawn of English Literature, 
 
 in the Town of Seynt Albones, passed the See in the Zeer of 
 our Lord Jesu Crist MCCCXXIL, in the day of Seynt 
 Michelle ; and hidre to have ben longe tyme over the See, 
 and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse Londes, and 
 many Provynces and Kingdomes, and lies, and have passed 
 thorghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Tartarye, Percye, 
 Ermonye the litylle and the grete ; thorghe Ethiope ; thorghe 
 Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and 
 thorghe out many othere lies, that ben abouten Inde; where 
 dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and 
 Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of Men." Mandeville's 
 " Travels" is believed to have been translated into English in 
 1356, and its popularity is proved by the fact that many copies 
 of it circulated in manuscript. It is a strange and amusing 
 book. A good deal of what he relates is somewhat of the 
 Baron Munchausen order; but it is fair to say that the most 
 extraordinary things told by the old traveller are given by him 
 as having been stated by some one else, and not as the results 
 of his own observation. Distant countries were then nearly 
 as much a terra incognita to Englishmen as the mountains of 
 the moon are to us ; and ready credence was given to the 
 most outrageous fables. 
 
 The great reformer John Wiciif (1324-1384), the stirring 
 narrative of whose active life belongs more properly to the 
 political than to the literary history of England, was, if tradition 
 may be credited, a very extensive author. But it is now 
 generally believed that his name was often made use of by 
 other writers as a means of attracting attention to what they 
 had to say. " Half the English religious tracts of the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries have been assigned to him in 
 the absence of all external, and in defiance of all internal 
 evidence." It is as the translator of the Bible into English 
 that we mention Wiciif here. His version, which was finished 
 in 1380, is a remarkable one from a literary point of view, and 
 justifies his being called the first writer of later English prose, 
 as Chaucer was the first writer of later English poetry. Wiciif 
 is believed to have received some assistance in the translation
 
 Translations of the Bible. 43 
 
 of the Old Testament; but the translation of the New Testa- 
 ment is thought to have been entirely the work of his own 
 hand. His translation of the New Testament was eclipsed 
 by that of William Tyndale (1484-1536), which is the parent 
 of all succeeding versions. It was first published at Antwerp 
 in 1526. "Tyndale's translation of the New Testament," 
 says Marsh, "is the most important philological monument of 
 the first half of the sixteenth century, perhaps I should say 
 of the whole period between Chaucer and Shakespeare, both 
 as an historical relic and as having more than anything else 
 contributed to shape and fix the sacred dialect, and establish 
 the form which the Bible must permanently assume in an 
 English dress. The best features of the translation of 161 1 
 are derived from the version of Tyndale, and thus that 
 remarkable work has exerted, directly and indirectly, a more 
 powerful influence on the English language than any other 
 single production between the ages of Richard II. and Queen 
 Elizabeth." Besides the New Testament, Tyndale translated 
 the Pentateuch, and published it in 1530. In 1536 he was 
 martyred at Antwerp, on account of his heresy; and in the 
 same year his version of the New Testament was for the first 
 time published in England. The next English Bible was that 
 issued by Miles Coverdale, who followed Tyndale closely in his 
 translation of the New Testament published in 1535. It is from 
 this version that the Psalms still used in the Book of Common 
 Prayer are taken. A second edition, with the royal imprima- 
 tur, was published in 1537. Another translation, commonly 
 called " Matthew's Bible," founded chiefly on the labours of 
 Tyndale and Coverdale, appeared in the same year. It was 
 the work of John Rogers, memorable otherwise as having 
 been the first victim of the savage persecution of Protestants 
 in the reign of Mary. Cranmer's Bible, the " Great Bible " 
 as it was called, which is substantially the same as " Mat- 
 thew's," was published in 1539. Then came, in 161 1, the 
 " Authorised Version," the influence of which, even looked at 
 from a purely literary point of view, has been incalculable. 
 Whether the "Revised Version" issued in 1881 is destined to
 
 44 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 supersede it, it is yet too early to say. The Authorised Version 
 did not establish itself in public favour till it had encountered 
 much severe opposition. 
 
 We have been led beyond our chronological limits, and 
 must now retrace our steps. Attention in recent times has 
 been much drawn to the " Morte d'Arthur" of Sir Thomas 
 Malory, who flourished about 1470, by the fact that Mr. 
 Tennyson has used it as the groundwork for much of his 
 "Idylls of the King." The work, which is a condensation of 
 the numerous floating legends about King Arthur and his 
 Knights of the Round Table, was published by Caxton, the 
 first English printer, in 14S5. It is said that Mr. Tennyson 
 first chanced upon a copy of it when little more than a boy : 
 the story kindled his enthusiasm, and the vision of a great 
 poem rose before him. Caxton (1420— 1492) himself cannot 
 be passed over in a history of literature. It is needless to 
 enlarge on the results which followed the introduction of the 
 printing press : how books have increased and multiplied till 
 in our own day many are inclined to cry " Hold, enough ;" 
 how it has made literature accessible to all and attractive to 
 all, how it has swept away thick mists of ignorance and pre- 
 judice; and how, by its means, journalism, "the Fourth 
 Estate," has become more powerful for good or for evil than 
 the other three Estates put together. Caxton was no vulgar 
 tradesman ; he had a keen interest in literature ; was an 
 industrious translator; and delighted to issue fine editions of 
 the old English poets. 
 
 Sir Thomas More is a great figure both in political and in 
 literary history. He was born in 1480, the son of a judge 
 of the Court of King's Bench. At Oxford he made the 
 acquaintance of Erasmus, an acquaintance which soon deep- 
 ened into great mutual friendship. With a keen love of 
 literature, and filled with enthusiasm for those classical 
 studies, the interest in which was then beginning to revive in 
 England, More concealed under a gay and cheerful exterior 
 an almost ascetic piety, and at one time thought of becoming 
 a monk. Instead of doing so, however, he began the study
 
 Sir Thomas JMore. 45 
 
 of law, and in 1529 was appointed by Henry VIII. successor 
 to Wolsey in the Lord Chancellorship. A man of versatile 
 genius, of gentle disposition, and of impregnable integrity, 
 More may justly be reckoned one of the most lovable men 
 of his time. It has been well remarked that one of his most 
 striking; characteristics was his infinite variety. " He could 
 write epigrams in a hair shirt at the Carthusian convent; and 
 pass from translating Lucian to lecturing on Augustine in the 
 church of St. Lawrence. Devout almost to superstition, he 
 was light-hearted almost to buffoonerv. One hour we see him 
 encouraging Erasmus in his love of Greek and the new learn- 
 ing, or charming with his ready wit the supper tables of the 
 Court, or turning a debate in Parliament ; the next at home, 
 surrounded by friends and familiar servants, by wife and 
 children, and children's children, dwelling among them in an 
 atmosphere of love and music, prayer and irony — throwing 
 the rein, as it were, on the neck of his most careless fancies, 
 and condescending to follow out the humours of his monkey 
 and the fool. His fortune was almost as various. From his 
 utter indifference to show and money he must have been a 
 strange successor to Wolsey. He had thought as little about 
 fame as Shakespeare, yet in the next generation it was an 
 honour to an Englishman throughout Europe to be his 
 countryman." In advance of his age in many respects, 
 More yet shared its persecuting tendencies. A staunch 
 nanist, "this most upright and merciful man became 
 a persecutor of men as innocent, though not of such great 
 minds as himself." To the Reformers he showed no mercy; 
 and mercy was in turn denied him when he came to need 
 it. He was beheaded in 1535, because he would not take 
 the oath affirming the validity of the King's marriage with 
 Anne Boleyn. "The innocent mirth," says Addison in a 
 passage which has been universally admired, "which had 
 been so conspicuous in his life, did not forsake him to the 
 last. His death was of a piece with his life; there was 
 nothing in it new, forced, or affected. lie did not look upon 
 the severing of Ids head horn his body as a circumstance
 
 46 The Dazvn of English Literature. 
 
 which ought to produce any change in the disposition of his 
 mind, and as he died in a fixed and settled hope of immor- 
 tality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern 
 improper." 
 
 More's "Utopia" (1516), the picture of an imaginary 
 commonwealth, in describing which he finds an opportunity 
 for giving his views upon various social and political problems, 
 such as education, the punishment of criminals, &c, was 
 written in Latin and does not concern us here. It was trans- 
 lated into English by Ralph Robinson in i55i,and by Bishop 
 Burnet in 1684. His chief English work is his "Life and 
 Reign of Edward V.," which gives him a title to be con- 
 sidered the first Englishman who wrote the history of his 
 country in its present language. It is believed to have been 
 written in 15 13, but was not printed till 1557. "The histori- 
 cal fragment," says Sir James Mackintosh, "commands belief 
 by simplicity, and by abstinence from too confident affirma- 
 tion. It betrays some negligence about minute particulars, 
 which is not displeasing as a symptom of the absence of eager- 
 ness to enforce a narrative. The composition has an ease and 
 a rotundity which gratify the ear without awakening the 
 suspicion of art, of which there was no model in any preced- 
 ing writer of English prose." 
 
 A man as admirable as More, though of very different 
 temperament, was Hugh Latimer, the great Reformer. He 
 was born about 1491 at Thurcaston in Leicestershire. His 
 father was a yeoman in comfortable circumstances. Seeing 
 the "ready, prompt, and sharp wit" of his son, he wisely 
 determined, says Foxe, "to train him up in erudition and 
 knowledge of good literature, wherein he so profited in his youth, 
 at the common schools of his own country, that at the age of 
 fourteen years he was sent to the University of Cambridge." 
 In due time he obtained a fellowship there, and having been 
 led to embrace Protestantism by the arguments of a certain 
 " Maister Bylney," began, with characteristic impetuosity, to 
 utter his protest against the doctrines of the Church of Rome. 
 The University authorities brought his "heresies" under the
 
 Latimer. 47 
 
 notice of Cardinal Wolsey, but he was triumphantly acquitted. 
 In 1530, he says, "I was called to preach before the King, 
 which was the first sermon that I made before his Majesty, 
 and it was done at Windsor, where his Majesty, after the 
 sermon was done, did most familiarly talk with me in the 
 gallery." The King seems to have liked the fearless out- 
 spoken spirit of the man, who never hesitated to speak out 
 his mind either to prince or to peasant. In 1535 Latimer 
 was appointed Bishop of Worcester, an office he did not long 
 retain, being deprived of it in 1539, because he refused to 
 sign the " Act of the Six Articles." For some time he suf- 
 fered imprisonment in the Tower, and during the rest of 
 Henry's reign was " commanded to silence." On the accession 
 of Edward VI., in 1546, he again had an opportunity, of which 
 he took full advantage, of exercising his gifts as a preacher. 
 When Mary came to the throne in 1553, the tide again turned. 
 Soon after her accession, Latimer was thrown into the Tower. 
 In 1555 he was burned at the stake at Oxford. " Be of good 
 cheer, Master Ridley," he said to his fellow-martyr, "and play 
 the man : we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace 
 in England, as (I trust) shall never be put out." 
 
 Latimer's sermons, of which that on "The Ploughers," de- 
 livered at St. Paul's in 1549, is the most famous, show that he 
 possessed in an extraordinary degree the highest gift of the 
 preacher — that of arousing men's consciences, and of impressing 
 them with the belief that what he says is really true. He is not 
 a seeker after fine phrases : the homeliest illustrations and the 
 homeliest expressions arewelcomed byhim provided theyclcarly 
 express the meaning he wishes to convey. A scorner of conven- 
 tionality, he talked to his hearers as one plain man might talk 
 to another, never mincing matters, and always anxious to set 
 fortli his subject in the most lucid way. He did not hesitate 
 to address his remarks to individual hearers when he thought 
 himself called upon to do so, careless if his remarks gave 
 offence or not, so long as he did his duty. Latimer was 
 no sour ascetic : he loved a racy anecdote or a humorous 
 saying, and was ready to make use of them even when dealing
 
 48 The Dawn of English Literature. 
 
 with the most serious subject. A true Englishman, somewhat 
 of the "John Bull" type, frank, manly, honest, courageous, 
 he exerted a wonderful influence over the minds of his con- 
 temporaries, and his sermons, though their diction is occasion- 
 ally rather startling, are still well worth reading as the utterances 
 of a brave, thoroughly sincere man. 
 
 The story of Latimer's martyrdom, and of the other per- 
 secutions suffered by Protestants, was touchingly related by 
 John Foxe (15 17-1587) in his "Book of Martyrs" as it is 
 commonly called, a title better expressing the nature of the 
 work than its original one, " History of the Acts and Monu- 
 ments of the Church." Foxe himself had to flee to the Con- 
 tinent to escape persecution during Mary's reign, and his 
 " Book of Martyrs " was written on his return. It has great 
 literary merit, but is often inaccurate and prejudiced. He 
 lived too near the time with which he deals to write with 
 impartiality. 
 
 We now quit the regions of the dawn, to enter on the broad 
 effulgence of the Elizabethan period.
 
 II. 
 
 THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. 
 
 Ascham ; Wyatt and Surrey ; Spenser ; Sidney, Hooker, Raleigh, Lyly ; The 
 Elizabethan Dramatists : Lyly, Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Shakespeare, 
 Chapman, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others. 
 
 N this chapter we have to deal with what is, upon the 
 whole, the greatest period in our literature. In it 
 flourished Sidney and Hooker, Spenser and Shake- 
 speare, and a crowd of writers, inferior, indeed, to 
 these great names, but possessed of so much fertility and 
 spontaneity of genius, of so much vehement energy and native 
 talent, that in any other era they would have won for them- 
 selves a foremost place. Under the rule of the Maiden Queen, 
 the pulse of the nation beat high; all human energies were 
 cultivated to the utmost; the seas were scoured by daring 
 buccaneers ; enterprising travellers penetrated to distant places, 
 bringing back accounts of the wonderful things they had seen 
 and heard ; English commerce increased to an unexampled 
 extent ; and the comparative isolation in which Protestant 
 England stood apart from the Catholic nations of the Continent, 
 made her proudly defiant and confident in her own resources. 
 The love of gorgeous apparel and of splendid pageants which 
 then prevailed is an apt symbol of the unpruned luxuriance, 
 wealth of high-coloured phrases and extravagant expressions 
 which pervaded the literature. Men lived intensely, thought 
 intensely, and wrote intensely. 
 
 Betwei a the Elizabethan literature proper and the writers
 
 50 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 of the preceding nge, there are two or three authors who form 
 as it were connecting links. Great poets and great prose- 
 writers are always preceded by others, by far their inferiors in 
 genius it may be, but in whose works we can trace the beginnings 
 of the literary tendency which pervades their successors. We 
 shall begin with a prose-writer, who might with equal propriety 
 have been included among the authors mentioned in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, were it not for his close connection with Queen 
 Elizabeth. Roger Ascham (15 15-1568) lived in the reign of 
 Henry, of Edward, of Mary, and of Elizabeth, and, more 
 fortunate than many of his contemporaries, held comfortable 
 offices under all those sovereigns. A cautious, conciliatory 
 man, of no very pronounced religious opinions, he took care 
 never to give offence ; while his polished manners and cultivated 
 mind made him a very attractive companion to his royal 
 patrons. His first work, "Toxophilus," published in 1545,1s 
 a dialogue on archery, praising the national weapon, the bow, 
 and advocating its use with the enthusiasm of one who was 
 himself a proficient in the art. 1 No one is likely to find fault 
 with Ascham for being fond of archery, but his love of cock- 
 fighting, which, we are told, was his pastime in old age, was 
 certainly reprehensible. Ascham's most famous work, the 
 "Schoolmaster," was published in 1570, two years after his 
 death. It is a very sensible, meritorious performance, abound- 
 ing in digressions, but containing much advice, which is worth 
 attending to, even in this era of universal education. The 
 numerous anecdotes and reminiscences with which he diversi- 
 fies his work, add greatly to its attractiveness. " Old Ascham," 
 wrote Carlyle, "is one of the freshest, truest spirits I have met 
 with; a scholar and writer, yet a genuine man." 2 
 
 In the preceding chapter we have seen that the old Scottish 
 poets derived their main impulse from Chaucer, whom they 
 reverenced as their master. The same was the case with 
 Chaucer's English successors. But a new epoch in the history 
 
 1 Fuller quaintly describes Ascham as "an honest man and a good 
 shooter." 
 
 ' Correspondence of Macvey Napier, p. 77.
 
 Wyatt and Surrey. 5 1 
 
 of English poetry dawned in the reign of Henry VIII. Foreign 
 travel was becoming common among the higher classes, and 
 the nobility, headed by a king who valued his learning not the 
 least among his accomplishments, began to pride themselves 
 as much upon their literary taste as upon their proficiency in 
 manly exercises. It was from Italy, then the queen of the 
 intellectual world, that the new school of poets obtained their 
 inspiration — from Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, and Petrarch. Two 
 courtly gentlemen who " had travelled into Italy and thus 
 tasted the sweet and stately measures and style of the Italian 
 poesy," introduced into England an entirely new fashion of 
 writing, which took root and flourished. These were Sir 
 Thomas Wyatt, and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, whose 
 names are generally linked together. Their poems appeared 
 in the collection known as "Tottel's Miscellany," which was pub- 
 lished in 1557, and which contained poems by other versifiers. 
 Wyatt (1503-1541), the elder of the two, was a man of grave 
 and sombre genius, prone to look upon the dark side of things. 
 His love-sonnets and songs have none of that lightness and 
 gaiety which we are apt to associate with such verses, but they 
 contain much subtle thought, and bear the appearance of ex- 
 pressing a genuine passion. Surrey (15 16-1547) was a person- 
 age of different character. Impetuous and headstrong, he 
 led a stirring and adventurous life, holding commands in Scot- 
 land and France, and being one of the most prominent figures 
 at Court. He was executed for high treason in 1547. "Com- 
 pared with Wyatt, Surrey strikes one as having much greater 
 affluence of words — the language is more plastic in his hands. 
 When his mind is full of an idea he pours it forth with soft 
 voluble eloquence ; he commands such abundance of words 
 that he preserves with ease a uniform measure. Uniformity, 
 indeed, is almost indispensable to such abundance: we read 
 him with the feeling that in a ' tumbling metre ' his fluency 
 would run away with him. Such impetuous affluent natures as 
 his need to be held in with the bit and bridle of uniformity. A 
 calm composed man like Wyatt, with a fine car for varied 
 melodies, may be trusted to elaborate tranquilly irregular and
 
 
 52 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 subtle rhythms ; to men like Surrey there is a danger in 
 any medium between 'correctness' and Skeltonian license." 1 
 Surrey was a much more lively and gay-hearted singer than 
 Wyatt; we have in his works, instead of the dolorous strains 
 of a lover, the cruelty of whose mistress has really sunk deep 
 in his heart, rather the affected passion of a poet who makes 
 it his business to write love-verses. One of Surrey's best titles 
 to remembrance is his introduction of blank verse. In this 
 metre he translated the second and fourth books of Vergil's 
 "^Eneid." His blank verse is neither harmonious nor metri- 
 cally correct; but the first user of an instrument cannot be 
 expected to employ it with the same facility and precision as 
 those who come after him. 
 
 We now come to the second of England's great poets — 
 Edmund Spenser. A greater contrast to Chaucer it would be 
 difficult to imagine. Spenser "dwelt in a world ideal;" the 
 visionary sights and beings which fill the land of Faerie floated 
 round him continually; his imagination rose above the rough 
 practical world in which he lived to take refuge with the alle- 
 gorical beings who occupied his thoughts. Chaucer, on the 
 other hand, as we have seen, was very well satisfied with this 
 world, enjoying heartily the frolics, the eccentricities, the 
 virtues, nay even the vices of its inhabitants, ready always 
 to laugh with those who laughed, and to weep with those 
 who wept. There is, as will be admitted even by his warmest 
 admirers, a want of human interest about Spenser's works ; 
 it is just their deep human interest which makes Chaucer's 
 works so constantly attractive in spite of their antique dialect, 
 and the fact that they refer to a condition of society which 
 can now be conceived only by an effort of the imagination. 
 Like Wyatt and Surrey, Spenser derived his chief impulse 
 from Italy. He knew and admired Chaucer and the other 
 old English poets, but his real masters were Ariosto and 
 Tasso. 
 
 Spenser was born in London about 1552. He was distantly 
 
 1 Minto's English Poets, p. 163.
 
 Spensei' s "Shepherds Calendar" 53 
 
 connected with the noble family of the Spensers, a fact in 
 which he took not a little pride, and which is referred to by 
 Gibbon, when he says, "The nobility of the Spensers has 
 been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough ; 
 but I exhort them to consider the ' Faery Queen ' as the most 
 precious jewel in their coronet." Spenser was educated at 
 Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1576. After leaving 
 the University he seems to have resided for some time as a 
 tutor in Lancashire. On the advice of his college friend 
 Gabriel Harvey, he returned to London in 1578, and was 
 introduced by Harvey to Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of 
 Leicester, who took the poet under their patronage. Next 
 year appeared Spenser's first publication, " The Shepherd's 
 Calendar," a collection of twelve pastorals, one for each month 
 of the year. The work is not very easy to criticise. It 
 indubitably proved that Spenser was the greatest English 
 poet then living ; but would his name now have been more 
 familiar to readers in general than that of Wyatt or of Surrey 
 if he had written nothing else? We are inclined to think not. 
 There is a certain artificiality about all pastoral poetry which 
 prevents it from ever being popular, except among cultured 
 readers. " The shepherds of Spenser's ' Calendar,' " says 
 Campbell in his "Specimens of the British Poets," a work 
 containing much sound and excellent criticism, "are parsons 
 in disguise, who converse about heathen divinities and points 
 of Christian theology." The antique language of the pastorals, 
 which was adopted by Spenser of set purpose, was condemned 
 by his patron Sidney, and Pen Jonson went so far as to say 
 that the author in affecting the ancients had written no lan- 
 guage at all. The mysterious commentator on the " Shepherds' 
 Calendar," who is generally believed to have been the poet him- 
 self, and who, at any rate, certainly was inspired by Spenser, 
 thus refers to the antique phraseology. "And first," he says, 
 "of the words to speak, I grant they be something hard, and 
 of most men unused, yet both English, and also used of most 
 excellent auth 1 1 and mo I famous po< ! , In whom whereas 
 this our poet hath been much travelled and thoroughly read,
 
 54 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 how could it be (as that worthy orator said) but that, walking 
 in the sun, although for other causes he walked, yet needs he 
 mought be sun-burnt ; and, having the sound of these ancient 
 poets still ringing in his ears, he mought needs in singing hit 
 out some of their tunes." He then goes on at considerable 
 length to defend this practice of the poet, but his defence is 
 not very convincing. 
 
 In 1580 Spenser went to Ireland, as secretary to the Vice- 
 roy, Lord Grey of Wilton. There he remained, with the ex- 
 ception of two visits to England, for eighteen years, holding 
 various offices and writing the "Faerie Queen," which had 
 been begun ere he quitted England. In 1586 he obtained, 
 by the intercession of his friends, a grant of three thousand 
 acres of land from the forfeited estates of the Earl of Desmond 
 at Kilcolman, near Cork. In this beautiful and romantic dis- 
 trict, through which flowed the river Mulla which has obtained 
 an eternity of poetic fame by its frequent mention in Spenser's 
 works, he was visited in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, who 
 listened with admiration to the portion of the "Faerie Queen" 
 already written. This visit is thus, in figurative language, 
 commemorated by Spenser : — 
 
 " ' One day,' quoth he, 'I sate (as was my trade) 
 
 Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar, 
 Keeping my sheep amongst the cooly shade 
 
 Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore ; 
 There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out, 
 
 Whether allured with my pipe's delight, 
 Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about, 
 
 Or thither led by chance, I know not right ; 
 Whom when I asked from what place he came, 
 
 And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe 
 The Shepherd of the ocean by name, 
 
 And said he came far from the main-sea deep." 
 
 In 1590 Spenser accompanied Raleigh to England, carrying 
 with him the three first books of the "Faerie Queen." They 
 were published in that year, and at once received with favour. 
 Elizabeth bestowed on the poet an annual pension of ^50,
 
 Spenser s Personal CJiaracteristics. 5 5 
 
 no mean sum in the sixteenth century. In 1591 Spenser 
 returned to Ireland, and in the same year appeared a volume 
 of minor poems from his pen, of which the most noticeable is 
 " Mother Hubbard's Tale," a pleasing imitation of Chaucer. 
 In 1595 appeared at different times his "Colin Clout's Come 
 Home Again," from which the verse above cited is taken, and 
 which describes his voyage to England and his reception there ; 
 his "Amoretti," love-sonnets which do not add materially to 
 his fame ; and his " Epithalamion," that magnificent marriage 
 song, in which he celebrates in triumphant and richly jewelled 
 verse the successful termination of his wooing. It has been 
 called " the most glorious love-song in the English language," 
 nor is this praise too high. In the following year, Spenser 
 returned to London and published the last three books of 
 the " Faerie Queen," and certain minor poems. In 1598 the 
 Irish Rebellion took place ; Spenser's castle was sacked and 
 burned, and he and his household had to fly to England for 
 their lives. He died in London in January 1599, in very 
 destitute circumstances if tradition may be trusted. His only 
 prose work (if we accept the lucubrations of " E. K.," the 
 commentator on the "Shepherds' Calendar") was a dialogue 
 entitled " A View of the State of Ireland," written in 1596, 
 but not published till 1633. 
 
 Of Spenser's personal characteristics much cannot be said 
 with certainty. It is difficult to believe that he was a happy 
 man ; he had none of Chaucer's broad geniality, and could 
 never have described the Canterbury Pilgrims with any ap- 
 proach to dramatic impartiality. That he was vain is proved 
 by the remarks on him put in the mouth of his alter ego, "E. 
 K.," and it is probable that he was proud also. He was an 
 extremely learned poet, acquainted with the best models not 
 only in English, but in Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. 
 His appearance is thus described by Mr. Kitchin in the 
 Clarendon Press edition of the "Faerie Queen:" "Short 
 curling hair, a full moustache, cut after the pattern of Lord 
 Leicester's, close-clipped beard, heavy eyebrows, and under 
 them thoughtful brown eyes, whose upper eyelids weigh them
 
 5 6 TJic Elizabethan Era. 
 
 dreamily down ; a long and straight nose, strongly developed, 
 answering to a long and somewhat spare face, with a well- 
 formed sensible-looking forehead ; a mouth almost obscured 
 by the moustache, but still showing rather full lips, denoting 
 feeling, well set together, so that the warmth of feeling shall 
 not run riot, with a touch of sadness in them — such is the 
 look of Spenser as his portrait hands it down to us." 
 
 The "Faerie Queen" was intended to have extended to 
 twelve books, but only six books and two cantos were written — 
 at least that is all which has survived. Whether it is a matter 
 for regret that the poem is incomplete may be disputed. 
 Ardent admirers of the bard who sang of " heavenly Una 
 and her milk-white lamb," who revel in his luxuriant descrip- 
 tions and in his " linked sweetness long drawn out," who, like 
 Christopher North, find something attractive even in such 
 passages of his as are most repellent to the ordinary mind, 
 may sigh when they think that half of the poetical feast which 
 they might have enjoyed has been denied them. But it may 
 well be doubted whether Spenser's popularity among readers 
 in general would not have been diminished had the " Faerie 
 Queen" extended to twelve books. Macaulay expressed the 
 opinion of thousands when he said, " One unpardonable fault, 
 the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the ' Fairy 
 Queen.' We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, 
 and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the 
 persons who read the first canto not one in ten reaches the 
 end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to 
 the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who 
 are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six 
 books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had 
 been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than 
 that of a commentator would have held out to the end." This 
 extract (which proves that Macaulay, indefatigable reader 
 though he was, had not been able to hold out to the end of 
 the " Faerie Queen," for the Blatant Beast does not die) 
 doubtless appears to those whose admiration of Spenser's 
 beauties blinds them to a sense of his faults, one of the many
 
 The " Faerie Queen? 57 
 
 proofs of Macaulay's deficiencies as a literary critic. Never- 
 theless the majority of readers will agree that in this instance 
 Macaulay was substantially right. Books are written to be 
 read ; and surely a poem, which many who love poetry can 
 with difficulty finish, is liable to the charge of tediousness. 
 Now tediousness is so serious a fault that it needs many sur- 
 passing excellences to compensate for it. These excellences 
 Spenser possesses. Perhaps no poet ever had so truly poetical 
 a spirit — the power of viewing everything in a poetical light. 
 " His command of imagery," writes Campbell, " is wide, easy, 
 and luxuriant. He threw the soul of harmony into our verse, 
 and made it more warmly, tenderly, and magnificently descrip- 
 tive than it ever was before, or, with a few exceptions, than 
 it has ever been since. It must certainly be owned that 
 in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and 
 robust power which characterise the very greatest poets, but 
 we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of 
 visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush 
 in the colours of language than in this Rubens of English 
 poetry." 
 
 If we wish fully to understand the " Faerie Queen," and to 
 appreciate Spenser's mode of literary workmanship, we must 
 note carefully the allegory which runs through the poem. 
 This is no easy task, for not only are virtues and vices per- 
 sonified, but the personifications are made also to represent 
 personages of Spenser's time, whom he wished to compliment 
 or the reverse. Fortunately, however, the beauties of the 
 poem may be felt though the allegory is disregarded, and per- 
 haps the best advice to give to one reading Spenser for the 
 first time is to let the allegory alone altogether. Spenser is a 
 poet to be read leisurely: we must fully surrender ourselves to 
 his spell before we can feel its power; ami nothing is more 
 apt to break the spell than to pause in the middle of some 
 fine passage and endeavour to find out, either from commer- 
 tators or from one's own resources, what Spenser meant to 
 typify in the passage, and what living character, if any, was 
 therein personified. Impatient readers, who wish for some- 
 
 n
 
 5S The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 thing clear and definite, must seek for it elsewhere than in the 
 shadowy dreamland of the " Faerie Queen." 
 
 To the fastidious critics of Queen Anne's time, to whom 
 " correctness " and good taste seemed the highest virtues of 
 poetry, Spenser, if they read him at all, must have proved a 
 terrible stumbling-block. Keen as was his sense of beauty, he 
 sometimes draws pictures which, to present-day readers at any 
 rate, are intolerably repulsive. Such are his description of 
 Error, and, in an even higher degree, the picture of Duessa 
 unmasked. Burke is said to have admired the former, dis- 
 gusting though it be, and in his old age repeated it to Sir 
 James Mackintosh as reminding him " of that putrid carcase, 
 that mother of all evil, the French Revolution." That Burke 
 should have been fond of the passage appears less singular 
 when we remember that his own speeches are now and again 
 stained by similar violations of good taste. 
 
 The language of the " Faerie Queen," like that of the 
 " Shepherd's Calendar," is more archaic than that in general 
 use at the time when it was written. The antique phraseology 
 employed is not displeasing in a poem of the kind ; perhaps 
 upon the whole it rather adds to its attractiveness. The metre 
 in which it is written, the " Spenserian stanza," as it is called, 
 has been employed by so many great poets in great poems as 
 to conclusively prove how admirably it is adapted for certain 
 kinds of metrical effect. It is the stanza adopted by Thomson 
 in the "Castle of Indolence ;" by Burns in the "Cottar's 
 Saturday Night;" by Campbell in "Gertrude of Wyoming;" 
 by Scott in " Don Roderick ;" by Wordsworth in the " Female 
 Vagrant ;" by Shelley in the " Revolt of Islam ;" by Keats in 
 the " Eve of St. Agnes ;" and by Byron in " Childe Harold." 
 
 Spenser's patron, Sir Philip Sidney, may be taken as a 
 typical example of all that was greatest and best among the 
 courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. Handsome in appearance, 
 richly cultivated in mind, a proficient in all manly exercises, 
 of unimpeachable courage, and great skill in the management 
 of affairs, he was regarded by die aspiring young noblemen of 
 his time as a model whom they would do well to emulate;
 
 Sir Philip Sidney. 59 
 
 while his courtesy to inferiors, his liberal benefactions, and 
 his early and melancholy death, threw a halo around his 
 name which even yet has not grown dim. He was born in 
 1554 at Penshurst, and was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, 
 nephew of the Earl of Leicester, and of Mary Dudley, 
 daughter of the Duke of Northumberland. Sidney is a 
 good illustration of the axiom that the child is father of the 
 man. From his earliest years he exerted his faculties to the 
 utmost, striving to improve himself in every available way. 
 He never seems to have been a boy. His friend, Fulke 
 Greville, who was with him at Shrewsbury School, tells us that 
 though he knew him from a child, he never knew him other 
 than a man, with such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar 
 gravity, as earned grace and reverence above greater years. 
 He goes on to say that Sidney's talk was ever of knowledge, and 
 his very play tending to enrich his mind, so that even his teachers 
 found something in him to admire and learn above what they 
 usually read and taught. It must not be supposed from this 
 that Sidney was a mere plodding bookworm, buried in his studies, 
 and with all the freshness and elasticity of youth crushed out of 
 him. On the contrary, he cultivated his body as carefully as 
 his mind, and attained high excellence in all the athletic sports 
 which then prevailed. Spenser describes him as — 
 
 "In wrestling nimble, and in running swift ; 
 
 In shooting steady, and in swimming strong; 
 Well made to strike, to throw, to leap, to lift, 
 
 And all the sports that shepherds are among. 
 In every one he vanquished every one, 
 He vanquished all, and vanquished was of none." 
 
 1 torn Shrewsbury Sidney proceeded to Oxford, which he 
 quitted at the age of seventeen to undertake a prolonged tour 
 on the Continent. He visited Paris, where he was during the 
 terrible massacre of St. Jkutholomcw, the horrors of which 
 loubt did something to confirm him in his strongly Pro- 
 testant principles, and afterwards went to Frankfort, Vienna, 
 I I other places. Everywhere his accomplishments 
 
 and courtesy mads him sure of a kind reception ; and he formed
 
 60 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 a close friendship with some of the most eminent men of the 
 Continent. On his return to England in 1575, he was re- 
 ceived with enthusiasm at Court, and won the favour of 
 Queen Elizabeth, who was pleased to address him as " her 
 Philip." In 1577 he was employed on a diplomatic mission, in 
 which he acquitted himself so well as to excite the admiration 
 of William the Silent, who pronounced him one of the ripest 
 and greatest counsellors of state in Europe. On his return to 
 England, Sidney for eight years devoted himself mainly to lite- 
 rary pursuits, associating with men of letters, who found in him 
 a bountiful patron, and writing his "Sonnets," the "Arcadia," 
 and the "Apologie for Poetry." He did not neglect politics 
 altogether, however, although he held no public appointment; 
 on the contrary, he actively exerted himself in endeavouring 
 to provide measures in defence of the Protestant religion and 
 to thwart the power of Spain. In 1585 came the crowning 
 event of his life. He was sent to the Netherlands as Governor 
 of Flushing along with an army under Leicester. There he soon 
 distinguished himself by his valour and his prudence, but his 
 bright career was destined to be a brief one. In October 
 1586, at a skirmish at Zutphen he received a mortal wound. 
 As he rode from the battle-field occurred the touching incident 
 which has done more than either his writings or his contem- 
 porary fame to keep Sidney's memory alive. " Being thirsty 
 with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was pre- 
 sently brought him ; but as he was putting the bottle to his 
 mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his 
 last at the same feast, ghastly, casting up his eyes at the bottle, 
 which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he 
 drunk and delivered it to the poor man with these words, 
 1 Thy necessity is greater than mine.' " 
 
 None of Sidney's works were printed in his lifetime, though, 
 as he was well known to be an author, writings of his were pro- 
 bably rather extensively handed about in manuscript. His most 
 famous work is the "Arcadia," written in 1580, and dedicated to 
 " Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," the illustrious Countess 
 of Pembroke. It was not published till 1590. It is a pastoral
 
 Sidney s Writings. 61 
 
 romance, " containing discourses on the affections, passions, 
 and events of life, observations on human nature, and the 
 social and political relations of men, and all the deductions 
 which a richly endowed and cultivated mind had drawn from 
 actual experience." Such is an admirer's view of the " Arcadia." 
 Hear now what Hazlitt, who never did a thing by halves, says 
 of it : " It is to me one of the greatest monuments of the 
 abuse of intellectual power upon record. It puts one in mind 
 of the court dresses and preposterous fashions of the time, which 
 are grown obsolete and disgusting. It is not romantic, but 
 scholastic ; not poetry, but casuistry ; not nature, but art, and 
 the worst sort of art, which thinks it can do better than nature. 
 ... In a word, and not to speak it profanely, the 'Arcadia' 
 is a riddle, a rebus, an acrostic in folio ; it contains about 4000 
 far-fetched similes, and 6000 impracticable dilemmas, about 
 10,000 reasons for doing nothing at all, and as many against 
 it ; numberless alliterations, puns, questions, and commands, 
 and other figures of rhetoric ; about a score good passages, 
 that one may turn to with pleasure, and the most involved, 
 irksome, un progressive, and heteroclite subject that ever was 
 chosen to exercise the pen or the patience of man." This is 
 half-humorous exaggeration, but it must be confessed that 
 the " Arcadia," though full of sweetness and gentle feeling, is 
 tedious, and not likely to be ever much read, except in ex- 
 tracts. The " Apologie for Poetry," written, it is supposed, in 
 1581, and printed in 1595, is valuable both for its intrinsic merits 
 and as an indication of the literary taste of the period. It is 
 Spenser's best work in literature, and shows that he had a fine 
 natural taste in poetry, and possessed a high degree of skill in 
 warding off the objections of opponents. 
 
 Sidney was a considerable poet, but he was not a great one. 
 Like Spenser's friend, Gabriel Harvey, he was very fond of 
 trying to introduce new metres, particularly Greek and Latin 
 ones, into the English language ; but his efforts in this way do 
 not call lor much praise beyond what may be due to their 
 ingenuity. The "Astrophel and Stella" sonnets, his most 
 famous poems, were first published, perhaps surreptitiously, in
 
 62 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 1 59 1. Astrophel represents Sidney ; Stella, Lady Penelope 
 Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex, whom he had loved 
 and was to many. The match, however, was broken off, and 
 "Stella" married Lord Rich, a brutal and ignorant man, from 
 whom she was afterwards divorced. Sidney's sonnets, which 
 were addressed to her after her marriage, show cultivated taste 
 and refinement of expression, and more impassioned emotion 
 and deep personal feeling than is generally found in the love 
 sonnets of that age, which were often written rather to exhibit 
 the writer's talent than to express his love. One of the finest 
 of Sidney's sonnets is the following, which would deserve to be 
 called perfect were it not for the awkward transposition in the 
 last line : — 
 
 " With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies ! 
 How silently, and with how wan a face ! 
 What ! may it be that even in heavenly place 
 That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? 
 Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 
 Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case ; 
 I read it in thy looks ; thy languisht grace 
 To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 
 Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me 
 Is constant love deem'd there but lack of wit ? 
 Are beauties there as proud as here they be? 
 Do they above love to be loved, and yet 
 Those lovers scorn whom that love doth pos ; ess? 
 Do they call virtue there — ungratefulness" x 
 
 Sidney's prose is distinctly superior to that of any preceding 
 writer: it is clear, copious, and easy, containing few obsolete 
 words; but it is frequently languid and diffuse, and wants the 
 great quality of strength. The full resources of the English 
 language as an instrument of prose composition were first dis- 
 tinctly shown by Richard Hooker, the "judicious Hooker," as 
 he is called. Like many other great men, Hooker has suffered 
 from the panegyrics of rash admirers. "So stately and grace- 
 ful is the march of his periods," said Hallam, " so various the 
 fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so 
 condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so 
 1 Meaning, " Do they call ungratefulness virtue there."
 
 Richard Hooker. 63 
 
 little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his 
 learned phrases, that I know not whether any later writer has 
 more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or pro- 
 duced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid 
 monuments of antiquity." Hallam was not apt to sin on the 
 side of over-praise, but here he undoubtedly does so, and thus, 
 perhaps, has been the means of causing some writers to err on 
 the opposite side. John Austin, no mean judge, spoke of the 
 first book of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" as "fustian." The 
 truth, as is usual in such cases, lies between the two extremes. 
 Hooker's style is undoubtedly heavy, but it is also stately and 
 powerful ; he is no safe model for a student of English com- 
 position to follow, as his sentences are formed too exclusively 
 upon Latin models, but the sonorousness and dignity of many 
 of his periods will always give him a high place in literature. 
 
 The story of Hooker's life has been related by Isaac Walton 
 with his usual quaint felicity. He was born at Heavitree, near 
 Exeter, in 1553. His parents were poor, but Hooker's in- 
 dustry and talents early attracted the attention of his school- 
 master, who persuaded them to use every effort to give the 
 promising boy a liberal education. " The good schoolmaster," 
 as Walton calls him, also applied to a rich uncle of Hooker's 
 to do something for his relative. The application was so far 
 successful. The uncle spoke about the lad to Jewel, Bishop 
 of Salisbury, who, after examining the youthful prodigy, "gave 
 his schoolmaster a reward, and took order for an annual 
 pension for the boy's parents, promising also to take him 
 under his care for a future preferment." This promise he ful- 
 filled by sending him to Oxford in 1567, and specially recom- 
 mending him to the care of Dr. Cole, the President of Corpus 
 I risti College. In 1571 Hooker lost his patron, but his 
 fortunes were not impaired thereby, for Dr. Cole promised to 
 see that he should not want ; and nine months later he was 
 appointed tutor to Edwin Sandys, son of the Pishop of I,<>n- 
 . who had heard Hooker warmly praised by Jewel. Soon 
 after George Cranmer (nephew's son to the Archbishop) and 
 other pupils came under his care.
 
 64 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 In 1577 Hooker became a Fellow of his College, and two 
 years later was appointed to read the public Hebrew lecture 
 in the University. The period of his residence at Oxford was 
 probably the happiest of his life. The quiet, regular life of a 
 Fellow was well adapted to one of his retiring disposition ; he 
 had ample opportunities of gratifying to the full his love of 
 study ; and he could enjoy the company of men of similar tastes 
 to himself. But less happy days were at hand. He took orders 
 in 1581, and in the sameyear was appointed to preach one of 
 the sermons at Paul's Cross in London. This visit of Hooker's 
 to London is a striking instance of important results arising 
 from trivial causes. He arrived at London very tired, and 
 afraid that he would not be able to preach, but the careful 
 attentions of the woman in whose house he lodged restored 
 him, and he was able to perform his duty. Seeing that his 
 constitution was feeble, the woman persuaded him that he 
 ought to marry a wife who would attend to his comforts. He 
 assented, and asked her to find him such a wife. She provided 
 for him her daughter Joan, "who had neitherbeauty nor portion," 
 and who proved lacking in the yet more essential qualities of 
 good temper and love to her husband. After his marriage, 
 Hooker settled with his wife in the living of Drayton-Beau- 
 champ, near Aylesbury, where for about a year he led a very 
 miserable life, owing to the shrewishness of his wife, who 
 tyrannised over her meek-spirited husband in the most merciless 
 manner. While in this wretched situation he was visited by 
 his old pupils Sandys and Cranmer. The former, pitying his 
 distress, spoke about it to his father, then Archbishop of York, 
 at whose recommendation Hooker was in 1585 appointed 
 Master of the Temple. In his new office Hooker found another 
 source of vexation. The afternoon lecturer at the Temple, 
 Walter Travers, defended the Presbyterian form of Church 
 government, Hooker defended Episcopacy; so that, as Hooker 
 preached in the forenoon and Travers in the afternoon, "the 
 pulpit spoke pure Canterbury in the morning and Geneva in 
 the afternoon." From verbal controversy the advocates of the 
 opposing systems proceeded to a paper war, of which Hooker
 
 Hooker s Appearance. 65 
 
 soon became heartily tired, and wrote to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, asking to be removed to some quiet place in the 
 country. His request was granted, and in 1591 he obtained 
 the living of Buscombe, near Salisbury. There he elaborated 
 the first four books of his " Ecclesiastical Polity," which were 
 published in 1594. In the following year he removed to the 
 living of Bishopsgate, near Canterbury, where he died in 1600. 
 The fifth book of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" was published in 
 1597, the three remaining books being issued posthumously. 
 The latter were suspected by some to have been tampered with 
 by the Presbyterians, but there is no certain evidence of this. 
 
 Walton has given a graphic description of Hooker's appear- 
 ance and disposition : "An obscure harmless man ; a man in 
 poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown or canonical 
 coat ; of a mean stature and stooping, and yet more lowly in 
 the thoughts of his soul : his body worn out, not with age, but 
 study and holy mortifications; his face full of heat pimples, 
 begot by his unactivity and sedentary life. And to this true 
 characteristic of his person let me add this of his disposition 
 and behaviour : God and nature blessed him with so blessed a 
 bashfulness, that as in his younger days his pupils might easily 
 look him out of countenance, so neither then, nor in his age, 
 did he ever willingly look any man in the face : and was of so 
 mild and humble a nature, that his poor parish-clerk and he 
 did never talk but with both their hats on, or both off, at the 
 same time : and to this may be added, that though he was not 
 purblind, yet he was short or weak-sighted ; and where he fixed 
 his eyes at the beginning of the sermon, there they continued 
 till it was ended." The circumstances of his marriage alone 
 would suffice to prove that Hooker was not a man of much 
 worldly wisdom, and that he was ill fitted for an active life. 
 From Walton's account we gather that he was a timorous, 
 sickly man, finding his only pleasure in study, and content to 
 be "put upon" by any one. It is seldom that men of this 
 kind are distinguished by remarkable talents ; Hooker's genius 
 and eloquence as a writer contrast strangely with his feebleness 
 and incapacity in the ordinary affairs of life.
 
 66 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 The object of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" is to defend the 
 Episcopalian form of Church government. This is done with- 
 out any partisan heat, with far-reaching scholarship, and with 
 a studious desire to do justice to opponents. The sonorous 
 roll of the sentences is well adapted to the dignity of the 
 subject, and makes the work attractive to many who care little 
 for the arguments it contains, but who read it for purely literary 
 reasons. It is very seldom that a work of controversial theology 
 (for so Hooker's may be called) can, like the "Ecclesiastical 
 Polity," claim a permanent place in literature. Such works may 
 be interesting to the historian of the history of opinion or to 
 the theological student, but they are "caviare to the general." 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh (15 52-161 8), one of those dashing, 
 adventurous courtiers who surrounded the throne of Elizabeth, 
 and who by their half- exploring, half- piratical voyages did 
 much to make the name of England terrible on the seas and 
 to advance its prosperity, found time, in the course of his 
 chequered career, to acquire a rich store of book knowledge and 
 to cultivate his naturally fine literary taste. If he had devoted 
 a larger portion of his time to literature, and had chosen themes 
 of more enduring interest, he would probably have occupied a 
 place next to Hooker as the greatest prose-writer of the Eliza- 
 bethan era. Raleigh's principal work is his "History of the 
 World," composed during his long imprisonment in the Tower 
 by King James. Though only a fragment, it is a gigantic 
 fragment, comprising the history of the world from the creation 
 to about a century and a half before the birth of Christ, a period 
 of nearly four thousand years. A considerable part of the work 
 is rather theological and philosophical than historical, dealing 
 with such topics as the being and attributes of God, the origin 
 of government, the personages of Scripture as compared with 
 the personages of heathen mythology, &c. The finest passage 
 by far in the work is the conclusion : — 
 
 " It is therefore death alone that can suddenly make man 
 to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they 
 are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant ; makes them 
 cry, complain, and repent ; yea, even to hate their forepassed
 
 John Lyly. 6j 
 
 happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him 
 a beggar; a naked beggar that hath interest in nothing but in 
 the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the 
 eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their 
 deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it. 
 
 "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
 advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast 
 done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast 
 cast out of the world and despised : thou hast drawn together 
 all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambi- 
 tion of man, and covered it all over with those two narrow 
 words, Hie j cicet." 
 
 This magnificent apostrophe to death has been universally 
 admired; but his disappointment would be great who began 
 to read the " History of the World " expecting to find it 
 all of the same texture as this familiar passage. A great 
 proportion of it is bald and dry enough. Raleigh's other chief 
 works are his " Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful 
 Empire of Guiana," and his "Advice to his Son." The former, 
 which contains passages showing considerable descriptive 
 power, was very unjustly described by Hume as "full of the 
 grossest and most palpable lies that were ever attempted to be 
 imposed on the credulity of mankind." Hume ought to have 
 observed that all the more marvellous particulars are related by 
 Raleigh solely upon the authority of Spanish writers. The 
 character of Raleigh's "Advice to his Son" was very well given 
 by Carlyle : "Worldly wise, sharp, far-seeing. The motto, 
 'Nothing like getting on.'" 
 
 The last prose-writer of the Elizabethan era that we shall 
 mention deserves notice rather, perhaps, as a curious literary 
 phenomenon than on account of his instrinsic merits. John 
 Lyly (1554-1G06), "the only rare poet of that time, the witty, 
 comical, facetiously quick and unparalleled," as he was de- 
 scribed, adopted, by the publication of his "Euphues, the 
 Anatomy of Wit" (1579), a species of writing which at once 
 found favour among fashionable circles, who loved elaborate 
 phraseology and playing upon words. The first part was
 
 68 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 followed in 1580 by a second, called " Euphues and his Eng- 
 land." The work describes the travels of Euphues, a young 
 Athenian, first in Naples and afterwards in England, and con- 
 tains discourses on education, friendship, love, and such-like 
 subjects. In many ways it is a pleasing book: "as brave, 
 righteous, and pious a book," said Charles Kingsley, "as any 
 man need desire to look into." But it is also full of affecta- 
 tion ; sense is sacrificed to sound, similitudes and parallels of 
 all sorts are lugged in whether or not they are relevant to the 
 matter in hand. Alluding to Lyly's use of comparisons ran- 
 sacked from every quarter, Drayton compliments Sidney as 
 the author that 
 
 "Did first reduce 
 
 Our tongue from Lyly's writing, then in use ; 
 
 Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, 
 
 Playing with words and idle similes, 
 
 As the English apes and very zanies be 
 
 Of everything that they do hear or see." 
 
 Like More's " Utopia," Lyly's " Euphues " gave a new word to 
 the language. " Euphuism," by which is generally meant an 
 affected mode of writing, full of verbal ingenuities, forced com- 
 parisons, and painful elaboration of style, was common among 
 the court circles of Elizabeth's time, having, it is thought, been 
 imported from Italy by travelled scholars. 1 Lyly can scarcely 
 claim to have originated the style ; he merely gave it literary 
 form, and linked it to matter of considerable permanent value. 
 Euphuism was ridiculed by Shakespeare in " Love's Labour's 
 Lost," in which he good-humouredly laughs at the affected 
 love-phraseology then current ; and Scott, in his character of 
 Sir Piercie Shafton, endeavoured to reproduce the forgotten 
 dialect, with, however, very slender success. 
 
 Besides his prose works, Lyly wrote several plays, being, 
 indeed, one of the most distinguished of the pre-Shakespearean 
 group of dramatists. As in Greece, so in England, the drama 
 
 1 According to Professor F. Landmann, in his essay "Euphuismus" 
 (Giessen, 1880), Euphuism was simply an adaptation of the alto estilo of 
 Guevara, a Spanish writer, all of whose books were translated in English 
 in Queen Elizabeth's time ; and Lyly adapted his " Euphues " from Guevara.
 
 Miracle Plays & Mysteries. 69 
 
 had its origin in religion. During the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries, Miracle plays and Mysteries afforded one of the 
 favourite entertainments of the common people. "Miracle 
 plays, in the strict sense of the term, were dramatic representa- 
 tions of miracles performed by saints; Mysteries, of incidents 
 from the New Testament and elsewhere, bearing upon the 
 fundamental principles of Roman Catholicism." The distinc- 
 tion, however, was not strictly observed. Monks were the 
 authors of these plays, and they were acted " in the churches, 
 or on stages erected in the churchyard or in the fields, or, as 
 at Coventry, on movable stages wheeled from street to street." 
 The actors were sometimes the brethren of a monastery, 
 sometimes the members of a trade guild. Though Miracle 
 plays were no doubt written with a moral purpose, we often 
 find that in their desire to be amusing and instructive at 
 the same time, the writers of them permitted the amusing 
 element to overbalance the instructive one. The liberty often 
 taken with Scriptural personages for the sake of comic effect, 
 and the frequent buffoonery and ribaldry found in the plays, 
 strange though they seem to modern readers, were no doubt 
 eminently attractive to the rude crowd that witnessed the 
 performances; but they can scarcely have tended to its edi- 
 fication or improvement. " So far," writes Professor Minto, 
 "from helping to make demons more terrible, the Mysteries 
 embodied the hideous ideals of the popular imagination, and 
 raised temporary laughter by making them ridiculous — treated 
 them for the time being as so much ludicrous capital. If 
 superstitious fears had been absolutely bodiless before then 
 — if the Mysteries had been the means of clothing the devil 
 in popular imagination with claws, hoofs, horns, and tail — it 
 might have been argued that they did add to the dreadful 
 attributes of his fallen majesty. And even as it is, it may 
 reasonably be maintained that the actual representation of the 
 hideous being had a permanent effect of terror. I am inclined, 
 however, to believe that the Mysteries left the fear of the devil 
 where they found it, and simply provided the vulgar with a 
 good day's sport."
 
 70 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 From the Miracle play it was an easy transition to the 
 Morality, in which the characters were personified virtues and 
 vices, such as Folly, Repentance, Avarice, &c. By degrees 
 the vices and virtues came to be represented by persons who 
 stood for a type of these, Brutus representing Patriotism, 
 Aristides, Justice, and so on. Plays of this description and 
 Moralities were largely taken advantage of by both Catholics 
 and Protestants to enforce their several views. It is obvious 
 that it is only a single step from Moralities in their latter 
 form to the regular drama ; though whether the true modern 
 drama arose out of them or from the Latin classical drama may 
 be doubted. At any rate, the first English comedy was written 
 by a classical scholar, who found his model in Terence, and 
 owed nothing to the writers of Moralities. Nicholas Udall, 
 sometime headmaster of Eton, and renowned for the thorough 
 manner in which he had laid to heart Solomon's maxim about 
 sparing the rod and spoiling the child, was its author. It is 
 called "Ralph Roister Doister," and was first printed in 1566, 
 but is known to have been written several years previously. 
 Divided into acts and scenes, and furnished with a regular 
 plot, it marks a great advance upon the plays which had 
 hitherto gratified the thirst of the people for dramatic repre- 
 sentation. It is written in rough verse, and is pervaded by a 
 sort of schoolboy fun, which would seem to suggest that it 
 was originally written for representation by the author's pupils. 
 The first English tragedy, " Gorboduc," mainly the work of 
 Thomas Sackville, was represented in 1562. It, too, is framed 
 upon classical models. In literary merit it is superior to 
 "Ralph Roister Doister;" its blank verse is grave and weighty, 
 and of considerable poetical merit ; but it is difficult to believe 
 that it could ever have been popular as an acting play ; the 
 unmerciful length at which many of the characters speak alone 
 must have been a severe trial to the strength of the actors and 
 the patience of the auditors. 
 
 We now come to those who laid the foundations of the 
 modern stage. Of these, the ingenious author of " Euphues " 
 was the first. He was the author of no fewer than nine pieces,
 
 Christopher Marlowe, 7 1 
 
 all of which show his peculiar vein of talent : his often happy 
 verbal ingenuities, his love of punning (in which he found a 
 frequent imitator in Shakespeare), and his occasional grace 
 and tenderness of fancy. But Lyly was not a great writer : 
 no one need read his plays who does not wish to make a 
 special study of the Elizabethan drama, and it is not, therefore, 
 requisite that we should go into detail regarding his productions. 
 The first of Shakespeare's predecessors who possessed really 
 great dramatic and poetical genius was Christopher Marlowe. 
 Like too many of his contemporary playwrights, he lived a 
 wild, reckless, dissolute life, at one time indulging in gross 
 debauchery, at another time writing plays which, though dis- 
 figured sometimes by mere bombast, bear on them the im- 
 perishable stamp of genius. He was born at Canterbury in 
 1564. His father followed the humble calling of a shoemaker, 
 but, perhaps owing to the liberality of some wealthy relation, 
 Marlowe received a liberal education, graduating M.A. at 
 Cambridge in 1587. Some three years before this date he 
 is supposed to have come to London and commenced his career 
 as a writer for the stage. None of his plays were printed in his 
 lifetime, and their order of production can only be conjectured. 
 "Tamburlaine the Great'' is believed to have been the first; 
 then came "Doctor Faustus," "Jew of Malta," "Edward II.," 
 and " Massacre at Paris." In 1593 he lost his life in a wretched 
 tavern brawl. Had he lived longer, it is very probable that 
 he would have been the greatest of the Elizabethan dramatists, 
 next to Shakespeare. As the hot ferments of youth subsided, 
 his genius would have become more temperate, and his rich 
 prodigality of fancy would have been turned into more profit- 
 able channels than the piling up of high-sounding words, too 
 often signifying nothing. 
 
 In Marlowe's plays we find all the wantonness of imagina- 
 tion, ail the colossal rant, all the prodigality of fancy, charac- 
 teristic of a hot and fevered youth unrestrained by law, and 
 of a mind ill at ease yet conscious of and aspiring alter better 
 things. "There is a lust of power in his writings," writes 
 Hazlitt, " a hunger and thirst alter unrighteousness, a glow of
 
 72 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 the imagination, unhallowed by anything but its own energies. 
 His thoughts burn within him like a furnace with bickering 
 flames, or throwing out black smoke and mists that hide the 
 dawn of genius, or, like a poisonous mineral, corrode the 
 heart." In many respects he resembles Byron : both lived 
 wild and passionate lives ; both possessed an energy and 
 strength which cover a multitude of literary sins; both died 
 young, just as they seemed on the eve of accomplishing better 
 things. Marlowe's finest play is " Doctor Faustus," founded 
 on the legend which also gave birth to the greatest work of 
 the greatest modern poet, Goethe's " Faust." Nothing could 
 well be imagined more different than the treatment by these 
 two great dramatists of the same subject. In Goethe's play 
 we find the genius of a great poet united with the wisdom, the 
 self-restraint, the knowledge of the world possessed by a clear, 
 cold, elaborately cultivated mind ; in Marlowe's we find also the 
 genius of a great poet, but disfigured by the want of self-restraint, 
 the extravagance and the turbulence of a fiery and ill-regulated 
 mind. But the general conception of his work is very powerful 
 and striking, and passages of great beauty occur not unfre- 
 quently. Take, for example, the following, which we make bold 
 to say has been matched by none of the Elizabethan dramatists 
 save Shakespeare. It is the address of Faustus to the appari- 
 tion of Helen — 
 
 " Faustus. Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, 
 And burnt the topless tow'rs of Ilium ? 
 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. 
 Her lips suck forth my soul ! See where it flies. 
 Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
 Here will I dwell, for Heav'n is in these lips, 
 And all is dross that is not Helena. 
 I will be Paris, and for love of thee, 
 Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sack'd ; 
 And I will combat with weak Menelaus, 
 And wear thy colours on my plumed crest ; 
 Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, 
 And then return to Helen for a kiss. 
 — Oh ! thou art fairer than the evening air, 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars :
 
 Peek. 7 3 
 
 brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter 
 When he appear'd to hapless Semele ; 
 More lovely than the monarch of the sky 
 In wanton Arethusa's azure arms ; 
 And none but thou shall be my paramour." 
 
 If Marlowe was dissipated, Greene and Peele, the two other 
 most famous pre-Shakespearean dramatists, were yet more so. 
 Greene, born at Norwich about 1560, was, like Marlowe, a 
 Cambridge man, graduating M.A. at Clare Hall in 1583. He 
 then travelled in Spain, Italy, Germany, and other countries 
 of the Continent. From his own account he did not benefit 
 by his tour, for he tells us that he acquired in Italy luxurious, 
 profligate, and abominable habits. Settling in London, he 
 became " an author of plays and a penner of love pamphlets." 
 He was also an actor, and indeed appears to have been ready 
 to turn his hand to anything in order that he might acquire 
 the wherewithal to gratify his vicious desires. He died in 
 1592, in the most abject poverty, in the house of a poor shoe- 
 maker, who had pity on him, and took him in and nursed 
 him. Before his death he seems to have sincerely repented of 
 his sins, and wrote two pamphlets, " A Groatswortli of Wit 
 bought with a Million of Repentance" and the "Repentance 
 of Robert Greene," setting them forth. The former we shall 
 have occasion to refer to in dealing with Shakespeare. His 
 last letter was to his wife, whom he had deserted for six years : 
 " Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth and my soul's 
 rest that you will see this man paid ; for if he and his wife had 
 not succoured me I had died in the streets. — Robert Greene." 
 Greene's best productions are the lyrics interspersed through 
 his works, which show a fine ear for verse and a delight in 
 beauty and innocence strange to find in a man of his charac- 
 ter. One of his tales, " Dorastus and Fawnia," supplied the 
 plot for Shakespeare's " Winter's Tale." 
 
 George Peele, a gentleman by birth, was born in Devonshire 
 in 1558. He graduated M.A. at Oxford in 1579, and went to 
 London in 1581. There, as was very common in those days, 
 he united the occupations of poet, dramatist, and actor. lie 
 
 E
 
 74 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 seems to have been a shifty, unscrupulous man, " without the 
 faintest desire to use honest means in procuring a livelihood," 
 always anxious to get his purse filled, and caring little or nothing 
 by what means he did so. His best work is " The Arraignment 
 of Paris," full of sprightly wit. He died about 1592. 
 
 Passing over the other dramatists who flourished about the 
 time when Shakespeare came to London, we come to Shake- 
 speare himself, the greatest writer the world has ever seen, or is 
 ever likely to see. Of his personal history we know little com- 
 pared to what we should like to know ; yet the laborious 
 accumulation of small facts, and the patient sifting of the 
 traditions regarding him, have furnished us with information 
 sufficient to enable us to judge with some degree of accuracy. 
 We know, or at least we have some degree of certainty, that 
 his youth was wild and passionate ; that his marriage was not 
 a very happy one; that when the ferments of youth had sub- 
 sided he became prudent and industrious ; that his manners 
 were amiable and his conversational powers great ; that he 
 was rather looked down upon by college-bred contemporaries 
 as having " small Latin and less Greek ;" that he frequently 
 felt bitterly the hardships and indignities of an actor's career; 
 that he shared to the full the ordinary English dislike of being 
 cheated of anything which was his due ; that he was careless 
 of literary fame ; that his chief ambition, like Sir Walter Scott's, 
 was to be the founder of a family ; that he spent the closing 
 years of his life in happiness and prosperity ; and that before 
 his death he had come to be generally recognised as the 
 greatest living writer. We know, too, from his portraits, that 
 he was an eminently handsome man, with a sweet serene face, 
 full of intellect, yet also full of gentleness and kindliness. 
 The bare facts of his life, when disinterred from the mounds 
 of conjecture and disputation in which successive commen- 
 tators have buried them, are soon told. 
 
 William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon on or 
 about April 23, 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was a 
 prosperous burgess there, carrying on business as a glover, and 
 engaged also, it would seem, in corn-dealing or farming. His
 
 Shakespeare's Youth. 75 
 
 mother, Mary Arden, whom his father had married in 1557, 
 was the daughter of a substantial yeoman in the neighbour- 
 hood, at whose death she became heiress to a small farm 
 called Ashbies. William, the third child and eldest son of his 
 parents, was, in all probability, educated at the Free Grammar 
 School of Stratford, where he acquired the " small Latin and 
 less Greek" Ben Jonson speaks about, and where doubtless 
 he was a prominent figure in all schoolboy sports and amuse- 
 ments. At the earliest date at which Shakespeare could have 
 entered the school — his seventh year — his father had attained 
 the summit of municipal ambition by being appointed chief 
 alderman. For some six or seven years after this John Shake- 
 speare continued prosperous, but about 1577 his fortunes began 
 to decline. In that year half his borough taxes were remitted; 
 in 1578 his wife's property of Ashbies was mortgaged ; in 1579 
 he was returned as a defaulter for not paying a certain tax. 
 Bad luck steadily pursued him for many years; in 1592 he 
 was set down in a list of those who did not come to church 
 through fear of "process for debt." Owing to his father's 
 pecuniary difficulties Shakespeare was, it is likely, withdrawn 
 from school about his fourteenth year. What occupation he 
 engaged in after he left school affords matter for boundless con- 
 jecture, as nothing certain is known about it. One tradition 
 says that he became a schoolmaster ; another that he was 
 bound apprentice to a butcher ; another that he entered a 
 lawyer's office. The last hypothesis was strongly advocated 
 by Lord Campbell, with whom Mr. Furnivall agrees. " That 
 he was so at one time of his life," writes Mr. Furnivall, " I, as 
 a lawyer, have no doubt. Of the details of no profession docs 
 he show such an intimate acquaintance as he does of law. 
 The other books in imitation of Lord Campbell's prove it to 
 any one who knows enough law to be able to judge. They 
 are just jokes ; and Shakespeare's knowledge of insanity was 
 not got in a doctor's shop, though his law was (I believe) in a 
 lawyer's office." Hut, as has often been said, the difficulties 
 in which his father was involved must have early given Shake- 
 speare an unfortunate experience of legal documents, and a
 
 7 6 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 clever boy under such circumstances would not be long in 
 picking up and knowing the meaning of many terms of the law. 
 In 15S2 occurred a very important event in Shakespeare's 
 life — his marriage. His marriage bond to Anne Hathaway, 
 daughter of a yeoman who lived near Stratford, is dated No- 
 vember 28, 1582, and their first child, Susanna, was born on 
 May 26 of the following year — significant facts. Anne was 
 eight years older than" her husband, and their union does not 
 seem to have been so happy as to afford any contradiction to 
 the popular opinion that it is a foolish thing for a youth to 
 marry a woman much older than himself. The facts of Shake- 
 speare's life, and incidental allusions scattered through his 
 works, alike go far to prove that his married life was not one of 
 unbroken sunshine. It is difficult to believe that Shakespeare 
 was not thinking of his own experience when he put in the 
 mouth of the Duke in " Twelfth Night " the words — 
 
 " . . . Let still the woman take 
 An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
 So sways she level in her husband's heart. 
 For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
 Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
 Than women's are." 
 
 About 1586 Shakespeare left his wife and family, increased 
 by the birth of twins in 1585, and went up to London to 
 seek his fortune. The immediate cause of his leaving Strat- 
 ford is thus related by his first biographer, Rowe : — " He had, 
 by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill 
 company; and, amongst them, some that made a frequent prac- 
 tice of deer-stealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a 
 park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near 
 Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he 
 thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to avenge the ill- 
 usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably 
 the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so 
 very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that 
 degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in
 
 The ElizabetJici7i Stage. 77 
 
 Warwickshire for some time and shelter himself in London." 
 In this tradition there is very likely a basis of truth, though the 
 details are not to be depended on. It is supposed that Shake- 
 speare went up to London with a company of players. From 
 his sixth year he had been familiar enough with the represen- 
 tation of plays, for the Queen's company, Lord Leicester's 
 company, Lord Worcester's company, and others, had per- 
 formed at Stratford. Whether he took to the stage because he 
 had a strong natural bent to it, or because it afforded him the 
 readiest means for earning a livelihood, it is impossible to say. 
 A London theatre was then a very different place from what 
 it is now. Modern theatrical managers would save thousands 
 of pounds if audiences were content to put up with as 
 meagre scenery and as uncomfortable accommodation as satis- 
 fied the Londoners who listened to Shakespeare's plays or saw 
 the great dramatist act. The first theatre in London was not 
 erected till 1576. Until that time actors had been content to 
 give their performances in inn-yards or any other suitable place 
 that offered. After 1576 other theatres sprung up, but they were 
 all very comfortless edifices, judged according to modern ideas. 
 The following description of an Elizabethan theatre and its 
 surroundings gives a sufficiently accurate notion of how plays 
 were represented in the golden age of the English drama : — 
 " The building itself was a large circular edifice of wood, on 
 the top of winch a flag was hung out during the time of per- 
 formance. The pit or yard was open to the sky (excepting in 
 the private and winter theatres, which were enclosed), but 
 galleries, with boxes beneath them, ran round the building, 
 and these with the stage were roofed in. The wits, critics, 
 and gallants were allowed to sit or recline at length on the 
 rushes with which the stage was strewed, while their pages 
 handed them pipes and tobacco; and the audience generally, 
 as in the tavern-theatres and singing saloons of our own day, 
 enhanced the enjoyment of the intellectual pleasures of dramatic 
 representation by the physical solaces of smoking, drinking 
 ale, and eating nuts and apples. The performances com- 
 menced at three o'clock in the afternoon. Movable scenery
 
 yS The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 was unknown till after the Restoration, 1 when it was introduced 
 by Sir William Davenant, but curtains called traverses were 
 drawn across when required, and the stage was hung with coarse 
 tapestry. To point out the place or scene in which the events 
 of the play were supposed to take place, a board, painted or 
 written in large letters, was hung prominently forward ; and a 
 few chairs and tables, a couch, a rude imitation of a tomb, an 
 altar, a tree, or a tower, constituted the theatrical ' properties.' 
 A sort of balcony at the back of the stage served to represent 
 a raised terrace or the platform of a castle, on which, in par- 
 ticular scenes, the characters in the play might be understood 
 to be walking. Much, therefore, had necessarily to be left to 
 the imagination of the spectators ; but there can be no doubt, 
 as Mr. Collier remarks, that to this very poverty of stage appli- 
 ances we are indebted for many noble passages in the works of 
 our earlier dramatists, who found themselves called on to sup- 
 ply, by glowing and graphic description, what in aftertimes was 
 more commonly left to the touch of the scene-painter. In 
 the department, however, of stage costume, the managers of the 
 theatres in the time of Elizabeth displayed great magnificence 
 and expended large sums. The actor who spoke the prologue, 
 entering after the third sounding of the trumpet, usually wore 
 a cloak of black velvet, and we hear of twenty pounds, an im- 
 mense sum in those days, being occasionally given for a splendid 
 mantle. When tragedies were performed, the stage was some- 
 times hung with black and covered with matting. Music, 
 singing, and dancing relieved the pauses between the acts ; the 
 clown was allowed great latitude in the way of extemporary buf- 
 foonery to amuse the ' groundlings,' as the audience in the pit 
 was termed ; and at the close of the piece he delivered a rhyming 
 rhapsody, called zjig, composed with reference to the popular 
 topics of the day, in which he accompanied himself with the 
 pipe and tabor, and which he occasionally varied by a dance." 
 
 1 Actresses also appeared first on the stage after the Restoration. In the 
 early days of the drama female parts were acted by young lads. In Charles 
 I.'s time, women occasionally acted ; but the practice was not at all com- 
 mon till the Restoration.
 
 Shakespeare } s First Years in London. 79 
 
 The first years of Shakespeare's life in London are shrouded 
 in obscurity. Doubtless he had a hard struggle, and much 
 bitter experience of the spurns which patient merit of the un- 
 worthy takes. Actors are a jealous race, and the playwrights 
 in favour at the time would look with no kindly eye upon the 
 young Warwickshire man, who, though deficient in scholastic 
 learning, knew better than any of them how to delineate human 
 life, and how to touch the springs of emotion. The earliest un- 
 doubted literary allusion to Shakespeare occurs in poor Robert 
 Greene's " Groats worth of Wit," published in 1592. There we 
 read of "An upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that 
 with his ' tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide,' l supposes he 
 is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of 
 you, and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own 
 conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." This shows that 
 by 1592 Shakespeare's fame had at least advanced far enough 
 to make him an object of jealousy. Greene's pamphlet was 
 published after his death by his executor, Henry Chettle, also 
 a playwright. Both Marlowe and Shakespeare took offence 
 at the allusions to them contained in it; and in his "Kind 
 Hart's Dream," published about three months after Greene's 
 pamphlet, Chettle made his apologies to Shakespeare. "With 
 neither of them that take offence," he says, " was I acquainted, 
 and with one of them [Marlowe], I care not if I never be ; 
 the other [Shakespeare], whom at that time I did not so much 
 spare as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the 
 heat of living writers, and might have used my own discretion, 
 especially in such a case, the author being dead, that I did 
 not I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, 
 because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he 
 excellent in the quality he professes ; besides, divers of wor- 
 ship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his 
 honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his 
 
 1 A line from an old play, " The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of 
 York;" also found in the "Third Part of Henry VI.," a recast of the 
 " True Tragedy."
 
 So The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 art." Valuable testimony this, proving that Shakespeare was 
 beginning to be appreciated both as a man and as an author. 
 
 In 1593 Shakespeare published the first work to which he 
 put his name, " Venus and Adonis," a poem full of youthful 
 passion, rich in colour, and showing an exuberant imagination 
 and delight in country sights and sounds. It was dedicated to 
 Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, a gallant and accom- 
 plished nobleman, well known as a patron of men of letters. 
 To him was also dedicated the "Rape of Lucrece," published in 
 the following year. By 1594 he is also supposed to have 
 written several of his plays. " Titus Andronicus," " Henry 
 VI.," Parts I., II., and III., the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
 the " Comedy of Errors," "Love's Labour's Lost," "Romeo 
 and Juliet," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Richard II.," and 
 " Richard III.," are conjectured to belong to about this period. 
 Their dates cannot be assigned with any approach to certainty. 
 Probably Shakespeare began his work by retouching old plays, 
 as he is supposed to have done in the case of " Titus Andro- 
 nicus " and the first part of " Henry VI." Certainly neither of 
 these dramas are distinguished by such excellence as to make 
 us desirous to prove them the work of Shakespeare alone. 
 
 From 1595 to 1601, during what is called the second period 
 of his dramatic activity, the following plays are supposed by 
 Mr. Furnivall to have been produced by Shakespeare : — " King 
 John," the " Merchant of Venice," the " Taming of the Shrew " 
 (an old play only retouched by Shakespeare), " Henry IV.," 
 Parts I. and II., the "Merry Wives of Windsor," "Henry 
 V," " Much Ado About Nothing," " As You Like It," " Twelfth 
 Night," " All's Well that Ends Well." During this period Shake- 
 speare attained entire mastery over his art : in none of these 
 plays do we find the slips and flaws incident to the work of a 
 " prentice hand." 
 
 To Shakespeare's third period, extending from 1601 to 1608, 
 belong all his great tragedies. In it are believed to have been 
 written " Julius Caesar," " Hamlet," " Measure for Measure," 
 "Othello," "Macbeth," " King Lear," " Troilus and Cressida," 
 " Antony and Cleopatra," " Coriolanus," and " Timon of
 
 SJiakcspcares Sonnets. 8 1 
 
 Athens." This seems to have been a gloomy period in Shake- 
 speare's life ; disgust with his profession and other troubles led 
 him to look on the dark side of things ; " the burden and the 
 mystery" of this unintelligible world weighed heavily on him; 
 and, perplexed by the enigmas of fate, he found relief for his 
 overburdened soul, as so many great artists have done, by 
 shadowing forth in the creatures of his imagination his own 
 doubts and difficulties. 
 
 After the tempest came calm and sunshine. In the plays 
 belonging to what is called Shakespeare's fourth period we 
 find a sweet grave tenderness : the blessings of forgiveness 
 and domestic love are set forth : himself escaped from turmoil 
 and sorrow, the dramatist looks with lenient eye upon the 
 frailty of mankind, regarding with fond sympathy their errors 
 and shortcomings, their struggles and trials. To this period, 
 extending from 1609 to about 1613, belong "Pericles" (only 
 in part Shakespeare's), the "Tempest," " Cymbeline," the 
 '• Winter's Tale," and " Henry VIII.," part of which is thought 
 to have been written by Fletcher. 
 
 We have left unnoticed the work which, from a biographical 
 point of view, is by far the most interesting that Shakespeare 
 ever wrote — the Sonnets. They were not published till 1609, 
 but were probably written between 1595 and 1605. Round 
 perhaps no book do so many literary problems centre. Almost 
 every one who has written about Shakespeare has had some 
 new theory regarding them. The first difficulty meets us before 
 we begin their perusal. By Thomas Thorpe, the publisher, they 
 were thus dedicated : " To the onlie begetter of these insuing 
 Sonnets, Mr. W. H., all happiness, and that Etemitie promised 
 by our ever-living poet, wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in 
 setting forth, T. T. [Thomas Thorpe]." Now who was this 
 Mr. W. II. ? Many have been the conjectures as to this, and 
 very likely none of them are correct, but the most probable one is 
 that " Mr. W. H." signifies William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. 
 Many little facts, not very striking individually, but tolerably 
 convincing collectively, point to this conclusion. When we 
 look at the Sonnet^ themselves, we find that they fall into two
 
 82 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 divisions; the first, from i to 126, addressed to a man; the 
 other, 127-154, to a woman, and indicating apparently that 
 Shakespeare had unwisely loved and had been betrayed in his 
 love by the friend to whom the first series of sonnets is addressed. 
 Other divisions of the Sonnets have been suggested, but they 
 do not seem to have any great claims to consideration. Mr. 
 Fleay, strangely enough, supposes that the latter division of the 
 Sonnets was addressed by Shakespeare to his wife. Professor 
 Minto is inclined to think that they are a tour deforce, written 
 to show Shakespeare's contempt for the exaggerated tone 
 adopted by the sonnet-writers of the period — an interpretation 
 which many who admire Shakespeare would gladly accept, but 
 which almost certainly is not correct. Of another difficulty 
 in the Sonnets Professor Minto was the first to suggest what is 
 now generally accepted as the true solution. In Sonnets 76-86 
 we find the poet complaining that his friend favours a rival 
 writer. In Sonnet 86 he speaks of — 
 
 " the proud full sail of his great verse, 
 
 Bound for the prize of all too precious you ;" 
 
 of " his spirit, by spirits taught to write above a mortal 
 pitch," of his "compeers by night" that gave him aid, and 
 of "that affable familiar ghost which nightly gulls him with 
 intelligence." The rival thus spoken of was formerly supposed 
 to be Marlowe, but there are good reasons for believing that 
 he cannot have been meant. All who have read any of George 
 Chapman's translation of the " Iliad " will admit that " the 
 proud full sail of his great verse" applies admirably to its 
 sonorous Alexandrines; and there are other indications, such 
 as that Chapman " advanced fervent claims to supernatural 
 inspiration" ("by spirits taught to write"), which lead to the 
 conclusion that he was the rival poet indicated. 
 
 We know little of the tenor of Shakespeare's life while he 
 went on producing his wonderful series of dramas. He be- 
 came a partner in the profits of the Globe Theatre in 1599, and, 
 before and after that event, worldly prosperity shone on him, 
 as, in spite of all that is said about the caprice of fate, it generally
 
 Death of Shakcspear'e. 83 
 
 does upon those who work diligently and are ready to take at the 
 flood the tide that leads on to fortune. In 1596 John Shake- 
 speare, doubtless at his son's instigation, applied at the Heralds' 
 College for a grant of arms. In 1597 Shakespeare bought for 
 jQ6o a fine house, New Place, in Stratford. In 1602 he pur- 
 chased for ^320 a hundred and seven acres in the parish of Old 
 Stratford. In the same year he bought a second and smaller 
 property. In 1605 he bought a thirty-one years' remainder of 
 a lease of tithes in Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Wil- 
 combe for ^440. Many other particulars indicative of his 
 increasing wealth have been exhumed from old documents. 
 Unlike most poets, Shakespeare seems to have attended to the 
 maxim abouttakingcareof the pence. Nodoubt his father's diffi- 
 culties made him more careful about financial matters than he 
 might otherwise have been. It is evident that he had a sharp 
 eye for business. In 1604 he brought an action at Stratford for 
 jQi, 15s. iod., and in 1609 he strenuously pursued for a debt 
 of j£6 and 24s. costs a certain John Addenbrooke. These are 
 curious facts, well worth pondering by those who think that 
 men of genius are generally fools as regards money matters. 
 
 About 1612 Shakespeare returned to his native town, "a 
 prosperous gentleman." Rowe's account of the last years of 
 Ins life may be accepted as substantially correct. " The latter 
 part of his life was spent, as all men of good sense wish theirs 
 may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. 
 He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his 
 occasions, and in that to his wish ; and is said to have spent 
 some years before his death at his native Stratford. His 
 pleasurable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaint- 
 ance, and entitled him to the friendship, of the gentlemen of 
 the neighbourhood." His hopes of founding a family, if he 
 ever entertained such, had fallen to the ground by the death 
 of his only son, Ilamnct, in 1596. 
 
 Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. Two days later his 
 remains were deposited in the chancel of Stratford Church, 
 where his grave is marked by a flat stone, bearing the famous 
 inscription —
 
 84 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 " Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare 
 To digg the dust encloased heare : 
 Blest be y c man y* spares thes stones, 
 And curst be lie yt moves my bones." 
 
 In spite of numerous temptations to the contrary, the adjura- 
 tion of the epitaph has proved effectual : no sacrilegious hand 
 has interfered with Shakespeare's " honoured dust." 
 
 Though his life in London was a successful one, we know 
 from the Sonnets that Shakespeare often felt bitterly regarding 
 his position as an actor. In Sonnet no he says — 
 
 " Alas ! 'tis true, I have gone here and there, 
 And made myself a motley to the view, 
 Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, 
 Made old affections of offences new." 
 
 Probably his desire to acquire the means of escaping from 
 what he regarded as an irksome servitude, and to obtain 
 " independence, that first of earthly blessings," gave many a 
 fresh spur to his exertions to acquire a competence. Those 
 who reproach Scott for "selling his brains for money," for 
 writing hastily in order to amass a fortune, often forget that 
 Shakespeare is liable to a precisely similar reproach, if reproach 
 it be, which we do not think it is. In not a few respects in- 
 deed a curious parallel might be drawn between Scott and 
 Shakespeare. Both cared little for fame : Shakespeare allowed 
 some of his best plays to appear in pirated editions, re- 
 gardless what might be their eventual fate. Both were men 
 of genial, kindly disposition, conscious of their own great 
 powers, we cannot doubt, but perhaps because of that very 
 consciousness wisely tolerant of others, and totally free from 
 arrogance or contempt. Both were men of great prudence, 
 with a large fund of common sense, which would have made 
 them prosperous and respected though they had not been 
 men of genius. Immeasurably superior though Shakespeare 
 is to Scott in genius and width of range, there are many points 
 of resemblance between them in their mode of literary work- 
 manship. Both possessed the power of depicting all classes 
 of society with equal sympathy and equal discernment;- both
 
 The Elizabethan Dramatists. 85 
 
 were equally great in describing the tragic and the comic aspects 
 of life ; both, amidst higher qualities, are full of maxims on 
 conduct and character showing great natural shrewdness deve- 
 loped by wide experience of men and affairs. 
 
 It is impossible for us to enter upon any minute account of 
 Shakespeare's plays, or to discuss the order of their appear- 
 ance, the sources from which their plots are drawn, &c. To 
 do so would require a volume, not a few pages. Neither do 
 we propose to attempt any estimate of his genius. So much 
 has been written on this topic, that he would be a bold writer 
 who should attempt to say anything new regarding it. We 
 therefore content ourselves by quoting Dryden's eulogy, one 
 of the finest, and one of the most discerning. It appeared in 
 his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy:" — " To begin, then, with Shake- 
 speare. He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps 
 ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. 
 All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew 
 them not laboriously but luckily : when he describes anything, 
 you more than see it — you feel it too. Those who accuse him 
 to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation : 
 he was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles of 
 books to read nature ; he looked inwards and found her there. 
 I cannot say he is everywhere alike 3 were he so, I should do 
 him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He 
 is many times fiat, insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into 
 clenches, his serious degenerating into bombast. But he is 
 always great when some great occasion is presented to him." 
 
 Among people who know them only by report, there is an 
 impression that Shakespeare's contemporaries were just in- 
 ferior copies of the myriad-minded dramatist ; that in their 
 works we can trace the same characteristics as we find in his. 
 Of course it is true that they are inferior; indeed it is a case 
 of " Eclipse first and the rest nowhere;" for great as many of 
 the Elizabethan dramatists were, none of them approached 
 Shakespeare's surpassing greatness. But the difference be- 
 tween Shakespeare and the other dramatists is not merely one 
 of degree, it is one of kind. There is a delicacy and grace,
 
 86 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 an ethereal flavour difficult to describe but easily felt by every 
 student, about Shakespeare which none of the others has any 
 pretensions to. Indeed one scarcely realises fully his sovereign 
 position till one has read some of the other great Elizabethan 
 dramatists, such as Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and Fletcher. 
 
 Among the greater contemporaries or immediate successors 
 of Shakespeare, George Chapman (1559-1634), already men- 
 tioned as the rival poet of the " Sonnets," occupied in his 
 lifetime a prominent place. But his principal claim to remem- 
 brance now is his translation of the " Iliad," full of genuine 
 Homeric fire, and still perhaps the best translation of that 
 often-translated poem. 1 Passing over Marston, whose chief 
 excellence consisted in passionate declamation, we come to 
 Ben Jonson, as striking and vigorous a personality as his 
 namesake Samuel. Ben was born in London in 1573. He 
 was educated at Westminster School, where he was the cele- 
 brated Camden's favourite pupil, and went from it to Cam- 
 bridge. Unable to find means for his support there, he re- 
 turned to London, and worked as a bricklayer for about a 
 year. Becoming tired of this uncongenial occupation, he 
 joined the army as a volunteer in the expedition to Flanders, 
 and in a brief campaign there greatly distinguished himself 
 by his bravery. His first play, " Every Man in his Humour," 
 was acted in 1596. Others speedily followed. His best 
 comedies, " Volpone, or the Fox," and " The Alchemist," were 
 produced in 1605 and 1610 respectively; his best tragedy, 
 " Sejanus," in 1603. His plays were not popular, and he did 
 not realise much money by them, but for many years he found 
 a lucrative source of income in the preparation of masques for 
 the Court. Ben died in 1637, after he had by his talents and 
 his self-assertion fought his way, amidst much poverty and 
 many trials, to a literary dictatorship ; not so generally recog- 
 nised, indeed, but as despotic as that held by Samuel Johnson 
 in the eighteenth century. He was a strong-minded, vain 
 
 1 Keats's noble sonnet "On first looking into Chapman's Homer" shows 
 the impression made by this translation on one possessed of the finest 
 poetic susceptibilities.
 
 John Webster. 87 
 
 man, prone to quarrel with any one who did him a real or a 
 fancied injury; confident in his own powers, and not too 
 ready to recognise the powers of others. Yet, passing over 
 one or two expressions which may be referred to a not un- 
 natural jealousy, he was warm in his praise of Shakespeare; 
 and, like Samuel Johnson, concealed much genuine kind- 
 liness of heart beneath a rough and self-asserting exterior. 
 He is by far the most learned of the dramatists ; indeed his 
 plays are overlayed by the curious erudition which he was too 
 fond of displaying. The title of his first play indicates his 
 main fault as a dramatist. All his characters are mastered by 
 some special tendency of the mind or humour. " They do 
 not represent men and women," says Barry Cornwall, "with 
 the medley of vices and virtues common to human nature 
 about them, but each is the personification of some one single 
 humour, and no more. There is no fluctuation, no variety or 
 relief in them. His people speak with a malice prepense. They 
 utter by rote what is set down for them, each one pursuing 
 one leading idea from beginning to end, and taking his cue 
 evidently from the prompting of the poet. They speak nothing 
 spontaneously. The original design of each character is pur- 
 sued so rigidly that, let what will happen, the one single 
 humour is ever uppermost, always the same in point of force, 
 the same in its mode of demonstration, instead of being ope- 
 rated on by circumstances, increased or weakened, hurried or 
 delayed, or turned aside, as the case may require." Ben 
 Jonson's finest pieces are the songs, many of them exquisite, 
 scattered through his masques. 
 
 Literary partnerships were not uncommon among the Eliza- 
 bethan dramatists. Marston, Chapman, and Ben Jonscn 
 wrote a play, " Eastward Ho," together; Shakespeare (if the 
 surmises of critics be correct) wrote only part of "Timon" 
 and "Henry VIII.;" but the standing examples of united 
 authorship are Beaumont and Fletcher. Beaumont's share in 
 the plays which bear the joint name is believed to have been 
 small. He died in 1616, at the age of thirty. Fletcher, born 
 in 1579, died in 1625. Both were of gentle birth. Written
 
 88 The Elizabethan Era. 
 
 in the reign of James I., their plays form a transition stage to 
 the Restoration drama. They (perhaps we should rather say 
 Fletcher) were the founders of the comedy of intrigue, after- 
 wards fully developed by Wycherley and Congreve. In 
 "studious indecency" they are surpassed by none of the 
 dramatists, which is saying a great deal. 
 
 Of John Webster, of whose life almost nothing is known, 
 the chief works are " Vittoria Corombona," published in 1612, 
 and the " Duchess of Malfi," published in 1623, two tragedies 
 deeply tinged with terror and sorrow. In the delineation of 
 characters affected by crime, misery, and remorse, he has few 
 equals. John Ford (1586-1640), too, excelled in dealing with 
 the darker emotions of the heart. His chief plays are " Perkin 
 Warbeck," reckoned the best historical drama after Shake- 
 speare, and the "Broken Heart." Philip Massinger (1584- 
 1640) was also a man of sombre genius, but in his case it was 
 united with considerable humorous power. His finest play, 
 "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," has one very powerfully 
 drawn character, Sir Giles Overreach, an incarnation of sel- 
 fishness and self-will. James Shirley (1596-166 7) was the 
 last of the great race of dramatists, " all of whom," says Lamb, 
 " spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral 
 feelings and notions in common." He was not a great writer, 
 but he was a very prolific one, having written nearly forty 
 plays previous to 1641. In 1642 the theatres were closed, 
 not to be reopened again till about the time of the Restoration, 
 when a totally new species of dramatic art came into vogue. 
 
 We have left altogether unnoticed many of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists, and have passed very lightly over most of the 
 others. This is not because they have less literary merit than 
 many other writers dealt with more fully in this book, but 
 because it is nearly impossible to describe their characteristics 
 without lengthy quotations. Excellent introductions to their 
 study will be found in Hazlitt's " Lectures on the Literature of 
 the Age of Elizabeth," an exceedingly brilliant, if occasionally 
 misleading book, and in Charles Lamb's " Specimens," which 
 was one of the first works to call attention to their beauties.
 
 III. 
 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF THE ELIZABETHANS. 
 
 Bacon ; Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, Baxter, Bunyan ; Walton ; Browne ; 
 Clarendon; Hobbes ; Lovelace, Suckling, Herbert, Her rick ; Milton; 
 Donne, Cowley, Dcnham, Waller. 
 
 N this chapter we purpose to deal with the period 
 between the accession of James I. and the Restora- 
 tion. The giound we shall have to traverse is one 
 of the greatest interest to students of English history, 
 full of momentous events and great constitutional changes. 
 In literature, also, it is important. With one illustrious excep- 
 tion, no poet of the first order of merit flourished during this 
 epoch j but that illustrious exception was John Milton, who, 
 by common consent, occupies a place in the brilliant galaxy 
 of English poets second only to that of Shakespeare. In prose 
 writers of great excellence the period was rich. Some of these 
 we can notice only very briefly ; others we shall be obliged to 
 omit altogether. Even amid the agitating and perilous times 
 of the Civil War, two or three writers on religious subjects 
 appeared, who, by the fervour of their devotional feeling or 
 the splendour of their imperial eloquence, earned for them- 
 selves an imperishable name. Though only fifty-seven years 
 elapsed between the beginning of the reign of James I. and the 
 Restoration, English prose made vast progress during the in- 
 terval. From a powerful but unwieldy ma< hine, it grew to be 
 a handy, serviceable instrument, still capable, indeed, of great 
 rovement, but infinitely more shapely and methodical than 
 
 ¥
 
 90 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 before. The prose of Cowley and Hobbes might, so far as 
 clearness and sentence-arrangement are concerned, have been 
 written in our own day. Many writers, it is true, and these 
 among the greatest, neglected the mechanical part of style ; 
 still it was gradually beginning to be much more studied than 
 hitherto. 
 
 To this period belong most of the works of Francis Bacon, 
 who, if we ranked authors strictly according to date of birth, 
 would have been placed among the Elizabethans. He was 
 born in London in 1561, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord- 
 Keeper of the Great Seal. When a child, his precocious saga- 
 city so attracted Elizabeth that she " delighted much to confer 
 with him, and to prove him with questions ; unto which he 
 delivered himself with that gravity and maturity above his 
 years, that her Majesty would often term him ' the young Lord- 
 Keeper.'" At the age of twelve he was sent to Cambridge, 
 where he remained for two years and a half. Even at that early 
 period he is said to have conceived a dislike to the philosophy 
 of Aristotle, as "a philosophy only strong for disputations and 
 contentions, but barren of the production of works for the 
 benefit of man." After leaving the University he resided for 
 more than two years in Paris, from which he was recalled by 
 the sudden death of his father in 1579. He was left poor, and 
 after in vain soliciting his uncle Burleigh to obtain for him 
 some sinecure office under Government, devoted some years 
 to the study of the law. At twenty-three he became a member 
 of the House of Commons, where his eloquence and ability 
 soon made his name widely known ; but he was unfortunate 
 enough to incur the resentment of Elizabeth by his opposition 
 to her demand for a subsidy, and though he endeavoured to 
 atone for his error in policy by servile apologies, he was never 
 forgiven, and high offices were steadily denied him. His cause 
 was warmly espoused by Lord Essex, whose indiscreet advo- 
 cacy probably did him more harm than good. He befriended 
 Bacon generously, however, and when, in 1594, he failed to 
 procure for him the vacant office of Attorney- General, he con- 
 soled him for his disappointment by the present of an estate of
 
 Francis Bacon. . 9 1 
 
 considerable value. Bacon in vain endeavoured to persuade 
 Essex to desist from the course of policy which ended in his 
 execution ; but there his gratitude towards his benefactor 
 ended. When Essex was brought to trial for a conspiracy 
 against the Queen, Bacon, as Queen's Counsel, appeared 
 against his old friend, employing all his powers of oratory and 
 argument to substantiate against him the charge of treason ; 
 and, after the Earl's execution, wrote, at the Queen's request, 
 " A Declaration of the Bractices and Treasons attempted and 
 committed by the Robert, Earl of Essex." It is easy to say 
 that Bacon in his conduct in this matter did not exceed the 
 duties appertaining to him as Queen's Counsel, and that he 
 could not have acted otherwise with prudence ; but the fact 
 remains that no high-minded or generous man would have 
 done as he did. After all has been said that can be said to 
 extenuate the part he took in this matter, it remains the great 
 blot on his memory. 
 
 During the life of Queen Elizabeth, Bacon's efforts to 
 advance his fortunes were constantly thwarted, but in the 
 succeeding reign he attained the summit of his ambition. In 
 1603 he was knighted, in 1607 he became Solicitor-General, 
 in 1613 Attorney-General, and in 1618 Lord Chancellor. He 
 was also created Baron Verulam, and at a late period Vis- 
 count St. Albans. In 1621 he was charged before the House 
 of Lords with corruption in the exercise of his office. He 
 pleaded guilty, was deprived of the Great Seal, disqualified 
 from holding any public office in future, fined ^£40,000, and 
 condemned to imprisonment in the Tower during the King's 
 pleasure. He was released from confinement after a single 
 night, and his fine was commuted by the King; but his public 
 career was for ever at an end. His guilt, rightly viewed, docs 
 not seem to have been great ; if, as regards receiving gifts from 
 successful litigants, he was no better than the majority of his 
 contemporaries, he was no worse. He died in 1626 from 
 the effects of a chill he had caught while making an experi- 
 ment as to the preservative qualities of snow. 
 
 We have related the story of Bacon's life very briefly, partly
 
 9 2 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 because, in spite of the labours of the late Mr. Spedding, who 
 devoted a lifetime of painstaking industry to its elucidation, 
 portions of it are still matter of dispute; partly because to 
 enter into details about his public career would have led us 
 greatly beyond our limits. He was a little, square-shouldered, 
 nervous-looking man, with a finely intellectual head and small 
 features. Speaking of his powers as an orator, Ben Jonson 
 says, " No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more 
 weightily, or suffered less emptiness or less idleness in what he 
 uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own 
 graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him 
 without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his 
 judges angry or pleased at his devotion. No man had their 
 affections more in his power. The fear of every man that 
 heard him was lest he should make an end." " My con- 
 ceit of his person," writes the same authority, " was never 
 increased towards him by his place or honours ; but I have 
 and do reverence him for his greatness that was only proper 
 to himself, in that he seemed to me ever by his work one of the 
 greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in 
 many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would 
 give him strength ; for greatness he could not want." Ben 
 Jonson is not an impartial witness ; nevertheless what he says 
 is sufficient to prove that Bacon was a man whose intellectual 
 power impressed strongly those with whom he came into contact. 
 Of Bacon's most generally read work, the " Essays," the first 
 edition, containing only ten, appeared in 1597. In 1612 the 
 second edition, containing thirty-eight, appeared ; and in 1625 
 the complete edition, containing fifty-eight, was published. 
 There is not much room for difference of opinion regarding 
 these productions. They contain little or nothing to gratify 
 any high moral ideal ; people who think, with John Wesley, 
 that one of the first things a Christian ought to pray to be 
 delivered from is prudence, will not find much in Bacon's 
 " Essays" to please them. They are the counsels of a shrewd, 
 politic man of the world, who has looked with eager and pene- 
 trating eye upon mankind as it appears in the senate-house,
 
 Bacons JVritines. 
 
 C5 
 
 in courts of law, in the commercial world ; of a man who is 
 firmly convinced that self-interest is the actuating principle 
 of humanity. Even when treating of themes which might 
 have made a more enthusiastic writer rise to flights of poetry 
 and warm human feeling. Bacon remains cold and unimpas- 
 sioned. The severe terseness of the style of the " Essays," in 
 which every sentence is packed with as much matter as it 
 can possibly hold, makes their intelligent perusal at first a task 
 of some difficulty j but fresh perusals reveal their inexhaustible 
 wealth of matter, — indeed, as Dugald Stewart said, after the 
 twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in them some- 
 thing overlooked before. 
 
 The chief other English works of Bacon are the " Advance- 
 ment of Learning ;" " History of Henry VII.," a very masterly 
 piece of work of its kind, and, as has been elaborately demon- 
 strated, wonderfully accurate in all its leading statements; the 
 " New Atlantis," a philosophical romance ; and " Sylva Syl- 
 varum," a treatise on natural history, which was the last work 
 of his life. His great philosophical work, the " Novum Or- 
 ganum," which is written in Latin, appeared in 1620. "It 
 would be presumptuous to attempt anything like an exact valu- 
 ation of Bacon's intellectual power. We state only what lies 
 upon the surface when we say that the character and products of 
 intellect are very often as much over-estimated upon one side 
 as they are under-estimated upon another. He is frequently 
 praised as if he had originated and established the inductive 
 method, as if he had laid down the canons appealed to in 
 modern science as the ultimate conditions of sound induction. 
 This is going too far. Bacon was an orator, not a worker; a 
 Tyrtceus, not a Miltiades. He rendered a great service by 
 urging recourse to observation and experiment rather than to 
 speculation ; but neither by precept nor by example did he 
 show how to observe and experiment well, or so as to arrive at 
 substantial conclusions. Not by precept; for if modern in- 
 ductive method were no better than Bacon's inductive method, 
 Macaulay's caricature of the process would not be so very 
 unlike the reality. Nor by example; for the majority of his
 
 94 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 own generalisations are loose to a degree. To call Bacon the 
 founder of scientific method is to mistake the character of his 
 mind, and to do him an injustice by resting his fame upon a 
 false foundation. Unwearied activity, inexhaustible construc- 
 tiveness — that, and not scientific accuracy or patience, was his 
 characteristic. He had what Peter Heylin calls " a chymical 
 brain ;" every group of facts that entered his mind he restlessly 
 threw into new combinations. We over-estimate the man upon 
 one side when we give him credit for scientific rigour; his 
 contemporary, Gilbert, who wrote upon the magnet, probably 
 had more scientific caution and accuracy than he. And we 
 under-estimate him upon another side when we speak as if the 
 Inductive Philosophy had been the only outcome of his ever- 
 active brain. His projects of reform in Law were almost as 
 vast as his projects of reform in Philosophy. In Politics he 
 drew up opinions on every question of importance during the 
 forty years of his public life, and was often employed by the 
 Queen and Lord Burleigh to write papers of State. All this 
 was done in addition to his practical work as a lawyer. And 
 yet his multiplex labours do not seem to have used up his 
 mental vigour ; his schemes always outran human powers of 
 performance. His ambition was not to make one great 
 finished effort and then rest ; his intellectual appetite seemed 
 almost insatiable." 1 
 
 Passing over many authors of less importance, we come to a 
 writer whose genius and character were as far removed from 
 Bacon's as it is possible to imagine. The vast intellect of 
 " high-browed Verulam " commands our respectful admiration, 
 but it is icy and ungenial ; we cannot bring ourselves to love 
 the man, however much we may venerate the writer. Not so 
 with witty Thomas Fuller (i 608-1661). Even now, after the 
 lapse of more than two centuries, it is impossible for any 
 reader of his works not to conceive a feeling approaching to 
 affection for one so full of the milk of human kindness, so re- 
 
 1 Professor Minto's "Manual of English Prose Literature," p. 238. A 
 very able and careful work, showing a large amount of original labour and 
 thought.
 
 Thomas Fuller. 95 
 
 dolent of harmless wit, so free from any taint of malice or 
 bitterness. He lived at a time when the venom of party-spirit 
 permeated every section of society, breaking family ties and 
 putting an end to the closest friendships ; yet, though a 
 staunch Royalist, and ready to suffer for the cause of the King, 
 he remained moderate in his sentiments, and was willing to 
 acknowledge the virtues of the Puritans. Fuller was born at 
 Aldwinkle in Northamptonshire, where his father was Rector. 
 At twelve years of age he was sent to Cambridge, where he 
 took his degree of M.A. in 1628. In 163 1 he was made a pre- 
 bendary of Salisbury and vicar of Broad Windsor in Dorset- 
 shire, where his first prose work, the " Holy War," was written. 
 It was published in 1640, and had been preceded by a poem, 
 of which nothing is now remembered but the title, which shows 
 the love of alliteration which then prevailed. The title was, 
 " David's Heinous Sin, Hearty Repentance, and Heavy Punish- 
 ment." On the outbreak of the great Civil War, Fuller ob- 
 tained a chaplaincy in the royal army, and while following the 
 forces from place to place, employed himself in collecting 
 materials for his "Worthies of England." During the pro- 
 longed siege of Exeter, he resumed his interrupted studies, 
 and ministered regularly to the citizens of the besieged town. 
 When Exeter capitulated, Fuller removed to London, where, 
 in 1655, he received from Cromwell special permission to 
 preach. On the Restoration he received sundry ecclesiastical 
 honours; and his death, which occurred in 1661, happened 
 just when he was on the eve of being appointed a bishop. 
 
 Fuller's chief works are "The Holy State" (1642), com- 
 monly bound up with "The Profane State" (1648); "Good 
 Thoughts in Pad Times" (1644-45); "Good Thoughts in 
 Worse Times " (1649); " Pisgah Sight of Palestine," a very 
 quaint book on the geography of the Holy Land, illusti d 
 with plates as amusing as the text (1650) ; "Abel Rcdivivus," 
 a collection of lives of martyrs, and so on (1651); "Church 
 History of Britain" (1656); "Mixed Contemplations in 
 Letter Times" (1660); and the "Worthies of England," 
 which was published in the year after his death. There is no
 
 g6 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 occasion to consider his books separately. Whatever the 
 subject, they one and all bear the impress of the same in- 
 ventive, confident, good-humoured, and pre-eminently witty 
 mind. We read a page of his on a topic on which we look 
 for serious treatment, and nothing but serious treatment. 
 Suddenly we find in the middle of it some quaint conceit, 
 some ingenious pun, which at once raises a smile if not a 
 laugh. His wit is a perennial fountain, bubbling up continu- 
 ally in the most unexpected places. A few examples may be 
 cited: "Anger kept till the next morning, with manna, doth 
 putrify and corrupt ; save that manna, corrupted not at all 
 (and anger most of all), kept the next Sabbath. St. Paul saith, 
 ' Let not the sun go down on your wrath,' to carry news to 
 the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature. Yet 
 let us take the apostle's meaning rather than his words, with 
 all possible speed to depose our passion ; not understanding 
 him so literally that we may take leave to be angry till sunset; 
 then might our wrath lengthen with the days, and men in 
 Greenland, where day lasts above a quarter of a year, have 
 plentiful scope of revenge." Speaking of the charity of the 
 Jesuits, he says, " Such is the charity of the Jesuits, that they 
 never owe any man any ill-will, making present payment 
 thereof." " Aphek, whose walls falling down, gave both death 
 and gravestones to 27,000 of Benhadad's soldiers." Of the 
 celebrated Selden he remarks, " Mr. Selden had some coins of 
 the Roman emperors, and a good many more of our English 
 kings." Hundreds of such instances might be given. But 
 his effervescent wit, as is perhaps generally the case, was ac- 
 companied with shrewd practical wisdom and great fertility of 
 intellectual resource. Coleridge, with characteristic exaggera- 
 tion, said, " Next to Shakespeare, I am not certain whether 
 Thomas Fuller, beyond all other writers, does not excite in me 
 the sense and emotion of the marvellous ; the degree in which 
 any given faculty, or combination of faculties, is possessed and 
 manifested, so far surpassing what one would have thought 
 possible in a single mind, as to give one's admiration the 
 flavour or quality of wonder." Coleridge's judgments upon
 
 Jeremy Taylor. 97 
 
 favourite authors must, like Charles Lamb's, be accepted with 
 great reservations ; but to the literary epicure, who loves to 
 read books that have infused into every page of them the 
 genius of a singular and original mind, few volumes are likely 
 to be more attractive than the works of Thomas Fuller. 
 
 With all his many excellences, Fuller, it must be owned, 
 never touches, even in his finest passages, the highest chords 
 of our nature. Witty, ingenious, inventive, he was not imbued 
 with a poetic spirit, and those who desire rich strains of de- 
 votional feelings must seek for them elsewhere. They will 
 find them in abundance in the works of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 
 whose writings, though marred by very complicated sentence- 
 arrangement and unpruned luxuriance of imagination, still rank 
 among the best religious classics in our language. On the 
 whole, he was the greatest prose writer of his time, and, as was 
 said above, the period was rich in prose writers of great excel- 
 lence. Taylor was born in 1 6 1 3 at Cambridge, at which Univer- 
 sity he received his education. Taken under the patronage 
 of Archbishop Laud, who had been greatly impressed by his 
 eloquence, he was, at the age of twenty, placed at All Souls' 
 College, Oxford, where he obtained a fellowship, and was ap- 
 pointed one of the Archbishop's chaplains. A year or two later, 
 Juxon, Bishop of London, presented him to the rectory of Up- 
 pingham, in Rutlandshire. On the outbreak of the Civil War, he 
 embarked his fortunes with the Royalists, and composed a 
 work in favour of Episcopacy, which obtained for him the 
 degree of D.I), from the King — an honour more than com- 
 pensated for by the sequestration of his rectory of Uppingham 
 by the Presbyterians, who were now rapidly gaining strength. 
 Of Taylor's history during the Civil War not much is certainly 
 known. In 1G.13 we find him residing with his mother-in-law 
 in Wales ; and in the following year, his fortunes having again 
 brought him into connection with the royal army, he was 
 taken prisoner in the battle fought near Cardigan Castle. Ik- 
 was soon released, but preferred remaining in the compara- 
 tively safe solitudes of Wales to again risking the loss of his 
 liberty. In conjuration with two friends he opened a school,
 
 98 The Successors of the Elizabethans, 
 
 and also busied himself in the composition of his first great 
 work, "The Liberty of Prophesying," a plea for tolerance, 
 which would not now be considered very liberal, but which 
 was far in advance of the opinions then entertained by 
 most on that subject. In the dedication to that work he 
 says, alluding to his imprisonment, " In the great storm 
 which dashed the vessel of the Church all in pieces, I had 
 been cast on the coast of Wales, and in a little boat thought to 
 have enjoyed that rest and quietness which in England, in a 
 far greater, I could not hope for. Here I cast anchor, and 
 thinking to ride safely, the storm followed me with so impet- 
 uous violence, that it broke a cable, and I lost my anchor. 
 And here again I was exposed to the mercy of the sea, and 
 the gentleness of an element that could distinguish neither 
 things nor persons ; and but that He that stilleth the raging 
 of the sea, and the noise of the waves, and the madness 
 of His people, had provided a plank for me, I had been lost 
 to all opportunities of content or study; but I know not 
 whether I have been more preserved by the courtesies of my 
 friends or the gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy." • He 
 soon found a patron in the Earl of Carbery, at whose seat, 
 Golden Grove, he wrote his " Life of Christ" and his " Golden 
 Grove," and his most popular work, "Holy Living and 
 Dying," besides several minor performances. Some expres- 
 sions in the " Golden Grove " gave offence to Cromwell, and 
 in the years between 1654 and 165S Taylor more than once 
 suffered imprisonment. In 1658 his friends obtained for him 
 an alternate lecturership at Lisburne, in the north-east of Ire- 
 land, where he lived in tranquillity and happiness till the 
 Restoration. About this time he composed his most elaborate 
 work, the " Ductor Dubitantium " (Guide to the Scrupulous). 
 His most important works, besides those already mentioned, 
 are his treatise on "Repentance " and his sermons. After the 
 Restoration the sunshine of Court favour shone upon him. He 
 was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor, and afterwards 
 Bishop of Dromore, and had besides several minor dignities 
 bestowed upon him. He died in 1667.
 
 Taylor s Style. 99 
 
 Taylor has been called the Shakespeare of English prose ; 
 and although his position as a prose writer is not at all com- 
 parable to that occupied by Shakespeare as a poet, there is a 
 good deal of truth in the designation. Like Shakespeare, his 
 superabundant fancy occasionally gets the better of his good 
 taste, and he pours forth the riches of his imagination with a 
 profusion which is more to be wondered at than admired. Like 
 Shakespeare, too, he seems to have " written right on," careless 
 of minute accuracy in the grammatical construction of his sen- 
 tences. He possessed the typical poetic temperament : tender, 
 full of love for all that is beautiful, impassioned, and impet- 
 uous. Another characteristic of Taylor is his width of learn- 
 ing, which is distributed over his works with the same careless 
 abundance as the flowers of his fancy. Thus in writings in- 
 tended for popular perusal, he speaks of hard students " being 
 as mute as the Seriphian frogs ; " of " garments made of the 
 Calabrian fleece, and stained with the blood of the murex ;" 
 of " the tender lard of the Apulian swine ; " and so on. This 
 pedantry (for it can be called by no better name) is no doubt 
 to be in part attributed to the fashion of the time ; but Taylor 
 carries the practice further than any of his contemporaries. 
 His quotations from classical authors, which are frequent, are, 
 as has been several times shown, often inaccurate to an as- 
 tonishing degree. He was also a great coiner of new words, 
 using "respersed" for "scattered;" "deordination " for "con- 
 fusion ; " " clancularly " for " secretly ; " " immorigerous " for 
 " disobedient ; " " ferity " for " fierceness ; " " intenerate " for 
 "render soft," and many others of the same kind. With all 
 his faults (many of which, after all, are faults that a man of 
 less copious genius could not have committed), Taylor was a 
 writer of astonishing power, who can in no wise be passed 
 over by any one aspiring to even a fair knowledge of English 
 literature. '• He was," said Coleridge, "a man constitu- 
 tionally overflowing with pleasurable kindliness, who scarcely 
 even in a casual illustration introduces the image of a woman, 
 child, or bird, but lie embalms the thought wilh so rich a ten- 
 derness as makes the very words seem beauties and fragments
 
 I oo The Successors of the ElizabctJians. 
 
 of poetry from a Euripides or a Simonides." In occasional pas- 
 sages he reaches surpassing heights of eloquence. Take the 
 following description of the " Day of Judgment " : — 
 
 " Then all the beasts and creeping things, the monsters, and 
 the usual inhabitants of the sea shall be gathered together, 
 and make fearful noises to distract mankind : the birds shall 
 mourn and change their song into threnes and sad accents ; 
 rivers of fire shall rise from east to west, and the stars shall be 
 rent into threads of light, and scatter like the beards of comets; 
 then shall be fearful earthquakes, and the rocks shall rend 
 in pieces, the trees shall distil blood, and the mountains and 
 fairest structures shall return into their primitive dust ; the 
 wild beasts shall leave their dens, and shall come into the 
 companies of men, so that you shall hardly tell how to call 
 them, herds of men or congregations of beasts; then shall 
 the graves open and give up their dead, and those which are 
 alive in nature and dead in fear shall be forced from the 
 rocks whither they went to hide them, and from the caverns 
 of the earth where they would fain have been concealed ; be- 
 cause their retirements are dismantled and their rocks broken 
 into wild ruptures, and admit a strange light into their secret 
 bowels ; and the men being forced abroad into the theatre 
 of mighty horrors, shall run up and down distracted and at 
 their wits' end ; and then some shall die, and some shall be 
 changed ; and by this time the elect shall be gathered 
 together from the four quarters of the world, and Christ shall 
 come along with them to judgment." 
 
 But it is not alone in sublime description that Taylor excels. 
 In pathos he has hw equals ; and had we space, many passages 
 from his writings might be quoted full of the most touching 
 grace and tenderness. 
 
 Two other theological writers of the period may be briefly 
 mentioned. One of these was Richard Baxter (1615-91), 
 who, originally ordained in the Church of England, afterwards 
 joined the Parliamentary party. Of his many works — he is 
 said to have written one hundred and sixty-eight in all — two 
 still remain popular, the "Saint's Rest" and the " Call to the
 
 John Bunyan. 101 
 
 Unconverted," and merit their popularity not so much because 
 of any great charm of style as because they express in homely 
 language the thoughts of a most sincere, heavenly minded, 
 and excellent man. The other, John Bunyan, is one of our 
 greatest authors, and may be taken as the typical prose writer 
 of Puritanism, as Milton -is its typical ^oet. The story of his 
 early years, as related by himself in his " Grace Abounding to 
 the Chief of Sinners," is a very touching one. The son of a 
 tinker, he was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628. More 
 fortunate than most children born in so low a rank, he was 
 sent to school and taught to read and write. He must have 
 been a thoughtful and imaginative child, for when only about 
 nine years old he began to be tormented with those fearful 
 thoughts which caused him such agony for several years. " I 
 would," he says, " be greatly troubled with the thoughts of 
 the fearful torments of hell-fire ; still fearing that it would be 
 my lot to be found at last among those devils and hellish 
 fiends who are there bound down with the chains and bonds 
 of darkness unto the judgment of the great day." As he grew 
 older these terrible impressions wore nearly off; he became, 
 according to his own account, "a very ringleader in all manner 
 of vice and ungodliness." A very exaggerated statement, it 
 would seem, for the only sins he specifically mentions are Sab- 
 bath-breaking and swearing : there is no reason to believe that 
 his conduct was worse than that of other young men belonging 
 to the same class. When about eighteen he married. His wife's 
 relations were pious, and she brought with her as her only por- 
 tion some religious books. Influenced by them and by his 
 wife's conversation, Bunyan soon became a Pharisee of the 
 Pharisees. He went to church twice a day, and did " there 
 very devoutly both say and sing as others did," and regarded 
 all connected with the church with the utmost reverence. 
 But Bunyan was not the sort of man to find peace of mind 
 in the observation of forms and ceremonies. One by one 
 he gave up the sports and sins in which he had indulged, 
 — swearing, Sabbath-breaking, dancing, bell-ringing, and so 
 on. Still, while his neighbours were praising him for his spot-
 
 102 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 less morality, he felt that he was but a whited sepulchre. In 
 vain he tried to obtain inward peace of mind. At one time 
 he was overwhelmed by doubts whether he was one of the 
 elect, at another he suffered unspeakable agonies from the 
 thought that he had committed the unpardonable sin. At 
 length peace dawned upon his troubled soul; but it was several 
 years before his shattered nerves recovered their tone. 
 
 Five or six years after his conversion, Bunyan, who had joined 
 a Baptist society at Bedford, " was desired, and that with much 
 earnestness, that he would be willing at some times to take in 
 hand at one of the meetings to speak a word of exhortation 
 unto them." Very reluctantly he assented, and his ministrations 
 soon became so popular that he " was more particularly called 
 forth, and appointed to a more ordinary and public preaching 
 of the word." For five years he continued to preach with in- 
 creasing popularity, when, in 1660, " I was," to use his own 
 words, " indicted for a maintainer of unlawful assemblies and 
 conventicles, and for not conforming to the Church of Eng- 
 land ; and after some conference there with the justices, they 
 taking my plain dealing with them for a confession, as they 
 termed it, of the indictment, did sentence me to a perpetual 
 banishment because I refused to conform. So, being again 
 delivered up to the gaoler's hands, I was had to prison, and 
 there laid a complete twelve years, waiting to see what God 
 would suffer these men to do with me." In vain his perse- 
 cutors told him that if he promised to abstain from preaching 
 he would at once be liberated. " If you let me out to-day," 
 was his reply, "I will preach again to-morrow." His trials 
 and privations sat lightly on him ; no agony that man could 
 inflict was equal to the mental tortures he had come through. 
 While in prison he supported himself by making tagged 
 thread laces ; he gave religious instructions to his fellow- 
 captives ; he studied over and over again his two favourite 
 books, the Bible and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs;" and he 
 engaged in religious controversy, writing against the Quakers 
 and the Liturgy of the Church of England. During the last 
 six years of his imprisonment, when he was treated with great
 
 The "Pilgrim's Progress." 103 
 
 leniency, he hit upon the vein of writing for which his genius 
 was adapted. Before his release he began that allegory to 
 which he owes his fame. " ' The Pilgrim's Progress,' " writes 
 Macaulay in his admirable "Encyclopaedia Britannica" sketch 
 of Bunyan, " stole silently into the world. Not a single copy 
 of the first edition is known to be in existence. The year of 
 publication has not been ascertained. It is probable that 
 during some months the little volume circulated only among 
 poor and obscure sectaries. But soon the irresistible charm 
 of a book which gratified the imagination of the reader with 
 all the action and scenery of a fairy tale, which exercised his 
 ingenuity by setting him to discover a multitude of curious 
 analogies, which interested his feeling for human beings, frail 
 like himself, and struggling with temptations from within and 
 from without, which every moment drew a smile from him by 
 some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry, and neverthe- 
 less left on his mind a sentiment of reverence for God and of 
 sympathy for man, began to produce its effect. In puritani- 
 cal circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded, 
 that effect was such as no work of genius, though it were 
 superior to the ' Iliad,' to ' Don Quixote,' or to 'Othello,' can 
 ever produce on a mind accustomed to indulgence in literary 
 luxury. In 1678 came forth a second edition with additions, 
 and then the demand became immense." 
 
 In 1687, when the penal laws against the Dissenters were 
 relaxed, a chapel was built for Bunyan at Bedford, where his 
 powerful though uncultivated eloquence and his wonderful 
 acquaintance with the workings of conscience, won by much 
 hard-bought experience, attracted crowds of hearers from the 
 districts around. In the summer of 1688 he caught cold from 
 exposure incurred during a ride through heavy rain to visit an 
 ry father whom he wished to reconcile to his son. A few 
 days after he died. Bunyan is a man on whose character 
 much might be written. Of a morbidly keen conscience and 
 of Strong imagination, his faults assumed gigantic size in his 
 eyes, and were felt by him with proportionate intensity. 
 Totally free from hypocrisy, he, while in his stormy youth
 
 104 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 almost worshipping good people, found no relief by en- 
 deavouring to imitate their mode of life, while feeling that 
 he was only playing a part. His vehement, impulsive nature 
 was a source of trouble to him long after his more terrible 
 agonies had disappeared. He often felt an almost uncon- 
 trollable desire to utter words which he ought not to utter, 
 just as some people cannot stand on the brink of a lofty 
 precipice without wishing to throw themselves over. Thus 
 at his first communion after he had joined the Baptist society 
 at Bedford, he with difficulty refrained from imprecating de- 
 struction on his brethren while the cup was passing from 
 hand to hand ; and sometimes when he was preaching he was 
 " violently assaulted with words of blasphemy, and strongly 
 tempted to speak the words with his mouth before the con- 
 gregation." Yet all these peculiarities did not prevent him 
 from being a man of sound common-sense, with a clear and 
 half-humorous insight into the ways and thoughts of the 
 different types of humanity. The fact that he was often em- 
 ployed as a mediator in family quarrels — the most difficult and 
 dangerous diplomatic office any man can undertake — is a con- 
 clusive proof of his tact and skill in the management of men ; 
 and many of the characters in the "Pilgrim's Progress" are 
 evidently drawn from the life, with such accuracy and spirit 
 as show Bunyan to have been a first-rate observer of human 
 nature. 
 
 Mr. Froude is probably correct in thinking that the " Pil- 
 grim's Progress " has affected the spiritual opinions of the 
 English race in every part of the world more powerfully than 
 any book or books except the Bible. The simplicity of its 
 style, combined with the interest of its allegory, and its touches 
 of genuine eloquence and pathos, admirably adapt it for all 
 classes of readers — for the poor and uneducated as well as for 
 the rich and cultivated, for the man of letters and for the 
 humble peasant, for the child just setting out on life's journey, 
 and for those who are nearing the gates of the Celestial City. 
 Macaulay declares that during the century which followed his 
 death. Bunyan's fame was entirely confined to religious families
 
 Isaak Walton. 105 
 
 of the middle and lower classes, and that very seldom during 
 that time was his name mentioned with respect by any writer 
 of great literary eminence. This seems rather an overcharged 
 statement. Johnson, it is well known, praised Bunyan highly, 
 saying that "his 'Pilgrim's Progress' has great merit, both for in- 
 vention, imagination, and the conduct of the story- and it has 
 had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued 
 approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a 
 more extensive sale." If Johnson's opinion of the "Pilgrim's 
 Progress" had been different from that generally prevalent 
 in literary society, we may be pretty sure that Boswell, who 
 records the above, would have drawn attention to the fact. 
 Bunyan's chief works besides the " Pilgrim's Progress " are the 
 autobiographical "Grace Abounding" already mentioned and 
 the " Holy War," an allegorical account of the fall and redemp- 
 tion of mankind under the figure of a war carried on by Satan 
 (•' Diabolus ") for the possession of the city of Mansoul. 
 
 Izaak Walton (1593-1683) is best known as the author of 
 the "Complete Angler" (1653), a delightful book even to 
 those who have no skill in the art with which it deals, full of 
 sweet pictures of pastoral scenery, and having, as it were, the 
 fresh air of the country blowing over every page. His Lives 
 of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert, Sanderson, written at 
 various times between 1640 and 1678, are among our first 
 good biographies, appreciative, affectionate, and truth-telling. 
 In a fine sonnet Wordsworth has celebrated their excellence: — 
 
 " There are no colours in the fairest sky 
 
 So fair as these. The feather whence the pen 
 Was slinped that traced the lives of these <;ood men 
 Dropped from an angel's wing. With moistened eye 
 We read of faith and purest charity, 
 In statesman, priest, and bumble citizen. 
 
 ! could we copy their mild virtues, then 
 What j >; . what blessedness to die ! 
 
 Methinks their very name, shine still and bright, 
 Apart — like glow-worms on a summer night ; 
 1 lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray; or seen, like stars on high,
 
 io6 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory." 
 
 Walton was a retired London linenclraper, who, having 
 amassed a competent fortune in business, spent his latter days 
 in the pursuits that pleased him best, reading and writing 
 occasionally, enjoying the society of good men, and wandering 
 about the country in the pursuit of his favourite art. 
 
 A man of much more unique genius than Walton was Sir 
 Thomas Browne, who has written passages of such fine, organ- 
 like rhythm as it would be difficult to parallel save in the 
 pages of De Quincey. The son of a rich merchant, he was 
 born in London in 1605, educated at Winchester, and after- 
 wards at Oxford, where he studied medicine. He then travelled 
 for some time on the Continent, taking the degree of doctor 
 of physic at Leyden in 1633. On his return to England he 
 practised for a short time at Halifax, after which he settled at 
 Norwich, where he remained till his death in 1682. He was 
 knighted, " with singular marks of consideration," by Charles 
 II. in 1671. Browne's first work, "Religio Medici" (the 
 Religion of a Physician) was published in 1643. This little 
 work, which was at once successful, being " very eagerly read 
 in England, France, Italy, Belgium, and Germany," is divided 
 into two parts, the first containing an account of his religious 
 opinions and feelings, and the second of his human feelings. 
 Grave and musical in style, the book besides possesses that 
 peculiar attractiveness which is always found in the self-por- 
 traiture of a gifted and original mind. We may quote one 
 passage as showing the width of Browne's learning, and the 
 odd mixture of vanity and humility which characterised him : — 
 " I thank God," he says, " amongst these millions of vices I 
 do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped one, and that 
 a mortal enemy to charity, the first and father sin, not only of 
 man, but of the devil — pride ; a vice whose name is compre- 
 hended in a monosyllable, but in its nature not circumscribed 
 by a world. I have escaped it in a condition that can hardly 
 avoid it. Those petty acquisitions and reputed perfections that 
 advance and elevate the conceits of other men add no feathers
 
 Browne s Writings. 107 
 
 unto mine. I have seen a grammarian tower and plume him- 
 self over a single line in Horace, and show more pride in the 
 construction of one ode than the author in the composure of 
 the whole book. For my own part, besides the jargon and 
 patois of several provinces, I understand no less than six 
 languages; yet I protest I have no higher conceit of myself 
 than had our fathers before the confusion of Babel, when there 
 was but one language in the world, and none to boast himself 
 either linguist or critic. I have not only seen several countries, 
 beheld the nature of their climes, the chorography of their 
 provinces, topography of their cities, but understood their 
 several laws, customs, and policies; yet cannot all this persuade 
 the dulness of my spirit into such an opinion of myself as I 
 behold in nimble and conceited heads, that never looked 
 a degree beyond their nests." In a similar half-deprecating, 
 half-conceited way he goes on to describe his attainments 
 in astronomy and botany. Three years after the " Religio 
 Medici" appeared the " Pseudodoxia Epidemica," commonly 
 known as " Browne's Vulgar Errors," devoted to the refu- 
 tation of many beliefs current in the seventeenth century, 
 such as the legends about the phoenix, that a man hath one 
 rib less than a woman, that crystal is nothing else but ice 
 strongly congealed, that a wolf first seeing a man begets a dumb- 
 ness in him. Browne's finest effort is his"Hydriotaphia"(i658) 
 1 Burial), a discourse founded upon the discovery of certain 
 ilchral urns found in Norfolk. The concluding chapter, 
 in which he speaks of the shortness of life and of posthumous 
 fame, is one of the noblest examples in English literature of 
 solemn, impassioned eloquence. " It is," wrote Carlyle in his 
 ry for Dec. 3, 1826, "absolutely beautiful : a still, elegiac 
 mood, so soft, so deep, so solemn and tender, like the song of 
 some departed saint Hitting faint under the everlasting canopy 
 of night ; an echo of deepest meaning from the great and 
 famous nations of the dead. Browne must have been a good 
 man." Browne's greatest fault as a writer is his excessive 
 fondness for words derived from the Latin. His highly 
 Latinised style no doubt adds to the diginity and sonorous
 
 ioS The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 swell of his sentences, but it detracts from their general intelli- 
 gibility. He was also an extensive coiner of new words, a fault 
 common with the writers of his time. 
 
 Only one historian of any eminence appeared during the 
 period with which we are dealing. This was Edward Hyde, 
 Earl of Clarendon, a prominent actor in the events which he 
 recorded. He was born in 1608 at Dinton, in Wiltshire, the 
 son of a country gentleman. Destined for the Church, he 
 turned aside to the study of the law, and in 1640 began his 
 public career as member of Parliament for Wootton Basset. 
 By his caution and prudence he soon rose to high favour; in 
 1643 he was knighted and made Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 In 1646 he went with the Prince of Wales to Jersey, where he 
 began his " History of the Rebellion." He afterwards accom- 
 panied the Prince and the Queen Mother to France, returning 
 to England at the Restoration, which he had no inconsiderable 
 share in bringing about. He was made Earl of Clarendon 
 and Lord Chancellor in 1660; but his prosperity did not con- 
 tinue long. In 1667 he was impeached of high treason by 
 the Commons and ordered to quit the kingdom. He never 
 returned to England, dying at Rouen in 1674. He completed 
 his " History of the Rebellion " during his second exile, writing 
 besides his "Life and Continuation of the History," published 
 from his manuscripts in 1759; the History having appeared 
 previously in 1707. No active partisan can be a fair chron- 
 icler of a movement in which he was himself engaged. It is 
 therefore not surprising that though many facts are to be 
 found in Clarendon's account of the Great Civil War which add 
 to our knowledge of that struggle and the men who figured in 
 it, it is often exceedingly incorrect and prejudiced. Its main 
 excellence consists in its noble gallery of portraits, drawn with 
 great skill and with much discernment of character. The 
 stvle of the history, looked at from what may be called the 
 mechanical point of view, is exceedingly bad, prolix and tauto- 
 logical, full of parentheses and endless involutions. 
 
 That English style was, however, advancing in the right 
 direction is proved by the writings of one of Clarendon's
 
 Thomas Hobbes. 109 
 
 contemporaries, Thomas Hobbes (158S-1679), in which we 
 find, with much less literary genius, an infinitely larger por- 
 tion of that clearness and accuracy which are the note of 
 modern prose. " A permanent foundation for his fame," 
 writes Sir James Mackintosh, " consists in his admirable style, 
 which seems to be the very perfection of didactic language. 
 Short, clear, precise, pithy, his language has never more than 
 one meaning, which never requires a second thought to 
 find. . . . He had so thoroughly studied the genius of the 
 language, and knew so well to steer between pedantry and 
 vulgarity, that two centuries have not superannuated probably 
 more than a dozen of his words. His expressions are so 
 luminous, that he is clear without the help of illustration." 
 This extravagant eulogium, which bears all the marks of Sir 
 James's over-laudatory disposition, must not be understood 
 to mean more than that Hobbes wrote with a lucidity and 
 precision rarely found in philosophers. During his long life, 
 Hobbes mingled in much of the best society, intellectual and 
 social, both of England and the Continent. In his earlier 
 years he was secretary to Bacon, and was, we are told by the 
 antiquary Aubrey, " beloved by his Lordship, who was wont to 
 have him walk in his delicate groves, where he did meditate ; 
 and when a notion darted into his mind, Mr. Hobbes was 
 presently to write it down. And his Lordship was wont to say 
 that he did it better than any one else about him ; for that many 
 times when he read their notes he scarce understood what 
 they writ, because they understood it not clearly themselves." 
 Hobbes was also greatly in favour with the Cavendish family, 
 acting as tutor to two successive Earls of Devonshire, with 
 whom he wandered over a large part of the Continent, making 
 acquaintance with the more prominent literary men there. 
 Hobbcs's literary career began with a translation of Thucydii 
 designed to show the evils of popular rule. From 1640 to 
 1660 red the works on which his fame as a thinker rests : 
 
 "De I • ■■ " "Treatise on Human Nature;" " De Corpore 
 Politico;" '• Leviathan, or the Matter, Power, and Form of a 
 Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil ; " and " De Corpore."
 
 1 1 o The Successors of tJic Elizabethans. 
 
 The latter years of his life were embittered by a controversy 
 on certain mathematical points, in which he got decidedly the 
 worst of it. At the age of eighty-six, the versatile old man 
 published translations of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," not re- 
 markable save as literary curiosities. Hobbes's philosophical 
 theories had immense influence on the Restoration period. He 
 became the philosopher par excellence of the court and the 
 society which surrounded it. His selfish theory of morals and 
 his theory of government, which, though setting out with the 
 statements that the origin of all power was in the people, and 
 that the end of all power was for the common weal, practically 
 inculcated a sort of divine right, were very acceptable to King 
 and courtiers. As frequently happens, Hobbes's followers 
 often carried his views to an extreme length, and the name 
 " Hobbism " was given to doctrines which Hobbes himself 
 would have been the last to countenance. 
 
 With the great exception already mentioned, the poets of the 
 era preceding the Restoration do not compare favourably with 
 the prose writers. It is a sad contrast to leave the magnificent 
 efflorescence of the Elizabethan era and to study the works of 
 the many poetasters who flourished about the time of Charles 
 I. Even those who tower above the common herd, and have 
 not long since been consigned to obscurity, are now remem- 
 bered chiefly by a few happy verses, and not by their writings 
 as a whole. Such is the case with the unfortunate cavalier 
 Richard Lovelace, who died in 1658 at the age of forty. Two 
 or three of his lyrics are perfect gems, to be committed to heart 
 and conned over by all who care anything about poetry, but 
 his genius was the reverse of prolific, and "rubbish" is the 
 only fit epithet by which to characterise most of what he wrote. 
 Much the same may be said about Sir John Suckling (1608- 
 1641). A few sprightly society verses, of which the well-known 
 and justly celebrated "Ballad on a Wedding" is the best, 
 is all of his work that can in any sense be said to live. Of 
 even " Holy George Herbert," whose " Temple," published in 
 1633, has received warm praise from some of the best judges of 
 poetry, can it be said that he is at all generally known or appre-
 
 Robert Herrick. 1 1 1 
 
 ciated save in select extracts ? Beautiful as his devout earnest- 
 ness is, and poetical and striking as are many of his thoughts, his 
 quaint conceits prove an insuperable stumbling-block to many. 
 " Neither their intrinsic excellence," says Mr. Ruskin, " nor the 
 authority of those who can judge of it, will ever make the 
 poems of George Herbert popular in the sense in which Scott 
 and Byron are popular, because it is to the vulgar a labour 
 instead of a pleasure to read them ; and there are parts in them 
 which to such judges cannot but be vapid and ridiculous." If 
 Mr. Ruskin had said that parts of them are vapid and ridi- 
 culous, he would, we think, have approached nearer the truth ; 
 though to not a few whose opinion is worthy of all respect it 
 will appear something little short of profanity to say so. The 
 "Hesperides" of Robert Herrick, which w r as published in 
 1648, has supplied many choice flowers to our poetical antho- 
 logies. In a similar way the works of Wither, of Carew, and 
 others have been laid under contribution. To all these Camp- 
 bell's criticism on Herrick may, with the requisite modifica- 
 tions, be applied : " Herrick, if we were to fix our eyes on a 
 small portion of his works, might be pronounced a writer of 
 delightful anacreontic spirit. He has passages where the 
 thoughts seem to dance into numbers from his very heart, 
 and where he frolics like a being made up of melody and 
 pleasure, as when he sings — 
 
 ' Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 
 Old Time is still a-flyinjj ; 
 And this same flower that lilooms to-day, 
 To-morrow will be dying.' 
 
 In the same spirit arc his verses to Anthca, concluding — 
 
 ' Thou art my life, my love, my heart, 
 The very eyes of me ; 
 And hast command of every j>:u t, 
 To live and die for thee.' 
 
 But his beauties arc so deeply involved in surrounding coarse- 
 ness and extravagance, as to constitute not a tenth part of his
 
 1 1 2 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 poetry; or rather, it may be safely affirmed that of 1400 pages 
 of verse which he has left, not a hurfdred are worth reading." 
 
 Herrick, Lovelace, and their fellow-lyrists belonged to the 
 Cavalier party, but Puritanism, which produced the greatest 
 statesmen and soldiers of the age, produced its two greatest 
 imaginative writers, Milton and Bunyan ; a rather curious fact 
 when we remember that the Royalists prided themselves on hav- 
 ing a monopoly of the arts, which the austere Puritans were apt 
 to regard with ill-judging contempt. John Milton, England's 
 greatest epic poet, in comparison to whose organ tones the 
 voices of his contemporary singers seem as penny-whistles, 
 was born on December 9, 1608, at a house in Bread Street, 
 Cheapside. His father, a cultivated man, of puritanical ten- 
 dencies, but fond of music and the arts, was a well-to-do 
 scrivener, a calling uniting part of the work now done by 
 attorneys and law-stationers. Milton's early education was 
 sedulously attended to : he was, to use his own words, " exer- 
 cised to the tongues and some sciences as my age would suffer, 
 by sundry masters and teachers both at home and the schools." 
 Very early he applied himself to study with that intense eager- 
 ness which he retained through life ; from the twelfth year of 
 his life, he tells us, he very rarely went to bed without studying 
 to midnight, thus, as he believed, laying the seeds of that weak- 
 ness in his eyes which developed into blindness. To the period 
 of Milton's school-days belong the first poems of his which 
 have been preserved, Paraphrases of the cxiv. and exxxvi. 
 Psalms, verses well described by Johnson : " They raise no 
 great expectations; they would in any numerous school have 
 obtained praise but not excited wonder." 
 
 From St. Paul's School, where he had been for some years, 
 Milton, early in 1625, went to Cambridge, where he was enrolled 
 as a lesser pensioner of Christ's College. Rooms there, venerable 
 from their association with his name, are still pointed out to 
 visitors. After his enrolment he returned to London, where 
 he remained till his matriculation in April of the same year. 
 For seven years, barring vacations, visits to his parents, &c, 
 Milton remained at Cambridge, not leaving it till he took his
 
 Milton s Early Poems. 1 1 
 
 o 
 
 M.A. degree in 1632, having previously graduated B.A. in 1629. 
 By the undergraduates he was nicknamed " The Lady," on 
 account of his " fair complexion, feminine and graceful appear- 
 ance, and a certain haughty delicacy in his tastes and morals." 
 At first he was not popular among his associates ; nor is there 
 any reason to wonder that he was not so. It is easy to imagine 
 with what scorn the youthful poet, self-restrained, self-con- 
 scious, haughty, and of purity approaching to asceticism, must 
 have regarded the rough fun, the practical jokes, the noisy 
 gatherings, the jovial conversation which are the delight of 
 undergraduates possessed of high animal spirits. A want of 
 humour, with its usual concomitant, a want of power to do 
 justice to men of different type from himself, was Milton's 
 great defect through life. As time wore on, however, he 
 seems to have made himself more agreeable to his asso- 
 ciates ; and he certainly was distinguished for his learning 
 and accomplishments. " 'Twas," says Anthony Wood, speak- 
 ing of Milton's Cambridge life, " usual with him to sit up till 
 midnight at his book, which was the first thing that brought 
 his eyes into the danger of blindness. By his indefatigable 
 study he profited exceedingly — performed the academical 
 exercises to the satisfaction of all, and was esteemed a vir- 
 tuous and sober person, yet not to be ignorant of his own 
 parts." At the outset of his university career, in 1626, he had 
 a quarrel with his tutor, which led to his temporary rustication : 
 he is even said on this occasion to have suffered the indignity 
 of corporal punishment. However this may be, Milton cer- 
 tainly looked back to his university life with no great liking 
 or respect for his Alma Mater. 
 
 The following is a list, with dates, of the English poems 
 composed by Milton during his Cambridge life. We omit the 
 Latin ones, as not properly coming within the scope of a book 
 on English literature: — "On the Death of a Fair Infant" 
 (1626); "At a Vacation Exercise in the College" (1628); 
 "On the M ling of Christ's Nativity" (1620); "Upon the 
 Circumcision ;" "The Passion ;" " On Time ;" "At a Solemn 
 Music ;" Song on May Morning ;" " On Shakespeare" (1630) ;
 
 1 1 4 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 " On the University Carrier;" " Epitaph on the Marchioness 
 of Winchester;" " Sonnet to the Nightingale j" " Sonnet on 
 Arriving at the Age of Twenty-three" (1631). Of these, the 
 most interesting, for different reasons, are the " Ode on the 
 Nativity," which, despite some fantastic conceits which 
 Milton's maturer judgment would have rejected, is an ex- 
 cellent specimen of a class of poetry of which very few 
 excellent specimens exist ; the lines on Shakespeare, prefixed, 
 along with other verses, to the second folio edition, pub- 
 lished in 1632, and thus the first printed of Milton's English 
 poems, which show that Milton had not yet become fully 
 imbued with the spirit of Puritanism, and could look on all 
 forms of art with a more catholic spirit than he afterwards 
 showed ; and the epitaph on Hobson, the University carrier, 
 which proves how totally destitute Milton was of humour. His 
 witticisms, as has been more than once remarked, resemble the 
 gambollings of his own " unwieldy elephant," who, 
 
 " To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed 
 His lithe proboscis." 
 
 Lastly, the " Sonnet on Arriving at the Age of Twenty-three " is 
 of deep personal interest. It was accompanied by a letter to 
 an unknown friend, explaining why Milton declined to enter 
 the Church, the profession for which he had been destined by 
 his friends, and which he himself had at one time intended to 
 pursue. 
 
 On leaving the University, Milton went to reside at Horton, 
 a small village in Buckinghamshire, where his father, having 
 retired from business, had taken a country-house. There he 
 remained for five years, " wholly intent," he writes, " through 
 a period of absolute leisure, on a steady perusal of the Greek 
 and Latin writers, but still so that I occasionally exchanged 
 the country for the city, either for the purpose of buying books, 
 or for that of learning anything new in mathematics or in 
 music, in which I then took delight." During his seclusion 
 in this pretty pastoral spot, surrounded by woods, orchards, 
 cornfields, streams, and all country sights and sounds, Milton
 
 Miltoris " Lycidas" 115 
 
 wrote the finest of his smaller poems — the " Allegro " and 
 " Penseroso," the " Arcades " and " Comus." The dates of 
 the three former poems are not quite certain; '"'Comus" 
 was represented in 1634. The "Allegro," beginning with 
 morn and ending with night, represents things as they appear 
 to a man of cheerful mood ; the " Penseroso," beginning with 
 night and ending with morn, represents things as they appear 
 to a man of melancholy mood. Both poems are triumphs of 
 versification ; rarely or never was sense better linked to sound 
 than in some of their lines. The " Arcades," part of a masque 
 presented before the Countess-Dowager of Derby at Hanfield, 
 does not call for special notice. Much more remarkable is 
 " Comus," both for its intrinsic merits, and as throwing light 
 on Milton's tone of thought. The dignity of its blank verse, 
 weighted with deep thought, the beauty of the lyrics inter- 
 spersed, the almost passionate praise of purity, the scorn 
 manifested for those who indulge in sensual delights, sufficed 
 to prove that a new poet, unique alike in his imaginative and 
 in his moral power, had arisen in England. It was published 
 anonymously by Milton's friend Lawes, the musical composer, 
 in 1637. Sir Henry Wotton's opinion of it was doubtless that 
 of most cultivated men into whose hands it came : " A dainty 
 piece of entertainment, wherein I should much commend the 
 tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain 
 Doric delicacy in' your songs and odes, whereunto I must 
 plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our lan- 
 guage." 
 
 " Lycidas," the last poem of Milton's Ilorton period, was 
 written in 1 637. It commemorates the death of a college com- 
 panion of his, Edward King, who met his death by shipwreck 
 while crossing the Irish Sea, and was published in 1638 
 in a volume of memorial verses by various writers, designed to 
 commemorate the sad event. In form it is a pastoral ; first 
 there is an introduction, then the monody of the shepherd 
 lamenting his lost friend, then an epilogue. There are no 
 traces in the poem of such deep emotion as we find in "In 
 Mcmoriam ;" the careful artist is more visible in it than the
 
 1 1 6 TJic Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 sorrowing friend. Many writers, especially those who have 
 an intimate acquaintance with the ancient classics, have agreed 
 with Lord Macaulay in regarding the appreciation of " Lycidas " 
 as a test of one's insight into the most poetical aspects of poetry. 
 But this may reasonably be doubted. It has been well re- 
 marked that minds trained upon the old models seem incapable 
 of understanding how cold and artificial sounds the strain to 
 uneducated but not unpoetical persons which treats of Are- 
 thuse and Mincius in speaking of a gentleman drowned in 
 the Irish Channel, and which describes a Fellow of Christ's 
 College as tending flocks and singing for the edification of 
 old Damoetas. In " Lycidas " Milton at length appears as a 
 Puritan full-fledged; " he has thrown away the last relics of 
 Church and State, and is Presbyterian." The scathing passage 
 in which he denounced — 
 
 " Such as, for their bellies' sake, 
 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 
 
 Of other care they little reckoning make 
 
 Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 
 
 And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
 
 Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
 
 A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 
 
 That to the faithful herdman's art belongs," 
 
 doubtless found an echo in many a stern heart in England 
 at that time, when Laud and his policy were causing wide- 
 spread revolt. 
 
 In 1638 Milton took that journey to the Continent which 
 he had long meditated. Taking letters of introduction with 
 him, he passed through Paris (where he saw Grotius), Nice, 
 Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and settled at Florence, where he 
 remained for two months. There he made the acquaintance 
 of many learned men, some of them well known in Italian 
 literary history, and "found and visited the famous Galileo, 
 grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition for thinking in 
 astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican 
 licensers thought." From Florence he went to Rome, where 
 also he received a very warm reception from cultivated society.
 
 Milton s Prose Works. 1 1 7 
 
 After staying about two months there, he spent a short time 
 in Naples. From Naples it was his intention to travel to 
 Italy and Greece, but the sad news of the Civil War in 
 England called him back ; " for I thought it base that I should 
 be travelling abroad for pleasure while my fellow-countrymen 
 at home were fighting for liberty." He returned to England 
 by slow stages, arriving there in August, 1639. Soon after 
 his father's household at Hoiton was broken up, and Milton 
 took lodgings in St. Bride's Churchyard, where he acted as 
 tutor to his two nephews, John and Edward Phillips, and 
 busied himself in literary projects — amongst others, in drafting 
 schemes for a poem on the subject of " Paradise Lost." But 
 stirring times had now arrived, and Milton was not the man 
 to see his countrymen struggle for liberty and quietly remain 
 buried in literary meditations. For twenty years, from 1640 to 
 1 660, his life is not that of a poet, but of a strenuous combatant, 
 constantly engaged in controversy, the most exhausting, the 
 most hurtful, the most evanescent of all modes of composition. 
 Is this to be regretted? From a literary point of view 
 undoubtedly it is. There are splendid passages in Milton's 
 prose works — passages where we are carried away by torrents 
 of gorgeous eloquence ; but in prose, as he himself said, "he 
 had only the use of his left hand;" and the natural acerbity 
 of his temper, quickened by the insults of his assailants, often 
 led him to indulge in the most vulgar railing. " For the mass 
 of his prose treatises, miserable diseussions is the final and 
 right word," says Mr. Matthew Arnold, who quotes with appro- 
 bation the remarks on them by the distinguished French critic 
 M. Scherer : — " In all of them the manner is the same. The 
 author brings into play the treasures of his learning, heaping 
 together testimonies from Scripture, passages from the Fathers, 
 quotations from the poets; laying all antiquity, sacred ami 
 profane, under contribution ; entering into subtle discussions 
 on the sense of this or that Hebrew or Greek word. But not 
 only by his Ul ted erudition, and by his absorption in 
 
 religious rsy, does Milton belong to his age; he 
 
 belongs to it too by the personal tone of his polemics." But
 
 i i S The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 there are other than literary grounds from which the question 
 ought to be regarded. If Milton thought that by the services 
 his pen could render, the cause of justice, and liberty, and 
 good government could be advanced, most assuredly he did 
 well to use it as he did during those twenty eventful years. 
 
 Milton's prose writings, and the circumstances which led to 
 their publication, we can only very briefly touch on. He began 
 his career as a controversialist by five pamphlets against the 
 Episcopal form of Church government, all published in 1641 
 and 1642. The preface to the second book of the fourth of 
 these, " The Reason of Church Government urged against 
 Prelacy," is one of the finest pieces of Milton's prose, besides 
 being of high biographical importance. He there gives a 
 sketch of his life, of his work, and of his aim at some future 
 period, when quieter times came, to produce a work " which 
 the world would not willingly let die." "Neither do I think 
 it shame," he says, " to covenant with any knowing reader that 
 for some few years yet I may go on trust with him towards 
 the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not 
 to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine, 
 like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar 
 amourist or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite ; not to be 
 obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren 
 daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can 
 enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His 
 seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and 
 purify the lips of whom He pleases : to this must be added 
 industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into 
 all seemly and generous arts and affairs ; till which in some 
 measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost I refuse 
 not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to 
 hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges which I can 
 give them." From this proud self-confidence a great result 
 might have been augured, and a great result was achieved, for 
 that result was "Paradise Lost." 
 
 The second series of Milton's pamphlets was written with 
 a purely personal object. About Whitsuntide 1643, Milton,
 
 Milton s Divorce Pamphlets. 1 19 
 
 with his nephew Phillips, " took a journey into the country, 
 nobody about him certainly knowing the reason, or that it was 
 any more than a journey of recreation ; but home he returns a 
 married man that went out a bachelor, his wife being Mary, 
 the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice of 
 the peace, at Foresthill, near Shotover, in Oxfordshire." The 
 circumstances connected with this marriage have never been 
 clearly explained. The Powells were Royalists ; Mary was 
 only seventeen, whereas her husband was thirty-five ; and 
 altogether it seems to have been as ill-assorted a union as 
 could well be imagined. After the newly married pair had 
 lived together for a month, Mary Powell went back to her 
 friends, promising, however, to return at Michaelmas. Milton, 
 like Carlyle, was "gey ill to live wi';" his studious habits, his 
 solitary life, and his austere disposition were doubtless very 
 repellant to a young girl accustomed to "a great house and 
 much company and jollity." She did not return at Michael- 
 mas, and for a very good reason. Before that time Milton 
 had published the first of those strange pamphlets in which he 
 advocated freedom of divorce on very easy conditions. This 
 raised a tempest of opposition against him, but single-handed 
 lie undauntedly continued to maintain his thesis in three 
 other pamphlets, the last of which appeared early in 1645. 
 When, however, the Powell family, later on in that year, 
 fell into difficulties, and his wife returned to him and asked 
 his forgiveness, Milton granted it, and again received her into 
 favour. 
 
 Between the publication of the first and the last pamphlet 
 on Divorce appeared Milton's tract on Education (1641), and 
 his " Areopayitica," published in the same year, the first formal 
 plea for the liberty of the press. It is the most generally 
 known of Milton's prose works, and there is little need to 
 .1 on its surpassing eloquence ; none but a poet and a very 
 great one could have written it. Meanwhile Milton's writings 
 on Divorce it him the favour of the Presbyterians, many 
 
 of whom bitterly assailed him j and he began to think that 
 "new Presbyter is but old Priest writ lar . I 1 im about
 
 1 20 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 1646, he favoured Independency so far as he favoured any 
 form of church government; but in religious matters he was 
 a law unto himself, going to no church, and joining no com- 
 munion. 
 
 The year 1646 is memorable as having been that in which 
 the poems written by Milton up to that date were collected 
 and published together. "Let the event guide itself which 
 way it will," wrote Moseley, the publisher, in the preface to the 
 collected edition; "I shall deserve of the age by bringing into 
 the light as true a birth as the Muses have brought forth since 
 our famous Spenser wrote, whose poems in these English ones 
 are as rarely imitated as sweetly excelled." Three years after, 
 in 1649, Milton again entered into controversy by publishing 
 a pamphlet defending the execution of Charles I. Then came 
 his Latin controversy with the great Leyden scholar Salmasius, 
 over whom he obtained a brilliant victory. His exertions in 
 this battle cost him his eyesight: in 1652 he became totally 
 blind. Some consolation for his blindness was to be derived 
 from the fact that his replies to Salmasius had caused Europe 
 to ring with his fame from side to side. About 1654 his wife 
 died, leaving behind her three daughters. He married again 
 in 1656, but his second wife only lived fifteen months, dying 
 in childbirth in 1658. 
 
 On the death of Cromwell, Milton in vain endeavoured to 
 stem the tide of popular feeling in favour of the restoration of 
 the monarchy, writing five pamphlets with this end in view, 
 and fighting for what was clearly a hopeless cause till the very 
 last moment. All in vain : on the 8th of May Charles II. was 
 proclaimed, and on the 29th he entered London in triumph. 
 Milton, who had been the foremost advocate of Republicanism, 
 who had defended the execution of the King, who had acted 
 as Latin secretary during the Protectorate, whose name was 
 famous throughout Europe as the champion of the Common- 
 wealth and the contemner of kings, now indeed found him- 
 self fallen on evil days and evil tongues. It is a wonder 
 that he escaped death : if any man deserved it, the Royalists 
 might plausibly have argued, it was the stern old blind man
 
 Death of Milton. 1 2 1 
 
 who had fought strenuously against them till the very last. 
 For about two months he lay in hiding, till, in August 1660, 
 the Act of Indemnity passed. He was then for some time in 
 custody, but was soon released, at the intercession, according 
 to an old tradition, of Sir William Davenant, for whom he had 
 performed a similar good office during the Commonwealth. 
 
 Now "in darkness and with dangers compassed round," 
 Milton, after twenty years spent in the arid deserts of con- 
 troversy, again girt his singing robes around him. A few 
 old friends remained faithful to him, but his daughters, to 
 whom he was a harsh parent, were undutiful, and his domestic 
 infelicity for a time was great. Affairs were, however, put on 
 a more comfortable footing by his marriage to Elizabeth 
 Minshull, an excellent woman, who did her duty well to him 
 and his daughters. In 1667 "Paradise Lost," begun in the 
 year before the close of the Protectorate, was published. Four 
 years later, in 167 1, "Paradise Regained" and "Samson 
 Agonistes" appeared. Busy to the last, he also published 
 various minor prose works, a " Latin Accidence," a " History 
 of Britain," a "Tract on True Religion," &c. The most im- 
 portant work of his later years, however, was his Latin " Treatise 
 on Christian Doctrine," which is very valuable for the light 
 which it throws on his theological opinions. After the manu- 
 script of it had been lost for many years, it was at length 
 found in an old brown paper parcel that had been lying in the 
 State Paper Office since 1675 ; and its publication, along with 
 an English translation, by Bishop Sumner in 1825, gave occa- 
 sion to Macaulay's famous Edinburgh Review essay. 
 
 On November 8th, 1674, Milton died. Four days later he 
 was buried in the chancel of St. Giles, Cripplegate, attended 
 to the grave by "all his learned and great friends in London, 
 not without a friendly concourse of the vulgar." His personal 
 appearance is well known from his portraits. In his youth he 
 was eminently beautiful, with something of feminine delicacy 
 in his appearance; and even in his old age, when blind and 
 careworn by many trials, his features retained a sort of great- 
 ness and nobleness. " His domestic habits, so far as they are
 
 1 2 2 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 known, were those of a severe student. He drank little strong 
 drink of any kind, and fed without excess in quantity, and in 
 his earlier years without delicacy of choice. In his youth he 
 studied late at night, but afterwards changed his hours, and 
 rested in bed from nine to four in the summer, and five in the 
 winter. The course of his day was best known after he was 
 blind. When he first rose, he read a chapter in the Hebrew 
 Bible, and then studied till twelve ; then took some exercise 
 for an hour ; then dined ; then played on the organ, and sang, 
 or heard another sing; then studied to six; then entertained 
 his visitors till eight ; then supped, and, after a pipe of tobacco 
 and a glass of water, went to bed."* The "Notes" of 
 Richardson supply a graphic and touching picture of Milton 
 in his closing years. "An aged clergyman of Dorsetshire," 
 he says, "found John Milton in a small chamber hung with 
 rusty green, sitting in an elbow-chair, and dressed neatly in 
 black ; pale, but not cadaverous ; his hands and fingers gouty, 
 and with chalkstones. He used also to sit in a grey coarse 
 cloth coat at the door of his house near Bunhill Fields in warm, 
 sunny weather, and so, as well as in his house, received the 
 visits of people of distinguished parts as well as quality." His 
 character, after all deductions have been made, was a very 
 noble one. Not amiable, irritable, exacting, vindictive, he 
 was totally free from anything deserving the name of vice ; 
 conscientious, high-minded, dignified, courageous. 
 
 " Paradise Lost," as originally published, consisted of ten 
 books. For the manuscript Milton received ^5 ; and it was 
 arranged that he should receive ^"5 after each of the first 
 four editions, which were to consist of 1300 copies each. In 
 1669 Milton gave the publisher, Simmons, a receipt for ^5, 
 so that he received for the first edition just jQ\o. The second 
 edition appeared in 1674. In it the two longest books of the 
 first edition, Books VII. and X., were each divided into two, 
 and some other trifling alterations were made. In 1678 the third 
 edition appeared, for which, in 1680, Simmons paid Milton's 
 
 * Johnson.
 
 ' ' Pa radise Reg a ined. " 123 
 
 widow ^5, and for ^3 more purchased all interest in the 
 copyright. All circumstances considered, the sale of the 
 book was not bad, and Simmons must have made a toler- 
 ably good thing of his purchase. It would be presumption to 
 attempt to criticise a work so great and so well known as 
 " Paradise Lost." The most salient objections to its plan and 
 execution are given in Johnson's unappreciative but very able 
 criticism. Such trifling faults as he mentions are but as a 
 feather in the balance when weighed against the wonderful 
 majesty, the consummate art, the strength and dignity, of 
 England's greatest epic. The theme of the poem is one so 
 vast, so transcending human faculties, so full of difficulties, 
 as to require a poet of Milton's massive genius to grapple 
 with. It may be granted at once that "Paradise Lost "is 
 overlaid with learning ; that it is occasionally prolix ; that it 
 is sometimes even (as in the case of the war in heaven) 
 grotesque ; but no poem, taken as a whole, is so uniformly 
 grand, or soars up into such splendid regions of eloquence. 
 The verse, as in all poems of first-rate excellence, is an echo 
 to the sense. "Perhaps no man," writes Dr. Guest, a great 
 authority on such matters, "ever paid the same attention 
 to the quality of his rhythm as Milton. What other poets 
 effect as it were by chance, Milton achieved by the aid of 
 science and art; he studied the aptness of his numbers, and 
 diligently tutored an ear which nature had gifted with the most 
 delicate sensibility. In the flow of his rhythm, in the quality 
 of his letter sounds, in the disposition of his pauses, his verse 
 almost ever fits the subject, and so insensibly does poetry blend 
 with this — the last beauty of exquisite versification — that the 
 reader may sometimes doubt whether it be the thought itself, 
 or merely the happiness of its expression, which is the source 
 of a gratification so deeply felt." 
 
 "Paradise Regained" had its origin in a suggestion of 
 Ellwood the Quaker. Visiting Milton in 1665, the poet gave 
 him the MS. ol "Paradise Lost" to read. When it was 
 returned, Milton asked, "How I liked it, and what I thought 
 of it, which 1 modestly but freely told him; and, alter some
 
 124 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, ' Thou 
 hast said much here of Paradise lost, but what hast thou to 
 say of Paradise found ? ' He made me no answer, but sat for 
 some time in a muse ; then brake off that discourse and fell 
 upon another subject. After the sickness was over, and the 
 city well cleansed, and become safely habitable again, he 
 returned thither. And when, afterwards, I went to wait on 
 him there, which I seldom failed of doing whenever my occa- 
 sions drew me to London, he showed me his second poem, 
 called 'Paradise Regained,' and in a pleasant tone said to 
 me, ' This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by 
 the question you put to me at Chalfont [where Milton was 
 staying while the plague raged at London], which before I 
 had not thought of.' " 
 
 Milton's alleged preference of " Paradise Lost " to " Para- 
 dise Regained" is very often given as an example of the 
 incorrect judgments which authors are apt to form of their 
 own works. As a matter of fact, however, there is no 
 evidence that he did so prefer it ; the sole foundation for that 
 statement being a remark of Philips's that " Paradise Re- 
 gained" was generally thought to be much inferior to " Paradise 
 Lost," though Milton could " not hear with patience any such 
 thing when related to him." That it is greatly inferior is indis- 
 putable, though some passages, such as the description of 
 Greece, are eminently beautiful. In majesty and sublimity it 
 cannot be compared to " Paradise Lost." 
 
 " Samson Agonistes " is one of Milton's most characteristic 
 poems. The subject was one upon which his thoughts had 
 long dwelt, but in his old age it came back to him with 
 renewed intensity when his own lot seemed to have so many 
 points in common with that of the ancient hero. Like Samson, 
 he was blind ; like Samson, he had fallen into the hands of the 
 Philistines ; like Samson, he was a Nazarite, shunning wine 
 and strong drink ; like Samson, he had incurred much misery 
 by his marriage to a Philistine woman. The drama is formed 
 upon Greek models, and imitates them in the strong simplicity 
 of its style. It would be difficult to mention any equally great
 
 The "Metaphysical" Poets. 125 
 
 poem so bare of ornament, so ruthlessly stripped of conven- 
 tional poetic phrases and imagery. 
 
 One of the strangest and most undiscerning criticisms of 
 Johnson on Milton is that on the Sonnets. " Of the best," 
 lie writes, " it can only be said that they are not bad ; and 
 perhaps only the eighth and twenty-first are truly entitled to 
 this slender commendation." The fact is that they are among 
 the finest sonnets in the language, unsurpassed in strength and 
 dignity save by some of Wordsworth's. In Milton's hand, as 
 "Wordsworth says in his Sonnet on the Sonnet — 
 
 " The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
 Soul-animating strains, alas ! too few." 
 
 The rage for playing upon words and ideas which is found 
 in many writers of the Elizabethan era, and most prominently 
 in Lyly, culminated in the poets called the metaphysical school, 
 a name which was given to them by Johnson, and which, though 
 not very appropriate, has adhered to them. Of this school, 
 of which Lyly was the true progenitor, the characteristics are 
 pointed out by Johnson in a very masterly way. "The meta- 
 physical poets were men of learning, and to show their learn- 
 ing was their whole endeavour ; but unluckily resolving to 
 show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote 
 verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the 
 finger better than of the ear ; for the modulation was so 
 rfect that they were only found to be verses by counting 
 the syllables. 
 
 " If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry 
 
 Tiyjr, iii'ir.n/.^. an imitative art, those writers will, without great 
 
 g, lose their right to the name of poets, for they cannot be 
 
 said to have im inythingj they neither copied nature for 
 
 life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the 
 
 rations of intellect." 
 
 the "metaphysical" school, John Donne [1573—163 1] 
 may be said to have been the founder, lie was the first to 
 make fanciful similitudes, remote analogies, and verbal subtle-
 
 126 The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 ties not only a competent part, but actually the main feature 
 of his verse. A very learned man, of much original power, 
 and endowed with a real though not a powerful vein of poeti- 
 cal genius, he was totally unable, or at any rate unwilling, to 
 curb that fantastic spirit which appears equally in his sermons, 
 which were very famous in their day, and in his poetry. His 
 works are stiff reading, the windings of his perverted ingenuity 
 being often difficult to trace. Many other writers followed the 
 affected strain adopted by Donne, but they are now nearly all 
 forgotten with the exception of Abraham Cowley [1618-1667]. 
 He was born in London, and educated at Westminster and at 
 Cambridge. While very young he read and admired Spenser's 
 " Faerie Queen," a poem which has exercised a vast influence 
 over many juvenile bards, and was so fascinated with it that its 
 perusal made him, as he says, irrecoverably a poet. When 
 only fifteen years of age he published a volume of poems, 
 which, if its abstract merits are not great, at any rate bears 
 witness to the wonderfully precocious nature of his genius. 
 At Cambridge, where he pursued his studies with great zeal, 
 he wrote the greater part of his " Davideis," an unreadable 
 epic, and two or three forgotten comedies. Ejected from Cam- 
 bridge in 1643, on account of his Royalist opinions, by the 
 Puritan visitors, he went to Oxford, where he gained great 
 favour among prominent members of the King's party, " by 
 the warmth of his loyalty and the elegance of his conversa- 
 tion." When Oxford surrendered to the Parliament, " he 
 followed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to 
 Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was em- 
 ployed in such correspondence as the royal cause required, 
 and particularly in ciphering and deciphering the letters that 
 passed between the King and Queen, an employment of the 
 highest confidence and honour." In 1647 appeared his " Mis- 
 tress," a collection of amorous verses, making no pretence to 
 genuine passion, and full of conceits, often highly ingenious, 
 but very unsuitable to anything aspiring to the name of poetry. 
 In 1656 he returned to England, where he was arrested as 
 being in communication with the exiled party, but was soon
 
 Edmund Waller. 127 
 
 liberated on bail. In the same year he published his poems, 
 with a preface expressing his earnest desire " to forsake the 
 world for ever, by retiring to some of the American planta- 
 tions." He then applied himself to the study of medicine ; 
 and received the degree of Doctor of Physic in 1657, but never 
 practised. He had, however, a considerable interest in natural 
 science, particularly in botany, and was one of the first members 
 of the Royal Society. After the Restoration his loyalty was 
 rewarded by the grant of certain lands of the annual value 
 of about ^300. He then retired to Chertsea, where he 
 passed the evening of his life in the solitude he had so often 
 longed for, without, however, finding that retirement had 
 all the advantages which his imagination had pictured it to 
 possess. 
 
 Some of Cowley's shorter poems show that if he had not 
 been under " metaphysical" influence he might have acquired 
 great and permanent fame, if not in the higher walks of poetry, 
 at any rate as a writer of gay songs and occasional verses. He 
 had a highly inventive and ingenious intellect ; his works con- 
 vey a strong impression of great intellectual powers misused 
 and wasted. His prose writings, which go into a very small 
 volume, are excellent, and have none of the faults of his 
 poems. " No author," says Johnson, " ever kept his verse 
 and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His 
 thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid 
 equability, which has never yet obtained its due commenda- 
 tion. Nothing is far sought or hard laboured, but all is easy 
 without feebleness, and familiar without grossness." 
 
 Among the "metaphysical" poets Denham and Waller are 
 included by Johnson. But they can scarcely be said to belong 
 to that school ; occasional passages in their works may show 
 its influence, but they are not pervaded by it. Denham [1615- 
 1668] is remembered chiefly as the author of " Cooper's Hill," 
 one of the earliest and one of the best of our descriptive poems. 
 Waller [1605-1687] was one of the many men who shame- 
 fully changed sides at the Restoration, employing his pen first 
 in commemorating the virtues of Cromwell, and then in pane-
 
 12S The Successors of the Elizabethans. 
 
 gyrising Charles II. " Elegant " is the term by which his 
 verses, dealing largely with trifling subjects, may be best 
 characterised. In the technical accuracy of his style, the 
 smoothness of his numbers, and the conventional tone of his 
 sentiments he preluded the school of Dryden and Pope, which 
 long reigned paramount in English poetry.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE RESTORATION. 
 
 Butler ; Dryden ; WycherUy, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Sheridan ; 
 Otway, Lee, Rowe ; Barrow, Tillotson, Stiili/igjlcet, Sherlock, South; 
 Gilbert Burnet ; Locke ; Newton. 
 
 EVER was a monarch welcomed with more general 
 and heartfelt joy than was manifested when, in May, 
 1660, Charles II. landed at Dover. Not only those 
 staunch cavaliers who through evil report and 
 through good report had remained steadfast in their allegiance 
 to the u good old cause," but the nation at large felt as glad 
 to be relieved from the iron sway of Puritanism as a school- 
 boy, wearied of tasks and punishments, is when the long- 
 wished-fur holiday-time comes at last. All the numerous class 
 of men who make a point of adhering to the winning side, 
 whatever it may happen to be, hastened to abjure Puritanism, 
 and added their voices to the general shout of delight which 
 hailed the arrival of King Charles. " It is my own fault," 
 said the King, " that I had not come back sooner ; for I find 
 nobody who does not tell me that he has always longed 
 for my return." Immediately the fierce reaction against the 
 enforced moralities and decencies of the Commonwealth set in. 
 The stern moroseness of the Puritans had made their very 
 virtues so odious, that it was considered that a loyal gentleman 
 could not better show his detestation of the Commonwealth 
 and his joy at the Restoration than by indulging in vice openly 
 unashamed. The king himself, dissolute, cool, clever, 
 ready to sacrifice anything to the pursuit of pleasure, and
 
 1 30 The Restoration. 
 
 never making even the faintest attempt to cover his excesses 
 with a cloak of outward decency, was a fair specimen of the 
 courtiers who surrounded him ; not so heartless and brutal as 
 some, but as sensual, and as destitute of honour and con- 
 science as the worst of them could be. The new literature 
 was a fair reflex of the prevalent social morality. The shame- 
 less indecency of some of the noble versifiers of the period 
 was more than surpassed by the deliberate obscenity, the gross 
 pandering to vicious tastes, the heartless immorality of the 
 comic drama, which aspired to be, and no doubt was, a faith- 
 ful representation of the fashionable society of the time. In a 
 moral atmosphere so fetid and unhealthy, literature of the 
 highest kind could not be expected to flourish, yet even during 
 this age we find not a few writers whose works the world would 
 not willingly let die. 
 
 About the close of 1662 appeared a poem which in striking 
 and witty fashion gave forcible expression to the long-accumu- 
 lated hatred of the Puritans which thousands had nourished 
 in their breasts during the time of the Commonwealth. The 
 work was admirably adapted to suit the prevailing taste, and 
 its success was instantaneous. The King read it and was much 
 amused by it ; in all the coffeediouses its merits were discussed 
 by the wits ; everywhere it was applauded as the most success- 
 ful of the many assaults made on the fallen party. This poem 
 was the first part of the "Hudibras" of Samuel Butler, who, 
 though a man of fifty, had not, till the time of its publication, 
 given any evidence of his talents as a writer. Of the story of 
 his life not very much is known. He was born in 161 2, the 
 son of a farmer in Worcestershire, and received a good educa- 
 tion at the cathedral school of that town. It is not known for 
 certain whether he was ever sent to either of the universities. 
 In his youth he acted as secretary to Thomas Jefferies, a 
 justice of peace in Worcestershire, and he afterwards held a 
 similar office in the household of the Countess of Kent in 
 Bedfordshire. In the latter situation he had the advantage of 
 an excellent library, when, doubtless, he amassed a large store 
 of that curious erudition which we find in " Hudibras." There
 
 Samuel Butler. 131 
 
 also he enjoyed the conversation of the learned Selden, then 
 steward of the Countess's estates. About 165 1 (the precise 
 date is uncertain) he became secretary to Sir Samuel Luke of 
 Cople Hoo, also in Bedfordshire, which seems a strange situa- 
 tion for a man of Butler's Royalist opinions to have occupied, 
 as Sir Samuel was one of the leading Presbyterians in the 
 county, and had been a colonel in the Parliamentary army 
 during the Civil Wars. After the Restoration Butler was, per- 
 haps on account of his known loyalty, promoted to the office 
 of secretary to the Earl of Carbery, Lord President of the prin- 
 cipality of Wales. This situation he held for about a year, 
 quitting it some months before the publication of the first part 
 of " Hudibras," which, though bearing on its title-page the 
 date 1663, was really issued in November 1662. A good 
 indication of the avidity with which the satire was received is 
 afforded by an entry in the amusing diary of Samuel Pepys, 
 that delightful book of gossip, which constitutes our most 
 valuable memorial of the social life of the period over which 
 it extends (1660-69). "To the wardrobe," we find Samuel 
 writing on the 26th of December 1662, " and hither came Mr. 
 Battersby; and we falling into discourse of a new book of 
 drollery in use called ' Hudibras,' I would needs go find it 
 out, and met with it at the Temple : cost me 2s. 6d. But 
 when I come to read it. it is so silly an abuse of the presbyter 
 knight going to the wars, that I am ashamed of it ; and by 
 and by meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it to him 
 for i8d." Finding that as time went on "Hudibras" was as 
 much talked of as ever, Pepys soon repented that he had dis- 
 posed of the book so hastily. "To Lincoln's Inn Fields," he 
 writes on February 6, 1663, "and it being too soon to go 
 home to dinner, I walked up and down, and looked upon the 
 outside of the new theatre building in Covent Garden, which 
 will be very fine ; and so to a bookseller's in the Strand, and 
 there bought 'Hudibras' again, it being certainly some ill- 
 humour to be so against that which all the world cries up to 
 be an example of wit; for which I am resolved once more to 
 read him, to see whether I can find it • r no." The great sue-
 
 1 3 2 The Restoration. 
 
 cess of the first part of " Hudibras " evoked a crowd of 
 imitations and spurious continuations, but these were all put 
 in the shade when, late in 1663, the genuine "Second Part" 
 appeared. The desire to see the Puritans satirised was still as 
 strong as ever, and since, in point of wit and drollery, the new 
 part was in no way inferior to its predecessor, it was received 
 with equal enthusiasm. Fourteen years after, in 167S, the 
 poem was completed. By this time the nation was beginning 
 to realise that the rigour and gloom of Puritanism were, after 
 all, preferable to debauchery and prodigality, and probably 
 the conclusion of " Hudibras " was not so universally applauded 
 as the two preceding parts. Butler died in 1680, a poverty- 
 stricken, neglected, disappointed man. 
 
 " On Butler who can think without just rage, 
 The glory and the scandal of the age? 
 Fair were his hopes when first he came to towD, 
 Met everywhere with welcome of renown. 
 
 But what reward had he for all at last, 
 After a life in dull expectance past ? 
 The wretch, at summing up his misspent days, 
 Found nothing left but poverty and praise : 
 Of all his gains by verse he could not save 
 Enough to purchase flannel and a grave. 
 Reduced to want, he in due time fell sick, 
 Was fain to die, and be interred on tick ; 
 And well might bless the fever that was sent 
 To rid him hence, and his worse fate prevent." 
 
 These vigorous lines r are by John Oldham (1653-83), a 
 contemporary satirist. They do not exaggerate the facts of 
 the case. Charles and his courtiers praised Butler and left 
 him in indigence. Perhaps this was partly owing to Butler's 
 peculiar temperament : he was a shy, eccentric, unpliable man, 
 not likely to put himself about to gain the favour of any one. 
 But none the less was it disgraceful of the victorious party to 
 leave unrewarded the author of the most telling and pungent 
 satire on their opponents. The inexhaustible wit of " Hudi- 
 bras," its exuberant wealth of fancy, its frequent happy expres- 
 sions and flashes of sound sense amid all its comic extrava-
 
 Butler's" HudibrasV 133 
 
 gances, have saved it from the common fate of political satires. 
 The idea of the poem is borrowed from " Don Quixote," but 
 otherwise the work is entirely original; there is nothing in 
 English literature which has any close resemblance to it. Of 
 course it is exceedingly unjust to the Puritan party, violating 
 facts so grossly as to represent them as cowards ; but in such 
 productions we do not look for impartiality. The jolting 
 octo-syllabic verse in which it is written lends itself admirably 
 to the odd turns and queer rhymes in which Butler delights. 
 Like Mr. Browning in our own day, Butler had a sort of genius 
 for finding out rhymes the most unexpected and out of the 
 way. The great fault of " Hudibras " is that it is too long ; 
 there are few even of those who enter most thoroughly into 
 the spirit of the poem whose attention does not begin to flag 
 before they reach the end. In 1659, many years after his 
 death, Butler's "Genuine Prose Remains" were published. 
 They possess much of the coarse vigour of his poetry. We 
 append a few specimens, which have a decidedly Hudibrastic 
 flavour. "Hudibras" itself, it maybe mentioned, was to some 
 extent composed from prose hints which the author had jotted 
 down as they occurred to him. 
 
 '• One that is proud of his birth is like a turnip — there is 
 nothing good of him but that which is underground." 
 
 " His (the courtly fop's) tailor is his creator, and makes him 
 of nothing ; and though he lives by faith in him, he is per- 
 petually committing iniquities against him." 
 
 "A proud man is a fool in fermentation." 
 
 " When he (a versifier) writes, he commonly steers the sense 
 of his lines by the rhyme that is at the end of them, as butchers 
 do calves by the tail." 
 
 " He (the amateur of science) is like an elephant, that though 
 he cannot swim, yet of all creatures most delights to walk by 
 the riverside." 
 
 "Hud :as" could not be adequately described or criticised 
 unless i \tracts from it were ,<;ivcn. Except his hatred 
 
 of the Puritans and the clearness of his style, Butler had not 
 many features in common with his contemporaries ; in his
 
 134 The Restoration. 
 
 mode of literary treatment he neither influenced nor was in- 
 fluenced by them to any great extent. The representative 
 man of the Restoration era is John Dryden, who in all respects 
 was pre-eminently the child of his age. It has been truly said 
 that the literary history of England for nearly a century and a 
 half centres round three personalities, each in his day the focus 
 of all that was said or written that was either wise or witty. 
 " He who knows minutely the lives of Dryden, of Pope, and 
 of Dr. Johnson, with their sayings and doings, their friendships 
 and their enmities, knows intimately the course of English 
 letters and poetry from the Restoration to the French Revolu- 
 tion." Of Dryden especially it is true that by tracing the 
 course of his literary activity we may form a very fair notion 
 of all the characteristics and tendencies of the literature of his 
 epoch. Dryden was born in 1631 at the Vicarage of Aid- 
 winkle All Saints, in Northamptonshire. He was of good 
 descent, his father being the son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, a 
 baronet whose family originally came from the neighbourhood 
 of the Border. Of Dryden's youth very little is known : indeed 
 the information we possess respecting him at all periods of his 
 life is not nearly so copious or so trustworthy as could be 
 wished. About 1642 he entered Westminster School, of which 
 the then head-master was Busby, whose flogging propensities 
 have been widely celebrated. With all his severity, Busby was 
 a most successful teacher, and Dryden, who seems to have 
 been a favourite with him, always regarded him with affectionate 
 respect. From Westminster, Dryden, in 1650, went to Cam- 
 bridge, where he remained about seven years. During the 
 earlier part of his residence there he got into trouble with the 
 university authorities, and he does not appear to have after- 
 wards cherished very kindly feelings towards his alma mater. 
 In one of his prologues to the University of Oxford, he, in an 
 indirect manner, shows his dislike to the sister university : — 
 
 " Oxford to him a dearer name shall he 
 Than his own mother university ; 
 Thebes did his green unknowing youth engage, 
 He chooses Athens in his riper age."
 
 John Dry den, 135 
 
 Leaving Cambridge in 1657, Dryden settled in London, and 
 attached himself to his cousin, Sir Gilbert Pickering, who was 
 high in the favour of the Protector. Though over twenty- 
 seven years of age, he had as yet given very slender evidences 
 of his literary power. A few occasional verses, in which it is 
 hard to discern any indications of genius, were all that he had 
 written. The earliest of these, a poem lamenting Lord Henry 
 Hastings, who died of small-pox in the last year of Dryden's 
 residence at Westminster, shows, in an amusing way, how 
 Dryden's receptive mind had been impressed by the conceits 
 of Cowley and the other poets of the metaphysical school. 
 Describing the manner of his Lordship's death, the youthful 
 poet says — 
 
 " Each little pimple had a tear in it, 
 To wail the fault its rising did commit, 
 Which, rebel-tike, with its own lord at strife, 
 Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life. 
 Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, 
 The cabinet of a richer soul within ? 
 No comet need foretell li is change drew on 
 Whose corpse might seem a constellation." 
 
 This was out-heroding Herod ; the metaphysical poets, with 
 all their curious fancies, never reached a greater height of 
 absurdity than this ; and Dryden, though it was many years 
 later before he altogether abandoned such conceits, never 
 again indulged in them so extravagantly. In 1658 he published 
 his first poem of merit, the heroic stanzas on the death of 
 Cromwell. The metre of the poem, dignified but rather 
 cumbrous and difficult to handle, is imitated from the " Gondi- 
 bert " of Sir William Davenant, a poet and playwright of con- 
 rable merit, who became Laureate after the Restoration. 
 When Charles became king, Dryden employed the pun which 
 had panegyrised the Protector in panegyrising the new monarch. 
 For this sudden change of opinion the best excuse that can he- 
 given is that stated by Johnson : "The reproach of inconstancy 
 was, on this occasion, shared with such numbers that it produ< 1 d 
 neither hatted or disgrace ; if he changed, he changed with
 
 136 The Restoration. 
 
 the nation." " Astrsea Redux," a poem celebrating the return 
 of Charles, appeared in 1660, the "Panegyric on the Corona- 
 tion" in 1661, and the "Epistle to the Lord Chancellor" 
 (Clarendon) in 1662. All these poems are in the heroic 
 couplet, the form of verse over which Dryden was afterwards 
 to gain such a mastery. In 1663 appeared the " Epistle to Dr. 
 Charleton," which Hallam very unjustly thought was the first 
 of Dryden's works that possessed any considerable merit. 
 
 At the close of 1663, Dryden married Lady Elizabeth 
 Howard, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. This 
 union is thought, though on no very certain evidence, to have 
 been an unhappy one. Some months before his marriage, 
 Dryden's first play, the " Wild Gallant," was acted. During the 
 Commonwealth the drama had lived in a stealthy and pre- 
 carious kind of way, forbidden by the law and frowned upon 
 by all who wished to stand well with the Puritans. At the 
 Restoration it revived, and became, in fact, the best market 
 which a man of literary talents could carry his wares to. It 
 may be safely asserted that a writer, possessed like Dryden of 
 a versatile genius, will, in almost every case, employ himself 
 mainly in the kind of work which he finds most remunerative, 
 even though it may not be the kind of work for which he is 
 best adapted. It is idle, therefore, to lament that so much of 
 Dryden's time should have been occupied in the composition 
 of plays, none of which is of such value that it would be any 
 serious loss to literature to be deprived of it, and which several 
 writers of his time could have written almost, if not quite, 
 as well. But we have good cause to lament that he should 
 have prostituted his genius by, in his comic dramas, pander- 
 ing shamelessly and recklessly to the licentious tastes of his 
 audience. Altogether he wrote twenty-eight plays, the first 
 appearing, as above stated, in 1663, the last, "Love Trium- 
 phant," in 1694. In his comedies, indecency frequently takes 
 the place of wit, and their merit in other respects is small. 
 " I know," wrote Dryden himself, " I am not so fitted by 
 nature to write comedy. My conversation is slow and dull, 
 my humour saturnine and reserved. So that those who decry
 
 Dry dens Plays. 1 3 7 
 
 my comedies do me no injury except it be in point of profit ; 
 reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend." 
 Dryden's serious dramas fall into two well-marked divisions. 
 The earlier of them are written in the pompous heroic style 
 which had been made fashionable in England by Sir William 
 Davenant, and the tragic portions are, like the similar parts 
 of Davenant's plays, written in rhyming couplets. A good 
 specimen of Dryden's dramas of rhymed declamation, as they 
 may be called, is afforded by the " Conquest of Granada " 
 (1670). The sublime rants of its hero, Almanzor, are difficult 
 to regard in other than a humorous light, though, singularly 
 enough, they seem to have inspired Dr. Johnson with a sort 
 of admiration. " All the rays of romantic heat," he says, 
 " whether amorous or warlike, glow in Almanzor by a kind 
 of concentration. He is above all laws ; he is exempt from 
 all restraints ; he ranges the world at will, and governs wher- 
 ever he appears. He fights without inquiring the cause, and 
 loves in spite of the obligations of justice, of rejection by his 
 mistress, and of prohibition from the dead. Yet the scenes 
 are, for the most part, delightful ; they exhibit a kind of illus- 
 trious depravity and majestic madness, such as. if it is some- 
 times despised, is often reverenced, and in which the majestic 
 mingles with the astonishing." In 1668 Dryden had defended 
 rhymed tragedies in an " Essay on Dramatic Poesy," which first 
 showed his skill in prose composition and his power of acute 
 and discerning criticism. He did not, however, remain stead- 
 fast to the practice he then advocated. In 1671 appeared the 
 famous burlesque called the "Rehearsal," which inflicted a 
 severe blow on the popularity of "rhymed tragedies. This very 
 amusing play, which will bear reading even by those whose 
 knowledge of the literature of the age is not sufficient to enable 
 them to appreciate all its allusions, was the work of the Duke of 
 ham, assisted by Samuel butler, Thomas Sprat, after- 
 wards made a bishop, and Martin Clifford; the head-mastei of 
 
 Charterhouse. Thou h it contained allusions to se\ I 
 other dramatist time,th objectof the "Rehearsal" 
 
 to caricature Dryden, who i> represented under the name 
 
 1
 
 138 The Restoration. 
 
 of Bayes, a nickname which stuck to him throughout life. 
 Not only his literary but his personal peculiarities, his dress, 
 his voice, his gesture, his habit of taking snuff, his favourite 
 expletives are mercilessly ridiculed. This attack Dryden bore 
 very stoically, making no reply, and continuing to write rhymed 
 tragedies as before. At length his own good sense showed 
 him that it would be better to abandon the practice, and 
 return to the form of verse which had been employed with 
 such eminent success by the Elizabethan dramatists. About 
 1678 appeared " All for Love," his first drama in blank verse, 
 and one of his best plays from every point of view. There was 
 something of audacity in writing a play on a subject which had 
 already been handled by the greatest dramatist the world has 
 ever seen in " Anthony and Cleopatra." Yet with such vigour 
 and force is " All for Love " written, that it can sustain compari- 
 son with the work of Shakespeare, and still be admired. Dryden's 
 other most famous play in blank verse is " Don Sebastian " 
 (1689), one scene in which, the altercation between Sebastian 
 and Dorax, used to be very often given in books of extracts. 
 
 Having thus briefly dealt with Dryden as a dramatist, we 
 now return to trace the course of his life. " Annus Mirabilis" 
 appeared in 1667, which, from a literary point of view, is one 
 of the most important years of the seventeenth century. It 
 witnessed the publication of "Paradise Lost," the death of 
 Denham, Cowley, and Jeremy Taylor, and the birth of Swift 
 and Arbuthnot. " Annus Mirabilis," which is written in the 
 same metre as " Astrsea Redux," commemorates the events 
 of the "wonderful year" 1666, the great fire of London, and 
 the Dutch war. Though frequently disfigured by " meta- 
 physical " conceits, it is a powerful piece of writing, and at' 
 once made Dryden the most illustrious poet of the day, Milton 
 of course excepted. His "Discourse on Dramatic Poesy" 
 raised him to similar rank as a prose writer; and in 1670 
 his merits in both capacities were recognised by his being 
 appointed historiographer-royal and poet laureate. In the 
 latter capacity he succeeded Sir William Davenant, who 
 died in 1668. The two offices brought him a salary of
 
 Dry dens Satires. 139 
 
 ^"200 a year, to which was afterwards added a pension of 
 ^"ioo bestowed on him by Charles. The income thus derived 
 Mas, however, to a considerable extent a nominal one ; for 
 Charles was a very bad paymaster, and Dryden's salary was 
 frequently in arrear. Nevertheless his financial position 
 about this time was tolerably prosperous. He had a small 
 estate worth about ^80 a year, which he had inherited from 
 his father ; and from his dramas, and a lucrative contract he 
 entered into with the players, he obtained a considerable 
 revenue. For fourteen years after the publication of "Annus 
 Mirabilis" Dryden employed himself in dramatic work, adding 
 little to his permanent fame, but acquiring, by prolonged and 
 laborious practice, a consummate mastery of the heroic couplet. 
 In 1681, when party spirit ran very high about the Exclusion 
 . he gave the first specimen of his wonderful power of 
 reasoning in verse and his extraordinary talent for satire by 
 the publication of " Absalom and Achitophel." The plan of 
 the poem is not original, but the mode of treatment is emin- 
 ently so. In vigorous couplets he gives us a matchless series 
 of political portraits, strong, mordant, incisive, and always 
 having the crowning merit of keeping sufficiently close to 
 actual fact to save them from having the semblance of carica- 
 ture. Interspersed with these are occasional speeches relat- 
 ing the sentiments of the different characters from Dryden's 
 point of view. Dryden never surpassed this his first essay in 
 the field of satire : the energy of genius, it has been well said, 
 has transformed a party pamphlet in verse into a work which 
 men of all ages and of all opinions have agreed to recognise 
 as a masterpiece. When, on the acquittal of Shaftesbury, 
 who had been tried on a charge of high treason, a medal was 
 struck by the joyful Whigs to commemorate the event, Dryden 
 followed up " Absalom and Achitophel " by another s;itirc, 
 "The Medal," in which "lie hurled at Shaftesbury and his 
 ty a philippic which, for rancorous abuse, for lofty and 1111- 
 ipromising scorn, for coarse, scathing, ruthless denuncia- 
 , couched in diction which now swells to the declamatory 
 grandeur of Juvenal, and now sinks to the homely vulgarity
 
 1 40 The Restoration. 
 
 of Swift, has no parallel in literature." 1 Of the innumerable 
 replies and attacks on the author which " Absalom and 
 Achitophel" and "The Medal" called forth, Dryden took no 
 notice, till Thomas Shadwell, a dramatist of no inconsiderable 
 talents but of infamous life, assailed his private character in 
 terms so gross and libellous as to imperatively demand a 
 rejoinder. Of him Dryden determined to make a terrible 
 example. This he did in " MacFlecknoe," which was pub- 
 lished late in 1682. Richard Flecknoe, an Irish priest, who 
 died in 1678, and who had been the favourite butt of many 
 satirists, is represented as having chosen Shadwell for his 
 successor as King of the Realms of Nonsense in a mock-heroic 
 strain which must have been infinitely galling to the subject 
 of ridicule. Shadwell's coronation is then described, and the 
 poem concludes with a ferocious assault which bears too 
 many traces of personal bitterness. About a month after 
 " Mac-Flecknoe " appeared the second part of " Absalom 
 and Achitophel." Most of it was written by Nahum Tate, a 
 worthy though dull man, but two hundred and fifty lines are 
 entirely from Dryden's pen, and traces of his hand may be 
 perceived in other parts of the poem. In the portion which 
 is wholly his he returned to the attack on Shadwell, and also 
 took the opportunity of gibbeting Elkanah Settle, a worthless 
 versifier and playwright, who had occupied a rather pro- 
 minent place among his numerous assailants. 
 
 In the same year, 1682, the "annus mirabilis" of his 
 genius, Dryden took a new departure. In that year he pub- 
 lished "Religio Laid," which Scott has described as one of 
 the most admirable poems of the language. " It is," says Mr. 
 George Saintsbury, in his excellent little book on Dryden, 
 "also one of the most singular. That a man who had never 
 previously displayed any particular interest in theological 
 questions, and who had reached the age of fifty-one with a 
 
 1 Quarterly Review, October 1878, art. " Dryden," one of the ablest 
 and most vigorous Review articles of the kind which has appeared^ for 
 many a year. Bating its opinions, it might very well have been written by 
 Macaulay. It is, we believe, by Mr. J. Churton Collins.
 
 Dryden's Change of Religion. 1 4 1 
 
 reputation derived, until quite recently, in the main from the 
 composition of love-plays, should appear before his public of 
 pleasure-seekers with a serious argument in verse on the credi- 
 bility of the Christian religion and the merits of the Anglican 
 form of doctrine and church government, would nowadays be 
 something more than a nine days' wonder. In Dryden's time 
 it was somewhat less surprising. The spirit of theological, 
 controversy was bred in the bone of the seventeenth century." 
 " Religio Laid" is a fine specimen of Dryden's talent for 
 reasoning in verse ; but he was soon to show that the argu- 
 ments in it as to the superiority of the Church of England 
 over other ecclesiastical institutions had not convinced himself. 
 In 1685 Charles II. died, and James II. ascended the throne. 
 Every one knows how sincere a Catholic the new sovereign 
 was, and how assiduously he strove that all around him should 
 conform to his own faith. In 16S6 Dryden joined the Church 
 of Rome. 
 
 It was so obviously Dryden's interest, both from pecuniary 
 and from other points of view, to become a Catholic at this 
 time, that the sincerity of his conversion has naturally been 
 much discussed. Some critics have thought they discovered 
 in the "Religio Laid," where he says — 
 
 "Such an omniscient Church we wish indeed, 
 'Twere worth both Testaments cast in the Creed," 
 
 an indication of dissatisfaction with the Church of England ; 
 but this is very doubtful. The true explanation of Dryden's 
 sudden change of religion seems to be that, prompted at first 
 by self interest to favour the Church of Rome, he at length 
 became really attached to it. With characteri tic readiness he 
 now set himself to defend Catholicism. The " Hind and the 
 Panther," in which he defends his newly adopted faith so well 
 that rlallam de< '..ires that no candid mind could doubt the 
 sincerity of one who could argue so pow< rfully and subtly in 
 its favour, appeared in 1687. It is an allegory; "thi milk- 
 white hind, unspotted and unchanged," representing the 
 Church of . ; "the panther, sine the noblest, next the
 
 142 1 he Restoration. 
 
 hind, and fairest creature of the spotted kind," the Church of 
 England ; a bear, the Independents; a boar, the Baptists, and 
 so on. When the Revolution came, in 1688, Dryden had an 
 opportunity of proving the sincerity of his convictions. Had 
 he apostatised, there is little doubt that he might have retained 
 his offices of historiographer-royal and poet laureate ; but, to 
 the credit of his fair fame, he remained constant to the faith 
 he had adopted. His prospects were now gloomy enough, 
 and he was obliged to labour hard to earn a living by his pen. 
 In 1697 he published his translation of Virgil, the result of 
 three years' toil. Previous to its publication he had trans- 
 lated Persius and part of Juvenal, as well as other scattered 
 pieces, but these efforts were thrown into the shade by his 
 Virgil, which, though freely translated and very little imbued 
 with the spirit of the original, is nevertheless a noble achieve- 
 ment. The chief works of the remaining years of Dryden's 
 life are the well-known ode commonly called "Alexander's 
 Feast" and his "Fables," stories paraphrased from Chaucer 
 and Boccaccio, interesting not only on account of their intrinsic 
 merits, which are in many respects great, but also as showing 
 the extraordinary versatility of Dryden's genius, which enabled 
 him, when an old man of sixty-eight, to win laurels in a new 
 field of literature. They were published in 1699, a few months 
 before his death, which occurred in April 1700. The splendid 
 literary services which he had rendered to his country were 
 recognised by his being buried in Westminster Abbey, where 
 he was laid in Poet's Corner, beside Chaucer and Cowley. 
 
 "We are enabled, from the various paintings and engravings 
 of Dryden, as well as from the less flattering delineations of 
 the satirists of his time, to form a tolerable idea of his face 
 and person. In youth he appears to have been handsome 
 and of a pleasing countenance ; when his age was more 
 advanced, he was corpulent and florid, which procured him 
 the nickname attached to him by Rochester [• Poet Squab ']. 
 In his latter days, distress and disappointment probably chilled 
 the fire of his eye, and the advance of age destroyed the 
 animation of his countenance. Still, however, his portraits
 
 Dry dens Characteristics. 143 
 
 bespeak the look and features of genius ; especially that in 
 which he is drawn with his waving grey hairs." x During his 
 lifetime and afterwards, Dryden's moral character was fiercely 
 assailed by a crowd of opponents, including Bishop Burnet, 
 who went so far as to describe him as " a monster of impurity 
 of all sorts." Very little credence, however, is to be placed in 
 such statements ; and there is every reason to believe that 
 Dryden's life compared very favourably with that of most of 
 his literary contemporaries. Of his habits not much has been 
 related. He was fond of snuff, in which he indulged largely. 
 Fishing was the only sport which he practised, and in it he 
 attained considerable proficiency. After spending the morning 
 in study, he would adjourn to Will's Coffee-house, where he 
 occupied the same undisputed pre-eminence which Addison 
 afterwards held at Button's, and where his dicta as to the 
 literary matters of the day were eagerly listened to and care- 
 fully treasured up. In his disposition he was kind and 
 generous, "ready and gentle," says Congreve, "in his correc- 
 tion of the errors of any writer who thought fit to consult 
 him, and full as ready and patient to admit of the reprehen- 
 sion of others in respect of his own oversights and mistakes." 
 Dryden was the first poet and the first prose writer of his 
 time. There is no other English author of whom this could 
 be said, but it is strictly and literally true of him. As a poet, 
 indeed, he stood so far above his contemporaries that there is 
 none fit to be mentioned in the same breath with him. Satire 
 was his peculiar province, but he also won distinction in other 
 fields. His didactic poems are among the best of their kind, 
 and his odes, especially the one "To the Memory of Miss 
 Anne Killegrew" (1686), which Johnson called the noblest 
 in the language, as perhaps it was in his time, and "Alex- 
 ander's Feast," are fine pieces of concerted music. There 
 was in Dryden's nature a certain coarseness of moral fibre, 
 very disagreeably apparent in his plays, which occasionally 
 detracts from the value of his poems \ but this is atoned 
 
 1 Scott.
 
 144 The Restoration. 
 
 for by his masculine strength, his width of range, and his rich 
 command of expression. As a prose writer, his works of most 
 abiding value are the " Essay on Dramatic Poesy," already 
 mentioned, and the prefaces which he almost invariably added 
 to his publications. 
 
 " Read all the prefaces of Dryden, 
 For these the critics much confide in, 
 Though only writ at first for filling, 
 To raise the volume's price a shilling." 
 
 These doggerel lines of Swift show the esteem in which the 
 critical remarks on his art with which Dryden was wont to 
 enrich his poems were held by his contemporaries. Occa- 
 sionally they are found embedded in the very fulsome dedica- 
 tions with which, after the fashion of his age, he addressed his 
 patrons, occasionally in explanatory or apologetic prefaces. 
 Dryden's criticisms are often inconsistent ; he wrote hastily, 
 and was apt to put down whatever occurred to him at the 
 moment, without reflecting that he had elsewhere expressed 
 different opinions ; but they are generally excellent, and his 
 admiration of Shakespeare and Milton at a time when their 
 praise was not, as now, in every one's mouth, shows his good 
 taste and discernment. His style is clear, easy, and flexible ; 
 rather unmethodical, but quite free from the involutions and 
 long-windedness which had almost invariably marked the prose 
 of the preceding generations. " At no time that I can think 
 of," says Mr. Saintsbury, " was there any Englishman who, for 
 a considerable period, was so far in advance of his contem- 
 poraries in almost every branch of literary work as Dryden was 
 during the last twenty years of the seventeenth century. . . . 
 But his representative character in relation to the men of his 
 time was almost more remarkable than his intellectual and 
 artistic superiority to them. Other great men of letters, with 
 perhaps the single exception of Voltaire, have usually, when 
 they represented their time at all, represented but a small part 
 of it. With Dryden this was not the case. Not only did the 
 immense majority of men of letters in his later days directly
 
 The Dramatists of the Restoration. 145 
 
 imitate him, but both then and earlier most literary English- 
 men, even when they did not imitate him, worked on the same 
 lines and pursued the same objects. The eighteen volumes of 
 his works contain a faithful representation of the whole literary 
 movement in England for the best part of half a century ; and 
 what is more, they contain the germs and indicate the direction 
 of almost the whole literary movement for nearly a century to 
 come." 
 
 Bearing in mind these remarks as to Dryden's represen- 
 tative character, the reader will readily infer, from what has 
 been said as to Dryden's comedies, the leading features of the 
 " dramatists of the Restoration," as they are somewhat loosely 
 styled. Of these, Wycherley, Congreve, Farquhar, and Van- 
 brugh were the chief, and Congreve the greatest. Charles 
 Lamb, in his amusing and paradoxical essay "On the Arti- 
 ficial Comedy of the Last Century," mentions a characteristic 
 of Congreve's plays which applies also to the plays of all the 
 other members of the group. "Judged morally, every charac- 
 ter in these plays [he is speaking of the Restoration comedy 
 generally] — the few exceptions are only mistakes — is alike 
 essentially vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is 
 especially shown in this, that he has entirely excluded from 
 his scenes — some little generosities on the part of Angelica 
 perhaps excepted — not only anything like a faultless character, 
 but any pretensions to goodness or good feelings whatsoever. 
 Whether he did this designedly or instinctively, the effect is 
 as happy as the design (if design) was bold. I used to wonder 
 at the strange power which his ' Way of the World,' in par- 
 ticular, possesses of interesting you all along in the pursuit 
 of characters for whom you absolutely care nothing — for you 
 neither hate nor love his personages — and I think it is owing 
 to this very indifference for any that you endure the whole, 
 lie has spread a privation of moral light, I will call it, rather 
 than by tii" ugly name of palpable darkne i , over his creations ; 
 and his shadows Bit before you without distinction or pi 
 ence. Had he introduced a ood character, a single gush of 
 moral feeling, a revulsion of the judgment to actual life and
 
 146 Hie Restoration. 
 
 actual duties, the impertinent Goshen would have only lighted 
 to the discovery of deformities, which now are none because 
 we think them none." This is not intended for censure, yet 
 what a censure it is ! It is this moral darkness, this heart- 
 lessness, this cynical contempt for virtue, or rather unbelief 
 in its existence, which, more than their frequent license of 
 language, make the Restoration dramatists a synonym for 
 unhealthy literature. That they had great talents, that their 
 wit was often brilliant, is undeniable ; but though no literary 
 history can altogether pass them over, a full account of them 
 would be out of place here, and we shall accordingly make 
 haste to escape from their polluted atmosphere. 
 
 William Wycherley, the coarsest, but not the least gifted, of 
 the dramatists of the Restoration, was born in 1640, the son 
 of a Shropshire gentleman of good family. Sent to France at 
 the age of fifteen to receive his education, he there acquired 
 the manners of a fine gentleman, and became a convert to 
 Roman Catholicism. When the Restoration came, he once 
 more turned Protestant, and became a member of Queen's 
 College, Oxford. Leaving Oxford without taking a degree, 
 he entered the Temple, where he soon distinguished himself 
 among the gay young men about town by the elegance of his 
 manners and by his strikingly handsome appearance. In 1672 
 his first play, " Love in a Wood," was acted. His two most 
 famous plays, the "Country Wife" and the "Plain Dealer," 
 appeared in 1675 and 1677. Wycherley 's life was a sad one 
 enough. After basking for some years in the sunshine of royal 
 favour, he fell into disgrace, and, imprisoned for debt, languished 
 for seven years in the Fleet, "utterly forgotten, as it should 
 seem, by the gay and lively circle of which he had been a 
 distinguished ornament." At length he owed his release to 
 the favour of James II., who paid his debts and granted him a 
 pension of ^200 a year. Macaulay suspects that this muni- 
 ficence was the price of Wycherley's apostasy : it is certain, at 
 any rate, that before his death Wycherley a second time joined 
 the Church of Rome. In 1704 he published a folio volume 
 of miscellaneous verses, very immoral and very worthless. He
 
 IVilfiam Congreve. 147 
 
 died in 17 15 a wretched, worn-out rake, who had outlived his 
 talents and accomplishments. The desire of literary fame was 
 strong in him to the last, and he called in the aid of young Mr. 
 Pope, the most rising genius of the time, to amend his dog- 
 gerel verses. This Pope did with such unfailing rigour of 
 criticism, such cruel minuteness, that poor Wycherley at length 
 found his advice so unpalatable that he withdrew his papers from 
 him. Coarse vigour and no small show of humour as well as 
 wit are the great characteristics of Wycherley as a dramatist. 
 
 The names of Wycherley and Congreve are generally placed 
 together, but there are wide differences between them, both as 
 regards their natural capabilities and their mode of literary 
 treatment. Wycherley was a child of the Restoration with 
 its roistering coarseness ; Congreve was rather a child of the 
 Queen Anne period with its low moral ideals united to outward 
 polish and refinement. Hence it is not surprising to find that 
 the comedies of Congreve, if perhaps equally immoral, are not 
 nearly so much disfigured by grossness as Wycherley's. Con- 
 greve was born in 1670 at Pardsey, near Leeds. His father, a 
 scion of an ancient Staffordshire family, settled in Ireland soon 
 after the Restoration, and there Congreve received his educa- 
 tion. He afterwards came to London to study law; but he 
 was more ambitious to cut a brilliant figure in fashionable 
 society than to accumulate a store of forensic knowledge. His 
 first work was a novel — one of those insipid and affected 
 romances with which our ancestors were compelled to beguile 
 their leisure in the absence of anything butter. \\\ 1693 his 
 first comedy, "The Old Pachelor," was acted witli great suc- 
 cess. The merits of the gifted young author were at once 
 recognised by the generous Montagu, then one of the Lords of 
 the Treasury, who bestowed on him offices of which the salary 
 
 important than the duties. In 169. j Coi; 
 second play, the "Double Dealer," w.i need J in 1695 
 
 came "Love for Love," and in 1697 the "Mourning Bride," a 
 tragedy containing one famous passage, which Johnson 
 accustomed fantly in conversati d which, 
 
 in his " Lives of the Poets," he declares that he considered the
 
 148 The Restoration. 
 
 most poetical paragraph in the whole mass of English poetry. 
 Here it is: — 
 
 " Aim. It was a fancied noise ; for all is hushed. 
 
 Leo. It bore the accent of a human voice. 
 
 Aim. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind 
 Whistling through hollows of this vaulted isle ; 
 We'll listen. 
 
 Leo. Hark ! 
 
 Aim. No, all is hushed and still as death. — 'Tis dreadful ! 
 How reverend is the face of this tall pile, 
 Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, 
 To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof, 
 By its own weight made steadfast and immoveable, 
 Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe 
 And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs 
 And monumental caves of death look cold, 
 And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart. 
 Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice ; 
 Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear 
 Thy voice — my own affrights me with its echoes." 
 
 In 1700 Congreve produced what is perhaps his best play, the 
 " Way of the World ; " it failed, for some reason or other, and 
 the indignant author took his leave of the stage. He died in 
 1728. Congreve was a man both of wit and learning, but he 
 was anxious to be distinguished rather as an accomplished 
 gentleman than as a talented writer. When Voltaire called 
 on him, he disclaimed the character of a poet, and declared 
 that his plays were trifles produced in an idle hour. " If," 
 said the great Frenchman, disgusted by what Johnson truly 
 calls this despicable foppery, "you had been only a gentle- 
 man, I should not have come to visit you." By his contem- 
 poraries Congreve was much looked up to. Dryden gave 
 him in large profusion the weighty tribute of his praise and 
 respect ; Pope dedicated to him his translation of the " Iliad ;" 
 everywhere among young authors his esteem was courted and 
 his advice sought. It is only as a dramatist that Congreve 
 has any title to fame : his miscellaneous poems are singularly 
 poor productions. " Congreve," says Hazlitt, a very acute 
 if somewhat too partial critic, "is the most distinct from the
 
 Jeremy Collier. 149 
 
 others, and the most easily defined, both from what he 
 possessed and from what he wanted. He had by far the 
 most wit and elegance, with less of other things, of humour, 
 character, incident, &c. His style is inimitable, nay, perfect. 
 It is the highest model of comic dialogue. Every sentence is 
 replete with sense and satire, conveyed in the most polished 
 and pointed terms. Every page presents a shower of brilliant 
 conceits, is a tissue of epigrams in prose, is a new triumph of 
 wit, a new conquest over dulness. The fire of artful raillery 
 is nowhere else so well kept up. . . . It bears every mark 
 of being what he himself in the dedication to one of his plays 
 tells us that it was, a spirited copy taken off and carefully 
 revised from the most select society of his time, exhibiting all 
 the sprightliness, ease, and animation of familiar conversation 
 with the correctness and delicacy of the most finished com- 
 position." 
 
 Two years before the publication of Congreve's last play, 
 the Restoration comedy received what proved to be its death- 
 blow. In- r y ^fr , Jeremy Collier, a nonjuring clergyman of High 
 Church and High Tory proclivities, published his " Short View 
 of the Profaneness and Immorality' of the English Stage." 
 < -.Her was a keen controversialist, harsh, firm, and unbending; 
 a man of considerable learning (his "Ecclesiastical History" 
 is still in some sort a standard work), and possessed of a 
 vigorous and telling style. Though disfigured by much irrele- 
 vant, and indeed absurd matter, the "Short View" was on 
 the whole so just an indictment of the license which the dra- 
 matists had allowed themselves, that its effect was very great. 
 11 I lis onset was violent," says Johnson ; "those passages which, 
 e they stood single, had passed with little notice, when 
 they were accumulated and exposed together excited horror ; 
 the wise and the pious caught the alarm, and the nation 
 lered why it had so long suffered irreligion and licentious- 
 ness to be taught at the public charge." 1 )ryden, who was the 
 1 ominent • t of attack, had thi d sense to kiss 
 
 the rod. " I shall say the less of Mr. Collier," he wrote in the 
 preface to his "Fables," " because in many things he has taxed
 
 i 50 The Restoration. 
 
 me justly, and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and 
 expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, 
 profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my 
 enemy, let him triumph ; if he be my friend, as I have given 
 him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of 
 my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the 
 defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a 
 good one." Many of Dryden's fellow-offenders were not so 
 prudent. Congreve entered the lists in defence of the dra- 
 matists, and, with the usual ill-fortune which attends contro- 
 versialists in behalf of a bad cause, instead of assailing the 
 parts of Collier's production which were really open to attack, 
 argued with so little ability as to expose himself to a crush- 
 ing rejoinder. It would be foolish to attribute the influence 
 exerted by the "Short View" to Collier's ability alone. It 
 owed its success in great measure to the fact that it chimed in 
 with a wide-spread public sentiment. 
 
 Among the authors of replies to Collier was Sir John Van- 
 brugh (i666?-i726), the most distinguished architect of his 
 day, and one of the wittiest dramatists. As an architect, his 
 principal achievements were the noble erections of Blenheim 
 and Castle Howard ; as a dramatist, the " Relapse " and the 
 "Provoked Wife," which were produced about 1697. His 
 plays are full of fun, and its ordinary accompaniment in those 
 days — indecency. He has little or nothing of the refined art 
 of Congreve. "Van," Pope truly said, "wants grace who 
 never wanted wit ;" but there is about him a flavour of jovial 
 high spirits and comic power, which makes his plays (apart 
 from the defect mentioned) very pleasant reading. 
 
 A writer in many ways resembling Vanbrugh was George 
 Farquhar, a gay Irishman of lively fancy and much vivacity. 
 He was the son of a clergyman, and was born at Londonderry 
 in 1678. He quitted Trinity College, Dublin, where he had 
 fallen into some scrape, and, while still a mere boy, became an 
 actor. At the age of eighteen he bade farewell to the boards, 
 having obtained a commission in the army from the Earl of 
 Orrery. When only twenty years old he won credit by his
 
 7v. B. Sheridan. 1 5 1 
 
 first play, " Love and a Bottle," and steadily improved in his 
 art till the close of his brief life in his thirtieth year. His 
 best plays are his two last, the "Recruiting Officer" (1706) 
 and the " Beaux Stratagem" (1707). In the first, scenes of 
 low life, evidently drawn from actual observation, are described 
 with great humour and fidelity to nature. The second, which 
 was written in the short space of six weeks, contains the 
 admirable portrait of Boniface, the landlord, which has become 
 as classical in its way as that of Mr. Pickwick or any other 
 hero of fiction. 
 
 This is the proper place in which to mention the last great 
 writer of the prose comedy of manners. Though many years 
 separate Richard Brinsley Sheridan from Wycherley, Congreve, 
 Yanbrugh, and Farquhar, he is animated by their spirit, though 
 happily he has none of their license of language. Sheridan 
 was born in Dublin in 1 75 1. His father, a man of some note 
 in his day, is now chiefly remembered as the theme of certain 
 of Johnson's most pungent sarcasms. "Why, sir," said the 
 Doctor on one occasion, " Sherry is dull, naturally dull ; but 
 it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what 
 we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature." 
 Sheridan was educated at Harrow, and his first production was 
 a translation of a worthless Greek writer, done in conjunction 
 with a friend whose acquaintance he had formed there. While 
 still a very young man, without fortune and without any high 
 position in society, he married the beautiful Miss Linley, who 
 had been courted by many wealthy and titled admirers. In 
 1775 ne produced his first comedy, "The Rivals, " an admirable 
 piece of writing, carefully elaborated, and one blaze of wit 
 from beginning to end. In 1777 appeared his masterpiece, 
 the "School for Scandal," which is still, aftei so many years, 
 always welcomed on the stage. In 1779 was produced the 
 farce of " I I the idea of which IS borrowed from the 
 
 •■ r hearsal," but which is nevertheless a most admirable and 
 mirth-provokin inancc. Besides these, he wrote, in 1775, 
 
 a slight farce called "S:. Patrick's Day," and "The Duenna," 
 containing some songs which are excellent of their kind. "His
 
 1 5 2 The Restoration. 
 
 table-songs," says Leigh Hunt, " are always admirable. When 
 he was drinking wine he was thoroughly in earnest." He also 
 wrote two serious dramas, but they are of no value. In 1780 
 Sheridan became a member of Parliament, and though the 
 faults of his private life told greatly against him, he soon 
 became noted as one of the most eloquent speakers in an 
 assembly which contained Burke, and Fox, and Pitt. "What- 
 ever Sheridan has done or chosen to do," said Byron, "has 
 been, par excellence, the best of its kind. He has written the 
 best comedy ('School for Scandal'), the best drama ('The 
 Duenna,' to my mind far beyond that St. Giles lampoon, the 
 'Beggar's Opera'), the best farce ('The Critic,' it is only too 
 good for a farce), and the best address (Monologue on Garrick) ; 
 and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous 
 Begum speech) ever conceived or heard of in this country." 
 This is absurdly over-laudatory ■ but Sheridan was certainly a 
 man of brilliant abilities, and, with all his love of dissipation, 
 could labour strenuously when he had made up his mind to 
 achieve any design. His comedies are a continual running 
 fire of wit; not true to nature and utterly destitute of that 
 highest kind of humour which approaches pathos, but full of 
 happy turns of expression and admirably constructed with a 
 view to stage representation. He is the last of our playwriters 
 who have produced works both excellent as literature and also 
 good acting dramas. Sheridan lived a shifty and vagabond 
 existence, constantly in debt and constantly harassed by duns, 
 whose demands he, by long experience, acquired unrivalled 
 dexterity in evading. In the closing years of his life his 
 wealthy and titled friends forsook him, and he was reduced to 
 sore straits. He died in 181 6. 
 
 Only three good writers of tragedy appeared in the period 
 with which we are dealing. Thomas Otway (1651-1685) pos- 
 sessed more of the fire and passion of the great Elizabethans 
 than any of his contemporaries. His chief plays, "The Orphan" 
 and "Venice Preserved," show great powers of pathos, and, 
 although too inflated in style, are more impressive and of 
 deeper interest than the dramas of any other tragedian of the
 
 Isaac Barrow. 153 
 
 time. The unfortunate poet died in a state of wretched 
 poverty. In the plays of Nathaniel Lee, who was subject to 
 attacks of insanity, we find considerable genius for tragedy 
 united with a propensity to indulge freely in bombast and 
 fustian. The "Rival Queens " and " Lucius Junius Brutus" 
 are his best plays. He died in 1692. Nicholas Rowe (1673- 
 17 18), who also deserves remembrance as having been the 
 first editor and biographer of Shakespeare, was the author 
 of two tragedies which were at one time much admired, the 
 "Fair Penitent " and "Jane Shore." In the former appears 
 the "gallant, gay Lothario," the prototype of Richardson's 
 Lovelace and of innumerable romance-heroes of a similar 
 description. Rowe, who was a very estimable man, had his 
 death commemorated by the following epitaph of Pope, which 
 shows the extent of his popularity among his contemporaries : — - 
 
 "Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust, 
 
 And near thy Shakespeare place thy honoured bu.st ; 
 Oh ! next him, skilled to draw the tender tear, 
 For never heart-felt passion more sincere ; 
 To nobler sentiment to fire the brave, 
 For never Briton more disdained a slave. 
 Peace to thy gentle shade and endless rest ! 
 Tlest in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest ! 
 And blest that timely from our scene removed, 
 Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved." J 
 
 As already stated, Dryden in force and elegance of style- 
 stands at the head of the prose writers of this period, which 
 docs not contain many authors whose fame has outlived their 
 own time. Nevertheless there are a few great names, notably 
 some divines of the Church of England, whose works are still 
 reckoned classics. Of these, Dr. Isaac Barrow is especially 
 in' morable, not only for his literary gifts, but for his varied 
 learning. Bum in 1630, the son of a linendrapei in London, 
 ■ Dtered the University of Cambridge when very young. 
 There at first his attention was turned to the study of physical 
 science, and alter he had obtained the degree of Bachelor 
 of Arts he applied himself to the study of medicine. Disi 
 
 K
 
 154 The Restoration. 
 
 appointed in the hopes he had formed of obtaining the Greek 
 professorship, he determined to go abroad, and spent some 
 years in travelling in France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and 
 Holland. On his return to England he took orders, and in 
 1660 was elected professor of Greek in the University of 
 Cambridge. Two years after he was appointed professor of 
 geometry in Gresham College. In 1663 he became Lucasian 
 professor of mathematics in Cambridge, and resigned both his 
 other offices. In 1669, having resolved to devote himself to 
 the study of theology, he resigned his chair in favour of Isaac 
 Newton. In 1670 he was made D.D. by royal mandate; two 
 years after he was appointed master of Trinity College, and 
 in 1675 he was chosen vice-chancellor of the University. He 
 died in 1677. Barrow is the author of numerous mathematical 
 publications in Latin, and of three folio volumes of English 
 w.orks, published posthumously in 1685. They consist for the 
 rrfost part of sermons. Barrow was in his day a very popular 
 preacher, though his sermons were of unusual length even for 
 that age. He seldom employed less than an hour and a half 
 in delivering a discourse, and on one occasion, when preaching 
 before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, spoke for 
 three hours and a half. Being asked on coming down from 
 the pulpit whether he was not tired, he replied, " Yes, indeed, 
 I began to be weary with standing so long." Barrow's mathe- 
 matical keenness and ingenuity of intellect is well shown by 
 his famous definition of wit, which has been so often quoted. 
 It also shows his fertility of illustration and his habit of dealing 
 fully with all sides of a subject. Occasionally in his writings 
 we meet with happy phrases, such as " A straight line is the 
 shortest in morals as well as in geometry;" but such epigram- 
 matic turns are rare. In one place he describes with consider- 
 able felicity the general literary character of his period: "All 
 reputation appears now to vail and stoop to that of being a 
 wit. To be learned, to be wise, to be good, are nothing in 
 comparison thereto; even to be noble and rich are inferior 
 things, and afford no such glory. Many at least, to purchase 
 this glory, to be deemed considerable in this faculty, and
 
 ArcJibishop Til lot son. 155 
 
 enrolled among the wits, do not only make shipwreck of con- 
 science, abandon virtue, and forfeit all pretences to wisdom, 
 but neglect their estates and prostitute their honour ; so, to the 
 private damage of many particular persons, and with no small 
 prejudice to the public, are our times possessed and transported 
 with this humour." 
 
 John Tillotson, also born in 1630, became after the Revolu- 
 tion the most admired preacher in London, and was a special 
 favourite of Queen Mary. He was born in Yorkshire of 
 Puritan parents, but in 1662 submitted to the Act of Uni- 
 formity. After holding various ecclesiastical appointments, 
 he removed to London, where his sermons soon attracted 
 attention. After the Revolution he obtained from King 
 William the deanery of St. Paul's, and in 1691 was appointed 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1694. Tillotson was 
 a tolerant, open-minded man, without a trace of ecclesiastical 
 bigotry, always more willing to conciliate than to crush 
 opponents, and fondly cherishing schemes to draw the Non- 
 conformists within the pale of the Church of England. His 
 popularity is shown by the high price obtained for his sermons, 
 which were published posthumously in three folio volumes. 
 They were, says Macaulay, "bought by the booksellers for the 
 almost incredible sum of two thousand five hundred guineas, 
 equivalent, in the wretched state in which the silver coin then 
 was, to at least throe thousand six hundred pounds. Such a 
 price had never before been given in England for any literary 
 copyright. About the same time Dryden, whose reputation 
 was then in its zenith, received thirteen hundred pounds for 
 his translation of all the works of Virgil, and was thought to 
 have been splendidly remunerated." Dryden, it may be men- 
 tioned, is said "to have owned with pleasure that if he had 
 any talent for English prose, it was owing to his having often 
 read the writings of Archbishop Tillotson." But Dryden had 
 written excellent prose before Tillotson appeared as an author, 
 and long before he became famous; nor indeed is there any 
 noticeable resemblance between their styles. The merits of 
 TillotSOn's style are its case and simplicity; but he is tauto-
 
 156 The Restoration. 
 
 logical and diffuse in no ordinary degree. Not only does he 
 ring the changes on ideas — a very common fault in sermons 
 — but he is apt to heap together synonymous words in a 
 rather irritating way. The following extract, which is a fair 
 sample of his style, shows this peculiarity: — "Truth is always 
 consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is 
 always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to 
 drop out before we are aware ; whereas a lie is troublesome, 
 and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick 
 needs a great many more to make it good. It is like building 
 upon a false foundation, which continually stands in need of 
 props to shore it up, and proves at last more chargeable than 
 to have raised a substantial building at first upon a true and 
 solid foundation ; for sincerity is firm and substantial, and 
 there is nothing hollow or unsound in it, and because it is 
 plain and open, fears no discovery ; of which the crafty man is 
 always in danger ; and when he thinks he walks in the dark, 
 all his pretences are so transparent that he that runs may 
 read them.''' Tillotson probably presents more examples than 
 any author of passages wherewith to exercise the skill of the 
 student of English composition in weeding out their superfluous 
 words and phrases. 
 
 Three other notable divines, all ardent controversialists, 
 were Stillingfleet, Sherlock, and South. Edward Stilling- 
 fleet ( 1 635-1 699) defended with considerable vigour and 
 acrimony the doctrines of the Church of England, attacking 
 all her opponents, Atheists, Unitarians, Papists, and Dis- 
 senters. In 1686 he had a controversy with Dryden, who 
 had been employed to defend the reasons of conversion to 
 the Catholic faith by Anne Hyde, which were said to have 
 been found in Charles II. 's strong-box. In this controversy 
 he had decidedly the best of it, but he was signally worsted in 
 a dispute with Locke on the doctrine of the Trinity, and the 
 mortification he then sustained is said to have hastened his 
 death. William Sherlock (1641-1707) "entered warmly into 
 dispute with the most busy sectaries of the time, the Solifi- 
 dians and Antinominans, who appeared in the reign of
 
 Bishop Burnet. 157 
 
 Elizabeth; with the Catholics and Nonconformists, the latter 
 of whom he was very anxious to bring back to the Established 
 Church." Sherlock is now chiefly remembered by his " Dis- 
 course Concerning Death," published in 1690. His "Vindica- 
 tion of the Doctrine of the Trinity " was fiercely attacked by 
 Robert South (1633-17 16), who has been very unjustly called 
 "the wittiest of English divines." No doubt he displays a 
 great command of satirical wit, but his wit was neither so 
 spontaneous nor so affluent as Fuller's. South, who had a 
 brilliant university career, was an extreme Anglican, adhering 
 firmly to the doctrine of passive obedience and the divine 
 right of kings. At the Revolution, though, after some delay, 
 he took the oaths to the new Government, he steadily declined 
 preferment, declaring, " that notwithstanding he, for his part, 
 saw nothing that was contrary to the laws of God and the 
 common practice of all nations to submit to princes in posses- 
 sion of the throne, yet others might have their reasons for a 
 contrary opinion; and he blessed God that he was neither so 
 ambitious nor in want of preferment as for the sake of it to 
 build his rise upon the ruin of any one father of the Church, 
 who for piety, good morals, and strictness of life, which every 
 one of the deprived bishops were famous for, might be said 
 not to have left their equal." His solid erudition, united to 
 his command of language and his frequent flashes of wit, give 
 his sermons high literary value ; but the intolerant spirit which 
 animates all his works contrasts very unfavourably with the 
 conciliatory tone and forbearance of Tillotson. 
 
 Another divine, of great popularity as a preacher, but whose 
 fame is grounded upon his historical works, was Gilbert 
 Burnet, a prominent figure in the history of the Revolution of 
 1688. He was born at Edinburgh in 1C43, and educated at 
 Marischal College, Aberdeen, which, in accordance with the 
 ridiculous fashion of the time, he entered when he was ten 
 years old, graduating when he was fourteen. He then applied 
 himself to the study of civil law, but soon turned aside from 
 this pursuit to devote himself to theology. In 1C69 he was 
 made professor of divinity at Glasgow, which office he held
 
 158 The Restoration. 
 
 about four years, resigning in 1673, when he went to London. 
 There he soon attracted attention as a preacher and as a man 
 of liberal opinions. During the troubled reign of James II. 
 he went abroad, and after a tour through various parts of 
 the Continent, was invited to the Hague by the Prince and 
 Princess of Holland. He afterwards accompanied the Prince 
 in his expedition to England as his chaplain, and took a 
 leading part in the politics of the Revolution. In 1689 he 
 was appointed Bishop of Salisbury. So attractive were his 
 pulpit ministrations, that he was often, says Macaulay, "inter- 
 rupted by the deep hum of his audience, and when, after 
 preaching out the hour-glass, he held it up in his hand, the 
 congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the 
 sand had run off once more/' We doubt very much if there 
 is any preacher now living whose congregation would listen to 
 him with attention and sympathy for two hours ; but sermons 
 were more popular in those days, when reading was not a 
 universal accomplishment. Burnet died in 17 15, having spent 
 a very industrious, active, and useful life. He was an honest, 
 courageous man, rather disposed to be fussy and interfering, 
 but a faithful and steady friend to those whose cause he had 
 adopted, and not disposed to keep up malice against his 
 enemies. He was the author of many writings, of which the 
 most noteworthy are " An Account of the Life and Death of 
 the Earl of Rochester" (1680), a book which Dr. Johnson 
 declared " the critic ought to read for its elegance, the 
 philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety," 
 though, as he once said in conversation, the " death " is better 
 than the " life ;" a " History of the Reformation of the Church 
 of England," in three volumes, of which the first appeared in 
 1679, gaining for him the thanks of Parliament ; and the " His- 
 tory of my Own Times," which was published posthumously. 
 The last is his most valuable work, though his " History of the 
 Reformation " contains a great store of information. "Burnet's 
 ' History of His Own Times,' " Johnson is recorded to have 
 said, "is very entertaining; the style, indeed, is mere chit-chat. 
 I do not believe that Burnet intentionally lied ; but he was so
 
 John Locke. 159 
 
 much prejudiced that he took no pains to find out the truth. 
 He was like a man who resolves to regulate his time by a 
 certain watch, but will not inquire whether the watch is right 
 or not." This is somewhat unjust as regards both Burnet's 
 accuracy and his style. All things considered, the History is 
 wonderfully accurate ; and the many character-portraits it 
 contains are masterpieces of shrewd description. 
 
 The greatest philosopher of the period was John Locke, 
 who besides did good work in helping forward the cause of 
 toleration. He was born in 1632 in Somersetshire, where his 
 father, who had been a captain in the Parliamentary army 
 during the Civil Wars, had a small estate. He was educated at 
 Westminster, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where 
 he took the degree of B.A. in 1655. About this time his 
 inclinations led him to study medicine, and he acquired suffi- 
 cient knowledge of physic to earn the praise of the great 
 Sydenham. He remained at Oxford till 1664, when he accom- 
 panied, as secretary, Sir Walter Vane, the envoy sent by 
 Charles II. to the Elector of Brandenburg during the Dutch 
 war. Two years afterwards he became acquainted with Lord 
 Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, who was so captivated 
 by his society that Locke became an inmate of his house, 
 where he mingled freely with the best society of the time. By 
 Shaftesbury, in 1692, he was made secretary of prosecutions, 
 but ill-health prevented him from holding this office long, and 
 induced him to visit France, where he resided for several years. 
 On Shaftesbury's fall from power Locke came to be looked on 
 with suspicion by the Government, and had to take refuge 
 in Holland. There he wrote, in Latin, his first "Letter on 
 I -ration," which appeared in 1689. In 1690-1692, he 
 published two other letters on the same subject, replying to 
 objections which had been urged against his doctrines. After 
 the Revolution Locke's defence of liberal principles was re- 
 warded by his being made Commissioner of Stamps, and after- 
 wards one of the Commissioners of Trade. In 1689 and 1690 
 he published "Two Treatises of Government," the first con- 
 taining a reply to the ridiculous theories of Sir Robert Filmer,
 
 1 60 The Restoration. 
 
 who, in his " Patriarchia " (1C80), upheld the divine right of 
 kings in its extrcmest form, the other treating of the true 
 original, extent, and end of civil government. In 1690 also 
 appeared his famous "Essay on the Human Understanding" 
 and his interesting tractate on Education. He died in 1704. 
 His "Essay on the Conduct of the Understanding" was pub- 
 lished posthumously. It is very highly praised by Hallam, 
 who declares that he cannot think any parent or instructor 
 justified in neglecting to put this little treatise in the hands of 
 a boy about the time his reasoning faculties become developed. 
 " It will give him a sober and serious, not flippant or self- 
 conceited, independency of thinking; and while it teaches 
 how to distrust ourselves and watch those prejudices which 
 necessarily grow up from one cause or another, will inspire a 
 reasonable confidence in what he has well considered, by 
 taking off a little of that deference to authority, which is the 
 more to be regretted in its excess, that, like its cousin-german, 
 party-spirit, it is frequently found united to loyalty of heart 
 and the generous enthusiasm of youth." Locke's style is 
 simple and graceful ; he was called by Landor the most 
 elegant of prose writers. He is a great name in the history 
 of philosophical thought, and his writings on Toleration and 
 Government had considerable political influence. 
 
 The establishment of the Royal Society dates from about 
 the time of the Restoration. It was incorporated by royal 
 charter in 1662. Its germ was a society which, in 1645, 
 during the turmoil and agitation of the Civil Wars, had been 
 formed in London by some quiet, studious men, of whom the 
 most notable were Dr. Ward, Dr. Wallis, and Dr. Wilkins. 
 " Our business," says Wallis, " was (precluding matters of 
 theology and state affairs) to discourse and consider of philo- 
 sophical inquiries, and such as related thereto, as Physick, 
 Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, Mag- 
 neticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments, 
 with the state of these studies and their cultivation at home and 
 abroad. We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, 
 the valves in the veins, the venae lactese, the lymphatic vessels,
 
 Sir Isaac Newton. 1 6 1 
 
 the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, 
 the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape of Saturn, the spots on 
 the sun and the turning on its own axis, the inequalities and 
 selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and 
 Mercury, the improvement of telescopes and grinding of 
 glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility 
 or impossibility of vacuities and Nature's abhorrence thereof, 
 the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, the descent of heavy 
 bodies and the degrees of acceleration therein, with divers 
 other things of like nature, some of which were then but new 
 discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced 
 as now [1696] they are; with other things appertaining to 
 what has been called the New Philosophy, which, from the 
 times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon (Lord 
 Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, 
 France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us 
 in England." This comprehensive survey well shows the 
 growing interest taken in science. Charles II. was fond of 
 dabbling in chemistry, and his courtiers followed suit, till it 
 became considered gentlemanly to have a tincture of scientific 
 knowledge. The increased orderliness and method of English 
 style which now began to prevail may in some measure be 
 attributed to the scientific spirit abroad, which was intolerant 
 of confusion and carelessness of arrangement. To this period 
 belongs the greatest name in the history of science, Sir Isaac 
 Newton (1 642-1 727), who cannot be altogether omitted even 
 in a purely literary history. He succeeded Barrow, whose 
 pupil he had been, as Lucasian professor of mathematics at 
 Cambridge, and published his great work, the "Principia," in 
 16 7. It was written in Latin. Besides his scientific work?, 
 he found time to write on ancient chronology, on the Scripture 
 prophecies, and "An Historical Account of Two Notable Cor- 
 ruptions of Scripture." These were published posthumously, 
 and are interesting for the light they throw on his religious 
 opinions. Their style is not specially remarkable in any way.
 
 V. 
 
 THE WITS OF QUEEN ANNE'S TIME. 
 
 Swift, Addison, Steele, Arbuthnol, Bolingbroke, Berkeley, Butler ; rope, 
 Prior, Gay, Young, Churchill, Gray, Collins, and Akcnside. 
 
 URING the reign of Queen Anne and the two first 
 Georges, the government of England was in a very 
 unsettled condition. Jacobitism, till finally crushed 
 in 1745-46, flourished among men who held high 
 places of trust, and was so prevalent among the community 
 at large that the restoration of the Stuart line was looked upon 
 by all sagacious observers as no unlikely event. It was a time 
 of the grossest political immorality, when men shifted sides un- 
 hesitatingly for the most selfish motives, and when both the 
 great political parties lived in constant fear of having their secrets 
 betrayed by traitors. Party spirit ran high, and Whigs and 
 Tories alike strained every nerve to win the voice of the public 
 to their side. Both employed armies of hack writers to advo- 
 cate their cause, and both were ready to shower gifts and 
 offices upon any writer of mark and talent who should employ 
 himself in their defence. The pen was then a much more 
 powerful political agent than it is now. Parliamentary report- 
 ing was forbidden, and thus the speech delivered in Parlia- 
 ment, which in our day, by the reports of it in the newspapers, 
 affects the minds of millions, could at the best only influence 
 the three or four hundred members who might happen to hear 
 it. Recess oratory and great political manifestoes at party 
 gatherings were little practised, nor would they have been
 
 Dean Swift. 16 
 
 attended by any widespread results though they had been 
 practised, for there was not yet such a thing as copious new . 
 paper reports of speeches. A well-written pamphlet, or a 
 series of vigorous articles in one of the political periodicals 
 which came into fashion in Queen Anne's time, was as power- 
 ful an auxiliary in either averting the ruin of a ministry or in 
 hastening it to its fall as a great oration defending his policy by 
 a Prime Minister or a scathing denunciation of the plans of 
 the Government by an Opposition leader is in the present day. 
 Under these circumstances, and considering the munificent 
 rewards popular and telling party writers often had bestowed 
 upon them, it is not surprising that the literature of the time 
 with which we are now dealing should have been pre-eminently 
 a party literature. Almost every eminent prose writer of the 
 period — Defoe, Swift, Addison, Steele, and others — ranged 
 himself on the side of the Whig or the Tory party, and em- 
 ployed his pen in its defence. The effect of this on prose 
 style was on the whole favourable, giving it greater energy, 
 precision, and lucidity than it had yet possessed. But it had 
 also its evil results. Something of the want of moral eleva- 
 tion and breadth of view which distinguished the politics of 
 the age communicated itself to the literature : with all its 
 many good qualities, the so-called Augustan period of English 
 literature has about it a worldly air and an absence of any 
 spiritual insight. 
 
 Among the men of letters who entered the bustling arena of 
 political controversy was the greatest and most original writer 
 of his time, Jonathan Swift, one of the most powerful, most 
 imperious, and most puzzling figures our literary history pre- 
 sents. Me was born in Dublin in 1667. It was only by the 
 accident of birth that he was an Irishman. lie was descended 
 from an old Yorkshire family, and had no Irish blood in his 
 veins. Even he, though wiser and more far-sighted in regard 
 to Ireland than almost any of his contemporaries, always spoke 
 of the native Irish with that indiscriminating contempt which 
 has since born such bitter fruit. Swift was a posthumous 
 child, and his mother having been left very slenderly provided
 
 164 The Wits of Queen Anne s Time. 
 
 for, the expenses of his education were defrayed in what appears 
 to have been a sufficiently grudging fashion by his uncle God- 
 win. He was educated at the school of Kilkenny, and then 
 at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained his degree 
 spcciali gratia in 1685. In 1689 he became private secretary 
 to Sir William Temple, whose wife was a relative of his 
 mother's. All things considered, Swift entered the world under 
 very promising auspices. Temple (1628-1699) was a veteran 
 diplomatist and statesman, who had taken a leading part in 
 negotiating the Triple Alliance, and he was universally looked 
 up to and consulted in his old age as one of the most wary, 
 sagacious, and politic of men. As an author he ranks high, 
 not so much because his works show great power or genius, 
 as because he was one of the first to obtain a mastery over 
 the great and difficult art of English prose composition. "Sir 
 William Temple," Johnson is reported to have said, " was the 
 first writer who gave cadence to English prose. Before his 
 time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind 
 whether a sentence ended with an important word or an in- 
 significant word, or with what part of speech it was concluded." 
 In the household of Temple at Moor Park, Swift had ample 
 opportunity for increasing his store of knowledge, and, besides, 
 he was admitted behind the scenes of political Hfe, and even 
 had the honour on one occasion of acting as Temple's mouth- 
 piece in advising King William regarding the policy he should 
 pursue as to the Triennial Bill. Yet he felt his position very 
 galling. He was a dependant, his proud, imperious, self-con- 
 fident nature chafed bitterly against the chains of servitude, 
 however richly gilded they might be ; and Temple, a man of 
 cold, selfish, precise disposition, was a master whose behests 
 it was not always easy to obey with cheerfulness. With but a 
 brief interval, during which, apparently in despair of ever ob- 
 taining any lay promotion from his patron, he committed the 
 great mistake of his life by taking orders, Swift remained with 
 Temple till his death in 1699. It was during his residence at 
 Moor Park that he first became acquainted with the woman, 
 then a little girl, whose name is indissolubly connected with
 
 Swift's " Tale of a Tub." 165 
 
 his. Esther Johnson, better known as Stella, was only about 
 six years old when Swift saw her first. He constituted him- 
 self her tutor, "directing," he says, "what books she should 
 read, and perpetually instructing her in the principles of 
 honour and virtue, from which she never swerved in any one 
 action or moment of her life." 
 
 In 1699 Swift went to Ireland with Lord Berkeley as private 
 chaplain. From him he expected high ecclesiastical promo- 
 tion, but his hopes were, as usual, doomed to disappointment. 
 To his bitter grief and mortification, he had to be content with 
 the livings of Laracor and Rathbeggin in the county of Meath, 
 to which he was appointed in 1700. He performed his duties as 
 a clergyman in a manner which, if it would now be considered 
 perfunctory, was probably more exemplary than was then usual, 
 though he often left his " parish, with an audience of half a 
 score," to go to England, there to advance his fortunes by be- 
 coming acquainted with wits and statesmen. His first publi- 
 cation, "A Discourse on the Contests and Dissensions be- 
 tween the Nobles and Commons at Athens and Rome," which 
 appeared in 1701, had a political intent, being meant to check 
 the impeachment of Somers, Halifax, Oxford, and Portland 
 for their share in the Partition Treaty. When he visited Eng- 
 land in 1702, he avowed the authorship of this tract, and thus 
 won the regard of the leading Whig statesmen and their 
 political allies. In 1704 he published anonymously the " Tale 
 of a Tub," which appears to have lain for about seven or eight 
 years in MS. His authorship of it was never acknowledged, 
 but it was generaliy known that he was the writer, and the 
 work proved the one insurmountable obstacle to his profes- 
 sional preferment. In vigour and poignancy of satire, in 
 grave irony, in masculine force and intensity, the "Tale of a 
 Tub" has never been surpassed. On one occasion, when in 
 his old age he happened to come across a copy of the work, 
 Swift exclaimed, " Good God ! what a genius I had when I 
 wrote that book !" But it was thought to have an irreligious 
 tendency, and Swift's natural love of obscenity appears Strongly 
 in many parts of it, so that while it made him known as a
 
 1 66 The Wits of Queen Anne 's Time. 
 
 man of genius, it also caused him to be regarded with sus- 
 picion as an ecclesiastic. The three sons, Peter, Jack, and 
 Martin, who figure in the allegory, are intended to represent 
 Popery, Presbyterianism, and Episcopalianism, and the story 
 of their adventures is so related as to favour Episcopalianism, 
 for Swift was always strongly attached to the Anglican Church. 
 Along with the " Tale of a Tub " was printed the " Battle of 
 the Books," which had been written at Moor Park in behalf 
 of Temple, who had taken a prominent part in a very foolish 
 controversy as to the relative merits of ancient and modern 
 literature. It does not show the same condensation and 
 elaboration as distinguish Swift's later satires. During the 
 years 1708-9 he published several tracts, of which the most 
 noticeable is his famous "Argument against the Abolishing of 
 Christianity," an admirable specimen of his gravely ironical 
 style, and his " Predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff," a squib 
 upon the astrological almanac-makers of the time, in which, 
 among other things, he predicted that John Partridge, one of 
 the chief members of the body, would die on a certain speci- 
 fied date. In his almanac for 1709, Partridge proclaimed 
 that he " was still living, and in health, and all were knaves 
 who reported otherwise." Swift replied in a very amusing 
 pamphlet, " The Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff," in which he 
 argued that Partridge was quite mistaken, and that he really 
 was dead. "The jest," says Mr. Forster, "had by this time 
 diffused itself into so wide a popularity that all the wits be- 
 came eager to take part in it ; Rowe, Steele, Addison, and 
 Prior contributed to it in divers amusing ways, and Congreve 
 described, under Partridge's name, the distresses and re- 
 proaches Squire Bickerstaff had exposed him to, insomuch 
 that he could not leave his door without somebody twitting 
 him for sneaking about without paying his funeral expenses. 
 The poor astrologer himself meanwhile was continually adver- 
 tising that he was not dead." 
 
 We now come to the most active and exciting period of 
 Swift's career. Till 17 10 he had supported the Whigs — not so 
 strenuously, it is true, as he afterwards supported the rival
 
 Swift 's," Examiner" 167 
 
 party, but still with considerable zeal. His services had not 
 been rewarded, and there can be no doubt that the personal 
 neglect with which he was treated was the main reason why 
 he, in 1710, transferred his talents to the Tory ministry of 
 Harley and St. John. By his new associates he was received 
 with open arms. " We were determined to have you," said 
 St. John ; " you were the only one we were afraid of." Till 
 the fall of the Tory ministry in 1 714, Swift occupied a position 
 which for real power and influence was probably unsurpassed. 
 " He held probably," writes Mr. Hannay, 1 " the most potent 
 position that a writer ever held in this country, but all the 
 while held it in a dubious unrecognised way. He was the 
 patron of men of letters ; got them places and got them money. 
 He 'crammed' the ministers; and his pen was not employed 
 in quizzing hoops or patches, or sneering at City people — it 
 was an engine of power over all England. He used it as an 
 orator does his tongue, — to do something with. In a word, he 
 was a power in the State \ and, indeed, it is one of the few 
 pleasant things to read about in the records of these days, how 
 those who, in their hearts, tried to despise him as an ' Irish 
 parson,' — how, I say, they dreaded him ; how they flattered 
 and courted him ; and how they felt that he was their master." 
 During this period Swift wrote his most telling political pam- 
 phlets, the " Conduct of the Allies," the " Letter to the October 
 Club ;" and the Examiner, a weekly periodical which had 
 been started in support of the new ministry, and which he 
 conducted for seven months, assailing the enemies of his party 
 with the intensest virulence and the most trenchant ridicule. 
 Of more permanent value than his political writings is his ever- 
 charming "Journal to Stella," which he wrote during the years 
 of his residence in London : " that wonderful journal," says 
 Mr. Forster, " that unrivalled picture of the time, in which he 
 set down day by day the incidents of these momentous years ; 
 which received every hope, fear, or fancy in its undress as it 
 rose to him ; which was written for one person's private pleasure, 
 and has had indestructible attractiveness for every one since." 
 1 " Satire and Satirists," p. 1G0.
 
 16S The Wits of Qucc7i Anne s Time. 
 
 " Stella " had removed to Ireland shortly after Swift received 
 the living of Laracor, and now lived there, along with Mrs. 
 Dingley, a relation of the Temple family. 
 
 The fond expectations cherished by Swift that his Tory 
 friends would reward his great exertions in their favour by a 
 bishopric fell to the ground as completely as his former hopes 
 of preferment. Queen Anne would not make a bishop of the 
 author of the " Tale of a Tub;" all the advancement he received 
 was being made Dean of St. Patrick's in 1713. On the death 
 of the Queen the Whigs again returned to power ; and Swift, 
 a soured and disappointed man, went back to Ireland to pass 
 the remainder of his days with dire scorn and indignation 
 gnawing at his heart. By the publication in 1720 of the tract 
 proposing the "Universal Use of Irish Manufactures," and still 
 more by his famous " Drapier's Letters " (1723) written against 
 Ward's patent for a copper coinage, he raised himself to un- 
 exampled popularity in Ireland ; his name was in every mouth 
 as the saviour of his country, and so great was the commotion 
 excited that the patent had ultimately to be withdrawn. His 
 success did nothing to cheer him : he still remained the same 
 gloomy and misanthropic man. In 1726-27 he published 
 " Gulliver's Travels," his most generally read work, the last 
 part of which shows to how terrible an extent he carried what 
 he believed to be his virtuous indignation against the " villanies 
 and corruptions of mankind." In his latter years a settled 
 melancholy spread over him. When parting with a friend he 
 would say with a sigh, " I hope I shall never see you again." 
 The melancholy gradually darkened into madness. During the 
 last three years of his life he is known to have spoken only 
 once or twice. At length, in October 1745, death came to 
 his release. He bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to found 
 and endow an asylum in Dublin for lunatics and idiots. 
 
 Stella had died before him in 1727. How truly and tenderly 
 he loved her, the thousand endearing expressions in the 
 "Journal" amply show. But the dark cloud which over- 
 shadowed all Swift's life, overshadowed his relations with her 
 also. Mr. Forster, whose unfinished Life of Swift is, with all
 
 Swift's Character. 169 
 
 its wordiness and tediousness, a splendid tribute to this great 
 satirist's memory, could see no sufficient evidence for the story 
 that Swift became united to her by a private marriage. However 
 this may be, they certainly always lived apart. Of his relations 
 with Vanessa (Hester Vanhomrigh) we need not say much. 
 He became acquainted with her in London, where she made 
 him an offer of marriage, which he declined, without, however, 
 breaking off his intercourse with her ; followed him to Ireland ; 
 and died of a broken heart on becoming acquainted with his 
 intimacy with Stella. 
 
 Had Swift been born in such a position as to give him an 
 independent fortune, his life might have been a happy one. 
 Nay, if he had not entered the Church, but had risen (an event 
 quite within the range of possibility) like Addison to high 
 office in the State, it is very probable that we should never 
 have heard so much of his misanthropy and cynicism. Im- 
 patient of control, proud, contemptuous of inferiority, and 
 intolerant of stupidity, he never found a proper field wherein 
 to exercise his vast and daring genius. For literary fame, 
 except as a stepping-stone to what he considered higher ends, 
 he cared little or nothing: the finest fruits of his mind, 
 "Gulliver" and the "Tale of a Tub," were flung carelessly, 
 unacknowledged, upon the world. That there were noble and 
 generous tendencies in Swift's nature can scarcely be doubted 
 by any one who has studied him with impartiality. Strictly 
 economical in his personal expenses, he could, when occasion 
 required, give largely : like many who take care of the pence, 
 he sometimes dispensed the pounds with a bourateousness 
 which put to shame the charity of his apparently more free- 
 handed contemporaries. That he was often sullen, rude, in- 
 solent, and disdainful cannot be denied. But some of his 
 fugitive pieces, and especially the "Journal to Stella," show 
 that beneath his outward misanthropy and harshness lay a 
 vein of playfulness, tenderness, and affection. The fact that 
 he was a general favourite with women is a further proof in the 
 same direction. In spite of the large literature which has 
 accumulated round Swift's name, the key which shall enable 
 
 L
 
 i 70 The Wits of Queen Amies Time. 
 
 us to solve the many enigmas about his life and character, 
 which have baffled so many inquirers, still remains to be found. 
 He stands alone, a unique and portentous figure, to whom the 
 eyes of men will long be directed, some with pity and even 
 affection, some with aversion and distrust, all with wonder and 
 great admiration. Swift's outward appearance corresponded 
 to the character of him which we gather from his writings 
 and from other sources. He was, says Scott, "in person 
 tall, strong, and well made, of a dark complexion, but with 
 blue eyes, black and bushy eyebrows, nose somewhat aquiline, 
 and features which remarkably expressed the stern, haughty, 
 and dauntless turn of his mind." 
 
 As an author, Swift was prominent within his own range, 
 but his range was not very wide. For the sublime and pathetic 
 in composition he had no turn. His verses, of which he wrote 
 many, are clever, lively, and spirited, but they are not poetry 
 in any high sense of the word. His intellect was not at all 
 of an ethereal order: it was solid, massive, and intense, but 
 of the earth, earthy. Satire was his peculiar province ; there 
 his genius got full scope in expressing the fierce indignation 
 which lacerated his heart. Hating insincere sentiment, he was 
 too apt to believe that all sentiments to which his nature did 
 not respond were insincere ; the baser qualities of men stood 
 out much more prominently before his eyes than their virtues ; 
 and he often fell into the common error of satirists of supposing 
 that the anger which arose simply from his own jaundiced 
 imagination was the wrath of a good man disgusted with the 
 wickedness he saw around him. His style is simple, nervous, 
 terse, disdainful of gaudy ornament, yet often surprising us 
 by happy turns of expression and felicitous illustrations. As 
 his " Drapier's Letters " and other political writings show, he 
 could adapt himself admirably to any class to which he appealed, 
 never hesitating to use homely expressions, and picking out 
 with great skill the facts which best suited his purpose. His 
 love of gross allusions and filthy images is the great stain on 
 his literary fame. It no doubt arose, in part at least, from the 
 degraded notions he entertained of humanitv.
 
 Joseph A ddison . 171 
 
 To turn from the contemplation of Swift's dark and tem- 
 pestuous life to the calm, prosperous, happy career of Addison 
 is like viewing some sweet, tranquil spot in the sunny South, 
 with its delicately perfumed flowers and its luxuriance of fruits 
 and foliage, after looking on a wild mountain-pass, with its 
 rocks and gloomy recesses, its grand desolation, and its fierce 
 and gurgling streams rushing on unseen. True, Addison had 
 for a time to bear the burdens and trials of poverty, but it was 
 only for a short period, and poverty, where it does not last so 
 long as to sour one's temper and embitter one's views of life, 
 is an excellent schoolmaster if its lessons be viewed in a proper 
 spirit. It teaches forethought, self-reliance, sympathy with the 
 mass of humanity, industry and patience under difficulties. 
 None of these qualities was wanting in Addison : he is the 
 " model boy " of the school ; the most blameless, irreproach- 
 able of the wits of Queen Anne's time. The correct and 
 virtuous lad who receives the prize for good conduct, though 
 commended by his tutors and regarded with admiring hope 
 by his parents, is not, it is to be feared, always a popular 
 character j he is often destitute of those generous excesses, 
 those fine spontaneous impulses of a free and liberal nature, 
 which make us forgive not a few departures from the path 
 of strict decorum. Something of this is true about Addison. 
 Though no serious fault can be laid to his charge, he was a 
 little selfish, a little cold-hearted, had somewhat too keen an 
 " eye to the main chance," and sometimes carried prudence to 
 the verge of meanness. 
 
 Joseph Addison was born in 1672, the son of the Rev. 
 Lancelot Addison, Rector of Milston in Wiltshire, who after- 
 wards rose to be Dean of Lichfield. He was educated at the 
 Charterhouse, and afterwardsat Magdalen College, Oxford, where 
 he distinguished himself in the studies then most valued there, 
 acquiring a competent knowledge of the Latin poets, and 
 writing Latin verse with fluency and elegance. In his twenty- 
 second year he addressed some English verses to Drydcn 
 and soon after published a translation of the greater part of 
 Virgil's fourth Georgic, Addison's early poetical performances
 
 172 The Wits of Queen Anne s Time. 
 
 in Latin and in English do not merit much notice. After the 
 fashion of the time, he made them the vehicle of conveying 
 compliments to a good many persons whose patronage might 
 be of value to him : he praised Charles Montagu, he praised 
 Somers, and he praised King William. His encomiums were 
 not bestowed in vain. Montagu dissuaded him from the 
 design he had entertained of entering the Church, declaring 
 that the State could not at that time afford to spare to the 
 Church such a man as he was. A Government pension of 
 ^300 a year was obtained for him in order that he might 
 travel, and in the summer of 1699 Addison set out for the 
 Continent. The design of his journey probably was to enable 
 him to acquire such a knowledge of French as to qualify him 
 for acting as a diplomatist. 
 
 After travelling in France and Italy for about three years, Ad- 
 dison returned to England on the death of King William, which, 
 by depriving his political friends of power, had stopped his pen- 
 sion. Soon after, in 1 704, he published an account of his travels 
 in Italy, with a dedication to Lord Somers. The character 
 which Johnson gives of this work may be accepted as sub- 
 stantially correct : " As his stay in foreign countries was short, 
 his observations are such as might be supplied by a hasty 
 view, and consist chiefly in comparisons of the present face 
 of the country with the descriptions left us by the Roman 
 poets, from whom he made preparatory collections, though 
 he might have spared the trouble had he known that such 
 collections had been made twice before by the Italian 
 authors." About this time he wrote his " Dialogues on 
 Medals," which was not published till after his death. Like 
 the "Travels in Italy," it shows that Addison was what was 
 then called an "elegant scholar:" to anything like profound 
 erudition he could lay no claim, but he knew well those de- 
 partments of classical literature which were most esteemed in 
 polite society. After his return from the Continent he had to 
 endure for a short period the hardships of poverty, when, in 
 1704, a fortunate accident opened up to him the path to 
 power and riches. The great victory at Blenheim had roused
 
 Addison s Foetus. 173 
 
 the nation to the utmost enthusiasm, but none of the versifiers 
 who had attempted to celebrate it had talents sufficient to do 
 justice to the occasion. By the advice of Montagu (now Lord 
 Halifax) Addison was applied to, and readily undertook the 
 proposed task. When the poem was about half finished, it was 
 carried to Lord Treasurer Godolphin, who was so pleased with 
 the famous simile of the angel, that Addison was immediately 
 appointed to a Commissionership worth ^200 a year. This 
 " famous simile of the angel," which proved such a fortunate 
 stroke to Addison, is now, we imagine, little known. It runs 
 as follows : — 
 
 " But, O my muse ! what numbers wilt thou find 
 To sing the furious troops in battle joined ? 
 Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound, 
 The victors' shouts and dying groans confound ; 
 The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, 
 And all the thunders of the battle rise. 
 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, 
 That in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, 
 Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, 
 Examined all the dreadful scenes of war : 
 In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, 
 To fainting squadrons lent the timely aid, 
 Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 
 And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 
 So when an angel by divine command, 
 With rising tempests shakes a guilty land 
 (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), 
 Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
 And, pleased the Almighty's order to perform, 
 Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm." 
 
 Certainly these lines do not show any high poetical genius : 
 they are, in truth, commonplace enough ; nevertheless they are 
 as good as anything Addison ever wrote in verse, with the excep- 
 tion of a few hymns, to which their fine religious fervour lends 
 a perennial attractiveness. Shortly after "The Campaign," 
 Addison wrote the opera of "Rosamond," which, alter it had 
 failed on the Stage, he published, with a dedication to the 
 Duchess of Marlborough; "a woman," says Johnson, "with- 
 out skill, or pretensions to skill, in poetry or literature. His
 
 174 The Wits of Queen Amies Time. 
 
 dedication was therefore an instance of servile absurdity." 
 We need not criticise severely Addison's conduct in sometimes 
 dedicating his writings in very adulatory fashion to persons 
 whom he must have known to be unworthy of his praises. 
 His exploits in this direction turn pale before those of Dry- 
 den, a greater man. It was the fashion of the time — a fashion 
 productive of much lying and sycophancy, but which was 
 undoubtedly often efficacious in filling the pockets of a needy 
 author with gold. It was to single individuals, not to the 
 general public, that literary men looked for support, and 
 what wonder though they sometimes strained a point in their 
 endeavour to please their patrons ? In our own time, do we 
 not too frequently see writers of great power becoming untrue 
 to their genius, and writing works unworthy of them, to please 
 the capricious taste of their patrons, the public ? 
 
 Addison's promotion from a comparatively humble position 
 to the highest offices of State was very rapid. In 1706 he 
 was made Under Secretary of State. In 1708 he became a 
 member of Parliament, and in the same year was appointed 
 to go to Ireland, of which Wharton had become Lord-Lieu- 
 tenant, as Chief Secretary. Along with his secretaryship, 
 he obtained a patent appointing him keeper of the Irish 
 records for life, with a salary of over ^300 a year. This 
 wonderful success in life was no doubt largely owing to 
 Addison's tact and discretion, as well as to his abilities. He 
 was a conciliatory man, not ready either to give or to take 
 offence ; his political creed was of the most orthodox descrip- 
 tion — where his party went he was ready to go too ; and his 
 shrewd powers of observation and insight into the character 
 of men must have made him an adept in the difficult art, so 
 useful to Government officials, of managing people without 
 letting them know that you are managing them. 
 
 It was during his residence in Ireland that Addison first 
 attempted that species of composition in which he reigns 
 supreme. But here our story requires us to go back a little, 
 and to bring a new character on the scene. 
 
 Among the little senate of admirers to whom Addison gave
 
 Richard Steele. 1 7 5 
 
 laws, and who reverenced him as the greatest and wisest 
 man of the day, he had no more devoted henchman than 
 Dick Steele, a stout, jovial, kind-hearted man, of good 
 principles and bad practices, who had passed a haphazard, 
 reckless, and not unhappy life, sinning one day and repenting 
 the next, working strenuously when he did work, but ever ready, 
 on the slightest temptation, to fling aside his pen, and sally 
 forth to engage in the pursuit of pleasure. Steele was a year 
 older than Addison, having been born in Dublin in 167 1. His 
 mother was Irish ; whether his father was so or not is un- 
 certain. At the age of twelve he was sent from Dublin to 
 the Charterhouse, where \\z first made the acquaintance of 
 Addison. Thackeray, whose lecture on Steele x is full of that 
 peculiar sympathy which he always felt for men of his type of 
 character, says, doubtless with much truth, ' ; I am afraid no 
 good report could be given by his masters and ushers of that 
 thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted, little Irish 
 boy. He was whipped deservedly a great number of times. 
 Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other boys 
 to do his lessons for him, and only took just as much trouble 
 as should enable him to scuffle through his exercises, and by 
 good fortune escape the flogging-block." From the Charter- 
 house Steele went to Oxford, where he seems to have been 
 very idle. He left it without taking a degree, though not 
 without having given some evidence of his literary capacity, 
 for while there he wrote a comedy and a poem. At this 
 period of his life, however, his taste ran in the direction not 
 of a literary but of a military life, and his friends refusing to 
 buy him a commission, he enlisted as a private in the Horse 
 Guards. He obtained from Lord Cutts, whose private secre- 
 tary he became, an ensign's commission ; not, we may suppose, 
 granted him on account of his attention to his duties, but 
 because he was a likeable man, whose wit and generous 
 
 1 In his "Engli h Humourists of the Eighteen! ury," the note to 
 
 which — not the least interesting or valuable part of the amusing volume- 
 are, it may be worth mentioning, by James Ilannay, author of "Singleton 
 Fontenoy," &c.
 
 ij6 The Wits of Queen Anne s Time. 
 
 disposition made him a general favourite. At this, as at all 
 other periods of his life, Steele sowed wild oats profusely, and 
 reaped their customary harvest of remorse and repentance 
 frequently, and with great intensity. Unfortunately, however, 
 he always soon grew tired of the latter occupation, and broke 
 off in the middle of it to sow wild oats again with as great 
 industry as ever. It was during his temporary fits of repent- 
 ance that he wrote his first book, "The Christian Hero," which 
 appeared in 1701. Though its intent was good, the difference 
 between the preaching and the practice of the writer was 
 productive of a good deal of irreverent laughter among his 
 comrades. In the following year he wrote a comedy, " The 
 Funeral," which met with a fair share of success. In 1703 
 and 1704 he wrote two other plays, "The Tender Husband" 
 and "The Dying Lover," of which the first succeeded, while 
 the other failed — on account of its piety, Steele boasted ; on 
 account of its dulness, said others. About this time he quitted 
 the army, having received through the influence of his friends 
 the appointment of Gazetteer, with a salary of ^"300 a year. 
 He now became a politician and a man of letters by profes- 
 sion, and entered freely into the literary society of the period. 
 In 1709 the happiest notion of his life occurred to him. 
 Under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, which Swift had made 
 popular, he resolved to edit a periodical of somewhat the 
 same kind as the Revieiv begun by Defoe in 1704, but, unlike 
 it, excluding party politics. This was the Tatler, of which 
 the first number was published on April 12, 1709. It was 
 published three times a week, and "was intended, in some 
 respects, to serve the purpose of a newspaper, as well as to 
 supply a series of brief essays on life and literature, or any 
 topic, in short, that the quick-witted author could, in the 
 language of the day, entertain the town with." Addison soon 
 discovered, by a passage in the sixth number containing a 
 remark on Virgil which he had made in the course of con- 
 versation, that " Isaac Bickerstaff," the editor of the Tatler, 
 was none other than his old companion Dick Steele, and he 
 lent him the invaluable assistance of his pen, not very
 
 The "Spectator" 177 
 
 frequently at first, but more often when the work was pretty 
 far advanced. "This good office," said Steele, with his usual 
 generosity and freedom from jealousy, " he performed with 
 such force of genius, humour, wit, and learning, that I fared 
 like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to 
 his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary ; when I had once 
 called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on 
 him." In so saying he perhaps overstated the case. If 
 Addison had the more subtle, delicate, and cultured mind, 
 Steele had more originality, and in the Tatler, as elsewhere, 
 he showed that fine chivalrous instinct which runs like a 
 thread of gold through all his writings. 
 
 The Tatler was, after a prosperous career, brought to a close 
 on January 2, 1711. On the 1st of March in the same year 
 appeared the first number of another periodical, also conducted 
 by Steele, of somewhat the same character. " No trace of the 
 newspaper or gazetteer was to be admitted ; it was to be alto- 
 gether literary in its character ; it was to fulfil the functions of 
 the modern magazine ; it was, in fact, the complete inauguration 
 of periodical literature. Brief essays, tales, imaginary corre- 
 spondence, imaginary conversations, strictures on the manners 
 and the morals of the day — there was nothing new in any of 
 these; but a publication which should present some one of 
 these every morning on the breakfast-table was a novel and 
 bold undertaking." The Spectator — for such was the name of 
 this new periodical — appeared daily, and was carried on with- 
 out intermission for about a year and nine months, ceasing on 
 December 6, 17 12. In 17 14 it was revived for a brief period, 
 the papers then published constituting the eighth volume in 
 the old editions. To the Tatler Steele was the most promi- 
 nent contributor ; it is the name of Addison, on the other 
 hand, which is inseparably connected with the Spectator. 
 Many good papers were contributed by Steele, and occa- 
 sional essays by other writers, some of whose names would 
 now be buried in oblivion had they not gained a sort 
 of immortality through their association with men of genius ; 
 but it is to Addison that the Spectator owes the major part of
 
 i;S The W its of Qaee7i Amies Time. 
 
 its fame. His best and most generally read papers in it 
 are, of course, those descriptive of men and manners. " He 
 walks about the world," writes Thackeray, " watching their 
 petty humours, fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries, and noting 
 them with the most charming archness. He sees them in 
 public, in the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show ; 
 or at the toyshop higgling for gloves and lace ; or at the 
 auction, battling together over a blue porcelain dragon or a 
 darling monster in Japan j or at church eying the width of the 
 ladies' hoops; or the breadth of their laces as they sweep down 
 the aisles ; or he looks out of the window at the Garter in St. 
 James's Street at Ardelia's coach, as she blazes to the drawing- 
 room with her coronet and six footmen ; and remembering 
 that her father was a Turkey merchant in the City, calculates 
 how many sponges went to purchase her earrings, and how 
 many drums of figs to build her coachbox ; or he demurely 
 watches behind a tree in Spring Gardens as Saccharissa (whom 
 he knows under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley 
 where Sir Fopling is waiting." His delicate satire and "gay 
 malevolence," as Johnson calls it, give his sketches a precision, 
 a neatness, an epigrammatic point which are wanting in Steele's 
 more clumsy and more good-humoured delineations. The 
 delightful papers relating to Sir Roger de Coverley, of which 
 Steele wrote eight, well show the distinctive differences between 
 the two friends. Addison's papers are better written, they 
 contain more fine touches and subtle strokes of humour than 
 Steele's ; but to Steele belongs the merit of having introduced 
 most of the features in the good knight's character which 
 make him so lovable. In one point, his just appreciation of 
 women, Steele was far in advance not only of Addison, whose 
 general tone towards the sex is that of quiet contempt, but of his 
 age generally. On Addison's critical papers, those on the "Plea- 
 sures of the Imagination," Milton's "Paradise Lost," &c, little 
 remark is necessary. They strike us now as barren and in- 
 sipid ; they show no depth or power of analysis ; his descrip- 
 tions of the fine passages in Milton are such as, apart from the 
 elegance of their style, might be written by any clever school-
 
 Addison s " Cato!' 179 
 
 boy. But considering the time when they were written, they 
 possess considerable merit, and even boldness. At a period 
 when the artificial school of poetry was in vogue, it was a daring 
 thing to praise the fine old ballad of " Chevy Chase," as Addi- 
 son did. How such pieces of poetry were generally regarded 
 then and for many years afterwards is well shown by Johnson's 
 comment on Addison's disquisition. " In ' Chevy Chase,' " he 
 says with commendable candour, " there is not much of either 
 bombast or affectation ; but there is chill and lifeless imbe- 
 cility. The story cannot possibly be told in a manner which 
 shall leave less impression on the mind." 
 
 It is now time to resume our account of Addison's life. In 
 1 7 13 he secured one of the greatest triumphs of his career. 
 While travelling in Italy he had projected a tragedy on the 
 subject of Cato's death, and, it would seem, had written part 
 of it. For several years he had had the first four acts of it 
 finished, and such of his friends as saw the manuscript were 
 unanimous in urging him to complete it. Some of them 
 thought it would be best for him to print it ; others thought that 
 it should be brought out on the stage. After much demurring 
 and hesitation, he finally agreed to adopt the latter plan. 
 Pope furnished a prologue, Garth an epilogue, and in 1713 
 " Cato " was acted at Drury Lane Theatre. Officious, enthu- 
 siastic Dick. Steele had taken care that the fame of his friend 
 Mr. Addison should not be endangered by its reception. The 
 house was carefully packed with an audience willing to applaud 
 it to the echo, and it obtained an almost unequalled success. 
 "The Whigs," says Johnson, "applauded every line in which 
 liljcrty was mentioned, as a satire on the Tories ; and the 
 T tries echoed every clap to show that the satire was unfelt.'' 
 During a whole month "Cato" was performed to crowded 
 houses ; and when it was printed, it was received with well- 
 nigh universal approval. Its pompous monotony was taken 
 for dignity, and its strict adherence to the critical rules then 
 pted was preferred by Addison's contemporaries to the 
 tiuth and nature of Shakespeare, In it the dramatic unities — 
 unity of place, unity of time, and unity of action — are observed
 
 i So The Wits of Queen Annes Time. 
 
 with a completeness which leads to some rather ridiculous 
 results ; all the characters go through their actions and their 
 speeches with the utmost conventional correctness ; but it does 
 not contain a passage which shows genuine poetic feeling, or 
 indeed high artistic skill of any kind. It lives now, if it lives at 
 all, by a few happy lines which have become stock quotations. 
 
 Amidst the general chorus of praise which hailed the produc- 
 tion of "Cato," one dissentient voice made itself heard with con- 
 siderable vehemence. Old John Dennis, a bitter and vindic- 
 tive critic, who railed at any successful production with intense 
 malignity and some acuteness, attacked it in a pamphlet, con- 
 siderable specimens of which are preserved by Johnson in his 
 Life of Addison. The fact that many of his strictures were just 
 did not make them any more palatable, but Addison made no 
 rejoinder. Pope, however, partly by way of courting Addison's 
 favour, partly because he saw, as he thought, a good opportu- 
 nity of wiping off sundry old scores of his own, published his 
 " Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis," a rather coarse and 
 unskilful performance. No doubt he thought he was doing 
 Addison a service, but Addison, whose conduct in the matter 
 does not seem to have been generous, thought otherwise, and 
 caused Dennis to be informed that he was sorry for the insult. 
 This was the beginning of a long literary feud between Pope 
 and Addison. Both appear to have hated each other cordially ; 
 and Addison has never been wholly acquitted of the charge 
 of having, by various sly intrigues, endeavoured to injure Pope's 
 reputation. Pope took revenge in the finest piece of satire he 
 ever wrote, the stinging lines on Atticus, with which every- 
 body is, or ought to be, acquainted. 
 
 On the death of Queen Anne, Addison was appointed 
 Secretary to the Regency. In 17 15 he obtained a seat at the 
 Board of Trade. In the following year he married the Countess 
 Dowager of Warwick, whom he had long courted, and whom 
 he at length obtained, " on terms much like those on which a 
 Turkish princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported 
 to pronounce, ' Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.'" 
 This union added nothing to his happiness. He would often
 
 Addison s Conversation. 181 
 
 escape from the uncomfortable grandeur of Holland House, 
 where he had resided since his marriage, to the ease and free- 
 dom of his favourite coffee-house, Button's, there to enjoy 
 himself in tranquil conversation with old friends, and would 
 afterwards adjourn to a tavern, where he indulged somewhat 
 freely in wine. In 1717 he was made one of the chief 
 Secretaries of State ; but as his constitutional timidity pre- 
 vented him from being a ready or effective speaker, the office 
 was not well suited to him, and he was soon glad to retire on 
 a pension of^i5oo a year. He died in June 1719. 
 
 In the company of one or two intimate friends, with whom 
 he could be at freedom, Addison talked long and excellently. 
 " He was," says Steele, "above all men in that talent called 
 humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection, that I have often 
 reflected, after a night spent with him apart from all the world, 
 that I had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaint- 
 ance of Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, 
 heightened with humour more exquisite and delightful than 
 any other man ever possessed." Pope, no partial witness, 
 confessed that Addison's conversation had something in it 
 more charming than was to be found in that of any other man. 
 But it was only when with one or two old associates that 
 Addison displayed his conversational talents : in a large 
 company he sat silent, partly from natural bashfulness, partly 
 from fear lest he should compromise his dignity. Alluding to 
 his fluency of composition compared with his deficiencies as a 
 ready talker, he used to say that he could draw bills for a 
 thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket. 
 
 Addison's principal political writings were a pamphlet pub- 
 lished in 1707 on the "Present State of the War," the Whig 
 J-'.xa miner, a periodical written in opposition to Swift's Exa- 
 miner, of which only five numbers appeared, and which Johnson 
 praises very highly, and the J'reeiiolder, which appeared twice a 
 week during part of 1715-16. The last contains the famous 
 sketch of the Tory Fox-Hunter, one of his best compositions. 
 It is sad to have to relate that before Addison's death political 
 differences led to an estrangement between him and Steele.
 
 I&2 The Wits of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 Addison was one of the sort of politicians dear to party-leaders, 
 who follow their chiefs submissively wherever they may lead 
 them, and who have no hobbies of their own, no strong opinions 
 which they are determined to act up to whether their colleagues 
 are opposed to them or not. The reverse is true of Steele. 
 He was ardent and impetuous in politics as in everything else ; 
 and when a measure was introduced of which he did not 
 approve, he opposed it strenuously, even though it was a 
 measure introduced by the ministry to which he owed his 
 appointments. When, in 17 19, the Whigs brought forward 
 their Peerage Bill, by which they proposed to limit the number 
 of the Peers, Addison supported the Ministers, while in a 
 paper called the Plebeian Steele vehemently attacked them. 
 This opposition led to mutual recriminations ; and the death 
 of Addison soon after prevented a reconciliation. 
 
 The leading events of Steele's life, from the foundation of 
 the Speetator till his death, may be briefly summed up. In 1713 
 he began the publication of a daily periodical called the 
 Guardian, which continued to be published during about 
 eight months, and to which Addison contributed largely. In 
 
 1714 the publication of two violent political pamphlets, the 
 " Englishman " and the " Crisis," led to his being expelled from 
 the House of Commons. His numerous productions on the 
 topics of the day it would be useless to enumerate. The 
 " Conscious Lovers," his best comedy, appeared in 1722. In 
 
 1715 he was appointed surveyor of the royal stables at 
 Hampton Court ; and about the same time received the 
 honour of knighthood. He afterwards held other appoint- 
 ments, and during the latter years of his life was patentee of 
 Drury Lane Theatre, which brought him a considerable income. 
 He died in 1729 at Langunnor, near Carmarthen, where he 
 had retired some time before his death. " I was told," a friend 
 of his related, " that he retained his cheerful sweetness of 
 temper to the last, and would often be carried out of a summer's 
 evening when the country lads and lasses were assembled at 
 their rural sports, and with his pencil he gave an order on his 
 agent, the mercer, for a new gown for the best dancer." It
 
 Steele s Character. 183 
 
 is pleasing to learn that the close of his life was so tranquil 
 and pleasant. 
 
 Steele was described by the merciless Dennis as being "of 
 a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the 
 picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney — a short chin, a 
 short nose, a short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky 
 countenance." The many letters which he wrote to his wife, 
 " dearest Prue," all of which that worthy and much-tried 
 woman carefully preserved, give one an excellent idea of his 
 genial, impulsive, hasty, affectionate, and reckless tempera- 
 ment. Johnson, with whom Macaulay agrees, 1 praises Addison 
 because he employed wit on the side of virtue and religion. 
 " He not only made the proper use of wit himself, but taught 
 it to others ; and from this time it has been generally subser- 
 vient to the cause of reason and of truth. He has dissipated 
 the prejudice that had long connected gaiety with vice, and 
 easiness of manners with laxity of principles. He has restored 
 virtue to its dignity, and taught innocence not to be ashamed." 
 If this praise be due to Addison, as it certainly is, it is also 
 clue to Steele. However wild his conduct may have occasionally 
 been, in his writings he never swerved from upholding the 
 cau.e of purity and goodness ; and in many respects his 
 moral precepts were of a less conventional kind, and reached 
 a higher spiritual level than Addison's. 
 
 It was during the reign of Queen Anne that the writing of 
 correct and polished English prose first became a general 
 accomplishment. Many writers who flourished about this 
 period, though of infinitely less original power than their pre- 
 decessors of fifty or a hundred years ago, are much more 
 pleasant to read, simply because they had acquired the knack 
 of expressing themselves in clear, well-ordered sentences, 
 free from the cumbrousness and involution which, till the 
 time of Dryden, are usual characteristics of our prose writers. 
 Tnrce of these may be mentioned. Dr. John Arbuthnot 
 
 1 It is very well worth while to read Johnson's 'Life of A'hlison' and 
 Macaulay', ' I iy on Addi on 1 together. There is scarcely a critical idea 
 in Macaulay'., c^say of which the germ ib not to he found in Johnson's.
 
 i S4 The Wits of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 (1667-1735) was a Scotchman, who, coming up to London, 
 attained great reputation as a medical man, and was the 
 intimate associate of many of the foremost writers of his time. 
 His " History of John Bull," a political satire, and other 
 writings, mostly of a controversial or satirical nature, have 
 much the same characteristics as Swift's — clearness, force, and 
 incisiveness. He seems to have been a most excellent man. 
 " He has more wit than we all have," said Swift, " and his 
 humanity is equal to his wit ;" and again, " If the world had 
 a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my 'Travels.'" 
 Arbuthnot wrote little, and there is no collected edition of his 
 works; but the little that he did write shows that if he had 
 used his pen more freely he could have won for himself a 
 very high position in literature. Henry St. John, Viscount 
 Bolingbroke (1678-1751), whose meteoric career still sheds a 
 sort of lustre round his name, wrote, when his political life 
 was brought to an end by the discovery of his intrigue with 
 the Pretender, a number of works, " Letters on the Study of 
 History," " Letter on the Spirit of Patriotism," the "Idea of a 
 Patriot King," &c, in a style artificial and somewhat stilted, 
 but emphatic, striking, and often epigrammatic. On the 
 whole, it may be said that the reader who, finding how much 
 Bolingbroke was admired by his contemporaries, is led to 
 study his works, will not find much to reward him, except a 
 few happy sentences, such as " Don Quixote believed, but 
 even Sancho doubted." George Berkeley (1 684-1 753), Bishop 
 of Cloyne, whose work belongs to the history of philosophy, 
 deserves mention here as having possessed a style, simple, 
 sweet, and melodious in an eminent degree. He could write 
 with equal elegance on the most subtle philosophical theories 
 and on the virtues of tar-water. Pope's well-known line, which 
 attributes " to Berkeley every virtue under heaven," shows how 
 he was regarded by his contemporaries. 
 
 During the early part of the eighteenth century was waged 
 the somewhat barren " Deistical Controversy," in which a 
 great number of writers, including nearly all the leading theo- 
 logians of the day, took part. It produced one book of
 
 A lexa nder Pope. i S 5 
 
 permanent value, the "Analogy of Religion" of Bishop Butler 
 (1692-1752), a work full of weighty thought, though its style 
 is very awkward and complex. " It came (1736) towards the 
 end of the Deistical period. It is the result of twenty years' 
 study — the very twenty years during which the Deistical notions 
 formed the atmosphere which educated people breathed. The 
 objections it meets are not new and unseasoned objections, 
 but such as had worn well, and had borne the rub of contro- 
 versy, because they were genuine. And it would be equally hard 
 to find in the ' Analogy ' any topic in reply which had not been 
 suggested in the pamphlets and sermons of the preceding half 
 century. Like Aristotle's physical and political treatises, it is 
 a resume of the discussions of more than one generation." 1 
 
 We now turn to the poetical literature of the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century. This finds its highest representative in 
 Alexander Pope. The correctness and finish which all the poets 
 of his age were endeavouring to attain, he attained more com- 
 pletely than any ; and though before his death new influences 
 were beginning to be at work which ended in the overthrow of 
 the school of which he was the accepted leader, he influenced 
 very strongly the poets of the two generations which succeeded 
 him. Pope was born in London in 1688. After he had risen 
 to eminence and was taunted with the lowness of his birth, 
 he circulated some rather fabulous stories about the exalted 
 pedigree of his father, an honest and successful merchant, who 
 acquired by his industry a fortune which in those days was 
 reckoned a large one. Both his parents were Catholics, and 
 Pope, in spite of considerable temptations to the contrary, 
 always remained constant to the faith of his fathers. He was 
 irmed and weakly from his birth, a dwarfish and pre- 
 cocious child, with a sweet voice and a quick intellect. He 
 was taught to read at home, and early learned to write by 
 imitating printed books. When about eight years old his 
 
 1 Mr. Mark Paltison's "Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 
 1688 i"5''»' in "I i) and Reviews," an essay containing an admii 
 
 account of llic current of theological thought dining the tune with which 
 it deals. 
 
 M
 
 iS6 The Wits of Queen Amies Time. 
 
 education was intrusted to a Catholic priest, through whom he 
 acquired the elements of Latin and Greek. He afterwards 
 had other instructors, but the most valuable part of his 
 education was that which he obtained without the aid of any 
 master. He was a voracious reader, and if his knowledge, 
 like that of most self-educated men, was destitute of minute 
 accuracy, it was, at any rate, much wider than is at all common. 
 ] le had a good knowledge of Latin, a fair share of Greek, knew 
 French well, and at one time studied Italian to some extent. 
 
 His crooked frame and weak health debarred Pope from the 
 usual sports of childhood; and when, in his early years, his 
 father retired to Binfield in Windsor Forest, where he had pur- 
 chased a small estate, the ambitious boy began earnestly the 
 practice of that art which was to be the toil and the pleasure 
 of his life. When little more than twelve he commenced an 
 epic poem, of which he wrote about four thousand verses. 
 Other compositions preceded and followed this large under- 
 taking, all of which were submitted to his father, who, when he 
 found them defective, would request him to " new-turn them," 
 saying, " These be not good rhymes." When very young he 
 managed to become acquainted with some of the leading men 
 of letters in London, to whom he wrote carefully composed 
 letters in the artificial style then prevalent, and by whom he 
 seems, in spite of his youth, to have been regarded as an equal. 
 Among these was Wycherley, who submitted some verses to 
 the revision of the youthful critic, who pointed out their faults 
 with such unsparing rigour that Wycherley was not unnaturally 
 offended. Another was Walsh, " Knowing Walsh," as Pope 
 calls him, a poetaster of the day, who was much esteemed as 
 a critic. Having read some of Pope's verses, he advised him 
 to aim especially at correctness, for, said he, " We have had 
 several great poets, but we never had one great poet who was 
 correct." This well-meant advice was never forgotten by Pope. 
 In 1709 Pope published his first poems, the "Pastorals," 
 which had been for some time handed about among poets 
 and critics. They were well received at the time, Walsh de- 
 claring "that 'tis no flattery at all to say that Virgil had
 
 Popes "Essay on Criticism." 1S7 
 
 written nothing so good at his age;" but they are now gene- 
 rally regarded as Pope's poorest compositions, being artificial, 
 absurd, and wearisome. Two years after came the " Essay on 
 Criticism," which shows a great advance in more ways than 
 one. The versification is exact and polished, the style clear 
 and epigrammatic, the illustrations various and well selected. 
 As regards the value of the subject-matter of this poem, critics 
 have differed widely. "If he had written nothing else," says 
 Johnson, " this would have placed him among the first critics 
 and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that 
 can embellish or justify didactic composition — selection of 
 matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour 
 of illustration, and propriety of digression." De Quincey, on 
 the other hand, thought it " the feeblest and least interesting 
 of Pope's writings, being substantially a mere versification, like 
 a metrical multiplication table, of commonplaces the most 
 mouldy with which criticism has baited her rat-traps." The 
 truth is, that our judgment of the poem will depend upon the 
 point of view from which we regard it. Pope's precepts are 
 not original, though they are generally sound enough ; but they 
 are so well and strikingly put that they come home to us with 
 a new force. A wanton attack on Dennis, under the name of 
 " Appius," in the " Essay on Criticism," brought on the first of 
 the long series of literary squabbles in which Pope was impli- 
 cated. Dennis rejoined in a furious pamphlet, in which, 
 alluding to Pope's deformed figure, he declared that "he 
 may extol the ancients, but he has reason to thank the gods 
 that he was born a modern ; for had he been born of Grecian 
 parents, and his father consequently had by law had the abso- 
 lute disposal of him, his life had been no longer than that of 
 one of his poems, the life of half a day." If opinions have 
 differed as to the merits of the "Essay on Criticism," there has 
 been but one judgment on the "Rape of the Lock." It was 
 published in 1712, 1 and, as is well known, was founded on a 
 frolic of Lord l'ctre's, who had cut off a lock of Miss Arabella 
 
 1 The version published in 1 712 is only a first sketch. It appeared in 
 a volume of miscellaneous poems.
 
 7V/r \\'i/\ oj Queen .linn's Time, 
 
 mi. II mi! \ offending the lady and breaking 
 
 "ii the intercourse <>f the two families, Pope was asked by a 
 common friend to do something to effect a reconciliation. 
 The result <>i this request was the best mock-heroic poem 
 in the language. The fii i edition wanted the supernatural 
 machinery, one ol the greatest attractions oi the work, and 
 soni 11 ni passages which were added in the second 
 
 edition (17 14). l' is perhaps Popi '■• most universally pleasing 
 trmam e light, 1 raci ful, full of delii ate satii ii al 
 
 touches, nevei flagging in interest, and having the additional 
 merit "f giving us an accurate picture of the fashionable 
 ty "i Queen Anne's time. "Tope's adaptation oi his 
 airy refulgent sylphs to the ephemeral trivialities oi fashion- 
 able hi'-, the admirable art with which he fitted his fairy 
 ma< him ry to the follii s and < ommonplaces of a giddy London 
 day, the poetit grace which he threw around his sarcastic 
 and which unites with it as naturally as docs the 
 with its thorny stem, are all unborrowed beauties, and 
 consummate in their kind." N<>i ion:; after the "Rape of 
 the Lock," Pope wrote a poem in a very different style, the 
 1 istle ol Eloisa to Abelard," which is also one of the 
 in his poeti< crown. We do not look to Pope 
 foi the ful 1 itpn ion ol deep, passionate feeling; he is 
 
 pre-eminently a poet ol artificial society, ol nature as seen in 
 clubs and coffee inure; and in fashionable town assemblai 
 \.i n cannot be denied that in the "Epistle oi Eloisa" he 
 show, himsi 11 poi • 1 ssed oi a v< in ol g< nuine pathos and tendei 
 The hand of the artist is, indeed, a little too apparent 
 in ii th couplets and neatlj turned phrases, but it is, at 
 
 . always the hand ol a ma! tei oi his art 
 in 171; Pope, whose fame was now wtd< pread, entered 
 upon the in.' 1 fortunate undertaking ol his life, his translation 
 ui the "Iliad." tl was with many doubts and fears that he 
 " In thi beginning of my translating Homer," 
 told his faithful chronicler, Spence, "I wished anybody 
 I hang me a hundred times, ii sat so very heavily on 
 ' 1 1 often ui ed to dream ol it, and even do
 
 Popes Translation of Homer* [89 
 
 ometimes still to this day. My dream usuallj was thai 1 
 
 out 011 .1 very long j on nicy, puzzled which way to take, 
 
 and full oi 1, ara thai 1 Bhould nevej get to the end ol it." l >e 
 
 Quincey thinks that Pope's trepidation when in- commenced 
 
 translating the " [Had " was owing to in 1 defe< tive knowledge 
 
 ol the Greek language, and this opinion is verj probably cor- 
 
 Aj the work advanced, practice broughl facility, until 
 
 al length he was able to translate fifty lines a day. 11 had 
 
 n decided that the translation Bhould be published by sub- 
 
 b< ription, and Pop< *s friends exerted themselves to the utmosl 
 
 to procure sub n 1 ibei , There 1 1 an amusing ane< dote ol 
 
 how, in a coffee-house in 1713, Swifl was seen informing "a 
 
 young nobleman that the besl poel in England was Mr. Pope 
 
 (.1 Papist), who had begun a translation ol tiomei into English 
 
 i, for whi< ii he must have them all Bubsi ribe ; ' for,' 
 he, ' i he authoi hall noi begin to pi int till l l>.i\ e a thou I 
 ir him, " [n 1 730, when Pope had reai hed hi thirtj 
 
 ad year, the translation w w ipleted. [ts succi 
 
 I ill the high hopes that had bi 1 n foi med ol it. Alto 
 
 gether the work produi ed 1; whit h would now represent 
 
 ;i purch ower ol al Least double thai amount. < H the 
 
 worth ol the translation, a sufficiently correct judgment was 
 expn ted by Rii h ird Bentley, the t clo bI al 1 holar 
 
 1 " It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope," he 
 
 ded to have Baid, " but j 1 iu musl nol < .ill 11 1 [< im 
 
 Pope's genius was, in truth, singularly un-Homerii ; nothing 
 
 can !»'■ imagined more difli renl from his polished artifii ialitj 
 
 ind nplicity ol the Greek bard, ifet, lull .1 1 
 
 Pope's "Iliad" is ol faults which jai against .1 pure literary 
 
 1 laira to have don I sen ice. To 
 
 thou in u qu linted w ith I rreek it has afforded al leai 1 b 
 
 glimp te oi ■ hi roii world painti 'I bj 1 lomer, and evi 11 
 
 though now surrounded by so many competitors, it is 
 
 to l n ader the mo 1 attrai tive tran ilation, 
 
 Elated with his uccess, Pope determined to translate the 
 
 " To aid him in hi ■ ta 1. he engagi d two 
 
 1 ml , Uro »mc and I 1 nton, by whom twi Ivi bi it of
 
 190 The Wits of Queen Anne s Time. 
 
 the twenty-four were translated. The work was finished in 
 1725, and was very profitable, though it did not realise nearly 
 so much as the "Iliad." It is a striking proof of how usual 
 an accomplishment the art of writing the heroic couplet had 
 now become to find that it is difficult, if not impossible, to dis- 
 tinguish by internal evidence passages of the "Odyssey " trans- 
 lated by Broome and Fenton, from passages translated by Pope. 
 With the money acquired by his translation of the " Iliad," 
 Pope bought the cottage at Twickenham, where he resided for 
 the remainder of his days, and where he was often visited by 
 the most notable men of the day, Swift, Bolingbroke, Arbuth- 
 not, Lord Peterborough, and many others. In 1728 he pub- 
 lished the " Dunciad," in which he lashed mercilessly the 
 minor scribblers of his day, and discharged venomous shafts 
 of ridicule against all who had at any time assaulted him. 
 Between 1733 and 1738 he published the various pieces which, 
 when his works were first collected, constituted the volume 
 entitled "Satires and Epistles of Horace Imitated." These 
 so-called "imitations" contain some of his most vigorous 
 writing — the matchless portrait of Addison under the name of 
 Atticus ; the stinging and vindictive lines in which Lord Hervey 
 is pilloried under the name of Sporus ; and the touching passage 
 which commemorates his filial piety. In his satires, Pope 
 pretended to be inspired by a genuine indignation against 
 vice. But it was not so in reality ; he used satire as a means 
 of gratifying private revenge, not because the villanies of man- 
 kind stirred him up to write. " Pope was contented enough," 
 says De Quincey, " with society as he found it ; bad it might 
 be, but it was good enough for him. It was the merest self- 
 delusion if, at any moment, the instinct of glorying in his 
 satiric mission persuaded him that in his case it might be said, 
 Facit indignatio versum. Pope having no internal principle of 
 wrath boiling in his breast, being really in the most pacific and 
 charitable frame of mind to all scoundrels whatsoever, was a 
 hypocrite when he conceited himself to be in a dreadful passion 
 with offenders as a body." One of the most common topics 
 of his ridicule is poverty, which is certainly no fit theme for
 
 Popes "Essay on Man" 191 
 
 the exercise of the satirist's art. " He seems," says Johnson 
 with melancholy scorn, " to be of an opinion not very uncom- 
 mon in the world, that to want money is to want everything." 
 How far mere personal indignation could lead him is shown 
 by the fact that when, in 1741, he published a revised edition 
 of the " Dunciad," to which the fourth book was added, he 
 degraded Theobald from his former position as hero, and 
 placed Colley Cibber, who had offended him in the interval 
 between 1728 and 1741, in his stead. The change altered the 
 " I Hinciad " greatly for the worse. Theobald was really a very 
 dull man ; Colley Cibber, on the other hand, was decidedly 
 lively and clever, so that the ridicule which was applicable 
 enough to Theobald loses all its pungency when applied to 
 him. Like many writers who are careless how much pain they 
 may give to others, Pope felt any attack on himself with the 
 intensest keenness. On one occasion, when a pamphlet of 
 Cibber's against him came into his hands while Richardson 
 the painter was with him, Pope turned to Richardson and said, 
 "These things are my diversion." Richardson watched him 
 as he perused it, and saw his features writhing with anguish ! 
 
 In the " Essay on Man," published in 1732, Pope attempted 
 to deal in verse with a philosophical topic which was then 
 exciting much attention. The "Essay on Man," says Mr. 
 Mark Pattison in the Introduction to his admirable edition of 
 it, "was composed at a time when the reading public in this 
 country were occupied with an intense and eager curiosity by 
 'illation on the first principles of natural religion. Every- 
 where, in the pulpit, in the coffee-houses, in every pamphlet, 
 argument on the origin of evil, on the goodness of God, and 
 the constitution of the world was rife. Into the prevailing 
 topic of polite conversation, Bolingbroke, who returned from 
 exile in 1723, was drawn by the bent of his native genius. 
 Pope followed the example and impulse of his friend's more 
 < rful mind. Thus much there was of special suggestion ; 
 but the arguments or topics of the poem are to be traced to 
 books in much vogue at the time." There is now a pretty- 
 general consensus of critical opinion as to the " E :;iy on Man."
 
 192 TJie Wits of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 Its philosophy is poor, borrowed, and inadequate. Pope did 
 not understand what he was writing about, and mixed up in- 
 congruous statements ; but it has kept and will keep its place 
 in literature owing to its masterly execution, its many felicitous 
 phrases, and the great beauty of occasional passages. When 
 the "Essay' - * first appeared, many assailed it on account of its 
 alleged heterodoxy. Pope was annoyed at the charge, and 
 was therefore delighted when an unexpected auxiliary rushed 
 to his aid in the person of William Warburton (1698-17 79), 
 who afterwards rose to be Bishop of Gloucester, and whose 
 very paradoxical work, " The Divine Legation of Moses," is 
 still remembered. By helping Pope in his difficulty, Warburton 
 thought he saw an opportunity for advancing his own fame and 
 fortune, and he therefore vindicated the orthodoxy of the 
 " Essay on Man " in a series of articles which appeared in a 
 monthly publication called The Works of the Learned. The 
 substance of these articles was afterwards, at Pope's request, 
 formed into a commentary — a very tedious and worthless 
 production, it may be said in passing — and printed in the next 
 edition of the " Essay." Pope never ceased to be grateful to 
 Warburton for the service he had done him, and on the death 
 of the poet, which occurred in 1744, Warburton found he had 
 been appointed his literary executor. He discharged the 
 duties of his office arrogantly, carelessly, and dishonourably. 
 
 The careful research of Pope's latest editors, and particu- 
 larly of Mr. Whitwell Elwin, if it has not materially altered the 
 estimate of Pope's private character which may be derived 
 from the perusal of Johnson's Life of him, with its curious 
 undertone of latent scorn, has proved beyond all possibility 
 of doubt that he was frequently guilty of treachery, falsehood, 
 and hypocrisy. Anxious to have his letters printed in his life- 
 time, and desirous of an excuse for so unusual an act, he con- 
 trived that an alleged surreptitious edition of these should be 
 published, so as to give him a colourable pretext for printing 
 an authentic edition. Great allowances are to be made for a 
 man like Pope, with his deformed figure and his weak health, 
 which debarred him from many of the common pleasures of
 
 London Society in Popes Time. 193 
 
 mankind. It is only natural that such a man should be 
 peevish, irritable, and, if possessed of talents, insatiate of praise 
 and impatient of censure ; but Pope's habitual duplicity cannot 
 be condoned even by his most lenient judges. The most pleasing 
 feature of his character is his unwearying tenderness to his 
 parents, and the sincere affection and esteem which he appears 
 to have felt for a large and brilliant circle of friends. " I never 
 in my life," said Bolingbroke by his deathbed, " knew a man 
 who had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a more 
 general friendship for mankind." This " general friendship for 
 mankind " did not prevent him from traducing cruelly all who 
 happened to offend him ; but the statement of his love for his 
 particular friends may be accepted without reservation. 
 
 Like the other writers of the time when his fame reached 
 its zenith, Pope in all his works had " the town " in view 
 when he wrote. All the chief authors of that period appealed 
 in their style, their mode of treatment, their sentiments, their 
 descriptions, their satires to an audience of Londoners. It is 
 this which gives the poetry of the age its polish, neatness, and 
 clearness ; it is this also which gives it its artificiality, and 
 which accounts for the absence from it of any deep emotional 
 feeling, and for its poverty as regards natural description. 
 Pope's poetry is the mirror of his age, as it presented itself 
 before one who saw it with the eyes of a man to whom metro- 
 politan society constituted the world. " He shows us the rise 
 of woman as a controlling power in society and politics; the 
 extension among the nobility of an Italian taste in painting 
 and architecture ; the hatred felt by the Catholics for the 
 moneyed middle-class, which was the backbone of the Revolu- 
 tion, the mainstay of Whiggery, and the bulwark of Protes- 
 tantism. In his satires, too, we see a mirror of the feelings 
 of the Parliamentary Opposition directed by Bolingbroke and 
 Pulterury ; of their rancour against Walpole's foreign and 
 domestic polity; of the relations between the court and the 
 party of the Prince of Wales ; of the popular dislike of the 
 Hanoverian dynasty and of Low Church principles. I 
 we have suggestive glimpses of the interior of society at a lime
 
 194 flic Wits of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 when St. James's was in the extreme west-end of London, and 
 old Burlington House was but just built. The 'British youth' 
 appear at their diversions at White's Chocolate House, Hockly- 
 in-the-Hole, or Fig's Academy. Complaints are heard from 
 polite society of the degradation of the stage in consequence 
 of the public passion for spectacles. The penniless ' man of 
 rhyme walks forth ' from the Mint, and the dealings of the 
 ill-lodged bard of Drury Lane with his aristocratic or com- 
 mercial patrons are exposed in the full light of pitiless ridicule. 
 As we read, the society of the past rises before us in its dra- 
 matic reality. The age in many respects may have had the 
 defects of the poet, but, like him, it was not without its generous 
 qualities ; it is, at least, full of human and historical interest, 
 whether it be regarded as the period when the British Empire 
 first began to rise, or as the aristocratic stage of English 
 society, in which the realities of character displayed them- 
 selves with a frankness wanting in our democratic times, when 
 the individual is apt to disguise his natural impulses in defer- 
 ence to public opinion." 
 
 Among the poets who were contemporary with Pope, a few 
 deserve notice. Matthew Prior (1664-1721) affords one of the 
 most striking instances on record of the extraordinary rewards 
 sometimes bestowed on literary merit in the reign of Queen 
 Anne. He received a good education at Westminster School, 
 and was then employed by his uncle, who kept a tavern near 
 Charing Cross, as his assistant. In this uncongenial situation 
 his love of literature did not forsake him, and one day the 
 Earl of Dorset by chance found the vintner's boy reading 
 Horace. This was the turning-point of Prior's fortunes. The 
 Earl, who was celebrated for his patronage of genius, was 
 so well pleased with Prior's proficiency, that he undertook the 
 care and cost of his education. Prior passed through his 
 academical career with credit, and soon after obtained great 
 popularity by his authorship, in conjunction with Montague, of 
 the "City Mouse and the Country Mouse," in ridicule of 
 Drydcn's " Hind and Panther." Upon the merits of this 
 parody, which attained great celebrity at the time, opinions
 
 Matthew Prior. 195 
 
 differ considerably. Mr. Saintsbury, a very acute critic, thinks 
 that it has had the honour of being more overpraised than 
 perhaps anything of its kind in English literature. 1 Soon 
 after its publication Prior was taken into the service of the 
 State, and rose to various high diplomatic appointments, jus- 
 tifying the choice of his patrons by his industry and dexterity. 
 A happy retort of his, uttered when he was secretary to the 
 English embassy at Paris, has been often quoted. When he 
 was being shown the pictures of the victories of Louis XIV. 
 painted on the walls of the apartments of Versailles, he was 
 asked whether the King of England's palace had any such 
 decorations. "The monuments of my master's actions," 
 replied Prior, "are to be seen everywhere but in his own 
 house." On the death of Queen Anne, Prior's diplomatic 
 career came to an end, and for a time he laboured under con- 
 siderable difficulties, from which, however, he was at length 
 relieved by the success of a subscription edition of his poems, 
 and by the generous assistance of the Earl of Oxford. Prior's 
 serious poems are worthless and unreadable, but his songs 
 and humorous pieces, though not over-delicate, are lively and 
 spirited enough of their kind. " Johnson speaks slightingly 
 of his lyrics," says Thackeray, "but with due deference to the 
 great Samuel, Prior's seems to me among the easiest, the 
 richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical 
 poems. Horace is always in his mind, and his song, and 
 his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and 
 melody, his loves and Epicureanism, bear a great resemblance 
 to that most delightful and accomplished master. In reading 
 his works, one is struck by their modern air, as well as by 
 their happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner of 
 the Sabine farm." This is too high commendation ; but the 
 fact that Prior's lyrical pieces obtained such praise from a man 
 like Thackeray shows that, slight and somewhat artificial as they 
 arc, they possess a considerable degree of genuine excellence. 
 John Gay, who was born in the same year as Pope, was one 
 of those ineffectual, helpless, likeable men, who pass through 
 
 1 Monograph on Diylcn, p. 97.
 
 196 The Wits of Queen Anne s Time. 
 
 life as easily as possible, always looking to others for help and 
 protection. Originally a silk-mercer's apprentice in London, 
 he was in 17 12 appointed secretary to the Duchess of Mon- 
 mouth. " By quitting a shop for such service," says Johnson, 
 " he might gain leisure, but he certainly advanced little in the 
 boast of independence." Next year Gay published a poem 
 on " Rural Sports," which, being dedicated to Pope, was the 
 means of introducing him to the society of the wits, among 
 whom he became a great favourite. Gay's chief works are his 
 "Fables," which are ingenious and amusing; his "Trivia, or 
 the Art of Walking the Streets of London," which gives a 
 curious picture of scenes and customs which have now passed 
 away; and the "Beggar's Opera," his best and most famous 
 work. It was brought out in 1728, and was such a success 
 that for some weeks the town talked of nothing else. Under 
 the guise of a mock-heroic drama about pickpockets and 
 informers, it contains a scathing and incisive satire on the 
 politics and politicians of the day. When Gay produced the 
 second part of the " Beggar's Opera," under the name of 
 " Polly," the Lord Chamberlain refused to license it, no doubt 
 because of its political intent. It has not nearly the merit of 
 the first part ; nevertheless, when it was published by subscrip- 
 tion, it proved very successful, and brought the fortunate 
 author a large sum of money. The songs interspersed through 
 the " Beggar's Opera" are of great merit, melodious, sprightly, 
 witty, and always (the highest excellence of such compositions) 
 reading as if they had been made to sing. Gay died in 1732. 
 For some years before his death, he lived in the household of 
 the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, who were very kind to 
 him, taking charge of his money for him, and otherwise assidu- 
 ously attending to his comforts. 
 
 One of the best examples of the pretty numerous class of 
 works which are often referred to and almost never read is the 
 "Night Thoughts" of Edward Young. Young (1681-1765) 
 was one of the greatest sycophants of a very adulatory age ; 
 a self-seeking, greedy, worldly man. He entered into holy 
 orders in 1728, and was appointed Rector of Welwyn in Hert-
 
 James Thomson. 197 
 
 fordshire, where, in 1742-44, he wrote his " Night Thoughts." 
 Abounding in epigrams and quotable passages, and having 
 about them a sort of gloomy grandeur, the " Night Thoughts " 
 are often extravagant and tedious. Young wrote a great many- 
 other poetical works, satires, tragedies, odes, and epistles, 
 " The Last Day," a paraphrase of part of the Book of Job, and 
 a poem called " Resignation." Of these, the best is a rather 
 vigorous satire entitled " The Love of Fame, or the Universal 
 Passion." Another satirist of the school of Dryden and Pope 
 was the unfortunate and dissipated Charles Churchill (1731- 
 1764), who "blazed," as Byron says, "the comet of a season," 
 between 1761 and 1764. His satires are coarse and vigorous, 
 destitute of refinement and elaboration, but strong and manly. 
 Among the writers of Pope's time, with their preference for 
 town life and their indifference to natural scenery, a voice 
 made itself heard speaking of the aspects of country life, of 
 the green fields, of the changes of the seasons, of the gloom 
 of winter, the freshness of spring, the rich profusion of summer, 
 and the russet-clad tints of autumn. This was James Thom- 
 son, a Scotchman, who, born in 1700, came up to London to 
 seek his fortune in 1725. His poem of the "Seasons" ap- 
 peared in four instalments in 1726-1730. Thomson is often 
 careless and dull ; his verse is disfigured by that pseudo- 
 classicalism which delighted to speak of Ceres, Pomona, 
 Boreas, &c, but lie had a genuine love for nature, and his 
 descriptions, despite their artificial dress, bear the stamp of 
 reality. The fact that the " Seasons" was at once successful, 
 shows that the taste for the poetry of town life was already 
 inning to decay. Thomson was a fat, lazy, good-natured, 
 benevolent man, fond of lying in bed in the mornings, and of 
 indulging in long drawn reveries or in building luxurious 
 castles in the air when he ought to have been actively exert- 
 ing himself. He died in 1748, having had his latter years 
 made very comfortable by a pension bestowed on him by the 
 Prince of Wales, and a sinecure situation which he obtained 
 through the influence of his patron Lyttleton. Besides his 
 "Seasons," Thomson wrote some tragedies, which proved
 
 198 TJic }\ T its of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 failures, along and unreadable poem called "Liberty," several 
 smaller pieces, and what is in the opinion of some of his 
 critics his best work, " The Castle of Indolence," which ap- 
 peared in the year of his death. In it " he has poured out 
 the whole soul of indolence, diffuse, relaxed, supine, dissolved 
 into a voluptuous dream, and surrounded himself with a set 
 of objects and companions in entire unison with the listless- 
 ness of his own temper." To appreciate Thomson properly one 
 must be prepared to read him in the same easy-going frame 
 of mind as that in which he himself wrote ; in a calm leisurely 
 way, not constantly on the outlook for fine passages nor im 
 patient of tediousness. Hazlitt, who thought very highly of 
 him, is constrained to say that " the same suavity of temper 
 and sanguine warmth of feeling which threw such a natural 
 grace and genial spirit of enthusiasm over his poetry was also 
 the causes of his inherent vices and defects. He is affected 
 through carelessness, pompous from unsuspecting simplicity 
 of character. He is frequently pedantic and ostentatious in 
 his style because he had no consciousness of these vices in 
 himself. He mounts upon stilts, not out of vanity but indo- 
 lence. He seldom writes a good line but he makes up for it 
 by a bad one. He takes advantage of all the most trite and 
 mechanical commonplaces of imagery and diction as a kindly 
 relief to his muse, and as if he thought them quite as good 
 and likely to be quite as acceptable to the reader as his own 
 poetry. He did not think the difference worth putting him- 
 self to the trouble of accomplishing." 
 
 Shortly after the death of Pope, the poems of Gray and 
 Collins, in quite a different style from his, began to appear. 
 They were formed on classical models, and we find in 
 them nothing of that constant reference to contemporary life 
 which is one of the notes of Pope's poetry. Thomas Gray, 
 born in 17 16, was, like Milton, the son of a London scrivener. 
 He was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, where he became 
 acquainted with Horace Walpole, whom, in 1739, he accom- 
 panied on a tour to France and Italy. Both were fastidious, 
 " touchy " men, and it is not surprising to learn that they
 
 Thomas Gray. 199 
 
 quarrelled during the journey and parted, each to pursue his 
 own separate route. Soon after his return from the Continent 
 in 1741, Gray settled down at Cambridge, where most of his 
 subsequent life was spent. In 176S he was appointed 
 Professor of History there, an office for which he was well 
 qualified, but he never discharged the duties of his situation, 
 being too lazy to prepare a course of lectures. Gray was a 
 literary voluptuary, refined, finical, indisposed to active exer- 
 tions, and so terrified lest a faulty piece of work should go out 
 of his hands that he wrote very little. He was an extensive 
 and curious reader in all departments of literature, and pre- 
 vented time from lying heavy on his hands by engaging in all 
 those trifling occupations by which so many worthy indolent 
 people try to persuade themselves that they are busy. He 
 made annotations in the books which he read ; he drew up (for 
 his own edification) tables of chronology ; during the chief 
 part of his life he kept a daily record of the blowing of 
 flowers, the leafing of trees, the state of the thermometer, the 
 quarter from which the wind blew, the falling of rain, and 
 other matters of the kind ; and he delighted his friends by 
 writing long and excellent letters, many of which have been 
 published, and constitute his not least-enduring title to remem- 
 brance. They are unconstrained, natural, amusing effusions, 
 and give us a pleasing picture of a man who was content " to 
 let the world go by," so long as he was free to engage in the 
 innocent intellectual pursuits which he loved. "Don't you 
 
 remember," he says in one place, " Lord and , who 
 
 are now great statesmen, little dirty boys playing at cricket? 
 For my part, I do not feel a bit wiser, or bigger, or older than 
 I did then." His wish to lie on a sofa and read eternal new 
 romances of Marivaux and Crebillon has inspired many invete- 
 rate novel-readers with sympathy and regard for the placid poet 
 who found such pleasure in their favourite class of literature. 
 
 Gray died in 177L As already indicated, his poems were 
 few and short — so few and short that, despite their excellence, 
 he can scarcely be called a great poet. His most famous 
 piece is, of course, the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard,"
 
 200 The Wits of Queen Anne's Time. 
 
 which was written in 1749. There is no need to eulogise 
 a poem which has excited universal pleasure. The patient 
 industry of commentators has shown that there is scarcely an 
 idea in it which can be regarded as original ; but that in no 
 way detracts from the merit of Gray, for consummate artistic 
 skill, such as is shown in the " Elegy," is at least as rare a 
 quality as original genius. Gray's " Odes," which were pub- 
 lished at various times, never have been and never will be so 
 popular as the " Elegy : " they contain many far-fetched allu- 
 sions ; their language is rather artificial, and they do not in 
 general appeal to feelings which are the common property of 
 humanity as the " Elegy" does. Gray's " classical coldness" 
 and want of spontaneity has exposed him to the censure of 
 many, including Johnson and Carlyle. Johnson declared that 
 he was a " mechanical poet ; " while Carlyle (in his essay on 
 Goethe) says that his poetry is "a laborious mosaic, through 
 the hard stiff lineaments of which little life or true grace could 
 be expected to look ; real feeling, and all freedom in express- 
 ing it, are sacrificed to pomp, cold splendour; for vigour we 
 have a certain mouthing vehemence, too elegant indeed to be 
 tumid, yet essentially foreign to the heart, and seen to extend 
 no deeper than the mere voice and gestures. Were it not for 
 his ' Letters,' which are full of warm exuberant power, we 
 might almost doubt whether Gray was a man of genius, nay, 
 was a living man at all, and not rather some thousand times 
 more cunningly devised poetical turning-loom than that of 
 Swift's philosophers in Laputa." This is extravagantly un- 
 just; none but a man of true genius could have written the 
 " Elegy " or the " Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College;" 
 but it does hit a defect in Gray's poetry by indicating that its 
 pomp and ceremony are sometimes felt oppressive, and its art 
 is not of that perfect order which conceals itself. 
 
 The story of the life of William Collins, a poet who bears a 
 strong resemblance to Gray, is a very sad one. He was born 
 in 1720 at Chichester, where his father had a good business 
 as a hatter. In 1733 he entered Winchester College, Oxford, 
 and afterwards became a demi of Magdalen College, where he
 
 William Collins, 201 
 
 remained till he took his degree. While in residence there 
 he published his " Oriental Eclogues " (1742), of which he used 
 afterwards to speak contemptuously, as destitute of Oriental- 
 ism, calling them his "Irish Eclogues." About 1744 he came 
 to London, " with many projects in his head, and very little 
 money in his pocket." Though depending for his means of 
 support on the liberality of a relative, he was dissipated and 
 profuse in his expenditure, and soon, like many another author 
 of the day, knew what it was to be in the hands of a bailiff. 
 "'Collins was a learned man, with a taste for reading and study, 
 and could, no doubt, if he had exerted himself, have earned 
 at least a fair competency by his pen. But he was one of the 
 class of men who, like Coleridge, love much better to draw up 
 magnificent projects which they intend to accomplish at some 
 future time than to put their shoulder to the wheel and do the 
 duty which lies nearest them. Among his plans was a " History 
 of the Revival of Learning," of which he published proposals, 
 but none of the work ever appeared, and very little of it was 
 ever written. He also planned several tragedies, and on one 
 occasion, when confined to his house lest he should be cap- 
 tured by a bailiff who was prowling in the street, entered into 
 an en^acrement with the booksellers to execute a translation 
 of Aristotle's " Poetics," for which he received as much money 
 as enabled him to escape into the country. Soon afterwards 
 he received a legacy of two thousand pounds, whereupon lie 
 repaid the booksellers the sum they had advanced him and 
 abandoned the translation. His only publication besides the 
 "Eclogues" was his "Odes," which appeared in 1746, and 
 proved such a failure in point of sale, that the sensitive author 
 purchased the remainder of the edition from the publisher and 
 burned it. About 1751 he began to decay in body and in 
 mind. " His disorder," says Johnson, who knew and liked him, 
 "was no alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness, 
 a deficiency rather of his vital than his intellectual powers. 
 What he spoke wanted neither judgment ncr spirit; but a few 
 minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the 
 couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was 
 
 N
 
 202 The ]\1 is of Queen Amies Time. 
 
 again able to talk with his former vigour." He lingered on in 
 this deplorable state for some years, till, in 1759, death re- 
 lieved him from it. Once when, during his malady, Johnson 
 called on him, he found the unfortunate poet reading the New 
 Testament, which he always carried about with him. " I have 
 but one book," said Collins, "but it is the best." 
 
 After Collins's death there was found among his papers a 
 long ode on the "Superstitions of the Highlands," which has 
 since been printed. His entire works form a very slender 
 volume, but it is a volume which will always be dear to those 
 who can appreciate real poetical genius. His brilliant per- 
 sonification of the Passions and his fine "Ode to Evening" 
 show pure taste, deep poetic feeling, and a wide command of 
 poetical diction. His contemporaries, including Johnson, 
 were blind to his merits, but their neglect of him has been 
 amply avenged by the honour paid to him by posterity. 
 
 We have only mentioned a few of the poets who flourished 
 during the reign of Queen Anne and the first Georges. The 
 list might be indefinitely extended ; but it is idle to try to 
 keep alive the memory of a crowd of versifiers, most of whose 
 compositions are inferior to those which every day appear in 
 the pages of our periodicals. Of all kinds of reading, that of 
 bad or middling poetry is the most profitless. One or two of 
 the poets who belong to the first half of the eighteenth century 
 will be mentioned in a subsequent chapter, but we may here 
 mention, as belonging to the school of Pope, Mark Akenside, 
 whose " Pleasures of the Imagination " (1744) was inspired by 
 Addison's papers in the Spectator on the same subject. This 
 poem is in blank verse, and though frequently commonplace 
 and wearisome, is not without dignity and force. But poems 
 which aspire to treat such a theme in a poetical way are apt 
 to prove failures unless in the hands of a great master of his 
 art, and Akenside did not possess genius enough to grapple 
 successfully with the many difficulties of his subject. Accord- 
 ingly, although it deserves and will reward the attention of 
 the student of English poetry, the "Pleasures of the Imagi- 
 nation" is now generally neglected.
 
 VI. 
 
 OUR FIRST GREAT NOVELISTS. 
 Defoe; Richardson; Fielding; Smollett; Sterne. 
 
 IR WALTER SCOTT, in the beginning of his 
 " Essay on Romance," referring to the division of fic- 
 titious prose narratives into two classes, defines the 
 romance as that in which the interest turns chiefly on 
 marvellous and uncommon incidents, and the novel as that in 
 which the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of 
 human events and the modern state of society. The defini- 
 tions are not, perhaps, altogether unexceptionable, but they 
 indicate the distinction in a way sufficiently clear and broad_ 
 for practical purposes. Romances of one kind or another, 
 pastoral and heroic, were known in England from an early 
 period — Sir Thomas Malory's " Morte d'Arthur," which Scott 
 calls " indisputably the best prose romance the language can 
 boast of," was written during the reign of Edward IV. ; but as 
 a rule they were very extravagant and of small literary merit. 
 The novel, on the other hand, is of comparatively recent intro- 
 duction into English literature. It seems strange to us, who 
 live in a time when novels constitute by far the most generally 
 attractive species of composition, when they are produced by 
 thousands and read by tens of thousands, when more deft and 
 gifted penmen employ themselves in this branch of literature 
 than in any other, to think that we have not to go farther lu< k 
 for the beginnings of this fascinating species of composition than 
 
 •
 
 204 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 the early part of the eighteenth century. Its rise coincides 
 pretty much with the decline of the drama. Education was 
 beginning to be more widely diffused, and people were not 
 only able to follow a story with interest as represented on the 
 stage, but also to read it with pleasure. 
 
 Daniel Defoe, the first of our great writers of fiction, was 
 scarcely a novelist in the modern sense of the word. His 
 tales may be described as fictitious biographies, intended to 
 be accepted as authentic ; they have no carefully wrought out 
 plot, so contrived as to keep the reader's attention enchained 
 to the last. He wrote enormously — about 250 distinct pro- 
 ductions it is said, and in all departments of literature — verse, 
 history, fiction, politics, &c. — but his memory is now mainly 
 kept alive by his incomparable " Robinson Crusoe," which has 
 charmed the schoolboys of many generations, and bids fair 
 to continue to charm them as long as the English tongue is 
 spoken. Defoe, who had almost as stirring and chequered a 
 career as any of the heroes he loved to celebrate, was born 
 in 1 66 1, the son of a wealthy butcher in St. Giles, Cripplegate. 
 According to his own account, he was educated with a view to 
 becoming a dissenting clergyman, and studied with this intent 
 for about five years. However this may be, he seems by some 
 means or other to have picked up a very unusual amount of 
 learning, for he tells us in one of his Reviews that he had been 
 master of five languages, and that he had studied mathematics, 
 natural philosophy, logic, geography, and history. His educa- 
 tion over, he entered into business, becoming a hosier, his 
 enemies said ; a trader, he himself said. While still a very 
 young man he visited Portugal, and perhaps other parts of the 
 Continent, and in 1683 he began his long and industrious 
 career of political pamphleteering by writing on the war be- 
 tween the Turks and the Austrians. Defoe's life was so shifty 
 and intricate, his own statements about it, despite their air of 
 
 
 plausibility, have been proved to be so little trustworthy, so 
 many parts of it are still in some degree matter of controversy, 
 that here we cannot attempt to do more than indicate briefly 
 some of its great outstanding features. He appears to have
 
 Daniel Defoe. 205 
 
 joined the Duke of Monmouth's party in 1685; he started 
 many ingenious projects, and entered into some business 
 speculations which proved unsuccessful; and in 1695 he was 
 appointed accountant to the commissioners for managing the 
 duties on glass, an office which he held till 1699, when he lost 
 his situation owing to the suppression of the tax. In 1701 he L » 
 won his way to royal favour by his satire " The True-Born 
 Englishman," an enthusiastic eulogium on King William and 
 the Revolution. His " Shortest Method with the Dissenters," 
 an ironical pamphlet published in 1703, gave such offence 
 that the unfortunate author was fined, pilloried, and impri- 
 soned. In February 1704 he began the publication of The 
 Reviav, a periodical publication which deserves remembrance 
 in literature as the forerunner of the Tatter and the Spectator ; 
 and in the same year he began his profitable if somewhat dis- 
 honourable career of hack political writer in the pay of the 
 <1 ivernment, in which capacity he wrote dozens of pamphlets. 
 In 1706-7 he was sent to Scotland to assist in promoting the 
 Union. He died in 1731, writing steadily to the last De- 
 foe's personal appearance is thus described in a proclamation 
 offering a reward for his capture after the publication of his 
 " Shortest Way with the Dissenters : " — " He is a middle-sized, 
 spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and 
 dark brown coloured hair, but wears a wig, a hooked nose, a 
 sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth." His 
 character presents few features, save his indomitable industry, 
 calculated to win respect or regard. He appears to have been 
 an habitual and shameless liar, and in the latter years of his 
 occupation as a hired political writer he acted a treacherous 
 part, insinuating himself into the staff of a Jacobite journal in 
 order to mitigate the fierceness of its attacks on the Whig 
 statesman by whom, of course, he was paid for his services. 
 
 As a writer of these political pamphlets, which were then 
 nearly as powerful agents in the dissemination of political 
 opinions as newspapers are now, Defoe has been ranked along 
 with Swift. Both of them, by the studied simplicity of their 
 style, the homeliness of their illustrations, the clearness and
 
 ro6 
 
 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 
 
 precision of their arguments, were admirably adapted for such 
 work. In point of elegance Swift carries off the palm ; 
 but Defoe's frequent colloquialisms and rough and ready 
 
 , modes of expression were very well suited for the audience 
 which he addressed. The fame of political writings, however, 
 is generally shortlived, and it is not what he did in this way 
 that gives him a title to be mentioned here. It was not till he 
 was past the prime of life that Defoe began the series of works 
 to which he owes his fame. " Robinson Crusoe " appeared 
 in i 7 1 9, " Captain Singleton " in 1720, "Colonel Jack" in 
 
 , 1721, and the "Journal of the Plague" in 1722. These are 
 only a few of the many long works which issued from his 
 prolific pen ; he wrote besides on religion, on success in busi- 
 ness, on his own adventures, and several works of fiction, the 
 latter for the most part dealing with characters from the lowest 
 strata of society. In all his books we find the same character- 
 istics : a style often incorrect and never rising into dignity or 
 eloquence, but always clear, flowing, and graphic ; a matter-of- 
 fact imagination, which gives his productions a wonderful air of 
 veracity ; and a knowledge of different types of society, espe- 
 cially among the lower classes, such as has perhaps never been 
 attained by any writer. His "Journal of the Plague " is so 
 minute, so circumstantial, so exactly like reality, that it was 
 believed by Dr. Mead to be the work of a medical man ; and 
 his " Memoirs of a Cavalier" (the precise date of the publica- 
 tion of which is unknown) was taken by Lord Chatham and 
 many others for a real history. Of Defoe's minor novels we 
 need not say much. The subjects with which they deal, and 
 the elaborate minuteness with which scenes of vice are de- 
 scribed in them, do not tend to edification. It is difficult to 
 believe that Defoe was not led to the choice of his peculiar 
 themes by a secret sympathy with roguery. He certainly had 
 an extraordinary fondness for exploring in their minutest 
 recesses the shady corners of life. In his novels, it has been 
 said with much truth, "we rarely meet with anything more 
 exalted or respectable than masters of trading vessels, dealers 
 in small wares, supercargoes, or it may be pickpockets, pirates, 
 

 
 . 
 
 " Robinson Crusoe" 207 
 
 candidates for the plantations, or emeriti who have already 
 obtained that distinction. In the foreground we have the 
 cabin, the night-cellar, the haunts of fraud, or the roundhouse; 
 in the distance, Newgate or Execution Dock." 
 
 Infinitely healthier in tone, and superior also in literary 
 skill, is Defoe's masterpiece, "Robinson Crusoe." Perhaps 
 the universal fame of this work as a book for the young makes 
 it more neglected than it should be by readers in general. 
 The subject was one admirably adapted for Defoe's genius. 
 The patient ingenuity with which he piles detail on detail, his 
 thorough identification of himself with his hero, even the 
 wearisome and commonplace religious meditations interspersed 
 through the book, combine to give it such an appearance of 
 reality that in reading it the insight and genius necessary to 
 produce such a result fall out of view, and we imagine our- 
 selves attending to the wonderful adventures of a veritable 
 English sailor, rather prone to loquacity and moralising, but 
 fertile in resources, and possessing more than an average pro- 
 portion of the ordinary English faculty of adapting oneself 
 with as good grace as possible to any situation. Robinson 
 Crusoe is no hero of romance, destitute of the fears and 
 weaknesses belonging to men in general, but simply a stout- 
 hearted mariner, determined not to be vanquished by obstacles r 
 which there is any possibility of overcoming. " Is there any 
 modern novelist, who, wishing to represent a very brave, 
 adventurous young man, would have sufficient confidence in 
 himself to make him beat his breast and sob and cry like a 
 madman, trusting to his resources to prove that such conduct 
 was a part of the bravest, hardiest, and most indomitable 
 character that genius ever conceived ? Defoe knew that 
 courage is not a positive quality which some men have and 
 others want ; that it is that willingness to do disagreeable 
 things which we have all acquired in some measure, but that 
 there are acts of courage which the very bravest are only 
 just able to do, and in which even they falter and tremble. 
 How nobly is this brought out in Crusoe's behaviour on the 
 island ! At first he is in a passion of grief almost amounting
 
 2o8 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 to madness; 'but I thought that would do little good, so I 
 began to make a raft,' etc. Little by little he calms down, 
 often fairly giving way to the horrors of his situation, but 
 always, after a time, setting to work manfully on whatever 
 comes next to hand, until at last his mind grows into a state 
 of settled content and cheerfulness, to which none but a man 
 ribbed with tripled steel could have attained. There is a 
 fearless humility about the whole conception of Crusoe of 
 which we have almost lost the tradition." 1 One of the great 
 attractions of " Robinson Crus@e " is the boundless scope 
 which it gives to the imagination of the reader in conjecturing 
 what he would have done had he occupied Crusoe's position. 
 This helps to give an interest to the smallest details, making 
 us follow such passages as those in which he gives an account 
 of his difficulties in getting a boat out to sea, the methods 
 which he took to raise and preserve his crops, &c, with 
 something of a personal interest. The fine and sublime con- 
 ception of a shipwrecked mariner cast on a desert island is 
 one which, to a writer with a genius less happily constituted 
 for his subject than Defoe's, would have offered almost irre- 
 sistible temptations to indulge in high-flown and philosophical 
 meditations above the reach of the hero, and above the reach 
 of humanity in general, thus, in great measure, taking away 
 from the reader the power of, as it were, substituting himself 
 for Crusoe, besides greatly diminishing the fascination of the 
 story. The superiority of the first part of " Robinson Crusoe " 
 is no doubt to be largely attributed to the excellence of the 
 subject : the second part, where the solitude is broken in 
 upon by a crowd of planters and ship-captains, is little if at 
 all superior to Defoe's other novels. 
 
 A man of very different character from Defoe was our next 
 great novelist, Samuel Richardson, the equable current of 
 whose career is in striking contrast to Defoe's active and bustling 
 life. In intellect, also, and in choice of subjects, the two men 
 differ greatly, but there is some resemblance between their 
 
 1 Fitzjames Stephen on "The Relation of Novels to Life," in "Cam- 
 bridge Essays " for 1855, p. 188.
 
 Samuel Richardson. 209 
 
 styles. Both loved great minuteness of detail, both were apt 
 to deal too much in what may be called the " inventory " 
 style of writing, omitting no fact or incident, even the least 
 important, and both in consequence sometimes become in- 
 tolerably long-winded, though there is a certain dramatic 
 propriety about Defoe's tediousness which is wanting in 
 Richardson's. An industrious, frugal, punctual man, attend- 
 ing carefully to business, and avoiding every kind of dissipa- 
 tion, Richardson passed a happy and blameless life, surrounded 
 by a host of female admirers who were never tired of praising 
 him. He drank in all their flattery with greedy ears; for he 
 was a vain man, and, like most vain men, preferred the society 
 of women to that of men. The story of his life presents no 
 unusual or striking incidents, and need not detain us long. 
 He was born in 16S9, apprenticed to a printer in 1706, 
 served his apprenticeship, worked for some years as a com- 
 positor, and then set up in business on his own account in 
 Fleet Street. To the end of his life he continued to keep 
 his shop, and was thus able to avoid the many hardships 
 and privations which in his day were the common lot of men 
 of letters. Perhaps in ah London it would not have been 
 possible to find a man who to the casual observer bore a more 
 thoroughly commonplace appearance. 
 
 Yet in this man there was a spark of the divine fire of 
 genius, and although he was well advanced in life before he 
 thought of appearing as an author, it so happened that he had 
 unintentionally from a very early period been training himself 
 for the work which he was to accomplish. "As a bashful 
 and not forward boy," he writes, " I was an early favourite with 
 all the young women of taste and reading in the neighbour- 
 hood. Half-a-dozen of them, when met to work with their 
 needles, used, when they got a book they liked, and thought I 
 should, to borrow me to read to them, their mothers some- 
 times with them, and bojh mothers and daughters used to be 
 pleased with the observations they put me upon making. 
 
 "I was not more than thirteen when three of these young 
 women, unknown to each other, having a high opinion of my
 
 2 1 o Our First G?'cat Novelists. 
 
 taciturnity, revealed to me their love secrets, in order to induce 
 me to give them copies to write after, or correct, for answers 
 to their lovers' letters ; nor did any of them ever know that I 
 was the secretary to the other. I have been directed to chide, 
 and even repulse, at the very time that the heart of the chider 
 or repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem 
 and affection, and the fair repulser, dreading to be taken 
 at her word, directing this word or that expression to be 
 softened or changed. One, highly gratified with her lover's 
 fervour and vows of everlasting love, has said, when I have 
 asked her direction, ' I cannot tell you what to write ; but ' (her 
 heart on her lips) ' you cannot write too kindly ; ' all her fear 
 was only that she should incur slight for her kindness." 
 
 Thus it was that Richardson began to acquire that know- 
 ledge of the depths and windings of the human heart which 
 constitute his strength as a novelist. The occupation above 
 described does not appear to be a very suitable one for a boy 
 of thirteen, and it must be confessed that Richardson had in 
 his character a good deal of the prig and not a little of the 
 milksop. Yet it is to his engaging in this curious employment 
 that we owe "Pamela" and "Clarissa." Having found out 
 that he had a talent for letter-writing, Richardson continued 
 to practise the art as much as his opportunities allowed, and 
 thus acquired considerable facility in composition. About 
 1 739 two booksellers asked him to write for them "a little 
 book of familiar letters on the useful concerns of common 
 life." He consented; the design gradually expanded under 
 his hands; and "Pamela" was the result. The first two 
 volumes appeared in 1741, and were received with a chorus 
 of public approbation comparable to that which welcomed 
 " Waverley " or the " Pickwick Papers." Ur. Sherlock recom- 
 mended the work from the pulpit. Pope declared that it 
 would do more good than twenty volumes of sermons. One 
 enthusiastic gentleman went so far as to say that if all other 
 books were to be burned, the Bible and "Pamela" should be 
 preserved. Nor was the enthusiasm about the book confined 
 to England. It was translated into French, and excited as
 
 Richardson 's " Clarissa." 21 1 
 
 great a furore on the other side of the Channel as here. This 
 extraordinary blaze of popularity seems very strange to us. 
 Besides the coarseness of many of the details, which may be 
 excused, as the fashion of the age allowed an amount of plain 
 speaking which we should now think quite intolerable, there 
 is in the book a mawkish tediousness and a sort of canting 
 virtue which tend to repel the reader. One great reason for 
 its success no doubt was that it was a novel of quite a diffe- 
 rent character from any that had hitherto been published. 
 "It requires," says Scott, "a reader to be in some degree 
 acquainted with the huge folios of inanity, over which our 
 ancestors yawned themselves to sleep, ere he can estimate 
 the delight they must have experienced from the unexpected 
 return to truth and nature." 
 
 A spurious continuation of "Pamela" led Richardson to 
 add to it two additional volumes, but they shared the com- 
 mon fate of continuations in turning out a failure, and are now 
 seldom if ever read even by Richardson's most enthusiastic 
 admirers. For some years after this Richardson kept silence, 
 revolving in his mind the plot of the work on which rests his 
 most enduring claim to remembrance. This was the noble 
 and tragic story of " Clarissa," which was published eight years 
 after the appearance of " Pamela." Though, like all his 
 works, too long-winded, there is in it a power and a depth of 
 pathos which keep the reader who has once fairly entered on 
 its perusal enchained to the end. Nowhere in either English 
 fiction or poetry is there drawn a figure more beautiful, intense, 
 and splendid than that of Clarissa. Mrs. Oliphant does not 
 exaggerate when she says that in this figure Richardson 
 added at least one character to the inheritance of the world, 
 of which Shakespeare need not have been ashamed — the most 
 celestial thing, the highest imaginative effort of his generation. 
 When tin.- first four volumes of "Clarissa" appeared, and 
 apprehensions began to be entertained that the catastrophe 
 was to be unfortunate, requests crowded upon the author to 
 spare the high-souled creature whom he had called into being, 
 and wind up his story with the stereotyped happy ending. To
 
 2 i 2 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 his credit be it said, Richardson steadfastly withstood all 
 such importunities. He saw that if he were to save his 
 heroine, he should inevitably degrade her, and thus ruin what 
 is probably, with all its many defects, the grandest prose 
 tragedy ever penned. 
 
 In Richardson's last great work, "Sir Charles Grandison," 
 which was published in 1753, he sank below the level not 
 only of " Clarissa," but even of " Pamela." At the instigation 
 of some of his female admirers he set himself to portray the 
 beau ideal of a "fine gentleman," who should unite in one 
 person all excellences, mental, moral, and physical. The 
 result is such as might have been apprehended. Sir Charles 
 is " that faultless monster whom the world ne'er saw ; a 
 polite, moralising, irreproachable coxcomb," content to dwell 
 in decencies for ever. " It is impossible for the reader to feel 
 any sympathy with a hero whose worst trial is the doubt 
 which of two beautiful and accomplished women, excellent in 
 disposition and high in rank, sister excellences, as it were, both 
 being devotedly attached to him, he shall be pleased to select 
 for his bride, and this with so small a share of partiality 
 towards either, that we cannot conceive his happiness to be 
 endangered wherever his lot may fall, except by a generous 
 compassion for her whom he must necessarily relinquish." 
 " Sir Charles Grandison " now takes rank with the continua- 
 tion of " Pamela," as utterly unreadable save by such omni- 
 vorous students as Macaulay, to whom every kind of literary 
 food is palatable. 
 
 Richardson died in 1761, a much-respected, prosperous, 
 and in the main worthy man. Vanity, the common vice of 
 those who like him are contented to receive as infallible the 
 opinions of their own petty circle of acquaintances, was his 
 predominant failing. He could not, as Johnson expressed it 
 in one of the many fine remarks which flashed from him in 
 the heat of conversation, be contented to sail quietly down 
 the stream of reputation without longing to taste the froth 
 from every stroke of the oar. In company he had little to say 
 except when the conversation turned upon his own works,
 
 Richardson s Works. 2 1 
 
 -1 
 
 about which he was always willing to talk. If he could re- 
 visit the earth, Richardson's vanity would receive a sad shock. 
 His works, read and praised by thousands in this country, 
 and applauded abroad by such men as Rousseau and Diderot, 
 are now unknown, not only to the general public, but even to 
 many whose knowledge of English literature is far from con- 
 temptible. Indeed, we are very much inclined to doubt if 
 there are ten persons now living who could conscientiously 
 affirm that they had read his three novels from beginning to 
 end. This general neglect is not difficult to account for. His 
 works are so enormously long, that the very appearance of the 
 massive volumes in which they are contained is apt to frighten 
 away a reader of these degenerate days. But their length is 
 not the only obstacle to their perusal. All are written in the 
 form of letters to and from the various characters who figure 
 in them, a mode of storytelling which greatly aggravated 
 Richardson's natural tendency to diffuseness. A not incon- 
 siderable part of the letters is occupied with the commonplace 
 forms of epistolary politeness, which we could very well have 
 dispensed with, and, moreover, the same incident is sometimes 
 related by different correspondents at unmerciful length. Add 
 to this that the story moves so slowly that an old lady is said 
 to have chosen " Sir Charles Grandison " to be read to her in 
 preference to any other work, because she could sleep for 
 half an hour at any time while it was being read, and still find 
 the personages just where she left them, conversing in the 
 cedar parlour, and we have said enough to account for the 
 decline of Richardson's popularity. Even Johnson, who, 
 probably from personal regard to the author, had an extrava- 
 gantly high opinion of Richardson's novels, was compelled to 
 own that " Were you to read Richardson for the story, your 
 impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang 
 yourself." "You must read him for the sentiment," he went 
 on to say, "and consider the story only as giving occasion to 
 the sentiment." But Richardson's sentiment and moral re- 
 flections have now a thoroughly antiquated flavour : he is no 
 longer found capable of teaching "the passions to move at
 
 2 1 4 Our First Gi'cat Novelists. 
 
 the command of virtue." Yet, acting on the sound critical 
 principle that a writer ought always to be judged by his best 
 performance, we are constrained to admit that the writer of 
 " Clarissa," full of improbabilities and wearisome minutiae as 
 it is, deserves the^ conspicuous position which he still holds 
 in the history of English literature, not only because he 
 originated a new species of composition, but because he was 
 a man of strikingly original genius. "Clarissa" belongs to 
 the small class of works which, once read, never fail to leave 
 a powerful and indelible impression on the memory. 
 
 " How charming, how wholesome Fielding always is ! To 
 take him up after Richardson is like emerging from a sick- 
 room heated by stoves into an open lawn on a breezy day of 
 May." Thus Coleridge spoke of Richardson's great contem- 
 porary and rival, Henry Fielding, who, after the lapse of more 
 than a century and a half, still disputes with Scott and one or 
 two others the proud position of the greatest of English writers 
 of fiction. Richardson's novels are novels of setitiment : he 
 draws men from the inside, as it were, portraying their passions, 
 feelings, imaginations, and so forth. It was reserved to Fielding 
 to inaugurate a new era in fiction by writing novels of real 
 life, painting with graphic pencil the manners, fashions, and 
 characters prevalent in English society at the time when he lived. 
 Fielding was born in 1707 at Sharpham Park, Somersetshire, 
 the son of a general who served under the Duke of Marl- 
 borough. He was descended from a lofty ancestry, being a 
 great-grandson of the Desmond who was a son of the Earl of 
 Denbigh, a circumstance which gave rise to Gibbon's stately 
 sentence, which Thackeray was so fond of quoting : " Our im- 
 mortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of 
 Denbigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Hapsburgh. 
 The successors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of 
 England; but the romance of 'Tom Jones,' that exquisite 
 picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the 
 Escurial and the imperial eagle of the House of Austria." 
 Like many another scion of a noble family, Fielding found 
 that his long-drawn pedigree was not attended by any very
 
 Henry Fielding. 2 1 5 
 
 solid material advantages. Leaving Eton, where he amassed 
 that stock of classical learning which he was rather too fond 
 of displaying in his works, he went to Leyden to study civil 
 law. There he remained for two years, when, at the age of 
 twenty, he was compelled to return to England, owing to the 
 inability of his father to supply him with funds. Settling in 
 London, he found that he had no resource but, to use his own 
 expression, to become a hackney-writer or a hackney-coach- 
 man. His father, it is true, granted him a nominal allowance 
 of ^200 a year, but, as his son used to say, "anybody might 
 pay it who would." Of handsome exterior, great conversational 
 powers, and free, reckless, jovial disposition, Fielding entered 
 with zest into the many dissipations of the great city, earning 
 a precarious income by dashing off rapidly play after play. We 
 need not enter into details regarding Fielding's dramatic per- 
 formances. Though they are not without merit, his name 
 would now have been quite forgotten if he had written nothing 
 else. Fielding himself seems to have viewed them with philo- 
 sophic indifference. Garrick once asked him to erase a passage 
 from one of his comedies, as he felt certain it would provoke 
 opposition. " Xo," replied Fielding, " if the scene is not a 
 good one, let them find that out." The play was accordingly 
 brought out without alteration, and, as had been foreseen, was 
 ill received. Garrick, alarmed at the hisses he met with, 
 retired into the green-room, where the author sat drinking 
 champagne. " What's the matter, Garrick ? " said Fielding ; 
 " what are they hissing now ? " " Why, the scene that I 
 begged you to retrench, and they have so frightened me that 
 I shall not be able to collect myself again the whole night." 
 " Oli, they have found it out, have they ? " was the cool reply. 
 About 1735 Fielding married Miss Cradock of Salisbury, a 
 beautiful and amiable lady, with a fortune of ^1500. About 
 the same time he fell heir to a property of ,£200 a year. It 
 must be remembered that these sums then represented a 
 much larger purchasing power than they would do now. 
 If managed with economy, they would have placed Field- 
 ing above the reach of sordid want for the rest of his life.
 
 2i6 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 But unfortunately he was one of the pretty numerous class 
 of men who, whatever their income be, always live beyond 
 it. Setting up as a country squire, he kept a vast retinue of 
 servants clad in costly yellow liveries ; he exercised an un- 
 bounded hospitality, throwing open his doors to all comers, 
 and indulged in profuse expenditure on horses and hounds. 
 By these and such-like means he soon devoured his little 
 patrimony, and was obliged to return to his old literary drudgery. 
 The time he spent in the character of a country squire was not, 
 however, altogether wasted. While apparently exceeding all 
 his brother squires in folly, he was in reality noting with keen 
 and vigilant eye all their peculiarities and little traits of manner, 
 and thus storing up a vast variety of materials wherewith to 
 enrich some of the most imperishable pages of English fiction. 
 On his return to London, Fielding, in order to escape from 
 the miseries which surrounded a poor author, formed the 
 valorous resolution of studying the law. He was called to the 
 bar in 1740, and appears to have made considerable efforts to 
 obtain success in his profession. Clients, however, came in 
 slowly, and literature was, as formerly, his principal means of 
 subsistence. Up to this time Fielding had been groping blindly 
 about, without, it appears, the slightest knowledge of what 
 province of literature his genius was peculiarly fitted to share 
 in. Had Richardson never written "Pamela," Fielding, if 
 known at all to our age, would have been known only as the 
 author of some indifferent essays and plays. "Pamela " showed 
 him the true path into which his powers should be directed. 
 " He couldn't," to quote Thackeray, " do otherwise than laugh 
 at the puny Cockney bookseller pouring out endless volumes 
 of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a molly- 
 coddle and a milksop." The result was "Joseph Andrews" 
 (1742), the first English novel in which the author set himself 
 to delineate the broad panorama of English life as it was 
 moving before his eyes. Originally intended to be little else 
 than a caricature of " Pamela," it soon passed into something 
 much better than that. The character of Parson Adams 
 guileless, benevolent, child-like, with a touch of pedantry, and
 
 Fielding s "Miscellanies" 217 
 
 a touch of vanity (charmingly shown by his offering to walk 
 ten miles to fetch his sermon on Vanity, merely to convince 
 the friend with whom he was talking of his thorough contempt 
 for that vice), is one of the finest portraits in that noble gallery 
 where hang Dr. Primrose, My Uncle Toby, Mr. Pickwick, 
 Colonel Newcome, The Antiquary, and other faithful and 
 long-tried friends. Richardson never forgave Fielding for the 
 slight put upon him by the publication of "Joseph Andrews," 
 and to the end of his life continued to speak of him with a 
 degree of contempt altogether unjustifiable. He declared that 
 "he has little or no invention;" that "nothing but a shorter 
 life than I can wish him can hinder him from writing himself 
 out of date ; " and that his knowledge of the human heart 
 was " but as the knowledge of the outside of a clockwork 
 machine ! " 
 
 The interval between the publication of "Joseph Andrews" 
 and Fielding's next great work may be briefly passed over. In 
 1743 he published by subscription three volumes of " Miscel- 
 lanies," the more notable contents of which are the "Journey 
 from this World to the Next," a cleveryV// tTesprit, the interest 
 of which falls off considerably towards the end, and "Jonathan 
 Wild." The latter work, which well illustrates Thackeray's 
 remark, that Fielding's wit flashes upon a rogue and lightens 
 up a rascal like a policeman's lantern, may be compared to 
 the " Parry Lyndon " of the former novelist. Roguery, and not 
 a rogue, is, as the author himself said, the subject; and the 
 fine satire, the contempt for and abhorrence of villany, which 
 I ■- nneate the book, go far to compensate for the unpleasantness 
 of the subject. Fielding at all times resembled Thackeray in 
 having a thorough and healthy aversion for anything approach- 
 ing to making a hero out of a blackguard, a practice more 
 common in our day than in his. About the time when the 
 " Miscellanies" was published, he sustained the great afflli tiotl 
 of his life in the loss first of his daughter, and soon after of 
 his wife, his affection for whom constitutes one of the finest 
 traits of his manly and generous, if somewhat reckless and dis- 
 sipated, character. Her death, we are told by one of his bio-
 
 2 1 8 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 graphers, brought on such a vehemence of grief that his friends 
 began to think him in danger of losing his reason. Mrs. 
 Fielding left behind her a maid, whose expressions of grief at 
 the loss of her beloved mistress so touched Fielding's heart, 
 that he made her his second wife. He never had any reason 
 to repent of having done so. In the last production of his 
 pen, he commemorated her as a woman "who discharged all 
 the offices becoming the female character — a faithful friend, an 
 amiable companion, and a tender nurse." 
 
 In the end of 1748 Fielding accepted what was then con- 
 sidered the rather degrading office of a Bow Street Magistrate. 
 These officials were termed Trading Justices, being repaid by 
 fees for their services to the public. It deserves to be recorded 
 to Fielding's honour that, in contrast to many of his brethren, 
 he discharged his duties with strict honesty, thus, as he said, 
 "reducing an income of about ^500 a year of the dirtiest 
 money upon earth to little more than ^300; a considerable 
 proportion of which remained with my clerk." In 1749 
 appeared his greatest work, " Tom Jones," the labour, he tells 
 us, of some years of his life — a fact sufficiently well attested 
 by its careful and masterly execution. It was so well received 
 that within a month after its publication a notice appeared 
 stating, that it being impossible to bind sets fast enough to 
 answer the demand, those who pleased might have them in 
 blue paper or boards ; and the publisher, in consequence of 
 the enormous sale, added ;£ioo to the ^600 agreed to be paicb 
 to the author. The skilful elaboration of the plot, the admir- 
 able drawing of the characters, and the shrewd and sensible 
 remarks interspersed thickly throughout the work, combine to 
 give " Tom Jones " a proud pre-eminence over all the other 
 novels of the eighteenth century. Exception may, indeed, be 
 taken to parts of it ; one is sometimes tempted to think that 
 Tom, who is evidently such a favourite with the author, was in 
 reality not much better than an "accomplished blackguard," 
 as Byron calls him, and that the beautiful Sophia was, to use 
 Hazlitt's expression, merely a pretty simpleton ; but there can 
 be no question as to the general power, spirit, and fidelity to
 
 Fielding s ' ' A melia . " 219 
 
 nature of the book. The character of Squire Western, the Tory 
 fox-hunter, with his animalism, his coarseness, his prejudices, 
 his instinctive love of his daughter, balanced by his equally 
 strong love of the pleasures of the chase, is immortal and un- 
 surpassed. Thackeray's Sir Pitt Crawley, who was evidently 
 modelled on this unapproachable portrait, is only a feeble 
 echo of it. The coarseness and indelicacy which too often 
 pollute the pages of "Tom Jones" are what must be allowed 
 for in all the novels of the time. Neither Richardson, nor 
 Fielding, nor Smollett, nor Sterne is reading adapted virgini- 
 bus puerisque. Nevertheless, we are decidedly of Mr. Ruskin's 
 opinion, that, rightly viewed, Fielding is a thoroughly moral 
 novelist. The absence from his works of all cant and in- 
 sincerity, his love of truth, courage, and uprightness, his hatred 
 and detestation of falsehood, malice, and depravity, give his 
 novels a perennial air of freshness and health. 
 
 About three years after "Tom Jones," in December 1 75 r, 
 Fielding's last important work, "Amelia," was completed. It 
 is on the whole the least excellent of the trio. Its construc- 
 tion is far inferior to the consummate art with which the plot 
 of "Tom Jones" is worked out; and though in some ways 
 considerably superior to " Joseph Andrews," it contains no 
 shining character like Parson Adams, on whose memory one 
 loves to linger. Nevertheless, the book had one great triumph. 
 Dr. Johnson, who was always so scandalously unjust to Field- 
 trig, that one is tempted to suppose that he must have had 
 some personal animosity towards him, read it through without 
 * stopping, and declared that Amelia was the most pleasing 
 heroine in romance. Amelia, whose portrait Fielding drew 
 from that of his second wife, has, indeed, been always a 
 favourite character with readers; but the same cannot be said 
 about her husband, Booth, who, we may suppose, was intended 
 to represent Fielding himself. If so, the likeness which he 
 drew is certainly not a flattering one. Thackeray preferred 
 Captain Booth t" Tom Jones, because lie thought much more 
 humbly of himself than Jones did, and went down on hi knees 
 and owned his weaknesses; but most will be inclined to agree
 
 2:o Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 with Scott, who declares that we have not the same sympathy 
 for the ungrateful and dissolute conduct of Booth which we 
 yield to the youthful follies of Jones. However, after all 
 necessary deductions have been made, " Amelia " must be 
 pronounced a wonderful work, full Of that rich flow of humour 
 and deep knowledge of human nature which charm us in 
 " Tom Jones " and " Joseph Andrews." 
 
 Besides his plays and his novels, Fielding wrote a variety of 
 other works. He was the conductor and principal writer of 
 two or three periodical publications, in which he strenu- 
 ously upheld his political opinions,- which were strongly Pro- 
 testant and anti-Jacobite, and assailed vigorously some of the 
 more noted quacks of the day. He also, in connection with 
 his duties as magistrate, wrote on such subjects as the best 
 means for diminishing the number of robberies, making effec- 
 tual provision for the poor, &c. His irregular life early under- 
 mined his naturally vigorous constitution, and in 1753 he was 
 advised to endeavour to recruit his shattered frame by a voyage 
 to a warmer climate. He sailed for Lisbon, but his health was 
 too seriously impaired to be benefited by the change, and he 
 expired on the 8th October 1754. He is buried in the Eng- 
 lish Cemetery at Lisbon, where a tomb erected to him in 1830 
 bears the following inscription : — 
 
 " Henricus Fielding, 
 
 Luget Brittania Gremio non Datum 
 
 Fovere Natum." 
 
 " I am sorry for Henry Fielding's death," wrote Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu, " not only as I shall read no more of his 
 writings, but because I believe he lost more than others, as no 
 man enjoyed life more than he did. . . . His happy constitu- 
 tion, even when he had, with great pains, half demolished it, 
 made him forget every evil; when he was before a venison 
 pasty or over a flask of champagne; and I am persuaded he 
 has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. 
 His natural spirits gave him rapture with his C0Dk-maid, and 
 cheerfulness when he was starving in a garret. There was a
 
 Fielding's Ckarckcieristus. 2 2 1 
 
 great similarity between his character and that of Sir Richard 
 Steele. He had the advantage, both in learning and, in my 
 opinion, genius; they both agreed in wanting money, -in spite 
 of all their friends, and would have wanted it if their heredi- 
 tary lands had been as extensive as their imagination ; yet each 
 of them was so formed for happiness, it is a pity he was not 
 immortal." Her Ladyship's piqture is a very graphic, and, as 
 we know from other sources, a very correct one. 'Fielding 
 was no hero. Ginger was hot in the mouth with him, and he 
 was always apt to prefer the call of pleasure to the call of duty. 
 But with all his vices and weaknesses, which it is not desir- 
 able either to palliate or excuse, he was so good-hearted, so 
 courageous, so affectionate, so manly, that we cannot contem- 
 plate his character without a certain admiration as well as 
 liking. The leading features of his novels have been already 
 sufficiently indicated. There are greater depths in human 
 nature than he ever sounded ; he had less of the spirit of a 
 poet than any other novelist of equal merit ; and he had no 
 skill in that subtle psychological analysis which — whether for 
 good or for evil, we need not discuss — is such a prominent 
 characteristic of some of our great recent writers of fiction. 
 Moral problems never troubled him ; he was content to take 
 the world as he found it, with its mixture of good and evil, 
 riches and poverty, laughter and tears. Perhaps it is the 
 want of the subjective or retrospective element in Fielding's 
 novels which has caused him to be unduly depreciated by 
 some who ought to have known better. Harriet Martineau, 
 for example, could see scarcely any merit in his works, and 
 was quite at a loss how to account for his popularity. 
 
 1 impaling his works with those of professed historians, 
 Fielding said that in their productions nothing was true but 
 the names and dates, whereas in his ever) thing was true but 
 the names and dates, q'here is more truth in this Statement 
 than may at first sight appear. "As a re ord of past manners 
 and opinions, tOO," says lla/.iitt, speaking of the English 
 
 novelists, " such writings afford the best and fullest informa- 
 tion. For example, I should be at a loss where to find m any
 
 222 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 authentic documents of the same period so satisfactory an 
 account of the general state of society, and of moral, political, 
 and religious feeling in the reign of George II., as we meet 
 with in the adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. 
 Abraham Adams. This work, indeed, I take to be a perfect 
 piece of statistics in its kind. In looking into any regular 
 history of that period, into a learned and eloquent charge to a 
 grand jury or the clergy of a diocese, or into a tract on con- 
 troversial divinity, we should hear only of the ascendancy of 
 the Protestant succession, the horrors of Popery, the triumph 
 of civil and religious liberty, the wisdom and moderation of 
 the sovereign, the happiness of the subject, and the flourish- 
 ing state of manufactures and commerce. But if .we really 
 wish to know what all these fine-sounding names come to, we 
 cannot do better than turn to the works of those who, having 
 no other object than to imitate nature, could only hope for 
 success from the fidelity of their picture." 
 
 The works of our next great novelist, Tobias Smollett, are like 
 Fielding's in being of great value from an historical point of 
 view, as depicting faithfully the social life of our ancestors. 
 Although they differ in many respects, Fielding and Smollett 
 •resemble each other in this — they were both novelists who 
 drew from real life, and filled their pages with suoh characters, 
 incidents, and situations as were found in the England of their 
 time. Smollett was born in Dumbartonshire in 1721. He 
 came of a good family, being a grandson of Sir James Smollett 
 of Bonhill. At an early age he was bound apprentice to John 
 •Gordon, an eminent surgeon of Glasgow, who seems to have 
 appreciated the talents of his youthful pupil. Smollett was a 
 tricky urchin, which caused some one to boast of the superior 
 decorum and propriety of his youthful acquaintances. "It 
 »ay be all very true," manfully replied Gordon, " but give me, 
 before •them all, my own bubbly-nosed callant with the stane 
 in his pouch." To the end of his life, Smollett, in spite of his 
 irritability and fretfulness, had something of a schoolboy's 
 love of fun and frolic. It shines forth conspicuously in his 
 novels, while it is almost totallv absent from Fielding's.
 
 Tobias Smollett. 223 
 
 When, after he had undergone the trials and privations of many 
 years, he went to see his mother, he endeavoured to conceal 
 his identity, but he could not so compose his countenance as 
 altogether to refrain from smiling. His smile enabled his 
 mother at once to recognise him. She afterwards told him 
 that if he had kept his austere looks and continued to gloom, 
 he might have escaped detection for some time longer, "but 
 your old roguish smile betrayed you at once." 
 
 The death of his grandfather left Smollett, whose father had 
 died early, totally unprovided for at the age of eighteen. He 
 afterwards revenged his grandfather's neglect in making no 
 provision for him, by consigning him to immortal disgrace as 
 the old judge who figures in the early chapters of " Roderick 
 Random." Armed with the "Regicide," a tragedy, Smollett 
 in his nineteenth year set out for London to win fame and 
 fortune by those talents of which he was always fully conscious. 
 The tragedy, though at first patronised by Lord Lyttleton, 
 whom Smollett afterwards described with perfect truth as 
 " one of those little fellows who are sometimes called great 
 men," was not appreciated by theatrical managers. Disap- 
 pointed in his hopes of fame as a dramatist, Smollett embarked 
 as surgeon's mate on board of a ship of the line, and served 
 in the disastrous Carthagena* expedition of 1741. Of his ex- 
 perience while thus employed he has left a faithful record in 
 some of the most stirring and vigorous pages of "Roderick 
 Random." It was at this period of his life that he acquired 
 accurate and intimate acquaintance with the habits of 
 sailors to which we owe some of the most vivid and lifelike 
 portraits in his novels. Smollett quitted the naval service in dis- 
 gust in the West Indies, and after residing some time in Jamaica, 
 returned to England in 1746. He then setup in London as 
 a physician, but his success was very small, owing partly, it is 
 said, to his haughty manners and irascible temper, which made 
 him show very manifest signs of impatience when listening to 
 y accounts of petty indispositions. In 1 7.(6-1 747 he pub- 
 lished two poetical satires, "Advice" and " Reproof," of no 
 very great merit, but so bitter and unsparing as to greatly in-
 
 224 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 crease the number of his enemies. In 1747 he married Miss 
 Lascelles, described as " beautiful and accomplished." 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the leading events of Smollett's 
 life up to the publication, in 1748, of his first great work, 
 " Roderick Random." In great part it is a record of his own 
 personal experiences, and of the queer acquaintances whom 
 he had fallen in with during his rather stormy life. In this 
 respect it resembles all his other works of fiction. Thackeray- 
 is doubtless right in thinking that Smollett's novels are recollec- 
 tions of his own adventures, and that his characters are drawn 
 from personages with whom he became acquainted in his own 
 career of life. " He did not invent much, as I fancy, but had 
 the keenest perceptive faculty, and described what he saw 
 with wonderful relish and delightful broad humour." " Rode- 
 rick Random " has very little plot : it is merely a collection of 
 incidents and adventures very loosely strung together by a 
 thread of autobiography, after the fashion of " Gil Bias." 
 The hero is intended to stand for Smollett himself, just as Tom 
 Jones stood for Fielding. In neither case is the portrait thus 
 presented a pleasing one ; but Tom Jones is as far superior 
 to the selfish and low-minded Roderick Random, as the devoted 
 and generous Strap, the follower of the latter, is superior to the 
 lying and self-seeking Partridge, Jones's attendant. The finest 
 character in " Roderick Random," and the one to which the 
 reader turns with most affection, is undoubtedly Lieutenant 
 Bowling, whose bluff kind-heartedness, honesty, and impulsive- 
 ness, are sketched with a masterly pencil. The fidelity to nature 
 of all Smollett's accounts of life at sea is very marked. He 
 never surrounds the hardships, toils, and dangers of a seaman's 
 existence with that rose-coloured atmosphere which leads the 
 unsuspecting reader of such books as Captain Marryat's novels 
 to suppose that a sailor's life is largely one of joking and sport, 
 diversified by hairbreadth escapes and romantic dangers. 
 
 " Roderick Random " was at once received with favour by 
 the public, and Smollett's position as an author was now finally 
 established. In 1750 he made a tour to Paris, where he 
 gathered materials for future works, and where " Peregrine
 
 Smollett as Editor. 225 
 
 Tickle " was chiefly written. It was published in the following 
 year. It is a laughter-provoking book, with abundance of 
 incident and " go," but it is occasionally indefensibly coarse, 
 and not unfrequently shows that want of gentlemanly feeling 
 which Smollett's admirers have too often to regret. Shortly 
 after the publication of " Peregrine Pickle," Smollett endea- 
 voured to establish himself at Bath as a physician, and, with 
 a view to make his name known in this capacity, published 
 in 1752 an "Essay on the External Use of Water." This 
 second attempt to win success as a medical man failed as 
 completely as the first. Campbell, in his "Specimen of the 
 British Poets," remarks with much truth that the celebrity for 
 aggravating and exposing personal follies which Smollett had 
 acquired by his novels was rather too formidable to recom- 
 mend him as a confidential visitant to the sick chambers of 
 fashion. " To a sensitive valetudinarian," he goes on to say, 
 " many diseases would be less alarming than a doctor who 
 might slay the character by his ridicule, and might not save the 
 body by his prescriptions." Having returned disappointed 
 from Bath, Smollett fixed his residence at Chelsea, and never 
 again seems to have thought of abandoning the career of an 
 author. In 1753 he published the "Adventures of Ferdinand 
 Count Fathom," a novel descriptive of the deepest depravity, 
 umdeasing generally, and sometimes tedious, but containing 
 one scene — the adventure in the hut of the robbers — equal 
 if not superior in tragic intensity to anything he ever wrote. 
 Two years later he gave to the world his translation of " Don 
 Quixote," which, if in many ways not a faithful representation 
 of Cervantes' immortal novel, is a lively and spirited produc- 
 tion, showing Smollett's great command over language and 
 power of fluent and vivacious narrative. 
 
 In 1756 Smollett became editor of the Critical Review, a 
 Tory and High Church periodical. It was an evil day for his 
 happiness and peace of mind when he undertook this office. 
 Impatient <>( folly and stupidity, of a satirical and cynical 
 temperament, he soon showed that he was determined not to 
 spoil the author by a sparing use of the critical rod. Many
 
 226 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 excellent specimens of the " slashing " style of criticism, now 
 happily gone altogether out of fashion, might be culled from 
 Smollett's contributions to the Review. The result, of course, 
 was that he speedily raised against himself a host of enemies, 
 thus embittering his life with a long series of petty squabbles 
 and disputations. One controversy in which he engaged car- 
 ried with it very serious consequences. Reviewing a pamphlet 
 in which Admiral Knowles vindicated his conduct in the secret 
 expedition against Rochfort in 1757, Smollett declared that 
 Knowles was "an admiral without conduct, an engineer with- 
 out knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without 
 veracity." This was strong language, though it seems to have 
 been justified by the facts of the case ; and Smollett being 
 prosecuted for libel, was sentenced to pay a fine of ^100, 
 and to suffer three months' imprisonment. While confined 
 in prison he occupied himself in writing the " Adventures of 
 Sir Launcelot Greaves," which in 1 760-1 appeared by instal- 
 ments in the British Magazine, being one of the first of those 
 serial tales which now form the staple of so many of our 
 periodicals. It was republished in 1762. Sir Launcelot is a 
 modern Don Quixote, and the story of his exploits is one of 
 the least successful of Smollett's productions. 
 
 Besides the works by which his name is principally known, 
 Smollett compiled or lent his name to a number of pieces of 
 literary hackwork. Among these may be mentioned a col- 
 lection of voyages (1757), and a History of England from the 
 earliest period to 1748. This was published in 1758, in four 
 quarto volumes, and is said to have been written in fourteen 
 months — a feat of literary activity which, we should imagine, 
 has never been surpassed. The narrative was afterwards 
 brought down to 1765. Smollett does not rank high as an 
 historian ; the speed with which he wrote carried with it its in- 
 evitable fruits of carelessness and inaccuracy. " I spent much 
 of the day over Smollett's History," writes Macaulay in his Diary 
 (December 8, 1838). " It is exceedingly bad : detestably so. 
 I cannot think what had happened to him. His carelessness, 
 partiality, passion, idle invective, gross ignorance of facts, and
 
 Death of Smollett. 227 
 
 crude general theories, do not surprise me much. But the 
 style, wherever he tries to be elevated, and wherever he 
 attempts to draw a character, is perfectly nauseous ; which 
 I cannot understand. He says of old Horace Walpole that 
 he was an ambassador without dignity and a plenipotentiary 
 without address. I declare that I would rather have my 
 hand cut off than publish such a precious antithesis." This 
 is too harsh a judgment ; it errs as much on the side of 
 severity as Scott's does on the side of lenity when he says 
 that Smollett's History is written with uncommon spirit and 
 correctness of language. Smollett could scarcely fail to render 
 any subject he treated of readable at least ; and though his 
 facts are gathered with little care, his style is frequently 
 attractive and vigorous. The latter part of his History is (or 
 rather used to be) often printed as a continuation of Hume's. 
 
 In 1763, Smollett, broken down in health and much depressed 
 in spirits by domestic affliction, undertook a journey to France 
 and Italy, in which countries he resided for between two and 
 three years. On his return to England in 1766 he published 
 an account of his travels, which bears painful traces of how 
 his bodily weakness and mental trials had affected his dispo- 
 sition. The " learned Smelfungus," says Sterne, alluding to 
 Smollett, " travelled from Boulogne to Paris — from Paris to 
 Rome, — and so on ; but he set out with the spleen and jaundice ; 
 and every object he passed by was discoloured and distorted. 
 He wrote an account of them, but 'twas nothing but an account 
 of his own miserable feelings. I met Smelfungus in the grand 
 portico of the Pantheon — he was just coming out of it. ' 'Tis 
 nothing but a huge cockpit,' said he.'" The closing years 
 ol Smollett's life were spent in a very pitiful condition of weak 
 health and often of severe pain. Like his great rival, Henry 
 Fielding, h ttor< fain his strength in a foreign climate, 
 
 only to find there his L r rave. He set out for Italy in 1770, and 
 drew his last breath in the neighbourhood of Leghorn in 1 7 7 1 - 
 There is something peculiarly sad about the death of Smollett 
 at the early age of fifty-one. In spite of his multifarious in- 
 dustry he left his family almost totally unprovided for. Had
 
 2:S Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 he lived a few years longer he would have inherited the estate 
 of Bonhill, of the value of about ^iooo a year, and thus have 
 been enabled to end his days in comfort and affluence. 
 
 Shortly before his death, Smollett completed his last and 
 best work, the " Expedition of Humphrey Clinker," " the most 
 laughable story," says Thackeray, " that ever was written since 
 the goodly art of novel- writing began." Humphrey Clinker 
 himself, Winifred Jenkins, Matthew Bramble, Mrs. Tabitha 
 Bramble, and above all Lismahago, are characters that none 
 but a writer of first-rate humorous genius could have created. 
 There is, too, a fine mellow flavour about " Humphrey Clinker," 
 which makes it a fitting close to Smollett's literary life. There 
 is in it, too, a vein of pathos, not uncommon in Smollett's 
 novels, but never found in Fielding's. " I remember," said 
 Carlyle to Mr. Moncure Conway, speaking about his early 
 years, "few happier days than those in which I ran off into the 
 woods to read ' Roderick Random,' and how inconsolable I 
 was that I could not get the second volume. To this day I 
 know of few writers equal to Smollett. ' Humphrey Clinker ' 
 is precious to me now as he was in those years. Nothing by 
 Dante or any one else surpasses in pathos the scene where 
 Humphrey goes into the smithy made for him in the old house, 
 and whilst he is heating the iron, the poor woman who has 
 lost her husband and is deranged comes and talks to him as to 
 her husband, ' John, they told me you were dead. How glad 
 I am you are come.' And Humphrey's tears fall down and 
 bubble on the hot iron." Comparing Fielding's novels with 
 Smollett's, Hazlitt said that the one was an observer of the 
 characters of human life, the other a describer of its various 
 eccentricities. The distinction is just. Smollett could not 
 draw his characters without, like Dickens, adding to them a 
 considerable touch of caricature, while Fielding painted men 
 as they really were. There is, too, an air of culture and re- 
 finement about Fielding's novels which is absent from Smollett's. 
 To relish Fielding properly one must have some literary taste 
 and knowledge, while Smollett's riotous fun can be appreciated 
 by any one who is able to read. On the other hand, in variety
 
 Laurence Sterne. 229 
 
 and originality of incident and character Smollett decidedly 
 surpassed Fielding, and he was besides no contemptible poet, 
 as his " Tears of Caledonia," written after the massacre of 
 Culloden, and his " Ode to Independence," sufficiently show. 
 As a man Smollett in many ways deserves to be held in kindly 
 remembrance. Proud, frank, imprudent, he was a hard hitter, 
 always ready to give a blow, and always ready to take one 
 manfully. Good-hearted and generous, but petulant and 
 sometimes revengeful, he made many enemies ; but when 
 he saw that he had done any one an injustice, he was always 
 ready to make noble reparation. To his poor brethren of 
 the quill, the ragged denizens of Grub Street, he, poor himself, 
 gave bountiful aid, though he could not refrain from making 
 fun of their eccentricities. In person he is said to have been 
 remarkablyhandsome, "with a certain air of dignity that seemed 
 to show that he was not unconscious of his own powers." 
 
 A writer of equal genius to Fielding or Smollett, but differing 
 from them in almost every respect, was the last great novelist 
 of the eighteenth century, Laurence Sterne. As a novelist he 
 stands unique; for though many, inspired by his success, 
 endeavoured to imitate him, they succeeded only in catching 
 a portion of his peculiar mannerism : his subtle humour and 
 his singular vein of sentiment were beyond their reach. 
 Sterne's one work of fiction is not a novel of real life, neither 
 has it any elaborately constructed plot : he seems, indeed, to 
 have thought, with Bayes in the " Rehearsal," " what is a plot 
 good for except to bring in good things?" He rambles on in 
 the most incoherent and eccentric way, constantly indulging 
 in digressions and meditations, so that through the whole 
 long work the plot scarcely makes any material progress. It 
 is by his finely conceived sketches of character and by the 
 depth and tenderness of his humour that Sterne has won lor 
 himself an immortal name in literature. Sterne is one of the 
 happily few men of genius whose character was such as to 
 cause one to approach the study of their writings with a feeling 
 of prejudice. He was born at Clonmel, Ireland, of English 
 parents, in 17 13. His father was a lieutenant, who was
 
 2 ;o Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 o 
 
 engaged in the wars in Flanders during the reign of Queen 
 Anne ; and Sterne thus spent rather a wandering childhood, 
 following the sound of the drum as his father's regiment was 
 ordered from place to place. When about ten years old he 
 was sent to England, and put to school near Halifax, " with 
 an able master," he says in the fragment of autobiography 
 which he left behind him, " with whom I stayed some time, 
 till, by God's care of me, my Cousin Sterne of Elvington 
 became a father to me, and sent me to the University." One 
 anecdote which he relates of his school-days would seem to 
 show that his genius had been rather precocious. Upon the 
 newly whitewashed ceiling of the schoolroom he wrote with 
 a brush in large capital letters Lau. Sterne. For so doing he 
 was severely whipped by the usher, but the head-master took 
 Sterne's part strongly, and declared that his name should never 
 be effaced, for he was a boy of genius, and sure to come to 
 preferment. Sterne left school shortly after the death of his 
 father, which occurred in a duel, and in 1733 entered Jesus 
 College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M.A. in 
 1740. On leaving the University he took orders, and through 
 the interest of his uncle, a well-beneficed clergyman, obtained 
 the living of Sutton and the Prebendary of York. In York 
 he met with the lady whom he afterwards married. The 
 account of his courtship shall be given in his own words : 
 " I courted her for two years. She owned she liked me, but 
 thought herself not rich enough or me too poor to be joined 
 
 together. She went to her sister's in S , and I wrote to 
 
 her often. I believe then she was partly determined to have 
 me, but would not say so. At her return she fell into a con- 
 sumption ; and one evening that I was sitting by her, with 
 an almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said, ' My dear 
 Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not 
 long to live ; but I have left you every shilling of my fortune. 
 Upon this she showed me her will. This generosity over- 
 powered me. It pleased God that she recovered, and I 
 married her in the year 1741." It is a pity to have to relate, 
 alter this sentimental narrative, that within a few years after
 
 Sterne s " Tristram Shandy." 2^1 
 
 his marriage Sterne grew very tired of his wife, and neglected 
 her shamefully. She brought him a small fortune, and soon 
 after his marriage a friend of hers presented him with the 
 living of Stillington, in Yorkshire. At this period of his life, 
 Sterne relates that he had very good health, and amused 
 himself by books, painting, fiddling, and shooting. At Skelton 
 Castle, the library of his friend John Hall Stevenson, author 
 of some tales the indecency of which is much more apparent 
 than the wit, he found a large library, containing many old 
 and curious books, in turning over which he amassed that 
 store of out-of-the-way, if superficial and often secondhand, 
 erudition which he was fond of parading. He was in no 
 hurry to appear as an author. Two sermons preached at 
 York were his only publications, till, in 1759, he astonished the 
 whole reading public by the first two volumes of " Tristram 
 Shandy." They were originally published at York, and were 
 reprinted in London early in 1760. 
 
 By " Tristram Shandy " Sterne was elevated from the posi- 
 tion of an obscure Yorkshire parson to that of a metropolitan 
 lion of the first magnitude. When he went up to London, 
 invitations to dinner showered thickly upon him, and he was 
 welcomed in all societies of rank and fashion as the humo- 
 rous, eccentric, sentimental " Mr. Yorick," who had bestowed 
 on them that inestimable boon — a new sensation. Gray says 
 in one of his delightful letters, that at dinners which were 
 honoured by Sterne's presence, the company were invited a 
 fortnight before. "Any man who has a name," said Johnson 
 in a conversation recorded by Boswell, "or who has the power 
 of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. The 
 man Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three 
 months." •' And a very dull fellow, too," replied Goldsmith, 
 with perhaps a touch of jealousy. "Why, no, sir," said John- 
 son. Sterne wisely took advantage of his popularity to pub- 
 lish two volumes of sermons, which, as the production of the 
 author of " Tristram Shandy," attracted an amount of at- 
 tention which would certainly never have been vouchsafed 
 to them on account of their intrinsic merits. " They are in
 
 232 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 the style," says Gray, " I think most proper for the pulpit, ami 
 show a strong imagination and a sensible heart ; but you see 
 him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw 
 his periwig in the face of his audience." Any one who from 
 the latter part of this account may be induced to look over 
 Sterne's sermons with the view of finding in them passages 
 which recall "Tristram Shandy," will assuredly be disappointed. 
 For the most part, they are barren and commonplace enough. 
 To the two volumes of sermons published in 1760 Sterne 
 afterwards added other four. The remaining seven volumes of 
 "Tristram Shandy" appeared at intervals between 1 761 and 
 1767. The latter volumes did not Create the same sensation 
 as the former ones : the novelty of the thing had worn off, 
 and the numerous affectations arid eccentricities of style began 
 to repel rather than to attract. In 1764 Sterne went to Italy 
 to recover his health, which had become greatly impaired. 
 He returned in 1767, and in the following year published his 
 " Sentimental Journey," giving an account, in his peculiar 
 fashion, of his recent travels and of a former visit to France. 
 The "Sentimental Joitrriey" was received with the same 
 rapturous avidity as the first Volumes of " Tristram Shandy ;" 
 but Sterne was not destiried to enjoy any longer the applause 
 which was so sweet to him. He died in London on the 18th 
 of March 1768, much in the manner in which he had wished 
 to die — in hired lodgirigs and attended by strangers. 
 
 Sterne's figure was tall and slight, his face pale and 
 haggard, his general expression penetrating, scrutinising, and 
 satirical. His moral nature, which had, it is to be feared, 
 always something rotten about it, was too weak to endure 
 uninjured the continuous course, trying to all but very strong 
 minds, of flattery and dissipation which his success as an 
 author brought upon him. " He degenerated in London," 
 said David Garrick, " like an ill-transplanted shrub ; the in- 
 cense of the great spoiled his head and their ragouts his 
 stomach. He grew sickly and proud, an invalid in body 
 and mind." In his writings the most tender-hearted and 
 sentimental of men, he was in his conduct heartless, hypo-
 
 Sterne s Characteristics. 233 
 
 critical, and unprincipled. " He preferred," as Byron said, 
 " whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother." His 
 tainted character communicated itself in part, as it could 
 not but do, to his books. Fielding and Smollett are coarse, 
 but 'they are never indecent purely for the sake of indecency, 
 as Sterne is. He mars his finest passages by an obscene in- 
 sinuation or a ribald jest. Like Swift, he had in his nature an 
 inherent love for allusions to subjects which most people are 
 glad to banish from their thoughts. His affectation and his 
 alleged plagiarisms from other writers are of little or no con- 
 sequence in comparison with the dark stream of pollution 
 which runs through his books. It was this grievous defect 
 which caused Thackeray to exclaim, " The man is a great 
 jester, not a great humourist." Never was a more thoroughly 
 wrong-headed judgment uttered. Sterne is not only a great 
 humourist, he is one of the greatest of all humourists. " Sterne 
 comes next," writes Carlyle in his Essay on Richter, after 
 mentioning Shakespeare, Swift, and Ben Jonson, " our last 
 specimen of humour, and, with all his faults, our best ; our 
 finest, if not our strongest ; for Yorick, and Corporal Trim, 
 and Uncle Toby have yet no brother but in Don Quixote, 
 far as he lies above them." In a style full of tenderness and 
 sweetness he brings before us a series of family portraits, all 
 
 mal, all well marked, and all so delineated that one cannot 
 but love them. The elder Shandy, with his irritability, his 
 pedantry, and his theory about Christian names ; Uncle Toby, 
 full of loving-kindness and gentleness to all created beings, 
 harmless and credulous as a child ; Corporal Trim, devoted, 
 faithful, and vigilant, are characters so full of graciousness 
 and humanity that for their sake we can readily afford to 
 
 ive Sterne much. When we read about Uncle Toby and 
 his bowling-green, with its fortifications, its ammunition, and 
 its counterscarps, we feel inclined to mount behind him and 
 his hobby along with him. Many of the best parts of 
 "Tristram Shandy" devoted to Uncle Toby and Corporal 
 Trim are reminiscences of Sterne's youth, when, following his 
 father's regiment, he must have heard thousands of stories
 
 234 O ur First Great Novelists. 
 
 connected with the time when "our troops swore terribly in 
 Flanders," and thus amassed a store of curious anecdotes, 
 which remained in a memory tenacious of such things, and 
 bore good literary fruit after many years. 
 
 The leading names in English fiction from the death of 
 Sterne till the time of Sir Walter Scott may be very briefly 
 dealt with. Of Goldsmith, the greatest of them all, some 
 account is given in the following chapter. Sterne's pathos 
 found a not very successful imitator in Henry Mackenzie, 
 whose "Man of Feeling," published in 1 77 1, is a very lacka- 
 daisical novel, though it had many readers at one time. Horace 
 Walpole in his "Castle of Otranto" (1764), and Mrs. Rad- 
 cliffe (1 764-1 823), wrote wild romantic tales, somewhat after 
 the fashion of the old school of romance. Mrs. RadcliftVs 
 works belong to a class of fiction that would now find favour 
 only with children. After having led us to suppose that the 
 wonderful effects which occur in her novels have been pro- 
 duced by supernatural agency, she systematically unravels 
 her own spells, and shows how in reality they were the result 
 of natural causes. William Beckford, whom Byron celebrates 
 as "England's wealthiest son," published in 1784 his little 
 Oriental romance called " Vathek," which is still read, owing 
 to its originality and its fine description of the terrible Hall 
 of Eblis. William Godwin's best novel, " Caleb Williams," 
 which appeared in i794,was intended to be "a general review 
 of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which 
 man becomes the destroyer of man." It was thus a " novel 
 with a purpose," one of the first of that bad class ; but the 
 moral is not obtrusively thrust forward ; indeed, had the 
 author not told us, we should be rather puzzled to say what 
 the moral really is. "Caleb Williams," inartistic though it 
 often be, is a singularly powerful and fascinating novel, which, 
 as Hazlitt says, can never be begun without being finished, 
 or finished without stamping itself upon the memory of the 
 reader. The work of recent times to which it bears the 
 closest resemblance is the " Scarlet Letter " of Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne. Hawthorne was master of an infinitely more
 
 Miss Burney > Miss Edgewortk, &c. 235 
 
 polished and flexible style than Godwin, but the character- 
 istics which give both books such a firm hold on the reader 
 are the same. In both, the plot is so slight that it might 
 easily be told in half a page : in both, the marvellous picture 
 of the workings of the human mind, sombre and melancholy 
 though it be, which they present, enchains the imagination of 
 the reader. 
 
 Three lady writers, among the earliest of the numerous 
 sisterhood who have obtained distinction as novelists, remain 
 to be mentioned. Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay) intro- 
 duced the fashion of writing studies of society, such as the 
 majority of modern English novels are, by " Evelina," which 
 appeared in 1778. She had, like most women, a keen percep- 
 tion of little traits of character and peculiarities of manner, and 
 described them with sprightliness and a good deal of broad 
 humour. Nor was she destitute of a real though slender vein 
 of pathos. "Evelina" charmed Burke and Johnson, and if 
 it is generally neglected now, that is not owing to its want of 
 merit, but because it has been shelved aside by more modern 
 works, which, though much talked of at present, will probably 
 share its fate when they are a century old. " Cecilia," Miss 
 Harney's second novel, which was published in 1782, is on 
 the whole inferior to "Evelina;" it has not the same sub- 
 current of tender simplicity. The fame of Miss Edgeworlh 
 ( 1 767-1 849), an Irish lady, is now mainly grounded on her 
 moral tales for juvenile readers, but her sketches of Irish life, 
 such as " The Absentee," &c., show a shrewd and observant 
 mind. Her chief characteristics arc cool good sense, com- 
 bined with a total absence of anything approaching enthu- 
 siasm. In society she was a general favourite, owing to her 
 unassuming manners and freedom from pretension or affec- 
 tation. A greater novelist than either Miss Burney or Miss 
 I .worth was Miss Austen (1775-1817), among whose ad- 
 mirers may be reckoned such men as Macaulay, Archbishop 
 Whately, Scott, and many others of equal celebrity. Her 
 works are " Sense and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," 
 "Emma," "Mansfield Park," "Northanger Abbey," and "Per-
 
 236 Our First Great Novelists. 
 
 suasion." Macaulay praised them to excess, declaring that 
 there were in the world no compositions which approached 
 nearer to perfection, and that " Northanger Abbey" was worth 
 "all Dickens and Pliny put together." These judgments, to 
 be sure, are found in his Diary, where, of course, he did not 
 weigh his words very carefully ; but praise almost equally 
 high is bestowed upon them in his published works, and he 
 for some time intended writing an essay on Miss Austen to 
 show how highly he esteemed her genius. Miss Austen's 
 finished humour and clear-cut sketches of everyday life were 
 as likely to attract Macaulay as her conventionality and 
 absence of passion were likely to repel Charlotte Bronte. 
 "Why do you like Miss Austen so very much ?" wrote the 
 latter to G. H. Lewes. " I am puzzled on that point. . . . 
 I had not seen ' Pride and Prejudice' till I read that sentence 
 of yours, and then I got the book; and what did I find? An 
 accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face ; a 
 carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders 
 and delicate flowers ; but no glance of a bright vivid physi- 
 ognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny 
 beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentle- 
 men in their elegant but confined houses." In her chosen 
 walk of fiction, truthful pictures of the ordinary middle-class 
 society we see around us, Miss Austen has no equal ; and the 
 extent to which she succeeds in interesting us in her annals 
 of humdrum, commonplace English life is the highest tribute 
 to her genius.
 
 VII. 
 DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 Johnson; Goldsmith ; Burke; Boswell ; Junius ; 
 Jfuiiie ; Robertson ; Gibbon. 
 
 f^^D^rHE accession of George III. to' the throne in 1760 
 marks an important era in English political life. 
 Tiie young King, a man of good moral character, 
 mediocre abilities, and inflexible obstinacy, deter- 
 mined to be the real, and not merely the titular sovereign of 
 the country, to break in pieces the oligarchy which had borne 
 sway in the name of his two predecessors, and to assert what 
 he considered his just rights. How he succeeded in carrying 
 out his purpose; how administration after administration was 
 broken up, either because they would not obey his dictates, or 
 because their policy was marred by the intrigues of the so-called 
 " King's friends;" how his strenuous persistence in an illegal 
 course elevated Wilkes into a popular hero of the first magnitude, 
 and brought about demonstrations of public feeling that aim 
 shook tiie throne; how his adherence to a foolish and wicked 
 policy caused the American colonies to throw off their alle- 
 giance to Great Britain and exhausted the resources of the 
 country, are facts familiar to all. In curious contrast to the 
 troubled state of politics is the pla< id and anti-revolutionarv 
 Spirit which animated literature during the earlier part of the 
 reign of 1 1 III. Through all the many political changes 
 
 and political crises of the first twenty-five years of his re 
 the stream of English literature flowed quietly on in its a< 1
 
 23S Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 tomed channel ; the influence of the school of Addison and 
 Pope still remained paramount; poetry and criticism were still 
 fettered by artificial restrictions and conventionality. Here 
 and there, it is true, a voice might be heard that seemed to 
 prophesy the advent of a new literary era ; but such voices 
 were few and far between, and were little attended to or 
 rudely condemned in an age that was not yet prepared for 
 them. It was not till the time of the greatest event in modern 
 history — the French Revolution — that the adherents of the 
 so-called romantic school, appealing to feelings that then more 
 or less influenced the minds of all classes, began to establish 
 themselves as a new and great power in literature. 
 
 The most prominent figure in the literature of the period 
 with which we are now dealing is that of Samuel Johnson, and 
 round him its history centres. Several of his contemporaries 
 were greater writers than he, but none was so looked up to ; 
 none possessed his strong and intensely marked character ; 
 and none was so exactly typical of his age alike in his good and 
 in his bad qualities. Born in 1709, the son of a bookseller in 
 Lichfield, he early imbibed from his father those Tory and 
 High Church prejudices which clung to him throughout life. 
 Very early, too, were noticeable his other distinguishing charac- 
 teristics — a bodily frame massive and powerful but diseased ; a 
 strong propensity to indolence united with an extraordinary 
 capacity for strenuous exertion when compelled to work ; a 
 memory capacious, retentive, and exact ; a spirit proud yet 
 humble, irascible but forgiving, and combining outward harsh- 
 ness with a deep and genuine tenderness of heart. When at 
 school, though his shortness of sight deprived him of the 
 power of distinguishing himself in field-sports, his strength of 
 intellect and character made him occupy among his class- 
 fellows somewhat the same position as he afterwards held in 
 London literary society. Certain of his companions used to 
 attend him in the morning and carry him to school in a species 
 of triumphal procession. " Sir," he once said to Boswell, 
 sneaking of his school-days, " they never thought to raise me by 
 c >mparing me to anyone; they never said 'Johnson is as good
 
 Sa?mtcl Johnson. 239 
 
 a scholar as such a one,' but ' Such a one is as good a scholar as 
 Johnson;' and this was said but of one, but of Lowe : and I 
 do not think he was as good a scholar." In his sixteenth 
 year his school education came to an end. He then loitered 
 at home for two years, "in a state," says Boswell, "very un- 
 worthy of his uncommon abilities." His time was not, how- 
 ever, altogether wasted. In his desultory way he read largely, 
 " not voyages and travels, but all literature, sir," he told Bos- 
 well, " all ancient writers, all manly ; " and tried his hand at 
 poetical translations and original verses, not without success. 
 In his nineteenth year he was entered at Pembroke College, 
 Oxford, where he was very proud, very poor, and very miserable. 
 His father was not wealthy enough to bear the expenses of his 
 education at the University, so he must have received assistance 
 elsewhere — from whom is not quite certain. Conscious of 
 great abilities but crushed by poverty, Johnson during his 
 University career, which lasted about three years, was far from 
 happy. He left Oxford in 1 73 1 , without taking a degree. 
 Almost the only distinction won by him was the praise he 
 received for a Latin version of Pope's " Messiah," of which 
 Pope himself declared, "The writer of this poem will leave it 
 doubtful in after-times which was the original, his verses or 
 mine." 
 
 In the same year in which Johnson left the University his 
 father died, leaving his affairs in a state approaching to insol- 
 vency. Johnson was now compelled to do something to earn 
 a living. At first he tried teaching — that rough apprenticeship 
 through which so many men of letters have had to pass, witli 
 i, but not, perhaps, altogether without profit. The few 
 months during which he was thus engaged he always after- 
 wards Looked back to with a kind of shuddering horror. Then 
 he turned his thoughts towards literature, " that general refuge 
 for the destitute," as Carlylc once called it. Settling in Bir- 
 mingham in 173,3, he contributed essays to a local newspaper, 
 and translated from the Latin I.obo's "\ to Abyssinia." 
 
 It lies before us as we write, a volume of about four hun 
 pages of some two hundred and eighty wools each. Lor
 
 240 Dr. Johnson and /lis Contemporaries. 
 
 this work, which was published in 1735, Johnson received the 
 munificent sum of five guineas. It is remarkable that during 
 his whole career, whether working as a Grub Street hack or 
 whether writing in a blaze of popularity, the most distinguished 
 author of his time, Johnson seems to have received less for his 
 productions than almost any of his fellow literary craftsmen. 
 
 In 1736 Johnson married. The object of his choice was a 
 widow named Porter, forty-eight years of age, and described a3 
 a coarse, vulgar, ugly woman, who painted herself, and who 
 was fantastic both in dress and in manners. It is said (with 
 what degree of truth is not known for certain) that she possessed 
 a fortune of some ^800. Johnson's shortness of sight con- 
 cealed from him her bodily defects, and there is every reason 
 to believe that he was speaking nothing but the truth when he 
 declared, " Sir, it was a love match on both sides." His wife, 
 whatever may have been her faults, appears to have had a 
 genuine admiration of Johnson's intellectual powers ; and we 
 can easily imagine how sweet praise must then have been to 
 the " uncourtly scholar," whose appearance was far from pre- 
 possessing, and who had at that time done nothing to show 
 the vast powers that lay concealed beneath his rough and 
 uncouth exterior. On her death, which happened in 1752, 
 Johnson's grief was terrible ; and to the end of his life he never 
 ceased to cherish with fond regret the remembrance of his 
 " dear Tetty." 
 
 As literature did not appear likely to be sufficiently remu- 
 nerative to afford sustenance to himself and his wife, Johnson, 
 in 1736, determined to again try schoolmastering. He opened 
 a boarding-school at Edial, in Staffordshire, and announced 
 his intention of instructing young gentlemen in the Greek 
 and Latin languages. The enterprise was an unfortunate one. 
 Johnson was ill-gifted to be a preceptor; and neither his man- 
 ners nor his appearance were such as to conciliate parents. 
 Few pupils came, and the school was abandoned. Along 
 with David Garrick, Johnson, with little or no money, but with 
 the manuscript of his tragedy " Irene" in his pocket, in 1737 
 set out for London.
 
 Johnson s Early Literary Struggles. 241 
 
 From this point the real commencement of his literary career 
 may be dated. It was begun at a bad time. If, indeed, he 
 had become what he afterwards described as one of the lowest 
 of all human beings, a scribbler for a party, he might possibly 
 have obtained remunerative occupation ; but Johnson was too 
 high-spirited to turn his pen to such vile uses. The age of 
 patronage, when a well-written dedication was often muni- 
 ficently rewarded, was passing away ; the reading public was 
 small ; and journalism, which now gives employment to thou- 
 sands of writers, was then, comparatively speaking, in its 
 infancy. Moreover, we must remember (what appears to 
 have been forgotten by many writers about Johnson) that 
 even in our own day, when the avenues to a literary career are 
 so much better and more numerous than in Johnson's time, a 
 writer who came to London circumstanced as he was would 
 have a very hard battle to fight. The fact that he had trans- 
 lated a book from the Latin, or that he had contributed articles 
 to a provincial newspaper, was not likely to tell much in his 
 favour with publishers ; he had left the University without 
 obtaining any distinction ; and he was destitute of money, 
 which might have enabled him to subsist while he wrote some 
 work which might attract the attention of the public. lie 
 was obliged to live " from hand to mouth," as the saying is, 
 and work done under such circumstances is rarely of much 
 value. Into the details of Johnson's literary hack-work we 
 I not enter. He wrote extensively in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine; lie executed various translations; he assisted 
 ' jrne in compiling the catalogue of the Harleian Library; 
 and, from November 1740 to February 1742, he wrote in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine an account of the debates in parliament, 
 under the title of "The Senate of Lilliput." Parliamentary 
 reporting was then not allowed, but persons were employed 
 to attend the two Houses and take such notes as they could. 
 These notes John 00 put into shape, often writing entirely 
 imaginary speeches, and always "taking care that the Whig 
 should not have the best of it." lb- gave up the occu- 
 pation when he found that many received the speeches as
 
 ?.\ 2 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 actual reports, declaring that he " would not be accessory to 
 the propagation of falsehood." 
 
 In May 1738 appeared anonymously Johnson's first work 
 of importance, " London," an imitation of the Third Satire of 
 Juvenal. It was a considerable success, a second edition 
 being called for within a week, and Pope, the reigning king 
 of poetry, declaring that whoever the author was, he would 
 soon be dcterr'e. " London " was followed ten years later by a 
 similar but more powerful poem, the " Vanity of Human 
 Wishes," an imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, contain- 
 ing in dignified and impressive verse a declaration of John- 
 son's profound and lifelong conviction, that, upon the whole, 
 the amount of misery in the world is greatly in excess of the 
 amount of happiness. Johnson, as some of his shorter poems 
 (for example, the noble and touching verses on Levett) show, 
 possessed a real though a slender vein of poetical genius ; but 
 "London" and the "Vanity of Human Wishes" are mainly 
 valuable, not on account of their intrinsically poetical qualities, 
 but as expressing in verse which has the merits of dignity, 
 honesty, and originality, the opinions on life which had been 
 formed by a man of strong mind, who had read much and 
 thought much. This remark applies especially to the " Vanity 
 of Human Wishes." "'Tis a grand poem," wrote Byron in 
 his Diary, "and so true." Sir Walter Scott found in Johnson's 
 poetry something peculiarly attractive to his manly good sense. 
 He once told Ballantyne that he derived more pleasure from 
 Johnson's poetry than from that of any writer he could mention. 
 
 Among the many questionable acquaintances whom John- 
 son fell in with during his sojourn in Bohemia, or, as it was 
 then called, Grub Street, was Richard Savage, a dissipated pro- 
 fligate, of whom it was generally believed (falsely, it would 
 appear) that he was the illegitimate son of the Countess of 
 Macclesfield, who refused to acknowledge him. During his 
 chequered career Savage had seen a good deal of literary 
 society, and although his principal poem, " The Wanderer," 
 which Scott pronounced "beautiful," is by most found quite 
 unreadable, he was a man of considerable abilities : in particular,
 
 Johnsons "Dictionary." 24 
 
 he possessed that talent which Johnson was always disposed to 
 admire — he was a ready and entertaining talker. For Savage, 
 in spite of his many vices, which he both saw and disapproved 
 of, Johnson formed what seems to have been the strongest 
 friendship of his life. He delighted in his company, he ad- 
 mired his abilities, he sincerely pitied his misfortunes, and on 
 his death, in 1743, he celebrated his memory in a memoir, 
 which, though its rhetoric is somewhat ponderous, is one of 
 the most forcible and interesting of Johnson's productions. 
 Nowhere will there be found a better account of the misery 
 and degradation to which many poor authors of that period 
 were subjected. It was published in 1744, and attained con- 
 siderable popularity. 
 
 We have already mentioned that when Johnson set out for 
 London he carried with him the manuscript of his tragedy 
 " Irene " in his pocket. For several years he in vain attempted 
 to get it put upon the stage. At length in 1749 it was pro- 
 duced by his friend Garrick, who had become manager of 
 Drury Lane. With difficulty it was kept alive for nine nights, 
 when it was withdrawn, and was never again produced. 
 " Irene" deserved to fail. It may be described as a kind of 
 worse " Cato," rhetorical and unnatural to a degree, and in- 
 teresting only as one of the many examples of the unfitness of 
 a man of genius to judge of the particular line into which his 
 talents should be directed. 
 
 In 1747 Johnson commenced the preparation of a work for 
 which in many ways he was admirably adapted — a dictionary 
 of the English language. He calculated that it would occupy 
 him three years, but he greatly over-estimated his powers, for 
 though he employed several assistants to do the mechanical 
 part of the work, it did not appear till 1755. Etymology had 
 not then attained the dignity of a science, and the derivations 
 given in the " Dictionary " are consequently very defective; 
 but the definitions are generally excellent — clear, concise, and 
 al, and the examples are selected with much care and 
 1 taste. The publication of the " Dictionary " led to John- 
 son's famous quarrel with Lord Chesterfield. The plan for
 
 244 Dr. Jolinson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 writing it had been dedicated to that nobleman, who aspired 
 to act the part of a literary Maecenas, but he soon grew tired 
 of Johnson, and treated him with marked neglect. When, 
 however, the "Dictionary" was on the eve of publication, 
 Chesterfield thought it would be a r feather in his cap if he 
 patronised a man capable of writing such a work, and accord- 
 ingly inserted in a periodical called' the World two papers re- 
 commending the "Dictionary" to the notice of the public. 
 In that singularly masterly and dignified letter with which all 
 are acquainted Johnson repelled his Lordship's patronage, 
 "proclaiming," in the words of Mr. Carlyle, "into the ear of 
 Lord Chesterfield, and through him' of the listening world, that 
 patronage should be no more." 
 
 While writing the " Dictionary," Johnson engaged in a work 
 which elevated his literary position considerably. This was 
 the Rambler^ a periodical of somewhat the same nature as 
 the Spectator, which was commenced in 1750 and carried on 
 twice a week for two years.- From 1758 to 1760 he wrote 
 under the general title of the Idkr a series of essays which 
 appeared in a newspaper called the Universal Chronicle. Both 
 the Rambler and the Idler are now found very heavy read- 
 ing, and it would be idle to deny that a considerable pro- 
 portion of them is little better than sonorous commonplace. 
 Johnson had not the lightness of hand and dexterity of touch 
 which enabled Addison to treat trivial topics gracefully and 
 appropriately, and where he aspires to do so he generally 
 fails lamentably. He appears to greater advantage in his tale 
 "Rasselas," which appeared in 1759. It is a discourse on his 
 old theme, the "Vanity of Human Wishes," eloquently and 
 powerfully written, and bearing everywhere the marks of that 
 gloom approaching to despair with which he habitually con- 
 templated life. 
 
 " Rasselas " was the last work of importance written by 
 Johnson purely for the sake of making money. In 1762 the 
 preat services to literature he had conferred by the " Dic- 
 tionary" and his other works were recognised by Government 
 granting him a pension of ^£"300 per annum. He hesitated
 
 The Literary Club. 245 
 
 very much about taking it, as in his " Dictionary " he had 
 defined " pension" as generally understood to mean "pay 
 given to a state hireling for treason to his country;" but on 
 being distinctly informed that it was granted without the 
 slightest reference to political considerations, he consented to 
 accept it. Henceforth he was able to gratify to the fullest 
 extent his love of indolence and of society, excusing himself, 
 in public, for writing little by saying he could do as much 
 good by conversation as by composition, but in his private 
 memoranda bitterly reproaching his self-indulgence. Always 
 fond of clubs — to use his own expression, he was a very 
 clubbable man — he in 1764 founded the Literary Club, where 
 he talked long and excellently in the company of such men 
 as Burke, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Beauclerk, Reynolds, Langton, 
 and his admirable biographer, Boswell, who had, not without 
 difficulty, obtained an introduction to him in 1763. It is a 
 pleasing feature in Johnson's character that, in spite of his 
 occasional sharp retorts and surliness of temper, he managed 
 to maintain a firm friendship with a large circle of acquaint- 
 ances, including some of the most celebrated of his contem- 
 poraries. In 1765 he became acquainted with Mr. Thrale, a 
 wealthy brewer, a connection which proved one of the hap- 
 piest events of his life. Thrale was a sensible, though by no 
 means a brilliant man ; his wife possessed more brilliancy but 
 less sense ; and both together did their best to make Johnson 
 happy at their country-house in Streatham, where for several 
 years he was considered almost as a member of their family. 
 At his own house in Bolt Court he kept a number of poor 
 dependants — Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Dcsmoulins, Robert Levett, 
 Miss Carmichael, IMank Frank — who, but for his generous 
 aid, would have been in abject poverty. Johnson, partly 
 f 1 Mm natural impulse, partly, no doubt, because he remem- 
 bered how severe had been his own struggle with poverty, 
 wis one of the most generous men that ever lived. "He 
 loved the poor," said Mrs. Thrale, "as I never saw man love 
 them." 
 
 While obliged to labour for his bread, Johnson had pro-
 
 246 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 jected an edition of Shakespeare, a task for which he was 
 very slenderly equipped, as he had read none of the con- 
 temporary dramatists. For many years he loitered over his 
 task, constantly reproaching himself for his negligence, but 
 at last, in 1765, it was completed. The main value of his 
 edition consists in the Preface, a very able piece of work, 
 which still ranks among the best of all the countless treatises 
 that have been written on the subject. In 1772 his wor- 
 shipper Boswell managed to induce the sage to accompany 
 him in a tour to the Hebrides, of which, in 1775, Johnson 
 published an account under the title of a " Journey to the 
 Western Islands of Scotland." It is interesting to compare 
 Johnson's ponderous but not uninteresting work with the 
 volume in which Boswell, soon after the "great lexicographer's" 
 death, gave such a naive and amusing account of the adven- 
 tures and conversations of himself and his great companion. 
 During the latter part of his life Johnson entered the troubled 
 arena of political controversy by publishing four pamphlets 
 on questions that were then agitating the minds of men. 
 These were "The False Alarm" (1770), "Thoughts on the 
 Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands" (1771), "The 
 Patriot" (1774), and "Taxation no Tyranny, an Answer to 
 the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress (1775)." 
 All these pamphlets show Johnson's usual vigour of style, his 
 unbending Toryism, and his utter incapacity to take a can- 
 did and impartial view of a political controversy. "Taxation 
 no Tyranny," in particular, is a very characteristic production. 
 Even George III. could have desired no more strenuous and 
 unreasoning supporter of the right of Great Britain to tax the 
 American colonies. 
 
 The last and by far the best of Johnson's works has yet to 
 be mentioned. In 1777 the booksellers formed the design 
 of publishing an edition of the English poets, to which they 
 asked Johnson to prefix introductions containing a Life of 
 each poet and a criticism of his works. He readily con- 
 sented, for literary history was a subject which always speci- 
 ally interested him; and, on being asked to name a price,
 
 Johnson s ' ' L ivcs of the Poets. " 247 
 
 mentioned 200 guineas. This modest sum the booksellers after- 
 wards raised to 300 guineas, a rate of remuneration excessively 
 low when we consider the degree of fame to which Johnson 
 had attained and the high prices some of his contemporaries 
 obtained for their works. English poetry was then considered 
 to begin with Cowley, so that Chaucer, Spenser, and other 
 great names were omitted. In all, fifty-two poets were dealt 
 with, of whom about a third are deservedly forgotten, being 
 known only to curious students of literary history. As a 
 critic and biographer, Johnson united great faults and great 
 merits. Few have surpassed him in the power of giving a 
 rapid and vivid sketch of the main features in a man's life 
 and character; but he was careless of minute accuracy, and 
 often omitted to correct errors even after they had been 
 pointed out to him. As a critic he had no sense for the 
 higher kinds of poetry; anything that did not square with the 
 dictates of common sense he condemned as absurd; but he 
 possessed the rare and signal merit of always saying what he 
 really thought, and not what he fancied would be agreeable 
 to the taste of the majority of readers. Of thousands who 
 have yawned over " Paradise Lost," very few have had the 
 courage to say, " None ever wished it longer. Its perusal is 
 a duty rather than a pleasure." „ And of thousands to whom 
 Nature has denied the faculty of appreciating the classic purity 
 and grace of " Lycidas," very few have been daring enough 
 to run the risk of general opprobrium by saying, " In this 
 poem there is no nature, for there is no truth ; there is no 
 art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral ; 
 easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can 
 apply are long ago exhausted, and its inherent improbability 
 always forces dissatisfaction on the mind." 
 
 In 1784 Johnson died at his house in Bolt Court, full of 
 years and full of honours. Looking over his life, he could 
 truly declare that "no man had ever lived more independently 
 by literature than he had done." His brave and manly career 
 did much to relieve authors by piofession from the stigma 
 thrown on them by the " Dunciad." Purely by the force of
 
 24S Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 his intellect and character, without flattering the great or seek- 
 ing their patronage, he fought his way up till by well-nigh 
 universal consent he came to be regarded as the leading man 
 of letters of his time. 
 
 Before leaving Johnson, it is fit that something should be 
 said about James Boswell (1 740-1 795), to whom he now 
 mainly owes his fame. In the case of most authors, we read 
 their biographies because we have read their works ; in the 
 case of Johnson, we read his works because we have read 
 Boswell's Life of him. Boswell's character was such an odd 
 combination, that it puzzled the majority of his contemporaries 
 — it partly puzzles us still. " His cleverness, his tact, his 
 skill in drawing forth those he was studying," writes Lord 
 Brougham, " his admirable good-humour, his strict love of 
 truth, his high and generous principle, his kindness towards 
 his friends, his unvarying but generally rational piety, have 
 scarcely been sufficiently praised by those who nevertheless 
 have always been ready, as needs they must be, to acknow- 
 ledge the debt of gratitude due for perhaps the book, of all that 
 were ever written, the most difficult to lay down once it has 
 been taken up." Macaulay describes him as "servile and 
 impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated 
 with family pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity 
 of a born gentleman, yet stooping to be a tale-bearer, an eaves- 
 dropper, a common butt in the taverns of London," and 
 declares that "if he had not been a great fool, he would never 
 have been a great writer." Something may, no doubt, be 
 said on behalf of both these estimates ; but Brougham comes 
 much nearer the truth than Macaulay, to whose essay on 
 Johnson Carlyle's article on the same subject forms practi- 
 cally a crushing refutation. That Boswell possessed a peculiar 
 talent, almost amounting to genius, his Life of Johnson suffi- 
 ciently proves ; that, in spite of all his oddities and follies, he 
 was good-humoured, a pleasant social companion, and had a 
 genuine liking for and admiration of literature, the fact that he 
 lived on familiar terms with many of his most celebrated con- 
 temporaries makes equally evident. He had a keen eye for
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 249 
 
 character, was a matchless raconteur, possessed no contemptible 
 share of wit and literature ; and, in spite of the pride with 
 which he contemplated his long-drawn pedigree, seems always 
 to have preferred the society of men of genius and learning to 
 that of those who had only their titles to boast of. The pub- 
 lication of the "Life of Johnson" in 1791 forms an era in the 
 history of English literature. Until then, biographies (with 
 the exception of Mason's far inferior "Life of Gray") had been 
 mostly either rapid sketches of the kind of which Johnson was 
 a master, or dreary dissertations on books and characters, with 
 very little personal interest. Boswell, by copiously detailing 
 Johnson's conversations, and by uniting his correspondence with 
 the narrative of his life, showed how biography might be made 
 one of the most amusing and instructive departments of litera- 
 ture, and paved the way for such excellent books as Moore's 
 "Life of Byron," Lockhart's "Life of Scott," and Mr. Trevel- 
 yan's " Life of Macaulay." 
 
 Among the original members of the Literary Club which 
 Johnson founded, was an Irishman, who delighted to deck out his 
 odd little figure in gaudy attire, and whom all his friends liked, 
 but whom none of them respected. Every one admitted his 
 abilities, but his oddities and the poverty of his conversational 
 powers made him generally laughed at. He had led a strange 
 and vagabond existence. The son of a poor and warm-hearted 
 clergyman in Ireland, he possessed in ample measure that care- 
 less and happy-go-lucky disposition characteristic of his country- 
 men. Some of his friends having thought they detected in 
 him signs of genius, it was resolved to give him a liberal educa- 
 tion, and in 1745 he entered Trinity College, Dublin. There 
 his career was not a brilliant one. He acquired a fair know- 
 ledge of the classics, but he neglected mathematics, and got 
 into various scrapes, for one of which he was thrashed by his 
 tutor, who rejoiced in the name of the Rev. Theaker Wilder. 
 Having obtained his degree, he left college with no fixed aim. 
 
 At length he determined to follow his father's footstep . but 
 the bishop to whom he applied for ordination rejected him, 
 mainly,it appears, because he chose to appear before his lordship
 
 250 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 attired in a pair of gorgeous red breeches. He next thought 
 of studying the law, but he spent all the money with which it 
 was intended he should pursue his studies at London among 
 some jolly companions he fell in with at Dublin; so that scheme, 
 too, was given up. As a last resource, he went to Edinburgh 
 to study medicine, which he seems to have done in a sufficiently 
 desultory fashion for two years, when it occurred to him that 
 it was well he should perfect himself under the great physi- 
 cians of the Continent. There he accordingly set out, and 
 wandered through Switzerland, Italy, and France, supporting 
 himself by playing on the flute and by various other contri- 
 vances ; for the patience of his relatives was exhausted, and 
 from them he could obtain no remittances. At length, having, 
 according to his own account, procured the degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine from the University of Louvain, he arrived in 
 London in 1756, destitute of money, of friends, and of the 
 means of earning a livelihood. Such were the early adventures 
 of Oliver Goldsmith (1 728-1774), one of the most graceful, 
 gentle-minded, and pure writers our literature can boast of. 
 Johnson did not in the least exaggerate when, in his Life of 
 Farnell, he described Goldsmith as " a man of such variety of 
 powers and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed 
 to do best that which he was doing, — a man who had the art 
 of being minute without tediousness, and general without con- 
 fusion ; whose language was copious without exuberance, exact 
 without constraint, and easy without weakness." 
 
 After his arrival in London, Goldsmith tried various shifts 
 before subsiding into his natural avocation, that of an author. 
 He was assistant to an apothecary ; he practised physic with 
 very little success ; and he was for some time an usher at a 
 school kept by Dr. Milner at Feckham. Like Johnson, he 
 always regarded the portion of his life spent in tuition with 
 abhorrence. He is constantly alluding in his writings to the 
 hardships of an usher's life. " He is generally," he says, " the 
 laughing-stock of the school. Every trick is played upon him ; 
 the oddity of his manner, his dress, or his language is a source 
 of eternal ridicule : the master himself now and then cannot
 
 Goldsmith's Early Si niggles. 251 
 
 avoid joining in the laugh ; and the poor wretch, eternally 
 resenting this ill-usage, lives in a state of war with all the 
 family." But dreary and bitter as may have been the months 
 spent by Goldsmith as an usher, they can scarcely have been 
 more barren of comfort and peace of mind than those he spent 
 as a hack-writer for the booksellers. Through Dr. Milner he 
 became acquainted with one Griffiths, the proprietor of the 
 Monthly Review, a man of coarse mind and of bullying dis- 
 position. In 1757, Goldsmith, at a small fixed salary, with 
 board and lodging, became a contributor to the Review, and 
 enriched its pages with many pieces of criticism full of delicate 
 insight and just appreciation of merit. But Griffiths was not 
 aware that he had in his employ perhaps the best all-round 
 literary craftsman that ever lived ; he and his wife mangled 
 poor Goldsmith's articles, to the author's intense disgust, and 
 reproached him for idleness, and for assuming a tone and 
 manner above his situation. Mutual recriminations ensued, 
 which ended in the engagement being broken off at the end of 
 five months. Goldsmith then began writing for other periodi- 
 cals, and doing such literary jobs as came in his way, endeavour- 
 ing at the same time to eke out his scanty pittance by practising 
 medicine. In 1758 he made his final attempt to escape from 
 the poverty, the vexation, and the contempt which he found to 
 attend a literary career, by presenting himself for examination 
 as a hospital mate. He was rejected, and thus again driven 
 back on literature as a profession. 
 
 " Goldsmith," Johnson truly said, " was a plant that flowered 
 late." Such of his juvenile letters as have been preserved 
 show that he possessed at an early age that charm of style and 
 felicity of humorous description that afterwards delighted the 
 world ; but it was necessity, not choice, that led him to adopt 
 a literary life ; and if he had been moderately successful as a 
 physician, it is probable that the " Vicar of Wakefield" and 
 the " Deserted Village " would never have been written. He 
 in his thirty-first year ere he published his first independent 
 work, "An Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe." 
 It was published anonymously, but was generally known to be
 
 2 5 2 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 by Goldsmith. The main object of the work was to show that 
 as critics increase, men of original power decrease. It is an 
 interesting and ingenious essay, written with very imperfect 
 knowledge, but with Goldsmith's usual grace of composition, 
 and containing, amidst many absurdities, not a few observa- 
 tions that are still worthy of attention. In 1759, also, he 
 began a weekly series of essays under the title of the " Bee." 
 It was not a success, reaching only eight numbers. In the 
 following year he contributed to Newbery's Public Ledger 
 the " Chinese Letters," afterwards republished under the title 
 of •' The Citizen of the World," a series of essays of great 
 though unequal merit. They purport to be letters written by 
 a Chinese newly arrived in England to his friends, but the 
 mask is not well kept up, nor, indeed, does Goldsmith seem 
 to have intended that it should be kept up. The weakest 
 parts of the work are those which treat of moral subjects after 
 the fashion of the Rambler. Goldsmith had no great powers 
 of reasoning ; and he seems, judging from the air of constraint 
 and artificiality which pervades them, to have known that he 
 was going beyond his true sphere when writing essays on such 
 subjects as the " Difference between Love and Gratitude," 
 &c. But nothing can be finer than his sketches of character 
 and pictures of life, or than his criticisms on the reigning 
 modes of the time, which show wonderful powers of humour 
 and gentle satire. The account of Beau Tibbs, for example, 
 is equal to anything in Addison, and would alone be sufficient 
 to stamp Goldsmith as a writer of a very high order of genius. 
 From the time of the publication of the " Inquiry into the 
 State of Polite Learning," Goldsmith was a singularly prolific 
 author. Whenever any literary job came in his way by which 
 he might earn some money, he was ready to execute it, whether 
 he had any previous acquaintance with the subject or not. 
 Much of what he wrote has doubtless passed into oblivion, 
 but enough remains to show the truth of Johnson's assertion 
 in his epitaph, that " he left almost no kind of writing untouched, 
 and touched nothing that he did not adorn." For John New- 
 bery, the famous publisher of children's books, he did a great
 
 Goldsmitti s " Traveller!'' 253 
 
 deal of work, including (if an old tradition, which Mr. Charles 
 Welsh has supported by many strong arguments, may be 
 credited) the tale of " Little Goody Twoshoes," which has 
 earned the heartfelt approbation of so many juvenile readers. 
 Among his pieces of honest journey-work, executed not for 
 fame, but to meet his incessant calls on his purse, may be 
 mentioned the " History of England, in a Series of Letters 
 from a Nobleman to his Son," which was published anony- 
 mously, and by many attributed to Lord Lyttleton (1762); 
 " History of Rome " (1769) ; " History of England," in four 
 volumes (1771); "History of Animated Nature" (17 74). 
 Neither in his historical nor in his scientific productions did 
 Goldsmith make any profession of original research ; what he 
 aimed to do, and what he succeeded in doing, was to give a 
 clear, concise, and readable account of his subject. Johnson 
 excited the astonishment of Boswell by preferring Goldsmith 
 as an historian to Robertson ; but there is more to be said for 
 Johnson's opinion than may at first sight appear possible. 
 
 We turn to the writings to which Golds-mith owes his im- 
 mortality. In 1764 appeared the " Traveller," the first work 
 to which he prefixed his name. He lived, as he himself often 
 pointed out, both in writing and in conversation, in an age 
 singularly deficient in poetry of any high order of merit. 
 Versifiers there were in abundance, men destitute alike of 
 imagination, spirit, and sensibility, but Goldsmith himself was 
 the only writer who deserved to be called a poet in any high 
 sense of the word. It may be granted at once that he does 
 not reach to very lofty heights, and that his range was some- 
 what Limited ; but our literature docs not afford an instance 
 of a poet to whose writings we constantly return with greater 
 jure, or who (with the possible exception of Mr. Tennyson) 
 has written fewer imperfect lines. The powers displayed in 
 the " Traveller" astonished all Goldsmith's friends, and raised 
 him at once from the position of a scribbler to the booksellers 
 into that of a literary lion of some magnitude. Its success 
 to the publication in 1 766 of the " Vicar of Wakefield," 
 which had been written two years previously. One day Johnson
 
 254 D y - JoJinson and /lis Contemporaries. 
 
 received a message from Goldsmith that he was in great dis- 
 tress, and begging him to come to him as soon as possible. 
 Johnson sent him a guinea, and promised to call on him 
 directly. When he arrived, he found the unfortunate author 
 in a violent passion, because he had been arrested by his 
 landlady for his rent. " I perceived," relates Johnson, " that 
 he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of 
 madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the 
 bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of 
 the means by which he might be extricated. He then told 
 me he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to 
 me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady I 
 should soon return ; and having gone to a bookseller, sold it 
 for sixty guineas. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he 
 discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high 
 tone for having used him so ill." This novel was the " Vicar 
 of Wakefield," which the purchaser did not venture to publish 
 till after the assured success of the " Traveller." Its reception 
 soon made him ashamed of his over-cautiousness. Within a 
 year it went through three editions, and has always since 
 remained popular. Samuel Rogers, the length of whose lite- 
 rary experience is illustrated by the fact that he contrived 
 to pay a call on Samuel Johnson, and lived to prophesy the 
 future greatness of Algernon Charles Swinburne, declared that 
 of all the books which, during the fitful changes of three 
 generations, he had seen Fise and fall, the charm of the " Vicar 
 of Wakefield " had alone continued as at first ; and that could 
 he revisit the world after an interval of many more generations, 
 he should as surely look to find it undiminished. The plot 
 contains many incongruities and absurdities, but these are for- 
 gotten or unnoticed amidst the delight afforded by its sly 
 humour, its inimitable sketches of character, its geniality, and 
 its perfect purity of tone, affording so pleasing a contrast to 
 most of the works of fiction that had preceded it. It is a 
 book which has charmed young and old, rich and poor, the 
 learned and the ignorant. A child of twelve years old may 
 read it with pleasure ; such a man as Goethe did not scruple
 
 ' ; Vicar of Wakefield" "Deserted Village:: 255 
 
 to declare how much he owed to it. The characteristics that 
 distinguish the " Vicar of Wakefield " are conspicuous also in 
 Goldsmith's two comedies, the " Good-Natured Man" (1768), 
 and "She Stoops to Conquer" (1773). The second is con- 
 siderably the superior, both in the construction of the plot 
 and in humorous effect ; but they alike display a great power 
 of good-humoured satire, a healthy and genial tone of mind, 
 and (as indeed is the case with all Goldsmith's writings) a 
 disposition to make literary capital out of his own early scrapes 
 and peccadilloes. The mistaking of a private house for an 
 inn, the incident upon which the plot of "She Stoops to Con- 
 quer" turns, was suggested by Goldsmith's having actually 
 made the same mistake himself when a raw youth of sixteen. 
 
 In 1770 appeared Goldsmith's finest poem, the "Deserted 
 Village," fuil of tender recollections of his beloved native 
 country, which he was never again to behold. In 1774 he 
 wrote that admirable series of poetical characters called " Re- 
 taliation," of which posterity has endorsed almost every word. 
 The poem was, alas ! never finished. That hand, which had 
 never lost its cunning, was not destined to write more. On 
 4th April 1774 poor Goldsmith expired. "He died of a 
 fever," wrote Johnson to Boswell, "made, I am afraid, more 
 violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, 
 and all his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua [Reynolds] 
 is of opinion that he owed no less than two thousand pounds. 
 Was ever poet so trusted before ? " Though, during the latter 
 part of his life, Goldsmith was making an income sufficient to 
 maintain him in comfort if not in affluence, his affairs were 
 greatly embarrassed, owing to his boundless charity and 
 never-failing goodness of heart, which made him treat his 
 fiiends to sumptuous banquets, and, from his incapacity to turn 
 af car to a tOU( hing tale, rendered him the dupe of many 
 designing rogues. 
 
 Though undoubtedly the greatest poet, and, with only one 
 or two exceptions, the greatest prose writer of his tunc, Cold- 
 smith was generally spoken of by his contemporaries with a 
 kind of supercilious condescension, which,though in the highest
 
 256 Dr. JoJinson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 ee unjust, is not difficult to account for. Impulsive, reck- 
 less, and generous, his character was of the kind which com- 
 mands affection rather than respect ; he lacked that worldly 
 wisdom which is often so much more serviceable to its pos- 
 sessor than higher and better qualities; and though his bio- 
 graphers have gallantly attempted to prove that his contempor- 
 aries were mistaken in supposing him to be a poor talker, it is 
 impossible not to credit the practically unanimous testimony of 
 the latter, summed up by Johnson's remark, " Sir, no man was 
 ever so foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or so wise 
 when he had one." The homeliness of his appearance no 
 doubt contributed not a little to diminish the esteem felt for 
 his conversation. "In person," writes Judge Day, "he was 
 short, about five feet five or six inches ; strong but not heavy 
 in make ; rather fair in complexion, with brown hair — such at 
 least as could be distinguished from his wig. His features were 
 plain but not repulsive — certainly not so when lighted up by 
 conversation. His manners were simple, natural, and perhaps 
 on the whole we may say not polished, at least without the 
 refinement and good-breeding which the exquisite polish of 
 his language would lead us to expect." 
 
 A very different man from Goldsmith was another distin- 
 guished member of the Literary Club, his countryman Edmund 
 Burke, the greatest writer on political philosophy in our 
 language, and, if Air. Matthew Arnold's judgment be accepted, 
 the greatest master of English prose style that ever lived. 
 Unlike Johnson and Goldsmith, he had not to pass his youth 
 in a bitter apprenticeship to want and " the spurns which 
 patient merit of the unworthy takes," for his parents were, 
 if not wealthy, at least well-to-do people. He was born in 
 Dublin in 1729, received most of his elementary education at 
 a school in Kildare kept by Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker, 
 and in 1743 entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he 
 remained for five years. His University career, if not brilliant, 
 was far from an idle one ; though he did not apply himself 
 very closely to the studies of the place, he read largely and 
 acquired a fund of miscellaneous knowledge. In 1750 he
 
 Edmund Burke. 257 
 
 came to London to study law at the Middle Temple ; but he 
 soon found that legal studies were irksome to one of his 
 discursive temper, and began to cast longing eyes upon the 
 more pleasant field of general literature. He used to boast 
 that "he had none of that master-vice sloth in his composi- 
 tion," and with perfect justice, for, while neglecting the study 
 of the law, his time, instead of being spent in idleness or 
 dissipation, was employed in amassing those vast stores of 
 knowledge which called forth the admiration of his contem- 
 poraries, and fitted him for the great career on which he was 
 soon to embark. During this period no doubt he scribbled 
 much, but he did not formally appear before the public as an 
 author till 1756, when he published two works, " A Vindica- 
 tion* of Natural Society," and "A Philosophical Inquiry into 
 the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful" The 
 first of these productions is a short tract, designed as a parody 
 on the style and mode of thinking of Lord Bolingbroke, whose 
 works were then considerably in vogue. Bolingbroke in his 
 writings had attempted to render religion ridiculous by an 
 exaggerated view of its abuses. Adopting the same course of 
 argument, Burke endeavours to show that as civil society 
 carried in its train a number of evils, it would be well to 
 return to a state of savage nature. The pamphlet received 
 the highest praise it could possibly have gained in being taken 
 by many for a genuine production of Lord Bolingbroke. The 
 essay on the sublime and beautiful is an interesting contribu- 
 tion to a subject on which many able and subtle writers have 
 airsed ; but though it contains several striking passages, 
 it cannot be said to show much philosophic depth or preci- 
 sion. Burke himself is sai-1 to have thought little of it in his 
 latter years. In 1758 he was engaged by Dodsley to edit the 
 " Annual Register." He is said to have written the whole of 
 the volumes for 1 75,'S and 1759; he contributed largely to it for 
 a '.rood many years afterwards. 
 
 These occupations soon introduced him into literary society, 
 where his width of knowledge and powers of conversation 
 eminently qualified him to excel. In that year he became
 
 - J 
 
 58 Dr. JoJuison and his Contemporaries. 
 
 acquainted with Johnson, an intimacy to which we owe some 
 of the best of the conversations recorded by Boswell. Though 
 very unlike in many respects, there were several points of 
 resemblance between Burke and Johnson. Both were high- 
 minded, honourable" men, both were prone to place rather 
 too much confidence in the rectitude of their own opinions, 
 both were exceedingly benevolent ; and, above all, both were 
 copious and excellent talkers. " That fellow calls forth all 
 my powers," exclaimed Johnson, who was never tired of prais- 
 ing the extraordinary readiness and affluence of Burke's 
 conversation. 
 
 The leading incidents' in Burke's life belong rather to poli- 
 tical than to literary history, but they may be briefly men- 
 tioned here. In 1759- he became private secretary to "Single- 
 speech" Hamilton, with whom he went to Ireland in 1761. 
 Their intimacy, owing to no fault on Burke's part, ended in an 
 open rupture in 1765. In the same year he was appointed 
 private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, then Prime 
 Minister and the leader of the Whig party. In the following 
 year he was returned member for the pocket borough of Wen- 
 dover. From this time he took an active part both by tongue 
 and pen in all the leading political struggles of the era. He 
 supported a conciliatory policy towards the American colonies, 
 advocated the abolition of certain restrictions which hampered 
 the trade of Ireland, brought forward (in 1780) a great scheme 
 of political reform, and was the leading spirit in the impeach- 
 ment of Warren Hastings. Though his abilities were univer- 
 sally known and acknowledged, he never obtained very high 
 parliamentary office. For this various reasons may be given. 
 In the first place, he was not high born, and the great offices 
 of state were then, so far as possible, parcelled out among 
 patricians. In the second place, although his orations when 
 read appear far superior to those of any other speaker of his 
 time, and may indeed be placed in the same rank as those of 
 Cicero and Demosthenes, he was, partly from his tendency to 
 lengthiness, partly from his faults of manner, so unpopular 
 a speaker, that his rising was looked on as a signal for members
 
 Btirkes Character. 259 
 
 to leave the House. In the third place, and this perhaps was 
 the most powerful reason, his temperament was excitable, 
 and when carried away by passion he was apt to speak out 
 what he felt, regardless of prudential considerations. To what 
 heights of vehemence and invective his impassioned genius 
 could carry him was not fully known till the time of the 
 French Revolution, when he broke from his party, quarrelled 
 with his oldest friends because he could not bring them to 
 think on the subject as he did, and became the principal advo- 
 cate of a crusade against France. Alike in the House of 
 Commons and in private society, he never ceased dwelling on 
 the abhorrence he felt for the terrible Revolution, and the 
 hatred with which he regarded its leaders. It would have 
 done his old friend, Samuel Johnson, good could he have 
 lived to see Burke, whose Whiggish opinions were, of course, 
 disliked by him, adopt language regarding the French Re- 
 volution which would have satisfied even his strongest pre- 
 judices. 
 
 In 1794 Burke retired from Parliament, his son being re- 
 turned member in his stead. Shortly afterwards his son (who, 
 in spite of his father's fondness for him, appears to have been a 
 silly and priggish young man) died, leaving Burke, as he wrote 
 to William Elliot, " desolate at home, stripped of my boast, 
 my hope, my consolation, my counsellor, and my guide." In 
 1794 he received a pension from Government, which was 
 assailed by the Duke of Bedford as in contradiction to the 
 whole scheme of economic reform. To this attack Burke 
 replied in his famous " Letter to a Noble Lord" (1795), which 
 is a fine example of spirited invective. He died at Beacons- 
 field on July 8, 1797. 
 
 In private life Burke was a man of unbounded benevo- 
 lence, ^reat affability of manners, and spotless morality. In 
 public Life lie sometimes allowed the passion of the moment 
 to get the better of him, and said things which would have 
 been better left unsaid. But no one ever doubted his thorough 
 honesty and integrity of purpose; lie was, indeed, as Gold 
 smith said, "too fond of the right to pursue the expedient,"
 
 260 Dr. Johnson and Jiis Contemporaries. 
 
 and if he had been less scrupulous might have attained greater 
 success as a practical politician. 
 
 Burke's principal works, besides those already mentioned, 
 are " Thoughts on Present Discontents" (i 7 70), one of the most 
 wise, sober, and weighty of his productions; "Reflections on 
 the French Revolution," probably his most generally known 
 work (1790) ; " An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" 
 (1791), and his four "Letters on a Regicide Peace," two of 
 which were published posthumously. His leading speeches 
 are those on conciliation with America (1755), on economical 
 reform (1780), on Fox's East India Bill ^783), on the Nabob 
 of Arcot's debts (1785), and on the impeachment of Warren 
 Hastings (1786). His speeches and writings display the same 
 qualities — a contempt for merely theoretical politicians, a 
 boundless wealth of imagination, which enabled him to set 
 forth the driest facts surrounded by a panoply of splendid 
 eloquence, a style frequently filled with similes and metaphors, 
 and (especially in his speeches) 1 an occasional absence of 
 good taste and self-restraint. Every production of his is, as 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold says, "saturated with ideas;" hence his 
 speeches, which, owing to his amplifications and deviations 
 from the subject in hand, were often found tedious by his 
 hearers, attract and reward the attention of the reader, while 
 those of such men as Fox and Sheridan are of interest only 
 to the historian, and have little merit considered merely as 
 literature. " He can seldom," writes Mr. Henry Rogers, 
 speaking of Burke as an orator, "confine himself to a simple, 
 businesslike view of the subject under discussion, or to close, 
 rapid, compressed argumentation on it. On the contrary, he 
 makes boundless excursions into all the regions of moral and 
 political philosophy; is perpetually tracing up particular in- 
 stances and subordinate principles to profound and compre- 
 hensive maxims ; amplifying and expanding the most meagre 
 materials into brief but comprehensive dissertations on poli- 
 tical science, and encrusting (so to speak) the nucleus of the 
 most insignificant fact with the most exquisite crystallisations 
 of truth, while the whole composition glitters and sparkles
 
 "Junius." 261 
 
 again with a rich profusion of moral reflections equally beauti- 
 ful and just." 
 
 Now that the heat of the political controversies of his time 
 has died away, Burke's writings, so far from having become 
 obsolete, as referring to questions which do not at this period 
 engage our attention, have become more valuable. In particular 
 points he was, no doubt, wrong and misleading, as every party 
 writer must necessarily be ; but his mastery of general prin- 
 ciples, his large views, and his constant flow of original and 
 striking ideas, lift him far above the level of the political writer 
 who addresses himself merely to the question at issue, and 
 whose work consequently loses its interest when that question 
 has been settled. " Burke had the style of his subjects, the 
 amplitude, the weightiness, the laboriousness, the sense, the 
 high flight, the grandeur, proper to a man dealing with impe- 
 rial themes, the freedom of nations, the justice of rulers, the 
 fortunes of great societies, the weightiness of law. Burke 
 will always be read with delight and edification, because in 
 the midst of discussions on the local and the accidental he 
 scatters apophthegms that take us into the regions of lasting 
 wisdom. In the midst of the torrent of his most strenuous 
 and passionate deliverances, he suddenly rises aloof from his 
 immediate subject, and in all tranquillity reminds us of some 
 permanent relation of things, some enduring truth of human 
 life or society. We do not hear the organ tones of Milton, for 
 faith and freedom had other notes in the seventeenth century. 
 There is none of the complacent and wise-browed sagacity of 
 Bacon, for Burke's were days of eager personal strife and party 
 fire and civil division. We are not exhilarated by the cheer- 
 fulness, the polish, the fine manners of Bolingbroke, for Burke 
 had an anxious conscience, and was earnest and intent that 
 the good should triumph. And yet Burke is among the greatest 
 of those who have wrought marvels in the prose of our English 
 tongue." 1 
 
 During Burke's lifetime he was frequently credited with the 
 authorship of the famous letters of " Junius," which created an 
 
 1 " Burke," by John Morlcy (English Men of Letters), p. 213.
 
 262 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 excitement such as perhaps has never been called forth by any 
 other political writings, and which still, owing to their great con- 
 temporary fame, and to the mastery they display over keen, 
 vigorous invective, retain a place in literature. The main reason 
 for attributing their authorship to Burke was because of certain 
 real or fancied resemblances between their style and that of 
 Burke's acknowledged works ; but Burke positively declared to 
 Dr. Johnson that he was not the writer of them, and his claim is 
 now, we believe, abandoned by all competent authorities. The 
 letters, of which the first appeared in January 1769, were pub- 
 lished in Woodfall's Public Advertiser, one of the leading news- 
 papers of the time, and attracted great and universal attention, 
 not only on account of their fierce invectives against the lead- 
 ing contemporary politicians, but because they showed a minute 
 acquaintance with the inner life of politics, and a knowledge 
 of state secrets which could not have been possessed by 
 an outsider. Among the many claimants who have been 
 put forward as their probable author are Colonel Barre, 
 Thomas Lord Lyttleton, Lord Temple, and Lauchlin Mac- 
 Leane ; but there is an overwhelming consensus of authori- 
 ties that their real writer was Sir Philip Francis, who was a 
 clerk in the War Office at the time of the appearance of the 
 letters. His claims have been warmly supported by such great 
 names as Macaulay, Earl Stanhope, Brougham, Lord Camp- 
 bell, and De Quincey, who declares that the proofs of 
 Francis's authorship rush in upon us more plentiful than 
 blackberries, and that the case ultimately becomes fatiguing 
 from the very plethora and riotous excess of evidence. It is 
 not unlikely that the controversy as to their authorship has done 
 more than their intrinsic merits to keep the " Letters" alive; 
 for it must be confessed that they now present little attraction 
 save to students of political history. Many will sympathise in 
 this matter with Mr. Carlyle, who once bitterly complained of 
 having been wofully bored about the matter at a dinner-party 
 — " as if it could matter the value of a brass farthing to any 
 human being who was the author of 'Junius.'" 
 
 A greater contrast can scarcely be imagined than that
 
 David Hume. 26 
 
 j 
 
 afforded by the impetuous, brilliant, imaginative Burke and the 
 " douce," tranquil, sober-minded Scotchman of whom we are 
 now to speak. Both were great writers and original thinkers, but 
 Burke was fitted for a life of action and ambition, and was in 
 his element while engaged in the bustle of political contro- 
 versy, and in taking part in the great conflicts waged in Par- 
 liament, while Hume, had the Fates so willed it, would have 
 been quite content to pass the life of the ideal philosopher, 
 devoting himself to the society of his books and his friends, 
 and letting the turmoil of the outside world pass unheeded. 
 He was born, the younger son of a good Scotch family, at 
 Edinburgh in April 17 11. According to his own account, 
 which is corroborated by what we know otherwise, he passed 
 through the ordinary course of education with success, and was 
 seized very early with a passion for literature, " which has been 
 the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoy- 
 ment." With all his love of study and desire for literary dis- 
 tinction, Hume was by no means what would be called a brilliant 
 youth : he seemed more likely to pass his time in reading ami 
 in vague day-dreaming than to rise in the world. ' ' Oor 
 Davie's a fine good-humoured crater," his mother is reported to 
 have said of him, " but uncommon wake-minded." As, however, 
 his fortune was very small, it was necessary that he should exert 
 himself in some way or other to provide for his support. Accord- 
 ingly, to use his own words, " My studious disposition, my 
 sobriety, and my industry gave my family a notion that the 
 law was a proper profession for me; but I found an unsur- 
 mountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of philo- 
 sophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was 
 poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the 
 authors which 1 was secretly devouring." Law having failed, 
 commerce was next tried, but it proved a still more unsuitable 
 occupation for the young philosopher, who in 1731, "letting 
 fortune and tin- world go by,'' retired to France, there to pro 
 secutc his studies, resolving to make a very rigid frugality 
 supply his ocy of fortune. In France he resided foi 
 
 three years, first at Rheims, and afterwards at I, a Heche, in
 
 264 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 Anjou, and there he composed his first work, his " Treatise of 
 Human Nature." It was published in 1738, and, greatly to 
 the author's vexation, fell " still-born from the press." This 
 work was followed in 1742 by a volume of essays which had 
 more success; then came in 1748 the "Inquiry Concerning 
 Human Understanding," a revised and much altered edition of 
 the "Treatise of Human Nature;" then, in 1752, his "Political 
 Discourses," and his "Inquiry Concerning the Principles of 
 Morals," which he himself considered incomparably the best 
 of all his works. Lastly, to conclude the list of his philoso- 
 phical writings, there appeared in 1779, three years after his 
 death, his " Dialogues on Natural Religion." We have here 
 to do with Hume as a man of letters, not as a philosopher, 
 and may therefore pass over his philosophical writings, the 
 sceptical views of which are so well known, with the remark 
 that they are written in a style always perspicuous, and often 
 rising into elegance. 
 
 While engaged on the above philosophical works, Hume 
 improved his slender fortune by engaging in more remunera- 
 tive pursuits. He passed a most wretched but not unprofit- 
 able year as guardian to the Marquis of Annandale, a partially 
 idiotic, partially insane young nobleman, and he was for two 
 years secretary to General St. Clair, whom he accompanied on 
 an expedition, " which was at first meant for Canada, but ended 
 in an incursion on the coast of France," and with whom, in 
 1747, he went on' an embassy to the courts of Venice and 
 Turin. " These two years," he writes, " were almost the only 
 interruptions which my studies have received during the course 
 of my life. I passed them agreeably and in good company ; 
 and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a 
 fortune which I called independent, though most of my friends 
 were inclined to smile when I said so; in short, I was now 
 master of near a thousand pounds." 
 
 In 1752 Hume was appointed to succeed Ruddiman, the 
 illustrious Latin scholar, as librarian of the Advocates' Library, 
 Edinburgh. The salary attached to the post was small, but 
 his duties were not onerous, and he had full command of a
 
 Humes "History of Engl and." 265 
 
 large and excellent collection of books. The opportunities 
 for literary research thus afforded him caused him again to 
 think of a scheme he had formerly projected of writing a 
 History of England. Till this time England had been sin- 
 gularly destitute of historians of any high order of merit. 
 Clarendon's " History of the Rebellion," indeed, is, from its 
 grave and weighty style, a work of great literary value ; but it 
 scarcely even pretends to impartiality, and may be more fitly 
 designated " Political Memoirs " than a history ; while the 
 Rymers, the Echards, and the Cartes, who had aspired to re- 
 late the history of their country, were destitute alike of genius, 
 of discrimination, and of accurate research. Frightened at the 
 notion of continuing a narrative through a period of seventeen 
 hundred years, Hume commenced with the accession of the 
 House of Stuart, an epoch when he thought the misrepresenta- 
 tions of faction began chiefly to take place. "I was," he goes 
 on to say, "I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success 
 of this work. I thought that I was the only historian who 
 had at once neglected present power,- interest, and authority, 
 and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was 
 suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. 
 liut miserable was my disappointment : I was assailed by one 
 cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation ; English, 
 Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, 
 freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their 
 rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous 
 tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford." Dr. 
 Johnson used sometimes to regret that his works were not 
 enough attacked, as controversy about them attracted public 
 attention and promoted their sale; but Hume had not even" 
 this consolation to compensate for the storm of detraction 
 with which his work was assailed, for within a year alter its 
 publication only forty-five copies of it were sold. With his 
 usual calm stoicism, he was not daunted by the want of 
 popular appreciation, but quietly went on with his task. In 
 '75° appeared the second volume; three years after the 
 " History of the Tudors" followed; and in 1761 the work was 
 
 1;
 
 266 Dr. Johnson mid his Contemporaries. 
 
 completed bv the publication of two volumes containing an 
 inadequate, and, even for the time, an unscholarly account 
 of the early period of English history. The work gradually 
 stole into popularity, and several years before the author's 
 death had come to be reckoned the standard History of Eng- 
 land, a position which it maintained till within comparatively 
 late years. Nor was its proud position undeserved. As an 
 historian, Hume possessed some highly estimable qualities. 
 His style is lucid and excellent, his narrative flows on in a 
 calm, equable course, his reflections are generally judicious 
 and sometimes profound, and his sense of proportion is ad- 
 mirable. Few writers have excelled him in the art of giving 
 to each event its fit place and its proper degree of length. 
 But these excellences are counterbalanced by grave faults. 
 In common with all the historians of the eighteenth century, 
 with the exception of Gibbon, he forgot that truth was the 
 first requisite in an historian, and aimed rather to lay before 
 his readers a polished and philosophic narrative than the 
 results of patient accuracy and original research, — in this 
 respect affording a notable contrast to the latest school of 
 historians, who sometimes in their anxious care to avoid the 
 Charybdis of inaccuracy appear to make shipwreck on the 
 Scylla of pedantry. Moreover, his spirit of political partisan- 
 ship was unworthy of so great a philosopher. Like Dr. John- 
 son, he always took care "that the Whig dogs should not 
 have the best of it." Still, with all its defects, his History is 
 a great work ; and if later writers have superseded it as an 
 historical authority, it is yet worth reading as in many respects 
 a model of style. We should not omit to mention that Hume 
 was the first to mix with his account of public affairs chapters 
 on the condition of the people and on the state of literature. 
 
 From his tranquil, studious life in Edinburgh, Hume was, 
 in 1763, drawn by an invitation from Lord Hertford to attend 
 him on his embassy to Paris. He was soon appointed secre- 
 tary to the embassy, and passed three years very pleasantly 
 in the glittering capital, where his fame had preceded him. 
 " Le bon David," as he was fondly called, found himself
 
 Humes Character. 267 
 
 surrounded by an admiring crowd of male and female adorers, 
 who were never tired of admiring the stout old philosopher. 
 On his return from Paris, he was appointed, in 1767, Under 
 Secretary of State for the Northern department, a position 
 which he retained for two years. In 1769 he returned to 
 Edinburgh, having amassed a fortune sufficient to yield him 
 an annual revenue of over ^1000. There he passed the re- 
 maining six years of his life, engaged in his favourite studies, 
 and exercising a bounteous hospitality to his large circle of 
 friends. On August 25, 1776, he died as he had lived, with 
 tranquillity and cheerfulness. 
 
 Hume's personal appearance was not prepossessing. Lord 
 Charlemont, describing him during his residence at Turin, 
 says : " The powers of physiognomy were banded by his 
 countenance ; neither could the most skilful pretend to dis- 
 cover the smallest traces of the faculties of his mind in the 
 unmeaning features of his visage. His face was broad and 
 fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than 
 that of imbecility, his eyes vacant and spiritless, and the 
 corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to com- 
 municate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined 
 philosopher." Of his character he has himself, in the brief 
 narrative which he calls " My Own Life," given a sufficiently 
 correct description. He was, he says, " a man of mild dis- 
 position, of command of temper, of an open, social, and 
 cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible 
 of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even 
 my love of fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, 
 notwithstanding my frequent disappointments." 
 
 There can be no better evidence of Hume's amiability of 
 disposition and freedom from petty jealousy than the friendly 
 terms on which he lived with a large circle of literary acquaint- 
 ances, and the heartfelt applause which he bestowed Upon 
 Robertson and Gibbon, his rivals in the field of historical 
 composition. When Robertson's "History of Scotland" 
 appeared, he was one of the loudest in its commendation, 
 declaring to Robertson (with, as his whole conduct showed,
 
 26S Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 perfect truth) that he had not for a long time had a more 
 sensible pleasure than the good reception of Robertson's 
 History had given him. Robertson is one of the few instances 
 of an author's being raised from obscurity to great and wide- 
 spread fame by the publication of his first work. He was 
 born in 172 r, the son of an Edinburgh clergyman, and after 
 passing through the usual course in Arts and Divinity, was 
 appointed in 1743 minister of Gladsmuir, a small parish in 
 East Lothian. There his duties were light and his natural 
 love of study found full scope, but, unlike most of those 
 who are fond of reading, he was in no hurry to appear as 
 an author. His " History of Scotland " which was begun in 
 1752, did not appear till 1759, and previous to that time his 
 only publications were a sermon, and one or two insignificant 
 articles which appeared in the " Edinburgh Review," a short- 
 lived periodical supported by the leading Northern literati 
 of the time, such as Adam Smith, Blair, Jardine, Wedder- 
 burn, &c. His History, unlike Hume's, was received imme- 
 diately on its publication with loud and general applause, and 
 the whole edition was exhausted in less than a month. One 
 reason why it was so much more successful than Hume's 
 doubtless was because it did not to such a degree run counter 
 to popular prejudices. Robertson is compelled to admit 
 Mary's guilt, but he does it with reluctance, and endeavours 
 to excite in the breast of the reader so strong a feeling of pity 
 for her that none but the most fanatical Jacobite could take 
 great offence at anything he says. 
 
 A few months before the publication of his " History," 
 Robertson removed to Edinburgh, having been appointed 
 minister of Old Greyfriars 1 . Honours were soon thickly 
 bestowed on him. In 1759 he was appointed one of the 
 chaplains-royal, and in 1762 he was elevated to the dignity 
 of Principal of the University. Despite the studious solitude 
 in which the early part of his life had been spent, Robertson 
 was a man eminently adapted for public life; an excellent 
 speaker, and a cool and cautious debater. He soon became 
 one of the leaders of the General Assembly, advocating the
 
 William Robertson. 269 
 
 claims of the " moderate " or anti-evangelical party, and made 
 his tact and ability so widely felt, that it was a common saying 
 that he would have been better employed in acting history than 
 in writing it. Although his first work had been so success- 
 ful, he was in no hurry to appear : again as an author. It was 
 not till 1769, ten years after his " History of Scotland," that 
 his "History of Charles V.," which is generally regarded as 
 his finest work, was published. How much his fame had 
 advanced within these ten years is clearly shown by the fact 
 that while for his " History of Scotland," by which the book- 
 sellers made about ^"6000, he received only ^600, he sold 
 the copyright of " Charles V." for ^4500.! In 1777 appeared 
 his " History of America." Robertson's last work was a " Dis- 
 quisition on Ancient India," which was published in 1791, about 
 two years before his death, which occurred in 1793. On the 
 whole, it can scarcely be said that the great contemporary fame 
 of Robertson has been justified by the verdict of posterity. 
 His writings, it is true, belong to the category of standard 
 works, but they are now pretty generally consigned to the dreary 
 limbo of "books which no gentleman's library can be complete 
 without" — books of which everybody is supposed to know 
 something, but which, in reality, very few ever read. Robertson 
 was one of the writers who steadfastly kept up the so-called 
 dignity of history, thinking it beneath him ever to descend 
 from his stilts, and edify the reader with any of those little 
 anecdotes of fashion and character, or details of domestic life, 
 which are so often much more instructive than pages of pompous 
 dissertation. Of his style, which was elaborated with scrupulous 
 care, Johnson once truly observed that it had the same fault 
 as his own, " too big words and too many of them." It is, 
 however, always sonorous and dignified, and sometimes, as 
 in the account of Mary's execution, rises into very impressive 
 eloquence. 
 
 We now come to the last and by far the greatest of the 
 
 1 Hume appears to have received /700 a volume for his History —tint 
 is, £4200 fur the enliie work. Gibbon ^ot £6000 for the " Decline and 
 
 J . 1."
 
 2~o Dr. Johnson and Jus Contemporaries. 
 
 famous trio of historians who adorned the eighteenth century, 
 Edward Gibbon, whose " Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
 pire " towers above all the other historical compositions of the 
 period, like a great cathedral dominating a city. Alone of the 
 histories of that time, it has sustained uninjured the fierce light 
 of modern research, and it is very unlikely that it will ever 
 now be dislodged from the lofty pedestal which it occupies by 
 any later production. In his "Autobiography" — to any one 
 with a taste for literature one of the most fascinating and stimu- 
 lating compositions in the language — Gibbon has recorded the 
 principal events of his life with something of the same pomp 
 and swell of style as he employed in describing the decline 
 and fall of the Roman Empire. He was born at Putney in 1737, 
 the son of a wealthy gentleman, who had estates in Surrey 
 and Hampshire. His mother, who died while he was young, 
 was, from various causes,, incapacitated from paying much 
 attention to him, but the maternal office was discharged with 
 the most tender assiduity by his aunt, Mrs. Catherine Porten, 
 to whom he felt a lifelong gratitude. So frail and sickly was 
 he in his early years, that it was scarcely anticipated that he 
 would ever reach maturity, and he may be described as almost 
 entirely self-educated, for his ill-health incapacitated him from 
 learning much at the various schools to which he was sent ; 
 and if his desire for knowledge had not been unusually strong, 
 it is probable that he would have become one of those igno- 
 rant, illiterate squires then so common. To the kind lessons 
 of his aunt he ascribed his early and invincible love of 
 reading, "which I would not exchange for the treasures of 
 India." He read variously and widely, studying all the his- 
 torical books that fell in his way, and acquiring a knowledge, 
 wonderful for one so young, of ancient geography and chro- 
 nology. " In my childish balance," he says, " I presumed to 
 weigh the systems of Scaliger and Petavius, of Marsham and 
 Newton, which I could seldom study in the originals; and 
 my sleep has been disturbed by the difficulty of reconciling 
 the Septuagint with the Hebrew computation." When, ere he 
 had reached the fifteenth year of his age, he was entered at
 
 Edward Gibbon. 2 7 1 
 
 Magdalen College, Oxford, he possessed "a stock of erudition 
 which might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance 
 of which a schoolboy would have been ashamed." In other 
 words, his miscellaneous and historical knowledge was great : 
 his acquaintance with Latin more extensive than accurate ; 
 while of Greek he scarcely knew even the elements. 
 
 In one of the most eloquent and vindictive passages in the 
 " Autobiography," he has told us how small was his debt to 
 Oxford, the presiding spirits of which, " steeped in port and pre- 
 judices," seem then to have very slenderly recognised their duty 
 to the young men committed to their charge. " To the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford," he says, "/ acknowledge no obligation, and 
 she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing 
 to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at 
 Magdalen College : they proved the fourteen months the most 
 idle and unprofitable of my whole life, the reader will pro- 
 nounce between the school and the scholar ; but I cannot 
 affect to believe that nature had disqualified me for all 
 literary pursuits." The cause of his quitting Oxford so soon 
 forms one of the few romantic episodes of Gibbon's life. In 
 the course of his omnivorous reading he came across two 
 treatises of Bossuet, and was by them converted to the 
 Roman Catholic faith. The young heretic, who for a time 
 clung to the opinions he had embraced with the tenacity of a 
 martyr, was compelled to withdraw from Oxford, and soon 
 after was placed by his indignant father under the care of M. 
 Pavilliard, a worthy and learned Protestant clergyman, who 
 lived at Lausanne, in .Switzerland. There he remained for 
 nearly five years, and was induced, after many arguments with 
 his tutor, to renounce the Catholic faith. These live years 
 were for the most part spent in a course of study so wide and 
 so severe as to be almost without parallel. In them Gibbon 
 read all the Latin authors of importance, not slightly and 
 hastily, but critically and with elaborate commentaries ; he 
 acquired such a knowledge of French, that it became more 
 familiar to him than his mother tongue ; and he laid a solid 
 foundation wherewith to prosecute the study of Greek literature.
 
 2 ; 2 Dr. Johnson and his Contemporaries. 
 
 In 1758, Gibbon, long since reconciled to his father, 
 returned to England, where he resided principally at his 
 father's house at Buriton, Hampshire, carrying on, though not 
 perhaps in so thoroughgoing a fashion, the studies he had 
 begun in Switzerland. In 1761 he published his first work, 
 an essay on " The Study of Literature," written in French. 
 It is a series of very loosely connected observations, often 
 true and ingenious enough ; and it attracted considerable atten- 
 tion abroad, although it was almost entirely neglected at home. 
 Shortly before its publication, Gibbon joined the Hampshire 
 Militia, where he served for two years and a half, thus acquir- 
 ing, at the cost of much inconvenience and interruption to his 
 studies, a knowledge of military tactics which stood him in 
 good stead when he came to write his History. In 1764, having 
 qualified himself for his tour by a most laborious course of 
 study of Roman antiquities and ancient geography, he visited 
 Italy, perhaps, it has been justly remarked, better furnished 
 for his expedition than any traveller ever was. It was during 
 this visit that he formed the project of writing the history of 
 the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Previous to this 
 time he had meditated various historical compositions, but for 
 one reason or another they were all abandoned. " It was 
 at Rome," he tells us, "on the 15th of October 1764, as I 
 sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare- 
 footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, 
 that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first 
 started to my mind." The actual composition of the work, 
 however, was not begun till 1772, two years after his father's 
 death, which left him in possession of a moderate fortune — 
 about ;£8oo a year, it would seem. When he began to write 
 the History, he found it very difficult to "hit the middle tone 
 between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation," but 
 with practice facility soon came, and the vast proportion of 
 the work was printed from the first draft. The first volume 
 appeared in 1776, a year memorable in the history of litera- 
 ture. In it Hume died ; and Campbell's " Philosophy of 
 Rhetoric," still one of the best treatises on the subject, and
 
 Gibbons Characteristics. 273 
 
 Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which first placed the 
 study of political economy on a firm basis, were published. 
 However high Gibbon's hopes may have been, the success 
 of the first volume must have surpassed them. It created a 
 furore comparable to that which attended the publication 
 of Macaulay's " History of England ; " three editions were 
 speedily exhausted, and the book was to be found not only 
 on the table of students, but in the hands of ladies and of men 
 of fashion. It was warmly welcomed by Hume and Robert- 
 son, and met with the common penalty of success by being 
 vigorously attacked by a host of adversaries. In 17S1 the 
 second and third volumes were published, and in 1787 the 
 work was completed. " I have presumed," he writes in his 
 "Autobiography," "to mark the moment of conception : I 
 shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It 
 was on the day, or rather night of the 27th of June 17S7, 
 between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last 
 lines of the last page, in a summer-house at my garden [at 
 Lausanne]. After laying down my pen, I took several turns 
 in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a 
 prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The 
 air was temperate, the sky was serene, and the silver orb of 
 the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was 
 silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the 
 recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of 
 my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober 
 melancholy spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken 
 an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and 
 that whatsoever might be the future fate of my History, the life 
 of the historian must be short and precarious." The public. 1- 
 tion of the last three volumes of the " History "was deferred 
 \pril 27, 1 788, so as to coincide with his fifty-first birthday. 
 Like Macau lay, to whose character Gibbon's in several re- 
 ts bore a considerable resemblance, Gibbon found the 
 composition of his " History" less of a toil than of a pleasure. 
 He was a thorough scholar, finding in study its own exceeding 
 great reward, and never happier than when at his desk or en-
 
 274 Dr. Johnson and J lis Contemporaries. 
 
 :d in laborious researches. In 1774 he was, by the in- 
 terest of Lord Eliot, returned to Parliament, where he sat for 
 eight sessions, steadily supporting the ministry of Lord North; 
 for, like many who have held advanced opinions upon other 
 subjects, Gibbon was strongly conservative in politics. When 
 the French Revolution broke out he was panic-stricken by 
 it to an extent altogether unworthy of his philosophical mirtd. 
 Gibbon never made any attempt to win oratorical laurels. The 
 great speakers, he said, filled him with despair ; the bad ones 
 with terror; and he therefore preferred the safe though in- 
 glorious position of a silent member to risking the con- 
 sequences of a failure. 
 
 His early residence abroad gave Gibbon a fondness for 
 
 Continental life; and after 1783 most of his time was passed 
 
 at Lausanne, where the "Hotel Gibbon" still keeps his 
 
 memory alive. There he had many friends ; and as his fortune 
 
 was superior to that of most of those around him, he occupied 
 
 a higher relative social position than he could have done in 
 
 England. In 1793 he was recalled to his native country by 
 
 the death of the wife of his dear friend, Lord Sheffield. His own 
 
 death followed on 16th January 1794. Gibbon was a man of 
 
 small stature, very corpulent in his latter years, and always very 
 
 neatly dressed. He had a disproportionately large head, and 
 
 "his mouth," writes Colman, " melifiuous as Plato's, was a 
 
 round hole nearly in the centre of his visage." His moral 
 
 character seems to have been stainless. He was a dutiful son, 
 
 and a tender and generous friend. " His honourable and 
 
 amiable disposition," writes Brougham, " his kind and even 
 
 temper, was praised by all." 
 
 Carlyle, in a conversation with Emerson, once described the 
 " Decline and Fall " as " the splendid bridge from the old 
 world to the new." It comprises the history of the world for 
 nearly thirteen centuries, from the reign of the Antonines to 
 the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. When we con- 
 sider the vastness and complexity of the subject, Gibbon's 
 learning and power of arrangement alike inspire us with wonder. 
 Mistakes there are, doubtless, but they are wonderfully few
 
 Gibbon s Attitude to Christianity. 275 
 
 and insignificant. The general accuracy is such, that Niebuhr, 
 the great German historian, declared that the more a man 
 knew, the more he would hesitate to contradict Gibbon. The 
 style is ornate and sarcastic ; often too allusive and artificial, 
 yet always having a certain harmony with the lofty theme. 
 The great fault of the work arises from Gibbon's bias against 
 Christianity. It appears clear that when he renounced 
 Catholicism, he at the same time abandoned all religious 
 belief; and when he refers to Christianity, it is generally with 
 a covert sneer. The 15th and 16th chapters of his " History,'' 
 giving an account of the early progress and extension of 
 Christianity, have been particularly objected to, and called 
 forth a crowd of antagonists, who were, however, quite incap- 
 able of coping with so great an adversary. Gibbon maintained 
 a disdainful silence till his veracity was attacked by the charge 
 of false quotations, when he published his " Vindication " of the 
 15th and 16th chapters of his "History." "This single dis- 
 charge," writes Dean Milman, " from the ponderous artillery 
 of learning and sarcasm, laid prostrate the whole disorderly 
 squadrons of rash and feeble volunteers who filled the ranks of 
 his enemies, while the more distinguished theological writers 
 of the country stood aloof." It is not specific statements, but 
 the general character and temper of the references to Christi- 
 anity that are liable to attack.* 
 
 * "I picked up Whitaker's criticism on Gibbon," writes Macaulay in his 
 Diary (9th October 1858). "Pointless spite, with here and there a just 
 remark. It would be strange if in so large a work as Gibbon's there were 
 nothing open to jn:->t remark. How utterly all the attacks on his ' History ' 
 are forgotten ! this of YVhitakcr, Randolph's, Chclsum's, Davies's, that 
 Stupid beast Joseph Milncr's, even Watson's. And still the book, with all 
 its great faults of substance and style, retains, and will ictain, its place in 
 our literature ; and 1 1 1 i .-. though it is offensive to the religious feeling of the 
 country, and really most unfair where religion is concerned."
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE NEW ERA IN POETRY. 
 
 Percy's "Reliques;" Wartorfs " History of English Poetry;" Ossian, 
 Chatterton, Shenslone, Beat tie ; Blake ; Cowper ; Burns ; Crabbe ; 
 Wordsworth, Coleridge, Soittkey ; Byron, Shelley, Keats] Rogers, 
 Hogg, Campbell, Moore. 
 
 HE influence of Pope over the poets of his own age 
 and those who came after him was far-reaching and 
 prolonged, but it must not be supposed that it was 
 universal. Even during his lifetime poets arose 
 who were not animated by the same spirit, to whom " the 
 town " and its intellectual and moral atmosphere presented 
 few attractions, and whose verse, even while hampered by 
 artificial shackles and disfigured by poetic commonplaces and 
 pseudo-classicalism, deals with an altogether different range of 
 subjects from his, and has an altogether different inner mean- 
 ing and substance. This is true of the poetry of Thomson, 
 of Collins, of Gray, who have been mentioned in a previous 
 chapter, and it is also true of the poetry of Allan Ramsay, not 
 so great as any of these three, but still a very remarkable 
 poetic phenomenon, considering the age in which he lived. A 
 Scotchman, like Thomson, he stood alone, or almost alone, 
 among the poets who flourished from 1680 to 1730, in having 
 a genuine love for and pleasure in natural scenery. His pas- 
 toral drama, "The Gentle Shepherd," published in 1725, is, 
 with its freshness and simplicity of style, and its picturesque 
 and charming delineations of country life, an almost startling
 
 The Poetical Renascence. 277 
 
 contrast to the frigid and unnatural pastoral poetry of Pope 
 and his followers. But what perhaps tended as much as any- 
 single cause to overthrow Pope's influence, and to bring the 
 couplet metre of which he was such a master into disgrace and 
 almost total desuetude, was the crowd of imitators who arose 
 during his lifetime and after his death. As Cowper says in his 
 " Table Talk," Pope had— 
 
 " Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
 And every warbler had his tune by heart." 
 
 When smoothly turned and deftly rhymed couplets were used 
 by every poetaster to give utterance to empty nothings, people 
 began to get tired of that form of verse. But it lingered long 
 and died hard. It was employed by Johnson, by Goldsmith, 
 by Cowper, by Campbell, not to mention others j and its vital- 
 ity clearly shows how popular it was at one time, and how well 
 adapted it is for dealing with a certain class of subjects. 
 
 The decay of Pope's favourite metre, however, is but a 
 secondary matter : much more important is the reaction which, 
 during the last thirty or forty years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, set in against the whole tone and character of the artificial 
 school of poetry. Men began to turn with eager eyes to our 
 older poets, too long neglected ; ballads, which in Queen 
 Anne's time would have incurred almost universal ridicule, 
 were sought out and fondly pondered over ; the great book of 
 nature was studied with impassioned zeal ; and poets, tired 
 of conventionality, begun to aspire to portray the deeper 
 emotions and feelings of men. As time went on, the move- 
 ment became more and more powerful ; one great poet after 
 another arose, different in many ways, it may be, from his 
 brother bards, but alike them in singing from a natural im- 
 pulse, and alike them in having little or nothing in common 
 with the preceding generation of poets. Never, save in the 
 Elizabethan era, was there such a gorgeous outburst of soul; as 
 during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. The 
 causes of the new movement were various; but in gn.it mea 
 sure it must be attributed to the vast upheaval of men's minds,
 
 27S The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 which took place not in this country only, but in France and 
 Germany, about the time of the French Revolution. During 
 that stirring epoch, when old creeds and old modes of govern- 
 ment were worn loosely for want of a better covering, a revo- 
 lutionary spirit was abroad, not in poetry only, but in politics, 
 in philosophy, in science, and in all forms of literary art. No 
 doubt Mr. Palgrave is right in thinking that the French Re- 
 volution was only one result, and in itself by no means the 
 most important, of that far wider and far greater spirit which, 
 through inquiry and doubt, through pain and triumph, sweeps 
 mankind round the circles of its greater development. 1 But 
 the French Revolution itself, attracting the profound attention, 
 and, in its earlier stages, the fond sympathy, of all those aspir- 
 ing young souls who, tired of effete and outworn formulas, 
 were looking eagerly forward to the dawn of a better day, was 
 unquestionably an important factor in the new literary renas- 
 cence which produced such great results. 
 
 Of the general characteristics of the brilliant band of poets 
 whom we shall have to deal with in this chapter, no better 
 summary could be furnished than that given by Mr. Palgrave. 
 They "carried to further perfection the later tendencies of the 
 century preceding in simplicity of narrative, reverence for 
 human passion and character in every sphere, and impassioned 
 love of nature : whilst maintaining, on the whole, the advances 
 in art made since the Restoration, they renewed the half-for- 
 gotten melody and depth of tone which marked the best 
 Elizabethan writers j lastly, to what was thus inherited they 
 added a richness in language and a variety in metre, a force 
 and fire in narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, an 
 insight into the finer passages of the soul, and the inner mean- 
 ings of the landscape, a larger and wiser humanity, hitherto 
 hardly attained, and perhaps unattainable even by predeces- 
 sors of not inferior individual genius." But before proceeding 
 to the discussion of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their com- 
 peers, we must go back to the more prominent sources of the 
 magnificent stream of poetry whose course it is so pleasant 
 
 1 " Gulden Treasury," p. 320.
 
 " Ossian." 279 
 
 and inspiring to trace. Only a few of the more significant 
 can be mentioned here. Bishop Percy, by the publication 
 in 1765 of his " Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," revealed 
 to many, to whom they had hitherto been unknown, the wealth 
 of true poetry, of free, wild, natural feeling, which lay in our 
 old ballads. The semi-apologetic tone of his preface shows 
 how such things were generally regarded by the cultured 
 society of his day. " In a polished age like the present," he 
 says, " I am sensible that many of these reliques of antiquity 
 will require great allowances to be made for them. . . . The 
 editor hopes he need not be ashamed of having bestowed some 
 of his idle hours on the ancient literature of our own country, 
 or in regaining from oblivion some pieces (though but the 
 amusements of our ancestors) which tend to place in a strik- 
 ing light their taste, genius, sentiments, or manners." Thomas 
 Warton's " History of English Poetry" (1774-177S), which is 
 still, despite its many inaccuracies, a useful and entertaining 
 work, did good service by attracting the attention of cultured 
 people to our old poets, which then, in most cases, if known 
 at all, were only known at second hand. The same author's 
 elaborate essay on the "Faerie Queen " answered a similar pur- 
 pose. More important, however, than prose works, though 
 these were largely efficacious in educating the public taste, 
 were the poems which heralded the coming era. Of these, 
 "Ossian," published in 1762, is one of the most remarkable. 
 Whether the work of James Macpherson, or whether translated 
 from ancient Gaelic manuscripts — a question which has led 
 discussions as eager, as interminable, and nearly as profit- 
 less, as those about the authorship of the letters of "Junius," 
 " Ossian " may almost be called an epoch-making poem. It 
 attracted profound attention both in this country and abroad, 
 and the work, which has been admired by critics so keen- 
 sighted and able as Goethe and Mr. Matthew Arnold, deserved 
 better treatment at the hands of Macaulay than In It spoken 
 of with ill-judging and unintelligent contempt. Descriptions 
 of Nature in her wildest and stormiest aspects, as seen beneath 
 a lowering and tempest-tossed sky, in the most barren and
 
 2 So The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 desolate mountain solitudes, afforded quite a new sensation to 
 leaders of the Georgian era. Goethe, in the thirteenth book 
 of his " Dichtung und Wahrheit," while recording the state of 
 mind which led him to the composition of " Werther," and 
 which, being generally prevalent, brought about the great 
 enthusiasm with which that book was received, says, speaking 
 of the fondness for gloomy literature and the feeling of 
 melancholy dissatisfaction which then pervaded many youthful 
 minds: "And that to all this melancholy a perfectly suitable 
 locality might not be wanting, Ossian had charmed us even to 
 the Ultima Thule, where on a grey, boundless heath, wander- 
 ing among prominent moss-covered gravestones,- we saw the 
 grass around us moved by an awful wind, and a heavily 
 clouded sky above us. It was not till moonlight that the Cale- 
 donian night became day; departed heroes, faded maidens, 
 floated around us, until at last we really thought we saw the 
 spirit of Lodo in his fearful form." Something of the spirit of 
 "Ossian" animates the pseudo-antique "Mediaeval Romances" 
 (1768) of Thomas Chatterton — 
 
 " The marvellous boy, 
 The sleepless soul that perished in his pride,'' — 
 
 the story of whose stormy and ill-regulated life and tragic 
 death by suicide, at the age of seventeen, is one of the most 
 touching and melancholy pages of literary history. How 
 powerfully the tide was turning in the direction of our older 
 literature is clearly proved by the fact that in no age has the 
 imitation of Spenser been more common than during the 
 iiteenth century. 1 The "Schoolmistress" (1742), incom- 
 parably the finest poem of William Shenstone, and the "Min- 
 strel " (1774) of James Beattie, at one time Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy at Aberdeen, are both written in the Spenserian 
 stanza. Beattie was a genuine poet, though not a very great 
 one, and his descriptions of natural scenery and of the more 
 delicate human emotions are drawn with loving sympathy and 
 
 1 This fact is pointed out in an able and instructive article on " English 
 iy from Dryden to Cowper " in the Quarterly Revieiv for July 1S62.
 
 William Blake. 281 
 
 insight. In his own time he was more celebrated as the 
 author of the " Essay on Truth" (a reply to the philosophical 
 speculations of Hume regarding miracles) than as the writer 
 of the " Minstrel " — a curious instance of how incorrect con- 
 temporary judgments may be. The " Essay on Truth," though 
 extravagantly praised by Dr. Johnson and many other cele- 
 brated men of the time, and read with great admiration by that 
 worthy monarch, George III., who bestowed a pension on its 
 orthodox author, has long since taken its due place as a weak 
 and insufficient handling of an important and difficult theme ; 
 while the "Minstrel" still retains its far from unimportant 
 place in the history of English poetry. 
 
 Another poet, of a much more unique genius than Beattie, lf^ 
 was 'William Blake (1757-1828), who occupies a place by him- 
 self among the forerunners of the new era. Charles Lamb 
 rightly regarded him as " one of the most extraordinary per- 
 sonages of the age," for both as poet and painter his work 
 was altogether original. His " Poetical Sketches," published in 
 1777, bear trace of the reviving influence of the Elizabethan 
 poets ; and the union of simplicity of language with truly 
 poetical thoughts upon ordinary subjects in them and in his 
 " Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two 
 Contrary States of the Human Soul," anticipate Wordsworth. 
 1 1 ike's reputation stands much higher now than it did during 
 his life, or for some time after his death. Of late years, the 
 enthusiasm of many writers of high culture, who have found 
 in him a vein of power marking him off from his contem- 
 poraries, have done much to bring into vogue the drawings 
 and the poetry of this strange child of genius. 1 
 
 1 The " Foetical Sketches" are all the more remarkable when we re- 
 member that they were written between the twelfth and the twentieth year 
 of his age. " Iilake, in truth, when in his teens," says Mr. \Y. M. Ros- 
 sctti (Prefatory Memoir to the Aldine Edition of Blake, p. ex v.), " was a 
 wholly unique poel ; far ahead of his com* h s, and of hi predeces- 
 
 sors of three or four ;;en' equally in what he himself could do, and 
 
 In his sympathy for olden sources oi inspiration. Id jmentary drama 
 
 of 'Edward the Third' we recognise one v. loved and studied 
 
 Shakespeare to good purpose; and several of the shorter lyrics in the 
 
 S
 
 2$ 2 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the more prominent minor poets 
 ie latter part of the eighteenth century. We now come to 
 William Cowper, whose character, alike as a man and a poet, 
 is a singularly interesting and attractive one. A man of genius, 
 but not of very powerful or original genius ; full of good taste, 
 and grace, and tenderness, but almost altogether destitute of 
 fire and passion ; fond of the country and of country things, 
 yet far from being imbued with Wordsworth's passionate love 
 of Nature, he was not at all the sort of writer whom we should 
 expect to be one of the leaders in a literary revolution. Yet 
 this position Cowper unconsciously occupied, partly by natural 
 genius, partly by the accidents of his career. The story of his 
 life, darkened as it was by frequent thunderclouds of insanity, 
 through which the blue sky of hope was unable to pierce, is a 
 very touching one. Born in 1 73 1, a descendant of an ancient 
 family, which ranked not a few distinguished names among its 
 members, the shrinking, sensitive boy had early experience of 
 those hardships of life which he was so ill fitted to struggle 
 against. At an elementary school to which he was sent, he 
 was brutally tormented by one of the boys, whom he held in 
 such dread that he did not dare to lift his eyes to his face, and 
 knew him best by his shoe-buckle. Removed from this school, 
 Cowper's spirits recovered their tone, and at the age of ten he 
 was sent to Westminster, where he seems to have led a happy 
 life enough, not studying very hard, but acquiring a competent 
 knowledge of Greek and Latin, and distinguishing himself as a 
 cricketer and football-player. After leaving Westminster, he 
 was entered of the Inner Temple, and passed three very plea- 
 sant and very idle years as a law-clerk, making love to his 
 cousin Theodora, and associating much with Edward Thurlow, 
 
 tical Sketches' have the same sort of pungent perfume— undefinable 
 but not evanescent — that belongs to the choicest Elizabethan songs ; the 
 like play of emotion,— or play of colour, as it might be termed ; the like 
 ripeness and roundness, poetic, and intolerant of translation into prose. 
 At the time when Blake wrote these songs, and for a long while before, no 
 one was doing anything at all of the same kind. Not but that, even in 
 
 , lines an i words occur here and there betraying the fadeur of the 
 eighteenth century." 

 
 William Cowper. 28 
 
 6 
 
 who, though insubordinate and fond of amusement and dissi- 
 pation, already gave signs of that strength of character and 
 power of strenuous exertion which afterwards made him Lord 
 Chancellor. When, in 1752, Cowper, his clerkship over, went 
 into residence at the Temple, the seclusion of his abode so 
 weighed on him as to bring on the first of those fits of deep 
 melancholy which afterwards darkened into madness. A 
 prolonged residence in the country cured him ; and on his 
 return to London in 1754, he was called to the Bar. But his 
 illness put an end to his hopes of marrying Theodora Cowper. 
 Her father refused to sanction the engagement, and Theodora 
 and Cowper never saw each other again. But in both of them 
 the old love remained deeply rooted till the close of their 
 lives : Theodora, who never married, fondly treasured up the 
 letters and poems she had received from Cowper, and always 
 took the warmest interest in his welfare. 
 
 During the years he spent in the character of a briefless 
 barrister, Cowper made his first attempts at literature by con- 
 tributing a few papers to the Connoisseur and the Si. fa/nes's 
 Chronicle, then under the management of certain of his friends. 
 But his contributions put no money into his pocket, and as his 
 father's death in 1756 had left him poor, he was obliged to look 
 to the more influential members of his family for aid. In 1763 
 the offices of Clerk of the Journals, Reading Clerk, and Clerk 
 of Committees of the House of Lords became vacant; and 
 Major Cowper, in whose disposal they were, offered the two 
 latter to his cousin. The offer was accepted — unfortunately, 
 as it proved. Their duties required that Cowper should fre- 
 quently appear before the House of Lords, and the thought 
 of doing so was so abhorrent to his retiring, nervous nature, 
 that he almost immediately resigned them, accepting instead 
 the offi< e of Clerk of Journals. But in this case the Major's 
 ' to nominate was questioned, and Cowper was failed 
 ■1 to submit to the ordeal of an examination at the bar of 
 the House before being allowed to take office. ''To require 
 from me," he says in his Autobiography, " my attendance at 
 I bar of the House, that I might there publicly entitle myself
 
 2S4 T/tc Neiv Era in Poetry. 
 
 to the office, was in effect to exclude me from it. In the 
 meantime, the interest of my friend, the honour of his choice, 
 my own reputation and circumstances, all pressed me to under- 
 take that which I saw was impracticable." A fearful mental 
 stru< T <de, during which he several times attempted suicide, en- 
 sued, and ended in his becoming quite insane. He was placed 
 in an asylum, where, under kindly and judicious treatment, he 
 gradually recovered, after a residence of about a year and a half. 
 
 It was now, of course, painfully obvious to all Cowper's 
 friends that he was totally unfit for an active life. They accord- 
 ingly subscribed together to make him an annual allowance, and 
 a quiet lodging was procured for him in the town of Hunt- 
 ingdon, where he went to reside in 1765. After a few months' 
 experience of housekeeping, he found that he would live much 
 more economically and comfortably if he became a boarder in 
 some suitable family ; and towards the end of the year became 
 a lodger in the family of the Rev. John Unwin, the clergyman 
 of the place. He soon became very much attached to the 
 Unwins, who were excellent and cultivated people, and his 
 attachment was reciprocated. In 1767 Mr. Unwin was killed 
 by a fall from his horse, and the household was broken up. 
 Mrs. Unwin had to remove, and Cowper, to whom her be- 
 haviour had "always been that of a mother to a son," deter- 
 mined to accompany her. Shortly after Unwin's death, the 
 Rev. John Newton, Rector of Olney, in Buckinghamshire, had 
 called on Mrs. Unwin, and promised to look out a house for 
 her at Olney. To Olney, accordingly, in September 1767, 
 she and Cowper removed. 
 
 Now began Cowper's connection with Newton, which 
 exercised a powerful, and, upon the whole, an unfortunate 
 influence on his life. No two men could well be imagined 
 
 O 
 
 more different than the shrinking, nervous, desponding poet, 
 and the strong-minded, strong-willed, energetic Rector of 
 Olney. Newton had in his youth been a sailor, of wild and 
 dissipated habits, but a narrow escape from death changed 
 his character, and he became a highly religious man, of strong 
 Calvinistic opinions. For some time he was master of a
 
 Coivpers " Task!' 2S5 
 
 vessel engaged in the slave-trade, but ill-health brought his 
 life as a sailor to an end ; and, after many difficulties, he was 
 in 1764 ordained to the curacy of Olney. Cowper and he 
 soon became fast friends, and in 1771 Newton proposed that 
 they should write together a volume of hymns. But ere it was 
 completed, Cowper, harassed by religious doubts and diffi- 
 culties, again became insane. For four years his mental 
 derangement continued, but at length, largely owing to the 
 assiduous attention of Mrs Unwin, light dawned upon his 
 troubled faculties. The " Olney Hymns " were published in 
 1779, Cowper's poems being distinguished by the letter C. 
 Many of them are beautiful, and have passed into universal 
 use, but the despairing tone of some shows the mental anguish 
 which Cowper went through at the time of their composition. 
 In 1779, also, Newton left Olney, an event which probably 
 may be regarded as conducive to Cowper's happiness ; as 
 Newton's austere Calvinism was ill adapted to deal with the 
 terrible religious doubts which often beset the clouded mind 
 of the poet. 
 
 In 1780 Mrs. Unwin suggested 'to Cowper that he should 
 employ his mind by engaging in the composition of some work 
 of greater importance than he had yet attempted. He con- 
 sented, and in a few months the " Progress of Error," " Truth," 
 " Table-Talk," and " Expostulation," were completed. These, 
 together with some shorter poems, of which " Hope " and 
 " Charity " are the most important, were published in 17S2. 
 They attracted little attention among readers in general, but 
 had the good fortune to win the favourable opinion of 
 Benjamin Franklin, one of the most sagacious men of his time. 
 Soon after, at the suggestion of Lady Austen, a widow, who 
 had come to reside near Olney, and who soon became a great 
 friend of the poet, Cowper began his greatest work, "The 
 I >k." It was published in 1785, along with some other 
 poems, including the famous "John Gilpin," which also owed 
 its origin to a suggestion of Lady Austen. It met with a 
 most enthusiastic reception, putting Cowper at once at the 
 head of the poets of the age.
 
 2S6 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 About a year before the publication of "The Task," Cowper 
 began the last great work of his life, his translation of Homer. 
 It was interrupted in 17S7 by an attack of insanity, during 
 which he attempted to commit suicide ; but at length, in 
 1791, it was completed and published. Much truer to 
 the original than Pope's version, it wants the interest and 
 animation which characterise the latter translation ; and while 
 it always has been and always will be a favourite with scholars 
 who can appreciate its fidelity, it will never be popular among 
 the large class of unlearned readers, for whose sake mainly 
 translations are issued. In 1796 Cowper's best friend, Mrs. 
 Unwin, died. He had attended her with loving devotion 
 during a long illness, and when the end came, his grief was 
 terrible. He sank into a state of hopeless despondency, 
 which continued till the end of his life. His last poem, " The 
 Castaway," in which we hear " no throb of sorrow, only the 
 cry of despair," was written on March 20, 1800. On the 25th 
 April of the same year his troubled spirit found peace in death. 
 
 A man of gentle, loving nature, endowed in his better 
 moments with much sound sense and genial humour, surrounded 
 by friends who liked and respected him, fond of simple plea- 
 sures and of cheerful company, Cowper, had it not been for 
 the mysterious malady which wasted his life, might have lived 
 very happily. His spotless moral character and deep religious 
 feelings, his childlike playfulness, his simplicity and natural- 
 ness, have combined to make him one of the most lovable 
 figures in the history of English poetry. It is rather a puzzling 
 question to decide how far his attractive personality and his 
 attitude towards Christianity have influenced his literary posi- 
 tion. "Any one," says Mr. Goldwin Smith in his monograph 
 on Cowper, " whose lot it is to write upon the life and works 
 of Cowper must feel that there is an immense difference be- 
 tween the interest which attaches to him and that which 
 attaches to any one among the far greater poets of the suc- 
 ceeding age. Still there is something about him so attractive, 
 his voice has such a silver tone, he retains, even in his ashes, 
 such a faculty of winning friends, that his biographer and critic
 
 Cowper s Characteristics. 2S7 
 
 may be easily beguiled into giving him too high a place. He 
 belongs to a particular religious movement, with the vitality of 
 which the interest of a great part of his works has departed, 
 or is departing. Still more emphatically, and in a still more 
 important sense, does he belong to Christianity. In no natural 
 struggle for existence would he have been the survivor; by 
 no natural process of selection would he ever have been 
 picked out as a vessel of honour. If the shield which for 
 eighteen centuries Christ by His teaching and His death has 
 spread over the weak things of this world should fail, and 
 might should again become the title to existence and the 
 measure of worth, Cowper will be cast aside as a specimen of 
 despicable inferiority, and all who have said anything in his 
 praise will be treated with the same scorn." In this there is 
 a good deal of truth mixed up with a large amount of exaggera- 
 tion. No doubt some portion of Cowper's popularity has been 
 brought about by the fact that he is a distinctively Christian 
 poet. Until comparatively late years he was almost the only 
 poet who found any considerable favour among Evangelical 
 circles ; and even yet many people read his poetry, and recom- 
 mend it to others, not owing to its excellence as poetry, but be- 
 cause of its religious and moral tone. No doubt, also, it is true 
 that Cowper not unfrequently wrote verses which would have 
 come with better grace from the pen of his friend Havlev, that 
 type of poetical mediocrity, but, nevertheless, Cowper owes 
 his high position in literature not to any adventitious cause, 
 but on account of his intrinsic merits. In an age steeped 
 in conventionality, he was natural and unconventional. His 
 powers of simple pathos, as exemplified in his " Lines to Mary 
 Unwin " and to his "Mother's Picture," are almost unsur- 
 passed; and in his humorous and didactic poems he shows a 
 shrewdness, a knowledge of human nature, a command of 
 genial sarcasm, which prove that, secluded as his life for the 
 most part was, he was a keen and accurate ob erver <>! men 
 and things. He, first of the English poets, brought men b i( 1: 
 ■ >wn to the country. "His landscape, no doubt, 
 was the tame one of the English Midland Counties; there was
 
 288 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 in it nothing of the stern wild joy of the mountains. His 
 sentiments moved among the household sympathies, not the 
 stormy passions. But in Cowper's power of simple narrative 
 and truthful descriptions, in his natural pathos and religious 
 feeling, more truly than elsewhere may be discovered the 
 dawn of that new poetic era with which this century began." 
 Nor, in appraising Cowper's literary merits, should we forget 
 his exquisite letters, the finest specimens of epistolary com- 
 position the English language affords. Their beauty and 
 vivacity, their ease and humour, their purity and tenderness, 
 combine to render them inapproachable in their own sphere. 
 
 Even Cowper's warmest admirers are obliged to confess that 
 he was deficient in force and passion. His vein of poetical 
 genius was a real one, but it was rather a tranquil stream, un- 
 ruffled save when a cry of emotion broke from his overburdened 
 heart, than an overflowing and irresistible current. He rarely 
 or never seems to have felt that divine and unrestrainable 
 impulse to sing which has possessed many poets. Very dif- 
 ferent was the case with Robert Burns, undoubtedly the most 
 richly dowered by nature of all the poets of the eighteenth 
 century. Born in 1759, in Alloway, Ayrshire, the son of a 
 small farmer, his youth was spent in toil and poverty. Such 
 slender educational facilities, however, as were afforded him 
 he availed himself of to the fullest extent ; and he fostered his 
 genius by the perusal of such poems as fell in his way — old 
 ballads, the works of Allan Ramsay, of Robert Fergusson, 
 another Scotch poet, &c. Another equally important part of 
 his poetical education must not be passed over. " In my 
 infant and boyish days," he says, " I owed much to an old 
 woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her igno- 
 rance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the 
 largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning 
 devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, 
 kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips, 
 giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This 
 cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an 
 effect upon my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal
 
 Robert Burns. 289 
 
 rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious 
 places ; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am 
 in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to 
 shake off these idle terrors." Strong evidence this of both the 
 precocity and the strength of Burns's imaginative genius. 
 
 As from his poetic temperament may easily be supposed, 
 Burns early began to write verses. His first composition was 
 the lines commencing, " Oh, once I loved a bonnie lassie," 
 written in his fifteenth year, and addressed to a girl whom he 
 had worked alongside of in the harvest-field. Few and fleet- 
 ing were the pleasures that visited him while as a youth he 
 toiled on his father's farm, leading a life combining, as he 
 afterwards bitterly said, " the cheerless gloom of a hermit 
 with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave." As he grew up, he 
 felt the degradations and hardships incident to his lot more 
 and more galling. Conscious, no doubt, as he could not but 
 be conscious, of his great natural endowments, finding no fit 
 scope for their exercise, with no bright prospect before him to 
 encourage him to bear cheerfully the ills which at last he 
 would triumphantly vanquish, it is no wonder though Burns, 
 with his effervescing passions, his naturally high animal spirits, 
 and his love of society, should, as he approached manhood, 
 have sought to drown the sense of his troubles by indulging 
 pretty freely in conviviality in jovial social gatherings. The 
 life and soul of every company into which he went, his society 
 was much sought after, and by degrees he began to acquire 
 that fatal love of dissipation from which he never got free. 
 
 Meanwhile all attempts he made to better his condition 
 proved unfortunate. Thinking to commence business as a 
 11 ix-dresser, he took a share of a shop in Irvine, but the enter- 
 prise did not succeed, and was soon put a final end to, the 
 shop catching fire and being burned to the ground. After the 
 father's death in 1784, the Burns family removed to Moss 
 and stocked a farm with their individual savings ; but had | 
 and bad harvests played havoc with their hopes, and Robert, 
 who had worked very assiduously for a time at the new faun, 
 became more discontented with his lot than ever. His unfor-
 
 290 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 tunate connection with Jean Armour, and her father's refusal 
 to allow her to marry him, was the crowning ingredient in his 
 cup of sorrows. Carlyle in his fine essay lias well described 
 the condition of Burns at this time. " He loses his feeling of 
 innocence; his mind is at variance with itself; the old divinity 
 no longer presides there ; but wild desires and repentance 
 alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, he has committed 
 himself before the world; his character for sobriety, dear to a 
 Scottish peasant as few corrupted worldlings can even conceive, 
 is destroyed in the eyes of men, and his only refuge consists 
 in trying to disbelieve his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of 
 lies. The blackest desperation now gathers over him, broken 
 only by red lightnings of remorse." He determined to go 
 abroad, and in order to defray the expenses of his passage to 
 the West Indies, where he had accepted a situation as book- 
 keeper, was advised to publish his poems. He agreed to do 
 so, and in 1786 an impression of six hundred copies was struck 
 oft' at Kilmarnock. 
 
 The sensation produced by the volume was immense. 
 Among the class to which Burns himself belonged it was 
 received with rapturous enthusiasm. They recognised in the 
 author a poet, one of themselves in his feelings and sympathies 
 and aspirations, but lifted far above them by his genius, and 
 able to give fit utterance to sentiments and opinions which 
 lay concealed in their own breasts, but to which they were 
 powerless to give expression. The demand for copies was 
 eager; many peasants denied themselves other luxuries in 
 order to procure the cherished volume; and Burns had the 
 satisfaction of clearing about twenty pounds by his venture. 
 But the admiration excited by the poems was not confined 
 to his own circle. Copies found their way to the " Modern 
 Athens,'' as Edinburgh proudly called itself, with perhaps a 
 better title to the name then than it has now; and just as 
 Burns was on the eve of setting out to a distant land, his 
 plans were suddenly altered by a letter a friend of his received 
 1 Dr. Blacklock (a blind poet, of powers slightly superior 
 to mediocrity), giving it as his opinion that Burns should go
 
 Burns in Edinburgh. 291 
 
 to Edinburgh and issue a second edition of his poems. To 
 Edinburgh accordingly he went, and the admiration of his 
 powers, which had been excited in the breasts of many there 
 by the perusal of his poems, suffered no abatement when their 
 author appeared on the scene. He comported himself like a 
 man conscious of his own talents ; in no way overawed by 
 the crowd of scholars and professors with whom he was brought 
 into contact. " He manifested," as Lockhart says, " in the 
 whole strain of his bearing and conversation a most thorough 
 conviction that in the society of the most eminent men of his 
 nation he was exactly where he was entitled to be ; hardly 
 deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional 
 symptom of being flattered by their notice; by turns calmly 
 measured himself against the most cultivated understandings 
 of his time in discussion, overpowered the bon-mots of the 
 most celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, 
 impregnated with all the burning life of genius ; astounded 
 bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social 
 reserve by compelling them to tremble — nay, to tremble visibly 
 — beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos." Subscriptions 
 to the second edition of the poems poured in liberally, and by 
 its publication in 1787 the poet realised a sum which to him 
 must have appeared an almost inexhaustible treasury of wealth. 
 Out of the money thus earned, Burns generously advanced 
 ^200 to help his brother Gilbert, then struggling to maintain 
 himself and other members of the family at Mossgiel. With 
 the remainder he stocked a farm for himself at Ellisland, 
 about six miles from Dumfries; and being now in a more 
 prosperous worldly condition, was able, in 1788, to marry his 
 old sweetheart, Jean Armour. Soon after he obtained, through 
 the kindness of a friend, a po ition in the Ex 1 e, with a salary 
 °f /^S° a year at first, but afterwards in< reased to / 70. The 
 duties of his office led him into many temptatii • indulge 
 in those ivial pleasures to which by nature he was only 
 
 too prone to yield. lie n 1 his farm, and in i;oj 
 
 up alto ■ !■ 1 1 Dumfries. 
 
 Hi-, hopes oi promotion in the 1 cise were blasted by his
 
 292 The Neiv Era in Poetry, 
 
 habit of freely speaking his mind regarding dignities, and by 
 his ardent sympathy with the French Revolution and advanced 
 liberal opinions generally; for, like most of his class then and 
 now, Burns was a thorough Radical in politics. His last 
 important work in literature was a hundred songs, which he 
 contributed gratuitously to his friend Thompson's " Melodies 
 of Scotland," published in 1792. The closing years of Burns's 
 life were clouded with sorrow and suffering, partly the results 
 of his own misconduct, partly of causes over which he had 
 no control. His brief and troubled career came to a close 
 in 1796. 
 
 Burns may be best contemplated under two aspects. First, 
 there is Robert Burns the Scotch ploughman, with the faults 
 and the virtues belonging to his class ; honest, manly, vigorous, 
 but lacking in self-restraint; an easy prey to his passions; not 
 altogether superior to that sort of cant which consists in 
 endeavouring to compensate for one's most serious and often- 
 repeated errors by loud declarations of the goodness of one's 
 heart however faulty one's life may be ; and fond to excess of 
 every kind of rough fun, practical jokes, and conviviality. 
 Next, there is Robert Burns the poet, with a heart full of love 
 and reverence for all created beings ; tender towards the 
 " ourie cattle" and the "silly sheep;" so full of charity that 
 he can breathe an expression of hope even for " Auld Nickie 
 Ben" himself; so full of sympathy with all sides of human 
 nature, that he is equally at home in depicting the decent 
 " Cottar's Saturday Night" and the wild revelry of the vaga- 
 bond "Jolly Beggars;" skilled alike to cause his readers to 
 laugh and to weep — now producing merriment, not unmingled 
 with a sort of astonishment and awe, by the strange adventure 
 of " Tarn o' Shanter," now irresistibly touching our more 
 tender feelings by the simple and affecting pathos of such 
 verses as those " To Mary in Heaven." Not that Burns kept 
 his poems altogether pure from the defilements with which, 
 from his character as a man and from his position in society, 
 we should expect to find them occasionally stained ; with 
 sorrow it must be said he did not always refrain from touching
 
 George Crab be. 293 
 
 with the orient gold of his genius the bestial side of man. 
 But when all the circumstances of his birth and career are 
 considered, he would be a foolish and purblind critic who 
 should condemn Burns too severely for his occasional trans- 
 gressions against decorum and good taste. His work is frag- 
 mentary — as a rule, mere snatches of song thrown off at idle 
 moments when the impulse seized him ; but how full of variety 
 it is, how rich is the evidence it affords of great intellectual 
 resource and versatility ! Many other poets have excelled Burns 
 in depicting particular emotions, but how few there are who 
 like him have attained equal mastery in the expression of various 
 states of feeling ! Whether writing songs of love or lyrics of 
 war, whether serious or humorous, he is equally at home, and 
 uniformly displays that almost infallible mark of a good poet, 
 the power of so choosing the rhythm and words of his verse 
 as to be an echo to the sense. He never attempted a large 
 continuous work, and we can form but little conception how 
 he would have succeeded in the enterprise if he had attempted 
 it. The probability is that he did wisely in confining himself 
 to lyrics and occasional pieces. Taking quantity and quality 
 both into account, he may be unhesitatingly pronounced the 
 greatest song-writer in the language. 
 
 A less important figure in the history of poetry than Cowper 
 or Burns, yet neither an unimportant nor an insignificant one, 
 is George Crabbe, " Nature's sternest painter, yet the best," 
 as Byron with considerable truth described him. During his 
 long life, extending from 1754 to 1832, he witnessed many fluc- 
 tuations of literary taste, and was acquainted with great writers 
 belonging to two widely different eras. Befriended in his 
 youth by Burke and Lord Chancellor Thurlow, he lived to 
 win the applause of Jeffrey, and Christopher North, and Sir 
 Walter Scott ; and he whose early works had the honour of 
 being read, and admired, and corrected by Johnson ami Fox, 
 1 his fame so far undimmed, even amidst the bright 
 constellation of poetic stars which shone in the beginning of 
 the present century, as to receive in 18 19 the sum of ^3000 
 for his "Tales of the Hall "and the copyright of his other
 
 294 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 poems. Crabbe's chief works besides the " Tales of the 
 Hall" are the "Village" (1783), the "Parish Register" 
 (1807), the " Borough" (1S10), and "Tales in Verse" (1812). 
 t 1 .1 matter-of-fact imagination, with a passion for details, 
 closely adhering to facts, and never throwing any poetical 
 glamour over his tales and descriptions of vice, and poverty, 
 and misery, Crabbe in his main features is thoroughly original. 
 He "handles life so as to take the bloom off it," describing 
 "with a hard, resolute pen, idealising nothing; but, on the 
 contrary, often omitting all that casts a veil over meanness 
 and deformity." It is this firm adherence to relentless truth 
 that constitutes at once his weakness and his strength. He 
 never shuts his eyes to plain facts ; and although in his youth 
 he had had bitter experience of poverty, and might therefore 
 have been more disposed to sympathise with poor people than 
 with the wealthier classes, he perceived quite clearly that vice, 
 and meanness, and evil passions might have their abode as 
 well in the breast of Hodge the labourer, toiling hard to earn 
 a scanty pittance, as in the breast of Squire Hazeldean, brought 
 up in the lap of wealth and luxury. But his range of vision 
 was narrow ; he had little sympathy with the idyllic aspects 
 of life ; he lacked humour and genial sympathy ; and in his 
 pathos often by too forcible expression overstepped the limits 
 of literary art. The main characteristics of his writings are 
 well indicated by Air. W. C. Roscoe. 1 " The common feature 
 throughout all his works which gives this author his hold upon 
 his readers is his singular insight into the minute working of 
 character, his wondrous familiarity with so vast a number of 
 various dispositions, and the unerring fidelity with which he 
 traces their operations and discerns their attitudes under every 
 sort of circumstance. It would be difficult in the whole range 
 of literature to point to more than two or three who have rivalled 
 him in this respect. Chaucer is one ; and a curious and not 
 uninteresting comparison might be instituted between the two, 
 though the old poet far surpasses the modern one in love of 
 beauty, liveliness of fancy, and breadth of genius. . . . One 
 
 1 " Poems and Essays," vol. ii. p. 220.
 
 William Wordsworth. 295 
 
 great source of his strength is, that he dared to be true to 
 himself, and to work with unhesitating confidence in his own 
 peculiar vein. This originality is not only great, but always 
 genuine. A never-failing charm lies in the clear simplicity 
 and truthfulness of nature which shines through all his writ- 
 ings. Nothing false or meretricious ever came from his pen ; 
 and if his works want order and beauty, neither they nor his 
 life are destitute of the higher harmony which springs from a 
 character naturally single and undeteriorated by false aims 
 and broken purposes." 
 
 Modern as Cowper, Burns, and Crabbe are in their poetic 
 tendencies, they do not affect us in the same way as the poets 
 who occupy the rest of this chapter. It cannot be said of 
 them, as of Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and the others, that 
 they are still active factors in our literature, influencing pro- 
 foundly the poets of the age we live in. We may begin our 
 survey with the group called the Lake School, of which the 
 most prominent members were Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 
 Southey. The nickname " Lake School," given them because 
 Wordsworth and Southey most of their lives, and Coleridge 
 for a time, lived in the Lake district, is not an appropriate one, 
 for Wordsworth's best poems are different in character from 
 Coleridge's, and Southey, either as regards genius or in mode 
 of literary treatment, cannot be ranked with the two others. 
 But they were intimate friends, endeared by family relation- 
 ships and by mutual sympathy and admiration, and it is there- 
 fore convenient in many respects to treat of them together. 
 Of this group, the first, both in point of time and in point of 
 genius, was William Wordsworth. He was born at Cocker- 
 mouth in 1770, the son of an attorney who superintended part 
 of the Lowther estate in Cumberland. Exposed from his 
 youth to the influence of sublime and ennobling scenery, 
 Wordsworth spent a happy childhood, not manifesting any 
 extraordinary precocity of genius, but even from his earliest 
 years imbued with that deep love of Nature which was 
 afterwards to bear such magnificent fruit In 1783 his 
 father died, leaving ,£5000 in the hands of Sir James
 
 296 TJic New Era in Poetry. 
 
 Lowther, afterwards Earl of Londsdale, from whom it was 
 found impossible to obtain it. By his successor it was in 1801 
 repaid with interest ; but in the meantime the Wordsworth 
 family was left poor, and William owed his university educa- 
 tion to the liberality of his uncles. He entered St. John's 
 College, Cambridge, in his eighteenth year. To the ordinary 
 studies of the place he paid little more attention than enabled 
 him, in 1 791, to take his degree of B.A. ; but he studied 
 Italian and the works of the greatest English poets, and 
 acquired a rich store of new ideas by a pedestrian tour with a 
 friend Jones, in 1790, through France, Switzerland, and the 
 North of Italy. After leaving the University, he spent some 
 time in London, living on an allowance from his friends, and 
 without any definite aim. He then, in 1791, went over to 
 Paris, at that time in the heat of the Revolution frenzy. Like 
 Southey and Coleridge, Wordsworth in his youth shared the 
 golden hopes of universal emancipation then current among 
 many men, and at one time even had serious intentions of 
 becoming naturalised as a Frenchman in order to take part in 
 the great struggle. His friends, it appears, had more sense of 
 the dangers to which he was thinking of exposing himself 
 than he had, and in 1792 prudently recalled him to England 
 by stopping the supplies. Of the many enthusiasts whose 
 hearts were chilled and whose hopes of a new era for humanity 
 were rudely shattered by the bloody massacres and cruelty of 
 the French Revolution in its latter stages, none was more 
 deeply affected than Wordsworth, and it took a considerable 
 time to heal the wound thus caused. 
 
 In 1792 Wordsworth began his literary career by the publi- 
 cation of two poems, " The Evening Walk " and " Descriptive 
 Sketches." They did not attract much attention, but Cole- 
 ridge had the sagacity to see in them the promise of better 
 things, and that they announced "the emergence of an original 
 poetic genius above the literary horizon." But the poet had 
 as yet earned nothing, and was now obliged to bestir himself 
 to obtain some field of labour. He thought of joining the 
 newspaper press, and had actually written to a friend asking
 
 Publication of " Lyrical Ballads" 297 
 
 him to find him a situation of this nature, when he was ren- 
 dered comparatively easy as to money matters by a legacy of 
 ^900 left him in 1795 by his friend and adviser, Raisley 
 Calvert. Upon this sum Wordsworth and his gifted and 
 devoted sister, Dorothy, set up housekeeping. They first 
 settled at Racedown in Dorsetshire, where Wordsworth wrote 
 some of his early poems, and where he became acquainted with 
 Coleridge. Soon after, in the autumn of 1797, the Words- 
 worths removed to Alfoxden, near the village of Nether 
 Stowey in Somersetshire, where Coleridge was then staying. 
 Here Coleridge and Wordsworth saw much of each other, 
 and spent many pleasant and profitable hours in discussing the 
 principles of poetry and in planning the pieces composing 
 the volume of "Lyrical Ballads," published in 179S. Most 
 of the little book was Wordsworth's ; but Coleridge contri- 
 buted to it that priceless gem, the "Ancient Mariner." 
 Wordsworth's share comprised some poems which were 
 justly liable to ridicule, such as "Goody Blake" and the 
 " Idiot Boy," but it also comprised such fine pieces as " Ex- 
 postulation and Reply," and the immortal " Lines Written 
 above Tintern Abbey," dear to the hearts of all who reverence 
 his memory. After the publication of the "Ballads," Words- 
 worth and his sister spent a winter in Germany, where he 
 began the "Prelude," and wrote some of the best of his 
 shorter poems. Soon after his return to England, the poet 
 took a cottage at Grasmere, and there entered upon his life in 
 the Lake country, almost every notable spot of which he has 
 < elebrated in his poems. In the beginning of the century he 
 ived his share of his father's money, which had been honour- 
 ably paid by the new Marc pi is of Lonsdale, and was thus, in 
 1802, enabled to marry, the object of his choice being Mary 
 Hutchison, whom he describes in the often quoted lines — 
 
 " A creature not too bi ighl 01 good 
 I 1] human nature's daily (om\ ; 
 A pei feci woman, nol ly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort) and 
 And yet a pii il si ill, and 
 \\ itli omething ol an 
 
 T
 
 29S The Neiv Era in Poetry. 
 
 Such is a hurried outline of the principal events in Words- 
 worth's early life. The main features of the rest of his career 
 can be only briefly alluded to. Of external events of general 
 interest his life does not afford many. His is pre-eminently 
 the history of a mind. No poet ever lived who cherished a 
 more intense and thoroughgoing devotion to his art ; under all 
 circumstances of his life it was the uppermost thing in his 
 thoughts, and to it everything else was made subservient. In 
 1802 he published another volume of " Lyrical Ballads," con- 
 taining, with two volumes of "Poems" published in 1807, the 
 cream of his poetry • for, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has pointed 
 out, almost all Wordsworth's really first-rate work was produced 
 between 1798 and 1808. Jeffrey, a shrewd enough critic within 
 a certain range, but apt to make terrible blunders when dealing 
 with high-class works of the imagination, attacked the " Bal- 
 lads " in the Edinburgh Review ; and so powerful were then the 
 critical dicta of that organ, that his criticism almost entirely 
 .■-topped the sale. But Wordsworth's serene self-confidence 
 enabled him to bear up manfully against criticism from what- 
 ever quarter, however unjust or injurious. He knew well that 
 all writers of commanding originality have to labour on till they 
 educate the public sufficiently to appreciate their work, and 
 was quite content to write what he was fully assured would be 
 both unpopular and immortal. 
 
 In 18 1 3 Wordsworth removed to Rydal Mount, his resi- 
 dence for the remainder of his life. About the same time he 
 was, through the influence of Lord Lonsdale, appointed to the 
 almost sinecure office of Distributor of Stamps for the county 
 of Westmoreland, with a yearly salary of ^500. In 1814 he 
 published his largest, but by no means his greatest work, the 
 "Excursion." Long though the "Excursion" is, it is only 
 part of a greater design thus described in its preface : " Several 
 years ago, when the author retired to his native mountains 
 with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work 
 that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take 
 a review of his own mind, and examine how far nature and 
 education had qualified him for such an employment. As
 
 Wordsworth 's Poetry. 299 
 
 subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record in verse 
 the origin and progress of his own powers, so far as he was 
 acquainted with them. That work, addressed to a dear friend 
 most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to 
 whom the author's intellect is deeply indebted [Coleridge], has 
 been long finished, and the result of the investigation which 
 gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical 
 poem, containing views of man, nature, and society, and to 
 be entitled the 'Recluse.' " Of the i: Recluse," which was to 
 consist of three books, the " Excursion " was to form the 
 second, but the design was never completed. The biogra- 
 phical poem referred to above, which " conducts the history 
 of the author's mind to the point where he was emboldened 
 to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for enter- 
 ing upon the arduous labour which he proposed to himself," 
 was completed in 1806, but not published till 1850, when it 
 appeared under the title of the " Recluse." 
 
 Many other poems, among which " The White Doe of 
 Rylstone " (18 15), and the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," are 
 not of great poetical value, but interesting as showing how 
 thorough a Churchman and Conservative the quondam ar- 
 dent sympathiser with the French Revolution had become, 
 may be specially mentioned, were published by Wordsworth 
 during the remaining years of his life. Gradually the taste 
 for his poetry began to spread ; he lived to witness the rise 
 and fall of the overwhelming popularity of Scott and Byron ; 
 and the storm of applause which greeted him when, in 1S39, 
 he appeared in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford to receive 
 the degree of Doctor of Laws, showed he was the favourite 
 poet of, at all events, the rising generation. In 1842 he re- 
 ceived a pension of ^300 a year, and in the following year 
 succeeded Southey as Poet-Laureate — rewards righteously 
 earned, and bestowed with well-nigh universal approval. He 
 died in 1850. 
 
 Wordsworth did not consider poetry a mere instrument of 
 pleasure, a thing to be read or written in hours of relaxation 
 To him it was an art — the highest of all arts — to which life
 
 300 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 might be profitably devoted, and in the exercise of which no 
 pains were to be grudged by the singer gifted with the divine 
 faculty of imagination. To his principles regarding this 
 matter his practice fully corresponded. He was constantly 
 meditating on his art, and gathering together materials for its 
 exercise. For books he cared little, and most of his literary 
 judgments were narrow and prejudiced. Of contemporary 
 poets, the only one whom he at all cordially appreciated was 
 Coleridge; Scott and Southey he did not think highly of; 
 Shelley and Byron he knew only slightly; Keats not at all. 
 His study was in the open air; his sources of inspiration 
 caught from wandering to and fro amid the beautiful scenery 
 of the Lake district. " Nine-tenths of my verses," said the 
 poet in 1843, " have been murmured out in the open air. 
 One day a stranger, having walked round the garden and 
 grounds of Rydal Mount, asked of one of the female servants 
 who happened to be at the door permission to see her 
 master's study. 'This,' said she, leading him forward, 'is 
 my master's library, where he keeps his books, but his study 
 is out of doors.' After a long absence from home, it has 
 more than once happened that some one of my cottage neigh- 
 bours has said, ' Well, there he is ! We are glad to hear him 
 booing about again.' ' : It was a natural result of his self-con- 
 tained and independent mode of life acting upon a mind 
 constitutionally self-confident that Wordsworth should have 
 a very high opinion of his own works. No false delicacy 
 restrained him from praising them himself when occasion 
 offered. For example, when Harriet Martineau told him that 
 his "Happy Warrior" was a favourite poem of Dr. Chan- 
 ning's : "Ay," replied Wordsworth, "that was not on account 
 of the poetical conditions being best fulfilled in that poem, but 
 because it is" (solemnly) "a chain of extremely valooable 
 thoughts ; you see it does not best fulfil the conditions of 
 poetry, but it is" (solemnly) "a chain of extremely valooable 
 thoughts." Considering the high estimate Wordsworth had 
 of his own powers and the fixity with which he clung to 
 his own opinions, it is not surprising that he should
 
 Wordsworth and Nature. 301 
 
 have had a strong tendency to think everything he wrote 
 equally good. Unlike many great poets, he was quite un- 
 conscious when his flow of inspiration ceased ; and hence it is 
 that, especially in his longer poems, there are so many tedious 
 passages. It is this probably more than any other single 
 cause that has tended to retard Wordsworth's popularity. He 
 is an unequal poet — capable of rising to great heights, capable, 
 also, it must be said, of sinking to great depths of prosiness 
 and dulness. No one can read the "Excursion" without being 
 painfully impressed by the contrast between the sublimity 
 and beauty of certain passages and the flatness and insipidity 
 of others. 
 
 None the less is Wordsworth indisputably a poet of the 
 first rank. With him originated an altogether new way of 
 looking at Nature. To him Nature was not a dead machine ; 
 it was alive. He felt that behind the colours and forms and 
 sounds of the material universe there was something more 
 than meets the external senses, "something which defies 
 analysis, undefined and ineffable, which must be felt and per- 
 ceived by the soul." " I have learned," he says in the " Lines 
 on Tintern Abbey " — 
 
 " To look on Nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity, 
 Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power 
 '1 'i chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the li Jii "I setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And tin: blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 A motion, and a spirit, that impels 
 
 All thinking obji 4 all thought, 
 
 Anl rolls through all thii 
 
 '! re is nothing like this in the poetry of Cowper, or Burns, 
 
 rabbe ; and it is no wonder that this doctrine, deeply as 
 it has influenced literature and thought since, should have
 
 -02 The Nczo Era in Poetry. 
 
 proved a stumbling-block to many critics when it was first 
 promulgated. Regarding Nature as no mere collection of 
 isolated phenomena, but as a living and mysterious whole, 
 constantly acting on humanity, Wordsworth found the con- 
 templation even of the "common things that round us lie" 
 full of lessons of instruction and wisdom. To him no natural 
 object was common or unclean ; from all spiritual truth was 
 to be extracted. With such a high reverence for Nature, 
 Wordsworth united an equally high reverence for man ; the 
 visible universe and its inhabitants were to him alike full of 
 wonder and awe and mystery. 
 
 Disgusted at the outset of his life as a poet by the stilted 
 poetical commonplaces which the feeble herd of Pope's 
 imitators had made so nauseous, Wordsworth adopted a 
 theory, fully expounded in various of his prefaces to his 
 poems, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential diffe- 
 rence between the language of prose and metrical composi- 
 tion. " I have proposed to myself," he said, " to imitate and, 
 as far as is possible, to adopt the very language of men. 
 ... I have taken as much pains to avoid what is usually 
 called poetic diction as others ordinarily take to produce it." 
 Except in a few poems which are failures, Wordsworth, how- 
 ever, never acted up to his theory of poetical diction, which, 
 indeed, though correct in so far as it was a protest against the 
 practice, common in his youth, and by no means yet gone 
 into desuetude, of prostituting the name of poetry by bestowing 
 it upon phrases and metaphors hackneyed by a thousand 
 versifiers, was one that could not, and ought not, to have been 
 acted up to. 1 How little he himself, at his best, was affected 
 by it is conclusively shown by his Sonnets, of which, in point 
 of thought and dignity and power, he has written a larger 
 number that are excellent than any other English author. Of 
 the whole collection very few, and these the least excellent, 
 are written in the language of prose. 
 
 from Wordsworth, with his blameless life, his sustained 
 
 1 The whole subject is excellently discussed by Coleridge in his "Bio- 
 graphia Literaria."
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 30 
 
 j 
 
 devotion to poetry, his single aims, his resolute self-confidence, 
 it is in many ways a strange contrast to pass to his friend 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, weak and erring, many-sided and 
 fond of trying various fields of literature, changeable and 
 hesitating, fonder of beginning new projects than of finishing 
 old ones. Born in 1772, the son of a clergyman more eccen- 
 tric even than he himself afterwards proved to be, and educated 
 at Christ's Hospital, where he was the companion of Charles 
 Lamb, and where he showed his life -long addiction to deep medi- 
 tation and the reading of all sorts of books, Coleridge entered 
 Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1791, a little after Wordsworth 
 quitted the university. Like Wordsworth, Coleridge, while at 
 Cambridge, neglected the studies of the place for those to 
 which he felt himself attracted ; he read poetry and philo- 
 sophy, and ardently perused and discussed all the many pam- 
 phlets which came out about the French Revolution, with 
 which, it need scarcely be said, he sympathised greatly. The 
 calm tenor of his college life was interrupted by an extra- 
 ordinary incident. Depressed by the thought of a debt of 
 p£ioo, which he was unable to pay, he went to London, and 
 enlisted under the name — a very appropriate one — of Private 
 Comberbach. After four months spent in the disagreeable 
 situation of a private soldier, he was recognised by an 
 acquaintance, who informed his friends of his whereabouts. 
 He was then bought off, and returned to Cambridge, which 
 he left in 1794, without taking a degree. 
 
 Coleridge's life was a shifty and rather eventful one. We 
 are not going to enter into detail regarding his adventures as 
 Unitarian preacher ; his domestic infelicity — mainly caused 
 by himself, it may be said ; his slavery for many of the best 
 years of his life to opium ; his innumerable magnificent pro- 
 jects, which, alas ! generally remained projects. Like that of 
 1 )e Quincey — like, probably, that of most opium-eaters— his 
 true moral character is somewhat of a puzzle. No doubt he 
 did many things which would be considered mean and dishonest 
 if done by ordinary people j but at heart he seems to have 
 been a good man, always ready to acknowledge and repent
 
 3 \j TJic New Era in Poetry. 
 
 of his errors, constantly striving after better things, and having 
 his good aims constantly thwarted by his fatal weakness of 
 will Throughout life he was fortunate in finding friends who 
 loved and aided him, and who were one and all impressed by 
 a deep sense of his wonderful powers. Few men, indeed, 
 have ever lived who have been so much admired by their 
 greatest contemporaries as Coleridge was. " He is the only 
 on I ever knew," said Hazlitt, "who answered to the idea 
 of a man of genius." " I have known many men who have 
 done wonderful things," said Wordsworth, " but the most 
 wonderful man I ever knew was Coleridge." De Quincey 
 called him " the largest and most spacious intellect, the 
 subtlest and most comprehensive, that has yet existed among 
 men." " I am grieved that you never met Coleridge," wrote 
 Southey to Taylor of Norwich ; " all other men whom I have 
 ever known are mere children compared to him." Charles 
 Lamb's admiration of his school companion is well known; 
 and Shelley's fine lines — 
 
 " He was a mighty poet and 
 
 A >ubtle-souIed psychologist ; 
 All things lie seemed to understand 
 Of old or new, of sea or land, 
 
 But his own mind, which was a mist," — 
 
 are a strong and true testimony to his astonishing powers, 
 which were admired even by those who on many matters 
 of opinion had little sympathy with him. During the last 
 
 ;een years of his troubled life-journey he found a safe 
 and comfortable harbour of refuge in the house of Mr. Gilman, 
 a surgeon at Highgate. There he was visited by many ad- 
 mirers, chiefly young men, who listened with wonder and 
 admiration to the oracles which the sage poured forth in an 
 unceasing flow. Among others came Carlyle ; but to him the 
 utterances which to not a few seemed almost inspired appeared 
 little better than "transcendental moonshine." Perhaps he, 
 impatient of words which led to nothing clear and definite, 
 
 ed the old man too harshly ; but his incomparably graphic 
 and vivid account of Coleridge's appearance and talk in the
 
 Coleridge's Writings. 305 
 
 " Life of Sterling " remains by far the most lifelike descrip- 
 tion we have of the philosopher in his old age. 1 
 
 Coleridge died in 1834, leaving nearly all his most brilliant 
 projects unexecuted, but not without having left conclusive 
 evidence that he was possessed of a genius so profound, so 
 subtle, and so versatile, that if only strength of will had been 
 added to it, he might have been ranked among our very 
 greatest writers. As a poet his total work is not large, and 
 what of it is really excellent might be comprised in a very 
 tiny volume. It is a curious fact that nearly all his best 
 poems, "Genevieve," "KublaKhan," the "Ancient Mariner," 
 and the first part of " Christabel," were written in a single 
 year, 1797. On the peculiar and universal charm of works so 
 familiar as these it is unnecessary to dwell. Most of his prose 
 works were written after he, in 18 16, took up his abode with 
 Mr. Oilman. Among these are two " Lay Sermons," published 
 in iS 16 and 1S1 7 ; the " L'iographia Literaria" (1817), per- 
 haps the most generally interesting of his prose works, con- 
 taining as it does, amidst much irrelevant matter, a great store 
 of valuable criticism and many original and profound obser- 
 vations ; a revised and greatly enlarged edition of " The 
 Friend" (1S1S), "a periodical of weekly essays, intended to 
 help to the formation of opinions on moral, political, and 
 artistic subjects, grounded upon true and permanent prin- 
 ciples," carried on by Coleridge, at considerable pecuniary 
 loss, between June 1809 and March 1810; and "Aids to 
 Reflection" (1825). After his death appeared four volumes 
 of "Literary Remains," of which the most valuable portions 
 are the criticisms, often singularly just and subtle, on 
 Shakespeare. By J. S. Mill, Coleridge was ranked with 
 Jeremy Bentham, the Utilitarian thinker, as the great seminal 
 
 1 It is a wonder that in these days of innumerable biographii 
 has written a good Life of 1 ■-. Norn id many parti- 
 
 cular ing hi-; life and character are still shrouded in partial dark- 
 
 : So many < are t" l"- found, that, 
 
 with the necessary r< . a very instructive and entertaining 
 
 it be written on the subject.
 
 $ 
 
 o6 77/6' New Era in Poetry. 
 
 mind of his generation. No man, Mill declared some forty 
 years ago, did so much to shape the opinions among younger 
 men, ■who could be said to have any opinions at all. Coleridge 
 may be said to have been the founder of the " Broad Church " 
 School, many of whose earlier representatives could scarcely 
 find words to express their admiration of him as a thinker. 
 " Arnold . . . called him the greatest intellect that England 
 had produced within his memory. . . . Julius Hare spoke of 
 him as 'the great religious philosopher, to whom the mind of 
 our generation in England owes more than to any other man.' 
 . . . Mr. Maurice has everywhere spoken with deeper rever- 
 ence of him than of any other teacher of these latter times." 1 
 To Coleridge belonged one of those rare intellects whose pro- 
 ducts are valuable not so much, it may be, for what they 
 actually express, as because they open up new vistas of thought 
 and speculation which the student may pursue for himself. 
 To this a great part of the extraordinary influence which he 
 at one time exerted is due. His vogue as a thinker has now 
 in great measure gone by ; what he did in that way was more 
 adapted to the wants of his own age than to all time ; and 
 his style is, like his conversation, apt to be dreamy and 
 long-winded. 
 
 Coleridge's eldest son, Hartley (so called after the celebrated 
 philosopher), (i 796-1849), deserves a word of mention here, 
 as having inherited a considerable portion of his father's literary 
 genius. Unfortunately, also, he inherited a more than conside- 
 rable share of his weakness of will. While at the University 
 he became a slave to intemperate habits, and never was able 
 to free himself from the bondage. Of amiable, childlike 
 nature, considerable scholarship, and fine poetic taste, he won 
 the regard and pity of many friends, notably of Wordsworth. 
 Many of his sonnets, especially those relating to himself, are 
 ularly beautiful. His most important prose work is his 
 " Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire," containing some 
 excellent biographies. Coleridge's daughter Sara (1802-1852) 
 
 1 Principal Shairp's "Essay on Coleridge," originally published in 
 North British Review for December 1S65.
 
 Robert So it they. 307 
 
 had no small share of her father's poetical and philosophical 
 genius, added to scholarship almost unique in a woman. 
 
 Robert Southey, the last of the Lake trio, did not approach 
 
 either of the other two in poetical genius. Indeed, we do not 
 risk much by saying that his poems, with the exception of a 
 few short pieces, which hold their ground in books of extracts, 
 are now almost forgotten. But he has many other claims to 
 remembrance. Master of a prose style clear, simple, and 
 elegant, he takes much higher rank as a prose writer than as a 
 poet, while his pure and blameless life, his large-hearted charity, 
 his unswerving industry, and his intense devotion to literature 
 should keep his memory alive in the hearts of all who can 
 appreciate a true, honest, and courageous life, Southey was 
 born at Bristol in 1774, educated at Westminster and Cam- 
 bridge, and, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, was in his youth 
 an ardent partisan of the French Revolution and of Radical 
 opinions generally. As he grew older, however, he resembled 
 his friends in veering to the other extreme of the scale ; indeed, 
 no more unbending Tory, no more strenuous advocate of " the 
 established constitution in Church and State," could have 
 been found than was in his later years the man who had 
 begun his literary career by the writing in 1794 of a revolu- 
 tionary poem, " Wat Tyler," published many years later by an 
 unscrupulous bookseller, who wished to annoy the author by 
 taunting him with the opinions he had advocated in his hot 
 youth. While at college Southey also wrote an epic poem, 
 "Joan of Arc," published in 1796. Previous to this date he 
 had become acquainted with Coleridge, and the young men, 
 along with one or two others, had spent much time unprofit- 
 ably, but no doubt pleasantly, in discussing socialistic schemes, 
 including a " Pantisocracy " on the banks of the Susquehanna, 
 where they could live a pure and innocent life according to 
 Nature, untrammelled by the iron tyranny and conventionalism 
 of the Old World. Want of money put an end to the enterjui , 
 and its only important result was that in 1795 Southey, un- 
 »wn to his relatives, married Edith Fricker, sister of the 
 wile of one of the " Pantisocrats." Her sister Sarah married
 
 30S The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 iridge. Immediately after the marriage ceremony was 
 over, Southey reluctantly bade his wife farewell, being obliged 
 by dire pecuniary necessity to start for the Continent with 
 his uncle, Mr. Mill. He spent six months in Portugal, thus 
 acquiring that knowledge of the language and literature of 
 Spain and Portugal which was afterwards so serviceable to 
 him. On his return to England, Southey, aided by the gene- 
 rous assistance of a friend, commenced the study of the law. 
 Put he soon found that it was utterly uncongenial to him, and 
 gave it up after a year's trial. In 1801 he became private 
 secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland. 
 This office too he abandoned after six months' trial. Literature 
 was the avocation for which nature had designed him, and to 
 literature he was attracted by an irresistible impulse. In 1803 
 he fixed his residence at Greta Hall, Keswick, and fairly 
 began his earnest career of literary labour, almost unparalleled 
 in its constant assiduity. There, too, he gave shelter to the 
 family of Coleridge, and to Mrs. Lovell, a widowed sister of 
 his wife's, never complaining of the burden, though his means 
 were far from abundant, but accepting it cheerfully and 
 bravely. 
 
 To enumerate all Southey's writings would be tedious 
 and unnecessary. His most ambitious poetical works were 
 "Thalaba" (1801), " Madoc" (1805), "The Curse of Ke- 
 hama" (1810), "Roderick, the Last of the Goths" (1814). 
 None of them was very successful in point of sale or other- 
 wise ; but the always sanguine author consoled himself by 
 thinking that their copyright would eventually prove a mine of 
 wealth — a hope never fulfilled. In 1S07 he obtained from 
 Government a pension of about ;£i6o net. In 1S13 he 
 accepted the laureateship, which had been declined by Scott ; 
 and in 1835 Sir Robert Peel conferred on him a pension of 
 .£300 a year. Until he received the last-named amount 
 Southey had to live from hand to mouth. With so many 
 claims upon him as he had, duty and inclination alike called 
 1 him to exert himself to the utmost. His most profitable 
 literary connection was that with the Quarterly Review, to
 
 S oil t key's Writings. 309 
 
 which he contributed largely, receiving sometimes as much as 
 ;£ioo for an article. But his writings in it were only a small 
 portion of his labours. He wrote a " History of Brazil," a 
 " History of the Peninsular War," <: Colloquies on Society" 
 (the theme of Macaulay's famous article on Southev), " Lives 
 of the British Admirals," Lives of Wesley, of Kirke White, 
 of Chatterton, of Cowper, of Nelson, of Bunyan, &c, &c. 
 His most popular prose work is his admirable sketch of Nelson 
 (18 1 3). The secret of how Southey managed to get through 
 such an immense amount of work, and the secret also, it must 
 be added, of the inferiority of a great deal of it, was that he 
 laboured continually, day by day, hour by hour, not waiting 
 for moments of inspiration, but performing each day his 
 allotted task. No wonder that he broke down under the 
 burden, and that the three years previous to his death in 1843 
 were passed in a state of mental decay. " This [" work, con- 
 tinually work"], for thirty or forty years, he had punctually 
 and impetuously done. No man so habitual, we were told ; 
 gave up his poetry at a given hour, on stroke of the clock, 
 and took to prose, &c, &c. ; and as to diligence and velocity, 
 employed his very walking hours — walked with a book in his 
 hand; and by these methods of his had got through perhaps 
 a greater amount of work, counting quantity and quality, than 
 any other man whatever in those years of his, till all suddenly 
 ended. I likened him to one of those huge sandstone grind- 
 ing cylinders which I had seen at Manchester, turning with 
 inconceivable velocity (in the condemned room of the iron 
 factory, where ' men die of lung disease at forty,' but are per- 
 mitted to smoke in their damp cellar, and think that a rich 
 recompense !) — screaming harshly, and shooting out each of 
 them its sheet of fire (yellow, starlight, &c, according as it is 
 brass or any other kind of metal that you grind oi poli h there) 
 — beautiful sheets of fire, pouring out each as if from the papi c 
 cap of its low-stoopin under, when you look from 
 
 rearward. Lor many years these stones grind so, at such a 
 rate, till at last (in some cases) comes a moment when the 
 stone's cohesion is quite worn out, overcome by the stupen-
 
 J 
 
 i o The Nov Era in Poetry. 
 
 dous velocity long continued ; and while grinding its fastest it 
 Hies oft' altogether, and settles some yards from you, a grind- 
 ing-stone no longer, but a heap of quiet sand." x 
 
 Surrounded by women who looked up to him — as well they 
 might — as the greatest and best of men, Southey formed the 
 most extravagant estimate of the importance and value of his 
 own writings. He was indeed, as Macaulay remarks in his 
 Diary, arrogant beyond any man in literary history [Carlyle, 
 it may be said in passing, was at least equally arrogant, though 
 with better grounds for so being], for his self-conceit was proof 
 against even the severest admonitions ; and the utter failure 
 of one of his books only confirmed him in his opinion of its 
 excellence. But we should not bear too hardly on Southey 
 for the self-complacency with which he regarded his produc- 
 tions. If he had not thought highly of them he could never 
 have had courage to labour as he did, and his lofty opinions 
 regarding them did no injury to any one, and probably did 
 himself more good than harm. 
 
 While the genius of Wordsworth was unknown to readers 
 in general, or known only to be ridiculed, a much younger 
 man had attained a vogue as a poet probably unexampled 
 in England, and was also regarded on the Continent as the 
 brightest of Britain's intellectual stars. Not only his writings, 
 but the rumours — often absurd and false enough — regarding 
 his life and character, which circulated plentifully, were re- 
 ceived with the keenest interest. If we placed authors 
 according to the time when their popularity was at its height, 
 Lord Byron would have been noticed before Wordsworth, for 
 he undoubtedly was by far the best known and most admired 
 poet of the early part of this century. Not only the fact that 
 he was a great genius, but the fact that he was a lord who led 
 a wild life and defied social conventions contributed to this 
 result. George Noel Gordon Byron was born in London in 
 1788. He was the son of a Scotch heiress, who had married an 
 extravagant and worthless Captain Byron, who consumed her 
 fortune, and from whom she separated, to live upon ^150 a 
 
 1 Carlyle's " Reminiscences," vol. ii. p. 329.
 
 Lord Byron. 3 1 1 
 
 year, all that remained of her wealth. Byron's early years 
 were spent in Aberdeen, where the house in which his mother 
 lived is still pointed out to visitors. He was unfortunate in 
 both his parents. His father was a reckless blackguard ; his 
 mother a foolish, proud, violent-tempered woman, who at one 
 time spoiled her son by over-indulgence, at another time pro- 
 voked his sensitive and irritable nature almost to madness by 
 her taunts about his lameness (a sore point with him through- 
 out life). These facts should be taken into account in esti- 
 mating Byron's character. A man of such antecedents who 
 had turned out blameless and beneficent would have been a 
 singular phenomenon. 
 
 While studying at the Aberdeen Grammar School, Byron 
 was recalled to England, having, when little more than ten, 
 succeeded to his grand-uncle's estate and title. After study- 
 ing for some time at Nottingham and Dulwich, he was sent to 
 Harrow, where he remained for two years. While there, his 
 character was that of a clever, idle, impetuous, generous boy ; 
 one whom, as the head-master declared, it was easier to lead 
 by a silken string than by a cable. In 1S05 he entered 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, where he led the frivolous, unpro- 
 fitable, half-dissipated, half-foolish sort of life common to 
 many young patricians during their university career. But 
 already his poetical genius was beginning to dawn, and in 
 1807 he published his first volume, "Hours of Idleness," a 
 collection of verses from which it would have required a very 
 shrewd critic indeed to infer that a new star had arisen on the 
 poetic horizon. A severe and contemptuous critique, by, it is 
 said, Lord Jlrougham, of " Hours of Idleness " in the Edinburgh 
 Review, had the effect of putting the young poet on his mettle, 
 and of showing that he possessed powers which none of the 
 readers of his first volume could have supposed to belong to 
 him. He replied to his critic in the stinging and vindictive 
 satire " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers " ( i S09), in whi< li, 
 in his blind indignation, he ran amuck not only of those who 
 had given him real cause for offence, but of all the wril 
 who happened to be popular favourites. Sj-iiited and well
 
 J 
 
 i 2 The Nczv Era in Poetry. 
 
 adapted for its purpose though " English Bards" be, it is not 
 a poem of a high order. The depths of passion and feeling 
 which lay in Byron's nature were first shown by the publica- 
 tion, in 1812, of the two first cantoes of "Childe Harold," 
 written during a two years' tour through Portugal, Spain, 
 Greece, and Turkey. The poem was received with intense 
 enthusiasm. In the author's own words, " he awoke one 
 morning and found himself famous." " At twenty-four," 
 writes Macaulay, " he found himself on the highest pinnacle 
 of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a 
 crowd of other distinguished writers beneath his feet. There 
 is scarcely an instance in literary history of so sudden a rise 
 to so dizzy an eminence. Everything that could stimulate 
 and everything that could gratify the strongest propensities of 
 our nature, the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the accla- 
 mations of the whole nation, the applause of applauded men, 
 the love of lovely women, all this world and all the glory of it 
 were at once offered to a youth to whom Nature had given 
 violent passions, and whom education had never taught to 
 control them. He lived as many men live who have no similar 
 excuse to plead for their faults. But his countrymen and his 
 countrywomen would love him and admire him. They were 
 resolved to see in his excesses only the flash and outbreak of 
 that same fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He attacked 
 
 -ion, yet in religious circles his name was mentioned with 
 fondness, and in many religious publications his works were 
 censured with singular tenderness. He lampooned the Prince 
 Regent, yet he could not alienate the Tories. Everything it 
 seemed was to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius." 
 
 While still a London literary lion, admired and sought after 
 by all. Byron maintained his fame by producing in 1813 the 
 
 aour" and the "Bride of Abydos;" and in 1S14 the 
 "Corsair" and "Lara." In 1814 occurred his unfortunate 
 union to Miss Millbanke. The ill-assorted pair lived together 
 only twelve months; in 1815 Lady Byron left him for ever, 
 
 what exact causes has never been clearly explained. About 
 this time a loud cry of indignation against Byron began to
 
 Byron and the Greek War. 313 
 
 arise ; he was lampooned in newspapers ; fabulous stories 
 of his debauchery were whispered from ear to ear; society 
 frowned on him ; with a genius almost divine, it was said 
 and thought, he united a character diabolic in its wickedness. 
 Burdened by debt, full of that ennui which a long course of 
 dissipation never fails to bring at last, feeling that his life 
 was sick and an error, indignant at the world and at himself, 
 Byron determined to bid farewell to England. The " Siege 
 of Corinth" and "Parisina," written about this time, bear testi- 
 mony to the bitter feelings which were gnawing at his heart. 
 In 1 81 6 he left England, never to return alive. 
 
 After visiting Paris and Brussels, Byron went to Geneva, 
 where the third canto of " Childe Harold" and the "Prisoner 
 of Chillon " were written in six months. Visiting Italy, he 
 wrote "Manfred" and the "Lament of Tasso" in 1S17. At 
 Venice, and afterwards at Ravenna, he resided till 182 1, writ- 
 ing many of his most important works — the first five cantos of 
 " Don Juan," " Mazcppa," and the dramas "Marino Faliero," 
 " Sardanapalus," the " Two Foscari," " Werner," " Cain," &c. 
 The last mentioned is, from a psychological point of view, one 
 of the most remarkable of Byron's works, showing his attitude 
 towards theological dogmas. In it " we see," said Goethe 
 to Eckermann in 1S24, "how the inadequate dogmas of the 
 Church work upon a free mind like Byron's, and how he 
 struggled to get rid of a doctrine which has been forced upon 
 him. The English clergy will not thank him ; but I shall be 
 surprised if he does not go on treating biblical subjects of 
 similar import, and if he lets slip a subject like Sodom and 
 Gomorrah." "Don Juan," which, cynical and unpleasant in 
 tone as much of it is, most judicious critics will agree in 
 king Byron's most genuine poem, ultimately extended to 
 sixteen cantos. It was ed by " Beppo," written in 181 7, 
 
 a poem conceived in a similar bantering vein. 
 
 When, in 1822, the Greeks began their Struggle for liberty, 
 
 Byron threw his whole heart into their cause, and made a 
 
 ! effort to redeem by his energy in its behalf the errors of 
 
 his wild and wasted life. In June 1823 he set sail for Greece, 
 
 u
 
 3 1 4 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 and, on his arrival at Missolonghi in December, did much by 
 his vigour and good sense to organise and discipline the army, 
 and to check the abuses which everywhere prevailed. Had 
 life been granted him, there is every reason to believe that he 
 might have risen to eminence as a soldier and politician. But 
 the end was near. A fever, brought on by exertion and ex- 
 posure, proved fatal in April 1824, and thus, "at thirty-six, the 
 most celebrated Englishman of the nineteenth century closed 
 his brilliant and miserable career." 
 
 "In my mind," wrote Carlyle to Macvey Napier in 1832, 
 " Byron has been sinking at an accelerated rate for the last 
 ten years, and has now reached a very low level ; I should say 
 too low, were there not an Hibernicism involved in the expres- 
 sion. His fame has been very great, but I see not how it is to 
 endure, neither does that make him great. No genuine pro- 
 ductive thought was ever revealed by him to mankind ; indeed, 
 no clear undistorted vision into anything, or picture of any- 
 thing, but all had a certain falsehood, a brawling theatrical 
 insincere character. The man's moral nature, too, was bad ; 
 his demeanour as a man was bad. What was he, in short, but 
 a large sulky dandy ; of giant dimensions, to be sure, yet still 
 a dandy, who sulked, as poor Mrs. Hunt expressed it, 'like a 
 schoolboy that had got a plain bun given him instead of a 
 plum one'? His bun was nevertheless God's universe, with 
 what tasks are there, and it had served better men than he. 
 I love him not ; I owe him nothing ; only pity and forgive- 
 ness; he taught me nothing that I had not again to forget." 
 So far as Byron's personal character is concerned, this seems 
 to us thoroughly sound and good. What he might have 
 become, had he lived, it is vain to conjecture; possibly time 
 and strenuous action might have ameliorated his character; 
 but it is only too plain that he was sensual, cynical, vindictive, 
 unamiable, and disposed to disbelieve in the existence of 
 virtue because he himself was not virtuous. The best proof 
 of the radically bad character of his temperament is that he 
 inspired none of his friends with a sincere love for him ; many 
 admired him and liked his company in his agreeable moods,
 
 By ran s Writings. 315 
 
 but we doubt very much if any regarded him with deep 
 affection, Byron was a man of great genius, but his many 
 serious faults and vices ought not on that account to be 
 glossed over — 
 
 "'Tis too absurd, 'tis weakness shame, 
 This low prostration before fame, 
 This casting down beneath the car 
 Of idols, whatsoe'er they are, 
 Life's purest, holiest decencies, 
 To be careered o'er as they please." 1 
 
 Byron's work as a poet is intensely personal ; he loved to 
 portray his own dark and stormy feelings in those of his 
 characters. Hence it is not singular that many of his writings 
 should belong to what Goethe called the " literature of de- 
 spair;" echoes of the old lament, "Vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity!" Much of the gloom and bitterness of heart, and 
 wearied satiety of life and its pleasures, which we find in 
 " Child e Harold," was mere affectation. Byron liked to pose 
 before the world as a defiant, cynical, melancholy man, who 
 had tasted all the world's joys and found them to bring nothing 
 but vexation of spirit, and whom the world's censure or ap- 
 plause was powerless to affect. All the while, however, he 
 was childishly sensitive to opinion, and writhed as much 
 beneath the lash of some petty critic as the smallest poetaster 
 could have done. As he grew older, he became more sincere ; 
 if there is something of affectation even in the mocking 
 hter of "Don Juan," it is at all events a welcome contrast 
 to the gloomy misanthropy of "Childe Harold." But Byron's 
 faults as a writer and a man should not blind us to his tran- 
 scendent merits. The fire and passion, the lofty imagination, 
 the power and strength, the impetuous rush and glow which 
 characteri e hi \ ive him quite a distinctive position 
 
 among the | i his age. Adhering in theory to the school 
 
 of Pope, he was in reality thoroughly under the influi nee ol the 
 ! era, and all hi. be t work breathes its spirit During his 
 
 lifetime the va^t majority of people considered him the 
 
 1 Moore.
 
 
 
 1 6 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 poet of the day, and even now not a few critics hold the same 
 opinion. But poets cannot be ranked in definite order like 
 schoolboys in a class; and no good result comes of the 
 discussion of such subjects as whether Byron was a greater 
 poet than the profound and lofty-minded Wordsworth or the 
 ethereal Shelley. It is sufficient to say that in his own line of 
 poetical expression he was superior to them ; whether that 
 line was higher or lower than theirs is a subject on which 
 opinions will differ to the end of time. It should not be for- 
 gotten that, with the exception of Scott, Byron was the only 
 author of his time who attained Continental celebrity — a good 
 omen for the permanence of his fame, if it be true (which 
 may be doubted) that the judgment of foreigners generally 
 anticipates the judgment of posterity. Mr. Matthew Arnold 
 has done his best to minimise Goethe's praises of Byron ; but 
 it nevertheless remains clear that Goethe thought Byron the 
 greatest poet of the day. " When he will create," he said to 
 Eckermann, "he always succeeds; and we may truly say that 
 with him inspiration supplies the place of reflection. He was 
 always obliged to go on poetising, and then everything that 
 came from the man, especially from his heart, was excellent. 
 He produced his best things, as women do pretty children, 
 without thinking about it or knowing how it was done. He is 
 a great talent, a born talent, and I never saw the true poetical 
 power greater in any man than in him." 1 
 
 Resembling Byron in his defiance of control and his con- 
 tempt for social restrictions, like him also in that during his 
 lifetime the wildest and falsest stories of his private life were 
 circulated and credited, Percy Bysshe Shelley differed from 
 his noble friend in having a sweet, lovable disposition ; a 
 heart full of charity, full of hope and eager aspiration, con- 
 stantly longing for the dawn of a better day to humanity. 
 '• He was," said Byron, "without exception, the best and least 
 selfish man I ever knew." His friend Trelawny pronounced 
 him "a man absolutely without selfishness." Leigh Hunt, 
 
 1 Eckcrmann's "Conversations of Goethe" (Oxenford's translation), 
 p. n6.
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 3 1 7 
 
 who knew him well, declared that "he was pious towards 
 nature, towards his friends, towards the whole human race, 
 towards the meanest insect of the forest." Bearing these 
 testimonies in mind, it is strange to reflect that by many of his 
 contemporaries Shelley should have been spoken of as if he 
 had been a monster of iniquity, a poisonous reptile, whom 
 every good man should do his best to crush underfoot. But 
 there were circumstances in his life and character which tend 
 to explain such utterances, extravagantly erroneous though 
 they were. Shelley was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, 
 Bart, and was born at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, in 
 1792. Sent to Eton about the age of thirteen, he early showed 
 his habitual abhorrence of tyranny by his refusal to fag. 
 Leaving Eton in 180S, he passed some months at home, em- 
 ploying himself in the composition of worthless tales. He then 
 in 1810 entered University College, Oxford, where he studied 
 hard by fits and starts, and spent much time in chemical 
 experiments, for which he had always a fondness. The circu- 
 lation of a two-page pamphlet, "A Defence of Atheism," led 
 to the expulsion of the youthful freethinker from Oxford in 
 March 181 1 ; and his father's natural irritation on this account 
 was deepened by Shelley's rash marriage, in August of the 
 same year, to Harriet ^Yestbrook, the daughter of a retired 
 innkeeper. Henceforth Sir Timothy refused to have any 
 intercourse with his son, to whom, however, he granted a 
 liberal annual allowance. Shelley's hasty marriage was 
 tragical in its issue : he soon became tired of his young 
 wife, who could have no intellectual sympathy with him. In 
 1 8 14 they were separated, and about two years later Mrs. 
 Shelley committed suicide by drowning herself in the Ser- 
 pentine. With sorrow it must be said that in his relations 
 with her Shelley behaved badly; after making all alio wan' 
 for his strange and erratic disposition, his conduct in this 
 matter must be condemned as selfish and cruel. Before his 
 separation from her he became acquainted with a woman of 
 much more congenial disposition, M irj Godwin, daughter of 
 iam Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams." With her,
 
 J 
 
 i S The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 in 1814, he travelled through France, Switzerland, and Ger- 
 many, and in 1S16, on the death of Harriet Westbrook, she 
 became his second wife. In 1813 Shelley printed (for private 
 circulation only) his first important poem, " Queen Mab," ex- 
 pressing his aspirations after a future golden age for huma- 
 nity, and giving violent expression to his atheistic opinions. 
 When, in 1816, after the death of his first wife, he laid claim to 
 the custody of his children, the claim was successfully resisted 
 at law by their grandfather, on the ground of his atheism, as 
 exhibited in " Queen Mab," despite the fact that the poem had 
 not been published, only privately printed. In 1816 appeared 
 "Alastor," one of his most finished productions, describing 
 the life of a solitary poet. Then came, in 1S17, the " Revolt 
 of Islam," composed during his residence at Marlow. In 
 1 SiS he left England — never to return, as it proved — and went 
 to Italy, where in the following year he produced his magnifi- 
 cent lyrical drama " Prometheus Unbound" and the tragedy 
 of " The Cenci," undoubtedly the most powerful drama written 
 since the Elizabethan era. His other chief works are "Julian 
 and Maddalo" (18 18), the "Witch of Atlas" (1820), " Epi- 
 psychidion" (182 1), " Adonais" (1821) — a lament for the death 
 of Keats, fit to be ranked with the Lycidas of Milton, and 
 " Hellas" (1821), in which he celebrated the outbreak of the 
 Greek war of liberty. On July 8, 1822, while he was out 
 boating (a sport which he always loved) in the Bay of Spezzia 
 with a friend, a sudden squall arose; the boat was upset, and 
 all on board perished. Some days later Shelley's body was 
 cast ashore. It was burnt, as the quarantine law of the coun- 
 try required, and the ashes were deposited in the Protestant 
 burial-ground at Rome, near the grave of Keats. 
 
 Shelley never has been, and never will be, a popular poet. 
 A few of his shorter pieces, such as " The Cloud " and " To 
 the Skylark" (both written in 1820), are, it is true, universally 
 known ; but to the multitude most of his poems are a sealed 
 book. For this several reasons might be given. For one 
 thing, he is a difficult poet ; to follow his meaning with ease 
 and security requires a nimble and poetic intelligence, which
 
 John Keats. 319 
 
 comparatively few readers are possessed of. But the main 
 reason why his poems are not popular is because they want 
 human interest : when we look for something real and tamable 
 which may awaken our sympathies, we are often put off with 
 cloudy metaphysics, clothed, indeed, in magnificent words, but 
 vague and impalpable. A good deal of Shelley's poetry might 
 almost have been written by a denizen of another world, so 
 remote it seems from all earthly interests. To many, as to 
 Carlyle, "poor Shelley always was, and is, a kind of ghastly 
 object, colourless, pallid, without health, or warmth, or vigour ; 
 the sound of him shrieky, frosty, as if a ghost were trying to 
 'sing to us." It must not be supposed from this that Shelley 
 is always deficient in human interest or feeling. Frequently 
 he is not so : he was filled with the enthusiasm of humanity, 
 and often employed his verse to give utterance to his hopes of 
 that golden age which always lies in the future. But even 
 where he does so, his conceptions are not, to quote the words 
 of an admirer, "embodied in personages derived from history 
 or his own observation of life," and hence, to readers in 
 general, have a misty and far-away aspect. It ought to be 
 mentioned that Shelley wrote excellent prose : indeed, Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold considers that his letters and essays bid fair 
 to have a more enduring life than his poems. Few will agree 
 with this judgment; but all who care to read the thoughts of 
 ; .at poet upon many points of high literary and philo- 
 sophical interest will find a ricli treat in the alas ! too scanty 
 prose remains of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 Near the grave of Shelley in the Protestant cemetery at 
 ie lies another great poet, cut off in the pride of his 
 ii and genius, but not before, in spite of the deplorable 
 brevity of hi , career, he had done such work as to place 
 him in the first rank ol English poets, far above other "in- 
 heritors of unfulfilled renown," who have died at an early 
 The few events in the life of John Keat .; may be very 
 He was born in London in 1705. and leaving 
 
 10I in i8iOj wa , apprenticed for five years to a 1 m m 
 
 I monston. The reading of Spenser in l8is filed his
 
 1 ^ 
 
 3 
 
 20 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 poetical genius, and he began to write verses. After his 
 apprenticeship was over, he came to London to walk the 
 hospitals ; but he soon found that surgery was unsuited to 
 of his sensitive nature, and gave up the study. In 1817 
 published his first volume of poems, miscellaneous pro- 
 ducts of his youth, not sufficiently noticeable to excite either 
 much praise or much censure. In 1818 appeared " Endy- 
 mion." Nothing could better show how worthless contempo- 
 rary criticism often is than the fact that this poem was received 
 with a well-nigh universal shout of derision. Gifford, the 
 editor of the Quarterly Review, in a coarse and virulent article 
 denounced Keats as the " copyist of Leigh Hunt," " more 
 unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten 
 times as tiresome." Blackwood followed suit ; and even more 
 lenient critics showed their want of discernment by "damning 
 with faint praise." Yet it would be difficult to give an ex- 
 ample of a poem written at so early an age as " Endymion " 
 so rich in the loftier attributes of poetry ; its faults are those 
 of an undisciplined but luxurious imagination, from which 
 great things might have been looked for in the future. The 
 extraordinary rapidity of Keats's poetical growth is shown by 
 the finish and maturity of the poems composed within the two 
 years after " Endymion " was written — the noble fragment 
 of "Hyperion," "Lamia," the " Eve of St. Agnes," and the 
 immortal odes, one or two of which are of almost peerless 
 beauty. Meanwhile it was becoming only too evident to all 
 his friends that the poet's life was to be a brief one. Con- 
 sumption had laid its fatal hand upon him, and he was 
 gradually wasting away. In 1820 he embarked for Naples, 
 accompanied by his artist friend Severn. From Naples they 
 proceeded to Rome, and in the Eternal City, in February 
 182 1, Keats breathed his last. To him, indeed, as his bio- 
 grapher, Lord Houghton, himself a poet of no mean talent, 
 remarks, the gods were kind, and granted great genius and 
 early death. Whether the verse he left behind him was but 
 as a prelude to the music never played ; whether he would 
 have gone on increasing in poetic stature as the years went
 
 James Hogg. 321 
 
 on, cannot be said with certainty. When we remember within 
 how short a period the best poetry of Wordsworth and Southey 
 was written, it would be unwise to determine too confidently 
 that, had life been spared, his growth in the poetic art would 
 have been continuous. Brief though his career was, it sufficed 
 him to write poems which can only perish with the language. 
 His passionate love of beauty, his strong and swift imagina- 
 tion, his luxurious flow of language, and his felicity of phrase, 
 rank him among the great masters of English song. How 
 powerful and wide-spread has been his influence is clearly 
 proved by the many echoes of his verse which are found in 
 succeeding writers. 
 
 We have now gone over the greatest names in the poetical 
 literature of the nineteenth century, But a (cw writers have yet 
 to be mentioned, one or two of whom were in their lifetime 
 far more widely read than Wordsworth or Keats. Samuel 
 Rogers (1 763—1855) is remarkable as having, alone among 
 the poets of his time, remained altogether untouched by 
 the influence of the new era. He was a disciple of Pope, 
 born out of due time, and sedulously followed the footsteps 
 of his master. His poems, of which the principal are the 
 "Pleasures of Memory" (1792), "Human Life" (1819), and 
 "Italy" (1822), are now almost forgotten; they have not 
 sufficient fire or strength to stand the ordeal of time. Their 
 contemporary fame, which was considerable, owed a good 
 deal to the social repute of their author, a rich banker, who 
 was for many years a prominent figure in London society. 
 Many amusing stories of his cynicism and biting and sarcastic 
 remarks are on record, and tend to keep his memory alive. 
 James II /1770-1835), the " Ettrick Shepherd," was a 
 nine poet, with great but very ill-cultivated and undisci- 
 plined abilities. Much of his prose and a good deal of his 
 poetry arc worthless, but some of his songs, and the exquisite 
 " Kilmcny,'' in the '■ Queen's Wake " (1813), rea< h a very high 
 : of excellence. His rough and boisterous manners, and 
 his unique and colossal self-conceit, rendered the " Shepherd " 
 a favourite butt among the Edinburgh wits. Another Scots-
 
 The New Era in Poetry. 
 
 j 
 
 man, Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), like Rogers, began his 
 poetic career with the publication of a didactic poem, the "Plea- 
 sures of Hope" (1799), which in a short time went through 
 many editions. His next long poem, " Gertrude of Wyoming " 
 (1S09), breathed more of the modern spirit. Campbell's 
 longer poems have now ceased to be much read or quoted, 
 except in single lines; but his ringing war-ballads, such as the 
 '• Battle of the Baltic" and the "Mariners of England," are 
 about the best things of the kind in the language, full of spirit 
 and fire, and written in metre admirably adapted to the sub- 
 ject. Besides his poetry, Campbell wrote a good deal of 
 prose, mostly done as hack-work, and of little permanent value. 
 His "Specimens of the British Poets" is, however, a very 
 good book ; and if he had husbanded his energies better, he 
 might have done excellent work as a prose writer, for his 
 style is correct and elegant, and his literary judgments are in 
 general accurate and judicious. Thomas Moore (1779-1852), 
 whose "Life of Byron" (1830) is, considering all the many 
 difficulties of the task, a very creditable performance, was one 
 of the most popular poets of his time. An amiable, good- 
 hearted, cheerful Irishman, possessed of many excellent qua- 
 lities, he was content to fritter away his life dangling on the 
 skirts of the great, and was never so happy as when in titled 
 company. His " Irish Melodies " are thin and artificial when 
 compared with the songs of Burns, but they are light and 
 graceful enough in their way, and well adapted to be linked 
 to music. His most elaborate performance, " Lalla Rookh" 
 (181 7), an Eastern tale, is overloaded with gaudy ornament; 
 but while containing little to satisfy the earnest student of 
 poetry, is spirited and interesting,' Some of his other writ- 
 ings show a marked talent for lively satire, which he was not 
 slow to exercise against his political opponents.
 
 IX. 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, AND THE PROSE LITERATURE 
 OF THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 Sir Walter Scotl ; Mackintosh , Hallam, Alison ; Jeffrey, Sydney Smith ; 
 II '.'son, Loekhart, De Quineey ; Lamb, Uaziitt, Hunt; Landor J 
 Chalmers. 
 
 N our survey of the poets of the new era in the last 
 chapter, one great name was omitted, — the name 
 of one who, till his less intense and dazzling light 
 paled before the brilliant and captivating radiance 
 of Byron, was far and away the most popular poet of his time. 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that we refer to Sir Walter 
 Scott. But Scott's poetry, excellent though in some respects 
 it be, is by no means his most enduring title to remembrance. 
 If lie had written nothing else, he would not now have ranked 
 among the first writers of his time, far less would he have 
 occupied among British authors a place in the opinion of 
 many second only to that of Shakespeare. It i the writer 
 of a long scries of fictions which, when we consider their 
 excellence, their interest, their variety, their width ofrai 
 theii ite delineations of nature, oi lifi . and ol i haracter, 
 
 may be safely pronounced matchless, that Scott's nami i . and 
 in all probability will continue to be, cherished with fond and 
 admiring reverence by millions ol leaders. But not only did 
 Scott reign supreme as . list, and occup; I 
 
 position in the kindred realm oi poetry J it may be said ol him,
 
 J 
 
 24 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century 
 
 as of Goldsmith, that there was almost no kind of writing that 
 he did not touch, and none which he touched that he did not 
 adorn. The fertility, the affluence, the readiness of Scott's 
 intellectual resources were indeed such that to contem- 
 plate them almost strikes one dumb with amazement. He 
 w.is a manly and judicious critic, an accomplished antiquary, 
 no contemptible historian, and a careful and painstaking 
 editor. The amount of literary work of various kinds he 
 managed to get through, while living, not the life of a re- 
 cluse, but that of an active and bustling man of the world, 
 attending carefully to his ordinary business, and always ob- 
 servant of the rites of hospitality, is something portentous 
 and unexampled. To record with any fulness the life of a 
 man of such various occupations and talents, of such bound- 
 less energy, would require a volume, not a few pages. Only 
 the leading features, therefore, can be noted here. 
 
 Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh on August 15, 1 771. 
 His father was a "douce," careful, precise Writer to the 
 Signet, whose chief features have been portrayed in indelible 
 characters by his son in the portrait of Mr. Saunders Fairford 
 in " Redgauntlet." Like many able men, — like, for example, 
 his great contemporary, Goethe, — Scott owed the more rare 
 and distinguished features of his intellectual character to his 
 mother, a woman of taste and imagination. A lameness — 
 never cured — in his infancy, and weak health, caused Scott in 
 his third year to be sent to the house of his grandfather at 
 Sandyknowe, near Kelso, in order to try the efficacy of country 
 air and diet. The period of his residence there was a very 
 happy one. He passed his days in the open fields, " with no 
 other fellowship than that of the sheep and lambs;" and in the 
 long winter evenings his early passion for the romantic past 
 was nurtured by the traditionary legends of Border heroism 
 and adventure repeated by an aged female relative. In his 
 ith year he was sent to the High School of Edinburgh, of 
 which the then headmaster was Dr. Adam, almost as cele- 
 brated a figure in Scottish educational history as Dr. Arnold 
 of Rugby is in that of England. During his school career
 
 Scott's Early Years. 325 
 
 he did not attend very sedulously to the ordinary studies there 
 followed, but he read omnivorously, and delighted his com- 
 panions with frequent examples of his talent as a narrator of 
 fictions, plentifully seasoned with the marvellous, and often 
 relating to knight-errantry. "Slink over beside me, Jamie," 
 he would whisper to his schoolfellow Ballanfyne, afterwards, 
 alas ! inseparably connected with the darkest pages of his 
 history, " and I'll tell you a story." When about thirteen, 
 he first, during six months he passed with his aunt at Kelso, 
 became acquainted with Percy's " Reliques." ' ; I remember 
 well," he says, " the spot where I read these volumes for the 
 first time. It was beneath a huge plantanus tree, in the ruins 
 of what had been intended for an old-fashioned arbour in the 
 garden I have mentioned. The summer day sped onward so 
 fast that, notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I for- 
 got the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was 
 still found entranced in my intellectual banquet." Truly the 
 child is father of the man. From his earliest years Scott showed 
 that love of old-world stories, of the days of chivalry and 
 romance, and of all "auld nick-nackets" tending to make the 
 past more real to him, which he afterwards displayed to its 
 full extent in the gathering of ancient armour and miscellane- 
 ous articles of antiquity which he collected around him at 
 Abbotsford, and which, more than anything else, was the 
 source of his originality as a novelist and poet. 
 
 After leaving the High School, Scott entered the University 
 of Edinburgh, where he studied in the same irregular and 
 miscellaneous fashion as before and afterwards. Every great 
 man is for the most part self-educated ; what he acquires 
 from schoolmasters and professors is trilling both in quantity 
 and in value compared to what, following the bent of his 
 genius, lie acquires for himself. Scott was not a scholar ; 
 he was too careless of minute accuracy ever to trouble him- 
 self about those trilling facts and verbal subtleties a thorough 
 acquaintance with which is the idory of University magnates. 
 Lut he acquired in rough-and-ready fashion BUch a knowl 
 of various languages as to enable him to assimilate the litera*
 
 326 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 tare best suited to his needs contained in them. The small 
 store of Greek, it is true, which he was taught at the University, 
 in the lapse of years, managed to forget so utterly that he 
 did not even know the letters ; but he read Latin with fluency, 
 and could peruse without difficulty any book written in French, 
 German, Italian, or Spanish. Entering his father's office as 
 apprentice in his fifteenth year, he managed so far to curb his 
 restless energies as to go through with credit a fair amount 
 of legal drudgery, acquiring, besides some knowledge of the 
 technicalities of the law, those habits of method, punctuality, 
 and laborious industry which afterwards were such a powerful 
 auxiliary to him. His somewhat dry and mechanical duties 
 as legal apprentice and budding advocate he diversified not 
 only by reading, but by frequent excursions into the Highland 
 and Lowland districts, acquiring there a rich store of traditions, 
 and becoming acquainted with all those types of Scottish 
 character which he was afterwards to delineate in imperishable 
 colours. " He was makin' himsel a' the time," says one of 
 his companions, speaking about those raids, " but he didna 
 ken, maybe, what he was about till years had passed. At 
 first he thought o' little, I daresay, but the queerness and 
 fun." 
 
 In 1792 Scott was admitted to the Scottish bar. Through 
 the influence of his father he received enough employment to 
 keep him from being entirely idle, but not nearly enough to 
 occupy all the hours of so quick and energetic a worker. It 
 is a wonder that Scott, with his great fondness for reading and 
 his wonderful abilities, did not sooner make an entry into the 
 fair realm of literature, which has afforded kindly aid to so 
 many young subjects of Themis. It was not, however, tid 
 1796 that he first appeared before the public as translator 
 of Burger's ballads " Lenore " and the " Wild Huntsman." 
 '1 hese attracted considerable attention, and led to his contri- 
 buting a Lw pieces to "Monk" Lewis's " Tales of Wonder," 
 to his translating in 1799 Goethe's "Gbtz von Berlich- 
 ingen." Previous to the publication of the last-mentioned 
 productions, Scott had married Miss Carpenter, the daughter
 
 Scott's " Border Minstrelsy? 327 
 
 of a French refugee, who brought with her a small fortune. 
 She was not his first love : before he met with her he had 
 been deeply in love with a lady who afterwards became wife 
 of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo. His attachment was re- 
 turned, but circumstances opposed their union, and their 
 intercourse was broken off, leaving a wound in Scott's heart 
 which the lapse of time was powerless altogether to heal. 
 Whenever in any of his works he has occasion to mention an 
 early and unfortunate "first love/' he does so with peculiar 
 tenderness and feeling. 
 
 In 1S02 Scott published the first two volumes of the 
 " Border Minstrelsy," printed by his old schoolfellow Ballan- 
 tvne, who had set up in business in the pretty little town of 
 Kelso, and the first important specimen of an afterwards 
 famous press. There was no work of Scott's after-life which 
 showed the result of so much preliminary labour. Before he 
 was ten years old he had collected several volumes of ballads 
 and traditions, and wc have seen how diligently he pursued the 
 same task in later years. The collection was admitted to be 
 far more faithful, as well as more skilfully edited, than its 
 prototype, the "Reliques" of Bishop Percy, while the notes 
 contained a mass of information relative to Border life, con- 
 veyed in a style of beauty unprecedented in matters of this 
 kind, and enlivened with a higher interest than that of fiction. 
 Percy's " Reliques " had prepared the way for the kind recep- 
 tion of the '• Minstrelsy " by the general relish which — notwith- 
 standing Dr. Johnson's protest — it had created for the simple 
 pictures of a pastoral and heroic time. Burns had since 
 familiarised the English car with the Doric melodies of his 
 native land; and now a greater than Burns appeared, whose 
 first production, by a singular chance, had come into the world 
 in the very year in which the Ayrshire minstrel was withdrawn 
 i it, as if nature had intended that the chain of poetic 
 in piration should not be broken. The delight of the public 
 was further 1 by the appeal ince of the third volume 
 
 of the "Minstrelsy" (1S03), containing various imitations 
 of the old ballads, which contained "all the rich fashion of
 
 
 8 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century 
 
 the antique, purified from the mould and rust by which the 
 beauties of such weather-beaten trophies are defaced." The 
 first edition was disposed of in less than a year ; and on the 
 publication of a second, the copyright was sold to Longman 
 for ,£500 — a very fortunate bargain for the publisher, as it 
 proved. 
 
 Passing over minor writings, we come to the next important 
 event in Scott's literary life, — the publication of the " Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel" in 1805. It met with a colossal and un- 
 precedented success ; edition after edition was called for ; 
 with a single bound Scott leaped to the position of the most 
 popular poet of the day. There are several causes which 
 combine to account for this extraordinary popularity. In the 
 first place, the poem was original in subject and mode of 
 treatment ; the description of the old romantic past, in free 
 and flowing verse, was felt as refreshing to those tired of 
 poetical commonplace and conventionality as is the fresh air 
 of the mountains to those long detained in stifling London 
 drawing-rooms. Again, Scott's poems have what many greater 
 poems want — an interesting story, which, apart from their 
 poetical beauties, keeps the reader's attention fixed. In the 
 third place, they do not require any thought or elaborate 
 culture to understand them ; their beauties are easily per- 
 ceptible by all, as their popularity among schoolboys suffi- 
 ciently attests. General intelligibility is one of the prime 
 requisites of immediate popularity as a poet, though not of 
 permanent fame ; a fact of which the immense sale of Long- 
 fellow's writings in our day is a convincing illustration. The 
 " Lay" was followed in 1808 by " Marmion," and in 1810 by 
 the " Lady of the Lake," to which poem, with its fine de- 
 scriptions of scenery, is mainly due the great influx of tourists 
 every season to the Trossachs. With the " Lady of the Lake " 
 Scott's popularity as a poet reached its zenith. His subse- 
 quent poems, the " Vision of Don Roderick," " Rokeby," the 
 '• Lord of the Isles," &c, were not so well received. "Well, 
 James," said Scott to Ballantyne a few days after the publi- 
 cation of the "Lord of the Isles" in 18 15, "I have given you
 
 Scott and A bbotsford. 329 
 
 a week; what are people saying about the 'Lord of the 
 Isles'?" Ballantyne hesitated a little, but Scott speedily 
 brought the matter to a point. " Come," he said, " speak out, 
 my good fellow ; what has put it into your head to be on so 
 much ceremony with me all of a sudden ? But I see how it is ; 
 the result is given in one word, — disappointment" Ballantyne's 
 silence admitted the inference to its fullest extent. As Scott 
 had been wholly unprepared for the event, his countenance 
 looked rather blank for a few seconds. At length he said, 
 with perfect cheerfulness, "Well, well, James, so be it ; but 
 you know we must not droop, for we can't afford to give over. 
 Since one line has failed, we must stick to something else." 
 Thus, almost by chance, was Scott's genius driven into the 
 line in which its highest triumphs were achieved. He had 
 already, with characteristic caution, made his first essay in it. 
 But before beginning the history of the wonderful Waverley 
 series, we may glance a little at Scott's occupations and cir- 
 cumstances at this time. In many ways he had much cause 
 to felicitate himself on his lot. In 1799 he was appointed 
 Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with an annual salary of ^300. Some 
 years later he procured an appointment as one of the prin- 
 cipal clerks of the Court of Session, worth about ^1500 a 
 year. Altogether, counting the interest of his small fortune, 
 he had an income of about ^2000, independent of his literary 
 exertions, which brought him in large sums. Yet Scott was 
 not a rich man ; and though his income had been tenfold 
 what it was, would not have been a rich man. His ambition 
 was not to write great works (he always regarded his literary 
 faculty merely as a convenient means of filling his purse), not 
 I 'quire great fame as an author, but to be a large landed 
 proprietor, the founder of a race of Scottish laird;. With this 
 end in view he toiled late and early ; he went through labours 
 which in a short time would have bl man of less 
 
 constitution to the grave; he plunged himself in 
 debt, and engaged in commercial tran actions which finally 
 proved his ruin. In 1812 he removed to Abbol ford, where 
 lie built and lilted lip the fine mansion clo ely sociated 
 
 X
 
 
 o Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 villi his name, and drained and planted the bleak moorland 
 around at the cost of many thousands. Cautious and judi- 
 cious in everything else, he had a sort of craze for the purchase 
 of land, and could no more resist the purchase of any plot of 
 ground in tempting proximity to his estate of Abbotsford that 
 was offered to him, than an opium-eater can withstand the 
 fascinations of his favourite drug. The burning ambition to 
 be a territorial magnate was a sad and pitiful one for a man 
 of Scott's powers, but it carried with it a terrible revenge. 
 
 On a certain day in June 1814, while a party of young law 
 students were chatting gaily in the library of a house in 
 George Street, Edinburgh, a shade was observed to come 
 over the countenance of their host. One of them having in- 
 timated a fear of his being unwell : " No," said he ; " I shall 
 be well enough presently, if you will only let me sit where you 
 are and take my chair, for there is a confounded hand in 
 sight of me here which has often bothered me before, and now 
 it won't let me fill my glass with good-will." His companion 
 rose to change places with him, and had pointed out to him 
 this hand, which, like the writing on Belshazzar's wall, dis- 
 turbed his host's hour of hilarity. " Since we sat down," he 
 said, " I have been watching it ; it fascinates my eye ; it 
 never stops ; page after page is finished and thrown on that 
 heap of manuscript, and still it goes on unwearied, and so it 
 will be till candles are brought in, and God knows how long 
 after that. It is the same every night ; I can't stand a sight 
 of it when I am not at my books." "Some stupid, dogged, 
 engrossing clerk probably," exclaimed one of the youths. " No, 
 boys," replied the host, " I know well what hand it is — 'tis 
 Walter Scott's." It was the hand of Walter Scott, busily engaged 
 in his Castle Street lodging in writing the last two volumes of 
 " Waverley " — a task which occupied him only three weeks. 
 " Waverley " had been begun nine years before, in 1805 (hence 
 the second title, " Tis Sixty Years Since "), but the friend to 
 whom Scott submitted what of it was then written did not speak 
 of it in sufficiently high terms to encourage him to run the 
 of somewhat dimming his poetic laurels by its publication.
 
 The Waver ley Novels. 3 3 1 
 
 When, however, his popularity as a poet began to decrease, 
 and he was desirous of hitting upon a new vein wherewith to 
 satisfy the capricious taste of the public, his thoughts reverted 
 to the almost forgotten manuscript of "Waverley," and he 
 determined to complete it. It was published anonymously 
 in July 1814, the authorship being kept a strict secret lest the 
 novel should prove a failure. Any such apprehension, however, 
 was soon dispelled. With extraordinary rapidity it rose into 
 an unprecedented degree of favour ; everywhere it was talked 
 about, and everywhere eager discussions were carried on as 
 to who the unknown author could be. Scott, however, jeal- 
 ously preserved his incognito, and the rapidly succeeding 
 series of great fictions by him — " Guy Mannering," " The 
 Antiquary," " Old Mortality," " Rob Roy," &c, &c— bore on 
 their title-pages simply "By the Author of 'Waverley.'" Many 
 supposed, on the appearance of the early volumes of the series, 
 that Scott was the writer, and as time went on supposition 
 gradually deepened into certainty ; but he never publicly 
 acknowledged his authorship till the state of his affairs com- 
 pelled him to do it in 1S27. It would be impossible to 
 exaggerate the enthusiasm with which "Waverley" and its 
 successors were welcomed. Carlyle, who lived through all 
 the furore which they excited, shall describe it: "In the 
 spring 1 of 1814," he says, "appeared 'Waverley,' an event 
 memorable in the annals of British literature ; in the annals 
 of British bookselling thrice and four times memorable. 
 Byron sang, but Scott narrated ; and when the song had sung 
 itself out through all variations onwards to the ' Don Juan ' 
 one, Scott was still found narrating and carrying the whole 
 world along with him. All bygone popularity of chivalry lavs 
 was swallowed up in a far greater. What 'series ' followed 
 out of ' Waverley,' and how and with what result, is known to 
 all men — was witnessed and watched with a kind of rapt 
 astonishment by all. I [ardly any literary reputation ever rose 
 so high in our island; no reputation at all ever spread 
 wide. Walter Scott I Sir Walter .Scott, Baronet, of 
 
 1 Incorrect. >vc.
 
 $$2 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 Abbotsford, on whom fortune seemed to pour her whole 
 cornucopia of wealth, honour, and worldly good, the favourite 
 of princes and of peasants and all intermediate men. His 
 ' AVaverley ' series, swift following one on the other apparently 
 without end, was the universal reading; looked for like an 
 annual harvest, by all ranks, in all European countries." 
 
 The vast sums Scott received for the novels which he pro- 
 duced with such extraordinary rapidity and with so little 
 apparent exertion, naturally led him to regard his literary 
 powers as a boundless mine of wealth, which it was scarcely 
 possible for him to exhaust. Hence he went on " adding field 
 to field," buying, often at extravagant prices, any tempting 
 piece of land which he found in the market, and fitting up 
 Abbotsford in a style of the most luxurious splendour. To 
 the money thus spent must be added that expended in the 
 exercise of a boundless hospitality. Scott and Abbotsford 
 became sights which no Scottish tourist of any pretensions to 
 rank or fame could omit ; it was not unusual, we are told, 
 for a dozen or more coach-loads to find their way into the 
 grounds of the " Great Unknown " in the course of the day, 
 most of whom found or forced an entrance into his mansion. 
 There could be no better proof of Scott's thorough healthiness 
 of character and freedom from all those petty vices which are 
 commonly supposed to belong to the literary profession, than 
 the manner in which he conducted himself while "lionised" 
 above any one before or since. He took the praises copiously 
 bestowed on him for what they were worth, pleased with 
 them, no doubt, but nowise unduly elated ; was gratified when 
 among the crowd of his visitors he found any of talent and 
 good sense with whom it was a pleasure to converse; and 
 regarded the numerous specimens of folly and presumption 
 whom he was compelled to put up with, not with indignation 
 or bitterness, but with a humorous appreciation of their charac- 
 ter which left little room for anger or contempt. For many of 
 the honours bestowed on literature Scott cared little. He on 
 several occasions declined the degree of D.C.L., offered him 
 by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge ; and the hicrher
 
 Scott at Work. $33 
 
 distinction of a baronetcy, conferred on him in 1820, was chiefly 
 gratifying to him, not because he cared for the title himself, 
 but because it pleased his family pride to think that Abbots- 
 ford would henceforth be occupied by a race of baronets. 
 
 One of the most striking features of Scott's character was 
 the indomitable tenacity with which he went on with what- 
 ever literary task he had in hand. Few and far between were 
 the occasions when, however busily engaged otherwise, his 
 daily literary task was left uncompleted. As a rule, he rose 
 betimes in the morning, and had his little parcel of " copy " 
 ready before the other members of the house were astir. But 
 as to time and place of composition he was nearly indifferent; 
 and though, like many great authors, he preferred to write in 
 the morning hours, it cost him no great effort to carry on the 
 work in which he was engaged at almost any time or under 
 almost any circumstances. " When once I set my pen to the 
 paper," he wrote to his friend Morritt, "it will walk fast 
 enough. I am sometimes tempted to leave it alone and see 
 whether it will not write as well without the assistance of my 
 hand as with it. A hopeful prospect for the reader." When 
 a friend asked him how, amidst such a constant whirl of 
 various occupations as occupied him, he managed to write so 
 much, lie replied, " Oh, I lie simmering over things for an 
 hour or so before I get up, and there's the time I am dressing 
 to overhaul my half-sleeping, half-waking projet de chapitre y 
 and when I get the paper before me, it commonly runs off 
 pretty easily. Besides, I often take a doze in the plantations, 
 and, while Tom [Purdie, his faithful attendant] marks out a 
 dyke or drain, one's fancy may be running its ain rigs in sonic 
 other world." Well was it for Scott that in the clays of his 
 I ;<eiity he accustomed himself to perform his daily task 
 cheerfully under difficulties which would have utterly discom- 
 fited a less strenuous worker. The time came too soon when 
 his fair | tS of wealth and prosperity were to prove to 1"' 
 
 mere castles of cards, de lined to tumble into the dust at 
 the first stroke ol ity. The commercial whirlwind of 
 
 5 26, which shook down so many apparently prosperous
 
 i j4 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 commercial fabrics, proved fatal to Scott's prosperity as to 
 that of many thousands of lesser men. Unknown to his 
 friends, he had become a partner in the printing firm estab- 
 lished in Edinburgh by his old friends the Ballantynes. The 
 great Scottish publisher Constable, who, both by the magnitude 
 and boldness of his plans and the brilliance of his publishing 
 exploits, deserved the title Scott laughingly applied to him of 
 "the great Napoleon of the realms of print," was compelled, after 
 a brief but brave struggle, to succumb to the tide of ruin which 
 could not but overwhelm him. He became bankrupt, and the 
 Ballantyne firm soon followed suit. In February 1826 he found 
 himself bankrupt — a debtor to the extent of over ;£i 20,00c 1 
 The catastrophe was heavy ; to most men it would have 
 been a crushing one. Nothing in his life better shows his 
 courage and his honesty than his behaviour under this great 
 calamity. He determined that if his creditors would but 
 grant him time they should be paid to the very uttermost 
 farthing. " I am always ready," he said, " to make any sacri- 
 fice to do justice to my engagements, and would rather sell 
 anything or everything than be less than a true man of my 
 word." The estate of Abbotsford had, shortly before the 
 crash, been secured to his son oh the occasion of his mar- 
 riage, so it was beyond the creditors' reach ; but Scott's house 
 and furniture in Edinburgh were sold by auction, and his per- 
 sonal effects at Abbotsford, — books, pictures, &c, — were 
 delivered over to be held in trust for his creditors. Having 
 bound himself to limit the cost of his living to his official 
 income, and to employ what he earned by his pen in liquida- 
 ting his debts, Scott took second-rate lodgings in Edinburgh 
 and began his Herculean task. "For many years," he said to 
 a friend, " I have been accustomed to hard work, because I 
 found it a pleasure ; now, with all due respect for FalstafP s 
 
 1 For a'statcment of tlie business relations between Sir Walter Scott and 
 the Ballantyne:--, see a "Refutation of the Misstatements and Calumnies 
 contained in Mr. Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., respecting the 
 
 rs. Ballantyne. By the Trustees and Son of the late Mr. James 
 
 iityne." London : Longman & Co., 1838.
 
 Scott's ' ' L ife of Napoleon. " 335 
 
 principle, ' nothing on compulsion,' I certainly will not shrink 
 from work because it has become necessary." Misfortunes, 
 it is said, never come singly, and the death of his wife, which 
 followed soon after the ruin of his fortunes, intensified Scott's 
 woes. Still he did not yield to despair. Day after clay, 
 despite his mental and bodily troubles, he diligently toiled on. 
 The following entry in his diary for June 8, 1826, may be 
 taken as typical of the rest : 
 
 " Bilious and headache this morning. A dog howled all 
 night, and left me little sleep. Poor cur ! I daresay he had 
 his distresses, as I have mine. I was obliged to make 
 Dalgleish shut the windows when he appeared at half-past 
 six as usual, and did not rise till nine. I have often de- 
 served a headache in my younger days without having one, 
 and nature is, I suppose, paying off old scores. Ay ! but 
 then the want of the affectionate care that used to be 
 ready, with lowered voice and stealthy pace, to smooth the 
 pillow and offer assistance, — gone — gone — for ever — ever — 
 ever. Well, there is another world, and we'll meet free from 
 the mortal sorrows and frail ties which beset us here. Amen ! 
 so be it. Let me change this topic with hand and head, and 
 the heart must follow. I finished four pages to-day, headache, 
 laziness, and all." 
 
 Scott's first published work after the catastrophe which over- 
 whelmed his fortunes was "Woodstock" (1826), which realised 
 for his creditors over .£8000. Then in the following year came 
 his long "Life of Napoleon," written with almost incredible 
 speed, of which the first and second editions brought ^"18,000. 
 It is inaccurate and one-sided, interesting as having been 
 written by Scott, but not of great value otherwise : — 
 
 " When tin- hai n 1 the spui de goad, 
 
 The high-mettled racer's a hack on the road." 
 
 In two isant industry, Scott paid off ^40,000 
 
 of his debts, and in the com <• ol four years nearly ^,70,000. 
 No wonder though under the strain of constant exertion 
 added to sorrow and anxiety his health gave way. His last
 
 336 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 novels. " Count Robert of Paris " and " Castle Dangerous," 
 gave painful evidence that the wand of the Great Magician, 
 h had charmed so long, had at length lost its power. 
 The last important work of his closing years was the excellent 
 notes and introductions which he furnished for a new edition 
 of the Waverley novels. His "Tales of a Grandfather," 
 '• History of Scotland," &c.,&c, are not of a quality to add 
 anything to the lustre of his fame. 
 
 In 1 83 1 he was induced to abandon literary labour for a 
 time, and to undertake a voyage to the Continent. After a 
 residence of five months in Italy, he returned to London in 
 June 1832. It was now painfully evident that his health was 
 irretrievably ruined, and after a few weeks he was conveyed 
 to Abbotsford, where, writes his biographer, " about half-past 
 one p.m. on the 21st of September, Sir Walter breathed his 
 last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day, 
 so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly 
 still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ears — the 
 gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles — was distinctly 
 audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed 
 and closed his eyes." He was buried by the side of his wife 
 in Dryburgh Abbey. It is pleasing to be able to relate that 
 the collected editions of his works were after his death found 
 sufficient to remove the mountain of debt which he struggled 
 so manfully to discharge. His hopes of founding a family 
 proved as fallacious as many of his other ambitions. All his 
 children died within fifteen years of his own death, and only 
 one or two very remote descendants of the Great Enchanter 
 now survive. " It is written," he said, with melancholy truth, a 
 year or two before his death, " that nothing shall flourish under 
 my shadow ; the Ballantynes, Terry, Nelson, Weber, all came 
 to distress. Nature has written on my brow, 'Your shade shall 
 be broad, but there shall be no protection from it to aught 
 you favour.' " 
 
 Scott's personal character is a wide subject, on which much 
 might be said. It is rather remarkable that it seems to have 
 affected two great writers of our time, of very different tenden-
 
 Macaulay o)i Scott. 357 
 
 cies, in much the same way. Carlyle and Macaulay, to whom 
 one scarcely looks for agreement on such points, alike take a 
 severe view of it. Carlyle's famous estimate of Scott as author 
 and man, in which he figured so conspicuously in the character 
 of a "hanging judge," is well known, and should be carefully 
 read by all who wish to form an intelligent estimate of the Wizard 
 of the North. Macaulay, writing in June 1838 to Macvey 
 Napier, who had asked an article for the Edinburgh Review 
 on Scott's life, says, " I have not, from the little that I do 
 know of him, formed so high an opinion of his character as 
 most people seem to entertain, and as it would be expedient 
 for the Edinburgh Review to express. He seems to me to 
 have been most carefully and successfully on his guard against 
 the sins which most easily beset literary men. On that side 
 he multiplied his precautions and set double watch. Hardly 
 any writer of note has been so free from the petty jealousies 
 and morbid irritabilities of our caste. Lut I do not think 
 that he kept himself equally pure from faults of a very different 
 kind — from the faults of a man of the world. In politics a 
 bitter and unscrupulous partisan ; profuse and ostentatious 
 in expense ; agitated by the hopes and fears of a gambler ; 
 perpetually sacrificing the perfection of his compositions and 
 the durability of his fame to his eagerness for making money ; 
 writing with the slovenly haste of Dryden, in order to satisfy 
 wants which were not, like those of Dryden, caused by circum- 
 stances beyond his control, but which were produced by his 
 extravagant waste or rapacious speculation. This is the way 
 in which he appears to me. I am sorry for it, for I sino 
 admire the greater part of his works, but I cannot think him 
 a high-mini led man or a man of very strict principle." There 
 is considerable truth in tin., estimate. Scott was not a man of 
 high, heroic spirit. He looked upon life precisely as we may 
 me some i merchant anxious to get the 
 
 best price he con bis wares, ami caring more for their 
 
 saleable qualities than for any other features in them. His 
 letters afford fine examples of the worldly \\i lorn of his dis- 
 position. It is amusing and curious to notice how carefully
 
 33° 
 
 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 mted their tone to suit the particular temperam 
 
 he adapted their tone to suit the particular temperament of 
 whatever correspondent he happened to be addressing. Those 
 to his son Walter may be described as resembling Lord Ches- 
 terfield's letters to his son minus the immorality. There 
 is no trace in them of any high or ennobling principle. 
 " Don't do rash and foolish things ; take care of yourself; be 
 sure to get on in the world," is the gospel they proclaim. 
 But if Scott's character lacked somewhat of the loftier virtues, 
 it was full of those endearing qualities which men of higher 
 aspirations have, alas ! too often been without. He was totally 
 free from any taint of vanity, envy, or malice. Like his great 
 contemporary Goethe, he liked much better to praise the 
 good than to condemn the evil. No critic was ever more 
 lenient in his judgments ; indeed he carried literary tolerance 
 so far that praise from him became almost a brevet of medio- 
 crity. In his relations with his family and his dependants he 
 acquitted himself in a manner deserving of the highest praise. 
 Never was there a better master than he, never a more loving 
 and devoted parent. 
 
 To do full justice to Scott's writings would require large 
 space ; it is so various in kind and so large in quantity, 
 lie cannot be ranked amongst our greatest poets, neverthe- 
 less his stirring lays have great merit of their kind. The ten- 
 dency nowadays is to underrate them as much as they were 
 overrated at the time of their appearance. Their generous, 
 healthy, open-air tone, their ringing vivacity, their rush and 
 vigour, have very rarely been successfully imitated. Scott's 
 miscellaneous prose works, if not brilliant, furnish extraordi- 
 nary proofs of the soundness of his judgment and the width 
 of his knowledge. His " Lives of the Novelists " are models 
 of sensible and manly criticism; and the lives and notes added 
 to his editions of Dryden (1808) and of Swift (18 14) show an 
 extraordinary knowledge of the byways of English literary 
 history, and evince a capacity for patient research with which 
 one would scarcely be prepared to credit a man of Scott's 
 rapid-working habits. Of the great Waverley series the worst 
 that criticism can say was said long ago by Carlyle. All culti-
 
 Criticisms of Scott's Novels. 339 
 
 vated readers of Scott are, we suppose, prepared to admit that 
 his psychological insight was not very deep ; that his style 
 lacks force and concentration ; that his representations of the 
 life of the past in such novels as li Ivanhoe " and " Kenil- 
 worth " are often " stagey " and unreal ; that in his novels no 
 new view of life, no fresh inspiring idea, was given to mankind. 
 But Scott had in almost unequalled abundance qualities pos- 
 sessed by few writers, but without which a great novelist is 
 impossible — breadth and healthiness of mind. In tolerance 
 and catholicity of feeling he resembled Shakespeare. Bating 
 a slight infusion of Tory and cavalier prejudice, which 
 appears to some extent in two or three of his novels, his repre- 
 sentations are scrupulously just. As he always felt himself 
 at his ease, and couid talk unceasingly to any companion 
 he happened to meet with, however lowly his rank, so he 
 could portray the feelings and talk of all classes of men 
 with equal accuracy and sympathy. Contemporary verdicts 
 on his novels have been a good deal reversed by subse- 
 quent criticism. Few, for example, would now consider 
 " Ivanhoe " his best novel, as was pretty generally the opinion 
 at the time of its publication (1S19). Undoubtedly his best 
 novels are those dealing with the subjects which he knew 
 and loved best — Scottish life and Scottish scenery. In his 
 historical novels dealing with foreign countries and remote 
 times, the colours are sometimes coarsely laid on, and the 
 whole treatment strikes one as artificial and wanting in vrai- 
 semblance. But when his foot touches his native heath, 
 Scott is always himself again — always clear, vivid, and accu- 
 rately pictorial. Carlyle's estimate of Scott (which, just as 
 in some ways it is, docs not give anything like full praise to 
 the great qualities of his novels) has so powerfully influ- 
 enced succeeding criticisms on them, that it may be well 
 to quote, as wi heavily in the opposite scale, the i 
 
 mate formed of them by hi i illusl riou i ontemporary, ( ioethe, 
 whose opinii n I 1 yle himself would have been the first to 
 pronounce to be of the greatest value. "I have just bi 
 'Rob K.oy,"' said Goethe on one occasion to Eckermann, "and
 
 a ^O Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 will read his best novels in succession. All is great — material, 
 import, characters, execution ; and then what infinite diligence 
 in the preparatory studies ! what truth of detail in the exe- 
 cution ! " Again, speaking of the " Fair Maid of Perth," 
 certainly not one of the best of Scott's novels, he said, " You 
 find everywhere in Walter Scott a remarkable security and 
 thoroughness in his delineation, which proceed from his com- 
 prehensive knowledge of the real world, obtained by lifelong 
 studies and observations and a daily discussion of the most 
 important relations. Then come his great talent and his 
 comprehensive nature. You remember the English critic 
 who compares the poets to the voices of male singers, of 
 which some can command only a few fine tones, while others 
 have the whole compass, from the highest to the lowest, com- 
 pletely in their power. Walter Scott is one of this last sort. 
 In the • Fair Maid of Perth' you will not find a single weak 
 passage to make you feel as if his knowledge and talent were 
 insufficient. He is equal to his subject in every direction in 
 which it takes him j the king, the royal brother, the prince, 
 the head of the clergy, the nobles, the magistracy, the citizens 
 and mechanics, the Highlanders, are all drawn with the same 
 sure hand and hit off with equal truth." Such utterances of 
 the first poet and critic of modern times deserve to be deeply 
 pondered. 
 
 With the exception of Scott, few prose writers who flour- 
 ished in the early part of the eighteenth century were pos- 
 sessed of so striking and commanding a genius as belonged 
 to some of their poetical contemporaries. But there were 
 many prose writers of gifts considerably superior to the 
 average — so many, indeed, that our limits compel us to adopt 
 a pretty severe principle of selection, and to exclude not a few 
 who won literary laurels not yet altogether effaced by the 
 lapse of time. The leading prose writers of this period fall 
 easily into well-marked groups, and it will be convenient thus 
 to consider them instead of adopting strict chronological 
 order. Historians may come first. Sir James Mackintosh 
 (1765-1832)13 now remembered more for his contemporary
 
 Sir James Mackintosh. 341 
 
 reputation as a talker and for the frequent allusions to 
 him in memoirs of celebrities of his time, than for what he 
 actually accomplished. His life was one of much promise 
 but of little performance. He himself relates that a French 
 lady once said to him, " What have you done that people 
 should think you so superior?" In reply, he says, "I was 
 obliged as usual to refer to my projects." Mackintosh was 
 born in Inverness-shire, and educated at King's College, Aber- 
 deen, and at Edinburgh, where he studied medicine. Coming 
 to London in 178S, he attracted great attention by his " Vin- 
 dicias Gallicoe," a pungent and vigorous reply to Burke's 
 "Reflections on the French Revolution," which brought him 
 at once into notice in literary society, and had the honour of 
 being praised by Fox in Parliament. Abandoning medicine 
 for the study of law, he was called to the bar; and his fine 
 speech in defence of Peltier in 1S03 brought him a great 
 deal of practice and the prospect of earning a large income 
 by his forensic ability. However, in the words of Lord Hailing, 
 " three months had not elapsed when, with -the plaudits of the 
 public and the praise of Erskine still ringing in his ear, he 
 accepted the Recordership of Bombay from Mr. Addington, 
 and retired with satisfaction to the well-paid and knighted 
 indolence of India. His objects in doing so were, he said, of 
 two kinds : to make a fortune and to write a work. The 
 whole man is before us when we discover how far either of 
 these objects was attained by him. He did not make a for- 
 tune ; he did not write a work." After a residence of sr\ n 
 years in India, he returned to England and entered Parlia- 
 ment, where, although he distinguished himself in carrying on 
 the Crimin I Code reform begun by Romilly, his reputation 
 scarcely answered to the high hopi ol him formed by his 
 friends. lie also wrote a good d mti ibuiiri'_; mi 
 
 laneous articles to the Edinburgh A' in inter iting and 
 
 , if occasionally in . " Dissertation on the P 
 
 of Ethical I . j >Hy " to the '• l 1 
 
 and a short " History ol I land," < down to the Refoi 
 
 matioii, and a "Lifi of Sir Thomas More" to " I
 
 j [ 2 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 Encyclopaedia." His magnum opus was meant to be a history 
 ot England, for which he collected copious and valuable mate- 
 rials, but only a fragment on the "Causes of the Revolution 
 of 168S" was ever completed. Mackintosh did not possess 
 a creative mind, but he was unwearied in the acquisition of 
 knowledge, and if he had had more tenacity of purpose might 
 have left a permanent mark on literary history. His style is 
 elegant and carefully wrought, but somewhat languid and 
 wanting in pith and power. His conversational powers by all 
 accounts must have been extraordinary. " Till subdued by 
 age and illness," said Sydney Smith, who knew well all the 
 celebrated talkers of the day, " his conversation was more 
 brilliant and instructive than that of any human being I ever 
 had the good fortune to be acquainted with." 
 
 Henry Hallam (17 77-1859) was an historian of powers, 
 perhaps, not originally superior to those of Mackintosh, but 
 put to infinitely better account. He was educated at Oxford, 
 and studied for the bar, but never depended on his profession 
 for a livelihood, as, in addition to possessing a private fortune 
 of a considerable amount, he was the lucky holder of a 
 Government sinecure. His works are on subjects requiring 
 such research and labour that they scarcely could have been 
 written by any one less happily circumstanced. A staunch 
 Whig, he began his literary career by writing articles in the 
 early volumes of the Edinburgh Itevicw, of which one on 
 Dryden, apropos of Scott's edition, is the most notable. In 
 1S18 he took his place as the first historian of his time by the 
 publication of his " View of the State of Europe during the 
 Middle Ages," a work rather pompous and Latinised in style, 
 but showing extremely wide knowledge and great judicial 
 acumen. His second great work, the " Constitutional History 
 of England," appeared in 1827. The labours of Dr. Stubbs 
 have superseded Hallam's " Constitutional History " in its 
 early portions ; but for the rest it is still the standard 
 authority, not likely to be soon superseded. Its carefulness 
 and accuracy, its impartial summing up of facts and candid 
 estimate of men and opinions, can scarcely be too highly com-
 
 Henry Hallam. 343 
 
 mended. In 1S3S-39 his last important publication, "An 
 Introduction to the Literature of Europe during the Fifteenth, 
 Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries," was issued. From the 
 nature of the subject, as well as for other reasons, this work is 
 not of equal value to the "Constitutional History." No man, 
 however wide his learning and accomplishments (and Hallam's 
 were very wide), could discuss with equal certainty and firm- 
 ness of touch the literature of all the European countries 
 during three centuries. To enable any one to do that in a 
 perfectly satisfactory manner, he would require to have his 
 life prolonged to patriarchal limits. Hence Hallam's treatise 
 is in parts a compilation, and compilations, however well done, 
 are always inferior to first-hand works. As a critic he is gene- 
 rally sound and judicious ; never, however, showing much 
 depth of penetration or delicacy of touch. The following 
 remarks in a letter of John Sterling's, written after reading 
 the three concluding volumes of the "Literature of Europe," 
 may be accepted as a substantially correct criticism of the 
 work. "It is one of the few classical books which have 
 appeared in English in our day. Sense, acuteness, thought- 
 fulness, care, elegance, information, mark it throughout. 
 There is more of cold candour than of enthusiastic warmth, 
 with a decided tendency to moderation and caution, verging 
 sometimes towards indifference. The criticism on works of 
 imagination is always excellent, though one may sometimes 
 see grounds to differ from him. The comments on the physi- 
 cal sciences are more a compilation, but, I suppose, very well 
 done. It is on philosophy and the higher theology that I see 
 most room to dissent, though even here there are a multitude 
 of good remarks, and some extremely neat and concise ac- 
 counts of the systems of great men. I cannot feel that he is 
 at home in this highest region of thought, or is always just to 
 those who are." ' All Hallam's works are dignified— perhaps 
 too dignified— in style. He never condescends to di cend 
 from his stilts and adopt a convei itional manner, as the 
 custom of some re< enl writers is. He took great pains with 
 1 Hare's "Life of Sterling," p. 1S1.
 
 344 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 his writings, never being in a hurry to complete them, and 
 revising and re-revising them with the utmost care. In pri- 
 vate life he was an unceasing and eager talker, very prone 
 to argumentation and discussion. To his inferiors he is said 
 to have adopted a rather haughty manner. Charles Knight, 
 who, as publisher for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Knowledge, in which Hallam took a warm interest, came a 
 good deal into contact with him, gives no very favourable 
 account of the learned historian in his entertaining volumes, 
 " Passages of a Working Life." 
 
 The works of Sir Archibald Alison (1792-1S67) have not 
 stood the test of time so well as Hallam's. Though he wrote 
 many other works, his fame, such as it is, rests almost 
 wholly upon his "History of Europe from 1789 to the 
 Restoration of the Bourbons in 181 5," which appeared 
 between 1833-42. It was afterwards, between 1852-56, 
 continued to the accession of Louis Napoleon in 1S52. The 
 contemporary success of Alison's History was prodigious : it 
 went through edition after edition and was translated into 
 all European languages. Nevertheless it has many great 
 faults. The author was a rigid and uncompromising Tory, 
 regarding the Reform Bill and Free Trade with absolute 
 abhorrence ; indeed, as has been said, going so far as to date 
 the fall of the British constitution from the fatal year 1832. 
 Holding his political principles so firmly as he did, he did not 
 even attempt to exclude their influence from his History, but 
 wrote, as Disraeli wittily said, " to prove that Providence was 
 always on the side of the Tories." His style is very tauto- 
 logical and diffuse ; it may be said, without much exaggeration, 
 that by striking out superfluous words and phrases the His- 
 tory could be abridged almost a third without any loss. But 
 its great popularity shows that it possesses the prime merit of 
 being interesting, and perhaps a certain amount of verbosity 
 is not an error in a work intended for popular perusal. All 
 critics of Alison agree in praising his industry and research. 
 
 The establishment of the Edinburgh Review in 1802 brought 
 to the front two writers who have left a deep impress on the
 
 Francis Jeffrey. 345 
 
 literary history of the nineteenth century. One of these was 
 Francis Jeffrey (17 73-1 850), to whose energy and talents the 
 great success of the Review is chiefly to be attributed. Jeffrey 
 was the son of a depute-clerk of the Court of Session, and re- 
 ceived his early education at the High School of Edinburgh. 
 He was then sent to the University of Glasgow, where he at- 
 tended various classes with some distinction. In 1 791 he went 
 to Queen's College, Oxford, but his stay there only lasted nine 
 months. He never entered at all into the spirit of Eng- 
 lish university life ; the studies pursued were uncongenial to 
 him ; he was full of home-sickness ; and altogether the period 
 of his residence at Oxford seems to have been about the 
 most miserable of his very happy and bustling life. One 
 thing he did acquire at Oxford — an affected, mincing, Anglo- 
 Scotch accent, which never left him. It is said that when 
 Judge Braxfield (the subject of many amusing anecdotes) heard 
 him speak after his Oxford sojourn, he exclaimed, "The 
 laddie has clean tint (lost) his Scotch and found nae English." 
 His mode of speaking, combined with his airy levity, proved 
 at first a considerable obstacle to Jeffrey's progress at the 
 Scotch bar, to which he was called in 1794, but success in 
 his profession soon followed his irresistible energy and viva- 
 city, and he came to have a large practice. From his youth 
 Jeffrey trained himself for his literary career by constantly 
 writing essays, poems, &c, on all sorts of subjects — admirable 
 preparation for his future work in the Edinburgh Review, of his 
 
 fiection with which he gives the following account in the 
 preface to his " Collected Contributions : " — " I wrote the first 
 article in the first number of the Review in October t8oa, and 
 sent my last contribution to it in October [840. It is a 
 period to have persevered in well or in ill doing; but I was 
 by no means equally alert in the service during all the inti r- 
 mediate time. I was sole editor from 1803 till Lite in 18 
 and during that period was no doubt a and 1 
 
 tributor. In that last year, howe> r, 1 received the great 
 
 d by my brethren ol the bar to tin- office 
 
 ol l 1 ' in of the Faculty oi Advocates, when it immediately 
 
 v
 
 346 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 occurred to me that it was not quite fitting that the official head 
 of a great law corporation should continue to be the conductor 
 of what might be fairly enough represented as in many respects 
 a party journal, and I consequently withdrew at once and 
 altogether from the management, which has ever since been 
 in such hands as can have left those who take an interest in 
 its success no cause to regret my retirement. But I should 
 not have acted up to the spirit of this resignation, nor felt that 
 I had redeemed the pledge of neutrality I meant to give by it, 
 if I had not at the same time ceased to contribute to, or to 
 concern myself in any way with the conduct or future fortunes 
 of the Review. I wrote nothing for it, accordingly, for a con- 
 siderable time subsequent to 1829, and during the fourteen 
 years that have since elapsed have sent in all but four papers 
 to that work, none of them on political subjects. I ceased, 
 in reality, to be a contributor in 1829." Jeffrey's rise to the 
 highest honours of his profession was rapid. In 1829 he was 
 appointed, as mentioned above, Dean of the Faculty of Advo- 
 cates ; in 1 83 1 he received from the Whig Ministry the office 
 of Lord Advocate; and in 1834 he was made one of the 
 Judges of the Court of Session. His parliamentary career as 
 Lord Advocate scarcely corresponded to the high expecta- 
 tions of him that had been cherished ; but he is allowed on 
 all sides to have been an admirable Judge. 
 
 Few men who have taken such an active part in political 
 and literary controversies as Jeffrey did have less exposed 
 themselves to hatred or attack. His private character was in 
 all respects admirable. He was beloved by his relations and by 
 a very wide circle of friends — with reason, for no more gene- 
 rous and kind-hearted man ever lived. He was not one of 
 the numerous class of men who allow their goodness of heart 
 to evaporate in empty words, and who endeavour to succour 
 the distressed by a copious supply of that cheap commodity — 
 advice. When Moore was involved in pecuniary difficulties, 
 Jeffrey at once placed his purse at his disposal; when Haz- 
 litt, from his deathbed, wrote asking him for a loan of ^10, 
 Jeffrey at once sent him ^50 ; and all readers have of late been
 
 Jeffreys Characteristics. 347 
 
 made familiar with his unwearied kindness to Carlyle. Such 
 published instances, however, are only a small part of what 
 Jeffrey did in this way; all his kind acts were done by stealth, 
 and most of them therefore are unrecorded. Even Harriet 
 Martineau, who, in her splenetic " Autobiography," has rarely 
 a good word to say for any one, speaks in warm terms of 
 Jeffrey's boundless generosity. Acuteness, vivacity, and bril- 
 liance are his most prominent intellectual qualities. He had 
 little depth, and as a critic could never bring himself to do 
 justice to men of intellectual type opposed to his own. Few 
 better examples of "Philistine" criticism could be pointed out 
 than his review of Carlyle's translation of " Wilhelm Meister ;" 
 and his articles on Wordsworth's poetry prove conclusively 
 how narrow was his range and how imperfect was his discern- 
 ment. Within his own limited range, however, he was often 
 exceedingly acute and brilliant ; nothing could excel the skill 
 and severity with which he broke literary butterflies on the 
 wheel. Unfortunately for his fame, his most incisive satirical 
 articles are not reprinted in his " Collected Contributions ; " 
 hence only a very imperfect idea of his powers can be formed 
 by one who does not put himself to the trouble of looking up, 
 in the old volumes of the Edinburgh Review > his unreprinted 
 articles. Jeffrey's writings are now little read ; and had it not 
 been for his connection with the Review, his chance of obtain- 
 ing permanent record in literary histories would have been 
 small. Very likely it would have been otherwise had he ever 
 concentrated his talents and accomplishments on the com- 
 position of some independent work, instead of constantly 
 frittering them away in the composition of periodical arti' 
 the fame of whi< h is apt to be shortlived But his other occu- 
 pations prevented this; and perhaps, after all, hejud ri hlly 
 in employing his powers as he did. As an editor, J 
 : nified his office. He < mceived it to be an editor's duty 
 not only to select article ■ for publication, but to go over tin m 
 carefully, adding a little here little there a pro- 
 
 cess by no means agreeable to some contributors, and of 
 h Carlyle complained bitterly. Something may be
 
 3 |S Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 both for and against this practice. By adopting it a judicious 
 editor may no doubt greatly improve the articles offered to 
 him, pruning away their extravagances, and freeing them from 
 those little eccentricities of style and diction from which few 
 writers are exempt. It also tends to give the various articles 
 a certain unity of tone desirable in a periodical work conducted 
 on fixed principles. But there is always a danger of carrying 
 the practice too far, and infusing too much of the editor's 
 own personality into articles "touched up" by him. Charles 
 Dickens, who took even greater liberties than Jeffrey with the 
 contributions to his periodical, by additions and emendations, 
 often made them so " Dickensesque " as to impart to them a 
 disagreeable mannerism. 
 
 Scarcely less prominently connected than Jeffrey with the 
 origin and early career of the Edinburgh Review was the Rev. 
 Sydney Smith (i 771-1845), whose unique vein of wit and 
 almost unequalled power of sarcasm gave to his contributions 
 on temporary subjects an enduring literary value. The son 
 of a clever but odd English gentleman, he was educated 
 at Winchester, of which school he in due course rose to be 
 captain. Referring to this period of his life, he used to say, 
 '• I believe, whilst a boy at school, I made above ten thousand 
 Latin verses, and no man in his senses would dream in after- 
 life of ever making another. So much for life and time 
 wasted." From Winchester, Sydney went to Oxford, where, 
 at the close of his undergraduate career, he obtained a fellow- 
 ship worth about ^100 a year. From this period his father 
 left him to shift for himself, and, wanting the means necessary 
 to gratify his desire to study for the Bar, he was compelled to 
 enter the Church. After acting for three years as curate in 
 a small village in Salisbury Plain, the squire of the parish 
 engaged him as tutor to his eldest son. " It was arranged," 
 writes Sydney, " that I and his son should proceed to the 
 University of Weimar, in Saxony. We set out, but before 
 reaching our destination Germany was disturbed by war, and 
 in stress of politics we put into P2dinburgh, where I remained 
 for five years." He arrived at Edinburgh in 1797, and soon
 
 Sydney Smith. 349 
 
 ound many congenial friends among the numerous clever 
 young men then staying there. In 1804 we find him in 
 London, and during that and the two following years he lec- 
 tured on Moral Philosophy at the Royal Institution. His 
 lectures, which were attended by crowded and fashionable 
 audiences, were published after his death under the title of 
 " Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy." They make 
 no pretension to philosophic depth, but, like everything that 
 came from his pen, they are amusing and instructive. In 
 1806 he obtained, through the influence of the Whig Govern- 
 ment, a presentation to the small living of Foston-le-Clay, in 
 Yorkshire. In 1828 Lord Lyndhurst presented him with the 
 Canonry of Bristol Cathedral ; and it was through the influence 
 of the same nobleman, though differing from him in politics, 
 that he was enabled to exchange Foston-le-Clay for the living 
 of Combe Florey, near Taunton. His pen had been such 
 a powerful auxiliary in aiding the Whig party, that from them 
 he might reasonably have expected high ecclesiastical pro- 
 motion, but such never came. All they did for him was to 
 make him a prebend of St. Paul's in 183 1. This neglect of 
 his reasonable claims Sydney felt bitterly. It is not easy to 
 say exactly from what cause it arose. Perhaps it may have 
 been because some of his writings were considered to be incon- 
 sistent with clerical decorum, but there were probably other and 
 more cogent reasons. At any rate, his great Whig friends were 
 always full of specious promises of promotion to him, which 
 were either unable or unwilling to translate into acts. 
 Sydney Smith's contributions to the Edinburgh Review 
 ,11 with its first number, and were continued till 1828, 
 when, owing to his ecclesiastical promotion, he ceased to 
 write in it. They embrace a very wide range of topics — 
 Education, Methodism, Indian Missions, the Game Laws, the 
 is and Prison Discipline, Irish Grievances, 
 &C., &C., all handled with great acuteness and incisiven 
 an abundance of sparkling wit, and in general much good 
 feeling and sound sense. They contributed much — as well 
 they might— to the success of the Edinburgh^ though some
 
 350 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 people complained of their light style of treating grave 
 topics. Even Jeffrey, it would seem, sometimes joined in this 
 charge, which Smith successfully combated in an admirable 
 and spirited letter written in 1819. " You must consider," he 
 wrote to Jeffrey, " that Edinburgh is a very grave place, and 
 that you live with philosophers who are very intolerant of non- 
 sense. I write for the London, not for the Scotch market, and 
 perhaps more people read my nonsense than your sense. The 
 complaint was loud and universal against the extreme dulness 
 and lengthiness of the Edinburgh Review. Too much, I admit, 
 would not do of my style; but the proportion in which it exists 
 enlivens the Review, if you appeal to the whole public, and not 
 to the eight or ten grave Scotchmen with whom you live. I 
 am a very ignorant, frivolous, half-inch person ; but such as I 
 am, I am sure I have done your Review good, and contributed 
 to bring it into notice. Such as I am, I shall be, and cannot 
 promise to alter. Such is my opinion of the effect of my 
 articles. . . . Almost any of the sensible men who write for 
 the Review would have written a much wiser and more pro- 
 found article than I have done upon the game-laws. I am 
 quite certain that nobody would obtain more readers for his 
 essay upon such a subject ; and I am equally certain that the 
 principles are right, and that there is no lack of sense in it." 
 There was never a lack either of sense or wit in anything 
 he wrote. Ridicule was invariably employed in his writings 
 to aid the cause and opinions which he considered to be 
 true, .and just, and honourable. A hard hitter, with a 
 keen eye for the weak points in an opponent's armour, he 
 delighted in combat, not content with only acting on the 
 defensive, but sallying into the enemy's country and vigor- 
 ously attacking him. He would have made an admirable 
 writer of leading articles — his clearness, point, and vigorous 
 way of stating facts and arguments would have made his 
 services invaluable to newspaper editors. The only recent 
 writer we can think of whose political articles have something 
 of the flavour of Smith's, and, like them, bear reading after 
 the interest of the questions which caused them has passed
 
 Sydney Smith's Characteristics. 351 
 
 away, is Charles Lever, whose "O'Dowd Papers," different 
 though they are from Smith's articles in many ways, resemble 
 them in their emphatic, epigrammatic way of putting things, 
 and in their skill in hitting the right nail on the head. 
 Besides his Review articles, Sydney Smith wrote two volumes 
 of sermons, not of very great merit, and an admirable and 
 trenchant discussion of the Catholic Question, under the title 
 of " Letters on the Subject of the Catholics, by Peter Plymley " 
 (1808), in addition to a few smaller performances. Mr. Hay- 
 ward complains that Smith's humorous writings are often defi- 
 cient in ease, smoothness, grace, rhythm, and purity, because 
 he constantly aimed at effect by startling contrasts, by the 
 juxtaposition of incongruous images or epithets, or by the 
 use of odd-sounding words and strange compounds of Greek 
 and Latin derivation — speaking of a preacher as wiping his 
 face with his "cambric sudarium ;" of a schoolmaster as a 
 " mastigophorous superior ; " of a weak and foolish man as 
 "anserous and asinine," &c. There does not seem much 
 force in this criticism. Sydney Smith's mode of producing 
 humorous effects was always original, and always well adapted 
 to the subject in hand ; and if his writings were weeded of the 
 kind of expressions Mr. Hayward objects to, we should lose 
 some of their wittiest and most telling strokes. 
 
 Robust in constitution, constantly cheerful, and one of the 
 most entertaining talkers ever listened to, Sydney Smith was a 
 "diner-out of the first water," much sought after in London 
 society. Many of his good sayings have been preserved, 
 and amply prove (what the recorded sayings of many other 
 London wits certainly do not prove) that his great contemporary 
 e as wit and conversationist was amply deserved. Though 
 he gave free scope to his exuberant humour, and did not 
 scruple to ridicule the little eccentricities and angularities of 
 his friends, he had tin- gift, granted to but few, "I expressing 
 his wittici n ood-humouredly thai the subj< ct <>i them 
 
 laughed as heartily as any one There could be no better 
 
 testimony to the want of tin- venom m his jokes than Lord 
 Dudley's remark, that Sydney Smith had been laughing at
 
 35 2 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 him for many years, and yet had never said a word to hurt 
 him. In addition to his gifts as a talker and writer, Smith 
 possessed the higher qualities of courage, honesty, and inde- 
 pendence. A somewhat too great fondness for the good things 
 of this life, which he always candidly avowed ; an over-eager 
 love of London society and the things which it prizes, were 
 almost the only weaknesses which could be laid to his charge, 
 lie was better fitted for the Bar than the Church; and though 
 he performed his duties as clergyman conscientiously accord- 
 ing to his lights, his heart was never really in the work. 
 
 The establishment o( 13 lackzvood's Magazine in 1817 brought 
 into notice another group of writers not less distinguished 
 than the early contributors to the Edinburgh. Of this group 
 the most prominent members were Wilson and Lockhart, to 
 whose labours Blackwood owed as much of its early success 
 as the Edinburgh did to Jeffrey and Sydney Smith. John 
 Wilson (1785-1854) was born at Paisley, the son of a wealthy 
 manufacturer there. When twelve years of age he became a 
 student at Glasgow University, where he carried off the first 
 prize in the Logic class, besides distinguishing himself, as at 
 all subsequent periods of his life, by his personal prowess 
 and athletic feats. From Glasgow, in 1803, he proceeded to 
 ( Ixford, where he became a gentleman commoner of Mag- 
 dalen College. There he lived a very wild and energetic life, 
 which would probably have soon broken down any one of 
 inferior constitution. He managed to be at the same time 
 a hard student, a jolly companion who never flinched at his 
 cups, and a daring and indefatigable athlete. In 1807 he 
 quitted Oxford, having obtained his degree with singular dis- 
 tinction, and leaving behind him many anecdotes of his eccen- 
 tric life and his great physical and intellectual capacities. His 
 f ither's death had left him possessed of an ample fortune, and 
 soon after leaving the University he purchased the small estate 
 of Elleray, a charming property on the banks of Windermere. 
 Luring his residence there he married, and for some years 
 lived a life of unclouded prosperity, indulging in long solitary 
 rambles on the mountains, and keeping a fleet of boats on the
 
 John Wilson. 353 
 
 lake. In 181 2 he published his first poem, the "The Isle of 
 Palms," which met with praise fully commensurate to its merit, 
 though by no means answering to the author's sanguine expec- 
 tations. In 1S15 his affairs suffered a sudden and severe 
 reverse. The money bequeathed him by his father had been 
 allowed to remain in the hands of an uncle who carried on 
 the business, and his failure left Wilson almost penniless. 
 From indulging in all sorts of sports and amusements, and 
 from using his pen merely as an amusement when it suited 
 him, he was called upon to work hard for the support of 
 himself and his family. He accepted his altered conditions of 
 life cheerfully and bravely. The establishment at Elleray was 
 broken up, and he betook himself to Edinburgh, where in 
 due course he was called to the Bar. Literature, however, 
 and not law, was to be his profession, and he scarcely 
 attempted to secure a practice. In 18 16 he published his 
 second volume, " The City of the Plague," containing some 
 remarkably powerful descriptive passages. It was not, how- 
 ever, till the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine that he 
 found a fit field for the exercise of his erratic and impulsive 
 genius. To that periodical he was a constant contributor from 
 its commencement to within eight or ten months of his death. 
 So close, indeed, was his connection with it, that he was popu- 
 larly supposed to be its editor — a mistake, that office being 
 in the hands of its able and sagacious publisher. Put popular 
 opinion was not so very far wrong after all; for though not 
 actual editor, Wilson's advice regarding contributions was very 
 frequently asked, lie himself in a letter thus accurately states 
 the facts of the case : — " I H Blackwood I am not the editor, 
 although I believe I very generally get both the credit and dis- 
 
 itof being < Ihrii topher North. 1 am one of the chief writers, 
 perhaps the chief writer, but never received one shilling from 
 the proprietor' I for my own compositions. Being gene- 
 rally on the spot, I am always willii ive him my advice, 
 and to supply such articles as are most wanted, when I have 
 leisure." In [820 V after a hard c< was appointed 
 
 essor of Moral Phi . in Edinburgh University. The
 
 5 
 
 54 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 rival candidate was Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856), a man 
 of '_Tc.it erudition and profound philosophical genius, who was 
 afterwards appointed Professor of Logic in Edinburgh Univer- 
 sity, and attained by his writings a European reputation. In all 
 the qualifications for the chair Wilson was infinitely Hamilton's 
 inferior ; but Hamilton was a Whig, while Wilson was a Tory, 
 and as most of the Town Councillors, in whose hands the ap- 
 pointment lay, were Tories also, he was the fortunate candidate. 
 Few professors have entered on their duties more slenderly 
 equipped for their task, and fewer still have succeeded as Wilson 
 did in rapidly overcoming their defects. He never became a 
 great philosopher, but he managed to inspire his pupils with ad- 
 mirationfor his enthusiastic genius, and not many professors have 
 been so much respected and loved by their pupils as he was. 
 In 1S51 he retired from his chair upon a pension of ^300. 
 
 Wilson's magnificent physique ; the countless anecdotes told 
 of his wonderful feats of strength ; his great brilliance in conver- 
 sation ; the admiration felt by many for his intellectual powers ; 
 even his numerous extravagances of conduct, all of which were 
 set down to the eccentricity of genius, made him beyond all doubt 
 themost popular Scotsman of his time. By many he was regarded 
 as one of our very greatest writers. Even a critic usually so 
 cautious as De Quincey declared that from Wilson's contribu- 
 tions to Blackzvood, and more especially from his meditative 
 examinations of great poets ancient and modern, a florilegium 
 might be compiled of thoughts more profound and more 
 gorgeously illustrated than exist elsewhere in human com- 
 position. Yet the truth is that people are already begin- 
 ning to wonder on what rested Wilson's great fame as a man 
 of genius. As a poet he does not occupy very high rank. 
 No doubt beautiful passages may be pointed out in his verse, 
 but no one probably would maintain that it bids fair to have a 
 life. His tales, "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," 
 ' The Trials of Margaret Lindsay," &c., are faulty in construc- 
 tion, and are already almost forgotten. Of his criticisms, 
 many are excellent, but they are often extravagant both in 
 praise and blame. His impulsive temperament was constantly
 
 Wilson's " Noctcs Ambrosiance? 
 
 ODO 
 
 hurrying him into extremes ; he could commend and con- 
 demn with great dash and vigour, but he was constitutionally- 
 incapable of forming judicious and well-balanced estimates. 
 Of his most famous work, the " Noctes Ambrosiange," what 
 shall we say ? Here is the opinion of an admirer of Wilson, 
 Professor Ferrier, on the principal figure in the " Noctes," 
 " the Ettrick Shepherd : "— " The Ettrick Shepherd of the 
 ' Noctes Ambrosiange ' is one of the finest and most finished 
 creations which dramatic genius ever called into existence. 
 Out of very slender materials, an ideal infinitely greater, 
 more real, and more original than the prototype from 
 which it was drawn has been bodied forth. Bearing in 
 mind that these dialogues are conversations on men and 
 manners, life and literature, we may confidently affirm that 
 nowhere within the compass of that species of composition 
 is there to be found a character at all comparable to this one 
 in richness and readiness of resource. In wisdom the Shep- 
 herd equals the Socrates of Plato ; in humour he surpasses the 
 Falstaff of Shakespeare. Clear and prompt, he might have 
 stood up against Dr. Johnson in close and peremptory argu- 
 ment ; fertile and copious, he might have rivalled Burke in 
 amplitude of declamation ; while his opulent imagination and 
 powers of comical description invest all that he utters either 
 with a picturesque vividness or a graphic quaintness peculiarly 
 his own," &c, &c. The character of the Shepherd has cer- 
 tainly considerable merit, but to say that he surpasses Falstaff 
 in humour is as absurd as it would be to pronounce Wilson a 
 greater man than Shakespeare. The fact of the matter is, that 
 the '''Noctes" are now for the most part unreadable. They 
 breathe an atmosphere of whisky-toddy, of rough fun, and of 
 practical jokes, with which the society of to-day has no sym- 
 pathy. Who now cares a straw for the vast powers of eating 
 and drinking which the heroes possess? A few fine descrip- 
 tions of scenery, a few profound observations, a few just and 
 eloquent criticisms, are buried beneath mountains of rha] 
 dical magniloquence and of wit which has lost its savour. 
 Much the same remarks apply to Wilson's other writil
 
 356 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 resembling the "Noctcs," such as his "Recreations of Chris- 
 topher North," his " Dies Boreales," &c, &c. All his articles 
 aw re written currente calatno, dashed off at a white heat, without 
 much previous thought or preparation ; and they all bear traces 
 of their hasty composition. Some admirer of Wilson ought 
 to carry out De Quincey's notion and collect an anthology 
 from his various writings. A moderately-sized volume of 
 great interest and value might be thus compiled, and only in 
 some such condensation can Wilson's works hope to escape 
 the ravages of time. Wilson's influence upon the style of the 
 minor writers of his day was bad, inspiring them with a 
 passion for gorgeous colouring and picturesque epithets which 
 led to such strange excesses as we find in many of his 
 imitators. 
 
 John Gibson Lockhart, Wilson's friend and fellow-contributor 
 to Blackwood, while lacking Christopher North's luxuriance 
 and fertility of genius, had a much more clear-cut and well- 
 balanced mind. He was born in 1794, the son of a Lanark- 
 shire minister. Even while a mere child he showed the 
 qualities which distinguished him throughout life, reserved 
 manners, power of concentration, a keen sense of the ludicrous, 
 which found vent in the many admirable caricatures that fell 
 from his pen, and remarkable quickness of perception. " His 
 reading, like that of clever children in general, was, to be sure, 
 miscellaneous enough, for whatever came in his way he 
 devoured. But whatever he had once devoured he never 
 forgot. This was an advantage over other boys, which he 
 owed in part at least to nature. His memory was retentive in 
 the extreme, and continued so through life. Like Lord Mac- 
 aulay and Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Lockhart, in the 
 maturity of his days, seldom thought it necessary to verify a 
 quotation of which he desired to make use." 1 After leaving 
 the Glasgow High School, where he always managed to keep 
 his place as dux, Lockhart entered the University of Glasgow, 
 
 1 From an article in the Quarterly Review for October 1864, containing 
 the fullest account of Lockhart which, so far as we know, has ever been 
 published.
 
 John Gibson Lock hart. 357 
 
 where, although apparently very idle and employing himself in 
 drawing caricatures of the professors instead of attending to 
 their lectures, he contrived to acquit himself with distinction. 
 At the close of his Glasgow curriculum he was presented to 
 one of the Snell Exhibitions to Oxford, and became a commoner 
 of Balliol College ere he had completed his fifteenth year. He 
 left Oxford in 18 13, having obtained a first-class in classics, 
 " notwithstanding that he, with unparalleled audacity, devoted 
 part of his time to caricaturing the examining masters." After 
 a visit to Germany, where he saw Goethe, whom through life 
 he regarded with a reverence second only to Carlyle's, he exe- 
 cuted his first avowed piece of literary work, a translation of 
 SchlegePs " Lectures on the History of Literature." In 1816 he 
 was called to the Scottish bar, but he never attained, nor indeed 
 attempted to attain, any success in his profession. In 1S17 he 
 began to contribute to Blackwood, to which his pungent and 
 graphic pen lent powerful aid, writing articles on all sorts of 
 subjects, besides many excellent rollicking ballads, conceived 
 in a style of which he alone possessed the secret. In iSio he 
 published " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," clever and witty 
 sketches of the more prominent Edinburgh celebrities of the 
 day, which created no small stir, and were bitterly reviled by 
 many on account of their personalities. In 1S20 he married 
 the eldest daughter of Sir Walter Scott, who fitted up for the 
 young couple the cottage of Chiefswood on his own estate. 
 During the following five or six years Lockhart produced his 
 " Metrical Translations of Spanish Ballads," which Macaulay 
 thought decidedly superior to the originals; "Valerius, a 
 Roman Story," the first of those novels which endeavour to 
 portray ancient life; and three other fictions, "Adam Blair," 
 "Re inald Dalton," and "Matthew Wald." in 1826 he re- 
 moved to London, having been appointed editor of the 
 Quarterly Review^ at a salary of /,'i:oo a year, and, if he 
 wrote a certain nu ol articles, J^^^oo} While contribut- 
 
 largcly to the Quarterly — he wrote altogetl r a hun- 
 
 1 So stated in Mod ■ • irol. iv.
 
 358 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 1 articles for it — Lockhart found time to write besides a 
 " Life of Burns" for "Constable's Miscellany," and a "Life of 
 Napoleon" (mainly an abridgment of Scott) for "Murray's 
 Family Library." In 1838 he published the last volume of his 
 greatest and most enduring work, the " Life of Scott," the 
 profits of which he generously handed over to Scott's creditors. 
 He died in 1854, worn out, like Wilson, in body and in mind. 
 Lockhart's cold, sarcastic manners to people in general, and 
 his power of trenchant ridicule, which he never hesitated to 
 exercise, brought him more ill-will than falls to the lot of men in 
 general. "Some," it is said in the article above referred to, "even 
 felt themselves repelled from him altogether by terror of a sar- 
 casm, for tokens of which they were constantly on the look-out ; 
 and as his manly figure was eminently stiff, those who were afraid 
 of him saw little more than an unbending back. But this was 
 a great mistake. In mixed companies, especially if composed 
 of persons for whom he had little regard, Lockhart was apt 
 enough to maintain a somewhat stately reserve. Whenever he 
 felt that he was among men and women between whom and 
 himself no such barrier was interposed, he became the most 
 agreeable of companions." Certainly, however, though Lock- 
 hart may have made himself very pleasant in the society of 
 a few eminent men, he was far from amiable, and to his un- 
 fortunate propensity to snub and quiz people he disliked must 
 be attributed many of the disparaging stories relative to his 
 private life which have been freely circulated, but which 
 probably had little or no foundation in fact. In the famous 
 " Chaldee Manuscript," the appearance of which in the first 
 number of Blackwood caused such a sensation, and in the 
 authorship of which Lockhart himself had a considerable 
 share, he is described as " the scorpion which delighteth to 
 sting the faces of men;" and Wilson's daughter, in her Life of 
 her father, says of him, " Cold, haughty, supercilious in manner, 
 he seldom won love, and not unfrequently caused his friends 
 to distrust it in him, for they sometimes found the warmth of 
 their own feelings thrown back upon them in presence of this 
 cold indifference."
 
 Lock hart \ Writings. 359 
 
 Lockhart is one of the select class of writers, the perusal of 
 whose works impresses one with the idea that they might have 
 done greater things than they actually accomplished. He 
 possessed an intellect of great acuteness and refinement ; his 
 style is polished, terse, and vigorous ; and his learning and ac- 
 complishments were far beyond the common. His novels are 
 not of much value except for the singular elegance of their 
 style : his most ambitious attempt in this direction, the clas- 
 sical tale "Valerius," must be pronounced tedious, as, indeed, 
 novels written on the same plan generally are. He was not 
 well qualified to be a novelist ; he lacked the breadth and 
 generosity of nature, the sympathy with different types of 
 humanity, without which it is impossible to write a really good 
 work of fiction. Biography was the province in which his best 
 work was done. His " Life of Burns " is a really admirable 
 sketch, by far the most charmingly written of all the many 
 biographies of the great Scottish peasant. In his most am- 
 bitious performance, the " Life of Scott," faults may no doubt 
 be pointed out. It is too long ; the extracts from Scott's cor- 
 respondence might have been pruned down with great advan- 
 tage ; he might have indulged less copiously in quoting remini- 
 scences of Scott by other writers; and he is unjust to Con- 
 stable and the Ballantynes. Yet it is an excellent biography, 
 inferior only to BoswelPs " Johnson." Lockhart faithfully car- 
 ried out the biographer's first duty, to extenuate nothing and 
 to set down naught in malice. We have in it a genuine picture 
 of Scott as he really was, in his greatness and his littleness, his 
 weakness and his strength. The portions of the work which 
 come from Lockhart himself are written with such force and 
 incisiveness as to make us wish that he had less frequently 
 resorted to paste-and-scissors work. It is greatly to 1 I ted 
 
 that a sele< tion from his contributions to the Quarterly Review 
 has not been pu 1. It won! i better idea than any- 
 
 thing else of the CO] - md energy of his style, ol his I 
 
 discernment of chai I of his rare tal biography. 
 
 was an excellent editor, accurate and punctual in money 
 matters, and exercising wisely and well his editorial privile
 
 J 
 
 60 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 over the articles submitted to him. " Every one," we are told, 
 "who had an opportunity of knowing how Lockhart treated 
 the essays which it was his function to introduce to the public, 
 will remember the exquisite skill with which he could, by a 
 few touches, add grace and point to the best-written paper — 
 how he could throw off superfluous matter, develop a half- 
 expressed thought, disentangle a complicated sentence, and 
 give life and spirit to the solid sense of a heavy article, as the 
 sculptor animates a shapeless stone." 
 
 Among the early contributors to Blackwood was a friend of 
 Wilson, Thomas De Quincey, the greatest prose writer of 
 his time, and one of the greatest writers of English prose of 
 all times. De Quincey, who came of an ancient Norwegian 
 family which came over with the Conqueror, was born in Man- 
 chester in 1785. His father was a wealthy merchant, who 
 died when his son was in his seventh year, leaving his widow 
 a fortune of ;£ 1.600 a year. About 1791 the family removed 
 to a country-house, Greenhay, about a mile from Manchester, 
 and there they remained till 1796, when they removed to Bath. 
 At the grammar school of that town De Quincey distinguished 
 himself by remarkable precocity, earning fame, in particular, by 
 the excellence of his Latin verses. He was always a thought- 
 ful, observant child ; much more introspective than children 
 generally are, and fond of reading and solitary meditation. After 
 having been for about two years at the Bath Grammar School, 
 he was sent to a private school in Wiltshire, " of which the 
 chief recommendation lay in the religious character of the 
 master." He remained there but a year, after which he was 
 indulged in the pleasure of a tour through Ireland, along with 
 a young friend, Lord Westport. On his return he spent three 
 months at Laxton, the seat of Lord Carbery, where he talked 
 about theology to Lady Carbery, a friend of his mother's, and 
 taught her Greek. He was then, in 1800, sent, much against 
 his will, to Manchester Grammar School, where his guardians 
 had decided that he should remain for three years. Though 
 young in years he was old in mind ; he felt something of 
 degradation in the ilea of associating with schoolboys ; and
 
 Thomas de Quincey. 361 
 
 after a year and a half's experience of the school, he found his 
 condition so intolerable that he resolved to run away. This 
 he accordingly did, walking all the way to Chester, where his 
 mother was then residing. He was not sent back to school; 
 on the contrary, at the suggestion of a kindly relative, it was 
 arranged that he should have a guinea a week allowed him for 
 a while, and have liberty to make a short excursion. Then 
 ensued the most romantic episode of his erratic life. He set 
 out for Wales, and, after wandering for some time among the 
 mountains, it struck him that he would break off all connection 
 with his relatives, set out for London, and borrow ^200 on 
 the strength of his expectations. Having borrowed ^12 from 
 two friends in Oswestry, he arrived in London in November 
 1802. Of his strange experience there, of his negotiations 
 with the money-lenders, of how he was often on the brink of 
 starvation, of how he was succoured by the poor outcast Anne, 
 he has given a full and touching account in his "Confessions 
 of an Opium-Eater." At length he was discovered and taken 
 home, after going through experiences unique in their character, 
 and leaving an indelible impress on the rest of his life. He 
 remained with his mother for some time, after which, in 1S03, 
 he entered Worcester College, Oxford. His guardian could be 
 prevailed upon to grant him only the shabby annual allowance 
 of ;£ioo ; but as he had recourse to his old friends the money- 
 lenders, he was able to make himself tolerably comfortable. 
 His University career was spent in as eccentric a maimer as 
 the rest of his life. Though he was an excellent classical 
 scholar, he never attempted to make any figure in the studies 
 of the place ; following the bent of his own mind, he read what 
 pleased him, and put academical routine at defiance. "Ox- 
 ford, ancient mother I" he exclaimed, "heavy with ance 
 honours, time-honoured, and, haply it may be, time-shattered 
 power, I owe thee nothing ! Of thy vast riches I took not a 
 shilling, though living among multitudes who owed to thee 
 their daily bread." lie speaks of the "tremendous hold taken 
 at this time of his entire sensibilities by our own literature;" 
 and he appears also to have bestowed attention on the study 
 
 /
 
 362 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 of German literature and philosophy. He continued in nomi- 
 nal residence at the university till 1S08, but never made any 
 attempt to obtain a degree. 
 
 While at Oxford, De Quincey made frequent visits to Lon- 
 don, and became acquainted with some literary celebrities. 
 In 1S09 he took up his residence in the Lake district, 
 occupying the cottage at Grasmere which had been quitted 
 by Wordsworth, with whom and Coleridge he had previously 
 become acquainted. This cottage remained in his tenancy for 
 twenty-seven years, and during twenty of these it was his princi- 
 pal place of abode. "From this era," he writes, "during a period 
 of about twenty years in succession, I may describe my domicile 
 as being amongst the Lakes and mountains of Westmoreland. 
 It is true, I have often made excursions to London, Bath, and 
 its neighbourhood, or northwards to Edinburgh ; and perhaps, 
 on an average, passed one-fourth part of each year at a distance 
 from this district ; but here only it was that henceforwards I had 
 a house and small establishment." At Grasmere, De Quincey 
 first became a confirmed opium-eater. He began to use the 
 pernicious drug in 1804, but till 18 12 he only took it occa- 
 sionally, " fixing beforehand how often in a given time, and 
 when, I would commit a debauch of opium." In 1S13 "I 
 was attacked," he says, " by a most appalling irritation of the 
 stomach, in all respects the same as that which had caused 
 me so much suffering in youth, and accompanied by a revival 
 of the old dreams. Now then it was, viz., in the year 18 13, 
 that I became a regular and confirmed (no longer an intermit- 
 ting) opium-eater." His appetite for the fatal narcotic grew by 
 what it fed on, till in 1816 he was taking the enormous quantity 
 of 8000 drops of laudanum per day. About the end of that 
 year he married, and by vigorous efforts succeeded in reducing 
 his daily allowance to 1000 drops. About a year after, how- 
 ever, he again succumbed to the tempter, and for three or 
 four years took sometimes even so much as 12,000 drops per 
 day. His affairs having become embarrassed, he made a 
 second attempt to free himself; and so far succeeded, that, 
 though he remained an opium-eater till the end of his life, he
 
 De Quincey's Characteristics. 363 
 
 did not again carry the practice to such an extent as to inca- 
 pacitate him for literary exertion. 
 
 De Quincey's first published literary efforts appeared in the 
 Westmoreland Gazette, which he edited for about a year, be- 
 tween 1819-20, for the slender remuneration of a guinea a week. 
 In the Londo?i Magazine for 1821 appeared his most popular 
 work, the " Confessions of an English Opium-Eater." They 
 created, naturally enough, a great sensation, and at once 
 gave the author widespread celebrity. In the following year 
 they were reprinted in a separate volume. To the London 
 Magazine De Quincey continued a frequent contributor to 
 1824. His other principal literary engagements may be briefly 
 summed up. In 1826 began his contributions to Blackwood's 
 Magazine, for which he wrote about fifty papers. In 1834 
 he became a writer in Taifs Magazine, to which he contributed 
 many of his most characteristic autobiographical papers, some 
 of which have never been reprinted, although they are well 
 worth reprinting. In 1849 he began his connection with 
 Hogg's Instructor, to the publisher of which, Mr. James Hogg, 
 we are indebted for the English edition of his collected works. 
 He also wrote certain articles in the North British Review 
 and in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and published in 1844 
 a volume on the " Logic of Political Economy." From 1843 ne 
 lived at Lasswade, a small village near Edinburgh, in which 
 city he died in 1859. 
 
 De Quincey's eccentric appearance and habits have made him 
 the theme of many anecdotes and reminiscences. He was a 
 very little, slender figure, not more than five feet high, with a 
 finely intellectual head, and square, lofty brow. He took pleasure 
 in alluding to his feeble constitution and slender frame. "A 
 more worthless body than his own, the author is free to confess, 
 cannot be. It is Ids pride to believe that it is the very ideal 
 of a base, crazy, despicable, human system, that hardly ever 
 could have been meant to be seaworthy fur two days under the 
 ordinary storms and wear and tear of life ; and, indeed, if that 
 were the creditable way of disposing of human bodies, he must 
 own he should almost be ashamed to bequeath his wretched
 
 364 Early Part of I he Nineteenth Century. 
 
 structure to any respectable dog." Nevertheless his frame must 
 have possessed considerable powers of endurance, for he 
 often accompanied Wilson in his walks about the Lake district ; 
 and the man who was capable of doing that must have been 
 no contemptible pedestrian. As a conversationist his talents 
 were great ; he would go on for hours talking in the most 
 fascinating manner in silvery, gentle accents. His manners 
 were extremely graceful and polished ; but to many of the 
 ordinary rules of society he paid no heed, being in these matters 
 a law unto himself. Calling at Wilson's house in Edinburgh 
 on one occasion to avoid a shower, he remained there for the 
 greater part of a year, spending the earlier part of the day 
 prostrated under the influence of opium, but recovering to- 
 wards night, and delighting all by his brilliant conversation. 
 " The time," writes Mrs. Gordon, Wilson's daughter, "when 
 he was most brilliant was generally towards the early morning 
 hours ; and then, more than once, my father arranged his 
 supper parties so that, sitting till three or four in the morning, 
 he Drought Mr. De Quincey to that point at which in charm 
 and power of conversation he was so truly wonderful." About 
 money matters he was exceedingly negligent ; those who knew 
 him closely, it is said, laughed at the idea of coupling any 
 notion of pecuniary or other like responsibility with his nature. 
 Perhaps the tendency among those who have written on De 
 Quincey has been to underrate his worldly wisdom and " know- 
 ingness." At any rate, while reading certain reminiscences 
 of him, one cannot help thinking that the Opium-eater some- 
 times laughed in his sleeve at those who were admiring his 
 simple-mindedness. 
 
 The Opium-eater was a man of genius, if ever there was one. 
 Most of his faults, even his wire-drawing, his over-elaboration, 
 his occasionally too profuse display of his knowledge, could 
 scarcely have been committed by one less richly endowed. 
 The crowning glory of his writings is their style, so full of 
 involved melody, so exact and careful, so rich in magnificent 
 apostrophes, so markedly original, so polished and elaborate. 
 He never forgot that the prose writer, if he wishes to attain
 
 Charles Lamb. 365 
 
 excellence, must be as much of an artist as the poet, and 
 fashion his periods and paragraphs with as much care as the 
 poet elaborates his rhymes and cadences. Many passages 
 might be quoted from De Quincey of which the melody is 
 so striking as to irresistibly attract attention, and make us 
 linger lovingly over them apart altogether from the matter 
 they contain. He cannot be altogether acquitted from the 
 charge of egotism and pedantic quibbling ; and it must be 
 admitted that his humour is sometimes ponderous and far 
 fetched. As a critic, he is in general remarkable for the 
 breadth and fulness of his judgments ; his mind had ranged 
 over the whole world of literature, and he was singularly free 
 from those limitations of taste which mar the work of many 
 critics. He could read with equal pleasure Pope and Words- 
 worth, Coleridge and Goldsmith, Shakespeare and Milton. 
 To say that he sometimes blundered as a critic is only to say 
 that he was mortal — he never fully realised Goethe's genius, 
 and he was unjust to Keats and Shelley. Some of the papers 
 where he airs his scholarship most profusely are built up of 
 materials obtained at second-hand, but his classical erudition 
 was certainly extraordinary for one not a scholar by profession. 
 Altogether, this century has produced no more remarkable 
 literary phenomenon, certainly none who has more fully de- 
 veloped the resources of the English language as the vehicle 
 
 of harmonious prose. 
 
 The mantle of Addison and Steele fell upon three essayists 
 who adorned the beginning of the present century, Lamb, 
 Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt, men of very different talents and 
 idiosyncrasies, but alike in having a genius for that most 
 difficult species of composition, essay-writing. Of these, the 
 greatest was Charles Lamb (1 775-1834), one of the most cap- 
 tivating and graceful writers of the century. His work is small 
 in quantity, but how rare and delicate is it in quality ! The 
 son of a London lawyer's clerk, he was educated at Christ's 
 Hospital, where he became acquainted with Coleridge, and, 
 had not unkindly fate prevented, would have pursued his 
 studies at Oxford or Cambridge. To one of his simple,
 
 
 
 66 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 studious tastes, a college life would have been excellently 
 suited; no man would have more cheerfully and gracefully 
 accepted the position of a Fellow of a college, with no parti- 
 cular duties to attend to beyond the daily routine of ordinary 
 tasks. But he never had the chance of obtaining a fellowship, 
 becoming, when he left Christ's Hospital, a clerk in the Old 
 South Sea House, which he has so inimitably described in one 
 of his essays. From it, at the age of seventeen, he was trans- 
 ferred to the service of the East India Company, in whose 
 employ he remained till 1825, when he retired on a handsome 
 pension. Lamb's life was uneventful, except for one great 
 tragedy. There was a taint of insanity in his family ; and one 
 day in 1796, his sister Mary, in a paroxysm of madness, 
 stabbed her mother to the heart. From this time Charles 
 became the guardian of his sister, unselfishly sacrificing for her 
 sake a passion he had conceived for a young lady mentioned 
 in the Essays as " Alice W.," and devoting himself to her care 
 with that noble love which refuses to regard its efforts as any- 
 thing praiseworthy or out of the way. It has been well remarked 
 that the history of the long association between brother and 
 sister, broken from time to time by a fresh accession of the fatal 
 malady, is one of the most touching things in fact or fiction. 
 Carlyle, whose remarks on Lamb in his "Reminiscences" 
 are positively cruel, would have done well to ask himself be- 
 fore penning them whether he, superior to the gentle Elia as he 
 thought himself, would have been capable of such continuous 
 self-devotion. Lamb's first publications were some verses con- 
 tributed to a volume of poems by Coleridge and Lloyd, pub- 
 lished in 1797. His prose tale " Rosamond Gray " followed in 
 1798, and in 1801 his drama, " John Woodvil," based on Eliza- 
 bethan models, which was unmercifully criticised in the Edin- 
 burgh Review — not altogether undeservedly, though it contains 
 some fine passages. In 1807 he published his "Tales from 
 Shakespeare," written in conjunction with his sister. They 
 form one of the best books for intelligent youthful readers 
 with which we are acquainted. The " Essays of Elia," those 
 charming papers which will keep his memory alive for many
 
 Lamb's Characteristics. 367 
 
 generations, appeared from time to time in the London Magazine, 
 from which they were reprinted in a collected form in 1823. 
 
 Lamb was a slight, nervous, excitable man, full of odd whims 
 and fancies, and greatly given to the utterance of paradoxical 
 remarks, male all the more strange by his stammering mode of 
 speaking. Two or three glasses of wine were sufficient to in- 
 toxicate, or at least to elevate him ; and hence those convivial 
 excesses, in which there is reason to fear that he indulged too 
 freely during the latter years of his life, were apt to be exagger- 
 ated. Before condemning him too severely for his habits of 
 intoxication, we ought to consider how heavy and trying was 
 the burden which he had to bear. Lamb's style, quaint, full 
 of ingenious turns, having little affinity with that of any writer 
 of his day, but full of resemblances to his favourite authors of 
 bygone eras, was a reflex of himself. He disliked new books, 
 new friends, and new fashions. For the literature of his own 
 time, with the exception of the limited portion of it written by 
 his own friends, he cared little ; but with what delight did he 
 hang " for the thousandth time over some passage in old 
 L'urton or one of his strange contemporaries;" and with what 
 enthusiasm would he point out the beauties in a play written 
 by some forgotten Elizabethan dramatist ; with what eager zest 
 would he peruse one of the comedies of intrigue of which Charles 
 II.'s time produced so many examples ! He was an admirable 
 critic of what really pleased him ; no one has handled some of 
 our older authors with finer discrimination. The brief notices 
 of the Elizabethan dramatists in his "Specimens" are perfect 
 masterpieces in their way, full of that swift insight, that delicate 
 appreciation of merit, which only lung and loving study ran 
 give. As a humorist, Lamb is quite sui generis; he resembled 
 no one, and has found no successful imitator. His humour 
 had a tine literary flavour ab tut it ; i who does not love 
 
 reading is ever likely to be a thon ing admirer of Lamb's. 
 
 It is also intensely personal ; Lamb's likes and dislikes, his 
 whims, 1 j, and fancies, I I 
 
 humorists I matic than Lamb ; wha' 
 
 the topic on which he was writing, lie could never get rid of
 
 .1 
 
 68 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 
 his own idiosyncrasy. In his various essays he has left a 
 faithful and true portrait of himself, with all his out-of-the-way 
 humour and opinions ; and irresistibly attractive the portrait 
 is. How delightful it is, after having experienced the glitter 
 and glare of much of our modern literature, to converse with 
 the tranquil and gentle Elia, with his calm retrospective glance, 
 and his love of communing with invisible things ! " He would," 
 said Leigh Hunt, " beard a superstition and shudder at the 
 odd phantasm while he did it. One would have imagined 
 him cracking a joke in the teeth of a ghost, and then melting 
 into thin air himself out of sympathy with the awful." Not 
 many authors are held in more kindly remembrance than 
 Lamb by those who have really learned to love his frolic and 
 gentle spirit. " Lamb's memory," said Southey — and hundreds 
 of readers will re-echo the words — " will retain its fragrance 
 as long as the best spice that ever was expended upon the 
 Pharaohs." 
 
 From the placid and sweet-tempered Elia we pass to the 
 vindictive and irascible William Hazlitt (17 78-1 830), a writer 
 of very remarkable but ill-regulated powers. The son of a 
 dissenting minister, he was educated with a view to adopting 
 his father's profession. When seventeen years of age, how- 
 ever, he determined to become a painter, and spent some 
 years in artistic labour, till he finally turned aside to literature. 
 His first publication was a tiny volume on the " Principles of 
 Human Action." This work, which found few to admire it 
 except its author, who regarded it with a parent's love, was 
 followed by many pieces of literary journey-work — abridg- 
 ments, translations, compilations, and the like. The first 
 performance of his which attracted attention was his lectures 
 at the Surrey Institution on the "English Poets" (1818), after 
 which came his lectures on " English Comic Writers," on the 
 " Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth," and on the 
 '• Characters of Shakespeare's Plays " — volumes containing 
 much sound and striking criticism, but often misleading as 
 containing judgments based on imperfect acquaintance with 
 the works of the writer criticised. Hazlitt, it must be owned,
 
 William Hazlitt. 369 
 
 was by no means sufficiently impressed with the truth of the 
 great fact that before writing about an author it is desirable 
 to read his works. For example, he did not begin to write his 
 lectures on the Elizabethan dramatists till within six weeks of 
 the time when they had to be delivered, and his judgments 
 on their qualities were based on his hasty study of their works 
 within that very limited period. His other chief works are 
 his "Table-Talk" (1821-22), a series of miscellaneous essays; 
 his " Spirit of the Age" (1825), containing criticisms on con- 
 temporary authors ; the " Plain Speaker " (1826), another col- 
 lection of miscellaneous essays, and his " Life of Napoleon " 
 (1828-30), which is his most ambitious performance. It is a 
 characteristic and not altogether useless production, in which 
 he takes the side of the Emperor as strongly as a French 
 writer could have done, and has nothing but contempt and 
 hatred for his opponents. It did not sell, and poor Hazlitt 
 died in poverty after a struggling, restless, unhappy life. Most 
 of his mischances were more or less due to himself; his dis- 
 position was such that it is impossible to imagine him happy 
 and contented, however prosperous had been his fortunes. 
 
 Hazlitt had a genuine gift for style ; he was no mere 
 mechanical stringer together of phrases. His chief character- 
 istics as a writer are well pointed out by Mr. Leslie Stephen. 
 '• Readers," he says, " who do not insist upon measuring all 
 prose by the same standard will probably agree that if Haz- 
 litt is not a great rhetorician, if he aims at no gorgeous effects 
 of complex harmony, he has yet an eloquence of his own. It 
 is indeed an eloquence which does not imply quick sympathy 
 with many modes of feeling, or an intellectual vision at once 
 penetrating and comprehensive. It is the eloquence charac- 
 ic of a proud and sensitive nature, which expresses a very 
 keen if narrow range of feeling, and implies a powerful grasp 
 of one, if only one side of the truth. Hazlitt harps a good 
 deal upon one string, but that string vibrates forcibly. His 
 best passages are generally an accumulation of short, pithy 
 sentences, shaped in strong feeling and coloured by pic- 
 turesque associations, but repeating rather than corroborating
 
 0/ 
 
 o Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 each other. Each blow goes home, but falls on the same 
 place. He varies the phrase more than the thought ; and 
 sometimes he becomes obscure, because he is so absorbed in 
 his own feelings that he forgets the very existence of strangers 
 who require explanation. Read through Hazlitt, and the 
 monotony becomes a little tiresome; but dip into them at 
 intervals, and you will often be astonished that so vigorous a 
 writer has not left some more enduring monument of his 
 remarkable powers." As a critic, Hazlitt's judgments, whether 
 on contemporary or on former writers, must be accepted with 
 reserve. He could always clothe his opinions in fitting words, 
 but he was not always equally careful to see that his estimates 
 were not marred by personal prejudice or by the desire of 
 saying a striking thing, whether applicable to the subject in 
 hand or not. His accounts of the eminent writers of his day, 
 much abused though they were at the time of their publica- 
 tion, are perhaps the most interesting and valuable portions of 
 his works. Often vindictive and splenetic, they are always 
 graphic and incisive, and rarely fail to call our attention to 
 traits in the character of those under notice which might 
 otherwise have escaped us. 
 
 The essays of Leigh Hunt cannot be pronounced equal in 
 value to those of Hazlitt and Lamb. But besides being an 
 essayist, he was a poet of powers considerably superior to 
 mediocrity. James Henry Leigh Hunt was born in 1784, 
 the son of a lawyer, and, like Lamb, was educated at Christ's 
 Hospital. His genius was precocious, and in 1802 his father 
 published a collection of his verses under the title of "Juve- 
 nilia." In 1808 he became connected with his brother in 
 conducting the Examiner, in which he resolved to speak out 
 his mind upon men and measures without fear and without 
 favour. This resolution he carried out so vigorously as to 
 expose himself to several prosecutions for libel ; for the 
 Government of that day looked with a jealous eye on the 
 press, and free discussion and ventilation of public grievances 
 were frowned on as much as possible. In 1813 for a certainly 
 rather trenchant but perfectly just comment on the Prince
 
 Leigh Hunt. 371 
 
 Regent in the Examiner, he was sentenced to imprisonment 
 for two years. Hunt's works were many and various. AYe 
 need only enumerate a few. A poem, the "Story of Ri- 
 mini," appeared in 1816; in 1819-21 he published the " In- 
 dicator," a series of essays on the plan of the Spectator, 
 followed by one or two similar periodicals ; in 1832, " Sir Ralph 
 Esher," a fictitious biography dealing with the times of Charles 
 II.; in 1S39 a poem of considerable merit, "Captain Sword 
 and Captain Pen ; " and in 1850 his most interesting work, his 
 "Autobiography." In 1S47 he received a pension of ^200 
 per annum from Government, which he lived to enjoy till 1859. 
 The works above mentioned are only a small portion of Hunt's 
 contributions to literature. He wrote lives of the chief Restora- 
 tion dramatists, two volumes, " Imagination and Fancy " and 
 " Wit and Humour," excellent companions for those beginning 
 the study of English literature, and many other works. In 
 1828 he published a book, "Recollections of Lord Byron and 
 his Contemporaries," which made a great noise at the time. 
 It was the record of a brief and disappointing companionship 
 with his Lordship in Italy, and was written in a strain far from 
 pleasing to his Lordship's friends, to whom it gave great offence. 
 There does not appear to have been anything in it but what 
 was strictly true, but as it was written when Hunt was smart- 
 ing under the feeling that he had been ill-used by the noble 
 bard, its tone and its revelations of Byron's character were 
 such that Hunt afterwards regretted its publication. 
 
 Hunt's personal appearance is graphically described in 
 Carlyle's "Reminiscences:" "Dark complexion (a trace of 
 the African, I believe), copious, clean, stroi ; ck hair, 
 l utifully-shaped head, fine b serious hazel 1. 
 
 seriousness and intellect the main ex m of the face 
 
 our surprise at fir '); . . . fine clean elastic fi 
 too he had, five feet ten or m- I lis manner was 
 
 ;':ularly winnil live; it is said that no 1 
 
 however strongly opposed to his :ld beci 
 
 P rsonally acquainted with him without liking him. Hi; 
 character was one very ill adapted to practical hard-working
 
 372 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 :■ 
 
 England. He was the child of sentiment, careless about 
 business matters to an extent that sorely tried the patience of 
 his best friends, and taking no more thought than lilies about 
 the pressing demands of active life. His careless and san- 
 guine temperament led him to have no proper self-respect 
 about pecuniary obligations ; though earning by literature 
 what ought to have decently supplied his wants, he was con- 
 stantly in debt, and relied to a considerable extent upon the 
 benefactions of the many friends whom his amiability of 
 character brought him. No one can have the notions about 
 money matters which Hunt had without incurring a good deal 
 of contempt — good-humoured contempt it may be, but never- 
 theless contempt of a kind which a high-spirited man would 
 rather die than expose himself to. The sneering way in 
 which Hunt was regarded by some of the friends who aided 
 him may be learnt from the remarks on him in Macaulay's 
 diary and letters, and from the use Dickens made of various 
 traits of his character in delineating Harold Skimpole in 
 " Bleak House." Hunt's essays and other writings are 
 pleasant and graceful. He had an unusually delicate and 
 catholic literary taste, and considerable powers of good- 
 humoured sarcasm occasionally reminding us of Addison. His 
 " Story of Rimini " has been called the finest narrative poem 
 since Dryden ; and though this is rather exaggerated praise, 
 Hunt's poems are of such merit which ought to have saved 
 them from the oblivion into which they have fallen of late 
 years. 
 
 In " Bleak House " another character besides Harold Skim- 
 pole is copied from an eminent literary celebrity. Walter 
 Savage Landor, whose works are regarded by a select public 
 with an admiration which they are never likely to obtain from 
 the world at large, sat for the portrait of Laurence Boythorn 
 in that novel. Landor was born in 1775, and was educated 
 at Rugby and Oxford. Very early he gave evidence of his 
 haughty, insubordinate spirit, and of his ungovernable temper 
 (" the worst," he himself very justly said, " that ever man was 
 cursed with"). lie was obliged to quit both Rugby and Ox-
 
 Walter Savage Land or. 2>73 
 
 ford in consequence of his defiance of the constituted autho- 
 rities. At the same time he did not neglect scholarship, 
 showing in his Rugby days, as afterwards, a wonderful taste 
 and power for making Latin verses, and imbuing himself deeply 
 in the spirit of the classical writers. After his rustication 
 from Oxford he was put upon a yearly allowance, with liberty 
 to travel where he pleased. His first important work was a 
 poem, "Gebir" (1797), much admired by Shelley (who, it is 
 related, " would read it aloud to others or to himself with a 
 tiresome pertinacity "), and by the author himself, but which, 
 like the rest of Landor's works, proved " caviare to the general.'' 
 Left wealthy by the death of his father in 1S05, Landor lived 
 a rather "fast" and very extravagant life at Bath and Clifton 
 for two or three years, after which in 1S0S he made a rash 
 but generous raid into Spain to assist in the war of liberation, 
 which deeply engaged his sympathies, he being then, as always, 
 a zealous republican. Having quarrelled with some of his 
 associates, he soon came home again, "heartily disgusted with 
 the whole affair, having wasted time and money to no good 
 whatsoever." In 1812 he published his tragedy of " Count 
 Julian," which was written at Llanthony, a small estate, his 
 purchase of which must be reckoned one of the most un- 
 fortunate events of his stormy career. Nothing prospered 
 with him there. He got into endless disputes with his tenan- 
 try and his neighbours, and in 1814 he came to the resolution 
 to quit it and England, never to return. Arriving in Italy, 
 he spent twenty years there, writing his "Imaginary Conver- 
 sations" (1824-29), and his " Pericles and Aspasia" (1S36), 
 and living more peacefully than at any other period of his 
 life. In 1835 he was driven from Italy by a furious quarrel 
 with his wife, and returning to England, a second time took up 
 his residence at Bath. In 1847 he published his " Hellenics," 
 and in 1853 "Last Fruit off an Old Tree," containing some 
 inary conversations and other miscellanies. The story 
 of his remaining years lias been thus tersely summed up : — 
 " He fell into bad hands, got mixed up in a d ful scan- 
 
 dal, published a libel for which he was cast in damages, ami,
 
 374 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 to avoid payment of the fine, left England for Florence in 1858, 
 where he died miserably, September 17, 1S64, cet. S9." 
 
 Landor was a man of fine physique and distinguished bear- 
 ing, with a wide and full but retreating forehead, massive head, 
 and large grey eyes — in every respect a very noticeable man. 
 His' vehement, reckless, passionate temper and his absence 
 of self-control and moderation embittered his life ; but he 
 had in many respects a noble and generous nature, and suc- 
 ceeded in endearing to himself not a few distinguished friends 
 who patiently put up with his many eccentricities and freaks 
 of temper. It may be doubted whether he ranks highest as 
 a poet or as a prose writer. Some of his poems are of such 
 classic finish and grace as to be perfect gems of song, unique 
 and unapproachable ; and De Quincey ranked his character 
 of Count Julian with the Satan of Milton and the Prometheus 
 of yEschylus. His " Imaginary Conversations " are full of 
 fine thoughts, expressed in a style so finished, so eloquent, so 
 clearly bearing the impress of genius and cultivated taste, so 
 felicitous in imagery and in diction, that one wonders why 
 they are in general so little read. The reason probably is that 
 their subjects have little interest to people in general, and that 
 their tone of sentiment does not for the most part appeal to the 
 ordinary sympathies and emotions of humanity. " No man," 
 says an admirer, with pardonable exaggeration, " since Shake- 
 speare's time, has written so much wisdom or so much beauty ; 
 in no other man's work is there such exquisite tenderness, 
 so much subtlety of thought, such wealth of imagery, yet all 
 chaste and nothing glaring, so much suggestiveness, yet such 
 ample fulness. Not a page but contains the most deathless 
 beauty." 
 
 By far the most eminent divine and preacher of the time 
 with which we are dealing was Dr. Thomas Chalmers (1780- 
 1S47), a name still never pronounced without reverence by 
 many in Scotland, on the ecclesiastical history of which 
 country he exercised great influence. Chalmers was born at 
 Anstruther in Fifeshire, educated at St. Andrews, and licensed 
 to preach in 1799- The more notable dates in his life are the
 
 Thomas Chalmers. 375 
 
 following: — From 1S02 to 1815 he was minister of Kilmany 
 
 in Fifeshire. In the latter year he was called to the Tron 
 Church in Glasgow, and from this period dates his great vogue 
 as a preacher. In 1823 he was appointed Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy in St. Andrews, and in 1828 Professor of Divinity 
 in Edinburgh. Always a prominent figure in church courts, 
 he was one of the prime movers in the conflict which termi- 
 nated in the disruption of the Scottish Church in 1843, and 
 from that time till his death was the presiding spirit of the 
 new Free Church, being appointed moderator of its first 
 Assembly, and principal of its college in Edinburgh. The 
 description of Chalmers in Carlyle's questionable "Remini- 
 scences 1 ' is a very admirable piece of character-painting : " He 
 was a man of much natural dignity, ingenuity, honesty, and 
 kind affection, as well as sound intellect and imagination. A 
 very eminent vivacity lay in him, which could rise to com- 
 plete impetuosity (growing conviction, passionate eloquence, 
 fiery play of heart and head), all in a kind of rustic type, one 
 might say, though wonderfully true and tender. He had a 
 burst of genuine fun too, I have heard, of the same honest, 
 but most plebeian, broadly natural character ; his laugh was a 
 hearty loud guffaw ; and his tones in preaching would rise to 
 the piercingly pathetic. No preacher ever went so into one's 
 heart. lie was a man essentially of little culture, of narrow 
 sphere all his life ; such an intellect professing to be edu- 
 cated and yet so ill-reaJ, so ignorant in all that lay beyond 
 the horizon in place or in time, I have almost nowhere met 
 with. A man capable of much soaking indolence, lazy brood- 
 and do-nothingism, as the first stage of his life well in- 
 dicated ; a man thought to be timid almost to the verge of 
 cow. yet capable of impetuous activity and blazing 
 
 audacity, as his latter years showed. I suppose there will 
 1 be such a preacher in any Christian church.'' 
 If Chalmers w con titutionally indolent, he certainly man- 
 
 his indolence to an unprecedented exl 
 for (c\v have | re active lives than he. A man of 
 
 much force of character, he was formed by Dature to tai.
 
 376 Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 leading part in all public movements in which he took an 
 interest. Few have excelled him in his genius for organisa- 
 tion, and his skill in the management of men. He was an 
 earnest social reformer, took a keen interest in political 
 economy and kindred subjects, and was indefatigable in 
 forming plans for the relief of the poor. A born orator, 
 wherever he preached he was attended by admiring crowds, 
 who hung eagerly upon every word that fell from his lips. In 
 spite of his constant exertions in other fields, he found time to 
 write a great deal, his works extending to over thirty volumes, 
 of which a considerable proportion consists of lectures," ser- 
 mons, &c. His literary aptitude was unquestionably great, 
 though he was not free from the common vice of preachers — 
 a tendency to diffuseness and repetition. He has few supe- 
 riors as a master of luminous exposition, and not unfrequcntly 
 we find in his writings bursts of splendid eloquence which 
 enable us to comprehend the wonderful influence which he 
 exerted over his hearers. His " Astronomical Discourses " 
 may be mentioned as a favourable specimen of his style. Al- 
 together he was the most notable Scotchman of his time 
 (Scott, who died before his fame was at its height, alone 
 excepted), a wonderful example of the union of literary 
 genius, oratorical powers, and practical ability.
 
 X. 
 
 OUR OWN TIMES. 
 
 Dickens, Thackeray, Lytton, Chariot le B route ; George Eliot, Lever, Charles 
 Kingsley, Lord Bcaconsjicld, Charles A'eade, Anthony Trolhpe, Black- 
 more, Hardy, Black ; Tennyson, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Rossetti, 
 Morris, Swinburne ; Macaulay, Carlyle, Grote, Fronde, Freeman, 
 Lecky j Buskin, Matthew Arnold, Sir Arthur L/clfs, John Morley, 
 W. II. Later ; Theology, Lhilosophy, Science. 
 
 ANY difficulties beset any one attempting to deal, 
 however briefly, with the literature of one's own 
 time. As distance is required to judge properly 
 of the comparative height of mountains, which, 
 when we are beside them, seem of about the same size, so 
 before an author can be justly estimated, sufficient time must 
 have elapsed to allow the din of contemporary applause or cen- 
 sure to subside, and to enable us to clear our eyes from the mists 
 of prejudice and personal predilection which always more or 
 less prevent us from forming perfectly impartial judgments on 
 the men of our own era. It requires no very extensive acquaint- 
 ance with literary history to know that many reputations which 
 once blazed high have in a few short years sunk into nothing 
 and been heard of no more ; that writers of the greatest popu- 
 larity with their own generation have been pronounced worth- 
 less and unreadable in the generations that came after. How, 
 then, we may ask ourselves, as we call to mind some great 
 literary celebrity of the present day, can we be sure that the 
 case will prove otherwise with him? have we any solid ground 
 for thinking thai I real as it now appears, is not 
 
 founded • ro< 1. of popular ( aprice or bad 
 
 taste which the remorseless tide of tune will wash away? 
 
 2 \
 
 3/3 Our Own Times. 
 
 Moreover, when one begins to reflect upon the literature of 
 one's own time, so many eminent names crowd in upon one's 
 recollection, that the task of selecting the greatest of them 
 appears full of almost insuperable difficulties. It is a case 
 of not being able to see the wood for trees ; we need, but 
 cannot find, some vantage-ground from which we may survey 
 the surrounding landscape. The limits of this book require 
 that only a few of many names deserving notice shall be 
 mentioned here ; but we shall endeavour to make the selection 
 as representative as possible. 
 
 As the drama was the favourite vehicle of Elizabethan 
 genius, so the novel has been the most richly cultivated field 
 of literature during the reign of Queen Victoria. More pens 
 have been employed in this department, and greater successes 
 have been gained, than in any other. We may therefore fitly 
 begin our survey with fiction, being farther induced to do so 
 by the consideration that by far the most popular author 
 of recent times was a novelist. It is scarcely necessary to say 
 that we refer to Charles Dickens, whose literary career began 
 earlier, continued longer, and was more brilliant than that of 
 any preceding English writer of fiction. He was born at Land- 
 port, Portsea, in 1S12. His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the 
 Navy Pay Office, was the good-hearted, shiftless, sanguine, 
 and unfortunate individual afterwards portrayed in immortal 
 colours as Mr. Micawber. In the silken sail of Dickens's 
 infancy the wind of a by no means particularly joyful dawn 
 blew free. His youth was a hard one, and the dark reflection 
 of what he then endured coloured more or less distinctly the 
 whole of his subsequent life. While he was yet little more 
 than an infant his father was brought up by his duties from 
 London to Portsmouth ; soon after he was placed upon duty 
 at Chatham Dockyard ; and at Chatham Charles lived from his 
 fourth or fifth year till he was nine. There he received the 
 elements of education, first from his mother, and afterwards 
 at two schools. He was a small sickly boy, unfitted to join 
 in the rough sports of his companions, and he read incessantly, 
 devouring with intense eagerness such glorious books as the
 
 Dickens's Early Years. 379 
 
 "Arabian Nights," the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Roderick 
 Random," "Robinson Crusoe," "Gil Bias," &c, &c. But 
 his love of reading was not the only token of his precocity. 
 He wrote a tragedy called " Misnar, the Sultan of India ; " 
 was an excellent storyteller; and sang comic songs so well 
 that admiring friends used to hoist him on a chair in order 
 that he might delight their guests with an exhibition of his 
 powers. When the boy was nine years old, his father was 
 removed from Chatham to Somerset House, and it was now 
 that Dickens began to have experience of those wretched 
 shifts and petty trials brought on by poverty, with which he 
 has filled many pages of his novels. His father fell into the 
 clutches of his creditors, and was lodged in the Marshalsea ; 
 and Dickens, never a particularly well-taken-care-of boy, was 
 now employed in such vile offices as running errands and 
 taking messages to the prisoner, and pledging one by one 
 nearly all the household goods at the pawnbroker's shop. 
 The worst, however, was yet to come. A relative, James 
 Lamert, who had started a blacking business, knowing the 
 depressed circumstances of the Dickens family, offered Charles 
 employment in his warehouse at a salary of six or seven 
 shillings a week. The offer was at once thankfully accepted. 
 In the description of the life which David Copperfield led at 
 Murdstone and Grimby's, Dickens has revealed to all the world 
 how infinitely bitter and agonising to him was the time he 
 passed at Lamert's blacking warehouse. A proud, sensitive 
 boy, he shrank both from entering into close companionship 
 with his rough fellow-drudges, and from taking any one into 
 his confidence and revealing the secret misery which was 
 gnawing at his heart. Unconsciously, all through the troubled 
 years of his boyhood, he was receiving a better training for his 
 future work in life than any school or University could have 
 given him. He en I his faculty of observation, which ap- 
 
 pears from his earliest years to have been almo I m< irbidly keen, 
 in noting in hi lible i haracters all the • enes, 
 
 and tilings, and persons that lie met with in his diversified 
 tencc. What is perhaps even more remarkable than the
 
 o 
 
 So Our Own Times. 
 
 extraordinary faculty of observation which he possessed while 
 yet a mere child, is the fact that, in spite of all his bitterness 
 of spirit at this time, he seems to have seen quite clearly the 
 humorous side of his father's misfortunes. At last a fortunate 
 mischance released him from the slavery of the blacking busi- 
 ness. His father and James Lamert quarrelled, and although 
 his mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, his father 
 decided that he should go back no more, but should be sent 
 to school. Fortunately for Dickens and for the world this 
 determination was acted on. " I do not write regretfully 
 or angrily," he wrote many years afterwards in words whose 
 apparent harshness it is impossible not to condone, " for I 
 know how all these things have worked together to make 
 me what I am ; but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall 
 forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my 
 being sent back" 
 
 Dickens was now sent to a school called " Wellington 
 House Academy," where he remained for nearly two years, 
 quitting it when a little over fourteen years of age. While 
 here he, according to his own account, " distinguished himself 
 like a brick ; " according to the more credible narratives of his 
 school companions, he was remarkable rather for his fondness 
 for fun and practical jokes than for learning. Nevertheless 
 he somehow managed to pick up a good deal of information, 
 including a smattering of Latin. Soon after he left school he 
 became a clerk in a lawyer's office, at the modest salary often 
 shillings and sixpence a week. Encouraged by the example 
 of his father, who had become a reporter for the Morning 
 Herald, Dickens determined to follow in his footsteps, and 
 set himself resolutely to the study of shorthand, in order that 
 he too might obtain employment in that fairly remunerated 
 and not unattractive profession, which has afforded a stepping- 
 stone to higher positions to so many young men of literary 
 capacity. After much arduous labour Dickens succeeded in 
 obtaining a mastery of the crooked cipher; and there being 
 at that time no opening in the Gallery, he became a reporter 
 for one of the offices in Doctor's Commons. The work there
 
 Dickens s First Writings. 381 
 
 was uninteresting and precarious, and he made an attempt 
 to escape from it by going upon the stage. Had this attempt 
 succeeded, there can be no doubt he would have distinguished 
 himself; and instead of a great comic author, we should have 
 had a great comic actor. Fortunately, however, it came to 
 nothing ; and, advancing in his career as reporter, he was 
 employed on various newspapers, including, last and most 
 important, the Morning Chronicle, one of the leading daily 
 journals of the time. He was an excellent reporter — not 
 particularly neat indeed, but almost unprecedentedly rapid 
 in his execution. 
 
 From reporting, the transition to original writing is not 
 difficult. One day in 1S34 Dickens dropped " Mrs. Joseph 
 Porter over the Way," the first of the afterwards well-known 
 " Sketches by Boz," into the letter-box of the Old Monthly 
 Magazine. It was, to the author's great pride and joy, 
 accepted, and was followed by eight more in the same perio- 
 dical, the remainder of the series appearing in the Evening 
 Chronicle, the afternoon edition of the newspaper with which 
 Dickens was connected. In 1836 the "Sketches by Boz" 
 were reprinted in book form. They were very successful 
 for a first publication ; and Messrs. Chapman & Hall were 
 induced by their originality, and the promise of future power 
 which they exhibited, to ask Dickens to write the text of 
 a humorous work to be illustrated by Seymour, and to be 
 published in monthly numbers. He consented, and the result 
 was the "Pickwick Papers." The original plan of the work 
 was considerably modified, owing to the suicide of Mr. Seymour 
 before the second number was completed. As number after 
 number appeared, its circulation grew greater and greater, until 
 by the time half of it had been issued Dickens had taken 
 the position, which he maintained till his death, of the mo t 
 popular novelist of the day. During the publication of " Pick- 
 wick," "Oliver Twist," another work of great power, of a 
 different kind, however, from " Pickwick," was appearing in 
 Bentley's 1/ t, a monthly periodical of which Did 
 
 had become editor. No better proof of the extraordinary
 
 ^S2 Our Own Times. 
 
 3 
 
 rapidity with which his fame had increased could be given 
 than the fact that when, after the publication of "Pickwick," 
 he tried to buy back the copyright of the " Sketches," which 
 he had sold for ^150, the publisher refused to sell it for less 
 than ^2000. After "Oliver Twist" came "Nicholas Nick- 
 leby," which was completed in October 1839. Then followed 
 the collection of stories published under the name of "Master 
 Humphrey's Clock:" "The Clock," "The Old Curiosity Shop" 
 (containing what is perhaps the finest specimen of Dickens's 
 pathos— the death of Little Nell), and " Barnaby Rudge." 
 A tour in America in 1842 led to the writing of "American 
 Notes for General Circulation," and " Martin Chuzzlewit " 
 (1844), the latter of which, in some portions of it, must stand 
 for his greatest success. In 1843, while "Chuzzlewit" was 
 appearing in monthly parts, he began that series of Christmas 
 books which charmed so many hearts, by writing the " Christ- 
 mas Carol." "Dombey and Son" came out in 1847-48; 
 "David Copperfield," a semi- autobiographical story, which 
 was the favourite child of the author, and of perhaps the 
 majority of his readers, in 1849-50; "Bleak House" (which 
 marks the beginning of the decadence of his genius), in 1853 ; 
 and thereafter "Hard Times," "Little Dorrit," "A Tale of 
 Two Cities," " Great Expectations," and " Our Mutual Friend." 
 In 1870 began the publication of "Edwin Drood," never, 
 alas ! completed, death staying the progress of his magic pen 
 on June 9, 1S70. The above is not by any means a full 
 list of his publications. He wrote besides " A Child's His- 
 tory of England," excellent in plan but not in execution, 
 which was published originally in Household Words, a weekly 
 periodical begun by him, and carried on till 1859, when, owing 
 to a quarrel with his publishers, it was incorporated with All 
 the Year Round, and went on with unflagging success until the 
 editor's death; "Pictures from Italy," &c, &c. Among his 
 more notable contributions to his magazine were the Christ- 
 mas numbers, which he wrote in whole or in part for some 
 years. He left behind him a fortune of ^95,000, amassed 
 partly by the success of his works, partly by the enormous
 
 Dickens s Characteristics. 383 
 
 sums he received for his public readings, begun in 1S5S in 
 this country and in America, to which he paid an extremely 
 lucrative and successful visit in 1867-68. 
 
 Dickens's character was not a very complex or puzzling one. 
 A man of great " push " and energy, casting aside any obstacle 
 which came across his path with a sort of fiery vehemence, 
 always sure of his ground, and equally sure that he was putting 
 his best foot foremost, he would have made his mark in any 
 calling. Much of his confidence in himself, his thorough con- 
 viction that he could fight through any struggle, must be 
 attributed to the extraordinary rapidity with which he attained 
 fame and fortune. His remarkable self-complacency, however 
 natural, was not a pleasing trait in his character ; his letters 
 frequently weary us by their persistent egotism ; their constant 
 ringing of the changes on the same theme, " the inimitable 
 Boz." It never seems to have occurred to him that anything 
 he did could be faulty ; everything that proceeded from his 
 pen was in his eyes perfect of its kind. A natural result of 
 his intense conviction of the greatness of his own genius was 
 that he sometimes thought that he had a right to be a law 
 unto himself, and to disregard those rules which are binding 
 on lesser men. His separation from his wife in 1858, brought 
 about, so far as appears, by no other cause than an alleged in- 
 compatibility of temper, and the circumstances attending that 
 unfortunate occurrence, were not at all to his credit. Yet he 
 was a man of very affectionate nature, singularly fond of his 
 children, and so charitable that he met many of the countless 
 applications to him for aid with a generosity that could hardly 
 be surpassed. His love of the poor was not of that specious 
 sort which evaporates in sentimental writing and gushing after- 
 dinner oratory. In contrast to many of his literary brethren, 
 Dickens, like Scott, was of remarkably methodical business 
 habits, always carrying out his favourite maxim that whatever 
 is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. Among his Other 
 characteristics, we should not omit to mention his remarkable 
 liking and talent for actii . which he displayed whenever a 
 good opportunity offered, 1 ourite character being Dobadil
 
 384 Our Own Times. 
 
 in Ben Jonson's " Every Man in his Humour." The enormous 
 success of his readings from his own works was partly owing 
 to his remarkable elocutionary powers, and to the same 
 cause was partly due his many triumphs as an after-dinner 
 speaker. 
 
 To the question, what is the quality in Dickens's writings 
 which stands out most prominent, and which will in all pro- 
 bability secure for them a permanent place in English literature ? 
 most readers will return the same answer. Undoubtedly it is 
 their humour. The man is not be envied who can read the 
 " Pickwick Papers " — which, despite its faulty construction, 
 will stand as long and as sure as anything that Dickens has 
 written — without frequent and hearty bursts of unrestrainable 
 laughter ; and in all his novels the humorous portions are as a 
 rule infinitely the most attractive. There are few cultured 
 readers of " Martin Chuzzlewit," for example, who, on a second 
 or third perusal, do not sagaciously skip the chapters devoted 
 to Tom Pinch and his sister, while lingering fondly over the 
 exquisite portions which deal with Mr. Pecksniff and with 
 Martin's adventures in America. All critics and the vast ma- 
 jority of readers are now agreed in regarding Dickens's pathos 
 as immeasurably inferior to his humour, looking upon the 
 former as coarse and unrefined, and ridiculously sentimental. 
 Yet at one time not only did thousands of ordinary readers 
 cry over his pages, but such men as Jeffrey and Macready 
 followed suit. It is difficult to account for this change of popu- 
 lar taste ; unless we admit it to be the case that the fashion 
 of pathos changes much more quickly than that of humour, 
 so that what was considered pathos in one generation is often 
 pronounced bathos by the succeeding one. In Dickens's latter 
 books, the humorous element grew more and more scanty and 
 thin. After " David Copperfield," he wrote no story contain- 
 ing in it a large portion of the fresh hearty laughter that we find 
 in every page of " Pickwick." Yet there was no falling off in 
 his popularity ; the public stood by him to the last. " Little 
 Dorrit," for example, which has always seemed to us to 
 resemble a story written by a man of genius in a nightmare,
 
 William Makepeace Thackeray. 385 
 
 sold as largely as any of its predecessors, in spite of the de- 
 nunciations of the critics. It is not at all unlikely that one of 
 Dickens's defects helped in securing his extraordinary popu- 
 larity, viz., his ignorance. Perhaps no modern author of equal 
 eminence ever cared so little for literature : indeed, there is 
 not much exaggeration in saying that his works might have 
 been written equally well though he had never read a book. 
 Thus he appealed to two publics, while other novelists of 
 wider culture have appealed to only one. His genius was 
 such that people of refinement could not but read him, even 
 though they found in him much that was repellent to them ; 
 while his ignorance prevented him from flying over the heads 
 of the multitude by learned allusions, and kept him close to 
 a style of narrative which, whatever may be its artistic faults, 
 is always such as to command popular sympathy. 
 
 While Dickens was at the height of his popularity, his great 
 rival, William Makepeace Thackeray, was slowly climbing up 
 the ladder of fame, attaining each additional step with difficulty. 
 Thackeray was born at Calcutta on July 18, 1S11, the son of 
 a gentleman employed in the East India Company's Service. 
 His father died while he was yet a child, and he was brought 
 to England and sent early to the Charterhouse, of which his 
 recollections were by no means pleasant. In 1829 he entered 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, where, however, his residence was 
 very short. There he gave the first indication of his literary 
 powers by taking part in editing a little paper called the Snob % 
 to which he contributed some burlesque verses in the peculiar 
 vein in which he afterwards distinguished himself. On leaving 
 Cambridge he went to Weimar, and for some years alternated 
 between it and Paris, studying drawing, as he at that time 
 intended to become an artist. Possessed of a very con- 
 siderable i Thackeray, with his quick sense 
 ol humour, his enjoymi nt of life, and his propensity to indol- 
 ence, which lie was at this time easily able to gratify, doubtle 3 
 led a very jovial existence. But in two or three years his 
 fortune had utterly disappeared. Part of it was lost at card- 
 playing, part by unlticky speculation, part by two disastrous
 
 3 86 Our Own Times. 
 
 newspaper enterprises in which he bad been induced to em- 
 bark. Then, finding that art was not likely to afford him 
 means of subsistence, he was induced to become a writer by 
 profession. Toilsome and trying was his upward path in that 
 most alluring yet often most deceptive profession. His first im- 
 portant engagement was on the staff of Fraser's Magazine. In 
 it he wrote among other things the " Yellowplush Correspon- 
 dence," of which the first instalment appeared in 1837 ; the 
 "History of Mr. Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Dia- 
 mond;" and " Barry Lyndon," a story of the "Jonathan Wild" 
 stamp, and, though unpleasant in subject, in some respects one 
 of the most powerful productions of his pen. About 1840 he 
 began his connection with Punch, to which some of his best 
 work, including the inimitable " Snob Papers," was contributed. 
 In 1S40 appeared his "Paris Sketch Book;" in 1843 his 
 "Irish Sketch Book," and in 1844 his "Journey from Corn- 
 hill to Grand Cairo," all appearing under the pseudonym of 
 Michael Angelo Titmarsh, though the dedication to the 
 " Irish Sketch Book " was signed with his own name. In 
 addition to the above, he performed a variety of other work 
 during his literary "journey-years," contributing to the Times, 
 the New Monthly Magazine, &c. 
 
 Up to 1846 Thackeray's name, though no doubt familiar 
 enough to literary people, was almost unknown to the world 
 at large. Some clear-sighted critics, such as John Sterling, had 
 indeed recognised the originality and genius of his work ; but he 
 had not yet made what is called a "hit," and had still to make his 
 voice heard above the hundreds of clever writers whose work 
 perishes with their lives. In the above-mentioned year, how- 
 ever, began the publication of "Vanity Pair," in the monthly 
 parts which Dickens had made popular. Its progress in 
 popular estimation was slow at first ; but gradually it began to 
 be talked about, and on its completion in 1848 it had raised 
 Thackeray to such a position that, in the opinion of all com- 
 petent to judge, he now divided with Dickens the throne of 
 the realm of fiction. Its success was aided by a friendly and 
 appreciative notice in the Edinburgh Review for January
 
 Thackeray and Dickens. 3SJ 
 
 184S, which introduced Thackeray to many to whom he had 
 scarcely been known previously. This notice was written by 
 a friend of his, Mr. Abraham Hayward, whose anecdotal and 
 entertaining pen is still busy, he having written an article in 
 nearly every number of the Quarterly Review for the last 
 twelve years. Following " Vanity Fair," appeared in 1S50 
 "Pendennis ;" in 1852, "Esmond," and in 1855, the "New- 
 comes." Meanwhile Thackeray had begun his very profitable 
 career as a lecturer. The course on the " English Humor- 
 ists of the Eighteenth Century " was first delivered in London 
 in 185 1, afterwards repeated in many provincial towns, and in 
 the winter of 1852-53 delivered with great success in America. 
 In 1 85 3 he prepared an equally successful and equally able 
 course on the "Four Georges." In 1857-59 appeared the 
 "Virginians," a sequel to "Esmond." In January i860 the 
 Corn/iiil Magazine was begun with Thackeray as editor. Issued 
 under the auspices of so great a name, its circulation was 
 extraordinary, the sale of its early numbers exceeding one 
 hundred thousand, and it proved a mine of wealth for both 
 editor and publishers. But Thackeray was ill-fitted to con- 
 duct a periodical ; his habits of procrastination, the difficulty 
 of selecting suitable contributions, and the vexation which 
 he felt in returning rejected ones, made the editorial chair 
 to him a bed of thorns, and he was glad to abandon it in 
 April 1862, continuing however to write for the magazine to 
 the last. In it appeared his delightful "Roundabout Papers," 
 " Lovcl the Widower," the " Adventures of Philip," besides the 
 fragment of a novel, " Denis Duval," published in 1864, after 
 his death, which occurred on Christmas Eve, 1863. 
 
 Thackeray, as compared with Dickens, occupies in some re- 
 spects the same position among the public as Macaulay does 
 compared with Carlyle. It has been said by certain critics, 
 particularly in the so-called "Society" journals, that Carlyle's 
 chief admirers were found among the less cultured classes — 
 intelligent artisans, clerks, shopmen, and the like. This is 
 not true, for some of the great I and most original minds of 
 this generation have held the Seer of Chelsea in the highest
 
 
 
 88 Our Own Times. 
 
 reverence ; but it is true that among the classes indicated a 
 far larger number make, as it were, companions and friends of 
 Carlyle's writings than of Macaulay's. The reason is not far 
 to seek. Macaulay's works are profitable for information, for 
 the excellence of the style, for their unflagging interest, but 
 scarcely for instruction in righteousness. His was a singularly 
 happy life ; he never had any perplexities about the mysteries 
 of existence ; doubts and fears as to points of conduct never 
 troubled him; and nothing will be found in his writings 
 for those who, harassed by daily trials and toils, look in the 
 books they read for some spiritual nourishment, for something 
 to help them in the steep and thorny way which they have to 
 tread. Precisely the reverse is the case with Carlyle ; and 
 hence it is that he finds so many readers among those who 
 care little for literature in itself, but who value his works, not 
 on account of their great genius and picturesque style, but 
 because they are useful to them from a moral and spiritual 
 point of view. All this, of course, does not apply to Thackeray 
 as compared with Dickens, but it does so partially. The 
 people to whom Macaulay and Thackeray pre-eminently ad- 
 dressed themselves, whom consciously or unconsciously they 
 had in their mind's eye as they wrote, were those who are 
 clothed in purple and fine linen, and who fare sumptuously 
 every day. Thackeray's works are full of moral instruction of 
 a kind, but it is of a kind which scarcely applies except to the 
 higher orders ; of the lower sections of society he had very 
 little knowledge. With them his writings never have been and 
 never will be popular ; the pleasures of life and character 
 with which he loves to deal, and his mode of dealing with them, 
 alike prevent that. Dickens sprung from the people himself, 
 and early made acquainted with poverty, had, with all his 
 theatrical pathos and tendency to gushing sentiment, a deep 
 and genuine sympathy with the poor and their trials ; and to 
 this sympathy is, we believe, in no small measure due the fact 
 that he enjoyed a wider and deeper popularity than has ever 
 been attained by any other novelist. 
 
 Thackeray had none of Dickens's sanguine temperament and
 
 Thackeray s Writings. 389 
 
 resolute confidence in himself. He was always inclined to 
 look rather on the dark than on the sunny side of things ; 
 doubtful about the success of his works, and feeling acutely 
 adverse criticism upon them. In his latter years, at any rate, he 
 was a slow and careful writer, satisfied if he accomplished in 
 a month as much as Scott did in a few days ; and always dis- 
 posed to postpone till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. 
 Unlike Dickens, he was a bookish man, perfectly at home in 
 some fields of English literature, especially in the eighteenth 
 century, whose writers he knew and loved so well. His 
 inimitably graceful style, in which he has been excelled by no 
 novelist, may be in part due to his familiarity with Addison, 
 Steele, Swift, and their contemporaries, especially if it be true, 
 as certain critics aver, that in the eighteenth century English 
 prose reached its high-water mark. 
 
 Of Thackeray's works certainly the most remarkable and 
 perhaps the best is " Esmond." Many novelists following in 
 the wake of Scott have attempted to reproduce for us past 
 manners, scenes, and characters; but in "Esmond" Thack- 
 eray not only does this — he reproduces for us the style in 
 which men wrote and talked in the days of Queen Anne. To 
 reproduce the forgotten phraseology, to remember always not 
 how his age would express an idea, but how Steele, or Swift, 
 or Addison would have expressed it, might have been pro- 
 nounced impossible of accomplishment. Yet in "Esmond" 
 Thackeray did accomplish it, and with perfect success. The 
 ■uring throughout is exquisite and harmonious, never by a 
 le false note is the melody broken. Of his writings in 
 ral perhaps the most noticeable characteristic is the hatred 
 they express for all sorts of false pretences, sham sentiment, 
 and unreal professions. He is never wearied of directing his 
 scathing satire against whited sepulchres of all descriptions. 
 " Call things by their right names; do not gloss over the villany 
 of Lord Steyne 1'"' ause he is a lord >t coi Ge< 
 
 1 I -orne's selfishness I i he is i don'l pretend 
 
 t'i be what you are not, and do not let false shame make you 
 conceal what you arc," is the burden of his message. To his
 
 390 Oar Oivu Times. 
 
 scorn and hatred of vice and meanness he added sincere love 
 and admiration of all that is true, and good, and honourable. 
 A large-hearted, thoughtful man, the temptations and trials and 
 sorrows of humanity affected him deeply. His pathos is as 
 touching and sincere as his humour is subtle and delicate. 
 His numerous "asides" to the reader are full of " that sad 
 wisdom which experience brings," in striking contrast to those 
 of Dickens, who, when he leaves his story to indulge in 
 moralising, is generally trite and feeble. In a characteristic 
 passage Thackeray apologises for the frequency of his casual 
 reflections. " Perhaps of all novel-spinners now extant," he 
 says, " the present writer is the most addicted to preaching. 
 Does he not stop perpetually in his story and begin to preach 
 to you ? . . . I say peccavi loudly and heartily," he adds, 
 but there was no need of this expression of repentance, whether 
 sincere or not, for none ever wished Thackeray's " asides " 
 fewer or shorter. Thackeray's fame as a novelist has caused 
 his poems, of which he wrote a good many, generally in a half- 
 serious, half-comic vein, to be frequently less noticed than they 
 deserve. His admirable mock-heroic ballads and society 
 verses attain a degree of excellence very rarely reached by 
 such performances. 
 
 Was Thackeray a cynic ? The question has been often 
 asked and variously answered. If we use " cynic " in the 
 proper sense of the word as defined by Johnson, "a philo- 
 sopher of the snarling or currish sort; a follower of Diogenes ; 
 a rude man ; a snarler ; a misanthrope," most assuredly it 
 cannot with any propriety be applied to him. But in ordinary 
 parlance we use " cynic " in a sense different from any of these, 
 meaning by it a man who is apt to look on life with a glance 
 half sad, half humorous, who is prone to be distrustful of fine 
 appearances and professions, who sees keenly the grains of 
 dust mingled in the gold of the finest character, and who is 
 fully aware of the latent meanness and selfish ambition which 
 often lurk under actions professing to be noble and generous. 
 In this sense of the word, Thackeray was a cynic. Vanitas 
 vanitatum : all is vanity, is his often-repeated cry ; none knew
 
 Lord Lytton. 391 
 
 better than he with what richly gilded coverings we are apt to 
 clothe the evil passions and desires of our nature. 
 
 One of the most industrious literary craftsmen of the Victorian 
 era was Lord Lytton — Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer 
 Lytton, to give him his full name. Born in 1805 of an ancient 
 family, he was, after a brilliant literary and political career, 
 elevated to the peerage in 1866. During his busy life, 
 there were few departments of literature which he did not 
 attempt. Not only did he write novels, but also history, poetry, 
 essays, and plays. The bare enumeration of his writings would 
 alone occupy more space than can here be afforded. One of 
 his first writings, " Falkland," a tale full of that sham Byronic 
 sentiment with which many young writers were infected at the 
 time of its publication, proved a failure, but with "Pelham," 
 which appeared in 1828, began that career of popularity which 
 was closed only by the author's death. It is a novel of fashion- 
 able life, full of those errors of taste into which a young writer 
 is apt to fall, but undeniably clever, and containing some 
 brilliant sketches of society. After it came in quick succession 
 " The Disowned," " Devereux," and " Paul Clifford," the last 
 one of those attempts to " make a hero out of a scoundrel " 
 against which Thackeray during his early career directed some 
 of his most pungent satire. In 1831 Bulwer (his name till he 
 became a peer) entered Parliament. In the following year 
 appeared "Eugene Aram," a tale of the "Paul Clifford" species. 
 Within a few years came his first historical novels, "The Past 
 I > us of Pompeii" and "Ricnzi," followed in 1843 and 1S4S by 
 two others of a similar class on subjects taken from English 
 history — " The Last of the Parons " and " Harold." All these 
 are distinguished by the accuracy of their archaeological and 
 historical colouring, though in picturesqueness and ease they 
 are far inferior to the wonderful scries in which Scott made 
 »ne times and m in real to us. In [849 appeared "The 
 Caxtons," in which the versatile author took a new departure. 
 It is a novel of domestic life, more natural and pleasing than 
 any of his previous produ< tion i. 1 ts su< cess was followed up 
 by two other novels oi the same series, " My Novel " and
 
 39 2 Our Oivn Times. 
 
 "What will He Do with It?" the former of which is generally 
 considered his masterpiece. In 1S62 appeared " A Strange 
 Story," one of those tales of mystery of which he wrote several, 
 "Zanoni" (1842) being perhaps the most striking. It was a 
 great favourite with the author, to whom the study of magic 
 and kindred arts always presented a great attraction. He re- 
 mained ardent in his devotion to literature to the end. A 
 novel from his pen, "The Parisians," was appearing in Black- 
 wood at the time of his death, which occurred in 1872; and 
 the final proofs of another novel, " Kenelm Chillingly," were 
 corrected by him only a few days before the sad event. 
 
 Lytton cannot be called a novelist of the first class. There 
 is an air of artificiality about everything he says, a "stagey" 
 sentiment, a love of concealing feeble or inaccurate thought 
 beneath a sort of philosophical jargon, which, added to other 
 faults, place him below the really great masters of the art of 
 fiction, the Fieldings, the Scotts, and the Thackerays. But he 
 was a man of very remarkable endowments, ardent ambition, 
 and indomitable perseverance. In 1856, addressing the boys 
 of a school, he said, " Boys, when I look at your young faces 
 I could fancy myself a boy once more. I go back to the days 
 when I too tried for prizes, sometimes succeeding, sometimes 
 failing. I was once as fond of play as any of you, and in this 
 summer weather I fear my head might have been more full of 
 cricket than of Terence or even Homer. But still I can re- 
 member that, whether at work or at play, I had always a deep 
 though quiet determination, that sooner or later I would be a 
 somebody or do a something. That determination continues 
 with me to this hour." Hence his desire to excel in various 
 fields. His first play was a comparative failure, but he had 
 set his heart upon winning dramatic laurels, and to a certain 
 extent he succeeded. "The Lady of Lyons," "Richelieu," 
 and the brilliant comedy of " Money" are always welcome on 
 the stage. To the fame of the writer of works of the imagina- 
 tion he aspired to add that of the scholar, and an unfinished 
 " History of Athens " and a translation of the " Odes of 
 Horace " with notes, show at all events that he kept up his
 
 Charlotte Bronte. 393 
 
 acquaintance with the classics to an extent very rare among 
 men so multifariously occupied as he was. In one ambition 
 only he altogether failed ; but unfortunately that ambition was 
 his most burning and unquenchable one. There was some- 
 thing almost pitiable about the way in which he went on pub- 
 lishing poem after poem without ever attaining such success 
 as would place him high even in the second rank of writers of 
 verse. Nature, bountiful to him in many respects, had denied 
 him the poetical faculty ; even his highest performances of this 
 kind would have been better had they been written in prose. 
 His son, the present Lord Lytton (born 1S31), better known as 
 a writer under his pseudonym of "Owen Meredith," has been 
 more fortunate in his poetical attempts. All his poems, if 
 occasionally marred by faults of diction and sentiment, have 
 about them that indescribable something which distinguishes 
 the work of a genuine poet from that of the mere verse-writer. 
 Few novels have made a greater sensation at their first 
 appearance than "Jane Eyre," published in 1847. All com- 
 petent critics, however much they might differ about certain 
 features in the work, were agreed in acknowledging its original 
 power ami its thrilling interest, and conjectures were rife as 
 to who could be the unknown " Currer Bell" whose name 
 appeared on its title-page. Most of these conjectures were 
 very wide of the mark. " Currer Bell " was the name adopted 
 by Charlotte Bronte, a poor girl, brought up in a homely par- 
 sonage amid the bleak wilds of Yorkshire, without any literary 
 friends to aid her in her struggle for fame. There are few 
 more interesting and pathetic stories than that of her and her 
 gifted sisters Emily and Anne. Charlotte, the eldest of the 
 three, was born at Thornton, in Bradford parish, in r8l6. 
 Four years later her father, who was a clergyman, removed to 
 Haworth, and there she was brought up and wrote her won- 
 derful novel 1, 1 1 r life was a sad oiv enough, chequered l>y 
 poverty, by poor health, by family trials, and by the yearn- 
 ings of an ambition which was late in finding any lit field for 
 its exercise. All the family were remarkably gifted, and 
 many were the manuscripts which proceeded from thru pens, 
 
 2 l:
 
 394 O ur Own Times. 
 
 but it was not till 1S46 that Charlotte appeared before the 
 public as an author. In that year was published (at the expense 
 of the writers) a small volume of poems " by Currer, Ellis, and 
 Acton Bell," the two last names being the pseudonyms of her 
 sisters Emily and Anne. It attracted very little attention. 
 " The book was printed," wrote Charlotte, in the biographical 
 notice of her sisters; "it is scarcely known, and all of it that 
 merits to be known are the poems of Ellis Bell." During 
 the same year a tale of Charlotte Bronte's, " The Professor," 
 was plodding a weary round among the London publishers. 
 " Currer Bell's book," she says, " found acceptance nowhere, 
 nor any acknowledgment of merit, so that something like the 
 chill of despair began to invade his heart." Two other novels, 
 " Wuthering Heights," by Emily Bronte, a tale of great, though 
 morbid and undisciplined power, and " Agnes Grey," by Anne 
 Bronte, had found publishers, though on such terms as could 
 afford no gratification to the authors ; but Charlotte found no 
 gleam of encouragement till the MS. of " The Professor " was 
 returned to her by Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co., to whom it had 
 been submitted, along with a courteous letter, declining the 
 tale, but adding that a novel in three volumes would meet 
 with careful consideration. " Jane Eyre," on which she had 
 been for some time engaged, was accordingly sent to them, 
 and at once accepted. Its publication soon after gave her at 
 once a fame and popularity which suffered no diminution from 
 her two succeeding novels, "Shirley" (1849), in which she 
 availed herself of her experience of Yorkshire character, and 
 '■Villette" (1852), in which she made use of some of the 
 material of " The Professor," containing faithful transcripts 
 from her experiences as teacher and pupil in Belgium. In 
 1854 she married Mr. Nicholls, who had been for eight years 
 her father's curate. The union was a very happy one ; but her 
 health, always delicate, gave way, and she died in March 1855. 
 Her two sisters had preceded her to the still country. Char- 
 lotte Bronte's life was written with admirable literary skill and 
 good taste by her friend Mrs. Gaskell (1810-1865), herself 
 a novelist of high merit. Among her best-known works are
 
 Charlotte Bronte's Writings. 395 
 
 " Mary Barton," a story of factory life, " Ruth," and " Craw- 
 ford." 
 
 Charlotte Bronte had high notions of her calling. In signal 
 contrast to the many lady-novelists, who nowadays pour forth 
 novel after novel with such unceasing rapidity that the panting 
 critic toils after them in vain, she published nothing till it was 
 as good as she could make it, and never wrote except when 
 she felt that she was really in the vein for doing so. Like all 
 who labour conscientiously, she has had her reward. Her 
 works have not, like many other fictions, been sought eagerly 
 at circulating libraries for a season or two and then forgotten ; 
 on the other hand, they have taken a secure place in the list 
 of English classics. Her style is intense, vivid, and glowing ; 
 and in the descriptions of certain aspects of nature — for 
 example, of a stormy, cloudy sky — it would be hard to men- 
 tion a writer who is her superior. There are no dull places 
 in her narratives. Everywhere we find that vigour and anima- 
 tion which are a sure sign of a writer having fully matured 
 his conceptions. Harriet Martineau complained that in her 
 novels she always wrote as if love was woman's chief, almost 
 woman's only, interest in life. There is a good deal of force 
 in this remark, but no writer had ever a more pure and high- 
 souled idea of what passionate love really is than Charlotte 
 Bronte had. Her want of knowledge of the usages of society, 
 and her limited experience of life and manners, led her into 
 some mistakes, but they are so comparatively insignificant as 
 in no way to detract from the nobleness of her work. We 
 entirely agree with Mr. W. C. Roscoe ] in utterly repudiating 
 the cry of " coarseness" with which "Jane Eyre," in particular, 
 was assailed. "Coarse materials, indeed," he says, "she too 
 much deals with, and her own style has something rude and 
 uncompromising in it not always in accordance with customary 
 ideas ol • 1 omin j in a female writer; but it would be- 
 
 scarcely possible to name a writer wim, in handling such diffi- 
 cult subject-matter, carries the reader so safely through by the 
 
 1 I vol. ii. p. 351.
 
 396 ( htr Own Times. 
 
 serene guardianship and unconsciously exercised influence of 
 her stainless purity and unblemished rectitude." 
 
 It has been well said that if, after the university method, 
 we arranged our dead authors in order of merit, the only 
 novelists since Scott who would by general consent be placed 
 in the first class would be Thackeray, Dickens, and George 
 Eliot ; other names, indeed, would be added by many, but 
 hardly any other would receive a unanimous suffrage. As 
 everybody knows, George Eliot was the pseudonym under 
 which a female writer, Mary Anne Evans, chose to veil her 
 identity. She was born in 1820 at Griff House, near Nun- 
 eaton, in Warwickshire, the daughter of Robert Evans, a land 
 agent there. She received an exceptionally good education, 
 and in 1846 began her literary career by a translation of 
 Strauss's " Leben Jesu," for which she received the beggarly 
 pittance of ^20. In 185 1 she removed to London to assist 
 Mr. John Chapman in editing the Westminster Revieiv, to 
 which, between the years 1852 and 1859, she contributed 
 several articles. Her connection with the Review brought 
 her into contact with George Henry Lewes (181 7-1878), him- 
 self a writer and philosopher of some mark, to whom she 
 linked her fate. In 1S57 her first work of fiction, the "Scenes 
 of Clerical Life," appeared in Blackivood's Magazine. They 
 did not attract much notice at first, though Dickens, to his 
 honour be it said, recognised their rare merit as successive 
 instalments came out. In 1S59 appeared "Adam Bede," 
 which at once elevated her to the front rank among the ima- 
 ginative writers of her time. Then followed the " Mill on the 
 Floss" (i860); "Silas Marner" (1861); "Romola" (1863); 
 " Felix Holt" (1866) ; a poem, "The Spanish Gipsy" (1S6S); 
 "Middlemarch"(i872); " Daniel Deronda" (1877); and "Im- 
 pressions of Theophrastus Such" (1879), which, for want of 
 a better name, may be described as a volume of essays. In 
 May 1880 she married Mr. J. W. Cross. The union was a 
 happy but brief one, lasting only seven months. On Decem- 
 ber 22, 1880, the great novelist expired. 
 
 George Eliot's personal characteristics are thus described
 
 George Eliot. 397 
 
 by one who knew her well : l — " Everything in her aspect and 
 presence was in keeping with the bent of her soul. The 
 deeply lined face, the too marked and massive features, were 
 united with an air of delicate refinement, which in one way 
 was the more impressive, because it seemed to proceed so 
 entirely from within. Nay, the inward beauty would some- 
 times quite transform the outward harshness ; there would be 
 moments when the thin hands that entwined themselves in 
 their eagerness, the earnest figure that bowed forward to speak 
 and hear, the deep gaze moving from one face to another with 
 a grave appeal — all these seemed the transparent symbols that 
 showed the presence of a wise benignant soul. But it was the 
 voice which best revealed her, a voice whose subdued inten- 
 sity and tremulous richness seemed to environ her uttered 
 words with the mystery of a world of feeling that must remain 
 untold. . . . And then, again, when, in moments of more inti- 
 mate converse, some current of emotion would set strongly 
 through her soul, when she would raise her head in uncon- 
 scious absorption and look out into the unseen, her expression 
 was one not to be forgotten." 
 
 Like Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot was a most painstaking 
 and conscientious writer. No ill-considered or slipshod sen- 
 tence ever fell from her pen. Her rich culture and large 
 knowledge of life in all its manifestations, give a breadth and 
 accuracy to her delineations of character which are lacking in 
 the products of Charlotte Bronte's more fiery and impetuous 
 genius. Her sympathy with all classes of society was wide, 
 and proceeded from the general source of all such sympathy — 
 thorough insight into their several modes of thought and life. 
 Herself an unbeliever, she could do full justice to tho.s i 
 intense religious convictions, analysin ■scribing them in a 
 
 way which showed that she thoroughly understood them. 1 [er 
 humour 1 said to be of equal excelli rid spon- 
 
 taneity to that Ol Dicker] Ol Thackeray, but it is excellent 
 of its kmd, quiet and unobtru live, and full of that kindly yet 
 
 1 Mr. I'. YV. II. Myei I in the Century Maga int f<u November iSSl.
 
 39S Our Own Times. 
 
 accurate appreciation of the oddities and follies of men which 
 is so rare. It has been truly said that, omitting the very 
 highest and the very lowest sections of modern society, her 
 novels present photographic pictures of English life which 
 will give to the future reader the same sort of truthful infor- 
 mation of the early Victorian time that Shakespeare's plays do 
 of Elizabeth's England. Not only are George Eliot's novels 
 excellent as works of art ; their moral tendency is in the 
 highest degree beneficial. No novelist has dwelt more strongly 
 upon the necessity of the ready performance of duty if we are 
 to lead noble lives ; none has painted in more vivid colours 
 how a character, naturally amiable perhaps, sinks deeper and 
 deeper in sin from weakness of will and the inability to prac- 
 tise self-renunciation. In her poems, as well as in her novels, 
 these are themes she often recurs to. She loves also to im- 
 press on her readers the sacredness of work, and the value 
 of true performance, in however humble a sphere. In her two 
 last novels she erred by over-elaboration, making them the 
 vehicle for many observations, good enough in themselves, but 
 altogether out of place in a novel, which ought to be a delinea- 
 tion of life, with just so much subsidiary matter as may be 
 necessary for the intelligent comprehension of the narrative. 
 " Daniel Deronda," in particular, contains a great deal of 
 matter which would have found its fit abode in a philoso- 
 phical treatise. Her poems are full of deep thought and 
 noble ideas, but she lacked the accomplishment of verse, and 
 was out of her true element when writing it. 
 
 The few other novelists who can be mentioned here must 
 be disposed of very briefly. There never lived a more manly 
 and true-hearted writer of fiction than Charles Lever (1806- 
 1872), a lively and mirth-loving Irishman, whose stirring life 
 furnished him with not a few traits wherewith to embellish the 
 portraits of his heroes. His novels may be divided into three 
 classes, answering to corresponding features in the author's 
 life. First, we have the youthful series, filled with practical 
 jokes and merriment, and peopled with those dashing dragoons 
 who rode, and fought, and made love with such incredible
 
 Charles Kings ley. 399 
 
 vivacity in his earlier novels. As time wore on, the fun 
 became less boisterous, though far from being altogether 
 excluded ; and Lever's works, if perhaps less pleasing to youth- 
 ful readers who delight in the accounts of extraordinary 
 exploits, showed a much wider and deeper knowledge of life. 
 But in our opinion his best work was done in his latter years, 
 when in a series of novels, wanting, indeed, the fire and dash 
 of his early performances, but infinitely more accurate as delinea- 
 tions of life and character, he gave to the world the mellowed 
 experience of an acute observer who had seen many phases of 
 existence, and could comment on them with shrewdness and 
 accuracy. Among his best works may be mentioned " Harry 
 Lorrequer," ''Jack Hinton," "The Dodd Family Abroad," 
 "Sir Brook Fosbrooke," and "Lord Kilgobbin." The last 
 mentioned is an excellent specimen of his matured style, well 
 worth reading for its shrewd common sense and its many 
 acute observations on the state of Ireland. The " O'Dowd 
 Papers," with which for some years he delighted the readers of 
 Blackwood, discoursing month by month on such topics as 
 happened to strike his fancy, were, of course, of mainly tempo- 
 rary interest, but their lively style and numerous well-told 
 anecdotes make them still interesting reading. 
 
 Charles Kingsley (1819-1S75), who, after holding various 
 ecclesiastical appointments, became Canon of Westminster in 
 1873, was very justly styled by J. S. Mill "one of the good 
 influences of the age." J I is earnest advocacy of courage, 
 purity, and love, healthy manhood and firm adherence 
 luty, added to his vivid and kindling personality, caused 
 him to be looked up to by many young men as a master 
 in w1hj.sc steps they were proud to follow. In 1S47 
 he published a dramatic poeni, "The Saint'.; Tragedy," 
 founded on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, which 
 at once made his genius known. The Chartist move- 
 ment in i ind railed forth from him two novels, "Alton 
 Locke" (1850) and "^ 1 t), which, amidst much that 
 is crude and chaotic, are full of eloquent writing and breathe 
 a spirit of earnest sympathy with the sufferings of the poor.
 
 400 Our Oivii Times. 
 
 Other novels, " Westward Ho!" " Hereward the Wake," &c, 
 followed, along with poems, sermons, historical sketches, and 
 writings on natural history, to which his keen delight in all the 
 influences of sea and sky gave singular force and attractive- 
 ness. No more thoroughly healthy-souled man has adorned 
 this generation, and few have been more potent for good. 
 
 Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (i 804-1881), son 
 of Isaac D'Israeli, whose gossiping volumes, " Curiosities of 
 Literature," &c, still retain their popularity, is one of the 
 most remarkable of English novelists, entirely original, and 
 never echoing any other writer. Doubtless part of the great 
 sale which his fictions enjoyed is to be attributed to his 
 renown as a politician, but they possess intrinsic merit suffi- 
 cient to justify their popularity. His first novel, "Vivian 
 Grey," was published in 1826, and, despite its affectations and 
 errors in point of taste, is certainly an amazing production for a 
 youth of two-and-twenty. During the next ten years appeared 
 " The Young Duke ; " " Venetia,"a tale founded on the lives 
 of Shelley and Byron ; " Contarini Fleming," and " Henrietta 
 Temple," the last entirely a love story. " Coningsby " and 
 " Sybil," two political novels, remarkable for their keen and 
 incisive portraits drawn from actual life, followed in 1844- 
 1845; then, in 1847, came " Tancred," in which the author 
 gave vent to his peculiar notions about the Hebrew race, and 
 in 1870 "Lothair," and in 1880 his last novel, " Endymion." 
 All display a remarkable mastery of style, and that luminous 
 epigrammatic power which was the glory of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 speeches. One of the most notable characteristics of the whole 
 series, a characteristic which has scarcely received from critics 
 the attention which so striking a feature deserves, has been thus 
 dealt with by Mr. J. H. Bryce * : — " They [the novels] are as 
 far as possible from being immoral ; that is to say, there is no- 
 thing in them unbecoming or corrupting. Honour, friendship, 
 love, are all recognised as powerful motives of human conduct. 
 That which is wanting is the sense of right and wrong. Very 
 
 1 In the Century Magazine for March 1SS2.
 
 Charles Reade. 401 
 
 rarely does any one of his personages ask himself whether such 
 and such a course is right. They move in a world which is 
 polished, agreeable, dignified, but in which conscience and 
 religion do not seem to exist — a world more like that of 
 Augustus or Lorenzo de' Medici than like modern England. 
 Though the men live for pleasure or fame, the women for 
 pleasure or love, both are capable of making sacrifices at the 
 altar of affection; but the idea of duty does not cross their 
 minds." 
 
 Our living novelists are such a countless host, and many of 
 them are so equal in ability, that it is an invidious task to 
 select two or three for special mention. Far at the head of 
 the " sensational " novelists of the day stands Charles lleade 
 (born 18 14), whose plots we follow, if not always with pleasure — 
 the colour is often too thickly laid on, and horror too rapidly 
 piled upon horror for that — at any rate with constant excite- 
 ment and never-failing interest. It is perhaps unfair to place 
 a writer of crisp, nervous style, and extraordinary power of 
 graphic description, in the same category with a crowd of 
 authors who hope to gain popularity by no higher artifice than 
 an improbable and sensational plot ; yet " sensational " is the 
 only epithet we can think of which describes Mr. Reade's best 
 work with any degree of exactness. He does not excel in the 
 depth and accuracy of his delineations of character; he does 
 not hold the mirror up to nature and give us a faithful picture 
 of life as it actually is ; his reflections on character and man- 
 ners are neither very trustworthy nor very profound. His 
 Strength lies in the elaborate ingenuity with which his plots 
 are worked out, in the number of striking incidents with whii h 
 a prolific fancy enables him to embellish his tales, and in the 
 preat mastery he lias attained over the difficult but very 
 necessary art of keeping the reader's attention enchained to 
 the end. " Hard Cash" (1863) and "Griffith Gaunt" (1S66) 
 may be mentioned as favourable specimens of his genius. 
 
 One of the most popular and one ol the most industrious 
 novelists of the age is Anthony Trollope (born 1815). llmv 
 he has found time to go through the amount of work he has
 
 402 Our Own Times. 
 
 accomplished is a perfect marvel. He has written above eighty 
 novels and novelettes ; has written about almost all English- 
 speaking peoples ; besides a " Life of Cicero," memoirs of 
 Caesar, Thackeray, and Palmerston, and a large amount of 
 anonymous journalistic work. In addition to his literary 
 exertions he has been twice round the world, and for thirty- 
 five years held an appointment in the post-office. Mr. Trol- 
 lope's works, if occasionally rather spun out, are all charac- 
 terised by sound judgment and a wonderful acquaintance 
 with the higher phases of English society. He especially 
 excels in his description of the life of the English clergy. 
 Among his best writings may be mentioned " Framley Parson- 
 age," " Orley Farm," and the " Last Chronicle of Barset." 
 Richard Doddridge Blackmore (born 1825) has, after writing 
 for some time in comparative obscurity, at length obtained the 
 recognition due to his great merits as a describer of bygone 
 life in country districts of England and Wales. He excels in 
 the description of scenery, and in painting the wilder aspects 
 of the life of our ancestors some generations ago. " Lorna 
 Doone, a Romance of Exmoor," and " Alice Lorraine," are 
 perhaps his best productions. Of Thomas Hardy (born 1 840) the 
 chief excellence consists in his peculiar power of painting rural 
 life, especially in its idyllic aspects. Of his best and greatest 
 work, "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1874), the great at- 
 traction is the way in which, by the studied quietness of the 
 style, the delicate shading of the characters, and the descrip- 
 tions of scenery, the reader is led, as it were, gradually to 
 breathe the slumbrous atmosphere of a sequestered rural dis- 
 trict, where the bustle and turmoil of city life are scarcely 
 apprehended even in imagination, and where the annual sheep- 
 shearing and the harvest-home dinner are the most important 
 events of the year. The quiet humour and sympathy with 
 which the conversations of the farm-labourers are related, and 
 the technical accuracy with which various pastoral operations 
 are described, show that Mr. Hardy's accounts of country life 
 are drawn from careful personal observation and not from 
 books. William Black, who was born in Glasgow in 1841,
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 403 
 
 attained his first great success by the publication, in 187 1, of 
 " A Daughter of Heth," one of the most pleasing and healthy- 
 novels of this generation. In 1872 followed the "Strange 
 Adventures of a Phaeton," founded on a driving excursion 
 made by the author from London to Edinburgh, a book full 
 of high spirits, genial humour, and showing an excellent eye for 
 scenery. " A Princess of Thule," which has been translated 
 into many foreign tongues, and is perhaps the most popular of 
 Mr. Black's novels, appeared in 1873. It has been succeeded 
 by many other excellent novels, all written in a healthy genial 
 spirit, displaying a wide knowledge of character, and never 
 wearying the reader with needless digressions and moralisings. 
 Mr. Plack's power of painting scenery is such as is possessed 
 by few writers. The word-painting of most novelists is mere 
 padding, and is generally skipped by the reader — wisely, 
 because it is impossible that the description given could 
 convey to the mind any real idea of the scene portrayed. 
 With Mr. Black the case is different ; his descriptions always 
 stand forth vivid and lifelike. Other eminent novelists of 
 the day, such as James Payn, George Meredith, George 
 MacDonald, Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. E. Lynn 
 Linton, our limits forbid us to deal with. 1 
 
 We now turn to the poetry of our own time. There can 
 be no doubt as to who is the most popular poet of the Vic- 
 torian era. It is long since Mr. Tennyson took that proud 
 
 1 As illustrating the rich rewards which await a successful writer of fiction 
 in these days, it may Le worth while to mention some facts which tame 
 out dining an action for damages by Charles Rea n t ihc proprietors 
 
 of the ■ Herald in 187 >. From Mr. Reade's evi lence ii appi 
 
 that I ! him £$ e for the publication of "Hard C. b>" 
 
 in All (he Year Round, Mr, Reade retaining the copyright. Mr. Andrew 
 Chatto (of M< ■ . ' tto & Windus) stated that foi 1 
 which Mr. then contributin ia they paid liim ^5 a 
 
 . or rather more than twopence-halfpenny a word, ii ll 1 not 
 
 • d four 1 page il - ovei thai limit, Mr. 
 
 Reade's copyi erved. Heal rroborated whal Mr. R 
 
 had mentioned, thai Mr. Chatto had offered him ,£2000 fi e-volume 
 
 story, to be published in Belgravi ■ parately, Mr. Reade retaining 
 
 the copyright.
 
 404 Our Own Times. 
 
 position, and though since then many rivals have appeared, 
 none has ever come near to dislodge him from it. Alfred 
 Tennyson was born on August 5, 1809, at Somersby, a hamlet 
 in Lincolnshire, about six miles from Horncastle. Of Somersby 
 and a neighbouring parish his father was Rector. After hav- 
 ing received the elements of education from his father and at 
 the village school, Tennyson was sent to the grammar-school 
 at Louth. While there he prepared, along with his brother 
 Charles, his first volume of poems, which was published in 
 1827 under the title of "Poems by Two Brothers." It is 
 scarcely necessary to say that none of the pieces contained in 
 the little book have been reprinted. About 1828 the poet 
 went to Cambridge, and in the same year he wrote a poem of 
 greater promise than his previous attempts, " A Lover's Tale," 
 not printed till 1833, and not published till 1879, when the 
 author was compelled to resuscitate t it to prevent its being 
 pirated. At Cambridge, which he left without taking a degree, 
 Tennyson gained in 1828 the Chancellor's prize for a poem 
 on " Timbuctoo," and there began that friendship for Arthur 
 Henry Hallam, son of Hallam the historian, which he has 
 rendered immortal by "In Memoriam." In 1S30 appeared 
 " Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson," a volume con- 
 taining 154 pages, of which about sixty have been thought 
 worthy of preservation. Another little volume, containing 
 amongst other poems such gems of song as " The May Queen," 
 " The Miller's Daughter," " CEnone," followed in the winter of 
 1832. Both were on the whole favourably received, but as 
 yet Tennyson had not caught the public ear. 
 
 In 1842 appeared "Poems by Alfred Tennyson," in two 
 volumes, consisting partly of selections from the 1830 and 
 1832 volumes, partly of poems published for the first time. 
 The reception of these volumes was most enthusiastic ; all the 
 critics were loud in their praise, and such men as Wordsworth, 
 J. S. Mill, and John Sterling joined to swell the popular 
 applause. In 1847 appeared "The Princess," suggested ap- 
 parently by a passage in Johnson's " Rasselas :" — "The Prin- 
 cess thought that of all sublunary things, knowledge was the
 
 Tennyson's Characteristics. 405 
 
 best. She desired first to learn of sciences, and then proposed 
 to found a college to teach women, in which she would pre- 
 side." In 1S50 was published "In Memoriam," a record of 
 the poet's love for Arthur Hallam, a young man full of promise, 
 who died abroad in 1833, at the early age of twenty-two. In 
 the same year, on the death of Wordsworth, Tennyson re- 
 ceived — 
 
 " The laurel, greene from the brows 
 Of him that uttered nothing base." 
 
 "Maud" appeared in 1855; the "Idylls of the King" in 
 1859 ; " Enoch Arden " in 1864 ; " The Holy Grail and other 
 Poems," containing four new idylls, in 1870 ; two dramas, 
 "Queen Mary" and "Harold," in 1875 and 1877 respec- 
 tively. The volume, " Ballads and other Poems," published in 
 1881, shows that the Laureate's genius has suffered no diminu- 
 tion by age ; and the fervent prayer of all who love poetry is 
 that he may long be spared to enrich our literature with many 
 more masterpieces of art. 
 
 Mr. Tennyson's great fame has not been attained without 
 much patient labour. The research of commentators on him 
 has shown that his poems bear many marks of careful 
 revision, the textual variations in different editions of some 
 of them being considerable. Refined taste and exquisite work- 
 manship are the characteristics of all he has written. Fully alive 
 to all the influences of his time, there are few phases of modem 
 thought which are not touched on in his writings; while his 
 rich gift of imagination, his pure and elevated diction, and his 
 freedom from faults of taste and manner, give his writings a 
 place among those which, the world will not willingly let die. 
 II range of poetic power is wide. As a describer of natural 
 nery he is so accurate that it has been said that a painter 
 might perfectly rely on his statements of facts. 
 
 " Perhaps, compared with tl. 1 , 
 
 ll< f landsi a] e may ool !»■ mm b ; 
 
 But who, "lit of all their starry muni' r, 
 Can beat our Alfred in truth ol tou< h ?" 
 
 Exquisite lyrics of love, and stirring war-ballads of equal excel-
 
 406 Our Own Times. 
 
 lence, have come from his pen. He is as much at home in giving 
 dramatic utterance to the reflections of the " Northern Farmer " 
 as in picturing the feelings of St. Simeon Stylites. Among 
 the least successful of his works must be placed his dramas, 
 full as they are of passages of noble poetic eloquence. Why 
 the writer who has shown such admirable dramatic skill in the 
 monologues put in the mouth of Ulysses, the Northern Farmer, 
 and others, should have comparatively failed when he came to 
 write a complete play, is a question which must have puzzled 
 many readers. The answer to it may perhaps be found in the 
 following extract from Mr. W. C. Roscoe, who has written one 
 of the best of the many estimates of the Laureate's genius. " He 
 is," says Mr. Roscoe, "at once the most creative and the least 
 dramatic of poets ; the nearest to Shakespeare, and the furthest 
 from him. He has in the highest degree the fundamental 
 poetic impulse. He fuses all things, and golden shapes spring 
 from his mould, with only the material in common with his ore ; 
 rather, ideas are sown in his brain, and spring up in concrete 
 organic forms. The passion to reproduce in concrete wholes 
 constitutes, indeed, that fundamental poetic impulse which we 
 have ascribed to him. He may be didactic, philosophical, 
 oratorical, sentimental, but all these things he encloses in a 
 golden ball of poesy. He may have, and often has, an ulti- 
 mate moral object. This is by no means inconsistent with the 
 highest effort of artistic production, as has been sometimes 
 too easily assumed. It is true, you cannot comply with the 
 conditions of art, you cannot have the feelings of the artist, 
 if you drive directly by the medium of verse at a moral result 
 or an intellectual conclusion ; but you may have these for 
 your ultimate object, and you may embody them in true 
 poetical forms. . . . To say that Tennyson's genius is not 
 dramatic, is certainly to contradict some of his critics. Some- 
 thing depends on what is meant by the term. He certainly 
 has the power of penetrating the mood of another mind ; but 
 it will generally be found that this is another mind in a special 
 situation ; and this is a very different thing from exhibiting 
 character through the medium of situations and the self-expression
 
 Robert Browning. 407 
 
 elicited by these situations ; and in this, we take it, consists the 
 essence of the drama." The essay from which these words 
 are taken was written in 1855, long before Mr. Tennyson 
 formally appeared as a dramatist. They certainly afford a 
 very remarkable instance of acute critical insight. 
 
 While Tennyson's works are read and admired by all who 
 make any pretensions to literary taste, it is only to a limited 
 circle that the genius of Robert Browning is known except by 
 hearsay. The frequent harshness of his phraseology ; his 
 obscurity, his love of dealing with subjects which have little 
 interest for the majority of people, have combined to confine 
 him to an audience fit, perhaps, but certainly very few. Yet 
 by those who really appreciate him, no poet is prized more 
 highly ; and his originality and genius have long since been 
 acknowledged by the general consent of all competent judges. 
 No poet since Dryden has equalled him in the power of 
 reasoning in verse ; and his masculine vigour of thought and 
 remarkable faculty of setting dramatically before us different 
 types of character, give him a place by himself in the roll of 
 English poets. He was born at Camberwell on May 7, 181 2. 
 m his earliest years he was fond of writing verse, and by 
 the time he was twelve years of age had collected poems 
 enough to form a volume, for which he tried to get a publisher — 
 fortunately in vain, he was afterwards doubtless glad to think. 
 His first publication, "Pauline," a little volume of seventy 
 pages, appeared in 1833. In 1835 followed " Paracelsus," a 
 drama of a shapeless kind, which found not a few imitators. 
 " I'aracelsus" is a very stiff morsel for the student of poetry, 
 and it is not wonderful that its sale was small and the criti- 
 cisms of it for the most part unfavourable. In 1S37 Mr. 
 Bjedy of "Strafford" was brought out on the 
 boards of Drury Lane Theatre In 1840 appealed one of 
 his most characteristic works, the epic " Sordello." In 1841 
 he began the publication of the series of "Pells and Pome 
 granates," which extended to numbers, concluding in 
 
 1846. In it was published much of Brown poetry, 
 
 including his tragedy of the " Plot on the Scutcheon," and the
 
 40S Our Own Times. 
 
 graceful dramatic poem of "Pippa Passes." In 1846 lie was 
 married to Miss Elizabeth Barrett, on the whole perhaps the 
 greatest poetess England has produced. Our history now 
 requires us to retrace our steps a little. 
 
 Mrs. Barrett Browning (to give her at once the name by 
 which she is best known to literature) was born in 1809, at 
 Hope End, near Ledbury. Like Mr. Browning, she very 
 early gave evidence of her taste for poetical composition. 
 "I wrote verses," she says, "as I daresay many have done 
 who never wrote any poems, very early : at eight years old 
 and earlier. But what is less common, the early fancy turned 
 into a will and remained with me ; and from that day to this 
 poetry has been a distinct object with me— an object to read, 
 think, and live for. And I could make you laugh, although 
 you could not make the public laugh, by the narrative of 
 nascent odes, epics, and didactics crying aloud on obsolete 
 muses from childish lips." Her first publication was an 
 " Essay on Mind," " a didactic poem," she writes, " written 
 when I was seventeen or eighteen, and long repented of as 
 worthy of all repentance." Several years after its publication 
 were spent in the assiduous study of Greek literature, of which 
 one result was a translation of the "Prometheus" of ^Eschy- 
 lus. Other writings followed, and in 1850 her collected works, 
 together with several new poems, were published. " Casa 
 Guidi Windows," a poem commemorating the struggle of the 
 Tuscans for liberty in 1849, appeared in 1851. "Aurora 
 Leigh," a novel in verse, full of power, but occasionally exag- 
 gerated and spasmodic, was published in 1856. Mrs. Brown- 
 ing died at Florence in 1861. Apparently poured off hastily, 
 without any attempt at correction or curtailment, her poems 
 contain many flaws — faults of language, and faults of thought, 
 but they also show genuine lyric impetuosity, true pathos, and 
 unfailing freshness and force. Her so-called " Sonnets from 
 the Portuguese," commemorating the progress of her wooing, 
 are among the most enchanting love poems in the language. 
 
 Mr. Browning is a very voluminous poet. His writings 
 since the publication of those mentioned above have been
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 409 
 
 many, including " Men and Women," " The Inn Album," 
 " The Ring and the Book," " Fifine at the Fair," &c. The 
 progress of time cannot be said to have done anything to 
 abate his faults ; indeed, his most recently published works are 
 even more full than their predecessors of crabbed phraseology 
 and almost studied obscurity. This is greatly to be regretted, 
 especially as Mr. Browning has proved in many of his poems 
 that eccentricity of diction is not a necessary concomitant of 
 his genius. What, for example, could be more exquisite than 
 the following picture : — 
 
 ,; Xobly, nobly, Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away ; 
 Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay ; 
 Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay ; 
 In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey ; 
 Here and here did England help me : how can I help England? — say, 
 While Jove's planet rises yonder silent, over Africa." 
 
 From a poet who can write lines like these, the lover of 
 poetry is content to put up with occasional fantasticality ami 
 with a sometimes even exasperating portion of obscurity. 
 When the dust and refuse of his writings shall have been purged 
 away in the furnace of time, enough of pure gold will still 
 remain to justify the placing of Robert Browning among the 
 great masters of song. 
 
 We come now to a group of poets whose fame has been 
 won within the last twenty years. Their work had its origin 
 in a literary movement corresponding to the pre-Raphaelite 
 movement in art. About all they have done is a flavour of 
 "aestheticism," and of none of them can it be said that, like 
 Tenny or or Browning, he appeals to the general hopes and 
 fears of humanity. Around all, or almost all, their writings 
 there is a certain artificial atmosphere; their poems ral 
 1 mble hot house plants than bright, fresh, hardy Bowers 
 reared in I air. One of the chiel members of the 
 
 school was l' Gabriel Rossetti, the most ofavery 
 
 ■ d family. He was born in 1828, the Bon of an Italian 
 refugee, well known a a commentator on Dant< 
 years Professor of Italian Literature in Kit Coll Lon 
 
 2 1
 
 4 1 o Our Own Times. 
 
 don. Art was Rossetti's profession; and as one of the leading 
 members of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood he early attained 
 great fame as a painter by his originality of design and vivid- 
 ness of colouring. From an early age he also wrote verse, and 
 in 1 86 1 published a series of admirable translations, under the 
 title of " Early Italian Poets from Ciullio d'Alcanno to Dante 
 Alighieri." In 1870 he was, rather reluctantly, induced 
 to publish a collection of his poems, some of them written 
 many years previously. Another volume followed in the 
 year preceding his death. Rossetti has been well described 
 by a eulogistic critic as "distinctively, though not exclu- 
 sively, the poet of the romance and mastery of personal 
 passion — passion uttered sometimes in narrative and sometimes 
 in lyric form — his favourite type of narrative being the archaic 
 ballad, in which a story is told and its scenery realised at a 
 sustained, unflagging pitch of detailed vividness and intensity; 
 and his favourite type of lyric, the sonnet, in which he is ac- 
 customed to embody a mood or phase of feeling in a pageant 
 of descriptive images and symbols rather than in direct terms, 
 although in directness, too, he can be a master when he 
 chooses." His sonnets, admirable in their refined construc- 
 tion, are among the best of the kind in the language ; and it 
 would be difficult to find a parallel to the strain of weird 
 pathos which vibrates through "Sister Helen " and some other 
 of his ballads. Mr. Rossetti died in April 1882, having 
 shortened his life by the use of chloral, which he took as a 
 cure for insomnia. His brother, William Michael Rossetti 
 (born 1829), is well known as a critic and writer on art; and 
 his sister, Christina Georgina Rossetti (born 1830), is one of 
 the greatest of living poetesses. 
 
 William Morris (born 1834), the leading partner in the 
 well-known firm of Morris, Marshall, & Faulkner, which has 
 done so much for decorative art, as a storyteller has no rival 
 among living poets ; indeed, there are very few since Chaucer 
 who have approached him in this difficult art. Among his 
 chief works are the "Defence of Guenevere" (1858), the "Life 
 and Death of Jason" (1867), and the "Earthly Paradise" (1868-
 
 Algernon Charles Swinburne . 41 1 
 
 70). He has also written a verse translation of the ^neid, 
 which, in the opinion of many, conveys to the unlearned 
 reader a truer idea of the charm of the original than any other. 
 The grace and melody of Mr. Morris's versification, the delight- 
 ful ease and delicacy with which he tells his stories, the air of 
 culture and refinement which surrounds everything he writes, 
 give his works an irresistible attractiveness to every reader 
 who can feel the charms of beautiful tales beautifully related. 
 
 The youngest of the leading members of the school of 
 poetry to which Mr. Rossetti and Mr. Morris belong, and per- 
 haps the greatest, is Algernon Charles Swinburne (born 1839), 
 whose great genius has long since made itself heard above the 
 storm of adverse criticism which certain features in his early 
 works evoked. In 1S61 he published two plays, "The Queen 
 Mother" and "Rosamund," juvenile productions which at- 
 tracted but little attention, and that little not of a favourable 
 kind. The two works following these, "Atlanta in Calydon," 
 a tragedy on the Greek model, and " Chastelard," the first of 
 three plays he has written founded on the story of Mary Stuart, 
 gained more admirers, but as yet his circle of readers was 
 narrow and his fame limited. It was not till the publication 
 of " Poems and Ballads," in 1866, that he obtained any general 
 or widespread popularity. Few who take an interest in lite- 
 rary history can have forgotten the mingled storm of detrac- 
 tion and praise which that volume called forth ; how by some 
 organs of opinion it was hailed with such laudations as would 
 have required modification if applied to Shakespeare or 
 Milton ; and how by other journals it was treated with af- 
 fected contempt as the frenzied and meretricious production 
 of a naughty schoolboy. Tart of the praise and part of the 
 censure were merited. The volume, no doubt, contained 
 many oi able features, but it also showed a luxuriant 
 
 ination, great command of language, and consummate 
 mastery of metre. A . hi works appeared in rapid suc- 
 
 cession, it became universally i ed that in Mi. Swin 
 
 burne we possess a writer who. in spite "i some grave defi 
 (an with jiiotiee be ranked among our j^reat poets, lie has
 
 4 1 2 Otir Own Times. 
 
 not Mr. Tennyson's depth and tenderness of feeling ; he lacks 
 Mr. Browning's masculine intensity and great faculty for 
 reasoning in verse; it is often painfully obvious, especially in 
 his shorter pieces, that his command of metre and language 
 greatly surpasses the worth of what he has to say. Neverthe- 
 less his works constantly possess that indefinable aroma which 
 is always found in the poetry of genius, and which is always 
 absent from the poetry of mere talent, however high that 
 talent may be. The list of Mr. Swinburne's works is a long 
 one, when we consider that he may yet look for many years 
 of productiveness. Excellent specimens of his style may be 
 found in "Mary Stuart, a Tragedy" (18S1), the last portion 
 of the triology of which "Chastelard" and "Bothwell" form 
 parts ; and in " Tristram of Lyonesse, and Other Poems " 
 (18S2). He has also written extensively in prose, — among 
 other works, a volume of essays, containing much eloquent and 
 subtle, if occasionally one-sided and exaggerated criticism ; 
 a critical study of William Blake ; a " Note on Charlotte 
 Bronte," and various contributions to the edition of the " Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannica" now publishing. His prose style has 
 many of the qualities of his poetry; it is so highly coloured, 
 so gorgeous and glaring, as to be sometimes positively repug- 
 nant to those who think compression and sobriety of language 
 among the lamps of style. Both praise and blame are apt to 
 be dealt out in excess by him. Mr. Swinburne is not among 
 those who consider a middle course the safest and best. 
 
 We would willingly be detained by many other poets of the 
 Victorian age, such as Arthur Clough, Sydney Dobell, Alexander 
 Smith, Gerald Massey, Lewis Morris, Bell Scott, but we must 
 pass on. In the department of history, two great writers, 
 second to none in power and popularity, have adorned our time 
 — Lord Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle. Thomas Babington 
 Macaulay was born on October 25, 1800, at Rothley Temple, 
 in Leicestershire. His father was Zachary Macaulay, a most 
 conscientious, laborious, and highly respected man, who 
 devoted himself with unwearied assiduity and persistence to 
 the cause of slave-trade abolition. Never was the adage that
 
 Lord Macaulay. 413 
 
 the child is father of the man better exemplified than in Mac- 
 aulay's case. Even when little more than a baby his un- 
 quenchable love of reading showed itself; and what he read 
 was firmly retained in a memory of such iron tenacity that 
 anything fixed in it was scarcely ever forgotten. He was a re- 
 markably precocious child, writing when about twelve verse and 
 prose which would have done credit to much maturer years. 
 It is curious to find in his letters to his parents, written when 
 he was a mere boy, that literary way of putting things which 
 never deserted him either in his conversation or in his most 
 familiar correspondence. In his nineteenth year he entered 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. Nothing could be imagined 
 more to the taste of a youth of Macaulay's temperament 
 than a university life, with its abundant means of access to 
 books, and the facilities it affords for becoming acquainted 
 with persons of similar character to oneself. The years of 
 his residence at Cambridge were among the happiest of his 
 very happy life, though he detested mathematics, then as now 
 the favourite study of the place, and devoted as little time to 
 them as possible. Lut in classics he acquired such facility as 
 in 182 1 to gain the proud distinction of the Craven Scholar- 
 ship j and he twice gained the Chancellor's Medal for English 
 verse. He also acquired great renown among his companions 
 as one of the best orators of the Cambridge Union, and became 
 noted among his friends for his perpetual flow of talk and 
 his propensity to indulge in argument. In 1822 he took his 
 degree of B.A., and in 1S24 was elected a Fellow of Trinity 
 College. 
 
 Macaulay's literary life began by some contributions to 
 Knights Quarterly Magazine in 1823-24. Most of these have 
 been reprinted in his miscellaneous works, and prove that he 
 was already master of that singularly readable, clear, incisive 
 style to which he owes so much of his popularity. His abili- 
 ties soon made him known, and in [S25 overtures were made 
 to him to become a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, 
 Jeffrey being anxious to introduce a little fresh blood into the 
 organ of the Whi^s. The result of these overtures was the
 
 414 O ur Own Times. 
 
 famous article on Milton, published in the Review for August 
 1S25. Though containing many assertions that will not stand 
 the test of sober and rational criticism, and, as the author after- 
 wards acknowledged, too glaring and redundant in style, the 
 article, with its enthusiastic fervour, its sonorous rhetoric, and 
 its bursts of splendid, if occasionally misleading eloquence, 
 was one eminently calculated to attract attention. It did so 
 to an extent almost without parallel in the history of periodical 
 literature. " The effect on the author's reputation was instan- 
 taneous. Like Lord Byron, he awoke one morning and 
 found himself famous." Invitations to dinner-parties came in 
 crowds, and Macaulay soon became a great figure at Holland 
 House, where the elite of Whig society gathered together, and 
 began to associate on equal terms with Rogers, Sydney 
 Smith, Luttrel, Allen, and other famous talkers who made 
 that edifice famous in social annals. In 1826 he was called 
 to the Bar and went the Northern Circuit, but he never 
 looked seriously to law as a profession. It was to distinction 
 in literature and in politics that his aspirations were turned. 
 He was, and he felt himself to be, equally qualified to succeed 
 in both. His literary fame steadily rose as article after article 
 from his brilliant pen appeared in the Edinburgh Review. In 
 1828 Lord Lyndhurst made him a Commissioner of Bank- 
 ruptcy, an office which, with the sums he derived from his 
 Trinity Fellowship and from his contributions to the Edinburgh 
 Review, made up his annual income to about .£900. In 1830 
 he was, through the influence of Lord Lansdowne, who had 
 been much struck by his articles on Mill, and wished to be 
 the means of first introducing their author to public life, re- 
 turned member of Parliament for the borough of Calne. 
 
 Macaulay soon made his mark in Parliament. He was one 
 of the chief speakers in favour of the Reform Bill, and many 
 were the eulogiums with which his orations were greeted by 
 those whose praise was all the more valuable because they 
 were themselves distinguished speakers. In 1832 he was ap- 
 pointed one of the Commissioners of the Board of Control, 
 and in the same year was returned member for Leeds. Dur-
 
 Macaulay in India. 4 1 5 
 
 ing the first session of the reformed Parliament he spoke 
 frequently, and always with success. In 1834 he was made 
 president of a new Law Commission for India, and one of 
 the members of the Supreme Council, with a salary of ;£i 0,000 
 a year. The motives which induced him to exchange the 
 comforts, the books, and the lettered society of England for 
 the heat and isolation of Calcutta are well explained in a letter 
 of his to Lord Lansdowne. "I feel," he says, "that the 
 sacrifice which I am about to make is great, but the motives 
 which urge me to make it are quite irresistible. Every day 
 that I live I become less and less desirous of great wealth, 
 but every day makes me more sensible of the importance of a 
 competence. Without a competence it is not very easy for a 
 public man to be honest ; it is almost impossible for him to 
 be thought so. I am so situated that I can subsist only in 
 two ways : by being in office, and by my pen. Hitherto, 
 literature has been merely my relaxation — the amusement of 
 perhaps a month in the year. I have never considered it as 
 the means of support. I have chosen my own topics, taken 
 my own time, and dictated my own terms. The thought of 
 becoming a bookseller's hack; of writing to relieve, not the 
 fulness of the mind, but the emptiness of the pocket ; of spur- 
 ring a jaded fancy to reluctant exertion ; of filling sheets with 
 trash merely that sheets may be filled ; of bearing from pub- 
 lishers and editors what Dryden bore from Tonson, and what, 
 to my own knowledge, Mackintosh bore from Lardner, is 
 horrible to me. Yet thus it must be if I should quit office. 
 Yet to hold office merely for the sake of emolument would be 
 more horrible still." During his outward voyage to India, 
 Macaulay passed his time in reading, with, to use his own 
 words, "keen and increasing enjoyment. I devoured Greek, 
 Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, and English ; folios, quartos, 
 octavos, duodecimos." He arrived at Madras in June 1834, 
 and returned to England in 1838. The most important piece 
 of official work done by Macaulay during his residence im 
 India was the Indian Penal Code. He always regarded 
 this piece of work with very considerable pride and satisfac-
 
 4 1 6 Our Own Times. 
 
 tion. During his residence in India his contributions to the 
 Edinburgh Review continued as before, and his insatiable love 
 of reading suffered no abatement. Among other articles, that 
 on Bacon (one of the most elaborate and ambitious, if also one 
 of the most misleading of his performances) was written there ; 
 and there also he went through a course of classical reading 
 almost incredible in its extent and variety. He used to define 
 a scholar as "one who could read Plato with his feet on the 
 fender." To this definition he himself exactly answered. 
 While reading the works of the great Greek writers, he did not 
 pause to trouble himself about verbal subtleties or grammatical 
 minutiae ; he read them, as he would have read Shakespeare, 
 or Milton, or Burke — for the sake of their literary charm. It 
 should not be forgotten that to Macaulay's exile in the East 
 we owe the local colouring of two brilliant essays from which 
 most people have drawn their slender store of Indian history 
 — those on Lord Clive and Warren Hastings. 
 
 After a tour on the Continent, Macaulay was, in 1839, elected 
 member for Edinburgh, and was appointed Secretary at War, 
 with a seat in the Cabinet. On the fall of the Melbourne 
 Ministry, of which the country had got heartily tired, he was 
 re-elected for Edinburgh. In 1842 he published his "Lays of 
 Ancient Rome," stirring ballads, not containing many in- 
 trinsically poetical qualities, but full of fire and spirit. In the 
 following year he was prevailed on to republish his Edinburgh 
 Reviezv essays, of which, as in the case of the similar produc- 
 tions of De Quincey and Carlyle, a collected edition had 
 already appeared in America. The most prominent event of 
 his political career during the time his party was in opposition 
 was the part he took in bringing about the present state of the 
 law of copyright. In 1846, on the return of the Whigs to 
 power, he obtained, in Lord Russell's administration, the 
 office of Paymaster-General, with a seat in the Cabinet. At 
 the general election which followed the dissolution of Parlia- 
 ment in 1S47, Macaulay, who, principally by his attitude with 
 regard to certain religious questions which then excited much 
 attention, had contrived to make himself exceedingly un-
 
 Macautays Appearance. 4 1 7 
 
 popular in Edinburgh, lost his seat for that city. With his re- 
 jection his political life may be said to have closed. Edin- 
 burgh, indeed, atoned for its error in discarding one of the 
 most honest and manly politicians that ever lived by returning 
 him, unasked and free of expense, in 1852; but by that time 
 all his thoughts and time were occupied in the composition of 
 his History, and he took very little part in public business. 
 
 Macaulay's last article for the Edinburgh Review — the sketch 
 of Chatham's later years — was written in 1844. After that all 
 his literary energy was devoted to his History, of which the 
 first two volumes appeared at the close of 1848. A few days 
 after their publication he wrote in his diary, "I have felt to- 
 day somewhat anxious about the fate of my book. . . . All 
 that I hear is laudatory. But who can trust praise which is 
 poured into his own ear? At all events, I have aimed high ; 
 I have tried to do something that may be remembered ; I have 
 had the year 2000, and even the year 3000, often in my mind ; 
 I have sacrificed nothing to temporary fashions of thought and 
 style ; and if I fail, my failure will be more honourable than 
 nine-tenths of the successes which I have witnessed." His 
 apprehensions were groundless. The History obtained enor- 
 mous and universal success. In 1S55 appeared the second 
 two volumes, which were received with at least equal avidity. 
 In 1 85 7 he received a well-merited acknowledgment of his 
 fame by being raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay of 
 Rothley. Induced by personal regard to the publisher, Mr 
 Adam Black, he was induced to furnish, between 1 853-1859, for 
 the eighth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," masterly 
 sketches of Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, Johnson, and Pitt 
 The biography of Pitt, which is one of the finest specimens of 
 style, was the last work that he lived to publish. He died 
 on December 28, 1859, leaving behind him the rough draft of 
 what was afterwards published as the fifth volume of his History 
 by his sister, Lady Trevelyan. 
 
 Macaulay's outward man, his nephew tells us, was never 
 better de ( ribed than in two sentences of Praed's Introduction 
 to Knights Quarterly Magazine. "There came up a short
 
 41 8 Our Ozvn Times. 
 
 manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and 
 one hand in his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he had 
 little to boast, but in faces where there is an expression of 
 great power, or of great good-humour, or both, you do not 
 regret its absence." In everything that requires manual 
 dexterity he was singularly awkward, and he was utterly 
 destitute of all bodily accomplishments. When, during his 
 attendance at Windsor as a Cabinet Minister, he was informed 
 that there was a horse at his disposal, he replied, " If Her 
 Majesty wishes to see me ride, she must order out an ele- 
 phant." Much might be said in praise of the dignity, honesty, 
 and manliness of his private character. No language could 
 be too strong to describe the deep affection which he felt for 
 some of his relatives, especially his sisters and a few cherished 
 friends. For them he considered no sacrifice too great. Yet 
 he was not exactly what is known as a good-hearted man. 
 He was, it is true, generous in supplying the pecuniary wants 
 of the many applicants for his bounty ; but the money so 
 bestowed was often given with a grudge and a sneer. 
 
 As an author, Macaulay's conscientious industry and never- 
 ceasing carefulness deserve the highest commendation. It is, 
 indeed, as Mr. Gladstone, in his most candid and judicious 
 essay on Macaulay, has observed, delightful to find that the 
 most successful prose-writer of the day was also the most 
 painstaking. Though, after the establishment of his fame, 
 he could have commanded whatever price he chose for any- 
 thing that came from his pen, his vigilance never for a 
 moment relaxed. He " unshrinkingly went through an im- 
 mense mass of inquiry, which even he felt sometimes to be 
 irksome, and which to most men would have been intolerable. 
 He was perpetually picking the grain of corn out of the 
 bushel of chaff. He freely chose to undergo the dust, and 
 heat, and strain of battle before he would challenge from the 
 public the crown of victory." His method in composing his 
 History was first to write rapidly out a rough draft, and then 
 begin to fill it in at the rate of six pages of foolscap every 
 morning, written in so large a hand and containing so many
 
 Maccmlays Writings. 419 
 
 erasures as to make on an average not more than two pages 
 of print. 
 
 Now that the heat of contemporary feeling has subsided, 
 Macaulay's merits can be appraised with some degree of 
 accuracy. Narrative was his peculiar forte. As a critic his 
 work is not of great value. He could point out the in- 
 accuracies of a Croker or the absurdities of a Robert Mont- 
 gomery with inimitable vigour and power of rough raillery, 
 but that "slashing" kind of criticism has had its day, and no 
 writer of equal eminence would now think of engaging in such 
 work. The higher kind of criticism, which consists in trying 
 to get at the inner meaning and substance of great literary 
 works, he had, as he himself was aware, little talent for and 
 rarely attempted. His poetry, with the exception of a few 
 lines, may be described as brilliant rhymed rhetoric. But his 
 biographical papers, in which in terse and striking fashion are 
 set forth the main features of the lives of such men as the 
 Earl of Chatham, Warren Hastings, Addison, are matchless 
 in their own department. They are not, like the similar 
 essays of Carlyle, a series of original reflections suggested by 
 the subjects under discussion, with the leading details about 
 whom the reader is supposed to be familiar, but vigorous 
 resumes in which are comprised all the leading features in the 
 life and character of the men who are handled. His " His- 
 tory of England from the Accession of James II.," to give the 
 full title, is but a fragment of a much larger design which 
 death prevented him from accomplishing. He prepared, as he 
 tells us in the first words of the opening chapter, "to write 
 the history of England from the accession of King James II. 
 down to a time which is within the memory of men still 
 living;" but he lived to bring it down only to the death of 
 William. His reading in all sorts of the contemporary 
 literature, pamphlets, squibs, songs, &C., joined to his extra- 
 ordinary strength of memory, enabled him to give his History 
 a picturesqueness and freshness of colour after which every 
 historian ought to aspire, but to which very fesv have attained 
 in anything like the same degree. No writer ever possessed
 
 420 Our Own Times. 
 
 in a higher measure the art of rendering whatever he dealt 
 with interesting and attractive. To say that he is not an 
 impartial historian is only to say what must to some extent 
 be said of every writer who treats of subjects regarding which 
 party prejudice has not altogether subsided. His History 
 has been described as "an epic poem, of which King 
 William is the hero," and certainly he sometimes allows his 
 Whig propensities to get the better of strict justice. Many 
 assaults have been made upon his accuracy, but they have 
 had little effect upon his fame. It would be strange indeed 
 if in so large a work as the History, containing innumerable 
 petty facts, no errors could be pointed out ; but of direct 
 errors there are not many. The real and weighty objection 
 to Macaulay's accuracy is his habit of making broad, sweeping 
 statements, which have indeed some foundation, but not 
 enough to support the assertion based on them. The same 
 fault occurs in all his writings. For example, in his " Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannica " sketch of Johnson, he says that Johnson 
 was " repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken 
 liberties with him." The "repeatedly" is a gross exaggera- 
 tion. The opinion of some of the best recent critics has been 
 strongly adverse to Macaulay's style. It is said to be rhe- 
 torical, to want repose, to have about it a hard metallic ring, 
 and to be disfigured by too frequently employed and obvious 
 artifices. In these censures there is a good deal of truth ; 
 nevertheless, there was never a better style for purposes of 
 popular effect. It is always lucid and vigorous and telling. 
 Its influence upon the style of contemporary writers has been 
 very wide, and upon the whole beneficial. Force and clear- 
 ness are qualities to which many other less important qualities 
 of writing may well be sacrificed. 
 
 There are almost no points of comparison between Ma- 
 caulay and Thomas Carlyle. In their ways of life, their 
 characters, their mental habits, their way of writing, they were 
 well-nigh totally dissimilar. Macaulay found Carlyle's literary 
 heterodoxy so obnoxious to him that he would not read his 
 works; and it is easy to imagine that Carlyle found certain
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 421 
 
 features in Macaulay's writings which rendered them almost 
 equally repugnant to him. Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan, 
 Dumfriesshire, on December 4, 1795. His father, originally 
 a stonemason, afterwards a small farmer, was an excellent 
 specimen of the best type of Scottish peasant, a man of great 
 force of character, rigid morals, deep religious feelings of the 
 Calvinistic kind, and of abilities which, if cultivated, would 
 have made their mark in any sphere. His mother, whom 
 throughout life he loved as he never loved any one else, was a 
 woman of gentle nature and much practical good sense. 
 After acquiring the elements of knowledge at the parish school 
 of Ecclefechan, Carlyle was sent to the academy at Annan, 
 where he remained till, in 1S09, he entered the University of 
 Edinburgh. There he went through the ordinary course, dis- 
 tinguishing himself in mathematics, but quitting it in iS^4 
 without taking a degree. His parents had indulged the hope, 
 common to Scottish people of their class, that they might yet 
 see their son " wag his head in a pulpit." But it was not 
 destined so to be. After leaving the University, Carlyle, to use 
 his own words, "got (by competition at Dumfries, summer 
 1814) to be 'mathematical master' in Annan Academy, with 
 some potential outlook on divinity as ultimatum (a rural 
 divinity student visiting Edinburgh for a few days each year, 
 and 'delivering' certain 'discourses'). Six years of that 
 would bring you to the church gate, as four years of con- 
 tinuous ' divinity hall ' would ; unluckily only that in my case I 
 never had the least enthusiasm for the business, and there 
 were even grave prohibitive doubts more and more rising 
 ahead." His theological studies were pretty much confined 
 to the writing and delivering in the Divinity Hall of two dis- 
 courses — one in English, the other in Latin. In 1816 he- 
 was appointed "classical and mathematical " master at Kirk- 
 caldy, in room of the old parish schoolmaster, who had been 
 bought off as incapable. Edward Irving, whose death lie 
 commemorated in words of burning eloquence, was then 
 master of an " academy " there, and Carlyle and he, who were 
 previously acquainted with each other, spent much time l<>
 
 4~ 2 Our Oivn Times. 
 
 gether. From the books in Irving's library Carlyle derived 
 great benefit. The destinies of the two friends were very 
 different. Irving, after a career of blazing popularity as a 
 London preacher, is now a name and nothing besides ; Car- 
 lyle, long unnoticed and unknown, has left an abiding impress 
 on the literature of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Carlyle was ill fitted to be a teacher, and his impatience 
 of folly and stupidity made him a harsh and stern preceptor. 
 "In 1818," he writes, "I had come to the grim conclusion 
 that schoolmastering must end, whatever pleased to follow ; 
 that ' it were better to perish,' as I exaggeratively said to my- 
 self, than continue schoolmastering." He accordingly went 
 to Edinburgh, " intending, darkly, towards potential ' litera- 
 ture.'" His first publications were sixteen articles, mostly 
 biographical, contributed to Brewster's " Edinburgh Encyclo- 
 paedia" in 1820-23. These articles, which have never been 
 reprinted, cannot be said to show any extraordinary promise. 
 To the Neiv Edinburgh Review, a short-lived periodical, he 
 contributed in 1821 a paper on Joanna Baillie's "Metrical 
 Legends," and in 1822 another on Goethe's "Faust," interest- 
 ing as being his earliest reference to the great German whom 
 he did so much to make known in this country. In 1822 he 
 became tutor to Charles Buller, whose premature death 
 in 1848 cut short the course of a politician of whom great 
 things were expected. This connection was profitable to 
 Carlyle in many ways. He received ^200 a year as salary; 
 and the Bullers, who recognised the great genius that lay 
 beneath his rough and occasionally harsh exterior, were in- 
 strumental in introducing him to a better order of society 
 than he had previously been accustomed to. Meanwhile his 
 pen was not idle. In 1823-24 his "Life of Schiller" ap- 
 peared by instalments in the London Magazine. In 1824 were 
 published his translation of " Legendre's Geometry," with an 
 able essay on Proportion by Carlyle himself; and his first 
 important work, the admirable translation of Goethe's " Wil- 
 helm Meister." In the same year he paid his first visit to 
 London, and in 1824, also, his engagement with the Bullers
 
 Carlyle s Works. 423 
 
 was brought to an end at his own desire. In 1S25 his " Life 
 of Schiller" was republished in book form. In the following 
 year occurred his marriage to Miss Jane Welsh, only daughter 
 of Dr. John Welsh, a Haddington physician, who, as Carlyle 
 liked to think, was believed to be a lineal descendant of John 
 Knox. Along with his wife, Carlyle settled at Comely Bank, 
 Edinburgh, where his first two articles for the Edinburgh 
 Review, — those on "Richter" and on the "State of German 
 Literature," — were written. They were published in 1827, in 
 which year also appeared, in four volumes, " German Ro- 
 mance," a series of translations, which formed Carlyle's last 
 piece of literary journey-work. 
 
 In 1828 he removed to Craigenputtoch, in Dumfriesshire, 
 a small estate belonging to his wife, where, for about six 
 years, he lived amid the bleak mountain solitudes, " in those 
 quiet ways where alone it is well with us," perfecting his 
 self-culture. There he wrote many articles for the Edinburgh 
 Review, the Foreign Quarterly Review, and Eraser's Magazine ; 
 and, in 1830, "Sartor Resartus," which may be described 
 as a spiritual biography of himself, containing the leading 
 features of all his subsequent teaching. In 1834 he removed 
 to London, fixing his residence at 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 
 where he remained for the rest of his life. In the same year 
 he began the writing of his "French Revolution," published 
 in 1S37. "Sartor Resartus," for which he failed to find a 
 publisher, had appeared by instalments in Eraser s Magazine 
 in 1833-34. In 1838 it was published in book form, after 
 having been reprinted in America with a preface by Emerson. 
 In the following year his essays were collected and published. 
 In 1837 he delivered in London a course of lectures on Ger- 
 man Literature; in 1S38 a course on the History of Litera- 
 ture; in 1839 a course on the Revolutions of Modern Europe, 
 and in 1840 a course on Hero-Worship. Of these only the 
 last series was published, appearing in 1 84 1. "Chartism," 
 in which he broke ground upon the "Condition of England" 
 question, appeared in 1839; "Past and Present" in 1843 J 
 " Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches" in 1S45 ; " Latter-
 
 424 Our Own Times. 
 
 Day Pamphlets," a series of fiery diatribes on social and poli- 
 tical problems, in 1850; and the " Life of John Sterling" in 
 1 85 1. In 1858 the first two volumes of his " Life of Frederick 
 the Great "were published, the third in 1862, the fourth in 
 1864, and in 1865 the work was completed. In 1865 he was 
 appointed Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, and in April 
 of the following year delivered his installation address to a 
 crowded and enthusiastic audience. All the pleasure of his 
 triumph on this occasion was drowned in his sorrow at the 
 sudden death of his wife, which occurred during his absence 
 in Edinburgh. The only important publication of the solitary 
 years of his old age was his ." Early Kings of Norway" and 
 "Essay on the Portraits of John Knox," reprinted in 1875 
 from Fraser's Magazine. He died on February 5, 1881. 
 
 Such is a brief summary of the more important events in 
 Carlyle's life. It was the lot of the present writer to read nearly 
 all the obituary notices of him which appeared in the leading 
 journals after his death. With not an exception they were 
 extremely eulogistic, praising his works and applauding in 
 the highest terms the dignity and stern conscientiousness of his 
 life. But when, about three weeks later, the " Reminiscences " 
 were published by Mr. Froude, the tide took a turn. They 
 were found to be full. of harsh, and, as in the case of Charles 
 Lamb, even cruel and heartless judgments; and Carlyle's 
 faults of temper, his malice, and his uncharitableness began 
 to be sharply commented on. A few of the more sturdy 
 admirers of the Seer of Chelsea protested that the " Reminis- 
 cences " did not give any idea of the real Carlyle at all ; that 
 nothing could be more unjust than to form an estimate of his 
 character from angry passages written in his old age, when 
 weak health and agonising sorrow had rendered him scarcely 
 responsible for his utterances. This defence proved to be but 
 a refuge of lies. In 1S82 Mr. Froude published his memoir 
 of the first forty years of Carlyle's life, and it was found that 
 the most sharp and biting passages of the " Reminiscences " 
 might be easily paralleled from the letters he wrote when in 
 the prime of manhood. The truth is, that Carlyle was very
 
 Carlylcs Characteristics. 425 
 
 far indeed from being a faultless character. The higher duties 
 of morality he acted up to as few have done. No praise can 
 be deemed too high for the resolute devotion with which, 
 through evil report and good report, through poverty and 
 riches, through obscurity and fame, he remained constantly 
 honest to his convictions ; resolved to write on no subject 
 which he had not studied to the bottom, and determined to 
 speak out what he believed to be the truth, however unpalat- 
 able it might be to the world. Nor are we soon tired of 
 admiring his inflexible integrity, his lofty spirit of indepen- 
 dence, his unwearied affection for all the members of his 
 family, and the stern dignity which prevented him from ever, 
 even on a single occasion, treading the miry ways of falsehood 
 or chicanery. But it must be confessed that in him virtue 
 was often clothed in a very unattractive guise. He was arro- 
 gant and contemptuous beyond any man recorded in literary 
 history. Whatever was foolish and vicious in a character was 
 sure to be carefully noted by him, while geniality, kind-hearted- 
 ness, and self-sacrifice often passed with no recognition at all, 
 or at best a very slight and grudging one. He was constantly in- 
 tolerant of those who differed from him ; never by any chance 
 imagining the possibility that they might be right and he wrong. 
 Always proclaiming in his books the infinite virtues of silence 
 and patience, he made no attempt whatever to practise as he 
 preached. The least illness, the least personal inconvenience, 
 such as getting his tea too weak or his coffee too cold, made 
 him complain as if all the world had been going headlong to 
 ruin, and he himself were the only righteous man left alive. 
 His temper, which he was at no particular pains to curb, was 
 harsh and violent. Altogether he was, as his mother well 
 observed, "g'V ill to live wi'." There is something very 
 pathetic in the story of the relations of himself and his gifted 
 wife, as retold by Mr. Froude. The bond which linked them 
 together was one of duty rather than oi love. Both were 
 persons of sti character, sharp temper, ami a rather cynical 
 way of looking at things. Tiny adm 1 h other cordially ; 
 
 but they never knew that mutual confidence and domestic
 
 426 Our Ozau Times. 
 
 felicity which has thrown a halo over thousands of humble 
 hearths. 
 
 Carlyle's works fall naturally into three divisions. First we 
 have his writings on literary subjects, including his Lives of 
 Schiller and Sterling, and most of his essays. Then there are 
 his lucubrations on political subjects, comprising "Chartism," 
 the "Latter-Day Pamphlets," and, in part, "Past and Present." 
 Lastly come his historical works, " The French Revolution," 
 " Oliver Cromwell," and the " History of Frederick." " Sartor 
 Resartus " belongs to none of these classes, but contains the 
 great principles which underlie the works contained in all of 
 them. "To blench at no paradox, to accept no convention, 
 to pierce below the surface at whatever cost apparently of safe 
 and comfortable foothold, to get rid of belief in believing and 
 assumption of knowing — these are the lessons taught in this 
 earliest book, as it may perhaps be allowably taken to be, of 
 the master, and no others will be learned from the most at- 
 tentive student of his latter lucubrations." Carlyle's essays 
 are among the most valuable of his writings. He was the first 
 to make the great writers of Germany known in this country ; 
 and his writings on the more illustrious figures of the epoch 
 of the French Revolution — Voltaire, Diderot, Mirabeau — are 
 models of insight into character, profound and discriminat- 
 ing estimates of men who had hitherto proved stumbling-blocks 
 to British critics. The essays on Burns and Johnson may be 
 said to have struck the keynote of all succeeding writings on 
 these men ; while his criticism of Scott, which has provoked a 
 good deal of hostility, is more and more coming to be gene- 
 rally recognised as substantially correct in its main features. 
 The " Life of Schiller," though warmly praised by Goethe, 
 who added a preface to the German translation of it, is not a 
 first-rate performance. But the " Life of Sterling" is a perfect 
 triumph of literary art, far and away the best biography of its 
 size in the language. Those who wish to see how differently 
 the same subject may be handled by a second-rate man and 
 by a man of genius should compare Archdeacon Hare's 
 memoir of Sterling with Carlyle's. From the poor and
 
 Carlyle as an Historian. 427 
 
 priggish book of the worthy Archdeacon we get no picture of 
 the man Sterling at all ; no bright, vivid portrait of his life and 
 environment, such as remains permanently fixed on the memory 
 of every one who reads Carlyle's matchless memoir. The " Life 
 of Sterling " is valuable, also, in that, more than any other of 
 his books, it throws light on Carlyle's personal character — his 
 half-contemptuous, half-pitying estimate of most of those with 
 whom he came into contact — and on his religious belief, which 
 may be described as Catholicism minus Christianity. Carlyle's 
 political writings display, in very marked fashion, both the 
 strength and limitations of his mind. They are full of that 
 protest, which it is the glory of literature to uphold, against 
 selfish utilitarianism and Iago's gospel, " put money in your 
 purse." Not in the worship of the "almighty dollar," not by 
 making "getting on in the world" one's purpose in life, can 
 we hope to find rest and peace. Our social shams, the weak 
 and faulty points in our political organisation, are exposed with 
 remorseless sarcasm, and, as men of all parties will admit, with 
 only too much truth. But Carlyle was never careful to bear 
 in mind that "'Tis better to fight for the good than to rail at 
 the ill." He is barren of practical suggestion to remedy the 
 evils of which he so eloquently declaims, except what may 
 be summed up in the too vague words, education and emigra- 
 tion. Of his historical works, the most wonderful, as regards 
 literary effect, is the "French Revolution," that extraordinary 
 series of historical paintings, sketched in colours so vivid and 
 gorgeous as to rivet themselves upon the memory of the reader 
 for ever. As scene after scene of the terrible drama passes 
 before our eyes, we almost seem to view the dreadful deeds 
 done and the men who did them. Through all the book we 
 breathe the same sultry atmosphere, full of thunder and light- 
 ning, which hung over the Paris of the Revolution. Vet 
 accuracy is never sacrificed to pictorial effect. It has bin 
 said by a very competent authority that "to most English- 
 men, even if they hive taken the trouble to ascertain the facts 
 by careful reference to authorities the most indisputable and 
 the most diverse, the mysterious and almost incredible event;;
 
 428 Our Own Times. 
 
 of the French Revolution range themselves into a possible and 
 intelligible whole in Mr. Carlyle's account, and in that account 
 almost alone." But Carlyle's most important service to histo- 
 rical truth was his " Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell," 
 a work of enormous research and labour, which none but him- 
 self could have done so well. It put an end at once and for 
 ever to the extraordinary amount of misrepresentation and ab- 
 surdity with which the memory of the great Protector had been 
 assailed since his death. In the " Life of Frederick," the most 
 laborious and the most irksome task of his life, Carlyle had 
 the disadvantage of dealing with a man who was, and who 
 will probably always remain, hateful to the majority of English 
 readers. Moreover, even his genius for graphic representation 
 cannot make uniformly interesting to us the tangled maze 
 of eighteenth century politics ; and throughout the work the 
 endless eccentricities of his style reach a height which some- 
 times becomes positively wearisome. Yet some episodes in the 
 book — for example, the account of the relations of Frederick 
 and Voltaire — are entirely admirable ; and none of his writings 
 affords better illustrations of Carlyle's faculty of hitting off a 
 character in two or three descriptive touches of marvellous 
 felicity. By Carlyle's earliest critics, no feature in his works 
 was more objected to than his style, which is certainly often of 
 a kind to make the hair of those whose literary orthodoxy is 
 strict stand on end. But it is now pretty generally agreed that 
 a writer of first-rate genius has a right to choose the mode of 
 expression best suited to him, and that all attempts to make 
 him alter it in accordance with the dicta of critics are as vain 
 as to expect grapes from apple-trees or roses from oaks. No 
 competent critic would be willing to have Carlyle's power of 
 humorous description and exquisite felicity of epithet pruned 
 down for the sake of making his style bear a closer resemblance 
 to conventional models. 
 
 The greatest contribution to the history of the ancient world 
 which has appeared since Edward Gibbon laid aside his philo- 
 sophic pen is the "History of Greece" by George Grote, 
 published between 1846-1856. Like Gibbon, Grote owed
 
 George Grote. 429 
 
 nothing to University education; his vast fund of knowledge was 
 entirely the result of his own exertions. Born in 1794, the son 
 of a wealthy London banker, he entered upon business life at 
 the age of sixteen; but every available leisure hour was devoted 
 to study — not light, miscellaneous reading, but works of 
 philosophy and classical literature. His design of writing a 
 history of Greece was formed as early as 1823. In 1S32 he 
 entered Parliament as member for the City of London, but 
 retired from political life in 1841, in order that he might 
 devote himself exclusively to his great work. The most pro- 
 minent feature of his parliamentary career was his advocacy 
 of vote by ballot. The practical experience of political affairs 
 which he gained in the House of Commons was of great ser- 
 vice to him in dealing with the political life of ancient Greece. 
 After his History, his most important works are his elaborate 
 study of " Plato and other Companions of Socrates," and a 
 fragment ofa similar work on Aristotle, published after his death, 
 which occurred in 1S71. Grote's learning, sagacity, candour, 
 and perfect mastery over his materials give his work a place 
 among the very few great histories which England has pro- 
 duced. But its literary execution is by no means first-rate ; 
 he never seems to have realised that prose composition is an 
 art. Comparing the excellent " History of Greece " by Bishop 
 Thirlwall (originally published in 1835-41 in " Lardner's 
 Cabinet Cyclopaedia," afterwards in 1845-52 reprinted and 
 revised) with Grote's, a recent critic 1 has observed, that "when 
 we come to compare Thirlwall with Grote, we find . . . the 
 full opposition of the presence of style on the one hand, and 
 the absence of it on the other. The late Bishop of St. David's 
 will probably never be cited among the greatest masters of 
 English prose style, but still we can see without difficulty that 
 he has inherited its traditions. It would be difficult, on the 
 other hand, to persuade a careful critic that Grote ever thou 
 of such tilings as the cadence ofa sentence or the composition 
 ofa paragraph. That he took so much trouble as might sul 
 
 1 Mr. < . tsbury, in a g article on 
 
 "Modem English Prose," in the Fortnightly Review for February 1S76.
 
 430 Our Own Times. 
 
 to make his meaning clear and his language energetic is ob- 
 vious ; that in no case did he think of looking beyond this is 
 I think certain." 
 
 No one is likely to make any such criticism on the style of 
 James Anthony Froude (born 1818), of which, says the critic 
 quoted above, "it may be asserted, without any fear whatever 
 of contradiction carrying weight, that at its best it is surpassed 
 by no style of the present day, and by few of any other." 
 Nevertheless no historian, perhaps, of equal eminence, indeed 
 few who deserve to be called eminent at all, has met with so 
 much severe and searching criticism as has fallen to the lot 
 of Mr. Froude. He has written extensively ; but his most 
 important works are his " History of England from the Fall 
 of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth," in twelve volumes (1856- 
 70), and his " English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century" 
 (1871-74). With all their charm of style it may be doubted 
 whether these works will stand the test of time. Mr. Froude 
 is very apt to fall into the besetting sin of an historian, colour- 
 ing his facts to suit preconceived theories instead of adapting 
 his theories to suit his facts. His Histories may always be 
 read with pleasure, but to read them with profit we must take 
 care not to trust them implicitly, but to correct his judgments 
 by those of less paradoxical if not so brilliant authorities. A 
 great living historian has thus expressed his opinion of him, 
 in words too harsh indeed, but unfortunately not without a 
 strong basis of facts : — " Mr Froude is a man of undoubted 
 ability, of undoubted power of writing. If there is any branch 
 of science or learning in which accuracy of statement is a 
 matter of indifference, in which a calm putting forth of state- 
 ments which are arbitrary can be accepted in its stead, in that 
 branch of science or learning Mr. Froude's undoubted ability, 
 his gift of description and narrative, may stand him in good 
 stead. But for the writing of history, while those gifts are pre- 
 cious, other gifts are more precious still. In that field ' before 
 all things Truth beareth away the victory ;' and among those 
 whom Truth has enrolled in her following as her men, among 
 those who go forth to do battle for her as their sovereign lady,
 
 Edward A. Freeman. 4 3 1 
 
 Mr. Froude has no part or lot. It may be his fault, it may 
 be his misfortune, but the fact is clear. History is a record 
 of things which happened ; what passes for history in the hands 
 of Mr. Froude is a writing in which the things which really 
 happened find no place, and in which their place is taken by 
 the airy children of Mr. Froude's imagination." l 
 
 The writer of these words, Mr. Freeman, is perhaps the 
 most celebrated member of the recent critical school of histo- 
 rians, which numbers in its ranks such men as William Stubbs, 
 whose " Constitutional History of England " is a work of great 
 research and value ; Professor S. R. Gardiner, who has thrown 
 much new light on the history of the Stuart family in England, 
 and Mr. J. R. Green, whose " Short History of England " lias 
 attained such extraordinary success. The leading principle 
 of the school may be said to be its insistance upon the neces- 
 sity of the historian always going to original sources for his 
 facts, and stating these facts with minute, sometimes even, as 
 scoffing critics would say, with pedantic accuracy. • Edward 
 Augustus Freeman (born 1823) has done a vast amount of 
 very important historical work in various fields. Two cardinal 
 points he has always insisted on with beneficent iteration : 
 first, the unity of history, fighting against all arbitrary, ancient 
 and modern, classical, and something else ; second, the un- 
 broken being of the English people from the beginning. He 
 has nothing but contempt for people who still persist in talk- 
 ing about "Anglo-Saxon" instead of "Early English." His 
 great work is his " History of the Norman Conquest in Eng- 
 I " (1S67-79), to which, in 1882, appeared a supplement in 
 the shape of two volumes on the " Reign of William Rums." 
 The " Norman Conquest " will remain a standing monument 
 to his learning and soundness of judgment, though partly 
 owing to the subject, partly to his mode of treating it. it will 
 -ably always be rather a work for students than . nei 1 
 readers. Mr. I in cannot be said to be a very powerful 
 
 or picturesque writer, but his love of truth and patient accura< y 
 
 1 Contemporary Review f>>r Septembei 1S7S, p, 241.
 
 432 Our Ozvn Times. 
 
 is great, and he possesses the high merit of always trying to 
 make his words fit his thoughts, and his thoughts the facts. 
 
 William Edward Hartpole Lecky, born near Dublin in 1S38, 
 after publishing two or three books which proved failures, 
 obtained his first success by his " History of the Rise of 
 Rationalism in Europe" (1865). It was followed in 1869 
 by a " History of European Morals from Augustus to Charle- 
 magne," and in 1878 by two volumes of a " History of Eng- 
 land in the Eighteenth Century," to which other two were 
 added in 1882. Mr. Lecky is a brilliant and captivating 
 writer, although his works are rather disquisitions on historical 
 subjects than histories. There is little original research in his 
 "England in the Eighteenth Century," nor are his views of 
 men and events as a rule such as to modify received judg- 
 ments ; but some portions of it, as, for example, the account 
 of the rise of Methodism, are so good that if published as 
 essays they would have ranked almost as highly as Macaulay's. 
 
 Among what may, for want of a better name, be called the 
 critics and essayists of the Victorian age, John Ruskin, who, 
 as has been well said, has created a new literature — the litera- 
 ture of Art — occupies the foremost place. He was born in 
 London in 18 19, the son of a wine merchant. In many 
 pleasing passages in the discursive pages of " Fors Clavigera" 
 lie has given us reminiscences of his childhood, of the per- 
 fect order and obedience in which he was trained up, of his 
 reading the Bible carefully through from beginning to end 
 with his mother — omitting nothing and slurring nothing ; of 
 his summer excursions with his father, who had, he says, a per- 
 fect natural taste in painting, and who took him to see all the 
 good collections of paintings to which he could obtain access, 
 directing him to the best paintings, and never permitting him 
 to waste a look on inferior or worthless ones. His early 
 education over, he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, 
 where he graduated. Except the Newdigate prize, which he 
 gained in 1839 for a poem entitled : 'Salsette and Elephanta," 
 he did not obtain any University distinction. His blameless 
 character, his religious nature, and his love of study led his
 
 John Ruskin. 433 
 
 parents to cherish the hope that he would enter the Church, 
 and great was their grief when he decided otherwise. " He 
 might have been a bishop," said his father regretfully in after 
 years. As he was an only son, and as his father had by this 
 time amassed a considerable fortune, it was not necessary for 
 him to enter any profession, and he accordingly gratified his 
 love of art by studying painting under Copley Fielding and 
 J. D. Harding. To a present of Moxon's magnificent edition 
 of Rogers's " Italy," which he received from his father in his 
 youth, is to be attributed much of Ruskin's lifework. Many 
 of the engravings in it were by Turner, and by their means 
 his attention was attracted to the pictures of the greatest of 
 modern landscape-painters, whom he henceforth admired with 
 an intensity approaching to idolatry. Certain articles in a 
 Review condemnatory of Turner's paintings offended him 
 keenly, and he addresssd a letter to the editor of the Review 
 " reprobating the matter and style of these critiques, and point- 
 ing out their dangerous tendency," because " he knew it to 
 be demonstrable that Turner was right and true, and that 
 his critics were wrong, false, and base." The letter grew 
 into a book, and the defence of Turner into the most ela- 
 borate English treatise upon art. In 1S43 appeared the first 
 volume of " Modern Painters : their Superiority in the Art of 
 Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters. By a Gra- 
 duate of Oxford." The " Oxford Graduate," who in this work 
 boldly set aside many of the articles of the orthodox art creed, 
 succeeded at least in attracting attention, though most of the 
 reviews of his book were condemnatory of its doctrines. In 
 . a second volume of "Modem Painters" was issued, 
 to accompany an enlarged and amended edition of the first. 
 By tiiis time the value of the work had become widely rei 
 nised, and Mr. Ru kin was justly regarded as one of the first 
 writers of the day. In 1856 two more volumes were added, 
 and in i860 the work was completed by the publication of a 
 third volume. On the 1 tion of" Modern Painters" the 
 
 author b 1 the ul iften rewriting a paragraph 
 
 several times, till its melody was such as to suit his fastidious
 
 434 Otir Own Times. 
 
 ear. A new and final edition of "Modern Painters" was 
 issued in 1S73, since which time the author has steadfastly 
 refused to reprint it, so that it cannot be obtained unless one 
 is prepared to pay a fancy price for it Mr. Ruskin's reasons 
 for not reprinting it are various. He has modified some of 
 his opinions since it was written, and, in particular, he does 
 not regard the Church of Rome with the same horror. When 
 " Modern Painters " was composed his views were of the kind 
 called " Evangelical j" and while still Protestant in the genuine 
 sense of the word, his language in one of his latest produc- 
 tions, "The Bible of Amiens," regarding the worship of the 
 Virgin, has evoked an indignant protest from a section of the 
 press. A little volume of selections from " Modern Painters " 
 was published in 1876 under the title of "Frondes Agrestes." 
 
 During the interval between the publication of the first and 
 the last volume of " Modern Painters," many of Mr. Ruskin's 
 most important works appeared. " The Seven Lamps of 
 Architecture," which did for architecture what " Modern Pain- 
 ters " did for painting, was published in 1849. In 185 1 he 
 published a pamphlet advocating Pre-Raphaelitism, then in its 
 infancy, and issued the first volume of his magnificent " Stones 
 of Venice," which was completed by the publication of two 
 more volumes in 1853. Among many by whom this great 
 work was read with admiration, none was more enthusiastic 
 in its praise than Charlotte Bronte, who declared that Mr. 
 Ruskin seemed to her one of the few genuine writers, as dis- 
 tinguished from bookmakers, of this age. " His earnestness 
 even amuses me in certain passages ; for I cannot help laugh- 
 ing to think how Utilitarians will fume and fret over his deep, 
 serious, and (as they will think) fanatical reverence for art. 
 That pure and severe mind you ascribed to him speaks in 
 every line. He writes like a consecrated Priest of the 
 Abstract and Ideal." 
 
 " Modern Painters," " The Seven Lamps of Architecture," 
 and the " Stones of Venice" are Mr. Ruskin's most important 
 works, but he has written much besides. " Unto this Last," 
 four essays on the principles of political economy, very much
 
 Ruskin s Writings. 435 
 
 opposed to the received ones and extremely paradoxical, 
 appeared in 1S62, having been previously published in the 
 Comhill Magazine. " Sesame and Lilies," originally delivered 
 as lectures in Manchester in 1S64, gives his views "about 
 books, and the way we read them, and could or should read 
 them ; " and also about the education of women. We need 
 not chronicle " the legions of little books with parody-provok- 
 ing titles " in which of late years Mr. Ruskin has lifted up his 
 voice against our social evils, and told us how we should 
 remove them. Of these, the most characteristic is " Fors 
 Clavigera," a series of letters to the workmen and labourers of 
 Great Britain, begun in 1S71 and carried on for several years. 
 It must not be supposed that Mr. Ruskin has altogether 
 abandoned his' art studies ; precious productions of this nature 
 still come from his pen, although it is his work as a social 
 reformer which he now estimates most highly. However 
 erroneous and one-sided many of his opinions on the condi- 
 tion of society and on modern improvements, however hope- 
 lessly unpractical many of his schemes for the regeneration of 
 mankind may be, all must admire his noble purity of heart, his 
 earnest aspirations after better things, and his unflinching de- 
 votion to what he believes to be the truth. 
 
 We have mentioned the care with which " Modern Painters" 
 was written. This care has had its reward. The ease and grace 
 of Mr. Ruskin's style, his appropriateness of expression, his 
 splendour of imaginative effect, the harmonious roll of his 
 sentences, and the beautiful thoughts sustained in them, make 
 the study of his great works one of the highest intellectual 
 pleasures. And they are works which none can study without 
 learning much and benefiting greatly. Yet it is to be feared 
 that to a very large number oi readers Ruskin is a name and 
 ling besides. While the var litions of the works of 
 
 Dyson, the greatest poet of the day, are selling by hundreds 
 of thousands, Ruskin, the greatest living prose writer, is known 
 to most only by the paragraphs of true or false go ip r< gard- 
 ing him that appear from time to time in the newspapers. 
 The cause of this L9 not far to seek. In accordance with one
 
 436 Our Own Times. 
 
 of his peculiar theories, Mr. Ruskin has chosen to sell his books 
 only through a provincial bookseller, to sell them at the same 
 price to the trade as to the public, and, last but not least, to 
 sell them at such a price as places them almost quite beyond 
 the reach of people of moderate means. Moreover, some of 
 them are out of print, and not to be procured save for a sum 
 which would seem a small fortune to many a working man. 
 Hence arises the fact, probably unique in literary history, of 
 the writings of a man universally admitted to be one of the 
 greatest geniuses of his time, being very little known to the 
 reading public at large, and being absent from the book- 
 shelves of many of the most assiduous collectors of modern 
 literature. 
 
 The greatest living critic and one of the greatest living poets 
 is Matthew Arnold, son of the famous Dr. Arnold of Rugby, who 
 revolutionised the discipline of our great public schools, and 
 who occupies no mean rank as an historian. Mr. Arnold, who 
 was born in 1822, was educated at Rugby, on leaving which 
 he was elected to a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford. 
 The following passage from a poem by Principal Shairp, himself 
 a distinguished critic, describes how Mr. Arnold at Oxford — 
 
 " Wide^welcomed for a father's fame, 
 
 Entered with free, bold step, that seemed to claim 
 
 Fame for himself, nor on another lean ; 
 So full of power, yet blithe and debonair, 
 
 Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay, 
 Or half a-dream, chaunting with jaunty air 
 
 Great words of Goethe, scrap of Beranger. 
 We see the banter sparkle in his prose, 
 
 But knew not then the undertone that flows, 
 So calmly sad through all his stately lay." 
 
 During his undergraduate career, Mr. Arnold, like Mr. Rus- 
 kin, obtained the Newdigate prize for English verse. He 
 graduated with second-class honours; and was, in 1845, 
 elected to a Fellowship at Oriel. In 1847 he was appointed 
 private secretary to the late Lord Landsowne, which office 
 he retained till his marriage in 1851, when he became an
 
 Matthew Arnold. 437 
 
 inspector of schools, a position he still holds. His first 
 volume, "The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, by A.," 
 appeared in 1S49; the second, " Empedocles on Etna, and 
 other Poems, by A.," in 1S52. In 1853 he published a 
 volume of poems under his own name, consisting of selections 
 from the two previously published volumes, along with some 
 new pieces. Another volume followed in 1855. In 1S58, 
 " Merope," a tragedy in the Greek manner, was published, and 
 in 1S67 "New Poems," in which "Empedocles," only scraps 
 of which had been reprinted since 1S52, was republished in 
 entirety, at the request of Mr. Robert Browning. Mr. Arnold 
 belongs to the classical school of poetry, regarding the Greeks, 
 with their strength and simplicity of phrase and their perfect 
 sense of form, as his masters. To the imaginative power of a 
 true poet, he adds a delicacy and refinement of taste, and a 
 purity and severity of phrase which uncultivated readers often 
 mistake for boldness. Nowhere in his poems do we find 
 those hackneyed commonplaces, decked out with gaudy and 
 ungraceful ornament, which pass for poetry with many people. 
 1 lis fault rather is that he is too exclusively the poet of culture. 
 Many of his verses will always seem fiat and insipid to those 
 who have not received a classical education, while, on the other 
 hand, students of Greek literature will be disposed to praise cer- 
 tain of his pieces more highly than their intrinsic merit demands. 
 Yet it may be doubted whether some of his work as a poet 
 will not stand the ordeal of time better than that of any con- 
 temporary poet, Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning excepted. 
 There are few poems which show such a refined sense of 
 beauty, such dignity and self-restraint, such admirable adapta- 
 tion of the form to the subject, as, to give one or two examples, 
 Mr. Arnold's " Sohrab and Kustuni," "Tristram and Iseult," 
 and the " Forsaken Merman." On the last of these, Mr. 
 Swinburne's eloquent and enthusiastic criticism may be quoted. 
 "The or is a piece of the sea- wind, a stray breath of the air and 
 bloom ol the bays and hills. Its mixture Ol mortal I >>rrow 
 with the strange wild sense of a life that is not alter mortal 
 . the child-like moan after lost love mingling with the pure
 
 43 S Our Own Times. 
 
 outer note of a song not human, the look in it as of bright, 
 bewildered eyes with tears not theirs and alien wonder in the 
 watch of them, the tender, marvellous, simple beauty of the 
 poem, its charm, as of a sound or a flower of the sea, set it 
 and save it apart from all others in a niche of the memory." 
 These glowing words of Mr. Swinburne cause us to recollect 
 that readers have now an excellent opportunity of comparing 
 his style with Mr. Arnold's by reading together "Tristram of 
 Lyonesse " and " Tristram and Iseult," in which the same 
 legend is handled. Mr. Swinburne has many qualities as a 
 poet which Mr. Arnold has not, yet not a few will be inclined 
 to think that Mr. Arnold's thoughtful and touching treatment 
 of the story is superior to Mr. Swinburne's more gorgeous but 
 less impressive mode of dealing with it. 
 
 Mr. Arnold's first, and certainly not worst, work as a critic 
 appeared in the form of prefaces to his poems. In 1857 he 
 was appointed Professor of Poetry in Oxford University, 
 which led to his publishing two series of " Lectures on Trans- 
 lating Homer" (1861-62), in which he advocates the use of 
 the hexameter as the proper metre for the English translator 
 of the author of the "Iliad." In 1865 appeared his most 
 celebrated prose work, the " Essays in Criticism," a precious 
 little book, to the influence of which much of the spirit of 
 current criticism may be traced. Defining criticism as "a 
 disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that 
 is known and thought in the world," Mr. Arnold spared no 
 pains to make critics feel that their duty is "to see things as 
 they are," to shun insular prejudice and self-complacency, to 
 avoid all eccentricity and exaggeration, never to praise with 
 blind enthusiasm or to condemn with equally blind indigna- 
 tion, and to keep themselves pure from the contagion of 
 personal, or political, or national bias. In this, as in all his 
 prose writings, he treated with an air of bantering ridicule, 
 beneath which lay a serious purpose, the " Philistinism" ot 
 his countrymen, defining Philistinism as " on the side of 
 beauty and taste, vulgarity ; on the side of morality and 
 feeling, coarseness ; on the side of mind and spirit, unintelli-
 
 Sir Arthur Helps. 439 
 
 gence." One book, "Friendship's Garland" (1871), he has 
 entirely devoted to an assault on the kingdom of Philistia. 
 To religious thought Mr. Arnold has contributed largely. 
 Among his writings in this department may be mentioned 
 " Literature and Dogma," " St. Paul and Protestantism," and 
 "Last Essays on Church and State." These cannot be criti- 
 cised here. Their main purport has been thus tersely sum- 
 marised : " His design is to retain the morality of the Old and 
 New Testament without retaining what he thinks superstitious 
 excrescences — the miracles, the promises of a physical life 
 after death, and the like. In his view it was in righteousness, 
 in "conduct," that the prophets and our Lord placed the 
 kingdom of heaven. He, too, holds that happiness depends 
 on morality, and that the Bible is the great teacher and 
 inspirer of morality. On the Continent it is being rejected 
 because of its want of conformity to physical science. In 
 England and America, where religion is still so strong, Mr. 
 Arnold hopes to anticipate and weaken the crude scepticism 
 which rejects what is true and divine because it is mixed up 
 with what is human and erroneous." Such views as these, it 
 is hardly necessary to say, have met with much powerful 
 opposition ; and there are few cf Mr. Arnold's admirers who 
 will not join in regretting that his advocacy of them has occu- 
 pied so much time that he would have better employed in 
 the field of literary and social criticism. Other writings of 
 Mr. Arnold's, besides those mentioned, arc " Culture anil 
 Anarchy," "Mixed Essays," and "Irish Essays." lie has 
 also edited selections from Wordsworth and from Byron, with 
 very BUggestive introductory essays ; and has done other simi- 
 work. 
 
 One of the most pleasing of the few writers of the Victorian 
 era whose fame has been won by essay-writiiiL', as distinct from 
 critical and biographical articles, is Sir Arthur Helps (1817- 
 1 I75), His "Essays Written in the Intervals of Business" 
 (1841), "Claims ol Labour" (1844), and "Friends in Coun- 
 cil" (1847 jv, are full of wise and kindly reflections OH our 
 
 everyday experiences, and of sagacious and high-minded advice
 
 440 Our Own Times. 
 
 on the conduct of life. He also won for himself a high posi- 
 tion as an historian by his " Conquerors of the New World 
 and their Bondsmen" (1848-51), and his "Spanish Conquest 
 in America" (1S55-61), and wrote one or two interesting 
 novels touching on social questions. The chief attraction of 
 his writings lies in their pure and graceful style and their 
 elevated and healthy moral tone. 
 
 One of the ablest journalists of the day, and one of the first 
 writers on subjects connected with political history, is John 
 Morley (born 1S38). Mr. Morley early took to journalism, 
 and was connected as editor with several not very successful 
 journalistic adventures. In 1867 he succeeded Mr. G. H. 
 Lewes as editor of the Fortnightly Review, which he con- 
 ducted with marked ability till October 1882, when he was 
 succeeded by Mr. T. H. S. Escott. Towards the close of 
 1880 he became editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, when that 
 post was vacated by Mr. Frederick Greenwood, owing to the 
 political views of himself and the proprietor of that paper 
 being found to be at variance. On his journalistic labours 
 Mr. Morley has brought to bear a moral earnestness, a depth 
 of conviction, and a ripeness and power of style surpassed by 
 no living newspaper-writer. His principal works are two 
 volumes on "Edmund Burke," an "Essay on Compromise;" 
 studies of some of the leading characters of the period of the 
 French Revolution, — Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot; and a 
 " Life of Richard Cobden," which may fairly claim to be more 
 powerfully written and to contain more suggestive thought 
 than any political biography in the language. 
 
 There are many other living essayists and critics who do 
 credit to their age both by their literary skill and their patient 
 research and wide knowledge. Among authors of the so- 
 called "aesthetic" school, who have written with a refinement 
 and subtlety of thought and an elaboration of form which 
 would have been a stumbling-block to critics of the Macaulay 
 and Jeffrey type, and which is foolishness to the Philistines, 
 Mr. Walter H. Pater (born 183S) is especially noteworthy. 
 His "Studies in the History of the Renaissance" (1873),
 
 Cardiiial Newman. 44 1 
 
 while assailed by many critics on account of their dildtanteism, 
 the supreme position they assign to art, and as being per- 
 meated by the tone of an inner circle of illuminati, was wel- 
 comed by cultivated and discerning readers for the finish and 
 picturesqueness of its composition. The " History of the 
 Renaissance in Italy," the chief work of John Addington 
 Symonds (born 1S40), which was published in 1875-81, has 
 been accepted as the standard authority on the subject, and 
 is written in a style which, though occasionally overloaded 
 with ornament, is rarely deficient in grace and colour. Rev. 
 Mark Pattison, the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford (born 
 1S13), has, among other scholarly productions, written a 
 "Life of Casaubon " (1875), a type of scholar now altogether 
 extinct, with an insight and sympathy which, added to his 
 wide knowledge of the subject, make it one of the best bio- 
 graphies of its class. There is a distinction and strenuousness 
 about Mr. Pattison's style which lift it above the ordinary 
 level, but at the same time it is sometimes careless and even 
 rammatical. A host of other writers who have done good 
 service to the cause of literature — Dr. John Drown, Leslie 
 Stephen, William Minto, Edward Dowden, George Saintsbury, 
 R. L. Stevenson, and many others — occur to us as we write, 
 but these we must refrain from particularism • 
 
 With the theologians, the philosophers, and the men of 
 science of our own times we do not propose to deal. To 
 enter at any length upon their characteristics would lead us 
 greatly beyond our limits, besides being in some measure alien 
 to the purpose of this work ; and to give, on the other hand, a 
 barren catalogue of names and dates would be profitless and 
 tedious. There are few writers wiio.se .style deserves higher 
 praise than that of Cardinal Newman (bom 1S01), the lea 
 spirit in the "I oent," winch may he said to i 
 
 been at its height between 1835-45, and which finally led so 
 
 man. guished members oi the Church of England within 
 
 the pale of the Church of 1 The finish and urbanit) of 
 
 Cardinal Newman's prose have been universally commend 
 
 even by those who are most strenuously opposed to his opinions,
 
 44 2 Our Own Times. 
 
 and he is also the author of some of the finest religious verse 
 in the language. Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), the 
 leader of the " Broad Church " school, is a great figure in the 
 history of theological thought in England ; and the same may 
 be said of the late Dean Stanley (1815-1881), who always wrote 
 in an easy and graceful, if not very powerful style. The ser- 
 mons of Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853) show very 
 well the favourable influence which literary taste and culture 
 may have on pulpit oratory. But we need not go on men- 
 tioning more names. In philosophy, the names of John 
 Stuart Mill (1806-1873), of Herbert Spencer (born 1820), 
 and of Alexander Bain (18 18), are perhaps the best known to 
 general readers among those who have made their mark in 
 the world of metaphysical speculation. The number and emi- 
 nence of the men of science who appeared in the Victorian 
 era will strike future historians as one of its most noticeable 
 features. The theory of Evolution propounded by Charles 
 Darwin (1809-1882) has had a powerful influence not only 
 on scientific but on many other forms of thought — historic, 
 scientific, and philosophical. The elegance and lucidity of 
 style which is now a common characteristic of scientific men is 
 one of the most marked features of the time. It is no longer 
 the rule for chemists and natural historians to be incapable, 
 when called on to address a general audience, of writing save 
 in a jargon lacking ease, finish, and intelligibility. On the 
 other hand, such men as Sir Charles Lyell, Michael Faraday, 
 Professor Huxley, Professor Tyndall have shown that they 
 can use the English language so skilfully, that had they 
 made literature instead of science their specialty, they would 
 assuredly have obtained scarcely less high honours in that 
 profession than in that which they chose.
 
 XI. 
 
 PERIODICALS, REVIEWS, AND ENCYCLOPAEDIAS. 
 
 HAT the highly-finished models of periodical com- 
 position which had been given to the world by 
 Steele and Addison should excite a spirit of emula- 
 tion and give birth to a number of competitors, 
 was an event equally to be wished for and expected." So 
 writes the industrious Dr. Nathan Drake at the beginning of 
 his instructive, if rather long-winded essays on the Rambler, 
 Adventurer, and Idler. At the conclusion of the same work 
 he gives a chronological table, from which it appears that be- 
 tween the Toiler and Rambler, a period of forty-one years, one 
 hundred and six periodical papers of a similar kind were 
 issued, and between the Rambler and the year 1809, one 
 hundred and thirteen, making altogether, with the two men- 
 tioned added, a grand total of two hundred and twenty-one 
 — a surprising number truly. Of these, a vast proportion, 
 as may be supposed, were quite worthless, and have been de- 
 servedly consigned t<> a ; Others of more merit, ind 
 but still of not sufficient excellence to Stand the test of time, 
 have shared the same fate; others, written witli a political 
 intent, are of value only to the historian. A very few, how- 
 ever, are still of intere 1 u e ol die value "i their 
 contents or on account of the fame of those connected with 
 
 them. Of these we shall ome brief account. 
 
 ( If the many periodicals, political and social, started during
 
 444 Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopaedias. 
 
 the lifetime of Addison and Steele, and up till the beginning 
 of Johnson's Rambler (1750), all or nearly all of any merit 
 have been already mentioned in the account given of the 
 literature of the reign of Queen Anne. The others form a 
 very motley assemblage. " Fortunate," says Dr. Drake, 
 " would it have been for the interests of general literature had 
 the swarm of imitators strictly confined themselves to the 
 plan of the Spectator, to a laudable attempt at reforming the 
 morals and the manners of the age. The facility, however, 
 with which this mode of writing might be rendered a vehicle 
 for slander, for rancorous politics, and virulent satire, soon 
 tempted many to deviate from the salutary example of the 
 authors of the Tatler and Spectator ; and the former of these 
 papers had not run half its course before it was assailed 
 by a multitude of writers who were actuated by no other 
 motives than those of envy and ill-nature." One of them, 
 the Female Tatler, begun in 1S09, obtained such notoriety 
 for its personalities that it was presented as a nuisance by the 
 grand jury at the Old Bailey. Of the rest, the most notable 
 are the Lay Monastery (1713 *), of which the principal writer 
 was the poetical knight Sir Richard Blackmore, who was 
 a constant butt of the wits of his time; the Censor (1715), 
 conducted by Theobald, the original hero of the " Dun- 
 ciad ; " the Craftsman (1826), which proved a very power- 
 ful organ of the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole ; and 
 three papers of which the great novelist Henry Fielding was 
 the presiding spirit, the Champion (1739), and the True 
 Patriot, begun in 1745, and succeeded by the Jacobite Journal. 
 Of these, the first, besides containing essays on the follies, 
 vices, amusements, and literature of the age, had a political 
 intent, being directed against the administration of Walpole ; 
 while the first and second were designed to throw ridicule 
 upon the Jacobite party, and to aid the cause of the House of 
 Hanover, of which Fielding was a very strenuous supporter. 
 Some years later, in January 1752, Fielding started another 
 
 1 When only one date is given, it refers to the beginning of the 
 periodical.
 
 The Adventurer. 445 
 
 periodical, the Covcnt Garden Journal, which was published 
 twice a week for a twelvemonth. Most of the contents were 
 of a humorous and sarcastic kind, and it had a considerable 
 flavouring of personal satire. 
 
 The Covcnt Garden Journal properly belongs to the second 
 division of our subject — the papers published after the 
 Rambler. Some of these are of considerable importance, 
 especially the Adventurer, which had a very considerable sale 
 both during its publication and afterwards when collected into 
 volumes. It was begun in November 1752, and continued 
 till March 1754. It appeared twice a week, and the price of 
 each number was twopence, the same as that of the Rambler. 
 Of the hundred and forty numbers to which the periodical 
 extended, Dr. John Hawkesworth, its editor, was the author 
 of seventy. Hawkesworth (1715— 1773) was one of the many 
 imitators of Johnson, whose style, as Burke with great felicity 
 of phrase observed to Boswell, on the latter remarking 
 that the pompous " Life of Young," which Sir Herbert 
 Croft contributed to the " Lives of the Poets," was very much 
 in Johnson's manner, " has all the nodosities of the oak with- 
 out its strength ; all the contortions of the Sybil without the 
 inspiration." A considerable proportion of 1 lawkesworth's con- 
 tributions consist of those Oriental and allegorical tales of 
 which the Spectator presents examples, and which may now be 
 reckoned an extinct department of literature, though they were 
 so popular during the last century. That they have ceased 
 to be written is not matter for regret, for nothing can be 
 ;ined more jejune and wearisome than most of them 
 were. Hawkesworth'a principal assistants in the Adventurer, 
 ides I »r. Johnson, who contributed a good many papers, 
 were Ki< hard Bathurst (whose name will live as long as that 
 of the individual whom Johnson praised as " a man to my very 
 heart's content; he hated a fooi, and lie hated a rogue, and he 
 hated a Wing : he was a very good hater ") ; Dr. Joseph Walton ; 
 
 and Hester Chapoi ol the " literary ladies " of Johnson's 
 
 time, whom it was his habit, when in a genial mood, to over* 
 
 praise ridiculously. Joseph Warton, a brother of Thomas
 
 446 Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopedias. 
 
 Warton, the author of the " History of English Poetry," was a 
 man of considerable note in his day, much beloved by a large 
 circle of friends. His most important work is an " Essay on 
 the Genius and Writings of Pope," much of which he after- 
 wards incorporated in an edition of that poet's works. It may 
 be mentioned that it appears from a letter of Johnson's to 
 Warton that the pay of the contributors to the Adventurer 
 was two guineas a number. There is a good deal of loose 
 talking about the wretched remuneration writers received dur- 
 ing the eighteenth century. Vast sums such as Scott, Dickens, 
 and Macaulay got for their works would, of course, have ap- 
 peared almost fabulous even to the most successful author of 
 that time, when the reading public was so small compared to 
 what it is now. But it may be doubted if literary "journey- 
 work " was not paid just as well as at present. 
 
 The World, begun in January 1753, and carried on weekly 
 for four years, is of interest as being the periodical in which ap- 
 peared Lord Chesterfield's articles on Johnson's " Dictionary," 
 which called forth the "great lexicographer's " celebrated letter. 
 The proprietor of the World and its principal contributor 
 was Edward Moore, whose tragedy, the " Gamester," is still 
 occasionally acted. Horace Walpole, Lord Hailes, and 
 Soame Jenyns, whose book on the " Origin of Evil " formed 
 the subject of one of Johnson's most caustic criticisms, 
 also occasionally wrote in it. Chesterfield's two papers in 
 recommendation of Johnson's "Dictionary" appeared in 
 November 28 and December 5, 1754. Johnson seems to have 
 thought over his rejoinder for a considerable time, his letter 
 bearing date February 7, 1755. 
 
 In the Connoisseur, a periodical begun in January 1754, 
 and continued weekly for three years, appeared in 1756 the 
 first publications of William Cowper. His first paper was on 
 " Keeping a Secret/'containing sketches of faithless confidantes ; 
 the second an account of the present state of country churches, 
 their clergy, and their congregations ; and the third an essay on 
 conversation and its abuses. Two other papers have, on un- 
 certain evidence, been attributed to him. The chief writers
 
 The Mirror. 447 
 
 in the Connoisseur were George Colman, a lively play-writer, 
 and Bonnel Thornton, who was well known in his day as 
 a clever writer of satirical verses and essays. The character of 
 this periodical is thus given by Dr. Drake : " The Connoisseur 
 labours under the same defect which has been attributed to 
 the World — it is too uniformly a tissue of ridicule and carica- 
 ture. In this line, however, several of its papers are superior 
 to those of the same species in the World, and it displays 
 likewise more classical literature that its rival. It is, on the 
 whole, more entertaining than the World, but, if we except 
 a few papers, inferior in point of composition. To the juven- 
 ility of the two chief writers in it, and to their strong attach- 
 ment to satire and burlesque, we are to attribute its occasional 
 incorrectness of style and its poverty of matter." 
 
 With the Mirror and the Lounger, two periodicals pub- 
 lished at Edinburgh, and conducted by Northern li/cra/i, the 
 list of classical papers of the Spectator class closed, for 
 though a few followed the two mentioned, none of them 
 attained any celebrity. The Mirror was published pretty con- 
 stantly every Tuesday and Saturday from January 23, 1779, 
 to May 27, 17S0. Its editor and principal contributor was 
 Henry Mackenzie, the author of the " Man of Feeling," who 
 gives the following account of its origin : — "The idea of pub- 
 lishing a periodical paper in Edinburgh took its rise in a com- 
 pany of gentlemen whom particular circumstances of connec- 
 tion brought frequently together. Their discourse often turned 
 upon subjects of manners, of taste, and of literature. V>y one 
 of those accidental resolutions of which the origin cannot 
 easily be traced, it was determined to put their thoughts into 
 writing, and to read them for the entertainment of ea< h. The 
 essays assumed the form, and soon after some one gave them 
 the name, of a] a) public itionj the writers of it were natu- 
 
 rally associated, and their meetings increased the importance 
 as well as the numb< r ol then I ions." By and by the i 
 
 of publication I d itself; a: ft. t number of 
 
 \firror appeared, it came to 1 1 by all Scotchmen 
 
 with just pride. Of the hundred and ten numbers of which
 
 448 Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopedias. 
 
 it consists, Mackenzie was the sole author of thirty-nine, 
 besides assisting in the composition of others. Among the 
 other contributors were Lord Hailes ; Professor Richardson of 
 Glasgow; William Strahan, the printer, frequently mentioned 
 by Boswell ; Beattie, the author of the " Minstrel ; " and David 
 Hume, the nephew of the historian. In interest and variety 
 of contents the Mirror is superior to the Adventurer, with 
 which its merits in other respects are about on a level. 
 The most noticeable contribution to it is probably Mackenzie's 
 "Story of La Roche," the pathos of which has been much praised. 
 The publication of the Lounger, a continuation of the Mirror, 
 possessing the same characteristics, and likewise conducted 
 by members of the " Mirror Club," as it was called, begun 
 on February 5, 1785, was continued till January 6, 1787. 
 
 We pass on to a new era in periodical literature, which 
 dawned when, in 1802, the first number of the Edinburgh 
 Review appeared. Of the origin of this epoch-making journal, 
 Sydney Smith, one of its earliest and most brilliant contribu- 
 tors, has given the following account : — " Towards the end of 
 my residence in Edinburgh, Brougham, Jeffrey, and myself 
 happened to meet in the eighth or ninth storey, or flat, in Buc- 
 cleuch Place, the then elevated residence of Mr. Jeffrey. I 
 proposed that we should set up a Review. This was acceded 
 to with acclamation. I was appointed editor, and remained 
 long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the 
 Review. The motto I proposed for the Review was ' Tenui 
 Musam meditamur avena' — ' We cultivate literature on a little 
 oatmeal.' But this was too near the truth to be admitted ; so 
 we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus [" Judex 
 damnatur cum nocens absolvitur" — "The judge is con- 
 demned when the guilty is acquitted "], of whom none of us 
 had, I am sure, read a single line ; and so began what turned 
 out to be a very important and able journal. When I left 
 Edinburgh, it fell into the stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey and 
 Brougham, and reached the highest point of popularity and 
 success." This account, bating a slight touch or two of 
 humorous exaggeration, as, for example, " the eighth or ninth
 
 The Edinburgh Review. 449 
 
 storey," is substantially correct. The effect of the first num- 
 ber of the Review was, says Jeffrey's biographer, Lord Cock- 
 burn, " electrical." To readers accustomed to the tedious, 
 inane twaddle which formed the staple of the magazines of the 
 day, it was a very welcome relief to find such fresh, vigorous 
 writing as was to be found in the new periodical. Yet it can- 
 not be said that the early volumes of the Review strike one 
 who looks at them nowadays as of any extraordinary merit or 
 interest. Many of the articles are of the kind called "pad- 
 ding," consisting of a sort of epitome of the work noticed, with 
 copious extracts. In the early years of the Review's exist- 
 ence, it contained none of those brief monographs, often 
 having only a very slight connection with the works nominally 
 under notice, in which writers possessed of special know- 
 ledge on particular subjects tersely sum up the results of their 
 investigations. Some account of Jeffrey's connection with 
 the Review has already been given. He was succeeded by 
 Macvey Napier, Professor of Conveyancing in Edinburgh 
 University, who occupied the editorial chair till his death 
 in 1S47. The entertaining volume of selections from his 
 correspondence, published in 1879, shows how difficult he 
 found his position in having to settle the conflicting claims of 
 various contributors, and, in particular, of having to pacify 
 as best he could the vindictive passions of Brougham, who 
 wished to make the Rrt'iew a vehicle for venting his spite 
 against his political opponents. Since Napier"; death, the 
 Review has been edited by Jeffrey's son-in-law, William 
 Empson ; Sir George Cornewall Lewis, distinguished as a 
 statesman and a scholar ; and Mr. Henry Reeve, its present 
 ■it, who succeeded Sir G. C Lewis in 1855. Mr. Reeve, 
 who i; Registrar of the Privy Council, is chiefly known by his 
 translation of l>- Tocqueville's " Democracy in America." A 
 very long and brilliant list of the leading contributors to the 
 Edinbw ' Review undei its various editor; might be drawn 
 up, including such men as Sir Walter Scott, Hallam, Macaulay, 
 Carlylc, Henry Rogers, the author of the " Eclipse "I Faith," 
 whose really wonderful gift of style should keep his memory
 
 450 Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopaedias. 
 
 alive ; Sir James Stephen, Lytton, Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, 
 Froude, and others. 
 
 During the early years of the existence of the Edinburgh 
 Review it did not adopt a very decided tone in politics. Social 
 and political reforms were indeed advocated, but the advocacy 
 was not carried on in very emphatic fashion ; and the Review 
 could scarcely be called a party organ till the appearance in 
 1808 of an article on the work of Don Pedro Cevallos on the 
 " French Usurpation of Spain" gave undisguised expression to 
 its Whig leanings. Great was the consternation and indigna- 
 tion excited by the article in the breasts of many Tories, not a 
 few of whom had already begun to regard the Review with 
 suspicion. When the number containing it appeared, Scott 
 wrote to Constable, the publisher, in these terms : — " The 
 Edinburgh Review had become such as to render it impos- 
 sible for me to continue a contributor to it. Now it is such 
 as I can no longer continue to receive or read it." The list 
 of the then subscribers exhibits, in an indignant dash of Con- 
 stable's pen opposite Scott's name, the word — " Stopt ! ! ! " 
 The eccentric Earl of Buchan took a more conspicuous way of 
 showing his displeasure than Scott Throwing the obnoxious 
 number on the floor of his hall, he solemnly kicked it out into 
 the street. Already there had been negotiations among vari- 
 ous parties as to the starting of a Tory Quarterly, and the 
 article on the " French Usurpation of Spain " had the effect 
 of bringing these negotiations at once to a point. Canning, 
 then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was warmly interested in 
 the new project ; Scott exerted himself to the utmost to further 
 it ; many eminent writers of Tory politics promised their aid ; 
 and at length, in February 1809, the opening number appeared. 
 The original editor was William Gifford, who retained the post 
 till within about a year of his death in 1826. Gifford, " a little 
 dumpled-up man," who, originally a shoemaker, had fought his 
 way up to eminence and power, is now chiefly remembered for 
 his connection with the Quarterly, and for the work he did in 
 editing the old dramatists. His satires, the "Baviad" and 
 the " Mseviad," are now as entirely forgotten as the schools
 
 The Quarterly Review. 45 1 
 
 of poetry they were meant to ridicule. The chief contribu- 
 tors to the early numbers of the Quarterly were Scott, Southey, 
 George Ellis, William Rose, the translator of Ariosto, Reginald 
 Heber, Sir John Barrow, and last, but by no means least not- 
 able, John Wilson Croker. To most readers of the present 
 day, Croker is known only from the annihilating review by 
 Macaulay of his edition of Boswell's " Johnson," and from the 
 inimitably trenchant and incisive portrait of him under the 
 name of Rigby in Disraeli's " Coningsby." Truculent bru- 
 tality, combined with a sort of attorney sharpness, may be 
 described as the leading characteristics of his many articles in 
 the Quarterly, which may be easily recognised from their 
 abundance of italics and small capitals. 1 On the whole, the 
 early volumes of the Quarterly are not equal in interest and 
 ability to the early numbers of the Edinburgh. Political par- 
 tisanship appears in every page ; no mercy is ever shown to 
 the work of a Whig, however great its literary merit may be. 
 When Gifford withdrew from the editorship of the Quarterly, 
 it was for a short time held by Henry Nelson Coleridge, after 
 which, in 1826, Lockhart became editor. Lockhart resigned 
 the office in 1853, and was succeeded by the Rev. Whitwell 
 Elwin, well known as the editor of Pope, who continued in 
 office till 1SC0. His place was taken by a Mr. Macphcrson, 
 after which, in 1867, the present editor, Pr. William Smith, 
 was appointed. Under his management the Quarterly lias 
 reached a perhaps higher level of excellence than it had ever 
 previously attained, the articles on literary subjects being par- 
 ticularly able and scholarly. 
 
 Since the commencement of the Edinburgh and the 
 Quarterly, many Reviews in imitation of tin in have b 
 started. Among these may be mentioned the Westminster 
 
 Review^ b un in 1824 to advocate the views of ad van 1 
 
 1 Croker wai > man who incurri 1 deal of enmity) and who e 
 
 character highly feature . An account ol 
 
 his life, and a not very forcibi "f hit character, will be found in 
 
 an article in the Quarterly Review for July 1S7G, written l<y the pi 
 or, I >r. William Smith,
 
 45- Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopedias. 
 
 thinkers in religion and politics, and still continued after a 
 not very prosperous career ; the British Quarterly, begun by 
 Dr. Vaughan to represent the cause of dissent; the North 
 British Review, originally started as the organ of the Free 
 Church Party in Scotland ; the Dublin Review, the Catholic 
 organ, &c, &c. 
 
 While in the early part of this century most of the higher 
 and middle classes of Edinburgh were Conservative in their 
 politics, the Edinburgh Review, the only Scottish literary 
 journal on which they could look with any pride, was Liberal. 
 Such a state of things was naturally galling to many staunch 
 Northern Tories ; but for some years nothing was done to 
 remedy it. At length, in December 1816, William Black- 
 wood, an enterprising young Edinburgh publisher, was applied 
 to by two literary men of some slight reputation, James Cleg- 
 horn and Thomas Pringle, to become the publisher of a new 
 monthly magazine, which they had projected. He consented, 
 and in April 181 7 the first number of the Edinburgh Monthly 
 Magazine appeared. It was conducted with little spirit or 
 ability, and after six numbers of it had been published, the 
 editors, who resented Blackwood's interference with their func- 
 tions, were obliged to abandon their office. Blackwood now 
 took the editorship into his own hands, and in October 181 7 
 appeared the first number of Blackwood s Edinburgh Magazine. 
 " It needed," says the biographer of Christopher North, " no 
 advertising trumpet to let the world know that a new reign (a 
 reign of terror in its way) had begun. . . . Among a consider- 
 able variety of papers, most of them able and interesting, it con- 
 tained not less than three of a kind well calculated to arouse 
 curiosity and to give deep offence to sections more or less 
 extensive of the reading public. The first was a most unwarrant- 
 able assault on Coleridge's ' Biographia Literaria,' which was 
 judged to be a ' most execrable ' performance, and its author 
 a miserable compound of ' egotism and malignity.' " The 
 second was an even more unjustifiable attack on Leigh Hunt, 
 who was spoken of as a " profligate creature," a person with- 
 out reverence either for God or man. " The third was the
 
 Chambers s Journal. 453 
 
 famous ' Chaldee Manuscript,' compared with which the sins 
 of the others were almost pardonable in the eyes of the public. 
 The effect of this article upon the small society of Edinburgh 
 can hardly be realised." The numerous bitter personalities of 
 the early volumes of Blackwood, if far from creditable to its 
 writers, had the effect of attracting public attention to it and 
 of promoting its sale. From its commencement till now it 
 has been conducted with great ability, always securing as its 
 contributors writers of the highest literary merit. Its ad- 
 vocacy of Conservative opinions has been uniformly staunch 
 and vigorous. In 1830 Frasers Magazine, conducted on the 
 same lines as the early numbers of Blackwood, and even more 
 intensely personal than they were, began to be published. 
 During its long career, which came to a close in October 
 1882, Fraser numbered many very distinguished names among 
 its contributors, including Coleridge, Carlyle, Thackeray, 
 "Billy" Maginn, Allan Cunningham, Froude, Kingsley, and 
 many others. When the effervescence of its youth had sub- 
 sided, it became a very decorous and respectable journal, 
 adding in its latter years not a little of the dulness of age to 
 its respectability. At the close of 1859 a new departure was 
 made in periodical literature by the almost simultaneous 
 commencement of two new first-class monthly magazines, Mac- 
 miliar? $ and the CornliiH, which still, though now surrounded 
 by several rivals, pursue their career vigorously. The publi- 
 cation of the first number of Macmillan preceded the first 
 number of the Comhill by a month. 
 
 The i ue of cheap periodicals for the million was inaugurated 
 by the publication of the first number of Chambers's Journal on 
 I ruary 4, 1 ■■;.■. Other cheap periodicals had been started 
 
 previou ly, but they had not been of sufficient excellence to 
 ire a large enough sale to render them remunerative and 
 pern 1 Journal, consisting of four large folio p 
 
 of excellent and instructive matter at the low price of three- 
 half] vas at reat su< ; immediately a 
 
 sale of over 30,000 copies, \vhi< h I OOn r< se to 50,000. With 
 the thirty-seventh number, the bulky folio size was cxchai
 
 454 Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopedias. 
 
 for the more convenient quarto form. In 1845 the quarto 
 form was exchanged for the octavo ; and simultaneously 
 the Journal somewhat altered its character, appealing more 
 directly to educated readers. The original editor of the 
 Journal was Dr. William Chambers. After the fourteenth 
 number his brother, Robert, became associated with him as 
 joint-editor. Between 1S43 and 1844 Mr. W. H. Wills con- 
 ducted it. He was succeeded by Leitch Ritchie, who was 
 editor from 1845 to 1S59. In the latter year Mr. James Payn 
 became editor, and was a very large and constant contributor 
 of sketches and novels till 1S74, when he ceased to be con- 
 nected with it. It has since been under the management of 
 members of the firm. 
 
 As was natural, the great success of Chambers's Jour)ial 
 caused many imitations of it to be published. Most of these 
 had only a short life. Two only we shall mention. The first 
 number of the Penny Magazine, published by the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, appeared in March 1832, 
 a few weeks subsequent to Chambers's Joicrnal, which it at 
 first far outstripped in point of circulation. Among the con- 
 tributors to the Penny Magazine were George Long, Allan 
 Cunningham, and De Morgan ; but as rivals pressed thickly 
 around it, it had to succumb in the fierce struggle for life 
 which all periodicals have to wage. -Hogg's Weekly Instructor 
 merits mention here as having had a more distinct character of 
 its own than most of its compeers. It was started in March 
 1845, and continued in varying forms till December 1859, when 
 it completed its twenty-ninth volume. At the time of its com- 
 mencement, there was no cheap periodical accessible to the 
 masses, except those conducted on strictly secular principles, 
 and the monthly religious journals advocating the special 
 views of the various denominations from which they emanated. 
 A widespread opinion was entertained that a periodical was 
 wanted which, while unsectarian, should yet be imbued with 
 a decidedly religious spirit. Dr. Arnold well expressed the 
 idea which animated the projectors of Hogg's Instructor when 
 he said, " I never wanted articles on religious subjects half so
 
 The Encyclopedia Britannica. 455 
 
 much as articles on common subjects written in a decidedly- 
 Christian spirit." The mode in which the Instructor was 
 conducted, by degrees attracted the attention of the leading 
 ministers, clergymen, and professors of all denominations, 
 many of whom wrote expressing their strong approval of the 
 enterprise; and in 1849 Her Majesty the Queen was pleased 
 to bestow her especial patronage upon the Instructor. During 
 its course it numbered among its contributors many names 
 well known in literature, such as Mrs. Crowe, Frances Browne, 
 George Gilfillan, De Quincey, Dr. Peter Bayne, Francis Jacox, 
 Rev. A. B. Grosart, and " Cuthbert Bede." The repeal of 
 the paper duty in 1S61 gave an immense impetus to cheap 
 periodical literature, and hundreds of ventures have since 
 been started, of which space will not permit us to give any 
 account. 1 
 
 The first English encyclopaedia was the work of a London 
 clergyman, John Harris. It is entitled "Lexicon Technicum, 
 or an Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 
 explaining not only all the Terms of Art, but the Arts them- 
 selves," and was published in 1704 in one thick folio volume. 
 In 1728 Ephraim Chambers published his " Cyclopaedia, or 
 a Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences," in two volumes 
 folio. This was the first English work bearing the name of 
 cyclopaedia. It was a great success, and had many imitators. 
 In 1778-88 Abraham Rees published a revised and enlarged 
 edition of Chambers's work in two volumes folio. Previous 
 to the publication of "Rees' Cyclopaedia," as it is generally 
 called, the first edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica" had 
 been issued at Edinburgh. It appeared in parts between 
 1768 71. It "professed to be 'by a society of gentlemen in 
 Scotland,' but the 'society of gentlemen' consisted of Mr. 
 William Smellie only, who, according to his bio [rapher, 1. 
 
 1 For a foil account of the repeal of the I tt on knowledge, and the 
 vast increase in periodical literature which followed thai repeal, I may 
 
 he allowed t" refer t<> I n the " I f the Fi ill'' 
 
 .uure and thi l :• " in my work, "Great Movements, ami 
 
 thooe who Achieved tliem."
 
 456 Periodicals, Reviews, and Encyclopedias. 
 
 compiled single-handed the whole of the first edition, and 
 'used to say jocularly that he had made a dictionary of the 
 arts and sciences with a pair of scissors.' " The second edition 
 of the "Britannica" was begun in 1777, and concluded in 
 17S4. To the second edition historical and geographical 
 articles, which had hitherto been excluded from English 
 encyclopaedias, were admitted, greatly against the wish of 
 Smellie, who, because of their admission, refused to have any- 
 thing further to do with the " Encyclopaedia. " His place 
 was taken by a certain James Tytler, a man of thoroughly 
 Bohemian habits, concerning whom many amusing stories are 
 told. From the time of this second edition " every cyclopaedia 
 of note in England or elsewhere has been a cyclopaedia not 
 solely of the arts and sciences, but of the whole wide circle 
 of general learning and miscellaneous information." 1 The 
 publication of the ninth edition of the "Encyclopaedia" is now 
 in progress, having been begun in 1875. The seventh edition 
 was edited by Macvey Napier, assisted by Dr. James Browne. 
 The eighth, to a considerable extent a reprint of the seventh, 
 was edited by Dr. T. S. Traill, Professor of Medical Juris- 
 prudence in Edinburgh University. It contained many con- 
 tributions from distinguished writers, but its crowning glory 
 was the articles contributed to it by Macaulay, on account of 
 his friendship for the publisher, Mr. Adam Black. The edition 
 now publishing, edited by Professor T. S. Baynes along with 
 (after vol. xiii.) Dr. Robertson Smith, bids fair to surpass all 
 its predecessors in thoroughness and value ; and is certainly 
 a noble specimen of the excellent work in many fields of 
 literature, science, and art which English writers of the Vic- 
 torian era are able to perform. 
 
 Of the rivals which the success of the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica" brought into the field, the greatest was the 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia," the most valuable undertaking of the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It was begun 
 in 1833 and concluded in 1846. In the list of contri- 
 
 1 From an interesting article on the " History of Cyclopaedias," in the 
 Quarterly Review for April 1864.
 
 The Encyclopedia Metropolitana. 457 
 
 butors to it are found the names of Airy, the Astronomer- 
 royal, Professor Key, Sir Charles Eastlake, Sir George Cor- 
 newall Lewis, Dr. J. W. Donaldson, Ritter, the famous German 
 geographer, and others of equal note. Despite its humble 
 name, the " Penny" proved a work of great merit. " It hap- 
 pened," it has been said, " to fall into the hands of two enthu- 
 siasts, Charles Knight and George Long. It was intended to 
 be a mere light popular work, skimming science and literature 
 for penny purchasers ; but it was made a scholarly work, in 
 which some of the ablest men of the day in their special 
 departments partook." Tiie " English Cyclopaedia," in part a 
 new edition of the "Penny," was issued under the superin- 
 tendence of Charles Knight in 1854-62. It is in four divi- 
 sions : — 1. Geography; 2. Natural History; 3. Biography; 4. 
 Arts and Sciences. A re-issue was commenced in 1S66 and 
 completed in 1874, with a supplementary volume to each of 
 the four divisions, under the editorship of James Thome. 
 The biographical section forms decidedly the best dictionary 
 of biography in the English language. 
 
 Many other encyclopaedias, as, for example, the "Edin- 
 burgh Encyclopaedia," edited by Sir David Brewster, and 
 remarkable as containing Carlyle's first contributions to litera- 
 ture ; the "Encyclopaedia Perthensis ; " the "London Encyclo- 
 paedia," &C, would engage our attention did we attempt to 
 give a full history of English encyclopaedias. Only two others, 
 however, need we refer to specially. The "Encyclopaedia 
 Metropolitana," begun in 1S17, was distributed into four divi- 
 sions, the first consisting of the pure sciences, the second of 
 the moral and applied sciences, the third of biographical and 
 iicd matter in chronological form, and the fourth misccl- 
 laneo 1 imprising geography, a dictionary of the English 
 language, &c "The plan," says the writer of the article in 
 
 irterfy A' l ' already referred t<>. "v,j, the propi 
 of the poet Coleridge, and it had at least en il .1 poetical 
 
 charact' •>< al. it sufficed to OD! 1 ure 
 
 for a time all that was CX( in the execution. Richard- 
 
 ionary <>t the Engli h Lai .' which was pari
 
 45S Periodicals, Rcviezvs, and Encyclopedias. 
 
 of the miscellaneous department, did not receive its proper 
 meed of reputation till disengaged and re-issued in a separate 
 shape. A great portion of the Cyclopaedia was, as it were, 
 dug out of the ruins and re-issued in separate volumes by 
 fresh publishers who acquired the property of the work, 
 and thus distinctly recognised it as a mere quarry of valuable 
 materials. The ' Metropolitana ' ran to twenty-nine quarto 
 volumes, and was finished in 1845." "Chambers's En- 
 cyclopaedia," issued in ten royal octavo volumes between 
 1S59-1868, is correctly described on the title-page as a 
 " Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People." It 
 was founded on the German " Conversations Lexicon " of 
 Brockhaus ; but, under the skilful editorship of Dr. Andrew 
 Findlater, who gathered round him an excellent body of con- 
 tributors, it turned out something much better than a mere 
 adaptation. For profound or exhaustive information larger 
 encyclopaedias must be consulted ; but even the possessors of 
 these find "Chambers's" very convenient on account of the 
 ease with which it may be consulted, and the terse way in 
 which information on the subjects dealt with is summed up.
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Addison, 171. 
 Akenside, 202. 
 Alison, 344. 
 Arbuthnott, 1S4. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 436. ' 
 Ascham, 50. 
 Austen, Miss, 235. 
 
 on, 90. 
 in, A., 442. 
 Harrow, 153. 
 Baxter, 101. 
 Beaconsfield, 400. 
 I 'tie, 2S0. 
 
 umont, 
 J: kford, 234. 
 . keley, 184. 
 Black, 402. 
 lilackmorc, 402. 
 ISIake, 2S1. 
 Bolin 184. 
 
 •• .11, 248. 
 Bronte, 393. 
 
 ■ nc, 106. 
 
 I °7« 
 
 40S. 
 . tOI. 
 Burke, 256. 
 Burnet, 157. 
 
 , 235. 
 Jiurn,, 2S8. 
 
 er, Samu I, 1 
 
 : 
 
 n, 310. 
 1 mpbell, 322. 
 . ; 3 1 . 
 
 ' " I- 
 
 Chatl , jSo. 
 
 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 • 
 
 ' . 1 : 
 
 1 
 
 1 .'OO. 
 
 Coverdale, 43. 
 Cowley, 126. 
 Cowper, 2S2. 
 Crab be, 293. 
 Darwin, Charles, 442. 
 Defoe, 204. 
 Denham, 127. 
 De Quincey, 360. 
 Dickens, 378. 
 Donne, 125. 
 I )ouglas, 39. 
 1 Myden, 134. 
 I Minbar, 38. 
 
 geworth, Miss, 235. 
 Eliot, George, 396. 
 Farquhar, 150. 
 Fielding, 214. 
 Fletcher, 87. 
 Ford) S8. 
 Foxe, 48. 
 Freeman, 431. 
 Froude, 430. 
 Fuller, 95. 
 1 kell, Mrs., 394. 
 Cay, 196. 
 
 bon, 270. 
 • ri 1 Iwin, 234. 
 < roldsmith, 249. 
 ( rray, 198. 
 ne, 73. 
 Grote, 428. 
 
 I tallam, 
 Hardy, ; 
 
 II ywood, 3S7. 
 
 [68. 
 1 ' 
 
 I 111- 1 1, 1 10. 
 Herrick, ii". 
 Hobbes, 109. 
 
 II . ..-I 
 Hool . 6 I 
 1 1 
 
 Hui 
 
 I l. id Si 1. land 
 
 :
 
 460 
 
 Index. 
 
 Jonson, 86. 
 Junius, 261. 
 Keats, 319. 
 Kingsley, 399. 
 Lamb, 365. 
 I.andor, 372. 
 Latimer, 46. 
 Lecky, 432. 
 Lee, 153. 
 Lever, 398. 
 Lewes, 396. 
 Locke, 159. 
 Lockhart, 356. 
 Lovelace, no. 
 Lyly, 67. 
 Lyndsay, 40. 
 Lytton, 391. 
 Macau lay, 412. 
 Mackenzie, 234. 
 Mackintosh, 341. 
 Malory, 44. 
 Mandeville, 41. 
 Marlowe, 71. 
 Massinger, So. 
 Maurice, F. D., 442. 
 Mill, J. S.,442. 
 Milton, 112. 
 Moore, 322. 
 More, 44. 
 Morley, John, 440. 
 Morris, William, 410. 
 Newman, Cardinal, 441. 
 Newton, 161. 
 Oldham, 132. 
 Otway, 152. 
 Pater, 440. 
 Pattison, Mark, 441. 
 Peele, 73. 
 Percy, 279. 
 Pope, 185. 
 Prior, 194. 
 Radcliffe, Mrs., 234 
 Raleigh, 66. 
 Reade, Charles, 401. 
 Richardson, 208. 
 Robertson, William, 268. 
 Robertson, F. W., 442. 
 Rogers, Samuel, 321. 
 
 Rossetti, C. G., 410. 
 Rossetti, D. G., 409. 
 Rossetti, W. M., 410. 
 Rowe, 153. 
 Ruskin, 432. 
 Scott, 324. 
 Shakespeare, 74. 
 Shelley, 317. 
 Shenstone, 280. 
 Sheridan, 151. 
 Sherlock, 156. 
 Shirley, 80. 
 Sidney, 59. 
 Smith, Sydney, 348. 
 Smollett, 222. 
 South, 187. 
 Southey, 307. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 442. 
 Spenser, 52. 
 Stanley, Dean, 442. 
 Steele, 175. 
 Sterne, 229. 
 Stillingfleet, 106. 
 Suckling, 1 10. 
 Surrey, 51. 
 Swift, 163. 
 Swinburne, 411. 
 Symonds, J. A., 441. 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 97. 
 Temple, 164. < 
 Tennyson, 403. 
 Thackeray, 385. 
 Thomson, 197. 
 Tillotson, 155. 
 Trollope, Anthony, 401. 
 Tyndale, 43. 
 Vanbrugh, 150. 
 Waller, 127. 
 Walpole, Horace, 234. 
 Walton, 105. 
 Warton, Thomas, 279. 
 Webster, 87. 
 Wiclif, 42. 
 Wilson, John, 352. 
 Wordsworth, 295. 
 Wyatt, 50. 
 Wycherley, 146. 
 Young, 196. 
 
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